My Swing (Shindig)

[Shindig]

Wow, it's been almost a year since I posted in this thread.  The transition messed some formatting, too.  

 

I should find some videos from the end of last summer -- when I got down to 13 handicap and won my flight at my club's match play.  Unfortunately, I've been in maintenance mode since October... this summer should be different!  I took one lesson a few months ago, and here's where I stand going into the summer.

 

I've been trying this drill from my last (in-person) lesson for a bit.  Slow backswing and downswing, stop, rewind, hit.  I've hit some solid shots this way, but I don't want to risk incorporating a Sir Charles swing... not that that's a real risk.

 

I do 2-3 of these in my range routine for now before trying a full swing, usually with a practice that stops shy of the ball before it.  Clearly I cannot take this routine to the course.  I'm probably playing on Monday, so we'll see how it goes.  On the other hand, I've hit some very good shots out of the "rewind and then hit it" parts. 

Oh, so here's the full swing with that range routine:

 

And here's my attempt at the same thing from DTL:

 

 

I just uploaded these to evolvr also, so I'm not necessarily looking for feedback... but I really should regularly update (famous last words) so I can review it later and see how it all came about.  Or, you know, one quick access way to see the evolution of my swing

 

Hit 'em well friends. 

[Shindig]

Wow, it's been over a year since I updated this thread.  Of course, I didn't play thirteen months without an update;  just... some of them.

I am sending my second evolvr video of the season to evolvr right about now, so don't worry about feedback for the full swing videos -- while I have gotten good advice here before, I think I generally should listen to my main instructor there.  The videos are mostly here so I don't lose track of them, plus for anyone who might want to see them.  The DTL video illustrates what I've been saying in the practice thread about what I try to do sometimes:  this is the backswing, check, downswing slow, rewind and stop. 

 

 

And here's the DTL:

 

 

I also hit some sand shots.  Actually, I hit these first.  This facility has a great practice bunker, and they let you use range balls.  There's a green-ish thing to hit to, but if they go far, it's on the range and you can use range balls. 

I didn't send these to evolvr, they're partly for me.  Although I welcome feedback on them.  The shot hit during the DTL felt like I thought a sand shot should.  The one hit on CV felt like a bad one should.  Sand this morning was very packed, but that happens on the course too, so I should learn to hit sand shots better.  I feel I'm getting to the point where the bunkers wouldn't make my game better if they had red stakes around them, and would love to get to the point where "out of the sand, onto the green" is a standard short game shot situation for me. 

And the CV:

 

These videos were all taken this morning, but I was caught up in watching the U.S. Open today that I didn't upload until now. 

[Shindig]

Updating my swing diary with some thoughts from yesterday's range session.  The next paragraph is from the June 2017 "practice every day" thread with some brief commentary in it.  All after that is thoughts from this morning.

I have been hesitant lately to pull my 3-wood from the bag, even on a good lie, so I wanted to hit some from grass.  For some reason, I can accept my 5-wood distance, but I think I overswing my 3-wood.  I focused on calm, just swing when I was swinging ... and when I did think that, I hit it very well.  My game golf says I hit it one yard past my 5-wood (190 vs 191 yards), but that's partly because of some terrible shots I've hit with the 3-wood that got recorded and not many even acceptable ones.  I will aim to hit it more in rounds, particularly [edit: this should say probably, I think?] not tournament rounds, both to get a record of if it's worth hitting (versus if I should drop it in favor of something else, if it really is only one yard past my 5-wood) and to know that distance I can get on a calm swing.

I think Mike posted a video about hitting 3-wood, and I'm going to look at that too.  If my swing speed is such that I really can hit a 3-wood past my 5-wood by more than a yard, and I think it is, I'm leaving distance, and therefore shots, on the table.  At my home course, I play the par-5s as driver, 5-wood, something.  The first par-5 that something, after two good shots, is generally a 9-iron, give or take.  The second one is a full wedge shot, and the last one I'll have about a 60 yard pitch shot, which I can hit, but it isn't my favorite shot.  I'd far prefer a 45-yard pitch shot if I can have it, as well as a shorter club into the other two par-5s.

There are also three par-4s on my home course in excess of 400 yards.  I have hit one in regulation recently on driver, 5-wood, but that was a fantastic drive and I still only got onto the front third of the green.  I have hit them in regulation in the past, generally when I was playing better.  

[Shindig]

No video, just some thoughts on my own improvement and where it's going, mostly to document them in case I want to come back (as I do look back on this thread periodically).  I figure posting here is better than in threads on the topics in case this is bad advice or simply off-topic there.  These aren't necessarily about my swing, but they're related to my overall improvement work.

Or would these be better suited as a blog post on TST blogs?  I worry that putting anything that looks like instruction or advice in a blog might make it look like I am endorsing this for others out of context.  And why isn't there a shrugging smiley?

The 3-Wood I'm hitting the 3-wood a lot better the past few weeks, despite not working much on it at the range.  When I began golf many years ago, at some point I got it in my head that I'm not going to kill the driver, so hit a comfortable shot.  Somehow I got it in my head after that that I was a good driver of the ball -- didn't hit too many O.B. or so on.  But then again, I was playing a course with wide fairways and hit it 200 on a good poke.  But that thought does help somewhat.

Which brings me to my 3-wood.  When I'm hitting it as a second shot on a par-5 now (which is pretty much any time I can do so without getting in trouble), I calmly tell myself to hit it well and let the ball go where it will.  And I get a lot of good results.  I think I may have been trying to kill the 3-wood in the past, leading to obvious problems.  Somehow, when I want to hit a specific distance with it (I think it's a 195-205 club for me at the moment), such as into a long par-4, that's when I get into trouble.  I think my swing thought for the future should be similar:  I'm getting it up towards the green, into such and such safe area, and if it bounds onto the green, great.  But on a 435-yard par-4, being near-GIR or even near near-GIR is pretty good at my distance and skill level, at least for now, and is a result I can accept and game plan around.

In general, I was hitting my 5-wood well and was afraid of the 3-wood.  Now I hit both well and they're registering as different distances (as I don't have a bunch of bad 3-wood shots taking down my expected distance)

Comfort and scoring low - I gave this a lot of thought in the past dozen or so hours.  Yesterday I shot an 83 (ESC 82):  40-43(42).  After the first nine, I got into my head I could go low today.  Two triple bogeys on 10 and 11 ended that thought, and I played the remaining seven holes in a total of +1 (a birdie on 12 and then two bogeys later).  

Fine, even excluding those two holes, there were plenty of shots I could have played better (a double bogey resulting from a bad tee shot on a par-3 and two bad chips, for example;  I also missed at least three putts inside 5' for the round, although I also made one from across a green, and I also missed a green from 55 yards).

But I got to thinking about my good rounds and I think many of them were good second nines.  My best second-nine at my home course is a 37, and in the first round of the club championship a few years ago I made the turn in 46, hit #10 in regulation and three putted, got in an argument with someone in a different group, and parred out the remaining holes. 

My best ever 18 hole score was an 81: 46-35 last summer at Griffith Park (Harding course).  Opened with 46, believed the second nine to be tougher, hit par bogey birdie and then six more pars.  Nearly holed the birdie putt on #18.  

A few days ago, shot an 84 at my home course in a tournament;  42-42, with a double bogey on #1, 2, and 10 (and a triple on 15).  

I think I need to schedule some time to play from the forward tees at some courses near me (or maybe in the desert when no one is around, or both) to see if I can get comfortable with a good opening nine and still play well on the second nine.

[Shindig]

Putting -- let's start with I think I'm bad at it, to the point where I believe it's a glaring weakness and should be treated as one for practice planning purposes. 

All rounds in Game Golf, I lose 1.21 strokes per round putting vs 25 handicap (I'm a ~14 as I type this).  That's bad.  I don't quite slice or top the putter, although I do hit it fat on occasion.  For contrast, I gain 1.24 strokes/round vs a 10 handicap on approach shots -- and lose 3.05 vs the same 10 handicap on putting.

I just went back to re-read the grip section of Stan Utley's putting book on Monday;  yesterday (Tuesday) I putted for about an hour on a putting green, working on being comfortable with the grip rather than keeping any statistics.  Maybe I should have putted without a hole, but I did make a good number of them.

I just took some video (Wednesday), same angles I would for a post here or on evolvr.  Maybe the grip was the key -- it helped a ton (see earlier in this thread) when I was helped by @mvmac at a TST outing with my full swing grip.  

Down the line first:

 

The camera is in this room's closet (this is a "bedroom" according to whoever names these things, but it's going to be a golf room).  I figured I'd hit a few and one would miss and that might show something, kind of like how I sort of hope I hit my usual miss on a video to be sent to evolvr (although I realize other than the ball being there, it doesn't matter due to consistency).  Anyway, given where I live, I should try to get to the point where I can put "when I make a putt, I act like I'm not surprised" on my acting resume.

I can't figure out how to get the camera much further away from the putter to make it fully viewable other than trying this again in a longer room (which I can do if that's needed for analysis).

 

Face on, which I filmed second.  You'll see me briefly get excited by a miss (left first) because that means I got the bad shot on video.  Three shots, one miss left (rare in recent drills), one miss right, and then a good one.

[iacas]

So…

• Very short strokes.
• Almost all wrist.
• Very little shoulder motion.

Compare:

(Sorry, I know I have videos of me just putting, but I couldn't find them in about 15 minutes of searching.)

[Shindig]

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

So…

• Very short strokes.
• Almost all wrist.
• Very little shoulder motion.

Compare:

First, thank you for the feedback.  The short strokes were because I imagined this drill was meant to simulate the 3' or so putts, the idea being if it gets successfully to the end of the ruler, it'd (likely, barring a problem on the green) go in.  Should I be trying the drill as if they were longer putts and I'm using the ruler to see if I start it on line?

I can also then aim to film those too.

It sounds like I should be having more shoulder, less wrist for my putts.  I'll do some practice with longer putts in that fashion then.

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

(Sorry, I know I have videos of me just putting, but I couldn't find them in about 15 minutes of searching.)

Don't worry about it. I appreciate you spending that time to look for them. 

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Shindig said:

First, thank you for the feedback.  The short strokes were because I imagined this drill was meant to simulate the 3' or so putts, the idea being if it gets successfully to the end of the ruler, it'd (likely, barring a problem on the green) go in.  Should I be trying the drill as if they were longer putts and I'm using the ruler to see if I start it on line?

Yes.

I also make bigger strokes than that for 3-footers…

Just look at the VLog in my Member Swing topic.

[Shindig]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Yes.

I also make bigger strokes than that for 3-footers…

Just look at the VLog in my Member Swing topic.

I just watched this one;  I think it is the most recent one unless there's one in a video that looks like a full swing piece. 

 

(also including the link for when I come back and look at this in coming days)

I definitely see why that's a very different putt motion than I do.  I'm going to try to emulate that (I stood up when you were putting when I watched that video and tried to make the same motions, although I don't have a putter next to me when I did).  I'm going to go try that now with a putter, ball, and ruler.

Thanks again for the help.

[Shindig]

Here's my attempts at putting and trying to have less wrist and more shoulder.  In the very small sample size of maybe 60-70 balls with the ruler and one round on a course, I think the longer stroke is much better.  I don't know where I got it in my head to make a small stroke for a 3' putt (maybe if I had a downhill putt in a U.S. Open or something).  

I have no idea what's up with the camera angle -- the tripod was fully extended but the video came out crooked anyway.  I'll have to figure out what's up with it before taking evolvr video this afternoon.

 

Feedback, of course, is welcome.  I'll aim to get some video on a real putting green at some point too.

[Shindig]

And I just sent these to evolvr (although they were taken yesterday).  The ones I'm sending here are edited, while I sent the unedited ones to evolvr.

Face-on, 6-Iron:

I don't know what the thumbnail is for you, but wow does it look like I don't know what I'm doing in the thumbnail from here  

Down the line:

I seem to have gotten the same thumbnail (where I'm checking if the club is pointing inside or outside the ball) in the two videos... 

Looking back 3+ years ago to the start of this thread, it's amazing how far I've come (but I'm wearing the same belt).

[iacas]

Is the swing at full speed because it's what you sent in to evolvr? That's not how you practice, right, @Shindig?

[Shindig]

11 minutes ago, iacas said:

Is the swing at full speed because it's what you sent in to evolvr? That's not how you practice, right, @Shindig?

Correct.  I try to do the practice motions on camera for evolvr in case I'm emphasizing something wrong (as has happened a few times in the past), and that's why they're on the video.  Then the full swing of course.  But I rarely hit a full speed shot in a practice session, certainly not a session shortly after a video.  I'm even starting to get used to the odd looks (and there will be fewer of those when my mat comes in).

I will hit full speed shots when finishing a warm-up bucket before a round (not really a practice session) or when I think I'm hitting it decently well and the picture is changing and want to see.  When I'm more comfortable that it's going well and I can do so, I'll move up to a few more full speed swings and grab video for me (and sometimes for evolvr).

Semi-related:  after posting those videos above to TST, I realized what my instructor meant with something from his previous instruction that I wasn't doing well.  And that set me to practicing those... I got slightly in the right direction on that but still have a lot to go.

[Shindig]

@iacas

I would like to revise my response to your question from yesterday.  This dawned on me today as I was warming up for my round.  I hit a particularly good 75% (swing not speed) gap wedge and thought "wow, just like practice."

I then had to sit down and think for a bit.  It dawns on me I haven't been honest with myself as to when I thought I was practicing and when I wasn't.  Or perhaps I partitioned the word "practice" into two things, one of which involved refining my swing and one that involved working on a "non-standard" shot (punches, flight wedge, partial wedge, etc).

When I'm working on something from evolvr, I aim to practice at a slow enough speed so that I'm at the edge of my ability (and hopefully extending said edge).  Obviously as I get better at that piece, I speed it up.  That part I've gotten better at (it used to be really hard for me to even make contact at partial speed).

But when I go to the range, thinking I'm going to practice, I'll do that... and some other things that, in my mind, were practice but I somehow thought were okay to hit at full speed (somehow the other partition of "practice").  And then in my mind, that wasn't practicing my swing it was practicing something else.

So in summary, I wasn't honest with myself and, by extension, you and anyone else reading this thread.  It wasn't deliberate and I don't think I was consciously trying to deceive anyone.  That's the bad news.  The good news is the embarrassment of admitting this will (hopefully) cause me to treat all swings at the range while working on a priority piece as something I need to worry about all five Ss about ... and therefore go at the right practice speed, even if my goal in that swing isn't working on something in particular about the swing.  And in retrospect, it's pretty silly of me to hit a 6-iron at 30% to work on something in the backswing or whatever and prior to the picture changing hit full speed flight wedges, since those use virtually the same mechanics.  

[Shindig]

 

Today, while gathering video for evolvr, I also got video for some 50% swings.  I'm curious if they look like 50% or some other percent to the better eyes here.

This is the speed I tend to try to go at when I'm not going piecemeal and also not ready for full swing, as I'm integrating.  I have difficulty swinging at a ball much slower than this -- something I guess to work on as I improve how I practice.

All video are 6-iron, 31 degrees loft.

 

And my full swing that I'd be attempting on a course (such as tomorrow + Thursday).

 

 

[Shindig]

I didn't know where else to post this, so I'm going to post it here.  Just a random thought I had on my drive home today, now investigated.  All data is from my GameGolf, comparing strokes lost or gained in 10 regulation rounds versus a 10 handicap.  Driving / Approach / Short Game / Putting

Last 10 regulation rounds:  -.14  /  -2.83 / 1.71 / 2.39

The 10 previous to that:  .93, -1.25, 3.35, 3.09

So... that ten previous includes some rounds that were right after the time away without a ton of practice, but I'd say this shows I've improved a good bit this summer.   I think I'll be playing 4-5 more rounds in August, and maybe after the last of those I'll post an update that is composed entirely of summer rounds.

I think at my next revision I may pull up the data and compare rounds used in handicap calculation vs anti-handicap or something.  I don't know what, if anything, I'd do with that data, but it'd be fun to check.

[Shindig]

Two days ago, I took video for evolvr;  a 6-iron and a driver.  I sent the unedited videos to evolvr, but I haven't edited them for posting here yet.  I should do it because my strokes gained/lost vs 10 hcp is around 0 on driving/approach the last few rounds and it'll be nice to look back at some point at what those looked like for me. 

Today, I took putting video.  The putts are about 10' long.  I'll aim to get video of a longer putt at some point soon too (I didn't estimate the time very well today).  The sun went down between shots so I went to the other green to try to get video.  In that case, I didn't line up the putt at all, just using a hole as an approximate distance.

What I want to find out:  how's my form?  In particular, is there something I should work on mechanics wise?  

 

Believe it or not this is only a minute or so later:

 

and with (marginally) better light:

 

 

[iacas]

I'd love to see some longer putts. And a closeup of the grip.