Open-Faced Club Sandwedge

Check out the thread started by iacas about hip slide. Instead of sliding your hips forward, it seems you take your backswing and then just rotate the hips and shoulders. It does result in your weight not really getting to your front foot, but also it turns you open to the target line before you get to impact, throws the club over the top, and means your club has no way to hit the ball other than with an out-to-in swing. See if you can find a photo or video showing Ernie Els at impact. See that his head is still behind the ball, but his hips are way in front of where they were at setup and through the backswing. That's a powerful impact position, and the result of his moving parts all moving in the proper order. It's why he has so much power with a swing that looks so smooth. If you rotate from the top as the first part of the move down, it's impossible to get to that position (and still hit the golf ball). -Andrew

Played again yesterday, after several weeks of range + lessons but not actually making it to the course. Shot 105, like I always do on that course. Chipping + putting was one of the reasons yesterday; the holes were all in really tough spots vis a vis the slope of the green, and it was really hard to chip or pitch it close, and pretty hard to 2-putt in many cases. I had 40 putts. 4 fairways hit, although at least 5 more were near the fairway in decent spots. Only 3 GIR, but I had several great opportunities for GIR that didn't happen due to poor partial-swing wedge shots. 2 pars, 6 bogeys, 4 doubles, 3 triples, and 3 quads. The quads each had penalty strokes involved, and in fact each had me hitting my 3rd shot from the tee. The story of one hole that kind of epitomized my round: 590-yd dogleg par 5. Drove the ball dead straight, 285 yards up-hill (GPS measured, and YES I'm a 27-index), middle of fairway. Excited. Hit my 4-hybrid 205 yards, baby draw, to the middle of the fairway at the dogleg (100 yards out, I'm playing this one along the line it's measured on!). Really excited. Hit my sand wedge fat, in the fairway but 20 yards short. Disappointed, but optimistic. Bladed my pitch shot, landed on the green but rolled through. Frustrated. Chipped from just off the green, got the club caught in the grass behind the ball a little, still 20 feet from the hole. Exasperated. Made a decent lag putt and holed out from 3 feet. How did the best first two shots I've ever hit become a double bogey? And friends, this is precisely why I'm a double-bogey golfer. No matter how good I look for a couple of shots during the hole, I'll end up at double bogey on average. Some day, shots that consistently do something close to what I want will be mine! But for now, I have a swing with uncommonly good fundamentals for a 27-index, but I come by that 27 honestly. -Andrew

Or he could take the bird in the hand, put himself through college with the money, and pursue whatever golf/long drive goals he has, with a college education to fall back on. But truthfully, I'd guess his parents probably have a ton of money anyway, and his college will be paid for either way, and the money probably doesn't make that much difference in terms of his life plan. -Andrew

Yeah, feel = not real is a truth I'm confronting a lot in taking lessons and seeing my swing on video. In order for me to stop my backswing short of parallel (I used to go WAY past like John Daly), I have to feel like I'm literally taking half the backswing I'm actually taking. I feel like I'm only lifting the club head up to head level, when in fact it's gone past that, past vertical, and almost all the way to parallel again! I do extend my arms pretty well. But then, I hit a lot of fat shots also. It's definitely something I need to work on. -Andrew

Your problems are common to most golfers with your physical limitations, being so short, stocky, and inflexible. Wait, I mean the opposite of that, good lord man. How tall are you? The one thing I can pick out seems to be that your hips move in toward the ball significantly on the downswing. This might tend to make you a shanker. The one thing I've found that helped me break that habit is paying attention to having my weight over the middle of my feet at setup. If I had to guess, I'd say most of your weight is on your toes. Your body will unconsciously compensate for this in order to maintain balance during the athletic motion of the swing, and you don't want that. -Andrew

Don't! You're a 25 handicap. Which do you think it going to make more difference: the difference between the wind's effect on a high trajectory vs. the wind's effect on a low trajectory, or the difference between striking the ball well and strking the ball poorly? If the wind is in your face, take one more club. If the wind is REALLY in your face, take 3 more clubs. But for those of us who don't consistently execute a good swing and strike the ball well, doing things correctly to make a good swing and strike the ball well is infinitely more important than other considerations. -Andrew

I doubt either of the players you mentioned swing any of their other clubs, especially irons, the way they swing the long driver. I'm betting their iron shots look way more like a conventional golf swing than their long-drive shots. I'd even venture a guess that they don't take their long-drive driver to the course; they probably have one with a shorter shaft and higher loft (the long-drive ones are usually at least 48" long and only about 6 degrees of loft) that they use when they play golf. -Andrew

It looked to me like the iron shot was right at the middle of the green, and the driver shot was heading down the left side of the fairway. Maybe a slight pull, or maybe he was just hitting a slight fade. -Andrew

Okay, that makes sense now. Well, that may be a little misleading, due to my progression in the game. I shoot in the 103-109 range at my local course, par 70. I'm consistently there, but it's a different reason every time. The fat shots really kill me. A month or two ago, I had some incredibly consistent shanks. I had a really good ball-striking round a while back, where swing-wise I should have been playing at least bogey-golf, but the short game was absolutely disastrous and I still played double-bogey golf. And recently I've been taking lessons, my swing has really improved, my ball-striking has really improved, but I haven't actually played a round of golf since that improvement. I understand. I'll rely on my instructor who watches me in person and records me on a good camera to give it to me straight on that one. Sounds good to me. That's what I was thinking. I'm sure you're right about the backswing path, but to me everything from the top of the backswing through impact seems much higher priority than how I get to the top of the backswing. Thanks again for all the help. I now have more perspective on what to work on myself, and I'm better armed with questions for my instructor. -Andrew

Check out iacas' video about shoulder plane (he linked to it in the thread about my swing). Yours is very flat, which is a problem. Also it looks to me like you're swinging too much with your arms and not enough with your body. You should feel like your arms turn because your shoulders do, not like your shoulders turn because your arms do. -Andrew

I think I understand most of what you're saying now, but I'm not sure I'm clear on this yet. First, am I using the head dip properly? If not, what has to change so that I can dip and "jump" properly? Also, to my untrained eye and my (dubiously reliable) knowledge of how my swing feels, I don't believe either a) or b) applies to me. By all means correct me if I'm wrong. What it seems like to me, and this seems related to the head dip question, is that my sternum is too close to the ground as I come through impact. In other words, it kinda seems to me that the bottom of my arc is often simply too low, and that moving the bottom of the arc forward (which I think is what you're getting at), isn't enough to keep it from getting to the ground before the ball. But again, please correct the errors in my thinking here. -Andrew

I would like to get a consensus from the forum on whether this tidbit is accurate. Am I steep on the way down? Does that cause fats? Is this due to the club being laid off? I plan to work on not laying the club off so much regardless, but I want to know if these statements are considered true by those in the know, since I don't really have the expertise to judge their validity for myself. -Andrew

So the right end of the red line is where the head of my club is? It seems extremely low, but maybe that's a factor of the camera being low and looking upwards at the club. Well, the "past parallel" issue is definitely a camera angle thing, since the face-on view shows that the club stop just short of parallel, but to respond to the other things you said: a) Can you suggest a way to train myself to have a steeper shoulder turn, and turn to 90 degrees but not past? b) Why would that matter? I'm not trying to be defensive; I just don't know. It seems to me that if the wrists are cocking the right amount, before the start of the downswing, it shouldn't really matter when during the backswing it happens. Okay, that makes sense. It looks to me like my left arm is on plane with respect to my shoulders, so steepening the shoulders (and the left arm along with them) should fix this, right? So the hips should actually rise during the backswing? What about the head dip on the forward swing? Is that just a result of my height? I'm 6'2", and I struggle with figuring out the right and wrong ways to get the club to reach all the way down to the ground. Thanks for all your help so far, and thanks in advance for continuing to clarify into terms that I can fully understand and actually implement. -Andrew

Regarding straightening the right leg, I used to straighten it all the way, which my instructor picked out as one of the first flaws for me to fix. I started "maintaining the flex", but of course it still straightens to some extent . My instructor doesn't point it out anymore, so I think he must agree with the majority on here that the right knee can/should straighten some, but not all the way. -Andrew

Are you sure? That red line really doesn't look right to me. I was able to capture this picture a frame or two before the one you captured: Attachment 2481 If I cock my wrists from there, it puts the club way past parallel. My instructor has been working with me not to do this. As to laid off and under plane, I point again to the picture above... are you sure it's not just a video quality issue? Perhaps I'm mistaking what you mean? I understand the part about steeper shoulders (and I can see what you mean), but the rest sounds like greek. Can you explain what that sentence means? I see what you mean there too, but I don't know how to fix it. When I swing, it doesn't feel like my head is moving. Can you suggest some techniques for working on this flaw? -Andrew

That's not true, generally. Shots where I hit the ball first are usually either straight-draws or slight pull-draws, with occasional mild pushes, and also occasional pull-hooks. Yes, I generally hit a lot of fat shots, and yes I'm definitely looking for more consistently good contact. With the mats, the fat shots sometimes result in decent ball flight (bouncing into the ball), but I can tell the difference. Yeah, the pull-hooks have got to go. Also sometimes I have a tendency to hold the club off, or hold the body rotation off, or otherwise tense up and "put the brakes" on the swing as my instructor calls it, resulting in the face remaining open and a push-fade flight. I want to reach the point where I'm consistently striking the ball with the sweet spot (or at least close to the sweet spot), with the face consistently square to the target line. Recently I've made improvements to powering the swing with my body and letting the arms be more passive, and I think that's helping with the square face, since the passive arms make the arms turn through more naturally (less coordination and timing involved). More distance is not on my wish-list, and neither is learning to work the ball. Similarly, I'll worry about whether I'm hitting down on the ball once I'm consistently hitting the ball first. Although I think I already do well with this when I do strike the ball well; my hands are ahead of the ball, and I get an upward curve to the trajectory from the backspin. That said, I don't want to learn to hit the ball well at the expense of putting bad habits into my swing. I don't want to learn compensations; I want to fix flaws. So while there are certain goals that aren't on my list, I want to be sure I don't shoot myself in the foot with respect to those goals also. -Andrew

You're standing directly behind yours! Not kidding, the disturbance the ball makes in the air (known as sound) as it "zings" off the club, does not propagate equally in all directions. It's a fairly high-frequency sound, and definitely very directional. Picture the sound waves coming off the ball like the wake of a boat. If the boat passes pretty close to a lilypad, then shortly after the boat goes by, that lilypad experiences quite a bit of vertical displacement as the ripples pass it. But picture the boat passing directly over the lilypad instead (this is an incredibly high-floating and smooth-bottom boat, which doesn't harm the lilypad as it passes). Just after the boat passes, the lily pad is not rocking up and down, because the wake is moving away from it. The sound your own ball makes is far louder to the guy in the next stall than it is to you. -Andrew

I finally got a couple videos of my swing, and wanted to get your thoughts. Sorry about the quality, it was a cell phone in dubious lighting conditions. Hopefully you can see well enough to give some feedback. The DTL video is not exactly down the line. It's pretty much along my toe line, but I apparently set up with a bit of a closed stance. I'm aiming to hit the ball about 10 yards left of where the camera is looking. And the camera is a little below hip-height for each video. DTL, 6-iron: Face-On, alternating irons (9-6-6-9): Lemme know what I'm doing visibly right and wrong. -Andrew

I've done the exact same thing, except it was only a 270-yd par 4. Drove to the center of the green, maybe 15 feet from the pin. First putt 6 feet short, second putt 8 feet long, third putt lipped out, fourth putt tap in for the most bitter bogey I've ever had. -Andrew

I guess we're all different then. -Andrew

In order to avoid misconceptions, you may want to change it to a number larger than 30. Then people will know you're a beginner. You said lessons didn't help, but that says to me that you either took lessons from the wrong instructor(s), or you didn't work on what they said to work on. If you found people who couldn't help you, you should try again, except maybe try to gather a few recommendations first so you can find someone who has really helped other beginners. If the other thing is the case, well, then I don't I have to tell you how to fix that. -Andrew

It looks like his left arm does a funny move coming toward impact where it's straight, but then puts the brakes on and bends a little in an effort to bring the club around in time, and I'm guessing that's an issue of wrist/hand strength. But wow, I'd trade him my swing for his. -Andrew

I'm no "drill" expert, but you have to fix the buckling of your arms at the top of the swing. You're over-swinging by bending both arms, and you're really folding up that right arm. Try feeling like you're not swinging your arms; that you're keeping them both extended out from your shoulders like your setup position, and just turning your shoulders to make the swing. Also, try feeling like your hands are staying extended as far away from your body as possible during the backswing, and not collapsing in. When your arms swing more than your shoulders turn, the handle of the club is getting closer to you. Push it away, backward away from the target. This will stop your arms from "taking over" the backswing from your shoulders. And it should put your elbows in a better position at the top. And that should put your club in a better position at the top. And overall, it'll be a shorter swing, meaning more consistent ball contact. -Andrew

Seems to me it would tend to restrict your hip turn. If I stand with my knees slightly buckled in (like yours) and turn my hips back and forth, they naturally turn much like they would in a good golf swing. If I push the knees out, then that natural turn goes away. I can still turn my hips if I force it, but it's more of a "wag my butt" motion then a simple swivel motion. This is by no means a professional opinion, but I for one really wouldn't recommend making that change. -Andrew

You really think that's true? Great players may average fewer than 2 putt/pitch/chip/punch-out swings per hole on a good day. For me, I'm guessing I have more like 4 per hole on my best day. That's FAR more than 10% of shots, no matter who you are. For most people, I'd guess it's 50% or more. -Andrew