A Golfer I'm Helping

[DaveLeeNC]

We've already addressed that by making the wrists hinge earlier in the backswing. When he does that, he tends to hold the angle longer. It's been my experience that it's true for a lot of players (within physical capacity).

It's helped a little so far, but frankly, his lag is the last thing I'm going to worry about. It's obviously far more important to make solid, consistent contact with a predictable ball-flight. So we're working on that, then I'm going to make sure his "dip" (of his head) is gone and widen out his stance. Then probably towards early August, we'll see where his lag is.

That's an interesting perspective. My view would have been that consistency would be impossible with that impact position - and that achieving a good impact position would be impossible with such an early release.

But then again I am not a golf instructor and don't play one here on this forum dave

[iacas]

That's an interesting perspective. My view would have been that consistency would be impossible with that impact position - and that achieving a good impact position would be impossible with such an early release.

So long as the hands are ahead of the ball at impact, I don't really care (right now) how long he retains his lag. It'll cost him clubhead speed and thus power, but his hands are now a little ahead of the ball. In the videos he was in such a rush to get the clubhead on the ball he kind of threw the clubhead at the ball. He's improved that now.

I'm a big fan of fixing the obvious, big things. The smaller things often straighten themselves out too. Don't fix ten things at once - fix the most basic thing first. One of those basics was to strengthen his grip a little. That too has helped the timing - he doesn't have to consciously try to close the clubface. He doesn't know all of this stuff (unless he's reading here, which he may be), and to be honest I wasn't sure what the changes we made would fix. But we're taking them one at a time and, true to the nature of the golf swing, fixing one easy thing (the grip) and something semi-fundamental (his backswing plane) has resulted in the improvement of about six or seven other things.

[golf_junkie27]

With the changes you're incorporating, how soon do you believe he will become a three handicap, as you suggested he had the ability to become?

[iacas]

With the changes you're incorporating, how soon do you believe he will become a three handicap, as you suggested he had the ability to become?

I think a lot of that depends on too much to predict. His short game could fall apart. He could get injured or lapse into a bad habit. Could be anywhere from August '08 to August '09, and those are both if he continues to work at it. If he doesn't, perhaps never.

[iacas]

Two videos that show he's gotten to about a 5 or 6/10 in terms of cementing these changes. We played 18 holes and he got better quickly. These were a bit of a rush as the tee was open and we had to get down there.

Overall, he's around a 6/10 or a 7/10 in terms of getting the changes incorporated.

Driver Line , Driver Front

Still a little head dip. Still a little lower and longer than I'd like. But an obvious improvement, too. For comparison, the first videos were:

5-Iron Front , 5-Iron Line

[SpacklersEdge]

I'm asking these questions to help myself....but the things I have been working on are similar. I noticed in a video of myself I was surprised how my hands were not ahead of the ball much. So the first time I watched the video, I thought I saw the same thing here. Am I wrong? Or should his hands be much farther ahead? In the 5-iron shot I don't feel as though he is swinging down on the ball.

[iacas]

I'm asking these questions to help myself....but the things I have been working on are similar. I noticed in a video of myself I was surprised how my hands were not ahead of the ball much. So the first time I watched the video, I thought I saw the same thing here. Am I wrong? Or should his hands be much farther ahead? In the 5-iron shot I don't feel as though he is swinging down on the ball.

In the five-iron image, yeah, they should be ahead. That's one of the things we've improved upon.

With the driver, no, not so much. You're swinging up or level at the ball. Drivers have about 9.5° loft, and you want a launch angle of about 12°, so you swing up on the ball. The hands are usually about even or just behind the clubhead at impact.