Using an Orange Whip to understand my (faulty) downswing tendencies

I'm trying to better understand my swing path, and the Orange Whip (OW) seems to exaggerate things in a way that makes it easier to see what's really going on.

In the short video below, I make a few driver swings with the OW, and the thing that sticks out to me the most is the extreme shallowing action early in the downswing.

Although it seems intuitive, I have been unable to play a push draw with this move. Instead, **I've only been able to play a pull**, and I think this is because the face doesn't square up until the path has moved back to the left.

In other words, if I don't intentionally try to pull the ball, I somehow manage to stay under plane throughout the downswing and never fully square up the face. So I either get a massively upward AoA out to the right or a more sane AoA once the path moves back to the left.

If I don't play a pull, my iron game and wedge game are both hot garbage. (Interestingly, my wedges don't really "pull" even if I try to pull them—I just get a nice straight flight.)

But unfortunately, my long game—and especially driver—has been flat out AWFUL for nearly 2 years now. **I almost never post a smash factor greater than 1.48, and I spend a LOT of time in the 1.42–1.46 range.** It's brutal.

5 years ago, I was swinging 124mph and posting ball speeds in the 180s. But with this current action, my SS is more in the 116-118 range, and my ball speeds languish in the 160s.

I hate this because **I know I'm not operating anywhere near my potential**, and beyond that, I'm just sick of not getting that HULK SMASH feedback from the driver. It's quite literally the main reason I love golf.

The speed thing is definitely a bummer, but the associated poor smash is destroying my ability to score.

**Bottom line:** I want to understand my action better and explore some tweaks that will help me tap into my natural ability—which I think is decent—to strike the ball better.

Also, if one of y'all could tell me how to embed a YouTube video on the new forums, that'd be swell. I was unable to figure it out on my laptop; I'm hoping this is not one of those situations where the mobile version of the site has controls that are not available on desktop.

**Resolved!** You just paste the URL (easiest possible solution). Unsurprisingly, Mr. Web Guy overthought the issue.

I enjoy my Orange Whip. I have both the driver length one and the shortest one for use in my basement. I use long one more for stretching and warming up although there may be some swing feel/tempo value there. That stated, I recently started using the Power Package and it is absolutely helping me to feel the swing in a way I had never felt it before. Looking back, I once had lessons and the pro had me trying to reach a position in my follow thru that I just could not get. Light bulb moment, Power Package gets me there. I now understand what I have to do to get there.

>That stated, I recently started using the Power Package and it is absolutely helping me to feel the swing in a way I had never felt it before.

I used a Hanger (Watson — The Hanger) last year for about a week, but it was extremely painful on my forearm because of the flat, laid off, and late way I load the right wrist/hand. Generally speaking, restrictive and "position-influencing" training aids are non-starters for me because of this.

With that said, the OW has been useful for creating exaggerated feels, and I have at least been able to use it to start asking new questions about my action.

Whatever downswing tendencies you have is you utilizing your athleticism to work around the dynamics of your backswing. You make things so hard on yourself from the get go.

> @jut111 said:

> Whatever downswing tendencies you have is you utilizing your athleticism to work around the dynamics of your backswing. You make things so hard on yourself from the get go.

Once upon a time, I would have agreed with this...

But the primary difference between my backswing and the "look" everyone tries to go for is due to my right hand/wrist. I HATE the feeling of hinging in the thumbs-up direction and am basically unable to hit the ball when I try to do it. It feels as though I lose all leverage and have no control over the club.

I don't think it makes a lot of sense to go from scratch to idiot over the idea of "hinging über alles." (In other words, I think I can tweak what I've got instead of rewriting the code wholesale.)

I do not think it is a make or break deal (as some would assert); I've yet to see (or read) a competent explanation of _why_ it's not possible to get the job done with what I've got.

Your comment is a great example of this: "You make things so hard on yourself from the get go."

But can you illuminate WHY?

You extremely flat, deep, and probably pretty narrow (if we had a face on video) at the top of your backswing. You don’t shallow to start the downswing..you actually steepen the club because you have no choice from your backswing position.

You play a pull because you have to. You can’t let your hands drop any from the top of your backswing because you would block the ball into the next fairway.

Like it or not if you want to improve your swing it will have to start with the backswing

>You don’t shallow to start the downswing..you actually steepen the club because you have no choice from your backswing position.

I never said I shallowed to start the downswing, and I tried to choose my words carefully to avoid the inevitable pitfalls that happen with every swing discussion. (Yet here we are.)

As you can see in each of the swings in the video, the downswing _starts_ steep but immediately shallows to an extreme degree.

In other words, I go from steep and over plane to massively under plane in a very short amount of time. Seems to me it would be possible to go from steep to on plane more easily than it would be to go from steep to massively under plane.

And because of this, it seems like there is something I just need to "realize" in the hands to correct the path. For example, I was working a "drop" or "pull down" (but not tugging on the shaft) feel with my right hand last night, and I was able to work the club head a little more down the line as opposed to way out right.

It is precisely this type of insight/understanding I'm hoping to gain from this thread. But it's frustrating as hell when people just want to scream "backswing" without taking a closer look at anything else.

Obviously, if I felt strong and controlled with a higher backswing plane and club set, then I'd do that because it's what most decent players look like. But those moves feel awful to me, and I feel like I give up control of the face relative to the path when I do anything else. Clearly, I have a little bit of a different hitch in my swing DNA.

You can go watch a Ray Floyd video, and **it doesn't take much of a leap of faith to think I could work with my backswing if I had a different intent for the downswing.**

Define make it work. I’d argue you’ve done a remarkable job of making it work already given your handicap.

Based on a bunch of swings with the OW, I think the following intent fixes pretty much everything:

I just need to try and reach the top of my backswing with the club in a vertical position. If the club were a hammer:

* Current swing: hammer is in a flat position with the right hand under it

* Proposed change: hammer is in a vertical position with the right hand to the side of it

As it stands now, I start the downswing with my right hand under the club. This feels like a push/slap position to me.

By contrast, if I have the right hand in a more vertical position at the top of the backswing, it feels like more of a pull position.

Pulling is usually framed as a negative, but I think in my case, it's precisely the feel I need to get into a better position in transition.

> Define make it work. I’d argue you’ve done a remarkable job of making it work already given your handicap.

I hit the ball like cr*p compared to my +3 friends :smiley:

Also, I always feel like I'm skating on the edge in tournament rounds. I know I'm one mental lapse away from awful contact and a 1 or 2-shot penalty; I'd prefer to feel like I'm one mental lapse away from hitting it 325 in the rough instead.

Do your +3 friends have a backswing that looks anything like yours? Obviously just my opinion but I’m saying I think you’ve maxed out what you can do from where you get your body and club on the way back.

>Do your +3 friends have a backswing that looks anything like yours?

Ray Floyd, homey.

Go look at ray Floyd from front on vs you from front on.

I’m no coach, and so take my comments for what they are worth. I deal with an in-to-out / under the plane downswing and I have come to believe that it is far worse to have this fault than an over-the-top move. My contact suffers immensely when I get under the plane, and the ball can literally end up anywhere (left, right, short, long, etc).

You appear way too below the plane on the backswing, so as mentioned earlier you are already in a tough spot from the beginning. I can’t exactly explain why, but every instructor I follow advocates for just the opposite (above the plane going back, shallowing coming down). Gankas says this is the key to power. Jack says a steeper takeaway is the key to both power and control. My personal coach is always harping on me to get the hands higher. I think that power is increased by increasing the distance between your hands and front foot. Anyway, I don’t necessarily know all the reasons why, but all I know is that any of the instructors I have familiarity with recommend it, and I know from my own experience that you can’t play golf from underneath the plane.

>Anyway, I don’t necessarily know all the reasons why, but all I know is that any of the instructors I have familiarity with recommend it, and I know from my own experience that you can’t play golf from underneath the plane.

This is part of my conundrum. Seems to me it would be possible to calibrate ball position and aiming direction to just about any swing plane you can come up with.

It might not be as intuitive as playing everything "down the line," but it seems like it would be possible nonetheless.

Curious what others think of this basic idea...

Well, you go from under the plane in the backswing to over the plane in downswing. Hard to hit push draws from that.

If you want to play a push draw with that backswing , you’re going to have to play the ball way back and aim way left.

You need to extend better in the backswing and arms higher if you want your speed and better contact.

> @pearsonified said:

> >You don’t shallow to start the downswing..you actually steepen the club because you have no choice from your backswing position.

>

> I never said I shallowed to start the downswing, and I tried to choose my words carefully to avoid the inevitable pitfalls that happen with every swing discussion. (Yet here we are.)

>

> As you can see in each of the swings in the video, the downswing _starts_ steep but immediately shallows to an extreme degree.

>

> In other words, I go from steep and over plane to massively under plane in a very short amount of time. Seems to me it would be possible to go from steep to on plane more easily than it would be to go from steep to massively under plane.

>

> And because of this, it seems like there is something I just need to "realize" in the hands to correct the path. For example, I was working a "drop" or "pull down" (but not tugging on the shaft) feel with my right hand last night, and I was able to work the club head a little more down the line as opposed to way out right.

>

> It is precisely this type of insight/understanding I'm hoping to gain from this thread. But it's frustrating as **** when people just want to scream "backswing" without taking a closer look at anything else.

>

> Obviously, if I felt strong and controlled with a higher backswing plane and club set, then I'd do that because it's what most decent players look like. But those moves feel awful to me, and I feel like I give up control of the face relative to the path when I do anything else. Clearly, I have a little bit of a different hitch in my swing DNA.

>

> You can go watch a Ray Floyd video, and **it doesn't take much of a leap of faith to think I could work with my backswing if I had a different intent for the downswing.**

From that video I would never say your downswing is ever underplane..if it was you would be most likely hitting pushes not pulls.

Raymond floyd is a 1 in a 10 million golfer. None of us on here are one of those. You can study rickie. He steepens and the somehow stops doing that halfway down.

Here is boo. Maybe scott Hamilton does online lessons so can describe what needs to happen in order to make this move work. I’ve never heard what it takes and I have similar tendencies as you.

If you want you swing speed back you will need to get your right elbow above your shoulder plane. Dan told me that is worth about 5 mph.

>If you want to play a push draw with that backswing , you’re going to have to play the ball way back and aim way left.

I don't _want_ to play a push draw; I'm saying that's what I would expect based on the way the club path seems to go out to right field (in my Orange Whip video).

>You need to extend better in the backswing and arms higher if you want your speed and better contact.

Annoyingly, when I re-took up the game in 2014, my left arm was much higher in the backswing (and my ball speeds were higher with longer clubs). But I had more forearm roll, too, and I hooked the heIl out of 4-7 irons.

Somewhere along the way, my left arm got a lot lower in the takeaway, and now I feel like I have no control at all if I try to get it higher.

I'm also struggling to get the left arm higher even when I try to get it higher! I can do it (a little) if my left elbow points toward the caddy as I get some lift, but if I keep the left elbow pointed at the ground during my backswing, I can barely get my left arm above my nips.

That swing you made in the video would have had a 20ish right path if there was actually a ball there. If you’re hitting a pull, that swing is not what you’re doing when the ball is there.

If you want your left arm higher, you must extend better.

I’m not sure of the purpose of this thread. Lots of advice here but OP doesn’t seem receptive to it and sometimes seems combative towards those posting (although in may not be intentional).

Obviously, changing ones swing will create uncomfortable feel issues until such feels can be engrained.

>I’m not sure of the purpose of this thread. Lots of advice here but OP doesn’t seem receptive to it and sometimes seems combative towards those posting (although in may not be intentional).

The issue is armchair quarterbacks have no problem saying CHANGE EVERYTHING!

But a serious teacher can see value mixed with garbage and offer a sensible route forward.

>That swing you made in the video would have had a 20ish right path if there was actually a ball there. If you’re hitting a pull, that swing is not what you’re doing when the ball is there.

Right—I move the ball forward in my stance and TRY to hit it left. So I'm not ending up with a pull—I'm trying to pull the ball because that's a point where my goofy arc gets back to square. I've played my best golf with this setup (+1), but it's not bulletproof and I know it's just a band-aid for more deeply embedded problems.

>If you want your left arm higher, you must extend better.

I'm working on this now, and I think part of the reason I feel unable to get the arm higher is because it's too close to my chest. I noticed that if I have the left arm in front of the chest, I have more range of motion in the left shoulder and can get the left arm above my shoulder line on the backswing.

Only issue from there is figuring out how to achieve depth without getting too deep against my chest (at least that's how *I* define depth).

> @Cwing said:

> I’m not sure of the purpose of this thread. Lots of advice here but OP doesn’t seem receptive to it and sometimes seems combative towards those posting (although in may not be intentional).

>

> Obviously, changing ones swing will create uncomfortable feel issues until such feels can be engrained.

It’s our fault..we forget what’s like to answer his swing questions. He is so athletic that he just needs that one very simple thought for it all to click and anyone who doesn’t provide that answer is just short changing him on his ability to make it all work??‍♂️

Seriously thou, some people especially the one that once where better than they are currently..I’m including myself in this..think we are a lot closer to finding “it” than we really are.

>It’s our fault..we forget what’s like to answer his swing questions. He is so athletic that he just needs that one very simple thought for it all to click and anyone who doesn’t provide that answer is just short changing him on his ability to make it all work??‍♂️

I'll overlook the derision here; my point is that a difference in **the right intent** can change your entire swing.

>Seriously thou, some people especially the one that once where better than they are currently..I’m including myself in this..think we are a lot closer to finding “it” than we really are.

My game is better than ever, but I'm sick of fighting the same things over and over. (My ball speeds are down with longer clubs but way up with shorter clubs—I'm quite adept with 8i through 60º.) I've got a 2-year pattern of the same kinds of misses and band-aids, and I have a keen sense that something about my swing intent is just flat out wrong.

Frankly, my primary feel is an inside-out baseball swing, and I think I've simply grown accustomed to an overcooked version of the feel I associate with this action.

In other words, my codebase needs calibration, not a total rewrite. The only reason I bother to post here is because I've been hammering on this for 8 months with essentially zero success.

James....

You say you have been hammering at this for 8 months and have hit a wall (per se), you have received some ideas which you asked for from people here. You may not agree but people were still kind enough to offer you advice including Monte who is well respected and more than qualified to help you. You asked for tweaks and admit that the OW exaggerates your motion. Monte basically hit it on the head. If your motion is exaggerated (your words) then what your doing when the ball is there is different (what Monte said). He offered you a tweak based on the motion you showed. Maybe post some swings of you hitting balls and you will get different feedback.......or at least feedback you would be willing to accept based upon your own idea of what your swing should be.

White line is backswing, green is downswing. You are too steep and over the top. You also drag the handle through impact without release.

This is the recipe for pulls.

You don’t shallow.

>You say you have been hammering at this for 8 months and have hit a wall (per se), you have received some ideas which you asked for from people here. You may not agree but people were still kind enough to offer you advice including Monte who is well respected and more than qualified to help you. You asked for tweaks and admit that the OW exaggerates your motion. Monte basically hit it on the head. If your motion is exaggerated (your words) then what your doing when the ball is there is different (what Monte said). He offered you a tweak based on the motion you showed. Maybe post some swings of you hitting balls and you will get different feedback.......or at least feedback you would be willing to accept based upon your own idea of what your swing should be.

Apparently your perception is I'm ignoring everyone.

In reality, I've spent the afternoon in the yard working on Monte's advice about getting my left arm higher on the backswing. This is not quite as simple as just "get the left arm higher on the backswing," as I had to get the arm off my chest to have any hope of getting it higher.

I can now feel how my left arm against the chest is robbing me of a degree of freedom of motion in the left shoulder and forcing my path out to the right.

Once you feel it, you can fix it. But if you can't feel it—or if the feel you have is negative and wildly uncontrolled—you're not going to be able to make positive changes.