Shanks - please help

[Jonesy4444]

https://youtube.com/shorts/D02fAuW3IFE?feature=share

 

 

Hi, hope somebody out there can help. 

 

I have been trying to shake the shanks for about 20 years, but nothing seems to fix it.  I have basically given up playing, but want to get back into it.

 

From what I know of my swing, there is a casting motion from the top and the club gets thrown outside the ball.  The impact position when paused, shows the ball very much contacting the hosel.

 

Any help much appreciated

[ac6]

Looks like a classic case of early extension where your hips are tic-tacking toward the ball throughout your entire motion. Keep your eye on the spot where your hands are at address and note that your right thigh ends up in that same spot shortly after impact, so of course your hands can't be there at the same time. Where do they end up? Closer to the ball, so you either have to drastically steepen the shaft plane to make solid contact, or as you've found, you shank it.

 

The fix is to get your hips to maintain depth and to keep your arms feeling like they're more in front of you on the backswing. Lots of drills for both out there

[Jonesy4444]

18 minutes ago, ac6 said:

Looks like a classic case of early extension where your hips are tic-tacking toward the ball throughout your entire motion. Keep your eye on the spot where your hands are at address and note that your right thigh ends up in that same spot shortly after impact, so of course your hands can't be there at the same time. Where do they end up? Closer to the ball, so you either have to drastically steepen the shaft plane to make solid contact, or as you've found, you shank it.

 

The fix is to get your hips to maintain depth and to keep your arms feeling like they're more in front of you on the backswing. Lots of drills for both out there

Thanks very much for the info. Yes, it's pretty clear that is happening and I will see what drills I can find out there to fix.  Quick question...would the casting motion I mentioned be a result of the early extension or vice versa?  Thanks again

[Valtiel]

14 hours ago, Jonesy4444 said:

Thanks very much for the info. Yes, it's pretty clear that is happening and I will see what drills I can find out there to fix.  Quick question...would the casting motion I mentioned be a result of the early extension or vice versa?  Thanks again

Yeah @ac6 is right:



Very common right side coming towards the ball at impact pushing your hands out and thus lining up the hosel with the ball. Some people can compensate for this better than others, and you've likely done some version of this for the entire time you've been trying to "fix" it. Everything related to the lower body stuff in this post I just made related to you as well, including the linked video explaining what you're doing wrong.

Edited February 24, 2023 by Valtiel

[Jonesy4444]

On 2/24/2023 at 9:01 AM, Valtiel said:

Yeah @ac6 is right:



Very common right side coming towards the ball at impact pushing your hands out and thus lining up the hosel with the ball. Some people can compensate for this better than others, and you've likely done some version of this for the entire time you've been trying to "fix" it. Everything related to the lower body stuff in this post I just made related to you as well, including the linked video explaining what you're doing wrong.

Thanks for the comprehensive feedback. Really appreciate you taking the time.  Is it something in my setup that makes me make that movement on the backswing do you think? Or is it more likely my own misconception of how to turn my hips and I should just work on doing it correctly?

[Valtiel]

1 hour ago, Jonesy4444 said:

Thanks for the comprehensive feedback. Really appreciate you taking the time.  Is it something in my setup that makes me make that movement on the backswing do you think? Or is it more likely my own misconception of how to turn my hips and I should just work on doing it correctly?

While there are definitely some setup errors that can cause issues, it's easily 95%+ misconception. Give any non-golfer a golf club and tell them to rotate and they will do it incorrectly, because swinging our hips forward feels way more intuitive and natural vs. learning to push them backwards. Traditional instruction failed massively in teaching this IMO, i've yet to meet an in-person instructor that explained this comprehensibly. They do exist of course, but they have to be heavily in the minority. If you search my post history in this subforum for these gifs I create for folks you'll see how common what you're doing is.

IMO it doesn't get discussed correctly because it is misunderstood and referred to both vaguely and by several different terms. Someone might look at the gif above and say "ah, you're doing the classic early extension/stand up/handle raise move" and they'd be right, but then you'll go google each of those terms and find individual videos discussing them all separately using different terms with different philosophies and different solutions. Golf instruction sucks on average from a communication standpoint and i'd imagine it is partially by design. Not because the solutions are actually easy and i'm about to sell you some magic bullet and destroy the whole industry, quite the opposite. The solutions are HARD and require relearning how to move your body in ways that are unintuitive and hard to explain. Not good for repeat business unfortunately, so golf instruction often offers quick solutions that produce temporary improvements that keep you coming back for more later. Bless the instructors that really know what they are doing and risk losing clients by making them actually do the hard work, and even more so the ones that can teach it comprehensibly. 

Sorry that was a bit of a rant, but please check out both the AMG video in that post I linked and the gifs i've posted in this forum. You're not alone, and there are plenty of pro comparisons in there with notes about what is "correct" about their movements. 

[Jonesy4444]

4 hours ago, Valtiel said:

While there are definitely some setup errors that can cause issues, it's easily 95%+ misconception. Give any non-golfer a golf club and tell them to rotate and they will do it incorrectly, because swinging our hips forward feels way more intuitive and natural vs. learning to push them backwards. Traditional instruction failed massively in teaching this IMO, i've yet to meet an in-person instructor that explained this comprehensibly. They do exist of course, but they have to be heavily in the minority. If you search my post history in this subforum for these gifs I create for folks you'll see how common what you're doing is.

IMO it doesn't get discussed correctly because it is misunderstood and referred to both vaguely and by several different terms. Someone might look at the gif above and say "ah, you're doing the classic early extension/stand up/handle raise move" and they'd be right, but then you'll go google each of those terms and find individual videos discussing them all separately using different terms with different philosophies and different solutions. Golf instruction sucks on average from a communication standpoint and i'd imagine it is partially by design. Not because the solutions are actually easy and i'm about to sell you some magic bullet and destroy the whole industry, quite the opposite. The solutions are HARD and require relearning how to move your body in ways that are unintuitive and hard to explain. Not good for repeat business unfortunately, so golf instruction often offers quick solutions that produce temporary improvements that keep you coming back for more later. Bless the instructors that really know what they are doing and risk losing clients by making them actually do the hard work, and even more so the ones that can teach it comprehensibly. 

Sorry that was a bit of a rant, but please check out both the AMG video in that post I linked and the gifs i've posted in this forum. You're not alone, and there are plenty of pro comparisons in there with notes about what is "correct" about their movements. 

Thanks again.  I came across that AMG video a while ago and felt that it highlighted exactly what I was doing wrong. I suppose I lacked the commitment to taking on board what they were saying and putting in the work as I wasn't 100% it was what I was doing wrong.  Good to get your independent view that it is something I should pursue.

 

I am assuming to do it differently (correctly) it is going to feel very alien to me. Think I will need to video what I'm doing to convince myself haha 

 

I fully agree with your opinion on golf instructors. I would explain to them that I didn't really play golf anymore and was looking for long term fixes and was prepared to put the work on, but still feel like I was given quick fixes that might get me round 9 holes if I was lucky.

[Jonesy4444]

 

Here is a face on view.... as you can see....its not pretty 🤣

 

Predictably, when I did hit a "good one" it goes into orbit and then lands about 100 yards in front of me 

[BraxtonFullerton]

8 hours ago, Jonesy4444 said:

 

Predictably, when I did hit a "good one" it goes into orbit and then lands about 100 yards in front of me 

 

 

That's because you have a massive flip at impact...

 

So you're adding a ton of loft to the club. The biggest thing to notice here is how your lower body and hips are still actually trying to rotate. But your shoulders remain completely square to the ball. You need to do some shaft lean drills and get your hands out in front of the club head when you swing. This will also force you to open your torso and shoulders to face the target while coming into impact with the ball. Here's a pretty decent vid on what you're doing vs what you should be doing: 

 

[Jonesy4444]

 

 

Here is another old video. It doesn't look like my body moves much towards the ball, but certainly the clubhead moves outside the ball still.  I do find that even when I only swing back to about halfway, I can still manage to shank it.

 

By some miracle, on this occasion, I manage to make some sort of ok contact... no idea how from this position just before impact 🤣🙈....

 

[Jonesy4444]

On 2/28/2023 at 3:04 PM, BraxtonFullerton said:

 

 

That's because you have a massive flip at impact...

 

So you're adding a ton of loft to the club. The biggest thing to notice here is how your lower body and hips are still actually trying to rotate. But your shoulders remain completely square to the ball. You need to do some shaft lean drills and get your hands out in front of the club head when you swing. This will also force you to open your torso and shoulders to face the target while coming into impact with the ball. Here's a pretty decent vid on what you're doing vs what you should be doing: 

 

Thanks. I do believe that my clubface is open, which according to this video is something I would need to fix first

[Jonesy4444]

I feel like I'm at a point where I know I have this massive flip that makes good contact almost impossible and I know it's happening as a result of something earlier in the swing. I also know it's happening to allow me to actually make contact with the ball/square the face (if i didnt I'd miss the ball or hit way left etc).  What I don't know is the root cause...if I never discover that, I'll never get anywhere 

[slytown]

The club is just way too low. You have good hip and shoulder turn but the club is underneath you. Work on getting that club higher. You are trying to create power with just your wrists, which is why you flip. Work on getting the arms up higher with your hands at the top over your right shoulder blade. Start the downswing by bring the arms down and then turn through. Do this slowly at first to get a feel for where the club should be.

 

for backswing, use a camera behind you and check the position at the top.

for the downswing, do the same and see if the club on the downswing passes through the middle of your body. if it doesn't you are still coming over the top and need to get the club down earlier.

[Jonesy4444]

13 hours ago, slytown said:

The club is just way too low. You have good hip and shoulder turn but the club is underneath you. Work on getting that club higher. You are trying to create power with just your wrists, which is why you flip. Work on getting the arms up higher with your hands at the top over your right shoulder blade. Start the downswing by bring the arms down and then turn through. Do this slowly at first to get a feel for where the club should be.

 

for backswing, use a camera behind you and check the position at the top.

for the downswing, do the same and see if the club on the downswing passes through the middle of your body. if it doesn't you are still coming over the top and need to get the club down earlier.

By too low do you mean

the swing is too flat, as in around my body?

 

[slytown]

37 minutes ago, Jonesy4444 said:

By too low do you mean

the swing is too flat, as in around my body?

 

 

Yes, your hands are below your right shoulder and your arms are very flat at the top. At this point you are basically hitting chip shots with your full swing. 

[Jonesy4444]

I'm still struggling with trying not to move my hips towards the ball. Feels like I'm moving miles back from the ball, but in reality, when I see it back, I'm still doing the opposite... very strange