22 Handicap - Anything will probably help

[Atx_golfer]

I’m pretty lost at the moment. I have been struggling quite a bit in the last few months with my swing while actively trying to improve. Consistent misses include hitting behind the ball, high pull hooks, hosel rockets, and the occasional push. I’m all over the place. Do I have some kind of hit impulse? Foot powder spray tells me I miss on both the toe and heel at times. I have been trying to work on EE and my takeaway (which tends to rollover) but cannot put it all together. It’s frustrating as my short game and putting have been pretty good according to the app I use to track my scores, but during a round I lose so many strokes off the tee and with fat iron shots - it’s defeating. Feels like in the past 2 months at the range I’ll hit about 10/80 balls remotely well. I’ve gotten lessons in the past but I’m having trouble recently finding a good instructor in my area right now. I can post face on view if needed

 

[Valtiel]

That's a far better looking swing than your problems implied, heh. I would start here:



You have quite a large (and common) setup problem in that your feet are much more closed than your hips which are more closed than your shoulders, leading to a huge separation in alignment between said feet and shoulders.



The second frame of this gif here shows a more "neutral" alignment which is where you want to be at address. You can check this yourself on video by placing an alignment stick on your foot line then set up to the ball normally and place the club along your shoulders. Check on video (make sure the camera is neutrally placed behind you, this angle is a little too far left) how far apart they are and go back to the ball and start turning your shoulders to where you think they align with the alignment stick on the ground. Repeat until you comfortable with where neutral actually is then get used to that and see if there is a difference. In the mean time it would also be good to get a face on video.

[Atx_golfer]

31 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

That's a far better looking swing than your problems implied, heh. I would start here:



You have quite a large (and common) setup problem in that your feet are much more closed than your hips which are more closed than your shoulders, leading to a huge separation in alignment between said feet and shoulders.



The second frame of this gif here shows a more "neutral" alignment which is where you want to be at address. You can check this yourself on video by placing an alignment stick on your foot line then set up to the ball normally and place the club along your shoulders. Check on video (make sure the camera is neutrally placed behind you, this angle is a little too far left) how far apart they are and go back to the ball and start turning your shoulders to where you think they align with the alignment stick on the ground. Repeat until you comfortable with where neutral actually is then get used to that and see if there is a difference. In the mean time it would also be good to get a face on video.

Sorry in advance, here are some other videos from the range. I didn’t realize I failed to get the ball in the frame of the face on video. Maybe next time. Other video is from a more neutral rear view, although much more of an honest ball flight. 

[slytown]

18 hours ago, Atx_golfer said:

Sorry in advance, here are some other videos from the range. I didn’t realize I failed to get the ball in the frame of the face on video. Maybe next time. Other video is from a more neutral rear view, although much more of an honest ball flight. 

 

Really nice backswing and I think you have good transition feels, its just that you slide to get to your lead side. Work on putting pressure onto your lead side instead. It should be a conscious movement with your back to the target of moving your left shoulder towards your trail foot.

 

You basically slide and then the arms lag behind, forcing quick hands near the bottom of the swing. Its a problem I have worked on myself. 

[glk]

DTL video has camera setup to far to the left - camera always needs to be focused on the hands at belt level whether face on or down the line - otherwise you have distortions.   Face on is good.    Always have an alignment stick or club placed on the ground in front of your toes  - setup to the alignment stick .

 

 

Second, you are spinning - you spin back and spin forward - your butt is actually moving closer to the target in the backswing and when you spin in the downswing since the every spins at the same time your hips lead the arms by a lot and in order to get the club to the ball you need to slide.

 

the swing starts with a slight shift then push with the trail leg.  the pivot is a shift, turn-shift, turn not just a turn,turn.     

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAYGhArFN1O/

 

Nelly is a great example of the shurn rhythm and can really see from the behind view - shift,turn, then as the backswing finishing shift so that from the top you can rotate as hard as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since you struggle with hitting full shots you need to start working on partial swings - as short as shaft parallel and as long as lead arm parallel - if you can't hit the ball well with just going back to shaft parallel you have no chance with a longer swing.    Below are examples of the range of swings.    You also need to set your wrists better - wrist set the club more vertical - you have letting the club get horizontal on you too early - included a video that is a classic drill to fix a lot of issues and not just wrist set.

 

so that's a ton of stuff to digest.    start small and slow and get good at hitting those partial swings while learning to shift and push not spin.

 

Good luck

[glk]

forgot to post the swing lengths.  also shows the flattening of the shaft

[Valtiel]

@Atx_golfer No worries, the face on video shows where a lot of the strike quality issues are coming from which as @glk mentioned above is your arms being out of sync and lagging behind:



Your shift into your front side as the backswing completes is both late and disconnected which causes multiple issues. You get to the top then start trying to rip your front side open by itself with minimal movement from your trail side. The proper sequence is shift -> rotate and you're skipping straight to rotate, which means now you're going to have to hurry and shift at the same time in the downswing. That "hurry up" causes your arms to cast out wide and gets them left behind:



From there your lower body outraces your arms and you get stuck in the "6-8 Ballerina" position where your are trailing far enough behind so as to force an element of flipping/saving to get the club to the ball, which leads to all sorts of face control and contact issues, as you mentioned.