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Posted
Haha ... No legal action, just be honest when you stop practicing well and they'll just repossess the badge .

Constantine

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Posted

Just making sure this is the track I should be on.

It is. Just make sure the hips go forward and you "land on" the front foot before you turn, and the hips from 6-8 really rip left and UP too.

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

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  • 1 month later...
Posted

@iacas @mvmac

It's been ugly the last few days. My short game and putting have been great though, so that's not an issue at all. I'm hitting like 5 GIR per round from only like 6500 yards. Really ugly stuff. I've hit several OB the last couple days. I see so many things wrong that I don't know what the priority is. So maybe you can help me.

First, here are some real time videos of me hitting several shots with 6 iron and driver. Dunno if this will help the evaluation more, but in the past, I know it can be helpful to have both real time and slow motion.

Here are DTL and FOs in slow mo of six iron and driver.

So many things wrong. Hands way too deep on the backswing. Shallow to steep. Head kinda moving all over the place. Shut face at the top. No extension of the arms through impact. Actually, I'm not even gonna list everything wrong I see here because a) it's a waste of time and b) it'll take too long. Point is, I dunno what the priority is. What do you think?

During today's round I birded two par fives somehow with this horrendous swing, but hit it OB off the tee on the two other par 5s. I hit it OB as well on two par 4s. I figured out that if I can pull fade pretty much everything to just be able to hack my way around the course to like an 84-85 or something. But that's obviously not what I want and impact feels horrendous.

Anyways… Watching that first video, I'm actually chuckling here over how bitter I am in it lol. :-D

God I love/hate this game.

PS- If there is one thing that does concern me, it's how deep my arms get on the backswing and maybe how shallow 3 is as a result. If you tell me that doesn't matter, then fine I won't worry about it. But I don't see many good players who take there arms as deep as I'm getting them.

OK, moving on. I'll do whatever you tell me to.

Constantine

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Posted

It's processing…

  • Upvote 2

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

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Posted

Another image that might help when you're practicing.

Also stop being a Debbie Downer and try to be more positive :-)

  • Upvote 1

Mike McLoughlin

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Posted
Another image that might help when you're practicing. [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/123676/] [/URL] Also stop being a Debbie Downer and try to be more positive :-)

Yeah, you big, hairy, Greek baby!

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Posted

I warmed up around 6:30am today then played 18 at 7:00am. For the warmup and practice swings I felt the new priorities, then went up and hit it. Still struggled, but I'm undeterred and feel confident actually. I didn't expect it "to work" considering I was playing a round with other people present and I hadn't actually worked on it yet. Regardless, I hacked my way around to my usual 85 from 6500. Driver did me no favors, so if I get back to piping it 265 down the middle, that score is going to be lower. Tough to hit greens from adjacent fairways or from 170+ yards. Short game as usual was solid.

After the round, I practiced for a good 45 minutes. I hit about 20-25 balls or something focusing on this. It was extremely bright out so I couldn't see on the camera screen what I was doing -- I probably should've found some shade or went in the clubhouse -- so I only filmed these two videos: Normal speed driver practice from DTL if anyone cares to view them.

This session was excellent, results wise. A lot of very good shots.

Again, I would've filmed my swing in slow mo, from face-on, etc. to see later if I was doing it, but I was friggin' striping it. Looking back thru analyzr, I was doing it. Perhaps not where we want it to be, but I'm already doing it.

Sorry that today's two video submissions aren't really downloadable due to their sizes, but since I already have them on my computer, it was easy for me to analyz them.

And I know this is a practice swing vs. my actual swing from yesterday, but I drew a couple lines here representing my head and hip positions at 4 compared to where they are when I freeze framed them. Head staying more steady at least in the rehearsal so that's a start.


To me, it feels like the head is moving back, but in reality, it's staying steady. At least, that's how it feels to me in my practice swing. Obviously I probably want a more "roll-over" look with the hands on that pic on the right, but I don't actually do that when I swing haha. Well, not to that extreme anyway. :-D Not gonna worry about that.

But yea, after filming those two clips, I was striping it. Probably hit 9 great ones, 2 borderline ones, and one that would've been OB. Felt great. Confidence restored. No more Debbie Downer syndrome (for now :w00t: hehe).

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvmac

Also stop being a Debbie Downer and try to be more positive

Yeah, you big, hairy, Greek baby!

It's my swing thread, and I'll cry if I want to!

I very much appreciate the assistance however from actual valued members of the community like @iacas and @mvmac . :-P

Major boost in confidence from striping my driver during this session, mostly after the video camera was turned off. If I can say one thing that I added on my own -- but certainly goes along with what we want to change here -- is that I narrowed my stance up a bit with driver. I figured, if the hips need to slide more correctly, then a narrower stance will facilitate that better than a very wide one. I had been watching too many Rory swings lately, and I think that setup piece creeped in. I'm not too narrow though. You can see the width difference here:


I thought this might help my cause a little. Also, it does correlate with what we want me to do, so I didn't see much harm in it. It's not significant, but it did make it easier to transfer forward.

Anyway, I'm ready to go again. Feeling very, very good about working on this. Thanks so much, guys.

Constantine

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Posted

OK, @iacas and @mvmac are really the best. They go above and beyond and frankly don't get enough credit for it.

My right hip has to go up, up, UP from 3 to 4. Then hips have to slide DOWNhill into 5 and even into 6 before the left hip ascends. Very, very important.

Don't get saggy, y'annoying mofo. Right hip UP. Then slide left hip down from 4 to 6. DO IT.

Constantine

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Posted

Interesting last few days of practice for sure. Changing the center of my swing -- namely my head location on the downswing -- is taking some getting used to, but I'm loving the prospect of how much this will probably improve my consistency in the long run.

Here are a couple face on views with a 7-iron.

It's easy for me to see that my upper body is hanging back post impact -- most likely an unwanted side-effect of attempting to maintain a steady head through the strike as my hips slide downhill. I know I should move the upper body more forward into the finish but won't worry about that unless instructed otherwise. Other than that, I'm sort of doing it. The head is still moving forward, more so in that drill swing, but in general, it's better compared to before.

I can do better.

Here is a rear view with driver to monitor my hip tilts. Anything I should be aware of here? It appears to be okay, but I dunno.

Finally, here's a DTL view of driver.

Of all the clubs, I'm actually hitting this one the most solid since attempting these changes. Same sort of hang back issues, but I'm hoping that cleans itself up over time as I get comfortable keeping my head "back" more through the hit. Also, it looks like I'm not doing the right hip piece enough. I seem to stall it out around A3.X, but it's not getting as saggy-naggy like before (even though it still kind of is). I know I can do better here.

Definitely don't want to get all "saggy naggy" with the right knee. "It sounds like someone wants to have fun playing golf over here! You know I don't like that!" Screw you, saggy naggy!!!

Misses have been pulls and slices, but that's not a surprise given the swing direction. Not worried about that now though. Fun practice today until the darn lightning clouds rolled in.

Constantine

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Posted
Interesting last few days of practice for sure. Changing the center of my swing -- namely my head location on the downswing -- is taking some getting used to, but I'm loving the prospect of how much this will probably improve my consistency in the long run.

Remember the biggest priority is to keep the right knee extended much longer. The head location is a distant second priority.

It's easy for me to see that my upper body is hanging back post impact -- most likely an unwanted side-effect of attempting to maintain a steady head through the strike as my hips slide downhill. I know I should move the upper body more forward into the finish but won't worry about that unless instructed otherwise. Other than that, I'm sort of doing it. The head is still moving forward, more so in that drill swing, but in general, it's better compared to before.

Your head and URC can move forward after impact a bit, sure. You don't have to keep it hanging back that long.

Here is a rear view with driver to monitor my hip tilts. Anything I should be aware of here? It appears to be okay, but I dunno.

Hips forward longer. Really let them slide downhill.

Of all the clubs, I'm actually hitting this one the most solid since attempting these changes. Same sort of hang back issues, but I'm hoping that cleans itself up over time as I get comfortable keeping my head "back" more through the hit. Also, it looks like I'm not doing the right hip piece enough. I seem to stall it out around A3.X, but it's not getting as saggy-naggy like before (even though it still kind of is). I know I can do better here.

You're right: you can do it more.

  • Upvote 1

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

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  • Moderator
Posted

Remember the biggest priority is to keep the right knee extended much longer. The head location is a distant second priority.

Yep.

Looking better @JetFan1983 , really like how that drill swing looks.

Mike McLoughlin

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Still in shock from that US Open, but thought I'd throw an update to my swing thread. I went back to the range on my home course. It's been over a month since I've been here since the course is closed for the summer. I ran into several people I knew who were also practicing, so we ended playing range games for over an hour hitting at pins and stuff. Was fun but somewhat threw a wrench in my gears in terms of serious practice. I had all day to work on stuff, but I kind of burned myself out doing that. Anyway, here are some swings.

Driver was better. Hit a few draws, which was nice to see. Mostly my usual pull cut though, with my also usual push fade miss that goes OB. Also a couple pulls but none that I think would've gone OB.

First filmed swings of the day here:

I really think the only swing thoughts I used here were to keep my head from moving forward on the downswing. The right leg I'm letting do whatever it wants to do and it looks better than before. I'll go back to thinking about it though if instructed to do so. I imagine I should? But thought I got it enough to where maybe I can move on. I'm probably wrong.

Here's swing no.3. I looked at the first video and was like "wow I'm really steep huh. I should try to shallow it?"

So I tried here.

Then I looked at it and was like, wow I'm dumb. Now I'm just laying it off and swinging past "the wall." Dumb. So I said, complete the steep part of the backswing before trying to shallow it, and then got this swing, which despite being too long for "wall," actually achieved steep to shallow without me laying it off:

Then I said, shit I'm not being a good stupid monkey, let's just make a normal swing so they can evaluate it.

Then I decided to film some iron swings. Keep in mind, I was pretty tried at this point after playing range games.

Then a 7 iron doing a different backswing:

Handicap is a 9.5 right now. Anyway, I feel like I'm going to be scolded for this session. It looked like I could move on from stuff, but was hard to see in the camera. I should've worked on sliding my hips downhill more. Mistake. It'd been a while since I had practiced though, so I made a dumb decision to not do that. Sorry, @iacas and @mvmac . Hopefully you guys can let me off the hook there just this once. In writing this post, I realize I should've done that. Not sure how I got so distracted. Just booted these in analyzer and it doesn't look like I'm sliding forward enough from face on.

I'm rambling. I'll leave it up to the experts to tell me what to do. Sorry for getting off track here.

I'm going back to this range tomorrow I think, so I'm shutting down the playing rounds for a little bit.

Edit: Can I just add though that when I do mirror work, which is every day, I'm still doing "right hip high, slide hips down hill, keep head steady."

Constantine

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Posted

I'm doing mirror work right now on "right hip high, slide hips downhill." No idea why I brain farted so much today. I guess it's possible the heat got to me after an hour plus of range games.

Constantine

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Posted

Quote:

Originally Posted by JetFan1983

Then a 7 iron doing a different backswing:

What was the difference? That was a good looking backswing.


Just the way the shaft works going back.


I left the range after this.

Really working on the "right hip high, slide the hips downhill" thing right now in the mirror though. Sorry about effing that up today. Tomorrow I'll do only that. Unless told otherwise.

Constantine

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Posted

You just texted that you're having a good session now, right hip staying high, hips sliding downhill, so I'm not saying anything until you post that. That's what you had to do .

We don't scold. We guide. :-) And tease… :D

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

Check Out: New Topics | TST Blog | Golf Terms | Instructional Content | Analyzr | LSW | Instructional Droplets

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Posted
You just texted that you're having a good session now, right hip staying high, hips sliding downhill, so I'm not saying anything until you post that. That's what you had to do .

We don't scold. We guide.  And tease… :D


Haha, yea, I figured as much in the process of writing yesterday's update. I blame the heat. It was a scorcher out there yesterday (and today, but at least I'm less dumb 24 hours later).

OK, yea. Great session today in terms of results and contact. I warmed up going through my bag hitting full shots for about 10-15 minutes. I think every shot but one was good. Hit the 56, 50, 9 iron, 7 iron, 5 iron, 3 wood and driver. Good all around. I wish I played today, I probably would've done really well.

Then I filmed a 7 iron from three angles and a driver from 3 angles. Swing thought the entire session was "right hip high, slide hips downhill aggressively."

This FO 7-iron was the first bad shot I hit all session (a push-cut).

Not the greatest rear view, but I have minimal experience setting up the camera for this right now. I'll improve :-D

Pretty sure all these videos besides the FO 7-iron were good results. Either slight pull fade or straight or slight draw of some kind. Can't remember.

I didn't look at the LCD at all, so I just kept doing what I was doing for the rest of the session. Worked on short game (mostly bunker shots but some chips too) and putting as well, for about 30 minutes. Then went back and hit full shots for another 30. Total session was about 90 minutes.

Towards the end, when I was getting really, really hungry (stomach grumbling), I started to hit push fades with driver and one pop up. Last one was a good one. At that point, I just chalked it up to be starving (hadn't eaten much today), and left. Overall though, it was a great session. Lots of very playable results throughout.

My guess is my homework is going to be just "do it more. Keep it doing it." I probably could've shot somewhere around 80 today from 6500, 72.0, 138 today given how well I was hitting it. A lot better than yesterday's practice.

Constantine

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Posted
You just texted that you're having a good session now, right hip staying high, hips sliding downhill, so I'm not saying anything until you post that. That's what you had to do .

Yep stick with that. Overall looking better.

Mike McLoughlin

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