Been striping my irons and woods but cannot even find the face of driver!

[Luckydutch]

Made a few good swing changes recently that have transformed my swing and I'm playing so much better with most of my clubs. I can even consistently find the green even with my 5 wood from 235 out. However, following those same principals that have fixed the rest of my game, when I switched to driver I literally couldn't hit the face. Not the middle of the face, the face at all!

 

I'll share some videos below. I know I have a few obvious flaws like I am early extending a bit more than I would like but that is largely consistent across all clubs so it seems unlikely that it would be the difference between driver and the rest. It would be immensely helpful if someone could help me spot the difference. For now, that's my main priority.

 

Firstly a 5 wood as a baseline:

 

 

 

 

Now my first driver swing. Literally the very next swing after that 5 wood:

 

 

 

 

An attempt adopting a slightly steeper backswing (in the hope of hitting more up and through the ball):

 

 

 

 

Finally, I managed to re-find something that worked with the feeling of rotating a bit deeper with my body. It looks a bit too flat and inside to my but in doing that I suddenly became able to find the face and actually swing through the ball again:

 

 

 

 

If anyone can tell me what the difference is, you'd be my new hero! As it stands, driver is staying at home when I play this weekend!

[BraxtonFullerton]

I don't mean to be a jerk about it, but you need to re-upload the videos so we can see the ball flight, etc... Is it a straight push? Push slice? Shank? Etc.

[Luckydutch]

15 minutes ago, BraxtonFullerton said:

I don't mean to be a jerk about it, but you need to re-upload the videos so we can see the ball flight, etc... Is it a straight push? Push slice? Shank? Etc.

 

You're not being a jerk, it's fine.

 

I can re-cut them if you want and repost.

 

They were both out of the toe and not the toe of the face, the actual metal toe. Push slice wildly right and on a trajectory to boomerang back to me! 😅

Edited March 17, 2023 by Luckydutch

[Luckydutch]

40 minutes ago, BraxtonFullerton said:

I don't mean to be a jerk about it, but you need to re-upload the videos so we can see the ball flight, etc... Is it a straight push? Push slice? Shank? Etc.

 

Here we go.

 

The first one:

 

 

 

And the attempt with a slightly steeper backswing:

 

 

 

Same result. The good drive shows the flight in my first post.

[slytown]

You are very cupped and across the line at the top. That would be fine, but to correct that in the downswing I see you humping the ball in order to shallow out and square the face. This can work, since it is a correction, but it can be an inconsistent way of striking. Work on getting that club laid off a bit at the top and work on maintaining knee flex throughout the downswing. You could do the chair drill.

[Luckydutch]

32 minutes ago, slytown said:

You are very cupped and across the line at the top. That would be fine, but to correct that in the downswing I see you humping the ball in order to shallow out and square the face. This can work, since it is a correction, but it can be an inconsistent way of striking. Work on getting that club laid off a bit at the top and work on maintaining knee flex throughout the downswing. You could do the chair drill.

 

That's funny because literally one week ago I had a lesson where he told me I am too layed-off. Perhaps I've gone too far the other way.

 

What's unclear to me is why on those driver swings I'm pulling the club so close that it strikes the toe rather than my arms extending and allowing the head to move though the ball rather than across it.

 

But then I do have the last video above where I did a deeper backswing and struck it really well. I can't quite join the dots on why the massive difference in ball striking.

[mgoblue83]

Are you hitting the 5w on the toe too?

[Luckydutch]

2 minutes ago, mgoblue83 said:

Are you hitting the 5w on the toe too?

 

No, not at all.

 

Driver aside, my ball striking has never been so good. Gained about 10 yards on my irons too.

[mgoblue83]

Just now, Luckydutch said:

 

No, not at all.

 

Driver aside, my ball striking has never been so good. Gained about 10 yards on my irons too.

 

Glad to hear.

 

Suggest you lower your tee drastically and work on hitting fades for awhile. It's going to help you stay in posture and get through the ball better. 

[ShortGolfer]

Drivers are often too long because it helps sell drivers!  An overly long driver will produce great Trackman numbers at the expense of consistency.

Something that looks good on paper but doesn't deliver on the course.

 

You might experiment with choking down and adding lead tape to bring the SW back up.

[Cwebb]

Do a driver practice session with foot powder spray on the face, while trying different things....tee height, distance from the ball, weight distribution, etc etc.  As light a dusting as possible across the face is all that is needed. 

[st1800e]

What’s the shaft in the driver and the 5W?  Different shafts, different feel, can result in a different swing.  

[Luckydutch]

@mgoblue83 @ShortGolfer @Cwebb @st1800e

 

Genuinely really appreciate the responses and ideas but I don't think it's those things simply for the reason that none of these clubs are new. I've had them all for well over a year now, including the driver, and at times in the past I've struck it very well. It was fit for me and I even asked them to knock 1/2 an inch off the shaft for more consistency.

 

To suddenly not even be able to find the face consistently, it makes me feel it must be in some way related to my recent swing change.

 

For reference, that was a grip change. I play a neutral to slightly-strong left hand grip but my instructor pointed out that I had, without noticing, adopted quite a strong right hand grip. That was encouraging me to externally rotate the arm in the backswing and lay the club off a bunch. It was also making it hard for me to find the right wrist bend feel to keep the club on-plane.

 

We neutralized my right hand grip which encourages my club to work more on-plane and up in the backswing and a very natural and comfortable bending of the wrist. My consistency skyrocketed almost instantly.

 

What I can't work out is why that is killing my driver swing. I keep watching the videos and I wonder whether I am trying too hard to hit UP on it and the club is working on too steep of an arc which effectively shortens the distance the head travels away from me when compared to a flatter plane?

Edited March 17, 2023 by Luckydutch

[Pepperturbo]

Your lower body is wobbly and appears you're coming out of the shot.  Ball go right.

[Righty to Lefty]

3 hours ago, Luckydutch said:

 

Here we go.

 

The first one:

 

 

 

And the attempt with a slightly steeper backswing:

 

 

 

Same result. The good drive shows the flight in my first post.

You are striking the driver in the same location as the fairway woods and irons and the driver or any other club being hit up on with a positive angle of attack is struck at a completely different location along the swing arc. I have mentioned this to you before some time ago but you never asked any further questions so I left it alone.  

 

You are hitting irons and fairway woods with a negative angle of attack as you should, and it will look like this: 

 

But you cannot/should not hit driver like that and it should be struck after low point of the swing arc like this:

 

Danny Maude has some videos that will hopefully clear things up for you if how I explained it previously didn't help:

 

[Luckydutch]

2 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

You are striking the driver in the same location as the fairway woods and irons and the driver or any other club being hit up on with a positive angle of attack is struck at a completely different location along the swing arc. I have mentioned this to you before some time ago but you never asked any further questions so I left it alone.  

 

You are hitting irons and fairway woods with a negative angle of attack as you should, and it will look like this: 

 

But you cannot/should not hit driver like that and it should be struck after low point of the swing arc like this:

 

Danny Maude has some videos that will hopefully clear things up for you if how I explained it previously didn't help:

 

 

 

 

Thanks! Which tip in particular do you see? I do play the ball very forward (off the front foot) but I've never deliberately closed the face at address. I setup square. I've tended to setup my feet square too though which it seems like he is saying I should aim slightly right?

[Cwebb]

4 hours ago, Luckydutch said:

 

What I can't work out is why that is killing my driver swing. I keep watching the videos and I wonder whether I am trying too hard to hit UP on it and the club is working on too steep of an arc which effectively shortens the distance the head travels away from me when compared to a flatter plane?

 

Here's how you can find out.  Hit some good fairway woods.   Then grab your driver and tee up the ball with only about 1/4 of it above the top-line of your driver when it's soled.   This will force you to use a more level Angle of Attack in order to find the hot-spot, which is slightly above center on the face.

 

If nothing like this starts to help you find improvement, then you likely have a driver that doesn't fit.  Possibly too long in length with a swing-weight (full club MOI) that doesn't fit your timing

Edited March 17, 2023 by Cwebb

[Valtiel]

I know this is going to sound like a broken record, but improper hip rotation -> right side come towards the ball -> early extension -> posture loss -> contact problems:



Your rotation is again being driven by the right side into the ball which will involuntarily cause you to lean back out of your posture to compensate and is also whats causing you to still spin out and lose balance. This means that split second hand-eye coordination is needed to make contact because as you can see the extension pulls your shoulders back, which are directly linked to the club via hands/arms.

Quote

@Luckydutch
"What's unclear to me is why on those driver swings I'm pulling the club so close that it strikes the toe rather than my arms extending and allowing the head to move though the ball rather than across it."

Your hands didn't pull in, the actually returned right over where they were at address, your body pulled BACK.

The faster the bad hip move happens the less time you have to compensate and the more/faster your body will extend, and we've already discussed that your hips are really fast, probably too fast most of the time. Too fast and in the wrong direction is a recipe for trouble, and here you simply swung through the new position you early extended into. And the reason you were able to make contact eventually is simple:



You just stood noticeably closer to the ball and addressed it more out of the heel. This combined with the fact that you turned deeper into your right hip in the backswing so that hip thrusting out towards the ball in transition had a fraction less time to cause problems. As for the 5w:



Simply a predictably less severe version of the same problem due to slower speed and a shorter club that wasn't bad enough to cause a toe shank. Notice your right shoulder position at impact in both and how much further back it moves with the driver.

Two main takeaways from this one that should be pretty clear. One, backswings don't mean squat when you aren't using your body correctly in the downswing. You make two completely different backswings at two different tempos while producing the same results and ALL your swings had incorrect hip rotation and noticeable early extension. Two, this is why self diagnosis is dangerous. You felt that you rotated deeper, which you did, but that wasn't really the main difference. The fact that you employed a compensation without realizing it (address position) for a problem you aren't consciously aware of (right hip movement in transition leading to early extension) means you have little to no chance of repeating this "fix" since you weren't even aware of what it was.

You appear to also be generally employing the common problematic correction that over the top slicers/shankers use which is dumping things too far inside. You've likely gained 10y because you're delivering less loft and now hitting draws from this position, but it's just as "out of neutral" as your old swings just from the opposite side. Combine a flat swing with early extension and you'll have all sorts of problems with the longer clubs.

If your current teacher is critiquing your shaft plane at the top of the swing without addressing the early extension stuff as well as the fact that your arms are still out of sequence then i'd be wary.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Valtiel

[Luckydutch]

29 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

I know this is going to sound like a broken record, but improper hip rotation -> right side come towards the ball -> early extension -> posture loss -> contact problems:



Your rotation is again being driven by the right side into the ball which will involuntarily cause you to lean back out of your posture to compensate and is also whats causing you to still spin out and lose balance. This means that split second hand-eye coordination is needed to make contact because as you can see the extension pulls your shoulders back, which are directly linked to the club via hands/arms.

Your hands didn't pull in, the actually returned right over where they were at address, your body pulled BACK.

The faster the bad hip move happens the less time you have to compensate and the more/faster your body will extend, and we've already discussed that your hips are really fast, probably too fast most of the time. Too fast and in the wrong direction is a recipe for trouble, and here you simply swung through the new position you early extended into. And the reason you were able to make contact eventually is simple:



You just stood noticeably closer to the ball and addressed it more out of the heel. This combined with the fact that you turned deeper into your right hip in the backswing so that hip thrusting out towards the ball in transition had a fraction less time to cause problems. As for the 5w:



Simply a predictably less severe version of the same problem due to slower speed and a shorter club that wasn't bad enough to cause a toe shank. Notice your right shoulder position at impact in both and how much further back it moves with the driver.

Two main takeaways from this one that should be pretty clear. One, backswings don't mean squat when you aren't using your body correctly in the downswing. You make two completely different backswings at two different tempos while producing the same results and ALL your swings had incorrect hip rotation and noticeable early extension. Two, this is why self diagnosis is dangerous. You felt that you rotated deeper, which you did, but that wasn't really the main difference. The fact that you employed a compensation without realizing it (address position) for a problem you aren't consciously aware of (right hip movement in transition leading to early extension) means you have little to no chance of repeating this "fix" since you weren't even aware of what it was.

You appear to also be generally employing the common problematic correction that over the top slicers/shankers use which is dumping things too far inside. You've likely gained 10y because you're delivering less loft and now hitting draws from this position, but it's just as "out of neutral" as your old swings just from the opposite side. Combine a flat swing with early extension and you'll have all sorts of problems with the longer clubs.

If your current teacher is critiquing your shaft plane at the top of the swing without addressing the early extension stuff as well as the fact that your arms are still out of sequence then i'd be wary.

 

 

Thank you for the analysis!

 

Early extension has to be the most frustratingly difficult issue to solve in golf. I just cannot fix it. I've tried every drill and feel but nothing works.

 

What you're seeing there with the body moving away from the ball is in fact a deliberate feel on my part which, ironically, is an attempt to curb early extension.

 

My two swing feels tend to be:

1. Body moves away from the ball as the club moves down towards it
2. Feel the club head move down and through the ball, exiting out to the right of target (it doesn't exit right, that's just the feel)

I'm at a loss as to how to stop the early extension. The only time I stopped it was when trying to almost squat and feel like I stick the bum out in transition but the issue with that is, was then coming into impact with the lead leg still bent and I was smashing the ground. There isn't time in the downswing to feel the squat and then extend the lead leg before impact.

[slytown]

If you are smashing into the ground, it means you are too used to standing up and slapping the golf ball. Work that squat drill and half swings that keep the club on a wide arc. It forces you to turn more. You are hitting things fat because you are conditioned to make a correction where you stand up and then try to square the clubface with your arm extension. I like this drill. You can start slow with a wedge and then work your way up to longer clubs and longer swings. I would say it takes at least 2 weeks to break your early extension habit.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by slytown

[Luckydutch]

On 3/18/2023 at 8:36 AM, Valtiel said:

I know this is going to sound like a broken record, but improper hip rotation -> right side come towards the ball -> early extension -> posture loss -> contact problems:



Your rotation is again being driven by the right side into the ball which will involuntarily cause you to lean back out of your posture to compensate and is also whats causing you to still spin out and lose balance. This means that split second hand-eye coordination is needed to make contact because as you can see the extension pulls your shoulders back, which are directly linked to the club via hands/arms.

Your hands didn't pull in, the actually returned right over where they were at address, your body pulled BACK.

The faster the bad hip move happens the less time you have to compensate and the more/faster your body will extend, and we've already discussed that your hips are really fast, probably too fast most of the time. Too fast and in the wrong direction is a recipe for trouble, and here you simply swung through the new position you early extended into. And the reason you were able to make contact eventually is simple:



You just stood noticeably closer to the ball and addressed it more out of the heel. This combined with the fact that you turned deeper into your right hip in the backswing so that hip thrusting out towards the ball in transition had a fraction less time to cause problems. As for the 5w:



Simply a predictably less severe version of the same problem due to slower speed and a shorter club that wasn't bad enough to cause a toe shank. Notice your right shoulder position at impact in both and how much further back it moves with the driver.

Two main takeaways from this one that should be pretty clear. One, backswings don't mean squat when you aren't using your body correctly in the downswing. You make two completely different backswings at two different tempos while producing the same results and ALL your swings had incorrect hip rotation and noticeable early extension. Two, this is why self diagnosis is dangerous. You felt that you rotated deeper, which you did, but that wasn't really the main difference. The fact that you employed a compensation without realizing it (address position) for a problem you aren't consciously aware of (right hip movement in transition leading to early extension) means you have little to no chance of repeating this "fix" since you weren't even aware of what it was.

You appear to also be generally employing the common problematic correction that over the top slicers/shankers use which is dumping things too far inside. You've likely gained 10y because you're delivering less loft and now hitting draws from this position, but it's just as "out of neutral" as your old swings just from the opposite side. Combine a flat swing with early extension and you'll have all sorts of problems with the longer clubs.

If your current teacher is critiquing your shaft plane at the top of the swing without addressing the early extension stuff as well as the fact that your arms are still out of sequence then i'd be wary.

 

 

Played a round yesterday with my buddy and was talking about these problems I was having and he said he used to have the same issue until he got a good tip from an instructor. He said that when you keep your lead knee pointing at the ball, it encourages your pelvis to move towards the ball when you extend that lead leg, no matter how much you try to hold yourself back. He was taught that you need to slightly open the lead knee to target in the early part of the downswing so that when you push up through that lead leg it actually pushes the pelvis back and away.

 

I just had a go in the garden and it is a very interesting feel. I'm probably not doing it quite right yet but before I go away and practice it at the studio, it would be great to know whether that is a good way to go? I can't say whether it's right but I can say that's the most stable finish I've ever had from a golf swing. I normally have to take a step immediately after I finish but I was totally solid in that finish position.

 

 

 

 

[Valtiel]

@Luckydutch I was going to respond to the first reply but this second one has better examples of what I wanted to address. Throughout all the swings you have shared here going back to 2021, you have had two main fundamental problems that haven't really changed. The earlier swings had a number of other smaller issues which have been cleaned up over time, but two core problems that have persisted are:



Your arms have always severely trailed your lower body which will force a degree of last second flipping to make contact. This has been consistent in one way or another since the beginning and when combined with the early extension issues will always cause delivery/release/contact issues.



The second thing you've done consistently is go too far out of bounds with your weight shift in the backswing. Address position to P2 here is *as much* shift into your trail side as you should be doing, and even then i'd argue your right foot is telling us that you're shifting too much already given that you're immediately rolling to the outside of it. This puts you in a weak position right away. Also notice how Tiger's shift is driven by rotation (crotch of his pants turns noticeably) whereas your is more sliding/rolling.



This is where the meat of the problem is. Your left side collapses in too much and you continue loading up on that unstable right foot considerably more after P2. You're stuck at this point and the move you need to make to get unstuck is the one causing a bulk of the sequencing problems:



This big lateral shift in transition kicks off the bad sequence chain of events. Because you went way too far back you now have to save it by quickly throwing yourself forward and this gets your arms stuck behind. This is also why your attempts at properly using your left side have failed, because you can't do it correctly and in time when you're stuck so far on your trail side, so I guarantee the "crouch/jump" you were trying to do came after this big lateral shift move which would have placed it far too late in the sequence. This is also a big part of why you're early extending because your brain will automatically default to using whichever side as weight on it. Shift back too far and you inevitably end up using your right side too much in transition, which send it out towards the ball.

You have to learn to reduce these extreme and stay more centered in your backswing if you hope to sequence correctly, because no amount of anything else you're futzing around with in your swing plane, backswing positions, grip etc will address these issues.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Valtiel

[GolfTurkey]

On 3/18/2023 at 7:12 PM, Luckydutch said:

I'm at a loss as to how to stop the early extension.

 

 

You might be like me and really struggle with lower body thoughts / intents.

 

Try this drill. Set up in golf posture and imagine you have a third leg (ahem) roughly the same distance away from your left leg as your right is from your left and stick an alignment stick in the ground there (straight line between the balls of your feet and the stick, and the stick is roughly a stance width's distance from your left foot).

 

Now make a slow motion swing with or without a club and your hands have to hit the alignment stick on the follow through. Do that a few times successfully and look at how your hips are moving and what your right shoulder does. You literally cannot hit the stick with your hands unless you stay in posture, clear your left hip and rotate (at least not without anything resembling a golf swing). If you stand up early and stall your right shoulder your hands will swing out way to the right of the stick and you will miss it.

[Luckydutch]

10 hours ago, Valtiel said:

@Luckydutch I was going to respond to the first reply but this second one has better examples of what I wanted to address. Throughout all the swings you have shared here going back to 2021, you have had two main fundamental problems that haven't really changed. The earlier swings had a number of other smaller issues which have been cleaned up over time, but two core problems that have persisted are:



Your arms have always severely trailed your lower body which will force a degree of last second flipping to make contact. This has been consistent in one way or another since the beginning and when combined with the early extension issues will always cause delivery/release/contact issues.



The second thing you've done consistently is go too far out of bounds with your weight shift in the backswing. Address position to P2 here is *as much* shift into your trail side as you should be doing, and even then i'd argue your right foot is telling us that you're shifting too much already given that you're immediately rolling to the outside of it. This puts you in a weak position right away. Also notice how Tiger's shift is driven by rotation (crotch of his pants turns noticeably) whereas your is more sliding/rolling.



This is where the meat of the problem is. Your left side collapses in too much and you continue loading up on that unstable right foot considerably more after P2. You're stuck at this point and the move you need to make to get unstuck is the one causing a bulk of the sequencing problems:



This big lateral shift in transition kicks off the bad sequence chain of events. Because you went way too far back you now have to save it by quickly throwing yourself forward and this gets your arms stuck behind. This is also why your attempts at properly using your left side have failed, because you can't do it correctly and in time when you're stuck so far on your trail side, so I guarantee the "crouch/jump" you were trying to do came after this big lateral shift move which would have placed it far too late in the sequence. This is also a big part of why you're early extending because your brain will automatically default to using whichever side as weight on it. Shift back too far and you inevitably end up using your right side too much in transition, which send it out towards the ball.

You have to learn to reduce these extreme and stay more centered in your backswing if you hope to sequence correctly, because no amount of anything else you're futzing around with in your swing plane, backswing positions, grip etc will address these issues.

 

 

I'm glad you pointed out leaving the hands behind. I know this is a fault of mine and I think it's partly born of a fear of hitting the ground hard. When I was a steep, over-the-top chunker, I would sometimes smash the ground so hard that I actually damaged my lead wrist and the tendons still haven't fully healed now over a year later. As a result I'm a bit afraid to get my hands too low and hit the ground. The big irony being that when I do fight the urge to hold back and instead put the arms on a shorter arc, the low-point of the swing actually moves further forward and the ground contact isn't as heavy.

 

Below are some attempts where I try to put the arms on a shorter arc and get those hands lower and in front of me sooner. I'm also trying to keep a more stable triangle to my trunk and create depth in my hip in the backswing rather than feeling it rotate and collapsing the lead side.

 

 

 

 

I don't get the hands as forward as the GOAT there but much better than the other video I sent. I just need to constantly remind myself to do this as I CAN do it, I'm just a bit subconsciously reluctant. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Luckydutch]

9 hours ago, GolfTurkey said:

 

You might be like me and really struggle with lower body thoughts / intents.

 

Try this drill. Set up in golf posture and imagine you have a third leg (ahem) roughly the same distance away from your left leg as your right is from your left and stick an alignment stick in the ground there (straight line between the balls of your feet and the stick, and the stick is roughly a stance width's distance from your left foot).

 

Now make a slow motion swing with or without a club and your hands have to hit the alignment stick on the follow through. Do that a few times successfully and look at how your hips are moving and what your right shoulder does. You literally cannot hit the stick with your hands unless you stay in posture, clear your left hip and rotate (at least not without anything resembling a golf swing). If you stand up early and stall your right shoulder your hands will swing out way to the right of the stick and you will miss it.

 

Interesting. So the stick is in the direction of the target?

[GolfTurkey]

7 minutes ago, Luckydutch said:

 

Interesting. So the stick is in the direction of the target?

Yes. If you thrust your right hip out in the downswing, your hands will almost certainly be moving out towards the ball at impact and you couldn’t reach the stick.
 

Hands should “turn the corner” and be moving left (and up) at impact and then they can continue and hit the stick. 

[slytown]

On 3/20/2023 at 6:38 AM, Luckydutch said:

 

 

I'm glad you pointed out leaving the hands behind. I know this is a fault of mine and I think it's partly born of a fear of hitting the ground hard. When I was a steep, over-the-top chunker, I would sometimes smash the ground so hard that I actually damaged my lead wrist and the tendons still haven't fully healed now over a year later. As a result I'm a bit afraid to get my hands too low and hit the ground. The big irony being that when I do fight the urge to hold back and instead put the arms on a shorter arc, the low-point of the swing actually moves further forward and the ground contact isn't as heavy.

 

Below are some attempts where I try to put the arms on a shorter arc and get those hands lower and in front of me sooner. I'm also trying to keep a more stable triangle to my trunk and create depth in my hip in the backswing rather than feeling it rotate and collapsing the lead side.

 

 

 

 

I don't get the hands as forward as the GOAT there but much better than the other video I sent. I just need to constantly remind myself to do this as I CAN do it, I'm just a bit subconsciously reluctant. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks much better, especially the backswing. You are still doing too much forward lateral movement in the downswing. You don't spin out anymore, which is good, but you look very off balance at impact. Your right shoulder is too low and your left knee is way ahead of your left foot at impact. With this swing, at impact your left leg will have to straighten and lock out in order to create space. Ideally, the left leg would be slightly bent and your hands would work around your body more. You do what's called a stop and flip. It's a problem I have been working on.

 

Work on keeping that right foot planted in the downswing and getting those hands working down and around. You don't need to work on the backswing anymore. Looks great. You are halfway there with such a good backswing.

[Luckydutch]

On 3/21/2023 at 5:17 PM, slytown said:

 

Looks much better, especially the backswing. You are still doing too much forward lateral movement in the downswing. You don't spin out anymore, which is good, but you look very off balance at impact. Your right shoulder is too low and your left knee is way ahead of your left foot at impact. With this swing, at impact your left leg will have to straighten and lock out in order to create space. Ideally, the left leg would be slightly bent and your hands would work around your body more. You do what's called a stop and flip. It's a problem I have been working on.

 

Work on keeping that right foot planted in the downswing and getting those hands working down and around. You don't need to work on the backswing anymore. Looks great. You are halfway there with such a good backswing.

 

 

I've continued to practice everything in this thread and I feel I am making some progress against some of points about the movements etc. Lead side not collapsing as much in the downswing (I realized I was 'rotating' rather than 'pivoting' the pelvis) and not overdoing that shift either direction and remaining a bit more stable.

 

I also am trying to get those hands working on a shorter arc in the downswing so they don't lag behind as much. It's quite tricky to get them moving fast enough but I've made some progress with the feel of 'knuckles to the ground'.

 

Here's the problem though, without a ball down, I am delivering the face wildly open. That means as soon as I put a ball down, I'm no longer doing the same swing, even if I try, because I start doing different movements and compensations. It's not deliberate and I can't control it, I guess my brain just knows the face is wildly open and I start doing things like getting over the top again or flipping etc.

 

Here are some practice swings, you can see especially from the frontal view at the end that the face is quite open. If anything, I'd want it to look slightly shut from a frontal view as my aim is a gentle pull-fade.

 

 

 

 

I can add more deliberate face closure through the hands but it seems that then my hands start lagging behind again:

 

 

 

 

This is the fastest I can get my hands down on a short arc whilst adding some face closure:

 

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Luckydutch

[Righty to Lefty]

On 3/17/2023 at 5:05 PM, Luckydutch said:

 

 

Thanks! Which tip in particular do you see? I do play the ball very forward (off the front foot) but I've never deliberately closed the face at address. I setup square. I've tended to setup my feet square too though which it seems like he is saying I should aim slightly right?

What you are missing is that you not understanding where you intend to make contact with the ball along your swing arc is the EXACT reason why you have all the quirks in your swing that others are pointing out and making it sound as if you just fix that you will play your best golf when the fact is the root issue will still persist.  You should NEVER use internal cues such as moving your elbow like this or than, your knees, or fire this or that body part because they are unreliable because the body is always changing from day to day.  Feel the club and feel for the club head as it moves around you and just as you make a practice swing, make your real swing, and understand that a golf ball will be struck along your arc as you make your swing motion and do not try to predict it or you will tense up and early extend, etc.  Don't predict impact, notice it, then observe the shot in relation to your intentions and make refinements to your location in relation to the ball and retest.  This is golf. Your swing motion is fine, you just need to understand impact and get into a better position in relation to the ball first and then watch all of your swing "faults" smooth themselves out in time.  You didn't early extend in your videos that you posted without the ball present, so why do you do it when the ball is present, it is because you are trying to "hit" the ball instead of allowing your swing motion to strike it because of where you are positioned in relation to the ball and knowing that your swing arc intersects the ball.  The ball doesn't stand a chance and it will be hit and launched in the air and once you are in position to the ball it can actually be ignored and you should be feeling for how much speed is needed to hit the ball a given distance.  

 

This is my Son after I worked with him for two weeks after he showed interest in taking up the game. I have never once mentioned to him about grip, stance, posture because first of all it means nothing to him because he is a rank beginner and wouldn't understand it's purpose anyway and that is not what is important.  I told him that our goal is to get the ball to pop up in the air and to do that he need to open the face and brush the ground behind the ball to use the bounce. That's it, then we worked him around the ball, until he got into the location in relation to the ball for him where that shots resides. Once we found that location he then tried to repeat it. At first he was tense and would skull balls off the green, but once he found the spot where the shot resided his body calmed and he let the shot happen and this was the result: 

 

 

At first I let him do it his way to see if he would figure it out, and that is important because the athlete will set up to where they are comfortable, but if where they are comfortable doesn't produce the desired shot that means that it resides in a location that will be uncomfortable and that must be accepted.  He knows that where he is in relation to the ball is orders of magnitude more important than being comfortable or his swing.  This is how the game should be approached in my opinion where you hit a shot with a plan, and then adjust or repeat depending on the resulting ball flight.  The beauty is that my Son doesn't compromise his swing motion, so it is easy for me to move him around the ball until we find what we are looking for and then he instinctively goes right back to the location to try and repeat the shot, but if he kept changing his swing motion, he would keep changing where he must be in relation to the ball, so coaching him would be impossible. This is how fast I sort out an undesirable result with him. We were looking for a straight flying shot with his fairway wood but the first one he hit had a slight fade on it, so I helped him adjust his position and since he didn't compromise his swing motion the very next shot flew dead straight and right on his expected target line and you can tell by the look on his face after he hit the second ball: 

 

 

[Valtiel]

12 hours ago, Luckydutch said:

 

 

I've continued to practice everything in this thread and I feel I am making some progress against some of points about the movements etc...

 

 

All the same problems are present here to almost exactly the same degree as before. Very little has functionally changed and you're going to need to develop the ability to see that in these videos because i'm going to show you the exact same thing as before:




This is exactly as much as you should *ever* be shifting back into your trail side, same as before. This is fine.



This is not. You continue shifting backwards more after P2, you've already gone much too far by this point and your left side is still collapsing inwards. If you started aggressively recentering after this point you could save it...



....but you don't. At best you've stopped the rearward shift which is good, but you're functionally too deep into your trail side at this point and any application of speed is going to come with an aggressive compensation for being stuck.



The start of that compensation is here where you are doing the aggressive re-centering that *should* have started much earlier. Again though, if it stopped here and you didn't slide any further but instead started pushing your left hip back you *could* make this work. It would be less than ideal, but you wouldn't get as badly out of sequence.



But the very next thing you do is rocket your hips a mile to your left and ruin any chance you have at keeping your arms in front of you. You could reduce this by 50% and it would still be too much. You're trapped in extremes and are only making tiny moves within those extremes, and this has basically existed for the last 2 years of you posting swings in the same ways. You shift too much going back and you overcompensate and shift WAY too much going forward.

You're likely going to have to feel almost Stack & Tilt-ish to get out of those extremes and i'd be really curious to see what sort of swings you make if prompted to make virtually no shift into your trail side in the backswing, because I'd bet that it would actually get you closer to where you need to be.

EDIT:

You also said "Here's the problem though, without a ball down, I am delivering the face wildly open."



You're doing an exaggerated "hold of/don't release the club" drill while wondering why the face is open? Why are you doing this and what do you think it is accomplishing if NOT exactly that? If anything you should be doing the opposite and practicing things that speed up your hands and your release, not slow them down. This was talked about in a previous thread; virtually ALL of these exaggerated drills you see pros doing (and irresponsible YouTube teachers) are designed to create a feel for someone with already deeply ingrained mechanics. Alex Noren does this drill because he is a fader of the ball that struggles with a left miss and wants to create a hold off feel. There is nothing about this drill that is relevant to anything you're trying to accomplish right now and it is actively harming you. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Valtiel