My Swing (bgary34)

[bgary34]

I've been Playing Golf for: 12 years occasionally, 3 months with regularity

My current handicap index or average score is: 12.1

My typical ball flight is: slight fade

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

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I started playing as a little kid, basically stopped for 5 or 6 years, and have just caught the golf bug again in the last few months. Any advice is appreciated!

[Stretch]

For a start -- "softer" shoulders at address and let the lower back and arms relax a bit.

http://thesandtrap.com/t/56069/good-golf-posture

Now rotate the right hip a little behind you (you'll feel your left knee flex a little and put a little more pressure into the ground) and let the right shoulder come slightly inside the left. This will help to start moving your club path more to the right, which is what you need to take the tail off that fade.

[guiseppe]

There is a lot of head movement off the ball.  If you look over your right shoulder in the face on video, there is a pipe of some sort coming out of the shed behind you.  It's a pretty good mark as to where your right side is at the start of the backswing.  By the time you finish going back, your head has moved well past that point and covered it up. The 5keys guys here hate that.  It could be a result of your pretty "flat" shoulder turn.

[bgary34]

For a start -- "softer" shoulders at address and let the lower back and arms relax a bit.

http://thesandtrap.com/t/56069/good-golf-posture

Now rotate the right hip a little behind you (you'll feel your left knee flex a little and put a little more pressure into the ground) and let the right shoulder come slightly inside the left. This will help to start moving your club path more to the right, which is what you need to take the tail off that fade.

Thank you, that is not something I would have thought of. Like many people (I'm guessing) I assumed I was using the correct posture with the "S" shape. I'll try this out tomorrow on the range.

There is a lot of head movement off the ball.  If you look over your right shoulder in the face on video, there is a pipe of some sort coming out of the shed behind you.  It's a pretty good mark as to where your right side is at the start of the backswing.  By the time you finish going back, your head has moved well past that point and covered it up. The 5keys guys here hate that.  It could be a result of your pretty "flat" shoulder turn.

Good call, that is waaay too much head movement. Could you elaborate any on the flat shoulder turn? I've done some quick searches but I'm not really finding anything that makes sense to me. I'm pretty knew here and still trying to read articles and build up my technical terminology so I can make sense of some of the discussions on this site.

[guiseppe]

Best way I can describe a "flat" swing is that your shoulders turn on a plane which is roughly parallel to the ground-.  The opposite of flat is steep; where at the end of your swing your shoulders are more perpendicular to the ground.  If that does not make sense, google flat golf swing, I'm sure there are videos which will help you.

See also the video in the link below.  Sean Foley (and I think the 5key guys here) suggest thinking about your left shoulder moving under your chin.  You will see how at the top of his swing his shoulders are just about on a 90 degree angle to the ground whereas you swing much more "level" around your body

To be clear:  not all teachers advocate such a steep backswing as Foley, but it is a good video to give you a contrast to your swing.

[bgary34]

Ahhh I get it! The video cleared it up perfectly, thanks for the help!

[mdl]

I'll second that a good focus to start is setup and back swing.  The last time I played with Mike (mvmac, one of the site owners), he made the comment that most people can play in the single digits with only two of the the keys in their 5 key system: steady head and weight forward at impact.  I agree that a good starting place for you is figuring out the elements of steady head through the back swing and initiation of the down swing.

Note that steady means in all directions.  You 100% can't have movement along the target line (towards your front or back foot) or forwards/backwards (towards your toes or heels as you stand over the ball).  Some guys can get away with some up/down movement (towards/away from the ground) without movement in the other two directions, but building the swing from the ground up I'd recommend against that as well.

For me, there are two major requirements to a steady head on the back swing.  First, don't let your back hip drift away from the ball down the target line on the back swing.  For me, at the range, I have to actively feel the weight on inside edge of my rear foot.  Second is not standing up.  This is usually referred to as maintaining your spine angle, which I like as a swing thought but isn't quite anatomically correct.  One good drill for this is the butt against the wall drill, which you can find on this site or on google.  You can also just take very slow practice swings and concentrate on not moving your head at all to try to get what that feels like.

One note on something that's thrown me off for years.  With a solid back swing and a less flat shoulder turn, I feel like I'm taking a much shorter back swing, and you may in fact do so.  That's okay!  I often subconsciously try to make up for it by rolling my wrists around or bending my front elbow at the top.  Those both cause big problems, at least for me!

[bgary34]

Thanks mdl. When I hit the range tomorrow I plan on focusing on two things, because any more and I think it will be overload, and also because I think these two things will solve the other problems. The first is being a little more hunched over and relaxed at address (more of the "C" posture as opposed to the "S") so that my head is more centered over the ball, and second keeping my head very still throughout the swing. I think the change in posture should alleviate my flat shoulder rotation, and keeping my head very still will keep the hips from swaying out along the target line, keep me from standing up, and make my shoulder turn a little less flat. I think these two changes will also get me a little more forward at impact, because after watching these videos several times I see that after swaying back in the takeaway I am not getting enough of my weight back forward at impact.

Thanks again for the help guys (and/or gals)! Really excited to try this out tomorrow!

[bgary34]

Worst range session ever! I think I am doing considerably better with keeping my head still, but the "C" posture is just something I simply cannot seem to do. I went from having a slight fade (averaging about 10 yards, very playable) to anywhere between a 15 and 75 yard slice! I don't think slice is even the right word, it isn't severe enough to describe what I was doing. I hit a couple drives that went farther left-to-right than they did forward. I hit 3 buckets trying to get a feel for this new stance, and- dejected and defeated- said screw it and hit one last bucket where I went back to my old "S" posture but still tried to keep my head calm and weight forward. While I wasn't hitting the ball quite as far as I am accustomed to this way, I was hitting it dead straight or with a slight draw. Unfortunately I didn't have anyone with me so I could take a video, but hopefully in the near future I can get someone to video me again so I can see what exactly I'm doing differently. And hopefully as I get more comfortably with this swing I can be a little more aggressive and get the lost distance back. In the long run a draw bias should increase my distance, so here's to hoping.

[guiseppe]

There are probably a million golf tips out there and they don's work for everyone.  My favorite instructor insists that she can't tell me what a particular move feels like; its different for each person.

Your posture is not bad at all.  I think the advice Stretch gave you was to "relax" a bit.  You may have turned that into another "active" adjustment (to use your words, "get into the C position.")  You could now be in a C position (which I don't fully understand what that is and it doesn't "sound" right to me) AND still be too stiff.  You may not have fixed the problem at all and instead just kept it in a different posture.  Take your normal stance and just relax yourself a bit.  Or...forget about the posture thing for now if it is not working for you.  Be careful not to make dramatic changes.  The Great Harvey Pennick insisted on little adjustments.  In his words:  when you take an aspirin, you take a couple, not the whole bottle.

Don't get discouraged. Swing changes will feel uncomfortable and be difficult.  If something you hear on this forum does not work for you, don't do it.  People here don't have the benefit of seeing you swing a bunch and we are for the most part not instructors.  We're golf fanatics who THINK we know what we are talking about, but most likely don't. I mean, really...I'm a god-damn 10 handicap and I talk like I'm Butch Harmon.  Think about the tips as suggestions rather than absolutes.

[bgary34]

Very good points guiseppe, and pretty much the conclusion I came to last night while I was thinking about my range session. Keeping my head still is something that is very doable with some practice and I can see how it could benefit me in the long run, but otherwise I am just going to swing however feels comfortable to me. I'll never be on the PGA tour, I just want to go out a couple times a week and feel like I can break 80 if I have a really good day. With some more repetition and a calmer head I think my swing is good enough to accomplish that goal.

I asked for advice on my swing tho, and you guys were fantastic about giving me thoughtful advice, and I am very appreciative. Its a pretty cool community here at TST, I'm glad to be part of it.