My Swing (jshots)

[iacas]

Originally Posted by motteler621

Iacas just wondering what you thought about Ben Hogan teaching that the weight can favor the right heel on the backswing (Ive read it in Hogans Five lessons book). Also referenced here http://www.ehow.com/how_7357316_keep-balls-feet-during-swing.html

I think that it doesn't apply here - his setup had the weight well back into the heels, and because of it, his weight actually moved towards his toes at the top of his backswing.

Quick answer: feel ain't real (again) and the same article notes what Jack Nicklaus felt, and it's different than Hogan's feel. Neither was wrong because they were simply individualized feels.

Let's stick to the topic and not wander off it in jshots "My Swing" thread.

[jshots]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went to the range today and walked off with a huge smile. It was awesome. I worked on my balance, controlling my backswing, and keeping some distance from my body with my arms.

The difference was incredible. Now I just need to hit a few thousand more balls and I'll be good (err better)!  My good shots were extremely good while my bad ones were better than my bad ones of before. My balance was great in my finish.

Something interesting I was also getting a lot more distance. I've been hitting my 8 iron about 160 yards. Today I consistently hit it about 175 which is a huge increase. Any explanation for that? I thought I was losing power but 15 yards seems like a lot.

I am fitted for all of my clubs except my driver, I'm wondering what too flexible of a shaft will cause a ball to do as I have regular in my driver and stiff in all other clubs.

One other thing, what is supposed to be the difference between clubhead speeds. I took my speed measuring thing to the range today and clocked myself 3 times at 116 for a 7 iron, but my driver was only at 107, and other clubs below that. Could i have been clocking my balls speed?

[iacas]

Originally Posted by jshots

Something interesting I was also getting a lot more distance. I've been hitting my 8 iron about 160 yards. Today I consistently hit it about 175 which is a huge increase. Any explanation for that? I thought I was losing power but 15 yards seems like a lot.

Two. One: a longer swing is not always a faster swing. Overflex the right elbow and you'll tend to straighten it too quickly on the downswing, among other things. Two: energy spent in trying to maintain balance is energy you can't spend in swinging faster.

Originally Posted by jshots

One other thing, what is supposed to be the difference between clubhead speeds. I took my speed measuring thing to the range today and clocked myself 3 times at 116 for a 7 iron, but my driver was only at 107, and other clubs below that. Could i have been clocking my balls speed?

116 could be your ball speed with the 7-iron , and 107 could be the clubhead speed with a driver, but they aren't the same thing, and 117 is not your clubhead speed with a 7-iron and 107 is not your clubhead speed with a driver. No idea what you used to measure... but something's not right with those numbers.

If you truly hit your 8I 175 (I'm not so sure about that...), then a regular flex driver shaft is quite likely not the right one for you.

[jshots]

Originally Posted by iacas

116 could be your ball speed with the 7-iron, and 107 could be the clubhead speed with a driver, but they aren't the same thing, and 117 is not your clubhead speed with a 7-iron and 107 is not your clubhead speed with a driver. No idea what you used to measure... but something's not right with those numbers.

If you truly hit your 8I 175 (I'm not so sure about that...), then a regular flex driver shaft is quite likely not the right one for you.

Did you intend to say 107 is not your *ball speed* with a driver? That is sort of what I mean. I was fairly sure that 107 was my clubhead speed with a driver, but that certainly 117 couldn't have been my club speed with a 7 iron. I was surprised by the distance of my 8 iron but I am at 6000 feet of altitude and our driving range is a little bit down hill. There was no wind and the staff had the current range of the flag I was hitting at marked at 178 yards. I was actually clearing that flag by a few yards in the air. That also could be very inaccurate as I used to work there and got the feeling they never actually knew how far the flags were. Sadly here there is not really a good place to go see how far I hit my clubs and it almost has to be done out on the course, nonetheless I was still hitting my clubs A LOT further than I had been.

to be clear I was using a Swing Mate Speedmeter . I believe I was using it correctly but I honestly don't trust this tool all that much.

edit: after looking closer at that PGA TOUR Averages, I believe I'm probably a few mph behind the pga tour average. I also read that you should add about 10% distance for every 5000 feet of altitude. Assuming those averages are taken close to sea level then it would make sense that I hit my 8i around 175  if my clubhead speeds were slightly lower than those on that list.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by jshots

Did you intend to say 107 is not your *ball speed* with a driver?

Yes, sorry. 117 is not your clubhead speed with a 7I, 107 is not your ball speed with a driver. Not if you hit your 8I even 150 yards, let alone 175.

Originally Posted by jshots

That also could be very inaccurate as I used to work there and got the feeling they never actually knew how far the flags were. Sadly here there is not really a good place to go see how far I hit my clubs and it almost has to be done out on the course, nonetheless I was still hitting my clubs A LOT further than I had been.

You should borrow a laser sometime to get a better judge of your distances. But roger that on "hitting them farther than you had been." Kinda figured you would. Good stuff. Get some more video, high speed if you can, for the next pieces. Keep working at this for awhile though.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by iacas

You should borrow a laser sometime to get a better judge of your distances. But roger that on "hitting them farther than you had been." Kinda figured you would. Good stuff. Get some more video, high speed if you can, for the next pieces. Keep working at this for awhile though.

That's just one benefit of a laser rangefinder. Regardless of how your range or course is marked, you can be certain of the distance. It helps develop consistent tempo from day to day and can even help identify specific irons that need to be tweaked.

Sorry, end detour/

[jshots]

I took some more video today. I'm hoping I can find a way to get some higher speed video soon but here is what I have for now. As you can see and as I can certainly feel, my balance is much better and I can hold my finish as long as I like and for the most part I am hitting them absolutely great. Interestingly I'm taking much more shallow divots, and don't feel so bad for excavating the driving range every time I go. I still think I need some control on my backswing and still bend my left elbow on the downswing and other things.

[jshots]

Ok so this video here I just took earlier today. The quality and angle aren't great as I didn't have much room to work with and the range was full of people. This is my 3rd time at the range in the past 2 weeks (first time out for the year the last time I played was November). I am trying to get back to the swing and ball striking I had in the last video I posted last june as quickly as possible. Right now i'm not even willing to play a round due to my performance on the range.

right now it is looking grim, my average shot looks EXACTLY like the one below. Literally 7/10 are like this. Shanked over to the right. My other 3/10 are solid but are straight pulls. Those two flights would lead me to believe that I was cutting across the ball very severely or something, but It doesn't appear that I am.

Since the angle is bad I am not looking for much other than maybe something that is obviously wrong that i'm not catching, hopefully I can get some better video up here in a few weeks. It makes no sense. Even if I try to take a nice little half swing I get the same flight, with alllll of my irons.

[delav]

I've struggled with balance and recently, shanks as well.

One thing that Erik had mentioned at one point was the "tuck/clench" my butt through and after impact.  I've found that this helps me from coming "off of the wall" (see below) and transition strongly into a solid left heel post.  For me, this has improve my swing path on the way down and greatly reduced the "stuck" position that often leads to shanks.

Give it a try.  Visualize tucking your pelvis under your torso as you move into the ball.  From address, I've found it helpful to feel a slight contraction in my lower abdominal as well.

Good luck!

[jshots]

Thanks for that delav. I will try some of those thoughts tomorrow.

[jshots]

I need help! I took some video mostly of driver because I'm struggling so much with driver. I am confident that I am cutting across the ball because my misses are straight pulls, pull fades, and straight slices (I assume depending on my face angle), often very low launch with a 10.5 setup on the driver and 112 swing speed. For the life of me I cannot fix it, I hit them straight occasionally, but it is rare and when I think i have it figured out I really don't. Here is 1 video with several clips in it. Each swing has a regular speeds and slow motion. I still don't have any access to a higher speed camera sadly, so slow motion isn't the greatest.

Each swing explained in order that you see them:

Driver DTL 1 : This is typical of one of my better drives right now, ball starts slightly left of target line and fades.

Driver DTL 2 : This is my typical bad shot, a huge slice starting mostly on target.

Driver Caddie 1: This was similar ball flight to Driver DTL 2. Slice

Driver Caddie 2: This was similar flight to Driver DTL 1.

Iron DTL: I am hitting my Irons very well right now, but comments welcome.

Bonus: Shows just how godly i'm hitting my irons, you should probably watch this .

[Mordan]

That looks so similar to what I'm working on/struggling with at the moment.

Your left knee is extending too early in your down swing which is stalling your hip slide. See how your left heel comes off the ground just before impact? Mine does that too. We should still be driving down into the left leg at that point but instead are coming off the ground.

Your right heel is also coming up too early, allowing your right knee to go towards the ball instead of the target. Both of these combine to throw your swing path outwards especially with the longer clubs. For some reason it doesn't seem to be such a problem with the shorter clubs, like you I'm hitting my irons well.

[jshots]

The resurrection of my swing thread. Only 2450 days old!

I set a goal to break par on 18 holes before I turn 30 in September, which at this point seems kind of crazy. Hopefully posting in this thread regularly will help keep me on track. If you're reading this, let me know what you think!

Currently with my Irons, I'm making a lot of thin contact with misses both left and right.

 

 

 

Driver my misses are the straight ball slicing right.

 

 

 

My thoughts. My head moves down and forward a lot during my backswing. I suspect maybe I've developed this from trying to hit the ball really hard, I compress a lot towards the ball so I can JUMP away from it (see my left foot) to generate as much power as I can. I think this requires great timing which I have been able to achieve in the past so maybe this isn't something to worry so much about. Maybe I will try to see how my contact is by trying to stand taller through my backswing.

One of the things I notice with my bad contacts is the feeling of muscling the ball. I don't know how else to explain it but I can feel my arms tensing up through impact, especially my left bicep. What is the correct thing to do here? If at address my arms are straight, how do I get to a good impact position with that much left arm flex, it seems like it would be simpler to get to a good position without so much tension in my arms.

 

Edited April 10, 2019 by jshots

[Bo the Golfer]

I'm not sure if it's just my untrained eye but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of hip turn in your swing.

[jshots]

 

Worked mainly on driver today because it is giving me the most trouble (still frequently slicing the ball as well as  straight pulls), and I also started over speed training   with some DIY speed sticks I made.

I hit a few drivers to start with, averaging 107 mph with a peak of 113 mph. I went through the super speed training protocol #1. Came back to the driver and peaked at 118 mph, wtf. Continued to maintain 113 after that, so clearly I'm leaving some power on the table.

A feeling that was helping me get faster speed with the speed sticks as well as seemingly helping with straighter ball flight was to think about pushing my left shoulder up into the air as hard as I can by pushing away from the ground with my left foot. Activate the glutes ;).  It feels really good and looks good in the mirror when you do that in slow motion but is hard to translate into the swing.

Need to discover what is causing my slice tendency, seems like it would be an over the top move but it isn't super apparent to me here. One thing that I'm super uncomfortable with is my ball position, I don't ever feel like it is in the right place.

[jshots]

Here is the path of the butt of the club through impact. I'm going to experiment with dropping my hands more from the top.

[iacas]

You get closer to the golf ball and then have to bend your left elbow during the downswing to avoid sticking the club in the ground.

Sound and look about right?

[jshots]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

You get closer to the golf ball and then have to bend your left elbow during the downswing to avoid sticking the club in the ground.

Sound and look about right?

Yes I have taken some serious chunks out of the ground recently. If you look at page 1, you left nearly the same comment on my swing 7 years ago. Its definitely ingrained.

I don't feel unbalanced in my swing right now, so I hadn't really checked if my weight wandered back to my heels. But that was a big thing for me in the past and I'll make sure to double check that it is correct.

Also is it necessarily bad to get closer to the ball or just hard to be consistent? Or something specifically wrong with the way that I am doing it? For example DJ drops his head somewhat like mine at the same point, and then even more after that. Rory on the other hand drops his head almost none at that point, and then a ton right after the transition. Is there something specifically different they do that makes their moves more repeatable or is it just the many thousands of hours of reps?