My Swing (Ernest Jones)

[Ernest Jones]

Backswing feel is pushing a bit with my lead hand mixed with a bit of straight arms. Kinda feels like I'm reaching. It's helping get the club to come up a little steeper.

Downswing is still just driving my lead shoulder up and back and let the club head fall back a bit to flatten out. I'm also trying to come into the "ball" at what feels like a 45* inside out path out to a point a foot past the ball. 

[Ernest Jones]

Just got back from the simulator. First time hitting balls in about 5 months. Spent half an hour on driving range mode.  Averaging around 3* inside out and when I can keep the face from being wide open I'm hitting beautiful push draws. When the face doesn't close I get big ole pushes, but mostly playable. Followed up with 9 holes and shot a 46, which I'll definitely take as a first round in ages. Gimmies set at 5' because the putting is horrible, but that kinda offsets the fact that the sim (at least this model) can't read short game shots very well. Lots of pitches hit the screen dead centre but the sim read it as way offline. A little frustrating, but way better than not playing golf!

[Ernest Jones]

Another decent sim round today. Shot a 45 with two shanks, two pull hooks into the woods and a pop up 90y drive. Otherwise, misses are mainly pull-draws or the occasional wide open block. Path is consistently outwards between 1.5* and 4*. Maybe this is the year I consistently break 100 with chances at sub 90 on good days. Here's hoping!

backswing = reaching feeling

downswing = exploding lead shoulder, make sure I finish all the way around.

When I don't fully finish the downswing piece, it's a block, when I do, it's either a perfect 5 yard push-draw or a pull-draw that finishes about 25-30 feet offline. Very playable but not if that block remains in the equation. Gonna have to eliminate either the block or the pull-draw, then I can manage my misses. 

[Ernest Jones]

First swing video of 2016!

All the practice I did without a ball really didn't move the picture as much as I had hoped...clubhead still sucks in on the BS more than I'd like, and I think my clubhead should be a bit more inside at A6. It would be nice to have seen the ball flight without a string tied to it.

I do feel like things are better though. Any comments are welcome.

Sorry about the excessive fidgeting and waggling in this one, I messed up my editing. The FO is quicker.

 

My head still drifts forward on the downswing too.

[iacas]

Two little things…

• No need to tilt your head so far right (FO) in setup. Just let it be in line with your spine, which is almost vertical (5-10° tilt from the hips being forward).
• Get a bit closer to the ball if you're comfortable and let your arms hang more. This will create more of an "angle" between your forearms and the shaft (technically a smaller angle, as in closer to 140° than 180° straight line… I guess I mean a "sharper" angle).

[Ernest Jones]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

Two little things…

• No need to tilt your head so far right (FO) in setup. Just let it be in line with your spine, which is almost vertical (5-10° tilt from the hips being forward).
• Get a bit closer to the ball if you're comfortable and let your arms hang more. This will create more of an "angle" between your forearms and the shaft (technically a smaller angle, as in closer to 140° than 180° straight line… I guess I mean a "sharper" angle).

OK. So aside from that, no major issues, just keep working in the same direction with what I've been doing?

I think I can address those two points fairly easily, they're static changes.

[iacas]

Right.

[Ernest Jones]

Just went in the backyard to try out @iacas's recommended tweaks. Hit the ground 4" behind the ball 3 times in a row.

FML

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Ernest Jones said:

Just went in the backyard to try out @iacas's recommended tweaks. Hit the ground 4" behind the ball 3 times in a row.

FML

Don't get TOO close. Just a little and lower your hands a bit.

[Ernest Jones]

First range session of 2016. Hit two buckets. First 20 balls or so I just swung with my feels and didn't make any adjustments as I wanted to establish some kind of baseline. Pretty much all pull draws which I definitely don't want to play, too much right to left.  As a former lifelong slicer, I ain't about to complain though!

Once I was pretty sure that any ball hit with that motion would start straight or slightly left and curve further left, I started experimenting with opening the face at address. I need to open it ~10* or so to get a playable push-draw, which was pretty consistent. This made the miss a push but most balls turned over and came back.  It's going to be hard to commit to opening up that much on the course but it's what I have to do for now. 

By the the second bucket I was getting a high percentage (>85%) of nice push-draws that found the target and the occasional blocks were something I can live with. Hopefully I can tighten this up a bit and not have to set-up quite so open, but I'll be happy if I can get consistent with this.  

Does anyone else here typically set-up in the 10* open range? 

Side note to self: exaggerating the feel of a straight right arm going back produced the best strikes by a long shot. Pure butter. 

[Ernest Jones]

Side note to self: exaggerating the feel of a straight right arm going back produced the best strikes by a long shot. Pure butter. 

 

Still slice the driver though. Might have to embrace the fade with that ****er. 

[14ledo81]

I've had times when I have had to open the face quite a bit to get decent start lines.  Doesn't seem to last though.

[iacas]

On April 24, 2016 at 6:17 PM, 14ledo81 said:

I've had times when I have had to open the face quite a bit to get decent start lines.  Doesn't seem to last though.

Yeah. You could also just aim your body left a little, @Ernest Jones. That'll take out some of the rightward path.

[Ernest Jones]

April 28 2016

Was over swinging at the range, coming up out of my posture a bit to complete the backswing. Too long, hands too high. Yuck. I succumbed to the siren song of a wide open range after a winter of practice swings and whiffle balls. Hit it harder! Hit it harder!

Anyways, a couple videos from this morning's practice. Easy enough to keep my backswing under control in the yard, another matter when I have a real ball and room to whack it out there. Still coming up a bit as I come to A4 but better. Trying not to let this distract me from my priority piece, but I know how ****ed up I get if my backswing ****s up my Key#1.

 

 

Some feel notes*

Try to feel a little more of a vertical reach going back, standing the club up faster so the backswing feels complete earlier. 

[Ernest Jones]

Can someone smarter than me explain how I can go from hitting 120 balls that all have hook spin in them last week to hitting 60 balls today that all had slice spin today???

Same set up, same feels. 

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Ernest Jones said:

Can someone smarter than me explain how I can go from hitting 120 balls that all have hook spin in them last week to hitting 60 balls today that all had slice spin. 

Yes.

[Ernest Jones]

Ok. I understand this much: the draw/hook spin came from an in-to-out path and the fade/slice spin came from an outside-to-in path. I'm just a little frustrated that my path can shift that much from one day to the next with the same set-up and feels. 

Still hitting the ball solid, but dammit, I need to have some inking of where it's going...

[iacas]

15 minutes ago, Ernest Jones said:

Ok. I understand this much: the draw/hook spin came from an in-to-out path and the fade/slice spin came from an outside-to-in path. I'm just a little frustrated that my path can shift that much from one day to the next with the same set-up and feels. 

Still hitting the ball solid, but dammit, I need to have some inking of where it's going...

Make slower shorter swings until the ball begins curving the way you want it to. Slowly lengthen it out.

Feels ain't real, and they can also vary day to day.