My Swing (Stewie007)

[Stewie007]

Ello. Went to the range today to work on my game. Unfortunately my tripod is missing a part so I had my wife help me out. The angle isn't from exactly right behind, but I think its good enough. A few weeks ago I stopped trying to do the Palmer and went to something more "conservative."

Of course, when I look at it on camera I noted that I am tending to take it back a bit further in the backswing than what seems normal, but it seemed to work just fine. It was bloody windy today, too. So I included 2 videos, #1 is the driver, and #2 is an iron.

[tristanhilton85]

It's kind of hard to tell with the angle that the video is shot at... you're better off re-recording with a true down the line shot and maybe also include a face on shot.

[mvmac]

I'd recommend practicing with tees under your arms(in your pits) and make 3/4 swings.  This will shorten the arm swing, help with consistency.  Another good drill is this one with the alignment stick just outside your shoulders

[Stewie007]

I think the extra travel is related to some back pain I've been experiencing... Its strange because I wasn't doing that just the other day. However, I am sure that the overall mechanics are the same, with maybe a few differences, but nothing major.

I'll see if I can give your suggestions a try.

I'd also like to know what folks think overall of my swing in general. Anything overly weird about it?

[BIGTRUFFLE]

That is definitely not a swing of a 31 handicapper. Do you seem to hit a left to right shaped shot most of the time with the occasional pull?

[Stewie007]

  BIGTRUFFLE said:

Originally Posted by BIGTRUFFLE

That is definitely not a swing of a 31 handicapper. Do you seem to hit a left to right shaped shot most of the time with the occasional pull?

I tend to have a bit of a left to right, yes. Very rarely will I hook a shot, and most of my slices are purely slices rather than rightward travel followed by a slice. I seem to swing straight through the ball but my club face is a bit open. I have a feeling that I'm addressing the ball with a slightly open face. I also have trouble figuring out just where to stand over the ball, so maybe that is resulting in my hitting the ball before I am square, resulting again in a slice.

[BIGTRUFFLE]

Ok the rare hooks are a good signal! However there are a few faults that need to be fixed. The easiest one to solve is probably your reverse pivot.  This means that during backswing the right knee raises out of the bent posture, causing the right hip to move up rather than rotate > This causes a loss of rotational energy and consequently a reverse pivot. The hands gets trapped behind the body at impact because of this and it can lead to all the problems you have been naming. Remember, that the more you move out of the position at address on the backswing, the more you will have to move back into position on the downswing, and because the downswing happens in less than 1/4 of a second it is much more difficult to return to the correct position after making all them different movements. To get rid of this you need to retain a strong right leg position on the backswing. In other words try not to move your right knee. Take a look at Ernie Els' swing. He would be a good role model for you as you seem to have the stature and tall build. Notice how relatively little his right knee moves on the backwing?

Would you be able to post a video of face on? I believe there to be a few mistakes in the set-up that can be the route cause of your problems.

[iacas]

BigTruffle, first off, welcome to the site. Glad to have you.

Second, terms like "reverse pivot" have a fairly well established definition. Part of that definition is "weight goes backwards during the downswing," and that doesn't happen at all in Stewie's swing. So that's a non-starter: he flat out doesn't have a reverse pivot.

Third, I disagree that the right hip doesn't move upwards in the backswing. The hips are set on an inclined plane, and if they're to turn in a circle, the right hip will move up as well as "back" or "in" (whichever you want to call it).

The right knee will straighten. For more on my thoughts on that, and the thoughts of others, I invite you to check out this thread .

[Stewie007]

Hopefully later this week or maybe next weekend (more likely) I can update this with some better angles.

Although, I wish I had a better camera that could take slow motion shots. Either that or my camera already can and I just don't know how to set it.

The gist I get from watching Ernie's swing is not so much his knee movement, but the maintenance of the angle of his wrist through the downswing. In my downswing, as far as I can tell I am not maintaining my wrist angles as well as I should be, and perhaps this is causing a slight early release that is causing me to slice the ball? I've been working on better maintaining my wrist angles, but perhaps I'm losing it a little?

Does this sound reasonable, or am I over analyzing? What do you think?

[mvmac]

  Stewie007 said:

Originally Posted by Stewie007

Hopefully later this week or maybe next weekend (more likely) I can update this with some better angles.

Although, I wish I had a better camera that could take slow motion shots. Either that or my camera already can and I just don't know how to set it.

The gist I get from watching Ernie's swing is not so much his knee movement, but the maintenance of the angle of his wrist through the downswing. In my downswing, as far as I can tell I am not maintaining my wrist angles as well as I should be, and perhaps this is causing a slight early release that is causing me to slice the ball? I've been working on better maintaining my wrist angles, but perhaps I'm losing it a little?

Does this sound reasonable, or am I over analyzing? What do you think?

Yes I would agree, losing angle of the right wrist is causing you to slice it.  Unfortunately "holding" it won't help either.  Like I said tees under the arms so the arms can work with the pivot, swing on the incline plane.

[Stewie007]

I'll probably forget the tees (I'll try not to hehe), but I'm going to see what I can do this coming weekend.

My only problem is I could never seem to comfortably swing on the plane that is "correct." I suppose as I repeat it and get used to it that will no longer be the case. :)

Edit: I should note, though, that these swings here were the ones that produced straight shots..... *scratches head* Perhaps I have developed a bad habit to compensate....

[mvmac]

  Stewie007 said:

Originally Posted by Stewie007

My only problem is I could never seem to comfortably swing on the plane that is "correct." I suppose as I repeat it and get used to it that will no longer be the case. :)

Don't worry as much about trying to get your club on plane but trying to get your body to work on a circle around your body

[Stewie007]

Thinking of what you said, I took a closer look at the driver swing.

In viewing the over extension in the back swing I can see that has pulled my hips out further and overall I think that is really screwing around with the rest of the swing as the hip motion and rotation will be out of synch. In other words, When the hips slide to the left slightly the rotation will be lagging and to correct I will come into impact a bit open leading to an unintentional fade or worse a slice. It also seems to me that because of all of this I am not ending up in the follow through in the manner that you speak of.

Does this seem logical to you?

The one on the left is the "top" of the backswing, and the one on the right is the same swing but where I think it should have ended.

[Stewie007]

I went back to the range today to see if I could repeat last week's somewhat decent performance and by god it was awful... I felt weak. My knees, arms, and hands were shaking... I suppose I haven't fully recovered from Chemo, or I burned myself out at work and now I'm paying for going all in too early. :( So maybe Sunday I will go back and try again and I'll have some updated videos.

[bunkerputt]

I'm really impressed with your ability to return to your address position at impact.  Have you tried setting up in a more proper impact-fix location and then letting your instincts get you back there?

[Stewie007]

Clarify what you mean by impact fix :)

It might be the key to getting back to hitting 'er straight as an arrow. My current problems feel like they're linked very much so to where I set-up at address. I can't figure it out.

[mdl]

You say you tend to hit "pure" fades/slices, rather than the ball starting right and slicing.  By "pure" I suppose that you mean the ball either starts straight or left and then fades/slices?  You also say you think that your problem is failing to get the club faced closed.  Those two things can not both be true.  Read the ball flights laws thread (search for ball flight laws on the forum).

The face angle at impact is responsible for 85-90% of the direction the ball starts.  That means that if your ball flight is starting straight or a bit left, then your face is square to closed, relative to the target line, at impact.  If it's then moving right, that means your swing path is out-to-in relative to the face angle at impact.  So if your ball is starting straight then fading slightly, then your face is square to the target line and your swing path is slightly out-to-in.  If your ball is starting left and then slicing hard, it means your face is slightly closed to the target line at impact and your swing path is significantly out-to-in.

I'm not swing analysis master, especially without slo-mo and a video angle directly down the line, so I won't say anything else other than that your swing seems better than a 31 HC.  Looks to me like you could just play your fade with that swing and shoot significantly better than triple digits as long as you don't have the worst short game and putting of all time.

[Stewie007]

Sooner or later I'll get a high speed camera and take some better videos.

In the mean time, I completely lost it this past weekend. I couldn't duplicate anything and it was abnormal to say the least. Hitting the ground hard, awful ball striking resulting in worm burners galore.... It was nuts. Hopefully this weekend it'll be back to the usual and I can count that as an aberration. Most of the time, its a moderate slice, but not usually very severe. Most often it starts out straight and move right.

The funny thing is, when I aim left to play the slice, I wind up hitting it straight..... I would be slicing all day and then I just give up and try to play it and a whopper of a drive goes sailing out of bounds... Last time it happened I just had to laugh. It was the best drive all day, except the only one I aimed left.