Swing at the end of last season

[DarkPrince]

So I came across a few videos of my swing towards the end of last season, and I'm sure I'll regret posting it, but it's always good to have others look. I can't necessarily say I was trying really hard with these, looking at them it seems like I was just swinging easy that day, and I apologize for the horrible quality, but I was using my families ooooold sony video camera (still used tapes haha). I also must say that since starting golf around 10 years ago, I've always played a fade/slice. I stopped playing after my senior year of high school (06) and started playing again last spring, and randomly at the end of summer I developed a draw/hook that wouldn't go away. I had taken a few lessons last summer and was actually quite happily surprised that even after 3 years of not playing I was already back to shooting low 40's which is where I was stuck in HS, but this draw/hook has totally thrown a wrench in my game :/

This one is a hybrid:


This one is one of my drivers:


I only have a few videos and these were likely the 2 better looking ones, unfortunately I couldn't get any side view shots because the battery died and I haven't been able to find the charger in going on 9 months haha.

[Gioguy21]

You seem like you're standing fairly tall...and on your backswing you come really flat...least that i can see, and pending where the ball position is your left wrist could be (for light of a better word) flipping or turning over soon, causing the draw/hook. If you're releasing your lag early and not hitting down on the ball it could be another reason for the draw/hook. That's what I see but i'm sure others will have things to say.

[DarkPrince]

It's kind of weird, I don't generally stand up so tall, but I think I just felt lazy that day :P But yeah I've been working on the lag issue :/ One other thing that irks me is that when I look at my swing, I do see me coming in very flat on my back swing, but also when the club is parallel to the ground the toe is past vertical and I think by looking at it, I over rotate/roll my wrist. I think at lot of it stems from my grip. I changed from the 10 finger baseball-ish grip that I played through high school to the interlocking grip, which worked absolutely great. Unfortunately at the end of the season, something felt wrong about it, I couldn't pinpoint it but something felt godawful wrong and I felt like my wrists always wanted to rotate the face closed whether it was happening or not. I've definitely been developing a feel I never had before about my swing or how I made contact, but its nowhere near where I'm able to just know what I did wrong and correct it :/

[Gioguy21]

If you feel like grip is an issue type grip in the search bar and read some tips that've been posted on here...then see if how you're holding it is PART of the issues you're having. best of luck man, i went through some serious swing changes already this year, and will be posting vids soon myself.

[DarkPrince]

I think I can definitely see what you mean about the flipping deal. Like I said, I try to hold on to the lag, but something keeps my wrists from hinging and holding it until after impact

[The Recreational Golfer]

It looks like you're taking the club back to the inside somewhat. You'll bring it down inside. Note also that at impact your hips are square (not open) and your right foot is firmly on the ground (instead of already on the toe). All this adds up to a block that will leave the clubface open, encouraging a subconscious closing with your hands. But you overdo it and the ball goes left.

To correct your takeaway, put the toe of the club against the bottom of a wall and make a brief scraping sound as you swing the club away. That's straight. When you take the club away inside, there's no scraping sound at all. To correct your impact position, get a picture of a pro at impact (easy to find in golf mags), pose in that position for a few moments, then slowly make small swings back and forth, making sure you pass through your pose, to learn what your body should feel like at impact.

[DarkPrince]

So it seems I'm already back to playing almost as well as I was last summer after a few days at the range. I played a round with my old golf coach from HS (used to be a PGA Teaching Pro) and he just watched me for a few holes and showed me I was right about my grip feeling funky. He said I was playing the ball too far back in my stance (since all last year everyone including the pro I was taking lessons from told me to do so), which was causing me to have to make a somewhat unnatural feeling swing that usually ended up being in->out and club face closed. Sure enough he just moves the ball up a bit, has me take a more neutral grip, and sure enough I'm striping a majority of my irons and wedges. My misses now are mainly with A: Driver, and B: chunking my short irons either on approach shots or tee shots on par 3's. With driver I focused on alignment since it seemed to be a major problem, so using those cheap Lowes fiberglass rods I made this setup:

And sure enough after a few hits, I'm hitting it much straighter with an occasional push/push fade, and every once and a while a high pop up draw (balance issue?). I also on rare occasion full on take a divot or graze the grass unless I choke down a little bit :/ so I don't know whats up with that. Its also fun going deaf when you forget what it sounds like when you nut a cobra driver, my ear was pounding for a minute or so after my initial "holy crap! I forgot what that felt/sounded like."

Either way, I guess my main areas of concentration this year are going to be:
Alignment
Ball position
Consistency (Esp. Putting, I have no consistent dependable putting stroke).