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"5 Minutes Daily" Practice Challenge 1 2 3 4 1037
By iacas, in Instruction and Playing Tips
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By ConorHealy · Posted
Day 53: 2026.03.02 Easy swings in the garden working on raising right arm in backswing. -
Just some clarifications. Something to try out. It is something Rory does. He extends his left knee, which closes his hips a bit, but it also shifts him right. It was something we were trying. It could help be a trigger for the backswing and get me shifted right. Also help with my left knee flexion. More focus on this^. I have to nail this, or the downswing will just be dead. Less of this^ Got clarification from @iacas that the numbers might be over what they actually are. So, this was much closer to A or A- rather than like B or B-. Something to keep an eye on, but much better now. Anything associated with me overturning/swinging needs to be monitored, lol. Focus on this^ Drills. Slam the medicine ball down and behind me. Going to search Amazon for a soft medicine ball I can throw. With it being like 5lbs, it is not that physically demanding. It definitely gets the feeling of how to throw the club down behind you with the arms. Staying tall, similar to the medicine ball, but swing the club down hitting the ground way behind the ball. Not 100%, but don't be afraid to thump the ground. Not much of drills for the left leg. Just a lot sooner. Because I have tons of knee bend going from A3 to A5, it is probably going to feel like I don't load the left leg that much but just extend it. Might incorporate some medicine ball exercises for this. On a side note, I been thinking of this since the last lesson (January). The final swing for me is going to probably feel superfast/quick. I went and looked at an older GEARS swing. The backswing was like 1.3 seconds, and total time of 1.6 seconds. A long backswing, a quickish downswing (0.3-ish seconds). A 4.4 to 1 tempo (PGA Tour is 3:1) On the swings where I was doing the downswing stuff on Sunday. It went to 1.4 seconds (13% reduction), and the downswing went to 1.1 seconds (15.2% reduction). A 3.9 tempo. Getting closer to 3:1. I could tell the swing was going to be shorter/quicker when the torso turn runs up against hips that restrict the turn. Especially when I do the right arm stuff much better. It was like, "Oh crap, I stopped turning". If my swing was closer to PGA tour averages, 0.75 second backswing and 0.25 second downswing. That is about 30% quicker than the baseline swing. Which will probably feel like 50% quicker. I might play around with a metronome. Just so I can get use to how fast I have to do this. I may need to speed up the right arm stuff. Not going to try that now, just maybe for later. -
Wow - 3042 days old thread. Oh well. Full swing time and some history. I started playing in April 1990, so am now up to nearly 36 years playing. My handicap now is the same as it was 9 years ago when I started this thread. I took lessons when I was a kid with the pro at my club. He was a very good player, Scottish guy who was quite to the point. For example, one day I was slicing my driver. He watched me for a little bit and then grabbed the club off me, told me to move, teed one up and pounded it arrow straight, handed me back the club and said "well it's obviously not the club's fault". I worked with him for a couple of years, then he got the head pro job at a club in another county, so had to find a new one. My first handicap was summer of 1990 and was a 35. Then year-end handicaps were 1990 - 25, 1991 - 14, Started working with a guy at a local driving range who was at the time pretty cutting edge with a camcorder and video and so on. I got better. He coached the county team once a week and was quite a technical guy, which fits my way of thinking. Year-end handicaps continued at 1992 - 7, 1993 - 5, 1994 - 6, 1995 - 5, ran into my first coach at an event he was playing in. He asked me what my handicap was. I said 5. He said "it's too high. Get it down". He was right too. 1996 - 4, 1997 - 2. 1998 summer I was 1, then started working full time and taking my mind off golf a bit actually helped and I got to scratch in 2000. My best on the old UK system was +0.5, which I got to in late summer 2001. Then the wheels fell off. My new coach had moved on too and I was without help. Really struggled with my driving. Got a little yippy thing going on and I managed to go from +0.5 to 1.9 in 27 rounds, which means missing the buffer zone 24 times in 27 rounds. Languished around 2 or 3 for a good long while and didn't have access to a coach I trusted. Moved to the US (NYC) in 2007. Didn't really play much for a year or so, then figured out the Bethpage grind and played more. I got a little better again and then I saw a video of my swing while I was down in Florida I think from down the line. I saw myself take it back in what looked like a reasonable fashion (to my untrained eye) and then I started down by opening my shoulders up, which pitched my club out and steep and made me cut across it. That looked like a pretty clear explanation as to why I was struggling with a slice. So I tried a few things and one of them that I tried was taking it back inside. I'd take it back inside and across the line and then when I opened up my shoulders from the top, it was shifting the club back to in line so my swing path got to more like maybe 2-3 degrees left rather than 12-15 or so (I'm estimating, but it must have been a lot). Did that for 5-6 years or so and then finally settled on a long term instructor with whom I am still working. He has had me working on several things - a lot of them to do with my lower half and I have got a lot better. My handicap is about the same, but I play less frequently and my scores are almost all tournament scores rather than a lot of going out with my friends, no pressure stuff. Anyway, one of the things that we have also worked on quite a lot is not getting myself inside and then across the line at the top. We've worked on that at various times and while I manage to get the lower half stuff changed, I struggle to fix the arms motion. I think, at least in part, the issue is that I don't understand what I need to do to stop myself from opening up the shoulders and pitching the club out. If they club is behind me then pitching it out brings it back roughly to where it should be. I academically am aware that it's not ideal, but I don't know what I should be doing at that point and I think subconsciously I'm fighting moving in the right way on the backswing because I'm worried about what will happen with my downswing. Then recently I got a skillest lesson with @iacas and he told me I need to lift my trail arm on the way back. I've been actually lowering it, so it's bringing my right humerus down towards my shirt seam rather than up and away from it. He actually just released a video about this exact thing this morning here: So this is what I'm working on. I had a qualifying thing this weekend just past so I didn't want to do too much work on this right before that, but now have a month or so until I have to hit a ball in anger, so I'm going to work on this properly. Below is a latest video of me, both DTL and FO. This is after I got the initial lesson from Erik to see if I am on the right track. Still have a ways to go, but you can see on the DTL portion the way that the club is pitching outwards about half way down between P5 and P6. That's what worries me and I think is the mental block that I have to doing the raising the arms move properly. I can make a practice swing in slow motion with the arms raising (will post video of me attempting this soon), but if I look down at the ball when I make that practice swing and then swing down, I can see the very out to in swing path. Will document progress in here. Played 62 holes in about 50 hours over the past three days in wind, rain, and mud, so I'm quite broken. Going to take a day or two to recover and then work on the backswing more. -
By Archie Bunker · Posted
Had quite a few near misses at this event in the past, but this one's gotta sting and leave scars. Had his whole family there including his brother flying in from Ireland to celebrate. Instead they got to witness a meltdown. Painful day for the Lowerys. -
Lowry is such a choker.....up 3 shots with 4 holes to play. I think he is 1/6 now when sleeping on a 54 hole lead.
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