Baseball Swing

Having a really hard time keeping my golf swing and my baseball swing separate. I know a lot of professional ball players will switch to their off-hand for golf to prevent this sort of thing. Unfortunately that's not an option for me (I'm a lefty). My golf swing tends to get too over the top and my elbow starts flying out. I've been practicing with a towel tucked to try to keep it closer but as soon as I get on the course I can feel it creeping away from my body at the top of my swing again.

Anyone have something else I can try to help keep it in?

> @BraxtonFullerton said:

> Having a really hard time keeping my golf swing and my baseball swing separate. I know a lot of professional ball players will switch to their off-hand for golf to prevent this sort of thing. Unfortunately that's not an option for me (I'm a lefty). My golf swing tends to get too over the top and my elbow starts flying out. I've been practicing with a towel tucked to try to keep it closer but as soon as I get on the course I can feel it creeping away from my body at the top of my swing again.

>

> Anyone have something else I can try to help keep it in?

It would seem that if you actually did use a baseball swing you would have no trouble with over the top.

I wish either of my swings looked like that! :D

I'm much more of an opposite field hitter and don't tuck my elbow on my baseball swing either.

You will notice that most baseball players flatten their bat prior to starting their forward swing. Doing that brings the elbow closer to the body.

Hopefully the OP has a baseball swing like Ted Williams :smile:

> @AndyC said:

> You will notice that most baseball players flatten their bat prior to starting their forward swing. Doing that brings the elbow closer to the body.

Yeah this is what I'm trying to work on in both swings; I just can't seem to get the muscle memory baked in; after 3-5 holes I can feel myself flying back out again.

Since you’re a lefty, your trail arm needs to rotate COUNTERCLOCKWISE in transition and the DS until P6. A righty would need CLOCKWISE rotation of the trail arm during the same interval.

It’s a combination of external shoulder rotation and forearm supination ... the most counterintuitive move in golf!

Train it relentlessly using slow motion mirror work. Careful stretching can also help with improving range of motion.

If you are fighting an over the top move in golf, it isn't your baseball swing that's causing that. What IS causing it is another question, but baseball swings, at least good ones, don't come over the top, even given the difference in planes.

Good hitters make good golfers, almost always; lots of power, great hand-eye, etc. And the leg action is identical. The issue that most baseball players have is hitting big fade/slice stuff because they've spent a million hours staying inside the ball, letting it get deep, going with the pitch, and hitting it to the opposite field. Then all of a sudden, they'll really turn on one and hit it a mile left; not a hook, just a mile off line. In effect, they got a pitch they could pull.

All of this is just a timing issue, and learning that power to all fields in golf is not a good thing; only hitting it back thru the box is. So if you are practicing ok and starting out ok, and then begin to gradually go over the top, that's your golf swing SEPARATING from your baseball swing, rather than repeating your baseball swing on a different plane with a golf club.

Stand up straight and imagine you are hitting a baseball at chest high. Then just bend at the wait and hit a golf ball from the ground. Make it feel the same.

When i was playing i didn't so much struggle with the different swings as i did using a proper golf grip. Once i was able to establish a proper grip on the club things for better (I'm still not good though so take anything i say with a grain of salt)

Thank you, I think the arm rotation part is what I'm leaving out of the backswing practice movements. That should keep the elbow tucked now that I'm making that move more pronounced; it does feel very different from what I have been doing so hopefully it makes a difference on the course.

Just to be clear, the trail arm rotation (counterclockwise for a lefty, clockwise for a righty) is primarily a transition/downswing winding move. It can gradually start in the backswing but not early in the takeaway.

Watch Hogan vs Nicklaus ... Hogan starts the winding earlier than Jack but both have their trail arms similarly wound by P6.

Yeah, but I don't think I'm doing much of it at all, which causes my elbow to bend outward instead of tucking in. Then changing my swing plane.

Teddy ballgame under plane, long to short stroke. A more modern design is short to long, over plane, but still inward. Two different deals altogether.