My Swing (GolfLug)

[GolfLug]

Spent some more times on matching hip  feels with camera. Will continue working on this including right arm elbow mapping. It def is harder than I was willing to admit.

I can tell you, going against very comfortable feels for something better ain't for the faint of heart.

Edited September 1 by GolfLug

[JetFan1983]

I think Erik's gonna say you have too much weight in your heels again. IIRC, this is part of why people move the pelvis towards the ball in the backswing, as part of a rebalancing move. 

[saevel25]

2 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

I think Erik's gonna say you have too much weight in your heels again. IIRC, this is part of why people move the pelvis towards the ball in the backswing, as part of a rebalancing move. 

Yea, I wasn't going to mention it first, but it looks like that. It can get tricky because, you could set up correct, but then settle back just before swinging the club. 

I think what Erik had me do once was. 

1. Keep the legs straighter, and bend over at the waist. So it feels more over the toes. 
2. Then add a bit of knee bend, but not a ton to settle more in the middle of the feet. 

It felt like I was going to fall over forward, but it is just something you need to get use to. 

This might help out as a drill. It will probably help as a fitness training for balance to. 

 

[GolfLug]

Appreciate the feedback fellas. 

[GolfLug]

 

Any better?

Focus on BS. I know it's still a lunge towards the ball at impact but will work on it. 

[JetFan1983]

Better at setup yea. Keep pushing that right glute back into the glass on the backswing. You know you need a 2-3 inch lateral hip slide in the transition/re-centering phase, then finally, the part you're clearly struggling with the most, you need to fire the left glute up and back thru the glass again. It's called "finger printing the glass" I think? You completely lose connection to it. The amount you have to do this, feel wise, is gonna be like at least an 8 out of 10, maybe more. Because you're not doing it at all.

The pelvis tracking towards the ball removes space for the arms and hands. Think of how much a tour level player uses his glutes. Athletic Motion Golf has a lot of videos on this topic. 

 

It's really common to quad load. You want to use your posterior chain tho, NOT the quads. Try to think of this in 3D in order to properly visualize this, but you need to use your glutes and hamstrings way more. This isn't gonna be about necessarily placing yourself in positions, but understanding which muscles are used in order to get there. Does this make sense? If you have a swing speed monitor, you should see a pretty good spike in speed if you do this right. In order to get your left glute to push back against the wall on the downswing, you will need to apply a lot of force into the ground with the lead foot, in addition to firing the glute. 

It could be really helpful to take your setup 1 inch from a wall in your living room, feeling the right glute push into it on the backswing, feeling the right glute slide against the wall in the transition 2-3 inches, then feeling the left glute push into the wall on the downswing, with mostly hip rotation at this point. Reference the above AMG video to see the pro pattern if you feel confused or lost. It's fairly dramatic how much you have to do this relative to where you are now, downswing wise.

Edited September 14 by JetFan1983

[GolfLug]

Thanks @JetFan1983. That's some really good feedback.

[boogielicious]

The only thing I would add is to watch your right elbow. It bends a little more than you want at the top.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, GolfLug said:

Any better?

Yes. Plus what Constantine said. Keep pushing more pressure into your right heel.

[GolfLug]

13 hours ago, boogielicious said:

The only thing I would add is to watch your right elbow. It bends a little more than you want at the top.

FWIW, I believe this and what @JetFan1983 pointed out are fundamentally connected. The whole thing is counterintuitive at a very core level TBH as I engage a very different set of muscles. This is exactly what I worked on at with Erik at GE last year.

Anyway, I'm going to be patient. I've made bigger changes.

[GolfLug]

This is me trying to fingerprint my tubb-cheeks against the wall. The instinct to extend up through the impact is overpowering. Will continue internalizing with the wall drill.

[JetFan1983]

Definitely better. Keep doing it more. More wall drill. Right glute stays on the glass in transition as it shifts laterally 3 inches or so. Then the left glute back and up on the downswing. You're almost there. 

9 hours ago, GolfLug said:

The instinct to extend up through the impact is overpowering. 

Yea, I hear you. Old habits die hard. It looks like you have about 8 degrees of early extension with the upper body from where you were at address. If you can somehow maintain your address angle at impact while finger printing the glass, you'd probably get some pretty quality strikes. 

Getting the glutes/pelvis stuff working better is the more important of the two, but they are related for sure. You can work on both when you do the wall drill. You will have to try to adapt to hitting the ball with lower hands/a lower handle than you're used to and that can be pretty challenging. 

Hopefully your mobility/core stuff is good too. That'll help.

[GolfLug]

I know the camera angle is terrible but I wasn't to be bothered by anything. This a straight up caveman hit. No structural or dynamic positional thoughts. Wanted to clean up my palate of too many competing thoughts. Still committed to getting my pelvis and trail elbow moving correctly but I'm just fighting myself a bit too much at the moment.

[GolfLug]

Does confidence breed game or does game breed confidence? I would think it's both and that I have little of either at the moment. Have struggled to break 80 even on some easier tracks outside of my home course, which seemed like I had it in the bag on most days during the summer. 

The regression is evident in the variance that has creeped into my most trusted of game aspects, especially my short irons and wedges. I went through a three month period this summer where I couldn't mishit a wedge if I tried. Not exactly terrible but the sharpness is gone and so is the confidence. And as it almost always happens, it has affected my driving as well, which was also something I had made solid strides on. Admittedly, lot of it is self-created as as I am a perennially pathological tinkerer. 

I didn't bother posting a video I took yesterday as it seems like there is no point in posting it. I saw what I needed and let's just say in spite of all the academic help I have gotten from @iacas, @JetFan1983, @saevel25 and of course, @boogielicious I can only conclude that I am bit dense as a golf student. 

I will still see this as my best year yet and remain committed. Maybe a trip to Erie is in order at some point in the winter months.   

 

[iacas]

45 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

I didn't bother posting a video I took yesterday as it seems like there is no point in posting it. I saw what I needed and let's just say in spite of all the academic help I have gotten from @iacas, @JetFan1983, @saevel25 and of course, @boogielicious I can only conclude that I am bit dense as a golf student. 

You probably just go too fast. If you can't do it slowly, you won't do it fast.

45 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

I will still see this as my best year yet and remain committed. Maybe a trip to Erie is in order at some point in the winter months.

Good.

[JetFan1983]

Dang... in the realm of things that probably don't matter all that much, golf slumps are the worst. Yes definitely consult a pro ASAP. Get back to hitting it solid again. Hitting the sweet spot solves a lot of problems.

46 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

Does confidence breed game or does game breed confidence?

For me it's always the latter. My confidence grows as I hit more and more solid shots, which are the result of continuing to improve my swing thru better concepts, better practice, etc. 

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

You probably just go too fast. If you can't do it slowly, you won't do it fast.

Yea, this for sure. And also, without a professional there to let you know you "did it better this time" it can be unnecessarily frustrating and confounding working alone. It's not that you can't work alone; clearly, you can. But during rough patches, it's always smart to consult professionals. Lessons are an amazing place to take new concepts and turn them into feels that you are confident will work.

It's still really cool you consider this your best ever season. Congrats on hitting 7.8 this year!

[GolfLug]

35 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

Congrats on hitting 7.8 this year!

Thanks! It actually briefly dropped to 5.8 at some point in July, but it felt like it was too rich for my blood every moment of the whole two weeks I held the 'level' for me to sustain it. The term 'impostor syndrome' comes to mind.. :-))

1 hour ago, iacas said:

You probably just go too fast. If you can't do it slowly, you won't do it fast.

I have certainly done better than I have in the previous years to stay the course in how and what I have practiced but yes, it's a high probability that I'm leaving a lot on the table.    

[GolfLug]

Nothing exposes low point control, and for that matter the general quality of ball striking like tight lies. Lol!

I am at a crossroad. My days of playing with a super strong left hand grip are coming to an end it seems. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to maintain proper face control through impact as the club face naturally wants to turn over. The quality of strike and ball flight difference when I weaken the grip is stark. Problem is a weaker grip is at odds with my poor sore left forearm which I have been nursing for last few days after 3 days of demanding golf. As of now I will continue my 'transition' to a weaker grip with woods and hopefully my forearm will condition as I go along. Maybe someday I'll get to a normal address with irons too.