My Swing (billchao)

[billchao 2,773]

37 minutes ago, iacas said:

When the weather is nice, take off until about January.

You mean like don’t do golf stuff or just don’t worry about practicing?

39 minutes ago, iacas said:

In about January, start with small swings that focus on controlling contact.

• Start by hitting the ball solidly.
• Keep hitting it solidly.
• Lengthen the swing and speed it up so long as you can hit it solidly.

I can do that. Am I right to assume solidly means within a relatively small distance from the sweet spot and not heeling/toeing the crap out of the ball?

42 minutes ago, iacas said:

When you're up to about 75% speed, start worrying about controlling the face.

• Mostly horizontally.
• A bit vertically, too, in case you find yourself de-lofting too much.

I’ll get back to you when I get to this point. I legitimately don’t think about controlling the clubface ever. Unless you ask me to or I’m hitting out of trouble. I just swing. That’s probably part of the problem, isn’t it?

44 minutes ago, iacas said:

Chip and putt a bit, too, but those have been better.

Ok. I have a pretty good idea what I have to do there, too.

[iacas 10,306]

23 minutes ago, billchao said:

You mean like don’t do golf stuff or just don’t worry about practicing?

The latter.

23 minutes ago, billchao said:

I can do that. Am I right to assume solidly means within a relatively small distance from the sweet spot and not heeling/toeing the crap out of the ball?

Yes.

23 minutes ago, billchao said:

I’ll get back to you when I get to this point. I legitimately don’t think about controlling the clubface ever. Unless you ask me to or I’m hitting out of trouble. I just swing. That’s probably part of the problem, isn’t it?

Yeah.

Your swing is good and has always been good, but for some reason, you top the ball sometimes (with a driver), or hit it 30° right, or… just don't control the club face.

Sometimes that's technical.

Sometimes it's just building a skill.

Build the skill.

[Carl3 126]

On 12/2/2020 at 6:10 PM, billchao said:

Yea that didn’t happen. My season-ending handicap this year is slightly higher than it was last year.

You have a real nice swing (straight trail arm challenge). Seems to be better than most of the 6 to 13 index players I have played with this past year. I would put you at a sub 5 based on swing. It is a real head scratcher! Keep up the good work.

[billchao 2,773]

8 hours ago, Carl3 said:

You have a real nice swing (straight trail arm challenge). Seems to be better than most of the 6 to 13 index players I have played with this past year. I would put you at a sub 5 based on swing. It is a real head scratcher! Keep up the good work.

Thanks. One day I’ll figure it out. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

[billchao 2,773]

Finally got warm enough out to hit some golf balls, so I cleared some of the snow off of my patio. Took me about 20 minutes to get rid of the scoop and throw motion I kept wanting to do with the club 

 

I wasn't really trying to work on anything, but contact was garbage and I kept hitting everything way off the toe so I adjusted a bit by standing closer to the ball:

Not much else to say about these swings. They look ok considering I haven't touched a club in months. Contact definitely improved after moving closer to the ball. Felt weird, though, like I was standing straight up and really close to the ball. I moved closer by an inch...

Did a little clubface control work by hitting different sections of my net (push, pull, straight) without any setup adjustments. I did pretty well on that. It's still kind of early, but I'm leaning towards the crux of my clubface control issue might simply be due to me not consciously/actively doing it. Like I can do it when I want to or when I'm asked to, but most of the time I'm only trying to hit the ball - lack of intent. When I stand over a ball, I'm thinking, "If I line up here and swing this club, it should start there, carry x yards, and draw towards my target," when I should be thinking, "I want to hit this ball on that line with this shape and carry it x yards." Does it make a difference? Maybe for me, it does.

[billchao 2,773]

Finally healed up enough to practice. Had a hard time just getting consistently good contact, even at slower speeds. Just couldn’t find the right feel for stability through the impact zone.

Took a while, but finally found something that works:

 

Lower body action isn’t quite where I want it but at this point I just want to focus on getting a swing that hits the ball solidly.

[boogielicious 3,010]

1 minute ago, billchao said:

Finally healed up enough to practice. Had a hard time just getting consistently good contact, even at slower speeds. Just couldn’t find the right feel for stability through the impact zone.

Took a while, but finally found something that works:

 

Lower body action isn’t quite where I want it but at this point I just want to focus on getting a swing that hits the ball solidly.

Glad you’re feeling better! Looks pretty good!

[billchao 2,773]

8 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Glad you’re feeling better! Looks pretty good!

Thanks. If I can keep from hurting myself I might actually make some good progress this year. I didn’t see as much improvement on the course as I was hoping for last year.

[woodzie264 475]

Love your swing

[billchao 2,773]

5 minutes ago, woodzie264 said:

Love your swing

Thanks. Can I be perfectly honest? I’d rather have an ugly swing and be a better golfer 😅

[billchao 2,773]

Continuing to work on contact. I’m remapping A4 as part of this, getting the backswing slower and shorter so that it stops at A4 instead of A4.e. The slower part is important because it lets me feel that the backswing is completed via length of time, but also so that momentum isn’t carrying me too far to begin with.

These swings are about 70-75% and I’m consistently finding the center of the face.

 

 

[billchao 2,773]

Some notes:

• Takeaway needs to be up, not in
• Pivot feels left for recentering
• Distance wedge swing need to be arms driven
• Short game is awful

[billchao 2,773]

Some videos from today:

Full Swing

 

Not much I have to add to these. Still working on the backswing stuff from recent posts. I moved the ball back in my stance slightly to eliminate some pulls.

Half Wedge

 

Feels like all arms like I posted above. Contact wasn’t good when I played doing the leg stuff on these so I’m going back to arm-focused swing with it. That’s the feel I was using a couple of years ago when I was really dialed in with these. Will see if I hit it better on the course like this.

Pitching

 

These aren’t good. I’m chunking them, I’m blading them, and I can’t hit a bunker shot to save my life right now. Definitely need to get to a short game practice area and get good contact back.

[GolfLug 625]

On 3/28/2021 at 4:19 PM, billchao said:

Thanks. Can I be perfectly honest? I’d rather have an ugly swing and be a better golfer 😅

I know preaching to the choir but I really think you would easily be 4-5 shots better with more on course reps. 

Give your kids 5 bucks (or 3, or 10..:-))a pop to walk 9 with you. Not kidding. It has worked with my 12 year old.

[billchao 2,773]

2 hours ago, GolfLug said:

I know preaching to the choir but I really think you would easily be 4-5 shots better with more on course reps. 

I’d be better with more reps, period. Practicing early in the season is easy because I’ve been cooped up in the house all winter. Practicing in the summertime is another story. I generally don’t want to be outside after spending most of the day working in the sun and I f***ing hate mosquitoes.

2 hours ago, GolfLug said:

Give your kids 5 bucks (or 3, or 10..:-))a pop to walk 9 with you. Not kidding. It has worked with my 12 year old.

The last thing I need to do is supervise and entertain my kids while I’m trying to play golf. Neither of them are interested in playing so the whole round will be “I’m bored/tired/hungry,” “Are you done yet?”That won’t help my game at all.

[GolfLug 625]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

The last thing I need to do is supervise and entertain my kids while I’m trying to play golf. Neither of them are interested in playing so the whole round will be “I’m bored/tired/hungry,” “Are you done yet?”That won’t help my game at all.

Think of it as Earl Woods jiggling change in his pocket.. 😁

[billchao 2,773]

3 hours ago, GolfLug said:

Think of it as Earl Woods jiggling change in his pocket.. 😁

Somehow I doubt my ability to block out distractions has anything to do with how well I play.

But hey, maybe I’ll be the first guy to get to scratch by working on the mental game 😜

[GolfLug 625]

11 hours ago, billchao said:

But hey, maybe I’ll be the first guy to get to scratch by working on the mental game 😜

I think patience qualifies as mental game. 

And trust me, I am having to scrap the bottom for patience myself at the moment, and I didn't really have a real break like you over the winter to speak of.