My Swing (bunkerputt)

[mvmac]

Grant's not really doing anything different with the head on the downswing.  I'm not sure who Grant was working with in the earlier swing.  Might have been right before he started working with Mac O'Grady

[bunkerputt]

That's a good point Mike.  I guess because he rocks back and then towards the target again on the transition it makes it look like his head is moving a lot.  Really he doesn't let it go past where it was at address.  I worked on swinging easy today, focusing on not letting my head move forward, but still trying to get hips moving forward.  It's uncomfortable, but not impossible.  It's not so much pain as a tightness and an impingement somewhere on the right side, making it tough to get the hips forward and open without the head moving along too.  Whole body open and forward is easy, hips alone forward, but pretty shut is easy, but forward and open is tough.  It starts off ok, but after a few balls everything starts tightening up.  That's usually a protective response....  Are the goals of this move keeping the swing arc bottom constant while shallowing out the club path (lowering the right shoulder)?  That's what it feels like is happening.  Can't hit it with any decent lag yet because I can't get in a rhythm with the move, but I'm working on it..

[bunkerputt]

Here's the latest with a smooth practice motion.  Better, right?  I did some stretches and got the back a little looser so I could pull this off.  I think I might be able to swing this way after all.  Still a lot of work to do, but it seems like I'm making progress here...  Apologies because somehow the video got rotated.

[bunkerputt]

Sneaky way to plug video editing features on youtube?  Fixed the rotation, no pun intended.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

Sneaky way to plug video editing features on youtube?  Fixed the rotation, no pun intended.

:-) Did you hit someone with your divot?

[bunkerputt]

Just my pregnant wife and her bowl of soup.  She had fair warning.

[mvmac]

Yes definitely better.  Recorded this yesterday to illustrate what I would like you to feel.  Both are exaggerations

[iacas]

Originally Posted by mvmac

Both are exaggerations

Liar.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by iacas

Liar.

lol I KNEW you were going to catch that

[bunkerputt]

Originally Posted by mvmac

Yes definitely better.  Recorded this yesterday to illustrate what I would like you to feel.  Both are exaggerations

So only try to feel the second one because I should already be feeling the first right? It looks like the ground leverage piece is what you are wanting me to work on some.  Is that right?  It definitely feels pretty stiff-legged right now.  Part of that is because I'm still moving pretty mechanically trying to just focus on keeping my head back and getting the hips forward.  It doesn't even feel half-way natural yet, so I'm giving it some time...for the back too because there are new and exciting (re. painful) muscles being used.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

So only try to feel the second one because I should already be feeling the first right?    It looks like the ground leverage piece is what you are wanting me to work on some.  Is that right?  It definitely feels pretty stiff-legged right now.  Part of that is because I'm still moving pretty mechanically trying to just focus on keeping my head back and getting the hips forward.  It doesn't even feel half-way natural yet, so I'm giving it some time...for the back too because there are new and exciting (re. painful) muscles being used.

Yeah the first one is just normal.  Second one will feel weird, going to also feel it in your glutes.  I like the idea of keeping the head centered and hips forward.  And remember legs straightening gets the pressure out of the lower back.

[bunkerputt]

Originally Posted by mvmac

And remember legs straightening gets the pressure out of the lower back.

I was skeptical about this at first.  I think I was fighting to maintain my shoulder/club orientation on the downswing, so it felt like I was just compressing my spine.  If I let the legs move the shoulders (that's what it feels like anyway), the pain disappears.  Specifically, if I jump between P6 and P7, the left shoulder gets cranked upwards and the pain is relieved.  Otherwise I'm in pain, flip it a hit a pull-hook.  It's going to take a little more work before it's video-ready, but does that sound right?

[bunkerputt]

Here's the latest.  Seems to be coming along and feeling much more natural.  I didn't post a down-the-line view so I'm curious what you guys think and if you see anything I need to work on.

[bunkerputt]

That DTL swing looks a little flippy to me, which is why I posted it.  I think I deceled a bit there.  Not sure what happened....  Something that happens when I hit in the yard and don't want to take a divot.  Compared with my sig, for example, when I'm in almost the same position and the club is still to the right of my body with the Hoganesque trapped look, the club exits low and left in the video instead of staying on the right side of my body until my arms come out around shoulder height.  Just something I noticed...  Backswing is a little slower than I would like which may cause some of the flippiness.  Still a little unnatural, so not trying to push it too quickly.

[mvmac]

That's awesome! Nice changes.  I can imagine how different that feels.  That's ok, means you're doing it right.  Now film some when you hitting shots

[bunkerputt]

Originally Posted by mvmac

That's awesome! Nice changes.  I can imagine how different that feels.  That's ok, means you're doing it right.  Now film some when you hitting shots

Thanks!  It's one of those things that at first you say, "This can't be right.", then you say, "I guess this is right", then you can't imagine hitting a ball without doing that.  As tough as it is, in a weird way, it's starting to feel easier to get down to the ball.  I hit a foam ball in the DTL view.  I know, still not quite real life, but it gives me a target to swing at.  I was going for the lamp post in the distance and hit the line and shot shape I wanted there.  Curious about your thoughts on the DTL view.  I've felt like I have to make a move down and inside some with the arms at the start of the downswing since I worked with that instructor earlier in the year to get my arms in front of my torso.  Most swings it produces a baby draw, but it can snap-hook the ball on occasion.  This weekend I hit 9 fairways (13 including first cut), but the one I missed, I missed bad.  Humongous push-hook that went left into a creek maybe 160 out.  Ugly shot that led to a snowman.  I'm looking for whatever causes that shot and then killing it immediately.  It feels like it might be simpler to get the hands deeper and fold the rt. elbow more and then maintain my arms relation to my torso until it unwinds automatically somewhere around P5 (do you guys call this "maintaining armpit pressure points"?).  That feels like it would be easy to accomplish consistently.  The arm drop feels like timing to me and getting my arms in the right place in front of my torso absent of pressure feedback feels like the  wrong direction to take, but I need someone to confirm this is an issue causing inconsistency.

[bunkerputt]

I should point out, the reason I'm suspecting the arm drop causing the hooks is because if I focus on maintaining what little pressure I create with my arms against my torso longer into the downswing, I can hit baby fades pretty consistently.  My suspicion is that I am dropping down onto the plane or below the plane or extremely below, depending on timing for my "stock" shot.  Maintaining the arm/torso connection longer gets the club moving over the top some, since I didn't get flat enough on the backswing to begin with.

[bunkerputt]

No swing updates yet, just chronicling my progress with the stack-and-tilt pattern changes so that I can refer to my thoughts later.  Club is exiting much higher now that I key the downswing on knee motion.  With the irons, from the top, I focus on getting the left knee moving down and towards the target while keeping the head back.  Then it pretty much feels like I'm simply jumping and lifting the handle for the remainder of the downswing.  More power = more "down" in the transition, i.e. sink a little more into the ground and then jump a little more.  Irons are coming along nicely and it's really easy to control the trajectory by simply jumping more or less, swinging easier, jumping less for the low shots and vice versa for the high ones.  The driver gave me fits for a while, but I think I'm starting to get the swing feels for it.  Slightly wider stance than with the irons, not nearly as wide as before.  Key for me with the driver is instead of the emphasis moving the knee down, focus on moving the lower body forward as much as possible to increase the secondary axis tilt.  Ball flight is tending towards slight push-fade with the irons and straight-draw with the driver.  I thought I would lose some distance with the driver, but my launch monitor numbers are way better, even swinging slower.  307/326 average carry/total with less club head speed than I had before.  Driving efficiency is getting pretty close to maxed out.  I still feels like I'm swinging pretty slowly, maybe 3rd gear or so.  I picked up maybe 35 yards or so, which as far as hitting fairways was concerned kind of felt like drinking from a firehose and made me lose a lot of balls for a while.  I never really thought about myself as a short hitter up to now, but in retrospect, my former 270 average carry was pretty short for my size, height and strength.  These new mechanics give me very concrete keys to immediately know whether I'm in the right positions or not.  There was a lot of guesswork before, but there seems to be less and less of it nowadays.  Still on somewhat of a hiatus with nightly drills and periodically checking ball flight out at the range and on the launch monitor, but excited about 2012!  It's getting more and more solid every day.  Can't wait to post some video.