My Swing (Ernest Jones)

[Ernest Jones]

Ughh, that is UGLY!! I don't like my left wrist at impact right now but I know I can get it back once I fix up this stupid head issue

[Beachcomber]

Let your head turn through impact.

[JetFan1983]

Originally Posted by Beachcomber

Let your head turn through impact.

Yea. I was gonna mention this earlier, but forgot to. There's no neck extension at all. Watch some pros and see their varying levels of neck extension around and post impact. I think it all has something to do with the spine staying in flexion a bit too much.

[Ernest Jones]

It starts to drift (drive) forward at P4++ onwards, pretty much in sync with my hips driving forward. Are you guys suggesting I should start to turn my head that early? Just doing some air swings here with no club and it feels as though I would end up looking at the ball out of my trailing eye at impact. Does that sound right???

A lot of things are getting outta whack with these attempts to change but I'll keep the faith that it will all be worth it long term.

[Ernest Jones]

Alright, I'm going to work on this after the kids go to bed. I just MacGyver'd a broomstick horizontally off of a book shelf with some bungee cords. I'll hit balls with the broomstick touching the side of my head and see if that helps me "get" it. Going to discard everything else for now and just try to get my stupid head to stay relatively still.

LOL, the wife walked by while I was doing a test swing with the contraption to check the height, she just shook her head and sighed as she kept on walking. She doesn't even ask anymore!

PS, the test swings were all very fat as indicated by the tape strips I lay behind the ball. With my old, crazyhead-all-over-the-place swing  I was getting good ball first contact. Sigh....

[Mordan]

Originally Posted by Ernest Jones

PS, the test swings were all very fat as indicated by the tape strips I lay behind the ball. With my old, crazyhead-all-over-the-place swing  I was getting good ball first contact. Sigh....

You're probably keeping your whole body back, thus moving the low point of your swing backwards, thus hitting it fat. You need to keep your head back while still letting your hips slide forward a bit.

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by Mordan

You're probably keeping your whole body back, thus moving the low point of your swing backwards, thus hitting it fat. You need to keep your head back while still letting your hips slide forward a bit.

Yeah, very frustrating. Gotta retrain myself...damnit...took me forever to consistently hit the ball first and now I'm trying to relearn how to do it without moving my head forward. The good news is there's a good 2 - 2 1/2 months of winter left before I can play golf anyway so I might as well spend some time in the ole' woodshed.

[Beachcomber]

Go to my swing thread and somewhere in there Erik mentions how my head was still looking down where the ball was, way past impact. I'm on my phone so it's difficult for me to link it.

[logman]

Originally Posted by Ernest Jones

Yeah, very frustrating. Gotta retrain myself...damnit...took me forever to consistently hit the ball first and now I'm trying to relearn how to do it without moving my head forward. The good news is there's a good 2 - 2 1/2 months of winter left before I can play golf anyway so I might as well spend some time in the ole' woodshed.

Geez 2 1/2 months of winter and you can't get outside to hit the ball. That's not right.

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by Beachcomber

Go to my swing thread and somewhere in there Erik mentions how my head was still looking down where the ball was, way past impact. I'm on my phone so it's difficult for me to link it.

My keys!! I dropped my keys! LOL, got it. I'm all mechanical when I swing now, very tight and crappy feeling. Can't wait to get this nailed so I can go back to just swinging. Hitting a lot of fat shots right now, not hugely fat but off a mat it's hard to say how bad it is...

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by logman

Geez 2 1/2 months of winter and you can't get outside to hit the ball. That's not right.

It does suck however, I would be absolutely miserable if I was working on this swing problem in the summer! Hopefully I can get it all sorted out and back in rythme before the snow clears. Don't really want to spend the golf season (short as it is) fatting my way around the course.

[Beachcomber]

I think you are over complicating the issues here... Your couped up inside... And have a cramped space to swing.  So go back to drills that you can get comfortable working inside - within confined spaces.

For instance, this video is good as it will help you with Key #1 - Steady Head - but also extensor action of the left arm - by the right hand grabbing the left.

My recommendation would be to do this drill for 5 minutes... Slow and deliberate.  Then swing the club for a few swings (filming as you have done) - directly after the wall drill.  Then see what you see... Rinse and repeat.  You will nail the steady head piece by doing this drill.

[Ernest Jones]

Got my head to be WAY more stable as of late, pretty much zero shift on the backswing, still coming forward a bit on the downswing but nowhere near as much as before.

I'll try to upload some video soon.

Thanks for your help Beach, its coming along.

[Beachcomber]

Originally Posted by Ernest Jones

Got my head to be WAY more stable as of late, pretty much zero shift on the backswing, still coming forward a bit on the downswing but nowhere near as much as before.

I'll try to upload some video soon.

Thanks for your help Beach, its coming along.

No worries 'bruda'.  I feel bad for you being couped up inside... The forecast for today... 70* and sunny.

The head shifting forward... Take a closer look at the pressure (weight) thread/video.  I think this really has helped me understand where the weight is during the swing, and should help with the pivot piece - which should ultimately help keep the head steady if done correctly.

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by Beachcomber

I feel bad for you being couped up inside... The forecast for today... 70* and sunny.

*Cough Cough* BASTARD *Cough Cough*

Yeah, practicing indoors with a low(ish) ceiling has been interesting. It'll be quite the transition the first time I make a full swing outdoors, probably completely whiff it LOL. Well this is the most practice, and most serious practice I've ever done on my golf swing, you could say that I've got the bug and I'm really looking forward to hitting some balls that go more than seven feet before hitting a sheet.

At the very least I've got the pitching (thanks Erik) down pat. Bounce 'effing rules!!

[Golfingdad]

I just love the fact that you turned your kids playroom into a practice station! :)

[Ernest Jones]

Alright, so the last images I uploaded were from Feb 10. Here are some screenshots from a Mar 12 swing. I don't have any cool software so I used the control bar to mark my head position and movement. I think it has improved, still drifts around a bit but nowhere near as drastic as before and I'm back to making decent ball first contact again.

Here I am at address

A4 drifted back a bit but I think it's probably tolerable for now

A5 (probably more like A5.2 or so)  Head has drifted forward but again, much less the previously

Impact - I'm pretty happy with the changes so far, could be better and needs to be better but at least it's changing.

I need to keep awareness of this issue or I'll revert back to the willy-nilly head movement but I think I'll start to apply more focus to my weight transfer. I think my weight transfer is not bad insofar as I always get to my front side (which wasn't always the case) but I think I can make a bigger shift.

A re-occuring issue for me is I always manage to hit a few slightly fat ones, by slight I mean maybe 3/4" behind the ball, just enough to catch the masking tape off of my mat with the trailing edge or bounce of the club. Doesn't happen often but I think getting my weight shift to be more aggressive (if I can keep my stupid head back!) will drastically cut down on these mishits.

Quick question, obviously when I hit  a shot 3/4" fat on a mat it has no discernable effect on the shot but can anyone tell me how bad this would turn out off of real turf? Is 3/4" playable or will it lose tons of distance?

I'll put up the video of this swing as soon as youtube is done doing its thing. It's a full speed video, sorry no slo-mo as I wanted to record a longer session and my Canon Elph will only record a couple of minutes at 240fps.

Here's the video, all comments welcome and appreciated:

[MS256]

How much a fat shot affects a shot off of a mat depends on your angle of attack. My angle of attack is so shallow that I can get away with ridiculously fat shots on a mat (or any hard surface) and barely even know that I am hitting it fat.

Once I get on grass (especially on wet ground) that same impact is fat enough to be a disaster. When I practice off of my mat at home I always also hit some balls off of the ground just to make sure I'm not grooving impacts that are not going to work on the course.