flipping

[Literacola]

Greetings. I'm having problems stalling and flipping at the ball. I know my takeaway could use some work, but I think I'm in a decent position at the top. idk. Any help would be appreciated.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2020 by bamaslammer
added video

[molecularman]

I am working on the same thing.

One thing that might help you universally is putting a ball in between your arms.    I am having good luck using that and focusing on getting more rotation through the ball,  letting the club head drag behind,  vs stalling and flipping.

He demonstrates it well here....
 

 

[Literacola]

I tried one of those years ago and gave up rather quickly on it. I'll give it another try next time at the range.

[molecularman]

I think the key is using it for punch half swings,  really focusing on letting your right shoulder come through.  

It's a really good warmup  - hitting 20-30 balls like that, then moving on to full swings without the ball and occasionally going back to it for half swings again to get that feel back. 

With the chicken wing you have after impact,  you'll find it feels really odd and it's hard to not have the ball drop.  


It is very subtle, but the first move down,  your hands want to travel out, promoting an out to in path.    You lose your spine angle in the backswing, so your shoulders end up far too horizontal at the top.   Reference the attached photo.  

The first move down is to regain a better shoulder position, but in doing so you are forcing the club on out to in path.  You understand you don't want that, so you dynamically attempt to stop that by pushing your hips towards the ball (losing spine angle again)  -  this gives you a feeling that the club is coming more from the inside.   That further gets reinforced by trying to hold the from going left (out to in) by chicken winging the left arm.   Everything about your swing screams "Nope, I ain't coming over the top!!"

By trying to prevent the club head from traveling to the left, you are forcing yourself to not rotate.    When you don't rotate, the only thing you can do is flip at it. 

It's difficult to commit to rotating through the golf swing if you feel like it's going to lead to a big out to in move.   You really need to get the club head to shallow out from the top,  and it'll be a lot easier to rotate through at that point.     So you need more vertical shoulders at top and the first move down is to shallow the shoulders -  so basically the reverse of what you are currently doing. 


 

[Literacola]

14 minutes ago, molecularman said:

Everything about your swing screams "Nope, I ain't coming over the top!!"
 

That obvious, eh? Thanks for the time you put into this Moleculo. I've been working alot on getting my shoulders to turn down more in the backswing, guess I still have long way to go. Not sure how how I'm going to this as it feels like I'm already pointing my left shoulder at my feet. Any more turn down and I get the sensation I'll fall over. I'm pretty flexible, so I feel like I should be able to get there. Thanks again for the write up.

[zachillusions]

I think everything said here will set you on the right path. I think a really good drill for you would be to take your normal setup with an 8 iron, and then move the ball forward towards your lead foot, keeping your club head at its usual address. Hitting balls like this will really force your body to make a full turn and really rotate through. It'll be hard to flip so much and still make solid contact with the ball. 

 

If you struggle with fat/thin shots it'll also help train you to hit the ball then ground with your irons.

[Valtiel]

@molecularman explained it very well up there, particularly the part about rotation. I tend to harp on that a lot, but it is the single most common thing you see in people struggling with the things you are describing. If we look at your impact position...



...we can see that your hips are pretty stalled and your arms have completely overrun them. That arm speed without the accompanying lower speed/clearing will lead to a "flip" every time because you don't have anywhere else to go. A lot of your swing looks like a younger Kenny Perry, someone that proved a bit of a funky backswing and loss of posture isn't a death sentence, but the difference is the sequence which i'll break down here. 

You both have a nice slow takeaway and lose a little bit of posture going back (not necessarily a bad thing)



Your arms are a little further away and your clubface is a bit open, but not huge issues. 

Up to the top, you've still lost a bit of that posture, and this is where the differences begin:



We can't see your clubface, but based on the frames just before this, it appears to be too open, whereas we can see Kenny's is pretty square, maybe a bit shut. What you also can't see here but you will see in the next shot is that Kenny will start dropping and rotating, getting back into the posture that was lost a little bit going back. It's a beautiful compensation and one of the reasons he was so consistent. 



Now Kenny is down and rotating with a little bit of shaft shallowing and a right elbow tighter to the body, while you haven't made that move and are instead coming up and early extending with arms losing connection with the body. Both sets of hips are pretty much square to the ball right now, but....



...at impact your hips are still pretty square (this is the stalled rotation @molecularman mentioned and I highlighted above) whereas Kenny's have cleared more. He is also down with the ball with hands returning to the address position and connected with the body where you have stood up and flipped your hands which have come in disconnected from the body and above the address position.

Reordering your downswing move to be driven by the lower body sinking and rotating while the hands fall down and stay in sync with that rotation is the feeling you'll want to have, as opposed to the arms driving ahead and leaving the lower body behind like you're doing now. 👍

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Valtiel

[Literacola]

Thanks for the write up an comaprison @Valtiel. Would rotating my left forearm more vertically at the top help get my right elbow into the body? 

[Valtiel]

7 hours ago, bamaslammer said:

Thanks for the write up an comaprison @Valtiel. Would rotating my left forearm more vertically at the top help get my right elbow into the body? 

I wouldn't focus on trying to get into a position, but rather focus on the movements that allow those positions to happen more naturally. The thing that needs to be integrated is an athletic lower body centered move in transition from the top, a move that creates the separation and subsequent rubbing banding effect that then triggers the upper body to follow. When you fire in the correct order like that, your arms will naturally end up in a more connected position. Trying to force them into that position would be yet another arm focused movement that is already the source of the issues here. 

A drill I like to do is once the club is at the top and you're properly loaded into your right hip, try to initiate your downsing while literally doing absolutely nothing with your hands and arms. Pretend like the connection between your brain and those muscles is just gone and all you have is your lower body. As the only source of power, what you'll actually find is that swinging that way doesn't result in anything weird. As long as you are maintaining your grip on the club, doing this will just naturally let it fall down on plane and the rotation of your lower body will whip it around right back to the general area of the ball without you needing to guide it there. Not only is this type of move more efficient and powerful, but it uses a much stronger group of muscles that are lower to the ground and not directly connected to the club, which increases consistency. 

Like anything significant, start slow with shorter clubs and work up. A professional to help would be advisable as well.