My Swing (mvmac)

[klineka]

@mvmac First off, fantastic swing, I love reading all of the content you have posted throughout the site, thank you!

I have a question regarding your swing, especially from the down the line view. Based on other swings I have seen, it seems as though your swing is steeper than most, with not as much rotation around your body. Being a 1 handicap you obviously have figured out how to manage that swing for yourself, does that mean that a steep swing isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as the shaft of the club stays shallower than the hands and doesnt come over the top (as you can see in the left half of my profile pic)?

[iacas]

Can you illustrate it with a picture @klineka? I'm not seeing what you are.

[mvmac]

15 minutes ago, klineka said:

I have a question regarding your swing, especially from the down the line view. Based on other swings I have seen, it seems as though your swing is steeper than most, with not as much rotation around your body. Being a 1 handicap you obviously have figured out how to manage that swing for yourself, does that mean that a steep swing isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as the shaft of the club stays shallower than the hands and doesnt come over the top (as you can see in the left half of my profile pic)?

I think we have different definitions of "steep". If anything I can get too shallow.

Shaft points outside the ball, steep would be pointing inside the ball.

Club basically inline with the hands (earlier swings it's inside the hands), steep would have the club outside the hands.

[klineka]

It caught my eye in the first instagram video in post 315 of this thread. After reading your explanation above, I might just have a complete misunderstanding of shallow/steep swing. I thought steeper swings had a more vertical shaft angle, and shallower swings had a more horizontal shaft angle relative to the ground. I tried to screenshot two pictures from the video that showed what I thought looked like a more steep swing. Maybe a better way of me explaining this is to visualize a circle, that of the club around the body, it appears (to me at least) that the circle your swing makes seems to be more straight up and down, while other swings the circle seems to be closer to a 45 degree angle relative to the ground. The main reason I am asking is because I believe my swing is more vertical like that but numeroud articles and videos seem to state that steep swings are bad. Am i getting two different topics mixed up here? @mvmac @iacas

Edited February 23, 2017 by klineka

[iacas]

@klineka, those are at two very different parts of the swing.

Even a shallow swing will be pointing vertically at some point if the backswing continues on far enough.

[mvmac]

4 hours ago, klineka said:

I thought steeper swings had a more vertical shaft angle, and shallower swings had a more horizontal shaft angle relative to the ground. I tried to screenshot two pictures from the video that showed what I thought looked like a more steep swing.

It does and you generally see good players get "steep" (more vertical shaft angle) on the backswing so they can shallow on the downswing. This isn't always the case but it's fairly typical.

Here's Rory and Adam Scott at the top of the backswing, you can see their shaft alignment is similar to mine with the top of the swing position you were referring to.

 

Early downswing,

I wouldn't call these guys steep on the downswing. The shaft is starting to shallow and mid downswing (left arm parallel) their shafts will point at the ball or a little outside of it. Steep would be pointing inside ball.

Here's my early-downswing. It's moving from a more vertical position at the top to a more shallow alignment.

4 hours ago, klineka said:

Maybe a better way of me explaining this is to visualize a circle, that of the club around the body, it appears (to me at least) that the circle your swing makes seems to be more straight up and down, while other swings the circle seems to be closer to a 45 degree angle relative to the ground.

Steep and shallow would typically refer to shaft angle or torso/body angles.

With the above I think you are referring to upright and flat, in terms of the position of the arms? So upright would be someone like Jim Furyk or Nicklaus, flat would be Matt Kuchar or Ben Hogan. Most players are kind of a hybrid. In the swing you referenced, yes I was trying to work the arms a little more "in front of me" on the backswing.

[klineka]

@mvmac Wow thank you for that explanation that is so helpful. I was definitely getting those two things mixed up. Upright and flat were absolutely what I was referring to, I had seen some pictures of Kuchar and he was one that stood out in my mind. I will definitely shoot for the middle ground between the upright and flat. 

I also didn't really realize that the pro guys shifted from steep to shallow, but seeing those pictures really helps. Thank you!

[mvmac]

1 hour ago, klineka said:

I had seen some pictures of Kuchar and he was one that stood out in my mind. I will definitely shoot for the middle ground between the upright and flat. 

Not to trying to confuse you but want to add these terms in case you hear them. Kuchar's instructor (Jim Hardy camp) would call that one-plane while someone like Jason Day would be two-plane. Basically if the left arm matches the shoulder tilt at the top of the backswing you're one-plane and if the left arm is more upright you're two-plane. Most pros are two-plane, like these guys. 

1 hour ago, klineka said:

I will definitely shoot for the middle ground between the upright and flat. 

Cool, yeah don't get too concerned with it for now (unless you do something weird with your arms), the body stuff is more important. If you do a good job with the pivot and the arms are more upright naturally, then go with it. As you can see with the guys above, if you cut their arms off their body position's look fairly similar, they're all fully turned and rotating about 90°  to their address inclination (amount they're bent forward at address).

[iacas]

@klineka, steep and shallow tends to do more with two things:

• Where the shaft points (out of either end of the club) relative to the target line: inside and it's "steep" and "outside" and it's shallow.
• The relative angle of the club shaft. You could have the butt end of the club pointing a foot outside the target line, but if the shaft is at 80° at A5, it's still "steep."

Most examples aren't as extreme as that example. There's a lot of grey area. You can be "steep" and still hit a draw (Carl Peterson, perhaps), and shallow and hit a cut, too.

[mvmac]

Something I was fooling around with the other day. 

Not doing this to "fix" my tendency to tuck my pelvis a little on the downswing (will always be a part of my swing), more to feel how doing this drill gives me some good feels for improving my right side bend on the downswing. The more I can repeat this the less I'll drift my upper center forward from 4-4.5, and the better my rotation will be. So I can get more like this on the downswing.

Doing the practice above reminded me about an alternate shot tournament I played in last year where I hit the ball really well. Basically the main focus was repeating a feel I get when I do a Mike Bender drill. The Bender drill is different to what I'm doing above but the feel I get is similar. The right side bend feel is a little scary to do when hitting a ball because it feels like I'm going to chunk it 

[mvmac]

Backswing was getting a little narrow so feeling like I "drag" the handle back on the takeaway and then just rotate my rib cage more on the downswing. The feel I have for rotating the rib cage ties into the right side bend stuff from my previous post.

 

[DeadMan]

Swing looks good, but we need to have a talk about those shoes...

[JonMA1]

Never get tired of looking at a good golf swing.

I'd say you make it look easy, except I have a pretty good idea of how much time you've put into getting where you're at.

[mvmac]

12 hours ago, DeadMan said:

Swing looks good, but we need to have a talk about those shoes...

They were a tee prize at a tournament, you got to design your own My Joys and I went with the colors/design for the tournament. Had them for several years and just starting to wear them a little bit now.

I also want to get a pair in green 

2 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

ever get tired of looking at a good golf swing.

I'd say you make it look easy, except I have a pretty good idea of how much time you've put into getting where you're at.

Thanks, yes I do work at it.

[DeadMan]

9 hours ago, mvmac said:

They were a tee prize at a tournament, you got to design your own My Joys and I went with the colors/design for the tournament. Had them for several years and just starting to wear them a little bit now.

I also want to get a pair in green 

Okay, they're not that bad to be honest. You just shouldn't pair them with dark blue anything. Since this is  , feel free to start a My Swag thread somewhere else where I can give sartorial advice.

[saevel25]

The swing looks good Mike! 

I always wondered about how your hands kinda loop from A3 to A5, but it looks like it doesn't steepen the club. 

[mvmac]

8 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I always wondered about how your hands kinda loop from A3 to A5, but it looks like it doesn't steepen the club. 

Little bit of a Carl Pettersen type move. Always done it, it's lessened over the last couple years. I think part of it is a habit I developed growing up playing in a lot of wind and on a range where the wind was always at my back. The other part is just having bad instincts for how to move low point forward 

The hands shift/move out so that will shallow the club, if they moved straight down that would steepen the shaft.

[iacas]

9 hours ago, mvmac said:

The hands shift/move out so that will shallow the club, if they moved straight down that would steepen the shaft.

Shut up you mean jerk.