My Swing (Jetfan1983)

[iacas]

Happy Thanksgiving and WOOHOO!!!!!!

 I’m so glad to see this. And they swing wasn’t bad. At all.

 This all made me so happy right now!

I can’t imagine how you must feel.

[JetFan1983]

 

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

Happy Thanksgiving Constantine! Glad you are progressing and thanks for the update.

Thanks! Slowly but surely 😄

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Happy Thanksgiving and WOOHOO!!!!!!

 I’m so glad to see this. And they swing wasn’t bad. At all.

 This all made me so happy right now!

I can’t imagine how you must feel.

I feel really good! But also cautious since it's been a rough few years with all this stuff. I'm forcing myself to stay present and positive. I don't want to get too ahead of myself or too negative about these things. I'm very happy I've made it to this point. 

I'll probably head back to the range on Friday for another go at it, forcing myself to leave after 45 minutes max. Hopefully I remember how to practice properly so I can change things more efficiently 🙂

With golf, my only goal right now is to be able to practice regularly and pain free. If I can accomplish that, then everything else will eventually follow. It seems like I'm actually almost there, which is hard for me to believe. A few more months of rehab and I might actually be able to practice three times a week, which would be an amazing accomplishment for me.

 

Thanks for a great welcome back, and Happy Thanksgiving to you too! And congrats on yet another teacher award 😃 Very much deserved! 

[JetFan1983]

Finally got back out to the range since the last time (officially post-surgical range session #2). Sixteen days between them. I wasn't happy with how some things were feeling so I refocused my energy on rehab. Long way to go still, but things keep "progressing nicely" to quote Tiger 😄

So, in the days leading up to yesterday's session, I decided to focus heavily on mirror work so I had some feels nailed down and ready to go once I was ready to actually hit some balls. I wasn't going to waste any time since I was limiting the session to an hour only. I don't have the privilege of "finding it in the dirt" if you know what I mean.

After about a couple days of doing the mirror work, I decided to just try to copy Tiger Woods to see what it feels like to match his positions. I did this just for fun, but also because I thought it could be useful to my own learning. Before you say, "omg bruh stop copying any pro," I totally hear you, but I actually think with the right knowledge base, this can be smart to do sometimes, especially if it's done in the spirit of learning and understanding. Plus I was kind of frustrated with how my swing was looking in the mirror. It definitely didn't seem right, so I wanted to try to feel what Tiger does to see if I could uncover some more information about myself.

Obviously there's a lot different between what I do and what Tiger does lol, but the major pieces I noticed were the following:

1) His backswing shoulder pitch is steeper than me

2) He regains flexion in his trail knee and torso a ton in the early downswing (aka his head lowering/squatting)

I understood both these pieces were not peculiar idiosyncrasies of his swing but rather universal pieces I can acceptably adopt, especially if I was deficient in those areas and I thought they were causing me sequential problems.

On my second to last ball, I was able to get the DTL view to look like this, which I'm very excited by:

Here's a slowed down version I put on Instagram:

When you consider this is what DTL looked like during my last range session, this is a very positive difference:

That was the last swing I filmed from range session #1. My time was up (45 minutes) and I had to walk away and ponder that awful DTL view for the next two plus weeks lol. Psyched about the feels I'm using to change that picture though!

 

Anyway, here are some face ons. This is the first swing of yesterday (PW). Feels here to start the session were:

1) Steep Shoulder Pitch on backswing

2) Head lowers (regain flexion) in early downswing

3) Slide and rotate hips on downswing

4) Palmar flex lead wrist to lay down shaft in transition (but I was willing to ditch this feel if I couldn't juggle all four)

Not a bad start honestly:

Here's a seven iron a couple balls later:

 

Anyway, after I kept working (I filmed every single ball I hit yesterday), I gradually realized that regaining flexion in my trail knee was a lot more important to the sequence than I thought. For some strange reason, doing that combined with rotating/sliding/extending the hips as well as dipping the torso slightly was shallowing the club without much effort. I guess the geometry of that makes sense, but it was still surprising how addressing the trail knee's role in the early downswing affected my swing plane, at least, so far. Who knows if that will keep working, especially as I ramp up the speed.

 

Anyway, here's the last swing of the day:

This was a straight-as-an-arrow low bullet that went forever. I hit the wall at the back of the range (which was like 240 yards away). I'd prefer more hip slide/axis tilt and I would like to see my head lower and back, but it's not bad otherwise. I really tried to add speed to this one to see what happened and for the most part, it's promising. But jeez, squaring the knees/silding hips/rotating hips simultaneously as the downswing begins is definitely not easy for me to do and will take some work.

 

I'm excited by my progress so far though. To summarize the updated feels:

1) Steep shoulder pitch on the backswing

2) Regain flexion in trail knee and torso in transition/early downswing as hips slide/rotate/extend

3) Swing arms across my chest through impact

 

💪🙂

 

[JetFan1983]

I had just a stretch day yesterday and overall felt pretty good, so I decided to go back to the range to hit some drill PWs, just so I could do some disciplined work on my swing and build some momentum hopefully towards lasting change.

Keep in mind, I can't even break 90 right now. Not because of putting and short game which IMO are perfectly fine (for example, I shot an under par round at the Jupiter Lighthouse mini-golf course recently), but because I would just hit so many awful full swing shots, there's simply no way it would happen right now.

The good news is, the range is a magical place for me despite all the frustrations that come with trying to change one's swing. 

So face-on looks perfectly fine to me right now, especially given the scores I anticipate I would shoot if I stepped on the course:

 

BTW, I hope everyone is cool with vertical video. I used to poo-poo it, but since I read the site a lot on my phone, vertical vids are actually preferred for me, but I can stop doing that if it's frowned upon still.

But yea, I know that's a drill swing, but it seems like it's fine given my ability level.

DTL however is a bit of a different story. This is more or less a full swing. Well close enough anyway:

 

Yea, not as promising looking as FO is. That said, after I left I went to grab a bite, and while watching some swings at the table while waiting for my food I noticed this:

Elbow shifts behind me in transition which probably is compromising some of what I'm trying to do. And I don't do it in softer drill swings. From that nice DTL driver swing from Monday:

And I'm not necessarily trying to copy Tiger, but he's such a good model for so many things, I'm just going to remind myself what he looks like at this point too:

 

I will say, working my swing again has been both totally frustrating, totally fascinating, and a lot of fun 😄. It's interesting how on drill swings the elbow doesn't shift behind me, but it does on full swings. It's definitely something I need to pay attention to if I want the kinds of elbow positions that make it easier to swing the club on plane. I know Rory McIlroy and others have weird elbows and stuff and are fine, but since I'm such a crap golfer, I think it's probably a good idea to apply some conscious thought to this so it gradually goes away with practice and time.

I'm otherwise still working on the same things: Steep shoulder pitch in backswing, dip torso in early downswing, bring arms down faster relative to the body, open/slide/extend knees and hips, and now... don't let my trail elbow shift behind me in the transition. 

Hopefully I feel good enough to get back out to this range in a couple days. I got a two hour PT session though in an hour with some BFR therapy so hopefully I get through that well given how sore I am at the moment lol.

Baby steps continue....

 

Edit: I just wanted to add that because I'm dynamically working on several things,especially during rehearsal swings in between actually hitting the ball, this experience will likely be a bit more frustrating than normal. I know these are a lot of changes to juggle. I just want to remind myself that frustration and bad shots and everything else are just a part of the game, and the faster I learn to accept that, the better off I will be.

Edited December 12, 2019 by JetFan1983

[iacas]

Make sure your turn rate matches up. If you don't turn, your shirt seam will be further "forward" than it should be. In other words, you could leave your elbow there and move the shirt seam rather than moving the elbow relative to the shirt seam.

[JetFan1983]

 

Wow, that's way too depressing to see on this thread. Time to change it.

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TLDR, I suffered a serious setback after my last post here and it took 2.5 years to recover. I have barely played golf these last six years, but I'm kind of, sort of back right now. I still get treatment regularly, and all I can do is hope I can manage these issues so I can return to the game I love so much. I don't necessarily want to relive the last couple years here right now, but just know they were really difficult. 

I played 9 today with my dad from 5700-5800 yards. This is my third time playing since returning in mid-June. I played remarkably well all things considered. This was the only swing we filmed today, and it's with my dad's Ping G10 7-iron, but this is more or less what I did all day.

I shot +4 with no birdies and didn't lose a ball. I was hitting driver between 220 and 260 yards, but most of them went like 250 I think? I hit this thin bleeder cut all day, but it was predictable and functional. 

Erik fixed my setup by getting some weight out of my heels, but the swing thought I'm using to make my swing function is "make a super armsy downswing." Brian Creghan gave me that tip years ago and it still works. If I don't use this swing thought, my swing stops being functional. I'm also trying to stay super soft, relaxed and short with my action. 

I guess I should include a FO. Here's the only one I have so far. It's a PW (a mulligan) on a short par 3. This was June 20th at the same course (Sandhill Crane in Palm Beach Gardens). I thinned this onto the green. Sorry for some reason, it won't let me embed it. 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-EIbHWqOMEU

Here's a rear view six iron, also from June 20. This drew too much but hit the fairway and I ended up making par (300 yard par-4). 

 

Anyway, like I said, Erik gave me a good setup fix (less weight on heels) and I'm using "swing arms" as my priority. I know my swing doesn't look great but it's really functional despite how it looks. I've lost maybe one ball thru 27 holes? No range until tonight where I hit that only ball. 

Fingers crossed I can maintain my health this time around. I'm getting some treatment at Palm Beach Sports Medicine tomorrow with a good DPT. Still trying to fix some stuff on the anterior deltoid that bothers me at times, but things in general with my shoulders are a lot better than they used to be. I eat the keto diet now (3+ years running), I workout/rehab regularly, and my sleep/stress has been really healthy this past year. It's all helping me get better. 

Hopefully I can update this thread often in the future since that means I'm healthy. Cheers, guys. Thanks for reading. 🙂

[iacas]

Yay!

[JetFan1983]

Another update! I'm on a roll. First range session in 2.5+ years. Felt great. Shoulder feels great. Fingers crossed.

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I started around the green hitting chips and pitches, and then I putted for a little while refamiliarizing myself with AimPoint. I'm probably going to buy one of these tomorrow to speed up getting a feel for 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

 

After that, I decided to film my first bunker shots in 2.5+ years.

 

Sent that to Erik and he said "more speed thru the sand." Here are the next three swings using that idea:

Gonna take some reps to get a low point that doesn't jump all over the place, but I like it. A thunderstorm rolled in right after this so I tabled short game/putting work for a Cobb salad in the clubhouse. 

After the storm passed I headed to the range. Here's a DTL 3-hybrid. Again my focus is 1) less weight in heels at setup and 2) make a super armsy downswing. Though this was a drill swing, this is probably what I would do on the course too. I'm fine just bunting it 175 yards out there doing this since I'm playing from 5700-5800 still for the time being. 

For my last vid, I have a face on six iron. Same stuff. Weight more in balls of feet, make a super armsy downswing. The contact I'm getting when focusing on this is great and I'm more than happy to play this pull fadey trajectory for the time being. If I don't focus on a super armsy downswing, it gets really ugly and dysfunctional: really really weak cuts and I often can't even find the golf ball. But as soon as the downswing thought is "swing my arms only" I'm good enough to break 80 from sub-6000 yards right away.

---

Had a lot of fun today. This was my first solo golf session since November 2018 so it felt really weird being out there all alone. I had a late lunch/early dinner at the restaurant during the thunderstorm, and pondered life's mysteries as I waited for the dark clouds to pass. Something really special and peaceful about being stranded in a clubhouse during a rainstorm.

Hard to say when the arms thing will become habit. Could be a while. The good news is, golf is really really easy right now for me, relatively speaking. I'm ignoring all other swing issues (of which there are many) and I'm pretty much playing at my ceiling already for what my swing is. 

I've got two treatment sessions (Tuesday and Thursday) that I'm looking forward to this week and I'll probably spend the rest of it just focusing on fitness and flexibility. Hopefully my body feels good tomorrow when I wake up since I probably hit one too many balls today, but it was hard to walk away. 🙂

Listened to this on the drive home with the windows down. Felt nothing but happiness 🙂

[iacas]

Husky digital levels. You want percentage slope not degrees.

9” or 10”.

[JetFan1983]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

Husky digital levels. You want percentage slope not degrees.

9” or 10”.

Lol ooooops. Glad I posted what I was up to now. Thanks, man. 

[JetFan1983]

A couple quick notes I wanted to add. My grip got weaker today somehow. Need to watch that for next time.

June 20th:

July 10th:

Probably could add a touch of forward press to the bottom picture too (a six iron).

---

The real reason I wanted to add a follow up post was I forgot I had a face-on from June 20th of what it looks like if I don't use "make an armsy downswing" as my primary swing thought. This result was a really weak push fade that almost went into the marsh. I believe this is an 8-iron. Anyway, you can clearly see the difference and how much worse my swing is without it. It was after seeing this swing that I abandoned all other swing thoughts, and I haven't lost a ball since (15 hole streak currently).

---

 

It's amazing how much fun the game of golf is. I really hope I can stay relaxed and disciplined on the range this time around because it really is easy to fall into bad habits and just beat balls. It's easy to get frustrated when the ball flight isn't what you want, or if your swing doesn't look how you want it to. I'm going to have to forget about all that negative stuff as best I can and just try to stay as calm and efficient as possible out there. Any trouble I run into I know there are smart people I can consult right away. I don't have to try to figure this out all by myself, nor should I.

Thru four days of golf so far since returning on June 14th, this has been an absolute joy. 

[GolfLug]

Interesting about the grip. I feel like my set up changes three times in a round. And then I am chasing a hook or a bleeder slice. 

[JetFan1983]

5 hours ago, GolfLug said:

Interesting about the grip. I feel like my set up changes three times in a round. And then I am chasing a hook or a bleeder slice. 

Lol, the one thing I have been able to practice all these years is my setup in a mirror. It helps to have mirrors for both face-on and down-the-line when looking up to see how it looks because sometimes I'll get DTL right but not FO, or vice versa. Then I reset, try to recreate the same setup, and I see if my feel for it is right. 

The grip thing with me, I have no idea how that happened. Maybe it's just an example of how precarious it all is for me whenever I'm out there 😄. 

[JetFan1983]

Context: Returned to golf on June 16th after a six-year health struggle w/ shoulders. Yesterday was my 7th golf day since June 16.

 

 

Time stamped to the shot. I'm practicing at the edge of my abilities, which is why I've slowed down so much. I can't even do what I'm trying to do even at this speed.

Long term goals: I worked out yesterday too, plus short game and putting practice. That's a decent amount of activity. I figure though in order for me to have a chance at being "good at golf" I have to hit a lot of balls. So how do I do that while still working out regularly and not injuring myself?

Only swinging like that ^^ for the indefinite future seems to accomplish everything I want. 1) logging volume on the range because you can't conceptualize yourself to a good swing 2) getting stronger each week with consistent exercise 3) not injuring myself along the way.

Total time spent at practice facility: 100 minutes

I've battled a number of freak injuries since March because of how much more active I've been just in general. One RSI (since healed), some back strains/knots, elbow bruise (freak accident, since healed), and a couple minor workout injuries, plus a freak strain to my neck that has mostly healed. Man, living a healthy, active life can be so fraught with these kinds of nicks and scrapes. Not complaining, but damn, I'm definitely not sixteen anymore.

Putting Practice: I bought a digital level and suddenly practicing on the greens is now a lot more fun. This is what I got:

 

Now, do you really need to pay $70 to get a good digital level, no, but I did anyway. It's overkill. But hey, it's super fast with the slope % and now guessing what the putt is while I stand at the midpoint is suddenly a lot more interesting. I'll guess at the slope, see the answer, then attempt the putt. I've made a few impressive ones on the first try but have also missed quite terribly too.

Short Game: The biggest change I've made in this area (and putting too) is I've gotten a lot of the weight out of heels. I seem to have this problem for every single shot in golf, driver to putter, so once I started to feel weight primarily in the balls of my feet, my contact went way, way up. Otherwise, I'm just getting used to that and not really focusing on anything else. It's a lot of fun hitting more chips and what not a lot more solidly.

---

So yea, that's where we're at, folks. That driving range is across the street from my apartment so it doesn't cost a lot of time to shoot over there to log a small bucket of slow mapping swings. Hoping over time I'll be able to do it at a very slow speed at which point I'll try to ramp it up and see if I can sustain it. 

Good luck to me. I realize that mirror work w/o hitting balls only takes you so far in this game, and I have to be at least doing this now if I want to keep progressing.

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by JetFan1983
Double posted image

[iacas]

Always so happy to read this stuff. Let me know when you're ready to mess around with GEARS! 😄

[JetFan1983]

On 8/26/2022 at 7:11 AM, iacas said:

Always so happy to read this stuff. Let me know when you're ready to mess around with GEARS! 😄

Definitely need to experience GEARS, as well as your in-person guidance, no question about it! Absolutely loving the generalized data from GEARS, even if I still don't actually know my own personal data yet.

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Speaking of GEARS, here's a face-on video of me teaching myself the pressure/weight shift GEARS is telling us the good players are all doing. Not too bad here I think. 

 

Trying to pressure shift into my backfoot from 1 to 2 then re-center up to 3 then lean towards the target as I near 4. From there I want to feel a lot of pressure in my lead foot as I propel upward off of it. Head tracks back some and arms swing passed my eye line into extension. I seemed to do a good job of it on this drill swing here. Really loving the results I've been getting right away. Still pull-fading everything, but not gonna care about that for a while.

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I've spent the last 2-3 weeks mostly practicing short game and putting just because it's super easy on the body, therapeutic mentally for me, and easy to incorporate with all my gym workouts. Really loving how close I'm lagging them from distance these last few days. Short game wise I need to start putting out a few of them to better simulate an actual round. Note to self there. Do that next time.

---

 

DTL driver here. This was the last ball of the session where I just tried to do an on-course swing. Aimed left fairway in my head expecting my usual pull-fade, but got a pull-draw instead that might've been playable (totaled probably 230 yards if this was a real ball). 

Happy with my more relaxed tempo here. The most important thing for me is staying healthy and putting in consistent work over the long term. 

Almost all my swing thoughts are face-on related, so it's always interesting to see my craptastic DTL view just for balance's sake 😄

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Swing my arms passed the body, and do the correct weight/pressure shift GEARS indicates. That's the main full swing priority now.

 

With mirror work, since there's no ball hitting involved, I am incorporating other GEARS info like "lowering arms" for example. I know most of you guys are working on this too having read all your swing threads. Feels weird, but I understand more or less how this works conceptually at least and well, that's a start. One arm (right arm only) swings here help me as well. 

Day One of doing this here:

Again, this isn't necessarily a priority, but I did devote 2-3 balls to this anyway as part of a long term developmental plan. And I figure this probably won't work very well if I'm leaving weight on my back foot like I have been and not swinging my arms fast enough in relation to the body.

 

This is a swing from a couple weeks ago. I was trying to work on swing plane here, but wanted to see what those thoughts were doing to my face on. It was quickly revealed how not working on my priorities is a fool's errand. This was before I learned the GEARS info on proper weight/pressure shift sequencing. 

Good news here is at least I don't have to worry too terribly about what to work on. I still can't swing my arms thru impact well without thinking about it. I can't weight shift well without thinking about it. Those could take a very long time to ingrain. 

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I've been in range-only mode since my last 9 holes on July 6ish. Figure I'm due for another 9 somewhere soon, so I'm very much looking forward to that. Such an exciting time in my life right now. This game is so fun. Hopefully I can keep the ball in play and just give myself a chance at a 5 on every hole. If not though, there's always next time. Thanks for reading 🍻

[JetFan1983]

Fun swing update. I hit a push-draw tonight and got it on camera! TLDR, I'm playing a pull-fade (or expecting to) 100% of the time, but today I managed to actually hit a push-draw! Stop the presses!

Full disclosure, I mishit this. In fact, I nearly topped it, so maybe gear effect is helping my cause here. Ball comes out low, but you can clear see it pushes then draws back! Yay! (it's also a drill swing)

 

This might be tough to see the ball flight on desktop, but it's very clear on my phone. I'm kind of annoyed YouTube ruined the quality. 

This was golf session #16 since returning June 14th, not including mirror work which I can actually do every day now! Some of those 16 ball-hitting sessions include putting/short game only days too, but I'm still counting those since I was out there for at least an hour each time.

 

Okay, so what feels am I using here to get this ball flight... again, using the same stuff as before:

 

1) Swing arms thru the ball

2) GEARS pressure/weight shift 

3) Arms lower, they don't knife towards the ball

And today I added a fourth thought, which I know is a lot, but I sort of developed a bit of a feel for this in mirror work in the days prior to this range session. I know juggling four thoughts is overload, but these are purely range thoughts. I would never try to do this during a round. But, I am trying to practice "dynamically" if you will, and that does include working on several pieces at the same time, and slowing down considerably in order to do it.

4) TURN (knees, hips, torso). I'm like barely doing it too.

Anyway, unless someone comes on here and tells me gear effect caused this flight... I'm pretty excited I hit a push-draw today! Yay! 😃

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Had a nice keto meal after as I watched the early evening league tee off on ten lol. Man are there some wacky golf swings out there. I saw some guy aim 50 degrees right and hit an insane pull hook to the left side of the fairway. Amazing.

[JetFan1983]

Shot 85 last weekend. Only my second round of 18 in the last six years. 

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Got a chance to practice some today:

 

Warming up with an 8-iron here. I'm pretty happy with this even though I did thin the crap out of it. 

Swing Thoughts:

1) GEARS weight shift stuff

2) Turning hips more and extending my lead leg faster on the downswing.

3) Swinging my arms in better sync with my body at and post-impact

4) This is a new one/old one but keeping my head back. My driver was a lot better today since re-adding this feel.

I played an 18-hole practice round from only about 5300 yards afterwards. I'm trying to force myself to swing slower. I'm probably bunting my driver circa 185 yards this way. The hope here is that I'll develop the skill faster this way.

 

Today was golf day #20 since my mid-June return.