My Swing (cartierbresson)

[cartierbresson]

I've been Playing Golf for: ~30 years on and off; every day in the last 5 months
My current handicap index or average score is: ??
My typical ball flight is: High and right
The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: Slice

What I know I'm doing wrong:

• Downswing too steep
• Spine angle changes slightly during the swing (increases w.r.t the ground) 

What I don't know how to fix:

• Shallow the swing. Should I:
  • Keeps my hands back more (hand path wrong?)
  • Lay off the club at the top
  • Roll my wrists (i.e. suppinate my left wrist while increasing the right wrist break)
  • Externally rotate my right arm so the club is shallowed
  • Do all of the above 

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Videos: 

 

 

 

[cartierbresson]

Thoughts?

[RandallT]

Regarding your issue with steepness, the thread above may give you a jump start on some resources with that. I'm still working on mine, but I can tell you it is a difficult process. But progress is possible. A few posters on the thread have tackled the issue, and have shared their thoughts there how to go about it. Good luck!

[cartierbresson]

2 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Regarding your issue with steepness, the thread above may give you a jump start on some resources with that. I'm still working on mine, but I can tell you it is a difficult process. But progress is possible. A few posters on the thread have tackled the issue, and have shared their thoughts there how to go about it. Good luck!

The thread looks very helpful, thanks!

[billchao]

18 hours ago, cartierbresson said:

Thoughts?

I think you're more likely to get more feedback if you were a more regular member at the Site and get to know others (and they, you) better.

Everything you've posted so far has been about you and your swing.

[cartierbresson]

39 minutes ago, billchao said:

Everything you've posted so far has been about you and your swing.

No it hasn't. I created a whole video to contribute to a discussion about hip slide. 

Don't discourage your new members from getting feedback on their swing.

[billchao]

10 minutes ago, cartierbresson said:

No it hasn't. I created a whole video to contribute to a discussion about hip slide. 

Don't discourage your new members from getting feedback on their swing.

My apologies. Good luck with your swing.

[No Mulligans]

I like your swing.  If I had that swing, I'd work on keeping my head more steady (not necessarily still, but not so much movement backwards).  That should improve the consistency of your ball striking.  Like Adam Scott does...

 

[iacas]

Yes, the head moving around is a bit of an issue. It likely creates a feeling that the hips have moved forward more than they have, because it going back creates axis tilt. So the hips are forward of your head but not as far forward as they likely feel.

The knee work could be cleaner but it's tough to thrust up and forward when the hips and torso are in those positions. But mainly, the biggest issue is that the hands and shaft don't work particularly well on the backswing. If you thrust with the hand and shaft positions we'll see, you'd have a hell of a time finding anything but the hosel.

Let me take the time to explain these a little bit.

Look at the image to the right. I've marked where the butt of the club (BoC) is on the left and connected it with a line to where it is on the right. This is the direction of force, basically, of this part of your downswing. You're pulling the BoC down at about 14°.

Now, physics being what they are, the weight of the clubhead is not inline with that force vector, but it WANTS to be. You'll see on the left that it's to the left of the force vector (the true CG of the club is further up the shaft, but all points on the shaft are left of the force vector, so the only thing that would change is size of the moment arm if I was actually trying to be super picky about the graphics).

In other words, the club will want to steepen to get the CG lined up directly with the force vector (i.e. the direction you're pulling one end of the club). Consider if you pull anything, like a string, in any direction, the object wants to line up behind it.

Now in this picture I show the early downswing on the left, and then later in the downswing at the point at which the CG of the club (or the clubhead) line up with the force vector. That's cool and all - you can also see that the BoC has continued in roughly the same direction even to this point in the golf swing - but the problem is that the CG or clubhead has moved from the left to the right… it's not going to want to stop just because it got itself inline, it's built up momentum and is going to want to continue to kick out - to go even steeper. So it does.

Now, of course, your body does not have to just allow these things to happen. Even if you pulled your hands down at 14° you could "make" the shaft shallow, but you'd be fighting it the whole time. It's not what the club wants to do, and you'd be expending energy what I'll call "out of plane" or "out of phase" with the directions you want to be spending your energy. It'd be wasted and quite literally fighting yourself and the physics you've set up.

You have to:

• Swing your arms OUTWARD more from the top of the backswing. They go DOWNWARD too much right now.
• Let the forearms stay rotated (left arm stays pronated longer) so the club shaft can continue to be a bit shallower.

Then the Como/Mackenzie video applies - the club will be pulled inline, the torque will help to twist the forearms/club shaft, and the clubface will help to square itself.

Look at your hand (red) and club path (green) compared to Tiger's.

Your hand path goes down down down down (Tiger's also goes down but he stands freakishly close to most golf balls), and then your hand path starts to turn the corner to the left, but because you're crowding yourself so much here, the hand path re-routes just as the club is around impact and actually shoves out to the right. Rather than a smooth trace that almost doubles itself up, your hand path (measured at the nexus of your two hands) actually has a "kink" in it where it's going in one direction and then changes as you uncock/unhinge the club and shoves up and out to the right.

Needless to say the clubhead or CG of the club also has a kink in it. And at some point the clubhead and hand forces almost switch to where your hands get dragged where the clubhead (CG) want to take them, instead of the other way around like most of the downswing.

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Long story short: fix your hand path.

P.S. Fixing the hand path will also likely mean adjusting the right shoulder trajectory in transition as well.

[Ernest Jones]

@cartierbresson

Erik just gave you an in-depth analysis of a quality that most people pay real money for. I hope you take advantage of this windfall and don't waste it by coming back with a "yeah, but..."

[mvmac]

Early Christmas for @cartierbresson!

[cartierbresson]

@No Mulligans and @iacas thank you for the feedback. Will try to steady the head and improve hand path. So I can measure progress, what is an acceptable amount of inches of head movement and angle of hand path?

 

[Ernest Jones]

3 hours ago, cartierbresson said:

@No Mulligans and @iacas thank you for the feedback. Will try to steady the head and improve hand path. So I can measure progress, what is an acceptable amount of inches of head movement and angle of hand path?

 

Just worry about changing the picture for now. Progress would be less head movement and a flatter hand plane. Don't get hung up on precise measurements, just move you measurements in the desired directions. LESS DOWN AND MORE OUT are your measurements for now. Once you have successfully changed the picture to be less down and more out, check back here with new video.

A feel I have used in the past for the hand path, is to feel like my hands pass directly over top of the ball (they don't of course, or I'd miss the ball completely). This will likely cause your shoulder turn back into the ball to be more level as well, but I'll leave further commentary to the experts. 

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, Ernest Jones said:

Just worry about changing the picture for now.

This^

Keeping a steadier head will allow you to change your path easier in the future and help with your contact.

[iacas]

8 hours ago, cartierbresson said:

@No Mulligans and @iacas thank you for the feedback. Will try to steady the head and improve hand path. So I can measure progress, what is an acceptable amount of inches of head movement and angle of hand path?

As others said it's not necessarily about measuring the exact amount of progress, but rather about making progress.