Back into golf - can't hit it in the air

[cclocke83]

Hi everyone, 

 

A little background on me.  I'm 38 and I've played golf sporadically in my life, but had almost a 15 year hiatus until a month or two ago. I've never been great, maybe a 25-30 handicap at my peak in my early 20s, but I was at least good enough to enjoy going out and playing 18 with the boys without slowing the group down. 

 

I've been trying to get back into it recently after moving back to Florida and joining a club. I'm married with three kids so Im not trying to be a scratch golfer anytime soon, but unfortunately I'm having trouble even getting the ball into the air.  On the rare occasion that I do, the ball isn't going much further than 70-80 yards. I've had two lessons with the club instructor, and while I like him, I'm not where I was hoping to be by now.

 

I went out today on a wet day and took some videos, including the one attached.  I know the video is cutoff on the bottom, but I wanted to get this posted, since I won't be back to the range for a few days. I'll get a better video next time if it'll help. I would be very very appreciative if you all could give me some (any?) advice. I'm willing to try pretty much anything at this point. It's been pretty frustrating and honestly embarrassing, but I really hope I can figure out what is going on, as I know how great it feels to have a good round of golf.

 

One item I wanted to bring up is that the clubs I have now are hand me downs from my dad that I had never played with.  They are ping G10s from 2008ish which look to have pretty good reviews, and have stiff metal shafts. The clubs I previously played were some Cleveland launcher game improvement clubs with a normal shaft. I'd like to figure out my swing before investing in new clubs, but im wondering if this could be part of my problem.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by cclocke83

[BraxtonFullerton]

Look at your first move; you're rotating your wrists. Which means when you come back through the swing, you're leading hosel first and that's why you're hitting shanks.

 

You want a nice, static first move with your shoulders; not your arms. This will help you sequence the rest of the swing properly.

Edited July 4, 2021 by BraxtonFullerton

[Valtiel]

To remove the club component from the conversation, no, the PING's aren't causing any issues here. Your swing has several pretty severe fatal flaws that can easily account for all the troubles you're having. The first is as Braxton mentioned, your takeaway:



To be blunt, nothing good can happen from here. You get the club moving back severely inside and you have rolled the face wide open. For reference, the club head should be roughly out in front of your hands somewhere and the clubface angle should be similar to your spine angle, like Adam here. Granted we are dealing with different camera angles here, but the difference is still clear. If you were to only take the club as far back as you do above and then come down to the ball, you would need to somehow manipulate the club face angle around 130* to get it back to square, where Adam above looks like he only needs around 45* from the same position. That is massive, and the task of trying to consistently square a clubface that open while coming down at speed is nearly impossible. So first things first, you need to change your takeaway motion drastically to get the club more out in front of you, because many of the other problems that follow are a product if this first bad move. 

There are a number of other things to address, but honestly I would like to see what happens if you just focus on neutralizing your takeaway to see how things fall into place (or don't) after that. This is a swing that needs a complete rebuild, so if you're willing to spend the effort then tackling it one thing at a time from the beginning is a good way to go IMO. Feel free to ask any questions 👍

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Valtiel

[cclocke83]

On 7/3/2021 at 11:52 PM, BraxtonFullerton said:

Look at your first move; you're rotating your wrists. Which means when you come back through the swing, you're leading hosel first and that's why you're hitting shanks.

 

You want a nice, static first move with your shoulders; not your arms. This will help you sequence the rest of the swing properly.

 

Thank you for pointing this out.  Since your post I've been focused on my takeaway at home, and will post a new video when I'm back at the range. 

 

2 hours ago, Valtiel said:

To remove the club component from the conversation, no, the PING's aren't causing any issues here. Your swing has several pretty severe fatal flaws that can easily account for all the troubles you're having. The first is as Braxton mentioned, your takeaway:



To be blunt, nothing good can happen from here. You get the club moving back severely inside and you have rolled the face wide open. For reference, the club head should be roughly out in front of your hands somewhere and the clubface angle should be similar to your spine angle, like Adam here. Granted we are dealing with different camera angles here, but the difference is still clear. If you were to only take the club as far back as you do above and then come down to the ball, you would need to somehow manipulate the club face angle around 130* to get it back to square, where Adam above looks like he only needs around 45* from the same position. That is massive, and the task of trying to consistently square a clubface that open while coming down at speed is nearly impossible. So first things first, you need to change your takeaway motion drastically to get the club more out in front of you, because many of the other problems that follow are a product if this first bad move. 

There are a number of other things to address, but honestly I would like to see what happens if you just focus on neutralizing your takeaway to see how things fall into place (or don't) after that. This is a swing that needs a complete rebuild, so if you're willing to spend the effort then tackling it one thing at a time from the beginning is a good way to go IMO. Feel free to ask any questions 👍

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is pretty amazing that you spent the time to do this for me, thank you very much!  I've been told by a few people that my swing isn't that bad and that I'm pretty close, so its actually refreshing to hear that there are some severe flaws in my swing, as it gives me some areas that I can focus on.  The blunter the better. 

 

I also really like the idea of tackling one thing at a time.  I'm going to focus on my takeaway and will post a video once available.  I want this a lot, and I live in Florida and am a member at a golf club, so I don't have any reason not to put the effort in. Thanks again!

Edited July 6, 2021 by cclocke83

[Valtiel]

6 hours ago, cclocke83 said:

 

Thank you for pointing this out.  Since your post I've been focused on my takeaway at home, and will post a new video when I'm back at the range. 

 

 

This is pretty amazing that you spent the time to do this for me, thank you very much!  I've been told by a few people that my swing isn't that bad and that I'm pretty close, so its actually refreshing to hear that there are some severe flaws in my swing, as it gives me some areas that I can focus on.  The blunter the better. 

 

I also really like the idea of tackling one thing at a time.  I'm going to focus on my takeaway and will post a video once available.  I want this a lot, and I live in Florida and am a member at a golf club, so I don't have any reason not to put the effort in. Thanks again!

You're welcome! It sounds like you have the right motivations, so that is definitely a positive. 

Golf instruction, both traditional and online, is an absolute maze that can often be overwhelming and frustrating at the best of times. It is rare that you find a teacher that actually makes the full investment in you as a student, partially I think because it is pretty difficult, but I also wonder how much teachers cater their instruction towards repeat business over actual tangible progress. Sure there needs to be SOME progress otherwise you won't come back, but I think keeping the student at least somewhat in the dark about the nature of that progress is something that drives many teachers, maybe even just subconsciously. The relatively slow and painful process of fixing big swing issues is also scary for both teacher and student because it is RARELY fun or immediately rewarding, and nothing kills repeat business faster than an unhappy customer. 

I ramble about all this not because I think i'm some super teacher with all the answers, far from it. I don't have all the answers, but I think I atleast have a decent understanding of the problems and I want to set the expectation that fixing a bad swing can be a grueling process where things often feel and get worse before they get better. That is why I like the idea in this case of taking it one chunk at a time, and i'm glad that resonates with you. Keep us posted!

[Red4282]

Clubface is WIDE open immediately. Then combined with the over the top move, id be surprised if you didnt hit the hosel. Have to get that club face more closed in the back swing and downswing. That will help monumentally. I would also guess your grip needs some work as well.

[BrianMcG]

Here’s a good drill for you:

 

 

[cclocke83]

Hi Everyone, 

 

I am bumping this thread from two years ago.  At that time I posted a video of my swing, or lack there of, and shortly after some personal things came up and I didn't have a lot of time to work on my golf game. Unfortunately, at that time I wasn't able to utilize all the excellent (and much appreciated) help I received on this thread.  

 

In the past few months I've been going to the range once or twice a week, and have used your advice, as well as a ton a YouTube video, to get my swing respectable. While there were many fatal flaws in my swing, and I'm obviously not there yet, I've definitely improved my contact. 

 

By far the #1 issue I discovered is that I have always lined the ball up just over or slightly behind my left eye.  What I didn't realize until recently is that along with being left handed, I am also left eye dominant, so having the ball in that position was an absolute killer.  Just moving the ball up in my stance and turning my head a little clockwise has made a significant improvement.  

 

 

There are still some issues with my swing (early extension being my #1 enemy right now) , as you can see in the video.  Any advice would me really appreciated.  

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by cclocke83

[GoGoErky]

You get the club behind you in the takeaway 

 

Doesn’t look like you get any hip depth and your pressure doesn’t really shift in the swing.

 

in the downswing you fire the right hip and pull on the club. This gets you stuck and you have to early extend to get to the ball

[cclocke83]

4 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

You get the club behind you in the takeaway 

 

Doesn’t look like you get any hip depth and your pressure doesn’t really shift in the swing.

 

in the downswing you fire the right hip and pull on the club. This gets you stuck and you have to early extend to get to the ball

 

Thank you for the analysis, I'll need to work on these. 

 

I did a couple practice swings without a club.  If I swing more straight back, my left hip is the side that fires through on the downswing.  If I bring the swing more inside, like the video, its my right hip that fires through the downswing.  

Edited May 26, 2023 by cclocke83

[slytown]

It looks a little better. Need the camera to be more like in the first video you posted.

 

The backswing is a problem. Work on that one piece takeaway with the clubhead outside your hands. The most important thing though is sequence and path in the downswing. Your first instinct is to pull the club down, like a chain. Sergio Garcia talks about this but he has an extremely shallow swing that requires that steepening. You don't. Work on the proper sequence and instead of pulling the club down, throwing the club down on a wide arc. Practice digging the club in the ground like this. The proper sequence of the downswing is lateral movement toward the target, throw the club down, and lastly turn. If you don't release the wrists and arms in the downswing, you will be steep and OTT.

 

 

[cclocke83]

Thanks for the drill tip.  I agree that pulling down on the club is probably the biggest issue that hurts my game and results in a lot of steep/fat shots.  On the downswing, I think I subconsciously grip the club tighter and pull down.  I'm guessing that me being naturally left handed doesn't help. 

 

On my lunch break I did some pitching in my backyard with the thoughts of keeping the clubhead outside the hands on the backswing, pausing at the top to regroup, and then "throwing" the club on the downswing, and by the end hit some really crisp shots. I'm planning on trying out at the range tomorrow, and then on the course Sunday. 

 

4 hours ago, slytown said:

It looks a little better. Need the camera to be more like in the first video you posted.

 

The backswing is a problem. Work on that one piece takeaway with the clubhead outside your hands. The most important thing though is sequence and path in the downswing. Your first instinct is to pull the club down, like a chain. Sergio Garcia talks about this but he has an extremely shallow swing that requires that steepening. You don't. Work on the proper sequence and instead of pulling the club down, throwing the club down on a wide arc. Practice digging the club in the ground like this. The proper sequence of the downswing is lateral movement toward the target, throw the club down, and lastly turn. If you don't release the wrists and arms in the downswing, you will be steep and OTT.

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by cclocke83

[Valtiel]

On 5/25/2023 at 1:09 PM, cclocke83 said:

If I swing more straight back, my left hip is the side that fires through on the downswing.  If I bring the swing more inside, like the video, its my right hip that fires through the downswing.  

This is what I wanted to focus on because i'm far less concerned about your backswing since you're getting into some decent positions that are FAR better than what you were doing originally. Which hip "fires" is a  product of where your pressure is, so for this to completely switch your pressure would also need to switch, which I kind of doubt is happening. Right now you're stuck on your right side which is why it fires towards the ball, i'll explain:



First off I want all of this feedback to have the asterisk by it that your setup needs adjustment as you're way too close to/over the top of the ball. You basically have no room for any hip depth loss (which you have a lot of). You can and should easily scoot back several inches from where you are here.



Everything about your backswing from an arm/upper body standpoint is fine *with* the aforementioned address position adjustment. The main problem here is something that gets brought up a lot; you're still loading on to your back foot all the way to the top of the backswing. Watch your right foot closely here in this sequence:




Notice how there is a consistent addition of pressure on it throughout. Pressure on that foot should peak early in the backswing and start to drift towards the center slightly as the backswing completes with the goal of being close to 50/50 at the top with your momentum moving towards your front foot as a basis to kickoff the downswing. You aren't doing that here and it's a big part of why you goat hump so badly in the downswing.



Here in transition you're attempting to make the right move with the left hip, but you're suffering from the exact same problem I described in this other thread which is that you can't move a hip that doesn't have pressure on it. This little move you're doing is good and if you were actually favoring that left side at this point like pros do then you'd be able to continue pushing that hip back, but since you aren't this is what happens next:



Left hip movement stops and the right side takes over, thrusting you out towards the ball and forcing you to stand up to make contact. Look at the right foot again, you're pushing down into the ground with it in the downswing which is a massive red flag because you can only do that if there is lots of pressure on it, and as noted above this should have shifted towards your front foot WAY earlier in your overall sequence. 

There are also some matchup issues with what you're doing arm wise here in the downswing (deeper hands at the top + dropping them straight down = stuck), but i'm more concerned about the address position shift + getting off your back leg at the right time.

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Valtiel

[cclocke83]

On 5/27/2023 at 8:12 PM, Valtiel said:

This is what I wanted to focus on because i'm far less concerned about your backswing since you're getting into some decent positions that are FAR better than what you were doing originally. Which hip "fires" is a  product of where your pressure is, so for this to completely switch your pressure would also need to switch, which I kind of doubt is happening. Right now you're stuck on your right side which is why it fires towards the ball, i'll explain:



First off I want all of this feedback to have the asterisk by it that your setup needs adjustment as you're way too close to/over the top of the ball. You basically have no room for any hip depth loss (which you have a lot of). You can and should easily scoot back several inches from where you are here.



Everything about your backswing from an arm/upper body standpoint is fine *with* the aforementioned address position adjustment. The main problem here is something that gets brought up a lot; you're still loading on to your back foot all the way to the top of the backswing. Watch your right foot closely here in this sequence:




Notice how there is a consistent addition of pressure on it throughout. Pressure on that foot should peak early in the backswing and start to drift towards the center slightly as the backswing completes with the goal of being close to 50/50 at the top with your momentum moving towards your front foot as a basis to kickoff the downswing. You aren't doing that here and it's a big part of why you goat hump so badly in the downswing.



Here in transition you're attempting to make the right move with the left hip, but you're suffering from the exact same problem I described in this other thread which is that you can't move a hip that doesn't have pressure on it. This little move you're doing is good and if you were actually favoring that left side at this point like pros do then you'd be able to continue pushing that hip back, but since you aren't this is what happens next:



Left hip movement stops and the right side takes over, thrusting you out towards the ball and forcing you to stand up to make contact. Look at the right foot again, you're pushing down into the ground with it in the downswing which is a massive red flag because you can only do that if there is lots of pressure on it, and as noted above this should have shifted towards your front foot WAY earlier in your overall sequence. 

There are also some matchup issues with what you're doing arm wise here in the downswing (deeper hands at the top + dropping them straight down = stuck), but i'm more concerned about the address position shift + getting off your back leg at the right time.

 

 

I honestly can't thank you enough for your analysis.  

 

I read your post just before heading out for 18 on Sunday Morning. I didn't have much range time, but I focused on my weight transfer during the round. 

 

The end result: I hit the ball about as consistent as I can remember. My shots had more of a swing-like continuous flow, compared to what has felt more rigid in the past.  I also felt a lot lighter on my feet throughout the entire swing.

 

I plan on focusing on this going forward, and will post an updated swing video when ready. 

 

[Valtiel]

On 5/29/2023 at 4:46 PM, cclocke83 said:

 

I honestly can't thank you enough for your analysis.  

 

I read your post just before heading out for 18 on Sunday Morning. I didn't have much range time, but I focused on my weight transfer during the round. 

 

The end result: I hit the ball about as consistent as I can remember. My shots had more of a swing-like continuous flow, compared to what has felt more rigid in the past.  I also felt a lot lighter on my feet throughout the entire swing.

 

I plan on focusing on this going forward, and will post an updated swing video when ready. 

 

Hey glad that helped! That feeling of rigidity is super common when there are sequencing issues like this for a variety of reasons, but mainly because starting your downswing while still favoring your back foot means you now have a race between your legs and arms and the latter will virtually always win. If your arms start to overtake your lower body/hips then you get all sorts of face control problems. You can feel this yourself by taking half swings while restricting any hip rotation back and through (or as much as you possibly can). You'll notice that as you approach and pass "impact" that your right wrist rolls over and your left wrist folds and breaks down. All of this creates rapid clubface closure which is usually staved off by severely chicken wing-ing your left elbow. The other problem comes when people then predictably try to get the hips open to avoid this, but do so like you're attempting to while favoring your back foot. You can't push your left hip back to create "proper" rotation if you don't have any weight on it, so the right hip comes out to create "false" rotation which, while technically getting your hips "open", brings you towards the ball thus pushing your path out away from you and requiring the over the top kinds of compensations to get to the ball. 

All of this is remedied by getting into your lead side earlier in the sequence so you start your downswing already working towards instead of trying to win that race. A sense of a flow or rhythm can help and its folks like Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen that talk about this as being a primary swing thought.