My Swing (Antneye)

[iacas]

@Antneye, the swing's looking good. Can you do that with a golf ball? Would love to see some video of that.

[Antneye]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

@Antneye, the swing's looking good. Can you do that with a golf ball? Would love to see some video of that.

Thanks.  I will get some actual ball striking up as soon as I can.  

I am playing with one of my sons today for our annual Fathers Day round of Golf (one is working which will be the first time in a very long time that the three of us did not play on Fathers Day) and if we get to the course early enough I will try to get some video. 

 

[Antneye]

@iacas, OK.....I was able to get some swings with a ball before my round today.  I think the garage swings are cleaner.  I don't know why I cannot translate it to the course.  I played decent today, but was not crisp at all.  i did not make a single putt and was pushing my short irons to the right.  Driver continues to be improved but very erratic.

 

 

 

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Antneye said:

@iacas, OK.....I was able to get some swings with a ball before my round today.  I think the garage swings are cleaner.  I don't know why I cannot translate it to the course.  I played decent today, but was not crisp at all.  i did not make a single putt and was pushing my short irons to the right.  Driver continues to be improved but very erratic.

Of course the garage swings were cleaner. There's no ball. You're not hitting anything. People don't like it, but that's why we say practice swings are almost pointless. Because they are.

All that said…

I'd get that under control, if I were you.

Your setup is back too far toward the original, too: too bent in the knees, not enough bend (forward) through the hips and the back.

Put your head against a wall and practice turning your shoulders down to a point directly in front of the bottom of your bottom shirt button (assuming it's a polo with a few buttons, not a full button-up).

[Antneye]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Of course the garage swings were cleaner. There's no ball. You're not hitting anything. People don't like it, but that's why we say practice swings are almost pointless. Because they are.

All that said…

I'd get that under control, if I were you.

Your setup is back too far toward the original, too: too bent in the knees, not enough bend (forward) through the hips and the back.

Put your head against a wall and practice turning your shoulders down to a point directly in front of the bottom of your bottom shirt button (assuming it's a polo with a few buttons, not a full button-up).

Thanks for the feedback.  I'll get to work on this and report back after a bit.

[Antneye]

@iacas, I downloaded software that will allow me to analyze my videos. So that I'm not constantly asking you "is this good?" can you let me know how much movement you would consider acceptable for each of the marked movements? 

Once I think I have it down I'll post an updated video.

 I've been playing around a bit today and it is quite hard for me to not move. I think this will take some time, but I'll stay with it. 

Thanks! 

[Double Par]

18 minutes ago, Antneye said:

@iacas, I downloaded software that will allow me to analyze my videos. So that I'm not constantly asking you "is this good?" can you let me know how much movement you would consider acceptable for each of the marked movements? 

Once I think I have it down I'll post an updated video.

 I've been playing around a bit today and it is quite hard for me to not move. I think this will take some time, but I'll stay with it. 

Thanks! 

What software did you download. Easy to use? 

[Antneye]

8 minutes ago, Double Par said:

What software did you download. Easy to use? 

Kinovea.  I found an old thread on here that mentioned it.  It is fairly intuitive, but a review of the help section helps figure things out.  I didn't go to deep with it, I just wanted to be able to recreate the analysis and be able to compare my results.

 

 

[Antneye]

I've been obsessed with this head (and body) moving forward all day long. Taking swings everywhere I could, both with and without a club. In the bathroom, the garage, my office... Wherever. Filmed a little bit in my garage just focusing on getting to get a full shoulder rotation without having my head lerching forward. I had my son watching me and telling me exactly when it was happening so I could stop and see what was going on. With all that, I think I had a mini breakthrough. It seems I am over rotating my hips and that is when I seem to fall forward. When I dial that back a bit, I can still make (what seems to me) like a full shoulder turn with much less movement of my body forward (towards the ball)  I'm not going to post any video just yet. I want to work on this a bit and see if it bears any fruit. 

Everything seems more fluid, but who knows what the result will be with a ball in the way. 

[Antneye]

OK....its not perfection, but for one days work I am pretty encouraged.  Improved posture and much less head flying forward on backswing.  I have to be honest that I have no idea what I am trying to see on the downswing, but I posted the screen shot for comparison.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Antneye

[Antneye]

Played around some more last night, working on the wall drill and taking swings both with and without more hip turn and it seems I can pretty much keep the same level of head movement with either swing.  Being that I get slightly more shoulder turn with the bigger hip turn I am just going to keep working on steadying my balance.  With either swing I seem to have cleaned up my swing plane quite a bit so that's a positive. 

I don't think I am going to be able to get out to the range this week, so it is just drills and garage swings for now which is fine since I really need to work on balance and posture and not worry about how the ball is flying right now.

One nice positive from all of this work which cannot be measured, is that my 15 year old who had fallen away from the game this past year has a renewed interest and has turned into my little helper.  After months of not wanting to go to the range or play, he is now offering to go to the range with me and hit balls/film me.  it's tough for me to go to the range outside of lunch breaks at work, but I am going to try to squeeze in some home range sessions to take advantage of some good father/son time.

[woodzie264]

On 6/18/2017 at 10:32 PM, Antneye said:

Kinovea.  I found an old thread on here that mentioned it.  It is fairly intuitive, but a review of the help section helps figure things out.  I didn't go to deep with it, I just wanted to be able to recreate the analysis and be able to compare my results.

 

 

Thanks for the idea! And nice work!

[Antneye]

Lots of head on wall work, mirror work, and garage swings today.  I seem to have really steadied the head, but still cannot figure out how to keep my ass from ending up forward of where it was at the top of my backswing.  Maybe it is an optical illusion caused my big caboose ?  I've started doing the wall drill in reverse to see if I can get through the swing without my but falling away from the wall, but it just isn't translating to actual swings.

I hate that I can't hit balls this week.  I'd really like to see what the actual result of my work away from the range is.

 

 

[Double Par]

9 hours ago, Antneye said:

Lots of head on wall work, mirror work, and garage swings today.  I seem to have really steadied the head, but still cannot figure out how to keep my ass from ending up forward of where it was at the top of my backswing.  Maybe it is an optical illusion caused my big caboose ?  I've started doing the wall drill in reverse to see if I can get through the swing without my but falling away from the wall, but it just isn't translating to actual swings.

I hate that I can't hit balls this week.  I'd really like to see what the actual result of my work away from the range is.

 

 

I know the feeling. It has rained the last couple of days that I could go to the range. Maybe that's for the better tho...focusing on your problem areas and hopefully build some muscle memory. 

[Antneye]

I ended up getting to play an unplanned round after work this evening.  I walked up to the first tee feeling very confident after some really good practice sessions and got off to a horrible start.  I was pulling off everything and trying to muscle each shot.  i started off triple triple and just did not have any of the feel I had from my practice sessions.  Then, with each hole, as I started to close out an ugly front 9 53, I just felt the game slowing down a bit and I started to feel the things I had been working on start to come together.  It was a weird feeling, but it just felt like I was able to come close to the same feel of those garage swings.  I don't think anything was as good as the practice swings, but it was close.  Easy swings, good balance, balls flying towards the pin.  On the back 9 I made 3 pars, 4 bogeys and 2 doubles to close with a 44 for a 97.  

I was most encouraged that after a very rocky start I found my driver and started to hit very pretty draws that were starting off to the right and working there way back to the middle.  I lost a few on the back, but I settled into a zone where I felt like every time I stepped up to the tee box I knew what I wanted to do and I could feel the swing I wanted to make.  I got my buddy to film one of my drives and it was actually the drive that started me on my good run off the tees.  Looking back at the video I can see that there was a lot more head sway than I am seeing in my practice sessions.  Maybe this is just a symptom of the driver, or it is a sign that I still have a lot of work to do to perfect the new fundamental (well, duh, I do have a lot of work to do still) but it is much improved from where I started just a few short weeks ago. 

97 is nothing to brag about, but it felt real good.  After the 53 front, the 44 back was a welcome accomplishment.  All of this is ignoring the fact that my putting is totally falling apart as I have totally neglected that aspect of my game as I work on my swing.  I probably left 3 or 4 putts out there which would have fallen if I was at the top of my short game.

Lots of work to do, but I am on the right track thanks to all of the help you guys are giving me.

 

 

[Antneye]

I've been thinking about my drives, and while it is greatly improved I still suffer from two primary misses. 

Miss one is a massive push slice. I think the reason for it is that on those swings I am sliding my hips forward but failing to rotate properly. Does it make sense that this could cause this miss? 

Miss two is a big duck hook left. From the ball fight laws I know that my club head is closed relative to my target and even more so relative to my path. I'm not sure how to diagnose the proper correction to this miss. Any thoughts? 

[Antneye]

I ended up taking a half day at work and playing a round with  one of my sons. I had a nice day being out with my son, but it was extremely disappointing from a golf perspective. 47-52 99. If I am being honest, the 47 could have been a 53 if not for some really good misses and lucky bounces. My swing was a mess. I just couldn't find that balance and swing that I thought I had created. 

I have some practice range video, but it is more of the same.......head moving toward the ball quite a bit on the backswing. I'm just going to keep doing wall drills, mirror work etc until I nail down this head issue. 

[Antneye]

Here is some video of me on the range with my 7i.  The flaws are bigger with the driver, but basically the same issues.