Open-Faced Club Sandwedge

I battle with this one too. It helps me to think of sliding my hips forward while holding my head back. The early opening of my shoulders on the downswing, causing that out-to-in swing path and pull/slice, brings with it an early move forward (down the target line) of my head. If I move the hips forward while keeping my head behind the ball, it keeps my shoulders in check, drops the club into the slot, and I can fire through with a little push-draw (the shot I try to play). -Andrew

Let's not forget acceleration in this equation. At the top of the backswing, you've momentarily stopped moving, but you are accelerating. You're going from moving one direction to moving the opposite direction, which, even during the instant you spend at rest, is acceleration. F = ma, your mass isn't changing, and therefore acceleration = force, and the force in the golfswing is all connected to your feet pushing on the ground. Further, let's remember how much you're accelerating; you're starting a downswing movement which is going to see your whole body moving in the direction of the target, your club moving in the direction of the target at 100 mph or more, and the ball moving in the direction of the target at ridiculous speed. That's a lot of force, and it's initiated largely by your right foot pushing off the ground. So right at the top, when you're starting all this, even if you haven't swayed a single millimeter backwards, you're going to be putting a lot of pressure on that back foot, and it won't just be a proprioceptive illusion. The big takeaway here, IMO, is we should forget about weight shift and focus on movement. Don't move (sway) onto your right foot. Better golfers generally stay left, and there are very good reasons for it. Weight is a force, and bringing force into it makes it very complicated. -Andrew

I think a lot of people have trouble understanding the difference between weight shift and sway. You can (and most beginners do) shift the weight to the right foot by swaying to your right. Or you can shift weight to the right foot without swaying, by rotating in the backswing and countering, and then reversing this rotation using the right foot. Every golf swing includes this transfer of forces. Lastly, you can shift weight to the right foot without swaying or rotating, just by easing the pressure on the left foot (in some cases lifting the heel). Now, if that's how you shift weight to your right foot, you won't be in balance, and your body will start to move to your left. But of course, this is exactly what happens in a golf swing. So it can be confusing to look at the top of Snead's backswing, and look at his left foot, and clearly see there's no weight on it. But you can see, by circling his head and drawing a line from his right foot to his right hip, that he hasn't swayed really at all. He's "stayed left", and in the downswing he goes further left. -Andrew

Whether you're being a bit harsh depends on specifically why you're saying this; what did he actually say or do that turned you off? As others have stated, you have to put up with a bit of sales pitch; they make their living by selling lessons. The question is did it get in the way of the instruction, and was the instruction on-point, correct, and useful? -Andrew

This is a very foreign idea to me, as someone who tries (somewhat successfully) to use forward weight and forward shaft lean to make sure the leading edge gets underneath the ball. How do avoid bouncing the blade of the club into the equator of the ball? -Andrew

Well, the below sounds like you probably have the ball too far back in your stance. Moving it forward will help if you need a little extra space in your swing to make sure your lag has been converted to speed at impact. But without video, that's just a guess. And in my experience, the best way to release correctly if you're holding onto your lag too long is to relax your grip a little and feel like your hands are being passive, and cultivate the feeling that all the speed and force of the swing comes from the legs, torso, and shoulders. -Andrew

Quote: Well, that's not my only objective. It's just one of my objectives. Also, even if it was my only objective, having the ability to fine-tune my driver to hit better and better drives, more and more consistently, would feed my ego all the better. And the consistency thing will help my scores, too. Just not as much as my short game lessons and practice will. -Andrew

That's something I hadn't really thought about before posting this thread, but it seems like a salient point. Perhaps what I need to do is go through the fitting process, and determine what all the variables are that suit me best, including the shaft variables, and then maybe go for an adjustable driver with a shaft that fits me well. Also, since different drivers are adjustable in different ways, it would probably be good to know which dimension makes the most difference in the results I'm getting. It could be that loft really isn't as important as I'm thinking, and what I really need is a different shaft and/or swing weight, for instance. -Andrew

Regarding saving the money and focusing on my short game, instead I think I'm going to spend the money, and focus on my short game ;) I know my short game is the part of my game where I need the most practice, and so I fully intend to do just that, but I also feel that my driver is the part of my game that could benefit the most from an equipment change, so I intend to do that also. Regarding the 910D2, I do like what I read about that club. And hitting a ball as far as possible does mean crap, even if your short game is weak; hitting that great-looking drive and blowing past your playing partners by 50 yards feels really good. And truthfully, I play golf to feel good; not specifically to score as low as possible (although a lower score feels good too, don't get me wrong). -Andrew

As a 21-handicap, I think of anything over 105 as a bad score. Mid-90's is a "good score". If I were to have a good day (for me) with my driver, irons, wedges, and putter, all in the same round (never happens), I think I'd shoot in the low 80's. But I've never broken 90, and still end up on the wrong side of 100 when I have a bad day. -Andrew

Your move from the top down is sort of "all arms". You swing back (a bit too far for best consistency, BTW), and then the next thing to move is your shoulders and arms starting back down the way they came. This is a problem that will rob you of power and make you tend toward slices, pulls, or a combination of the two. I'd try this, first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW5AhI36LJg&feature;=related That drill will help you get the feeling of a more appropriate backswing (as opposed to yours which has too much arm involvement), and will help you get the feeling of how the shoulders make the transition from backswing to downswing without coming over the top. Then, you need to work on getting your hips to slide forward, ahead of your upper body, to start the downswing. This will promote dropping the club into "the slot" and swinging through from the inside once your shoulders and arms do start to swing forward. It will also help you build a lot more power, from the ground up, since moving your lower body first creates a lot of torque through the large muscles of your torso, which in turn apply that force to the shoulders/arms. There might be other things you need to work on, but I think you need to focus first on less arms and more lower body. -Andrew

My current driver, a Cobra L4V 9-degree, seems like it doesn't have enough loft for my swing. I have a relatively high swing speed (drives I hit well go 270-280), but my most solid drives don't seem to have enough hang-time to get all the yardage they should get. I know getting a fitting is probably the answer I'll get from a lot of you, but I'm not entirely happy with that idea because I change my swing a lot; I'm a bit of a tinkerer. I'd like my driver to fit me better, but I don't want to pay to get it fit only to find out next season that I've improved my swing enough that I no longer have the right fit. Are adjustable drivers the answer? I don't mind an expensive driver, provided it lasts me more than two or three seasons. I don't have much interest in changing the face angle; I don't see how closing the face to turn a slice into a pull (or opening to turn a hook into a push) would be a good thing; instead I like to tweak my mechanics until my swing path is right. But I do want the ability to change the loft to tweak my trajectory. Are my reservations about a driver fitting vs. adjustable drivers unfounded? Among adjustable drivers, any recommendations? I have a pretty conventional, fundamentally-solid swing for a high-handicapper (short game's horrendous), but forgiveness in the form of a large sweet spot is something I value. Any input is appreciated. -Andrew

They should be different if you were constantly hitting the ball varying degrees of thin before! Look at it this way: you never knew your distances before. Now you get to discover them. -Andrew

I think what you're doing is quite interesting, and everyone who seems offended that you're trying to learn Hogan's swing seems not to understand what you keep saying: that your goal is to learn to copy the swing; not necessarily to play good golf with it. Having watched a bit of the video you've posted, I'd point out that you seem to be missing a lot of the force Hogan seemed to put into his body rotation. A lot of the "positions" you're focused on are not necessarily meaningful unless you progress between them with a certain timing. Particularly the portion from the top of the swing down to impact, involved very explosive hip and torso rotation when Hogan did it, and in your swing it's a much gentler and slower movement. Something to keep in mind I suppose. -Andrew

I had one of those swing epiphanies I sometimes have last week at the range. I had worked a good bit some time ago on making my hips slide correctly, which is a very important aspect of the swing that I've read about. It never seemed to be helping. In fact, the harder I worked on it, the more I was pull-slicing the ball. Last week, I decided to try making sure my upper body didn't move forward with my hips. Feeling like I was keeping my head back behind the ball, with just my hips sliding forward past the ball, until well after contact when my upper body would follow through and find balance on my front foot. Man, what a difference. The first few shots I connected with after making the change were mini push-draws instead of big pull-slices. They were higher, way longer, and way more consistent in terms of side-spin on the ball; always just a bit of draw spin (amount of backspin is still largely dependent on whether I hit it fat/thin). Yesterday I played 18 for the first time since making that change, and had my best tee-to-green round of my life by a wide margin. I hit 8 fairways and 10 GIR, which is 2-3 fairways and probably 5 GIR better than any other round I've ever played. Some of my missed fairways were actually very good drives that barely missed, and my misses were evenly distributed between left and right. And somehow I still managed to shoot 95. The 44 putts had quite a lot to do with it, as did the 3 penalty strokes, and the one short par 4 where I hit my drive in the fairway 65 yards from the pin, but my wedge play failed me so badly it took me the next 4 strokes to actually make it onto the putting surface, followed by 2 putts for triple bogey. Anyway, just wanted to post about it, see if anyone has other swing epiphany stories, and any other useful information about keeping the head back behind the ball through impact. -Andrew

Looks like your problem that's causing your tops and thin hooks is a bit of a flip. Look up "holding the wedge", and pay some close attention to your left wrist at the bottom of the swing. You want to make sure your left wrist stays flat while releasing the club - that's not a lot to go on, but there's a ton of information about fixing a flip if you look for it. Once you're holding the wedge and releasing the club properly, I would guess you're going to develop a slice, because your backswing is above plane, your club is "across the line" at the top, and your right elbow flares out at the start of the downswing. Fixing your swing plane so your left arm is in line with your shoulders rather than well above them should be most of the fix at that point. -Andrew

You really have to pay attention to how the ball is lying to know how to hit this shot: For a very fluffy lie, you can't rely on the bounce to keep you from hitting under it, and so you can't open the club face as much and you kind of have to sweep more than chop. When the ball's sitting down at ground level, deep within the rough, you have to chop down through the rough, and it may not be realistic to shoot at the hole; you may have to focus on a clean hit of the ball, and accept that you're not going to get as soft a landing as a flop shot would give, and just make sure you give yourself a putt coming back up the hill. Then there's that in-between lie, where you can open the face, use the bounce against the ground, and apply as much touch as you can muster. In all cases, the advice to set your shoulders with the slope is good, and I would add that forward shaft lean is your best defense against blading the ball across the green. -Andrew

If your hands aren't turning over after impact, then unless you have an extremely strong grip, you would be leaving the club-face open through impact. So you'd know because you'd be hitting push-fades. Or, stated with different emphasis: focus on what the ball is doing, and don't worry about anything that is or isn't happening after impact unless you're seeing evidence of something going wrong before impact (the part that effects what the ball does). -Andrew

You have to learn what fractional swing leads to what fractional distance. For instance, for my sandwedge, using my swing: Full swing = 105 yards. 3/4 swing = 95 yards (weird, huh?). 1/2 swing = 70 yards. Choked down an inch, 1/2 swing = 60 yards. 1/3 swing = 50 yards. 1/3 swing with 1/3 follow-through = 40 yards 1/4 swing with 1/3 follow-through = 30 yards 20 yards and less is really just a pitch shot. So for your problem of wanting to hit a SW that only goes 1/2 as far as a full SW, I know I need to take a 1/3 swing with good acceleration and follow-through. Learn your own fractional swing by using different amounts of swing and seeing how far the ball goes. It doesn't have to be rocket science. -Andrew

Can you explain this more? Observations about me, based on watching the ball and knowing the ball flight laws: Most of the time I swing slightly in-to-out, but quite often I do something wrong in my swing and it goes out-to-in, and sometimes quite severely. Much of the time I hit the ball and then the ground, but quite often I hit the ground first, and sometimes I hit the ground several inches before the ball. Sometimes I hit the ball with the face square to the path, but quite often it's either quite closed or wide open. .... etc. .... How am I doing these things if my swing is identical from one to the next? I'm not trying to be argumentative; I just want to understand what you're actually trying to say, and how it relates to improving at golf. -Andrew

Sounds like you tried to get your weight going forward during the swing, but are doing it from the chest/shoulders/head, rather than from the hips. If you get your center way out in front of the ball, you're going to top it a lot, and fall forward after the swing. You need to make the swing start with the hips going forward, but without your upper body getting out of position by the time the arms and club swing through. I don't think I can tell you any more over the internet and have it be helpful. Me writing down words is really no substitute for someone qualified working with you in person. But you do need to figure out how to get those hips moving forward to start the swing, and the resulting full body motion, once you're timing it right, will have your weight landing on the front foot on the follow through. -Andrew

What makes you expect that you should be able to hit a 3H 235 yards? The average amateur certainly can't hit it that far. I would think most touring pros would be pretty happy to hit that club that far. Are you a very long hitter overall? Do you frequently carry the ball 280+ with your driver? Do you hit your 7i 185 consistently? If so, then maybe something's wrong with the way you're hitting your 3H. If not, then you should be very happy with 220 or 225 out of that club, and focus on other problems. -Andrew

You need to work on your weight shift. You weight shifts back a little onto your right side in your backswing. In general you want to minimize this, but you're not doing it too egregiously. The egregious problem is that it stays there. You never get your weight to move forward during your swing, and you finish with your weight still mostly on your right foot. I'd concentrate on taking backswings where you don't transfer your weight to the right foot (you should try to stay centered, which to you will feel like you're staying on the left foot), and then learn to start the downswing by sliding the hips. The first move of the downswing (in fact, for many good players this move starts before the club even reaches the very top) is for the hips to slide laterally forward. You get the hips in front, which exert force through the torso to the shoulders, which turn and pull the arms through, which pull the hands through, which pull the club through. Each component gets it power from the previous one. By the time your hips have started forward and each of those other parts have whipped through impact, you can't help but land on your left foot. The fact that the hips are already left and the rest has caught up will ensure it. There are a lot of details in how to implement this move correctly that can't be described in one post. But start by making sure the hips slide forward to start the downswing. -Andrew

Congrats my friend, you've got you a case of the shanks. It's not a "slice" per se. It's coming off the hosel. That's what turns the club in your hands; the hosel hits the ball and slows down, but toe wants to keep turning, and twists in your hands. That's why your other shots are decent, also. The club can be coming through on a good path, with good speed, with a good downward strike, and with a square face, and it's a recipe for a good shot, unless you hit the ball with the hosel instead of the face. Then you shank. The driver doesn't have a hosel that can hit the ball, and thus you can't really shank it. You just hit somewhat weaker shots coming off the heel rather than the sweet spot. There are many cures to be looked up, now that you know you're searching for keyword shank. -Andrew