Bort's swing Updated video 4/26/24 Post Monte Clinic

[bortass]

A set of videos I captured today. Two face on and 3 DTL. I trimmed them to make them as short as possible and have some slow motion mixed in.

 

Current index is 25. My predominate miss is a push fade. When the cosmos aligns aka all the compensations are in place, I hit a very high draw with my irons and the ball will stop within a couple feet of where it lands. I have had a spate of tops on the course recently but none showed up during my range session today. I'm a fairly short hitter, my 6i is my 150 club. I've been working on NTC since it came out and I'm seeing some improvements but there's a lot to do. range time has been sporadic this year with work and weather.

 

I will add a follow up post with video from prior months in case that sheds any light or perhaps comic relief 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 26 by bortass
title

[bortass]

November, 11, 2021

 

 

[Valtiel]

Your newer swings are definitely better than the old, but you have two different versions of the same problem in both with regards to takeaway and face control. Both swings see your hands pushing away from your body and getting the face too open too early:



A generally accepted standard for a square face is one that matches your spine angle at P2, and we can see yours is quite a bit more open than this. 



We then see the same on the way down. The clubface is open and coming from the outside. Most of what's going on in your swing is compensations to manage this overly open clubface. You can't rotate correctly, maintain angles/lag, or even move your weight the way you should (you're pretty 50/50 looking throughout most of the swing) because doing any of these things, or god forbid ALL of them, correctly would result in blocking the ball a mile to the right with many shanks sprinkled in. You have to get your clubface square to what you can manage with your hands/body because right now you can't manage this open face without a whole bunch of other things breaking down to save it. The "cosmos aligning" as you put it is simply how much of your right hand you're throwing to square the clubface, which we see the results of in the follow through (you vs. Tiger here)



The feel to go for then is your hands/arms working straight back (not pushing away from you) and keeping the clubface pointed towards the ball longer, probably much longer than you feel comfortable with. This will inevitably result in lots of pulls/hooks as your current over the top reroute in the downswing and outside path are the compensations trying to save the open face, and without that open face to manage, those compensations will send the ball left. At that point you'll need to work on removing those now unnecessary compensations, starting with the over the top reroute in transition. 

[TheDeanAbides]

Yes, as Valtiel said, your problems begin in the takeaway. Learning how to correctly move the wrists and combine with the correct amount of forearm rotation is critical because everything downstream of that will either go easily or require compensations.

 

 That’s why I’m such a stickler for getting that P3 absolutely nailed on with loads of mirror work. I recommend having an image on your phone of someone very neutral and referring to this again and again as you work in a mirror.

 

Frustratingly, we could show you in person very quickly how to move, but you’re going to have to figure it out a little yourself.

 

In essence, straight off the ball you move your right hand knuckles back towards your right forearm while both wrists move up towards you in the same way your left wrist would move if you were cocking a hammer to tap in a nail with your left hand.

 

 Finding the correct amount of forearm rotation will be trial and error referring to the neutral picture.

Edited April 2, 2022 by TheDeanAbides

[TheDeanAbides]

Also, all of those compensations (OTT and flip to save) leads to this chicken wing post impact position. You’re leaving so many yards on the table because you’re steering the ball instead of releasing the club.

[rondo01]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cb1J7GAFg-k/?utm_medium=copy_link

[TheDeanAbides]

1 hour ago, rondo01 said:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cb1J7GAFg-k/?utm_medium=copy_link

I 100% guarantee that the OP will end up flat and stuck if he tries that. He doesn’t understand how to use his wrists and that drill won’t teach him that. 

[TheDeanAbides]

Bort, what is your intention in transition? 

[bortass]

@Valtiel @TheDeanAbides @rondo01Thanks for all the feedback! I'd have responded sooner but I'm rarely at a computer on weekends. I suffer from rolling my forearms during the initial part of the takeaway and suck the club way inside. I've been trying to prevent that from happening and it's led to what you see in the newest video. So I have gotten the club to not be way inside early on and still find a way to stay flat and OTT.

 

A partial lightbulb moment has to do with my chest/torso. I have always been under the impression that my hands move back first and my upper body will eventually follow. So I let my hands start moving back and away from me and my chest/torso doesn't rotate till later. I have a similar problem with my release. I always read that the release will happen naturally.  Well, not for me. I had(have?) a reverse roll and actually had to think about releasing the club instead of holding it open. What I'm getting at is if I hear "move your hands back", I'll do that but it may be in isolation until physics/biomechanics forces other parts of my body to move  only because I'verun out of runway to move my hands w/o something else being forced to move.

 

I have to figure out how to sort out the takeaway. I have NTC and Monte's efficient Swing series that are my main sources but I'm always on the lookout for other explanations that may help the bulb click. I've seen stuff about a steering wheel or hulu hoop which may help with not letting my hands move back and away from my body as an example.

 

I'll have to grab some video of my partial wedge swing to see what's going on there. I mention it because it's to roughly club parallel to the ground on the backswing and I tend to hit draw with it. I'm curious if that swing is different than my full swing. I know it feels different but it may not be.

 

 

4 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Bort, what is your intention in transition? 

 I honestly don't know. I know that it's supposed to be a move down and left, Monte has referenced sitting in a barstool that's slightly behind the left butt cheek and it's what he covers in the transition section of NTC. Broomforce actually has drills that seem to help me with some of the feels for this. I don't have any intent during my full swing with regard to transition itself though. My thoughts are with arms/hands if it's something fairly specific. Sometimes it's just trying to make sure I don't start down too early and get jerky. So this is my longwinded explation/way to say, I don't think about transition. I've never felt i was there yet with other issues in the swing chain.

 

[TheDeanAbides]

The problem is that you can’t get the takeaway correct if you’re also trying to hit the ball. The desire to hit it will take precedent. For someone struggling so much with it mirror work is the way forward. 
 

I’ve shown you how to move your wrists. Only mirror work will give you the feedback to determine how much the arms rotate.

 

 Use this as your reference: club pointing at the ball; hands in centre of torso, and right hip above left. 
 

Practice over and over until you can feel this position without reference to the mirror and this image.

 

Go back to my post about how the wrists move. Let me know if you need me to make a video.

[bortass]

3 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

The problem is that you can’t get the takeaway correct if you’re also trying to hit the ball. The desire to hit it will take precedent. For someone struggling so much with it mirror work is the way forward. 
 

I’ve shown you how to move your wrists. Only mirror work will give you the feedback to determine how much the arms rotate.

 

 Use this as your reference: club pointing at the ball; hands in centre of torso, and right hip above left. 
 

Practice over and over until you can feel this position without reference to the mirror and this image.

 

Go back to my post about how the wrists move. Let me know if you need me to make a video.

Wrists hinge up, hinge right(right knuckles toward right forearm) , hinge down(cast A), hinge left (cast B). Monte shared a video on Instagram with his pupil doing that without moving anything else. So I think I get it conceptually.

 

Thanks for the image. I now have my 'marching orders' 🙂 

[TheDeanAbides]

That’s great that you’ve seen Monte share the idea in video form. Put the reps in and I guarantee that you’ll nail it. From there the backswing is almost over and then it’s just transition. The release will happen naturally when you have the room for it to do so. 🙂

[bortass]

Something interesting and exciting to me happened on the course today. I felt a change in my swing. It’s just a feel but I’ll try to describe it when I’m actually at a computer tomorrow.
 

Sorry, I couldn’t resist mentioning it because I’m very excited by it.

[bortass]

The biggest thing I learnt from posting these videos is the torso moving and the relationship of that with the arms/hands. I have not thought about trying to keep the hands centered on the chest during the golf swing. So I start moving the club back with my hands and at a later point in time my torso will rotate in response. This gets my hands and the club behind my torso and closer to my right shoulder. This is a pretty radical change in the movement pattern for me.

 

I have been taking a little time here and there to do what @TheDeanAbidescalls mirror work at home. I get in address position and try to get to the position in the image he posted. It feels completely different, shocking I know. I honestly have not had much time with it since I try to do a few reps here and there when I think about it. No ball or swinging motion. 

 

My first chance to actually swing a club was during warm up on the range before my Saturday round. I always start off with pitches and then half swings with a wedge. I was able to think about keeping my hands centered with my chest on these smaller shots and I noticed a difference. Contact seemed  better and possibly more shallow, the last one is kind of hard to say for sure. There's no video or anything, so all I can say is things felt better at contact and with the ball flight.

 

Full swing with a 7i was nothing to talk about and I just had to try and swing the club w/o thinking about things. Normally I'll be thinking about some change I'm working right before and possibly during my swing, for example cast B from NTC. "Make sure you do cast B!". I can't do that with this change, it's too big and I've not worked on it much. Last weekend I knew stuff would be pointed out with these swing videos the night before my weekly round, so I went out and just swung the club with my less than ideal swing. The overall results were decent and I just need to keep in that mind frame when playing. All of this is just a long winded way of saying, I did not try to change anything with my swing on the course this weekend.

 

I got in 36 holes and with the shorter shots I seemed to incorporate the hands staying near the center of my chest, at times, w/o thinking much about it . The last 4-5 holes is when it started to happen with full irons. I felt my chest rotate away from the target earlier than what's normal for me and my left shoulder get under my chin. The feel of my weight in my feet was completely different as well but I can't say what it was, just different. The biggest thing though was the downswing. It felt faster/more powerful. I can't describe it but it was very different than I am used to.

 

I know feel doesn't equal real and there's no proof I can point to to say I even came close to a good position at the end of my backswing. I do think I got closer than I have before though.

 

Ball flight is a bit of a puzzle. It was late afternoon and I was going into the sun a bit. I didn't see the ball for some reason, though I did manage to see it drop out of the sky a couple of times and it fell at a steep angle that I expect when I hit a ball well, for example I had a couple 9i shots that stopped a foot from their pitch marks. What was consistent, besides not seeing the ball, is I found my ball right of my target. My normal iron miss is a push fade and these shots didn't feel like those normally do to me nor they seem to behave the same way bases on pitch marks. I wish I could have seen what was really happening though. 

 

What I was so excited about is I started to feel the change in my swing. It was very different and not something I was actively trying to make happen. I hope my excitement is well placed and this is the start of heading down a better, albeit long, path.

[TheDeanAbides]

You know what I’m going to say, right? 
 

Another swing video is needed to check that your progress is correct, but it sounds positive. 🙂

[bortass]

3 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

You know what I’m going to say, right? 
 

Another swing video is needed to check that your progress is correct, but it sounds positive. 🙂

I'll see what I can do regarding some video but I'm not expecting much of a change. I really have not devoted much time to it yet and don't know if what happened was just a flash in the pan or something that will stick. 

[bortass]

 As requested, more embarrassing video... I kept telling myself to not expect much improvement since I haven't spent much time of  it. I need to remember that since i still see the OTT move, lol. All I was trying to do was swing the club in these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

I really wanted to see you trying to perform the move you mentioned in your thread. 

[bortass]

On 4/13/2022 at 2:10 AM, TheDeanAbides said:

I really wanted to see you trying to perform the move you mentioned in your thread. 

I was trying to do it but once the took everything down, I started to do it much better. The hard part for me is the camera messes me up, lol. It adds pressure which probably sounds dumb but it's what happens to me. 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by bortass

[bortass]

Had a chance to try again. This time I was trying to make it happen. Not sure why the first one will not embed.

 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-iKtnP-qpqw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by bortass

[TheDeanAbides]

Marginally better. It’s almost impossible to make a change at full speed with a full swing. P3 swings in slow motion in front of a mirror. Until you get that first move away from the ball with the wrists down you’ll always be stuck and then have to come OTT. 
 

It’s going to take hundreds of reps. 

[bortass]

6 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Marginally better. It’s almost impossible to make a change at full speed with a full swing. P3 swings in slow motion in front of a mirror. Until you get that first move away from the ball with the wrists down you’ll always be stuck and then have to come OTT. 
 

It’s going to take hundreds of reps. 

I haven't been doing anything on the range to work on this. I've been twice and each time it was just to capture the video. I assume my focus would be backswing A and backswing B from NTC?

 

I agree on the reps. I was just very excited to feel something different in my swing which seemed more inline with what I'm trying to change. That's a sign of progress, to me, regardless of how small said progress really is.

 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

Left arm parallel swings using cast b. Once you can consistently hit that position you can move on to a hair more shoulder turn and cast a. It’s so important to get this correct to make everything else easier. 

[Tanner25]

Kudos to Bort for posting these swings. I think many of us can relate. I also lift the club and to the outside on the backswing and have a feeling of getting stuck, making it difficult to hinge the wrists and I end up with no weight shift or a sway/coming out of posture and a collapsed arms/elbows at the top.

 

@TheDeanAbides Just to confirm, is the backswing, (for a rightie) a hinge towards the forearm, left arm rotation and then cocking the wrists (like using a hammer).

 

You asked about Bort's transition thought, after a good backswing - do you advocate a swing from the ground up or other lower body move?

 

Thanks, for your contributions/feedback.

 

Tanner

Edited May 7, 2022 by Tanner25

[TheDeanAbides]

31 minutes ago, Tanner25 said:

Kudos to Bort for posting these swings. I think many of us can relate. I also lift the club and to the outside on the backswing and have a feeling of getting stuck, making it difficult to hinge the wrists and I end up with no weight shift or a sway/coming out of posture and a collapsed arms/elbows at the top.

 

@TheDeanAbides Just to confirm, is the backswing, (for a rightie) a hinge towards the forearm, left arm rotation and then cocking the wrists (like using a hammer).

 

You asked about Bort's transition thought, after a good backswing - do you advocate a swing from the ground up or other lower body move?

 

Thanks, for your contributions/feedback.

 

Tanner

Re the wrists: yes, but they all happen  together. As long as you arrive at P3 (left arm parallel) with your hands roughly in the centre of your torso as viewed DTL, the butt of the club pointing at or inside the ball, and your club and arms creating pretty close to a 90* angle viewed face on, you’re golden. Your wrist should be more or less flat too. 
 

The transition always entails a pressure shift (not weight shift) to the left foot at around the same point in the backswing, followed by Monte’s cast A as the arms drop straight down off the body, followed by a turn. 
 

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2022 by TheDeanAbides

[bortass]

Swings taken on 9/20/23. I made a major change in May based on what Monte told me at his ATL clinic. I was not making a full backswing. Since then my drives are better and I am now shooting in the 80s more often. Still need a bunch of work though.

 

 Seven iron swings

 

DTL slow motion

 

DTL Full speed

 

 

Face on slow motion, looks OTT...

 

Face one normal speed

 

 

 Four wood time. I'm having an issue with the DTL slow motion one. Will try to upload later.

 

Down the line, this shot had good ball flight

 

 

 

 

 

Face on slow motion push fade 

 

 

 Driver time

 

 

 

Slow motion

 

 

 

 

[slytown]

Looks pretty good. I would get you starting the club more inside in the takeaway and releasing early in the downswing.

 

You start the club back outside, right of the target line. This is making your backswing very flat and robbing you of power. Work on bringing the clubhead more inside in the takeaway and then lifting the club up.

 

 

Also, the downswing starts with your shoulders, which brings the club over the top with an open clubface. I would simply work on the release. Look how high your right shoulder and the clubhead are after you start the downswing. Work on keeping your shoulders back and releasing the club to get to the ball. It should feel like you are more on your right side as you bring the club down. DONT TURN IN THE DOWNSWING. Work on this until you can hit big push draws consistently. Then you can start adding in more shoulder turn.

 

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by slytown

[TheDeanAbides]

1 hour ago, slytown said:

Looks pretty good. I would get you starting the club more inside in the takeaway and releasing early in the downswing.

 

You start the club back outside, right of the target line. This is making your backswing very flat and robbing you of power. Work on bringing the clubhead more inside in the takeaway and then lifting the club up.

 

 

Also, the downswing starts with your shoulders, which brings the club over the top with an open clubface. I would simply work on the release. Look how high your right shoulder and the clubhead are after you start the downswing. Work on keeping your shoulders back and releasing the club to get to the ball. It should feel like you are more on your right side as you bring the club down. DONT TURN IN THE DOWNSWING. Work on this until you can hit big push draws consistently. Then you can start adding in more shoulder turn.

 

 

The OP is working on Monte’s teachings, so the Malaska stuff is incompatible. Just adding this so Bort doesn’t get confused. 

[mizunotpz]

Surprised Monte didnt tell you that your left hip moves towards the ball in the backswing instead of right hip moving back. But Im sure there is a reason for this. I just think that the hip movement doesnt work properly.

Edited September 25, 2023 by mizunotpz

[TheDeanAbides]

10 hours ago, mizunotpz said:

Surprised Monte didnt tell you that your left hip moves towards the ball in the backswing instead of right hip moving back. But Im sure there is a reason for this. I just think that the hip movement doesnt work properly.

Monte never says that. That’s exactly the opposite of what Monte teaches.