My Swing (klineka)

[klineka]

Had a pretty solid range session last night, still working on the backswing piece.

As long as I kept the backswing shorter and what felt like "compact" then the strikes were solid. 

Was thinking about trying to work in my next priority piece but I'm planning on playing in a tournament in early May so I'll probably wait until after that before adding in anything new.

[klineka]

Pretty solid range session last night, the grip and address position is normal now, and the backswing piece is 80-90% of the way there.

Started trying to add in some rotation on the downswing/getting my body more open, which will help with the flat left wrist at impact, and was decently successful for my first attempts at it.

The main feeling that helped is once I get to the top of the backswing, just firing my hips open before any part of my upper body/arms start to move on the downswing, and also feeling like my chest is staying down over the ball as my hips rotate open.

Here is impact a couple weeks ago vs. impact last night. The range was too crowded to get a Face On video but I will try to get that in my next practice session.

I personally think this is the best my swing has looked on video, I am happy to see there is less "pulling" down of the handle and my lower body is actually starting to do something. Interesting to notice my right heel came off the ground during the swing and that wasn't even anything I was focusing on or thinking about.

 

[DeadMan]

That looks a lot better than it has been. Keep up the good work!

[Jay28]

Hey your swing is looking much improved.  Great work.

I noticed from both the early and later videos that your release looks a little early.  I have the same problem and it robs me os swing speed and consistent strikes.

 

Edited April 24, 2019 by Jay28

[klineka]

3 minutes ago, Jay28 said:

Hey your swing is looking much improved.  Great work.

I noticed from both the early and later videos that your release looks a little early.  I have the same problem and it robs me os swing speed and consistent strikes.

 

Thanks for the kind words!

And yes I would definitely agree that I release early/flip at impact which definitely contributes to inconsistent strike for me, but I had a number of pieces that needed work first before I could start to work on the early release/flip. (steady head/centered pivot, grip, posture, backswing, etc)

I'm not all that experienced in the golf swing, but I believe the root cause (or at least a contributing factor) of the flip for me was not using my legs/hips and not getting open on the downswing and maybe some early extension/chest moving away from the ball too, so flipping was the only way I could make contact.

I try not to watch too many swing tip videos on YouTube but occasionally I'll watch some that are related to my priority piece  and the feelings that this guy talks about in this video is pretty close to what I was feeling in my last range session

 

[iacas]

@klineka, best to just work your piece and save the next stuff for the next lesson or something like that… best not to go searching for something. I have some slightly different thoughts. Yes, you're too closed at impact, but it goes a bit beyond that…

[klineka]

5 minutes ago, iacas said:

@klineka, best to just work your piece and save the next stuff for the next lesson or something like that… best not to go searching for something. I have some slightly different thoughts. Yes, you're too closed at impact, but it goes a bit beyond that…

Good point. I always have the tendency to want to move faster than I should to the next piece. 

Back on my main priority piece of the backswing/hand depth, do you think my left arm is too steep at A4 or is that ok as long as my hands remain deeper over my midfoot like we talked about in person?

It looks like a few PGA tour guys like Justin Thomas and maybe Brooks Koepka have a steeper left arm at A4 but it seems like most PGA tour guys have the left arm more along the same angle as their shoulders.

[iacas]

I think that stuff is mostly fine, but you want to lay the club off less.

Just turn your forearms a little bit.

[klineka]

14 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think that stuff is mostly fine, but you want to lay the club off less.

Just turn your forearms a little bit.

Lay the club off less in the backswing, so the shaft is more vertical on the way back, right? 

Like how he is more vertical here and mine is more laid off at similar points on the way back?

 

[iacas]

52 minutes ago, klineka said:

Here, mostly. Shaft should be pointing a bit more toward the pole, not well left of it.

[klineka]

Shot an 83 today in less than ideal conditions (soaked course and a constant 20 mph wind). 

I noticed a HUGE difference in quality of strike with my irons when I was focusing on my backswing priority piece as my swing thought and when I forgot about it and didnt have a swing thought.

Will continue to work on that this week, playing in a tournament next Sunday so will likely play two more rounds before then.

---

View this round on GAME GOLF

 

[klineka]

Solid range session last night, was hitting it really well.

Made a conscious effort to focus on the hand path on every single swing. 

Worked on my 115-135 yardage with my gap wedge and my PW. I am really comfortable from 80-110 with my 54 wedge, I have my swing lengths dialed in for 80,90,100,110 yds, but I needed some work from 115-135.

Worked on driver too, strengthened my left hand grip a bit and was hitting most drives dead straight, only had a couple that were big slices and didn't have any that hooked or drew.

Spent some time putting too, mainly 3-5 footers working on hitting them with confidence.

[klineka]

Played in my first tournament of the season yesterday thanks to an invite from @georgep

Conditions were... less than ideal. 48 degrees when we teed off with a constant 20mph wind and absolutely soaked course.

I do have a better picture of the things I need to work on going forward in preparation for the next tournament in 4 weeks.

• Minimize driver slice/eliminate penalty strokes. I had 6 penalty strokes during the round, all of them were off the tee and were results of bad slices to the right. The conditions didn't help, my tee shot on 18 was only 10 yds or so off the fairway, we saw it splash in some standing water from the tee box but couldn't find it when we got up there.
  • I will work on this by swinging more to the right, and moving the ball back in my stance. Those are the two pieces that always seem to straighten my drives out when I do get the slice. I've noticed that my driving is the most consistent when the ball position is just inside my left heel, yesterday it crept forward a few inches and I didn't realize it until after the round.
• Mid to long range putting/Speed control. I had multiple 3 putts from inside 40 feet, and they were all because of the poor first putts, I didn't miss any putts inside 4 feet.
  • I've noticed on some of my mid range and longer putts, the bottom of my putter face is what is making contact with the ball instead of the center of the putter face, and it makes a really dull sound and I lose a lot of distance. I think that might either be ball position too far forward, or me pulling my chest/body/arms up during the stroke instead of staying down and keeping the putter close to the ground. 
• Pitching inside 40 yards. I missed the green/ put it on the fringe multiple times with pitches from inside 40 yards. I was not confident over the ball on these shots, as my main thought right before the swing was "Don't chunk it" or "Don't thin it over the green"
  • I watched the video and read over the topic about pitching in the swing thoughts section so I will put some time in the short game area at my range and will probably do some pitches in a field by my house too.
• Swing thoughts. While standing over the ball on pretty much every shot that wasn't a tee shot or a putt, I had really bad mental thoughts of "Don't screw this up" instead of just focusing on my main swing thought and executing like I should be. I'm not expecting to drop a ton of shots by simply changing my thought over the ball, because I did hit some really good shots while having the bad thoughts over the ball, but it's not nearly as fun standing over the ball thinking about trying to not mess up instead of just thinking about executing the shot in front of you.

 

I did have some positives though, including the closest I've ever been to a hole in one (5 feet directly over the pin) and some really solid 6-10 feet putts on the back 9 to save myself from even more 3 putts.

[klineka]

Had a productive practice session last night, focused on the driver and putting.

For the driver, if the ball is like a clock and 12 is pointed at the target, me looking at like the 7 or the 8 on the ball, so the bottom left corner if you're standing over top the ball, really helped straighten the flight out, because I think it brought my path closer to neutral, and since I mainly had a "straight fade"/ "straight slice" ball flight previously, that meant that my clubface was probably pretty square at impact to begin with. I started aligning the ball on the tee so the logo was right where I needed my eyes to focus, and that seemed to help more instead of just trying to pick a random dimple or something.

Working on lag putting was successful too, I realized I previously was accelerating through the putt and taking a really short backswing and trying to manipulate speed to get distance which obviously does not work well, as I had read here:

Once I started trying to keep the putterhead the same speed throughout the stroke and let the distance I take the club back determine how hard/far the putt is, my speed control came right back and was regularly 2 putting from 30+ feet. 

Need to keep working on both of these things in the coming weeks, but encouraged by my progress so far.

[iacas]

On 5/6/2019 at 8:48 AM, klineka said:

• Minimize driver slice/eliminate penalty strokes. I had 6 penalty strokes during the round, all of them were off the tee and were results of bad slices to the right. The conditions didn't help, my tee shot on 18 was only 10 yds or so off the fairway, we saw it splash in some standing water from the tee box but couldn't find it when we got up there.

You do know that if you're virtually certain your ball is in an abnormal course condition (ACC), you can take relief for free, yes?

See rule 16.1e: http://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/rules/rules-2019/rules-of-golf/rules-and-interpretations.html#!ruletype=fr&section=rule&rulenum=16&subrulenum=1

[klineka]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

You do know that if you're virtually certain your ball is in an abnormal course condition (ACC), you can take relief for free, yes?

See rule 16.1e: http://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/rules/rules-2019/rules-of-golf/rules-and-interpretations.html#!ruletype=fr&section=rule&rulenum=16&subrulenum=1

I did not know that.

Unfortunately my not knowing cost me two strokes since I treated it like a lost ball and dropped just inside the fairway since we had the new local rule in affect. 

Thanks for letting me know.

[iacas]

36 minutes ago, klineka said:

Unfortunately my not knowing cost me two strokes since I treated it like a lost ball and dropped just inside the fairway since we had the new local rule in affect.

You played a tournament with that Local Rule? Man.

The Rules help you too (I know you know that, but just pointing it out for others… 😄.)

[klineka]

Another solid practice session last night.

Worked on hitting a knockdown/fairway finder drive, and it was carrying about 230 and didnt have any that sliced. Definitely will keep practicing that and will put into play on shorter, narrower par 4s.

Worked on lag putting again, this time I played 18 "holes" that were 30-50 feet in length where a two putt was considered par. 

I focused again on not accelerating through the stroke, and I was pretty happy with the results. I two putted 15 times and three putted 3 times for a score of +3.