Hi

my ballflight is "off to the right".3 fairways over. It seriously looked like a socket. It is worse with woods or longer clubs.

So I thought out to in swingpath or socket/shank. Hence, I placed a headcover very close to the ball (0.5-1 in parallel to target line behind the ball/ different positions in relation to ball)

Turns out I do not swipe or touch the headcover at all! I was under the impression that with a shank or out to in path, I would have hit the headcover.

I concluded my face is open at impact. I seriously have trouble with left arm rotation through impact ("arms cancelling each other out")

Is this a legitimate way to exclude an out to in swing path?

Shallowing the club (Monte : right elbow chasing bellybutton) makes it worse, which would be in line with the open clubface.( I am rather steep in transition ,however at P3 in the downswing i do not look OTT (out to in). I definetely need to shallow my Downswing in the long run.

Is there any way one can swing with less left arm rotation through impact?

My clubface is relatively shut at top of Backswing.

Appreciate your help and input.

^ you sound very confused. Without seeing your swing, just clarify the ball flight.. does it START straight and veer right? Or just go straight right?

if you don’t look ‘OTT’ why do you need to shallow your swing? Why do you want less left arm rotation when in the fourth line you implied you weren’t rotating it and leaving the face open? An ‘in to out’ swing isn’t a slicers swing, it’s the opposite.. You’re confusing me now!

You have way too much going on upstairs. If the ball starts right the face was open to target. If it curves more right the face is open to your path.

Don't over complicate this. Work on club face control until you can start the ball at the target consistently. After that work on your path to adjust the curvature of the ball.

Are you hitting a shank or a push slice/wipe. You can hit either from being overly in to out. If you're swinging in to out and the face is open to THAT path then the ball will start right of target and slice further right. If this is the case then getting the faced closed to the path will get the ball to curve left back to the target. IF shallowing is making it worse then I would suspect you're too in to out and that's only making things worse. Like stated earlier get face control so it's not wide open at impact. If it's a shank then you likely have a poor pivot that can cause you to early extend and move the heel of the club closer to the ball.

Agreed.

It must be a push slice.

A shank means I would have touched the headcover. Correct?

Cause there is no way I would get the hosel to the ball without touching the headcover ( it was too close).

I wanted "less left arm rotation" since I never learned to rotate the left arm and thought there is a way to omit that part. I simply cannot time it and feel handsy.

Strange thing is: I worked with impact snap and the device shows I released correctly ( ball touching underside of right arm).

This is all nonsense

just video your swing down the line put on YouTube and link here I’ve been helped a lot by a few people here a couple of times

My fps on my camera is probably too low. Hard to tell from video.

But those headcover drills are legitimate tools to exclude shank or out to in swing path?

I played a bit around with stronger grip and more left arm rotation from start of downswing.Afraid the left arm rotation makes me even steeper in transition.

My 5 iron goes straight but my 3 wood off the deck is where I start seeing those push slices.

The problem is: if I start to adapt the moves that straighten out my woods to the irons ,the irons start going left.

Dude, you're all over the place and very difficult to understand.

A shank can NOT go 3 fairways over. Neither can an iron. In fact, to go 3 fairways over with your driver you'd have to be FACING 45* to the right and hit a fabulous and STRAIGHT drive to get 3 fairways over. I know, I know, you're exaggerating. Stop it.

If you're shanking the ball the ball is hitting the HOSEL of the club and you would know it. It doesn't go very far and it hurts your hands.

I've made a drawing of what I THINK you're talking about. Sorry about the ball flight line though - the software doesn't do "curved" very well LO). Feel free to explain/correct as necessary. Also, are you using ANY sort of artificial alignment ? To be sure you're actually aligned down the target line and not way to the right to begin with ?

Pic is fairly self-explanatory but I'm diagramming as if your PATH and TARGET LINE are the same. If your path is even further LEFT of the target line (it WON'T hit the headcover) and your face is as open as in the pic it will slice further right.

Sorey,as you can tell I am a non-native speaker. makes it more difficult.

i assume the ball is located where the 3 lines cross.

Thanks for the picture. I am a right handed player. So I am standing on the side where you placed the headcover. The headcover is placed directly where you drew it ( bit closer to ball) but! on the other side of the target line. Otherwise , I could not detect out to in. I got that advice from youtube.

The way you drew the headcover ,it would not detect out to in for a right handed player. Am I wrong?

I placed the headcover like this . Under Step 1. There, it is said that the headcover flies down the range with an out to in swing :)http://www.golfwrx.com/327106/learn-to-hit-a-draw-in-2-easy-steps/

OK then, now I get it. Especially with the head cover outside the golf ball. IF your alignment is along the target line and you came out-to-in you would almost have to hit the head cover.
That article is perfect (of course) but what is actually happening is that you have the face OPEN to path, not CLOSED to path as @naj959 mentioned earlier.
This is likely due to that left arm rotation that you are trying so hard to REDUCE. By not allowing your arms to rotate you are likely "holding" the face OPEN to path. You need to ALLOW your arms to rotate naturally. That will likely close the face a bit at impact so the face WOULD then be SQUARE to (go straight to the right/yellow) or CLOSED to path (start right/yellow and curve to the left/blue).
i.e., In the picture I posted above, if you want to hit it straight, instead of the face pointing at the yellow line the face would point at the blue/target line and, if your PATH is along the blue line you're golden and the ball stays straight. If you want to hit a DRAW you align yourself with the YELLOW line, SWING along the YELLOW line BUT have the face pointed BETWEEN the YELLOW and BLUE (TARGET) lines.
That starts the ball where the FACE is pointed (inside the yellow line) and, since the face is pointed left (or closed) to the path (yellow) it curves gently to the left towards the the target line.
The ball flight ALWAYS tells you 2 things about impact; 1) where the face is pointed (the line the balls starts on) and 2) where your path is in relation to the ball (curvature).
If the face and path are pointed the same the ball flies straight wherever the face is pointing.
If the face is NOT pointing in the same direction as the path the ball starts where the face is pointing and curves further in the same direction of the face relative to the path. So face LEFT of path the ball curves to the LEFT, face RIGHT of path, ball curves to the RIGHT.
Hope this helps.

yes,thanks. It must be the open clubface.

I am a bit afraid I get too steep if I rotate my left arm more. I do not roll my right arm over my left cause I think this leads to that handsy rolling release.

However, I will definetely roll the left arm more. I have seen Montes plane and release by feel video ( cannot do it naturally) and "how the arm move in the golfswing".

Besides,I saw that my impact position is considerably higher than my address position. Is that a major flaw?

I thought that the handle does not exactly have to return to the address position at impact.

Open TO PATH. Don't forget about the path. That's what determines curvature.

I am not an instructor or a maven on the golf swing. Just a mid-single digit with years of playing experience. I've taken about 8 days worth of lessons that completely revamped my swing and, roughly 12 years later, got a tip from a teacher/salesperson during a driver demo that, after some fine tuning, made me a MUCH better driver of the golf ball. Much more under control and consistent, not to mention longer.

FWIW I NEVER paid any attention to my arms. I played a lot of baseball as a youngster here in the States and never had any trouble swinging through a ball naturally. Same thing with the golf swing. I HAVE had issues with being "handsy" though, those issues being totally related to my pre-lessons homemade swing. With the ball position and the way I swung the club I HAD to be handsy to square up the clubface at impact. After lessons that sort of drastic handsy action wasn't necessary (although I probably still do it to a degree).

Point is I can't quite visualize what you mean by rotating your arms more (they DO move together) getting you "too steep".

Also not really sure what you mean about your impact position being "higher than" your address position.

Now the last part, about the handle not returning to address position ? At least I can visualize what it sounds like you mean by that. It sounds like it's a part of the lack of rotation of your arms. I actually envision you as "holding on", NOT releasing/rolling your arms or hands and extending the handle towards the target and your hands being AHEAD of the driver hear through impact - and that can't be good. Except maybe for Trevino ? LOL

That could certainly account for an open club face. Now your path ? That's something still up in the air.

I'm sure others will pitch in with some ideas.

Actually , I was surprised that I do not have the dreaded out to in path. I thought in to out is "desirable" or not as bad as out to in?

1) Any modern phone has high enough frame rate for swing videos, good instructors don't need to see exactly what the face is doing at impact, since they know from experience impact is a direct result of everything else going on in the swing

2) You can hit a shank with an in to out path

Post a video

But you DO have the out-to-in path. Your ball flight SAYS you do. You said you hit it 3 fairways right.
If you're not hitting the head cover you are aligned WAY right. THAT is why you miss the head cover.@Krt22 is right. Post the video.

I am alligned parallel to the target line. The most likely explanation I found is that the path is in to out and I simply lack arm rotation closing the clubface.

It gets better when I intentionally try to square the clubface . So I figured it cannot be a shank.

A bit undecided about the video. I see what I can do. It would be very blurry

Not 100% conclusive. Hitting it 3 fairways over can just as easily come from a block-fade/slice. Very easy to do with a driver when trying to hit way up on it by having excessive tilt away from the target

I'm sorry but what do I have wrong ? I wasn't referring to cause.

If a rightie fades or slices the ball the face is open to path. Not true ?

Sorry, I missed HIS post but OK, if his path is down the line or even in-to-out relative to target line the face is still open to path.

You would feel a shank. The ball hits the HOSEL of the club, doesn't really go any real distance, and may not even touch the inside of the face.

But OK, fine. See above. If you are truly in-to-out relative to target line you almost have to have you hands far in front of the ball at impact, very possibly because of little-to-no arm rotation and/oor even kind of rolling your wrists open. That's the only thing I can visualize from the descriptions.

That he might have an out to in path (which is always relative to the target line). He could have an in to out path and have the face just open to the path and hit big block fades. Two different flaws and two different fixes

New account, my trollometer is dinging..

despite repeated requests he can’t even describe the ball flight let alone post a video. A 10 year old phone would capture enough frames to give us a clue. He’s just talking absolute nonsense about headcovers and arm rotation. I’d whiff it if I was actually thinking about rotating my arms.

your trollometer is wrong in this case. I can assure you I am not trolling.

The headcover was just a way to figure out my path since I do not have access to trackman at the moment.

English isn’t your first language and you know what a trollometer is? Wasn’t born yesterday squire.

one last chance. Forget the naffing headcover, which way do your divots look? Left, right, straight?

Too much in to out can be just as bad as being out to in. More likely to have a two way miss when the timing isn't there. The closer you get to neutral the better. I believe I read somewhere that 2* either way was ideal.

A true shank is unplayable. Once you start doing that on the course it's time to pack it in for the day hahahttps://youtu.be/hrhDwX4g_NU

One thing I thought about while searching for tips online :

Is the modern take on the release basically this?:

In the DS you reach the position where the club is parallel to the ground again, and then you simply release and square the clubface by turning aggressively through the ball?

It is still based on timing but I would not have to rotate my left arm so much.

I tried it in slow motion and, voila, the club is square. However, I am a bit afraid that I loose clubhead speed that way?

Yes, this is essentially what Biomechanist (is that a word) advocate after studying the pros on 3D software and force plates. But there are some pre-requisites that have to be met in the backswing before this can be done. For example, proper pivot and tilts, along with a strong grip or some "motorcycle move" are essential. If you dont't pivot correctly or have the proper tilts than you can come over the top or the hips may stall out and force you to flip the club. It all stems from being out of position. If the grip isn't strong enough then you will leave the face wide open and hit a massive push to the right. Some chose to do the motorcycle move in the downswing as opposed to having a strong grip to square the face. If you fulfill the prerecs then your body wants to get in that delivery position and pivot the club into the ball. Best thing I've done for my swing was by a Planemate. It teaches this pivot driven release which I had elements of in my swing thanks to Iteach but there were some flaws in my swing that made consistency an issue for me. The planemate has helped me to address those flaws (flat shoulder turn, handsy takeaway) so that I know longer have hot and cold ball striking days.

The motorcycle move is simply hooding the face with the wrists and then you just rotate hard with the body. There's a video, cant remember if it was Grant Waite or Dana Dahlquist, but they say the further you get the club head from your lead hip the more speed you can generate.

okay, i thought I had the fix by rotating through the ball more. However, as you said, I open the clubface more and the ballflight is even more right. depressing.

Even with the motorcycle move.

If I just have the club "in the slot" and turn ,I even get rightward ballflight ( push slice) with my 8 iron.

Is there any explanation why that happens predominantly from 3 wood and Driver? I cannot play these clubs atm. Actually Driver is better than 3 Wood since the head is way bigger, i guess.