My Swing (DrvFrShow)

[GolfLug]

@DrvFrShow, how's the swing coming? Haven't seen a vid in a while.

[DrvFrShow]

@GolfLug The swing as of now needs some work. I'll actually post three videos. I backslid.

Things were going along well last year, and I was making progress. This was taken during one of my lessons. While it was not perfect. It was an improvement.

I still had some balance issues, but they were getting better. I was starting to card birdies on a regular basis. This was six weeks after cortisone shots in both shoulders and they were feeling really good. I have left knee problems. And remind me not to wear pink tops. They make me look fat.

Between then and now, I reinjured my left knee, and injured my sacroiliac. The latter was about a month ago. I've been to the doctor. While I've been given the green light it hasn't been the same since. I've lost flexibility. Prior to the injury I was getting good distance with drivers and not having problems hitting long irons. I'd taken three lessons as tune ups and things were coming along fine. But now it seems there are certain moves that are more difficult than they used to be. 

Enter May 2016.... I've been able to return to playing. My lower back gets stiff, and I have difficulty staying in posture once again.

I've seen worse swings... a lot worse. I'm scoring at my handicap with this. Yes I know the head is coming up, but why is the head coming up? Well, it's my back, and my shoulders. My shoulders have stiffened up again. Not to the degree they did last year, but still, they're stiffer. Consequently I developed an OTT move. I know the OTT move is bad, so I try to rescue the swing and reroute it during the downswing by early extending so I can make contact with the ball on an in to out path. This is not good.

Many people play decent golf with early extension. Some even play at very low HC levels. They have the move timed right. Still it is a fault. 

If I didn't early extend, I would hit the ball fat. When the move is timed right, I can play stretches of the course quite well. However that's stretches, not consistently. The timing always breaks down. All it takes is one component to go. Too many compensations. So how does one learn an inside out club path? Especially if one has some limited flexibility?

I went back and took a look at Lee Trevino, and tried the open stance at the range yesterday. Front foot flared open, rear foot perpendicular to target line. Weight distribution as normal.

 

As you can see, the club head is square to the target, but I'm taking it back on the line parallel to my hip and shoulder alignment which is the angled black stick. I know this is in front of the plane. Then I reroute the club at the top along the target line or back on plane and hit the ball. This really felt weird. But I'm fairly athletic. I was hitting about 1 out of 3 balls to target. The other two were missing by about 15 yds right or left. I lost some distance, probably due to not trying to kill the ball, but other than that a slight fade with my 7 iron wasn't a bad thing. Occasionally I'd mess it up altogether and pull the shot left along my feet alignment. The longer the club it seemed the more difficult to hit. I was able to hit my 5 iron. My driver? I lost it. I had to go back to my 7 iron to feel the move again. Then went back to my driver and hit three shots mostly to target at my normal driving distance with a slight fade. It felt... interesting. It didn't feel good. It felt weird. 

But I was lining up with the club head flat to the ground instead of with the end tipped up. And I wasn't hooking the ball, and only shanked it a couple times in 150 shots when I got completely out of position.

Ended the session with some wedge shots.

My coach was sitting on the bench giving a lesson. We talked about the change. "Why are you making a change?" I'm coming OTT. "Yes, but why are you making the change?" I'm inconsistent on the golf course and shooting in the 90s. "Then it's worth making the change. If you were shooting in the 70s then I'd say probably not worth it."

My guess is that once I learn this move well, I can start going back to a more neutral stance and could eventually hit a draw by keeping the club face a little bit closed in relation to the inside out club path. If I want to do that. Which I may as I get older and need less spin and more roll out. But right now during learning, extremes are probably good.

[GolfLug]

@DrvFrShow, the purpose of closed or square left foot stance is to help restrict the hip through impact so that you can roll release your arm through, but you have a super strong grip you do not need to roll release (you are not - it's an all out upper arms and body hit). Of course if you notice you overpower your closed/square left foot stance and spin out like Arnold Palmer anyway. All you are doing with the closed stance is twisting your knee, super stressing it until your poor foot finally gives and spins out left.

Flare out the left open. Don''t think you need a Lee Trevino level full open hip open stance as well.  Just the foot flare should do. Your hip will turn through impact a bit easier and your knee will thank you profusely. With your list of injuries, especially the left knee you really ought to consider this. The bonus is that you will alleviate the OTT move somewhat. In your case there is no upside to a closed left foot. None. Zip. As in any 'structural' changes like that it will feel weird, like really weird for a while.

[DrvFrShow]

I'm using the Trevino full open stance with that club path just to get the feel for the inside out move because no matter how hard I've tried I just can't get the feel for this move. They've told me to drop my right foot back in the past to "make it a little easier" but I still hit pull shots down the fairway, and if I do the inside outside path right which happens every so often, I block shots. And my OTT was leading to streaks of the shanks. Dropping the foot back just made things worse long term.

If I take the club back on my foot line in order to hit target with a relatively straight shot I have no choice but to reroute the club back along the target line and come from the inside relative to my feet, hips, and shoulders. Plus Trevino flared the left foot a bit on top of it.

I'm hoping this is temporary just to get the feel of the rerouting movement.

 

[DrvFrShow]

Primary piece - inside to outside club path. Method used - open stance, open hips, open shoulders like in the diagram I drew. Just trying to make a swing along the path and get the ball going toward target. Not concerned with distance but with contact and ball flight. Those tell me everything.

Well this move has taken a bit of getting used to. When I miss it's dead pull left, but that's rare. I still hit some bad shots. I think a lot of that has to do with taking up the game around the age of 60. Balance is one of the things that starts to go at this age. Flexibility is another. Also I'm still learning and don't practice enough. If I practiced daily for 4 - 6 hrs a day that would be different. But I don't.

Here's what's been happening.

1) At first I was not hitting the ball as far. I was just getting used to the swing path. 

2) I'm starting to make better contact with the ball again. 

3) Just to be able to hit the ball, my right elbow has to tuck on the down swing. I can feel it tucking against the front of my ribs. That was something new, and something to get used to. It caused me problems with tempo at first. So I slowed down things until I got used to the feel. 

4) If I don't get my weight moving forward, I chunk it. If I early extend, I hit thin.

5) My left leg finishes straight through much more often rather than buckled like it used to. I'm also flaring my left foot in the open stance and finding it easier on my knee.

My driver hitting today was improving. No more really bad slicing. I hit a couple of push fades off target line, but they were getting more controlled and I was getting better distance. Out of 20 shots 10 would have stayed in the fairway, 5 were totally off target (two dead pulls, three badly push faded, none sliced), 3 faded within my boundaries, and 2 draws that stayed within my boundaries. Carry between 200 - 230 depending upon where on the club face I made contact and my launch angle. Ambient temp 80 F. Calm. Two bad mishits about 150. Obviously more practice is needed. 

16 LW; 16 PW; 20 - Drivers; 20 - 5H; 12 - 5i; 16 - SW; 20 - 6i; 20 - 7i; 30 - 64* wedge shot to varying distances. About 50% of shots inside 125 yds. All shots to various targets. Some hit target. Misses were about 10 - 20 yds with the irons depending upon the distance. Wedge misses were 8 - 12 yds.

[DrvFrShow]

It's been 1859 days since I've updated this thread. I gained the Covid 30 lbs. God I'm fat. Overweight with bad knees. With that out of the way. Range work on 7/1/21. I got someone to take a DTL video on his tripod. We couldn't get a face on view because the range was crowded. So this is the best we could do. It's not perfect by any stretch. The shot shape here was a med-high draw and ended up somewhere in the designated "fairway" zone between the poles at the end of the range left of the center point. Feel ain't real. I thought I'd shortened my backswing. lol. Here's the fat cow. 

 

[iacas]

Wider would help your swing be shorter, I think. You're very "narrow" at the top.

[DrvFrShow]

You mean a wider stance, right? 

[colin007]

I think he means getting width from getting the arms out and away from your shoulders/head at the top. Shorten the backswing.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, DrvFrShow said:

You mean a wider stance, right? 

No. Hands at the top.