nick4501

Thanks again BP. After doing what you suggested, I immediately knew that my spine angle was wrong. Anyway, I've now had 3 lessons and I feel that things are improving. My stance now looks much better (feet closer together, back straighter, etc), and I've been concentrating on "opening up my arc" and trying to stay on plane by having a steeper shoulder turn. FRONT : DOWN THE LINE : I'm still feeling a bit of pain next to my left shoulder blade, but my pro says that it's because I'm still doing the "reverse C" thing - instead of getting my weight forward on impact, I apparently look like I'm trying to lean back to get under the ball. He then asked me to try to deliberately aim left and I felt that I was hitting much more consistently (and started to feel the whole body rotation thing). He said that this should start to get me out of the reverse C problem. One thing that still worries me after seeing these videos is how much my head moves - but only at the very top of the backswing! What is causing me to do this?! It looks ridiculous! Any thoughts? Thanks, Nick

RIGHT! Finally got two more videos of my swing with the first lesson's instructions in it (pretty much just changes to posture). Apologies for the front on video - I know it's not ideal, but this is the best viewing angle my friend could get. Either way, it should still show up all my problems! FRONT: DOWN THE LINE: As always - any advice will be massively appreciated.

Went to the driving range again tonight and decided that it's official - my swing is now causing me major pain behind my left shoulder blade. I could feel it after hitting just 5 balls and it just got worse and worse. I did, however, get my friend to take two more videos of my swing (in front and down the line), which I will post on Monday. Thanks again for the great post bunkerputt. I now know what is meant by the "reverse C", but agree with you - I don't really feel like this is a problem that I have...at least on my follow-through, so I don't know why the pro talked about it. However, looking at the right picture of Charlie, it made me realise that I could actually be doing the whole reverse C thing on the BACKSWING (and therefore stretching my shoulder muscle). The right side of Charlie's back looks pretty much straight...pretty sure that's not what mine looks like! When you say that my shoulder turn is too flat, do you mean that my whole swing plane is too flat? How can I correct this?

Ernest Jones - Thanks for the reply. I have read through those posts in the past, but will do so again and see if I can pin-point what I'm missing. bunkerputt - Again, thanks for the advice. The pain I get isn't like a sharp stabbing pain, but rather a dull ache which I only seem to get after the follow through. It really does feel like I'm arching my back and my left shoulder blade is digging in. The snap shot that you have taken above worries me. My weight looks like it's pretty much static, and if anything, I'm leaning onto my front foot before I even start the down swing! If this is the case, would it not result in the "reverse C" shape by forcing a follow through after my weight and hips are already as far forward as they can go (hope that made sense!)? I'll be having another lesson next week, so I'll further enquire as to his thoughts on the body rotation. In the mean time, I'll try to get a video of my swing after the pro's instructions...

bunkerputt - those are EXACTLY the problems I'm having...every one of them! I'm very impressed that you can see this in my swing. I had the lesson last night. He started by changing my posture - I apparently had too much weight in my heels, with my knees bent too much and stood too far away from the ball, resulting in the arms locked together at the elbows that many of you have commented on. He then said that I'm generating very little power because my body is not rotating at all, and that all of the club speed is being generated solely by my arms. Finally, he said that the pain I've been getting (particularly just below my left shoulder blade) is because I'm ending my swing with a "reverse C shape". He said that this is a consequence of not transferring my weight correctly. I asked about my head movement (that is clearly apparent - especially in the latest "My Swing" video), but he didn't see that as a problem (or maybe I wasn't doing it as much last night!). All in all, this doesn't sound very good! After the lesson I was really trying to work on both the body twist and not ending my swing with the "reverse C", but couldn't quite see what I was doing wrong, and the pain in my back and left shoulder continued. Any thoughts on any of this, guys?

Thanks for tidying it all up iacas. Sorry for the confusion! I will post the thoughts of the pro after today's lesson.

I guess that's a fair point, but to be fair, my first "My Swing" thread was posted almost 2 years ago, so it's not like I'm spamming the forum... and since you can't see the ball flight in any of my previous threads, I don't see how not actually hitting a ball in this one is a problem. That said, I have just read the "my swing" foums rules and realised that posting practice swings is a no-no - Sorry! I have taken on board the tips from the previous posts (much appreciated, guys!), and hoped that some of them are apparent in this video - maybe not though?! Either way, I had hoped to spark more ideas as to the cause of my problems...

Hi guys. Apologies for creating ANOTHER "My Swing" post, but I feel that my swing has changed enough since my last post to justify another. I'm still suffering from a huge lack of distance (I used to be able to hit a 5 iron ~180 yards and now struggle to get 130 yards!) and I'm really struggling to find any sort of consistency. I have a lesson booked for tomorrow (my first for about 10 years!), so I'm interested to see if you guys suggest the same as the pro tomorrow... Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the advice playbridgestone, but I'm not sure if that is the cause of my lack of distance. It's a serious problem now. I played yesterday and lost a shot on EVERY hole simply because it took me 2 shots to catch up to everyone else's first! I know I've got a very flat swing plane and I do intend to address this issue as soon as I've corrected the distance, but I'm not convinced that they are related because I have ALWAYS had a flat swing plane and never had the distance problem. I agree that I seem to have a very crunched up arc, but do you think this could be the reason I'm casting the club and therefore releasing all club head speed before I hit the ball?

Hi guys. Thanks again for all the advice, but I'm now getting confused by conflicting opinions. I've tried concentrating on keeping my head more stable, but the distance problem remains. I understand what everyone is saying about the rotation of the body being out of time with my downswing, resulting in me casting the club, but having watched my videos in slow motion, I do think that my hips are rotating. Here is a down the line video - hopefully it'll shed more light on the problem!

Hi guys. I've been working on the above advice, but still can't beat the lack of distance problem. I've uploaded an updated version of my swing: Any improvement? I'm obviously still not generating enough club head speed, but can't pin-point the cause...

Excellent advice guys! I will be trying to: Keep my weight on the inside of my back foot; Not lock my arms together at the elbows at tightly as it looks in that video, and take the punkerputt and rustyredcab's posture advice; Try to keep my head steady; Keeping my tempo the same; and work on some anti-casting drills. Thanks again guys. I will post another video if/when I have cracked this and I'm back to my usual distances. Nick

Hi guys. I've been playing a lot of golf this year, in an attempt to get my handicap stable. I generally shoot around 100, but recently went through a spell where everything just seemed to click. I was regularly shooting under 90 and only losing shots because of my putting. I THOUGHT that this increase in performance was because I'd slowed my swing down and therefore gained more consistency, so I actively concentrated on keeping my swing speed slower...and this is where my trouble started. I started to notice that I was spinning the ball a LOT (leaving a large white ball scuff down the middle of my club). Great, I thought, until I noticed that this was resulting in a loss of distance - a BIG loss. I was previously hitting a 7 iron about 140-150 yards on a clean hit, but it's fallen and fallen (and fallen!), and I'm now struggling to reach 100 yards! I'm certain that this must be due to a timing issue (more than likely caused by me consciously slowing my swing down), but I can't work out how to resolve it! I've now had this problem for about a month, and it isn't getting any better... Please can you check out my swing and point out any obvious flaws? Just for reference, this video is with a pitching wedge (that I used to hit about 110 yards), and the clean hit that you see in the video only went about 70 yards... Thanks in advance! Nick

Great advice! Thanks mate. I will give it a try and get back to you if it's still a problem.

I think this was me bending subconciously, in a desperate attempt to alter the direction of the ball! Any other thoughts? Still no-one questioning that right elbow position...!