My Swing (billchao)

[iacas]

So in no particular order:

• Yeah, it's bordering on too laid off now. Which is good - it just means it's becoming easy for you to do this at speed. Keep an eye on it, but don't try to lay it off more for a little while. It's fine. Plenty.
• Look at the shaft/lag angle at A6 in the last video. It's too much. It's going to have to come out really fast and will probably come out "the wrong way." Throwing widens the angle, it doesn't narrow it.
• Your swing is shorter, so that's good.
• Pick a new priority thing, a single thing, and work on that. See the first bullet point.

[billchao]

15 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I find it hard to practice with two pieces at the same time. So I work on priority 1 first, then add 2 after a number of swings with 1, etc.

Yea. It’s why I haven’t even tried doing the fourth thing from Erie. I can’t do two different downswing pieces at the same time.

5 hours ago, iacas said:

Yeah, it's bordering on too laid off now. Which is good - it just means it's becoming easy for you to do this at speed. Keep an eye on it, but don't try to lay it off more for a little while. It's fine. Plenty.

Ok. I kind of just go to 11 with it right now because that’s what I’m used to doing so I’ll dial it back a bit while making sure I don’t end up across the line again.

5 hours ago, iacas said:

Look at the shaft/lag angle at A6 in the last video. It's too much. It's going to have to come out really fast and will probably come out "the wrong way." Throwing widens the angle, it doesn't narrow it.

That makes sense. I was just seeing if I could make my arms come down faster but clearly I did it the wrong way.

5 hours ago, iacas said:

Your swing is shorter, so that's good.

For now 

But seriously I’ve accepted that it’s probably something I’m going to have to stay on top of forever.

5 hours ago, iacas said:

Pick a new priority thing, a single thing, and work on that. See the first bullet point.

I’m going to focus on the backswing stuff and get the club more on plane and leave the downswing piece alone for now.

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, billchao said:

But seriously I’ve accepted that it’s probably something I’m going to have to stay on top of forever.

Most definitely.

4 minutes ago, billchao said:

I’m going to focus on the backswing stuff and get the club more on plane and leave the downswing piece alone for now.

K.

[billchao]

 

Swings from yesterday. No issues with the club being too laid off and my arms staying up in the downswing. Wasn't really sure what caused the problem the other day because the swing feels the same, but after reviewing the two swings I noticed that my backswing from these swings is slightly faster than the ones from the other day. It could simply be that I laid off the club too much the other day because I had more time to do it. I guess that's fine - my natural rhythm tends to be on the faster side anyway. Current swing practice is status quo.

---

I briefly reviewed my four rounds in Shot Scope and noticed that my partial wedges are terrible, not that I really needed data to confirm it or anything, because I've been hitting them fat and thin all over the course so I knew something was off. I'm actually better from 100-150 yards overall than I am from 50-100 yards (except for out of fairway bunkers, but I'm not practicing that ). I hit the green 42% of the time from 100-150 yards versus 27% from 50-100 yards with twice as many attempts. That's not exactly a good combination as my driving improves.

I captured swings on video to see what's going on:

 

So right away I can see I'm thrusting. I don't know how much of the full swing feel I'm supposed to incorporate into a partial wedge swing because I'm not going to need as much sit/squat, but I'm guessing the answer isn't zero. These were the better ones, too. I definitely hit a few fat and thin that I didn't manage to get on video. I'm going to start adding these into my practice routine.

[iacas]

11 hours ago, billchao said:

Swings from yesterday. No issues with the club being too laid off and my arms staying up in the downswing. Wasn't really sure what caused the problem the other day because the swing feels the same, but after reviewing the two swings I noticed that my backswing from these swings is slightly faster than the ones from the other day. It could simply be that I laid off the club too much the other day because I had more time to do it. I guess that's fine - my natural rhythm tends to be on the faster side anyway. Current swing practice is status quo.

Sometimes your body just feels and acts a little differently. That day. We're different every day.

11 hours ago, billchao said:

 

I hit the green 42% of the time from 100-150 yards versus 27% from 50-100 yards with twice as many attempts. That's not exactly a good combination as my driving improves.

Yeah. 🙂

 

11 hours ago, billchao said:

So right away I can see I'm thrusting. I don't know how much of the full swing feel I'm supposed to incorporate into a partial wedge swing because I'm not going to need as much sit/squat, but I'm guessing the answer isn't zero. These were the better ones, too. I definitely hit a few fat and thin that I didn't manage to get on video. I'm going to start adding these into my practice routine.

I like to just stay on my left leg for these types of shots. No shift, not even a subtle one (with my hips down - obviously my arms swinging back will have my pressure shifting slightly).

So, try a bit more of a "set up left, stay left, finish left" type front-post swing.

[billchao]

32 minutes ago, iacas said:

Sometimes your body just feels and acts a little differently. That day. We're different every day.

Yea that thought occurred to me, too. I could have just been tired from work the other day.

33 minutes ago, iacas said:

I like to just stay on my left leg for these types of shots. No shift, not even a subtle one (with my hips down - obviously my arms swinging back will have my pressure shifting slightly).

So, try a bit more of a "set up left, stay left, finish left" type front-post swing.

I’ll work on that, thanks.

[billchao]

Just wanted to post an update on the state of my game. We’ve hit that time of year when I’m too exhausted after work to get quality practice in, so I haven’t been practicing. I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing this year as I’ve been overdoing my piece anyway. I was worried about the lack of practice but I ended up hitting the ball pretty well (more on this later) my last time out.

I’ve been hitting my driver pretty solidly. There’s still the issue of leaving the face open at impact, but I’m aiming to play a push off the tee. This way if I square the face, I’ll end up in the left rough, but if I hit a big push there’s more of a chance it stays in play. It kind of works if there’s enough room to miss right (ie there’s another hole over there).

I’m hitting my irons fairly well, too. Again, I’m aiming for a push, but it’s not as pronounced as with the driver. As long as I don’t draw the ball, I’ll end up in decent shape. However, and this is what I alluded to earlier, I’m randomly topping the ball. It’s kind of weird because on any given shot I’ll either hit it like a single digit handicap or I’ll hit it like a 30. I suspect it has something to do with my trail elbow in transition but I haven’t really had the energy to work on it.

Oddly enough I’ve been hitting my 3w really well but my 2h like crap, even off the tee. Might be time to replace it with a 5w. I’m going to start hitting the 3w more and see how it goes.

I had some issues with contact on distance wedges, but I made an adjustment and that seems to working. I think I have to remap my distances, though. 

Short game is kind of there. Some of it is mental error - wrong club or shot choice. I need to get out of the habit of using my 60° wedge for everything. I also pitch the ball better than I think I do and I should trust that, but I’m scarred from blading the ball so much earlier in the year that I’m afraid to swing through, which causes me to blade the ball or hit it short of my target.

I’m actually putting pretty well. Had a bit of an issue earlier in the year on short putts, but figured out the problem and fixed it. Sometimes I’m a little lazy in reading a putt through, or I’ll get over my ball and second guess myself. Those are stupid mistakes.

Thats kind of it. I’m going to try to get more practice in, but if I only have one day a week or something for golf, I’m just going to play.

[billchao]

Got some time (and energy) to film some swings today.

Raw swings:

 

I kind of backed off some of the laying off piece for a bit. I haven't practiced in a couple of weeks, TBH, but the swing I've been playing with is probably the ones above. I'm doing the knee/sit piece in transition and the John Rahm no wrist set backswing but I'm not actively rotating my hands to get the club to shallow. That seems to get my hands pretty high for some reason. They're reacting to where the weight of the clubhead is, maybe. Then I bring the club down a little over plane and swing a little left. It's playable I guess.

Went back to incorporating the laid off feel and those swings look like this:

 

These are more on plane even though I'm a bit too laid off. Guess I better stick with the backswing feel. I think as long as I don't bow the left wrist as I'm laying the club down it's probably fine. That seems to happen when I really exaggerate the feel and I don't think I need to do that anymore at this point.

I'm striking the ball better. I'm hitting crisp long irons and 3w shots off the deck, two shots I struggled with last year. I'm even driving the ball fairly well. Unfortunately my scores haven't come down because I've forgotten how to play the game from 100 yards in. It's awful. Actually it's downright embarrassing to smoke a drive 280 in the fairway and still card a double bogey on a par 4. I'm going to have to see if I can get out on a relatively empty course some afternoon and get some practice in.

[JetFan1983]

I see on May 16 you have a post about using GEARS and moving the ball position more forward. From face-on in these videos it does appear to be very far forward. What's the thought process behind this ball position? High fades?

[billchao]

2 hours ago, JetFan1983 said:

I see on May 16 you have a post about using GEARS and moving the ball position more forward. From face-on in these videos it does appear to be very far forward.

Yea I already played the ball more forward than most so I was surprised to hear I could play it farther forward.

2 hours ago, JetFan1983 said:

What's the thought process behind this ball position? High fades?

Just better ballstriking. The idea is to play position the ball directly at the point where pelvic center and the torso center converge in the downswing.

I generally hit a fade because I tend to leave the face open relative to my path, but I can hit high draws from there.

---

I went back out later in the day and worked on partial wedge swings and pitching.

Wedge swings seem to require a little bit more forward feel with the knee/sit move than with my full swing. Tend to hang back  a bit more on the partial swings if I don’t feel my hips going towards the target.

Pitching seems to be the usual problem. Too much fanning the clubface open in the backswing introducing too much bounce and then trying to swing my hands through instead of letting the club head fall behind and pivoting through the shot. Somehow I always have to come back to the lesson @david_wedzik taught me years ago. It’s ok out of the rough but not from tight lies and I’ve been struggling with blading pitches from the fairway.

[iacas]

Consider a "front post" partial wedge swing. Just set up a bit left, and then stay there the whole swing. Not much movement to or fro.

[billchao]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Consider a "front post" partial wedge swing. Just set up a bit left, and then stay there the whole swing. Not much movement to or fro.

Yea I was trying that from your last post. Maybe I’m not staying left enough. Or rather I need to feel more left in order to actually stay left.

[billchao]

 

Got my reps in before playing tomorrow. Looks like I just have a tendency to tip the club out a bit. Not going to do anything about it now; I'm hitting the ball pretty solidly, anyway. Just going to keep playing a slight push. I got the face a little closed in the DTL shot and pulled it, but my usual miss is definitely right.

I did some more left post partial swings just to keep cementing that feeling with the wedges. Probably should have done some pitching, too, but mosquitoes. The primary focus now is to keep maintaining the full swing as is and really work towards learning how to score. Wedges are key, along with short game stuff. That's a little harder to do at my house, though, but I'm kind of just working on making good contact consistently ATM.

Also, I'm terrible at putting from 6-9'? I've made 6% of my putts from 6-9', but 19% of my putts from 9-12'. That's kind of weird, especially when considering a good short game shot for me puts me right in that 6-9' area, so I'm failing to convert up and downs due to the putter. I don't consider myself a good putter overall but I feel like I should be making more of those. I think speed has been my best skill this year. I don't usually leave myself anything longer than 3' most of the time. My 3-putt percentage based off 9 rounds in Shot Scope is 9%. That's better than an 8 handicap, according to Shot Scope:

How to Stop 3 Putting: Quick Fixes To Improve Your Score

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3 putts. Annoying and avoidable. How can you improve your putting and reduce the number of 3 putts?

Digging a little further, I'm just kind of bad from mid range in general:

Putting make percentages by handicap - how do you compare?

---

Is putting your strength or weakness? In this article, we look at real life data comparing the make putt percentage of different handicap groups.

My make % from 30'+ is: who gives a crap, that's mostly luck anyway. My make % from 24-30' is 5%, putting me right at a 10 handicap, according to the article. My make % from 0-6' is also right on par with a 10 handicap. From 18-24' it's 13%, putting me up there with the 5 handicap players. But my make % from 6-12' isn't even on the chart, that's how bad it is. Same deal from 12-18'. There's definitely room for improvement there.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

Got my reps in before playing tomorrow. Looks like I just have a tendency to tip the club out a bit. Not going to do anything about it now; I'm hitting the ball pretty solidly, anyway. Just going to keep playing a slight push. I got the face a little closed in the DTL shot and pulled it, but my usual miss is definitely right.

Yeah. If it's laid off it'll tip out a bit, if it's across like before it lays down a bit. For you, you'd rather be a little laid off than a little across if you can help it. You'd rather be perfect, of course, but if you had to pick one or the other, laid off is better for you.

1 hour ago, billchao said:

Also, I'm terrible at putting from 6-9'? I've made 6% of my putts from 6-9'

Six percent?

What?

Are you actually measuring these putts? Cuz… that's quite bad.

What's the sample size here? It can't be too small because even 1 out of 16 is 6.25%, so… it's probably at least 16 putts.

How is it only 6%?

[billchao]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yeah. If it's laid off it'll tip out a bit, if it's across like before it lays down a bit. For you, you'd rather be a little laid off than a little across if you can help it. You'd rather be perfect, of course, but if you had to pick one or the other, laid off is better for you.

Yea that’s what I thought. I hit the occasional pull draw, but generally everything pushes a bit with varying amounts of fade. Some of the pulls fade, too, and that’s perfectly fine by me.

It’s a lot better than before GEARS when I would miss the ball every way known to man. Much more consistently playable now.

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

Six percent?

What?

Are you actually measuring these putts? Cuz… that's quite bad.

What's the sample size here? It can't be too small because even 1 out of 16 is 6.25%, so… it's probably at least 16 putts.

How is it only 6%?

Out of 35 attempts, I’ve made 2. One of them happened during my last round.

I don’t measure it exactly but I know what 8’ looks like (length of a piece of plywood) and I eyeball it from there. I don’t really make any putts outside of 5’ until I get to 10’ for some reason.

And I have absolutely no idea. I’ve burned plenty of edges, though.

I wonder if it’s mental? Like I don’t think I can hole the putt so I’m not trying to? Like, ok just get it to tap-in distance and get down in two and move onto the next hole. Does that make sense?

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, billchao said:

Yea that’s what I thought. I hit the occasional pull draw, but generally everything pushes a bit with varying amounts of fade. Some of the pulls fade, too, and that’s perfectly fine by me.

It’s a lot better than before GEARS when I would miss the ball every way known to man. Much more consistently playable now.

Yes.

5 minutes ago, billchao said:

I wonder if it’s mental? Like I don’t think I can hole the putt so I’m not trying to? Like, ok just get it to tap-in distance and get down in two and move onto the next hole. Does that make sense?

I think maybe you don't even really try. Like, on a subconscious level. You aren't really particular with where you aim or a spot over which you want to start the ball. I think you just get up there, aren't really thinking or being picky, and you just hit it.

I'm very picky. I remember being annoyed at @DaveP043 at the Sandbox over I think what amounted to half an inch of aim on an 8' putt or something (I think it was where I said a ball and he said half a cup, and a ball is 1.68" and half a cup is 2.125"). (Hi Dave! 😄) At that distance, I'm even pickier than the half inch — I'm picking a spot, not even a small area.

[billchao]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think maybe you don't even really try. Like, on a subconscious level. You aren't really particular with where you aim or a spot over which you want to start the ball. I think you just get up there, aren't really thinking or being picky, and you just hit it.

That’s probably it. It’s kind of what I’m saying. There’s definitely no conscious thought that I’m trying to hole this putt.

Except for that last one. I smoked a drive and split the fairway, stuck a 3/4 wedge to 8’. I wanted that putt, so I made every effort to make it. Got my read, picked my line, felt the weight of the stroke through my practice swings and then just nailed it. Dead center. It was 3% and downhill, too, so it was harder than most putts I have at that distance.

Now that I think about it, that’s the first time in a long time I used my fingers in a read. Most of the time I just kind of go, “that’s about where to aim for two” and then putt.

Yea, I’m not really trying. At all. That’s going to end.

[billchao]

Played today and didn't like how I was hitting the ball. I mean I hit it really solidly, but I was missing in both directions by significant amounts. I know I wrote yesterday that I'd leave my full swing as is, but it bothered me enough that I practiced a little bit after dinner. The end result is this:

 

It's basically the same swing except I've added right arm extension to the downswing, so the downswing starts with the right arm extending and the right knee flexing at the same time. These were hard to achieve together at speed, unsurprisingly. Two downswing pieces simultaneously is not something I can do well, as I've stated in the past.

It kind of made me think about how I got to this point in the first place. I wasn't doing the arms staying up and clubhead tipping way out thing in Erie. My arms were coming down fine when we added the knee piece. But now I realize at the time, my downswing feel was just the arms coming down. So I think because I was already doing the arms down somewhat naturally, adding the knee piece didn't affect the arms too much at the time. However, since my primary focus in the downswing for months has solely been the knee piece, I think the arms down move slowly disappeared. Again, only good at one downswing piece at a time.

So I think I'm going to have to practice them both. Separately and together. Separately they're actually pretty easy. Together is a little bit trickier. I'm doing the pump drill for that, extending the right arm and flexing the right knee at the same time. Filmed that, actually: