My Swing (billchao)

[billchao]

Back to practice. Still working on a flatter transition and not overswinging. For the shallowing part I'm changing my focus a bit - instead of thinking about what my body is doing to shallow the shaft, I'm focusing on where the clubhead has to be when the shaft shallows and letting my body work it there on its own. It's basically the "heavy clubhead" thing where I let it drop back behind me. Added some reverse-rev for some Key #5 stuff I remembered from a lesson with @iacas some time ago that I feel still applies. Plus, I think the left wrist flextion at A4 gives me something of a downswing trigger so I don't get too long at the top.

Here's some practice footage to demonstrate what I'm doing and how I'm doing it:

I probably could have worked on a more fluid transition instead of pausing at A4 since I'm working on a transition move, but I also wanted to break it down so I could nail the separate feels figuring they'd link up when I put it all together.

Full swings from towards the end of the session:

 

I almost wasn't going to upload the FO video because I didn't notice my phone was tilted, but it is what it is. I hit it a bit thin there, too. I think that high left shoulder at A7 is giving me issues with the height of the arc and the occasional block. I believe it's a late shallowing move and I'm hoping once I get more shallow earlier in the swing, I'll be able to rotate my shoulders through more around instead of up. Something for down the road.

[MrGolfguy67]

Do you play actual rounds of golf in those sandals? Are they golf sandals? If not it seems like your feet would slip because the soles are probably not designed to secure your feet during a golf swing. 

[billchao]

1 hour ago, MrGolfguy67 said:

Do you play actual rounds of golf in those sandals? Are they golf sandals? If not it seems like your feet would slip because the soles are probably not designed to secure your feet during a golf swing. 

No, no, and probably. They have plenty of traction on a door mat, though.

[MrGolfguy67]

OK, thanks for answering. I always practice in the shoes i play in, to keep everything consistent.

[billchao]

Just now, MrGolfguy67 said:

OK, thanks for answering. I always practice in the shoes i play in, to keep everything consistent.

I don't see a point to that. I can count on one hand the number of lies that perfectly match the lie I have in front of my net and that has a far greater effect on the shot than what shoes I'm wearing.

I rarely even use the same set of clubs I play when I practice.

[MrGolfguy67]

That's great, glad you're happy.

[boogielicious]

8 hours ago, billchao said:

No, no, and probably. They have plenty of traction on a door mat, though.

Not as much as my Ladybug mat!

I find practing in different footwear a good change of pace. I’ll have to try sandals when I’m on vacation next week 

[nevets88]

19 hours ago, billchao said:

Back to practice. Still working on a flatter transition and not overswinging. For the shallowing part I'm changing my focus a bit - instead of thinking about what my body is doing to shallow the shaft, I'm focusing on where the clubhead has to be when the shaft shallows and letting my body work it there on its own. It's basically the "heavy clubhead" thing where I let it drop back behind me. Added some reverse-rev for some Key #5 stuff I remembered from a lesson with @iacas some time ago that I feel still applies. Plus, I think the left wrist flextion at A4 gives me something of a downswing trigger so I don't get too long at the top.

Here's some practice footage to demonstrate what I'm doing and how I'm doing it:

I probably could have worked on a more fluid transition instead of pausing at A4 since I'm working on a transition move, but I also wanted to break it down so I could nail the separate feels figuring they'd link up when I put it all together.

Full swings from towards the end of the session:

 

I almost wasn't going to upload the FO video because I didn't notice my phone was tilted, but it is what it is. I hit it a bit thin there, too. I think that high left shoulder at A7 is giving me issues with the height of the arc and the occasional block. I believe it's a late shallowing move and I'm hoping once I get more shallow earlier in the swing, I'll be able to rotate my shoulders through more around instead of up. Something for down the road.

That's not a tilted angle! 😜 That's like marginally off. I'm off by 5-10 degrees a lot of times!

[billchao]

20 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

That's not a tilted angle! 😜 That's like marginally off. I'm off by 5-10 degrees a lot of times!

Well at least my hip tilts look great 🤣

[billchao]

5 hours ago, billchao said:

I'm really struggling to hit the ball well out of the rough because I'm so shallow at the bottom. Can't get at the ball without mowing down a whole bunch of tall grass with the club.

I think I figured out the reason for this. Too much pressure on my right foot at address. Great for the driver, not so much for the irons. If I get more pressure on my left foot and get less shoulder tilt, I should be able to tilt my swing arc slightly downwards.

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

I think I figured out the reason for this. Too much pressure on my right foot at address. Great for the driver, not so much for the irons. If I get more pressure on my left foot and get less shoulder tilt, I should be able to tilt my swing arc slightly downwards.

For some reason, I'd expect you to be great from the rough, from all the practice.  

But seriously, I find ball position to be really important.  just moving the ball back an inch or two should steepen your angle of attack, and let you get the club to the ball a lot easier.

[billchao]

23 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

For some reason, I'd expect you to be great from the rough, from all the practice.  

By that logic I should be an excellent driver of the ball since I have to re-tee so many times 

29 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

But seriously, I find ball position to be really important.  just moving the ball back an inch or two should steepen your angle of attack, and let you get the club to the ball a lot easier.

Yea I can play the ball too far forward at times, but I have some issues with the bottom of my swing sometimes even from the fairway (as you saw). There's a mechanical component involved I think.

[billchao]

Today I might have stumbled on something. Still working on getting the club in the simulated (and exaggerated) position I want and trying to let my body figure out how to get there on its own. So today I took the club back to A4 and then brought it down to a simulated A5 with the shaft shallow, pitch elbow, etc., and then slowly brought it down to A7, then back up to A5, repeat. I knew I could hit the ball solidly if I was "in the slot" properly at A5 so I did a couple of reps, pumped it back up to A5, and then fired through hard to a 3/4 straight arm finish. I hit the ball really well on these pump drills.

When I reviewed the videos, I realized what I thought was A5 (or conversely, A3 on the pump back up) was actually a pretty good A4 position: left arm in line with the shoulders with the club not getting across the line. So I thought, what's wrong with that for a swing? I spent the rest of the session using that "A5" position as my A4 with really good results. The swing feels much simpler, both in the backswing and the downswing. I'm not taking it back as far in the backswing and because I'm in a better position at A4, I can just rotate hard through the shot and still hit the ball solidly.

[billchao]

16 hours ago, billchao said:

Today I might have stumbled on something. Still working on getting the club in the simulated (and exaggerated) position I want and trying to let my body figure out how to get there on its own. So today I took the club back to A4 and then brought it down to a simulated A5 with the shaft shallow, pitch elbow, etc., and then slowly brought it down to A7, then back up to A5, repeat. I knew I could hit the ball solidly if I was "in the slot" properly at A5 so I did a couple of reps, pumped it back up to A5, and then fired through hard to a 3/4 straight arm finish. I hit the ball really well on these pump drills.

When I reviewed the videos, I realized what I thought was A5 (or conversely, A3 on the pump back up) was actually a pretty good A4 position: left arm in line with the shoulders with the club not getting across the line. So I thought, what's wrong with that for a swing? I spent the rest of the session using that "A5" position as my A4 with really good results. The swing feels much simpler, both in the backswing and the downswing. I'm not taking it back as far in the backswing and because I'm in a better position at A4, I can just rotate hard through the shot and still hit the ball solidly.

Filmed these today, this is what I'm talking about:

You can see in the first backswing how high I bring my hands for no apparent reason. That's when I realized my drill swing comes up to a normal person's A4 and shifted focus. I can already hit that position pretty reliably as a drill, so why not just make that my swing instead of trying to get my high hands down into that position.

I changed the takeaway feel to make it easier to hit my desired position at A4 and also shifted the swing more right because I was swinging too much left in the above video. Worked on that a bit and these were taken towards the end of the session:

 

 

[billchao]

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/billchao/round/2356630

Just a couple of thoughts about today's round and my game in general I wanted to jot down:

• I need a new 3w shaft or a new 3w. I'm convinced at this point it definitely doesn't fit me because it's the worst club in my bag.
• Pitching with a square face requires less swing than pitching with an open face to hit the same distance. This one should have been obvious.
• Been getting better at hitting putts the way I want so I need to stop being lazy about green reading.
• Downhill chips off hardpan to greens sloping away suck.
• My problem with bunker shots is the same as my problem used to be with pitch shots. Exposing too much bounce, too wristy. Need to open the face and hold it through, much better and more predictable results.
• Just because I'm not hitting the shots that I want doesn't mean I'm playing poorly.

The last one is major. I only hit three good shots on the back 9 but still managed to turn in a respectable 44 (43 with ESC). Was already unhappy from the front 9 and carried it with me through the back 9 despite turning my scoring around. I need to learn to focus on the positives better.

[billchao]

This is more of what I was trying to do last week. Doing a little bit more with my arms to shallow the club and bring the hands down faster/earlier in the downswing. Feel like I have difficulty with shallowing the shaft because my hands are too high when I rotate through. All these videos out there claiming the club will shallow on it's own if you rotate and no, not working for me. I rotate just fine but the club doesn't shallow unless I want to swing like a foot above the ball. To hit a ball, the club has to steepen or the hands have to drop. I'm adding in the latter.

Swings feel weird, like I'm closed at impact. Probably a good thing because my hips usually outrace my arms anyway. Feels weak, though, slow. Probably just a case of feel ain't real. I'm used to the hips firing and dragging my arms through. These swings are more in sync, should theoretically be faster. Swoosh from practice swings sound faster. Will have to check on the Mevo sometime soon.

[billchao]

4 hours ago, billchao said:

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/billchao/round/2367799

I didn't know what to make of this round when I was playing it.

Hit the ball poorly, especially off the tee. Had one good drive, the others were toe-y big sweepers both high and low that went nowhere. Also had a lot of tree trouble for a course not known for its trees. It's funny too, because I was hitting the ball really well with my short irons (minus the par 3 tees) and was actually hitting them farther than I expected them to go. So somehow I was hitting worse than expected and better than expected shots all in the same round.

Short game was on fire and the putting matched it. I was going to say it's the best I've ever played around the greens, but honestly it's probably the best I've ever played inside 100 yards.

Golf is more fun when I hit the ball well, though, so hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

I got in a little extra practice today. It was mostly just to see if there's anything I'm doing differently with the longer clubs than the shorter clubs and I came up with nothing. I thought there was a slight chance since I've been practicing exclusively with my 8i lately but no, that's not how the swing works. It was a bit of a reach on my part.

I'll admit I'm a little frustrated. Driving has never been a strong suit but this year I've been improving that aspect of my game, but these last few rounds I'm back to driving the ball like a 20+ handicap player. Normally I can kind of make up some strokes with my iron play, but that's eluding me as of late.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. There's a good chance I'm going to be hitting lots of 7i shots off the tee.

[billchao]

Have a couple of more rounds under my belt with the new swing feel and I can assess it better. Definitely making better contact with the irons, but as I mentioned in the Game Golf rounds thread, I'm really struggling with the woods and my hybrids. Ended up swapping out my 4h for my 4i for today's round. I used to struggle to hit the 4i well and that's why I played the 4h, but now it's kind of the opposite, since I'm hooking the 4h and striking the 4i really well in practice.

Here's a swing from Friday with the 4i; this session is why I put it back in the bag:

A4 is coming along really well, and as a result I'm not pulling the club down too steep in transition. Miss right now with the irons is a slight pull, like a couple of degrees. If my intended start line is right center of the green, it will end up starting about center of the green and draw, ending up left center or just off.

The pattern is pretty reliable and I should start aiming to accommodate the pull. I'm not hitting that big push anymore so I should be able to play by aiming farther right than I used to. When I missed right today, they were just straight shots that didn't draw.

I think it's a face issue and not a path one like it used to be when I used to miss left with big curves. I measured on Google Earth and the side total is about 15 yards with the 9i and 20 yards with the 4i. That's including the pull so I would guess the ball is only drawing about 10 yards and 15 yards, respectively. In other words, not a very big curve.

The problem with the woods and hybrids though is they kind of come out low and hook or with the driver, even when I get it up in the air, it turns hard left 30+ yards - often struck off the toe. Other times I'll hit it straight but like 10' off the ground so it doesn't travel very far before stopping. A couple of times today I did this and looked at the face, caught it dead center. Something is wrong with my dynamic loft and I'm hooding the club or something. I don't know, but it's frustrating.

Today I hit my driver seven times. Wormburner on 6 that didn't stay airborne long enough to make the fairway, 76 yards. Low toe hook on 9 into the left rough, 170 yards. Hit one more solid about 260 on 13 just into the left rough, but even that was slightly off the toe and turned 30 yards left. Big sweeper toe hit on 14 that ended up turning 40 yards and lost, followed by another wormburner that did manage to go about 230. Hit one pretty much as far off the toe as you can get on 16 and got lucky the ball came through two trees right, 180. Last drive was on 18 that I popped up, trying to swing more left and ended up steep and hitting a divot (hurt like hell, too, thought I might have pulled something in my left arm), 165. I would have ended up gaining more strokes if I just teed off with my 4i all day and not hit a single wood (didn't even get into the tee shots with the 2w).

I was hitting the driver much better earlier this year and I'm annoyed that my irons are improving but it's made my driver worse. I have to drag myself to a range and get some video hitting the driver and maybe I can see what's going on. I want it to be something simple like ball position and opening the face more at address. I could see how the latter would help my irons. I'm worried about making my swing better for the driver and then getting worse with the irons, which I think is kind of what happened earlier in the year when I started to get really high hands in the backswing, but started losing the bottom of the arc and struggled with iron shots.