Caught between two swings and not sure what to focus on

[Luckydutch]

I've been learning to shallow the club in the downswing and there's a tonne of seemingly conflicting information out there as to how best to achieve this.

 

There are two things I've tried that have produced good results but they do look quite different and when I try to combine both, I start shanking everything.

 

Method one is just simply dropping the right elbow into my side into the transition and then just rotating the body through. This produces by far the most consistent results I've experienced so far but it doesn't feel like I'm producing much clubhead speed. My arms/hands aren't doing much and it's all rotation:

 

 

 

 

Method two is pulling the handle of the club almost away from me in the transition which really creates a lot of lag in my right wrist and feels like it creates more speed so good shots go about 10% further than the above method. The problem is it's a little less consistent. Easy to accidentally yank it and get steep in the downswing, plus my follow-through gets a bit more cramped:

 

 

 

 

 

I've tried combining the two where instead of pulling through my hands, I pull through the elbow but when I try that I shank everything. Literally every shot:

 

 

 

 

Which of these is closest to correct and what should I focus on to keep improving?

Edited October 4, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Valtiel]

Based on ball speed and distance I assume this is a PW or 9i-ish? 

The first swing is unquestionably the best of the three, but they all have the same problem with the first just having less of it. (We won't talk about the last one, put that directly into the garbage disposal lol)



Assuming this is in fact a scoring club, this should be your full swing. Your hips are simply too quick for you to have any hope of sequencing correctly with a longer backswing than this, and all three videos go much further, with the second video being the worst. 

Your comment "My arms/hands aren't doing much and it's all rotation" is telling because it's almost phrased like its a problem, but based on what you've struggled with before and what we're seeing here it isn't, and in fact is exactly what you want to strive for. I just did a quick skim of your previous videos to refresh myself and two main things stand out. 

1) Your current swing here (#1) is FAR better than your previous swings in terms of controlling your clubpath throughout, kudos there. You're much more neutral going back and aren't getting stuck inside and deep anymore. But...

2) Every single full swing you have posted (and I mean all of them, I checked) have the same problem where your backswing is far too long for how quick your hips are and your arms get left WAY behind requiring big arm action in the latter half of the backswing to catch up. 

So when you say that you feel like your hands and arms aren't doing much and that it's just rotation, f'n hallelujah because is exactly what you SHOULD be feeling lol. Especially given that what you were used to before was way MORE hand/arm action to compensate for the hip speed/backswing length body sequencing issue. 

 

This impact position is very close to being great, but it's still suffering from that fact that you made a 3-iron length swing with a short iron and you couldn't get your arms back down in front of you in time. Notice how far behind your right leg your hands and right elbow are compared to Tiger. 




TIger sets himself up to get to this impact position by not making an overblown "all the way to parallel" backswing with a short iron. 

Clean up the backswing on swing #1 by shortening to this sort of length and you have the makings of something solid. The excessive width in your backswing (both arms straight for much longer than is normal for a short iron) might need to be looked at to accomplish this, but however you go about it this needs to happen since it's the one common flaw in all your swings so far. 


 

Edited October 5, 2022 by Valtiel

[Dufferonius]

He is turning a bit more deeply, but he's also got a lot more radial deviation (wrists).

[Luckydutch]

13 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Based on ball speed and distance I assume this is a PW or 9i-ish? 

The first swing is unquestionably the best of the three, but they all have the same problem with the first just having less of it. (We won't talk about the last one, put that directly into the garbage disposal lol)



Assuming this is in fact a scoring club, this should be your full swing. Your hips are simply too quick for you to have any hope of sequencing correctly with a longer backswing than this, and all three videos go much further, with the second video being the worst. 

Your comment "My arms/hands aren't doing much and it's all rotation" is telling because it's almost phrased like its a problem, but based on what you've struggled with before and what we're seeing here it isn't, and in fact is exactly what you want to strive for. I just did a quick skim of your previous videos to refresh myself and two main things stand out. 

1) Your current swing here (#1) is FAR better than your previous swings in terms of controlling your clubpath throughout, kudos there. You're much more neutral going back and aren't getting stuck inside and deep anymore. But...

2) Every single full swing you have posted (and I mean all of them, I checked) have the same problem where your backswing is far too long for how quick your hips are and your arms get left WAY behind requiring big arm action in the latter half of the backswing to catch up. 

So when you say that you feel like your hands and arms aren't doing much and that it's just rotation, f'n hallelujah because is exactly what you SHOULD be feeling lol. Especially given that what you were used to before was way MORE hand/arm action to compensate for the hip speed/backswing length body sequencing issue. 

 

This impact position is very close to being great, but it's still suffering from that fact that you made a 3-iron length swing with a short iron and you couldn't get your arms back down in front of you in time. Notice how far behind your right leg your hands and right elbow are compared to Tiger. 




TIger sets himself up to get to this impact position by not making an overblown "all the way to parallel" backswing with a short iron. 

Clean up the backswing on swing #1 by shortening to this sort of length and you have the makings of something solid. The excessive width in your backswing (both arms straight for much longer than is normal for a short iron) might need to be looked at to accomplish this, but however you go about it this needs to happen since it's the one common flaw in all your swings so far. 


 

Thanks so much for the analysis.

 

Pleased to hear that the main correction is to shorten the backswing as that shouldn’t be too difficult.

 

When talking about using the hands/arms, I totally see what you’re saying in terms of the match-ups. I suppose it just feels odd because it feels like I’m not using all my body’s levers to maximise the club head speed when I do that sort of “tuck and turn” motion in example 1.

 

I care way more about accuracy so I will continue with this method. I am just curious as to how I introduce more speed without really using the arms or hands. 
 

Using tiger as an example again, it looks like his hands/arms do actually pull away from his body a bit in the downswing whereas mine stay quite tucked-in and close to me. Is that due to a fault on my part or because I’m using a short iron and he has what looks like a mid-long iron there?

 

 

 

 

Not sure my hands ever get way out in front of me like that regardless of club. This is more of a mid-iron:

 

 

Funny that you mention excessive width. I think that was from me watching a YouTube video preaching about how amateurs don’t have enough width in the backswing. I can dial that back a bit to give a shorter backswing.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Valtiel]

12 hours ago, Luckydutch said:

Thanks so much for the analysis.

 

Pleased to hear that the main correction is to shorten the backswing as that shouldn’t be too difficult.

 

When talking about using the hands/arms, I totally see what you’re saying in terms of the match-ups. I suppose it just feels odd because it feels like I’m not using all my body’s levers to maximise the club head speed when I do that sort of “tuck and turn” motion in example 1.

 

I care way more about accuracy so I will continue with this method. I am just curious as to how I introduce more speed without really using the arms or hands. 
 

Using tiger as an example again, it looks like his hands/arms do actually pull away from his body a bit in the downswing whereas mine stay quite tucked-in and close to me. Is that due to a fault on my part or because I’m using a short iron and he has what looks like a mid-long iron there?

 

 

 

 

Not sure my hands ever get way out in front of me like that regardless of club. This is more of a mid-iron:

 

 

Funny that you mention excessive width. I think that was from me watching a YouTube video preaching about how amateurs don’t have enough width in the backswing. I can dial that back a bit to give a shorter backswing.

"I suppose it just feels odd because it feels like I’m not using all my body’s levers to maximise the club head speed when I do that sort of “tuck and turn” motion in example 1."

You're absolutely right, you're just wrong about why you're right 😄

Because you're in a position where your arms are stuck behind your lower body, actively resisting "releasing" them is probably what feels unnatural, because normally you would have to do this to allow them to catch up. It's the "being out of sync" that causes the loss of power, not the fact you aren't flinging your arms at the ball. Yes you could get more speed if you did, but at a very high cost since it's speed coming from a very volatile source. Don't get trapped in drawing the wrong conclusions from speed differences, because the thing that is faster isn't better if it's being done wrong. I did a ton of launch monitor testing when learning these concepts and found the following with my 5i as the test club:

- When out of sync and using more hands/arms I would average around 135-137mph ball speed with less consistent strikes and clubface control.
- When applying more speed the ceiling of those numbers would tick up slightly, but the floor would lower as well due to inconsistencies in strike. This is also generally felt bad from a mechanics standpoint, not fluid or smooth.
- When I focused on sequencing properly (more on this below) my ceiling would be even higher when I tried to apply more speed, but with LESS physical effort, far more strike consistency (and thus a higher floor as well), and a far better mechanical feeling overall. I was an average of 5 mph FASTER here with what felt like less physical effort.

As a caveat, my problem is the opposite of yours. My hips are slower and my arms are faster so for ME, sequencing better felt like a much more lower body focused thing e.g. making sure I bumped into my lead side correctly in transition and got that side cleared in the downswing. For you at this stage it will likely be the opposite because your hips are plenty fast, so you need to make sure you aren't overswinging in the backswing so your hands and arms can stay connected to your turn, which has no problems being fast enough. Syncing this up will get you the speed you feel like you're missing, NOT flailing at it harder with your arms.

As for the Tiger comparison, you're correct in that you're comparing a long iron swing (his) to a short iron one (yours). As the arc of the swing naturally gets longer and wider with the increased length of the club, so too will the distance your hands and arms are from the body. It's only natural based on the length of the club and how close/far you are from the ball at address. Your hands and arms are in a fine position relative to your body distance in the downswing for a short iron, the only problem is how far they are stuck behind you as discussed.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Valtiel

[Dufferonius]

9 minutes ago, Luckydutch said:

Pleased to hear that the main correction is to shorten the backswing as that shouldn’t be too difficult.

It may be unwise, on my part, to disagree with @Valtiel 😄, but, to my eyes your backswing isn't all that much deeper than the TW example.  What is significantly different is you have a lot more wrist radial deviation.  That's primarily what's causing your club to go so horizontal.  Try dialing that back.

 

9 minutes ago, Luckydutch said:

Funny that you mention excessive width. ... I can dial that back a bit to give a shorter backswing.

He was just suggesting that width may encourage you to too deep a back-swing.  Conversely, too little width, while it may help you limit the depth of your back-swing, may also result in early collapse of your trail arm, which can result in trapping your trail elbow behind you on the downswing, pulling the club down, and swinging too steeply.

[Luckydutch]

13 hours ago, Valtiel said:

"I suppose it just feels odd because it feels like I’m not using all my body’s levers to maximise the club head speed when I do that sort of “tuck and turn” motion in example 1."

You're absolutely right, you're just wrong about why you're right 😄

Because you're in a position where your arms are stuck behind your lower body, actively resisting "releasing" them is probably what feels unnatural, because normally you would have to do this to allow them to catch up. It's the "being out of sync" that causes the loss of power, not the fact you aren't flinging your arms at the ball. Yes you could get more speed if you did, but at a very high cost since it's speed coming from a very volatile source. Don't get trapped in drawing the wrong conclusions from speed differences, because the thing that is faster isn't better if it's being done wrong. I did a ton of launch monitor testing when learning these concepts and found the following with my 5i as the test club:

- When out of sync and using more hands/arms I would average around 135-137mph ball speed with less consistent strikes and clubface control.
- When applying more speed the ceiling of those numbers would tick up slightly, but the floor would lower as well due to inconsistencies in strike. This is also generally felt bad from a mechanics standpoint, not fluid or smooth.
- When I focused on sequencing properly (more on this below) my ceiling would be even higher when I tried to apply more speed, but with LESS physical effort, far more strike consistency (and thus a higher floor as well), and a far better mechanical feeling overall. I was an average of 5 mph FASTER here with what felt like less physical effort.

As a caveat, my problem is the opposite of yours. My hips are slower and my arms are faster so for ME, sequencing better felt like a much more lower body focused thing e.g. making sure I bumped into my lead side correctly in transition and got that side cleared in the downswing. For you at this stage it will likely be the opposite because your hips are plenty fast, so you need to make sure you aren't overswinging in the backswing so your hands and arms can stay connected to your turn, which has no problems being fast enough. Syncing this up will get you the speed you feel like you're missing, NOT flailing at it harder with your arms.

As for the Tiger comparison, you're correct in that you're comparing a long iron swing (his) to a short iron one (yours). As the arc of the swing naturally gets longer and wider with the increased length of the club, so too will the distance your hands and arms are from the body. It's only natural based on the length of the club and how close/far you are from the ball at address. Your hands and arms are in a fine position relative to your body distance in the downswing for a short iron, the only problem is how far they are stuck behind you as discussed.

 

 

It all makes perfect sense. My consistency was the highest it has ever been when I was getting that "tuck and turn" feeling right. Speed I can worry about at a later date, it may even come naturally as I get more synced-up as you describe.

 

Not sure whether I was having an off-day or I didn't follow your advice correctly but my first attempt at shortening the backswing did not go well. I generally felt like it was harder to get that feeling of tucking the right side in. My arms felt more disconnected with the body and the downswing felt very arm-y.

 

Contact was an issue throughout the session. Lots of thin and fat shots. At first I was also hitting a lot of weak, pushes and push/fades. Below is two examples with slightly different backswing planes but the same result. My 6 iron is normally about 180 carry, 190 when I really smash it. Most shots like this were 165-175.

 

 

 

 

The guy who runs the simulator place is an instructor and when walking past said the way I am shallowing is causing me to open the face and give me those weak shots out to the right. Specifically, I am showing the logo on my glove to the sky to shallow. He said I want to shallow the arms but not the club and keep that logo pointing down.

 

I tried this for the rest of the session and if anything, things got worse. Contact went from bad to diabolical. In fairness, when I did get a connection, the ball flight was a bit straighter or even off to the left but I was really struggling to hit the ball well at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Luckydutch]

12 hours ago, Dufferonius said:

It may be unwise, on my part, to disagree with @Valtiel 😄, but, to my eyes your backswing isn't all that much deeper than the TW example.  What is significantly different is you have a lot more wrist radial deviation.  That's primarily what's causing your club to go so horizontal.  Try dialing that back.

 

He was just suggesting that width may encourage you to too deep a back-swing.  Conversely, too little width, while it may help you limit the depth of your back-swing, may also result in early collapse of your trail arm, which can result in trapping your trail elbow behind you on the downswing, pulling the club down, and swinging too steeply.

 

I get you on the radial deviation point. The lag I want in my wrist is more flexion and not radial deviation, is that right?

[Dufferonius]

You probably mean extension?

 

If you hold a hand out in front of you, palm down, radial deviation is turning your hand in the direction of your thumb, ulnar deviation is turning it in the direction of your pinkie finger.   (Those are also called "abduction" and "adduction," respectively.) Flexion is turning it down, extension is turning it up.

 

See: Movement About Joints, Part 3: The Wrist

 

In my old back-swing I was doing a lot of wrist extension at the top.  My trainer recommended I stop doing that, because getting it back in the right position was difficult for amateurs to get right.  And he was right.  At least in my case.  I found I was getting the club back to the ball with my wrists essentially over the club head.  (Too much flexion.)  So I stopped doing that.

 

Edited October 6, 2022 by Dufferonius

[Luckydutch]

This is not a perfect comparison because the first set of videos were with a 9 iron and the latter with a 6 iron. However, I went through and tried to compare the swings in different stages.

 

 

Hands maybe a bit higher and less deep in the shorter backswing? Should I be attempting to reach the same depth but with just less bend at the elbow for a shorter backswing?

 

 

Big difference in how tucked-in I am here and consequently how shallow the shaft is. I don't really understand why I struggled so much to get the arms connected with the body in the transition when taking a shorter backswing.

 

 

Big difference visible at impact. Seems like I have no side-bend on the right and my shoulders are square, rather than a little open. The most stark thing is how the shaft is actually shallower at impact on the shorter iron than the long one. Should be the reverse, given their starting lie angles, right?

[Valtiel]

On 10/6/2022 at 8:05 AM, Luckydutch said:

 

 

It all makes perfect sense. My consistency was the highest it has ever been when I was getting that "tuck and turn" feeling right. Speed I can worry about at a later date, it may even come naturally as I get more synced-up as you describe.

 

Not sure whether I was having an off-day or I didn't follow your advice correctly but my first attempt at shortening the backswing did not go well. I generally felt like it was harder to get that feeling of tucking the right side in. My arms felt more disconnected with the body and the downswing felt very arm-y.

 

Contact was an issue throughout the session. Lots of thin and fat shots. At first I was also hitting a lot of weak, pushes and push/fades. Below is two examples with slightly different backswing planes but the same result. My 6 iron is normally about 180 carry, 190 when I really smash it. Most shots like this were 165-175.

 

 

 

 

 

The guy who runs the simulator place is an instructor and when walking past said the way I am shallowing is causing me to open the face and give me those weak shots out to the right. Specifically, I am showing the logo on my glove to the sky to shallow. He said I want to shallow the arms but not the club and keep that logo pointing down.

 

I tried this for the rest of the session and if anything, things got worse. Contact went from bad to diabolical. In fairness, when I did get a connection, the ball flight was a bit straighter or even off to the left but I was really struggling to hit the ball well at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: This is a longer one so bear with me, heh.

Interesting, thanks for the follow up. I can see where the problems/growing pains are here, because you're initially nailing the shorter backswing position but it's also completely changing your delivery and you're immediately going into compensation mode.



In your shorter swing on the left we see a number of differences. Your hands drop more down and almost behind you while your body actually moves towards the ball here and you start early extending/losing depth. Your right hip kicks up and forward more and your head comes towards the ball. In the longer swing we see we see the club getting on plane earlier and we see a much better rotational move with a quieter right hip and more "left hip working back". Because the shorter swings start going right because you're getting yourself stuck, you start compensating:



You completely change your backswing position in the next swings to this shut, across the line, *bad* position to try to compensate, and it only makes your delivery worse as you continue slowing your tempo, dumping the club even further inside, early extending, and generally moving further away from where you need to be. An important thing to take away from this; when you're in a fundamentally neutral position at the top of the swing but you aren't striking the ball well, the position isn't the problem. You're falling into the classic trap of immediately trying to slap more "wrongs" on top of the existing problems to make it right, and you're seeing immediately what that does (shanks, drop kicks etc). You don't have anything solid and foundational to fall back on because you're working on changing several things at the same time (consciously or unconsciously) and you're ping ponging between compensations on the fly, this much worse backswing position above being a prime example as well as the early extension. However you're generally trending in the right direction with a number of things so I want pull back to the swing you started with (#1 in the original post, the consistent one) and go from there. Lets not worry about backswing length for now then because your follow up videos suggest that the lack of a stable foundation means you can't really make adjustments without things falling apart.



Lets instead focus on the fact that not a single swing (of the good OR bad ones) ends up in a balanced or stable position after impact. When you aren't completely coming out of your stance to stop yourself from falling over, your feet/ankles are rolling around all over the place to keep that from happening. Working backwards this suggests the foundation of your lower body action isn't stable and that you aren't making deliberate, conscious moves in the right direction. No amount of mucking around with backswing stuff will make up for that. The reverse in fact is always preferable. Solid lower body fundamentals mean you can do all sorts of things throughout the swing and make it work because your lower half helps pull everything together, whereas an unstable lower body will ruin whatever you try to put on top of it, as evidenced by the fact that you literally went from pretty straight consistent shots to blocks and shanks just by trying to shorten your backswing slightly. Without a solid grounding somewhere you're constantly reacting to things on the fly with both your lower and upper halves doing different things each time in response to each other, like a bad game of telephone. If you're going to pick one thing to focus on and get solid it needs to be the lower half:



I'm using a longer club with Tiger here to more closely match your swing length, but also so we can see the mechanics more clearly. This is going to be one part sequencing and two parts overall intent/understanding. Your swings are obviously a bit mechanical and deliberate right now so I won't harp on sequencing *too* much, and i'll focus more on the important aspect of understanding where your lower body is supposed to go in transition, something that is varying in your swings enough to where it's clear you aren't grasping or feeling what you should be doing.

Above we see you and Tiger arriving at the top of the backswing (yes this is the longer backswing video, not worried about that right now). Your legs are in a good position overall and we see you loading and even pushing back a touch, which is great. You're coming to this much later than Tiger though, so the one thing i'll touch on with sequencing is that the lower body always makes a move to start the downswing sequence *before* the backswing completely finishes. The last frame of Tiger's gif is the very top of the backswing before his hands have changed direction and look closely at his hips. He is bumping away from the ball and already getting into his lead side while pushing that lead hip back a touch. The upper half downswing has NOT started yet, but the lower half has. We don't see this on your end, but that isn't a *huge* deal with a shorter iron. What comes next though is and i'd consider the most important thing to understand:

 

These may not look terribly different, but bear with me. You start clearing the left hip nicely as the hands work down, as does Tiger, but in the last frame your lower body starts working towards the target whereas Tiger's works back. The critical thing to understand and practice is that your lower body needs to be directly opposing the force created by your upper body at *all* times. Using your arms to throw a heavy stick at something in front of you at speed will create a lot of force in that direction, so in order to maintain balance you have you counter that. This is an ACTIVE move you do with the lower body, it isn't something that just happens or comes naturally. So while these above gifs don't like too different....



...these do. Your lower body completely changes directions from what you setup in transition. Leading up to transition you squatted back a touch (good), in transition you somewhat maintained that but started moving more towards the target (bad-ish) then into impact you're moving diagonally towards the ball (very bad). That sequence events tells us that you never used your lower body correctly (despite the fast hips and decent clearing) since it was taken over by and started going *with* the forces created by your upper body. You never want this to happen. 

The amount you're doing this wrong varies between swings enough to the point that like your different backswings, you're just compensating on the fly with no real grounding or intent with how you're moving. You're just going with the forces being created in the swing instead of working to balance them, hence you basically having no balanced finishes, even with the "better" swings.

Pulling back to focus on just this lower body stuff feels to me like the safest thing to do right now. Not only is it a crucial fundamental that you *need*, but its clear that without it you're just flailing around somewhat and are prone to very quickly getting into bad patterns. I recommend starting with the "feet together" drill where you basically make swings with your feet extremely close (I like to flair my front foot out a touch when I do this) starting with half swings, then 3/4, then as full as you can. You WILL lose your balance immediately if you don't properly counter your upper body force with your lower so feedback is immediate. Once you can make swings at speed with your feet close together you'll know you're starting to do it right. Falling a bit *away* from the ball is ok too if you want to exaggerate it a bit, just know that anything towards your toes and falling towards the ball is failure. A balanced finish where you don't rock around in your ankles or need to step out to catch yourself is the sign you've done it right. Here are a few supplemental clips/explanations to expand upon these fundamentals:

https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkx21hyiKKGiQplcmj2HphIslrfxxl9ZST-

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxfxYC42_806Dx7JKxGbYRhEdpH0fwf_Un

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxYatEsWmzMWE-fJNypjyo0ko9ZKnhTERO

Edited October 8, 2022 by Valtiel

[Dufferonius]

I now have a better understanding of @Valtiel's earlier comments about your back-swing depth after coming across this article, last night, entirely by accident: 10 biggest golf swing killers, according to state-of-the-art technology

 

Note items #4 and #5: "Fishing For Depth" and "Collapsing Your Trail Arm."  (I mentioned the latter, myself, earlier.)

 

(What I'd been looking for were discussions about the pros/cons of a lot of wrist radial deviation in the back-swing.  Never did find much on it.)

 

Now that I've a better understanding of Valtiels point, I realize I've been guilty of too much depth in my back-swing, which is probably why I've been having so much trouble shallowing properly, been pulling the club down and trapping my trailing elbow, and stalling my hips.

 

The graphic of the view from the top, in item #4 of that article, is what finally clued me in.  Down-line and face-on views don't illustrate it well, because the camera's more-or-less on the same plane as the lead arms path.

 

ETA: What I've been working on, in my swing training, is pivot-down and club shallowing.  Been having a heckuva time getting those right.  Well, I made two changes in my back-swing: Reduced radial deviation (wrist) and the depth of my back-swing.  As if by magic: Shallowing has become nearly automatic.

 

Now if I could just work out that glitch of standing up and tucking my butt in, slightly, at the beginning of my pivot-down...

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Dufferonius

[Pepperturbo]

#1.  It's similar to when I drop my swing inside in the slot.  Only I accelerate my hands through the ball, just before impact.

[Luckydutch]

19 hours ago, Valtiel said:

EDIT: This is a longer one so bear with me, heh.

Interesting, thanks for the follow up. I can see where the problems/growing pains are here, because you're initially nailing the shorter backswing position but it's also completely changing your delivery and you're immediately going into compensation mode.



In your shorter swing on the left we see a number of differences. Your hands drop more down and almost behind you while your body actually moves towards the ball here and you start early extending/losing depth. Your right hip kicks up and forward more and your head comes towards the ball. In the longer swing we see we see the club getting on plane earlier and we see a much better rotational move with a quieter right hip and more "left hip working back". Because the shorter swings start going right because you're getting yourself stuck, you start compensating:



You completely change your backswing position in the next swings to this shut, across the line, *bad* position to try to compensate, and it only makes your delivery worse as you continue slowing your tempo, dumping the club even further inside, early extending, and generally moving further away from where you need to be. An important thing to take away from this; when you're in a fundamentally neutral position at the top of the swing but you aren't striking the ball well, the position isn't the problem. You're falling into the classic trap of immediately trying to slap more "wrongs" on top of the existing problems to make it right, and you're seeing immediately what that does (shanks, drop kicks etc). You don't have anything solid and foundational to fall back on because you're working on changing several things at the same time (consciously or unconsciously) and you're ping ponging between compensations on the fly, this much worse backswing position above being a prime example as well as the early extension. However you're generally trending in the right direction with a number of things so I want pull back to the swing you started with (#1 in the original post, the consistent one) and go from there. Lets not worry about backswing length for now then because your follow up videos suggest that the lack of a stable foundation means you can't really make adjustments without things falling apart.



Lets instead focus on the fact that not a single swing (of the good OR bad ones) ends up in a balanced or stable position after impact. When you aren't completely coming out of your stance to stop yourself from falling over, your feet/ankles are rolling around all over the place to keep that from happening. Working backwards this suggests the foundation of your lower body action isn't stable and that you aren't making deliberate, conscious moves in the right direction. No amount of mucking around with backswing stuff will make up for that. The reverse in fact is always preferable. Solid lower body fundamentals mean you can do all sorts of things throughout the swing and make it work because your lower half helps pull everything together, whereas an unstable lower body will ruin whatever you try to put on top of it, as evidenced by the fact that you literally went from pretty straight consistent shots to blocks and shanks just by trying to shorten your backswing slightly. Without a solid grounding somewhere you're constantly reacting to things on the fly with both your lower and upper halves doing different things each time in response to each other, like a bad game of telephone. If you're going to pick one thing to focus on and get solid it needs to be the lower half:



I'm using a longer club with Tiger here to more closely match your swing length, but also so we can see the mechanics more clearly. This is going to be one part sequencing and two parts overall intent/understanding. Your swings are obviously a bit mechanical and deliberate right now so I won't harp on sequencing *too* much, and i'll focus more on the important aspect of understanding where your lower body is supposed to go in transition, something that is varying in your swings enough to where it's clear you aren't grasping or feeling what you should be doing.

Above we see you and Tiger arriving at the top of the backswing (yes this is the longer backswing video, not worried about that right now). Your legs are in a good position overall and we see you loading and even pushing back a touch, which is great. You're coming to this much later than Tiger though, so the one thing i'll touch on with sequencing is that the lower body always makes a move to start the downswing sequence *before* the backswing completely finishes. The last frame of Tiger's gif is the very top of the backswing before his hands have changed direction and look closely at his hips. He is bumping away from the ball and already getting into his lead side while pushing that lead hip back a touch. The upper half downswing has NOT started yet, but the lower half has. We don't see this on your end, but that isn't a *huge* deal with a shorter iron. What comes next though is and i'd consider the most important thing to understand:

 

These may not look terribly different, but bear with me. You start clearing the left hip nicely as the hands work down, as does Tiger, but in the last frame your lower body starts working towards the target whereas Tiger's works back. The critical thing to understand and practice is that your lower body needs to be directly opposing the force created by your upper body at *all* times. Using your arms to throw a heavy stick at something in front of you at speed will create a lot of force in that direction, so in order to maintain balance you have you counter that. This is an ACTIVE move you do with the lower body, it isn't something that just happens or comes naturally. So while these above gifs don't like too different....



...these do. Your lower body completely changes directions from what you setup in transition. Leading up to transition you squatted back a touch (good), in transition you somewhat maintained that but started moving more towards the target (bad-ish) then into impact you're moving diagonally towards the ball (very bad). That sequence events tells us that you never used your lower body correctly (despite the fast hips and decent clearing) since it was taken over by and started going *with* the forces created by your upper body. You never want this to happen. 

The amount you're doing this wrong varies between swings enough to the point that like your different backswings, you're just compensating on the fly with no real grounding or intent with how you're moving. You're just going with the forces being created in the swing instead of working to balance them, hence you basically having no balanced finishes, even with the "better" swings.

Pulling back to focus on just this lower body stuff feels to me like the safest thing to do right now. Not only is it a crucial fundamental that you *need*, but its clear that without it you're just flailing around somewhat and are prone to very quickly getting into bad patterns. I recommend starting with the "feet together" drill where you basically make swings with your feet extremely close (I like to flair my front foot out a touch when I do this) starting with half swings, then 3/4, then as full as you can. You WILL lose your balance immediately if you don't properly counter your upper body force with your lower so feedback is immediate. Once you can make swings at speed with your feet close together you'll know you're starting to do it right. Falling a bit *away* from the ball is ok too if you want to exaggerate it a bit, just know that anything towards your toes and falling towards the ball is failure. A balanced finish where you don't rock around in your ankles or need to step out to catch yourself is the sign you've done it right. Here are a few supplemental clips/explanations to expand upon these fundamentals:

https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkx21hyiKKGiQplcmj2HphIslrfxxl9ZST-

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxfxYC42_806Dx7JKxGbYRhEdpH0fwf_Un

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxYatEsWmzMWE-fJNypjyo0ko9ZKnhTERO

 

Thank you SO much for this. This is very insightful and cogs are starting to turn for me.

 

Played a round today. Front 9 was a disaster while trying to play a shorter backswing but I improved massively on the back 9 when allowing myself a longer backswing. 
 

The difference from a FEEL perspective is when I do the longer backswing, my hands and elbow get deeper so it’s quite easy to tuck the elbow into my ribs to shallow at which point I just rotate through the swing and my tucked elbow prevents me getting too “arm-y”. When I go for a shorter backswing I’m not deep enough to tuck the elbow into my ribs and it feels like it allows my arms too much freedom.

 

Now going back to the excellent points you were making there. I’m aware I’ve had problems with early extension. I think for a long time it was a compensation but now it is ingrained. I’ve tried to get the pelvis working deeper before but it has felt like it drags my upper body into an over-the-top position.

 

However, combining a few things from this thread, I’m wondering whether this idea of tucking into my ribs is actually wrong and instead I should be side-bending a bit more forwards which actually get those hands further out in front of me (like I was complaining mine don’t whilst tiger’s do). Additionally, when I try this, it feels quite natural for my lower body to work away from the ball since my upper body is really moving forward so it feels like a natural counter-balance.

 

Not had chance to try it at the range yet but practice swings in the back garden are promising.

 

This is me showing the difference between my normal side bend move and a slightly more forwards one:

https://imgur.com/a/jCSRSPN

 

The swing at the end looks kind of decent and the pelvis naturally way deeper without me really trying. The only slight concern would be the face looks a bit open.

 

Is this worth trying to recreate that swing as my focus for the next range session?

 

[Valtiel]

5 hours ago, Luckydutch said:

 

Thank you SO much for this. This is very insightful and cogs are starting to turn for me.

 

Played a round today. Front 9 was a disaster while trying to play a shorter backswing but I improved massively on the back 9 when allowing myself a longer backswing. 
 

The difference from a FEEL perspective is when I do the longer backswing, my hands and elbow get deeper so it’s quite easy to tuck the elbow into my ribs to shallow at which point I just rotate through the swing and my tucked elbow prevents me getting too “arm-y”. When I go for a shorter backswing I’m not deep enough to tuck the elbow into my ribs and it feels like it allows my arms too much freedom.

 

Now going back to the excellent points you were making there. I’m aware I’ve had problems with early extension. I think for a long time it was a compensation but now it is ingrained. I’ve tried to get the pelvis working deeper before but it has felt like it drags my upper body into an over-the-top position.

 

However, combining a few things from this thread, I’m wondering whether this idea of tucking into my ribs is actually wrong and instead I should be side-bending a bit more forwards which actually get those hands further out in front of me (like I was complaining mine don’t whilst tiger’s do). Additionally, when I try this, it feels quite natural for my lower body to work away from the ball since my upper body is really moving forward so it feels like a natural counter-balance.

 

Not had chance to try it at the range yet but practice swings in the back garden are promising.

 

This is me showing the difference between my normal side bend move and a slightly more forwards one:

https://imgur.com/a/jCSRSPN

 

The swing at the end looks kind of decent and the pelvis naturally way deeper without me really trying. The only slight concern would be the face looks a bit open.

 

Is this worth trying to recreate that swing as my focus for the next range session?

 

You're welcome, I hope it can be helpful. I want to address this bit specifically:

"I’m wondering whether this idea of tucking into my ribs is actually wrong and instead I should be side-bending a bit more forwards which actually get those hands further out in front of me (like I was complaining mine don’t whilst tiger’s do). Additionally, when I try this, it feels quite natural for my lower body to work away from the ball since my upper body is really moving forward so it feels like a natural counter-balance."

I wouldn't say the "tucking into the ribs" idea is wrong, but you're right about the natural counter-balance feeling. Just to emphasize though, side bend isn't something you *do*, it's something you let naturally happen as the lower body/pelvis working diagonally away from the ball will naturally want to pull you into side bend. Therefore you want to focus more on creating the forces that allow this to happen and then simply let it as opposed to trying to create side bend by doing anything artificial like consciously lowering your head or increasing your spine angle. Lots of people think that is what you're supposed to do so they dip down in the backswing which only exacerbates how much they are forced to come UP in the downswing, because if you aren't focused on creating those lower body forces then no amount of upper body manipulation will get you into the right position. 

As for the drill you posted, i'm not necessarily opposed to drills like that but I don't think it's relevant to what you need right now. You're rehearsing getting the club stuck way behind you and holding on to your lag extremely long, none of this is really relevant to the lower body stuff. In fact i'd double down and say that nothing "full swing" is relevant right now, because you need to ingrain the proper lower body stuff to even make consistent full swings, and no amount of arm position drills have anything to do with that. This goes back to some the previous threads where we discussed self diagnosis and creating your own "lesson plans" at this stage. Ingraining correct lower body fundamentals is important enough that were you to fully appreciate HOW important, you'd stop messing around with arm positions drills and holding lag and ANYTHING related to what your upper body/arms are doing at *this* stage. Don't get me wrong, you deserve credit for sorting out the arm path problems you did have that were holding you back, but you've gotten to a point that (aside from some backswing length things) that your arm swing/upper body stuff isn't holding you back anymore from a technical standpoint, but your lack of lower body fundamentals is. Therefore all your attention should be focused on that.

If it were up to me, you'd be doing exclusively half swing, feet together, pelvic punch drills for the next several months until your lower body movement is ingrained. I've been playing 31 years and I STILL do these literally every single range session to warm up because I recognize it's my weakness because it wasn't ingrained at a young age. I even have full swing drills designed to expand on the concept, things that force me to create the necessary lower body forces to hit the shot i'm trying to hit. So until you reach the point where your lower body is consistently creating those forces every single time and you're not falling over after hitting the ball, none of the upper body/arm stuff matters. 

[Dufferonius]

12 hours ago, Valtiel said:

If it were up to me, you'd be doing exclusively half swing, feet together, pelvic punch drills for the next several months until your lower body movement is ingrained. I've been playing 31 years and I STILL do these literally every single range session to warm up because I recognize it's my weakness because it wasn't ingrained at a young age. I even have full swing drills designed to expand on the concept, things that force me to create the necessary lower body forces to hit the shot i'm trying to hit. So until you reach the point where your lower body is consistently creating those forces every single time and you're not falling over after hitting the ball, none of the upper body/arm stuff matters. 

This ^^^^^ cannot be over-emphasized.

 

I didn't start playing until year-before-last, at the ripe old age of sixty-nine.  I trained, practiced, and played using group lessons from a pro, on-line advice, YouTube videos, and my own training inventions.

 

That did not work out well.

 

Now I'm training for real.  In order to prevent bad old motions from staying ingrained I've avoided even going to the range, much less playing.  And, even with that, and countless repetitions of good motions, I still battle old ingrained motions sneaking back in.

 

I've been stuck on the last training segment, pivot-down and club shallowing, for, literally, weeks.  I'm having a heckuva time getting the proper motions right, much less ingrained.  The old swing-from-the-top, drop-the-hands, trap-the-trailing-elbow, way-too-steep swing keeps wanting to happen, even when I do initiate the downswing with my feet, legs, and hips.

 

And all the good stance, setup, take-away, and back-swing motions?  New motions I'd thought were ingrained after countless reps?  Yeah, right.  In concentrating on getting my downswing right I found I still have to remember to check myself and mind what I'm doing.  If I stop doing that, old, sloppy habits start sneaking back in.  Things such as bringing the club back too far inside, too deep a back-swing, and too much wrist radial deviation at the top.

 

The bottom line is it takes a lot of reps of good motions to make them ingrained.  The later in life you start, the harder it is.  The more you've ingrained poor motions, the harder it is.

 

I'll get it right eventually.  Or at least right-ish.  Will it stick?  Only time will tell.  My suspicion is that, unless I comment to regular retraining in front of mirrors and a camera, to check myself, probably not.  But, either way, I'll end up with something that's a lot better than what I had.  And maybe that'll be "good enough."

 

[Luckydutch]

On 10/9/2022 at 2:46 AM, Valtiel said:

You're welcome, I hope it can be helpful. I want to address this bit specifically:

"I’m wondering whether this idea of tucking into my ribs is actually wrong and instead I should be side-bending a bit more forwards which actually get those hands further out in front of me (like I was complaining mine don’t whilst tiger’s do). Additionally, when I try this, it feels quite natural for my lower body to work away from the ball since my upper body is really moving forward so it feels like a natural counter-balance."

I wouldn't say the "tucking into the ribs" idea is wrong, but you're right about the natural counter-balance feeling. Just to emphasize though, side bend isn't something you *do*, it's something you let naturally happen as the lower body/pelvis working diagonally away from the ball will naturally want to pull you into side bend. Therefore you want to focus more on creating the forces that allow this to happen and then simply let it as opposed to trying to create side bend by doing anything artificial like consciously lowering your head or increasing your spine angle. Lots of people think that is what you're supposed to do so they dip down in the backswing which only exacerbates how much they are forced to come UP in the downswing, because if you aren't focused on creating those lower body forces then no amount of upper body manipulation will get you into the right position. 

As for the drill you posted, i'm not necessarily opposed to drills like that but I don't think it's relevant to what you need right now. You're rehearsing getting the club stuck way behind you and holding on to your lag extremely long, none of this is really relevant to the lower body stuff. In fact i'd double down and say that nothing "full swing" is relevant right now, because you need to ingrain the proper lower body stuff to even make consistent full swings, and no amount of arm position drills have anything to do with that. This goes back to some the previous threads where we discussed self diagnosis and creating your own "lesson plans" at this stage. Ingraining correct lower body fundamentals is important enough that were you to fully appreciate HOW important, you'd stop messing around with arm positions drills and holding lag and ANYTHING related to what your upper body/arms are doing at *this* stage. Don't get me wrong, you deserve credit for sorting out the arm path problems you did have that were holding you back, but you've gotten to a point that (aside from some backswing length things) that your arm swing/upper body stuff isn't holding you back anymore from a technical standpoint, but your lack of lower body fundamentals is. Therefore all your attention should be focused on that.

If it were up to me, you'd be doing exclusively half swing, feet together, pelvic punch drills for the next several months until your lower body movement is ingrained. I've been playing 31 years and I STILL do these literally every single range session to warm up because I recognize it's my weakness because it wasn't ingrained at a young age. I even have full swing drills designed to expand on the concept, things that force me to create the necessary lower body forces to hit the shot i'm trying to hit. So until you reach the point where your lower body is consistently creating those forces every single time and you're not falling over after hitting the ball, none of the upper body/arm stuff matters. 

" you deserve credit for sorting out the arm path problems you did have that were holding you back"

 

That's the thing, I don't think I have sustainably sorted it out. I tried the tuck and turn from video 1 today but I couldn't get it working for me. The ball striking was poor.

 

However, I think I may have figured out today why I struggle to shallow when I attempt a 3/4 swing - it's to do with me picking the right shoulder up.

 

When I do half swings practicing the lower-body movement you suggested (more on that in a bit), I don't have too much of an issue keeping the club on a nice swing plane. However, the second my swing gets long enough that my right arm starts to lift up, I'm dead. That feeling of the right delt/traps lifting the arm to me just makes me want to get really right-dominant and do that over-the-top move like I'm smithing on an anvil. It becomes incredibly hard for me to then get the club down and working from the inside. 

 

The 'tuck and turn' must have worked for me that day by forcing the right shoulder down again before I rotate through but I've struggled to re-create that with any consistency since. When I tried today, I hit a lot of fat shots. I couldn't get the club to bottom-out at the right point.

 

Similarly, I seem to strike the ball more consistently from a slightly ‘layed-off position’ at the top rather than a steep shaft at the top of the backswing. It keeps my right shoulder down and my right army connected so I can just rotate through. I realise this is getting ‘stuck’ but I just can’t seem to control my arms if I let them free!!

 

Edit: deleted a bunch of stuff that was complete nonsense.

 

Anyway, going back to the short-swing drills focusing on lower moving away from the ball. I warmed-up and down with this drill in my session today and will commit to continuing to do so from now on. It's good practice for partial pitches, away.

 

Funnily enough, this idea of the left side moving away from the ball as the arms extend down towards it is also what transformed my chipping a few months ago. In the case of chipping it was thinking about left shoulder apposing the club rather than left hip but I guess it is the same concept? Before I was duffing a lot of chips so getting the left side out the way makes room for the club to swing through consistently.

 

Here's some of the short-swings with a focus on lower body moving away from the ball. Reasonably pleased with how it looks although I was pulling quite a few of those pitch shots with this method:

 

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Luckydutch]

Some interesting stuff from today.

 

Was having the same old issues on the course. I was really focused on the lower-body rotation and balance and the upper body became a mess. No shallowing, steep, out-to-in path.

 

 

I was getting a bit frustrated with it and so just for fun, I had a go at something I saw on Reddit. Some guy posted a swing that to me looked like he had a inside takeaway and a really flat backswing but everyone in the comments were absolutely jizzing over his impact position and turns out he was like a 4 handicap. Had a go at turning the club way inside and then just rotating as normal and sure enough, hit the best drive I’ve hit in ages!

 

 

I don’t understand why it worked but it just worked.

 

When I watch videos of Tiger or Rory slowed down, they’re clearly straightening their arms and not just getting stuck and rotating though. Their arms are nearly fully straightened at impact. However, when I try to copy this, I cast the club out in front of me or dump it and hit it fat. Feel like I get more consistency from forcing myself into a position where the arms can’t do anything but follow the body’s rotation.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Luckydutch]

Deleted

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Valtiel]

On 10/12/2022 at 11:33 AM, Luckydutch said:

Some interesting stuff from today.

 

Was having the same old issues on the course. I was really focused on the lower-body rotation and balance and the upper body became a mess. No shallowing, steep, out-to-in path.

 

 

 

I was getting a bit frustrated with it and so just for fun, I had a go at something I saw on Reddit. Some guy posted a swing that to me looked like he had a inside takeaway and a really flat backswing but everyone in the comments were absolutely jizzing over his impact position and turns out he was like a 4 handicap. Had a go at turning the club way inside and then just rotating as normal and sure enough, hit the best drive I’ve hit in ages!

 

 

 

I don’t understand why it worked but it just worked.

 

When I watch videos of Tiger or Rory slowed down, they’re clearly straightening their arms and not just getting stuck and rotating though. Their arms are nearly fully straightened at impact. However, when I try to copy this, I cast the club out in front of me or dump it and hit it fat. Feel like I get more consistency from forcing myself into a position where the arms can’t do anything but follow the body’s rotation.

Thanks for the follow up, some interesting stuff here. First:



I want to address a super common alignment issue with people that struggle coming over the top (this will be relevant in your flatter swing as well). Your shoulders (red) are way more open then your feet (yellow). If you could consider a setup position to be "over the top prone", this would be that, because you swing right down your shoulder line in this swing, which is far too open and thus you come over the top. If you reconciled you shoulder and foot alignment to correspond with your intended target then you'd probably make a much more neutral swing. I doubt the red line is where you're intending to start the ball. That said...

I don't hate the flatter swing you do next:



Takeaway is pretty solid. Good width, good clubface position, good initial path.



Up to the top you're definitely in that flat, one plane swing kind of position, Fowler-esque in a way. I've marked your shaft plane in the second frame to reference on the way down. If you can deliver the club well from here that is all that matters, and you seem to much better than previous swings which could indicate this type of position agrees with you. One thing I like is how your right elbow isn't getting too far behind you, it's much better than this:



This type of right arm position on the left with your previous swing is quickly becoming a pet peeve of mine because nearly everyone we see getting their shoulder that far back and their elbow that far behind them can't sequence properly and get it back out in front on the way down. Your newer position on the right has the elbow more tucked and in front of you, which IMO is virtually always preferable with someone that has fast hips. I'd argue your right shoulder is still getting too deep and the club a little over-swung, but that's a pretty minor cleanup IMO.



Down to impact we can see you're only a little steeper than the plane you set going back, which is fine because THAT plane is really flat, so coming in a little steeper still means you're close to being on plane. This angle is going to exaggerate how much it appears you're coming away from the line behind you, but there is still a bit of that that i'd like to see you continuing to drill the lower body stuff I mentioned to get that better.



Even with the angle that is way too much right side kicking up and out. I put a bracket around your right thigh and Rickie's and notice how much you kick yours out towards the ball. It didn't upset your hand position which is great, but its a "wrong" combining with other wrongs that are the only reason this shot ended up in the fairway. Circling back to alignment you again have a mismatch in feet and shoulders. Your shoulders this time look more correctly aligned (right side of the fairway) but your feet are aimed 50+ yards right of that. Your flatter backswing position prevented you from coming way over the top here, but you still cut across the ball a bit and hit it out of the toe...



...which is the only reason the ball ended up in the fairway since that caused it to draw back. If you struck this shot centered you would missed right by a wide margin.

All that said, there is definitely more good here than bad, you just need to do the following:

1) Resolve your alignment issues. Use alignment sticks and video. Pick a target on the range, align your sticks to it (and thus your feet), align your camera with this as well, and then address the ball and bring the club up across your shoulders:



Hold the club there for a second and then go back and check your video. This will likely show how far left your shoulders are aiming compared to your feet. Now repeat but adjust your shoulders more "closed" in relation to what you're used to and check again on camera until they are aligned with your feet. For many people this is partially caused by your left shoulder slumping back/down too much so you might feel like you need to "shrug" that shoulder up to get it in place. You can keep on eye on this by videoing shots where you get setup, address the ball, bring the club up across your shoulders, then put it back down and hit the shot. Check the video after to see where your shoulders were actually aiming when you hit the shot and start using this to ingrain the feel of where your shoulders need to be to be square.

2) With the above sorted, back to the lower body stuff. I mentioned multiple "wrongs" earlier, and one of them here is that you're occasionally using a very closed stance (right foot dropped way back) to mask the fact that your right side is coming way too *forward* in the downswing. This gives you space to do that but its a bandaid. Resolving your alignment issues will likely initially cause some bad shots because you'll no longer have that extra space anymore and ideally it forces you to stop kicking it out so far. You'll know you're still doing it because it will push your path out and you'll start hitting weak slices as a result, so this all goes back to the pelvic punch drills where you practice using your lead side to create force in the downswing.

If in a week this new swing position stops working, revisit these two above, because I guarantee it will be one of them that is causing the problems.

[Luckydutch]

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

I want to address a super common alignment issue with people that struggle coming over the top (this will be relevant in your flatter swing as well). Your shoulders (red) are way more open then your feet (yellow). If you could consider a setup position to be "over the top prone", this would be that, because you swing right down your shoulder line in this swing, which is far too open and thus you come over the top. If you reconciled you shoulder and foot alignment to correspond with your intended target then you'd probably make a much more neutral swing. I doubt the red line is where you're intending to start the ball. That said...

 

 

GREAT catch! My intended target was the centre of the green, just a tiny bit right of the yellow line. Certainly not where the red line is.

 

It's because with the longer clubs, the club head and shaft are both sitting forward of the centre of my sternum so I'm opening my shoulders in order to be able to reach with the right hand. That is not going to help with my issues at all. Need to retrain myself to keep those shoulders in-line with my feet although not 100% how to achieve this. In order to reach a forward handle, it feels like I either need to rotate the shoulders open a bit, or tilt them slightly (right shoulder down), as per my driver setup. If I tilt them at setup with wood off the deck, my assumption is that'll cause me to strike the ground behind the ball?

 

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Takeaway is pretty solid. Good width, good clubface position, good initial path.
 

 

Genuinely surprised to hear you say that! I thought the takeaway was basically all forearm rotation, in contrast to my normal takeaway which is all shoulders and core body rotation.

 

 

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Up to the top you're definitely in that flat, one plane swing kind of position, Fowler-esque in a way. I've marked your shaft plane in the second frame to reference on the way down. If you can deliver the club well from here that is all that matters, and you seem to much better than previous swings which could indicate this type of position agrees with you.

 

Might have a play around with in in my next range session on Sunday. Not sure it will translate as well to irons but let's see. I just mostly liked that it took the arms out of play and as we know, I have major issues a) shallowing the arms and b) sequencing them correctly with hips/body rotation. Getting them deliberately stuck takes one of the variables out of play.

 

 

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Up to the top you're definitely in that flat, one plane swing kind of position, Fowler-esque in a way. I've marked your shaft plane in the second frame to reference on the way down. If you can deliver the club well from here that is all that matters, and you seem to much better than previous swings which could indicate this type of position agrees with you. One thing I like is how your right elbow isn't getting too far behind you, it's much better than this:



This type of right arm position on the left with your previous swing is quickly becoming a pet peeve of mine because nearly everyone we see getting their shoulder that far back and their elbow that far behind them can't sequence properly and get it back out in front on the way down. Your newer position on the right has the elbow more tucked and in front of you, which IMO is virtually always preferable with someone that has fast hips. I'd argue your right shoulder is still getting too deep and the club a little over-swung, but that's a pretty minor cleanup IMO.

 

Agree. The elbow popping up I think is a sub-conscious compensation to the over-the-top tendencies. I'm afraid to have anything that might encourage me to cast the club out in front of me (like casting a fishing rod) and flaring the elbow *feels* like it makes it easier to push the club down as opposed to casting it out. It's wrong though and something I need to watch out for.

 

 

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Down to impact we can see you're only a little steeper than the plane you set going back, which is fine because THAT plane is really flat, so coming in a little steeper still means you're close to being on plane. This angle is going to exaggerate how much it appears you're coming away from the line behind you, but there is still a bit of that that i'd like to see you continuing to drill the lower body stuff I mentioned to get that better.

 

Agree. Angle isn't perfect as the phone is just propped-up on my bag but I till have work to do with the lower body. I'm committed to warming up-and down with half-swing, lower-body drills, though from now on.

 

 

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Circling back to alignment you again have a mismatch in feet and shoulders. Your shoulders this time look more correctly aligned (right side of the fairway) but your feet are aimed 50+ yards right of that.

 

That actually was slightly deliberate. The best shot here would have been a draw (which I did manage and gave my self a 7 iron second shot into a par 5 green!) so I setup for a draw by dropping my right foot back an inch or two but keeping the face square to target (and thus slightly closed to my new foot line).

 

See your point about coming across it and hitting the toe, though. Do I need to do more than just adjust my right foot and actually change my whole setup (left leg, and body alignment too) to be slightly right of target?

 

 

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

1) Resolve your alignment issues. Use alignment sticks and video. Pick a target on the range, align your sticks to it (and thus your feet), align your camera with this as well, and then address the ball and bring the club up across your shoulders:



Hold the club there for a second and then go back and check your video. This will likely show how far left your shoulders are aiming compared to your feet. Now repeat but adjust your shoulders more "closed" in relation to what you're used to and check again on camera until they are aligned with your feet. For many people this is partially caused by your left shoulder slumping back/down too much so you might feel like you need to "shrug" that shoulder up to get it in place. You can keep on eye on this by videoing shots where you get setup, address the ball, bring the club up across your shoulders, then put it back down and hit the shot. Check the video after to see where your shoulders were actually aiming when you hit the shot and start using this to ingrain the feel of where your shoulders need to be to be square.

2) With the above sorted, back to the lower body stuff. I mentioned multiple "wrongs" earlier, and one of them here is that you're occasionally using a very closed stance (right foot dropped way back) to mask the fact that your right side is coming way too *forward* in the downswing. This gives you space to do that but its a bandaid. Resolving your alignment issues will likely initially cause some bad shots because you'll no longer have that extra space anymore and ideally it forces you to stop kicking it out so far. You'll know you're still doing it because it will push your path out and you'll start hitting weak slices as a result, so this all goes back to the pelvic punch drills where you practice using your lead side to create force in the downswing.

If in a week this new swing position stops working, revisit these two above, because I guarantee it will be one of them that is causing the problems.

 

 

Yes to all this. I might actually start taking my alignment sticks to the course too, in the short-term. Need to re-train my eye.

 

Again, THANK YOU! 

 

I will post back after my next proper practice, working on these points.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Valtiel]

1 hour ago, Luckydutch said:

In order to reach a forward handle, it feels like I either need to rotate the shoulders open a bit, or tilt them slightly (right shoulder down), as per my driver setup. If I tilt them at setup with wood off the deck, my assumption is that'll cause me to strike the ground behind the ball?

Your center of gravity determines where the club bottoms out, not your shoulder tilt. Your low point moves with your weight, which is why we get up on to our lead side early in the downswing to keep low point in front of the ball. Shoulder orientation influences club path (more on this below) and tilt will influence AoA. Setting up with your shoulders open and your right shoulder high is basically positioning your body to come from the outside and steep. 
 

Quote

Genuinely surprised to hear you say that! I thought the takeaway was basically all forearm rotation, in contrast to my normal takeaway which is all shoulders and core body rotation.

Your previous backswing was honestly far *too* one piece. There is wrist hinging/flexing/extending and forearm rolling in the backswing, it just needs to be synced with shoulder turn. Look at Tiger back on 09'



See how open his clubface gets in the backswing? Lots of forearm rotation. Tony Finau is very similar.

Quote

Might have a play around with in in my next range session on Sunday. Not sure it will translate as well to irons but let's see. I just mostly liked that it took the arms out of play and as we know, I have major issues a) shallowing the arms and b) sequencing them correctly with hips/body rotation. Getting them deliberately stuck takes one of the variables out of play.

I wouldn't say your arms are stuck, in fact that are *less* stuck here then in some other swings. Stuck comes from over rotating and/or disconnecting your arms too much from your shoulders. This swing is very flat (by design), but your arms aren't stuck because of it. The right shoulder getting too far behind you is the main thing to keep an eye on. 
 

Quote

That actually was slightly deliberate. The best shot here would have been a draw (which I did manage and gave my self a 7 iron second shot into a par 5 green!) so I setup for a draw by dropping my right foot back an inch or two but keeping the face square to target (and thus slightly closed to my new foot line).

Right, but your shoulders were aiming much further left. You don't setup for a shot shape by separating the relationship between your feet and shoulders by opening or close just one, those are meant to say similar, especially with a draw. You set up by changing your *entire* body's alignment (feet/hips/shoulders) in relation to the clubface. To illustrate this using extremes, setup to the ball "neutral" and then start closing just your foot alignment more and more. Take it as far as you can and then try to make little half swings using your shoulders. The club may initially want to suck back inside in the backswing because of your foot alignment, but it will want to come back down on the plane your shoulders are on, not your feet. By closing your feet without matching your shoulders up (thus leaving them open) you're setting yourself up for a double cross if you're trying to hit a draw the ball. Matt Kuchar sets up this way to hit pull cuts almost exclusively, which is much closer to what you would have hit in the drive above had you not caught it out of the toe. 
 

Quote

See your point about coming across it and hitting the toe, though. Do I need to do more than just adjust my right foot and actually change my whole setup (left leg, and body alignment too) to be slightly right of target?

You'll need to first calibrate what you consider "alignment" to be with the stuff I mentioned with the sticks/club/video and just simply shift all of that in the direction you want the ball to start. It sounds like you consider "alignment" to be what just your feet are doing, but it's everything; feet, hips, shoulders, clubface. No matter what method you use to shape the ball, you don't start separating elements of your body to change alignment. 
 

Quote

Yes to all this. I might actually start taking my alignment sticks to the course too, in the short-term. Need to re-train my eye.

 

Again, THANK YOU! 

 

I will post back after my next proper practice, working on these points.

 

You're welcome, post some of those vids when you can. 👍

Edited October 14, 2022 by Valtiel

[Luckydutch]

30 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

You'll need to first calibrate what you consider "alignment" to be with the stuff I mentioned with the sticks/club/video and just simply shift all of that in the direction you want the ball to start. It sounds like you consider "alignment" to be what just your feet are doing, but it's everything; feet, hips, shoulders, clubface. No matter what method you use to shape the ball, you don't start separating elements of your body to change alignment. 
 

 

 

Yes, that's clear. That was what I meant when I asked do I need to align everything right rather than just drop a foot back. That'll be where I've been going wrong when trying to hit a draw.

 

Some good stuff to work on now with double-checking my alignment before every swing plus the lower body stuff. 

 

I'll see what the swing plane is like when I focus on that and let the rest happen naturally.

[Dufferonius]

7 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Thanks for the follow up, some interesting stuff here. First:

In addition to his shoulders being more open than his hips, at address, he's leaning out, all the way from his ankles, up, looks like to me?  At this point his calves should be nearly vertical.  They're not.  Looks like he's all on the balls of his feet?

 

Also, in the effort to maintain what's regarded as a traditional athletic "shoulders back" posture, it looks like he's curving his spine in?  Back should be straight, from shoulders down to the base of the spine.  Not only is that biomechanically non-optimal, but can lead to back injury.

 

[Luckydutch]

On 10/14/2022 at 4:34 PM, Dufferonius said:

In addition to his shoulders being more open than his hips, at address, he's leaning out, all the way from his ankles, up, looks like to me?  At this point his calves should be nearly vertical.  They're not.  Looks like he's all on the balls of his feet?

 

Also, in the effort to maintain what's regarded as a traditional athletic "shoulders back" posture, it looks like he's curving his spine in?  Back should be straight, from shoulders down to the base of the spine.  Not only is that biomechanically non-optimal, but can lead to back injury.

 

 

Interesting observation. I do have a slight curve to my lower-back and get a lot of back pain if standing for a long time. I can bend forward from the hips with a perfectly straight lower back but I really have to tense my abs very tight to do so.

[Luckydutch]

Another absolutely disastrous practice session today. I'm so frustrated with all this and on the cusp of just giving up!

 

I just cannot seem to do both swing from the inside and keep the lower body back. It's one or the other and whichever I pick to focus on, I hit about 80% of my shots slightly fat.

 

Started-out with my wedge and felt like it wasn't too bad. (Note: this bay isn't great for recording and I had to setup with a fish-eye lense which does slightly warp the perception of straight lines):

 

 

 

 

 

However, when I swapped to my 6 iron, this swing didn't translate at all. 

 

When focused on swinging from the inside, I couldn't keep the lower body back:

 

 

 

 

When trying to do both, I start casting the club out in front of me which produces pulls, fades, bad contact etc.

 

 

 

[Luckydutch]

I only managed to get ONE really clean connection with compression in a 1 1/2 session and it was a horrible swing actually and a bit of a pull:

 

 

It was a 200-yard 6 iron which is more like what I would expect from that club (average 190-200 on a good day), as opposed to the 150-170 yard shots I had been producing throughout the rest of the session.

 

Also annoyingly, for a brief period I felt like I was managing to get the lower body working away but still have the club head stay behind me and swing from the inside. However, every single shot I hit during this period produced a shank:

 

 

 

At the very end of the session I sort of gave up and tried that weird driving technique when I shallow it out really flat and just rotate through with everything tucked into my hips. It did actually work again for driver (albeit not amazing on the distances - c.250-270 drives vs 270+ I would normally hope for):

 

 

 

It did not really translate well to an iron, though. Can't get the hands/club shallow enough in time. Was a weak, fat shot:

 

 

 

All in all, I just couldn't get those two pieces of swinging from the inside and the lower body working away from the ball to sync-up in harmony. If I'd produced those shots on the course I would have been looking at a score north of 110 since the soft ground is so much less forgiving than those mats.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Luckydutch

[Dufferonius]

45 minutes ago, Luckydutch said:

 

Interesting observation. I do have a slight curve to my lower-back and get a lot of back pain if standing for a long time. I can bend forward from the hips with a perfectly straight lower back but I really have to tense my abs very tight to do so.

You might want to work on that.  Curving your lower back like that compresses the lower spine.  Not good.  Particularly under the stresses of a golf swing.

 

That's one of the big criticisms of the traditional "athletic" setup stance ( shoulders back, head up, butt out): That it encourages curving in of the lower back.

 

[Valtiel]

Quote

All in all, I just couldn't get those two pieces of swinging from the inside and the lower body working away from the ball to sync-up in harmony

And you won't be able to if you continue attempting to practice this way. Here is a bullet point list of takeaways and it's the last I will add to the topic until you stick to some of the things we've talked about:

1) You can't practice at full speed at this stage, full stop. You're doing what every weekend hacker that tries to improve as fast as possible does which is rush straight to making full power swings without the fundamentals to support it and getting too fixated on distance. The fact that you even mentioned yardages anywhere in this process shows you're focused on the wrong things, and your results are telling you all the same things I am. You can NOT figure this out at full speed, not yet. You need to be spending FAR more time grinding at slower speeds with shorter swings and focusing on lower body balance and sequencing. Until you can hit a dozen or more perfect half shots in a row with repeatable strike and mechanics you can't expect any consistency in your full swing. This is compounded by the fact you have fast hips as we've discussed which will only magnify any sequencing and lower body problems. 

2) The drills where you pause for longer and longer periods of time at the top of the swing should stop. Not only are they terrible for sequencing since the lower body should be shifting and recentering at the top of the backswing which is completely cutoff with this type of drill, but its clear at this point that all of your worst shots have come from when you swing this way. Clearly there is nothing about it that is working for you, so bin it. 

3) Any drills that involve you attempting to manipulate club path need to stop as well. Some of those rehearsals have you manipulating the club in ways you would never want to swing it e.g. dumping the club way to far inside and stuck. The only reasons you see the pros doing rehearsals like this is because their fundamentals are so ingrained that it often takes more extreme moves/exaggerations to make very minor changes. To do these types of drills/rehearsals WITHOUT those ingrained fundamentals is a recipe for turning your golf swing into a roulette spin with very similar odds of success. 

4) The constant shifting and experimenting with new things is similarly roulette-esque and while it can result in finding things that work better, it's often only temporary due to the lack of underlying fundamentals. This is also true if you literally don't stick to those things:



That is a collage of all your backswing positions from the last post. That is 5 (potentially all 6 depending on clubface orientation that I can't see in the right photos) very different backswing positions. Your left arm angle is varying by +/- 10*, your shaft plane and backswing length is all over the place, and even more damaging is that your clubface angles are varying by more than +/- 20*  between completely shut, slightly shut, and neutral  Either you're consciously making different moves in which case....please stop lol, or you're not aware of these things and that further reinforces the need to almost completely cease making full swings at this stage. This goes back to what was discussed in earlier threads about how much you're damaging your swing by self diagnosis/self implementation of solutions. And on top of all that...



....you never once actually swung in the same manner that you did on the course when you started hitting it better. The flat, one plane swing that resulted in some good things is completely absent from your swings in this practice sessions which are all much more upright which was literally the position you said you were struggling with before. Another thing to ask yourself "why?" in terms of whatever decisions you feel like you're making here. 

Golf isn't for everyone, and you have a unique set of abilities and blind spots that means continued self diagnosis and experimentation is very likely going to continue to bring far more frustration than reward. You either need to accept that as well as the risk that it will run you out of the game, find an instructor that can sit on you and force you to stop ping-ponging between different ideas, or you need to develop that discipline yourself, because I guarantee that if I could install a device on your body that physically limited you to half swings any time you picked up a golf club that you would be a better golfer in a few months. My suggestion (and ultimately you can do whatever you want of course) would be to take a break from this for a bit and revisit it fresh at a later time, maybe after the holidays or something like that. If you still want to "work" during that time you can focus on getting to the bottom of why your backswings are so all over the place, what you're consciously doing that is creating such variations and how you can become aware of and control it. And if you have the discipline, literally make zero full swings if you decide to hit any balls during that time. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Valtiel

[Luckydutch]

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

And you won't be able to if you continue attempting to practice this way. Here is a bullet point list of takeaways and it's the last I will add to the topic until you stick to some of the things we've talked about:

1) You can't practice at full speed at this stage, full stop. You're doing what every weekend hacker that tries to improve as fast as possible does which is rush straight to making full power swings without the fundamentals to support it and getting too fixated on distance. The fact that you even mentioned yardages anywhere in this process shows you're focused on the wrong things, and your results are telling you all the same things I am. You can NOT figure this out at full speed, not yet. You need to be spending FAR more time grinding at slower speeds with shorter swings and focusing on lower body balance and sequencing. Until you can hit a dozen or more perfect half shots in a row with repeatable strike and mechanics you can't expect any consistency in your full swing. This is compounded by the fact you have fast hips as we've discussed which will only magnify any sequencing and lower body problems. 

2) The drills where you pause for longer and longer periods of time at the top of the swing should stop. Not only are they terrible for sequencing since the lower body should be shifting and recentering at the top of the backswing which is completely cutoff with this type of drill, but its clear at this point that all of your worst shots have come from when you swing this way. Clearly there is nothing about it that is working for you, so bin it. 

3) Any drills that involve you attempting to manipulate club path need to stop as well. Some of those rehearsals have you manipulating the club in ways you would never want to swing it e.g. dumping the club way to far inside and stuck. The only reasons you see the pros doing rehearsals like this is because their fundamentals are so ingrained that it often takes more extreme moves/exaggerations to make very minor changes. To do these types of drills/rehearsals WITHOUT those ingrained fundamentals is a recipe for turning your golf swing into a roulette spin with very similar odds of success. 

4) The constant shifting and experimenting with new things is similarly roulette-esque and while it can result in finding things that work better, it's often only temporary due to the lack of underlying fundamentals. This is also true if you literally don't stick to those things:



That is a collage of all your backswing positions from the last post. That is 5 (potentially all 6 depending on clubface orientation that I can't see in the right photos) very different backswing positions. Your left arm angle is varying by +/- 10*, your shaft plane and backswing length is all over the place, and even more damaging is that your clubface angles are varying by more than +/- 20*  between completely shut, slightly shut, and neutral  Either you're consciously making different moves in which case....please stop lol, or you're not aware of these things and that further reinforces the need to almost completely cease making full swings at this stage. This goes back to what was discussed in earlier threads about how much you're damaging your swing by self diagnosis/self implementation of solutions. And on top of all that...



....you never once actually swung in the same manner that you did on the course when you started hitting it better. The flat, one plane swing that resulted in some good things is completely absent from your swings in this practice sessions which are all much more upright which was literally the position you said you were struggling with before. Another thing to ask yourself "why?" in terms of whatever decisions you feel like you're making here. 

Golf isn't for everyone, and you have a unique set of abilities and blind spots that means continued self diagnosis and experimentation is very likely going to continue to bring far more frustration than reward. You either need to accept that as well as the risk that it will run you out of the game, find an instructor that can sit on you and force you to stop ping-ponging between different ideas, or you need to develop that discipline yourself, because I guarantee that if I could install a device on your body that physically limited you to half swings any time you picked up a golf club that you would be a better golfer in a few months. My suggestion (and ultimately you can do whatever you want of course) would be to take a break from this for a bit and revisit it fresh at a later time, maybe after the holidays or something like that. If you still want to "work" during that time you can focus on getting to the bottom of why your backswings are so all over the place, what you're consciously doing that is creating such variations and how you can become aware of and control it. And if you have the discipline, literally make zero full swings if you decide to hit any balls during that time. 

 

Damn! I hadn’t noticed how different the backswing positions were until you pointed it out. That was NOT deliberate.

 

The only things I were consciously working on in that session were trying to keep my lower body moving away from the ball and trying to force myself to swing more from the inside then trying to find some balance between the two since they seem diametrically opposed. I suppose I did sometimes remember to shorten-up the backswing which is why you see more club on some but the different orientations was certainly not on purpose.

 

On your point about dumping the club etc. I was working on that because it feels like I need to make very drastic moves in order to keep the club working from the inside. I don’t feel like I do a big over-the-top re-routing of the club anymore but unless I do a pretty exaggerated move to shallow it out or drop it down in the transition, my fast lower body rotation will force me into a position where the club head is out ahead of the hands too early in the swing and a pull or slice is inevitable. The pull is really, really dangerous out on the course as it’s a guaranteed lost ball with anything longer than a 7 iron off the tee. This swing path also causes me to chunk all my irons since the shaft is steep and there’s no room to release the club when it is being sucked left, under my body.
 

Smaller feelings don’t ever work and I need to do a big move like the massive right shoulder drop in video 1 from this thread or the dumping the shaft down behind me you see there. If I try something smaller, once I add the lower body rotation back in at speed, the rotational forces pulling everything left will just out-pace any shallowing moves happening with the upper. Pull. Penalty. Re-tee.

 

Take your point on slower swings. I do a lot of them at home with a mirror etc. but am guilty of when I go to the range, trying to prepare my full-swing for the next round of golf rather than continuing with slower drills to ingrain feelings at low speed.

 

Question about the swings themselves: why was the shank a shank? To me, that looks like by far the most controlled, on-plane swing out of the bunch but obviously the outcome is the worst of all.