starting the downswing,......

[carpediem4300]

So im struggling to find the right feeling,.....I know it should start from the ground up,...i know the weight has to shift to my lead foot, i know the hips and shoulders shoulder turn in unison,....but i just cant get a decent feeling for it,....

When i do slow motion practice swings it just feels like im throwing the club way out in front of me and not hitting anywhere near the ground,.....and coming way inside on the follow through,.......

its almost as if when i fire the lower body, the top half just rotates horizontally,..

I've experimented with "feels" as often what i think im feeling is happening actually isnt,..and the closest ive got to a nice feeling swing lately is to pause at the top of the backswing and at the same time the lower body goes i feel like i am "muscling" my arms down towards the ball, which seems to go against what every instruction online i can find tells me i should feel,..

im guessing everyone feels something different but if i swing how ive interpreted it,...i feel like the bottom half doesnt correlate to the top half and they move in seperate ways :S

[RPMPIRE]

I've had problems sequencing my downswing. Sometimes I feel like my upper body outraces my lower body and vice versa when I tried remedying that. Either way I would come out of my stance at the finish with poor balance

I was reading a recent article on Golf Digest and it say what Bobby Jones felt (or said) is to take the club to the top and feel like it stays there throughout the entire swing. It helps to produce lag and prevents the OTT movement from casting.

I haven't tried it at the range but just doing a few practice swings with this swing thought and I was able to stay balance and was able to brush the ground continuously from wedge all the way to my 3 wood.

[Mr3Wiggle]

I focus on letting my hips unwind the upper half with no conscious effort to move anything in the upper half of my body...just let it do it's thing.  Since I restrict my hip turn on the way back and turn my left shoulder under my chin, my hips naturally are more open than my shoulders at impact.  During this unwinding I focus on maintaining my spine angle, which keeps the horizontal rotation you speak of from getting out of control.

[carpediem4300]

Thats the problem though, if i juat unwind my hips ots like my shoulders wont do anything but rotate horizontally :s

[Mr3Wiggle]

Originally Posted by carpediem4300

Thats the problem though, if i juat unwind my hips ots like my shoulders wont do anything but rotate horizontally :s

Keep that spine tilt from address intact.  It will drive your right shoulder a bit more under instead of out an around.  I practice this feel by maintaining an arched spine all the way through the swing.  It's probably not really arched, just feels that way.

[carpediem4300]

Hmm been doing a few practice swings in the garden to get the feeling (not same as hitting a ball i know) But the feeling of sliding the right shoulder my chin gets my a better feeling at impact position, hips open and shoulders slightly open Need to get to the range really lol

[Mr3Wiggle]

Originally Posted by carpediem4300

Hmm been doing a few practice swings in the garden to get the feeling (not same as hitting a ball i know)

But the feeling of sliding the right shoulder my chin gets my a better feeling at impact position, hips open and shoulders slightly open

Need to get to the range really lol

Yeah, give it a shot.  Another thing you can think about is trying to keep your back to the target for as long as possible while unwinding the hips.  Seems like an odd notion, but it helps me.

[carpediem4300]

Thanks bud, ill try it tomorrow One thing i noticed in tut garden was that if i pusjed the hips to far left the clubhead comes nowhere near the ground, which i presume would be chunksville :s

[xmanhockey7]

I focus on weight transfer which in turn leads to my hips doing what they're supposed to do. I feel like my weight goes from my right back heal over to the ball of my left big toe. I then feel the weight transfer across the balls of my feet all the way down to my little toe where the weight transfers to the outside of the foot and down back the my left heal where it is at impact. Read that in Golf Digest one time (Tiger) and helped my ball striking a lot. I find when I do that it causes me to do a lot of other things correctly in the swing.

[carpediem4300]

yeah deffo need to work on the weight shift,.......it just seems really hard not to throw the right shoulder out from the top and get it working down inside,

i can visibly see the club coming from the outside,...which is why i think i hold the clubface open alot

[mvmac]

Good thread to check out

http://thesandtrap.com/t/29616/the-biggest-secret-slide-your-hips

A good feel in general is to feel like you're squishing a bug under your left foot.  Left knee has to gain some flex to get the hips forward and allow you to use the ground for power.

[carpediem4300]

Thanks bud, will check it out later when not at work