2 completely different feels/intents but same result?

[YouDaHamHider]

Hi guys, I posted a video yesterday on the instruction boards about my EE and the essential feedback that I received was that I was too steep and my face was too open before impact. With that information I took some swings with a completely different feel and intention (which felt horrible and WAY different to my natural move) . Anyway, to my surprise the video showed basically no discernable difference from one swing to the next. I understand that feel isn't real but I was hoping that with how different the swing felt I would see more of a change than what showed up on video. With that said, some of your more expertly trained eyes might see some subtle differences/improvements from one swing to the next which I don't see. Any thoughts would be most welcome. Is one of these swings better than the other, or are they basically the same swings? 

[Valtiel]

Superficially they basically look the same, and In my experience this kind of thing is due to whatever feel you are focusing on being overridden by a much bigger underlying foundational issue. Kind of like a "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" sort of situation if you can excuse the hyperbole there. A more significant fundamental issue that is not being addressed will basically override whatever feel-based change you were trying to effect.   

Even though your swings aesthetically are completely different, you have the same types of problems that @betarhoalphadelta was struggling with. The golf swing as a whole is a full body athletic motion that you are only really engaging half of your body for. Your motion is hands/arms dominated and the lower body is comparatively doing very little, causing you to end up in a completely blocked out and flippy impact position. You can tell in the second video that you hit a smother hook even though the ball only traveled 10ft, which is one of the two main misses you'll have with this action, the other being a block right. If I had to guess, I would say you struggle with the smother hook a lot more. 

Here is an interesting way to look at it, i'll call this "Backswing or Downswing"?





The purpose is to illustrate the idea that from an athletic standpoint, the difference between your backswing and downswing should be extremely noticeable based on the differences in what your body should be doing going back vs. coming down. 

I think it is fair to say that even if I reorganized the photos, it would be clear which is which with Tiger, whereas on your end you would be forgiven for not knowing. This is a clear indication that you are doing very little with your body, specifically your lower body, and that you're largely just throwing your hands at the ball. Your hips are moving very slowly in transition and are losing all their depth. This is easiest to see in the 2nd and 3rd images of your swing above. Notice how in the 3rd image (backswing) your butt is right up against the edge of the image, but in the 2nd image (downswing) it has moved significantly closer to the ball.



This is the "hump" you've likely heard about, which is one third of the infamous "hump/stuck/flip" trifecta that you have going on. Any shaft plane and clubface issues are symptoms of this, and you need to get to the root to address those, which will involve some pretty significant changes. I'm not sure what "feel" you were trying to play with here, but it didn't do anything for these fundamental issues so I would forget about it for now. 

Number one, you need to sync up your transition into the downsing. Right now you are all fast arms and slow hips, which is leading to your arms completely outracing your lower body. This is pulling your lower body towards the ball (hump) which takes away room you need and in your case appears to push your path out to the right, which requires you to flip your hands and that leads to the hook miss. 

Second, your hips need to maintain or at least lose LESS of their depth while this is all happening. This will help neutralize your path and remove the need to flip so much with your hands. The AMG video about Pros vs. AMs hip rotation is a great way to visualize what you're doing wrong here:
 

 

[YouDaHamHider]

8 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Superficially they basically look the same, and In my experience this kind of thing is due to whatever feel you are focusing on being overridden by a much bigger underlying foundational issue. Kind of like a "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" sort of situation if you can excuse the hyperbole there. A more significant fundamental issue that is not being addressed will basically override whatever feel-based change you were trying to effect.   

Even though your swings aesthetically are completely different, you have the same types of problems that @betarhoalphadelta was struggling with. The golf swing as a whole is a full body athletic motion that you are only really engaging half of your body for. Your motion is hands/arms dominated and the lower body is comparatively doing very little, causing you to end up in a completely blocked out and flippy impact position. You can tell in the second video that you hit a smother hook even though the ball only traveled 10ft, which is one of the two main misses you'll have with this action, the other being a block right. If I had to guess, I would say you struggle with the smother hook a lot more. 

Here is an interesting way to look at it, i'll call this "Backswing or Downswing"?





The purpose is to illustrate the idea that from an athletic standpoint, the difference between your backswing and downswing should be extremely noticeable based on the differences in what your body should be doing going back vs. coming down. 

I think it is fair to say that even if I reorganized the photos, it would be clear which is which with Tiger, whereas on your end you would be forgiven for not knowing. This is a clear indication that you are doing very little with your body, specifically your lower body, and that you're largely just throwing your hands at the ball. Your hips are moving very slowly in transition and are losing all their depth. This is easiest to see in the 2nd and 3rd images of your swing above. Notice how in the 3rd image (backswing) your butt is right up against the edge of the image, but in the 2nd image (downswing) it has moved significantly closer to the ball.



This is the "hump" you've likely heard about, which is one third of the infamous "hump/stuck/flip" trifecta that you have going on. Any shaft plane and clubface issues are symptoms of this, and you need to get to the root to address those, which will involve some pretty significant changes. I'm not sure what "feel" you were trying to play with here, but it didn't do anything for these fundamental issues so I would forget about it for now. 

Number one, you need to sync up your transition into the downsing. Right now you are all fast arms and slow hips, which is leading to your arms completely outracing your lower body. This is pulling your lower body towards the ball (hump) which takes away room you need and in your case appears to push your path out to the right, which requires you to flip your hands and that leads to the hook miss. 

Second, your hips need to maintain or at least lose LESS of their depth while this is all happening. This will help neutralize your path and remove the need to flip so much with your hands. The AMG video about Pros vs. AMs hip rotation is a great way to visualize what you're doing wrong here:
 

 

Hi Valtiel, this was just the type of analysis that I was after. I really appreciate you having taken the time to share your thoughts. I'm not suprised that you've focused on my hip movement (or lack therof) as for the past year or so all I've focused on is what my wrists, arms and shoulders are doing. I've come down significantly in that time and currently play off an 8 index but I feel as though my game has plateaued and I'm not hitting it as far as I should off 8 if average distance charts are to be believed. I.E. My driver carry is close to 215, 7 iron 145. You're correct about the occasional smother hook with longer clubs but with mid and shorter irons it's the block. My biggest issue over the last 10 rounds and what has prevented me from getting down to 7 or lower has been a series of bladed wedge shots from 50 to 80 yards. As for the feels I was playing with in the second video, it was for me the feeling of a super flat wrist at the top and what felt like a silly amount of arm depth. (Again, Not thinking about my hips at all!). Thanks again for your input, I hope to make some more progress over the next few months and really focus on getting my lower body more engaged. 

[Valtiel]

52 minutes ago, YouDaHamHider said:

Hi Valtiel, this was just the type of analysis that I was after. I really appreciate you having taken the time to share your thoughts. I'm not suprised that you've focused on my hip movement (or lack therof) as for the past year or so all I've focused on is what my wrists, arms and shoulders are doing. I've come down significantly in that time and currently play off an 8 index but I feel as though my game has plateaued and I'm not hitting it as far as I should off 8 if average distance charts are to be believed. I.E. My driver carry is close to 215, 7 iron 145. You're correct about the occasional smother hook with longer clubs but with mid and shorter irons it's the block. My biggest issue over the last 10 rounds and what has prevented me from getting down to 7 or lower has been a series of bladed wedge shots from 50 to 80 yards. As for the feels I was playing with in the second video, it was for me the feeling of a super flat wrist at the top and what felt like a silly amount of arm depth. (Again, Not thinking about my hips at all!). Thanks again for your input, I hope to make some more progress over the next few months and really focus on getting my lower body more engaged. 

No problem! And that is good to know, thanks. I can see what you're talking about in terms of flattening your left wrist and gaining more arm depth. The tricky thing is that the loss of hip depth and stalling will likely take that additional arm depth and turn it into an even more rightward path, so keep an eye on that. 

What you're doing with your hands/arms and your overall tempo actually looks quite good to me, the passive lower body is the weak link right now. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

@YouDaHamHider Since @Valtiel brought me up, I'll chime in. 

 

I watched that AMG video, over and over. Kept trying to do it. Kept trying to get that left hip to maintain depth and open at impact instead of stall. Needless to say, it did not work. Part of this was that I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but another part of this is that I was trying to fix it with full swings. Every time I looked at it on video it was still just a stall/flip, with my hips square at impact and [moderate] early extension.

 

From my lesson with Monte, he had me do a drill trying to focus on a simple ~50 yard pitch shot with a 7i, so VERY easy swing. The goal was to keep my back to the target longer and focus on getting my hips started before the shoulders, and to feel like I'm pulling that left hip straight backward from the target line [not right hip forward obviously]. If you've read Jim Waldron's ASI thread, this is what I imagine the "tilt switch" he refers to is, because you feel yourself transitioning into right tilt as your hips start moving underneath your shoulders. 

 

What I found is that it not only cured my stall/flip, but that it actually cured my early extension... WHEN I was doing the drill. When I was trying to transition to full swing, it was a lot harder, and I would see in the video that I was far more open than before, but not where I could be and the early extension was creeping back in. BUT... The more I work it, the better that's getting. And ballstriking has improved. And the more I do it, the less I *feel* that I'm leading with the hips, but it still shows up better on video. 

 

This may be COMPLETELY irrelevant to what's causing your issue--I'm not an instructor obviously. But it looks like you're stalling in much the same way I was, so might be worth a try. 

 

If you want to give it a shot, I'd say video yourself on little 50 yd pitch shot effort, and REALLY focus on keeping the back to the target and starting the hips earlier. If what you see on video makes you happy, work that drill 3 out of every 4 swings with a full swing on the 4th, gradually extending the length of the drill swings--regularly monitoring with video to make sure you're still doing it. 

 

Again, maybe this isn't your issue, but hopefully even if it doesn't help, it narrows down what that root cause truly is by process of elimination lol...

[YouDaHamHider]

1 hour ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

@YouDaHamHider Since @Valtiel brought me up, I'll chime in. 

 

I watched that AMG video, over and over. Kept trying to do it. Kept trying to get that left hip to maintain depth and open at impact instead of stall. Needless to say, it did not work. Part of this was that I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but another part of this is that I was trying to fix it with full swings. Every time I looked at it on video it was still just a stall/flip, with my hips square at impact and [moderate] early extension.

 

From my lesson with Monte, he had me do a drill trying to focus on a simple ~50 yard pitch shot with a 7i, so VERY easy swing. The goal was to keep my back to the target longer and focus on getting my hips started before the shoulders, and to feel like I'm pulling that left hip straight backward from the target line [not right hip forward obviously]. If you've read Jim Waldron's ASI thread, this is what I imagine the "tilt switch" he refers to is, because you feel yourself transitioning into right tilt as your hips start moving underneath your shoulders. 

 

What I found is that it not only cured my stall/flip, but that it actually cured my early extension... WHEN I was doing the drill. When I was trying to transition to full swing, it was a lot harder, and I would see in the video that I was far more open than before, but not where I could be and the early extension was creeping back in. BUT... The more I work it, the better that's getting. And ballstriking has improved. And the more I do it, the less I *feel* that I'm leading with the hips, but it still shows up better on video. 

 

This may be COMPLETELY irrelevant to what's causing your issue--I'm not an instructor obviously. But it looks like you're stalling in much the same way I was, so might be worth a try. 

 

If you want to give it a shot, I'd say video yourself on little 50 yd pitch shot effort, and REALLY focus on keeping the back to the target and starting the hips earlier. If what you see on video makes you happy, work that drill 3 out of every 4 swings with a full swing on the 4th, gradually extending the length of the drill swings--regularly monitoring with video to make sure you're still doing it. 

 

Again, maybe this isn't your issue, but hopefully even if it doesn't help, it narrows down what that root cause truly is by process of elimination lol...

Thanks for your comments beta, they're most appreciated. I'm the same in that I've watched that AMG video probably 20 times but just haven't understood how to get it done. After thinking about Valtiel's comments earlier I had a good search of Google and found a really interesting take on hip movement from a Padraig Harrington instructional video. 

It resonated with me so much that I actually headed straight to the course to play a late 9 holes! (This was before I saw your post)

The concept of driving my right knee under my left hip produced some really interesting results. I took a video of my last tee shot and as per the comparison that Valtiel so helpfully pointed out earlier with regards to my downswing being hard to differentiate from my backswing, I think that I look far more athletic in this downswing. Thanks for the tilt switch reference, I'm going to look into it now.

[YouDaHamHider]

On 4/9/2021 at 12:04 PM, Valtiel said:

No problem! And that is good to know, thanks. I can see what you're talking about in terms of flattening your left wrist and gaining more arm depth. The tricky thing is that the loss of hip depth and stalling will likely take that additional arm depth and turn it into an even more rightward path, so keep an eye on that. 

What you're doing with your hands/arms and your overall tempo actually looks quite good to me, the passive lower body is the weak link right now. 

Hi Valtiel, how are you doing? Your analysis a few months ago really helped me out so I wanted to thank you again. I've been putting in some deliberate practice with my swing in the meantime and I'd be really interested in your thoughts about my progress. Thanks for looking.