My Swing (billchao)

[boogielicious]

13 hours ago, billchao said:

Ok, confession time: I'm secretly obsessed with pitch elbow. I don't have a real reason for it other than it's something I could never figure out and wanted to do. I guess it will help shallow the shaft, so I have a legitimate reason 😜

I finally did it at full speed:

 

 

I did it. I don't care how the rest of the swing looks. I'm good now. I can retire from golf.

I work on that pitch elbow feel for everything, full swing, pitches, chips. It does help me flatten from A4-5. For the short game swings, it helps me make consistent contact.

[billchao]

32 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

I work on that pitch elbow feel for everything, full swing, pitches, chips. It does help me flatten from A4-5. For the short game swings, it helps me make consistent contact.

Good to know. I go into IR at transition and it hinders my ability to shallow the shaft. Focusing on my hands and wrists doesn't quite solve the issue so I'm going to switch gears and work on the elbow movement and see how that affects the wrist condition.

[billchao]

Got in a practice session before the rain. Very pleased with the results today.

 

Focused on shallowing the club via elbow move at A4 instead of the wrists. Much better feel and gives me a trigger for starting the downswing. Compared to the wrist movement at A4, I feel the clubhead much better. When I do the wrist thing the club is back there somewhere but I have no sense of exactly where because it feels like my wrists are just kind of loose and the club flops around. The elbow move feels more stable.

Feel is take the club to A4, push the right elbow into ER, swing. Very happy with this.

[boogielicious]

5 hours ago, billchao said:

Got in a practice session before the rain. Very pleased with the results today.

 

Focused on shallowing the club via elbow move at A4 instead of the wrists. Much better feel and gives me a trigger for starting the downswing. Compared to the wrist movement at A4, I feel the clubhead much better. When I do the wrist thing the club is back there somewhere but I have no sense of exactly where because it feels like my wrists are just kind of loose and the club flops around. The elbow move feels more stable.

Feel is take the club to A4, push the right elbow into ER, swing. Very happy with this.

I like the rehearsal. It looks like it is working. I usually do something similar, but don’t always film it. I think I will next time.

BTW, you play hopscotch to warm up?😀

[billchao]

34 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

I like the rehearsal. It looks like it is working. I usually do something similar, but don’t always film it. I think I will next time.

It's part practice, part rehearsal. I like to film it once in a while to show what I'm doing and how I'm going about doing it.

Plus, since I mess with different feels, it helps me catalogue the different videos so I know what feel produces what movement. There are many failed dishes that don't end up on the menu, you know what I mean? 😉

39 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

BTW, you play hopscotch to warm up?😀

The bigger question is, you don't? 🤣

[hoselpalooza]

2 hours ago, billchao said:

It's part practice, part rehearsal. I like to film it once in a while to show what I'm doing and how I'm going about doing it.

Plus, since I mess with different feels, it helps me catalogue the different videos so I know what feel produces what movement. There are many failed dishes that don't end up on the menu, you know what I mean? 😉

hadn't thought about this but it makes a lot of sense and seems useful. thanks for sharing. 👍

completely separately, club face glint at 1:03 in your FO video is superheroesque. 😁

[billchao]

33 minutes ago, hoselpalooza said:

completely separately, club face glint at 1:03 in your FO video is superheroesque. 😁

Totally appropriate because I pured that one 😎

[boogielicious]

14 hours ago, billchao said:

The bigger question is, you don't? 🤣

I would be a danger to myself and others!

[billchao]

Spent the last few days up in Erie with @iacas working on my game and playing some golf. We worked on all the areas of my game that needed work, which is everything 

Full Swing

The swing we broke down into two pieces spread over several days. Issues were severe toe misses as well as bottom of arc inconsistencies leading to fat, thin, and topped shots.

First we addressed a backswing piece: slightly weaker grip and bringing the club up while letting the right elbow separate from my torso. Feels like it flies out a little bit to me. Right elbow stays higher than the left elbow longer in the backswing, should see it above the left at A3.

The second piece is a transition/downswing piece: sit into left side at transition, hips should slide downhill and forward instead of spinning out, need to feel clubhead tip back in conjunction. In addition to this, we changed the way my knees move in the backswing. Left knee needs to flex more, feel more grounded.

Some pictures (left is full swing after 1st piece, right is exaggerated 2nd piece):

Video of me practicing the feels:

 

Need to monitor the clubhead tipping out thing, but not going to work on that until I get the sit move down better. Tried to do both at the same time unsuccessfully, so will deal with separately. Might hit some small cuts for a bit, no big deal. As long as the contact is cleaner I will play better golf. I don't care what shape my shot is.

Short Game

Played the ball too far back on my pitch shots. Problem was my tendency to stand open with the clubface open, effectively moving the ball back in my stance. Adjusted to hit standard pitch shots with a square stance and square clubface, feet closer together (almost touching) to keep weight forward. Arms lazier and less hip turn in backswing. Basically just feels like I'm swinging the arms up and letting them fall.

Chipping motion was too wristy going back, not enough lead wrist flexion through impact. I also learned that my shot selection was poor. Used the LW too much in situations that didn't call for it. Learned to use different clubs around the greens.

Also my wedges suck. I hit Erik's wedges and was able to hit a variety of shots I couldn't with my own, even before we started working on my technique. Going to order my own set.

Putting

Aim is good, but had a tendency to stand too far away from the ball and address it with the putter toe up. Path was outside the target line going back and then in going forward, basically hitting blocks. Hit the ball off the heel, leading to distance control issues. Need to practice with a yardstick just outside the ball and make sure the putter head does not cross the line.

Course Stuff

Need to stop making dumb decisions like trying to hit a 4i out of a shitty lie. Need to change wedge selection based on trajectory first, then yardage. Currently just picking a club just based on the yardage I need to hit.

Need to develop preshot routine. What I'm starting with now is to pick an intermediate target, stand along the target line behind the ball and make practice swings (feeling my piece) while simulating the lie, walk around the left to the ball and set my club to my intermediate target and build my stance around the club. Once I'm over the ball, it's just a couple of waggles, then need to calm everything down for one second before I swing. Similar type of routine for putting.

I think that's all my swing stuff. Was great coming up and being able to spend the time doing golf stuff. Big thanks to Erik for everything and putting up with me for the last four days.

[boogielicious]

On 4/18/2019 at 9:33 PM, billchao said:

Adjusted to hit standard pitch shots with a square stance and square clubface, feet closer together (almost touching) to keep weight forward. Arms lazier and less hip turn in backswing. Basically just feels like I'm swinging the arms up and letting them fall.

Chipping motion was too wristy going back, not enough lead wrist flexion through impact. I also learned that my shot selection was poor. Used the LW too much in situations that didn't call for it. Learned to use different clubs around the greens.

I’ve been working with my Evolvr instructor on these shots. But I did try squaring my pitch stance and being less wristy on the chip shots as you note and it does work well. My pitch stance was feet close together, but open. Chips are all played from the same spot, but he had me deloft with shaft lean at address. The less wrist feel really helped impact. I was already doing the flexion, but hinging more.

[billchao]

14 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I’ve been working with my Evolvr instructor on these shots. But I did try squaring my pitch stance and being less wristy on the chip shots as you note and it does work well. My pitch stance was feet close together, but open.

I'm overactive with the lower body in the backswing. Need to feel the arms going up and dropping down. The stance thing was a weight forward and ball position issue.

14 hours ago, boogielicious said:

Chips are all played from the same spot, but he had me deloft with shaft lean at address. The less wrist feel really helped impact. I was already doing the flexion, but hinging more.

I wasn't delofting at all. In fact I was playing my chips with the face open. Had a hard time with distance control. They would launch too high and end up short or I'd swing too hard and fly the hole.

---

Practiced a little today. Rotated my mat slightly so it points more right to remind myself that I want to swing in that direction. I figure the lines pointing that way will make me instinctively swing along the mat. I'm going to end up at my local "golf store" and build a swing aid or two at some point 😉

Didn't have a lot of time to work, but didn't do so well with the hip piece. Did some mirror work later and I think I have a pretty good feel for it, so back at it again tomorrow.

[billchao]

Practiced today, one session in the morning and once more after lunch. In the morning I mostly focused on the sit piece, in the afternoon I tried to add in the shaft shallowing piece to mixed results.

Did manage to get a decent shot towards the end of the session, though.

 

Gotta remember to swing out.

[iacas]

Sit looking better. Backswing too.

[billchao]

Practiced today, too dark for video. Was hitting the ball pretty well, so I decided to dust off the Mevo. Of course as soon as I did that I started to hit a bunch of shots off the toe 

I threw out three shots. A couple really far off the toe and one thinned. PGA Tour average smash factor for a 6i is 1.38 and I'm averaging 1.3, so still plenty of work to be done. Pretty pleased, overall.

[billchao]

Kind of lost the feel somehow these last few days and have been struggling to get it back. Kept hitting toed shots instead of missing towards the heel or shanking them.

Today I may have overdid the sit move:

 

I don't know what the deal is with the Lee Westwood arm thing and the helicopter finish.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, billchao said:

Today I may have overdid the sit move:

I don't know what the deal is with the Lee Westwood arm thing and the helicopter finish.

You over-did it, yeah, so you were too close to the ball and had to bend the left arm to shorten the radius.

Right elbow high, too, that's a bit less than when you were here.

Just a little.

[billchao]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

You over-did it, yeah, so you were too close to the ball and had to bend the left arm to shorten the radius.

Right elbow high, too, that's a bit less than when you were here.

Just a little.

Ok so right elbow a little higher, less sit. Thanks.

Back to work I go.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, billchao said:

Ok so right elbow a little higher, less sit. Thanks.

Back to work I go.

Maybe more of just "watch the height of your head." You can "sit left" without lowering so much.