My Swing (amoline)

[amoline]

Exciting day -- first day that I was able to actually go and hit a full practice bucket without feeling like i'm just going to keel over and die while my arm falls off. Sore, and going to still ease back into things. Didn't hit any drivers today. but things felt better all around. Rhythm feels a little strange and i think that's common after any kind of injury/pain happens. 

Having issues with lateral head movements on longer clubs, being a little chicken wingy and wish I could get some more distance as always. My biggest irritant at the moment is wondering why exactly I'm unable to get my hands more forward on the downswing. Anyway, just wanted to post a couple of updates. 

 

 

[amoline]

I feel like a total moron. 

Looking at DTL video, I noticed that my shoulder turn in my downswing is so vertical as to resemble a sad, fat-person impersonation of Dustin Johnson. And I wonder why I had shoulder blade pain. Yikes. Even trying to do that in slow motion I can feel the super stretch in my back. Really need to get that right shoulder out and down. 

[amoline]

Super stoked to see some tangible progress that wasn't a drill today in my wedge swing with what I've been working on -- stopping the lateral head movement toward the target.

At last, there was negligible head movement on video, and I hit some great wedge shots.

 

[amoline]

Help!  I would really appreciate some help/advice anyone has on help with a steepening shaft/hand path! 

Usually 1 day bad at the range=whatever, 2 -- boo, but doesn't matter, but 3 -- OK, something may be wrong

The last 3 for me have been increasingly shank central, which is too bad because my shoulder turn doesn't look insane (I think), head movement is better than what it used to be. However, I have noticed that along with me trying to get my shoulder turn less vertical (fat DJ impersonation), it seems I don't really have the same saving move to shallow the shaft out either. So I've been raking across it and had a really depressing week of shanks and horrible shots that I don't even want to play any golf let alone even try and work on it on the range.

However, I thought I would post a video so everyone here can see what's going on, much as it pains me to let everyone see a flat out shank, and maybe someone could provide me with a feel or drill to do, or maybe even similar/same experience that would help me out. I can't go back to the insane dropping right shoulder to come from the inside because of physical pain it causes me, so I'm left with learning how to better shallow the shaft out. 

 

 

Thanks all.

Edited June 24, 2016 by amoline

[amoline]

Well, cannot believe I'm about to do this and humiliate myself like this, but here goes nothing.  Today actually marks one year to the day that I got my first real golf lesson and actually picked up golf seriously. So I thought it would be, ahem, interesting to see where I've come from and where I'm at. These are both full pitching wedge swings. 

To everyone else needing encouragement in golf, if nothing else I am proof that miracles CAN happen with a golf swing! lol. On a more serious note and for some encouragement in life (and also relating to golf!) in the year span between videos something noticeable that's changed is I'm also down about 40 pounds and counting as well and it has done wonders for feeling better in general both on and off the course. So whether your goal is golf or otherwise life related, trust me, if I can do it, anyone can do it. 

Lastly, I couldn't have done it without all of the help and encouragement on this forum, so a sincere thank you to everyone here, for everything. 

Here's to year #2! 

Before

 

 

[iacas]

Nice work! Here's to year 2!

[RandallT]

Love the retrospective, @amoline! Nice progress.

[amoline]

This is sure a darn frustrating game at time, but it seems to have given me "the bug." 

Thanks, both of you, for the encouragement! 

[amoline]

Played 9 on a small executive style course today, and shot a new personal record! -- 45 through 9 holes. It's nothing extraordinary, but the bonus is I can count probably 7 strokes that just shouldn't have happened how they did. Either unlucky breaks or stupid mistakes on my part. (3 putt(s) and a horrible series of 3 lost strokes because my ball landed under an evergreen tree and that was painful. Anybody have any tips for those, by the way? When your ball is just sitting up on mud and you can barely get a club on it. Other than pray. ;) )

So I know that seems silly to say. A 45 that "should" have been about 38. But 38 would have left me at 6 over through 9, which is nothing to scoff at for my game. The score did include a four hole run of par, par, bogey, par. 

Having driver issues which is why I was able to still score OK because the course is short and I used 3w or 2i off every tee except for one I did hit driver on.

Just a matter of not overswinging with the longer clubs at this point I think. So hard to do. 

[RandallT]

7 hours ago, amoline said:

A 45 that "should" have been about 38.

Ah yes. I know this concept well. I had a 101 round this year that shoulda been high 80s! 

(and I'm only being MILDLY facetious!) Similar to @DaveP043 mentioning he was told that a shank is just a fraction away from a pure strike, I don't mind the odd holes that go awry, because it just means easy strokes to make up for when I'm hitting the ball like I know I can learn to do. Crazy mind tricks to keep you coming back.

[amoline]

Isn't that the truth! The things that keep us coming back to this crazy game.

And I know what you mean! As I say, I don't mean to be a jerk in saying that a round "should" be anything when in reality it is what I shot it. But it is a  good feeling to know that all my issues with the round are ultimately good things. 

The hole the 7 happened on was one I have always had issues with though -- a par 3 about 155 yards over water (the water isn't a big issue to carry or anything; it just sits in front of the teebox so as long as you don't top/shank something less than that, which I have been known to do...). I figured it would be a pretty simple 8i. The only thing you can't do on that hole is go left, so of course I end up going WAY right, by a factor of curve I didn't know I could actually make an 8i do. Way right, and actually way long (about 15 yards long!). So I'm not sure if that's just the best 8i I'll ever hit, or maybe the swing improvements are making a big deal and I'm gaining some yardage. (And please don't mistake me for a long hitter, lol. I am admittedly at altitude so you can comfortably take 8-10% off everything). Still, that's not a bad distance to hit an 8 either, especially considering where I was at a year ago... 

My biggest takeaway from that small round will be I know I can go a full round without making any "bad" swings and I know that when my swing is under control I can make good shots. Honestly that was the scariest part of the round, trying to mentally get over the "OK, I know this shouldn't be happening... when is the topped shot coming... I shouldn't be hitting this many good shots."

With swing improvements and hard practice, I should be hitting that many good shots! 

Thanks for all the feedback and reading my essays @RandallT... :) Following your awesome swing thread now too!

[macksmom]

Looks great, Andrew!  

[amoline]

Thanks @macksmom ! I appreciate it a lot. It's a work ever-in-progress.

On a side note -- would anybody be willing/able to give me feedback on my putting stroke? I've been having some issues. I played my practice green game today where basically the point is not to three putt and I ended up three putting a sad number of times, my biggest misses on 4-6 foot putts.

Can I film it just like a regular face on video and would anybody be able to tell me what I'm doing perhaps incorrectly, or is putting just something that can't be helped with on video? I'm afraid there's not a whole lot of excellent putting instruction in my area.

[amoline]

Just went to play 9 holes on the small exec course today, and did terrible -- scoring wise, at least. I just did it to try out Game Golf, and I'm not sure I need to even show the results here.

I hit a whopping 0% of GIR, and that's just extra sad compared to normal. 

It's just 9 holes, but from that, interestingly enough I lost just about 2 strokes compared to a scratch player on tee shots, whereas I lost 18 strokes (lol) to scratch on Approach shots -- how does someone get better at this? My short game was bad (or it at least had more pressure on it) and my putting was not stellar, either -- 1.9 putts per hole. Here I am thinking that tee shots are easily the worst part of my game. 

Also, I didn't have my rangefinder as my brother had it for school tryouts, so I was bad at distance. Shame, too because after seeing on GG how far some of those shots really were, I wouldn't have ever chosen the club I did had I known. Good news is that my poor scoring came from OB penalties, which were just huge block/shanks that reared their head. Had two of them this round, on the same hole, which is much less than I'd been fighting previously. 

Anyway, ideas for approach shots welcome. 

[mchepp]

9 minutes ago, amoline said:

Just went to play 9 holes on the small exec course today, and did terrible -- scoring wise, at least. I just did it to try out Game Golf, and I'm not sure I need to even show the results here.

I hit a whopping 0% of GIR, and that's just extra sad compared to normal. 

It's just 9 holes, but from that, interestingly enough I lost just about 2 strokes compared to a scratch player on tee shots, whereas I lost 18 strokes (lol) to scratch on Approach shots -- how does someone get better at this? My short game was bad (or it at least had more pressure on it) and my putting was not stellar, either -- 1.9 putts per hole. Here I am thinking that tee shots are easily the worst part of my game. 

Also, I didn't have my rangefinder as my brother had it for school tryouts, so I was bad at distance. Shame, too because after seeing on GG how far some of those shots really were, I wouldn't have ever chosen the club I did had I known. Good news is that my poor scoring came from OB penalties, which were just huge block/shanks that reared their head. Had two of them this round, on the same hole, which is much less than I'd been fighting previously. 

Anyway, ideas for approach shots welcome. 

What were your misses? Fat, thin, overhook, bad club selection? Give us some details and we can talk it through. 

[amoline]

In reality just poor club selection, and oddly enough with wedges.  That's the only reason I'm happy with it -- contact really wasn't awful. I hit everything, aside from the OBs, solidly. Just not where I wanted to! 

GG considers a shot having missed long if it misses by 15 yards or more long. 

I just decided to get over my horrendous embarrassment and make that GG round public, so you can check it out there.

Discarding OB penalties makes a 54 into a 48, which is not beautiful nor even as well as I did the last time I played this course. But I suppose we can't always have the round of my life. Happy with ball contact. Not happy with such poor scoring. 

As you can see, my total and utter lack of clubhead speed hitting 4i 160 yards at altitude yet remains extremely frustrating. 

[mchepp]

Wedges are really going to be something you need to work on. Here is an oldy but goody thread on different wedge distances.

You should not be embarrassed. All of us struggled at one time or another. The best way to improve is be honest with yourself and everyone else. We can often point you in the right direction, but without good information we may give you bad advice. 

[amoline]

Irritating as usually I'm fairly good (relatively speaking with wedges). 

Anyway, I'm not sure distance control was the problem necessarily but more so distance perception. Meaning that I know my gap wedge, 3/4 swing goes about 80 yards (and just the two swings I made with it were in that range. Instead, the issue was I hit gap wedge when I thought I was a gap wedge distance out, but in reality I was about a sand wedge. So instead of hitting the sand wedge the correct distance and hitting the green, I hit the gap wedge what was the correct distance, but in reality I just wasn't that far away from the green. It seemed consistently with wedges I was over-hitting them by 10-20 yards, not because I didn't know how far the club went, but just because I couldn't tell I wasn't actually that far out. 

Anyway, that's not to say that's an excuse or anything, but I'm also not sure how one improves on that. Maybe I have bad eyes, lol.