My Swing (saevel25)

[saevel25]

Worked on Putting, pitching and distance wedges. Also worked on Aimpoint.

I struggled with my distance wedges. Most of them were hit slightly fat. Then I would hit one flush, then more slightly fat.

My best guess, early extension. I felt like I was standing up. Also, not getting my right side through earlier.

Distance wedges needs work.

[saevel25]

Worked on the swing tonight. Really worked on hitting good shots. Not making too long swings and swinging hard. Really worked on doing my pieces right.

Just some notes on the stuff. Mostly trying to get a good solid functional feel for the backswing. The right side through the ball is a good feel for me.

Backswing

Less of a turn, making it shorter (see image above about overturning past 90 degrees)

Left arm goes up, right elbow away from the body, also helps in making it shorter.

A good feel is the left shoulder deltoid covering my chin and mouth. If the left arm is more around, and the hands more behind then the left arm isn't going to be as high as it needs to be. Just a good feel for me to know I got my left arm going up more than around more. It also helps time my transition because I know at this point I am near the top of my backswing.

Rory does this,

Note of Warning, I found I can just get lazy and just not turn as much and I hit slices. Not turning past 90 degrees helps a ton in my backswing piece. If I just raise my arm and try to turn I'll slice the ball off the course. If I do the backswing correct and the right side well enough then I will hit a pretty straight ball.

Tonight with the driver I either hit a slight push draw, or a straight fade. One drive I hit an absolute bullet. I can say this. I didn't hit one drive with a hook curve. :)

Downswing

Same stuff, right side through sooner. It's getting easier to do now. Good backswing helps out a TON. I kinda forget by how much. If the right shoulder isn't really over-rotated, it has less distance to travel.

Just need to nail the backswing, set up stuff so I can get this more repeatable. When I overswing and swing too hard, there is no hope for my downswing.

Contact is much much better :)

Shorter swing, slower swing, do the pieces correctly = good shots.

[iacas]

Contact is much much better :)

Shorter swing, slower swing, do the pieces correctly = good shots.

Thank you.

[saevel25]

Thank you.

When in doubt use the 5sk paper doll.

Reminders for those who are idiots in the way they practice ;)

[saevel25]

Played in a funky scramble today.

Hit the ball pretty solid. Some drives got away from me because there was a ball in play and I wanted to go for a deep ball. The nasty tendency of a scramble when your partners get a ball in play and you are the big gun on the team :)

My best driver of the day was on hole #10 when my partners were not in the best position. I eased up and hit a straight bullet  down the middle

Pitching and putting were fantastic. It's fun getting the initial aimpoint read, then letting my dad putt the first one. Really fine tunes that read ;)

What was strange was my last 4-5 iron shots though. I was NUKING them.

Stock 8 iron goes low 170's, I flew it 185 (did have a 5-10 mph tailwind)

Stock hard 56 degree tops out at about 120 max, flew it 130 yards

Stock PW goes in the high 140s, flew it 155 yards.

The only difference in the swings from previous ones I made were the feeling I was actually going down after the ball more. Trying to not hit it thin. I wasn't hitting big fat divots, they were good shallow divots. These four shots were some of the best struck golf balls I've ever hit. If I had to compare ball flights, they did seem a tad lower than normal. My best guess I was presenting less loft at impact and hitting the sweet spot dead on. Which probably makes sense comparing a swing where I get my right side through more, and actually take divot compared to a swing that tilts away from the target and flips a tad.

In the end it's a fun time. Our team finished middle of the pack. We just couldn't hit many greens today. We had some awesome tee shots on the par 5's and never took advantage. In the format we played you have to dominate the par 3's and par 5's and we did neither and still ended up in the top 50%. Oh well.

[iacas]

These four shots were some of the best struck golf balls I've ever hit. If I had to compare ball flights, they did seem a tad lower than normal. My best guess I was presenting less loft at impact and hitting the sweet spot dead on. Which probably makes sense comparing a swing where I get my right side through more, and actually take divot compared to a swing that tilts away from the target and flips a tad.

Uh huh. Exactly.

[saevel25]

Uh huh. Exactly.

Not like I should dwell on it anymore. During the scrambleI was just not expecting to keep hitting shots over the green when I basically had the yardage I want that matched my club I pulled. Maybe I should be more stupid monkey and stop thinking about why . They were 4 really well struck shots.

Back to the range this week  :)

[saevel25]

Worked on my swing tonight.

Irons are pretty solid. Sometimes I get in trouble in speeding up. When I feel that happening I just try to hit a shot to the middle flag on the range. Contact is good. Club to ground contact is good. Swing feels in control.

Distance wedges need to be re-evaluated for yardages. I am finding I am hitting the ball farther than I use to with my wedges.

Pitching is still good. Just need to not get too lazy. Sometimes I don't pivot.

Driver is becoming my concern. I can get in a groove and hit 5-10 really good shots. Then I might just hit a huge slice. The ball flight is either straight to a slight push draw. Sometimes I might get a pull draw. The big miss is straight to push slice. I also sometimes sky my drive.

[saevel25]

Played 9 holes tonight. Played the best 9 holes at Beavercreek this year.

Shot a 39 (+3), 36.7 Rating, 139 Slope.

Kept the ball in play. Hit some solid iron shots. Didn't really putt that well. Didn't make a putt of significant distance. Didn't three putt either.

Right now a good swing thought for the irons is hit down on the ball. If I do that I hit some really really solid iron shots. I have to go and regap my irons. I am absolutely crushing them. It's absolutely fun to just think, hit down on the ball and you hit the ball solid on the clubface. :)

Driver is a mix bag. I hit the best drives when I really swing aggressive. I sometimes can get to lazy on the driver and hit a weak slice.

I need to be a bit more aggressive with the pitching. I can get a tad lazy on the swing and hit some shots that don't go as far as I want them to.

[saevel25]

Worked on my putting from 15 FT and in.

Things I notice.

When the ball is below my feet on a left to right putt  I want to pull the putts. When the all is above my feet on a right to left putt I want to push the putts. I would say anything like a 3% or greater bothers me when I stand over a putt.

I also worked on pitching around the green. I found I was struggling with hitting the ball slightly heavy or outright duff them. A lot of pitches were coming up well short of my target. I don't know what made me try this, but I decided to keep my elbows closer together in the backswing, and pivot through. This really helped out with contact and I was hitting pitches a lot better. By closer together I don't mean straight and rigid.

[saevel25]

Some notes for myself for playing. More or less single thought feels that have been working.

Driver: A feel that seems to work is just concentrate on starting my ball just right of target. Every time I've done this I've hit bullets where I aim. When I don't I tend to hit a slight pull cut to a weak slice.

Iron: These are pretty solid. Sometimes I get a tad thin. Thin to win can be a good thing ;). Right now a good feel is to just hit down on the ball with some force. Which is nice because It's a really confident feeling.

Distance Wedges : Kinda similar to pitching below. Be more deliberate with the backswing to make sure you get the right length. Then be aggressive on the downswing.

Pitching: This area has deteriorated lately. I went back through the pitching thread on the forum and looked at some of the videos that @iacas made. I also found good video of @david_wedzik doing instruction pitching. I found that I was moving my hands too much in the backswing. I worked on keeping my right elbow more in front of me and hinging (dealing cards feel) more. This worked out well because I felt much more in control of the club.  I found I was falling back into old habits of taking my club back too quickly. I need to make a much more deliberate backswing. The trick is, from there I need to be aggressive with the downswing. I tend to get too lazy, very slow backswing and just equally slow downswing. I end up just stopping my hand movement and flipping the club, hitting a lot of weak duffy pitches. I worked on making a good paced backswing and then being aggressive with the downswing. So, more hinge, fan the club open. Slow deliberate backswing. Be aggressive on the downswing.

Putting: I have no clue right now. Probably 33% of my putts are hitting off the heel of the putter. I am not hitting my start lines at all. I was making something like 40% from 4-5 FT on the putting green. The sad thing is that I drained 4 in a row when I made putts with my eyes closed. Maybe that should be my thing. Jordan Spieth putts looking at the hole. I putt with my eyes closed. Though I have a feeling Erik will ban me from the Newport Cup if I try this ;).

The putting stroke feels like I am taking it back too straight and then I try to save it by keeping the clubface open at impact. Things do feel pushy with the putter. My best guess is that leaving the clubface open is related to hitting putts on the heel of the putter.

[iacas]

Record your putting stroke. Also stop overthinking it. Hit seven putts in 15 seconds. See how you do.

[saevel25]

Record your putting stroke.

Also stop overthinking it. Hit seven putts in 15 seconds. See how you do.

[iacas]

Take it back straighter (just less "in" - not "straight") and you'll heel it less. It'll probably help to feel it staying "shut" on the backswing too (it shouldn't actually be shut).

[saevel25]

Putting practice was much better today.

Distance Wedges are a struggle. Not sure if it was the soft driving range tonight. I was taking some big divots. A good number of my wedge shots were just slightly heavy. A few good shots came when I hit some flighted wedges. I'm probably not rotating enough on the shot.

Pitching is a mixed bag. Just not consistent in hitting spots on the green. Every once in a while I'll just duff a pitch. Clubs just get stopped by the ground or rough. A lot of my shots feel like I push the ball or scoop the ball upward. Wondering if I am too steep on the pitch shots, and not pivoting well enough.

[saevel25]

30-90 yards is driving me bonkers. Two fat and one thin shot. Struggling for a consistent feel for the partial swings that leads to the contact I want. Long game was legit. Driver: 5/5 good drives Full swing irons were solid Putting was much better.

[saevel25]

Bleeping short game. I need to pivot better. Thinned one pitch and duffed another. Long game is still good, but the driver kinda fell away on the last few holes. Irons are solid.

[saevel25]

Played 18 holes with Erik and George today. An up and down round. Some holes I played very solid. Some holes I played crappy. Some I mixed in good shots with bad.

For my swing, so keys from today. Just some easy fixes.

1) Mindful of the set up. Get that spine tilt nailed.

2) shorten the swing so the wrists don't break down at the top. Half swing feels for a while.

On Pitching

1) More upright backswing

2) Make the backswing longer and slower. Very languid.