What swing fault would cause a person to address the ball with a severely closed face?

[Jackal66]

I have watched an older guy play. He is in his late 70's.

When he goes to address the ball, he closes the face around 20-25* degrees.

He hits his shots real short and fairly straight.

His backswing  is short,  also. 

He takes the club back. When it is pointing straight up in the air, he starts swinging down.

 

He does this with all of his clubs, except putter.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Jackal66

[CarlSpackler]

I've heard of drills where you address the ball with a closed face to encourage an inside out swing to "cure a slice." I've seen others play like this too. The commonality seems to be significant lack of distance. 

[boogielicious]

  On 11/18/2016 at 3:01 AM, CarlSpackler said:

I've heard of drills where you address the ball with a closed face to encourage an inside out swing to "cure a slice." I've seen others play like this too. The commonality seems to be significant lack of distance. 

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I've seen similar. I'm playing with a buddy today who closes the face of his driver. If I close the face, hook-city.

[Valleygolfer]

Could be that he grips the club normally and purposely rotates his wrists and returns to normal during the swing. Or....his return swing is severely in to out, and catches the face flush to the target, assuming that is his aimpoint, however I think there would be draw type flight on the ball generally. If he sets up with the ball back in his stance, it may compensate for having an open club face at that point of the swing.

[iacas]

Or an injury that limits his ability to, during the dynamic part of the swing, square the face.

[rehmwa]

I know a guy that advocated a weird swing.  He pretty much swings outside-in severely and on purpose (like swinging an ax).  and then shuts down the face until that swing results in a baby fade.  Pretty consistent and he scored well.

I had severe slicing problems before I took a couple lessons and I did just this for a couple months, and yes 12 wrongs do make a quasi-right.  I was able to play halfway decent for that period.  My length was SEVERELY lost, but I managed to find fairways when I couldn't before.

I'm grateful I figured it out and got back to basics.  this was a terrible dead end.

 

Of course, anyone setting up like the OP notes is compensating for some serious flaw or limitation.  I suspect the first guy was a bit right arm dominant and likely opening up a lot during his swing (maybe not actually 'pushing' the right hand through, but analogous to that - I see it with chronic slicers).  (Does his right shoulder dip under more than normal?)  pretty impressive that his 'work around' was successful - that's a LOT of face manipulation.

[Jackal66]

Here is a sketch of how it looks. My Son says it's closed more than that.

When this guy swings, his body looks like he is throwing a heavy bag of cement into the back of a truck.

Thanks for all of the info?

I wouldn't say anything to him, just wondered how/why.

I'm glad to see people still playing at his age.

It is funny though, he trys  to tell everyone what they need to do.

[Buckeyebowman]

  On 11/18/2016 at 5:46 PM, Jackal66 said:

Here is a sketch of how it looks. My Son says it's closed more than that.

When this guy swings, his body looks like he is throwing a heavy bag of cement into the back of a truck.

Thanks for all of the info?

I wouldn't say anything to him, just wondered how/why.

I'm glad to see people still playing at his age.

It is funny though, he trys  to tell everyone what they need to do.

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Thank you for not saying anything, and just letting the old guy have his say. I read somewhere that, "Uninvited advice is like a headache looking for a forehead to slam into!"

It could be as Iacas described, and the guy has some physical condition that won't allow him to make a good move through the ball. Or, it could be that he has learned to swing the club while hanging on to it. That describes me perfectly in my younger days.

[Golfingdad]

Maybe @GolfLug has some insight on this. :)

[GolfLug]

  On 11/18/2016 at 3:10 PM, iacas said:

Or an injury that limits his ability to, during the dynamic part of the swing, square the face.

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  On 11/21/2016 at 7:14 AM, Golfingdad said:

Maybe @GolfLug has some insight on this. :)

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Yupp, my trials and tribulations are well documented in my My Swing thread. I cannot flatten my left wrist (can't rotate forearm through adequately) without significant pain for full swings or partial swing so I pre-set it closed and it fans open enough at impact for a 'normal' ball flight. My stock shot is a slight draw and if anything my bad miss (severe push hook) is caused by an overly inside out club path. Don't think I am super long or anything but for a 155 lb, 5 ft 6 fella I do ok with distance.  

 

[Rainmaker]

Who knows?  If you close the face like that - you're brain will try and correct it - giving you probably a more inside out path and possibly sort of correcting a slice.  Or maybe it's just something he thinks works for him . or maybe he has injury, etc.  

I played with this old guy once who lined up straight but also only took it back to where the shaft was vertical.  From there he laid the club way back (letting the clubhead fall behind him) and then swung through - he hit it pretty good that way - he was hitting drives into the fairway at around 200-220 yards.    

I have no idea why that matters, lol, and I have no idea why he did it that way, either.  But shoot - with how hard golf is to learn correctly - why bother to wonder why somebody does what they do - unless they hit it real good.  

 

[mchepp]

  On 11/21/2016 at 2:41 PM, GolfLug said:

 

Yupp, my trials and tribulations are well documented in my My Swing thread. I cannot flatten my left wrist (can't rotate forearm through adequately) without significant pain for full swings or partial swing so I pre-set it closed and it fans open enough at impact for a 'normal' ball flight. My stock shot is a slight draw and if anything my bad miss (severe push hook) is caused by an overly inside out club path. Don't think I am super long or anything but for a 155 lb, 5 ft 6 fella I do ok with distance.  

 

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I did not know this. It is awesome that you found you have this problem and found a solution for it. Very cool. 

[Kalnoky]

If you have a truncated backswing it's harder to get back to square at impact. Maybe he does not have the flexibility to make a full shoulder turn. This is probably his workaround. 

 

 

[DownAndOut]

  On 11/21/2016 at 2:46 AM, Buckeyebowman said:

Thank you for not saying anything, and just letting the old guy have his say. I read somewhere that, "Uninvited advice is like a headache looking for a forehead to slam into!"

It could be as Iacas described, and the guy has some physical condition that won't allow him to make a good move through the ball. Or, it could be that he has learned to swing the club while hanging on to it. That describes me perfectly in my younger days.

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The 'throwing a bag of cement'  action is something that Shawn Clement uses as an analogy in one of his videos with regards 'weight shift/balance'. He also advocates a strong grip to offset  the opening of the clubface in dynamic motion if you use a weak grip.

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by DownAndOut

[Ernest Jones]

  On 11/18/2016 at 3:01 AM, CarlSpackler said:

I've heard of drills where you address the ball with a closed face to encourage an inside out swing to "cure a slice." I've seen others play like this too. The commonality seems to be significant lack of distance. 

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Yeah, I've seen drills like that to encourage getting your hands in front of the ball at impact. 

[Jackal66]

The group this guy plays with say that he's had that same swing for 35+ years.

It does look like a possible cover up for an injury.

 

I do know that he has a Cobra driver that is way offset.

He bought  another Cobra driver that was offset through weighting, and hosel adjustments. 

The proshop had it adjusted for a max hook, and he still was hitting a straight/fade, unless he closed the face.

That tells me he must have a death-tight grip on the club.

 

[Buckeyebowman]

  On 11/21/2016 at 2:41 PM, GolfLug said:

 

Yupp, my trials and tribulations are well documented in my My Swing thread. I cannot flatten my left wrist (can't rotate forearm through adequately) without significant pain for full swings or partial swing so I pre-set it closed and it fans open enough at impact for a 'normal' ball flight. My stock shot is a slight draw and if anything my bad miss (severe push hook) is caused by an overly inside out club path. Don't think I am super long or anything but for a 155 lb, 5 ft 6 fella I do ok with distance.  

 

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I can attest to that! You sure did all right at Eagle Creek!

[phillyk]

There's a group of members at my course that I decided to join on the tee, last year.  Just on the first tee shot, I noticed that every single one of them had a severely closed face at address like you described.  I was interested, obviously, and watched their swings and halfway through the round asked if they wanted any advice.  They would still hit a slice even with a really closed face at address.

The big thing I found, that they all did, was on their take away.  I don't know the whole A# thing (if someone can point me to that, that'd be great), but it's where the club is parallel to the ground the first time.  The face was wide open already, as in it was pointing towards their back.  The ideal position is where it just about matches your spine angle or perpendicular to swing plane.  I showed them how to achieve this position and asked them to try it.  One of them yelled at me, because he hit it straight when he wanted to slice it like usual. haha!  They all hit the ball better, and started to adjust the face at set up.

The problem with opening the face like that is that it's super hard to get the face back square at the ball.  So, they kept closing the face at address more and more.