Battling heel strikes.

[Rbsiedsc]

Know it’s from coming from the outside. Trying in this swing to close my stance and feel NTC cast A. My typical miss is the sammy slice. When i do hit it solid it goes. Others have mentioned that a heavier shaft may help my tempo and technique.

Any thoughts?

IMG_4281.MOV

Edited July 19, 2021 by Rbsiedsc

[Valtiel]

It definitely looks like you are trying to apply some of Monte's concepts but on top of one of things that he would call out as being a significant fault. 



Here is right where your backswing should be topping out and and your transition should be beginning. But instead....



...you keep going much further getting the club wrapped around behind you and across the line. This overrotation isn't helping you and is only setting up a problem that requires a reroute/compensation, which is what you do next:



From that over rotated and "stuck" position, you start crouching and rotating which would be great if the club was in the right spot to drop and shallow, but it isn't. Since the club and your hands are so far behind you, dropping your hands and shallowing the club would cause it to get hopelessly trapped behind you, so you have to abandon being able to shallow and get on plane in favor of getting the club back out in front of you. This causes your hands to work towards the ball instead of working down, and causes you to come down way over plane. 



Comparing you to Adam above we can see how much higher your hands are in the downswing. When you're that high and outside, the clubface will tend to stay open since a square or even shut clubface on this path would lead to a severe left miss. 



That clubface is quite open for how close it is to the bottom of your arc, which will definitely lead to wipey slices and heel strikes if you don't time it up right. You're actually clearing your body really well, but this gives you less time to square the face with your hands, so the right miss is expected. Normally this kind of downswing is coupled with a hip rotation stall to give the hands more time to square the club, which leads to the two way miss when you aren't timing it perfectly. Without that rotation stall however you are basically blocking out the entire left side of the course and unfortunately most of the middle too, lol. 

Overall I think the first order of business would be to rein in that backswing so you don't have to rescue the club out from behind you in transition. I would combine this with a setup adjustment:



Your shoulders are WAY open compared to your feet at address, and this will only encourage a more over the top move, so square those up. 

Last thing, your takeaway has you pulling away from the ball and losing some spine angle:



Pulling away and straightening just becomes one more thing you have to undo in the downswing, so save yourself the effort and maintain your spine angle and head position going back. 

That should give you plenty to work on! It would also be good to see you actually hitting a ball since practice swings can often be quite different from the real ones. 

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Valtiel

[Rbsiedsc]

@ValtielThank you for this comprehensive workup! Definitely a lot to work on. Interestingly i don't know if i have these issues with my irons as I am striking them well. Maybe it is a ticking time bomb. I will get a video hitting a ball sometime this week. I will have to give myself a feel of stopping at left arm parallel and i bet that will get me in a better position at the top.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Rbsiedsc

[Valtiel]

13 minutes ago, Rbsiedsc said:

@ValtielThank you for this comprehensive workup! Definitely a lot to work on. Interestingly i don't know if i have these issues with my irons as I am striking them well. Maybe it is a ticking time bomb. I will get a video hitting a ball sometime this week. I will have to give myself a feel of stopping at left arm parallel and i bet that will get me in a better position at the top.

You're welcome! You can get away with coming in steep and over plane with your irons much more easily than you can with your woods, and assuming that your swing gets progressively shorter as expected, you are also progressively less over rotated and stuck with the shorter clubs, meaning you also have less to compensate for. 

[Rbsiedsc]

@Valtiel here is my iron. Working on not going back as far. First video I thought I was going half way but was still too far. Second set I think seemed better. Will get some range videos this week of driver and iron trying to the intent of left arm parallel

Edited July 20, 2021 by Rbsiedsc

[Rbsiedsc]

Actually I slow speed scrubbed these. I am still over rotating with my shoulders. Good god. 

[Valtiel]

6 hours ago, Rbsiedsc said:

Actually I slow speed scrubbed these. I am still over rotating with my shoulders. Good god. 

Haha, yeah that will happen when you have lived with "feel" for too long and haven't checked in with the "real" that you actually see on video. Case in point if those swings felt like "halfway" to you, when in fact they are still about 120% of what they should be. 

Similar to the driver videos, the main thing we're seeing here is the "rescuing" happening in transition, although here we see that expressed much more as throwing away your angles too early:



You're using a lot of hand here to sort of "throw" the club back out in front on you. Your "crouch" down is also moving towards the ball a bit which will steepen your plane as well, but the main issue is what you're doing in transition and why you're having to do it, that being the already discussed excessive length of the backswing. 



Here we see the same amount of initial "crouch" during Rory's transition from the top of the swing, and look how much LESS his hands and arms are doing. The club is already in a good place for him, so the hands and arms just start falling whereas yours are throwing and unc0cking right away to get the club back in front of you. 

[Rbsiedsc]

@Valtiel here are my driver and 7i toward the end off my session today where I was really trying to focus on backswing A. Still not great. 

[Valtiel]

4 hours ago, Rbsiedsc said:

@Valtiel here are my driver and 7i toward the end off my session today where I was really trying to focus on backswing A. Still not great. 

IMG_4367.MOV 5.49 MB · 1 download IMG_4366.MOV 17.38 MB · 0 downloads

Thank you for the action shots, that confirms what I was initially concerned about regarding the over the top move which is much more severe with your driver when hitting a ball than with the practice swing. 

Same thing as before:



The first frame is where you should be stopping your backswing, and the next three are extraneous over rotation causing the issue. If you physically can't stop yourself from doing this then you either need to work on making VERY short swings or hook yourself up to the some training aids (which you seem to have done half of here, hah). The problem with "full swing" issues is that most people can't fix them while still making full swings, you need to slow it way down and work on partials, preferably with the appropriate training aid, because otherwise you'll find yourself making all the same moves. And to put it rather bluntly, the fact that you mention really trying to focus on your backswing only to produce virtually identical results means you're likely lacking the necessary feel and/or body awareness to effect this change yourself.

There are all kinds of reasons why we get stuck in these kinds of patterns, and the common thread is that it often takes physical intervention, either from a training aid or a teacher, to get you out of them. 

[Rbsiedsc]

8 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

Thank you for the action shots, that confirms what I was initially concerned about regarding the over the top move which is much more severe with your driver when hitting a ball than with the practice swing. 

Same thing as before:



The first frame is where you should be stopping your backswing, and the next three are extraneous over rotation causing the issue. If you physically can't stop yourself from doing this then you either need to work on making VERY short swings or hook yourself up to the some training aids (which you seem to have done half of here, hah). The problem with "full swing" issues is that most people can't fix them while still making full swings, you need to slow it way down and work on partials, preferably with the appropriate training aid, because otherwise you'll find yourself making all the same moves. And to put it rather bluntly, the fact that you mention really trying to focus on your backswing only to produce virtually identical results means you're likely lacking the necessary feel and/or body awareness to effect this change yourself.

There are all kinds of reasons why we get stuck in these kinds of patterns, and the common thread is that it often takes physical intervention, either from a training aid or a teacher, to get you out of them. 

Thank you so much. Ya I have a planemate that I use. I need to use that more extensively until that sticks. I had it hooked up prior to these swings, hence the half aid, lol. That may be more of a thing to do in the off-season and use it extensively in practice. I tend to over power the green band so may need to just do slow red band swings. 

[Valtiel]

21 minutes ago, Rbsiedsc said:

Thank you so much. Ya I have a planemate that I use. I need to use that more extensively until that sticks. I had it hooked up prior to these swings, hence the half aid, lol. That may be more of a thing to do in the off-season and use it extensively in practice. I tend to over power the green band so may need to just do slow red band swings. 

Yeah that sounds like a good plan. Clearly there is some muscle memory that needs to be reprogrammed here and that can take time. In the meantime you can really drill into your head the idea that you are overswinging and mentally prepare yourself to change that. It sound a little silly, but the mental component is just as important as the physical one, and your intention is crucial. Part of that intention is the understanding that the golf swing is a lower body driven motion, whereas most of us try to make it an arm driven motion. The feeling of the "arms being a long for the ride" is common for the pros but much less so for us. Xander Schauffele is my favorite example of this. 180+ mph ball speeds off the tee with some of the quietest hands and arms in the game, all made possible by having the club in a position at the top that requires virtually no compensation on the way down. 
 

  

Edited July 21, 2021 by Valtiel

[Valtiel]

One other thing to consider is your grip.



It is harder to tell from a DTL view, but I should not be able to see so much of your thumb and the "V" it creates with your forefinger from this angle, which suggests that your right hand is a little too far under and your thumb is running straight down the grip...



...more like #1 here when it should be more like #2. Some face on shots of your normal grip would be helpful. 

[Rbsiedsc]

Thanks. My grip is more like one. Its almost amazing I nearly broke 90 with this swing!

[Valtiel]

34 minutes ago, Rbsiedsc said:

Thanks. My grip is more like one. Its almost amazing I nearly broke 90 with this swing!

That is often a big contributing factor as well, especially if your top hand is as weak as #1 above. How we grip the club determines how much control our hands have to square the face. The weaker your grip, the less ability you have to manipulate the face. Better players use this to their advantage since removing hand influence can increase consistency and face stability, but ONLY if you also remove anything that would otherwise require the hands to save you from. Here is a little collage showing what I mean. 



Xander, Rahm, Spieth, and Morikawa, all top tier players with notably weak left hand grip positions. All bowed wrists at the top and laid off clubs with slightly shut faces. This is one of the common blueprints for a weak left hand position. Keep the left wrist in flexion, keep the club far away from crossing the line or getting behind them, and then let that whole structure simply drop down in transition while the lower body rotates hard. 

A weak left hand grip combined with over rotating and getting the club across the line is a lethal combination that no training aid will save you from, so definitely look into that. 

[Rbsiedsc]

Thanks again @Valtiel. I just wanted to try the grip you suggested and a slower back swing. Felt awkward but my divot board seemed to like the result. Long ways to go but the grip definitely is the first step. Need to get rid of my forward dip and just rotate through

Edited July 21, 2021 by Rbsiedsc

[Valtiel]

4 minutes ago, Rbsiedsc said:

Thanks again @Valtiel. I just wanted to try the grip you suggested and a slower back swing. Felt awkward but my divot board seemed to like the result. Long ways to go but the grip definitely is the first step. Need to get rid of my forward dip and just rotate through

 

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That is a bit extreme overall. You want the "V" formed by the thumb and forefinger pointing at MOST towards your head, and typically somewhere between your head and your right shoulder. Right now it is pointed at your left shoulder, which would be considered an overly weak position. Likewise with the left hand, you've gone very strong there, so try to settle somewhere between where you were before and where you are in that video. 

[Rbsiedsc]

worked on a bunch of Monte's Effecient swing video backswing seg 1 and 2. 3-9 swings with relaxed arms. put them together and things felt better

[ShankAaron]

@Valtiel This has to be one of the most in depth, and comprehensive string of responses I have ever seen....ANYWHERE. Respect to you, sir. People like you and the time you took to help the OP out are what makes this community great.

[Rbsiedsc]

@Valtiel, I know I may be getting a little ahead of myself but here are some updates of two days hard work. Still lots to go. Feels awkward to not rotate. Need to get these in front of a ball at some point. 

[Rbsiedsc]

More driver work. I think this looks a lot better. @Valtiel?

 

[Valtiel]

On 7/27/2021 at 7:32 AM, Rbsiedsc said:

More driver work. I think this looks a lot better. @Valtiel?

 

 

FullSizeRender.mov 40.8 MB · 2 downloads

Your overall lines/positions here and in the more recent videos from our PM's are definitely much better and more manageable. I definitely want to see how this translates to hitting balls before I say too much more, but one thing I noticed that probably needs addressing first is this:



Your hands are VERY far apart here and your grip does not look very secure as a result, especially in your left (gloved) hand. The overall "strength" of them position-wise is alright (although the top hand looks a bit weak), but I imagine you're cheating your hands further apart like this because it feels better and gives you more control. But this is a sneaky trap, because giving all that control to your hands often encourages bad swing habits because your hands can "save" you from them. The problem is the consistency, or lack thereof, this creates. You want your hands in a position where they can only do exactly what they need to and no more.

I like this as a general starting point:



Middle and ring fingers roughly lining up with the left thumbnail and first knuckle respectively and said thumb sitting in the arch created by the pad of your right thumb. This is just a general starting point, but a very common "neutral" one that is often not explained very well since we often focus too much on the "strength" position of the hands but not how they are connected. I would guess that your left thumb is FAR further up the shaft, and that is what you want to correct. This will likely feel strange, and that is good, because cheating your hands further apart is usually a sign that you're trying to give yourself more "handsy-ness" to cover a swing flaw. Don't let that happen. A truly solid, fundamentally sound grip is a great way to expose exactly what you're doing wrong in your swing which then makes it easier to identify and address. 
 

[Rbsiedsc]

@Valtiel, thanks for the grip tips. Worked on it this morning. It does feel strange, like my hands are too crowded. Shortening the left thumb will be really hard as that feels even more crowded. I love the feeling of the thumb slots into the right hand. While strange just feels right, like a puzzle piece. 
 

With that said, I did feel like my hands were taken out of the swing and I was able to feel the swing my my hips and shoulders more. Will see how that translates overtime. I will try to get some swings with range balls this week. I am taking things somewhat easy as I am nursing a hip/quad/groin injury on my right side. Only doing light swings and takeaway work. 

[Valtiel]

On 8/1/2021 at 9:31 AM, Rbsiedsc said:

@Valtiel, thanks for the grip tips. Worked on it this morning. It does feel strange, like my hands are too crowded. Shortening the left thumb will be really hard as that feels even more crowded. I love the feeling of the thumb slots into the right hand. While strange just feels right, like a puzzle piece. 
 

With that said, I did feel like my hands were taken out of the swing and I was able to feel the swing my my hips and shoulders more. Will see how that translates overtime. I will try to get some swings with range balls this week. I am taking things somewhat easy as I am nursing a hip/quad/groin injury on my right side. Only doing light swings and takeaway work. 

I know exactly what you mean about the thumb slotting in, that is a really tricky one. It does initially feel more ergonomic and may work just fine for you, but in the long run it can create problems for similar reasons that a 10 finger baseball grip can. Plus it can cause extra strain on the thumb joint with certain swing mechanics, which either leads to thumb injury or a change in mechanics to accommodate, neither being good. You'll want to work towards this more connected type of grip feeling comfortable as things start to improve. 

If you really want your mind blown, try Jordan Spieth's style of grip:



Interlocking grip, right index finger even with left thumb tip, right middle finger even with left thumb knuckle, right ring finger stretching towards base thumb joint. When gripped, right thumb linked with right index finger and left thumbnail visible. The way you described the neutral grip that I posted before is how I feel about this type of grip. And i'd imagine Spieth's grip probably feels like you'd feel more comfortable hitting left handed. 😅

This may feel trivial or just for fun, but it is actually very important. The only reason we "feel" a certain way when we grip the club is because we're unconsciously interpolating that feel with the muscle memories of our current swings. Our brain knows what it needs from the different parts of our body when we make whatever swing we're trying to make, even when we aren't doing it. Therefore, if we change one part of the body's ability to do something, that gets plugged into the equation that is our memory of a swing sequence, and when that "fails", we interpret that as feeling bad/wrong/whatever. That bad feeling however is based on the usually flawed assumption that the equation it is being plugged in to (our swing) is "correct". It is a bit of a "two wrongs making a right" situation as far as our brains are concerned. Bad swing + bad grip to compensate for bad swing = "yeah we can make this work" in our head. There is no accounting for efficiency or correctness in terms of what actually makes a good golf swing, just or brains dealing with what we give them (usually bad swings, lol). 

This all means that a "good" grip SHOULD feel wrong if you have a "bad" swing, and vice versa. This is generalizing a lot as there is an ocean of subjectivity between and within "good" and "bad", but like the golf swing itself, those subjectivities are virtually always within an otherwise "good" starting point.  

Edited August 3, 2021 by Valtiel

[Rbsiedsc]

13 hours ago, Valtiel said:

I know exactly what you mean about the thumb slotting in, that is a really tricky one. It does initially feel more ergonomic and may work just fine for you, but in the long run it can create problems for similar reasons that a 10 finger baseball grip can. Plus it can cause extra strain on the thumb joint with certain swing mechanics, which either leads to thumb injury or a change in mechanics to accommodate, neither being good. You'll want to work towards this more connected type of grip feeling comfortable as things start to improve. 

If you really want your mind blown, try Jordan Spieth's style of grip:



Interlocking grip, right index finger even with left thumb tip, right middle finger even with left thumb knuckle, right ring finger stretching towards base thumb joint. When gripped, right thumb linked with right index finger and left thumbnail visible. The way you described the neutral grip that I posted before is how I feel about this type of grip. And i'd imagine Spieth's grip probably feels like you'd feel more comfortable hitting left handed. 😅

This may feel trivial or just for fun, but it is actually very important. The only reason we "feel" a certain way when we grip the club is because we're unconsciously interpolating that feel with the muscle memories of our current swings. Our brain knows what it needs from the different parts of our body when we make whatever swing we're trying to make, even when we aren't doing it. Therefore, if we change one part of the body's ability to do something, that gets plugged into the equation that is our memory of a swing sequence, and when that "fails", we interpret that as feeling bad/wrong/whatever. That bad feeling however is based on the usually flawed assumption that the equation it is being plugged in to (our swing) is "correct". It is a bit of a "two wrongs making a right" situation as far as our brains are concerned. Bad swing + bad grip to compensate for bad swing = "yeah we can make this work" in our head. There is no accounting for efficiency or correctness in terms of what actually makes a good golf swing, just or brains dealing with what we give them (usually bad swings, lol). 

This all means that a "good" grip SHOULD feel wrong if you have a "bad" swing, and vice versa. This is generalizing a lot as there is an ocean of subjectivity between and within "good" and "bad", but like the golf swing itself, those subjectivities are virtually always within an otherwise "good" starting point.  

Tried that grip actually didn’t feel too strange. Here are some videos from today. First is my last swing of the morning after doing some feel work. Second is gripping . Intention on it was Adam young nail drill trying to hit the nail ten deg right or so. 

[Rbsiedsc]

@Valtiel, here are some range shots today. New grip I really have to focus on and then keeping the grip pressure loose. Take away seems better with irons. Still coming in steep and I think a little early extension. My ball seems very high, yet still getting my good distance. 

 

driver somehow I am still slightly over swinging. Biggest thing if the takeaways look fine is working on shallowing transition. 

[Rbsiedsc]

Watched some Adam young videos on shallowing and saw the concept that Matt Wolff does, with outside takeaway and slots down. I have it two goes, hit ceiling first time then garage door opener. In both cases though my club pitch shallowed and my front shoulder didn’t dip as much. I am still going to work on a more efficient swing but curious on this idea.  Otherwise below this video is some more work I did this morning.

 

outside takeaway 

 

neutral takeaway

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Rbsiedsc
Wrong video

[Rbsiedsc]

Realized that outside takeaway feel is what the planemate also does. Sticking that route as I also can really feel the club shallow at the top. 

[Rbsiedsc]

Filmed my swing after a month of work (Modtly NTC with a tiny bit of planemate/efficient swing and drive 4 dough). Still lots to be done in transition (like starting with my lower body) but things are feeling better now. Need to feel my wrist turn better going back as well like backswing A. Really try to focus on right elbow to bellybutton on the downswing 

 

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Rbsiedsc

[BraxtonFullerton]

While you look better, your first move is still super inside and then at the top you turn before your hands get to drop into the slot and shallow the club:

 

 

You need to flip the script on this. You need to be taking away steeper and shallowing out on the downswing. I've posted in a couple other threads, put an alignment stick in at a 45* angle half a club behind you; don't let your shaft touch it.

Another drill to help steepen you up on the backswing is to place a stick vertically 2 full club-lengths behind the ball, your goal is to reach out with the club and try to touch it as you start your backswing.

Edited September 13, 2021 by BraxtonFullerton

[TheDeanAbides]

Classic shallow to steep instead of steep to shallow. If you're working on NTC then you need to go back and revisit the first part of the concept - getting to P3 in the sameish spot that Monte is showing. 

 

Part of the reason you can't get it up on plane is your right hand grip, which looks very much underneath the grip. You're also very close to the ball in your iron swing. 

 

You look like your weight is back on your heels. Try and get a little more tilt forward so your arms can hang more naturally. 

 

From there work on cocking your wrists off the ball without consciously turning. If you don't get into a decent P3 everything downstream is going to be tougher because you have to make compromises. Nail a decent P3 and the backswing is basically over. From there you can effectively work on Cast A.