Tighten up the swing; question about lower body and shoulder turn

[Ironman_32]

IMG_1156 (4).MOV

 

IMG_1154 (1).MOV

 

Looking to tighten up the swing. 

 

Things I see/am working after watching these videos:

- My swing though from this swing was trying to stay more centered, I've always had trouble trying to make a big turn/swift, which just results in me getting very steep. 

- swing is very long. Looking to tighten/shortened it. Primary through keeping my left arm straight, creating a wider turn but making a "3/4" feel

- would like if anyone had comments on both my lower body action and my shoulder turn. Does the lower body need to be more active and is the shoulder turn too flat?

 

thanks in advance.  

IMG_1154.MOV

[Valtiel]

Definitely agree with some of your observations there. Overall (without any intended disrespect) your swing is following the same patterns as a newer junior golfer in that there is a whole host of deliberate, active movements that you need to learn how to perform that you aren't doing. The lack of these movements is what gives your swing an overall looser/weaker appearance, referring to the "tightening" you're looking to achieve. I'll try to break down the upper and lower body components to this in two main chunks:



First is the lower body stuff that the AMG Hip Turn video that I post frequently addresses, and that you're a match to their "Am". Two things to focus on; how you're turning and what that is causing. Your hip turn in the backswing is entirely driven by your left side swinging towards the ball. We see this in how your butt immediately pulls away from the red line behind you which causes your weight to shift towards the ball as evidenced by your head moving forward and your weight shifting towards your toes. Meanwhile Tiger (and virtually every high level golfer) is the opposite of this. The left hip barely moves at all and the right hip drops back, slightly crossing the line instead of pulling away from it. You mentioned wanting to "stay centered" and here is the massive "feel vs. real" lesson here. In order to stay centered in the golf swing you actually have to *aggressively* oppose the number of forces that are pulling you towards the ball. Nothing stays neutral/centered in the golf swing from a force standpoint, and the appearance of centered neutrality is actually created by two very strongly opposing forces combining to create balance, and that is what we'll see in the next stage. I made a post here with a graphic that illustrates a rough version of what you're doing with your hips vs. what the pros do.

Second the upper body stuff. Less severe, but the same sort of "junior golf" vibe in where you're just letting the club go as far as it wants, getting it wrapped around behind you too much instead of actively "setting" it in the right spot. Gaining a conscious awareness of where the club is and where it's supposed to be is key here so you know when you're overrunning/overhinging like this. 



We see the lower body stuff start to compound here because once you start backwards (throwing your left hip forward in the backswing) you're going to default to then throwing the right hip out in the downswing, which like I showed in the graphic I linked above just causes you to tic-tac towards the golf ball which forces that early extension/spine angle loss/steep over plane downswing . Again we see the opposite from Tiger. The right knee comes forward a little bit, but the right hip basically stays in place and ALL the force is being created by the left side here. This is a difficult, unintuitive, LEARNED movement that needs to both be setup by the proper hip action in the backswing and consciously executed in the downswing. Wrapping your brain around moving differently like this takes time and you will NOT get it right away, so patience is key.



Through to the finish we see the final separation of the lower stuff. Your right side continues swinging out which is why you almost fall over right when the video is ending and this all forces a more outside path and a lot of hand eye coordination to make contact. Notice the distance between where your hands started (red dot) and your right leg compared to Tiger. Tiger has tons of space and you have none, all due to the aforementioned lower body issues.

In addition to the AMG video and the graphic I made, starting small with "feet together" drills will help rewire you towards not coming towards the ball. I always start with these on the range; I have my feet touching and I flare out my front foot slightly towards the target. From this position I start with gap wedge punch shots ramping up to "full" 125y shots to loosen up. You'll get immediate feedback because you will lose your balance if you try to rotate the way you are now. The goal is to work towards applying "full" upper body power while maintaining balance. Scaling this up to longer gets difficult though because the feel will change as you separate your feet more, but start small at first and make sure you've got your head around the concept before you start trying to rip drivers.

[Ironman_32]

16 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Definitely agree with some of your observations there. Overall (without any intended disrespect) your swing is following the same patterns as a newer junior golfer in that there is a whole host of deliberate, active movements that you need to learn how to perform that you aren't doing. The lack of these movements is what gives your swing an overall looser/weaker appearance, referring to the "tightening" you're looking to achieve. I'll try to break down the upper and lower body components to this in two main chunks:



First is the lower body stuff that the AMG Hip Turn video that I post frequently addresses, and that you're a match to their "Am". Two things to focus on; how you're turning and what that is causing. Your hip turn in the backswing is entirely driven by your left side swinging towards the ball. We see this in how your butt immediately pulls away from the red line behind you which causes your weight to shift towards the ball as evidenced by your head moving forward and your weight shifting towards your toes. Meanwhile Tiger (and virtually every high level golfer) is the opposite of this. The left hip barely moves at all and the right hip drops back, slightly crossing the line instead of pulling away from it. You mentioned wanting to "stay centered" and here is the massive "feel vs. real" lesson here. In order to stay centered in the golf swing you actually have to *aggressively* oppose the number of forces that are pulling you towards the ball. Nothing stays neutral/centered in the golf swing from a force standpoint, and the appearance of centered neutrality is actually created by two very strongly opposing forces combining to create balance, and that is what we'll see in the next stage. I made a post here with a graphic that illustrates a rough version of what you're doing with your hips vs. what the pros do.

Second the upper body stuff. Less severe, but the same sort of "junior golf" vibe in where you're just letting the club go as far as it wants, getting it wrapped around behind you too much instead of actively "setting" it in the right spot. Gaining a conscious awareness of where the club is and where it's supposed to be is key here so you know when you're overrunning/overhinging like this. 



We see the lower body stuff start to compound here because once you start backwards (throwing your left hip forward in the backswing) you're going to default to then throwing the right hip out in the downswing, which like I showed in the graphic I linked above just causes you to tic-tac towards the golf ball which forces that early extension/spine angle loss/steep over plane downswing . Again we see the opposite from Tiger. The right knee comes forward a little bit, but the right hip basically stays in place and ALL the force is being created by the left side here. This is a difficult, unintuitive, LEARNED movement that needs to both be setup by the proper hip action in the backswing and consciously executed in the downswing. Wrapping your brain around moving differently like this takes time and you will NOT get it right away, so patience is key.



Through to the finish we see the final separation of the lower stuff. Your right side continues swinging out which is why you almost fall over right when the video is ending and this all forces a more outside path and a lot of hand eye coordination to make contact. Notice the distance between where your hands started (red dot) and your right leg compared to Tiger. Tiger has tons of space and you have none, all due to the aforementioned lower body issues.

In addition to the AMG video and the graphic I made, starting small with "feet together" drills will help rewire you towards not coming towards the ball. I always start with these on the range; I have my feet touching and I flare out my front foot slightly towards the target. From this position I start with gap wedge punch shots ramping up to "full" 125y shots to loosen up. You'll get immediate feedback because you will lose your balance if you try to rotate the way you are now. The goal is to work towards applying "full" upper body power while maintaining balance. Scaling this up to longer gets difficult though because the feel will change as you separate your feet more, but start small at first and make sure you've got your head around the concept before you start trying to rip drivers.

Thanks for all this. I've looked at the graphic you mentioned in the past and that's always been helpful (though I don't do currently). It does give me a great visual though. I was able to make some swing movements in the house last night and incorporating what you said already felt way better (definitely need more reps and actually hitting balls though haha). 

 

I was also watching some Justin Thomas videos on youtube based on what you said. I noticed in some he picks up his left foot. Couple quick questions on that:

1. If the right hip going back, should my weight be on the front/middle/back of my foot?

2. When coming through with the left hip, will that create an effective "lower exit" point of the shaft on the follow through (with the steepness of my swing currently i've always had trouble with a "get left" swing thought, leads to big pulls.)

[Valtiel]

3 hours ago, Ironman_32 said:

Thanks for all this. I've looked at the graphic you mentioned in the past and that's always been helpful (though I don't do currently). It does give me a great visual though. I was able to make some swing movements in the house last night and incorporating what you said already felt way better (definitely need more reps and actually hitting balls though haha). 

 

I was also watching some Justin Thomas videos on youtube based on what you said. I noticed in some he picks up his left foot. Couple quick questions on that:

1. If the right hip going back, should my weight be on the front/middle/back of my foot?

2. When coming through with the left hip, will that create an effective "lower exit" point of the shaft on the follow through (with the steepness of my swing currently i've always had trouble with a "get left" swing thought, leads to big pulls.)

Good questions.

1. I want to address the left foot pick up comment first. That can be a great trigger for getting things moving in the right direction so it's worth messing with. JT, Schauffele, Wolff, Paul Casey, Bubba....lots of great ball strikers that lift their left foot. As you get familiar with the concept of what you're trying to accomplish you can determine whether or not the move works for you, which leads to...

2. Lots of people get hung up on this as it's easy to do wrong, so it's a good question. There is an inherent contradiction here because you want to both "drop back" into your right side while NOT leaning back and getting all the way into your right heel. Folks in your position often fall into this trap and get unbalanced as a result because the first somewhat intuitive feeling thing is to do just that, lean backwards with the right side and get 100% heel. This however is a weak and unbalanced position that you want to avoid. You'll generally feel like at address your weight is fairly balanced, maybe *slightly* favoring the balls of your feet (like 60/40, nothing crazy) and then that flips slightly in the backswing to *slightly* favor your heel side. This is where the contradiction comes in though because you'll likely think "how can I get my right side working back and away from the ball *without* getting back on my heel?". Here is a small drill to hopefully explain:

Take a normal address posture without a club and stand as balanced as possible. 50/50 left and right and 50/50 heel toe. Now while maintaining that balance, shift your right foot pressure up towards the toe without leaning forward (towards the "ball"). You'll probably lift your knee slightly to do this, that is ok. Now in this position, try pushing your right hip straight back behind you *without* leaving your right toe, the idea being to avoid planting on your heel. To do this you will likely feel some serious stretching in your thigh and right glute, this is good (don't overdo it though). Now you don't actually make a backswing this way, but it's meant to show how you can push your right hip backwards without having to lean back on your heel and which muscles you use to do this. A sore right thigh and right glute will absolutely be expected when you correctly use your thigh/glute to push your right hip back instead of leaning backwards.

3. And if all that wasn't tricky enough, you only do this for a tiny window in the backswing before you stop and start re-centering to you can get to the meat of what you need to accomplish which is do the exact same thing but with your left side. I can almost guarantee that the steepness and pulls you experienced before when trying this were rooted in the fact that you were already crowding the ball because of the improper initial lower body rotation which shifted your weight forward which then caused you to keep it forward and crowd the ball further when trying to fire the left side. All that would throw your path way outside which would lead to pulls of you square the face up at all. Going back to the Tiger gif:



If we look at this like a clock face where the target is out there at 12 o'clock then his lower body, driven by the left side, is firing aggressively towards 10 o'clock, diagonally back and *away* from the ball. When you're able to create that force in that direction it will naturally pull you down into side bend and the club will want to come down in front of you and exit left. It will want to do that just as naturally as your current move is causing you to come out and over the top because both are the most natural path to the ball based on what your body is doing, but obviously one is a much "better" path to the ball for what you're trying to accomplish. Lots of people get stuck trying to manufacture these paths without doing the right stuff with the body and that is where you get the hanging back/right shoulder drop/swing to right field moves that result in a different set of problems. None of those are necessary when your body is moving in a way that naturally creates the right path, but it's REALLY hard to get right and takes time.

On top of all that, you could execute everything I just rambled about flawlessly and your overrunning backswing will still ruin all of it, hah. When the club is out of position and not properly set at the top, ALL the perfect body movements in the world will still result in problems because you haven't put the club in a place where it can "play ball" so to speak. Tiger struggled with this as an am and into mid to late 90's pre-Butch era because he got the club across the line more than was optimum for his hip speed:



1997 -> 2000 -> 2006 here which shows the progression of across the line to neutral to slightly laid off as he sought to get the club in a progressively "simpler" position over time. Right now you have an exaggerated overrunning version of what Tiger was doing above in 97' which would need to be reeled in heavily once the lower body stuff starts working. 

A ton of info again I know, hah, but the takeaway ideally is that "this will take time and patience" as opposed to "holy s*** this is impossible". Understanding the concepts intellectually before even trying to pick up a club and execute them is important, then recognizing them when you *do* and not getting discouraged when it doesn't immediately go well is what comes next. It's a process you need to be ready for to be sure, so feel free to post follow up videos if/when you have struggles. 👍

Edited December 22, 2022 by Valtiel

[Ironman_32]

21 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

Good questions.

1. I want to address the left foot pick up comment first. That can be a great trigger for getting things moving in the right direction so it's worth messing with. JT, Schauffele, Wolff, Paul Casey, Bubba....lots of great ball strikers that lift their left foot. As you get familiar with the concept of what you're trying to accomplish you can determine whether or not the move works for you, which leads to...

2. Lots of people get hung up on this as it's easy to do wrong, so it's a good question. There is an inherent contradiction here because you want to both "drop back" into your right side while NOT leaning back and getting all the way into your right heel. Folks in your position often fall into this trap and get unbalanced as a result because the first somewhat intuitive feeling thing is to do just that, lean backwards with the right side and get 100% heel. This however is a weak and unbalanced position that you want to avoid. You'll generally feel like at address your weight is fairly balanced, maybe *slightly* favoring the balls of your feet (like 60/40, nothing crazy) and then that flips slightly in the backswing to *slightly* favor your heel side. This is where the contradiction comes in though because you'll likely think "how can I get my right side working back and away from the ball *without* getting back on my heel?". Here is a small drill to hopefully explain:

Take a normal address posture without a club and stand as balanced as possible. 50/50 left and right and 50/50 heel toe. Now while maintaining that balance, shift your right foot pressure up towards the toe without leaning forward (towards the "ball"). You'll probably lift your knee slightly to do this, that is ok. Now in this position, try pushing your right hip straight back behind you *without* leaving your right toe, the idea being to avoid planting on your heel. To do this you will likely feel some serious stretching in your thigh and right glute, this is good (don't overdo it though). Now you don't actually make a backswing this way, but it's meant to show how you can push your right hip backwards without having to lean back on your heel and which muscles you use to do this. A sore right thigh and right glute will absolutely be expected when you correctly use your thigh/glute to push your right hip back instead of leaning backwards.

3. And if all that wasn't tricky enough, you only do this for a tiny window in the backswing before you stop and start re-centering to you can get to the meat of what you need to accomplish which is do the exact same thing but with your left side. I can almost guarantee that the steepness and pulls you experienced before when trying this were rooted in the fact that you were already crowding the ball because of the improper initial lower body rotation which shifted your weight forward which then caused you to keep it forward and crowd the ball further when trying to fire the left side. All that would throw your path way outside which would lead to pulls of you square the face up at all. Going back to the Tiger gif:



If we look at this like a clock face where the target is out there at 12 o'clock then his lower body, driven by the left side, is firing aggressively towards 10 o'clock, diagonally back and *away* from the ball. When you're able to create that force in that direction it will naturally pull you down into side bend and the club will want to come down in front of you and exit left. It will want to do that just as naturally as your current move is causing you to come out and over the top because both are the most natural path to the ball based on what your body is doing, but obviously one is a much "better" path to the ball for what you're trying to accomplish. Lots of people get stuck trying to manufacture these paths without doing the right stuff with the body and that is where you get the hanging back/right shoulder drop/swing to right field moves that result in a different set of problems. None of those are necessary when your body is moving in a way that naturally creates the right path, but it's REALLY hard to get right and takes time.

On top of all that, you could execute everything I just rambled about flawlessly and your overrunning backswing will still ruin all of it, hah. When the club is out of position and not properly set at the top, ALL the perfect body movements in the world will still result in problems because you haven't put the club in a place where it can "play ball" so to speak. Tiger struggled with this as an am and into mid to late 90's pre-Butch era because he got the club across the line more than was optimum for his hip speed:



1997 -> 2000 -> 2006 here which shows the progression of across the line to neutral to slightly laid off as he sought to get the club in a progressively "simpler" position over time. Right now you have an exaggerated overrunning version of what Tiger was doing above in 97' which would need to be reeled in heavily once the lower body stuff starts working. 

A ton of info again I know, hah, but the takeaway ideally is that "this will take time and patience" as opposed to "holy s*** this is impossible". Understanding the concepts intellectually before even trying to pick up a club and execute them is important, then recognizing them when you *do* and not getting discouraged when it doesn't immediately go well is what comes next. It's a process you need to be ready for to be sure, so feel free to post follow up videos if/when you have struggles. 👍

What I'm hearing is my swing somewhat resembles Tiger '97...haha, jk.

 

Thanks again, I appreciate you taking time to go into detail and also provide the drills. 

 

I've read over everything twice but will definitely be going back this and your other posts/videos. We will see how it progresses.

[Ironman_32]

IMG_1194 (1).MOV 

 

 

 

Took some m 

 

 ore videos this past week (don't mind the blue pants, was going to the gym after the range.)

 

Overall positives, I'd say the swing looks better in some instances, without drawing lines it looks like my head isn't moving as much. The overswing is still there, however, my swing felt better. Felt way more in balance. My driver swing looks like it coming a little more on the inside, and the strike looked/felt better. 

 

Some swings before the video felt better too (I think they actually felt better, went farther than the ones I filmed). I did some air swings at home, kind of got a good pivot/feel going (between practicing with feet together and taking swings where I feel the right hip going straight back, then focusing on that feel from an actual turn.) 

 

Overall negatives, still some what a long swing, need to tighten up that. Also still feel like my swing goes "shift to outside the right foot, then pivot", need to just feel the pivot. 

IMG_1195.MOVIMG_1195 (1).MOV

Edited January 6 by Ironman_32

[Valtiel]

On 1/6/2023 at 2:50 PM, Ironman_32 said:

IMG_1194 (1).MOV 8.76 MB · 6 downloads  

 

 

 

Took some m 

 

 ore videos this past week (don't mind the blue pants, was going to the gym after the range.)

 

Overall positives, I'd say the swing looks better in some instances, without drawing lines it looks like my head isn't moving as much. The overswing is still there, however, my swing felt better. Felt way more in balance. My driver swing looks like it coming a little more on the inside, and the strike looked/felt better. 

 

Some swings before the video felt better too (I think they actually felt better, went farther than the ones I filmed). I did some air swings at home, kind of got a good pivot/feel going (between practicing with feet together and taking swings where I feel the right hip going straight back, then focusing on that feel from an actual turn.) 

 

Overall negatives, still some what a long swing, need to tighten up that. Also still feel like my swing goes "shift to outside the right foot, then pivot", need to just feel the pivot. 

IMG_1195.MOV 3.42 MB · 0 downloads IMG_1195 (1).MOV 6.61 MB · 0 downloads

Feeling better is good, but lets check in on the "real". You've accurately noted that your backswing is still breaking down badly at the top so we don't need to cover that. The lower body stuff is what I want to focus on (@ezra76 take notes because i'm going to reply to your post next and all of this applies directly to you as well).



Keeping track of your right hip position (yellow dot) and depth (red line) again. This initial part of the takeaway is the only element where your rotation is "correct" i.e. driven by the right hip. We can see it moves back slightly.



Everything after this point is the problem because it immediately stops moving and you're only using your left hip to rotate, sometimes called "false rotation". All this does is bring you closer to the ball and it doesn't set you up correctly for what you need to do in transition. Like Ezra in his thread, this is backwards and needs to be relearned (more on the below).



The same exact thing plays out in the downswing, almost uncannily mirrored. Your first move is good, left hip working back and right hip staying put. However you didn't set yourself up to actually complete this move, just like with the backswing:



The side you want to be moving (left side) stops and the side you don't want (right) takes over. You're getting the club into some decent positions considering all this and as a result can hit some good shots, but the fundamental lower body stuff has to get fixed to make any meaningful progress from here.

This extremely consistent pattern of "initial correct move followed by immediate flip to the wrong moves" perfectly lines up with the first hurdle most people face when relearning this stuff, that being the difference between actually moving differently and continuing to move the same while trying to "add" stuff on top. Intuitively almost everyone will want to rotate like you're doing above, and this is basically how baseball swings work. This is however why pitchers tend to make better golfers than hitters though, because golfers need to learn elements that are completely opposite of a more intuitive baseball swing.

The right hip drives rotation in the backswing and the left in the downswing. Gaining the awareness of when you're doing this backswards is key, because otherwise you'll just keep moving intuitively (which is backwards) while trying to do the "right" moves on top of the framework, which is almost impossible. Your intent initially needs to be "my left up stays put and my right hip swings back against that". This will feel weird and wrong and like you aren't rotating, but that's only because you're used to something else.



That is exactly what Tiger is doing here. The left hip *does* come forward slightly, but only passively in response to what is happening, not actively in an effort to create rotation. That bit is crucial because it's what feels the easiest to do, so we have to resist what feels easy/natural which is where most people get stuck. And that is only half the battle as you now need to reverse this which is equally unnatural feeling, but when you do this first part correctly you'll be able to do this whereas doing it incorrectly makes it almost impossible.

[Ironman_32]

I get what you're saying. Been taking some air swings off the new advice, feels like I'm moving a mile when its really it inch, but its a new feel. (Funny I see other swings on Youtube/IG and notice the same problems I was having.)

 

When I get the right hip back and the hands behind me, it definitely feels tight. Where as in my prior swings I could keep the arms moving and overswing, getting the hip back really does prevent that, so its a tighter swing overall.

 

[Chicocrino]

I would focus on your trail arm - seems like it is stalling as your look for depth? Check your angle in the right arm - text book is that it shouldn’t go more than 90 degrees on top of backswing. Maybe sth to tidy up there. It’ll certainly make the backswing shorter. 

[Ironman_32]

IMG_1261.MOV

 

 

These videos were from last weekend. Went on a golfing trip, tried to get in some swing work but also was more focused on playing golf than playing swing. Played five rounds and only lost 3 balls and hit a ton of fairways with driver. (2 balls lost were a result of hitting a straight shot, just farther than I thought I could. Not tryin to make excuses, but that's more of a mental/playing error than a swing error to me). Did feel my swing was in a better place than its been in a while, had more confidence over shots and gained some distance from not being so steep into the ball. 

 

This video was from the last day. Still needs work, particularly in shortening the swing. When I do mirror practice I get into the position I want, and can feel the tightness of the swing. However, the swing gets longer on the range and somewhat longer on the course. 

 

Felt that it was a good job of starting the swing with right hip movement. Decent job of getting the left leg up and back (better than before), but also working on one part at a time. Starting get some pulls with draw on them toward the end of the last day, but I also started that round going 4/4 on both fairways and greens and was hammering it, so I think I got caught up "trying" to hit it, vs letting the swing do the work. (which lead me to whipping it more inside.)

 

 

Edited January 19 by Ironman_32

[Ironman_32]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

update from a range session last weekend. 

 

I think the path is definitely getting better from the swings above. Took a look at the information above and definitely see some false rotation going, therefore that needs more work. I still feel it getting better though, definitely feel more control over shots. 

 

One I did notice, though I don't have any face swings below, I'm trying to get my left shoulder higher at address (therefore my right shoulder lower); somewhat opens my shoulders a little, gives me a more "on plane" take away. 

 

Couple things I'm looking at if any could give advice, do I need to work about my spine angle, am I losing it as I swing and what would the effects of that be? thanks in advance. 

 

 

 

 

[slytown]

You are finding a better downswing path, but I think your backswing is SOOO long that you spend most of the downswing playing catchup. You don't have time to turn through or use your lower body.

 

When you take the club back in comes way behind you, force the club across the line at the top. I would work on starting the club outside of your hands and then at the top (check in a mirror or with your phone camera) check that your club is pointed left of target, not right, and towards the sky. This will give you width and make it easier to bring the club down on plane in transition. Basically, start with a one piece takeway and then point the club behind you at the top of the backswing. See how that works.

[Valtiel]

Quote

@Ironman_32

update from a range session last weekend. 

 

I think the path is definitely getting better from the swings above. Took a look at the information above and definitely see some false rotation going, therefore that needs more work. I still feel it getting better though, definitely feel more control over shots. 

do I need to work about my spine angle, am I losing it as I swing and what would the effects of that be? thanks in advance. 

You are losing your spine angle because of the rotation issue, which to me looks mostly unchanged. You're still left hip forward -> right hip forward which tic-tacs you towards the ball which forces the loss in spine angle to make contact. I actually thought of a better way to illustrate this as the phrase "tic-tac" immediately evokes an image in my head but I realize maybe not for everyone else:



Full swing at a faster frame rate played forwards then backwards. Notice how your hip action tic-tacs you towards the ball, forcing the loss of spine angle and significant raising of the hands. Now notice how Tiger's right hip back -> left hip back keeps him perfectly in place. You can't swing your arms freely because you're in the process of also having to pull them in during the downswing and having to add this extra layer of hand-eye coordination based compensation hurts everything; strike quality, face control, path control etc. Don't worry about path, you only need your lower body to stay in place for everything else to lineup correctly.

 

Edited March 13 by Valtiel

[Ironman_32]

12 hours ago, Valtiel said:

You are losing your spine angle because of the rotation issue, which to me looks mostly unchanged. You're still left hip forward -> right hip forward which tic-tacs you towards the ball which forces the loss in spine angle to make contact. I actually thought of a better way to illustrate this as the phrase "tic-tac" immediately evokes an image in my head but I realize maybe not for everyone else:



Full swing at a faster frame rate played forwards then backwards. Notice how your hip action tic-tacs you towards the ball, forcing the loss of spine angle and significant raising of the hands. Now notice how Tiger's right hip back -> left hip back keeps him perfectly in place. You can't swing your arms freely because you're in the process of also having to pull them in during the downswing and having to add this extra layer of hand-eye coordination based compensation hurts everything; strike quality, face control, path control etc. Don't worry about path, you only need your lower body to stay in place for everything else to lineup correctly.

 

Awesome, thanks again for the look. 

 

Do you recommend doing a drill where I put something behind me, like a chair, and just keeping the backside on that throughout the swing?

 

Also, set up wise, am I too upright from the start, effectively, should I be bent over more?

Edited March 13 by Ironman_32

[slytown]

Try to air on the upright at set up. The golf swing is, or should be dynamic, so you regain knee flex in the downswing and your chest moves over the ball, or "covers" the ball.

 

You can wait for Valtiel's opinion, but I would just work on improving the backswing wrist position and then making a good path on the downswing. You could work on squatting against a chair but I find it tends to prompt arms that are too passive and the opposite effect you are going for. You could try it but that drill may make you stand up more in the downswing.

 

Maybe Valtiel can comment on this, but my philosophy is that golf swing improvement is all about improving wrist positions and path. All other things are merely tweaks or small corrections. In particular, it is backswing improvements that help most.

 

[Ironman_32]

been working on the swing, mainly using the "feet together" drill as described above (have worked on it on/off over the  year, had a lot going on, got engaged and stuff).   

 

I feel the videos below are improved from the videos above, but theres still a ways to go. Doing the drill with the feet together had me feel a "proper" backswing/rotation so I'm not over rotating. The downswing isn't horrible but isn't great, I can see in the driver video at lease I'm not going forward but I'm not super opening the hips, but still overswinging. Watched some videos of different pros (not saying I'm trying to copy them), but saw Rory almost looks like his right hip doesn't move super far back where guys like DJ/Spieth seemed to have it going back more; could be wrong on that but its my untrained eye. 

 

 

 

Iron_face_on_full.MOV

iron_face_on_closed.MOV

iron_dtl_closed.MOV

driver_dtl_full.MOV

Edited November 20 by Ironman_32