All of the sudden my golf swing has gone to utter crap.

[Rdailey9108]

I've never good per say. Low 90s-maybe 80s on a really really good day but recently I've developed some bad habits in my swing out of nowhere. Thoughts? It feels like I'm back to day one. 

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by Rdailey9108

[BraxtonFullerton]

Hey there fellow lefty. You look like the exact opposite of my swing... you're way too flat. Here's a quick look from start, top, and impact on t hat first swing:

 

Big take-away from looking at your swing, you're very "laid off" at the top. Which means your clubhead is too far away from your body. You break that left wrist back and it destroys your swing plane. Now you're fighting to make it to impact with the clubface and not get stuck or flippy. Here you hit it squarely off the toe. Notice your shoulders and hips are still completely closed.

Here's fellow lefty Mike Weir at impact:

 

 

Hips open, shoulders open, clubface is closing and look at his trail arm compared to yours. Clubhead is lagged, good compression, hands/handle through first.

 

Your second swing really makes your sequence flaws more noticeable:

 

 

Your clubhead is initially taken away way too high and then you have that huge layoff at the top, not a lot of face control to be had, though you center strike this one.

 

Here's Mike again: (clubhead's there in the first frame, i promise)

 

 

My biggest impression on your swing is that you're so intent on getting as far back as you can, you then get stuck and your rotation stalls out. You never get "through" the ball with your body before impact because you're reaching too far back and breaking your center of gravity.

 

Keep that back arm tucked in from the start, end your backswing a little sooner and I think it'll fix most of what I see you doing.

Edited May 28, 2021 by BraxtonFullerton

[Valtiel]

There is definitely a lot wrong with your positions and the way you're using your body here. I agree with everything Braxton said above so i'll just contribute some gifs for reference:



Your first move back is alright in a vacuum and you have rotated your right hip back nicely, but like Braxton said it is pretty high and seems to setup the reaction which is....



....a massive layoff of the club combined with pretty extreme over rotation. The fact that your head comes up and is turned significantly away from the ball is a sign that you have well exceeded your range of motion and that your backswing should be much shorter. Your hands are way too deep and disconnected and everything else stems from this bad position. Like Braxton said, from here you are forced to go into rescue mode to even make contact with the ball, and that means none of the normal fundamentals like shallowing/rotating/driving towards the target are possible since you need time to "correct" this position. 



You do a decent job of bringing the club down on plane, but you needed to completely stall your rotation and early extend to get here. Poor contact and trajectory are the result. 



Then we have the goat hump at impact. Your hips and shoulders are closed and your lower body is completely passive. All of this is backwards and caused by having to rescue the bad position at the top of the swing. 

The solution is to get yourself into a position where you don't need to do this, and that will involve changing your path going back to get into a more neutral position at the top (hands higher and less behind you) and dialing back the over rotation so your head can stay stationary. From there you can actually lead with the lower body and get your hips cleared at impact, but if you tried to do that now you would not be able to make contact with the ball. Hands on instruction would be best for this if you feel you don't know how to make these changes on your own. 👍

[GolfTurkey]

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Then we have the goat hump at impact. Your hips and shoulders are closed and your lower body is completely passive. All of this is backwards and caused by having to rescue the bad position at the top of the swing. 
 

 

I am bored at work on a Friday. If I had the skillz I would Photoshop a goat with this kind of expression somewhere onto that last gif:

 

[Stetson884]

Imagine  just turning your belly button to the left as far as your can. Then stop. Fire 🔥 it back towards the ball let the lower body fire and pull your arms into the slot. Maintain balance and spine angle. Try to keep left shoulder from dipping and hold right shoulder from lunging forward. Honestly tho, it’s probably easier to work on it with a qualified pro. Because what you think you’re doing isn’t exactly what you actually do. Good luck 👍 

[Rdailey9108]

So I worked on a few things. Trying to shorten the backswing. Keeping the face what to me feels super shut. I was actually striking the ball decent. One thing I still don't like is where my hands are in the backswing. Club still seems a little laid off. Thoughts?

 

[Rdailey9108]

On 5/27/2021 at 10:20 PM, Valtiel said:

There is definitely a lot wrong with your positions and the way you're using your body here. I agree with everything Braxton said above so i'll just contribute some gifs for reference:



Your first move back is alright in a vacuum and you have rotated your right hip back nicely, but like Braxton said it is pretty high and seems to setup the reaction which is....



....a massive layoff of the club combined with pretty extreme over rotation. The fact that your head comes up and is turned significantly away from the ball is a sign that you have well exceeded your range of motion and that your backswing should be much shorter. Your hands are way too deep and disconnected and everything else stems from this bad position. Like Braxton said, from here you are forced to go into rescue mode to even make contact with the ball, and that means none of the normal fundamentals like shallowing/rotating/driving towards the target are possible since you need time to "correct" this position. 



You do a decent job of bringing the club down on plane, but you needed to completely stall your rotation and early extend to get here. Poor contact and trajectory are the result. 



Then we have the goat hump at impact. Your hips and shoulders are closed and your lower body is completely passive. All of this is backwards and caused by having to rescue the bad position at the top of the swing. 

The solution is to get yourself into a position where you don't need to do this, and that will involve changing your path going back to get into a more neutral position at the top (hands higher and less behind you) and dialing back the over rotation so your head can stay stationary. From there you can actually lead with the lower body and get your hips cleared at impact, but if you tried to do that now you would not be able to make contact with the ball. Hands on instruction would be best for this if you feel you don't know how to make these changes on your own. 👍

Wow idk how you slow the videos down to the point to make those gifs but they are really eye opening. Hopefully my videos I did today are a little improvement. I've always had problems with not getting my hands high enough and in front of me. I may need to see a pro to fix this because I don't think even with all of the videos, and content I watch that I will fix it. Oddly enough in my rehearsals I'm usually golden. 

[Rdailey9108]

On 5/28/2021 at 2:41 AM, GolfTurkey said:

 

I am bored at work on a Friday. If I had the skillz I would Photoshop a goat with this kind of expression somewhere onto that last gif:

 

[BraxtonFullerton]

Work on keeping your hands "inside" your center of gravity. Don't let your hands get out behind your butt. This is what's throwing you out and forcing all the ugly stuff coming through because you then can't get your shoulders and hips open before impact.

Keep your hands inside your a** is basically what I'm trying to say to you. You'll rotate back less, but that's what we're going for here. You want to be below the red line and to the left of the blue line.

Work less on rotating back and focus more on exploding through and getting your hips open before contact. Exaggerate the sequencing. Shorten your backswing, turn and get your hips open first, then bring your arms down and through the swing. Start getting that feeling and then start speeding it up. Your goal is to be open, here's where you are when you make contact:

 

 

You want to be closer to this position when you're striking the ball:

 

 

Ripping your hips and shoulders open are what is going to generate power, speed, and consistency for you, not your arms.

Edited May 30, 2021 by BraxtonFullerton

[Rdailey9108]

10 hours ago, BraxtonFullerton said:

Work on keeping your hands "inside" your center of gravity. Don't let your hands get out behind your butt. This is what's throwing you out and forcing all the ugly stuff coming through because you then can't get your shoulders and hips open before impact.

Keep your hands inside your a** is basically what I'm trying to say to you. You'll rotate back less, but that's what we're going for here. You want to be below the red line and to the left of the blue line.

Work less on rotating back and focus more on exploding through and getting your hips open before contact. Exaggerate the sequencing. Shorten your backswing, turn and get your hips open first, then bring your arms down and through the swing. Start getting that feeling and then start speeding it up. Your goal is to be open, here's where you are when you make contact:

 

 

You want to be closer to this position when you're striking the ball:

 

 

Ripping your hips and shoulders open are what is going to generate power, speed, and consistency for you, not your arms.

I may hit the range before my picnics today. I watched a video and it seems like I have a trouble with rotating my shoulder/elbow and that gets me laid off. I always thought it was my wrists. I'll take a video today and see if I can get more vertical with my hands not as far as behind me. I've never had my hips and chest open in my life and it is very disheartening. 

[nitram]

Just do your best to initiate your downswing by rotating your hips before anything else.

[Rdailey9108]

I still can't get open to save my life but I slowed down my backswing a lot and I'm striking the ball way better. My positions are improving as well. I think as I improve the backswing my downswing will improve eventually. I shot a 94 on a very hard country club today and that was after back to back 8s on the back 9. 

[nibblelander]

great progress and nice score, and some good advice to help you far! to shorten backswing i have used the tour striker ball in the past as its very difficult to overswing lots before it falls out between the elbows, it may help you?!

[Rdailey9108]

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ecxd7JZ28qU?feature=share

 

Obviously I still have many flaws but I feel like this is a step in the right direction. Thoughts? 

[Valtiel]

3 hours ago, Rdailey9108 said:

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ecxd7JZ28qU?feature=share

 

Obviously I still have many flaws but I feel like this is a step in the right direction. Thoughts? 

That is definitely far less extreme in the backswing, much better position to work from overall. The main thing to work from there is sequencing your downswing. Right now you're pretty abrupt and out of sequence in the sense that your really throwing your upper body at the ball and your lower body is lagging behind. You want to feel the opposite of this; faster lower body, slower upper body. Or at least slowing down your upper body enough to give whatever speed your lower body wants move at time to get clear before impact.

Try some exaggerated drills where you get to the top of the swing and really fire and rotate your lower body while trying to NOT move your upper body at all. This is a sequence that just about every pro, regardless of tempo, has pretty much mastered and most of us suck at. The transition from the top of the backswing to impact NEEDS to be led by the lower body:



Using a leftified Hovland, we can see in these 3 frames how much his hips rotate. They go from full rotation to square to the ball by the time his lead arm is parallel to the ground. On your end however we see the hips rotating much less/slower, which leads to you only getting square to the ball by impact. The bottom line is that you can never get your hips cleared if you're swinging your upper body at the ball while trying to play catch up with the lower body, so work on getting that lower body rotating in transition first and let the arms "fall behind" so to speak. Post videos if possible. 👍

[Rdailey9108]

So doing a race today so can't practice at the range but had an eureka moment last night hitting balls at work. I realized that my hands have been trained the wrong way this entire time. I've always focused on keeping my arms as straight as possible and that caused them to get stuck behind me and I'd over rotate. I focused last night on trying to get the hands more up after the takeaway and do Montes right arm parallel swings. So far it's becoming more clear. Just have to get the hips working now. 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Rdailey9108

[Rdailey9108]

So I worked on some lead arm parallel swings today. Man is that not parallel, may because my wrist hinge wasn't perfect. Regardless it was really hot today but I feel I made some progress. Atleast I'm not goat humping really. I think tomorrow at work I'll work on adding the ulnar deviation and wrist bow to help keep the wrist bowed at impact. Backswing I feel is better but still needs work. It's gonna take a lot of time to fix everything I've been trained to do after 4 years.  Thoughts??

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/56pBhMlekjo?feature=share

Edited June 8, 2021 by Rdailey9108

[Rdailey9108]

 

So things I've been working on since my last post with Dan and Monte. Monte wanted me to get more wrist set and not float load. Dan has had me trying to do a few things. One, get my hand path better which will make me club/ trail elbow in a better position at the top of the swing. Two get my lead shoulder to stay down at the top of the swing and not get so so flat which causes my arms to way over extended. I definitely feel I'm on the right track but I still can't figure out the transition and downswing. Thoughts? These were freezers since it's 5AM here and didn't want to take some normal swings.

[golfarb1]

This is screen shot slightly after impact 

T Notice 3 things 

1. Both your pelvis and your shoulders are hardly open at impact

2. your left arm is pretty straight instead of slightly bent 

3. You have little left sided bend 

 

what you need to do is to practice freezer drills with an emphasis ONLY on torso rotation . You do this with 1/2 length freeze drills with a difference . The difference is that there is little to no wrist set at the top of the freezer drill. 
Then on the downswing swing though to the finish using ONLY TORSO ROTATION . The lack of wrist set will force you to emphasize rotation in order to hit the ball. 

Edited January 27, 2022 by golfarb1

[Rdailey9108]

 

Well I have a lesson with Monte so I figured I might as well post a full swing I did at work today. What I've really worked on is earlier wrist set, more side bend at the top, and shortening my swing. Definitely still flippy and not nearly open enough but I can atleast play 80s golf with this swing. Hoping to really get my mechanics down pat and consider taking a remote live lesson. 

 

 

[Scottbox]

Your shoulder plane is better, but your arms are very trapped behind you. You can open your body as much as you like on the downswing but you'll hit it even worse, because your arms won't be able to get back to the ball. Solve the trapped elbow issue (and stand a bit closer to the ball, btw). I'd get a Smart Ball or something to put between your forearms and hit balls with it. It'll encourage your trail elbow to stay in front of you more and help you to get the club up more and give you some room coming down. You'll also be forced to not "fake" your turn by swinging your arms way behind you. This is the feel you want and something I practice all the time:

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CaPGiOxLbNV/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Scottbox

[Rdailey9108]

It's been awhile since I posted a swing video. Definitely getting better and striking the ball better. Still a little overswing and I still early extend but I'm playing better. It's a work in progress.

 

[slytown]

Like Valtiel said, it is mostly in the set up but I'll add that you have a severe overswing/reverse pivot. 2 things you can do...

 

1. Feel like you set up with weight on the middle of your feet and you are more stood up. I know you are tall, but you need to start not so hunched over. A good test is to have your armpits over your feet. Currently you are so bent over your armpits are over 3 inches in front of your toes. Its amazing you aren't falling over. Haha. (Look at Adam Scott on the left photo.)

 

2. The other thing is to bring the club back more vertical. You suck the club inside, which creates that very flat backswing. You need to get the hands working above the swing plane and then swinging more down instead of out in the downswing. The fix for this is a one piece takeaway. Lydia Ko does a great pre-shot routine where she lifts the club with a one piece takeaway to make sure she doesn't pull the club inside.

 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2023 by slytown