My Swing (boogielicious)

[iacas]

As you know, with a stronger gripped, slightly cupped at impact can be okay.

[boogielicious]

34 minutes ago, iacas said:

As you know, with a stronger gripped, slightly cupped at impact can be okay.

Yes, thanks. 

[mdl]

What struck me watching the latest videos was how much you shrug and bend the front arm through impact. My amateur assumption is that is driven by not being open enough with your hips or shoulders at impact and having moved your hips towards the ball. I'm no expert in golf pedagogy, but to me it feels backwards to work on face control when your body is forcing compensatory moves? As in, when you fix the body mechanics, you'll have to start over figuring out face control?

 

[boogielicious]

13 hours ago, mdl said:

What struck me watching the latest videos was how much you shrug and bend the front arm through impact. My amateur assumption is that is driven by not being open enough with your hips or shoulders at impact and having moved your hips towards the ball. I'm no expert in golf pedagogy, but to me it feels backwards to work on face control when your body is forcing compensatory moves? As in, when you fix the body mechanics, you'll have to start over figuring out face control?

 

I definitely see all that, but it’s not my priority piece right now. Gotta stay a stupid monkey.

[boogielicious]

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. I took a few weeks off practicing daily because I was a bit burned out and hitting of mats was giving me an achy wrist. But I’m back. I played in that time though.

I’ve done a bit of assessment on my practice methods and feel I still go too fast. So yesterday I really worked on at most what felt like 50-60% swings with driver and 6 iron. I will continue with this when I’m working on the priority pieces.

My priorities are roughly the same but we’re working on setting up a little farther from the ball and a little more bent over to give me some room. My left shoulder shrug before impact was a clue for @iacas in my last Evolvr submission. Below are 6 iron and driver swings. I’ve also gone back over some Evolvr lessons and my Erie notes and worked on those pieces.

1. Stand a bit farther from the ball by moving my feet back and bending over slightly more. Also, tuck my butt a little.
2. Do a little shift back on the takeaway and have my right butt cheek break the plane
3. feel like I’m swinging wide and almost behind me from transition.
4. with irons, have my upper center fall a bit towards target in transition.
5. have my left knee move forward then back to push my left hip back.
6. using forearm rotation to square the face and have my radius/ulna line pointing at my hip at impact.

I think I did okay on these, but I need to keep at it to change the picture.

One other thing I was having trouble with this year was keeping focus on the ball during the takeaway, especially in transition. I started noticing it in September. It may be anecdotal, but when I keep that focus, I seem to make much better contact and execute the shot better.

I did a scoring exercise when I played this fall and kept track on when I felt I kept my focus on the ball to impact. It also included planning the shot, visualizing then execute, where execute included keeping focus to impact. This was for every shot including putts. It’s similar to what Erik showed @billchao and I at Whispering Woods a couple of years ago. I gave myself a 1 for the shot if I felt I did all three components. It was quite revealing. I was only getting a point on about half my shots.

I’ve always had issues with rushing too much and not being able to slow things down. I’m also trying to center the ball in my glasses at setup to make sure I dial in that focus. I’ll do this in practice too.

[billchao]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

One other thing I was having trouble with this year was keeping focus on the ball during the takeaway, especially in transition. I started noticing it in September. It may be anecdotal, but when I keep that focus, I seem to make much better contact and execute the shot better.

I did a scoring exercise when I played this fall and kept track on when I felt I kept my focus on the ball to impact. It also included planning the shot, visualizing then execute, where execute included keeping focus to impact. This was for every shot including putts. It’s similar to what Erik showed @billchao and I at Whispering Woods a couple of years ago. I gave myself a 1 for the shot if I felt I did all three components. It was quite revealing. I was only getting a point on about half my shots.

I’ve always had issues with rushing too much and not being able to slow things down. I’m also trying to center the ball in my glasses at setup to make sure I dial in that focus. I’ll do this in practice too.

Yea the pre-shot routine, especially the process behind it, is important. It has to be done with intent and not simply going through the motions.

I’m better with it these days but I still get lazy, especially around the greens and on putts. It’s a work in progress.

[boogielicious]

This is basically the drill I am working on inside. I can’t do full swings, but I can do a full backswing and short finish with an 8 iron. I’m working on my wrist feels from the top and to feel like my arms and the club are dropping behind me. I want it to feel like the right wrist is on top at A6 and to rotate through to impact. I have to be careful to coordinate the hip turn too, as I can get lazy.

In this rep, I was swinging out too much in the first couple of rehearsals. I corrected it. I tried filming is slow motion, but the lighting isn’t that great. I will work on a solution. 

I also may print a full size image of a piano to aim at. Seems to work for some folks. 😉

 

 

[GolfLug]

Aim at middle C for best results.. 😁.

On a serious note, if you are practicing 'revving the motorcycle' it seems to me that you are revving it waaaayyy too early. Your right hand is already on top of the shaft at A5. I know you are practicing only a feel but if I do that I would extend early and smother hook all day. I think you want to drop your hands below your waist much closer to your right thigh before you start revving it over.   

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by GolfLug

[iacas]

Just make sure what you do, you feel you can (eventually) do it at speed.

[boogielicious]

40 minutes ago, iacas said:

Just make sure what you do, you feel you can (eventually) do it at speed.

I’m starting to feel it more consistently. At the range last week, I slowly ramped up driver swings to about 60% and could still feel the right hand on top and controlling the face to path. Ball flight was pretty good too with slight push draws. I want to take my time on this to really change the picture.

 

46 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

Aim at middle C for best results.. 😁.

On a serious note, if you are practicing 'revving the motorcycle' it seems to me that you are revving it waaaayyy too early. Your right hand is already on top of the shaft at A5. I know you are practicing only a feel but if I do that I would extend early and smother hook all day. I think you want to drop your hands below your waist much closer to your right thigh before you start revving it over.   

 

It’s not really motorcycle revving. It more like the right hand closes the face to path while it extends and gets on top. We tried it in Erie, unsuccessfully. Erik sent me a video showing what he wants me to do this fall. It’s a big change for my hands, but I think it will really help in the long run.

[boogielicious]

I haven’t posted in a while. It’s been a different off season. I’ve had some wrist pain when I hit off mats too much, so I’ve focused mostly on slow swings. I’ve been working on the same piece but with a slightly different swing thought/feel. Basically just feeling like I’m just lower my arms from the top with no focus on forcing palmar flexion. I’m also setting up with my hips more over my feet, which gives me a little more room. Done right, the face is less open to path than it was before at A6. On the range, it feels more controllable. 

Below is the slow swing drill I’ve been doing with driver. I do it indoors with an 8 iron.

At medium speed I still have control.

At full speed, it’s better than it was, but the face still opens a little more than at slower speeds.

Face on slow.

Full.

I will keep working on this all winter.

[GolfLug]

Looks good Scott. 

[Bob M]

Looking good! I like the bright RED ball!

[boogielicious]

I haven’t filmed in a while due to weather and some wrist soreness I was getting hitting off mats. I’ve mostly just been focused on targets at the range. I just wanted to post my current swing before my Erie trip. 

On the course, I’ve been doing okay but have had some issues with losing focus on the ball in transition. I don’t know if it’s from being too aggressive in transition or when my swing shortens during the round when I rush it or get agitated. If I go with the feel of a long slow backswing and relaxing in transition, I see the ball through impact and make good contact. If I rush it or get short, I seem to lose the ball and make poor contact.

As for alignment and aim, with driver it works best if I play for a fade and open the face a bit at setup. Same with my 4W and 3H. With irons I can align more toward target and open the face slightly. Irons tend to draw. Wedges have been pulling slightly so I adjust accordingly.

Below are some swings from today. They don’t look too different from last fall to me.

 

[iacas]

Those look pretty good. I know what we'll work on here in a few weeks, and I think I have a good way to show it to you.

[boogielicious]

I’ve been working a lot on tempo and backswing length in addition to my priority piece of hand path from the top of the backswing. I tend to shorten up on the course and that causes my hand path to go out instead of down from the top.

Here is an example with a six iron and driver. I rehearse the backswing length then the fall toward the target, then the hand path, then the left leg push back. With the 6 iron, my real backswing is slightly shorter but hand path starts straight down from the top when looking at the butt of the club. Not sure what happened to the slow motion on this one. It’s on the video on my iPad, but YouTube doesn’t have it.

 My driver backswing is a bit more short as compared to the iron and the path is out more. It is also more OTT. This is what I am trying to correct. This video didn’t show the rehearsal of the path feel. I uploaded this from my phone and it kept the slow motion.

 

[mdl]

Looking good!

Hand path from the top has also been a long time challenge for me as well. Feels and such are different for everyone, even on different days. But figure it can't hurt to throw mine out there in case it's useful.

Along with width, one thing that's really helped me is going for the feel of slowly increasing speed and effort from the top. Lots of people advocate going slowly or no effort or letting the hands drop. For me that always just left me making sloppy swings that were impossible to sequence right and keep good form. But my natural instinct from years of baseball was to jam hard from the top so I needed to change. Thus for me a key feel has been to go for slow and and very light effort from the top with the feel of it being the start of a slow build into A6 -> A7 (club parallel to ground to impact). So like the muscle tension/readiness is still there in the transition to prevent sloppiness, but I also don't go all out with my upper body from A3.5 or the like!

[boogielicious]

Yesterday I worked on 6 iron and today driver. Same basic feels. I want to feel the hand go down from the top and the head falling behind me. The drill is to lower the hand down, then pull back and feel the left leg driving back. I do this a few time before putting a more fluid drill together. The hands go a bit out after the pump.

The full swing looks better with the hands dropping from the top, but the leg action isn’t there yet.

I have a harder time with the driver. Here I am realty trying to feel the head drop way behind me with the exaggerated slow motion. The swing is about 60%. Path is better. Left leg still needs to push back more.

Full swing path is a bit better. Left the face open a bit though.