My Swing (klineka)

[iacas]

I'll see you on the 10th?

Work on Key #2 things until then. Get the hips forward more so they can get around better. You're swinging on stilts right now.

Clear your mind of everything else. Get more dynamic and more forward with your legs, get some axis tilt.

[klineka]

50 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

Not to alarm you, but it looks like someone vandalized your grill cover.

 That was good. 

16 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'll see you on the 10th?

Work on Key #2 things until then. Get the hips forward more so they can get around better. You're swinging on stilts right now.

Clear your mind of everything else. Get more dynamic and more forward with your legs, get some axis tilt.

Yeah I'll be there on the 10th, and ok I'll work on that in the meantime. Now that you mentioned it I definitely see what you mean when you say I'm swinging on stilts.

[klineka]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Work on Key #2 things until then. Get the hips forward more so they can get around better. You're swinging on stilts right now.

Clear your mind of everything else. Get more dynamic and more forward with your legs, get some axis tilt.

Watched a couple of the Key #2 videos, practiced squishing a foam ball under my left foot and felt the feeling of my left knee moving down and over my left foot, and the right knee moving straight towards the target and this was the result at impact with a 9 to 3 swing and a foam ball. 

Obviously it's going to take a while to get used to the motion and it will be completely different once I work up to a full swing, and I know there's still room to have even more weight forward, but it surprised me how much changed with my arms and wrists (didnt flip!) by sliding my hips and getting more weight forward. Hips look more open too.

[klineka]

On 2/27/2019 at 6:33 PM, iacas said:

I'll see you on the 10th?

Work on Key #2 things until then. Get the hips forward more so they can get around better. You're swinging on stilts right now.

Clear your mind of everything else. Get more dynamic and more forward with your legs, get some axis tilt.

Really really struggling with this feeling. Is it more about the hips sliding forward or the hips and upper body rotating open? Or some combination of both?

I can kind of get the hips to move forward (first video below) but the flip and terrible upper body positions still exist in that video. The moment I try to add any feelings of openness I feel and look like I've never swung a golf club before (2nd and 3rd videos) 

 

I cant even make consistent or solid contact on half speed swings or pitch shots which is really frustrating because I know that means I have no chance of making the right motion on a full speed/full swing. 

Supposed to be pretty cold this week so probably will just take a few days off and try to reset until I can work with Erik next Sunday.

[klineka]

Went back out after watching some videos of myself and pros and realized I had too much weight on my back foot at address.

Put a bit more weight on my front foot, (probably 60% front, 40% back if I had to guess) and had the thought of "hips forward, head back" throughout the swing and I started making really solid contact and swing started looking a bit better on video.

 

[iacas]

You're still letting the head go forward and creating virtually no axis tilt.

I'll see ya on the 10th.

[klineka]

Visited @iacas along with @georgep and @saevel25 up in Erie at Golf Evolution yesterday. Working with Erik in person was awesome and really helpful.

I have a few things to work on in my setup and backswing.

• Grip - In the fingers, not the palms, make sure my left palm pad is on top of the grip. 
• Stance - further away from the ball, more bent over with lower hands (Feels like the club is extremely toe up but that's just because the old setup was super upright with the heel of the club almost off the ground.)
• Backswing - Turn, turn, turn with the upper body and let the arms move naturally with the upper body. Bend over the right hip which creates axis tilt away from the target. Keep hands inside diagonal alignment stick on the way back. Doing this creates much more hand depth on the backswing.

Main drill I will be doing is make a backswing where I pause at the top and check positions in a mirror. I do 2 rehearsals without hitting the ball, and then on the 3rd swing, if the positions look correct at the top, I get to hit the ball on the downswing.

[Foot Wedge]

6 hours ago, klineka said:

Main drill I will be doing is make a backswing where I pause at the top and check positions in a mirror. I do 2 rehearsals without hitting the ball, and then on the 3rd swing, if the positions look correct at the top, I get to hit the ball on the downswing.

Is the mirror position face on or down the line?

[klineka]

42 minutes ago, Foot Wedge said:

Is the mirror position face on or down the line?

Both.

Yesterday I was using the face on mirror to check my axis tilt at the top of the backswing, and the down the line mirror to make sure my hands are getting to the proper depth at the top of the backswing.

[GolfLug]

Hope you don't mind my posting on your thread, but doesn't the rock skipping motion work for you? Nothing specific but I think it works for a lot of folks as a general feeling of open impact. 

[klineka]

11 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

Hope you don't mind my posting on your thread, but doesn't the rock skipping motion work for you? Nothing specific but I think it works for a lot of folks as a general feeling of open impact. 

I dont know if that particular thought would help much, I throw and do everything left handed except golf, so I think I probably would have a hard time with that motion from the right hand side. Me skipping a rock right handed probably wouldn't look the best.

When I was working with Erik yesterday, once I started making a proper body turn on the backswing, I noticed I did have more rotation through impact (just like he said would happen) and I never gave a single thought to my downswing and follow through that entire lesson.

Funny how things kinda start to work together once you start the sequence the right way 

[GolfLug]

7 hours ago, klineka said:

When I was working with Erik yesterday, once I started making a proper body turn on the backswing, I noticed I did have more rotation through impact (just like he said would 

Funny how things kinda start to work together once you start the sequence the right way 

Agreed.. your A4 looks night and day better in pics above.

Edited March 12, 2019 by GolfLug

[klineka]

Went to the range last night and hit some balls outdoors for the first time with the new swing thoughts. 

It went better than expected. Spent a lot of time doing the dry reps and paused swings, and towards the end I started mixing in some regular speed swings as well. No shanks at all which was better than what I was doing at Golf Evolution while working on the new swing. 

At the beginning I was hitting a lot of pulls like I was at Golf Evolution, but I weakened my grip a little (so left thumb is now straight on top of the grip instead of on the right side of the grip) and that straightened the shots out a lot. I still made sure the grip was in my fingers and the palm pad was on top of the grip.

First time trying the swing thoughts with driver too and it was pretty solid, most shots were out of the middle of the clubface and fairly straight for the most part.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, klineka said:

It went better than expected. Spent a lot of time doing the dry reps and paused swings, and towards the end I started mixing in some regular speed swings as well.

Just make sure you stick with the reps for a while. A long while. 🙂

[iacas]

So how's it been going?

[klineka]

On 3/29/2019 at 5:48 PM, iacas said:

So how's it been going?

Pretty good. The grip, stance, and position of the club at address is almost becoming second nature now, I'm not having to think about that too much. Ball flight is straight to slight fade which is normal for me and what I am comfortable with seeing.

Still working on the backswing piece, I'm getting to the point now where once I am at the top of the swing, even on full speed swings, I can feel my axis tilt and tell if I am in a good position or not.

The main feeling that has been helping me is feeling like my hands are going to brush my right leg on the way back, kinda like Jim Furyk. I know that my hands are nowhere close to doing what his do, but that feeling helps me keep them inside the alignment stick on the way back and then naturally gets them to the proper position at the top of the backswing. Also I have found that when my hands move in and back in the proper slot, my front shoulder moves along with that, and I end up with proper axis tilt naturally.

The biggest area of improvement I have seen so far out of the changes is with the 3 wood and long irons. I played my first round of the year 2 weekends ago and hit three really solid 3 woods, all out 220-240 yds, 2 off the deck and 1 off the tee. I have never had so much confidence with the 3 wood. Prior to these changes, 3 wood was my least favorite club in the bag, followed by 4,5,6 irons, of which I hit multiple really solid 5/6 irons in the 185-200 range.

I have a Kentucky golf trip coming up later this week, so probably will only get 1 more practice session in between now and then.

[klineka]

Just got back from the golf trip. Really happy with how I played overall.

Shot a 77 in my only round where we played our own individual ball. The round started out rough with 2 doubles in the first 3 holes, but included 4 birdies, the most I have ever made in a round. That was the best driving round I have ever had, my distance was up compared to last year, probably due to SuperSpeed training, and in the Driving category on GameGolf, I gained 1.63 strokes compared to a scratch golfer.

I played the par 5s in 3 under par, and was on the green in 2 shots twice after really solid 5 and 6 irons, and was 2 inches from holing out from 36 yds for eagle for the other par 5 that I birdied.

---

View this round on GAME GOLF

Putting was really solid all weekend as well, my buddies mentioned how it seemed like every putt had a chance to go in. I was really focusing on keeping my head still throughout the stroke, I noticed a few weeks ago that I actually moved my head and followed the putter on the way back with my eyes.

We played a couple different formats in our other rounds, and in one of the rounds, I smoked one drive that went 340 yds, and another one that was 310. I also chipped in twice from just off the green for birdies in other rounds as well.

I felt comfortable with the new grip and how the club sits at address, and I tried to focus on the hand path as well on the backswing, but I know I still need more work with that. Direction was fine with the irons, they were pretty straight for the most part, contact was a bit inconsistent though, I could definitely feel when I had the proper axis tilt and hand depth.

Excited to keep working at the swing and really happy with the results I'm seeing so far.

[klineka]

I feel like I am making some pretty good progress, grip and club position at address feel normal now and it doesnt take me much thought to get those right. 

DTL view looks similar to what I had at Golf Evolution and much better than it did originally. Backswing might have been a touch longer than necessary but that's easy for me to fix. 

I had a face on view too from last night but accidentally deleted it from my phone before I put it on YouTube. But I did watch it a few times and the axis tilt is definitely where it needs to be, angled away from the target at the top of the backswing.

I will still keep focusing on the backswing piece for a little bit more, but I think it might be getting close to where I can add in my next priority piece.

I'm trying to be patient but I cringe every time I see my face-on view and see how bad I flip/how bent my left arm is at impact. 

Before     Golf Evolution     Last night