Help! Solid movement, but no consistency

[Rough Ael]

Hi all,

 

I am new here trying to find answers and please excuse me if my explanations etc. do not suffice and please do not hesitate to be open.

 

I am a HCP 2-3 player and most of the coaches, I was seeing, are convinced that my swing is rock solid and should have potential for way lower numbers.

Obviously, this is not the case and I am looking for answers that might enlighten me and really appreciate all the potential input in advance.

 

Backswing:

 

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Front:

 

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Unfortunately, my swing fails relatively often without knowing the reason and the following swing thoughts are accompanying me over the last few years:

 

- improving the transition from backswing to follow through by avoiding not dropping the club too much

- shallow take-away

- getting the hands in depth at the end of the backswing

- attempt to „Swing“ only with the larges muscles/body to leave out any hand/arm activity

 

Bad shots:

 

• Shanks 
• Pull hook and push slices (divots indicate high hands during the impact)
• No control over the clubface 
• Bad pitching due to the dropping club in the transition

 

I would highly appreciate any thoughts on my swing as I feel stuck to be honest and close to quitting the game as I do not progress at all anymore…

 

All the best from Germany,

 

Rough Ael

 

 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Rough Ael
Videos added as file

[Valtiel]

Most, if not all if the "Bad Shot" items you listed can be explained by what we do see happening in your full swing, a sequencing issue. Did any of the coaches you saw video your swing and slow it down? Your swing superficially is very nice, but nice swings can be deceiving as there can still be underlying fundamental issues. I mostly want to focus on transition here:

 

From the top, your hands and hips come down together with very little hip movement overall. This creates a problem since both power and consistency are derived from the proper sequence of the hips kicking off the downswing, and without the separation created by the hips going first, you start using your hands and arms more which are FAR less consistent and reliable. DJ's hips by comparison have rotated twice as much as yours by a similar point in the downswing. You don't need to go THAT far, but I use DJ because he is a very clear example of very fundamentally correct sequencing. 

 

Continuing down we see that your "slow" hips have not sped up, only rotating probably about 10-15* degrees in the same window that DJ's rotate about 45*. You've now run out of time to get your hips clear of the ball and you start extending early and losing hip depth. This results in a poor impact position:

 

At impact we see your hips basically square to the ball, your hands have raise up, and your weight is more up towards your toes as your lower body has moved towards the ball. DJ's impact position shows massive hip clearing and depth, hands returning to basically the same position as address, and weight moving towards the target.

The reason this is all so important is because as your hands/arms catch up to your lower body, they will want to roll over. You can feel this yourself by taking an iron and making little half swings with some speed while trying to keep the clubface square while keeping your hips as still as possible. What you will likely feel is the club wants to shut in hurry and requires a lot of unnatural manipulation with your right hand to stop it. Now do the same drill but with your hips held open instead and notice how much easier it is to keep the clubface square. This is just a small way of feeling what happens at and approaching impact when your hips haven't gotten out of the way. 



In this last image we see the result of what I was describing above. On the left, DJ's right hand is still under/on the side of the of the club which is overall working to the left, whereas yours has rolled over the top and shut the face more while working more out towards the target. 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Valtiel

[Rough Ael]

Good morning/evening Valtiel,

 

First of all I have to say thank you for your time taken to write such a detailed analysis of my swing, very impressive and appreciate your input a lot.

THANK you!!!!!!!

 

Let me try to give you some of my thoughts:

 

1. Did coaches work on sequencing in the past?

The only sequencing part of previous lessons was to work on rhythm, which now makes sense to me. I would assume that this only cures the symptoms and not the problem after reading through your analysis.

 

2. Hip work

All my coaches had and have the opinion that my hip rotation is enough and is not causing the problem. I often pointed out that there must be an underlying problem of my consistency, but the hip rotation has never been brought up to be honest.

I tried to improve the hip rotation for a while, but activating it is quite a problem for me.

After having read your analysis, I must say that I can see the correlation between the hip and bad shots quite obviously, but are there any useful drills/work-outs to activate the hips in a proper way?

I am leading my swing mainly by my arms (this is why I try to swing with the big muscles to leave out active hands/arms) and my lower body is more less „dead“ and difficult to trigger.

 

I a bit anxious that I seem to be like a person, who gets offered an inch, but takes a mile and do not want to max out your patience and time…..

 

I am very grateful for your input, which I have not received from any previous coach, and looking forward how this change influence my swing.

 

Warmest regards,

Rough Ael

Edited July 22, 2021 by Rough Ael

[LegendJeff]

Great comments from Vailtel and it resonates with what I've seen alot from of my coach Steve Pratt, check out his channel and here's a video about the sequence and hip movement 

 

 

[Rough Ael]

Hi Jeff,

 

Thank you for the drill, which looks seriously new to me, especially „lifting the chair with the left butt cheek“.

 

will try it ASAP to get a feeling for the missing trigger and will report 🙂

 

Warmest regards,

Rough Ael

[TheDeanAbides]

I disagree about the hips. Using a freak like DJ to 

On 7/21/2021 at 11:28 PM, Valtiel said:

Most, if not all if the "Bad Shot" items you listed can be explained by what we do see happening in your fill swing, a sequencing issue. Did any of the coaches you saw video your swing and slow it down? Your swing superficially is very nice, but nice swings can be deceiving as there can still be underlying fundamental issues. I mostly want to focus on transition here:

 

From the top, your hands and hips come down together with very little hip movement overall. This creates a problem since both power and consistency are derived from the proper sequence of the hips kicking off the downswing, and without the separation created by the hips going first, you start using your hands and arms more which are FAR less consistent and reliable. DJ's hips by comparison have rotated twice as much as yours by a similar point in the downswing. You don't need to go THAT far, but I use DJ because he is a very clear example of very fundamentally correct sequencing. 

 

Continuing down we see that your "slow" hips have not sped up, only rotating probably about 10-15* degrees in the same window that DJ's rotate about 45*. You've now run out of time to get your hips clear of the ball and you start extending early and losing hip depth. This results in a poor impact position:

 

At impact we see your hips basically square to the ball, your hands have raise up, and your weight is more up towards your toes as your lower body has moved towards the ball. DJ's impact position shows massive hip clearing and depth, hands returning to basically the same position as address, and weight moving towards the target.

The reason this is all so important is because as your hands/arms catch up to your lower body, they will want to roll over. You can feel this yourself by taking an iron and making little half swings with some speed while trying to keep the clubface square while keeping your hips as still as possible. What you will likely feel is the club wants to shut in hurry and requires a lot of unnatural manipulation with your right hand to stop it. Now do the same drill but with your hips held open instead and notice how much easier it is to keep the clubface square. This is just a small way of feeling what happens at and approaching impact when your hips haven't gotten out of the way. 



In this last image we see the result of what I was describing above. On the left, DJ's right hand is still under/on the side of the of the club which is overall working to the left, whereas yours has rolled over the top and shut the face more while working more out towards the target. 

Usually I agree  with you, dude, but on this occasion I think you're sending the OP down a path that'll screw his swing up. His hips are absolutely fine! Focusing on speeding them up will mess his timing up and create focus on a part of the body that is working well. Nobody should be putting emphasis on the hips in the swing - there just isn't time to focus there. 

The hips are not a problem. 

 

The only slight issue I see is that his backside is too far out at address and that's causing his weight to be too far back. If he adjusts that he'll have a more dynamic move. I think his bad shots are mental. 

[Rough Ael]

40 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

I disagree about the hips. Using a freak like DJ to 

Usually I agree  with you, dude, but on this occasion I think you're sending the OP down a path that'll screw his swing up. His hips are absolutely fine! Focusing on speeding them up will mess his timing up and create focus on a part of the body that is working well. Nobody should be putting emphasis on the hips in the swing - there just isn't time to focus there. 

The hips are not a problem. 

 

The only slight issue I see is that his backside is too far out at address and that's causing his weight to be too far back. If he adjusts that he'll have a more dynamic move. I think his bad shots are mental. 

Hi Dean,

 

Thank you for bring up the backside, but may I ask you what exactly do you mean with addressing the ball by having the backside too far out? Should the setup be a bit more upright to shift the weight to the middle of the stance?

 

All the best,

 

Rough Ael

 

[TheDeanAbides]

39 minutes ago, Rough Ael said:

Hi Dean,

 

Thank you for bring up the backside, but may I ask you what exactly do you mean with addressing the ball by having the backside too far out? Should the setup be a bit more upright to shift the weight to the middle of the stance?

 

All the best,

 

Rough Ael

 

Take a look at almost every tour pro (with the exception of Keegan Bradley!) and you'll see that they setup with their butt line about 2 inches behind their heels. You can feel this by setting up against a wall with your heels this far away and then taking your stance. 

 

You'll feel like your weight is almost on your toes, but it'll actually be perfectly balanced - like you're ready to spring forward. 

[Rough Ael]

53 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Take a look at almost every tour pro (with the exception of Keegan Bradley!) and you'll see that they setup with their butt line about 2 inches behind their heels. You can feel this by setting up against a wall with your heels this far away and then taking your stance. 

 

You'll feel like your weight is almost on your toes, but it'll actually be perfectly balanced - like you're ready to spring forward. 

Hi again,

 

thank you for the clarification of your point, much appreciated.

 

may I ask why you would avoid working on the hip rotation in the downswing?

seems to be a valid point to me although the transformation might be nasty until it has been completed.

 

I partially agree on your mental aspect, but in my opinion there must be a key influence factor for my constant inconsistency…

[TheDeanAbides]

19 minutes ago, Rough Ael said:

Hi again,

 

thank you for the clarification of your point, much appreciated.

 

may I ask why you would avoid working on the hip rotation in the downswing?

seems to be a valid point to me although the transformation might be nasty until it has been completed.

 

I partially agree on your mental aspect, but in my opinion there must be a key influence factor for my constant inconsistency…

Because your hips are working perfectly well. Simple as that. 

[Valtiel]

3 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

I disagree about the hips. Using a freak like DJ to 

Usually I agree  with you, dude, but on this occasion I think you're sending the OP down a path that'll screw his swing up. His hips are absolutely fine! Focusing on speeding them up will mess his timing up and create focus on a part of the body that is working well. Nobody should be putting emphasis on the hips in the swing - there just isn't time to focus there. 

The hips are not a problem. 

 

The only slight issue I see is that his backside is too far out at address and that's causing his weight to be too far back. If he adjusts that he'll have a more dynamic move. I think his bad shots are mental. 

 

The intent behind using DJ as an example was as an exaggeration as I mentioned you don't need do go nearly as far/extreme as he does. I fail to see how the OP's sequencing isn't an issue here given that the hands/hips are firing together and his impact position is blocked out by square hips. There is nothing mental about the inconsistency that position will cause, and whether his hips speed up or the upper body slows down/waits longer, that separation needs to come from somewhere. Do you disagree? 

[TheDeanAbides]

31 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

 

The intent behind using DJ as an example was as an exaggeration as I mentioned you don't need do go nearly as far/extreme as he does. I fail to see how the OP's sequencing isn't an issue here given that the hands/hips are firing together and his impact position is blocked out by square hips. There is nothing mental about the inconsistency that position will cause, and whether his hips speed up or the upper body slows down/waits longer, that separation needs to come from somewhere. Do you disagree? 

I think you're seeing a problem that doesn't exist, my friend. I clearly do disagree. I think there's a good reason that no pro has noted an issue with his hips. 

[Valtiel]

5 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

I think you're seeing a problem that doesn't exist, my friend. I clearly do disagree. I think there's a good reason that no pro has noted an issue with his hips. 

No worries there, i'm just confused given that the improper sequencing -> arms outracing the hips -> square hips at impact w/ high degree of clubface rotation (flip) is something that we obviously see a lot of here, and this feels like a slightly less severe but still similar version of that. The aforementioned shanks + bad two way miss support this as well. I agree with what you said about address position depth, but the only better players I have seen (mini tour level) that have square hips at address are VERY smooth swingers that are also equally very good with their hands (and obviously at shanking and hooking/blocking). I fail to see how a simple posture change at address (while likely a good thing) and a suggestion that is all mental will address his consistency issues, especially when proper sequencing will stabilize the clubface. 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Valtiel

[TheDeanAbides]

8 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

No worries there, i'm just confused given that the improper sequencing -> arms outracing the hips -> square hips at impact w/ high degree of clubface rotation (flip) is something that we obviously see a lot of here, and this feels like a slightly less severe but still similar version of that. The aforementioned shanks + bad two way miss support this as well. I agree with what you said about address position depth, but the only better players I have seen (mini tour level) that have square hips at address are VERY smooth swingers that are also equally very good with their hands (and obviously at shanking and hooking/blocking). I fail to see how a simple posture change at address (while likely a good thing) and a suggestion that is all mental will address his consistency issues, especially when proper sequencing will stabilize the clubface. 

Point taken. I think that the posture change will allow his body to work better and that might lead to his hips opening up at impact a bit, but it's not critical. In fact, apart from the slight goat hump caused by his posture, his hips move almost the same as Lee Westwood's. 

 

I strongly suspect that the posture change will cascade through the swing, and it's a lot easier to try. 🙂

[Valtiel]

10 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Point taken. I think that the posture change will allow his body to work better and that might lead to his hips opening up at impact a bit, but it's not critical. In fact, apart from the slight goat hump caused by his posture, his hips move almost the same as Lee Westwood's. 

 

I strongly suspect that the posture change will cascade through the swing, and it's a lot easier to try. 🙂

I can definitely agree on that 👍

If the posture change and subsequent (hopefully) hip depth improvements also allow his hips to work better then awesome, nothing else really necessary provided that all has the positive cascading effect it should. 

Lee Westwood is an interesting comp in that you're right, his hip action is fairly similar, although I feel like there are a number of other things more inherent to him that he does that make everything work. BIG body, bent lead arm, arms staying well in front of his body, and a very "anti left" approach overall. We have also obviously seen how that formula has at times buckled under pressure, but that is getting into the weeds a bit and we'd obviously all kill for his career. 

@Rough Ael I wanted to hold off responding directly as the last thing you need is two people with competing ideas trying to help, hah! You're welcome by the way, and thank you for the additional details! I agree with Dean about the posture and hip depth adjustment and that would be an easier first step to take. If that ends up helping then you can largely disregard my suggestions, however I would definitely encourage you to look at the sequencing stuff I mentioned if it doesn't. 👍

[TheDeanAbides]

36 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

I can definitely agree on that 👍

If the posture change and subsequent (hopefully) hip depth improvements also allow his hips to work better then awesome, nothing else really necessary provided that all has the positive cascading effect it should. 

Lee Westwood is an interesting comp in that you're right, his hip action is fairly similar, although I feel like there are a number of other things more inherent to him that he does that make everything work. BIG body, bent lead arm, arms staying well in front of his body, and a very "anti left" approach overall. We have also obviously seen how that formula has at times buckled under pressure, but that is getting into the weeds a bit and we'd obviously all kill for his career. 

@Rough Ael I wanted to hold off responding directly as the last thing you need is two people with competing ideas trying to help, hah! You're welcome by the way, and thank you for the additional details! I agree with Dean about the posture and hip depth adjustment and that would be an easier first step to take. If that ends up helping then you can largely disregard my suggestions, however I would definitely encourage you to look at the sequencing stuff I mentioned if it doesn't. 👍

Mutual respect, my friend. 🙏

[Rough Ael]

1 hour ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Mutual respect, my friend. 🙏

 

2 hours ago, Valtiel said:

I can definitely agree on that 👍

If the posture change and subsequent (hopefully) hip depth improvements also allow his hips to work better then awesome, nothing else really necessary provided that all has the positive cascading effect it should. 

Lee Westwood is an interesting comp in that you're right, his hip action is fairly similar, although I feel like there are a number of other things more inherent to him that he does that make everything work. BIG body, bent lead arm, arms staying well in front of his body, and a very "anti left" approach overall. We have also obviously seen how that formula has at times buckled under pressure, but that is getting into the weeds a bit and we'd obviously all kill for his career. 

@Rough Ael I wanted to hold off responding directly as the last thing you need is two people with competing ideas trying to help, hah! You're welcome by the way, and thank you for the additional details! I agree with Dean about the posture and hip depth adjustment and that would be an easier first step to take. If that ends up helping then you can largely disregard my suggestions, however I would definitely encourage you to look at the sequencing stuff I mentioned if it doesn't. 👍

To both of you:

 

I took the risk by posting my question about my swing here to receive ambiguous opinions…

I am very grateful to the insights of both of you and I am going go start tomorrow to try some of your ideas…I have to admit that I was under the impression that I knew my swing, but you gave me new directions to try out.

Regardless if it is going to be successful, your exchange is very interesting and points out that there is no right or wrong 😉

 

Thank you to both of you and I mean it…If you do not mind, I will keep you updated about the progress 💪