Club Face Open at Impact (Video)

[BMB]

I’ve just picked golf up again within the last couple months after an 8 year break. I’ve been working through Hogans 5 lessons. Corrected a very strong grip to be more neutral and still fighting natural tendency to be over the top. I feel a strong grip and out to in path all those years ago caused me to leave face open relative to path. Now that I’m fixing the other things, I’m having trouble squaring at impact. Any thoughts? Just started breaking 100 due to this open face causing massive slices with long irons through woods. 

Edited May 20, 2022 by BMB

[Valtiel]

There are a number of things pretty far away from neutral happening that would be good to tighten up. Judging practice swings isn't generally great since you'll often do different things with the ball in front of you, but just going off this:

1) You're folding your right arm immediately in the backswing and taking the club back very shut. The club is also very shut at the top of the swing so the fact you're struggling with massive slices is concerning since it suggest some serious issues with your path and release. 



This is getting the club going back narrow and stuck behind you which is forcing you to correct in transition be rerouting. 

2) Your upper body and thus your overall center of gravity is shifting way towards the ball in your backswing.



This is combining with or is perhaps the cause of bad rotation with your hips. You're swinging your left hip out in front of you and getting up on your toes, both things you don't want to be doing. Your upper body needs to be stable and your hips pushing backwards to rotate instead of swinging forwards, as this often causes one of the bigger death moves....

3) Severe depth loss/early extension at impact:



This is what happens when you don't know (or don't understand/haven't been taught) how to rotate correctly with the lower body. Super common as the "correct" way to do it is very unintuitive. You're swinging your left hip out to begin rotating and then swinging your right hip out to finish rotation, and all this does is thrust you towards the ball which forces you change shaft plane, raise the handle, and compensate with the hands to make contact. Compare to Tiger on the right and you can see how his position to the ball is basically unchanged. 

All these issues make consistency and face control a dice roll, so if you're serious about improving I would seek out a qualified professional that can get hands on in showing you how to move correctly. If your current overly shut clubface is an effort to reduce the slices you were struggling with then you've already started going down the road of applying bandaids instead of treating the root cause, which is hopefully what a pro can help you with. 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Valtiel

[BMB]

8 hours ago, Valtiel said:

There are a number of things pretty far away from neutral happening that would be good to tighten up. Judging practice swings isn't generally great since you'll often do different things with the ball in front of you, but just going off this:…
 

This is some really great analysis! I put a box against my backside to remain in contact with and immediately started hitting with better contact and more square face. I will definitely be working on getting that rotation in place more than shifting hips all around like I am. Thanks a bunch!

[Valtiel]

1 hour ago, BMB said:

This is some really great analysis! I put a box against my backside to remain in contact with and immediately started hitting with better contact and more square face. I will definitely be working on getting that rotation in place more than shifting hips all around like I am. Thanks a bunch!

No problem! Feel free to post update videos if you want to check in. 👍

[BrianMcG]

You need to be hitting a golf ball. No way to tell otherwise. 

Edited May 20, 2022 by BrianMcG

[BMB]

On 5/20/2022 at 12:22 PM, Valtiel said:

No problem! Feel free to post update videos if you want to check in. 👍

Ok here’s my update video. I feel I’m getting much better on the early extension. Just this alone seems to provide much better contact and more consistent contact. I still feel that I’m OTT. I can’t ever get the feeling of swinging in to out. I feel my arms just chase my hips and my hips are well ahead, as they should be. How’s it look?

[Valtiel]

The early extension is a *little* bit better, but you've gone from a 10/10 problem to a 9/10. This'll be a good learning opportunity though because you can measure what you feel is happening vs. what actually is:



Your initial takeaway, just the first foot or two, still sees your trail arm immediately folding and your head moving forward. For the former, you're going to need to feel like you have no elbows, just two straight sticks taking the golf club back. As for the head, hopefully that is just a symptom of the rotation issues i'll get into below so we don't need to look at that directly. We see the beginnings of your right hip pushing back which is good, but that left hip is already starting to move too much...



...however right here your right hip stops moving and your left hip starts taking over the rotation duties. This is bad and leads to critical problems downstream. You can't rotate by moving elements forwards (towards the ball) like this as all it does is pull you in that direction as we see you're already coming away from the line behind you and towards the ball, in addition to your head continuing to duck forwards. Your right arm is also continuing to fold excessively which is going to start sucking the club inside/flatter after this point. In a vacuum your clubhead position is actually good here, nice and square and in front of your hands, but its going to start flattening after this while also staying extremely shut.



I've backed this one up one panel to better illustrate with is going wrong rotationally. All of your pelvic rotation is being created by swinging your left hip forward. If we look at your head, your pelvis, and your feet, *everything* is moving towards the ball. You're not able to get the feeling of swinging in to out because what you're doing here makes it almost impossible.



Your final moves at the top before you start your downswing are more of the same with weight moving up towards your toes. With your weight moving in the direction, everything else follows:



Everything now fires out towards the ball. Your hands/arms and your right knee/hip. This forces everything over the top and steep and makes anything in to out impossible without massive intentional compensations with your hands that even if you COULD do them wouldn't be a good idea anyway. By the time you reach impact...



....you're basically in all the same positions from your practice swing last month. Your hips are miles away from where they started, your hands are significantly higher, and you've lost most of your spine angle. A majority of all these issues are rooted in a lack of understanding of how to properly move your lower body. Don't worry though, its really unintuitive and takes some serious time to get your head around:



I've put Emiliano Grillo's hips on the right as he is my favorite example of what you want to see and feel in your head. It's more extreme than some pros, but it's a fantastic visual. Watch his sequence several times and look for the fundamentals of right hip moving back -> transition -> left hip moving back. Take note of all this in relation to the box I placed around his pelvis. This is NOT an easy or intuitive way to move, but it is a version of what all good players do with only the most rare of exceptions. The right hip pushes back away from the ball, then in transition this reverses and the left hip pushes back away from the ball. The right hip never really comes close to crossing the right red line in the downswing and the left hip never crosses that line in the backswing.

Now look at your movement with that same attention to detail and notice how everything is backwards from this. Your left hip jumps out across the line in the backswing and then your right hip comes out across it in the downswing, tic-tac'ing you closer to the ball the whole time. This drastic change in position between address and impact means you spend all your energy compensating for that change and it makes contact a toss up.

Some golf instructors that start working with juniors from a very early age will drill this sequence of movements in before even letting them hit balls. Its like an ollie or a kickflip on a skateboard, or a bunny hop on a bike. You see someone do it and think "oh ok, I can do that" and then proceed to look silly trying to mimic it without an understanding of the sequence and physics necessary to make it happen. The problem with golf is that we can get by doing it wrong and still play the game, even hit good shots sometimes! But understanding how to do these things correctly is one one of the big keys to progressing, and in my 30 years of playing i've never seen an instructor that taught this properly, or even explained it in an understandable way. Partially because it's really hard and plenty of folks won't get it in the 45 minutes they need to feel comfortable to book another lesson, and partially because I think many instructors don't even understand it themselves. 😄

Anyway, that was a lot. I partially do this to help and also to give resources to point others to in the future. The video linked below goes into more depth on the topic if you want to dive deeper, and understand this will take time to even get YOUR head around, let alone put it into practice. Be patient!
 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

To add to what @Valtiel has said, some of your problems begin at setup. Your butt is sticking out way too far to be properly balanced. You want to be closer to the red line.
 

I posted on this a while back with a routine that allows your body to find its own dynamic balance point. If you follow it to the letter you’ll be in a position to begin the swing that offers the best opportunity to maximise your potential. It well also help you to use your hips correctly. 

 

 

There are other things that V has pointed out, and you’re in good hands with him, so I won’t labour any more points and overwhelm you for now. For what it’s worth, I don’t think 5 Lessons is helping you. It’s causing you to fire your hips WAAAAY too soon. 

Edited June 8, 2022 by TheDeanAbides