Correct swing analysis?

[wgolf10]

I am trying to diagnose my own swing faults, so I am looking for confirmation on whether I am seeing the right things.

 

I’ve always had trouble with coming over the top and hitting a wicked slice. As a result, I believe I’ve the developed the following three swing traits in an effort to shallow my club path: 

 

1. Sliding the hip forward excessively and for too long in the downswing (for example, my lead hip doesn’t stop sliding forward until my arms are at 7:30 o’clock, when it should be rotating back by then instead)
2. Dropping my right shoulder excessively
3. Early extending

 

I realize that these three issues are interconnected. It seems that if I drop my right shoulder hard, then my hips have to slide forward and vice versa. And while I think I EE as way to shallow, it’s probably also the only way I can hit the ball with my current swing faults (i.e. cause vs symptom). These these three things culminate in me having to flip at ball and very inconsistent striking. Does this seem like the right diagnosis of my swing? I am basing most of my logic off of AMG and Monte S videos, but I of course may have misinterpreted them.

 

Furthermore, I wonder what changes I need to make to the rest of my swing for me to shallow out my path, if I do successfully address these aspects of my swing that’ve helped me shallow previously. It seems that I would need to make these swing changes in tandem. 

 

Any feedback at all would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Valtiel]

You're not wrong about the points mentioned, but you're missing the cause of them:



There are several things here that are just WAY too much:

1) Everything upper body here. You've torqued your shoulders WAY past 90*, you're nearly 140*, your hands are extremely high, and the club is all the way to parallel. Everything here needs to decrease noticeably.

1) The amount you've loaded to the right. Your left side/knee has collapsed so far towards your right and you've rolled so far on to the outside of your right foot that all you CAN do is desperately slide towards the target in hopes of getting in front of the ball. You then can't properly use your lead side as mentioned because you never fully get there:



Your hands and arms are severely trailing your lower body and your right side is now collapsed into your left while your left foot is still rolled away from the target. You're stuck WAY behind the ball in terms of pivot/sequencing here and you can't use your left side because you haven't gotten into it yet. Where you are right now in terms of weight distribution between left/right foot is closer to where pros are *in transition* before the downswing has even started.



This is the visual you want to have in your head from a weight shift standpoint, and to accomplish this you need to reduce the amount you load to the right significantly and feel like that total stops after P2 and start drifting back to center before the downswing starts.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Valtiel

[slytown]

You are right about those things, but it comes from a seemingly 2 fundamental misconceptions about the swing. You try to kill it and you are attempting to swing along the target line. First, think of power as coming from the downswing. Then u wont have such a windup in the backswing. Second, the golf swing is rotational. I would have you work on a flatter backswing to get that swing that goes around your body. Start by trying to work those two concepts into your swing.

 

I think drastic changes are necessary for you to make better power and contact, but dont be afraid to change. Its just golf.

Edited August 21, 2023 by slytown

[wgolf10]

Thank you very much for the detailed replies @Valtiel and @slytown. It is much appreciated. Earlier this summer I worked on shortening my backswing but got away from it recently. What do you think of the backswing in this clip?

 

Additionally, do you have any advice on how to go about making these changes? Is there a best order for changing these things or are there any drills you recommend?

[slytown]

I think you simply need to take out the body movements. These two drills will help with that. 

 

The feet together drill well get your arms more active and force you to be more balanced.

 

 

 

The 9to3 drill will give you a feeling for the rotation of the swing at the bottom of the arc and also give you more balance.

 

 

Bottomline, you need to be more balanced instead of having your knees touch in the backswing and downswing.

[ShawLF]

On 8/21/2023 at 4:51 AM, Valtiel said:

you've rolled so far on to the outside of your right foot

@wgolf10 Valtiel is spot on with the initial points made. Specifically what's happening with your right side and rolling your right foot - it actually starts way earlier than that. Before that happens your right knee twists away from the target,  and the ultimate cause of this is that you are not internally rotating (IR) into your trail hip - you're actually keeping it static to your pelvis or maybe externally rotating it. You need to learn what it means and how it feels to IR your trail hip in the backswing, and your lead hip in the follow through, and you need to learn how to do this with hip hinge - not just bent over, but proper hip hinge like you're doing a dead lift or squat. I could spend a week going over this, but the bottom line is that this is is where the power transfer from the glutes originates and is a massive power source that you're not accessing, and by not doing this you're not centered or balanced in the swing.

 

First, I do 90 90 stretches positions on the ground like the first video - note the trail hip is the one in IR, the front is in ER. Then you can take a look at the second golf specific video.  I suggest doing it in this order because it is a lot easier to feel IR when you're on the ground in that position.

 

**Edit** I actually hadn't watched these videos fully before posting. The Top Speed one is actually really good and you could probably bypass the first one

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by ShawLF
added more info

[wgolf10]

@ShawLF Wow, that is an eye opener. So I am moving my right thigh and knee along with my pelvis in the backswing so that I don’t actually rotate the hip joint itself. Correct? Would a good feel to counteract this be to keep the right knee cap pointing straight forward?

 

Playing around with this a little, I can already feel the pressure go to the inside of my right foot instead of the outside. 

Thank you for the comment

[ShawLF]

 

10 minutes ago, wgolf10 said:

So I am moving my right thigh and knee along with my pelvis in the backswing so that I don’t actually rotate the hip joint itself.

@wgolf10 yeah. The feel I have is that I'm crushing my femur ball / hip flexor muscle into my pelvis, while maintaining hip hinge. When you do this you'll see a crease in your shorts/pants along the right side of your groin. You may try to feel like you could crush and hold a tennis ball in that crease - you won't be able to, but that's the feeling. At the same time, you should be doing the opposite with your lead hip - it will go into external rotation (ER). Those 90 90 sitting stretches are simultaneously putting one hip in IR and the other in ER. When you do this, you can loan into your right leg as you're describing, and you won't be able to collapse your lead knee inward - it will be impossible to do it as much as you are. that's the way to solve your lower body stuff.

 

My thought is that your upper body will respond to those changes so I'd leave that alone at the beginning.