My Swing (Pepsivanilla93)

[b101]

28 minutes ago, Pepsivanilla93 said:

Tried out this range about 30 minutes away that has the Trackman Range feature, today. Couldn't get it to register a single shot. Very disappointing and frustrating range visit. Just one of those awful days for your swing too. I just wanted to get an average carry distance for my clubs and some shot data to review at home, so I didn't show up with any game plan for practice. The app for Trackman stopped working after about 20 balls all the way until I left. I contacted the range to see what was up after my visit since they were packed when I was there.

 

Got too carried away as well trying to fix my club path and whole slew of other swing faults that weren't my priority and since nothing was working I was getting frustrated. This post is a bit of a vent of my awful range visit as well as a reminder to work on, and video, my priority change since working on one thing at a time is going to be the only way I'm able to track progress.

 

A couple questions for anyone who drops by and can answer: What's the best way to track ball striking progress? My goal is to improve sweet spot hits with proper ball first contact and that's the fix my instructor was helping me with. Should I take an initial percentage of quality hits to mishits and then test it at certain intervals to track progress? Should I just video my swing and make sure my swing changes are present, then continually submit videos until my instructor sees the progress? Then he can adjust as necessary?

 

Thanks guys, going to send in some more videos anyways for instruction. It's just too complicated and 'instant gratification inducing' trying to fix it myself at this point.

Getting carried away with the first time you're on a launch monitor is totally normal, as is losing your swing when you're trying to do it. You'll reflect on it and be better next time, so don't sweat it.

With regard to your questions:

What's the best way to track ball striking progress?

The cheap way is to take foot powder spray or a sharpie and mark your clubface (spray or colour the face), then hit the ball. Should give you instant feedback as to whether it was high, low, toe or heel. It won't take you that long before you start realising the feels yourself without needing to look at the clubface. I would imagine, if you're starting out, your major issue will be high or low (i.e. are you hitting it thin or fat), as this will be to do with controlling low point. 

Should I take an initial percentage of quality hits to mishits and then test it at certain intervals to track progress?

You don't need to over-think this. A rough estimate is enough - you'll know if it's improving. From my experience with evolvr, you will either have a tough first few range sessions working on the new feels, then see improved contact, or it'll be one of those miracle moments where it's immediately better. I'd say I see far more of the first example than the second, but, on the plus side, most of the miracle moments happened very early on when the instructor was fixing fundamentals with consistent contact.

Should I just video my swing and make sure my swing changes are present, then continually submit videos until my instructor sees the progress? Then he can adjust as necessary?

Video your swing repeatedly and keep checking it. I always video my first range session after an evolvr response carefully and submit it to the instructor to see whether I've got it right, keep working at it in the meantime and tweak based on what the instructor says. When you think you see progress and feel like you;re about 80%-90% there with this priority piece, re-upload and see what the instructor thinks. For me, this is usually 3-4 weeks later.

Good questions and keep working at it!

[Pepsivanilla93]

@b101 Thanks for the quick feedback! At least I'm not the only one to get carried away on a launch monitor. It was quite frustrating but I just shot some video out in the yard to submit and I appreciate your experience helping me. I figured out how to take slow-mo high framerate video and it was very telling.

25 minutes ago, b101 said:

Video your swing repeatedly and keep checking it. I always video my first range session after an evolvr response carefully and submit it to the instructor to see whether I've got it right, keep working at it in the meantime and tweak based on what the instructor says. When you think you see progress and feel like you;re about 80%-90% there with this priority piece, re-upload and see what the instructor thinks. For me, this is usually 3-4 weeks later.

I'll be looking to implement this, so thank you. When it comes to video on your first range session, are you specifically looking for your swing to be moving in the direction of the fix, or are you videoing your drills, or maybe something else? I expect the way to do it would be to run your drills slow enough that you can fix any inconsistency immediately and build speed slowly from there. But you're taking full swings and checking those on video, correct?

[b101]

Just now, Pepsivanilla93 said:

@b101 Thanks for the quick feedback! At least I'm not the only one to get carried away on a launch monitor. It was quite frustrating but I just shot some video out in the yard to submit and I appreciate your experience helping me. I figured out how to take slow-mo high framerate video and it was very telling.

I'll be looking to implement this, so thank you. When it comes to video on your first range session, are you specifically looking for your swing to be moving in the direction of the fix, or are you videoing your drills, or maybe something else? I expect the way to do it would be to run your drills slow enough that you can fix any inconsistency immediately and build speed slowly from there. But you're taking full swings and checking those on video, correct?

Depends what exactly the instructor has me working on. It's often not a full swing and I'll try to include drills where possible. Whatever it is, I'll have checked the camera enough times to make sure that what I send off is what I want to submit and it looks like I'm changing the picture.

[Pepsivanilla93]

2 minutes ago, b101 said:

Depends what exactly the instructor has me working on. It's often not a full swing and I'll try to include drills where possible. Whatever it is, I'll have checked the camera enough times to make sure that what I send off is what I want to submit and it looks like I'm changing the picture.

Awesome that's really helpful. Doing video analysis certainly presents itself with its own challenges.

[b101]

Just now, Pepsivanilla93 said:

Awesome that's really helpful. Doing video analysis certainly presents itself with its own challenges.

Ultimately makes you better and having the camera there is a great reminder to practise properly. You'll get used to it and when you embrace it, you'll realise how poorly everyone else uses the range!

[Pepsivanilla93]

2 minutes ago, b101 said:

Ultimately makes you better and having the camera there is a great reminder to practise properly. You'll get used to it and when you embrace it, you'll realise how poorly everyone else uses the range!

You're right about that! I think I've been on this website long enough to realize feel ain't real and I should always use my camera. It's my phone so I always have it with me anyways. Sad to say I'm still that guy that uses the range poorly but plenty of you have made tremendous progress on your swing thread videos that it's time to say you all might be doing something right!

[Pepsivanilla93]

Just got my first evolvr lesson back for the year about a week ago. Looks like I'll be working with Stephan this time instead of Preston, which is starting off well. He had me address my address first, so I'm pretty happy to know that I'll have a sound setup and can focus on other things.

A few things he wanted to adjust with my setup is he wanted to see my head pointed more towards the ball. He explained it as if I couldn't move my eyes in their sockets, instead I would need to point my eye sockets directly at the ball. He also suspected that I might have a bit of open shoulders at address and to close them/square them just a touch. Enough that my leading arm becomes slightly visible in front of my trailing arm at address. I think my baggier jacket hid my arms a bit, so I made sure to not to wear it for the upcoming uploads. The final thing was that I was standing too close to the ball not leaving enough room between the handle and my thigh. One palm width between the end of the handle and my thigh was the rule of thumb.

I keep a couple clubs out of the bag leaning against the wall in my room with a couple golf balls. Whenever I walk past I'll do a set of about 5 repetitions just addressing the ball working on the setup positions. Every 5 sets or so I set up my phone on my selfie stick and get a DTL shot of my setup to confirm I'm seeing what needs to be seen.

I was happy to hear him say I wasn't too far off! Found that very encouraging. After addressing setup issues his main concerns were sequencing issues and wrist loading, so I'm looking forward to what he has to say about those. Going to add in some backswing and downswing fixes once my setup checks out he said. I've included two shots of my progress on setup that I'll be sending in in just a minute here.

 

 

[Pepsivanilla93]

Put in 10 days of practice since my last lesson. My setup improvements were correct but I still needed to get the club handle a littler lower by introducing more right arm bend at address. Aimed at or below the belt buckle was the desired goal. That was the first lesson that suggested actual swing changes, and what he was looking to accomplish was to steepen the shoulder turn so that my head stops lurching out over my left shoulder. My shoulder plane was too shallow causing compensations to maintain a steady head. I've been working diligently on doing the club across the shoulders and pivot drill. I've also done the drill to the top of the backswing and held it there while I move the club back to my hands and get into a full backswing position. Ball flight is a lot straighter still with the fat and thin mishits. No more hooks but I tend to slice on the driver, 3w, and 3h. I'm confident we'll get more and more consistent in the good way as the lessons progress.

Went out and played Shepherds Hollow, a really nice public course here in Michigan. Shot in the hundreds but had nobody behind us so my buddy and I got in some good short game practice. I learned to play out of the bunkers out of necessity! So. Many. Bunkers. It became a running joke on the blind shots to suggest that our ball was probably in a bunker.

I hadn't made any comments on LSW yet, but I received the book a couple days ahead of schedule and read it before the weekend! Lots of good stuff in the book. I particularly liked game planning and separation value. I found a lot of the info could be gleaned by lurking this website for a while but there were still plenty of new ideas to keep the information fresh. It definitely helps you prioritize the weaknesses of your game whereas 5sk helps you prioritize the weaknesses of your swing.

Received Stan Utley's "The Art of the Short Game" a couple days ago as well. I've owned Pelz's "Short Game Bible" for a few years now but prefer Utley's techniques and Pelz's data. A little bit of both worlds and I'm having awesome success already with the Utley chipping method.

Anyways, here's my swing as of today:

 

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by Pepsivanilla93