My Swing (Flyfish13)

[flyfish13]

I'll chime in again.  :)  First, don't give up after a lifetime; in my short career as a wanna be golfer, I have had great days followed by horrible days and most of the times the problem is something trivial that I am simply not aware of.

Perhaps what's happening to you now is something that I have struggled as well during the take away.  I mentioned that I believe you hing early and don't turn your shoulders too much.  That being the case, maybe you give the club an extra tug to see if you can hinge some more at the top of the back swing because you sense you're off plane, etc.  What I have found is that starting the take away with the arms, imagine pulling the left arm with your right hand, guarantees death.  I will not complete my shoulder turn and by the time I get to the top of the back swing, my arms are all tense, I am struggling to maintain my position, my arms have slid across my chest to where they are no longer in front of me, etc.  It's impossible to get the arms back into position from that point, so I loose my lag, have an "armsy" down swing and there is no telling what the shot will look like.

What I have done is try to isolate my shoulder turn, at the beginning of the back swing, from my hip turn.  It's hard to describe a feel, but I feel my should blades are working.  I am not pulling with my right arm nor pushing with my left arm.  All the arms do, while the blades do the work, is lift straight up in front of the chest, with no tension and kind of glued to my torso.  Halfway through the back swing, the arms will be almost on a straight line with the shaft and my hips will have started to rotate as well.  Shoulder turn is a lot at that point, like approaching 80 degrees.  I start hinging then and when I reach the top of the back swing, I am not struggling to hold the position.  You can try this feel of starting with the shoulders and if your experience is like mine, you will see that you turn the shoulders a lot more and that your not pulling with your arms at the top.  Once you've completed a workable back swing, the rest is easier: you will be connected, the arms will be in front of your chest and will have less distance to travel, and your shoulder turn will be greater and give you an extra couple of MPH at impact.  Basically all you have to do is not turn to fast and loose your lag.  I think you go a good job of keeping your right leg planted, but it goes without saying that if we let the hips sway, it'll harder to return to the ball at impact.

Good luck!

Gil

Great tips Gil.  I don't plan on quitting, but I have never been so frustrated in my life :)........when do you know you have reached to top of your back swing?  Once you've turned your shoulders as far as possible, do your arms continue back?  What cues your down swing?  Another swing thought I have (which is surely wrong) is that if I don't shift forward on the downswing, I cannot trap the ball at impact.  If I try and correct this, I lose all power and hit it fat most of the time.  Thanks again for your input.

[flyfish13]

Great tips Gil.  I don't plan on quitting, but I have never been so frustrated in my life :)........when do you know you have reached to top of your back swing?  Once you've turned your shoulders as far as possible, do your arms continue back?  What cues your down swing?  Another swing thought I have (which is surely wrong) is that if I don't shift forward on the downswing, I cannot trap the ball at impact.  If I try and correct this, I lose all power and hit it fat most of the time.  Thanks again for your i

I'll chime in again.  :)  First, don't give up after a lifetime; in my short career as a wanna be golfer, I have had great days followed by horrible days and most of the times the problem is something trivial that I am simply not aware of.

Perhaps what's happening to you now is something that I have struggled as well during the take away.  I mentioned that I believe you hing early and don't turn your shoulders too much.  That being the case, maybe you give the club an extra tug to see if you can hinge some more at the top of the back swing because you sense you're off plane, etc.  What I have found is that starting the take away with the arms, imagine pulling the left arm with your right hand, guarantees death.  I will not complete my shoulder turn and by the time I get to the top of the back swing, my arms are all tense, I am struggling to maintain my position, my arms have slid across my chest to where they are no longer in front of me, etc.  It's impossible to get the arms back into position from that point, so I loose my lag, have an "armsy" down swing and there is no telling what the shot will look like.

What I have done is try to isolate my shoulder turn, at the beginning of the back swing, from my hip turn.  It's hard to describe a feel, but I feel my should blades are working.  I am not pulling with my right arm nor pushing with my left arm.  All the arms do, while the blades do the work, is lift straight up in front of the chest, with no tension and kind of glued to my torso.  Halfway through the back swing, the arms will be almost on a straight line with the shaft and my hips will have started to rotate as well.  Shoulder turn is a lot at that point, like approaching 80 degrees.  I start hinging then and when I reach the top of the back swing, I am not struggling to hold the position.  You can try this feel of starting with the shoulders and if your experience is like mine, you will see that you turn the shoulders a lot more and that your not pulling with your arms at the top.  Once you've completed a workable back swing, the rest is easier: you will be connected, the arms will be in front of your chest and will have less distance to travel, and your shoulder turn will be greater and give you an extra couple of MPH at impact.  Basically all you have to do is not turn to fast and loose your lag.  I think you go a good job of keeping your right leg planted, but it goes without saying that if we let the hips sway, it'll harder to return to the ball at impact.

Good luck!

Gil

To add further, what do you mean by hinge early?  If I'm understanding what you are saying, I think I hinge early to try and not have too long of a swing...........

[SavvySwede]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flyfish13

Great tips Gil.  I don't plan on quitting, but I have never been so frustrated in my life :)........when do you know you have reached to top of your back swing?  Once you've turned your shoulders as far as possible, do your arms continue back?  What cues your down swing?  Another swing thought I have (which is surely wrong) is that if I don't shift forward on the downswing, I cannot trap the ball at impact.  If I try and correct this, I lose all power and hit it fat most of the time.  Thanks again for your i

Quote:

Originally Posted by ayan

I'll chime in again.  :)  First, don't give up after a lifetime; in my short career as a wanna be golfer, I have had great days followed by horrible days and most of the times the problem is something trivial that I am simply not aware of.

Perhaps what's happening to you now is something that I have struggled as well during the take away.  I mentioned that I believe you hing early and don't turn your shoulders too much.  That being the case, maybe you give the club an extra tug to see if you can hinge some more at the top of the back swing because you sense you're off plane, etc.  What I have found is that starting the take away with the arms, imagine pulling the left arm with your right hand, guarantees death.  I will not complete my shoulder turn and by the time I get to the top of the back swing, my arms are all tense, I am struggling to maintain my position, my arms have slid across my chest to where they are no longer in front of me, etc.  It's impossible to get the arms back into position from that point, so I loose my lag, have an "armsy" down swing and there is no telling what the shot will look like.

What I have done is try to isolate my shoulder turn, at the beginning of the back swing, from my hip turn.  It's hard to describe a feel, but I feel my should blades are working.  I am not pulling with my right arm nor pushing with my left arm.  All the arms do, while the blades do the work, is lift straight up in front of the chest, with no tension and kind of glued to my torso.  Halfway through the back swing, the arms will be almost on a straight line with the shaft and my hips will have started to rotate as well.  Shoulder turn is a lot at that point, like approaching 80 degrees.  I start hinging then and when I reach the top of the back swing, I am not struggling to hold the position.  You can try this feel of starting with the shoulders and if your experience is like mine, you will see that you turn the shoulders a lot more and that your not pulling with your arms at the top.  Once you've completed a workable back swing, the rest is easier: you will be connected, the arms will be in front of your chest and will have less distance to travel, and your shoulder turn will be greater and give you an extra couple of MPH at impact.  Basically all you have to do is not turn to fast and loose your lag.  I think you go a good job of keeping your right leg planted, but it goes without saying that if we let the hips sway, it'll harder to return to the ball at impact.

Good luck!

Gil

To add further, what do you mean by hinge early?  If I'm understanding what you are saying, I think I hinge early to try and not have too long of a swing...........

Here is of good example of a compact swing without hinging the wrists early. No tension is this guys wrists

[ayan]

I will try to touch on all the points you ask about.  Before that, however, I will clarify that I believe -- having convinced myself of it -- that swinging the shaft on a plane on the backswing for as long as possible is key to reaching a good position at the top.  From a good position at the top it is easier to return to the same plane on the dowswing, which to me maximizes the chances of hitting the ball decently.  I try to do what’s called a one-piece take away, and I try to have a one-plane swing, by which I mean that my arms and shoulders are one the same plane at the top of the backswing.  I’m sure you know what I am talking about, if not you can Google search the terms and read about it.  Having clarified that:

1.      1.  I consider having reached the top of my backswing when my shoulders have rotated 90 degrees and my left shoulder is under my chin.  I can turn more than that, up to about 110 degrees, but I have been told and believe that anything beyond 90 doesn’t add much to the swing but makes it longer, which is not desirable.

2.       When I reach the top, I strive to have everything stop at the same time: torso, hips and especially the arms.  If the arms and club continue to move after the torso has stopped, it will only further disconnect them.  You can search (or PM me) for “Slicefixer encyclopedia,” which I think is a very good read, in which he says something along the lines of “for every frame that your arms continue to move after your torso has stopped turning, you will have to make up for that disconnect on the downswing, which will make it more timing dependent, etc.”

3.       By the time I am at the top of the backswing, I am braced against my right leg and I feel some kind of pull on my left side.  It is the release of that pull that I consider to be the beginning of my downswing.  I believe sliding/bumping the hips towards the target may not be my best thought for me because if I overdo it, I lose angular momentum, tilt too much to the right and possibly get stuck on my right side.  Now, while I think it terms of uncoiling more than sliding left, I can see on video that when I do what looks like a decent swing, I am planting myself on the left side before I start to turn and it looks like there is a bit of a hip slide after all.

4.       On hinging early… To swing on plane on the back swing, I try to keep my arms and club as a unit and as I turn my shoulders clockwise, I lift my arms up.  From address, my first goal is to have my hands and club head overlap on a DTL view by the time the shaft reaches parallel to ground.  Imagine a video of a backswing being played in slow motion: arms and club begin moving on a circular path away from the ball as the shoulders turn, and at the same the arms are lifting (straight up) and bringing that “unit” back onto that plane.  If you were to hinge at that point, the club would definitely come off the plane, so I don’t hinge.  You can keep what I have described, i.e. staying on plane, up until the point where your hands are just about over the middle of your feet and the shaft is parallel to ground.  The right arm is still on top of the left arm at that point, and the club head will be almost vertical but not quite, its angle being ideally the same as your spine tilt.  At that point, the club face is still square to the path.  Also worth noting is that my shoulders will have rotated a lot by then.  That’s when you will necessarily come off the plane: the left forearm will start spinning clockwise along its axis, the right elbow will start to bend, and I hinge my wrists at that point.  I try to not cup my left wrist any more than it already is, to me it’s easier to try to keep it on the flat side because it will be something less to worry about on the downswing.  Having a flat “ish” left wrist also means that my elbows will be closer together.  At the top of the backswing, ideally I will feel my shoulders rotated 90 degrees, the right knee will not have collapsed and I will be anchoring myself against my right instep.  As far as the club is concerned, from a DTL view and at the top, it will be pointing towards the target more than behind me, which translates into not over rotating the left forearm, not laying the club off "too much," etc.   The club face will be neither open (toe pointing down) nor closed (toe pointing up), and I will be able to see the shiny face (you will not be able to see the face if you cup your left wrist too much, for example).  The right wrist will be in the “waitor’s tray” position and will try to keep that bend as I begin the downsing, as well to keep my elbows close.

I wrote everything I could think of, I hope this is clear and useful to you.  :)

Gil

[SavvySwede]

I will try to touch on all the points you ask about.  Before that, however, I will clarify that I believe -- having convinced myself of it -- that swinging the shaft on a plane on the backswing for as long as possible is key to reaching a good position at the top.  From a good position at the top it is easier to return to the same plane on the dowswing, which to me maximizes the chances of hitting the ball decently.  I try to do what’s called a one-piece take away, and I try to have a one-plane swing, by which I mean that my arms and shoulders are one the same plane at the top of the backswing.  I’m sure you know what I am talking about, if not you can Google search the terms and read about it.  Having clarified that:

1.      1.  I consider having reached the top of my backswing when my shoulders have rotated 90 degrees and my left shoulder is under my chin.  I can turn more than that, up to about 110 degrees, but I have been told and believe that anything beyond 90 doesn’t add much to the swing but makes it longer, which is not desirable.

2.       When I reach the top, I strive to have everything stop at the same time: torso, hips and especially the arms.  If the arms and club continue to move after the torso has stopped, it will only further disconnect them.  You can search (or PM me) for “Slicefixer encyclopedia,” which I think is a very good read, in which he says something along the lines of “for every frame that your arms continue to move after your torso has stopped turning, you will have to make up for that disconnect on the downswing, which will make it more timing dependent, etc.”

3.       By the time I am at the top of the backswing, I am braced against my right leg and I feel some kind of pull on my left side.  It is the release of that pull that I consider to be the beginning of my downswing.  I believe sliding/bumping the hips towards the target may not be my best thought for me because if I overdo it, I lose angular momentum, tilt too much to the right and possibly get stuck on my right side.  Now, while I think it terms of uncoiling more than sliding left, I can see on video that when I do what looks like a decent swing, I am planting myself on the left side before I start to turn and it looks like there is a bit of a hip slide after all.

4.       On hinging early… To swing on plane on the back swing, I try to keep my arms and club as a unit and as I turn my shoulders clockwise, I lift my arms up.  From address, my first goal is to have my hands and club head overlap on a DTL view by the time the shaft reaches parallel to ground.  Imagine a video of a backswing being played in slow motion: arms and club begin moving on a circular path away from the ball as the shoulders turn, and at the same the arms are lifting (straight up) and bringing that “unit” back onto that plane.  If you were to hinge at that point, the club would definitely come off the plane, so I don’t hinge.  You can keep what I have described, i.e. staying on plane, up until the point where your hands are just about over the middle of your feet and the shaft is parallel to ground.  The right arm is still on top of the left arm at that point, and the club head will be almost vertical but not quite, its angle being ideally the same as your spine tilt.  At that point, the club face is still square to the path.  Also worth noting is that my shoulders will have rotated a lot by then.  That’s when you will necessarily come off the plane: the left forearm will start spinning clockwise along its axis, the right elbow will start to bend, and I hinge my wrists at that point.  I try to not cup my left wrist any more than it already is, to me it’s easier to try to keep it on the flat side because it will be something less to worry about on the downswing.  Having a flat “ish” left wrist also means that my elbows will be closer together.  At the top of the backswing, ideally I will feel my shoulders rotated 90 degrees, the right knee will not have collapsed and I will be anchoring myself against my right instep.  As far as the club is concerned, from a DTL view and at the top, it will be pointing towards the target more than behind me, which translates into not over rotating the left forearm, not laying the club off "too much," etc.   The club face will be neither open (toe pointing down) nor closed (toe pointing up), and I will be able to see the shiny face (you will not be able to see the face if you cup your left wrist too much, for example).  The right wrist will be in the “waitor’s tray” position and will try to keep that bend as I begin the downsing, as well to keep my elbows close.

I wrote everything I could think of, I hope this is clear and useful to you.  :)

Gil

@ayan wouldn't you say that is all a bit too much to think about? One thing at a time

[ayan]

I suppose

@ayan wouldn't you say that is all a bit too much to think about? One thing at a time

It really depends on what the meaning of the word is is.  :)  Like you, I think that one swing thought at a time is probably all any person can handle before taking a swing.  However, I believe one should know what to work on.  Say I'm hooking the ball, what am I doing wrong?  It could be a number of things, so what do I try to fix?  What I described is basically the process I use to try to find out what's off when my swing isn't happening.  In my experience, when something is not right, one or more of those check points will highlight something I am doing wrong.  I thought I'd share all of it with @flyfish13 since his questions spanned just about every aspect of the swing itself.  At the risk of repeating myself, I have no credentials and, based on @flyfish13 's videos, I would start by exploring standing closer to the ball and practicing a one-piece takeaway.

Cheers,

Gil

[flyfish13]

Thanks for everyone's input and suggestions

[flyfish13]

Update: took a lesson with a retired local club pro over the weekend. Biggest problems he pointed out was hinging early (as some of you pointed out) and not keeping my wrist "strong". Was rolling my wrist which was opening the club face. Other major problem was not swinging around my body from the bottom of my down swing to finish. I was extending my arms/body toward the target after contact instead of finished around my body with a "toe up" sequence in the follow through. (I have always done this somewhat but have been able to compensate in other areas - this will take some time to change). Thanks again for everyone's input.