My Swing (iacas)

[b101]

Always really useful to watch your practice - thank you for posting 

[iacas]

Some work on the same things I'm constantly working on.

[iacas]

Super fancy clothing this time.

[JGus]

@iacas  two quick questions for you.

On your transition into the downswing, what is your feel for when the club/hands/right arm/elbow drops?  I ask this because I had a horrific round yesterday, once I got to the top of my swing I was totally clueless, even went back to the range a few hours later, had no issues with wedges, but everything else stayed horrific.  I understand the lower body initiates the downswing, but for me it is more of a parallel move with my lower slide/rotation and my right elbow dropping.  I tried what I would call my normal swing and it just wasn't working, then I tried to only shift my lower body first, then tried the feeling of pulling my hands down and then out.  Regardless of what I tried it just didn't work, just lost all feelings when I got to the top.  Not looking for a magic pill here, just curious if you have a certain feel at this point in your swing.

On your follow through, I notice your left arm stays high (inline with your shoulder line).  Mine is much lower when I finish my follow through, sometimes probably under my shoulder line. Is this just a difference in swings or is there a common fault that you see that may cause a lower follow through?

Thanks! 

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, JGus said:

On your transition into the downswing, what is your feel for when the club/hands/right arm/elbow drops?

I don't really feel that. I'm not working on anything that has to do with the elbow "dropping" at all. If anything I feel it driving outward (toward the ball) more as it comes down naturally.

3 minutes ago, JGus said:

I tried what I would call my normal swing and it just wasn't working, then I tried to only shift my lower body first, then tried the feeling of pulling my hands down and then out.  Regardless of what I tried it just didn't work, just lost all feelings when I got to the top.  Not looking for a magic pill here, just curious if you have a certain feel at this point in your swing.

You should start a Member Swing thread of your own. Your elbow probably gets stuck around behind you too much.

3 minutes ago, JGus said:

On your follow through, I notice your left arm stays high (inline with your shoulder line).  Mine is much lower when I finish my follow through, sometimes probably under my shoulder line. Is this just a difference in swings or is there a common fault that you see that may cause a lower follow through?

I'm exaggerating some things to help with my piece right now. It exits lower when I swing normally (even on a draw).

[JGus]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

I don't really feel that. I'm not working on anything that has to do with the elbow "dropping" at all. If anything I feel it driving outward (toward the ball) more as it comes down naturally.

Thanks, makes perfect sense to me as it has been what I have worked on the past couple of months, and up until yesterday it wasn't something I had to really think about during the swing.  I'll hit the range sometime this week, hopefully it was just a bad day.

And yes, been planning to get a My Swing Thread going, but was hoping to get back to where I felt my swing was late last year first. But that may not happen, so guess I'll try to get some swings recorded soon.

[iacas]

Well…

• I did not practice my swing much in 2017.
  • I blamed a lot of things.
    • Travel with Natalie.
    • Dave's "stuff" that put more on me during the summer.
    • How many hours per week I already spend on golf.
    • I wanted to play more.
    • Frustration with not being able to solve my "piece."
  • Those are all excuses, to be clear. Everyone of them is an excuse, a lie, or just something I told myself.
• My swing is too long, and then my wrist conditions and elbow trajectories are bad from there.
• I can play pretty good golf with a swing I'd give an A- to at best.
• I can demonstrate all kinds of things well.
• Very few people think my swing looks bad at real speed.
• I'm being a little picky, yes.
• But… this year, starting two days ago, I'm going to work on this shit. HARD.

Step 1: Shorter Backswing

I'm pretty well turned by A3, but the rates are a bit off - I can flex the left elbow a bit sooner so it doesn't have to "catch up" and cause a little internal rotation and scapular retraction around the transition.

Step 2: Go More External on Downswing

The elbow will be more in front already if I can do Step 1, and then I can more easily slide it down in front a bit more.

---

An honest evaluation of how and why I've struggled to do this over the years (and believe me, I'm keeping this in context. I'm pretty good, and not just because of my short game and putting) is because it's tough to build a training aid or something that provides immediate feedback when doing this with any speed at all. I can do it at 20%, but ramping it up always proves difficult. I can't know whether I'm having success or not. There aren't really any training aids that I've found or created that can help with the transition - too much is going on with hands, arms, the shaft, etc. whipping about in different planes and on different arcs. Even something that helps from A6 to A7 gets in the way from A1 to A2, for example.

These pictures I want to change, though (from last July):

I'll mess around with the grip throughout, as the images above have it a little "closed" but with a relatively strong grip. Sometimes I think going a little weaker will let my right wrist fold a bit more or differently, sometimes I like the stronger grip because it already feels like I have to come through with the face 45° open from A6 to A7…

[klineka]

Great to see someone with a solid swing like yourself still wanting to improve and get better! I will be following this and watching your progress.

Out of curiosity, is there something in your results/ball flight that you are looking to change/fix by improving on steps 1 and 2 that you have outlined above?

 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, klineka said:

Out of curiosity, is there something in your results/ball flight that you are looking to change/fix by improving on steps 1 and 2 that you have outlined above?

Eh. I just don't hit the ball as well as I could. My miss is a deflected cut or a pull. Contact is so-so as I get ever-so-slightly steep/across. Again, it's small level stuff - I can still shoot good scores and I'm not that far off - but the errors do become smaller as you get better, so that's not saying anything unusual. It's not like I'm somehow shooting good scores with a mess of a swing!

---

On the bright side… I worked today on some good feels that should help. Basically, it goes back to something I've known for awhile, and mentioned above. My hinging rates on the right elbow are slow, so I have to feel those going sooner, faster. I can pair that with a mild turn and get to what feels like about a 3/4 backswing if I just go there normally, but which feels reasonably full if I do things this way.

In the video you'll see me doing a lot of the early folding, mixing in a few turns, and at the end doing a fold/turn and then a small pump and then a downswing.

What I might like most about that picture there is the way my right shoulder looks.

Anyway, a productive day.

[klineka]

43 minutes ago, iacas said:

It's not like I'm somehow shooting good scores with a mess of a swing!

In the video you'll see me doing a lot of the early folding, mixing in a few turns, and at the end doing a fold/turn and then a small pump and then a downswing.

I know all about shooting good/decent scores with a mess of a swing 

I liked the video showing how you started with a small motion and worked up to fuller swings. I can incorporate more of that into my practice.

[Jack Watson]

There’s a saying about auto mechanics,  the mechanics car is the last one to get fixed.

When you devote so much to others it is understandable that you may want to work on yourself a bit...Golf imo is not a game that can be played to ones best without all the maintenance work...Times tough to find...

From the pics I just wonder why you don’t try to be a touch less deep with the hands at the top?  Just a touch?  Left arm across chest can thwart space a bit imo.  Seems like it would give more space/rom for that right arm in front working the way you want coming down and allow8ng a touch shallower ds,  but obviously I know nothing of your game and am shooting from the hip here...

I can tell from the shape of your move in the practice ones above that you don’t lack distance!  You show extreme discipline in your movement and I have a lot of respect for that.  Nice.

 

 

[iacas]

From a few days ago. (The actual picture is a week or so old. I didn't post it to IG right away.)

[iacas]

14 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

There’s a saying about auto mechanics, the mechanics car is the last one to get fixed.

Sometimes. I just don't get the time or, when I have the time, it's at the end of a week where I spent 70 hours on golf or something… But I'm making myself find the time. Rather than dick around and be sucked into long conversations when I'm downtown with @NatalieB or something, I'm putting in headphones and taking a mat.

14 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

When you devote so much to others it is understandable that you may want to work on yourself a bit... Golf imo is not a game that can be played to ones best without all the maintenance work... Times tough to find...

I'm partly inspired by @NatalieB having the time, and the time that some other students have demonstrated recently in how often they'll come in and practice.

14 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

From the pics I just wonder why you don’t try to be a touch less deep with the hands at the top? Just a touch? Left arm across chest can thwart space a bit imo.  Seems like it would give more space/rom for that right arm in front working the way you want coming down and allow8ng a touch shallower ds,  but obviously I know nothing of your game and am shooting from the hip here...

My left arm loads across my chest a bit more than I might like, but it's really not too far off from a lot of other players.

Some of the differences, say, in the last one have to do with the proximity of the camera to me and parallax. If I am an extra 30' from the camera, you see a bit more of my shirt sleeve to the "left" of my hands in the last photo.

But I don't think I'm that far off.

14 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

I can tell from the shape of your move in the practice ones above that you don’t lack distance!  You show extreme discipline in your movement and I have a lot of respect for that.  Nice.

If I get better every day, I'm moving in the right direction. All I can do.

[iacas]

A little work today.

Real speed, and Natalie recorded from the couch, so the angle is what it is. Mostly working on getting the elbow a bit higher, still folding earlier, and a bit further off my rib cage. The dimensions (I mess with it staying a bit too tight to my side and a bit too far away from me at one point) are something I play with, as are the turning rates relative to the folding rates.

And yeah, my swing at the end is a BIT faster than I've been doing. It was about 75%, but this is largely a backswing thing. There's a downswing component (right palm faces out longer), but that's one that actually works a bit better at some speed, because at slow speeds I can actually over-do that and the ball pushes out way right, I shank it, etc. I'm fine with that, but occasionally I hit it a bit harder. Sometimes a bit softer and let it push/shank.

[iacas]

I wish YouTube videos would sync up at the "slow-motion" points.

Oh well.

[iacas]

The swing at the end is just a bit of a checkpoint. It's a tiny bit better. "Noticeably" better. But there's a long ways to go.

I hit 4 balls in this video and I did so a little bit faster than I normally practice because I knew I was recording the video for this thread. And it's still 4:45 or so… which should give you a bit of a clue as to how I think most people should practice.

There's a mirror back by where I had my phone/camera.

My own notes…

• The swing at the end is marginally better. After I saw this, though, I began doing a bit more with the right shoulder/transition stuff.
• That stuff is still secondary to the main thing. I wasn't doing an awesome job of giving my elbow space at the top today. It was staying a bit too tight to me. Tighter than I want, anyway. Better, still, but not the absolute best I can do.
• The work I did after this with going to what feels like A3 and being fully cocked/hinged/folded to there, with space, and then working the right shoulder down from there was better than this filmed portion.

This isn't terrible:

Still shit to do, though, @mvmac. I'm 5% of the way there, maybe. MAYBE.

[mvmac]

6 hours ago, iacas said:

Still shit to do, though, @mvmac. I'm 5% of the way there, maybe. MAYBE.

I think it's better than you perceive it. Still new, not an easy piece to change but definitely on the right track with these rehearsals and feels. That last swing was noticeably different (good) compared to previous swings.

[iacas]

7 hours ago, mvmac said:

I think it's better than you perceive it.

Nah. Slow speed. Still steepens a tad in transition with the shoulder "thing."

Piece one might be at 15%, but combined… 5%.  LOT of work left.

7 hours ago, mvmac said:

Still new, not an easy piece to change but definitely on the right track with these rehearsals and feels. That last swing was noticeably different (good) compared to previous swings.

Yeah I'm feeling good about the direction this is going. Have hit a lot more out of the heel lately.