Golf Swing with Gap Wedge: Critiques Please

[Bow Hunter]

Here is a clip of my swing with a gap wedge. I’ve played since I was a boy with formal instruction. I shoot in the 70s but I can get hooks and blocks if I’m out of synch. 
 

Can I get feedback? I’m 43 with 5 kids so don’t plan on making big changes. My goal is to hit more greens to score better. 
 

 

 

[Valtiel]

It's mostly the same issues that I just posted in this thread, although in your case i'm seeing a quick upper body/arm tempo (nothing wrong with that) but a lower body that is lagging way behind in terms of weight shift compounded by having way too much of that shift happening.



That there is about as much shift into your trail side as you should be making with a scoring club, ESPECIALLY if you have a quick tempo. The problem is....



...your right foot tells us here that you're continue to shift back, rolling WAY onto the outside of your foot. This is unstable for one, and for two it's something you have very little time to restabilize, again especially if you have a quick tempo. A very long pause at the top and a re-centering move to get off that rear foot would be necessary to make this work, and even then that would be a bandaid. Bottom line, you'll need to feel like you almost completely stop adding weight to your back foot after P2 (club parallel to the ground) and start feeling like you're 50/50 by the time you're at the top. Explained more here.

 

A symptom of this problem you can keep an eye out for is this:



Your right foot dragging out diagonally towards the ball like this is almost always a sign that you never got off your right side properly.

[Bow Hunter]

Thank you @Valtiel   
 

Feeling more “centered” over the ball throughout the swing is something I’ve used before in the past with good results. I will try that. 
 

One of my all time favorite swing thoughts is allowing the left leg to “lengthen” or straighten out a bit on the downswing. This gets my hips rotating around and back which allows my arms to get in front of and past my body for a good strike. 
 

I do struggle with lateral movement of my lower body at times. 

[North Butte]

It's not easy (or necessarily affordable) to find an in-person swing coach who uses a pressure mat to diagnose and help you with weight-transfer issues. But my teaching pro did that we me several years ago and in just 30-45 minutes we were able to get me feeling what a properly balanced and sequenced weight distribution felt like. We worked on it from full-swing wedges like your video, all the way down to little 20-30 yard SW pitch shots. 

 

Honestly, for me at least, no amount of words or demonstration could give me the feedback that one pressure mat session did. I'm not usually a True Believer in particular instructional memes or swing-training gadgets but the pressure mat is an exception. Pretty amazing tool. 

 

It's been 3-4 years now and when I'm struggling (as I often do) with my own combination of super quick tempo hanging on that back foot (along with a tendency to rock forward onto my toes) I can find a nice firm, level patch of ground and make some slow-motion swings. I'll recapture that sense memory of the way I feel the weight shift in my feet. 

[Valtiel]

15 hours ago, Bow Hunter said:

Thank you @Valtiel   
 

Feeling more “centered” over the ball throughout the swing is something I’ve used before in the past with good results. I will try that. 
 

One of my all time favorite swing thoughts is allowing the left leg to “lengthen” or straighten out a bit on the downswing. This gets my hips rotating around and back which allows my arms to get in front of and past my body for a good strike. 
 

I do struggle with lateral movement of my lower body at times. 

I'm glad that resonated and that you'd felt this concept before, definitely something to pursue. This is my favorite gif for this idea:



P2 = primary shift into the trail side
P3 = combo of loading into the trail leg while the right hip/tailbone makes its first move back *towards* the target. 
P4 = beginning of lateral shifting into the front side

All of the above is subject to minor variations from person to person, but the overall foundation is basically the same in any good golf swing. The feeling that you have of lengthening/straightening the left leg in the downswing is what is enabled by this proper sequence, because you need weight on that leg to straighten it/push it back. If you weren't consciously thinking about that then chances are your feeling of wanting to accomplish that action led you to intuitively/unconsciously improve your sequence, either by getting into your front side earlier or loading into your trail side less. Either way the goal is the same, and to facilitate that you want to be consciously aware of the mechanisms at play so you don't drift away from it and end up where you are now, which is what can happen when a feel/idea isn't linked with a conscious knowledge of how to get there. 

I made a post just now with some thoughts about lead leg usage, might be relevant.