Angle of Attack Issues

[Chicago Lefty]

Yesterday I was able to get on a Trackman in an effort to find a driver more suited to my swing. I am currently a 6 handicap, but I constantly battle my driver. I knew that I had a lot of club head speed and even ball speed, but I would get out to my ball and I would be even with the 60 year old gentleman I'm playing with and his 85mph driver swing.

As we went on with the fitting the club fitter said that we were probably wasting our time until I got my angle of attack fixed. I was coming in at anywhere from -6 to -10 degrees and spinning the ball over 4500rpms. My club head speed is 112-115mph and the ball speed ranged from 157-165mph, but my carry distance hovered from 230-250 yards. Obviously I need to fix my swing.

Here is a video of my swing from about 3 months ago. I would say not too much has changed except maybe setting up a bit more upright.



I know I have an OTT move and need to start my swing with my lower body more. I have been working on that, but at this point I'm trying to get through this season and make at least an improvement on my attack angle to lower my spin rates to something more reasonable. Any suggestions are welcome!

Thanks

[iacas]

From the face-on view you'd see that you have none of what we call "secondary axis tilt" - tilting back from your hips (which have pushed forward) to your head or the base of your neck (which has remained relatively steady).

From face-on for a lefty, your spine at impact would look something like this: /

Yours undoubtedly looks something more like this: |

Curious too what your ball position is like. Looks back.

[Chicago Lefty]

From the face-on view you'd see that you have none of what we call "secondary axis tilt" - tilting back from your hips (which have pushed forward) to your head or the base of your neck (which has remained relatively steady).

This sounds like what I am doing. I'm pretty sure I'm basically just trapping the ball like I do with my irons. Should I try to build that spine tilt into my setup? In the one plane literature that I've read, Hardy is actually against putting any tilt into setup.

I play the ball forward of middle, but inside of my right armpit. Almost off the right side of my face. I should probably be playing it closer to my instep or even off my toes? One question I have when setting the ball that forward is where should my hands/shaft be? If I setup with them centered, the shaft is leaning backwards. If I push the shaft forward, it feels very awkward.

[jamo]

I have nearly the same issue as you do. My angle of attack is -14*, and I've tried changing ball position, trying different shafts and heads, nothing seems to do a whole lot. It's some sort of swing issue I have to sort out eventually because it's really robbing my distance.

[iacas]

This sounds like what I am doing. I'm pretty sure I'm basically just trapping the ball like I do with my irons. Should I try to build that spine tilt into my setup? In the one plane literature that I've read, Hardy is actually against putting any tilt into setup.

At setup, no.

If you push your hips forward and leave your head in place you'll get the proper attack/impact position. See the "slide the hips" thread. You too, jamo. -14 is nowhere near acceptable.

[Keyhole]

I hitthe range real quick after work because this is really eating away at me. Changes I made were moving the ball what felt to be way up in my stance, teeing it quite a bit higher, and working on firing my lead knee at the target.

Here's a video I had someone at the range take...



Ball flight was MUCH higher. To a point that I'm not comfortable with. Distance seemed fine as I was blowing them out over the tall net in the back at 240 yards, but there was a 10mph tail wind. I still had a baby fade, but I wasn't getting the big banana pull slice or the big push left slice. I'm still on my phone so I haven't been able to watch in slow motion, but I'm a little worried I could be flipping.


Comments are appreciated!

Thanks

[iacas]

Yes, more of that, but the ball faded because you don't get your hips forward quite enough (your hips never get forward of your right heel or so, and only long after the ball is gone do you kind of "fake it" and go forward).

Better, yes, but I'd keep working on the hips pushing forward. It puts in the secondary axis tilt - you've added it by leaning back and swaying back in the backswing.

[Keyhole]

I felt like I was never getting to the center of the driver but hitting most of the balls low center but still launching it high. I'll continue to work on it for sure. Thanks for the tips so far!

[alomar123]

I hitthe range real quick after work because this is really eating away at me. Changes I made were moving the ball what felt to be way up in my stance, teeing it quite a bit higher, and working on firing my lead knee at the target.

Tee it a bit lower, especially since the ball is going very high. I am guessing if you had impact tape the ball would be hitting above the sweet spot.

[Shanks A Million]

If you want to get your hips more forward, just bring the club back down toward your right pocket, severely from the inside to the outside. You need to literally swing on such a line that if you don't push your hips forward, you'll bang right into your left hip. Fixing that will fix the over the top, the angle of attack, and the hips not sliding all at once.

Your right foot is literally ahead of your hips:


Compare that to where someone like me is:


Look at the line formed by the leading edge of the front leg. And a really good player's hips will be even more forward.

[jamo]

You too, jamo. -14 is nowhere near acceptable.

I can't figure out why though. Here's a picture with the top of my backswing and impact:

My hips seem fine there, and I was actually surprised when I drew in the line on the left that my head didn't go forward either. Here is a YouTube video of that swing too: PS: The last thing I want to do is make this thread all about me, but Keyhole seemed to be making some progress so...

[saevel25]

Actually here is what i see, Your head stays pretty still until 0:08, the point were your hands are at Right hip height. Your head actually does move forward, then as you come into impact your head shifts back to were it started at. don't know if thats the cause, but thats what i see in the video, since you said your head stays still..

[jamo]

Actually here is what i see, Your head stays pretty still until 0:08, the point were your hands are at Right hip height. Your head actually does move forward, then as you come into impact your head shifts back to were it started at. don't know if thats the cause, but thats what i see in the video, since you said your head stays still..

Yeah I noticed that it does move, but it is the same spot in these two pictures. I should have worded that better.

[Zeph]

I can't figure out why though. Here's a picture with the top of my backswing and impact:

Since this is an issue others might encounter, and this is an AoA thread, not "My Swing" thread, I'll pick up on your swing.

Your lines don't really indicate a whole lot, except that your hips move a certain distance during the swing. I did the same mistake on my own swing. To me, it looked like my hips had moved a whole lot, but they didn't move in the right place. Look at the pictures you have drawn lines on. On the first picture, the hips are inside your left foot. On the second picture, the knee is around parallell to the outside of your foot. Your hips move a lot, but that is because you have a very wide stance and move the hips back on the backswing. This makes it look like they move a lot forward, but they are still not forward of the outside of your left foot. You can ask Erik, I pissed him off to no end (I keeeed) because I kept saying my hips moved more forward than Charlie Wi. They moved more laterally in inches, but they did not move to the right place. I too got the hips moving back on the backswing and forward again. But my hips or left knee never got as far forward of the outside of the left foot as Charlie. Drawing lines to compare address or top of the backswing to impact is of little use, what you are looking for is the knee and hips position at impact relative to the outside of your left foot. It is possible with any kind of stance, but may be harder with such a wide stance, since the right foot probably almost have to be dragged forward for the hips to get enough forward. Your swing moves more back up and down than staying centered and moving forward. On the last picture, the only part forward of your left foot is your shorts. The wider stance we take, the more the hips will move away from the feet, which means the hips have to move laterally a greater distance. Narrowing your stance will make it easier to get the hips more forward. In a video posted by Golf Evolution, showing the driver swing, they put emphasis on pre-setting more weight (hips) forward at address than with irons. This was to help get the hips even more forward and shallow the swing out more. Here are some pictures to demonstrate. The camera angles are a bit different, but you get the point. Here's the GE driver video btw: Golf Evolution Stack and Tilt Swing - Hitting the Driver

[iacas]

Zeph, you know you didn't upset me at all (which is why you wrote that you were joking)...

Let's look at this picture and the much more revealing line:



Draw a line from your belt buckle to your throat. Do the same on the other two guys.

Notice how much more of an angle they'll have that you don't. You're nearly vertical.

P.S. James, on the right, struggles a bit with this piece. He has less tilt that way than he wants, which is why his shoulders are also so much flatter.

[jamo]

Draw a line from your belt buckle to your throat. Do the same on the other two guys.

Since this is an issue others might encounter, and this is an AoA thread, not "My Swing" thread, I'll pick up on your swing....

Thanks for that guys. I'm actually a little disappointed in myself that I let my hips go backwards in the backswing. I may be trying to rationalize, but the fact that I was swinging on a fairly steep (for golf purposes anyway) incline may have lead to that (an overcompensation for not wanting to fall forwards). I do, however, hope that video was accurate, because it was taken a nearly two months ago. But I'll definitely keep that in mind, and I'll try to get a new video sometime, though probably not until November. It's added to the list of things to work on. Also I've actually been fooling with different things in my stance lately, so maybe I'll see some impact from that.

[Chicago Lefty]

Just a quick update, made changes to my swing setup mostly and have been hitting the ball much higher/straighter. I also switched to a 9* G15 w/ Oban Devotion 7 X-Flex. Got back on the Trackman yesterday and my AOA averaged between -1.5 to 0.5, spin was still up around 3000rpms and upwards of 3800 on a big miss (heel shot).

Funny thing was the guy running the trackman told me the extra spin was still coming from an OTT move (club path was -2 to -4 degrees usually, but club face was almost always right around 0). I definitely play a fade most of the time. So I lined up for a draw and hit 3-4 nice drives that turned over. Path was 0 to +1.5, but the spin stayed ~3000rpms. I wasn't able to knock any more spin off.

Launch angle was good, ranging between 12-15 degrees depending on the shot. The draws were a bit lower in the 10-11 degree range, I think due to the fact I moved the ball a little further back in my stance.

Carry average was 265-275 with total yardage between 275-285. Swing speed was 110-112mph.

What is the optimum spin rate based on my current numbers? Also how much carry would I actually pick up if I was to achieve that spin rate...