My Swing (Bryan Kasper)

[Bryan Kasper]

I've been Playing Golf for: 2 years seriously (played only 1 or 2 times a year before that)
My current handicap index or average score is: 16.3, last year got down into the 80's consistently but now am back to 90's on most days. (I hit too many balls out of play)
My typical ball flight is: nothing typical really. i try to play many different shots. 
The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: Any pull shot really, from time to time, this will sneak up on me. 

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Videos: 

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there are a couple of swings put together here, 3 wood, 7 iron , and 9 iron. 

let me know what you think. I have not taken any lessons, only watched a good amount of youtube videos. I have not tried everything i have seen, but am in a period now where i am trying to sync the body up first before i try anything else. my hips seem to get ahead of my arms a little too much and that can cause some pulls. so i am really trying to take some less than 100% swings as of now so that i can get the body sync happening before i try working on angles and such that will need fixing whenever the body sync happens. 

excited to start this now as i have finally realized that the sandtrap community is a great place with some great guys who know their stuff. 

if there is any advice you can give me orr things to look into while i am practicing, all would be appreciated. i will be posting a few videos from time to time. possibly another set from a more recent session i just had so we can go from there. 

thanks again guys, 

"Swing With a Purpose"

[iacas]

Do you have a face-on video? Or slow-motion video?

It appears from that angle that you mostly use your arms and get less body movement than is ideal.

[Bryan Kasper]

i figured out that in the video if you go to setting and drop it to .25 and then use the space bar to cycle through very slowly that is the best thing i have right now. my camera does notshoot the best slow motion video. the next time i go i will shoot some face on stuff so that you can see that. 

hmmm. Could you explain a little more about the body movement? do you think that my hips should fire more in my swing? or should i get a deeper body rotation? I do feel that my arms are leading my swing in most cases. 

[iacas]

33 minutes ago, Bryan Kasper said:

i figured out that in the video if you go to setting and drop it to .25 and then use the space bar to cycle through very slowly that is the best thing i have right now. my camera does notshoot the best slow motion video. the next time i go i will shoot some face on stuff so that you can see that. 

Your phone might take better high-speed footage… no? And, mind your camera angles: https://thesandtrap.com/b/playing_tips/filming_your_swing

34 minutes ago, Bryan Kasper said:

hmmm. Could you explain a little more about the body movement? do you think that my hips should fire more in my swing? or should i get a deeper body rotation? I do feel that my arms are leading my swing in most cases. 

Your body contributes little to the backswing OR downswing. Look at how straight your arms are at impact, and how relatively square your body is, too.

[Bryan Kasper]

 

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Your phone might take better high-speed footage… no? And, mind your camera angles: https://thesandtrap.com/b/playing_tips/filming_your_swing

 

yes, i was using the wrong feature when i was recording i see it now. Also did not read all the way down in the minding angles post. i thought the post was more about camera choice when i was first reading it. i see that now as well. looking through the body is the more important thing(parallel to the target line). thanks for the reference there. will make sure to set that up better. 

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Your body contributes little to the backswing OR downswing. Look at how straight your arms are at impact, and how relatively square your body is, too.

i do notice that and the arms being fairly straight at impact.  i'm working now on "quieting the hips" and letting my arms bring the hips through . i feel more sequenced when i do that. Is that not a good idea for the golf swing?

 

Edited January 2, 2017 by Bryan Kasper
duplicate messages

[JGus]

32 minutes ago, Bryan Kasper said:

i do notice that and the arms being fairly straight at impact.  i'm working now on "quieting the hips" and letting my arms bring the hips through . i feel more sequenced when i do that. Is that not a good idea for the golf swing?

I think @iacas point was that in your back swing your hips do not rotate/turn.  If you watch your video, your right hip basically stays in the same place, it should rotate/turn back during your back swing.

Quieting the hips is a good thing, if you over rotate or open them to quickly which would cause you to push your shots to the right.  The other point about being square, at impact, your belt buckle (or at least where one would be at) is pointing more towards the ball instead of the target line in the video.

[Bryan Kasper]

6 minutes ago, JGus said:

I think @iacas point was that in your back swing your hips do not rotate/turn.  If you watch your video, your right hip basically stays in the same place, it should rotate/turn back during your back swing.

Oh okay i see what you mean. i just realized that by not rotating my hip, my upper body will actually lean toward the target because it thinks it need to go further. i will definitely work on getting a little bit more rotation in my hips throughout the swing. 

7 minutes ago, JGus said:

Quieting the hips is a good thing, if you over rotate or open them to quickly which would cause you to push your shots to the right.  The other point about being square, at impact, your belt buckle (or at least where one would be at) is pointing more towards the ball instead of the target line in the video.

Is their a specific reason the belt buckle should be facing the target line at impact? is that so my lower body leads the swing? I am going to go try that out tonight and do some different things, my only concern is that i wont have enough space for my hands in my downswing if my hips are too far ahead.

[JGus]

4 minutes ago, Bryan Kasper said:

Is their a specific reason the belt buckle should be facing the target line at impact? is that so my lower body leads the swing? I am going to go try that out tonight and do some different things, my only concern is that i wont have enough space for my hands in my downswing if my hips are too far ahead.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I mis-state this, but yes, the lower body usually starts the downswing, and your hips sliding forward and turning clears your hips so your arms can drop down and swing through the ball correctly. In other words, clearing your hips I think actually gives your hands/arms more space to swing correctly.

[Bryan Kasper]

On 1/2/2017 at 4:29 PM, JGus said:

I'm sure someone will correct me if I mis-state this, but yes, the lower body usually starts the downswing, and your hips sliding forward and turning clears your hips so your arms can drop down and swing through the ball correctly. In other words, clearing your hips I think actually gives your hands/arms more space to swing correctly.

i just had a huge realization last night after reading your comment and watching a video by mike malaska, and doing a slow practice of my swing for about 15-20 mins. i have had the wrong idea about the hips for a while and how to get power from them. I had been moving my hips into the ball to get more power/ speed, as opposed to moving the hips to counteract the opposite forces of the swing. i started to work last night on my hips moving forward but then slightly sitting them and moving them slightly back away from the ball while coming through. 

i am not sure if this is correct but it seems like i can get a lot more space and speed, and stay in the right position when doing so. will try this in a 70-80% swing when i go to the range this week just to see what happens. 

 

thanks jGus

[JGus]

@Bryan Kasper No worries, glad to hear you're making progress. Just keep this thread alive with updated swings and I'm sure the folks here will continue to help and give advice.

[Bryan Kasper]

Here is a face on of one of my range sessions. this can give you a better idea of what it looks like from here. mind the capture speed and angels as i did not have very much space. i will soon be investing in a camera that captures a little bit better but for now i am stuc with slowing down the video to .25 in the settings and suing the space bar to cycle through.

 

I do see that my arms are doing a lot of the work. any drills to work on that issue? 

 

 

 

here is the back view of that same range session from above. A little bit better angle on this one. i think what you guys were saying holds true for this session as well. maybe could use just a tad more rotation in the hips. 

other thing i noticed is that at address i am on my toes a little bit and then i sit back throughout my backswing( whole upper body moves away from the target line). i need to work on my address position a little bit this week for sure. 

 

any other thoughts on the swing?

[RandallT]

Hi Bryan,

No expert here, but I check out a lot of swing threads and look for some of the fundamentals. Here's a good thread on the posture, for example:

Here's the pic of bad (left) vs good (right).

Here's a pic of you just prior to hitting a ball:

Just thought I'd point out that to me, it seems like you might slump a bit more, perhaps straight your legs a tad, and perhaps have the ball more in your central vision- rather than look a bit down your nose.

Just my amateur thoughts, and you can wait for other comments from experts- or obviously go look at that thread and analyze for yourself to determine if changes should be made.

I'm just constantly surprised how often I need to go back to this posture thread (and a grip thread) to remind myself not to drift to far from it all.

Nice fluid, athletic swing though! Good luck!

[Bryan Kasper]

Perfect that's exactly what i needed. I should have searched for posture in the thread search but thanks for throwing that in this topic @RandallT. 

i definitely knew there might be something wrong with my posture but I wasn't exactly sure which advice to turn to. I can clearly see now that my knees are too bent. i could stand to be a little more up right, with head coming down ever so slightly. i will work on my posture over the next couple of range sessions and then post a few more videos noting the progress.  

 

[Bryan Kasper]

Have been really working on my posture over the past few weeks.

I had a fantastic session last night that i decided not to film because after the first couple of shots i didn't want to mess with my rhythm. I dont even think i needed the video to know what the issues were on each shot because i could really feel them, and i was able to fix the issues very quickly. within a shot or two. 

I realized that my set up routine is what gets me into the best posture. i will have to put that in my next video that i make. 

[JDP]

I think your fix should be fairly simple. A few things going on. 1st your weight is too much on your toes at address, so much that your right heel doesn't even touch the ground at address, so literally on your toes. The weight should be closer to the ankles so you are more anchored. 2nd, you are restricting your hip rotation in the BS, so let your hips rotate freely in the BS, don't worry about over doing it, its a good thing to rotate them. Do some mirror work or even better take videos from DTL and make sure you weight is not on your toes and that you are freely rotating your hips in the BS. Those 2 things alone will greatly improve your downswing. 

[Bryan Kasper]

On 2/9/2017 at 4:22 PM, JDP said:

1st your weight is too much on your toes at address

Precisely! One of the other guys mentioned that above, moving my weight has been huge the past couple of weeks, now my body is not moving away from target line in the backswing, and i stay in good position. i will be poiting some new videos soon that show some improvement here. 

On 2/9/2017 at 4:22 PM, JDP said:

2nd, you are restricting your hip rotation in the BS

as well this was another point noted above, ive been trying to let my hips go a little bit, sometimes when i do this i feel that this gets me a little tooo loose. 

 

any tips on getting the right feel of loosening the hips? i am trying to get the right feeling, but something just seems off when i try it. 

 

thanks for the advice and i cant wait to post a couple more videos soon of my improvement. 

[JDP]

the feeling in the BS is demonstrated well in this video below. 

 

[saevel25]

2 hours ago, Bryan Kasper said:

any tips on getting the right feel of loosening the hips? i am trying to get the right feeling, but something just seems off when i try it. 

I would do backswing work with a mirror. You can look back and see if your hips are opening. For you it might feel a lot like your right hip is being pull behind you. Almost like someone is yanking on your right pocket.