My Swing (Stretch)

[Stretch]

Tilt like you mean it, mofos!

[Shanks A Million]

Whaaaaaaaaaat? It's nearly 55 degrees as it is!

Oh, whoops. Wait... Somewhere a wire got crossed. I meant he needs to get the club on line with the shoulders, I.E. steeper.

[wrx_junki]

Stretch I commend you for your dedication to the game. My ball striking sucks and I do absolutely nothing about it while you work hard at it. Read the entire thread from page 1 and it has inspired me to dust off the video camera and try work on my ball striking at least until my golf trip in two weeks. Jealous about how you get to practice at grass ranges while I'm stuck on mats all year round. Do you have any videos of your swing at full speed and not slow motion? I didn't look at all the videos so I might have missed it. Good luck with your swing, it seems like you have plenty of help on here and coming along fine. Don't forget to go out and just enjoy golf without stressing too much on the mechanics. This is what I am guilty of way too often.

[Stretch]

Stretch I commend you for your dedication to the game. My ball striking sucks and I do absolutely nothing about it while you work hard at it.

And my ball striking still sucks. Which of us is the fool I wonder?

[Stretch]

I have been working for the last month on maintaining more of a pitch elbow position in my downswing and getting my hands further forward into impact to fight the flip. Am starting to feel this pay off in better contact and increased yardages. I'm hitting some drives out over 250 yards now and my 100 yard club has gone from a 46* pitching wedge to a 52* gap wedge. Hopefully somewhat illustrated below by these three strikes today on the range with a 7 iron.

Other visible positives: Hips have gone forward pretty well -- indicated by left knee position outside left ankle -- and head has stayed stable. Footwork is good, with right heel still down.

Other visible negatives: Legs are not nearly extended enough. Hands are still not far enough forward. Takeaway is severely under plane. (OK, that's not actually visible. )

[mvmac]

nice work!

[jamo]

Those are some really good looking frames Stretch!

[motteler621]

Nice work, I like how your right heel is down. Ive found that swinging like Im hitting to first base while keeping the left arm pit pressure point really took away my out to in swing. Makes a nice circle now. I have to make a few tweaks to it but Im hitting the ball alot farther now because Im not cutting across the ball. Ive probably picked up 10 yards on each club. Really made me realize how important smash factor is. Most people think they need to swing harder to get more distance which isnt really true. Fix your path first

[Stretch]

Haven't done any real swing work for the last three months. Just been playing and enjoying the sunny summer weather.

Handicap was coming down nicely, but then plateaued, which I decided likely meant the real turds in my swing had been polished as shiny as they were going to get -- and that maybe it was time to think seriously about flushing them.

First order -- the clockwise rotation of my wrists at the start of the takeaway. As noted several times in this thread already by Erik and others, this sucked the club head inside and under the plane straight away -- leading to a very flat backswing that sort of "stuck" half way up with very little wrist hinge or bending of the right elbow. From there, with the club laid way off, I had to work down very, very steep to get to the ball -- setting up timing issues and the constant temptation to come over the top. To try and fix the first move in the chain, I started working with a Medicus hinged club (breaks if you roll it inside) and concentrating on keeping a very firm pressure in PP#4 (left arm against left pec) as the backswing is initiated by the left shoulder turning down. Do this basic motion every day for a half hour or so, just going smoothly to a good P2 position and then smoothly back through to P8. After that, I hit balls, again focusing on getting back to P2 with the club parallel to the target line -- then just letting the arms go to the top. Haven't really started focusing on striking, but can definitely feel the changes starting to ingrain themselves and see the general results in terms of ball flight -- higher, more draw spin, miss moving from pull to push -- of a delivery coming more from the inside and more shallow into impact.

Anyway, here how it looks at the moment. (Sorry about the V1, Erik. Our pro here did a quick-and-dirty on the footage for me as a favor and he hasn't seen the light yet.) Right frames are from a few weeks ago and left frames were shot the other day. Yes, the camera angles are inconsistent but hopefully the position differences are clear enough to discount that as the sole factor. No, I don't always wear the same shirt, it was a coincidence.

Next steps, do it more! After that start work on letting the club set itself properly. If I can actually get some decent loading of the #1 and #2 accumulators, I might even start occasionally hitting the ball out of the proverbial paper bag...

[inthecup]

Originally Posted by Stretch

Haven't done any real swing work for the last three months. Just been playing and enjoying the sunny summer weather.

I have just started working earnestly on my swing with video.  I am curious what was your handicap when you started this thread?

[iacas]

Andrew,

1) Dorsiflex (cup) the left wrist more, sooner on the takeaway. That will help you to...

2) HINGE the club up faster.

You'll notice that even in your second video you don't have a lot of hinge.

Keep workin' on the guy. He's eligible for the Switch discount, after all... ;-)

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by inthecup

I have just started working earnestly on my swing with video.  I am curious what was your handicap when you started this thread?

Hey Bill. Did not have a USGA handicap at the time (04/2010), as hadn't played golf more than a half dozen times in the previous two decades. When I did play, would shoot in the low/mid 90s playing "country club rules."

Anyway, practiced religiously (without actually playing) from April to August, although a big chunk of that time was confined to short game work only due to an injury caused by ... practicing too much.

After carding the required minimum number of rounds here in South Africa, my first SAGA handicap came in at 12 on 08/26 and has trended as follows since then:

Probably TMI, but perhaps may be of some interest to you.

PS: Thanks Erik. I'll work on my "Furyk feeling."

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Stretch

PS: Thanks Erik. I'll work on my "Furyk feeling."

That's a different thing. That's more the transition from 3.75 to 4.25.

[inthecup]

Originally Posted by Stretch

Hey Bill. Did not have a USGA handicap at the time (04/2010), as hadn't played golf more than a half dozen times in the previous two decades. When I did play, would shoot in the low/mid 90s playing "country club rules."

Anyway, practiced religiously (without actually playing) from April to August, although a big chunk of that time was confined to short game work only due to an injury caused by ... practicing too much.

After carding the required minimum number of rounds here in South Africa, my first SAGA handicap came in at 12 on 08/26 and has trended as follows since then:

Probably TMI, but perhaps may be of some interest to you.

PS: Thanks Erik. I'll work on my "Furyk feeling."

Thanks, not TMI I enjoyed following your journey.   I hope to get the same type of improvement.

[inthecup]

Originally Posted by iacas

That's a different thing. That's more the transition from 3.75 to 4.25.

Where it the tread with the swing positions you refer to?

[delav]

Stretch -

Good work in the photos above.  The club is getting into a much better position on the way back.  If I could go back in time and find the guy who told me to roll my wrist to 'toe up' in my backswing, I'd hit him with my sand wedge.

Nice work on that handicap too.

[Stretch]

My swing is not in good shape at all right now, but I am hitting the ball solidly. Took some video today and it looks like -- despite all the funky shit going on -- I am still consistently returning the hands and club at impact quite close to their position at address. Andrew Rice has written about how this will forgive many other sins as far as ballstriking is concerned*, and I'm becoming a believer.

* (If I remember correctly, he says the only four players he's been able to find who returned the club to exactly where it was at address were Hogan, Trevino, Price and Garcia.)

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Stretch

* (If I remember correctly, he says the only four players he's been able to find who returned the club to exactly where it was at address were Hogan, Trevino, Price and Garcia.)

I don't have the pictures but I didn't particularly care for that series of posts. I found a lot of poor ballstrikers who did the same. Nicklaus was awesome with the long irons and didn't return to the same angle. Also, the angle changes constantly throughout the swing, so who cares if you return to the same position? It's simply a measure of how much wrist cock you set up with at address versus what your impact wrist cock is (basically).

Glad to hear you're doing well though.