My Swing (saevel25)

[saevel25]

I went to the driving range today. I worked on laying the club off from A4-A5. I also worked on not letting the path get inward from A6-A7. Better results today.

[saevel25]

Struggling to swing outward.

Even when doing drills I can stop hitting cuts. Even with shallowing the club a ton and making sure the club is in a good spot at A6.

On the backswing, If I do a slow backswing I can flatten out the club better.  I'm starting to feel the shallowing better. I still struggle to do it at full speed. When I try to feel more pinched elbows I have no timing. The thought or feel of bringing my elbows together just destroys my timing. I lose all ability to turn in the downswing well and swing with all arms. 

I'm trying to figure out what will work to stop swinging leftward.

[iacas]

21 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I'm trying to figure out what will work to stop swinging leftward.

Make the now shorter drive north and east and let's tackle it together. Let's re-connect you with some of the feels you had before, when you swung out a ton.

And then eat some good wings or something.

[saevel25]

Definitely. 

I kinda found something. Right now a feel that works is trying to hit high push cuts. Or just high drives.

 I am on a mat that has two parts. So the far fifth of the mat acts as an alignment aid because there is a seem. I'm hitting drivers aiming left of that seem and trying to push the ball where the mat is aiming. 

I'll work with this for now. 

[saevel25]

I went to the range today. It's still a struggle to swing outward. 

[saevel25]

I went to Erie this past weekend. I'm trying to work on not letting the shoulders get flat on the downswing, not letting the right shoulder swing upward. 

For the irons just focusing on swinging outward, getting the hands out more, helps clear up the right shoulder a bit. 

For the driver I need to maybe focus on the right shoulder down more. 

Fast forward to the range today. The first thing I noticed was that I think I aim right of where I am aiming. 

The irons were much easier to get. The driver is a struggle to figure out how to swing out more. Just tougher to couple keeping the shoulders stepper and getting the hands going out more. Sometimes I just stop the backdating knowing I won't swing outward. Still struggling to not overswing. Sometimes when I try to swing outward my whole swing stalls. I think the right shoulder down is more important here. 

[saevel25]

I played golf with @iacas and @Hardspoon at Olde Stonewall Golf Course. I will say it's a beautiful course. 

I struggled today. I haven't played golf in about three months. I went on to working on a few things. 

1) To stop aiming closed. What feels like aiming 20-30 degrees right with my clubs is on target or slightly open. I need to learn to trust an open club face and swinging out to the ball. I started to get the hang of it later on in the round. 

2) I need to keep working on dropping the right shoulder more in the downswing to help myself swing outward. 

Of course I need to work on my short game. That will be a priority next spring. 

[iacas]

31 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Of course I need to work on my short game. That will be a priority next spring. 

Yeah, we're gonna spend a few hours outside in real-life situations.

[Hardspoon]

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

I will say it's a beautiful course. 

Especially the clubhouse... 

 

[saevel25]

I played 18 today on what looks like the last beautiful day for golf in Ohio.

In played ok. The course was wet and the greens were slow. 

Just a few notes. 

Long game: try to keep the head steadier. Focus on the shoulder tilt while keeping a steady head. 

Short game: focus on just brushing the ground over striking the ball. Feel like I get 90-95% weight on front foot at setup. 

 

[Good Ash]

Nothing specific to add to your thread but I just wanted to say congrats on your progress thus far.  I skimmed through every 8 pages or so but it is obvious that you have put in a lot of work in a relatively short amount of time. 

One question, what handicap did you start out with?  It looks like maybe a 16 or so based of off some of the early scores you mentioned and is the 3.8 accurate right now?  Either way, great job thus far and keep up the good work!!

[saevel25]

Well it's early January 2017 and its time to do a big of a summary right up on things I've been working on. Maybe refer back to it if it's something I didn't give enough time to. 

 ****Note, these are things I've worked on. Not stuff that is for everyone. 

Full Swing Set-Up

1. Watch that I don't set up aiming right. 
2. Make sure the club face is aimed right of the target line. This should help out with #1.
3. Make sure to have some secondary axis tilt to the upper body. 
4. Don't set up too far away from the ball

A1 to A1.5

1. Start the swing with the hips, not the hands. It's easier to work the club more vertically when the hips have already given the hands depth. This will help control the backswing length. I won't have to feel like hands have to do a lot of the work.

A1.5 to A3.5 

1. Don't let the club head work inside the hands. 
   1. Maybe hinge sooner?
   2. Set the club more vertically
   3. Umbrella feel
2. Keep the swing short, A3.5
   1. Right elbow, hands, feel they stays in front of the body. Do not let the right elbow and shoulder retract. 
   2. If the swing is getting longer then the backswing might feel half a backswing to achieve A3.5. SHORTEN THE SWING!!!!
   3. Don't rush the backswing.

A3.5 to A4.5

1. Let the club flatten
2. Don't let the right shoulder turn flat (out towards the horizon). Right shoulder works down towards the ball more.
3. Squeeze elbows together to flatten club? Works well in slow motion.

A4.5 to A7

1. Keep turn rates up
2. Keep butt against the wall, left hip goes back and around more. 
   1. Maintain spine tilt towards the ball in the DTL view. Don't stand up. 
3. Left leg, left side extends more. Old swing had left knee with lots of flexion at about A6-A6.5, hip turn stalled. 
4. Right seem of shirt, right hip pocket, drives towards the ball. 
5. Left shoulder drives up more, less around. Almost like a tilt feeling. 
6. Keep a steadier head
7. Club will feel open in the backswing. Trust the turn rates will deliver the club at impact correctly
8. Swing outward
9. Hands will feel like they swing upward more in the finish. Current swing the hands are exiting low and left. Need to exit higher. 

Pitching Set Up

1. Less spine axis tilt
2. Feel a lot of weight on under front foot
3. Keep the weight feel through out the pitch
4. Feel like you are not hitting the ball but brushing the grass with the club. 
5. Keep the turn rates up, don't let them stall
6. GLIDE the club under the ball
7. TRUST IT!!!

Putting

1. Alignment is solid
2. Working on not letting the club head take such a severe inward path. 
   1. More straight back feel
   2. Let the club face open slightly on the back stroke. 
3. Let the toe release slightly in the through stroke

Items from above that I want to focus on more
1. Nailing the set-up on not having the club face square to closed to my target line. Hard not to hit slices with this type of set up. 

2. Start the swing with a hip turn not the hands

3. SHORTEN THE SWING, Umbrella feel, stop at A3.5

4. In the most recent times I've played. A steadier head in the downswing, not letting it look up, plus the shoulder pitch feel seems to produce the best results. By shoulder pitch I mean, not letting the shoulders turn flat. Not letting the right shoulder fly out towards the horizon in transition.

Though working on the turn rates, club flattening in transition, and outward hand path might be a good thing to work on in practice. It might not be something I can use on the course. 

 

[iacas]

Uhhhhh…

You know a few things at setup are fine, but holy crap man… you can work on a few things (not at the same time, but in different swings and so on), but that should be capped at two or so.

[saevel25]

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

Uhhhhh…

You know a few things at setup are fine, but holy crap man… you can work on a few things (not at the same time, but in different swings and so on), but that should be capped at two or so.

No I get that. I was just listing stuff that I've tried in the past. Not that I want to work on all of them or even will. Maybe not such a good idea to do then. 

I'll keep things simple and focused. 

[iacas]

Just now, saevel25 said:

No I get that. I was just listing stuff that I've tried in the past. Not that I want to work on all of them or even will. Maybe not such a good idea to do then. 

I'll keep things simple and focused. 

Yeah, I read that part.

But there's a reason you don't have your dumb simian badge…

[saevel25]

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yeah, I read that part.

But there's a reason you don't have your dumb simian badge…

I should have added that to my 2017 goals, get the dumb simian badge back.

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I should have added that to my 2017 goals, get the dumb simian badge back.

Yeah. Do less. Get back to the simpler things. Not so simple you're not trying to do anything, but you tend to hit a bad shot or two and start to search or something else it could be, or something from your past.

One or two priorities. Work.

When you play, play.

1/3 of your practice should be focused on just "play" type results - just hit the ball solidly and toward targets. A swing thought is fine.

[saevel25]

I went up to Erie today. I have two things to work on.

First, getting the club on a better path in the backswing. Feeling the club more vertical. The club has a tendency to drop over and to the right at A4. 

The second is working on keeping the club inside on the down swing. Not letting it tip over, sending the club on an outward swing path.