My Swing (billchao)

[BallMarker]

May be you don't let your hips turn enough on some of your video. But, I think you have a good swing.

Edited August 4, 2017 by BallMarker

[billchao]

5 hours ago, BallMarker said:

May be you don't let your hips turn enough on some of your video.

I don't actively feel the lower body action in my backswing so some swings my left knee doesn't kick inwards and the hips don't turn as much, yea. Doesn't stop me from turning my shoulders 130° though (which I think I found a feel for and I'll get it on video as soon as I stop working every waking hour).

5 hours ago, BallMarker said:

But, I think you have a good swing.

Thanks. I just need to get rid of the catastrophic miss right. Showed some signs last year that if I don't hit that big push, I shoot 5-10 strokes better each round. I solve that and I can shift my focus to my scoring touch (short game and putting).

[Valleygolfer]

I weakened my grip a little bit to help lessen the push the other day. Nothing major, but it seems to have helped.

I thought you really had a good swing and not far off turning the corner for better scoring.

[billchao]

1 hour ago, Valleygolfer said:

I thought you really had a good swing and not far off turning the corner for better scoring.

Thanks. What's really helped is firming up my left hand grip, making my wrists more stable at the top.

Still need to solve that push with the driver though.

[Valleygolfer]

4 hours ago, billchao said:

Thanks. What's really helped is firming up my left hand grip, making my wrists more stable at the top.

Still need to solve that push with the driver though.

Which is why I said that you could weaken the right hand a little with your driver.

[billchao]

2 hours ago, Valleygolfer said:

Which is why I said that you could weaken the right hand a little with your driver.

That hasn't worked for me in the past. If anything I tend to let my right hand get weak and have to keep remembering to adjust it stronger. It's my left hand that's usually too strong.

[Valleygolfer]

2 hours ago, billchao said:

That hasn't worked for me in the past. If anything I tend to let my right hand get weak and have to keep remembering to adjust it stronger. It's my left hand that's usually too strong.

Okay. It didn't work for for me initially but I backed off the weakening to make it very slight and that seemed to work.

[billchao]

7 hours ago, Valleygolfer said:

Okay. It didn't work for for me initially but I backed off the weakening to make it very slight and that seemed to work.

My tendency is to grip the handle with the left hand strong and the right hand weak. If I don't pay attention to it, my grip will always revert to that state over time.

[billchao]

Swing update. I've eliminated the overdraws from game and most of the big left misses in general. Big push miss right is still there and I'm hitting more fades off the tee with the driver and 3W. I set up more now on the right side of the tee box to give myself a better angle for missing right because I'm less worried about missing left now but sometimes I still end up lined up more to the right than I think I am.

 

Compared to my other real swings (not the ones where I'm playing around with feels), I'd say the big difference is I'm not rolling the club under plane in the takeaway and I'm less deep at A4 which I'd say is the primary reason my path isn't as far out anymore. The downswing is more or less the same movement, little overswing/across the line with a slightly steep transition to late shallowing. It's just the angles are smaller so I'm hitting better shots.

I like hitting a fade. I guess more specifically, I like being more in control of my misses and seeing (generally) one shot shape. It's not there yet but I have embraced the shape change and it's slowly paying off on the course. Irons and wedges still draw for the most part but with less curve than earlier in the year.

And just because I'm me, I played around with really exaggerating a cut move:

 

I called it my Trevino feel but it's not very Trevino-y. His shaft plane is much flatter all around, just kind of high and flat going back, then flat and in the slot going down. I'm doing more of a steep to less steep thing. I'm also not really lined up left, just kind of flared out the front foot a bit more. Also noticed when I get more right side bend, I tend to tip my head away from the target.

Season is winding down. Sigh.

[billchao]

 

It was the elbows/forearms squeezing together at A4 that was missing. I hate it when I forget to do something I should be doing.

[billchao]

I played like garbage yesterday. Fought a hook the entire round, lost like eight balls, and gave up trying to play by the rules because I couldn't find anything anywhere. I think I hit 1 GIR all day. Came home to practice some and get a video to see what was going on and managed to hurt something in my right wrist. Great day of golf.

I should have known what kind of day it was going to be when I overdrew my approach shot on the first hole and it hit the cartpath not once, not twice, but three times and ended up 50 yards away from the green and under a gazebo.

[billchao]

Got a little bit of practice in today. Wanted to see how my back was holding up after tweaking it a little at work Thursday and I think I'll be fine to play later in the week.

For the practice I'm switching it up a bit. Getting tired of hitting off the toe so I'm doing a gate drill with some acorns I've got lying around. Not working on mechanics here, just focusing clearing the nuts. I'd call it a 3/4 swing feel, maybe about 80% or so of my normal speed.

I'm a little frustrated after the first one on the video because I hit like 10 of them in a row before I decided to see what it looked like on film and of course I screw up the first swing 

[billchao]

Had a pretty good practice session on Sunday. It's probably the first practice session I've had in two weeks, come to think of it, so it surprised me that I was able to get what I was trying to do fairly easily.

I'm kind of switching up my thought processes a bit. Instead of trying to work my body parts into certain motions in order to produce a desired result, I'm focusing on the desired result and letting my body figure out how to get there. I started slow and confirmed that I was doing what I wanted, so I slowly ramped it up and produced this result:

 

The object was to keep the arms in front of me so my right elbow doesn't transition behind me and get stuck. The goal is to keep the hands from getting too deep so I don't swing too far out and also to eliminate blocks. I've been trying to get this motion for a long time, messing around with pitch elbow, straight arms, squeezing the elbows in transition, etc., to not very much success. This time I just focused on the arms being in front of me and let my athletic instincts take over.

Hands definitely aren't too deep at A4. If anything 'd say I'm not deep enough, but the path looks fine. At worst it's maybe a little left, which I'll take over a lot right, but it looks fairly neutral to my eye (could be camera distortion).

I worked on my pitching, too. I have a tendency to roll my forearms in the backswing and I get underplane. From there I have to roll my hands over and I get all sorts of contact inconsistencies. I'm feeling like I'm keeping the handle in front of me with just hinging my right hand back instead of turning the forearms. Did some right-hand only pitches to make sure I was getting the motion correctly and it's the easiest that right-hand only pitches have ever been for me.

 

And just for fun, I hit one off the pavement (well actually the metal part of my mat).

Pretty excited overall. I've been putting better lately and this session was promising. Honestly I've been in a little funk with the game (haven't had time to practice -> haven't been playing well -> no desire to practice) and it's good to be excited again.

[billchao]

I was curious, so I took a video centered on the ball DTL to see if I can determine what my club and the ball were doing around impact.

I'm not sure I learned anything I didn't already know, though. I start the ball right of my aim line, I swing out to the right (too much I think but it's hard to know for sure), and I catch the ball at the bottom of my arc instead of hitting further down into the ground (in this case, my mat). I don't take divots with my irons and this is why I tend to miss it thin.

Just a cool view I guess. Would be better if I could take it at a higher framerate.

[nevets88]

On 10/8/2017 at 7:18 PM, billchao said:

I was curious, so I took a video centered on the ball DTL to see if I can determine what my club and the ball were doing around impact.

I'm not sure I learned anything I didn't already know, though. I start the ball right of my aim line, I swing out to the right (too much I think but it's hard to know for sure), and I catch the ball at the bottom of my arc instead of hitting further down into the ground (in this case, my mat). I don't take divots with my irons and this is why I tend to miss it thin.

Just a cool view I guess. Would be better if I could take it at a higher framerate.

Does that mat (I forget the name of it) snap back anymore? Or you turned it off? How did you like it?

[billchao]

30 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

Does that mat (I forget the name of it) snap back anymore? Or you turned it off? How did you like it?

It's the FairwayPro, and the answer is no, it stopped springing back some time ago. Still slides, but I have to kick it back manually.

I like it and I'm obviously still using it. Had it for five, maybe six years? Got a lot of use out of it, for sure.

[billchao]

New ball view, overhead!

Didn't come out too badly, actually. I thought I could have benefited from a little better lighting, but this is probably as good as I'm going to get from my phone. It's a little easier to determine path from this view; looks to me like it's close to neutral or just a hair left, which is a significant improvement over too much to the right.

It was created by this swing:

Obviously not that exact swing, but a similar one using the same feel. It was a pretty good practice session overall. The right elbow in front is getting easier to do and it's allowing me to get through impact without having roll the forearms or feeling like I have to hold off the face to prevent myself from rolling the forearms.

Getting better at the acorns, too, at speed. Still flaring the occasional shot out right though, but I'm still operating under the assumption that if my stock shot is a fade, a block miss will be far less penal because I'm already aiming down the left side, rather than what I do now which is to aim down the middle/right to play my draw and then pushing it into oblivion.

I struck the ball well which was a pleasant surprise. I mostly wanted to film that overhead view 

[billchao]

Grip adjustment for the seven thousandth time... left hand slightly weaker and more in the fingers if both hands. It's so hard for me make this change stick for a couple of reasons, but I think this time I'm going to get it, because I was able to do this:

 

Not across the line at A4, bowed wrist with shallow shaft through the downswing, and more stable clubface through the hitting zone (less forearm roll).

This is the first time I've ever seen myself swing with a bowed left wrist at A6 without the clubhead being 6" behind my hands which I think has a lot to do with what I've been working on with keeping the arms in front of me and not getting so deep.

Just as an additional feel, the left arm is dead, passive, whatever; all I feel it's doing is holding onto the grip. The right arm is the primary arm in the swing.

Pretty excited about this. I can make this move and I can make it at speed. Now it's just a matter of repetition until it becomes permanent.