My Swing (billchao)

[billchao]

Haven't updated this in a while. Been pretty busy lately and haven't played at all except that one round with @Jeremie Boop and was awful. Able to practice everyday on my net so that's what I do.

Still working on keeping the swing shorter. More specifically, working on a feel to keep the swing shorter without feeling like I'm making an abbreviated backswing, because that doesn't work when I'm actually playing. Current feel is to feel the pressure points maintaining on both arms: left arm coming into my body a little bit at the takeaway and the pressure point down the side of the bicep and across the left pec, right arm slightly more externally rotated to keep that tricep connection with the right pec. Backswing feels like the wrists start to hinge automatically after the initial "into my body" movement of the arms which makes the arms go up more than around and keeps them in front of me more.

Started to work in a downswing feel of the legs clearing or the knees spinning out and then extending around A6 in order to swing out to the right more. I have a tendency to spin out the hips, leaving the arms behind, and end up pulling the clubhead in and swinging too much to the left. Feeling like I'm spinning out the knees seems to keep them from extending too early, allowing me to slide my hips longer and get everything in sync better. I'm adding this to a feel I've been working on for a while where I'm swinging my arms out and in front of me early in the downswing instead of pulling them down. Pulling down not only makes me swing steep, but it seems to fire my hips even faster. I'm guessing it has to do with the shoulder and pelvic tilting relationship. Everything now feels more rotational, as opposed to driving everything down the target line like I used to do.

Here are the swings and some practice videos:

I'm going to have to find the time to start transitioning this swing to the range and the course.

[boogielicious]

@billchao

Is there a way you could get a few videos of your swing on the course?  Your swing looks pretty good to me. I wonder if you are doing something different.

[billchao]

@billchao Is there a way you could get a few videos of your swing on the course?  Your swing looks pretty good to me. I wonder if you are doing something different.

Course swing looks closer to this one: [quote name="billchao" url="/t/70666/my-swing-billchao/480#post_1171402"] [/quote]Backswing gets too long and the club gets across the line. Key #4 & #5 issues, resulting in start line inconsistencies and some pretty dramatic misses. I actually have some on course videos from my attempted vlog a couple of weeks ago, so I know what it looks like. Apparently I forgot to format my new memory card so I ran into all sorts of errors, so no vlog :-( I had played well for a few weeks before and thought I was getting better, but it was really because I had been practicing more so I was timing the compensations better. Last round was a reality check that made me redouble my efforts to get rid of that move for good.

[billchao]

Went to an AimPoint clinic yesterday with @pcombs21 as a refresher and met up with @SavvySwede who was taking the class for the first time. It was great as always and I'm very confident in my green reading skills (my stroke is a completely different story). Got to spend some time on the range with TrackMan afterwards and see where I was at, then we went to work to fix my +12.0° path.

We worked on wrist conditions, basically the next step from the elbow stuff back in May. The feel is to feel no hinge going back to keep the wrists from breaking down and getting the club across the line. This puts me in a better position at A4, which means less compensations required in the downswing (which I also have to work on getting rid of). Downswing doesn't require as much body rotation and I need to feel like I'm swinging steeper and start taking actual divots. Less left shoulder up at impact and more around, feel is like that Tiger Woods hard left cut practice swing, only with less handle dragging and allow the clubhead to "release" out to the right.

Need to relearn the clubface position with the new swing too, but that will come in time.

Here's a before/after pic with my raw swing on the left and yesterday's end result.

More work ahead! As an aside, watching @SavvySwede hit the ball is truly humbling. Anytime I start thinking I'm a good ballstriker, I'll remember that I can't hit a 7.5° driver off the deck.

[No Mulligans]

That's looking really good

[JetFan1983]

Agreed. Looking real good. Just keep chipping away at it.

[billchao]

That's looking really good

Agreed. Looking real good. Just keep chipping away at it.

Thanks, guys. Baby steps. Gotta remember it's baby steps

[SavvySwede]

Looking good. Had a great time yesterday and I'll be expecting some tight baby draws from you next time we hit the course.

[billchao]

Looking good. Had a great time yesterday and I'll be expecting some tight baby draws from you next time we hit the course.

Thanks. I'll try my best when we get out there.

[mvmac]

Good stuff, thanks for sharing @billchao .

[nevets88]

Looks great @billchao ! Such a good looking swing. Very jealous.

[billchao]

Looks great @billchao ! Such a good looking swing. Very jealous.

Thanks. Unfortunately, anybody can make good swings with proper supervision. The hard part is doing it right on my own :-)

[nevets88]

[quote name="nevets88" url="/t/70666/my-swing-billchao/510#post_1191630"]Looks great @billchao ! Such a good looking swing. Very jealous.

Thanks. Unfortunately, anybody can make good swings with proper supervision. The hard part is doing it right on my own :-)[/quote] +1. I've been thinking this a lot recently as well. I'm guessing you make pretty good passes at the ball while w/Preston and fewer w/o? Instructor pixie dust. I definitely have a higher concentration and awareness level when w/a pro that I seemingly cannot bring to the practice tee.

[billchao]

+1. I've been thinking this a lot recently as well. I'm guessing you make pretty good passes at the ball while w/Preston and fewer w/o?

Definitely. [quote name="nevets88" url="/t/70666/my-swing-billchao/510#post_1191996"]Instructor pixie dust. I definitely have a higher concentration and awareness level when w/a pro that I seemingly cannot bring to the practice tee.[/quote]Not me, my awareness doesn't change. The difference is that there is an experienced set of eyes on the lesson tee that can help me make immediate adjustments as necessary. It's harder to do it on my own because I just don't know enough to catch when I'm doing something wrong. I get tunnel vision and focus squarely on my wrists, for example, and spend the entire session working on that and not realize that I messed up my arm alignments the whole time.

[Jeremie Boop]

Thanks. Unfortunately, anybody can make good swings with proper supervision. The hard part is doing it right on my own

For me it's not even about supervision, on the practice tee/driving range I can just hit the ball better. I don't blindly hit balls, I have a target and I'm pretty good at staying close to that target. I think I'm like you in that my swing has a tendency to get long on the course making it even more difficult for my swing compensations to take place.

[billchao]

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/billchao/round/559370

Not really sure what to make of this round. I scored well, but mostly because the course lets me get away with errant tee shots. Kept hitting push fades all day so that's promising from a swing change point of view: path no longer +12° so open face at impact causing push fades - makes me wonder if I didn't develop this swing path because of my inability to "square" the face in the first place. Problem with that is I kept lining up to play a draw and missing everything right. Still, my misses were playable even though my contact felt like crap most of the day.

Tried to play more irons off the tee to mixed results. Somehow managed to push my 5I and 6I into the trees at times. Kind of surprised I scored as well as I did, but I pitched the ball well for the most part and didn't miss a single 4 footer (which is good since my lag putting sucks and I leave myself too many 4 footers, but at least I improved my putting in one aspect).

Seriously, I tried to play conservatively off the tee and still managed to grossly mis-hit tee shots. So much for that side of the argument.

Could have played better, could have played worse. A few bad breaks, a few good ones. That's golf.

[nevets88]

WAY TO GO BILL!

[billchao]

WAY TO GO BILL!

Haha thanks, Steve. You're a lot more excited about this than I am, shows how tough I can be on myself I guess.

It's been too long since our last round, BTW.