Looking For Advice

[mm3030]

Hi everyone. Looking for any advice on things to work on so I can become more consistent. I have never worked on anything, ready to get after it. Appreciate any input. 

[Valtiel]

You've got a decent foundation to work with, the main thing you're going to have to get your head around is how to correctly sequence and apply power in transition.



Right now you're doing what most folks do that haven't been guided through the unintuitive mess that is "proper" golf mechanics and that is initiating the downswing with and attempting to create power from mostly your arms while not correctly utilizing pelvic rotation, both in the backswing and the downswing. For the backswing:



You only have a little bit of pelvic rotation here, and its pretty exclusively coming from your left hip swinging forward. The problem with rotating your pelvis this way is that it brings you towards the ball, as we can see by your head coming forward. The correct move involves pushing your right hip back to create rotation and keeps you from coming closer to the ball, like Adam does above. Note the orange dot marking right hip position with you and Adam. Your right hip basically doesn't move, whereas his drops back and down. This will feel weird at first since it's pretty unintuitive, but it is necessary to maintain your distance from the ball so you don't have to reroute the club in the way down to compensate for a change in position in relation to it once you start the downswing. That is where the main issues are:



From the top you're mainly pulling your arms down while your lower body is doing very little, and it IS doing is incorrect. In order to properly initiate your downswing you need to understand what the proper "sequence" is. An arm driven downswing with a passive lower body is backwards from a sequence standpoint, you need to feel all the power and acceleration initially coming from your lower body via driving your left hip/knee/leg backwards, away from the ball, while your arms are more passive and initially allowed to simply fall downwards. When you pull down hard with your arms it virtually always screws up your downswing plane since hands/arms generally want to come towards the ball, like they do in yours. This is ok for some types of swings (one-plane types with very different backswing positions) but even then that is still driven by the lower body. The other important reason to focus on driving the downswing with the lead leg is that it keeps you from trying to drive it with the trail leg, which results in THAT hip coming out towards the ball like we see on your side. Adding that all up, left side coming towards the ball in the backswing and right side coming towards the ball in the downswing you can see how you end up in that awkward looking position at impact.

I've become a huge fan of the basic pelvic punch drill linked below for getting the feeling of this proper left side acceleration with a shorter club and smaller swings since it's far easier to feel it working without worrying about applying to the more difficult full swings. I recommend starting with that to get the feeling and working your way up to full swings from there.

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Valtiel

[mm3030]

I was hoping you would reply, thank you for taking the time. I’m glad to have a direction towards getting better. I will work on it. 

[mm3030]

Is this hip movement in a better direction?

[Valtiel]

11 hours ago, mm3030 said:

Is this hip movement in a better direction?

Yes, this is definitely the beginning of a better set of movements for sure. Props for being able to change this aggressively:



It might look a little goofy right now, but there are several important things happening and a few things to work on next. You've dramatically reversed the issue of your lower half coming towards the ball which is great and you've managed to return the club to almost an identical position that it was in at address, very good stuff. Right now you're leaning heavily on pushing yourself away from the ball initially, which is good, but I want to swap a bit of that for more rotation, i'll explain below:



This initial move back is a great exaggeration of what we discussed previously. I'm ok with seeing this much depth increase initially as you get the feel for it, but you'll want to dial it back as you get comfortable. Pushing back too much can unbalance you a bit and it can make it difficult to rotate correctly.



From a hip standpoint this is great, you don't over extended and keep rotating nor do you come back towards the ball and you properly start getting into your front side at the end of the backswing, great stuff. This lifting of the hands to get the top is a little excessive, I wouldn't mind seeing your right shoulder and upper arm a little more connected (less external shoulder rotation e.g your shoulder turning back behind you) but it's not a huge deal right now. Getting all the lower body stuff locked in is more important and this clearly isn't stopping you from making changes in that regard.



This is great stuff too, nice crouching and rotating while maintaining depth (not coming towards the ball). This is the beginning of the first area to work on however if I want to see that left knee starting to disappear via getting back and out of the way. That is the critical second half of this move that creates free power while keeping your low point in front of the ball. In the last frame of this gif we can still see that left knee poking out...



...and as you continue down it never fully gets out of the way. From the first frame of this gif to impact is the time you need to be straightening that left leg up to push that left hip back:



Here's a rough visualization of that. We can see how Talor on the right gets that left leg visible from this angle and noticeably straighter whereas the flex is still in yours. You get to the right position after impact, so you just need to sequence that a little earlier like I mentioned above. Once you're comfortable with it, that left leg driving back at the proper time will take care of a number of other things on it's own. That move will naturally pull you down into side bend as well as help shallow your shaft plane. With that left side still in the way you're coming down a bit steep at the moment, but that should change with the proper left side clearing.

One last thing is your right hand grip:



This disconnect between your right thumb and forefinger with the thumb running down the shaft is something you'll want to change. This often gets employed to help anchor the club at the top of the backswing but its a biomechanical no-no since it creates unnecessary tension in the right forearm and makes it harder to release the club properly in the downswing. Regardless of the strength of your right hand position, you want that thumb crossing over and connecting with or directly opposing the right index finger:



Great first steps overall though, you've done the hardest part already which is *actually* moving differently which tons of people struggle with. Keep it up and let me know if you have any questions or follow up videos. 👍

[mm3030]

Excellent. I will keep getting comfortable with those hips and start checking things off the list. Thanks again for the post, incredible stuff. 
 

[Scottbox]

On 8/1/2022 at 8:05 PM, Valtiel said:

You've got a decent foundation to work with, the main thing you're going to have to get your head around is how to correctly sequence and apply power in transition.



Right now you're doing what most folks do that haven't been guided through the unintuitive mess that is "proper" golf mechanics and that is initiating the downswing with and attempting to create power from mostly your arms while not correctly utilizing pelvic rotation, both in the backswing and the downswing. For the backswing:



You only have a little bit of pelvic rotation here, and its pretty exclusively coming from your left hip swinging forward. The problem with rotating your pelvis this way is that it brings you towards the ball, as we can see by your head coming forward. The correct move involves pushing your right hip back to create rotation and keeps you from coming closer to the ball, like Adam does above. Note the orange dot marking right hip position with you and Adam. Your right hip basically doesn't move, whereas his drops back and down. This will feel weird at first since it's pretty unintuitive, but it is necessary to maintain your distance from the ball so you don't have to reroute the club in the way down to compensate for a change in position in relation to it once you start the downswing. That is where the main issues are:



From the top you're mainly pulling your arms down while your lower body is doing very little, and it IS doing is incorrect. In order to properly initiate your downswing you need to understand what the proper "sequence" is. An arm driven downswing with a passive lower body is backwards from a sequence standpoint, you need to feel all the power and acceleration initially coming from your lower body via driving your left hip/knee/leg backwards, away from the ball, while your arms are more passive and initially allowed to simply fall downwards. When you pull down hard with your arms it virtually always screws up your downswing plane since hands/arms generally want to come towards the ball, like they do in yours. This is ok for some types of swings (one-plane types with very different backswing positions) but even then that is still driven by the lower body. The other important reason to focus on driving the downswing with the lead leg is that it keeps you from trying to drive it with the trail leg, which results in THAT hip coming out towards the ball like we see on your side. Adding that all up, left side coming towards the ball in the backswing and right side coming towards the ball in the downswing you can see how you end up in that awkward looking position at impact.

I've become a huge fan of the basic pelvic punch drill linked below for getting the feeling of this proper left side acceleration with a shorter club and smaller swings since it's far easier to feel it working without worrying about applying to the more difficult full swings. I recommend starting with that to get the feeling and working your way up to full swings from there.

 

I love this drill. What's the feel from P4 to here though?

[mm3030]

@Valtiel This left leg/hip is no joke. I did a trash job of working on it the last couple weeks, wondering your thoughts on this swing. 
 

I kept trying to get the left leg extended, but was moving so far away from the ball on the downswing, everything was getting out of whack. This feels a lot better, and watching it back looks better to me. 

[Valtiel]

10 hours ago, mm3030 said:

@Valtiel This left leg/hip is no joke. I did a trash job of working on it the last couple weeks, wondering your thoughts on this swing. 
 

I kept trying to get the left leg extended, but was moving so far away from the ball on the downswing, everything was getting out of whack. This feels a lot better, and watching it back looks better to me. 

I would like to see what felt like "moving so far away from the ball on the downswing" because the problem is right now that you're doing a lot of things that are still moving you TOWARDS the ball in the downswing. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a "feel vs. real" disconnected there and that you're actually moving more correctly when you feel like it's away from the ball. I can see you're trying to do the correct thing with your left side, but you're still doing the wrong things with your right side that are fighting against and canceling it out:



You're in a good position here, it's what you're immediately doing in transition that is the problem:



Everything on your right side (hip, knee, hands) comes out towards the ball in transition, basically rerouting way over the top. If your right side is coming out towards the ball then your attempts to work the left side back are going to get stepped on. This is why I want to see those other swings where you felt like you were moving away from the ball too much, because this is coming *towards* the ball too much.



Here we see you *trying* to get that left side back, but because you already kicked off your downswing with right side forward energy you're basically just coming straight up. You're straightening that leg, but you aren't actually creating any power with it. Straightening the leg isn't the goal, it's simply a byproduct of getting completely off your right side in transition and pushing your hip back at speed. Watch Adam's hat in the gif above as he works down, notice how it pulls down and back. His whole body is being pulled in that direction by the force being created by his left side.

This is definitely the difficult part as you need to both learn how to move differently and trust what those movements are going to accomplish. Kicking your right side out towards the ball and throwing your hands over the top is a common impulse to create the shortest distance between the top of the backswing and hitting the ball. It using our most powerful side to make the first big move towards our goal and it needs to be beaten out of us at one stage or another. In transition your right side should only be turning in towards the target and unweighting so all the force is being generated from your left side turning back. This can and WILL pull you away from the ball, it is designed to like we see with Adam above. This is not something to be avoided.

Practice those pelvic punch half shots where you feel like all your weight is going into your left heel in the downswing through impact. Kick your left side back and feel like you do absolutely nothing with your right. If you can, post videos of the swings I mentioned before with the "moving away from the ball" feeling.

[mm3030]

That all makes sense. I was definitely trying to straighten my leg, rather than it be a byproduct. I could feel the over the top, didn't realize why it was happening. I am starting to understand "unweighting" the right side, rather than pushing off of it to transfer to left. Just have to get my body to understand it.

 

I don't have any videos of the really getting away from the ball. But it was like I couldn't even reach the ball at impact type bad.

 

Here is a shot where I feel like my body is falling away from the ball a bit.

[Valtiel]

11 hours ago, mm3030 said:

That all makes sense. I was definitely trying to straighten my leg, rather than it be a byproduct. I could feel the over the top, didn't realize why it was happening. I am starting to understand "unweighting" the right side, rather than pushing off of it to transfer to left. Just have to get my body to understand it.

 

I don't have any videos of the really getting away from the ball. But it was like I couldn't even reach the ball at impact type bad.

 

Here is a shot where I feel like my body is falling away from the ball a bit.

Ah I see, yeah that makes sense. It's the same problem as before just with more emphasis on trying to "lean back". Here is how to look at this:

Maintaining your distance from the ball, or even increasing, is NOT the actual thing you're trying to do, but a byproduct of that thing, which is driving the left leg back:



At this stage of the downswing your left leg isn't really going anywhere. You're focusing on leaning away from the ball without actually doing the thing that is meant to cause this which is driving that leg back. You need to actively shift your focus away from trying to put your weight somewhere, in this case backwards away from the ball, and shift your sole focus on that left leg/left side clearing. You're doing exactly what I was doing when I first struggled with this concept; you're trying to achieve the effect (maintaining depth and clearing the left side) without properly executing the "cause".  Grillo above is a more extreme example, but notice where his left hip is. Your left hip doesn't get to that point until well after the ball is already done and you're starting to lose your balance. I'll highlight it this way by noting left leg position which I will shift from red->orange->green when it is roughly considered to be "cleared".



Again, Grillo is a more extreme example, but the underlying fundamental is consistent across all high level golfers; the left side clears approaching impact to one degree or another. And critically we can see that Grillo is speeding up the left side at the same exact time yours is stalling (P5 to P6).  This takes conscious applied force, it is not something that just happens by sliding over towards your front side. SNAP that leg backwards hard, fast, and early. Doing it too soon and too quickly is easier to dial back versus doing it too slowly and too late, so feel free to overdo it both in severity and timing. This goes back to the pelvic punch drill as well and getting used to the feeling of creating all your initial speed by firing the left side back.

There is a whole host of reasons we do this as a fundamental in the golf swing which I can go into more later, but for now work on this being the one and only thing you try to achieve in transition + downswing.

[mm3030]

Better? Worse? Take up a game that doesn’t lower body movement movement? @Valtiel

[Valtiel]

11 hours ago, mm3030 said:

Better? Worse? Take up a game that doesn’t lower body movement movement? @Valtiel

From a lower body standpoint much better, yes. You've definitely gotten your forces moving in a better direction. I think you're contending with a backswing issue now that is holding you back, and in hindsight may have been why you struggled with the lower body stuff more initially:



Coming down into impact your arms are stuck behind you. Your right elbow should be out in front of your right thigh at P6 (club parallel to the ground in the downswing) and we can see here it is well behind it.



I think the culprit is this flying right elbow backswing position you've been in. Your hips are working faster/more aggressively now which is good, but that right elbow just isn't getting down in front you soon enough. VERY few people make this type of position work, the elbow is just too far behind you get back down in time. As the hips get quicker you need the proper match up of arm position and/or hand speed to keep things in sync, with the position I highlighted in the gif being a marker for whether or not you've done that. Since you haven't and your arms got stuck, i'd start getting the feel for keeping your backswing more connected like Adam above, specifically the right arm position. You've employed a lot of extra external right shoulder rotation to get into your current position which is just causing problems now, so i'd get in front of a mirror (or take video) so you can see what it feels like to get and keep your right elbow more in front of you. Don't worry if it feels like this restricts your shoulder turn because you're only artificially increasing it with that external shoulder move. See how that feels and report back. 👍