bendport

Shanks occur when the club moves too close to the ball on the downswing, possible causes are 1) You are holding the lag angle too much and coming from the inside too much 2) You are coming over the top 3)You are casting from the top of the swing losing the lag too soon and flipping the club over on impact 4)You are moving your upper body closer to the ball on the back swing, not achieving a deep enough hip turn :)

sounds like your coming too much from into out either with a square face or a closed face in relation to that path

In my experience, having a cupped wrist at the top would typically be caused by a weak grip or a grip where the left thumb position was too pinched backwards where as a bowed left wrist at the top would be caused by a strong grip or a grip with a long left thumb. Are you fanning the club open on your takeaway as this can often lead to a cupped position at the top?

To implement and make changes to golf swings can take 1000's of balls for some, others can pick it up quicker. The average golfer probably plays and practices once a week at best, they'll obviously be exceptions to this. I think that unless you can commit to at least 3 hours of practice a week(at least one of these hours with a pro that knows what they're doing), you will find it difficult to make significant changes to your swing and you're better of going for a more intuitve, task lead, less technical style of coaching

Eureka, got it....finally!! Understood, makes sense, thanks!

It's been 4 years since I read this book but thought it was an informative read and even tried the techniques whilst coaching some of my clients with mixed success. I would personally say that having tried both the one and two plane swings, one was too steep and the other too flat. Also, if you look at most guys on tour these days they do a combination of the two, but certainly from the perspective of understanding what steepens and flattens the mechanics of the golf swing this was a good read.

Eureka, got it....finally!!

so with a pull draw the same could be said Club face to target - Closed Club face in relation to path - Closed Path into ball - out to in or in to out

Nicely explained, thanks!

Just a quicky on the push fade shot under the new ball flight laws If I understand correctly, the push fade could be caused by different swing paths into the ball Clubface in relation to target - open Clubface in relation to path - open Path into ball - could be in to out or out to in? Thanks

Not sure if your problems are technical or mental. I like to play the ball middle to back in the stance but not too far back and weight not too much on the left side as this could cause your chipping action to be too steep. Make sure your left hand isn't too tense and that the right hand is acellerating through the shot and not stalling, this can often lead to a thins and fats, heres a little mental video to change your approach to thinkinf if your problem is mental

If you have an overswing at the top of your backswing chances are, unless you are a very good player, you will be casting the club from the top of your backswing this will then be putting you over the top causing the shot to the left. Work out why you are overswinging would be my advice although it's hard to comment without seeing your swing. Quite often, people with big overswings don't have the club travelling fast enough through impact so they swing it longer to try and gain power, unfortunately this long swing is a waste of energy as they don't store the momentum down into impact with the correct lag. Try this drill to help you shorten your swing, good luck!!

Won't flattening your plane help to get the impact more central anyway?

Power in the golf swing comes through a few different things in my opinion Arm speed Wrist hinge (backswing) lag downswing Keeping posture angles on impact Here is a video of how to increase your club head speed using the wrists and although I would not advocate too much wrist action in the golf swing if you have no wrist action through impact at all then you may need to build some in first before you can control it. The first tip is how to build it in and then second is how to control it.

Clubs too short for you? Grip tightening before impact? Pulling arms into body around the impact area?

Over analysing your swing is a very common problem and causes the swing to feel tense because the concious brain was not designed to move the muscles in the body and it can only effectively do one thing at a time, because of this too many swing thoughts can lead to tension and a lack of flow in the golf swing. This video link below is titled, "How to remove the tension from your swing", but it is also a great way of focussing your conscious brain onto something non technical. Follow the steps and either focus your mind on your breathing or the humming, either of these two things will soon get rid of the swing thoughts and restore the natural flow to your swing

Thanks that's an interesting read, and I'll deifnaitely give it a try! I think all of the info I quoted was from Peltz, including the multiplying your intial read by 2.5. If I recall he once did a survey at a big amateur event in the U.S. and gave 1000 golfers(I cant remember the exact number), 3 different putts to hit of varying distances and slopes and 85-90% of them under borrowed and missed on the low side of the hole. He classified these people as apex putters and worked out that when this type of golfer looks at a putt, because their head is down for the first part of the putt, they imagine that the ball has rolled straight for the first 2/3rd's of the putt and only actually started to turn on the apex of the slope towards the hole. As a pose to reality where the ball starts to turn from the moment it is hit. Due to this fact he said to multiply the intitial read by 2.5 and I must admit, it does work well for me.

I'm intrested to hear about how people read putts. I'm an apex putter so when I read a putt I end up having to multiply my initial read by around 2.5 to get the correct line. I would then pick a point on this line around 18 inches past the hole and focus on this point as I putt. Does anyone else do this or something different?

In the video I don't think i said to actively role your forearms over, I said that if you swing at baseball height the forearms with naturally rotate over caused by gravity making that happen

No problem, some valid points made! I try to get the feeling that my right hand is staying on top of the grip in this waist position, so that when at waist height in the downswing the club face is parallel to my spine angle. This pushing down with the right hand extends the right arm into impact which then leads to the release and rotation of the forearms into the follow through. I hope I've said that right lol! Please go easy on me haha

Having reviewed the video I've noticed that I've made a couple of mistakes with regard to the classification of the shot through a lack of release, calling it a slice not a push or push slice and you are correct that a slice is caused by an over the top move(out to in swing plane with an open club face. I will edit the video in relation to this point. Thanks for the feedback

Thanks for the info on ball flight, I will pass my comments on it later as it is a lot to digest!! With regard to the release...... For me, I start the release just before impact, by "through swing" I mean, rotatating and extending the right arm from around waist height on the downswing "through impact" bringing the club into a square position then after impact the forearms will then fully rotate (release) and extend. So I don't see the problem with this drill as it gives golfers a feeling of the arm rotation through impact and into the follow through and has worked well with the hundreds of golfers I have personally used it on over the past 15 years of full time golf coaching.

Thanks for your comments even if a little blunt. The last time I checked, swing path normally dictates the direction that the ball starts on, club face causes the spin on the ball, ie. closed face = right to left, open face = left to right spin. Think you might want to check your ball flight laws out. Secondly, don't the forearms rotate during the through swing? I think practically every golfer on the world stage does it apart from maybe Zach Johnson who has a very strong grip.

Quite often, an inabilty to release the club can be caused by the hips opening up too quickly on the downswing, this can often occur more with the longer clubs as we all try to hit them harder. Try this drill, it will firm up the left hip through impact and help you to release the golf club as you swing through.

Try this drill, in my opinion, it gets the best results with my clients