My Swing (shortstop20)

[Shanks A Million]

You can read my swingacademy analysis, but your problem is fairly straightforward. Your swing doesn't work because it's nearly all manipulation by the hands and arms. Your shoulders don't even turn to 90°, but the club is almost past parallel. This is why you have problems. The arc changes as you move through the swing, so the hands have to work to get the club in the right place at the right time. It's hard to be consistent like that.

You need to get your hands and arms to quit dominating the swing. Go down to the range and dead hand balls for a while, just focus on turning your shoulders back, then slide your hips forward, and let the hands and arms follow, totally limp and subservient. When done right, you'll feel your right arm pull in to your right oblique, and the butt of your club will feel like it's being pulled toward your right pocket. Right now, you manually move the club into that position with your hands. You want to start down with the hips, and let the body pull the club there, not manipulate it there.

If you post a face on swing at swing academy, let me know, and I'll analyze it with exact instructions.

[shortstop20]

I used to play a push-draw, but it had the tendency to turn into a hook alot of times. I started to work on almost a total swing overhaul but really having trouble getting where I want to be. Good shot right now would be straight or a slight cut. I'm missing out on power because I don't have the confidence to take a good aggressive swing at it. When I do, it feels like the club is miles behind me(stuck), which usually results in a hard cut or a big push fade.

Looking for guidance on what I need to work on in order to get to the point where I can hit a consistent push-draw with better ball compression behind it.

Right now, my 9 iron goes about 115, it used to be my 135 yard club.

I don't have a Face-on view, will get one tomorrow hopefully.

[iacas]

Not the best camera position. See my article about that on the site. It's important and you should film from a consistent location each time.

Left arm still WAY in at P5. The other blue lines show your clubhead is also WAY in and a little closed - those pieces don't go together. In with a closed face = bad.

Impact you're still well closed. You're manually lowering the handle like crazy to try to swing left.

You have more pieces that fit with a push or draw pattern and will have to do a lot of work to get to an efficient, repeatable pull/cut pattern.

[shortstop20]

Erik,

Do you have any recommendations on drills or something that I should work on?

Where should my left arm be at P5? In front of my chest?

I'd like to hit a push draw, don't like the pull cut.

[iacas]

You've got more pieces to hit draws and pushes than pulls and cuts. So again it's no surprise that you'd hit some BIG hooks occasionally before.

I could give you a quick answer here, but this year especially with teaching real students I'm trying to cut back on things a little bit on giving instruction in the forum - for the benefit of being able to spend time with the family, more time with actual in-person lessons, and doing the other things (Analyzr, this site, evolvr... AimPoint, Edel...). Hope you understand... You could sign up to be a Supporter and among the benefits I'll give a fair amount of analysis in a private forum (you're free to re-post it here, or maybe I'd just do it here in this thread). Plus you can turn off ads. ;-) (I would want nicely lined up videos and face-on videos too.) I don't want to push people too hard into that thing, but if you're interested, I do think it'll end up being a good value.

The freebie quickie answer: your left arm is too far in compared to your stance and your shaft too flat. These things go hand in hand. You don't appear to get a full shoulder turn and you over-flex your right elbow.

Comparison picture... the guy on the left is hitting out at the ball too much. Again, pushes and draws/hooks.

[cbrian]

Like I said on the other forum, I would feel your DS start with your shoulders turning out. Feel like you are spinning out with your shoulders... gonna feel like you are coming OTT.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by cbrian

Like I said on the other forum, I would feel your DS start with your shoulders turning out. Feel like you are spinning out with your shoulders... gonna feel like you are coming OTT.

I think his shoulders move pretty well. I wouldn't address things that way.

[cbrian]

My point wasn't about HOW they move, but WHEN they move. His shoulders don't even get to square until well after impact. Shoulders definitely need to get open faster, and for a guy that is used to having that drop move its going to feel OTT'ish when the left arm is where it should be.  Maybe I should have said it differently, but oh well....

[mchepp]

Many amateurs, myself included, have our shoulders too closed P5-P7. In that sense I agree with cbrian (not with saying OTT, but lets not get hung up). Guys like me perform a tip-out to get the face square, shortstop lowers the handle. Both of us have to get the plane line left. After seeing this swing I think lowering the handle is better because it is not a flip. But still a compensation.

I think that you need to get the shoulders steeper on the backswing if you are going to have your hands come in on the backswing. I think this action will steepen the shaft on the backswing. Second thing is to ensure you are not overfolding the right arm. I got the swing extender to work on that. It works, but that is one tough nut to crack. I still struggle with it from time to time.

The point of my post is you are not alone with trying to get the left arm more on plane from P5-P7 and whatever way you decide I hope you share it here because many golfers are looking to make that better.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by cbrian

My point wasn't about HOW they move, but WHEN they move. His shoulders don't even get to square until well after impact. Shoulders definitely need to get open faster, and for a guy that is used to having that drop move its going to feel OTT'ish when the left arm is where it should be.  Maybe I should have said it differently, but oh well....

I think that's an important distinction... yes, good catch. Sorry my previous post was so short - yesterday was packed pretty well and my post was shorter than it should have been.

I'd still love to see a face-on view. I think we'd see the right arm overflexing and then needing more time. I'd like to see a swing where the right arm felt a lot of extensor action and the club didn't shallow out so much (he adds #3 in his transition).

Straight arms, shaft feeling across the line.

Will take out a little of the palmar flexion... and in my experience he's making the moves (the timing of them more so than the movement, yes) because of the addition of #3 late and through the transition, the palmar flexion, and the right elbow being slightly slow (because it over-flexes).

Originally Posted by mchepp

Many amateurs, myself included, have our shoulders too closed P5-P7. In that sense I agree with cbrian (not with saying OTT, but lets not get hung up). Guys like me perform a tip-out to get the face square, shortstop lowers the handle. Both of us have to get the plane line left. After seeing this swing I think lowering the handle is better because it is not a flip. But still a compensation.

I don't think that's the root cause, though. I agree that a lot of people will be closed and for a lot of people it's similar. You'll note that he doesn't unload his accumulators at all from P4 to P5 - in fact he adds #3 and #1 and #4 are still overloaded.

In my experience you can't tell someone like this to spin faster or throw his right shoulder out. And you have to be careful because you don't want him running out of right arm by P7 either. That's why I've made the recommendation I've made - straight arms, club feeling across the line and steeper coming down. It'll change his wrist conditions and stop #3 from loading so late and #1 and #4 from loading and staying loaded so much.

In my experience, it's really tough to continue loading #3 when #4 (mostly) and #1 are unloading. And vice versa. I think the loading of #3 in transition is key here.

Originally Posted by mchepp

I think that you need to get the shoulders steeper on the backswing if you are going to have your hands come in on the backswing. I think this action will steepen the shaft on the backswing. Second thing is to ensure you are not overfolding the right arm. I got the swing extender to work on that. It works, but that is one tough nut to crack. I still struggle with it from time to time.

I like where that's going... I think we'd see from the face-on view that his right arm overflexes and he doesn't get 90 degrees of shoulder turn. Could largely be due to the relative lack of hip turn (shown below along with the results of being really inclined to the ball - probably could do well to feel he's standing taller (eyes still down at the ball) and turning his hips more to allow for more of a shoulder turn).

Thanks cb and mc for adding your thoughts. These are all "around the same area," and I think we all agree we'd like to see a FO view.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by shortstop20

. .. I started to work on almost a total swing overhaul but really having trouble getting where I want to be . . . my 9 iron goes about 115, it used to be my 135 yard club.

When did you start this overhaul? Maybe your golf muscles just need some time to get in tune with your new swing.

I'm not teaching pro, but if I wanted to hit the ball farther I'd look at the swings of the guys who hit the ball farther. Maybe I'm seeing something that's not there, but are you emulating Ben Hogan? Or is that a natural position for you at the top? It seemed to work for Ben (and a lot of other guys) but it's a heck of a coincidence that whenever some one bemoans their lack of distance their swing looks like that at the top. Take a look at a the swings of a bomber like Bubba Watson or Jaimie Sadlowski.

Now, back to the professionals . . .

[shortstop20]

This is from today. I was going to get a FO view right after this but then the high school golf team showed up and shot that plan down. I didn't have enough room to setup my bag and camera to do a FO view. Will try and get one in the next couple days.

Thoughts?

[shortstop20]

Well, things were going better for a while and now this stupid drop down move with the shaft is coming back again. I bet I shanked 20 balls at the range today.

Thoughts?

Lately everything has been at best a straight shot, usually a push-cut or a shank. That drop down move makes it feel like the club is wide open. I was surprised to see I still have the outside takeaway as well.

[iacas]

Dorsiflex (cup) your left wrist at the top of your backswing and from the start to the end of the transition. Film that. Dorsiflex it like crazy. Let's see what it looks like.

[shortstop20]

Well, I strengthened my grip and I am trying to swing more "in and up", but it looks like I need more of the "in and up", maybe not???? I'm seeing and feeling some progress, which is rewarding.

Anymore ideas on how to get rid of that Furyk-like move(the loop) on the downswing?

Other thoughts?

[shortstop20]

No comments? I could really use some help.

[iacas]

Let your right hip work up and back behind you sooner - stretch the right side of your body from the ankle to the armpit sooner (immediately when starting the backswing). This will let you rotate your shoulders more and earlier, and will help to eliminate the right elbow over-bending/over-folding.

[inthehole]

My only suggestion is your takeaway is very fast ... you might try slowing down the tempo on the backswing - I find its much easier to get a fluid swing with a slower backswing.