My Swing (Lucius Wooding)

[tristanhilton85]

That would be like shooting free throws left handed for no reason

I like the way you said that...

[Ernest Jones]

I like the way you said that...

Yeah, great analogy. So many players get caught up in "working" the ball when they would be much better served by developing a consistent shape they can count on. Don't make a hard game harder!

[LuciusWooding]

I have been mostly working on my pivot and trying to find the proper setup positions for each club.  I am getting fantastic power and a nice bit of draw on my shots, and my trouble fading the ball is still present but I have a driver that I can fade brilliantly and even manage a draw lately. I still don't feel totally comfortable outside of my stock setup so I can't hit much variety of shots, but very subtle changes in my delivery are producing the different shapes. I still need time to feel things out before I can rely much on this swing on the course.

This video is terrible, but what the hell. I wasn't concentrating on filming as much as the range was quite full so I just did one take, and I didn't set the camera far enough back to see my head... At least you can see the lower body well, and the shots were both really good.

The first is a fade, the second is a draw, both a few yards of curve but not much more, and a lot of height on both. There was a lot of tailwind today so I was hitting my irons absurd distances even in the cold, and I was doing great with my driver. The only weak point is my hybrids and 3 wood, which I don't consider too important just yet. I was able to hit them well after a few tries but I don't really know how to set up with them yet so once I put them down I lost it. Right now I can't seem to set up far enough away or forward in my stance, even though the ball position looks normal on video it feels as though I'm setting up for a pull even with my wedges. Due to the amount of hip and shoulder rotation I have though, it ends up being a slight in to out path with plenty of dynamic loft by impact. I have to relearn where to aim my feet and make sure my shoulders and body are lined up relative to the shot, and I'm currently trying to have almost no conscious hand action in the swing.

Anyway, the picture from A5 to A8 looks a lot better IMO; my hands are more in front of my chest and I don't need to compensate for the ball being too close because I made some more space. Right now though my miss can be either a pull draw which isn't so bad, or a shank. I'd rather see the shanks turn into a block but this swing is a lot more what I had in mind compared to a few months ago when I struggled with hitting high draws.

[LuciusWooding]

After 9 poor holes and a bunch of bad swings on the range the other day, I was a little more desperate to try and change the picture a bit more dramatically. This month I've learned it's really damn hard to change much of anything when you actually record your swing. I already knew that, but I hadn't learned it yet.

I had to go back to basics and find a way to get my messed up backswing into a better position, so I tried the obvious: just make my normal backswing making sure to hit the right amount of depth and shoulder turn (to make it look right from DTL), then stop and move my hands and right arm around until it was close to the right place. Then I'd feel I was bowing the shit out of my wrist to prevent coming over the top and get the shaft standing up more on the angle I want, then just hit the ball. I knew my setup was mostly right but my biggest issues are between A3 and A5 so I tried to virtually skip that part of my swing to get the position more correct. There was a bit too much chaos when I was making full swings, so I broke it into 2 pieces to simplify things and isolate any more problems from creeping into the parts I have mostly right.

My takeaway is getting a bit better from the camera work, but I still need a lot of work to link A3 and A5. Here's a little comparison between myself on 3/10 on the left, myself today, and @mvmac at A3:

As you can see, my right leg was really straight really early, the club was very shallow, and my hands were too deep too early. Now things are a bit better, the club passes close to my hands at A2 from DTL where it was way below before, and the shaft's vertical angle is closer to the reference image on the right. My lead wrist is more loaded than it had been, and the club is headed a bit more up rather than around, though it still needs more up. My lead wrist is also a bit cupped on the left, as I've been trying to feel more bowing and take a bit stronger grip.

I took some face on video with my 6i that didn't turn out that great because the tripod was actually getting blown around by wind, plus I was at the last hitting station because it was packed with people when I arrived today, so my bag would have been halfway down a hill filming at ankle level if I placed it any farther back. I won't bother posting the full videos until I get proper ones but I really liked how my A1 turned out:

Since the camera moves a bit, I drew vertical reference lines based on the right edge of both silver trims on my shoes as well as my jacket's zipper. It doesn't really give any insight except for showing my posture and weight shift. My pants are a little baggy but you can see my knee linkage looks better than last year, with both knees more or less following on the same arc through the swing. I cropped some of the screenshots a bit differently and formatted them so they'd all be 500x500 because they don't line up properly otherwise; the camera literally blows over around A3 and you can see the treetops are cut off. Not great for side by side comparison but since I haven't posted FO in a while I'll throw them out there. My grip was tending towards a touch stronger than usual today which made the path change a bit easier.

^Trying to stay centered, it was tough for my skinny ass to balance given the sheer amount of wind. Right knee goes a bit higher and the left breaks in nicely. The takeaway is a work in progress to be sure.

Tough to say anything about this because so much is cut off, but the lower body part isn't too bad. I left it to note the difference between A3 and A5 however:

^Hips are close to square here, weight starts shifting dramatically around now. I feel that A5 is a lot better since I stopped trying to do it at full speed; I only have a couple inches of acceleration to this point from the top of my fake backswing; this is a very short downswing so I need every muscle to be contributing to get any power into the strike. I had to feel my lead wrist was very bowed here to get the shaft standing up, but on video it looks very nice and flat.

My wrist isn't as bowed as it seemed, in fact the clubface is nice and square despite the blurriness. I also felt I was making a bit steeper AoA and rotating the clubface much less, in fact the difference between A6 and A7 is almost nothing except extending my right arm down to the bottom and chipping the ball on the way past.

A lot of acceleration here, and a bit of a slow shutter speed by my camera. The last 2 frames were consecutive so it didn't take me long to get from A6 to A7; I'm lucky to have any frames close to impact. If you want to believe I'm actually bending the shaft this much you're welcome to.

Here we have a nice video of my 6 iron from DTL, you can see I screw with the club a bit at the top, but from A5 to the followthrough the shaft stays on plane nicely and the strike was very nice, resulting in a slight draw. Not too much power or height by my standards but obviously this is not quite a full swing.

Here we have a quick video of my driver, my only club I can still hit pretty well without faking my swing. I swung hard without overthinking it, and I was going for a high slight pull fade, and got more of a middle height big pull fade. Not that bad of a pull due to how I was aiming, in fact I hit the target green because it faded enough after disappearing from view. (The target was a bit right of my hands at address from the camera's POV.) It still went pretty high and carried pretty far, unlike most of my long clubs. I hit it even better on the course because I can tee it higher and get better launch conditions from a bit higher on the face. I want to mostly leave this club alone except maybe a tweak or two to my grip or weight shift to change trajectory. I get my weight forward decently but I think I get a bit more speed and a bit less spin if I don't stay back as much. I can get the height back from hitting higher on the face and still reduce my shape a bit, plus it's really hard to hit a draw without my weight a touch more forward.

Not much of a coherent narrative, but overall I'm trying to get to A4 in reverse compared to what I was doing the last few days. The more I can clean up the top bit the more my swing stands to improve, so hopefully I can get more comfortable this week with that piece. Once I can get my swing back to its proper length and hit from a better position, I should be able to play the type of golf that doesn't require every swear word I know.

I have a round booked tomorrow with my brother, so I'll most likely be playing golf from that A5 position a lot and hoping I can slap it around the course. My pitching has been really sharp though, since I've had to work on things besides the full swing this week out of sheer frustration at times. Today went a bit better though.

[mvmac]

New thread in case you haven't seen it.

[iacas]

So, real quick, but you've probably overdone the knee work. You're now swinging quite a bit around your body with a bit less hip slant (the hip slants still look "okay" but that's mostly because of how much you're dropping the left hip with the left knee).

Bit too much knee flex at setup too.

[LuciusWooding]

I have just been working with a couple minor drills and checking some positions on video the last 2 weeks. I've been trying to go to a more fluid motion overall, trying to use less force and more finesse.

I bought some new true linkswear shoes and walked 27 holes and hit a bunch of balls the other day. I decided to slightly narrow my stance to get out of the squat I was in and make it easier to turn smoothly, and tweak my pivot a bit and the shoes definitely helped me make subtle motions. It is no exaggeration to say that my feet are better coordinated than my hands from years of TKD, so paralyzing them from the ankle down with rigid shoes while I swing isn't a great idea. If nothing else, they felt better while walking and looking down at them reminded me to make my setup changes and swing properly. I should get some dry erase markers and write notes on them once I get used to seeing them at address.

I've been trying to get this look at address; lately I've been pointing the back of the left hand more at the ground and presenting less loft, so the length of my swing and my ball position were thrown off and everything felt weird. This makes everything easier to time and lets me use my hands properly from a strong grip. Long irons are especially tough for me when I don't set up strong enough, and I need to try a lot harder to make good contact. This is a lot more automatic and I'm hitting the ball much higher and more solidly. I still need to work out my ball position and setup for my long clubs above the 2 and 3 iron but my middle and short irons were working better.

This is my 6 iron, I ever so slightly fade the first shot but hit the second with a little draw, both solid shots. I'm hitting my muscleback so I didn't swing too hard and didn't try to force the ball where I wanted it; right now I have a tendency to pull slightly, or hit a small fade on good shots. I think my irons could use a lie adjustment because some of them are pretty flat, but I can trust this swing for distance and height if not direction right now. Ball position is pretty easy to keep track of with this club but I could use some advice with the short and long clubs.

My 51 degree, I'm aiming to hit the green but only manage the first because I hit a cut. I prefer to hit a little draw with my wedges, but it's tough for me to line up right now; I need to fix my setup because I can't decide whether to open my stance or not or exactly where to put the ball.

My 3 wood, which has been absolutely enigmatic for me. I'm open to suggestions with this one, because I've had success hitting it with a high fade from an open stance in the past, but could never get it to draw with any consistency. I draw it here, hit my target, but it's so low it doesn't carry much. Clearly I either hit it a bit thin or the dynamic loft was just too little to get any carry. Ball speed didn't seem up to standards, either. I feel like hitting my woods and wedges wrecks my swing, and I end up swinging a bit too far left with everything.

Driver was pretty lame, could be as simple as lining up more open for a pull fade, but I have a big problem hitting the draw with this club consistently. Plus the fade tended to be too big, even though contact wasn't a problem.

I think the backswing stuff sunk in over time but I think it made a difference was getting the setup position to look more like TW. Everything else got a lot easier to do when I was in a strong position and could make my backswing more naturally. If anything I could probably polish my transition a bit and I think I could use a little more of an in to out path to take a couple yards of fade off.

[mvmac]

Think this would be a great drill for you to do. Don't worry about what is being said about the backswing stuff, you'll want to feel like you eyes don't move off the stick.

So you can stop having the hands finish low and left with "spinny" hips and get more of the look on the right. Will allow you hit it more solid and swing out longer.

[LuciusWooding]

I got the chance to hit a few balls this evening after class, so I decided to try to sort of do the drill; I didn't have anyone with me to hold the alignment rod or club, but I know the point is to work on my pivot so I used an imaginary one for now. Actually a bit of the backswing stuff in the video does make things a lot simpler, by getting my shoulders are better aligned and giving me a lot more room to operate inside the ball. The posture you get him into on the backswing essentially makes an automatic backswing for me, much simpler than the process I had going.

^My impact position looks subtly different on the right vs Sunday's on the left. The right heel is a touch lower and the right arm and hip are covering the left side more, which makes me happy because we're trying to get the path slightly farther out without doing anything rash.

I had to open the face considerably to push the ball and hit down some more, but overall I was able to hit it a lot better and I was a lot happier with my pattern once I started trusting it. Actually my distances were finally looking like my good hits on a warm summer day as opposed to a spring day with 3 months of complete rust. It was also nice to see that I could hit my clubs essentially as hard or gently as I want and still get nice contact. I hit everything very well except the 3 wood, I still think it's a setup issue but that isn't the worst club to struggle with. I was getting good hybrid distances even off the deck, which has been greatly missed so I think I'll be able to leave out the 3 when I play tomorrow. It's aeration week so I don't expect to score great but hopefully my stats will look good.

What works for me right now feel wise is to bring the left knee out, then start the hands down feeling like they'll hit the left thigh or knee if I didn't rotate. I think picking a target that's part of my body uses proprioception, that should make it easy to locate. The pivot is pretty easy to get right now as long as I keep my head and alignments steady and the forearms together. I also found that I need to maintain a pressure point between the left toe and the ground which is not only reducing my spin out by a bit, but also keeps me off my heels through the finish, which keeps me in better control.

This is a 6i which was hit fairly well with the shape I want, and most of my iron shots looked vaguely like it. Long irons looked solid as well, forgot to record my hybrid though.

This was a PW hit about 3/4 as smoothly and cleanly as possible. It went very high, traveled about 130 yards, then landed 2 feet from the pin and stopped. When I'm able to draw my wedges and short irons this high, I tend to hit a lot of good approaches inside 170 yards. Distance control was good enough today with my wedges to get me excited about tomorrow's round.

I managed to draw the driver, which was a miracle. Path still tended to be a little too upwards and not positive enough most of the time, even when I set up a bit closed. I didn't get a consistent flight from this club but I can play most of the misses and I was getting some long carries again. Obviously I'm not trying to hit a smooth one here; I could probably dial back the length of swing but the driver is a driver after all. My path is definitely very in to out, even though I'm hitting up a bit it was still a push draw.

[mvmac]

Followthrough looks better, keep it up. Arms are still working too much around you on the backswing. That right knee is losing flex at too fast a rate, hips are turned too much on the takeaway.

[LuciusWooding]

Since I played 27 today with my brother, and it was warm enough for shorts today, I decided to limit my swing work beforehand. Shot an 85 on the first 18, best score this year so far. Got a couple birdies and didn't do too terribly off the tee. Still had trouble with a couple things, like wedges and long clubs off the deck, but didn't play too bad.

The main piece I tried to improve today was getting the arms a bit less around my body, basically feeling I was swinging the club down over my head like a sledgehammer on the downswing with my grip and leg action being the only variables. I did best sticking with a strong grip and keeping the left knee out a bit longer to send my path out more, and really didn't try to control the direction of the arms as consciously as before. The results when done properly were high, penetrating irons with shallow divots and some solid tee shots as well.

I only grabbed some quick swings before the round, so I could see whether the backswing was on a different plane or if I were still doing the same thing. Tried the whole "feel a foot to change an inch" theory and basically made my backswings as vertical as I was able rather than going inside and low. This one is a fade (I believe I'm hitting a long iron) and I didn't quite get the timing or setup quite right, but I think it looks better at the top and the finish, since my left foot is not pointing left of the target on the followthrough.

I was certainly able to use this swing with power when necessary, and usually didn't hit big curves. I hit a few greens today I haven't reached in regulation in months, and birdied a hole by driving it pin high which was nice.

[LuciusWooding]

I'll keep this relatively brief because my videos aren't up to par; my cheap tripod has fallen apart and gotten lost, so I'm using 2 tees to prop up my phone and it makes it really hard to get the angle and framing right. I also can't do a FO video which I really want to look at, until I get the new one I ordered.

In these vids, the launch angle looks much lower than it is, camera is set near ground level and a bit to the right of baseline. Clear enough to give a general idea, but a bit off. I'm hitting the ball nice and high now and starting to figure out good ball positions for my long clubs which always made it hard to keep my swing going on the course; I usually hit my wedges or woods well, seldom both.

Today I hit tons of balls and played a quick 9, vast majority was partial swings (PW, 8i, 6i, 4i, I hit little draws with good contact that were on very good lines, under 80 yards carry for the most part) and a fair number of tee shots as well since I need to get them a lot better to give me more GIRs. Right now I can get in play just fine but I was hitting my long clubs much much better today after some practice.

6i, draw which ends up on target.

PW, high full shot. This club seems to be very solid right now which is a godsend.

I'm focusing on keys 1 and 2, I'd still like my head to be a bit steadier, especially on full shots as my pivot still gets a little crooked at the end. However, as long as I get my wrist set and ball position right, my contact has been unbelievably solid. A bit less of the spinny hips lately, and less balance issues in general. My miss tends to be a pull if I don't execute properly, I heel a few, or I can strike a ball okay but get a weak and low flight if I don't get secondary axis tilt right. That piece is the main reason I have good distance when I'm hitting it well. It makes one's launch conditions and divots much better; I'm getting a lot thinner and more even divots on the course.

I do have a driver and hybrid video but won't upload to Vimeo for a while longer.

[Hammer 4]

Wow, from the looks of your PW shot, I would have thought you were hitting more of a lower trajectory type shot. Then again I'm expert on swings..

[LuciusWooding]

Wow, from the looks of your PW shot, I would have thought you were hitting more of a lower trajectory type shot. Then again I'm expert on swings..

Yeah the camera is angled up because the phone is leaning a bit, and I know it's hard to see because it's in portrait mode too. The 6i basically gets to my waist on the video at apex, but the PW goes over the frame before flattening out. If I'm hitting a full wedge I usually play the ball up in my stance a bit and make a wider, shallower swing but I'm presenting enough loft and speed that if I make center contact I can stop the ball with height instead of relying on spin. I also hit a draw with an open stance, which is a really weird shot to wrap one's mind around sometimes. A lot of guys will fade wedges or knock them down more but for me this works better.

I hit a hybrid in another video today basically to max out my height, teed high and hit on the upswing and it only looked about waist height at apex too, but in real life it's frighteningly high. Just not the best angle to see the flight and FO view would be better for judging trajectory/AOA.

[Hammer 4]

Yeah the camera is angled up because the phone is leaning a bit, and I know it's hard to see because it's in portrait mode too. The 6i basically gets to my waist on the video at apex, but the PW goes over the frame before flattening out. If I'm hitting a full wedge I usually play the ball up in my stance a bit and make a wider, shallower swing but I'm presenting enough loft and speed that if I make center contact I can stop the ball with height instead of relying on spin. I also hit a draw with an open stance, which is a really weird shot to wrap one's mind around sometimes. A lot of guys will fade wedges or knock them down more but for me this works better.

I hit a hybrid in another video today basically to max out my height, teed high and hit on the upswing and it only looked about waist height at apex too, but in real life it's frighteningly high. Just not the best angle to see the flight and FO view would be better for judging trajectory/AOA.

Dude, I can relate hitting a draw with an open stance, cuz I do the same thing..yep, it's weird..lol

Re: your PW swing, like I said, I ain't no expert..anyhow, keep up the good work, and I'll do the same. Someday we will be able to hit a fade..lol

[LuciusWooding]

I've been playing a lot of social rounds lately and practicing a lot less as a result, and I've also had a great chance to learn spinning partial shots with my 2 new Mizuno R12s. I haven't done a lot of short game work because of aeration and time but I plan on getting video of some pitches and maybe my putting stroke. Lately I've been able to carry the ball almost exactly distance I want when I don't neglect Key #2 on short shots, and my putting isn't the worst it's been. Decent amount of scores in the 80s, but much more fairways hit than GIRs at the moment. Lots of really long, good tee shots and I'm getting to the point where I can play the high draw on some holes that would normally require a faded tee shot by aiming over the trees. That's helping me get good shots into the greens in general and makes it play easier but I'm still not quite consistent enough on the course to score lower.

Full swing wise, it's all about Key #2 for me right now. When I do it properly and feel a lot of pressure under my left foot, I'm crushing the ball. I don't have to swing that hard but when everything's done efficiently my velocity is up there. When I don't do it properly, still complete garbage. The compensations to get around key #2 are something I'm no longer interested in doing. I'm still being diligent about key #1 and I don't take it for granted, but almost all of my 99 problems in the full swing can be eventually solved by being stubborn about the proper weight shift. My misses are a lot more solid and tend to be thin, blocks and hooks, any of which are fairly playable. I'm also able to swing with less tension now if I wish, and still get good results. I have to get used to the feeling of delivery, since it seems very upward and very in to out vs what I was doing. I know it's really just a lot shallower and the low point's a lot farther forward, and I also don't feel like I have any significant shaft lean but I know I do. So at least the stuff I want to change feels different and the results are better. I'm also getting the pulls less often which were driving me nuts.

I'm trying to keep my head back a bit more on the downswing, which seemed like it would make pulls worse, but the secondary axis tilt was something I wasn't getting consistently. Think "head forward" vs weight forward. That piece sort of forces me to end up in a better followthrough and it also makes my long clubs work properly, giving me the blessing of a high draw with the woods which I've been able to count on.

Proper quality video should be on the way within the week or so, though I don't know when the tripod will arrive from China. Kind of pointless to keep taking lots of bad quality video, so I'll try to get better video of a better swing. Talk is cheap. I'm actually curious to see what it will look like.

[LuciusWooding]

Played pretty well the last 2 rounds, except my chipping and putting. I've been pretty busy due to my new job so I can't practice much until June. Just figured I'd update.

Couple of swings here, reasonable camera angle:

6i, I think the takeaway is still too far inside. Good flight and on target, plus my right side is getting more involved, hitting the ball higher and more crisply. Misses have been a lot better and I've had better consistency for the most part. FO would be useful so I'll try to get some next time.

2 drivers, the first is a big draw and the second is a high cut. Camera is in a better spot on the second, and I also crushed it. I think the second setup is probably the better option for my stock shot with this club. Launched this one pretty high but not much spin and a ton of speed. The first shot still went pretty far but didn't carry nearly as much.

I could stand to work on my putting; really sucked at it today.

[LuciusWooding]

The upload on the driver swing didn't work the first time, here it is.