My Swing (b101)

[b101]

A lot more work on the same drills today and I finished up by recording a few swings so I could take a look at whether this piece is transferring over on a more subconscious level. I had no swing thought here and I would have been happy with the results on the course.

Driver: Of the 8 drives, 7 would have been on the fairway, with 3 really good strikes and 4 weaker, low-ish fades, but no bad shots. Definite improvement.

Approaches from 175-200 yards: I turned the 5 iron over left a little and caught the hybrid in the video slightly fat, but other than that the hybrids/5 iron approaches would have done what I wanted and gotten me to nGIR. The other 4 swings were fine, but I definitely prefer the 5 iron over the hybrid on today's evidence. 

Approaches inside 175 yards: A mixture of 6-9 irons and partial wedges, mostly hit very well - I caught one 7 iron horribly and hooked it, but everything else was within 10 yards of where I'd have wanted it. The very last swing (9 iron with a high draw) is one of the best shots I've hit in a long time - would have been 6 feet away to a flag at 150 yards. 

---

Technique:

So, is it getting better?

Results-wise, yes. Changing the picture? Not totally there yet. I've made a couple of very rough swing sequences focusing on the things I think I should be changing and one shows some good stuff, the other - not so much.

- Head movement looks ok to me with a little dip.

- The shaft is still pretty steep and could use shallowing more. 

- Head movement again ok

- Rubbish position at the top of the backswing with the right elbow flying out, causing the club to be less laid-off than I'd like.

- Hands aren't as inside the line of my feet as I'd like and the club is VERY steep. Need to continue working on getting the club more shallow on the downswing.

@mvmac and/or @saevel25: the two of you have both been really helpful in the past (and I think I've pestered Erik enough recently!) - am I right in trying to get this hand path more inside or should I be focusing more on laying the shaft off in transition?

Many thanks,
Ben

[iacas]

15 hours ago, b101 said:

@mvmac and/or @saevel25: the two of you have both been really helpful in the past (and I think I've pestered Erik enough recently!) - am I right in trying to get this hand path more inside or should I be focusing more on laying the shaft off in transition?

Are you working specifically with anyone (even on evolvr) right now?

[b101]

16 hours ago, iacas said:

Are you working specifically with anyone (even on evolvr) right now?

Hi Erik,

Yes - I'm working with Brian, who actually read my mind and answered the question (even though I hadn't asked it) in the latest video response he's just sent. I should have just waited; I know I'm too impatient when I'm on my holidays as I basically try to fit 4 weeks of practice into one, hence trying to get a bit of quick feedback. I guess it's part of being a teacher as well - I hate trying to implement anything that I don't know for 100% is right. Brian deliberately hadn't given me any specifics as he wanted me to work it out naturally without constantly referring to technical thoughts, but I'm always scared that I'll make things worse!

Still, bar a bit of work needed on the finish drill, he's delighted with the things he sees, so that really made my day . Loads more work to come, but it's definitely coming on!

Ben

[b101]

Had a really good round yesterday on a very tough course (thankfully without too much wind). I felt like I drove, pitched and putted about as well as I can, but the iron play was pretty poor, which is why I 'only' scored to handicap. I also managed a few holes very poorly and these three holes contributed 7 strokes of my 12 over par. Frustratingly, two of these were par fives and for a course that I was making considerably shorter with my game off the tee, I should have done better.

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/823290

Some highlights:

• Really good putting. I genuinely have never been close to putting the way I currently am. Switching to left hand low has given me the confidence to run putts at the hole and know that they are on line. The major improvement in this round was my pace control on lag putts. A single three putt on this course was damn good going and to get down in two regularly from 30 feet up to 75 feet, I'm pretty pleased. I also continued to hole out from over 10 feet, which was simply not happening a month ago. This has been the single biggest change to my game, as I feel I can actually score on holes without stiffing iron shots .
• The best driving round I've had in ages. I had one proper anomaly on the 4th, where I forgot to hang back with my upper body, which set up that poor hole. Otherwise, a huge driving average and the ones that did miss the tight fairways weren't far off - only the bottom left red dot was in trouble and even then, I screwed up the return shot to the fairway which exacerbated things.
  
  
   
• Approaches and iron shots (bar off the tee to par threes) were generally abysmal. Even when I hit them ok, nothing was going close. I really struggled off lies with the ball above my feet, but the number of shots I hit slightly fat was absurd. Really poor for me and a shame as everything else was so good. 
  
  

Overall strokes gained looks very pretty - either compared to scratch or to a ten handicapper. I'm definitely getting closer and when I do start getting more cards in, I should be trending downwards towards the single digit player I want to be. Completely agree on the approaches and the short game was actually very good - I just mucked up two or three holes from stupid positions. Once (12th) because I couldn't convince myself to putt up a big slope at the front of the green. My pitching had been good, so I thought that was the play, but bladed it off a tight lie. The other would have been my poor play on the par five 4th or the double at the stroke index 1 7th hole - which had the most ridiculous pin position on a tiny hogs back plateau, so any misjudged putt ran off. Other than that, really pleased with some great up and downs on 2, 6 and 11 - nearly made a great one on 18 as well, but the putt lipped out when it looked like it was going dead centre.

[b101]

So, Brian wants me to work on something a bit more specific with the finish drill, whilst continuing to do the same sort of stuff with the closed face drill as that's working nicely. He explained neatly how this finish drill will help me to shallow things out, and I can definitely see it working already. The aim is twofold:

1. Hands working more on an upward path through impact
2. Right knee staying straighter for longer into impact as I rotate it too early currently, which is causing some knock-on effects.

Here's today's attempt at this drill:

Generally, ok, but as ever, it will need 3 or 4 sessions for me to properly get it. Today, I think I got the knee part better, but actually extending into the finish wasn't quite as good. It's a slow learning curve as per usual. I did the closed face drill for a bit as well and started trying to speed that up a little - I'd say I'm ok with it at about 60% now, still hitting the positions and feels that I want to.

I then worked on my pitching a little and tried to quiet the lower body and hand movement. I was really trying to feel like I drop the club onto the ball as Erik and others suggest. Not there yet, but it's a bit better... Just feels very odd!

My target is to get Brian another upload at the end of next week, hopefully with me having nailed both drills to the extent that I can move on to another flaw. The deliberate practice is making the world of difference though, even if it's not totally showing in the full swing, it's feeling much better .

Edited April 14, 2016 by b101

[b101]

Worked a little more on the finish drill this morning before the rain came down. I hurt my right hand a little in the round at Burnham hitting down on a root and I'm finding it much harder to progress with the closed face drill as it's hurting a bit holding the club out behind me where there's more pressure on the right hand. It's clearing up so I'm hopeful that I'll get to do a bit more on it tomorrow. Otherwise, it's been more work on putting on the indoor mat, focusing on rocking the shoulders and not looking after the ball once I hit it. It's definitely helping, but taking some time to get used to it.

Going to head to a range with Protracer bays in the morning to check a few partial yardages with the wedges, which are definitely different from a year ago, as well as continuing to work on launch angle with the driver. 

 

[b101]

I had a really interesting session at the range this morning - headed out a bit further to one which has a load of bays with Protracer to get some numbers and check progress. There's some clear improvements with a few things and two really obvious things to work on - what's really impressive is that I know Brian has already pinpointed both of them, even when I hadn't recognised that one was an issue before today!

After a bit of time warming up and reminding my body of the feels I'm trying to get ingrained, I started with the 7 iron, which I carried 170, 168, 170, 166 and 163, with the last being a slightly thin hit. Given that I thought it went 160 (based on my last gapping session, it's good that I've regained that bit of swing speed since we made the backswing a bit longer. The 170s were perfect (for me) strikes, so there's a good bit of consistency there. 

I then worked on a few of the partial wedge shots that I tend to use in and around the greens and I was a bit surprised that I'm only launching my lob wedge at about 36 degrees... This feeds into one of the two things I'm working on and Brian had pinpointed my angle of attack, primarily by looking at my hand path through impact. It's something that I knew I needed to work on with the driver, but had never thought it would be the case this low down the bag as well.

The driver was the other main focus for the day and, actually, that was fine! I think the setup changes are sorting out the angle of attack and the contact has been pretty good. Although launch angle is slightly down on the average of the six I took from the previous sample (see below), it's more consistent than it was, as it ranged from 6.5 degrees through to 14.1 degrees three months ago.

Full stats (as much as I compare, at least) are here. Note the increases in speed due to the longer backswing and therefore increased distance. I only actually hit 8 this morning and the machine picked up these six, so this would have been the results on the course - no major anomalies and whilst I know the curve needs work, this would be fine when aimed up the left hand side. The fourth is about as good as I can hit it at the moment, so I'm pretty happy with it.

I then proceeded to work through the other clubs in the bag, where the angle of attack issue showed itself again with the 3 iron and 3 wood. I was striking it quite well, but I think I did get a bit fatigued toward the end, which was when I was hitting those two clubs, possibly exacerbating the issue. Still, club distances are updated below:

Hard to explain the 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 as they're just feels, but essentially, the 3/4 is shoulder to shoulder, 1/2 is waist to shoulder and 1/4 is waist to waist. Bit of a gap between 9i and PW, but the more pressing concern for me is at the top end of the bag. It's clear that the hybrid goes further than I think it does, but I do think I should be getting a few more yards out of the 3 iron, as 4 yards between that and the 5 iron doesn't seem right. It had a very low launch, so that'll be something I continue to look at as I work on things with Brian.

I also thought I was getting about 10 yards more carry out of the 3 wood than I am, but maybe that was just a one-off thing - I know from Game Golf that it can roll out to around 260 or 280 with the right hit and bounce... Either way, it launched lower than expected and there's no hiding that; this is something to work on.

All of which does raise an interesting question - I've always liked my 3 iron over my hybrid, but maybe that is misplaced? Now, I don't like my current hybrid much due to the whippy shaft, but part of me is starting to question whether getting a new 3 and 5 hybrid at some point in the future would serve me better than the unforgiving iron at the high end... Food for thought in any case.

A long ramble, but the gapping is something I've been intending to do for a while and definitely corresponds to what I've been seeing on the course - I've been overshooting flags with some of the partial wedges and knew that my 7-9 iron were also flying further than I had thought.

[b101]

Bah, wouldn't let me edit - I did a bit more searching and found this:

From the look of things, the launch angle is actually ok with wedges and my 7 iron launched at 16.9 degrees, so I'm really pleased with that. Just the top end of the bag which isn't quite in line, but then I guess it never will be...

[b101]

Had a bit of a frustrating range session today. I was striking the ball really well with some great contact and mishits pretty rare. There's still some dispersion both left and right of my intended target, which is less than ideal and I need to develop a more predictable shot pattern - I still tend to hit a fade when not really thinking about it, but when I do get my hands in the right position on the downswing, that turns to a draw... That's fine by me for the moment, but on the course I'll be needing to think things through more. I do feel more aware of my clubpath than I have before, which is a large part of what Brian wanted with this latest piece.

The ball flight has been much higher when I feel like I'm raising the hands slightly through impact, especially with the longer clubs, so this is something to keep working on. Again, driver was great and there were no big curves coming in. I know I can score well if my long clubs are firing, even if my irons are off, so that's my major focus right now.

Then I came back home and started looking at the video.

What is annoying is that I'm yet to really see any of the moves I've been working on transferring into the full swing. The club position at the top of the backswing isn't consistent yet, which is really irritating, as I thought I had that down, so I'll keep putting in the mirror work. The club path on the downswing is poor and I'm still wiping across it. Generally, everything just looks quite ragged. Not quite sure why that is, but I'll continue the hard work. 

Things that look wrong are:

Face-On

• Poor impact position with my hips in particular. Nothing like the finish position I'm trying to work towards in the drills.
• Head dips a lot in the face-on view. Not happy with that given the time I've tried to put in on it, but I guess I can bear it for the moment if I'm not hitting it fat...

Down the Line

• Right elbow position at the top the backswing - it's flying behind me again...
• I don't lay the club off enough on the downswing and whilst the hand position over my feet is ok, there's no way I can hit the push draw I want from the positions I get myself into.

Ultimately, it hasn't got there yet - I've made enough changes to the swing that I know it'll get there eventually. I guess the good news is that I'm hitting it better, but I can't help but be disappointed that it doesn't look like what I'm doing is coming through just yet; I thought I'd be getting there quicker with the amount of slow, deliberate practice that I've been doing. Oh well, back to the grindstone in front of the mirror tonight and I'll try to play a round tomorrow. Other than that, I will do more and more slow-motion stuff and more of the drills over the next few weeks. I'm aiming to set aside half an hour a day just for the drills, so with any luck, things might start to click soon. I'm trying to keep positive that at least I hit it well, but I really thought I was doing better than this...

[b101]

A bit more progress today after changing my feel slightly and working on the backswing again. I think Brian's trying to come at the same issue via a number of different ways, and one previous idea was to ensure that my hands aren't racing down to the ball by letting the club get left behind a touch more. So, feeling like the hips lead the arms through gave the below (apologies for the awful DTL angle, but I was in a rush):

This felt much, much better, led to amazing contact and most shots right out of the sweetspot. It's on a local par three course and both shots were really high 8i flights with a very slight draw. There's still the same stuff I dislike, but it's night and day compared to how I was hitting it yesterday, with the dispersion issues way down. As much as I thought my contact was good yesterday, this was brilliant and I was definitely a good 5-10 yards further than I have been for a while as a result. Granted, this may just be a one-off, but what I liked the most was that it removed the 'hit' aspect from the swing and made things feel a lot more in sync and natural than they have. I know Brian has mentioned not hitting out at the ball a lot and I'm hoping this is that lightbulb moment where it starts to click. 

Fundamentally, there's loads still to do and a few more bits to tidy up, but I can't complain with the flight I'm seeing. I do want to try to play more on my own to ensure that I don't regress when I'm on the course under pressure and this should be a great way to do it.

In addition to this footage, I did a bit more short game work, particularly bunker play and played 9 holes of the par three course at 5 over. The greens are dreadful at the moment, so that accounted for a few strokes. It's really just a good way to practise your iron play and short game.

Nice to have a happier post this evening, and see a bit of improvement! I'm setting myself a target of waiting until the weekend before posting to evolvr as there have been a couple of times over the last few months where I get frustrated, post something because I feel I'm not getting it and then work it out the next day. I know what I need to do.

[mchepp]

Progress is looking great, keep it up.

[b101]

9 hours ago, mchepp said:

Progress is looking great, keep it up.

Thanks; I hope so, but I find it so tough with the downswing stuff. Will keep on putting in the hours!

[colin007]

@b101

just wanted to say that i admire your perseverance and the hard work has paid off to my unprofessional eyes. keep it up bro!

[mchepp]

10 hours ago, b101 said:

Thanks; I hope so, but I find it so tough with the downswing stuff. Will keep on putting in the hours!

The downswing stuff is the hardest. Your body has been doing a certain thing for so long that it takes time to change it. In the backswing there is time, time to fix ailments but once you start the transition a certain amount of muscle movement takes place it is really hard to change. 

For inspiration I watch this video. It is the simple idea of how ingrained something is in your mind and how with enough work you can change it.

 

[b101]

On 19/04/2016 at 5:26 PM, colin007 said:

@b101

just wanted to say that i admire your perseverance and the hard work has paid off to my unprofessional eyes. keep it up bro!

Thank you for the kind words  - I guess I get caught up in knowing what I see on the exaggerated swings and assuming that it'll automatically translate. Loads left to do though, but I'm enjoying the chase (that Nike advert really does sum it up quite well!)

23 hours ago, mchepp said:

The downswing stuff is the hardest. Your body has been doing a certain thing for so long that it takes time to change it. In the backswing there is time, time to fix ailments but once you start the transition a certain amount of muscle movement takes place it is really hard to change. 

For inspiration I watch this video. It is the simple idea of how ingrained something is in your mind and how with enough work you can change it.

 

Good video! Yeah, I understand why it's tough, I just get frustrated when it takes so long! Baby steps, I guess... we'll get there. Out to the range again now, so I'll get something uploaded this evening - I've had a couple more good sessions recently so I may upload to evolvr as well.

[b101]

This evening's session went pretty well - I actually shot this footage this morning when the light was a bit better and when I came back to review it I figured it was good enough to post an upload to evolvr. I feel like I'm making good progress with the drills and whilst there are a few things to work on still, there's definitely been movement and I'd value Brian's feedback on that. 

The drill work first of all. First up is the 9 iron finish drill, with three aims: 1) Push hips more upward and forward through impact. 2) Get hands working on more of an upward trajectory through impact. 3) Keep right knee from flexing too early. I think I'm getting there, but it's tough to do all three at once. Definitely better than it has been though. Secondly, the closed face drill, which I can now do pretty consistently at about 75%. Sometimes, I'll have an off morning and I have to dial it back a little, but this is a pretty standard swing. Contact isn't always perfect - I sometimes hit behind the ball a touch, but I'm not worried as that isn't currently an issue on the full swing.

Lastly, another full swing. Not much change from the others, but I really tried to focus on making a good backswing before doing anything else. It looks like I overswing a bit on the DTL version, but seems ok from the FO view. I'm much happier with this than the last few I've posted though - things look slightly more in-sync (although not sure if I keep my arms rotating too long...) and the angles at the top of the backswing are much better. I'd like to see the club shallow out a bit more still on the downswing and my head move less, but those are still works in progress. Flight was a nice high draw on this swing, with it still about 50/50 between that and the high fade based on whether I get the right turning rates or club path on the downswing... Can get tricky on the course, but I can usually tone it down a bit and bank on the fade. 

Having uploaded this, I'm going to do a bit more work focusing on head movement and backswing tomorrow. I'll keep on with the club path stuff, but I think this is a good thing to do whilst waiting for Brian's take. My head movement has always been an issue 

[b101]

Have kept working at the same drills over the last few days and it's getting there. I had a really odd range session this morning where everything seemed to be going thin. No idea why... Went back out this afternoon and that issue was gone, so I'm chalking that up to a one-off. I've also tried to play more full shots and just get the full swing feeling a bit more normal rather than a collection of swing thoughts, which can tie me in knots on the course. It feels like the hand path is almost there on my 8i and below, but with the longer clubs, it's not there yet. I've really noticed the need for that finish to be better and try to create better secondary axis tilt through impact, but I'm happy to be guided by Brian for that.

The final thing I've been trying to work on has been my angle of attack with partial wedges. Partly due to hitting off mats, I'm sure, but I can get very steep with my 3/4 shot. Whilst I don't mishit it on the course, which is a blessing, I know that's not right, so it's been a bit of a focus, leading to more consistent distance control.

So, no new videos, but the work carries on. 92 days and counting until Turnberry... In that time, I want to sort the hand path, keep the putting going well and make sure that I can pull driver without a worry about the flare or hitting down on it. Hopefully, those are attainable goals!

[b101]

I had a really useful bit of feedback from Brian in the latest video about improving the way in which I practise, particularly by trying to map parts of my swing together. Essentially, there are times when I make quick progress and times when I really don't - he really took the time to talk through how to link various thoughts and feels together, and re-iterated the need to practise slowly and properly. If I'm honest, I only really started doing that recently and even then, I've never taken the mapping and slow-motion stuff to the level of working on it all the way through the swing, so hopefully that will help. I particularly struggle with the downswing stuff, so have worked on that exclusively today. The aims were as follows, success (or lack thereof) in red:

• Keep left arm straighter in backswing to prevent right elbow from collapsing. I feel I did that, but my arms are perhaps too high. Aim to get them on the shoulder line.
• Drop the club on the inside by really shallowing from the top of the backswing. Work in progress.
• Move into the 'finish drill' through impact. Keep right knee straighter for longer - work in progress. Hands raise higher. Getting better. Thrust hips through impact - work in progress.

In short, lots still to work on, but I definitely saw an improvement, even in just half an hour - I only actually hit about 10 balls in that time. It's something I'll commit to, but I get (and like) the approach.