Swing Ugly, Flight Pretty

[Travtex]

Had what I would deem a major breakthrough at the range this morning.

I'd been out on the proverbial disabled list for a while, and I used that time to acquire and make a thorough reading of Hogan's 5 Lessons. I adapted... I'd say 50-60% of it. Spent most of my injury time working on grip, ball position, and address, even threw in the Hogan Waggle to get some motion into the proceedings.

Felt a bit stupid to spend two weeks doing nothing but grip and address, but hey.

First time back to the range, just did contact drills. Variation of an L-to-L drill my pro had set me on to work on my release.

This morning was the first time I put it all together, and... I'm quite shocked how well I was hitting the ball. First time at the range I started to get relaxed and actually have some idea where the ball was going to go... in a good way, not 'Duck hook coming'.

Best trajectory I'd -ever- had with my short to middle irons. First time I was able to get some distance on the hybrids, etc. Nothing awe-inspiring, but I was popping my 8 iron about 135-140 yards with shocking (for me) consistency.

Some thoughts:

*I'm not sure how I got decent distance, as I dramatically shortened my backswing. Not much higher than the drill, really. Arm going back to just past parallel to the ground.

*Tempo, tempo, tempo. Backswing seems much faster than it used to be. Just address, two waggles, back-and-through.

*Stupid waggle helps the setup for me. I should not have doubted Hogan about this. If my back elbow doesn't dig into my ribs on the waggle, I'm out of position.

*Weird head-dip has returned, but with the results being what I WANT them to be, I'm a bit scared to fight it. Lot more head motion than I think should be normal -- Picture that bizarre thing Gulbis does with her head. I'm dipping it about 8-12" below address position just after impact. Something to do with body type?

*Speaking of body type... Address looks a bit bizarre. I'm pushing my knees inward, and I have hyperflexible knees... Knees bend inward far more than Normal People Knees, but they're stable there and give me a set point to move from.

*Feel like I'm crouching much closer to the ground than I originally thought I should be.

In summary, the results are drastically improved from their pre-injury sadness. I feel like I'm going ahead and utilizing my own relatively atypical nuances of flexibility and body type even though it's not precisely 'textbook'.

Anyone else find surprising improvement via what I guess would be a swing eccentricity? (I don't, for instance, FEEL like I'm shoving my head down or cramming my knees to close together... My body just -does- it that way.)