JackLee

Try pulling with your left shoulder , while tilting your spine and head away from your target a little. I use an old tip that says "look under the back of your ball in the downswing. That gives me the tilt I need and focuses my eyes where the leading edge of my clubface needs to go. Be sure your left arm is fully extended through your release and impact. Pulling with your left shoulder should make your other body movements automatic, including making your left hip lead. Try to make your clubhead path a little inside-out through impact.

Try making your backswing by just turning your left shoulder around your spine, which takes your left arm and club back together in a rotary motion. See if you can do that while allowing some weight shift to the inside of your right foot, but no further.

There are several things that will affect the right elbow position at the top. Upright or flat swing plane. Swing plane parallel or not to the target line. Length of backswing. How much extension you maintain. Strong, neutral, or weak grip. Clubface rotated 90 degrees or not. May be others. I'm not sure which of these an instructor would consider a fault.

If passive arms and/or hands means that they don’t do anything but hold onto the club, then that would not describe my swing. My arms and hands don’t do any of the swinging. My body does that. However, my left arm and hand control the extension, rotation, and maybe some of the wrist action. I am also aware that my right hand helps a great deal with the rotation through impact. I think there are some who like to use a grip and ball position that will return the clubface to square through impact, without any conscious rotation. I have not tried that.

I was aware that Jim Flick teaches hands and arms, but if I do that, my arm swing gets ahead of my body movements with disastrous results. Here is what I posted in another thread for someone who was looking for a swing that would be easy on his right shoulder. ”Well, I don’t have shoulder problems, but: If you hold a golf club with only your left hand, you will find that the only way you can swing it, while maintaining good extension, is to push the clubhead back with your left shoulder, and then pull the clubhead down and through with your left shoulder. So, your left shoulder and the momentum of the clubhead do all of the swinging. Your left arm and left hand control the extension, rotation, and some of the wrist action. Of course, to make a good swing with this type of control, you must put both hands on the club, and allow your right side to help your left side. When done correctly, this swing makes full use of the centrifugal force, momentum, gravity, and the forward kick of the shaft. You should find that left shoulder control makes all of your other body movements automatic and synchronizes them perfectly with your arm swing, and that includes making the left hip lead. This is the bare basics of some instruction that I have been using for a few weeks. It works great for me, but I don’t know if it works for everyone. I thought that this might be easy on your right shoulder. You would just have to try it and see. If you have any interest in this, just put the title in on Google. It is “The Golf Swing and It’s Master Key Explained” by Noel Thomas. The e-book is only $6.00 and has a money back guarantee. I should warn you that it has no illustrations, but it is easy to read and understand.” In this swing, my left shoulder is the control, but, of course, it is my entire torso and legs that are doing the work. My arms do no swinging at all. Whatever swing method you use, your body movements must lead your arm swing. Maybe some players can get their body movements to respond perfectly to their arm swing. I have never been able to do that.

Yes, that's the problem. Needs to use a key that will make the body movements lead and pull the arms and club through impact. Left shoulder, left hip, whatever works. Also needs to tilt the spine and head away from the target some. JMO

I voted 6. I understand my own swing, and if I mess up, I know immediately what I did wrong. As for helping someone else, I can see some obvious things, but I would probably need to see their swing on video in slow motion to help very much.

I read this book maybe 30 years ago. The one thing that I remember is that Tommy advocated using a closed stance with the woods and, I think, the longest irons. Since then, I have used a closed stance with the woods and that has been a great help. It makes it much easier to execute the inside-out swing that I favor. The longer the club, the more difficult it is to swing inside-out from a square stance.

If I understand your question, 58 degrees sounds pretty flat for an 8 iron. However, there are several variables involved in this, so I don’t know if anything could be called standard. You might want to post the same question in the Golf Equipment Forum. Maybe a clubmaker can give you a good answer.

Well, I don’t have shoulder problems, but: If you hold a golf club with only your left hand, you will find that the only way you can swing it, while maintaining good extension, is to push the clubhead back with your left shoulder, and then pull the clubhead down and through with your left shoulder. So, your left shoulder and the momentum of the clubhead do all of the swinging. Your left arm and left hand control the extension, rotation, and some of the wrist action. Of course, to make a good swing with this type of control, you must put both hands on the club, and allow your right side to help your left side. When done correctly, this swing makes full use of the centrifugal force, momentum, gravity, and the forward kick of the shaft. You should find that left shoulder control makes all of your other body movements automatic and synchronizes them perfectly with your arm swing, and that includes making the left hip lead. This is the bare basics of some instruction that I have been using for a few weeks. It works great for me, but I don’t know if it works for everyone. I thought that this might be easy on your right shoulder. You would just have to try it and see. If you have any interest in this, just put the title in on Google. It is “The Golf Swing and It’s Master Key Explained” by Noel Thomas. The e-book is only $6.00 and has a money back guarantee. I should warn you that it has no illustrations, but it is easy to read and understand. I hope that right shoulder gets better, and I hope you find a swing that will work for you so you can get back to playing.

One error that I see with wedges is a failure to bend over and/or bend the knees enough. This results in the player setting up too close to the ball and swinging too upright. That makes it difficult to rotate the clubface properly through impact.

Two possibilities: 1. Not completing your backswing. 2. Arm swing getting ahead of body movements. Make your swings slow and deliberate. With your index, you must have a key that will make your body movements lead your arm swing perfectly. Just complete your backswing, and then use your downswing key, slow and easy. Of course I'm just guessing. It could be something else.

I have read, watched, and listened to everything on Ron’s website. My thoughts are these: That “no look” swing must take a lot of practice every day, even for the gifted players who can do it well. I have always thought that Annika would be better if she did not do that. I have seen her hit some very bad shots a few times. Any argument that the head staying back stops or restricts the body movements is simply not valid. One example Ron gives is a baseball pitcher, but the golf swing is not a throwing motion, it is a swinging motion. If you were trying to hit a baseball (even in T-Ball), would you be looking at where you want the ball to go after impact. There are some things I like in Ron’s method. Powering the swing with the big core muscles is good, and timing the swing to work with the centrifugal force is good. However, my key is the left shoulder, not the right. My arms and hands are swung by my left shoulder and the momentum of the clubhead. The slow, deliberate swing is also good. Both accuracy and distance depend first and foremost on perfect timing and solid contact. I don't like the thought of swinging "through the ball". For me, it's about centrifugal force, momentum, gravity, and the forward kick of the shaft all coming together to create a whip like action through impact.

I strongly agree with keeping your head and eyes still until well after impact, and being committed to the line and speed that you have read. I also like picking a spot to start the ball over. The following is a tip that may help some, especially if you have any tendency toward the “yips”. It is from “The Golf Swing and It’s Master Key Explained” by Noel Thomas. “To make a deliberate putting stroke with the correct clubhead path and clubface angle, try the following swing thought. Tell yourself that you must ‘Push your ball into the hole’. Of course you are not allowed to actually push your ball into the hole. You must make a backswing and then strike your ball on the forward swing. However, just thinking of your forward swing as pushing your ball into the hole will cause you to make a very deliberate stroke through impact and on toward your target. You can try this with any putting method.”

I use left shoulder control.

I started using the instruction is a small e-book titled “The Golf Swing and It’s Master Key Explained” by Noel Thomas. OK, this is only my second post here, but be assured that I am not a promoter. I skim through several golf instruction forums as I have time, so I had seen references to this instruction. I had read the copy on the website, and I had seen it listed for sale on eBay. I figured it was just another rip-off. Then I found a 9 page thread on it in another forum that was mostly positive with some of the posts being very enthusiastic. From reading the posts in that thread, it seemed to work very easily for those who were already using some form of left side control. For those using right side control, it took more time and practice to change over. I was using total left side control, with my left hip as my downswing key, but that barely kept me in the 80s. I have been buying instruction for many years, so I spent another $6.00 with a money back guarantee. For me, it works exactly as the ad says. Now if I could learn to putt better, I might be good at this game.

If you are talking about less than full wedge shots, you could be decelerating.