Tilt just enough to...

[FormerBigDaddy]

Not roll the club inside in the takeaway?

 

This is thought I've been coming back to lately.  When I first started playing I turned flat and sucked the club inside right away and the next thing that usually happens if you do that is you roll your wrists and fan it open.  From there we know what goes wrong... I still fight this at times b/c it just feels natural to me.  To address this, I've started to overdo tilt and i get the club pretty closed and outside my hands.  Sounds good but I end up with too much tilt and not enough turn and from there I tend to sort of dip and drop kick it a bit on the downswing.

 

I've been trying to find the happy medium for awhile now.  One thought that seems to work ok is feeling like I only tilt enough so that the club doesn't FEEL like it wants to roll over early, but not so much that I'm only tilting and not turning.  From there things seem to take care of itself to the top.  Just wondering if this is something anyone has felt or used as a swing thought.

[Milk Diesel]

The only way I've been able to fix my inside/flat takeaway was to feel like I was turning a steering wheel LEFT to keep my right elbow from getting sucked in. Helped keep my left arm connected. NOTHING else worked and I think its a great starting place for some. 

[FormerBigDaddy]

7 minutes ago, Milk Diesel said:

The only way I've been able to fix my inside/flat takeaway was to feel like I was turning a steering wheel LEFT to keep my right elbow from getting sucked in. Helped keep my left arm connected. NOTHING else worked and I think its a great starting place for some. 

Yeah I've addressed it differently.  If I continue to turn too flat, any kind of steering wheel move with my hand/arms is just a bandaid... at least for me.  Learning that tilting in the takeaway (left shoulder more down) has a direct effect (for me) on whether the club WANTS to roll over or not was sort of an epiphany.  However I took this to the extreme and ended up with way too much tilt and that comes with it's own set of issues.  So now I'm trying to back off the tilt just enough to feel like the clubface wants to stay just outside my hands simply b/c of gravity but not so much that I lack turn.  If I start to turn too flat again I can immediately feel my hands wanting to turn over early b/c of the momentum of the club working that direction.

[hammersia]

I don't think you can tilt too much.

 

I thought this was a good one from Crossfield this week, if you tilt from a standing position (no turn) you can't go any further without falling over:

 

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

25 minutes ago, hammersia said:

I don't think you can tilt too much.

 

I thought this was a good one from Crossfield this week, if you tilt from a standing position (no turn) you can't go any further without falling over:

 

 

 

IMHO that's one of the best videos I've ever seen on the topic of turn vs tilt, and how you don't "stay in posture" but replace forward bend with tilt, especially with the drills which I think will really help some players get the right feels. 

 

I will say that I've found that the better players I've seen mostly do this well to begin with. It's more the mid-high handicap players I *usually* play with that seem to not understand it lol...

[FormerBigDaddy]

I guess my problem is not that I tilt too much it's that I lack turn.  From what I gather you still have to do both.  Tilt and turn.  I tend to tilt more than I turn lately and the idea of the first post was to help blend the 2 better.

Edited March 23, 2023 by FormerBigDaddy

[hammersia]

49 minutes ago, FormerBigDaddy said:

I guess my problem is not that I tilt too much it's that I lack turn.  From what I gather you still have to do both.  Tilt and turn.  I tend to tilt more than I turn lately and the idea of the first post was to help blend the 2 better.

As I say I would work through the Crossfield drills above ^^^^ and you can't fail to hit a correctly turned and tilted backswing position. 

[FormerBigDaddy]

47 minutes ago, hammersia said:

As I say I would work through the Crossfield drills above ^^^^ and you can't fail to hit a correctly turned and tilted backswing position. 

Yeah that's a good video.  Seen many like it and I get it.  Just a matter of blending the correct movements.  Easier said than done.

[Scottbox]

I work on this all the time. 2 good drills:

 

1. standing up straight, turn your chest towards an imaginary (or real, lol) person about 30 yards behind your trail side. Then bend into your golf posture. Boom-- tilt and turn. Then omit the standing up straight part and just turn towards said "person". Same deal. This is the feel of your chest going behind you and up. You'll feel "taller" at the top because you've spiraled up more. 

 

2. Do trail-hand only swings w/o a club where your trail shoulder turns behind you. You'll find you have to use your trail scapula to "pull" the shoulder, and your arms will stay in front of you. Personally, I find this more useful than the idea of turning my lead shoulder under my chin.

 

In both cases, you want your chest or back muscles to "throw" your hands up to the top. This will keep you from sucking the club in by letting your trail elbow get pulled behind you (which is the side-effect of a flat shoulder turn). You'll feel like your arms are very high and in front of you-- which is true, but you'll also gain depth. You'll also have way more room for your hands to "drop" back down in front of you. And you'll be more centered at the top and more incentivized to rotate a bit more on the way down, because you've already re-centered a bit.

 

The slight pitfall to these drills is that you can over-tilt" and reverse pivot a bit, so just make sure your upper body isn't too cantilevered over your lead foot at the top.

[me05501]

I'm constantly curious about the difference between trying to make something happen versus just letting it happen.

 

Whenever I come across a swing tip I try to apply that filter: is this something we should intend to do, or is a simply a byproduct of having done other things correctly? 

 

When it comes to side bends I've come to think they fall under the latter category. 

 

I could definitely be wrong. But it seems like focusing on side bends is likely to screw with the amount and timing of a player's weight transfer.  

[Albatross Dreamer]

I too come back flatter then I'd like. I've heard it's a problem for many RH hitters that are also RH dominant, as the right hand tends to want to take over which leads to coming inside. One cue I came across recently and it seems to help with my practice swings so far is pushing back with the left hand at takeaway. I like it because it's both simple and feels pretty natural vs having to fight some other impulse. Hopefully I can get out and hit some balls on the course with it soon, but might be worth a try at least.

[Chunkitgood]

There some guys on the internet say the pros are at 41 degree shoulder plane going back, 55 degree arms parallel after strike.

 

The point being, most people need a lot more side bend than they have.  A lot more.

 

 

[Nard_S]

15 hours ago, Chunkitgood said:

There some guys on the internet say the pros are at 41 degree shoulder plane going back, 55 degree arms parallel after strike.

I've seen that video & found this valuable and takes a lot of mystery out of tilts & bends. Aim shoulders about 3 feet outside ball, half as much on way down. 

 

To OP's issues, I like idea of keeping right elbow higher than left for longer on back swing. Hard to suck club in too early that way.