HitemHard

Funny story...i was at the range today and hooked a shot. Started to set-up for the next shot and felt myself do the exact same thing...re-grip my left hand as i put my right hand on the grip. I probably wouldn't have even noticed that i did that if not for this thread so...thanks!

0.5" inside? Seriously, the ball is just over 2" so .5" inside is only 1.5" from dead center...thats close enough for most people to call it "eyes over the ball". I see people at courses 6" plus inside the ball or even worse, their heads may be over their shoes. That's what you don't want anyone to do. .5" inside for all practicable purposes is over the ball.

I used to have a re-gripping issue that caused hooks. The re-gripping happens at the top of the backswing usually in an attempt to get the shaft more horizontal. The solution is simple though. The last three fingers of your lead hand must grip the club firmly through the backswing and at the top. You cannot "relax them" or let them loosen at the top. If you're trying to get to parallel you need to do it with more rotation and not loosening the grip. Anytime you loosen those three fingers at the top, you will ALWAYS regrip the club into a hooded position. Sometimes that's the only fix you need. I would at least try that before trying to rehab your swing.

No doubt he had a great round (after a crap round) but that does not put him in contention when he's 7 back. I can't stand undeserved rahrah fanboy noise from the announcers. It just bugs me.

Ok, here's a perfect example of what I HATE about the announcers "worship" of certain players. Just now at the Player's Championship Justin Thomas makes a 15 foot put and the announcer says "now he goes from trying to make the cut to being in contention!" JT MADE THE PUTT TO GO TO 2 UNDER WHILE THE LEADERS ARE AT 11 UNDER! HOW THE HECK DOES THAT PUT HIM IN CONTENTION!!! Ok...rant over...sorry about that!

Have you made an assessment of your body dynamics and strength. I watch a lot of the myTPI videos and they are always analyzing upper body strength, core strength and lower body strength as well as mobility. Then they see if the player's swing utilizes their body strengths. They also talk about muscle strength and muscle speed and how they are not the same. So if you move your muscles fast enough you need to work on strength whereas if you're strong enough but your muscles don't move fast enough you need to concentrate on speed. Mobility, strength and speed is where i would start analyzing myself. If you are experiencing back pain with speed training however I would suggest you may have a technique issue that needs to be addressed first before you really hurt yourself.

I just returned from a trip to Page Arizona for a photography trip I've been wanting to do for a few years now. It was a much needed break for me. The Antelope Canyons have intrigued me for years and I finally got to experience them for myself. They were beautiful in person but I was amazed at how the camera and post processing captured the colors in a way the eyes don't see them. Here's one of the images I took at the Lower canyons.

I watch a lot of mytpi. Some of the best instruction on youtube imo. It amazes me how many pros struggle with early extension. I thought that was a problem reserved for us amateurs and hacks! Lol myTPI has helped me assess and address my mobility and strength issues as well as my release and early extension. I love this level of detail...I feed on it!!

Personally, I can't stand the announcers bias to some players over others. One player hits it to 8 feet and it's "What a spectacular shot from Scotty Scheffler"! Then somebody else...not a favorite... hits a shot to 4 feet and they say something like "well he needs a few more of those if wants a chance on the weekend". Azinger was the worst at gushing over his favorites but now it's every announcer.

Club choice is made after looking at the lie so for that reason alone it could be any club in the bag. Have to fly it high and land it soft then that eliminates a lot of the clubs. Is the pin on the front, at the back, is the green elevated, flat, undulating, are you on hard-pan, tour quality turf, wet, bone dry...many different situations call for many different shots with many different clubs.

Was it played as "par's your friend" and were "mulligans" bought or given to each team? Seems the only way I could half way believe the score with all four of them being 20+ handicaps. I enjoy charity scrambles for the social aspects of it but I never go into them expecting to win. There's always that one team who seem to turn their cards in last and either win by one stroke or some team that remarkably shoots the best golf of their combined lives scoring 52's or better! Two man scrambles are much better as it keeps people honest IMO. "Par's your friend" is always a horrible way to play the game. Mulligans are great to sell for charitable purposes but unrestricted amounts make it so that someone can just "buy" the win...in some cases...but are great for the charity of course. In the end, scrambles are just for fun and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

I'm a big Hogan fan. I've read and re-read five lessons dozens of times. Given away a dozen or more copies of the book as well. I've always felt the best way to figure out what you can't quite understand is to take another bit of his advice; dig it out of the dirt. Go out to the range and say to yourself, how can I hit hard with both hands and not think about my hands at all? You may find that what I describe for me in my swing may be different from how you describe it in yours yet we both can be correct. That's where "feel" comes in. My "feel" is connected to a certain number of triggers or positions where yours may be different. So in my mind... my interpretation of Hogan's instruction is this: You must understand the manner in which your hands, wrists and forearms need to move through impact. By knowing how they need to move through impact you can put them in the correct position at the top of the backswing that will allow them to move that way naturally in the quarter of a second that is the downswing...without trying to think about what position they are in. Now to "hit hard with both hands"...again, my interpretation...is less about the hands and more about activating the muscles of both arms. You can imagine that you could let the rotation of the body simply pull your left arm down while your right arm uses all it's muscles to "throw" the angles out into the ball, can't you? Conversely, you can imagine pulling hard with your left arm down towards the ball and let your right arm straighten out kind of by itself, right? I think what it felt like to Hogan was that he was doing both. I know different people that feel one of these three things in their swing. Each will swear that their way is correct and the other ways will wreck your swing. I knew one guy that used to feel like he pulled through with his left if he wanted a fade but threw hard with his right if he wanted a draw. That's why it's so hard to give general instruction. What works for you may not work for someone else. What's correct? What feels correct in your swing is what is correct for you. If it produces the repeatable shot shape that you want then it works with the rest of your swing. Change some other part of your swing and you may have to tweak the feels. I hope this makes sense and helps in some way.

I might describe "engaging the legs at setup" a little differently. I'd say to bend at the ankle a bit more to get the knees more towards the balls of the feet. It actually looks better in your old set-up and wouldn't be the cause of a sway. A sway is when...well it's when you do in the backswing what you are currently doing with your knees/legs in the downswing. When your knees move laterally away from the ball it will cause you to move your center of rotation...your spine... back behind the ball and make it almost impossible to get back to the ball in the downswing. As for your knee action in the downswing, that's causing you to get no benefit of the ground forces and wasting a lot of potential for speed through impact. How should the knees work? Think about jumping straight up with your feet close together. Your ankles bend forward, your knees bend and you push straight up through your pelvis and body. Now stand with your legs apart like in the golf set-up and think about if you wanted to jump to the left. You would still bend both legs the same way but you would push up through your right leg harder than your left and again, you would push up the leg into the pelvis. Now do the same jump to the right. More push up the left leg into the pelvis than with the right. That's what your left leg needs to do through the downswing to use the ground forces. Your left leg will push your left pelvis back and behind you as you come into impact instead of straightening after impact. I hope that makes sense.

Your concept of the swing is off. Think of it this way. The club travels in a circle around your spine. The larger the circle the more speed you can achieve. So how do you make the circle bigger? By pulling your hands into the spine or by pushing them away from the spine? What will this fix in your swing? Your collapsed right arm and bent left arm. So, from the beginning of the backswing I would have you feel like both your right arm and left arm are pushing away from your body. Your right arm is collapsing...your right bicep is contracting...feel your right bicep extending as you take the club back. While you're doing this make sure that your right elbow stays pointing to the ground...that is external rotation of the humerus. Think of it as if you are losing an arm wrestling match. The right forearm and right hand rotate behind the elbow. On the downswing you have to maintain the external rotation of the humerus. You have to continue the feeling of losing the arm wresting match while pulling the right elbow around the body. Right now you are slamming you opponents arm to the table with internal rotation which is partly causing your pull. Your left arm isn't externally rotating either...it must...and it should push out away from the spine through the swing as well. Everything you are doing is shrinking your swing circle instead of expanding it. Your set-up will have to change obviously as currently you have the ball positioned where you will hit it only if you pull in and not if you push out. There's more but that should be a good place to start.

If your swing is repeatable and give you the distance and ball flight you like and you can score well with it...well...there's absolutely no reason to think you need to change it! Now do I think your swing is the prettiest in the world? No, I don't but I don't like Matt Wolfe's steep take away or Scotty Scheffler's footwork either! Will all 3 of you score better than me day in day out? Probably so!!! All that being said, if you wanted to change anything it looks like your backswing is what looks off while the downswing mostly looks fine. I would suggest trying to implement small changes and not overhaul everything all at once. Two areas I see would be keeping your left arm straight and turning your upper body earlier in the backswing. To straighten the left arm you actually need to think about the right arm. From the beginning of the backswing try to feel both right and left arm pushing the club out away from you. Your right arm does not need to collapse to less than 90 degree angle and in fact should be greater than a 90 degree angle. The more it collapses, the more you will bend your left arm. What causes it to collapse? Either you are pulling in with your right arm contracting your bicep or you are pulling your right shoulder blade back into the center of your back too aggressively. You will need to figure out which you are doing and how much is good and how much is too much. It's difficult to push away with your right bicep AND pull your shoulder blade aggresively across your back so addressing the arm may fix the shoulderblade. Turning the upper body should be an easier fix and may be easy to accomplish with simply thinking about it in different terms. Everybody refers to it as a "shoulder turn". I'd have you think about it as a "chest turn" or even "turning the entire rib cage" in the backswing. The point of it is to make sure your sternum...the center of your chest...is turning back away from the target. Those are the two big areas of your backswing that make your swing look less aesthetically pleasing than others. I hope this helps some!