Help with Swing

[ssmolenski]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sETrnXGA43hWgHGv7

 

Hello, I’m having trouble determining why I’m jumping on impact. Any help is appreciated. 

[dvq9654]

I'll let the experts / more informed people comment, but I think it's because:

 

1) Near the top of your backswing, you seem to stop extending (i.e., straightening) you rear leg and begin to dip down / add flex

2) Then, as you start the down swing, you drop even more (both lower and upper body)

3) At that point, you have dipped down so much you have to jump / early extend or else you'd hit the ball so fat you'd break your wrists 

 

Maybe there are more things, but seems like you need to get your pivot / hips moving right to rectify this. I would note that item 2) is not necessarily a bad thing within reason (e.g,. Rory, Tiger), but I think you've overdone it. 

[rd1959]

I'm certainly no swing guru but what I noticed was your backswing was flat all the way to the top, then you steepened the club (coming over the top) on your down swing and instead of transferring your weight from the back leg to the front you squatted down and then had to jump back up into the position you were in to start with.

 

If you had brought the club down the same path as the backswing and transferred weight forward from the right leg to the left leg there would be no need to squat down and jump back up. 

Edited August 5, 2022 by rd1959

[Valtiel]

I agree with the guys above and just want to add what I feel like are the reasons why you'd probably feel like you're unable to do what they're suggesting. The general problem is both a mismatch between swing length, lower body rotation, and how you're attempting to sequence both of them. There are some other smaller elements but we'll start with the big ones.

First to look at swing length:



This would be a perfectly fine place to stop your backswing in terms of length. There are a few funky things going on with your wrists here (very cupped left wrist and no right wrist extension), but i'm less worried about that initially. The problem is that you then do this:



Everyone's swing has a natural range to it in terms of length based on body, flexibility, speed etc. Staying within that range is crucial for the overall sequence of the golf swing, but you are WAY outside that range here. Your arms have overrun and your right shoulder has externally rotated way too far (too far behind you). Your body is also shifting towards the ball as @dvq9654 mentioned likely in an effort to balance yourself, which combined with the fact it has long since stopped rotating is another pair of indications that your backswing has extended way too far. Longer swings within your natural range can potentially produce more speed/power, but once you exceed that range you actually start losing power due to the fact that you now have to employ a bunch of compensations to "rescue" yourself from this position. It's also borderline impossible to sequence correctly from here (fire everything in the correct order to produce maximum power and consistency). Your hips, which have rotated a relatively normal amount, can't start moving first with your backswing this overrun because you need time to get back in front of you, so you're basically forced to sequence incorrectly as one of the compensations:



Which you do here by quickly using your arms to get the club back out in front of you while your hips rotate very little. You do a decent job of this, but as mentioned it forces you into the incorrect sequence of the arms speeding up first which tends to have the effect of steepening your shaft plane (when it should be shallowing) and expending too much effort to early in the downswing. To put it very roughly, the lower body is meant to engage and start shifting/rotating in transition as the means of initial acceleration, basically getting everything moving and getting your upper body coiled and ready to unload, after which your hands/arms can apply a bit of their own power later in the downswing, after being fairly passively pulled down by the initial lower body move. This all happens extremely quickly, especially with certain pros with very fast tempos, but that basic formula applies to pretty much all of them. But in having to expend all this arm energy just to get the club back in front of you, you both exhaust what should be a final means of adding power too early, and you rob yourself of being able to create that all important first stage with the lower body since if you DID, your arms would end up left way behind and stuck. It seems like you're trying to compensate for that (or this is just something you picked up as a tip) with this exaggerated squat move that both @rd1959 and @dvq9654 mentioned. This is also a problem because its serving no purpose in this context and is just something that you need to completely undo later (this is why you're jumping up).



You can't insert a crouch move to create power in a swing that is out of sequence, which as explained is because of several things happening earlier. I would focus on these in this order:

1) Reduce the length of your backswing significantly (roughly the length of the first image). This might feel like a 3/4 or even a 1/2 swing to you, and if it does then you'll need to recalibrate what you feel like is a full swing is because what you think is 100% is actually 150%, and decreasing that by 50% only brings you back to where you should be.
2) With your backswing shortened, focus on shifting into your front side and getting that left leg back and out of the way earlier. You do this at the *very* end of your swing right now (last two frames of the gif above) and you'll need to be feeling this move much earlier.
3) Abandon the squat move for now. It's not helping your current move and is being artificially employed too early. A natural dropping of your head will happen in response to properly sequencing with your lower body (firing the left side correctly while maintaining your posture tends to pull your head down a bit) and it will happen at a more correct time (later).

Feel free to follow up if you have any questions and post some videos later if you can if this helps. 👍

Edited August 6, 2022 by Valtiel