Hitting behind the ball and making deep divots...

[krupa]

Today at the range I was hitting behind the ball and making very deep divots.  Is that just a set up mistake or a bad swing or both?  I've been playing a lot lately and my arms have been tired... could it just be fatigue?

I didn't have my phone stand this time but here's the last video I made of my swing from last week when I was hitting the ball better...

 

[Rainmaker]

I took a look at your my swing thread - looks like you've gotten some good advice there and made some solid improvements.  FWIW - I posted this thread here called "What is the Secret of the Golf Swing" . .and I said that, for me, it was realizing how not to aim at the ball.  This "realization" helped me fix a lot of the things I see in your swing.  I'd been told lots and lots of times - don't hit at the ball, swing through to the target . but it didn't make sense to me . .until one day it suddenly did. 

Anyway - while I suffered from this misconception - I had a variety of bad shots.  On my good days I could hit it pretty good.  On my bad days anything could happen . .I could slice it, hit it fat, pull hook it, top it, skull it, etc.  Anyway - it's not as easy as just "don't hit at the ball" . .or, as I think of it.  .don't aim "the energy of your swing at the back of the ball".   Speaking just for myself, it took a lot of practice and lessons to get to where I could "suddenly have this realization". 

But . .in the meantime - you are hitting it fat (or whatever) because you're making a lot of corrections for some fundamentals that are off.  And, for sure, fatigue would have a lot to do with it.  The more fatigued you are, the less likely you'll be to make this corrections successfully .  If you get lessons or sign up for evolvr or just keep posting in the myswing thread - you can get the (slow) way forward - it's by focusing on one thing and then the next and then the next and yada yada.  I couldn't say what your "next thing" to work on is, though. 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2016 by Rainmaker

[krupa]

27 minutes ago, Rainmaker said:

I took a look at your my swing thread - looks like you've gotten some good advice there and made some solid improvements.  FWIW - I posted this thread here called "What is the Secret of the Golf Swing" . .and I said that, for me, it was realizing how not to aim at the ball.  This "realization" helped me fix a lot of the things I see in your swing.  I'd been told lots and lots of times - don't hit at the ball, swing through to the target . but it didn't make sense to me . .until one day it suddenly did. 

Anyway - while I suffered from this misconception - I had a variety of bad shots.  On my good days I could hit it pretty good.  On my bad days anything could happen . .I could slice it, hit it fat, pull hook it, top it, skull it, etc.  Anyway - it's not as easy as just "don't hit at the ball" . .or, as I think of it.  .don't aim "the energy of your swing at the back of the ball".   Speaking just for myself, it took a lot of practice and lessons to get to where I could "suddenly have this realization". 

But . .in the meantime - you are hitting it fat (or whatever) because you're making a lot of corrections for some fundamentals that are off.  And, for sure, fatigue would have a lot to do with it.  The more fatigued you are, the less likely you'll be to make this corrections successfully .  If you get lessons or sign up for evolvr or just keep posting in the myswing thread - you can get the (slow) way forward - it's by focusing on one thing and then the next and then the next and yada yada.  I couldn't say what your "next thing" to work on is, though. 

Thanks!  I think about evolvr a lot but haven't been ready to take the plunge.  Mostly I've been self-conscious about taking my camera to the range because every range in my area offers instruction as well.  However, that's a bit OT.  

I'm going to take a few days off from full swings and work on my chipping and putting.  Hopefully by the end of the week my arms will recover and I can try again.

[Odogesq]

Hi there! I also took a look at your swing. First, mvmac's response is stellar. Study that video and try to replicate the swing you see in his example video, placing emphasis on keeping your lower body more stable during the swing.

Some golf basics: hitting behind the golf ball (ie a fat shot) is almost always the result of not getting your weight over to the left side at impact. By getting your weight over onto the left side before impact you will be promoting a slew of good things, like coming into the golf ball with the hands ahead of the ball at impact and the shaft leaning forward, all things that will promote hitting the ball first and then the ground, and hitting down on the ball. 

In your swing what I saw was a tremendous amount of hip rotation in the back swing combined with a sway to the right side. At the top of the backswing your hips are so open and your body so far off the ball that its going to take an incresibly timed athletic move to get back to your address position and onto your left side prior to impact. Instead, think of the golf.swing as more of a rotary action. Your upper body turns away from the golf ball while your lower body tries to maintain the position you were in at address. As you wind the upper body back, try to feel like you are restricting the hips and teyinf to keep them in the same position as address. In actualityx the wonding back of the upper bidy will pull the hips back slightly and you should feel some tension, like your body has been wound back like a spring. From there the correct move is to do the opposite, rotate your hips to the left, shift your body weight onto your left side, and let the lower body and club fall onto the correct plane. From there you can swing hard and through the golf ball. A good drill is to practice the forgoing with 1/2 swing, pausing for a moment between the back swing and downswing.

Hope this helps! 

P.s. fatigue will always affect performance. If your arms feel tired and your focus is gone, its always best to move onto chipping/putting. 

[krupa]

I appreciate you taking the time to look at my video and give such a detailed response.  But I think you were looking at the first video made a couple years ago instead of the latest video, made last week.

5 hours ago, Odogesq said:

In your swing what I saw was a tremendous amount of hip rotation in the back swing combined with a sway to the right side. At the top of the backswing your hips are so open and your body so far off the ball that its going to take an incresibly timed athletic move to get back to your address position and onto your left side prior to impact. Instead, think of the golf.swing as more of a rotary action. Your upper body turns away from the golf ball while your lower body tries to maintain the position you were in at address. As you wind the upper body back, try to feel like you are restricting the hips and teyinf to keep them in the same position as address. In actualityx the wonding back of the upper bidy will pull the hips back slightly and you should feel some tension, like your body has been wound back like a spring. From there the correct move is to do the opposite, rotate your hips to the left, shift your body weight onto your left side, and let the lower body and club fall onto the correct plane. From there you can swing hard and through the golf ball. A good drill is to practice the forgoing with 1/2 swing, pausing for a moment between the back swing and downswing.

I don't see anything you're talking about here:

 

[Odogesq]

1 hour ago, krupa said:

I appreciate you taking the time to look at my video and give such a detailed response.  But I think you were looking at the first video made a couple years ago instead of the latest video, made last week.

I don't see anything you're talking about here:

 

Hello, you are correct, that swing is not the one I saw in the prior thread. Your 5/26 swing is mich better and looks totally different from the initial video you posted. You are turning mich better and it was clear that your are coming through the ball with more power and compressibg it a bit. That said, If that is how you are swinging now and still hitting it fat the only reason I can see is that (1) you have a tendency to hang back and not get as much weight over to your left side before impact as you could (you should have about 95% of your weight on the left foot prior to impact) and (2) there is a tendency in your swing to cast the club, resulting in an early release (this one is harder to confirm because we don't have a slow month video). Despite the foregoing, its clear that you are able to make decent contact, so i have to assume the times you hit it fat your timing is just off or you are fatigued as you indicated above which leads to lack of focus and will.impact your timing. By working on these two things you will take some of the timing out of your swing, which should result in better and more consistent contact, and you will be hitting the ball further, and it will start going straighter (assuming you are able to get your path and clubface going in the right directions, but that's probably a topic for another thread) If your phone has a slo mo video mode, upload us a slow mo dtl and fo swing video. It looks like your wrists break down before impact, resulting in a slight "scooping" action with the club (its hard to tell though without a slo no video). The two issues are intertwined. Not getting enough weight over to your left side will make it difficult to come into impact with the hands ahead of the ball, so the natural reaction is to cast the club to make contact with the ball, as opposed to leading with the legs and hips, which pull the upper body and arms through and ahead of the ball at impact.a good golf swing starts from the ground up. The clubhead is the last thing to come through the ball, in your swing it looks like the clubhead might catch up to the hands right at impact and pass them at or just after impact, which explains why you are hitting some fat shots. I.e., if your timing is not spot on and the clubface catches up and passes the hand prior to impact, even for a fraction of a second, it will usually lead to a fat shot. Try to get more weight over to the left side prior to impact, and focus on getting the hands to come through first and ahead of the golf ball.

[Rainmaker]

@Krupa . . . take your swing video from the face on view . .pause it at impact.  See how your wrists are?  The right one causing the left one to fold?  That's why you're hitting it fat when you are.  BUT . .the way to fix that is by fixing other things - check out the info on the 5 Keys and rate yourself from 0 to 5 on each key.  0 being "no idea" and 5 being "mastered it".  You pretty much need somewhat of a handle on all 5 keys to make the wrist thing at impact go away. 

 

Here is a link to a post I made about my impact position - notice how our wrists are similarly wonky at impact in the pic I posted halfway down the thread. .although we had other issues that were not the same as well.  I also learned to call this "Casting" or "early release" instead of "flipping" . .but that's what I thought it was called when I posted it.

Edit . . unless you want to spend the next couple months wearing out the hosels on your clubs, don't try to fix this directly.  I did it that way . .but I'm a  . .uhh . . special guy, lol . .and I don't mind shanking a million in a row. 

Edited June 1, 2016 by Rainmaker

[krupa]

5SK Ratings:

1:  4.5 - 5  

2:  2, maybe 3.  I don't think about "weight forward"; I know I do it a little bit but it could be a lot better.  I could be more confident about it, anyway.

3-5:  0

I have the DVDs but have no clue how to achieve the other three.   Maybe if I rewatched the videos and worked on them a bit...  

The instructor I've been seeing talks about #4 but also points out that I'm not releasing the club, advice @iacas doesn't like... I think...   I can't tell if he doesn't like how it's taught or the advice in general.  (This is my backhanded way of asking the question that's really meant for another thread.)

[Rainmaker]

10 minutes ago, krupa said:

5SK Ratings:

1:  4.5 - 5  

2:  2, maybe 3.  I don't think about "weight forward"; I know I do it a little bit but it could be a lot better.  I could be more confident about it, anyway.

3-5:  0

I have the DVDs but have no clue how to achieve the other three.   Maybe if I rewatched the videos and worked on them a bit...  

The instructor I've been seeing talks about #4 but also points out that I'm not releasing the club, advice @iacas doesn't like... I think...   I can't tell if he doesn't like how it's taught or the advice in general.  (This is my backhanded way of asking the question that's really meant for another thread.)

I'm going to guess that instructors don't like that advice because it encourages too many misunderstandings.  "release the club" is something that happens when we do other things right, for the most part. 

Golf teachers are in a bad position, lol.  They know you need to do 20 things differently but they also know that if you leave your lesson not even being able to hit the ball, you won't come back. 

In my opinion, the importance of the 5 keys as they pertain to this particular issue (1-5 with 5 being "most important" are:

Key 1 - 5

Key 2 - 2

Key 3 - 5

Key 4 - 5

Key 5 - 3

This is not to say you have to fully master Keys 1, 3 and 4 . .the 5 just represents the significance of those keys in fixing this issue . .in my opinion only. 

 

 

[Lihu]

58 minutes ago, krupa said:

5SK Ratings:

1:  4.5 - 5  

2:  2, maybe 3.  I don't think about "weight forward"; I know I do it a little bit but it could be a lot better.  I could be more confident about it, anyway.

3-5:  0

I have the DVDs but have no clue how to achieve the other three.   Maybe if I rewatched the videos and worked on them a bit...  

The instructor I've been seeing talks about #4 but also points out that I'm not releasing the club, advice @iacas doesn't like... I think...   I can't tell if he doesn't like how it's taught or the advice in general.  (This is my backhanded way of asking the question that's really meant for another thread.)

People tend to rate themselves higher on the key scale which is generally rated 0-1 on this site.

Also, you should just swing naturally, and not attempt to make a picture perfect key so to speak. The keys you've earned should be from a natural unforced swing, and not a staged one. Not saying you are staging one, just noting that you should just swing naturally and work on that swing.

As far as the OP is concerned, fat shots like that are sometimes from not getting enough weight shift forward at impact. The hanging back business could be the main issue, but IDK for sure?

[Rainmaker]

8 minutes ago, Lihu said:

People tend to rate themselves higher on the key scale which is generally rated 0-1 on this site.

Also, you should just swing naturally, and not attempt to make a picture perfect key so to speak. The keys you've earned should be from a natural unforced swing, and not a staged one. Not saying you are staging one, just noting that you should just swing naturally and work on that swing.

As far as the OP is concerned, fat shots like that are sometimes from not getting enough weight shift forward at impact. The hanging back business could be the main issue, but IDK for sure?

 

Ahh . .but why do we "want" to hang back?  Because of Key 5, in my opinion.  Somehow our brain knows our clubface is open but . .let's face it . .our brains are a bunch of jerks.  They could just say "hey, your clubface is open" . .but instead they say "hey - you better stay back if you want to hit this towards the target", lol. 

That's why I rated Key #5 as a 3 . .you don't need total control of the face but it can't be open. 

 

[Lihu]

6 minutes ago, Rainmaker said:

 

Ahh . .but why do we "want" to hang back?  Because of Key 5, in my opinion.  Somehow our brain knows our clubface is open but . .let's face it . .our brains are a bunch of jerks.  They could just say "hey, your clubface is open" . .but instead they say "hey - you better stay back if you want to hit this towards the target", lol. 

That's why I rated Key #5 as a 3 . .you don't need total control of the face but it can't be open. 

 

Key 2 is a likely culprit. He's not getting his weight shift forward at impact. I'm not sure what else he needs first, but. . .take a look at Krupa's my swing thread and see what @billchao has posted there.

Also, here are the definitions of the keys. . .

 

[Rainmaker]

I don't disagree - it's just another way to think about it.  I don't love everything these guys put out but they recently put out this one which I think is good and explains what I mean about the relationship between key 5 and key 2. 

 

 

My teacher, btw, doesn't teach the 5 keys but, though my experience with him, if he were teaching the keys, he'd be teaching it like this:

Key 4 and 5 first

If you never get those, that's as far as you go - except maybe an intro to Key 3.

edit . .I actually haven't "mastered" those . .but I had to acquire basic proficiency . .I had to be able to hit it left or right with all my clubs, etc.  I had to get my swing plane sort of close to right.

Then Key 3, but not in depth

Then Key 1 with a dose of key 4 again and an intro to Key 2

Then Key 2 . .which is where I am now . . .so . . .we'll see.

 

So that may bias my view on this.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2016 by Rainmaker

[billchao]

5 hours ago, krupa said:

5SK Ratings:

1:  4.5 - 5

I'm not trying to be mean, but you're not really achieving 4.5 (on a scale of 5) on Key #1.

Key #1 is called Steady Head, but it's also about how you pivot rather than just keeping your head relatively steady.

You've made good changes in a relatively short amount of time. You'll get it. 

4 hours ago, Rainmaker said:

My teacher, btw, doesn't teach the 5 keys but, though my experience with him, if he were teaching the keys, he'd be teaching it like this:

Key 4 and 5 first

If you never get those, that's as far as you go - except maybe an intro to Key 3.

edit . .I actually haven't "mastered" those . .but I had to acquire basic proficiency . .I had to be able to hit it left or right with all my clubs, etc.  I had to get my swing plane sort of close to right.

Then Key 3, but not in depth

Then Key 1 with a dose of key 4 again and an intro to Key 2

Then Key 2 . .which is where I am now . . .so . . .we'll see.

 

So that may bias my view on this.

This is all OT, but generally speaking, Keys #1-#3 are for solid contact. No point in teaching a person clubface control if they top/fat every other shot. Lessons are usually tailored to the individual. You probably hit the ball well enough that getting it on line was your priority.

Also the Keys are not a progression. They affect one another, but you don't need to master one before you move onto the next one.

[krupa]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

I'm not trying to be mean, but you're not really achieving 4.5 (on a scale of 5) on Key #1.

Key #1 is called Steady Head, but it's also about how you pivot rather than just keeping your head relatively steady.

You've made good changes in a relatively short amount of time. You'll get it. 

This is all OT, but generally speaking, Keys #1-#3 are for solid contact. No point in teaching a person clubface control if they top/fat every other shot. Lessons are usually tailored to the individual. You probably hit the ball well enough that getting it on line was your priority.

Also the Keys are not a progression. They affect one another, but you don't need to master one before you move onto the next one.

If you think that's mean, you suck as a bully. 

I am going to rewatch my 5SK dvds tonight.

[boogielicious]

12 hours ago, krupa said:

If you think that's mean, you suck as a bully. 

I am going to rewatch my 5SK dvds tonight.

On a scale of 1 to 5, @nevets88 is a 1! 

[billchao]

5 hours ago, boogielicious said:

On a scale of 1 to 5, @nevets88 is a 1! 

I agree.

Why are we talking about @nevets88?