My Swing (Jlh1508)

[jlh1508]

I've been Playing Golf for: 6 years

My current handicap index or average score is: 95-100, was 82-88 up until 7-8 weeks ago

My typical ball flight is: Was straight but is now a pull slice or straight slice

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

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I had worked really hard on my swing 3 years ago and started hitting the ball very straight. I was playing low 80's golf and shot high 70's 3 times.  But over the last 6-8 weeks my swing has fallen apart. I have developed a nasty over the top move which has brought a nasty slice.  At this point I can't find anything that has helped fix it so I am reaching out to all of you

Sorry for the video quality, it is all I have for now. These videos are in the yard hitting wiffle balls, I will try to add some videos from the range in the coming days

Videos:

[Birdman10687]

I think most of the issue is in your takeaway, which is the part of the swing starting at address and ending when the club is parallel to the ground (when the club head is hand height).  Looking at the target-line view (view from behind you as you swing), watch the video frame by frame (I did it just by pressing spacebar twice really quickly to "play-pause" the view to allow about a 10th-5th of a second go by.  Try to freeze it right at the end of the takeaway.  First off the video is slightly off alignment.  You want the video to be on the line parallel to the line connecting the ball and the target that passed through your hands (so parallel to the target line but about a foot closer to your hips).  Even so, you can still see for the most part what your issue is.

At the end of the takeaway, you want the clubface to be such that it is basically blocking the view of your hands.  In your video, the club face is WAY to the left of where it should be (outside of even your hips).  Some of this is caused by the video not being perfectly aligned, but even if it were, you would still have an issue.  Because you have the club so inside to out on the way back, you are trying to correct for it by going outside to in on the way back.  On the way back if you look at where the club head is when it is parallel to the ground you can now see it is on the other side of your hands (it should once again be such that it blocks out your hands when viewed from the correct angle). You can even see the club bow concave toward you.  The outside to in swing path will cause a slice.

I believe the issue is you don't have a one piece takeaway.  That is, you are turning your shoulder and hips too early in your back swing which brings your club off plane (too far behind it).  Your takeaway (again the part of the swing from address to club-parallel-to-ground) should pretty much be all shoulders, like you were swinging a putter (don't confuse this with upper body shoulder rotation, rather just use your shoulders to raise your clubhead away from the ball).  Also try not to break your wrists early like you are doing.  The takeaway should be 90% shoulders moving the clubhead away and 10% wrist break.  The wrist break should happen just at the very end of the takeaway to slowly being to rotate your clubface open and level the club.  No hips, no torso rotation.

A good way to practice this is with a mirror.  Put a mirror behind you and practice just the takeaway.  It should feel almost like you are swinging a putter over and over (admittedly a much longer stroke).  At the end of the takeaway check and see that your clubhead is blocking your hands in the reflection.  Alternatively you can have a friend stand behind you and check.  Make sure either your friend or the mirror is aligned correctly (same as where I said the camera should be).  As you practice the takeaway start to add on the rest of the swing until it feels natural.  It may take a long time to develop the muscle memory.  Likely if you fix the issues int he takeaway it will help fix the over-correcting you are doing on the downswing which is producing an out to in move that gives you the slice.  I remember I spent a week at one point going to the range and hitting 50 balls a day with JUST a takeaway.  I would take 3 practice swings where I checked my clubhead at the end of the takeaway then I would pitch the ball doing just a takeaway.  I did this just to build that muscle memory of getting the clubhead in the right spot because building a good swingpath is so important.

Just as an aside--I in general think a one plane swing is much easier, but even if you use a two plane swing, the clubhead should pass through the points in the takeaway I described.  For example, Jim Furyk, who has a really weird swing with I guess you would call two planes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHDGq8os1GQ

you can see if you look at 0:41 and 1:00 that in his backswing and downswing his clubhead blocks out his hands.  On the way down (at 1:00) his club is actually a little INSIDE his hands meaning he has a slight IN to OUT swingpath which will produce a gentle draw (whereas your severe out to in swing is going to produce a wicked slice).  I have heard it mostly suggested that your swing, especially with a driver, should be very slightly in to out as Furyks is here.

[Hacker James]

The one thing that caught my eye was at the top of the backswing, just as you are beginning the transition, your right shoulder goes in kind of on a level turn changing the swing plane and it looks as though you are then coming outside in. To my eye, it was very visible almost as if you deliberately decided to change direction. the shoulder turned and then you started the downswing on a different plane. It might very well be as the last poster said due to the take away. As far as camera angle goes, I am just learning myself so can not offer any real help there. On the forum, the moderators have a rather in-depth explanation of how to set up camera, alignment e.t.c.  I will try and find it unless somebody else points it out. I know it was mentioned very early on in my first video. EJ and one of the instructors inserted the link(s).

Good luck, keep at it and I am sure you will find a cure.

[Hacker James]

here you go...

http://thesandtrap.com/b/playing_tips/filming_your_swing

[jlh1508]

First and foremost thanks to both of you for taking the time to respond

Originally Posted by Hacker James

The one thing that caught my eye was at the top of the backswing, just as you are beginning the transition, your right shoulder goes in kind of on a level turn changing the swing plane and it looks as though you are then coming outside in. To my eye, it was very visible almost as if you deliberately decided to change direction. the shoulder turned and then you started the downswing on a different plane. It might very well be as the last poster said due to the take away. As far as camera angle goes, I am just learning myself so can not offer any real help there. On the forum, the moderators have a rather in-depth explanation of how to set up camera, alignment e.t.c.  I will try and find it unless somebody else points it out. I know it was mentioned very early on in my first video. EJ and one of the instructors inserted the link(s).

Good luck, keep at it and I am sure you will find a cure.

I am not sure what you mean by the bolded part, could you walk me through it some more?

Originally Posted by Birdman10687

At the end of the takeaway, you want the clubface to be such that it is basically blocking the view of your hands.  In your video, the club face is WAY to the left of where it should be (outside of even your hips).  Some of this is caused by the video not being perfectly aligned, but even if it were, you would still have an issue.  Because you have the club so inside to out on the way back, you are trying to correct for it by going outside to in on the way back.  On the way back if you look at where the club head is when it is parallel to the ground you can now see it is on the other side of your hands (it should once again be such that it blocks out your hands when viewed from the correct angle). You can even see the club bow concave toward you.  The outside to in swing path will cause a slice.

I believe the issue is you don't have a one piece takeaway.  That is, you are turning your shoulder and hips too early in your back swing which brings your club off plane (too far behind it).  Your takeaway (again the part of the swing from address to club-parallel-to-ground) should pretty much be all shoulders, like you were swinging a putter (don't confuse this with upper body shoulder rotation, rather just use your shoulders to raise your clubhead away from the ball).  Also try not to break your wrists early like you are doing.  The takeaway should be 90% shoulders moving the clubhead away and 10% wrist break.  The wrist break should happen just at the very end of the takeaway to slowly being to rotate your clubface open and level the club.  No hips, no torso rotation.

A good way to practice this is with a mirror.  Put a mirror behind you and practice just the takeaway.  It should feel almost like you are swinging a putter over and over (admittedly a much longer stroke).  At the end of the takeaway check and see that your clubhead is blocking your hands in the reflection.  Alternatively you can have a friend stand behind you and check.  Make sure either your friend or the mirror is aligned correctly (same as where I said the camera should be).  As you practice the takeaway start to add on the rest of the swing until it feels natural.  It may take a long time to develop the muscle memory.  Likely if you fix the issues int he takeaway it will help fix the over-correcting you are doing on the downswing which is producing an out to in move that gives you the slice.  I remember I spent a week at one point going to the range and hitting 50 balls a day with JUST a takeaway.  I would take 3 practice swings where I checked my clubhead at the end of the takeaway then I would pitch the ball doing just a takeaway.  I did this just to build that muscle memory of getting the clubhead in the right spot because building a good swingpath is so important.

Thank you for taking the time to write all this. I will work on that drill and see if it helps.

[Hacker James]

Originally Posted by jlh1508

First and foremost thanks to both of you for taking the time to respond

I am not sure what you mean by the bolded part, could you walk me through it some more?

Thank you for taking the time to write all this. I will work on that drill and see if it helps.

at the very top of the swing, it looks like somehow you pushed "out" before coming back down. Like your upper body twisted a little to the left and then came down on a different plane than you started with. Some sort of "correction" move that was an over compensation and caused an out to in from the top. The other poster had a better explanation than I did.

[jlh1508]

I think most of the issue is in your takeaway, which is the part of the swing starting at address and ending when the club is parallel to the ground (when the club head is hand height).  Looking at the target-line view (view from behind you as you swing), watch the video frame by frame (I did it just by pressing spacebar twice really quickly to "play-pause" the view to allow about a 10th-5th of a second go by.  Try to freeze it right at the end of the takeaway.  First off the video is slightly off alignment.  You want the video to be on the line parallel to the line connecting the ball and the target that passed through your hands (so parallel to the target line but about a foot closer to your hips).  Even so, you can still see for the most part what your issue is.

At the end of the takeaway, you want the clubface to be such that it is basically blocking the view of your hands.  In your video, the club face is WAY to the left of where it should be (outside of even your hips).  Some of this is caused by the video not being perfectly aligned, but even if it were, you would still have an issue.  Because you have the club so inside to out on the way back, you are trying to correct for it by going outside to in on the way back.  On the way back if you look at where the club head is when it is parallel to the ground you can now see it is on the other side of your hands (it should once again be such that it blocks out your hands when viewed from the correct angle). You can even see the club bow concave toward you.  The outside to in swing path will cause a slice.

I believe the issue is you don't have a one piece takeaway.  That is, you are turning your shoulder and hips too early in your back swing which brings your club off plane (too far behind it).  Your takeaway (again the part of the swing from address to club-parallel-to-ground) should pretty much be all shoulders, like you were swinging a putter (don't confuse this with upper body shoulder rotation, rather just use your shoulders to raise your clubhead away from the ball).  Also try not to break your wrists early like you are doing.  The takeaway should be 90% shoulders moving the clubhead away and 10% wrist break.  The wrist break should happen just at the very end of the takeaway to slowly being to rotate your clubface open and level the club.  No hips, no torso rotation.

A good way to practice this is with a mirror.  Put a mirror behind you and practice just the takeaway.  It should feel almost like you are swinging a putter over and over (admittedly a much longer stroke).  At the end of the takeaway check and see that your clubhead is blocking your hands in the reflection.  Alternatively you can have a friend stand behind you and check.  Make sure either your friend or the mirror is aligned correctly (same as where I said the camera should be).  As you practice the takeaway start to add on the rest of the swing until it feels natural.  It may take a long time to develop the muscle memory.  Likely if you fix the issues int he takeaway it will help fix the over-correcting you are doing on the downswing which is producing an out to in move that gives you the slice.  I remember I spent a week at one point going to the range and hitting 50 balls a day with JUST a takeaway.  I would take 3 practice swings where I checked my clubhead at the end of the takeaway then I would pitch the ball doing just a takeaway.  I did this just to build that muscle memory of getting the clubhead in the right spot because building a good swingpath is so important.

Just as an aside--I in general think a one plane swing is much easier, but even if you use a two plane swing, the clubhead should pass through the points in the takeaway I described.  For example, Jim Furyk, who has a really weird swing with I guess you would call two planes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHDGq8os1GQ

you can see if you look at 0:41 and 1:00 that in his backswing and downswing his clubhead blocks out his hands.  On the way down (at 1:00) his club is actually a little INSIDE his hands meaning he has a slight IN to OUT swingpath which will produce a gentle draw (whereas your severe out to in swing is going to produce a wicked slice).  I have heard it mostly suggested that your swing, especially with a driver, should be very slightly in to out as Furyks is here.

Again thanks for taking the time to write all this.

I am trying really hard to work on not getting the club to far inside. Lots of slow swing working on it but whenever I go to a full speed swing I revert back to old habits. Got to keep working on it over and over

I also just noticed today the part about a one plane swing and rotating the hips to soon in the take away.  I think you are on to something there and its another piece I will have to try to implement.