Suggestions for a practice routine for a high handicapper working of swing fundamentals

[Lizzyboy]

I'm working on getting my swing fundamentals.

My take away is good but my downswing needs work.

ie weigh shift to the left, not lagging the club, coming over the top, chicken wing.

I try and work on one thing at a time at the range.

At the moment I'm working on shifting my weight and droping the club from the inside.

I'm thinking I should be doing 10 minute exercises at home on some of the other important  issues

ie turning on my spine (what else?)  just to keep myself aware of the proper movements.

Any suggestions on what are the most important areas I should focus on and a good daily routine?

Am I on the right track or is there a better way of doing it?

I need advice from people who have been there and learned how to practice intelligently.

Thanks for the time.

[Adam Young]

Sounds a good idea. look for cause and effect though. Sounds to me like your swing path is going left - usually with this a player will try to open the face up through impact to stop it going left - bingo, chicken wing. Also, a left swing path tends to be steeper, so your body will instinctively try and shallow out impact by losing lag and going backwards - there are your other two faults.

So instead of trying to fix the chicken wing, lag and weight shift, see them as symptoms of the real cause - the club is swinging too much to the left through impact. Solve this and most of the symptoms will go away. sounds like your plan of shallowing the club and shifting forwards will help you a lot. The things I would work on if i were you

• mechanically - at home you could work on the feeling of keeping the hips more closed as they slide forwards during your weight shift in the downswing. make a practice swing without a club where your butt is against a wall. As you turn in the backswing, your right butt cheek should touch the wall. To start your downswing, feel as though the right buttcheek glides forwards against the wall (rather than coming off it early). now your weight will be on your left foot but your body will be more closed - perfect positioning to attack the ball from the inside with a better path.
• as a supplement to this, you could also feel like your hands hit the wall behind you as you start the downswng - rather than going further away from them. It's a little dramatic but good to get the opposite feeling for what you actually do
• feel wise - feel as though you are swinging more ot the right. Practice hitting some divots to the right, or feel like you are throwing the club to the right in your downswing. This should be done in the practice swing without a ball.
• on the range - start by chipping balls to the right - about 10-15 degrees right. Make sure the club is travelling to the right through impact. as you progress to more speed, the ball should start drawing back in - but if it doesnt, strenghten your grip (turn hands more right on the club) and/or release the club better (rotate it through impact like a table tennis topspin shot).
• once you have found out how to draw the ball in this way (all tat is needed is a swing path that is to the right and a face that is closed to that path) then work on calibrating in between.

By this point, lots of your symptoms will have gone. But trust me, if you are trying to just shift your weight forwards and maintain lag and not chicken wing without changing your path you will be fighting a losing battle. It is possible - but the ball will come out as low as hell, and left. Focus on the path changes through the things i have said here.

[Lizzyboy]

This is excellent advice.

Your approach makes a lot of sense.

I went to the range today and tried feeling like I was hitting to the right

and a few times I hit a nice fade right on the sweet spot.

Next time I will video myself and see if many of my symptoms have lessened when I do this.

I appreciate the advice I will give your ideas a try.

If you have any other general advice to make the learning process more productive I would be certainly interested.

Being new at this, its easy to get side tracked and not focus on the most important things.

Thanks again.