My Swing (dkolo)

[dkolo]

I've been Playing Golf for: 3.5 years
My current handicap index or average score is: 19.9
My typical ball flight is: High
The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: Heel hits / shanks

---

Videos: 

So I finally got around to making a My Swing thread. It's been one of those things that I've been putting off for ages for whatever reason. Usually some combination of wanting to work on something first or not having a good way to film my swing. Now that my swing has gotten away from me and I got this selfie stick that mounts to a tripod (golf course selfies, you guys), neither excuse applies. Since winter might hit any time, depriving me of being able to hit real balls, I wanted to put something together. Sorry for the videos being a bit dark; I got to the range later than I wanted and it got dark in a hurry when clouds rolled in. 

Right off the bat, some thoughts of my own:

1) I don't hate my swing on video as much as I have in the past, so that's something. Your feelings will likely be different, as it is, in reality, most likely crap.

2) The irons are a hot mess right now. I've been fighting a shank for the better part of a year and a half. Some days it's a heely strike, some days I'm wearing out the hosel. During the summer I could adjust after a few swings and get it playable, but right now the golf swing doesn't make sense when I'm standing over the ball. But it's a switch that gets flipped. After these videos, I screwed around with some punch shots and pitching (both things that come in handy when my swing is a hot mess), and went back to my full irons and was middling the ball. I event was able to work the ball with functional draws and fades, the draw being a welcome surprise, as it's a shot that's been largely out of my bag (on purpose, anyway) since the end of summer 2014. Much like a lack of gravity to Wile E Coyote, these grooves exist as long as I don't think about them. Realistically, it's some kind of timing thing that clicks now and then, rather than any appreciable difference in my swing.

3) I edited the practice swings out for time, but I think they're so much better than the real swing, with the 8 iron at least. With the practice swing, the hands are at my front leg when the club hits the ground. With the real swing, the hands are much farther back, and I imagine this is causing inconsistencies and my high ball flight (the high flight I don't mind, it's the fat shots I mind).

4) In real time while I'm standing over the ball, my pre-shot fidgeting and waggle are interminable. Watching them in slow motion while I'm editing the videos, I can see leaves changing color in the background. I don't know how people I play with haven't murdered me yet.

With that in mind, I don't know where to go from here. Functionally, I'm making it work on the course: I shot my all-time best 88 last week. For whatever reason, the shankiness I have on the range doesn't translate onto the course (thank God), and my GAME Golf tells me (backing up what I know myself), that my iron misses are either left and pin high or a bit long OR short and right. Basically whether I leave my clubface open or shut it. I swing fairly hard / fast (I think), so it masks some of these flaws. With the driver, I've regressed since the summer. Where I'd hit a number of drives that got out to 280 or 300, now a good one is 250ish. Yeah, fairways are softer, but I can just tell I'm not getting the powerful flight I was getting two months ago. The slice is there occasionally when I;m tired, but a hook is my big driver miss all of a sudden, and I don't care for that at all. My short game is decent, and I've improved my putting, so I'm masking some faults, but I know I can be scoring in the low-80s. A few weeks ago, I played 18 holes, with the front 9 having a bunch of disaster holes at the beginning before I hit my stride. Going back around after the round and replaying those holes straight through, I had something like an 82 if you counted the last 18 holes of the day. It's there, but my swing isn't anywhere near good enough to have that consistency on a daily basis because it relies on timing and compensations. Any thoughts on what I should focus on this winter? Look forward to hearing from you guys!

[RFKFREAK]

In the FO view with the 8I, you don't get enough weight forward and you appear to be flipping the club. 

[collapse]

Your weight shifts to the outside of your right foot before the club even gets to the 9 o'clock position...it should be on the inside of the foot. You have no pre-swing hip shift slightly to the left with accomodating left foot toes pointing out.(this is a static position,not a kick starter)The results being your swing is too long and your upper body too upright(note left side) rather than having a slight lean to the right at the top.....I would say shanks are an inconsistent grip .

[Abu3baid]

First things first.. Turn those feet about 25 to 30* out each, that should help with the pivot stuff and help you get a more centered pivot and less moving to the right on the BS.

[dkolo]

All righty, guys, thank you. I'm going to the range now where I'll flare my feet and work on getting that weight forward. I'm also going to see if I can't shorten the backswing at the top. I seem to be losing connection with the club. I don't think it's grip, just a breakdown of the arms, but I'll take a picture of that and post it to be sure. Thanks, all!

[dkolo]

Had an interesting day at the range today. I played around with some of the ideas you guys mentioned. The flaring of the feet that @Abu3baid pointed out was something I tried working into my set up. It's something I need to catch myself on because it's unnatural and so I forget now and then when I focus on other issues, but for the most part, it didn't detract from my swing.

I played around with grip and backswing length. I tried making sure the butt of the club was farther down into my fingers, which I felt brought me closer onto the ball. I also moved my right hand into a touch weaker position to see if it would quiet down the closing of the club face a little. This worked at first but then it stopped as I probably made other compensations. At this point, I had some issues with a guy in another stall starting to give unsolicited advice and watching every swing of mine once the camera came out, which threw me off of my game because too many things were kicking around in my head. "Swing with just your arms, you're not generating any club speed!" I had just hit two pully 8 irons 160 (bad shots functionally, but fun to watch) before he turned around to "help." Grr. 

That aside, thinking about what @RFKFREAK mentioned with respect to weight getting forward, I noticed my swing was finishing with an uppercut motion that was leaving my upper body behind the ball, so I tried to get to a different follow-through that ended with my arms pointing directly at target, almost like I would be flighting an iron. This was really successful for me, and it helped me with better contact and a noticeably lower ball flight. The feel I was using was to keep the arms away from my body and get to having them pointing at target after the swing. I was able to keep the swing functional through to my 5 iron and 4 hybrid, so I could maybe be on to something. Darkness had falled by then and the video was really grainy, so I won't waste anyone's time with it, but the little I could make out had my hands leading the club through impact more than before. It's something I plan on working through next time after some dry swings at home this week. I also notice now that the back pain I had over my rear right hip isn't there after being really painful the last two days after range work. I think this motion doesn't have me pushing my hips so far forward on the follow through as I try to get the ball in the air. It's something that I'll need to see on video to be sure, but yeah, early returns are good. I hope writing all of these thoughts out, if nothing else, helps me recreate this feeling when I get a chance to go back to the range in a week's time. Thanks for your help, guys!

[dkolo]

Had a chance to go to the range today, and some excuses are in order to start off with. First, it was 35° with 30 mph gusts, so that's why I'm dressed like a goth version of the Michelin Man. Luckily, I had the driving range all to my self because no one else was dumb enough to go golf in this unholy weather. Second, the cold and wind did a number on my iPhone. Aside from knocking the tripod over twice, I had an issue with (I'm guessing) the cold because I got out of the car at 100% battery, and after about 5 minutes of warmups, I go to check on the mounted iPhone, and it was down to 16% battery, and dropped to 1% by the time I rushed to get a shot filmed. I charged it in the car for 20 minutes while I practiced, and it was at 97%. After a few minutes, same issue. Finally I went to the car, turned on the heated seats, and sat on my phone to warm it up like I was a mother hen trying to get it to hatch. I kept the phone in my pocket between swings at that point, but it was starting to get dark and I was rushing my swings a bit to make sure I got some video, so that's why some of the camera angle were less than optimal. All this is a long way of saying "God does not want me to improve my golf swing."

Speaking of the golf swing: I had been working all week on getting my right elbow tucked in on the downswing. I was drilling getting from the parallel to the ground position on the downswing with elbow tucked to impact because, to be honest, this movement doesn't make sense to me. I've been focusing on this part of the swing because I think it's a weak point and I'm trying to get my hands farther forward at impact. Practice swings that I edited out look great: hands get even with my front leg at "impact" with shaft lean, but when I brought real balls in, it was much less pronounced and more erratic. In any event, I do think the hands get a bit more forward today. But I still can't make sense of how to get the clubface to a functional position from there. My swing thought on every shot was "dig the elbow into your rib cage". I switched to "try to get it to touch your belly button" as an exaggerated feel that led to some good shots before I started to think too much about why it was working.

I'm still killing every shot out of the heel and hosel. I really need to fix that, and I kinda don't know how. With the DTL view, I think I'm coming over the top. The shaft gets steeper on the downswing. I tried abbreviating my backswing in the hope of controlling that, but I don't think that did it. In any event, the ball flight today was markedly lower than my typical shot all year, even on the clean strikes, so I guess I'm doing something differently.

Fats are the big problem with impact. I was getting away with it because the mats are super hard from being frozen, but I can tell I'm hitting what feels like inches before the ball sometimes (I'm sure it's not that bad, but it feels like weak impact). I just feel like I'm losing the angle in my swing so early, but I can't make sense of how to do it differently and still make contact.

My posture seems less straight. I had a sore back all week and I tried to take a bit of the inward curve out of my lower back to reduce my lean-back on the followthrough. I don't know if this makes a difference in my swing (I think I was marginally more upright on my follow through?) but I have zero back soreness after this range session.

One other thing I have been working on all week has been to clean up my pivot. As part of focusing on getting my weight forward, I'm trying to make sure I don't have any rearward movement in my swing, and I think it's a bit cleaner. At the very least, I didn't feel like I had to focus on it consciously after drilling it a bunch this week. 

Trying to keep remembering to flare my feet out. I mostly did it on every swing, though sometimes less than others. I probably could stand to flare them out even more than I do.

In any event, I may or may not get out tomorrow because STAR WARS tickets are in hand, but the weather over the holidays looks spectacular, so I'll hit the range soon. 

Anyway, the videos: 

As always, happy to hear any thoughts you all have!

[JonMA1]

I'd make a really crappy instructor.

With the FO view, all I see is a good swing with keys 1-3 looking pretty solid. 

On the DTL, A2 looks perfect, and the rest of the swing looks on plane with the shaft pointing to the target line throughout the BS and DS.

Basically, I wish my swing looked a lot closer to that.

[dkolo]

15 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

I'd make a really crappy instructor.

With the FO view, all I see is a good swing with keys 1-3 looking pretty solid. 

On the DTL, A2 looks perfect, and the rest of the swing looks on plane with the shaft pointing to the target line throughout the BS and DS.

Basically, I wish my swing looked a lot closer to that.

Thanks! You're very kind; the results of this swing have not been as kind, haha. 

[RFKFREAK]

1 hour ago, dkolo said:

Thanks! You're very kind; the results of this swing have not been as kind, haha. 

You're coming in very steep on the downswing.  I think ideally you want the butt of your club to be pointing just in front of the ball at A5 and not behind it.

You're still not getting your weight forward at impact and even though you have may have a slight shaft lean, it appears to me that you're hanging back.

[dkolo]

4 hours ago, RFKFREAK said:

You're still not getting your weight forward at impact and even though you have may have a slight shaft lean, it appears to me that you're hanging back.

Ok, thanks for the reality check. I'm going to try Erik's drill of bumping into a chair to try to push this feeling forward through drill because feels alone aren't doing it I guess.

4 hours ago, RFKFREAK said:

You're coming in very steep on the downswing.  I think ideally you want the butt of your club to be pointing just in front of the ball at A5 and not behind it.

I have literally no idea how to actually change plane on the downswing versus the backswing. I've tried doing it consciously and it leads to a comedy of errors. Mark Crossfield recommends getting to the top and letting the club sag under its weight before reconnecting and spinning at the ball. Tried that and nearly lost the club onto the range, haha. I think focusing on weight forward might be the best way to triage the changes for now. Thank you!

[RandallT]

30 minutes ago, dkolo said:

I have literally no idea how to actually change plane on the downswing versus the backswing. I've tried doing it consciously and it leads to a comedy of errors. Mark Crossfield recommends getting to the top and letting the club sag under its weight before reconnecting and spinning at the ball. Tried that and nearly lost the club onto the range, haha.

Same issue here. Anything I do consciously has led to problems. Ingraining at slow speed has been elusive. I'm definitely stuck on laying the club down at the top of the downswing. It's natural from years of bad habit to be so steep for me so changing that picture has been a sticking point. 

[dkolo]

5 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Same issue here. Anything I do consciously has led to problems. Ingraining at slow speed has been elusive. I'm definitely stuck on laying the club down at the top of the downswing. It's natural from years of bad habit to be so steep for me so changing that picture has been a sticking point. 

I know what you mean. At slow speeds, the club tends to float on me and I feel like I'm waving at the ball. I've gotten steeper and steeper over the past two years after a couple of 2013 lessons where the instructor had me steepen my swing that, in retrospect, was insane and had no leverage in the swing. As I've put in some better movements over time, I've kept some of his fixes which were the steepness and the wristy action of my impact (I had very stiff wrists so he had me go the other way).

[RFKFREAK]

1 hour ago, dkolo said:

I have literally no idea how to actually change plane on the downswing versus the backswing. I've tried doing it consciously and it leads to a comedy of errors. Mark Crossfield recommends getting to the top and letting the club sag under its weight before reconnecting and spinning at the ball. Tried that and nearly lost the club onto the range, haha. I think focusing on weight forward might be the best way to triage the changes for now. Thank you!

 

37 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Same issue here. Anything I do consciously has led to problems. Ingraining at slow speed has been elusive. I'm definitely stuck on laying the club down at the top of the downswing. It's natural from years of bad habit to be so steep for me so changing that picture has been a sticking point. 

 

26 minutes ago, dkolo said:

I know what you mean. At slow speeds, the club tends to float on me and I feel like I'm waving at the ball. I've gotten steeper and steeper over the past two years after a couple of 2013 lessons where the instructor had me steepen my swing that, in retrospect, was insane and had no leverage in the swing. As I've put in some better movements over time, I've kept some of his fixes which were the steepness and the wristy action of my impact (I had very stiff wrists so he had me go the other way).

Maybe @iacas or @mvmac have a drill to help with it.  The only reason I noticed it is because I fight against it, too, and right now it's a priority piece of mine. 

What I've been doing is a lot of slow indoor swings using the mirror.  Even though I haven't done an outdoor practice session with it yet, I've accepted the fact that I'm going to have to learn to hit the ball coming at what is going to feel like an unnatural downswing and that in the beginning the ball is likely to do something unexpected.  That's why, it's going to be a lot of slow swings and checking the camera and adding speed and checking and re-checking myself until it sticks.

But, @dkolo,  I agree working on Key #2 is a priority piece for you to work on.

[mvmac]

3 hours ago, dkolo said:

I have literally no idea how to actually change plane on the downswing versus the backswing.

Big part of the issue IMO is what is going on with the hips on the backswing. They sway back instead of turning in place, can lead to a "chain reaction" of bad stuff.

I'd work on the wall drill and making sure the right hip turns up and AROUND. May feel like the hips move a little towards the target on the backswing and then they continue to move forward on the downswing.

 

[RFKFREAK]

21 hours ago, mvmac said:

Big part of the issue IMO is what is going on with the hips on the backswing. They sway back instead of turning in place, can lead to a "chain reaction" of bad stuff.

@dkolo the image of you on the right very much matches the image below on the left. (although I suppose @mvmac accentuated for movement for effect):

And you def want to see yourself at A4 looking like the image on the right.

[mvmac]

1 hour ago, RFKFREAK said:

(although I suppose @mvmac accentuated for movement for effect):

Yep, left is exaggerated. Right pic is pretty damn good 

[dkolo]

On December 21, 2015 at 1:20 AM, mvmac said:

Big part of the issue IMO is what is going on with the hips on the backswing. They sway back instead of turning in place, can lead to a "chain reaction" of bad stuff.

I'd work on the wall drill and making sure the right hip turns up and AROUND. May feel like the hips move a little towards the target on the backswing and then they continue to move forward on the downswing.

 

Thank you so much for this insight, @mvmac, I really appreciate it! I never realized that, but I'm glad you pointed it out so that I can work on it. I had done turns like the good position in the past, but, exactly like you said, it felt like I was shifting towards target and I thought that was wrong, so I wound up going down a wrong path. I was excited to see what I could do with this so I ran to the range very briefly yesterday and tried a few minutes of really focusing on getting a better turn and was able to make slight improvements when I measured it with similar lines later. I'll spend the next few weeks drilling it and doing mirror work, and hope that I can keep improving it. For whatever it's worth, combining this thought with a real effort to hit in front of the ball gave me some of the best-struck shots I've ever had in a row with a long iron while I was practicing towards the end of my bucket. While it's probably just statistical noise in the long run, I'm glad I at least have the feeling of moving in the right direction as I focus my practice, so thank you again!

 

12 hours ago, RFKFREAK said:

@dkolo the image of you on the right very much matches the image below on the left. (although I suppose @mvmac accentuated for movement for effect):

And you def want to see yourself at A4 looking like the image on the right.

Thanks for the idea. I'm working through the position label thread to commit what all the A# and P# positions are and represent since I'm relatively new to this kind of approach to looking at the swing