dkling8

I've found this technique works best for me when my wedge sits a little bit toe-down, heel-up. Anybody else play these shots with the club a bit more vertical than usual? I assume it has something to do with the bounce on my wedges.

It's been a couple years, but here's the latest:

With the ball more forward than usual, or in a neutral position? ( I assume a neutral position based on your next sentence, but I wanted to clarify). For a swing with a later "release", w ould placing the ball further forward for irons cause AoA issues? Why do you recommend a bit of "throw" for irons instead of moving the ball up? And would you recommend a little "throw" with the driver too?

My drives have always been pushes. I have to intentionally flip like crazy to be able to hit it straight. Just to experiment, I tried playing the ball an inch FORWARD of my front foot, teed pretty high, hitting up. Here's the video: Just from these two pictures, you can see how much ball position would affect my drives. I'm 6'3'' with long legs, and I've always gone with the standard "inside left foot" ball position. I'm reconsidering, especially since I've read some good instructors write that they "rarely find a student with the ball too far forward."

1. Charl Schwartzel (-7) 2. Steve Stricker (-5) 3. D.A. Points (-5)

I feel like this is my best swing to date. I'm going to work on lowering my scores, instead of tinkering around with my swing every week. Unless anyone sees any big changes I need to make, I think I'm going to just relax and play some golf for awhile.

Especially the last sentence, considering the entire article teaches you how to hit 'double-cross draws'.

I have this problem from time to time too. I find it's when I'm set up a little bit too close to the ball, and my weight is too much on my heels at address. Your video shows some of both of those things in my opinion. Maybe you could try backing off the ball a bit, and making sure your weight feels more toward the balls of your feet.

I wouldn't worry about it honestly. As far as the actual performance of your clubs goes, it most likely has little to no effect. I think offset is more about how your clubs look to your eye at address.

I use a line. If I can't line up a putt when looking directly down the line of the putt from behind, I don't think I would be much better hunched over with a tilted head. It's mostly a confidence thing.

Here ya go . I actually did get my distance equation from eq 37, I just added in some things to change angle to grade and rho to stimp.

Honestly it's probably 20% wedges 60% irons 20% woods I feel like I am improving my swing most when I'm hitting 5-8 iron. I can focus on mechanics since my swing doesn't feel overly flat (driver) or upright (wedges). I usually start with wedges and move to longer clubs, but if there's a day where I can't hit a solid 8 iron, I'm not going to feel like moving up to 4 iron or driver.

So... The answer according to the equations in the paper is 31 ft! I went ahead and worked it out all the way just in case anyone cares to fiddle with any other numbers. Just plug in initialballspeed (ft/s), grade (positive = uphill, negative = downhill), and stimp. If you get negative values for distance, that means your ball rolls away forever... For reference, a stimpmeter rolls a ball at 6 ft/s. Erik's numbers are pretty dang close to what the equation says. Ok, that's enough math for awhile. Back to golf...

Haha actually it's almost an equal fail on mine... I must have overlooked equation 37, so I used equations 11b and 17b to run a simulation. You're exactly right though, when I solve equation 37 directly...I get the same answer! No simulation needed.

Interesting... we have answers ranging from 16.5 ft to ball-rolls-forever. I had this idea because I recently realized how I always go long on downhill putts, but I'm rarely short on uphill putts. It not obvious to me how much I need to change my stroke for an uphill putt vs a downhill putt, as compared to a straight putt of the same length. I posted this as a fun experiment so people could give a general guess as to what as to what an steep-ish Augusta green might do. I linked the paper, so anyone could work it out if they really wanted to, but that wasn't really the intent. Maybe I'll wait til tonight to post the simulation result. Why, yes. Actually I forgot to mention this "green" is inside the cabin of a lifting off 747! The equations assume grain has no effect...I'm just going by what the simulation spits out. Like sacm3bill said, everything you need to know about friction should be wrapped up in stimp. When you roll the ball down the stimpmeter on flat ground, it goes 12 feet. That tells you how much friction there is.

So I was thinking about the difference between uphill, level, and downhill putts. I found this paper , and decided to make a quick simulation. You give it stimp, grade, and putt speed, and it finds the rollout of your putt. Here's the puzzle: I'm on a green where my level putt rolls 12ft, and my 4% grade uphill putt rolls 7.5 ft. How far does the same putt go if it's hit down the 4% grade??? Hint: the stimp is 12 (Augusta National?). Initial Speed % Grade Rollout of Putt 6 ft/s Level 12 ft 6 ft/s 4% Uphill 7.5 ft 6 ft/s 4% Downhill ??? Any guesses?

Make sure to check out this article about the ball flight laws. A pull slice means at impact your face points left, and you're path is even further left. Basically your slices aren't from a club face problem, they're from a club path problem. It's all due to you swinging too far left. A few years ago when I was swinging too far left, I worked on hitting a push draw every single swing. If you can make the ball start right and curve left, you're on the way to fixing that slice. Search the forums and you'll find plenty of drills and other info.

Ok guys, here's an update. I've been working on a more athletic setup position, and a less inside takeaway. It makes the backswing feel a lot more natural, but I'm having issues getting good contact. I didn't have problems with weight forward or flat left wrist in the past, but lately I've been hitting a lot of shots fat and thin. I'm also working on getting my right side through the ball better. I really like how guys like Hunter Mahan get all the way through the ball with their right side. Any new comments?

He only moved his second ball left by about 1 foot. I hate to get all mathy and stuff, but if he's about 85 yards from the pin and only moves the ball 1 foot left, that means the ball would have had to ricochet back within about 0.25 degrees of dead straight. Suppose the ball bounces back only 5 degrees to his left, he would be playing his second shot from at least 7 yards left of where his first shot was from, not 1 foot. I understand things don't have to be exact, but the ball would literally have to bounce EXACTLY straight back at him for him to hit his second shot from only 1 foot left.

It will be interesting to see the discussion in the morning. These types of things spread like wildfire because of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. I'm going out on a limb and predicting a DQ. He said on camera that he was taking 2 yards off his swing, and taking 2 more yards off by moving back, for a total of 4 yards shorter than his previous shot. Then he nailed the shot. People get DQed for illegally raking bunkers, brushing twigs on their backswings, etc. I think this was more of an advantage than any of those things. So the rules committee can DQ him if they think he was too far away from his original shot? Or does he have to admittedly say that he was not "intending" to play the same shot "as close as possible"?

Explains how to hit a draw by first aligning to the target, then closing the face. Then he hits a push draw that ends up right of the pin. Remember guys: "I believe in having my Ph.D in impact, and the inch afterwards, and I think that's what you should do too. That way, when you hit it good, it's not a big surprise. It's not like 'Well, my timing's good today.' "

Cool, two videos in one day! Mike, I was just looking through your YouTube channel last night for some good DTL pitches of different lengths. You read my mind. Erik, your video was helpful too. It looks like the very beginning of your takeaway is still kind of "one piece" and fairly low. Then the wrists hinge up pretty fast so the hands don't have to get too far from the body. My problem was that I was almost picking the club up to keep my hands close, instead of starting the swing with my body turning back. Would you say that you feel the beginning of your takeaway being "low", or do you not really think about it too much?

Ok, that makes more sense now. I do find that if I'm trying to pitch dead handed I can't fly the ball very far at all. I guess it's about having less moving parts overall, with a pitching motion that's useful all the way up to a full swing with your wedge. Yeah, these are the same types of misses I've been having. I can feel what I'm supposed to be doing when 50% of my shots pop up nice and easy... it's just the inconsistency of the other 50% my pitches. I guess I just need more practice.

Thanks a ton guys, that cleared up some things. It's still not super intuitive to me though... When I'm moving the club a lot, and my hands a little, the swing radius is very small. Almost a smaller radius than nearly any other type of shot, right? It just seems to me like a Stricker-like pitch would be the best if you were wanting to engage the bounce for the longest time, and have the shallowest approach. That style of pitching has a much larger radius, and while low point control may be slightly worse, it seems like the even larger margin for error w ould offset that.