My Swing (Wanzo)

[Wanzo]

The next step per my latest evolvr lesson is to work on how my right knee is working in the swing.  Right now it moves towards the ball and my heel lifts off the ground to start the downswing, trapping the right elbow some and causing early extension.

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To address this, I'm going to work on practicing with a stick in front of my knee and feel my right foot banking/rolling towards target, right knee slides along or inside of stick towards target.  The hips will slide a little as a result.  I'll also try to feel the left hip pushing back or staying against the "wall".

I was able to practice the drill some and it is going to take some time, but I was encouraged by some of the early results and how good it felt when I did it right. I'm going to continue to refresh with the wall drill, 3/4 swing feel, and keeping the head steady coming down but I don't have to think much about those any more and feel like doing this drill I can sort of tie them all together.

[JDP]

Hi Wanzo, Imho, I would strongly suggest focusing quite a bit on your upper body/head moving forward in the DS. Also I suggest doing a lot of the feet and knees together drill for a lot of reasons and it never gets old it is a keeper. It will also give you great body/arm awareness, basically it is a great drill and if that is all you ever did at the range you would probably see tremendous improvement. Below is a good tutorial how to go about it.

 

[Wanzo]

  On 2/14/2017 at 4:33 AM, JDP said:

Hi Wanzo, Imho, I would strongly suggest focusing quite a bit on your upper body/head moving forward in the DS

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Are you saying the head should or should not move forward in the downswing?

[JDP]

  On 2/14/2017 at 3:15 PM, Wanzo said:

Are you saying the head should or should not move forward in the downswing?

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Ideally it should not move forward in the DS. I am doofus and mistyped  and I think you figured that . Although there a few elite golfers like Spieth who move forward just a TAD in the DS but he moves back towards impact and not a move you would teach, so =) the head should not move forward in the DS, my bad. 

Edited February 14, 2017 by JDP

[Wanzo]

  On 2/14/2017 at 4:19 PM, JDP said:

Ideally it should not move forward in the DS.

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I figured that's what you meant....

[JDP]

  On 2/14/2017 at 4:33 PM, Wanzo said:

I figured that's what you meant....

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Also,  I said "Spieth who move forward just a TAD in the DS but he moves back towards impact". I should have been clearer and said Spieth's head moves forward just a TAD in the DS, but his head moves backwards toward impact. Still not something anyone teaches =)

[iacas]

  On 2/14/2017 at 7:52 PM, JDP said:

Also,  I said "Spieth who move forward just a TAD in the DS but he moves back towards impact". I should have been clearer and said Spieth's head moves forward just a TAD in the DS, but his head moves backwards toward impact. Still not something anyone teaches =)

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What you're not seeing is that @Wanzo has been working with an instructor and that his swing now is not the same as it was even 45 days ago.

Key #1 is "Steady Head" and by that we mean "relatively steady," so I agree that minimizing head movement is great.

There are a lot of other threads here, on a variety of topics. I'm glad you're willing to help and happy to see you contributing. I would encourage you, too, to check out some of the other topics outside the "Member Swings" sub-forum, too.

[JDP]

  On 2/14/2017 at 7:57 PM, iacas said:

What you're not seeing is that @Wanzo has been working with an instructor and that his swing now is not the same as it was even 45 days ago.

Key #1 is "Steady Head" and by that we mean "relatively steady," so I agree that minimizing head movement is great.

There are a lot of other threads here, on a variety of topics. I'm glad you're willing to help and happy to see you contributing. I would encourage you, too, to check out some of the other topics outside the "Member Swings" sub-forum, too.

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Why do you think I didn't notice Wanzo has been working with an instructor and notice some nice improvement?

[billchao]

  On 2/14/2017 at 9:24 PM, JDP said:

Why do you think I didn't notice Wanzo has been working with an instructor and notice some nice improvement?

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Because generally speaking, people don't jump in and tell others what to work on if they are already working with an instructor, unless they are a qualified instructor themselves. It's kind of presumptuous.

@Wanzo has stated what he has to work on per his lessons, and you jumped in and told him to work on something else instead. That doesn't seem odd to you?

Plus, his instruction has reasons for what the changes that need to be made are and what they are doing to his swing. Your advice doesn't address anything specific about his swing at all, you just said do this drill because it's good, without mentioning how it fixes any of his problems.

[Wanzo]

  On 2/14/2017 at 9:24 PM, JDP said:

Why do you think I didn't notice Wanzo has been working with an instructor and notice some nice improvement?

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Well, I haven't uploaded an actual video in a while, just some screenshots.  So kind of tough to see some of the improvements and I'm more concerned with documenting what I'm working on in the short term....  But I'll put a fresh video on the thread after I spend some time on the current priority for a few weeks.

[JDP]

  On 2/14/2017 at 9:36 PM, billchao said:

Because generally speaking, people don't jump in and tell others what to work on if they are already working with an instructor, unless they are a qualified instructor themselves. It's kind of presumptuous.

@Wanzo has stated what he has to work on per his lessons, and you jumped in and told him to work on something else instead. That doesn't seem odd to you?

Plus, his instruction has reasons for what the changes that need to be made are and what they are doing to his swing. Your advice doesn't address anything specific about his swing at all, you just said do this drill because it's good, without mentioning how it fixes any of his problems.

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I was under the impression people would post their swings in the Member Swings forum to get free advice and take the nuggets you like and forgot the rest realizing the intentions are good,  at least I find that enjoyable. I apologize if I offended you or anyone else that was not my intentions. I have studied the golf swing quite a bit, but in no way a Master and do not claim to be and probably never will be. Relatively speaking I am a very good player and getting to where I am now was through trial n error, reading countless articles, discussing ideas with Instructors and more importantly not being afraid to be wrong, which I often am =) and to learn from mistakes n turn them into wisdom. I think I saw that on a bumper sticker.

I didn't tell anyone to do anything nor would I unless it was to prevent someone from hurting someone else, but I did make a suggestion and the rest is in the air to grab if you want it. And the advice I gave in regards to lunging in transition/head moving past the ball thru impact is directly related to 1 of the issues Wanzo said he was working on. Even if I provided free advice that wasn't related I do not see the harm.

In regards to the feet and knees together drill that has been around since the beginning of golf. I've never heard any instructor say that drill could be detrimental or retard someone's progress. Some drills are like vitamins, even if they don't wildly advance your health its still worthwhile to take the vitamins since they have been known to help so many and no evidence that they have hurt anyone. That drill typically gives players the feeling of how much the arms actually do in the swing and greatly improves body awareness, at least that's my opinion.

 

  On 2/14/2017 at 9:42 PM, Wanzo said:

Well, I haven't uploaded an actual video in a while, just some screenshots.  So kind of tough to see some of the improvements and I'm more concerned with documenting what I'm working on in the short term....  But I'll put a fresh video on the thread after I spend some time on the current priority for a few weeks.

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Looks like you made good improvement just from Dec. 20 - Jan 2nd. That's awesome if it has been getting better so quickly. Keep up the good work.

[Wanzo]

I haven't posted an actual video in a while to show the motion.  Right now, I'm trying to stay focused on the priority which is to work on how the right knee is working on the downswing, and keeping the hips moving forward.  Right now the hips kind of stay in place and just spin.  Want to feel them pushing forward as they rotate which will help keep my axis tilt and help keep my butt on the "wall" behind me.  One tweak to setup, I was getting too much weight on my heels which is pretty obvious in my setup here.  Also, a drill I'm  going to try is to turn the trail foot out/point straight back and feel the downswing while limiting the right knee kicking in.  Basically I'm feeling like my right leg is not regaining any flex and actually not doing much at all in the downswing while my hips go forward and rotate.

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[JDP]

You are not going to be able to get the tilt your looking for with your head moving that much forward in the downswing. Just my opinion, and as i said before that is an issue I suggest focusing on as much as the regime may disagree.

[iacas]

  On 3/4/2017 at 1:40 AM, JDP said:

You are not going to be able to get the tilt your looking for with your head moving that much forward in the downswing. Just my opinion, and as i said before that is an issue I suggest focusing on as much as the regime may disagree.

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Sure he will.

First, it doesn't move forward that much. And second, again, he's working with a guy who knows his stuff.

[Golfingdad]

  On 3/3/2017 at 3:26 PM, Wanzo said:

I haven't posted an actual video in a while to show the motion.  Right now, I'm trying to stay focused on the priority which is to work on how the right knee is working on the downswing, and keeping the hips moving forward.  Right now the hips kind of stay in place and just spin.  Want to feel them pushing forward as they rotate which will help keep my axis tilt and help keep my butt on the "wall" behind me.  One tweak to setup, I was getting too much weight on my heels which is pretty obvious in my setup here.  Also, a drill I'm  going to try is to turn the trail foot out/point straight back and feel the downswing while limiting the right knee kicking in.  Basically I'm feeling like my right leg is not regaining any flex and actually not doing much at all in the downswing while my hips go forward and rotate.

 

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Lookin' good Matt!!  And I noticed that "10" is now an "8" too.  Keep it up! 

[JDP]

  On 3/4/2017 at 3:14 AM, iacas said:

Sure he will.

First, it doesn't move forward that much. And second, again, he's working with a guy who knows his stuff.

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This is what I see. 

 

[Wanzo]

  On 3/4/2017 at 4:07 AM, Golfingdad said:

Lookin' good Matt!!  And I noticed that "10" is now an "8" too.  Keep it up! 

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Thanks, I appreciate that!  In fairness, I don't have a true hdcp yet. Never have. But I'm at a course now I can post scores, as of march 1st we can post for hdcp purposes. So I'll get one asap. When I signed up for tst I plugged in 10 just to be conservative. When I used an app to track scores last year I was in the 7-8 range. so curious to see where the "real" one will be. But I am encouraged by how the swing is changing. 

[mvmac]

  On 3/3/2017 at 3:26 PM, Wanzo said:

One tweak to setup, I was getting too much weight on my heels which is pretty obvious in my setup here.

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Yes agree with this. This will help you with the downswing pieces you mentioned. If the tailbone is too far back to start it's going to be impossible to keep it "back" on the downswing.
 

  On 3/4/2017 at 2:18 PM, JDP said:

 

This is what I see. 

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So that's fairly minimal IMO and @Wanzo is working on it via....

  On 3/3/2017 at 3:26 PM, Wanzo said:

I'm trying to stay focused on the priority which is to work on how the right knee is working on the downswing, and keeping the hips moving forward.  Right now the hips kind of stay in place and just spin.  Want to feel them pushing forward as they rotate which will help keep my axis tilt and help keep my butt on the "wall" behind me. 

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