When the problem's not the swing...

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

So my brief back-story is I played this game all summer in 2008, including taking a lesson with a pro. I had grand plans for getting really good during the 2009 season, but then I actually never picked up my clubs. I picked the game back up 2 months ago, and last week and yesterday I had lessons with a pro.

During the first lesson, the pro pointed out a few things I was doing wrong, including locking out my right knee on the backswing, and overswinging severely. He also tweaked my setup position slightly. I practiced a lot last week, and made excellent progress incorporating those changes. By the end of my second lesson yesterday, the pro was telling me that as of now, the reason I'm shooting 105 instead of sub-90 is not my swing technique.

It's my contact.

Shanks, fats, face open, and face closed are now my misses. My swing, in the words of a pro, is not my concern right now. His advice was to keep swinging the way I'm swinging, and hit 1000 balls. Then, as a next step, hit 1000 more.

So, I guess my question is, when the issue is squaring the clubface at the right instant (not early for a pull-draw or late for a push-fade), and putting the middle of the face on the ball (not putting the hosel on the ball or putting the club into the dirt behind the ball), what can I do to improve besides hitting 1000 balls?

It's not that I'm not willing to put in the practice. I fully intend to hit those 1000 balls. But if I can do something in addition, drills or whatever, that will make me improve faster, then I want to do that as well.

Any insight?

-Andrew

[colin007]

start with short swings with a mid iron. like a 7, and do quarter swings with an abbreviated follow thru, hitting the ground after the ball, almost like a punch shot. make sure your weight stays forward and continues forward all the way thru.

[Zeph]

Fat - Weight too far back, flipping
Shank - Too far from the ball, swinging the left arm out
Face open/closed - Missing the center of the clubface, rotating the club open or shut

Of course your swing is the problem, you can't hit a ball without swinging. I don't know your pro, so I won't take it for granted that your swing is as good as you think. Do you by any chance have a camera to record your swing and post it here?

[jamo]

Am I alone in thinking contact is a swing issue? I doubt it.

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

Of course your swing is the problem, you can't hit a ball without swinging.

I should rephrase: the pro says my swing

technique isn't the issue. Obviously my swing timing (open/closed face) is not consistently correct yet, and the exact location of the head of the club at impact is sometimes an inch off (which is generally either an inch outside for a shank, or an inch low for a fat shot). The pro insisted to me that these issues are not arising from the technique I use (now) to swing the club, but rather the coordination it takes to pinpoint the timing of the release and the location of the club head; coordination which will come as I put in more time and hit more balls. -Andrew

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

Am I alone in thinking contact is a swing issue? I doubt it.

To your point: how long have you been playing golf? How many balls would you estimate you've hit over that time?

-Andrew

[Zeph]

I should rephrase: the pro says my swing

There should be no conscious release of the club, it should square up as a result of proper sequence and timing. If you mess things up, it is a swing fault. I don't really care what the pro says, timing the hands is part of the swing and part of the technique. If your swing is perfect and all you do wrong is not timing the release correctly, you should not be a handicap 27, nor should you be hitting it fat and shanking it. I would also strongly discourage you from working on a swing which relies on you to time the wrists perfectly to hit a desired shot shape.

To reiterate, a video would help us more than anything you can write.

[jamo]

To your point: how long have you been playing golf? How many balls would you estimate you've hit over that time?

A while and a lot. But not because I am trying to "find something in the dirt" or whatever people say. You don't have to hit billions of balls a day to make a good swing. You need to start with good technique and be able to repeat that over and over. But hitting 500 balls a day can actually hurt that because your body gets tired and you brain stops paying attention.

If you are hitting it fat or thin your weight is not correctly distributed. If you are hitting it off the toe or heel you are not setting up or extending properly. If the club is open or closed you probably rotate the club way open on the backswing.

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

A while and a lot.

I would suggest, then, that you don't believe technique and coordination are two separate issues because your golf-swing coordination is so thoroughly developed, and developed so long ago, that you now take it for granted. For you, it's a swing flaw when you hit a fat shot. For me, it's because I literally missed that time. The next swing, using the same technique, might be a hit.

You don't have to hit billions of balls a day to make a good swing. You need to start with good technique and be able to repeat that over and over.

I agree entirely. That's why I posted this thread. I'm at "good technique", and I need to get to "be able to repeat that over and over." I'm looking for ways to accelerate that process as much as possible, so I can get there before I've hit a ridiculously large number of balls.

If you are hitting it off the toe or heel you are not setting up or extending properly.

Extending is probably the key here; I have it on good authority that my setup is good. Any thoughts on drills to properly coordinate my extension? Sometimes I do it very well, other times not so well.

If the club is open or closed you probably rotate the club way open on the backswing.

Not true. My clubface is very square to my left arm throughout the backswing, but my release is often a little early or a little late. When the club gets to the ball, it's either not released enough (push-fade), or too released (pull-draw). Fine-tuning that timing is a coordination issue that I may need to find in the dirt.

-Andrew

There should be no conscious release of the club, it should square up as a result of proper sequence and timing.

Yep, my timing is hit-or-miss. I'm not consciously releasing it, but I need to get that timing to the point where it's consistent.

If you mess things up, it is a swing fault. I don't really care what the pro says, timing the hands is part of the swing and part of the technique. If your swing is perfect and all you do wrong is not timing the release correctly, you should not be a handicap 27, nor should you be hitting it fat and shanking it.

Let's be clear regarding my current swing and my handicap: I've not yet used my current swing on a golf course.

But based on your "if you mess things up, it's a swing flaw" theory: swing flaws are ingrained patterns in your swing which need to be changed for you to swing the club correctly. I don't currently have any. If one swing has me getting holding off the club much too late, and the next swing has me getting the club ahead of my hands, which swing flaw do I have? Do I have two simultaneous-but-contradictory swing flaws? To me the answer that makes sense is that the third swing, where I hit the ball straight and high and long, is "my swing". The other two were the results of trying to apply my good technique, but "missing".

To reiterate, a video would help us more than anything you can write.

I'd post one if I had one.

-Andrew

[bwdial]

I've suffered the same issues. It may be that you are allowing your hands to be too "active" during the swing. By being so focused on making good contact, your brain sends signals to your hands to try and get them into the correct position... which screws everything up.

As someone suggested, hit a bunch of quarter shots with a short iron. It will allow your muscles and your brain to focus on solid contact without being preoccupied with how far you hit the ball and in what direction you hit it. As you ingrain that proper impact position (weight forward, hands in front of the clubhead) you'll feel more and more comfortable just swinging the club and letting it do the work. As you get more comfortable, you can add length until you are making full swings.

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

Another clarification I feel I should add: it's not that I (or the pro I'm working with) believe that my swing is perfect. It's that my swing, technique-wise, is so much better than the results I'm getting that fixing the very small flaws would be like installing a high-flow exhaust system on a car with thrown rods. Sure, the exhaust should theoretically improve performance, but it really isn't the concern at the moment.

-Andrew

[golfro]

Another clarification I feel I should add: it's not that I (or the pro I'm working with) believe that my swing is perfect. It's that my swing, technique-wise, is so much better than the results I'm getting that fixing the very small flaws would be like installing a high-flow exhaust system on a car with thrown rods. Sure, the exhaust should theoretically improve performance, but it really isn't the concern at the moment.

I understand what you mean. My guess is that you have the fundamental techniques incorporated in your swing and you have an understanding of your swing...its just a matter of consistently executing that swing and improving your ball striking abilities.

I agree with your pro, practice will help a lot. When you practice, think through each swing and work on muscle memory and overall ball striking.

[Zeph]

I'd post one if I had one.

Then you should find a camera and record it. You don't need a high speed or high resolution camera, any camera would work. Of course, the more frames per second, the better. If limited to 30 or 60 FPS, higher resolution works.

I understand what you mean. My guess is that you have the fundamental techniques incorporated in your swing and you have an understanding of your swing...its just a matter of consistently executing that swing and improving your ball striking abilities.

With all due respect, I doubt a handicap 27 knows his swing enough to know this. I understand the pro also says so, but I've seen lots of pros that I wouldn't even get paid to get lessons from. I won't call myself an expert, but I've had lessons with pros that told me things that were plain out wrong. None of them recorded my swing on camera, so how they could see the details is beyond me.

I'm also wondering what you want us to help you with. If your swing is as good as it needs to be at this point, how can we help? If you have to ingrain good timing, we can't do anything there. I don't think hitting 1000 balls only focusing on timing will help you anything. I think you got swing flaws that needs to be worked on. Hitting 1000 balls and trying to perfect the timing may give you flaws that later may be hard to get rid of.

[retexan599]

This year I learned a lot about the contact between my club face and the ball by using these impact stickers from longshot golf; http://www.longshotgolf.com/ I bought a packet of stickers at my local golfsmith store. I found that I was not hitting/contacting the ball anywhere near the sweet spot on either driver, fairway woods, or irons. I continued to use the stickers to calibrate the changes I then experimented with so that I knew what a particular change accomplished (or did not accomplish). When I would get back from the range, I pasted the stickers with the impact results on a piece of paper and copied it with notations to take to the range next time. I recommend their use, because it is a lot of frustrating guessing without that feedback. I attached an example of the sticker results.

[jamo]

I would suggest, then, that you don't believe technique and coordination are two separate issues because your golf-swing coordination is so thoroughly developed, and developed so long ago, that you now take it for granted. For you, it's a swing flaw when you hit a fat shot. For me, it's because I literally missed that time. The next swing, using the same technique, might be a hit.

And the reason you have these missed is because you have to time your swing. To me, that's a swing problem. 4 years ago I was a 30 handicap. 3 years ago I was a 20. 2 years ago I was a 12. Last year I was an 8. This year I've been as low as .7. In those earlier years the way I got drastically better was making major swing changes. I was constantly changing big things- swing plane, weight distribution, those things. At the end of last year I was about a 6. This year I have made one swing change- an improved impact position that I have still not gone down pat. Other than that every range session has been working on small things.

Most people have swing quirks. You can tell them that they might not want to do those things, and they get defensive and say- "I don't care what my swing looks like, just that it works," or "Jim Furyk has a weird swing and he's potentially a HOFer," and stuff like that. But all of the small things I have worked on this year have done 1 thing- to take timing out of the equation. I stopped drastically lifting my arms on the backswing so I wouldn't have to drop them on the downswing. I stopped counter-rotating of wrists so I didn't need to consciously release the club. Things like that. And now, my swing is much more repeatable. Because timing IS technique. You might not have anything drastically wrong (like being way on your back foot, or coming way over the top) with your swing (because you're a 27 I have my doubts, but without video I'll take your word on it), but it's the small tweaks that get rid of timing. I hope that was helpful.

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

And the reason you have these missed is because you have to time your swing. To me, that's a swing problem. 4 years ago I was a 30 handicap. 3 years ago I was a 20. 2 years ago I was a 12. Last year I was an 8. This year I've been as low as .7. In those earlier years the way I got drastically better was making major swing changes. I was constantly changing big things- swing plane, weight distribution, those things. At the end of last year I was about a 6. This year I have made one swing change- an improved impact position that I have still not gone down pat. Other than that every range session has been working on small things.

It was helpful, in its way. It was encouraging, in that you got down to basically scratch, with pretty rapid improvement, once you had your swing at a point where the big flaws were eradicated.

I'm left with the feeling that what I need to do is hit balls, but what I need to THINK about while I hit balls is how to remove timing mechanisms from my swing. Now that I've knocked out some big ones, I need to turn my attention to the generally smaller ones that remain. I did hear a few drills/exercises so far in this thread that I'm going to try out. Any more ways that people have used to take their existing swing, and make it put the middle of the clubface on the ball, would be appreciated. Other than that, I guess I'm down to hitting 1000 balls - paying careful attention to what's going right and what's going wrong in each swing. -Andrew

[golfro]

Andrew, similar to jamo, i was able to drop my handicap quite fast in my early days down to a solid 2.

The differenec between jamo and others who unsuccessfully drop their handicap below 15 is their thorough understanding of the mechanics of a golf swing.

I'll retract my last posting when I said you should simply think through each swing. Grasping a good understanding of why your back swing goes the way it does, down swing the way it does, etc is extremely important in improving your ball striking.

This is why a video taping of your swing is so valuable. We've all seen the great swings from tour players, watch your swing side by side and its no wonder why most of us aren't pro's. For me, my improvements came when I finally got an understanding of how minimal swing changes, just in my back swing, can cause a huge difference in my ball striking abilities. I still struggle with it to this day and it never stops. Always changes week to week. One week I'm taking the club in too steep, the next week, I get it to a managable fix and my swing plane is looking great...the following week, i'm now taking in my club too shallow...etc.

It's a never ending challenge which is why practicing is so important. A lot of guys I golf with never goto the range and find it to be a waste of time. They simply golf on saturdays 18 holes and wonder why they don't improve. Because within a weeks span of not hitting a ball, A LOT can change in the way your body moves.

Anyway, this post is getting longer than intended. The point remains, its very important that you have a thorough understanding of the mechanics of a proper swing. Once you understand this, you'll be much more conscious of your movement while you practice and the rest of it is muscle memory. Don't confuse muscle memory with mindless ball hitting though...

[Kieran123]

This year I learned a lot about the contact between my club face and the ball by using these impact stickers from longshot golf;

Nice.

i just bought a roll of 250 blanks of those...thanks!