My Swing (Killa)

[Killa]

On 6/4/2019 at 6:13 PM, iacas said:

Like this:

 

 

I totally missed this post. Will do this drill tomorrow. I was at the range for 30 minutes today and it sucked... I couldn’t hit a single 7 iron and even the 9 iron seemed impossible to hit. 

I just have this mind block and I try to do too much. I was playing last Saturday and I shot 110. Horrible. The thing is that I had a lot of blow up holes where I couldn’t hit a ball until I was less than 100 yards in. 

And then I had holes where I stuck a 6 iron to within 10 feet. 

 

Or a blow up hole where I was nGIR (fringe) and 4 putted to go off with 6 (granted the hole was cut on a hill so it was either hit or have a 6’ comeback). 

 

I’m playing a tough course on Thursday morning and if I’m hitting it like today on the range I’ll be lucky to break 200. 

[Killa]

Ok so now it’s been the second time doing the drill and it’s going much better. Actually hitting the balls. And getting them to curve right to left is a great experience. Will be doing this drill for a while before trying it with my full swing. @iacas am I doing it right?

 

[iacas]

Kinda.

You'll note it still tries to (and does) roll over late. Don't lay it down quite so much, and really swing into it without letting it roll over the top quite so much. You'll feel like the face is wide open.

But it's pretty close, and it's WAY better than it was.

[Killa]

So I have now been working 3 straight days and yesterday with our local pro to be 🙂 

 

he pointed out a few things that helped a lot. First my setup where my right elbow position wasn’t working for me. And then he saw that I’m going from bowed to cuped in my lead wrist in the first few inches of my backswing. So these 3 things did a notable difference. And combined with that drill I am really stripping my 7 iron right now. I’d say my current average carry is around 165 yards with some going around 175 yard carry. So if I can get this with some consistency golf will be much easier 🙂

[Killa]

Ok. Follow up from last post. Golf just became much harder. While I added about 20 yards to my irons, the consistency went down a lot. I never know how long my irons will go. 

 

For example a hole where I was hitting something between a 7 or 8 iron last year is now a not full 9 iron. Which is good in the long run but right now it’s wrecking my scores. 

 

For example I had an approach of 180 yards from the semi rough and had a 6 iron in my hand. Thought about using a 5 and not going quite as hard. 

Stripped a bit of a flyer and the 6 iron went 210 yards... if I took the 5 iron I would’ve hit the next green up. 

After the round I went to the range the next day and really concentrated on not hitting hard. That felt like it put a better sequencing to my swing instead of just powering it with my hands. Couldn’t take a video so I just hope feel was real on that one. Now I probably won’t be playing golf the next 2-3 weeks but I might get a range session once in between. 

 

Also ordered a new (used) driver and 3 wood. The cobra f6+ driver and fly z 3 wood. I really need to add a driver to my game if I want my scores to drop under 90, as the courses I play are often on the longer side. 

[Killa]

Got the driver and 3 wood. The 3 wood will help my game dramatically IMO. It just gives me 30-40 yards more than my longest iron. 

So I really like my bag setup right now, except for my old 20° Nike 3 hybrid. It’s a good club, but the 20° isn’t cutting it. I’d need something in the 17° range as I just don’t carry much more with my hybrid than with my 4 iron. I might just add a 3 iron to my bag but the cost of the single 3 iron would set me back more than my driver or more than 1/2 of what I paid for the whole Taylormade tour preferred CB iron set. 

I played on Monday and shot 99. 

Hit a drivable par 4 with my 3 wood (it’s pretty short somewhere around 240y) and managed to finish the hole with a bogey 🤬

I also hit the range 2 days in a row and really fell into a groove. I managed to convince myself that I don’t need to smash every ball but rather trust my swing and my clubs to do the work. 

I was previously only able to do that with shots under 120y. But now hitting a 4 iron off the deck is much easier. Hopefully I can build on that. And my next project is to dramatically improve my putting. Especially the speed part. I feel like my reads are good enough and also the bead is good. But I’m pretty bad at the speed part. 

 

I will add a couple of swing videos of my latest driving range session later. 

[Killa]

My golf was an evolution the past 3 years but today I feel like I made a revolution. I finally managed to change my transition from shallow to steep to steep to shallow. 

What lead the change was the backswing that I was working on last winter with my friend (the future pro 🙂 ) and the takeaway that we changed last month - I used to go to a cupped immediately and now I keep a bowed wrist throughout the backswing (or I at least try to). 

 

And for the past week I was thinking about how to lead the downswing more with my hips to get them being open on impact, making room and thereby preventing the early extension. While I still didn’t change that part of the swing the thought helped me get to a change where I go to the top of the swing with my hands and then they start “backward” while I start the downswing with my lower body. 

 

The result is that my ball flight immediately changed from a fade/slice pattern to a constant draw/hook. I feel like this will really help with my scoring as well as I will be able to better game plan   

 

@iacas

[iacas]

That's a better downswing.

[amished]

I'm certainly not an expert, but it seems you almost are on your toes for most of your backswing and then try to settle backwards when making your downswing.  Small nitpick (that I might certainly be incorrect about) but it seems like it would make it hard to keep as steady of a head as possible, and possibly lead to inconsistent impact points on the clubface as you'd be trying to compensate for that type of move.  A setup thought that I used to get myself away from this is to try to start with my armpits over the center of my feet rather than over my toes.  It feels like I'm more in control of where my pressure is during this type of motion.  Might be something to experiment with as it's only a setup thing that you generally can set and forget.

[Killa]

On 8/27/2019 at 10:28 PM, amished said:

I'm certainly not an expert, but it seems you almost are on your toes for most of your backswing and then try to settle backwards when making your downswing.  Small nitpick (that I might certainly be incorrect about) but it seems like it would make it hard to keep as steady of a head as possible, and possibly lead to inconsistent impact points on the clubface as you'd be trying to compensate for that type of move.  A setup thought that I used to get myself away from this is to try to start with my armpits over the center of my feet rather than over my toes.  It feels like I'm more in control of where my pressure is during this type of motion.  Might be something to experiment with as it's only a setup thing that you generally can set and forget.

I have been trying to feel the weight really spread evenly left right and forward backwards when I setup but if I stand up taller (so that my armpits would be further back) I feel that my club would be toe down. Maybe I need to push my butt back to do this 🙂

[Killa]

 

two new videos. I am currently pretty happy with my short irons (7 and down). My 3 wood is hot and cold and my driver is pretty horrible. 

The carry distances are nowhere near where I’d expect them to be with the woods.

I will play my 7 iron somewhere around 160-170 yards, so from the swing speed chart you’d expect a 3 wood of 235 yards and I say I average about 220 yards on my good strikes. But my driver is going the same distance, maybe 10 yards further total. It seems that I just can’t hit up on it, and there are a lot of slices and pushes. 

[iacas]

How about video of driver?

[Killa]

On 9/22/2019 at 1:40 PM, iacas said:

How about video of driver?

I tee’d it up a bit lower in these videos because when I tee it up really high I struggle to actually hit the ball. 

[iacas]

You lift the club and your hands up and out a little, so it rolls flat from A3 to A4.

From there…

… it wants to roll over as shown by the arrows, so you extend (stand up) to keep the club coming somewhat from the inside. This prevents you from being able to turn through the shot, which is why you're not open at all to the target line.

You should look into this:

You should work on:

• Your hands tracing inward while then shaft stands up.
• The shaft lays down slightly in transition.
• You turn through the shot.

You should also get better camera angles: https://thesandtrap.com/b/playing_tips/filming_your_swing.

[Killa]

Thanks for the input, the planemate is a bit pricey for me though. 
 

I have worked a lot on shallowing my club over the last year but my understanding as of now is that I just did it the wrong way around. 
 

First of all - exactly as you’ve said in this last post tracing hands backward while shaft then stands up. Because I was concentrating so hard on laying the shaft down I ended up really laid off on the backswing as well. I have corrected that somewhat and I keep working on it - I can do it perfectly on my practice swings but I still lay it off some on real shots. 
 

And the turning through the shot is my worst enemy at this point. I can’t do it on anything more than a pitch shot. 
 

And if I understand it correctly doing the proper backswing and proper start with the hips and turning through it will automatically result in a shallowing of the downswing. But this will be this winters project indoor. 
 

So yesterday I played a great course. 6600 yards, shot a personal best of 93. And that was with 41 putts. 53 on the front and 40 on the back with a double and a birdie. Had 17 putts on the back but still 3 putted twice. The greens were really fast and you had to play a lot of break. I’m simply not used to such great greens. I mean sometimes the ball seemed it would stop at the hole and then it just kept rolling 2 yards past it. 
 

I drove the driver really well and averaged about 250 yards total on my good drives. Golf gets much easier if your first shot is 250 yards on the fairway. 

[Killa]

So I'm working at too many things at once again, but then again I feel like it's working, so who am I to doubt it.

 

Here is a video of a recent 7 iron 

 

I can now hit draws if I want them and I can setup for a fade as well using my "draw" swing. I do end up with an open face pretty often so the intended draw ends up as a massive push. 

 

The thing I'm focusing on right now is a steep backswing or better said the shaft going steep and then the hands going back to gain depth. After that I want my hands to drop straight down behind me before hitting the ball and then keep my hands extended on the follow through for as long as possible. I will need some more range sessions for this to get ingrained so that I will be comfortable doing this on the course. On the course I just end up trying to go straight as possible, so that my misses are limited to the left and to the right, but ultimately I want to end up with a predictable flight pattern so that I can reduce my misses to one side only. 

 

The early extension, or better said, the jump in the wrong direction (to the ball instead of to the target) will have to wait as I find that to be one of the most difficult parts to change. 

[iacas]

Uh, you never hit a shot there.

[Killa]

10 hours ago, iacas said:

Uh, you never hit a shot there.

Don’t know what happened there with the new iOS.

 

Here is the same video but don’t know why it isn’t in slow motion.