Swing Analysis

[colu41]

I had a thread going in the instruction section about the cause of my pushing/slicing with a neutral grip. I changed BACK to a neutral grip this year, to kind of start over. And found I can get very consistent contact on the ball, but my flight is all over. Whether a hard push or giant slice. So essentially they asked for a video. I switched BACK to my strong grip, with the same swing, and am getting good contact again. So hopefully THIS might help my flight path. Will find out next time on the course, but in the meantime, heres a video I put together to show a glimpse of my swing. 
 

Any tips, suggestions or ANYTHING are welcome! 

 

 

[Valtiel]

I'd wager that the main thing you're managing that is being influenced by grip strength is this:



You're rolling the clubface very open and sucking your plane inside in your takeaway. The generally accepted "square" clubface position at this point is one that matches your spine angle and is generally somewhere over your hands (both represented by the green line). A stronger grip gives your hands the ability to "save" these problems later in the swing, but at the expense of consistency. Without that strong grip you weren't able to control this which likely resulted in your ball flight being erratic. 

The solution to both is to keep the clubhead more square in your takeaway and keep it from getting inside (left) of your hands. You do this by keeping the face "square" to the ball longer going back and keeping your right hand on top of the club longer + your right arm straighter. 



Here is Tiger doing all these things. Right arm straighter (JUST starting to fold), right hand more on top of the club, clubface square and over his hands. This positions will all deviate slightly among pros, but within very tight parameters. 

Work on getting closer to these fundamentals as they will allow you to neutralize your grip again since you won't need to "save" the open/inside face any longer. 
 

[colu41]

31 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

I'd wager that the main thing you're managing that is being influenced by grip strength is this:



You're rolling the clubface very open and sucking your plane inside in your takeaway. The generally accepted "square" clubface position at this point is one that matches your spine angle and is generally somewhere over your hands (both represented by the green line). A stronger grip gives your hands the ability to "save" these problems later in the swing, but at the expense of consistency. Without that strong grip you weren't able to control this which likely resulted in your ball flight being erratic. 

The solution to both is to keep the clubhead more square in your takeaway and keep it from getting inside (left) of your hands. You do this by keeping the face "square" to the ball longer going back and keeping your right hand on top of the club longer + your right arm straighter. 



Here is Tiger doing all these things. Right arm straighter (JUST starting to fold), right hand more on top of the club, clubface square and over his hands. This positions will all deviate slightly among pros, but within very tight parameters. 

Work on getting closer to these fundamentals as they will allow you to neutralize your grip again since you won't need to "save" the open/inside face any longer. 
 

Thanks! Something I can focus on. My question is, if I keep the club face more square on the takeaway, will that naturally affect my downswing and rotation?

[Valtiel]

5 minutes ago, colu41 said:

Thanks! Something I can focus on. My question is, if I keep the club face more square on the takeaway, will that naturally affect my downswing and rotation?

It certainly can, but not necessarily in a consistently predictable way. It will depend on what you're currently employing as a compensation to manage the face/path issues. The immediately apparent one is grip as you mentioned, but other common compensations can be stalling your hip rotation to give you time to square the club, and depth loss (coming towards the ball) to push your path out and to the left to manage the open face. You're doing both of those a bit as well, but potentially as a symptom. The goal is to remove the cause (open clubface, inside takeaway) and see what happens next. In all likelihood you'll hit a lot of pulls/hooks at first, which is expected. Neutralizing your grip is the first adjustment to make to match your more neutral takeaway since you don't need to compensate for that anymore and from there you have a more stable/reliable platform to start addressing whatever else is happening down stream. Ideally what happens then is you can start working on sequencing since you don't have to compromise that to manage the clubface anymore.

Currently you have the issue of your hips and hands going together in the downswing instead of your hips leading the downswing. This gets you into a pretty stuck/flippy position at impact since your hips don't have time to clear, but this is likely necessary to manage the initial takeaway issues. If you were to sequence and rotate correctly now with those issues, you wouldn't have the extra fractions of a second to square the clubface with your hands and everything would likely end up blocked a mile right. This naturally causes the compensation of slowing your hips and even changing the order of your sequence from hips first to hips and arms at same time, or even arms first and hips trailing behind like some folks do in more extreme cases. Remove the need to do this and you can start focusing on doing it correctly, but it's a process that requires peeling back each layer to get there. 

[colu41]

Awesome. And thats what I initially wanted to do was to go back everything neutral, and figure out what needs to be worked on, not what else needs to be duct taped. 😁

I recorded another video, neutral grip, and tried keeping the face more square in the takeaway. I felt like I was doing it correctly, and I was hitting the ball well.  Excited to see what you take from it. First I have to figure out how to post it on here without putting it to my youtube channel.

[colu41]

Updated Video. I went back to a neutral grip, and tried to keep the face square, in the 2nd video set.  I also did one off the mat, and one off the ground.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by colu41

[T2WIN]

Looks like you are coming over the top a little in the video. Do you have any issues with the ball starting left and going straight left or maybe even starting left and hooking? As in a pull hook type of shots when you miss left? Also, you could be starting left and fading or even slicing some shots with this move. 

Edited May 2, 2022 by T2WIN

[Valtiel]

51 minutes ago, colu41 said:

Updated Video. I went back to a neutral grip, and tried to keep the face square, in the 2nd video set.  I also did one off the mat, and one off the ground.

 

Nice, those second vids are much better from a takeaway standpoint. Square clubface and a much more neutral path. One thing I want comment on grip though before addressing anything body related is this common right hand issue:

 

Tiger's hand on the left here. Notice the right thumb and how we can only really see Tiger's thumbnail but we can see pretty much all of your thumb. This thumb position is problematic for this reason:



When your thumb is stretched down the top/side of the shaft like this you're losing a crucial connection between the thumb and forefinger. Putting your thumb in a position where it directly opposes the forefinger (like we see with Tiger's grip) is FAR more effective and generating pressure. This has to do with muscles groups in the hands and how to effectively use them, but the main thing to understand is that it's way harder to release your right hand gripping the way you're doing right now, because separating your thumb and forefinger creates a weaker connection which in turn requires more force from your fingers and subsequently your forearm muscles to achieve the same grip pressure, and the tension that comes with that makes releasing the club harder. 



You're more like the right grip here, and you want to shoot for the left. 

Make sure that is feeling comfortable before you start addressing anything related to the body, which as T2WIN said above is currently moving in such a way that your path is coming steep and over the top which is creating those bigger, left pointing divots and a lot of toe strikes. Getting into how to fix that is complex, but I wanted to start with the grip fundamentals as that ineffective right thumb/forefinger position will make neutralizing your path in transition harder. 

[colu41]

I honestly had no clue that your finger positions on the club grip could matter. This is all very interesting. And I will definitely take into consideration. If weather permits, I will try and get out tmrw and get another video. Or at least just practice.

Thanks again. This is great info!!

[colu41]

51 minutes ago, T2WIN said:

Looks like you are coming over the top a little in the video. Do you have any issues with the ball starting left and going straight left or maybe even starting left and hooking? As in a pull hook type of shots when you miss left? Also, you could be starting left and fading or even slicing some shots with this move. 

My original swing with neutral grip the ball would either start straight, or slightly right, and fade or slice right.

[colu41]

Are both my swings in that video, (gray shirt & hoody) out to in swing paths? 

 

I will fix my grip, and focus on my club face in my takeaway. From there hopefully I can alleviate that out to in a little bit. 

 

I know how to drastically change that by simply dropping my right shoulder or "slide the club face down the wall on the downswing", but then I run into very inconsistent strikes.

[T2WIN]

To help you stop coming over the top, start the downswing with your lower body turning back toward the target first then your upper body will follow and help to shallow out the club head and get you coming more from the inside. 

[colu41]

4 minutes ago, T2WIN said:

To help you stop coming over the top, start the downswing with your lower body turning back toward the target first then your upper body will follow and help to shallow out the club head and get you coming more from the inside. 

I'll work on that too! I just hit about 50 more balls with my thumb moved over on a neutral grip. Everything honestly felt great. My hand hurts more than normal after hitting some balls but usually that's a good thing when you're using new muscles 😄

[Valtiel]

7 minutes ago, colu41 said:

I honestly had no clue that your finger positions on the club grip could matter. This is all very interesting. And I will definitely take into consideration. If weather permits, I will try and get out tmrw and get another video. Or at least just practice.

Thanks again. This is great info!!

Sure thing! It's definitely interesting from a biomechanical standpoint. You can test this for yourself to better feel this in action by simply pinching your thumb and forefinger together and noticing how much force you can create quite easily when they're directly opposed. The thumb has its own independent set of muscles and tendons versus your forefinger which shares a lot with the other four fingers, hence why it's hard to move any of them truly independent of each other. The correct combo of thumb and forefinger helps keep the tension in your forearm low which in turn allows for smoother and faster movements as it relates to releasing the club. For as many different styles of grip you'll see on tour in variety of strengths and orientations, you will ALWAYS see this close thumb/forefinger connection because it is objectively more functional. 

 

8 minutes ago, colu41 said:

Are both my swings in that video, (gray shirt & hoody) out to in swing paths? 

 

I will fix my grip, and focus on my club face in my takeaway. From there hopefully I can alleviate that out to in a little bit. 

 

I know how to drastically change that by simply dropping my right shoulder or "slide the club face down the wall on the downswing", but then I run into very inconsistent strikes.

Yes, your general move in transition is leaning in towards the ball and getting more up towards your toes while your hands are coming out over the top of your path (also towards the ball). In order to avoid this move and stay "centered" like the pros do you actually have to oppose this force and almost feel like you're working away from the ball. As stated above this is generally accomplished by both initiating the hip rotation first (you want to feel like you're getting back to 50/50 weight distribution by the time you reach the top of your backswing) and initiating that rotation via shifting your pelvis and that left hip socket backwards, away from the ball:



Its subtle, but as Tiger reaches the end of his backswing we see a slight "sit" move with the pelvis and the left hip is already starting back. Like the grip stuff from earlier, virtually all pros do *some* version of this type of move. It will look different with different bodies but the forces are all generally the same; hips driving back instead of coming forward, center of gravity shifting slightly back towards the heels (left heel specifically) and the hips always starting slightly ahead of the hands. 

[colu41]

Thanks a ton Valtiel and T2WIN. I will incorporate as much of this as I can into my swing, and hit some more tmrw. I plan to get a round in Wednesday morning so I'll be able to see any improvements!

[colu41]

So, I went out and played 18 by myself this morning. Had the course nearly to myself. The first 9 were rough. Drives were great, woods were great, putting was decent. But I couldnt hit an iron for the life of me. By the second 9, I finally buckled down on my iron swing, and realized that I wasn't leaning into my shots, and I was either hitting everything fat, or picking them clean. So the back 9 my irons were a lot better. Better contact, but I was still slicing everything. I eventually started playing the slice and got a few great shots in. I don't mind a fade but, the longer my irons get the more pronounced of a slice I'm getting. I'm still keeping the face more square on the takeaway, but apparently in the last 2 years my natural swing path shifted to an out to in. 

[Valtiel]

9 hours ago, colu41 said:

So, I went out and played 18 by myself this morning. Had the course nearly to myself. The first 9 were rough. Drives were great, woods were great, putting was decent. But I couldnt hit an iron for the life of me. By the second 9, I finally buckled down on my iron swing, and realized that I wasn't leaning into my shots, and I was either hitting everything fat, or picking them clean. So the back 9 my irons were a lot better. Better contact, but I was still slicing everything. I eventually started playing the slice and got a few great shots in. I don't mind a fade but, the longer my irons get the more pronounced of a slice I'm getting. I'm still keeping the face more square on the takeaway, but apparently in the last 2 years my natural swing path shifted to an out to in. 

Yeah, this is product of low point control issues which is the most common symptom of coming other the top and getting too steep, something that will naturally get worse as the irons get longer. Here is the main reason this happens for most people:

 

I like using JB as an example because it is more exaggerated and easier to see. Notice where his butt moves in transition, basically backwards like he is pushing away from the ball. This is weird unintuitive movement #1 that needs to be understood for the "pro" golf swing. Notice then on your side how almost everything is moving in the opposite direction, with your whole body basically moving TOWARDS the ball. Logically if we start in one position (address) but then shift towards the ball in transition, a bunch of things have to change in order to make contact. If you rotated correctly and maintained your spine angle, you'd miss the ball by the same amount you're coming towards it, so you're forced to abandon doing most of those things "correctly" to make contact:



As you swing down, your shift towards the ball has to be countered by extending/standing up. You've moved closer, so now you have to compensate. This also means your rotation has to completely stall as you approach the ball. Notice how little movement we see between frame 2 and 3. On JB's side however, because he doesn't have to compensate for this forward shift by extending or losing any spine angle, he is free to completely rotate/clear through the ball with bonus that the act of doing this naturally brings his hands/arms down on plane. 

Learning to perform this little backwards move in transition is hard, its counter to what our brain instinctively wants to do. To force yourself to do it, try standing noticeably closer to the ball. At first you'll probably make terrible contact because you'll just do more of what you're doing now, just to a greater degree, but it can help force you to feel like you need to do something different to make good contact. Interestingly, the amount you shift towards the ball in transition is very similar to the amount you actually shimmy back AWAY from it when getting into your address position:



I'd almost argue that your starting position is more "correct", and you're actually shifting too far away with this adjustment as you settle in. Consider staying in this initial closer position as you attempt that more backwards move in transition. These two things plus the more neutral grip and takeaway when combined/ingrained should be a big improvement, however that is a LOT of change, so be patient with it as it will likely be pretty uncomfortable at first, as it should be. 
 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Valtiel

[colu41]

On 5/4/2022 at 6:23 PM, Valtiel said:

Yeah, this is product of low point control issues which is the most common symptom of coming other the top and getting too steep, something that will naturally get worse as the irons get longer. Here is the main reason this happens for most people:

 

I like using JB as an example because it is more exaggerated and easier to see. Notice where his butt moves in transition, basically backwards like he is pushing away from the ball. This is weird unintuitive movement #1 that needs to be understood for the "pro" golf swing. Notice then on your side how almost everything is moving in the opposite direction, with your whole body basically moving TOWARDS the ball. Logically if we start in one position (address) but then shift towards the ball in transition, a bunch of things have to change in order to make contact. If you rotated correctly and maintained your spine angle, you'd miss the ball by the same amount you're coming towards it, so you're forced to abandon doing most of those things "correctly" to make contact:



As you swing down, your shift towards the ball has to be countered by extending/standing up. You've moved closer, so now you have to compensate. This also means your rotation has to completely stall as you approach the ball. Notice how little movement we see between frame 2 and 3. On JB's side however, because he doesn't have to compensate for this forward shift by extending or losing any spine angle, he is free to completely rotate/clear through the ball with bonus that the act of doing this naturally brings his hands/arms down on plane. 

Learning to perform this little backwards move in transition is hard, its counter to what our brain instinctively wants to do. To force yourself to do it, try standing noticeably closer to the ball. At first you'll probably make terrible contact because you'll just do more of what you're doing now, just to a greater degree, but it can help force you to feel like you need to do something different to make good contact. Interestingly, the amount you shift towards the ball in transition is very similar to the amount you actually shimmy back AWAY from it when getting into your address position:



I'd almost argue that your starting position is more "correct", and you're actually shifting too far away with this adjustment as you settle in. Consider staying in this initial closer position as you attempt that more backwards move in transition. These two things plus the more neutral grip and takeaway when combined/ingrained should be a big improvement, however that is a LOT of change, so be patient with it as it will likely be pretty uncomfortable at first, as it should be. 
 

This is some pretty awesome info! Thanks so much! It makes sense to me, but getting myself to comfortably do these things I feel is going to take a long time. I try to get out on hit at least 50 balls a day on my net. So as long as I'm practicing CORRECTLY, I feel this should work out. It just scares me trying new things and hitting 10 balls in a row with horrible contact. I know thats what practice is but, its very discouraging, and most people, including myself, just quit and go back to their old ways. But I will practice these things as much as i can.

Thanks again!