No Turn Cast Backswing; swing so flat, just can’t get shaft vertical!

[japecoraro]

Just recently got NTC after reading positive reviews and desperate to try anything. At this point I’m just trying to fix my takeaway/backswing. I’m just self-taught, and I worry my bad habits are just so ingrained, that no matter what I think/feel, my swing doesn’t change.

 

One video below is the goal, using the drill to get in a correct position with the shaft vertical. I’m actually hitting better/more consistent shots doing this drill and hitting than i do with my usual swing. Other video is my swing so you can see how different it looks from the drill, and you can see how flat the shaft gets. The most disappointing thing for me is I can see so much wrong - my hands get separated from my body , my left forearm rotates early and i throw the club behind me. The reality though, is most of my thoughts are just about NOT doing those things, but I can’t seem to eliminate it.

 

wondering what my next steps should be. I had a lesson with a local pro, but he just gave me the “glove under left arm’” drill, and it hasnt gotten me anywhere. am really open to any and all suggestions that anyone has. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by japecoraro
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[Valtiel]

One of the most common traps you can fall into is focusing too much on one aspect of the swing while losing sight of the big picture. I strongly encourage stepping back from your focus and looking at that picture, as you will need to being self taught and concerned about bad habits. 

First I want to address the elephant in the room with your whole swing since you're very backswing focused right now, and that is how you're moving your body. 

 

Your butt should be staying back against the line behind it throughout the swing, but you're pulling away from drastically to a combo of bad rotation and setup that you're forced to raise the handle an equally drastic amount to make contact. NO amount of backswing drills are going to help this, and in fact can make this issue worse since it takes your focus away from the problem area. You have a very strong version of what AMG shows for their "Am" in this video. Watch this before reading further and make sure the concept of correct rotation sinks in (feel free to ask questions if it doesn't) as it will make everything else much easier. 
 

Now with those ideas fresh in your head, let's look at your sequence. 



You're obviously very arm takeaway focused here given how little the rest of you is moving comparatively, hence wanting to shift your focus away from that first. You get your hands moving away from you pretty significantly, which isn't inherently bad, but it is if it's for the wrong reasons. Your hands start pretty close to your body at address, and if this is a reaction to your hands being too close then you should consider giving yourself more room there at address to start with. You also have quite a bit of spine tilt with what feels like a lot of weight towards your toes, which if true, is a bit part of the previous hip depth issue as your body will want to find balance during the swing, leading you to move towards the ball as you apply power in transition. 

We also see the issue you should have a better understanding of now after watching the video above. When your hip rotation actually does start, it is almost completely your left hip swinging out in front of you instead of your right hip turning back, and this is the beginning of the problem. 

Now on to the top of your swing, and the first thing I want to emphasize is.....



....that this is NOT a bad position. You seem to be concerned with its flatness, but honestly this is becoming an increasingly popular position on tour and is VERY manageable since the club is nicely in front of you and already close to being on the plane you want in the downswing. The big BUT however is that the correct lower body action is required to make this work, and that is where your main issue is. 

 

This is where the "no matter what I think/feel, my swing doesn’t change" feeling comes from. Your first move in transition is coming towards the ball, which for 99% of people will result in a sympathetic steepening of the shaft plane. This is your brain taking over because regardless of what your thoughts or feelings were when you started your swing, your subconscious knows that your hips are now coming towards the ball and that your hands were already pretty close at address, so they need to come out and steepen the shaft to get to impact. This keeps you from making change. 



The rest of the downswing plays out as it started with your body continuing to move towards the ball, resulting in the goat hump position we see in the first gif:



Compared to Jason Kokrak on the right who rotates perfectly. 

So overall I would encourage you to not worry about the backswing at all right now and focus on the lower body issue. You'll likely find that once you're able to correct that that everything else will fall in place much easier. 

Edited August 11, 2021 by Valtiel

[japecoraro]

This is so insanely helpful. Like I said, I knew there were some deep fundamental flaws, which is what kind of inspired me to try to really start learning from scratch. I didn't know how else to do it other than "starting at the beginning" with the takeaway, but everything you showed here makes so much sense. The AMG video gives some general guidance about trying to "retrain the hips", but I do fear falling into the same pattern of "feeling" like I'm doing something and then not actually seeing any change. I guess its just about trying to keep doing that motion of pushing my right hip back and towards the target at first. Just standing in my home tonight trying it out, it feels to me like it forces me to transfer my weight to my left foot, so I guess the key is to find out how to do that turn while staying balanced. I'm not sure if you or anyone else has any advice about ways to actually improve that hip motion, but if you do I'd love to hear them.

 

Cannot thank you enough for the effort you put into that response!

[BraxtonFullerton]

Just to build on what Val's broken down (I seem to be doing that a lot lately) for you. Don't lose sight of "feel" vs real. Take a few swings and try out different feels and then go play them back right when you get done with it. You may not take 100% of what you've done on every swing, but you can start to build incremental change easier that way.

The major increment you need is to fire your lower body into your downswing first. You'll feel like you're getting stuck and that there's no way you can return the club to the ball properly, etc. But you need to fire your hips first and keep your arms right where they are as your body turns towards the hole. This will get you sequencing correctly, building lag (and speed), and from there you can adjust how your arms and club are coming through the zone.

 

 

To steal this GIF, you're in great position at the top. But you come in arms first and change the angle. The only way to recover and save your club face is to get your hands through the zone as fast as possible. So since you can't clear your front hip in that amount of time, you start the hump motion to keep your hands ahead of the club.

Always build your swing from your core outwards. Practice the feeling of ripping that front hip open (whether you "feel" that's opening it out to the left or more towards the fairway/hole) and let that lead the rest of your body to the ball.

[glk]

First order issues is you arm movement in takeaway - excessive away from body - the effect of this is to shut down rotation of both ribcage and hips - you need to address the takeaway or else you will not resolve your pivot issues.   Second first is the pivot - a good pivot is a foundation for a good swing.  

 

need to get the club out of your hands cause it is not helping at this point in your learning.

 

how the knees and hips move.    left knee moves out toward toes, right knee straightens a bit - 5*-10* - doesn't lock out.

causes pelvis to turn on tilted angle which supports getting left side bend of ribcage.     An intent is to feel the right butt cheek work up and around toward the target.     Don't want to slide.

 

here are some info on the movement of the swing - shift, rotate,shift,rotate.   and how knees/hips move.   I'd consider doing these motions without a club (or if you use one then hold it across your chest - train you pivot without the club -  chunk it up.

 

Todd on general pattern of shift,rotate,shift, rotate

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGiXhEhlcHr/

monte on pivot

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQtVHCrjUUK/

example fo and dtl - again don't need a club just learn the pivot

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrBiHCqlCkz/

 

Arms -  consider getting a ball (soccer, dodgeball, . . .).  then do this drill again without a club to start - two things, you'll likely drop the ball if you move your arms away from you -  this teaches sequences of arms and pivot together - also makes it difficult to early rotate forearms.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BazdNK7lSr_/

 

Sometimes the best way to learn a motion is to break it into smaller pieces, or eliminate pieces that can be trained separately.   Typically in the golf swing this is the pivot and/or arms.     Do these drills slow at first - full speed doesn't allow you to really feel the motion.     Even when hitting balls - go slow, do partial swing even just to shaft parallel (if you can't consistently hit the ball to just shaft or left arm parallel then you have pretty much no chance with a full swing).    And don't just rake and beat balls - take your time and judge your progress on the motion not ball flight when training motion (a good resource on training is game like training - can find them all of social media platforms.

 

 

And here is a good short video on the shift, rotate, shift, rotate pattern that you will see in pretty much all good swing.  learning to use the ground effectively and shift pressure early in takeaway and then before backswing finishes is something found in all good swings.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_SXD4MFBJ7/

 

Good luck.

 

add drill video

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by glk