My Swing (Ryan92584)

[Ryan92584]

I've been Playing Golf for: On & Off For 5 Years (mostly off)

My current handicap index or average score is: 28.6

My typical ball flight is: A slight draw

The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: Fat/Thin shots

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I've been playing on and off for 5 years and starting to take the game more seriously now. I've been playing a lot more and going to the range frequently. However, I'm not sure what to really work on at the range as I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've never had a lesson before and know that would probably be the most beneficial but I would like to try this out first. Thanks for your help

6 Iron DTL

Videos:

6 Iron FO

Driver DTL

Driver FO

[Stretch]

You've got some good pieces, and it looks like you generate some nice speed, but overall there's a bit too much chaos going on for it to be reliable.

I would focus initially on stablizing the axis you're swinging around. There's a lot of back-and-forth movement at the moment that is making it hard for you to get your swing bottoming out in the same place each time. That's where the fats and thins are coming from -- they are two sides of the same coin. When your low point gets behind the golf ball, you are either going to hit the ground first, or your subconscious will try and save the shot by bending your elbows or breaking your left wrist. Now the club's traveling up into the ball and you get tops and thins.

This is what you are doing now (using the driver swing because it exaggerates what we're trying to illustrate):

Notice how much you've moved back from your address position (marked by the yellow lines). Doing that is making it more difficult for you to then get your weight back to where it needs to be -- on the lead foot -- at impact.

In order to stay more centered, you are going to need to feel like your trail (right) leg straightens more in the backswing and your whole right side (torso) stretches out as much as possible -- like you're trying to push your right shoulder up to the sky. That's going to give you some extension and cancel out some of that drift away from the ball.

Here's a more detailed discussion:

I would also look at trying to collapse your arc a little bit. Swing shorter and swing "tighter". Without getting too into positions, you can see on the left below how across the line you are at the top of the backswing. This means you have to get the shaft almost vertical in the transition and being that steep is just tough to pull off.

You are going to want to feel that your upper arms stay tight to your torso throughout the swing (you can practice this by hitting balls with old gloves or tees held in your armpits). You also need to feel a more inward component to your backswing -- that your hands are going back and up but also inside. I've shown on the right how you currently push your hands away from you as you take the club back, which is creating too much width and contributing to everything getting too long and loose and ungoverned.

Here's an older thread that goes into that in more depth: http://thesandtrap.com/t/30325/deep-hands-explained

Anyway, hope some of that is helpful to you and that you will stick around here. There's a lot of good information on the site.

[Ryan92584]

Stretch,

Thank you very much, I appreciate you taking the time. I always knew there was a lot of chaos going on but now I know what to work on. I'll definitely be sticking around these forums and posting more videos with my (hopeful) improvements.

[cipher]

Welcome to TST and I agree 100% with Stretch.  If you can make a centered turn that would be a big help for you.  You have a very nice swing at 28.6.  Maybe take a look at some of the short game info on this site as well such as:

http://thesandtrap.com/t/39411/quickie-pitching-video

[mvmac]

All what I'm recommending is to help the hips turn and stay centered and not shift them back to the right.  The weight has to be forward at impact, beginners/bogey golfers don't get it forward enough.  We need to have the weight forward to hit it solid.  The hips shifting back makes that harder to do, very much along the lines of what Stretch was talking about with low point.

Check this stuff out.

Also note the right foot rolls to the outside.

[Ryan92584]

Cipher - Thanks for your input and the link. My short game definitely needs some work to bring my handicap down.

MVMAC - Thanks for taking the time to help. I'm at work and just took some practice swings with my feet flared out. I can feel how much easier it is to rotate my hips and my knee is naturally flexing outwards instead of in.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by Ryan92584

MVMAC - Thanks for taking the time to help. I'm at work and just took some practice swings with my feet flared out. I can feel how much easier it is to rotate my hips and my knee is naturally flexing outwards instead of in.

Good to hear.  It's good to have some blend of the outward and inward motion of the left knee (blue dots) but for you it will FEEL more like it flexes in the direction of the red line.  Obviously you tend to have too much "in".

Then you can start getting here.  Kind of the point, the WHY for keeping the hips/head centered on the backswing, makes the downswing easier.  Left knee more forward on the downswing, weight more forward on the downswing, move your low point forward.  I think this may be a helpful visual for you.  For more on weight forward check out Key #2 here http://thesandtrap.com/t/55426/introducing-five-simple-keys

And we have a bunch of drills here http://thesandtrap.com/t/61376/5sk-video-thread