Why am I early extending?

[YouDaHamHider]

Hi all, I've been learning more about early extension and in particular the explanation that early extension is a swing cure rather than a swing fault. With that in mind, I'm curious what you all see as being my main swing fault that is causing the EE? 

[ferrispgm]

I would say it's because you are coming into impact too steep with an open face and early extending in an effort to shallow and shut the face.  You look like you have a pretty neutral grip yet your lead wrist is extending quite a bit at the top.  I would work on getting the lead wrist flatter which will get the club less across the line at the top and hopefully on a shallower path.  I could be wrong though.

[b.mattay]

Shaft is super steep in early transition is what I see. It's almost pointing at your toes at P5.

[Barfolomew]

Cause its prom night...

[fronesis]

Agree with what others have said: you start down quite steep and you have to early extend in order to both shallow and close the face.

But I'd also say that you are taking it back pretty steep and the downswing is really just repeating what you do on the backswing. If we were on the range and I was giving you a lesson, I'd tell you to try to start the cub back by pulling the handle like you are going to hit your right thigh...try taking it back much further inside and try to get more turn from your hips. With this turn you won't need to lift your arms so much. Then make your first move down a bit of hip bump toward the target. If you make that backswing you'll be in a MUCH better place because you won't be nearly as steep. With your current backswing the only way you are going to get "in the slot" is to really DROP it, letting the hands fall and shallowing significantly. 

 

 

A lot of pros can make that move brilliantly, but most of us can't do it. So your life would be a lot easier if you made a different backswing. 

 

[YouDaHamHider]

Thanks for the feedback folks. I was worried that you were going to say the whole swing was too steep as from where it was a few months ago it already feels super flat! What a ridiculous game this is. 

[TheDeanAbides]

You don't need to get your hands any deeper going back, but you do need to rotate your forearms a little more so that you're not quite as steep. This will also give you a slightly more compact P4. 

 

I think you need to give yourself a little more time in transition to lower your arms. It's not much, but feeling like you recenter and keep your back to the target a hair longer while you shallow will help.

 

The wall drill would also help. 

 

Edit: lots of good in that swing though.

Edited April 7, 2021 by TheDeanAbides

[YouDaHamHider]

45 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

You don't need to get your hands any deeper going back, but you do need to rotate your forearms a little more so that you're not quite as steep. This will also give you a slightly more compact P4. 

 

I think you need to give yourself a little more time in transition to lower your arms. It's not much, but feeling like you recenter and keep your back to the target a hair longer while you shallow will help.

 

The wall drill would also help. 

 

Edit: lots of good in that swing though.

Thanks Dean, I appreciate it. This is how I looked a few months ago so I hope that I'm at least moving in the right direction. Looking at it now I feel as though my backswing has improved but my downswing might have regressed. 

[TheDeanAbides]

13 minutes ago, YouDaHamHider said:

Thanks Dean, I appreciate it. This is how I looked a few months ago so I hope that I'm at least moving in the right direction. Looking at it now I feel as though my backswing has improved but my downswing might have regressed. 

That's a fair assessment. It's actually a pretty simple formula: get a decent backswing, which anyone can do because it's something you can totally control, and then transition properly with correct wrist conditions. That's the swing. 

 

Now, making the changes is hard if we've got a lot of programming to overcome, but every move we make well cascades into the rest of the swing and makes it easier to make a good move. 

 

Just allow your wrist set to P3 rotate your forearms a hair and then turn a little more. Then back into the target while you do the wall drill. 

 

A FO view would be good to check the pivot too. 

[dap]

Can’t have the pelvis drifting out towards the ball on the downswing. I am not a believer that swing faults causes EE. EE causes swing faults that matches up with the EE that allows you to hit the ball moderately successful.

 

You need to learn the proper hip and pelvis motion. The hips need to stay “ in the box” throughout the swing.  The other swing faults will go away to match up with the lack of EE. 
 

What came first? The chicken or the egg? Some will say the egg but I say it’s the chicken.

[Golfbeat]

28 minutes ago, dap said:

Can’t have the pelvis drifting out towards the ball on the downswing. I am not a believer that swing faults causes EE. EE causes swing faults that matches up with the EE that allows you to hit the ball moderately successful.

 

You need to learn the proper hip and pelvis motion. The hips need to stay “ in the box” throughout the swing.  The other swing faults will go away to match up with the lack of EE. 
 

What came first? The chicken or the egg? Some will say the egg but I say it’s the chicken.

 

Have you tried to early extend with (what feel like) a very closed club face?

Edited April 14, 2021 by Golfbeat
Grammar

[TLUBulldogGolf]

23 minutes ago, dap said:

Can’t have the pelvis drifting out towards the ball on the downswing. I am not a believer that swing faults causes EE. EE causes swing faults that matches up with the EE that allows you to hit the ball moderately successful.

 

You need to learn the proper hip and pelvis motion. The hips need to stay “ in the box” throughout the swing.  The other swing faults will go away to match up with the lack of EE. 
 

What came first? The chicken or the egg? Some will say the egg but I say it’s the chicken.

 

Should watch Monte's videos on this, it's pretty convincingly the other way around. EE is a reaction. 

[dap]

11 minutes ago, TLUBulldogGolf said:

 

Should watch Monte's videos on this, it's pretty convincingly the other way around. EE is a reaction. 

I like a lot of what Monte teaches. My favourite is his zipper away drill which directly addresses EE. It’s similar to TPI’s picket fence drill.

 

 

[YouDaHamHider]

2 hours ago, TLUBulldogGolf said:

 

Should watch Monte's videos on this, it's pretty convincingly the other way around. EE is a reaction. 

Absolutely, it was Monte's EE premium video that convinced me that I was EE to compensate for another flaw. The problem I have is that when considering the 6 or so flaws that Monte discusses, I felt guilty as charged for about all of them! My reason for posting here was to get some other opinions as to what flaws were most obvious and worth working on first. I got some good feedback of Valtiel who pointed out that I wasnt engaging my lower half at all and was all arms so I've been working on just focusing on hip movements since I first posted. I feel like I'm making baby steps progress doing so. 

[KMeloney]

You know how Matt Wolff does that funky move at the start of his swing? He's essentially presetting his impact position. If you were to preset YOUR impact position, you'd simply move your hips out toward the ball a little, and raise your hands some. That's it. Currently, you're completely square to the ball at impact, and straightening up coming into the ball. 

 

It might be that you're not sure what impact should look like... but you'll be much more over the ball, your hands  ahead of the ball, shaft leaning forward and more left than you're used to (squaring the face), hips open, left hip back and left leg straightening, and shoulders opening or a little open (with maybe the right one down some and the left up some, depending on the club/shot you're hitting). If you set up normally, and then "press" yourself into a good impact position, you'll get a sense for how you need to move to get there from the top of your swing. 

 

Pause your video at impact, and then compare your positioning to the pros' (just google "pro impact position golf"). Maybe your intent is incorrect/you're not clear on where you're supposed to be at impact. 

[KMeloney]

Btw, I posted the above before seeing your third video. Impact in the third video looks much better to me than in the first.

Edited April 14, 2021 by KMeloney

[YouDaHamHider]

47 minutes ago, KMeloney said:

Btw, I posted the above before seeing your third video. Impact in the third video looks much better to me than in the first.

I was hoping that was the case! Cheers for your feedback. 

[glk]

Yes last looks a bit better

 

butt.  Butt to far back.   Line up center hips with center of ankles.

 

club didn’t get inside on last swing versus earlier but you still get arms too across the body and that makes it too hard to shallow - arms need to stay in front.  Issue is you don’t turn your upper body and arms in synch  and late in the backswing when you turn the upper body the arms come too far inside.   Need to do some of iteach straight arms drills to get upper body turning with arms -see bottom of post.

 

you at p3 - little turn of sternum so when you do inside go the arms instead of up.

and result is at top left arm is really across the chest and behind not in front - leading to steep shaft and left arm pinned against chest too long.

result is steep and left arm pinned

Need to see sternum turned earlier and more in takeaway/backswing

like this and will set you up much better to shallow etc.

 

 

 

[YouDaHamHider]

16 hours ago, glk said:

Yes last looks a bit better

 

butt.  Butt to far back.   Line up center hips with center of ankles.

 

club didn’t get inside on last swing versus earlier but you still get arms too across the body and that makes it too hard to shallow - arms need to stay in front.  Issue is you don’t turn your upper body and arms in synch  and late in the backswing when you turn the upper body the arms come too far inside.   Need to do some of iteach straight arms drills to get upper body turning with arms -see bottom of post.

 

you at p3 - little turn of sternum so when you do inside go the arms instead of up.

and result is at top left arm is really across the chest and behind not in front - leading to steep shaft and left arm pinned against chest too long.

result is steep and left arm pinned

Need to see sternum turned earlier and more in takeaway/backswing

like this and will set you up much better to shallow etc.

 

 

 

Hi glk, thanks very much for the really helpful analysis, it's much appreciated. 

[glk]

5 hours ago, YouDaHamHider said:

Hi glk, thanks very much for the really helpful analysis, it's much appreciated. 

Good luck.  I had a similar issue and iteach had me doing both the straight arms and stick drill.   The straight arms got me to really turn my upper body for the first time and contributed a lot to a real distance pickup as well as being able to shallow the club in transition.   To me it feels like I’m 90* turned with my sternum by p3  - probably not but that is my feel especially early on when I too didn’t rotate it much and relied on my arms and shoulders too much in the early backswing.

[dap]

19 hours ago, YouDaHamHider said:

Hi glk, thanks very much for the really helpful analysis, it's much appreciated. 

Looking at your latest video, you are still coming way off the tushline at impact. Nothing has changed much imo.

 

I can only tell you from my own experience that I needed to address the hip and pelvis action directly to fix EE. 
 

While I won’t go as far as to say other faults will go away once you fix EE, you need to be working directly on the hip and pelvis action too. It won’t just fix on its own with other things.

 

You need to really exaggerate the feel of the tailbone moving away from the ball as you rotate the hips. Think zipper away but don’t forget to rotate the left hip around behind you. Watch Kevin Kisner’s pelvis motion and try to copy that.

[YouDaHamHider]

So I finally took the plunge and had a video review with Monte. He told me that I had no wrist hinge and moved my hips all wrong. Basically I move my left hip toward the ball in the backswing and my right hip towards the ball in the downswing. What I should be doing is moving my right hip away from the ball in the backswing and left hip away from the ball in the downswing. This was a week ago and as prescribed by monte I've been working on this while predominantly hitting 7 iron punch shots. The following swing is only 4 range sessions in but I think there is some definete improvement with regards to EE. 

[tinman143]

Looks so much better with these punch shots. The hard part (for me) is maintaing the same hip movement to long clubs. Keep up the good work!