My Swing (klineka)

[klineka]

21 minutes ago, iacas said:

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

Good point, I did notice on some swings that the right elbow was still lengthening on the second half of the downswing and down through impact even though it was further in front of my stomach than it previously has been.

[klineka]

Have been focusing on my driver swing over the past couple weeks, finally feel like I am starting to make some progress. 

The long term goal is to get the shaft shallower and swing more from the inside instead of throwing the shaft out to the right and swiping across it. The main feels right now are making sure I get a full turn on the backswing, really feel the coiling of my upper body in my core, and then on the downswing making sure my right foot stays planted longer, previously I would jump from the trail foot towards the ball which contributed to early extension and steepening of the shaft. 

When I do it right, my swing plane is lower, attack angle is more upwards, and spin is back in the normal range.

Irons, wedges, and putter have been feeling really solid lately, did a 20 shot wedge test on Trackman yesterday for shots of 70-140 yards and scored in the mid 70s, which was an estimated handicap of 2.5 according to Trackman.

[klineka]

Wedges and irons up through 7 have been really solid lately. Main thought has been keeping my elbows close together and getting right elbow in front of belly button on the downswing instead of trapped on my right hip. Can immediately feel a huge difference when I do it right, which is about 80% of the time on full speed swings with the short irons right now.

Have been playing around with flighted short iron shots and starting to get a good feel for them as well, although I think I might be moving the ball too far back in my stance because I seem to be over drawing a lot of them compared to my regular trajectory iron shots which has been pretty straight lately.

3,4,5,6 irons are still a work in progress, not hitting them too well right now.

Driver is still what I am spending the majority of my time on, finally made progress with my priority piece of not jumping off the right leg, the feeling of rotating my right knee inwards and driving my right quad towards the target really helped. Multiple practice sessions with an alignment stick angled at knee height about 1 inch inside my right knee really helped me from jumping out towards the ball.

Swing is still too steep, so have been and will keep doing a lot of slow motion and partial reps really feeling and over exaggerating my right elbow leading the way/initiating the downswing. One feeling that helped today was feeling like my right elbow and right quad were connected, meaning that they both would drive towards the target at the same time to start the downswing. 

[klineka]

Had another lesson today, my instructor is happy with my backswing improvements on both my irons and driver, definitely have improved a lot so far this winter.

I'm not jumping off my right leg as much as I used to, but there's still a little bit of that along with me not pressing into the ground enough during my backswing. 

Main priority piece is feeling like I am loading into my right heel/glute on the way back. One drill we did for this was to have my right heel off the ground at address, and then during the backswing I drop that heel down and really sit back into that heel and glute while my body coils/loads.

Second priority piece is once I have loaded into my right side correctly, initiate the downswing by putting pressure into my left foot and a subtle shift forwards of my hips towards the target, which helps me stay low and more covered over the ball instead of jumping up and backing out of the shot. 

Will do some practice swings where I have both feels, but when I am hitting balls, I will be focusing on the right heel/glute loading piece first before moving onto the left foot piece.

Really happy with where my game is right now, wedges are dialed in, the other day I scored an 80 on a Trackman wedge test from 70-120 yds, which they estimate to be at a scratch level. 

Putting has been solid too, mainly focusing on putts inside 8 feet and making sure I am lining the clubface up properly.

As part of my next lesson I will be getting fit for a hybrid as I started hitting my old one and like it a lot but it has a regular flex shaft that is super light and not ideal when I am swinging the hybrid in the upper 90 mph range.

Edited February 4, 2020 by klineka

[klineka]

Practiced today focusing on starting with the right heel up, then really sitting back into that heel and right glute during the backswing. 

Started off slow and continued to work my way up in speed. This was a relatively easy feeling for me to "get" so at the end I decided to rip a couple swings at full speed and see what happened. 

I was blown away. Club plane stayed shallower, clubhead speeds were 110-115, topped out at 116. Even the mishits were carrying 260+ consistently.

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, klineka said:

Practiced today focusing on starting with the right heel up, then really sitting back into that heel and right glute during the backswing. 

Started off slow and continued to work my way up in speed. This was a relatively easy feeling for me to "get" so at the end I decided to rip a couple swings at full speed and see what happened. 

I was blown away. Club plane stayed shallower, clubhead speeds were 110-115, topped out at 116. Even the mishits were carrying 260+ consistently.

I only get those numbers in video games. 😪

[klineka]

The past week or so is by far the best I have ever hit driver. 

Still keeping with the main feel of loading into my right heel/glute and it feels like every single drive is right out of the center of the clubface. Accuracy has been solid too, path is slightly (1-3 degrees) inside out and face is typically pretty neutral with the occasional open face which I fixed by strengthening my grip a touch and having the clubface a touch more shut at address (in reality it was probably open to my target at address previously)

Smooth swings are in the low to mid 160 mph ball speed, and let a couple go today and below was the result. Had another at 172.9 too. Really happy that my swing plane is in the low 50s too, my instructor said 53 or lower is ideal. Previously I was in the upper 50s and low 60s with driver. The +- number on swing plane got thrown off because it misread one swing plane at like 35 but the rest were all within like 51-54. 

[GolfLug]

On 2/6/2020 at 1:58 PM, klineka said:

Practiced today focusing on starting with the right heel up, then really sitting back into that heel and right glute during the backswing. 

Started off slow and continued to work my way up in speed. This was a relatively easy feeling for me to "get" so at the end I decided to rip a couple swings at full speed and see what happened. 

I was blown away. Club plane stayed shallower, clubhead speeds were 110-115, topped out at 116. Even the mishits were carrying 260+ consistently.

Damn.

[ncates00]

On 2/11/2020 at 1:30 PM, klineka said:

Smooth swings are in the low to mid 160 mph ball speed, and let a couple go today and below was the result. Had another at 172.9 too.

$

[klineka]

45 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

Damn.

40 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

$

Thanks guys! 

Looking forward to getting outside, I'm ready to see this work pay off on the course.

[klineka]

Really hitting the ball well right now with all of my clubs. 

This is by far the furthest and straightest I have consistently hit driver, I feel like this has the potential to turn into a real weapon for me this season and beyond. Over the past 2 weeks my driver has had a smaller shot zone than my 3 wood while carrying ~30 yards further.

Irons have been solid too, for the first time I have a reliable shot shape (~ 5 yd push draw) and have been playing around with trying different shot shapes on command and it has been pretty successful. I still will play my stock shot shape almost all the time, but it gives me a lot of confidence knowing I can intentionally cut/draw the ball on command now. Have recently spent a little time learning how to hit huge hooks/slices too and keep them low for use as recovery shots.

Main priority piece with the irons is the feeling of keeping my elbows closer together, I do a lot of reps with a medium sized ball in between my arms, the facility I go to has a couple of the tour striker smart balls but I struggle to even make contact when my arms are that close together so I am starting with a slightly larger ball and will eventually work my way towards using the smart ball. 

[klineka]

Last night I hit outside for the first time this year and hit really well throughout the bag, driver was on point, hit roughly 10 drivers and had one that might have missed a fairway, they were all dead straight and far.

Was flushing my 4/5/6 irons too, which was one of my biggest weaknesses last season so I'm excited to have confidence with those irons, especially for second shots into par 5s. 

Might try to get out and play my first round of the season on Sunday.

[klineka]

Played my first round of the year yesterday and had by far the best ball striking round with my irons ever. 

Hit 13 GIR (personal high for me) and on three par 5s I was on the green in two, with those 3 approach shots coming from the 195-215 range using long irons.

Driver was ok, I hit pretty much every drive right out of the center of the clubface, I just had a pretty strong slice about half the time, which surprised me because I hadn't seen misses like that at all this winter. I think my alignment was off and I was lining up too far to the left which was affecting my path.

They hadn't cut the greens yet this year so they were unbelievable slow and some of them were covered with sticks/debris so I didn't really care or pay that close attention to putting. 

Overall really pleased with the iron ball striking, if I can get the driver accuracy to match what I am seeing inside I should definitely be seeing some lower scores this season.

[klineka]

Found out my local driving range is still open so hit balls there today, this is by far the best I have ever hit the ball.

Irons were crisp, main swing thought is keeping my elbows close together on the way back/top of the backswing. Worked on some knock down shots, have a good feeling for taking 10-15 yards off my PW,9,8 irons now.

Driver was the best it's ever been, very neutral ball flight, not much curve in either direction. Main thought for driver at setup/address is make sure I stand far away from the ball, I realized today that in my last 2 rounds I was standing way too close to the ball. Main swing thought is during the backswing really load weight into my right heel, feeling like my right toes are coming off the ground slightly (they aren't really) and make sure my back/torso are leaning away from the target.

Spent a bit of time working on 50-75 yard wedge shots too, I now have a swing length/feeling dialed in for 50,60, and 70 yard carries.

[mcanadiens]

2 minutes ago, klineka said:

Found out my local driving range is still open

Does Gov. Dewy know about this?

Thought the ranges were supposed to be all shut. 

[klineka]

6 minutes ago, mcanadiens said:

Does Gov. Dewy know about this?

Thought the ranges were supposed to be all shut. 

Not sure. They did have a number of precautions, only half the bays were open, all the doors were propped open, said they sanitized all the balls and buckets after use, putting greens and short game area were closed, etc. 

[klineka]

In my round yesterday and the first part of my range session today I was hitting pushes and some push slices, I realized at the range that at address my driver was pointed well right of the target, basically straight where my club face was pointing. Worked on the alignment and made it square to the target and hit the next 5 dead straight with no more pushes or push slices.

Need to keep that in mind in my coming practice sessions and rounds.

Also worked on my 100-150 shots, mainly with my GW and PW, my proximity to the pin in the last 3 rounds (17 shots) from 100-150 (40 ft) is further than the proximity from 150-200 (37 ft)

[klineka]

Had been playing my last couple rounds and noticed that my driver distance was down quite a bit even on well struck shots, well I figured out that the center of the clubface has a crack in it. If you run your finger over the face you can feel exactly where it is. I reached out to Callaway to see if they will do anything, but I think I might be outside the warranty period so I'm not optimistic. 

Once they get back to me, assuming they won't replace it, I will most likely schedule a driver fitting at True Spec near me in Columbus. I have heard great things about their facilities and it would be the first time I've been properly fit for a driver while hitting multiple brands at once instead of the demo days where I usually would just hit one brand/shaft combination.

I'm pretty brand neutral for driver, I plan on going with whatever brand performs the best for me, although I do have a couple in mind that I know I want to try including Ping G410 and Taylormade SIM and I have heard great things about both models.