My Swing (Ernest Jones)

[Jakester23]

You could always buy an extra token and use it when they are close. Dishonest maybe but if your a respectful of the range no one would even know.

[Ernest Jones]

Gonna buy a new house with a big ass garage and install a p3p sim. **** the man, lol.

[iacas]

Just buy extras every time you go there. Or just buy two or three and then promptly leave with them. :-)

[Ernest Jones]

Just buy extras every time you go there. Or just buy two or three and then promptly leave with them. :-)

I'm going to try to have a chat with the owner. I'm sure we can make some kind of arrangement. The driving range doesn't exactly do booming business, I can't believe he'd really want to turn away early morning customers. If he's worried about vandalism, I can't see how refusing clientele addresses that. Hell, the building the employee sits in doesn't even have windows that face the range. :doh:

[Ernest Jones]

Discovered something new and wanted to get some thoughts. For the longest time I've been trying to permanently change my key#4. Mostly I have focused on how to get the clubhead inside the hands at A6. Last night I started thinking about it the other way, and this was brought on by @iacas 's comment about needing to get the lead arm OUT farther on the downswing. So I decided to try to get my hands outside of the clubhead rather than getting the clubhead inside the hands. So I made some swings where I would feel my hips driving towards 1st base rather than down my toeline. I must have made about twenty swings with and without a ball. Every single time I got the clubhead inside!

I switched back in forth between down the toeline drive and diagonal out to first base drive so I could really isolate the different feels that accompanied the motion.

Here's two swings with the toeline drive, both come OTT.

And here's two swings with the diagonal drive, both inside approaches.

Now I think this is good. It's not great, but it's easy to do relatively speaking and has dramatic effect. It's not something that requires a lot of focus so I think if I just do this while adding the shoulder speed piece and keep working on getting the lead arm OUT farther I could really be onto something. Last week I was seeing good results by working that arm outwards more but would still come a little OTT on about a 1/3 of my swings. Adding this piece seems like it just facilitates getting the swing OUT past the clubhead which makes the club head want to lag behind and come from the inside. The A5 in these is still too steep but that should improve with the lead arm out piece which will get that shaft laying down earlier and make everything else easier.

Any thoughts?

[boogielicious]

To me, it looked like in the lower video you kept your right elbow lower and more forward on the DS, which in effect flattened the shaft and kept the elbow from getting stuck behind.  The hips didn't look all that different.  Maybe from face on we would have seen more weight forward.

I work on this constantly because I have a similar issue. Erik mentioned something similar for me that weight forward really helps Key 4 work. Stephan as well in my Evolvr lessons.  The drill in my thread, post #89 , works on this.  I have to feel like I am exaggerating each piece to get it to work. This includes getting the lead arm out further.  They're all linked. Weight forward helps keep the right elbow out in front and pushes the lead arm out more which flattens the shaft from A5 to 6 which keeps the club head inside the hands.

Sometimes on the course I revert and it frustrates the piss out of me. But going back to basics lets me recover.

[Ernest Jones]

To me, it looked like in the lower video you kept your right elbow lower and more forward on the DS, which in effect flattened the shaft and kept the elbow from getting stuck behind.  The hips didn't look all that different.  Maybe from face on we would have seen more weight forward.   I work on this constantly because I have a similar issue. Erik mentioned something similar for me that weight forward really helps Key 4 work. Stephan as well in my Evolvr lessons.  The drill in my thread, [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/t/75473/my-swing-boogielicious/72#post_1140137]post #89[/URL], works on this.  I have to feel like I am exaggerating each piece to get it to work. This includes getting the lead arm out further.  They're all linked. Weight forward helps keep the right elbow out in front and pushes the lead arm out more which flattens the shaft from A5 to 6 which keeps the club head inside the hands. Sometimes on the course I revert and it frustrates the piss out of me. But going back to basics lets me recover.

Yeah, just seemed to really help "keep everything out in front of the club head". Main priority stays the same, a lot of aggressive shoulder move and working the lead arm out. This is just a feel that seems to tie in well with the shoulder piece. I always get too much of either UP, too much BACK or too much FORWARD. I think what I'm feeling in these "diagonal" driving motions is a better blend of UP,FORWARD and BACK. Soulders look like they might be a tad "tippy" but I think that will clean up with a little more left arm out drive. Mostly I'm just happy that the club seems to have no choice but come to from the inside because "I staying out in front of it" for lack of better terminology. Thanks for taking the time to look.

[Ernest Jones]

New video. More "arm out feel" and shoulder up and back. Still not great, but still very much inside-out.:smartass: [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/123003/] [/URL] [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/123004/] [/URL] [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/123005/] [/URL] [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/123006/] [/URL] All in all, I think I'm on a good track with this stuff now. I definitely need to get more weight forward but I think my DSP is really starting to gel. I've backed off from "diagonal hip drive" feel I was talking about in the previous posts, I think it gets me too stuck on the downswing whereas I need to get my lead arm out more not less. Gonna need to do something about key#2 though. I think that'll improve by nailing that shoulder piece, but I really have difficulty working on both pieces due to my hamster brain. :-P

[Ernest Jones]

Geeked out last night and watched Zach Johnson swing an iron DTL over and over again, focusing on what his shoulders do in transition. He really gets that lead arm out nicely, buts it's definitely his lead shoulder that initiates the upper body move. Looped it over and over and then watched it side by side with mine. I'm close but I can be even more aggressive. Lead arm OUT is starting to feel a little more natural, next session I'm going to focus more on shoulder move and see if the " lead arm out" sticks or not.

[Ernest Jones]

So based on my current swing, it looks like I need to open my face a bit from wedge up to 9 iron. Open up my face a bit more from 8i to 5i. Basically square for hybrids and a touch closed for 3w. Forget driver for now. Anyone else see a similar pattern with how they address the ball through their set? My misses are either straight hooks/draws with higher lofted clubs and pushes with lower lofted clubs. I guess shaft length is affecting my closure rates? Less of an issue with wedges and 9i because the loft negates a lot of the side spin.

[iacas]

So based on my current swing, it looks like I need to open my face a bit from wedge up to 9 iron. Open up my face a bit more from 8i to 5i. Basically square for hybrids and a touch closed for 3w. Forget driver for now.

Do you move the ball forward in your stance as you move to longer clubs?

[Ernest Jones]

Yes, at least that's my intention, I could be fooling myself though. I play 3w and hybrids up by my left heel and short irons/ wedges just forward of centre I guess? Everything else is about halfway between centre and left heel. I'll try to take note of that next session.

[Ernest Jones]

Yes, at least that's my intention, I could be fooling myself though. I play 3w and hybrids up by my left heel and short irons/ wedges just forward of centre I guess? Everything else is about halfway between centre and left heel. I'll try to take note of that next session.

I think I'll rig up some kind of yardstick and mark ball positions starting from just left of centre and just stack up a line of balls outlines. Pretty sure they sell something like that, but I probably just draw/make one.

Something like this perhaps -  OOOOOOO - just to make sure what I am "seeing" as the ball position is actually what I am doing.

My feel for having a little axis tilt at setup is a little weight forward and head a little behind the ball. That may be messing with my perception of ball position a little? It seems to close my shoulders a little bit too, which probably isn't terrible seeing as I need to come from the inside anyway.

[saevel25]

Something like this perhaps -  OOOOOOO - just to make sure what I am "seeing" as the ball position is actually what I am doing.

My feel for having a little axis tilt at setup is a little weight forward and head a little behind the ball. That may be messing with my perception of ball position a little? It seems to close my shoulders a little bit too, which probably isn't terrible seeing as I need to come from the inside anyway.

I think it can be that whole train yourself, or trust you are aligned right.

This is why I like putting the clubhead behind the ball first, then aligning myself to the clubhead. I can keep my left foot there for the driver or I can move it for shorter clubs. Makes really easy to make sure the ball is in a good spot in the stance.

I think using a yard stick or alignment rod is a good idea. It can help make sure you are moving your right foot correctly to stay square.

Just make it part of your practice routine. Every time you go up to the ball to hit it, go through your set up routine. This way you get some freebie practice.

[Ernest Jones]

3 weeks since I last played golf, but I've been practicing a lot. Not always getting the shaft to lay down as much as I'd like, but I've been pretty consistent with getting the club head inside the hands at A6 and I guess that's more important as it's closer to impact. Lot of hooking on the range, but if I can consistently do that every time I just need to open up the face to start it further right and reduce the differential between path and face.

[Ernest Jones]

Now if only I could find some time to actually play golf...

[rharrison]

So here's a little sample of my practicing, trying to groove an inside approach, mostly by trying to swing over a spot outside of my target line. Mega push, but I don't care, just want to work on getting that inside approach to be reliable. Camera angle sucks, but it was windy as ****. Actually, my phone tipped forward from a gust around the 0:30 to 1:30 mark and then tipped back again from another gust so I edited it out.

Here's a range swing using the same feels and thoughts as my practice. Clubface control is shitty. BS too long for me, ****s up my key 1. Weight shift is sloppy too. For the most part I'm getting good contact and great trajectory (vertically speaking) but keys 4 and 5 are erratic as heck. I thinking that eliminating that last bit of arm travel to A4 will help a little...

Where did you get the little hit pad with the elastic golf ball?

[Ernest Jones]

Where did you get the little hit pad with the elastic golf ball?

I made it, it's just a wiffle ball tied with a long piece of string. The pad is a cheap Callaway "Launchpad" golf mat.