My Swing (RFKFREAK)

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

@iacas, quick question - at setup it appears to me that by standing taller the shaft is more upright and, as a result, the club is toed down.  Is this ok or should I have my clubs adjusted by a fitter?

Two-part response, both in question form:

• What's the lie angle of your 6I (and length)?
• Are a lot of shots starting out to the right?

[RFKFREAK]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Two-part response, both in question form:

• What's the lie angle of your 6I (and length)?
• Are a lot of shots starting out to the right?

The notes from the fitter say that my 5-PW have a Lie Angle of 4 degree Upright and the length: +0.5".  They are 718 AP2's.

No, they're starting out straight and then hooking.

[iacas]

22 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

The notes from the fitter say that my 5-PW have a Lie Angle of 4 degree Upright and the length: +0.5".  They are 718 AP2's.

No, they're starting out straight and then hooking.

If they're 4° upright, you should be totally fine.

Open the face a little. Until the ball starts out to the right when you hit it with a relatively square face, the lie angle isn't too flat.

[RFKFREAK]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

If they're 4° upright, you should be totally fine.

Open the face a little. Until the ball starts out to the right when you hit it with a relatively square face, the lie angle isn't too flat.

Ok, will it still appear toed down from my point of view?

[iacas]

38 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

Ok, will it still appear toed down from my point of view?

It might.

You might have also exaggerated it a little bit too much. Hands can be a bit lower, pointing through your belt.

Here's the picture I gave you at CHQ:

[RFKFREAK]

18 minutes ago, iacas said:

It might.

You might have also exaggerated it a little bit too much. Hands can be a bit lower, pointing through your belt.

Here's the picture I gave you at CHQ:

Ok, great - I think it will help tremendously.

Thanks!

[iacas]

50 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

Played a 71.9/129 6400 yard course today that I never played before and shot a 111.  Fun round with 0 GIRs, 0 pars, 9 penalty strokes.  Just really an example of when you can't get off the tee and the other parts of your game don't save you, a big number is getting put up.  

I'd be curious what you'd shoot if I was coaching you around the 18 holes.

I'd make you swing what feels like (for now) 80% on every tee shot. Maybe 60%. You've gotta be able to get off the tee.

I'd bet… mid-90s pretty often. Without changing your swing.

[ChetlovesMer]

25 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'd be curious what you'd shoot if I was coaching you around the 18 holes.

I'd make you swing what feels like (for now) 80% on every tee shot. Maybe 60%. You've gotta be able to get off the tee.

I'd bet… mid-90s pretty often. Without changing your swing.

He could also shoot in the mid-90's... maybe even lower if he just let me keep his score for him.
I went to Chicago Public Schools... Math is hard. 

JK - @RFKFREAK you are too good of a dude to shoot so poorly. Your swing is better than a lot of guys I know who regularly break 100. Perhaps just switching to decaf will help? 🤪

[Antneye]

11 hours ago, ChetlovesMer said:

He could also shoot in the mid-90's... maybe even lower if he just let me keep his score for him.
I went to Chicago Public Schools... Math is hard. 

JK - @RFKFREAK you are too good of a dude to shoot so poorly. Your swing is better than a lot of guys I know who regularly break 100. Perhaps just switching to decaf will help? 🤪

Although you are joking there is a lot of truth to this. I consider myself in the same boat. You can work on things forever but often all it takes is that first horrible swing to absolutely lose it on the golf course. I'm not saying lose it in the sense of smashing clubs but suddenly you just forget everything you have been working on and revert back to bad habits. You start trying to crush every golf ball and just compound the issues. I am trying to spend tine working on the mental side of the game in addition to my mechanics. I think that is just as important as learning how to swing properly. 

[RFKFREAK]

14 hours ago, iacas said:

I'd be curious what you'd shoot if I was coaching you around the 18 holes.

I'd make you swing what feels like (for now) 80% on every tee shot. Maybe 60%. You've gotta be able to get off the tee.

I'd bet… mid-90s pretty often. Without changing your swing.

Well, I did mention that I want to get a new set of wedges so if you had the time to play a round with me while I'd be out there I'd probably be open to making a trip out your way again.

I'm planning on playing this weekend so I'll try and round swinging 60%-80% on my tee shots and see how it goes.  Full swing iron shots could probably use some slowing down, too.

As an aside, the last two huge blow-up rounds I had were days after I didn't really get much sleep or rest the night before.  Causation/correlation, maybe, but it's food for thought.

14 hours ago, ChetlovesMer said:

He could also shoot in the mid-90's... maybe even lower if he just let me keep his score for him.
I went to Chicago Public Schools... Math is hard. 

JK - @RFKFREAK you are too good of a dude to shoot so poorly. Your swing is better than a lot of guys I know who regularly break 100. Perhaps just switching to decaf will help? 🤪

Thanks, man.  Yeah - I'd like to think my swing is better that someone who shoots in the 100's on an average day and in the one teens on bad ones when the wheels fall off.

2 hours ago, Antneye said:

Although you are joking there is a lot of truth to this. I consider myself in the same boat. You can work on things forever but often all it takes is that first horrible swing to absolutely lose it on the golf course. I'm not saying lose it in the sense of smashing clubs but suddenly you just forget everything you have been working on and revert back to bad habits. You start trying to crush every golf ball and just compound the issues. I am trying to spend tine working on the mental side of the game in addition to my mechanics. I think that is just as important as learning how to swing properly. 

Yeah, this may be a part of it, too.  I try and just keep cool and maintain my composure but I'll admit yesterday after hooking yet another driver into the woods on the 15th or so hole I yelled out a loud expletive.  Even though the round was crap by that point, just being unable to hit my driver like I feel I should be able to really got to me.  After that, I calmed down and played the rest of the holes without issue (although, still like crap).

[RFKFREAK]

Golf Gods just don't want me to practice - was going to practice before working on Thursday - it rained, was going to on Friday before work - course closed because of an event and the second place I went to had only had the outdoor booths open where I can't film because of the dimensions of the booth.  Was going to go today but ended up getting caught up with a few things.  Was going to play tomorrow but may end up practicing instead, we'll see.

[RFKFREAK]

Ok, got some range practice in this morning and have a 1PM tee time today where I'm going to do as @iacas suggested and feel like I'm swinging my driver at 75% speed.

Anyway, here's a few driver swings from today's session:

 

 

 

[RFKFREAK]

So, I've decided the only way I can get some practice in consistently is to do it after the gym and before work.  Thinking of maybe doing 2 days of iron swings, 1 day of driver, and 1 day short game/putting.  Let's see how this goes.

I played yesterday and my last few rounds I have found that a good percentage of the time I've been straight-hooking the ball with my irons - from long irons to wedges.  So, @iacas recommended I open the face some to help with that and today is the first day I practiced it to see how much of the face to open.  Still a work in progress.

Today's practice session also found me making better contact with the ball at 70% or so swing speed.  I probably should have stuck with that but I found my contact was better and so took a few at regular speed.  These two were at the end of my session at full speed so I think I'll start at 70% swing speed next time and depending on how I feel, I'll increase to full speed again.  I'm trying to gauge not getting ahead of myself with unnecessarily staying at 70% swing speed.

 

[RFKFREAK]

So, was able to get to the range before work today again so hopefully I can keep doing this.

Today while I was practicing I found my strike improving.  I decided to try and gauge my alignment without my alignment stick and when I would check afterwards, I was still facing to the right of the flag stick so will def be working on that more.  The good news is that I only straight drew/hooked a couple of balls to the left and most of my balls either went straight and to the right of the flag I was aiming, went straight at the flag, or started right and drew to the flag.  

I also noticed I'd come up pretty steep on the backswing and that my shoulders would initiate the downswing which I feel leaves me susceptible to coming OTT.  I think instinctively my body wants to initiate the downswing my doing a shoulder turn rather than hold it back, so I worked on flattening my backswing and reminding myself to have have my hips be the initiator of my downswing.  I've trained my body to not have my hips start the downswing with the driver so I don't think it'll be too much of a transition - although, as one might expect, I did notice a higher ball flight and, I'd presume, would lose some distance as a result.

Anyway, here are two swings from the end of today's session:

 

[iacas]

Getting a tiny bit close to the ball. Give yourself a little bit more room.

[Antneye]

I hope you don't mind, but I've kind of adopted your swing thread as part of my training plan. My swing is nowhere near as solid as yours, but the things you struggle with are similar to mine so Ive been really picking up a lot by following you. I'd pay anything to get to where you are right now. 

Looking good. I wish I could get that same amount of rotation. I really struggle to separate the hips from the shoulders. They seem to move together for me and you seem to have no problem with that. (Don't worry, I'll keep my issues in my swing thread 😂)

[RFKFREAK]

11 hours ago, iacas said:

Getting a tiny bit close to the ball. Give yourself a little bit more room.

Will do.

1 hour ago, Antneye said:

I hope you don't mind, but I've kind of adopted your swing thread as part of my training plan. My swing is nowhere near as solid as yours, but the things you struggle with are similar to mine so Ive been really picking up a lot by following you. I'd pay anything to get to where you are right now. 

Looking good. I wish I could get that same amount of rotation. I really struggle to separate the hips from the shoulders. They seem to move together for me and you seem to have no problem with that. (Don't worry, I'll keep my issues in my swing thread 😂)

Absolutely don't mind at all - if my thread can help others then that's great!

It's funny - we're often our own worst critics.  I wouldn't call my swing solid as I see many faults to it.  From your Handicap Index, it seems you're a better player than I am so if anything, I'm envious of you. haha.  I'll have to check out your swing thread see if I can make any suggestions.

----------

Today I decided to practice with my driver.  However, what started as light rain got heavier as time went on so rather than my normal routine of hitting a ball and then checking the camera, I ended up just working on strike and stroke and, once I felt I was hitting the ball really well, I took some video which I'm planning using hopefully tomorrow to work on changing the picture.  Although I'm not falling back and still have my balance, I'm definitely arching way too much on the follow-through. 

Anyway, here are my two best strikes.

 

[Antneye]

30 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

From your Handicap Index, it seems you're a better player than I am so if anything, I'm envious of you. haha.  

 

My wedges and putter save me. My long game gets me in trouble. If I could get off the tees more consistently (not possible with my present swing) I'd get down to the low to mid 80's. Right now Im just trying to play bogey golf with an occasional par but I get too many crooked numbers because of the long game.