My Swing (klineka)

[klineka]

15 minutes ago, iacas said:

Not a fan of the shaft laying down that much late in the backswing, because then it just reverses "over" quickly on the downswing.

Good point that makes sense and that "reverses over" motion on the downswing is definitely way more noticeable with my driver.

Until you mentioned it I didnt realize I was already shallowing the shaft as part of the backswing in that video.

Looking at a video of one of my slow practice swings, it looks more like what I/my instructor want to see. The shaft shallows as part of the downswing and I have more body rotation throughout the down swing which appears to be helping shallow the shaft. 

Thanks for noticing that, I'll work on it.

[klineka]

Had a lesson tonight, instructor noted that my takeaway is much improved, club head isn't rolling inside my hands anymore. I'm also fully comfortable with gripping the club more in my fingers and don't really have to think about that anymore.

Main things we worked on tonight were more right hip turn (helped get me back into a centered pivot) and more hand depth on the backswing.

Results were pretty much immediate, went from club paths of 5-8 degrees out to in to 0-2 degrees in to out in a matter of minutes by increasing the hip turn and more hand depth. Club shallowed out on its own simply as a result of my body and arms/hands being in the proper position. Ball flight followed too, very solid strikes on the few I did closer to full speed, mostly straight or slight draws.

Continued to work for the rest of the lesson on slower/half speed swings with some longer irons and driver while feeling those pieces.

[klineka]

Worked on the right hip and hand depth last night, pretty solid results overall. I really like having a "body" backswing thought (right hip back, lengthen right leg) compared to having a "hand/arm" downswing thought.

Iron contact is becoming much more consistent, especially with my long irons, I hit 5+ 3irons off the grass in a row dead straight right out of the center of the club face which is something I've never done before and should be really useful for 2nd shots into par 5s.

Driver is still a work in progress, but I can tell on video I am "changing the dang picture" with driver too so I know it will just take time to get used to the new motions.

I will say that slow slow slow reps both with and without a ball have made some of these swing changes so much easier to implement and feel. I've gotten into a good sequence where I break it up into sets of 3 balls.

• 3 balls at a super slow speed (think like 30 yd 9 iron or < 50 yd drives)
• 3 balls at a medium speed (100 yd 9 iron, 150 yd drives)
• 3 balls at normal speed

Before each hit there is also 2-3 dry swings at the intended swing speed (mainly on the super slow and medium sets)

It has taken some discipline and focus to hit drives that purposefully only go 50-150 yds, but I know it is necessary to change the picture and I'm starting to see results of that already.

[klineka]

A bit of video from my lesson the other day posted by my instructor.

 

Original club path was even a bit more left than the 5-8 degrees I mentioned a couple posts ago.

[iacas]

Be very, very careful.

I'm not in agreement that this is "really good" just because the numbers changed.

I mean, there are good ways to swing down from the inside and then there are not good ways. I'd put this in the "not good ways" bucket.

[klineka]

5 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'm not in agreement that this is "really good" just because the numbers changed.

Good point. I'll have to keep that in mind especially when I start practicing indoors this winter. I think it will be hard for me just knowing how much I enjoy numbers/data.

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

I mean, there are good ways to swing down from the inside and then there are not good ways. I'd put this in the "not good ways" bucket.

Yeah I agree that doesn't look very good. The way he explained it to me was wanting to make sure the foundation is solid (grip, takeaway, backswing, etc) before moving into downswing pieces. He's briefly mentioned that in the coming months there will likely be some changes to the downswing, so I'm thinking those should get me in a better position than that pic shows.

[iacas]

31 minutes ago, klineka said:

Good point. I'll have to keep that in mind especially when I start practicing indoors this winter. I think it will be hard for me just knowing how much I enjoy numbers/data.

Yeah I agree that doesn't look very good. The way he explained it to me was wanting to make sure the foundation is solid (grip, takeaway, backswing, etc) before moving into downswing pieces. He's briefly mentioned that in the coming months there will likely be some changes to the downswing, so I'm thinking those should get me in a better position than that pic shows.

What was that lesson about then? All he seemed to show was the downswing.

[klineka]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

What was that lesson about then? All he seemed to show was the downswing.

Increasing right hip turn and getting more hand depth on the backswing. Not all that different than what you said when I visited in March. My fault for letting old habits come back though 

[klineka]

Got a membership to an indoor place for the winter which has unlimited use of their hitting bays with Trackman and cameras on tripods that are linked to the Trackman and films every swing and sends it to the TV screen on the side of the bay.

So far I have found this to be much more efficient than having to start and stop the video on my own phone at the range and then trying to view the swing on a small screen.

The facility is ~5 minutes from my office so I will be going 3-4x a week, and plan on doing a mixture of slow block practice working on my priority piece(s) and then mixing in some skill challenges (Trackman combine, random yardage wedge tests, 9 hole virtual rounds, etc)

My takeaway and grip are much improved, I don't have to give these much thought anymore, main priority pieces at the moment are increasing the amount of wrist hinge during the backswing, and increasing my right hip turn which makes my hands go deeper.

I am definitely seeing signs of improvement, as a whole I am finding the center of the club face with the irons much more frequently than I used to, and ball flight is much more neutral with both irons and driver, with most shots being straight or a slight push (compared to a pretty substantial pull cut/ straight slice previously)

[klineka]

Continuing to work on my full swing with my instructor, making some solid progress, and I have made a strong commitment to slow swings and practicing properly, which means practice sessions like last night where I made 70+ swings and never went above half speed on any swing.

Also started to work on my wedges with my instructor teaching me how to hit different trajectories and really focusing on 100-150 yds, since over my last 12 rounds my proximity from 100-150yds is 43.9' while my proximity from 150-200 yds is over 5 feet better at 38.0'.

As this season winds down, we will also be sitting down and taking a look at all of my stats from this past season and developing my goals for next year and working on a winter training plan to help reach the goals for next year.   

[klineka]

Have been making a ton of progress lately and am starting to see the results on the course, hit 12 GIR in my last round and was very solid off the tee while dealing with constant 15-20mph winds the whole round.

Was curious to see how much my swing has changed this year, here is me at the top of my backswing in February compared to top of my backswing yesterday. Still have some things to work on, but overall I'm really happy with the progress this year between working with Erik at Golf Evolution, Evolvr, and now a coach in person.

 

We have done some work with my putting too and have been checking my alignment with a laser guide, previously I was aiming 1-2 feet left on a straight 8 foot putt. I'm working on my aim and a feeling of allowing the putter to release through the ball, because previously I was holding the face open to compensate for how far left I was aiming.

[klineka]

Continuing to make more progress on both the full swing and putting, getting more comfortable with aiming the putter correctly and releasing the toe through impact.

Main swing thoughts with the full swing are making sure my spine is tilted away from the target at the top of the backswing (especially with driver which feels like my upper chest is pointed at the ground behind my right foot), and then rotate the upper body like crazy on the downswing. When I do it correctly, it feels like my chest is flying way open and my body is doing the work and the arms/club are just along for the ride.

Towards the end of my lesson today I had a couple driver swings that were 108-110 mph clubhead speed and that was with me feeling like I was using 80% effort but my body was finally starting to coil/uncoil properly per my instructor.

 

[klineka]

Have been really focusing on my centered pivot piece and am starting to see pretty solid results. The two things that have helped the most are flaring out my front foot/not letting my knee collapse inward towards my right leg, and feeling like every swing stops when I'm at left arm parallel and the club is vertical. In reality the knee still moves down/in a little bit and the club still goes most of the way back, but centered pivot and strike have improved greatly. My head movement has decreased significantly compared to like 6-12 months ago, on most swings it doesn't go forward of its' starting position at all.

Will start adding in the increased rotation piece that I worked on in my last lesson as well, and have started the Superspeed training again, would like to get my clubhead speed from 110 to 115 and would love to see some 170 ball speeds in a couple months.

I have noticed that when I try to do a ton of rotation and opening my chest more through impact, the clubface tends to get very closed so it results in a lot of overdraws/hooks mainly with the irons. I'm sure my instructor can tell me why that is happening but was just wondering if that is a common thing and if anyone else has experienced that before?

[GolfLug]

I have a terrible hook miss where clubhead drops too far inside on the downswing resulting into an overly inside out club path - a push hook. 

I think it results from from me trying to get too wide at takeaway, swaying too much over right side, not setting right wrist early enough at A2 and not getting to a good pizza tray at the top. It's an old habit that appears anytime it wants to. Drives me nuts.   

You are doing some good work, BTW.

[klineka]

8 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

I have a terrible hook miss where clubhead drops too far inside on the downswing resulting into an overly inside out club path - a push hook. 

I think it results from from me trying to get too wide at takeaway, swaying too much over right side, not setting right wrist early enough at A2 and not getting to a good pizza tray at the top. It's an old habit that appears anytime it wants to. Drives me nuts.   

Hmm reading this made me go check out some of my face and path numbers on some of the swings when I was trying to feel a lot of rotation through the shot, and it seems like my path is decent, most of them with a 7 iron are around 2.0 or less degrees in to out, but on the huge hooks the club face gets like 5-6 degrees closed to the target, which give a face to path of like -6 to -8 degrees. 

[GolfLug]

2 hours ago, klineka said:

 and it seems like my path is decent, most of them with a 7 iron are around 2.0 or less degrees in to out, but on the huge hooks the club face gets like 5-6 degrees closed to the target, which give a face to path of like -6 to -8 degrees. 

Going out on a limb but I think this happens when you don't have much 2ndary tilt. Right hand rolls over left much easier slamming the door close faster through impact.

IDK, take this with a grain of salt but guys who start the DS with a mini squat get better secondary axis tilt, lead a bit longer with their right elbow and rotate better through impact. For me, if I try to rotate chest open through impact it actually stalls my hips. Not sure why it works the way it does but that's the exact opposite of what I intend to do (square shoulders and open hips through impact).   

[klineka]

21 hours ago, GolfLug said:

Going out on a limb but I think this happens when you don't have much 2ndary tilt. Right hand rolls over left much easier slamming the door close faster through impact.

IDK, take this with a grain of salt but guys who start the DS with a mini squat get better secondary axis tilt, lead a bit longer with their right elbow and rotate better through impact. For me, if I try to rotate chest open through impact it actually stalls my hips. Not sure why it works the way it does but that's the exact opposite of what I intend to do (square shoulders and open hips through impact).   

Main feels today were the right elbow staying out in front of my stomach on the downswing, more secondary axis tilt while rotating, and feeling like I'm holding the clubface wide open after impact, and I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. The face to path and thus shot shape quieted down A LOT, I was hitting paused partial 8 irons about 120-130 yards and with the exception of like one or two bad swings, they were all within a 10 yd lateral dispersion (which is a really really tight dispersion pattern for me even on partial shots) and it seemed like pretty much every shot had a face to path under 3 and most were under 2 as well. 

Keeping it slow for now, but this feels (and hopefully looks) like a step in the right direction for adding rotation and controlling the clubface more. I forgot to save a face on view, but these feelings are helping out a ton with Key #3 (Flat Left Wrist)

 

Edited December 10, 2019 by klineka
clarity of my swing feels

[iacas]

I think it's going to be tough to keep it there and add speed. You're going to keep going further and further back and then the downswing work will get worse and worse.

Sometimes it's not just about keeping an elbow in front of your tummy or something, but about the rate at which it extends.