Trail arm bent through impact.

[MannJ]

I have been working on my ee and spine angle at impact. For the most part I think I have made a lot of progress, however right at impact my shoulders stall a bit and my trail arm extends, either as I hit the ball or immediately after.  I can’t tell the difference. 
I see pics what I think is the ideal impact position and the trail arm is undoubtedly bent through and immediately after impact. 
 

I am wondering if anyone can suggest if this is an ideal position, and why?

Also, what are common swing faults that might cause the early straightening of the trail arm?

[MannJ]

Ideal-ish?

Edited January 20 by MannJ

[MannJ]

Me straightening trail arm

 

 

[Kuuuch]

More bent when your right shoulder is closer to the ball. “Staying in posture” as I think of it could be worse for some folks I.e. if you’re steep coming down. There’s a reason why it’s straight at impact 

[b.mattay]

Also, anthropometry matters here a lot too. If you have arms like a chimp, it is much easier to have more bent trail arm @ impact. If you have arms like a T-Rex, it is much more difficult. 

 

I'm kind of being a PITA here because I hate making changes based on visual appearance alone. 

[MannJ]

1 minute ago, b.mattay said:

Also, anthropometry matters here a lot too. If you have arms like a chimp, it is much easier to have more bent trail arm @ impact. If you have arms like a T-Rex, it is much more difficult. 

 

I'm kind of being a PITA here because I hate making changes based on visual appearance alone. 

Thanks. 
My arms are an inch or 2 longer than height. I can’t remember exactly how much. Longer forearms. 

[Sp4zRX]

I would maybe move your hitting area back a little further from the net. It looks like you might have a little chicken wing on release due to the confined space. I only say this because I know I have trained bad habits swinging in confined spaces. I could be wrong on this because it’s hard to really tell the distance and see the swing pattern after impact from that angle.

[Golfbeat]

Hard to see on the video but often a right arm which straightens to early is because of an open club face. Try using the reverse motor cycle with your left hand all the way through impact.

[Brooks_Cupcake]

Micah hits it pretty solid from this position.

[MannJ]

31 minutes ago, Golfbeat said:

Hard to see on the video but often a right arm which straightens to early is because of an open club face. Try using the reverse motor cycle with your left hand all the way through impact.

Reverse motor cycle?

[Golfbeat]

21 minutes ago, MannJ said:

Reverse motor cycle?

 

I call it reverse because on a motorcycle you would actually lower the speed with this movement.

 

 

 

Edited January 20 by Golfbeat

[CSagan]

boom bent

 

You'd probably do better trying to straighten your elbow to get it bent than trying to keep it bent haha. Golf is dumb like that. Hogan said just do the opposite of what you think you're supposed to do and you'd probably end up with a pretty good swing.

[Valtiel]

@b.mattay Makes a good point about arm length and the risk in "chasing aesthetics". The goal here shouldn't be to chase a bent right arm, but to eliminate the things that are requiring you to straighten it to make contact, because currently a bent right arm = you're not hitting the ball:



I'm using Brandon Stone as a comparison here since you mentioned him, but it's not the *best* since this is a driver swing. It will still work for illustrative purposes though.

The main thing to note is what is going on with your right leg/knee here as it's the common "right side coming towards the ball" rotational problem caused by sequencing issues that forces certain things, in this case note the position of your right shoulder and how its slightly further from the ball. When your right side kicks up and forward like this, generally you're forced lose spine angle, and when you lose spine angle your upper body pulls back away from the ball a bit. Now it's just a simple problem of "if shoulders are further away from the ball, arms need to extend to hit it". 

Judging by your restricted and manufactured looking follow through position you're trying really hard to "stay down" in a way, but your rotation is preventing you from doing this correctly. Remember one of the golden rules here; if you're forced to do something that is technically "incorrect", it's almost always because its a compensation necessary to hit the ball and chasing "correct" while not understanding the underlying thing is a recipe for trouble. A face on view would be needed to illustrate this further, but generally you're lacking the separation between the upper and lower body in transition caused by not attempting to shift into your front side until the downswing starts, which means weight stays on your trail side for too long and causes it to come forward.

Side note, Brandon here does also have a version of early extension that some other pros have, but critically it is *not* caused by improper sequencing or rotation, but by a slight shift towards the ball in the backswing, so disregard his actual position here as the sequencing  is what is important.

Edited January 21 by Valtiel

[MPStrat]

Bottom line IMO: You are swinging left too hard with the hands. 
 

If I had to hit a 50 yard pull slice, my arm movements would resemble what you do in this swing. My backswing would probably look similarly, and I would pull the arms down and tip the clubhead out past my hands early.  I wouldn’t consciously be doing those things, my intent to slice the ball would produce those looks. 
 

Trying to stay down through it actually hurts you more than it helps. If your arm movements don’t change, you will play much better golf with early extension. 
 

You have to get your swing direction more to the right so that your body can provide the around. This will involve learning to swing out to the right, while supinating the lead forearm. You’ll have to learn to turn the lead wrist down and hit huge sling hooks first, and then you’ll be able to do all of the things you want to do with the body. Those body movements will bring the swing direction closer to neutral. I wouldn’t make this into a big mechanical project. Swing more right, then fine tune. As long as you are swinging left so hard, you can’t really do much with this. 
 

 

Edited January 21 by MPStrat

[virtuoso]

I would add that you want to look at the shaft position from p5.5 to p6.5 and relate that how closed the shoulders are in that phase. You are axe chopping wood in that phase as the shaft is coming back at your pivot, rather than trying to escape your pivot. This accounts for why your finish has taken on that flavor. Unraveling that problem is the key to your improvement.

 

The right arm bent thing shouldn’t even be bothered with until you better synchronize your pivot and arm swing from p4 to p6. 

[virtuoso]

Me and Strat were synchronized there.

[MannJ]

30 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

@b.mattay Makes a good point about arm length and the risk in "chasing aesthetics". The goal here shouldn't be to chase a bent right arm, but to eliminate the things that are requiring you to straighten it to make contact, because currently a bent right arm = you're not hitting the ball:



I'm using Brandon Stone as a comparison here since you mentioned him, but it's not the *best* since this is a driver swing. It will still work for illustrative purposes though.

The main thing to note is what is going on with your right leg/knee here as it's the common "right side coming towards the ball" rotational problem caused by sequencing issues that forces certain things, in this case note the position of your right shoulder and how its slightly further from the ball. When your right side kicks up and forward like this, generally you're forced lose spine angle, and when you lose spine angle your upper body pulls back away from the ball a bit. Now it's just a simple problem of "if shoulders are further away from the ball, arms need to extend to hit it". Brandon's right side comes towards the ball

Judging by your restricted and manufactured looking follow through position you're trying really hard to "stay down" in a way, but your rotation is preventing you from doing this correctly. Remember one of the golden rules here; if you're forced to do something that is technically "incorrect", it's almost always because its a compensation necessary to hit the ball and chasing "correct" while not understanding the underlying thing is a recipe for trouble. A face on view would be needed to illustrate this further, but generally you're lacking the separation between the upper and lower body in transition caused by not attempting to shift into your front side until the downswing starts, which means weight stays on your trail side for too long and causes it to come forward.

Side note, Brandon here does also have a version of early extension that some other pros have, but critically it is *not* caused by improper sequencing or rotation, but by a slight shift towards the ball in the backswing, so disregard his actual position here as the sequencing  is what is important.

This is really thoughtful. Thank you. I had wondered if the right knee kicking up was problematic or not. I had heard different things on it. I was noticing that I had too much weight on my trail side. The graphics showing my trail shoulder movement was really eye opening. Again thank you. 
I will attempt to begin to get the weight shifted earlier in transition and hopefully created the separation you mentioned. 
 

Is this hip vs shoulder separation or more leg vs upper body?

I have played around with trying to generate hip separation in the past and it gets pretty dicey for me. Feels out of control a bit. 

[MonteScheinblum]

There’s other stuff that happens sooner, as has been mentioned, but a an issue not allowing you to swing better than you do is the forced keeping the head down.

[MannJ]

8 minutes ago, MPStrat said:

Bottom line IMO: You are swinging left too hard with the hands. 
 

If I had to hit a 50 yard pull slice, my arm movements would resemble what you do in this swing. My backswing would probably look similarly, and I would pull the arms down and tip the clubhead out past my hands early.  I wouldn’t consciously be doing those things, my intent to slice the ball would produce those looks. 
 

Trying to stay down through it actually hurts you more than it helps. If your arm movements don’t change, you will play much better golf with early extension. 
 

You have to get your swing direction more to the right so that your body can provide the around. This will involve learning to swing out to the right, while supinating the lead forearm. You’ll have to learn to turn the lead wrist down and hit huge sling hooks first, and then you’ll be able to do all of the things you want to do with the body. Those body movements will bring the swing direction closer to neutral. I wouldn’t make this into a big mechanical project. Swing more right, then fine tune. As long as you are swinging left so hard, you can’t really do much with this. 
 

 

Thanks. I understand why you’re pointing this out because I am coming in steep and it seems outside in. 
I can “drop the club into the slot” and historically have hit the big hooks you mentioned, with the ee you mentioned. It’s really inconsistent for me. I know I need to work on shallowing the club some, and I can when attempting to, but it brings my shoulders up more. I was hoping to focus on keeping right side down, then once I got that look at where I am coming into the ball from. 
I could have it all backwards of course. But, I never hit a slice. It’s a hook or block, swinging like this or ee-ing like the old normal 

[MPStrat]

1 minute ago, MannJ said:

Thanks. I understand why you’re pointing this out because I am coming in steep and it seems outside in. 
I can “drop the club into the slot” and historically have hit the big hooks you mentioned, with the ee you mentioned. It’s really inconsistent for me. I know I need to work on shallowing the club some, and I can when attempting to, but it brings my shoulders up more. I was hoping to focus on keeping right side down, then once I got that look at where I am coming into the ball from. 
I could have it all backwards of course. But, I never hit a slice. It’s a hook or block, swinging like this or ee-ing like the old normal 

Yes the EE is your saving grace. Like you said, you do things backwards. Steep arms, shallow body. If this is your normal arm and wrist movement, you need a huge change. If it’s not, post your golf course swing. We can only assess what is posted. 

 

[MannJ]

17 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

I would add that you want to look at the shaft position from p5.5 to p6.5 and relate that how closed the shoulders are in that phase. You are axe chopping wood in that phase as the shaft is coming back at your pivot, rather than trying to escape your pivot. This accounts for why your finish has taken on that flavor. Unraveling that problem is the key to your improvement.

 

The right arm bent thing shouldn’t even be bothered with until you better synchronize your pivot and arm swing from p4 to p6. 

So I need more separation, but my shoulders are too closed at that point. 
 

My arms are coming out away from the body?

 

So I get the weight shifted to create the separation, drop the arms and shallow the club down instead of out, and that will give my shoulders time to open? And this will keep my upper body down and through, not pulling away from the ball?

 

and don’t force myself to stay down because that is jacking things up also. 
 

yikes

[virtuoso]

1 minute ago, MannJ said:

So I need more separation, but my shoulders are too closed at that point. 
 

My arms are coming out away from the body?

 

So I get the weight shifted to create the separation, drop the arms and shallow the club down instead of out, and that will give my shoulders time to open? And this will keep my upper body down and through, not pulling away from the ball?

 

and don’t force myself to stay down because that is jacking things up also. 
 

yikes

Let me simplify things a bit. You should feel like you are trying to make a side arm throw with your trail arm as opposed to looking like you are trying to throw a ball at your left shoe.

[MannJ]

1 minute ago, MPStrat said:

Yes the EE is your saving grace. Like you said, you do things backwards. Steep arms, shallow body. If this is your normal arm and wrist movement, you need a huge change. If it’s not, post your golf course swing. We can only assess what is posted. 

 

At this point I don’t have that swing anymore. I am about 3 months into this ee rabbit hole so it’s all pretty Frankenstein right now. 
That being said I appreciate yours and everyone’s input very much. It will help me moving forward I think. If nothing else I am this much closer to realizing I am in over my head and I might get pro help. Maybe. 

[MPStrat]

1 minute ago, MannJ said:

At this point I don’t have that swing anymore. I am about 3 months into this ee rabbit hole so it’s all pretty Frankenstein right now. 
That being said I appreciate yours and everyone’s input very much. It will help me moving forward I think. If nothing else I am this much closer to realizing I am in over my head and I might get pro help. Maybe. 

Not a problem man. It does sound like you have a bunch of internet swing information in your head, but you have a fairly simple and very common problem that will be a hurdle you need to jump over before you can work on getting rid of the early extension. 

[Valtiel]

30 minutes ago, MannJ said:

This is really thoughtful. Thank you. I had wondered if the right knee kicking up was problematic or not. I had heard different things on it. I was noticing that I had too much weight on my trail side. The graphics showing my trail shoulder movement was really eye opening. Again thank you. 
I will attempt to begin to get the weight shifted earlier in transition and hopefully created the separation you mentioned. 
 

Is this hip vs shoulder separation or more leg vs upper body?

I have played around with trying to generate hip separation in the past and it gets pretty dicey for me. Feels out of control a bit. 

Cheers! And yeah two things about hip separation and sequencing:
 

Quote

...I will attempt to begin to get the weight shifted earlier in transition and hopefully created the separation you mentioned.
...I have played around with trying to generate hip separation in the past and it gets pretty dicey for me. Feels out of control a bit. 

These are often connected and cause issues for folks, because the two most common "next steps" that people take when trying to sequence properly is to either create more hip separation by spinning out (which feels out of control) or they slide way too aggressively into the front side and get too far out in front of the ball. The problem is that the proper sequencing of getting into the front side is a combination of several moves executed in a sequence whereas the intuitive attempts at this concept often lean on one thing, usually one of the two aforementioned. 

I made a post here showing a number of pros executing this sequence in a very visible way, and this is why face on (or from behind) angles are often needed to see where you are on this spectrum his lower body pressure shifting. This is one of those "almost no one gets it right" types of moves without coaching or some prior sports experience that involves a similar move. It's far more intuitive to swing everything all as one big piece like it appears you're doing, but even if you're able to get your head around how the lower body moves here, you still need to know what to do with that pressure on the lead side. One thing at a time though, check that thread for the visuals and see if you can get your head around that feel. 

[MannJ]

19 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

Cheers! And yeah two things about hip separation and sequencing:
 

These are often connected and cause issues for folks, because the two most common "next steps" that people take when trying to sequence properly is to either create more hip separation by spinning out (which feels out of control) or they slide way too aggressively into the front side and get too far out in front of the ball. The problem is that the proper sequencing of getting into the front side is a combination of several moves executed in a sequence whereas the intuitive attempts at this concept often lean on one thing, usually one of the two aforementioned. 

I made a post here showing a number of pros executing this sequence in a very visible way, and this is why face on (or from behind) angles are often needed to see where you are on this spectrum his lower body pressure shifting. This is one of those "almost no one gets it right" types of moves without coaching or some prior sports experience that involves a similar move. It's far more intuitive to swing everything all as one big piece like it appears you're doing, but even if you're able to get your head around how the lower body moves here, you still need to know what to do with that pressure on the lead side. One thing at a time though, check that thread for the visuals and see if you can get your head around that feel. 

I will definitely dig into this. I think that camera angle does help. 
Thanks!

[MannJ]

I’m working on it…. Getting weight shifted, shallowing and swinging out more, and trying to finish more naturally. I stood up on a lot of these swings. 
I felt like my weight was 80% on lead side at the top, but I can tell from the video it’s not. 
The face on view is a little close up but the room is only so big. 
Anyways it’s early but I will continue with these things. 
If you see anything worth mentioning it is appreciated. Thanks!

[MPStrat]

From face on: you stand still and take the clubhead away first without shifting your pelvis. Because you don’t start this shift to the trail side before you start the clubhead, you are stuck shifting right way too late when you should be moving left.

[CSagan]

21 minutes ago, MPStrat said:

From face on: you stand still and take the clubhead away first without shifting your pelvis. Because you don’t start this shift to the trail side before you start the clubhead, you are stuck shifting right way too late when you should be moving left.

yeah was gonna say not loading trail hip. 

 

 

[MannJ]

Gotcha. Thanks!

I bet that will make the transition shift easier and feel more natural