Ways to try and automate the chest down and hips left move in transition vs sliding and going inside?

[teddyironboy]

So I can get the move, but it requires timing, and it's quite a forceful move since it's reversing the direction. Trying to get weight forward I can get a little slidey. Every time I try the step drill I swing too much from the inside (although writing this out I wonder if I could figure out how to hit fades with this drill, maybe it could be a gamechanger).

 

I've been trying to remove some things that seem to contribute to sliding. Some things that I think include:

- Weight on back heel at the top gets the body closed out

- Lack of spine incline at the top

- Backswing too inside

- My hands getting too pully (I don't want to get in this debate, but at least my feel is the hit response comes too early)

- Too much sway and weight on the back foot (I think?). But I like a bit of sway because it helps my hands not get pully. I still have good dispersion being slidey though, but it's not ideal. I'd still like a bit of sway for myself.

 

But I still have to manually force my body into that position. Preventing those things above just only makes getting into that position possible. I like the idea of getting balance points and forces in a way that at the top of the backswing, that the body naturally does it.

[teddyironboy]

Good Swing:

DTL https://streamable.com/d1fzu1

FO https://streamable.com/xgpbbc

 

Slidey Swing:

https://streamable.com/f4o1ws

https://streamable.com/hzjb6l

[virtuoso]

There was once a boy named Theodore who loved to play golf. He worked on his golf swing all day and dreamt about it all night. 
 

He also had a large collection of spinning tops sitting on his desk. He always asked his parents for a new spinning top every year on his birthday. His favorite thing to do was to start spinning them all at once. He would become enraptured by watching all his beautiful tops spinning, and dancing across his desk top….they seemingly became alive and had an automated life of their own……until finally, they ran out of energy one by one and tipped over, rattling to a stop. Just as each top quit spinning, it gave Theo a twinge of sadness. Each top was experiencing a small death, so he would revive each top by spinning them again….and again.

 

And from this passion of his, he drew a parallel to his golf. He now understood that to enliven his swing he must spin himself, and not slide. If you tried to slide a top, it killed the spin, and it brought on a premature death—it toppled over, and rattled to a stop. So spin he must…..and spin he did. An automated spin….from a young passionate kid.

 

And then one night, just before he fell asleep, young Theo was visited upon by his Fairy Golf Mother. And she said, “My young spinning child, please listen to this wisdom I will deliver to you this night. You must understand the true nature of the spin you are starting. You have two hips, not just one, so you must have some slide to get your spin done. If you spin first before you try to slide, your swing will be faulty, and your game will be no fun. Please slide my young child, please embrace my words this night. Because if you do, your golfing future is bright. Do you hear me young Theo, can you see the light? Can you see that early slide can lift your game to a glorious new height?”

 

……and Theo sat up in his bed…..and with hardly a hesitation, and full of great vigor….he paused briefly….and then replied to his Fairy Golf Mother, “ SCREW YOU GRANNY! My parents just bought me a series with Jimmy Jankus!”

 

The End

Edited January 27 by virtuoso

[virtuoso]

Teddy, I’m just goofing with you. You have a very good action, but in all seriousness, you aren’t sliding too much.

[Nard_S]

Your hands are too far behind torso in down swing. Or just too late in catching up. The actual body moves are not terrible, the proportion of hand drop to it is problematic. Your "hit impulse" is fine, it's relationship, it's proportion to body sequence is where things are off. 

[MPStrat]

51 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

There was once a boy named Theodore who loved to play golf. He worked on his golf swing all day and dreamt about it all night. 
 

He also had a large collection of spinning tops sitting on his desk. He always asked his parents for a new spinning top every year on his birthday. His favorite thing to do was to start spinning them all at once. He would become enraptured by watching all his beautiful tops spinning, and dancing across his desk top….they seemingly became alive and had an automated life of their own……until finally, they ran out of energy one by one and tipped over, rattling to a stop. Just as each top quit spinning, it gave Theo a twinge of sadness. Each top was experiencing a small death, so he would revive each top by spinning them again….and again.

 

And from this passion of his, he drew a parallel to his golf. He now understood that to enliven his swing he must spin himself, and not slide. If you tried to slide a top, it killed the spin, and it brought on a premature death—it toppled over, and rattled to a stop. So spin he must…..and spin he did. An automated spin….from a young passionate kid.

 

And then one night, just before he fell asleep, young Theo was visited upon by his Fairy Golf Mother. And she said, “My young spinning child, please listen to this wisdom I will deliver to you this night. You must understand the true nature of the spin you are starting. You have two hips, not just one, so you must have some slide to get your spin done. If you spin first before you try to slide, your swing will be faulty, and your game will be no fun. Please slide my young child, please embrace my words this night. Because if you do, your golfing future is bright. Do you hear me young Theo, can you see the light? Can you see that early slide can lift your game to a glorious new height?”

 

……and Theo sat up in his bed…..and with hardly a hesitation, and full of great vigor….he paused briefly….and then replied to his Fairy God Mother, “ SCREW YOU GRANNY! My parents just bought me a series with Jimmy Jankus!”

 

The End

Young Theodore, listen to your fairy golf mother! Stay away from Jimmy Jankus and his external knee move.
 

And get off the shed.

[MK7Golf21]

Your before swing which you call slidey looks much better to me. 

[MK Anderson]

You have access to a hockey net?  Slap-shots!

 

[Hawkeye77]

Find a good instructor and resist over diagnosing yourself.  A lot to look forward to based on those vids. But based on your post I don’t see you getting there on your own. 

[MonteScheinblum]

I’m reminded of the song “Looking forLove in All the Wrong Places.”

 

You need to stop over analyzing your swing.  The “Slidey” swing is pretty good.

 

Need to stay in left tilt longer is all I’d work on.

[virtuoso]

Interested to see what @Valtiel might have in his magical bag of gifs.

[Zitlow]

Your spine is working like a metronome with the top swinging. Should be more like a pendulum with the bottom swinging. 

 

The good news is you manage to swing the club on plane pretty much but  you're upper body is swaying in the backswing which causes you to be off balance because your body weight is crossed up. 

 

Also, your right arm is too stiff and tense. If you were going to throw a baseball your right arm would be soft and relaxed. Tense muscles are slow muscles, if you don't believe me tighten up your body and try to run across the room. 

 

 

The key is balance. Your backswing is an easy fix. At the top your weight should be loaded and balanced on your right leg and hip. As you gradually pressure your right foot to start the backswing do a slight left lateral bend.

 

 

It shouldn't take more than 10-20 reps to get the hang of it, remember you want your weight to be loaded and balanced on your right leg and hip at the top. 

[teddyironboy]

3 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

I’m reminded of the song “Looking forLove in All the Wrong Places.”

 

You need to stop over analyzing your swing.  The “Slidey” swing is pretty good.

 

Need to stay in left tilt longer is all I’d work on.

4 hours ago, MK7Golf21 said:

Your before swing which you call slidey looks much better to me. 

6 hours ago, virtuoso said:

Teddy, I’m just goofing with you. You have a very good action, but in all seriousness, you aren’t sliding too much.

 

Hahaha, it was very well written and got the point across. And I think you're right, the slide is necessary especially since Monte's advice immediately worked! I no longer have to force my chest down and left, or Jank my leg around. Lot easier to just shift the weight back and forth. It does feel weird at the moment (as most changes do) and I had tried to do some before, but it's quite a lot more of a left crunch than I thought. Trying to swing more dynamically and with the body's momentum on the backswing makes the club want to go around more, so need to get used to that without losing left tilt.

 

I'm not completely convinced my "slidey" swing would play worse on the course, but personal preference. It's only 2.5 degrees in-out but just prefer being a bit more zeroed out. I have definitely been overanalyzing but I'm pretty much at a look I like and satisfied with the results,.

 

 

5 hours ago, Nard_S said:

Your hands are too far behind torso in down swing. Or just too late in catching up. The actual body moves are not terrible, the proportion of hand drop to it is problematic. Your "hit impulse" is fine, it's relationship, it's proportion to body sequence is where things are off. 

 

This is by design actually. And sway promotes that because re-centering has to pull the arms. I have this thought that if the body is flinging the arms around hard, the momentum of the arms shallowing will be too strong for the hit response to overtake, resulting in a stable face. If done right, I feel I can fire as hard as I want and it won't hook. Firing too late loses power though, so need to get the tempo down. Not sure if others give this as a reason for shallowing? Just my broscience take anyways.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Zitlow said:

Your spine is working like a metronome with the top swinging. Should be more like a pendulum with the bottom swinging. 

 

The good news is you manage to swing the club on plane pretty much but  you're upper body is swaying in the backswing which causes you to be off balance because your body weight is crossed up. 

 

Also, your right arm is too stiff and tense. If you were going to throw a baseball your right arm would be soft and relaxed. Tense muscles are slow muscles, if you don't believe me tighten up your body and try to run across the room. 

 

The key is balance. Your backswing is an easy fix. At the top your weight should be loaded and balanced on your right leg and hip. As you gradually pressure your right foot to start the backswing do a slight left lateral bend.

 

Will make sure to relax my arms more. Basically mean I need more back extension yea? I notice I stay more down in the backswing giving that metronome look. I'll see because whenever I add back extension I feel closed out or crossed up. And end up swinging more in-out than I'd like. But that's without staying in left tilt longer.

[MonteScheinblum]

You don’t want zeroed out.  That’s a bad place.  2.5 in to out is right in the sweet spot zone.

[Zitlow]

You're overthinking, you should have a very relaxed mind when you swing a club. All those swing thoughts are slowing down your natural reflexes. 

 

Relax your right arm, step on your right foot and do a slight left side bend. That will get you started. Do it without a club until you get the hang of it then try it with a club. 

 

 

Edited January 27 by Zitlow

[teddyironboy]

18 minutes ago, MonteScheinblum said:

You don’t want zeroed out.  That’s a bad place.  2.5 in to out is right in the sweet spot zone.

 

This one I never really understood. One common reason is "you have to be zero out the face to hit it at the target". But say if you swing 2* in-out, at a certain swingspeed, there's only one face angle also that will result in the ball going to the target.

 

Also the main issue is dispersion. Another way to look at it is, say there's 3 golfers that swing:

2 to 3 in-out

.5 to -.5 neutral

-2 to -3 out-in

 

Give them a face variance of +/- 3* or something. I would imagine their dispersion circles to be the same, relative to distance since the ones drawing will go further and have a slightly bigger dispersion than a fade pattern.

[MonteScheinblum]

This is where “on paper” diverges from practical application.

 

In theory what you said isn’t incorrect, but in reality, when you zero out your path those thousandth of a second reactions to get the face angle right get confused.

 

2 in to out your brain learns square to slightly closed.  2 out to in, secure to slightly open.

 

When the path varies around zero, there’s confusion on what to do.

 

There’s a reason tour players don’t try to zero out.  The elite golfers I’ve seen hit live with an LM, which is quite a bit, dispersion when path is close to zero (save Jim Furyk) is much greater than those that are 1-3 right or left.

 

 

[teddyironboy]

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for the explanation

[MonteScheinblum]

3 minutes ago, teddyironboy said:

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for the explanation

You’re going to learn a lot the way you interact.  You questioned what you disagreed with versus discounting it.  

[Pepperturbo]

One thought usually shows its colors when I read threads like this.  The primary obstacle to progress, knowledge acquisition, or transformation is the inherent power of the fundamental quotient, which hinders comprehension.  However, a select group of individuals possess the necessary skills. 

 

Damn, wind is howling, wish I was playing golf instead.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Zitlow said:

You're overthinking, you should have a very relaxed mind when you swing a club. All those swing thoughts are slowing down your natural reflexes. 

 

His reflexes suck right now. He's trying to change his motion, not rely on his "reflexes."

 

(And @teddyironboy, I don't mean they truly suck, I mean that you're trying to improve them, and you're not happy with what you do "naturally" or "reflexively" right now.)

 

@Zitlow, you say the most stuff without actually helping anyone. Where's your golf swing? Let's see your move. Let's see your Mike Austin/Sam Snead/Ben Hogan/Gene Sarazen move.

[Valtiel]

9 hours ago, virtuoso said:

Interested to see what @Valtiel might have in his magical bag of gifs.

The bit that stands out to me is that the "good" swing sees the head coming noticeably towards the ball, whereas the "slidey" swing sees much less of that. @teddyironboy you have a pretty big move off the ball laterally in the bacskwing, so IMO you *have* to feel somewhat slidey to get forward. When viewing the swings face on you simply get into your front slide a little better in the "slidey" swing, which as Monte mentioned it's really slidey at all:



Old Tiger was a lot "slidier", something that he did reduce obviously as time went on, but critically the main differences are going back moreso than coming down. You move laterally a bit more than is typical, so as stated you're kinda forced to feel slidey to get forward. Both swings see more weight on the left toe at impact than is ideal, suggesting you're a little late getting there which makes sense given how far you go back. The both the loading and opening of the left side tends to naturally pull the head back away from the ball slightly:



So if you're late getting there in the "good" swing then that explains your head getting closer, and if you're getting there a little bit earlier (although still a little late) in the slidey swing then that would explain the slightly "better" head position.

Also regarding the feeling of your hands getting "too pully"...



This is a pronounced lack of right wrist hinging/radial deviation which is a weak position for generating speed, so the "pully" feeling could easily be coming from trying to make up for that elsewhere. Getting the wrists properly set to generate hand speed is important.

Overall I think getting the feeling of that right hand being set correctly combined with getting into your front side sooner, either by shifting back less or shifting more/earlier in transition would be the two main bits to focus on, curious to hear other's thoughts though.

 

[iacas]

14 hours ago, Valtiel said:

This is a pronounced lack of right wrist hinging/radial deviation which is a weak position for generating speed, so the "pully" feeling could easily be coming from trying to make up for that elsewhere. 

 

Yeah, it's pulled back, I think, pulling the left wrist into a bit too much palmar flexion.

[teddyironboy]

On 1/28/2024 at 12:22 PM, Valtiel said:

The bit that stands out to me is that the "good" swing sees the head coming noticeably towards the ball, whereas the "slidey" swing sees much less of that. @teddyironboy you have a pretty big move off the ball laterally in the bacskwing, so IMO you *have* to feel somewhat slidey to get forward. When viewing the swings face on you simply get into your front slide a little better in the "slidey" swing, which as Monte mentioned it's really slidey at all:

Old Tiger was a lot "slidier", something that he did reduce obviously as time went on, but critically the main differences are going back moreso than coming down. You move laterally a bit more than is typical, so as stated you're kinda forced to feel slidey to get forward. Both swings see more weight on the left toe at impact than is ideal, suggesting you're a little late getting there which makes sense given how far you go back. The both the loading and opening of the left side tends to naturally pull the head back away from the ball slightly:

So if you're late getting there in the "good" swing then that explains your head getting closer, and if you're getting there a little bit earlier (although still a little late) in the slidey swing then that would explain the slightly "better" head position.

Also regarding the feeling of your hands getting "too pully"...

This is a pronounced lack of right wrist hinging/radial deviation which is a weak position for generating speed, so the "pully" feeling could easily be coming from trying to make up for that elsewhere. Getting the wrists properly set to generate hand speed is important.

Overall I think getting the feeling of that right hand being set correctly combined with getting into your front side sooner, either by shifting back less or shifting more/earlier in transition would be the two main bits to focus on, curious to hear other's thoughts though.

 

 

First off, the analysis and gifs are awesome. Thank you for taking the time to do that. 🙏

 

I have noticed that my head always moves closer to the ball, but I didn't notice it was only on my "slidey" swings. (Want to also say that my good swings tend to be .5-1.5 in-out, and my "slidey" is more like 2.5-3.5). I think it goes forward because I feel like I have to do that so I have room to rotate.  If I try to back up my head more I always end up on my heels. Even when my head goes forward I'll often fall backwards. When I stand a bit further from the ball, my balance is way better, maybe I have more support and room to get down and left. So could work better for my plane, or possibly just a bandaid? It's something I'm unsure about, so I go back and forth on this.

 

The weight on left toe is interesting. I will try to at least cut my sway in half I think. I don't often see my swing in regular speed because software is laggy during practice sessions, slow-mo kind of hid the amount of sway. Definitely exaggerated that feeling too much. I think I need it clarified what you mean by late, I'm not too sure. Because my guess would be that my hands are getting to the ball too early thus I'm getting my weight shift too late. But a reply earlier said my torso is way out in front.

[GolfinDave]

I was  watching a video yesterday on a lesson with Gankas and it was the first time the slide move ever made since to me. I copied the link starting at 6 minutes where he goes into it. He explains it that you are sliding because you know you need to get your body into a certain position to start your downswing. So really you just aren't forward enough (re-centered enough) at the top. If you are far enough forward when you are starting transition, there's no need to push off the back foot and slide. In my practice session later that day, my ball speed on 7 iron went up 5mph as I got rid of the wasted movement - also a more consistent strike. 

 

They also go through driver in the video which was great. Not sure if it will help or not but this was one of the most informative Gankas videos I've watched. 

 

 

 

[iacas]

1 hour ago, GolfinDave said:

He explains it that you are sliding because you know you need to get your body into a certain position to start your downswing. So really you just aren't forward enough (re-centered enough) at the top. If you are far enough forward when you are starting transition, there's no need to push off the back foot and slide. In my practice session later that day, my ball speed on 7 iron went up 5mph as I got rid of the wasted movement - also a more consistent strike. 

 

Sliding gets a bad name, though. Many of the best players in the world "slide" (their pelvis center goes forward throughout the late backswing and most of the downswing). Rory's hips (pelvis center) is over 5" farther toward the target at impact than it was at setup. He's hardly a big "slider."

 

And, you can slide without pushing off with the trail leg. I typically call it "falling," but it's very much not a push. It is a push when it's too late, we agree there… because the golfer is good enough to know they need to get forward more.

[GolfinDave]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

 

Sliding gets a bad name, though. Many of the best players in the world "slide" (their pelvis center goes forward throughout the late backswing and most of the downswing). Rory's hips (pelvis center) is over 5" farther toward the target at impact than it was at setup. He's hardly a big "slider."

 

And, you can slide without pushing off with the trail leg. I typically call it "falling," but it's very much not a push. It is a push when it's too late, we agree there… because the golfer is good enough to know they need to get forward more.

I agree, I was pushing which was bad and causing issues on the downswing. I’ve been working on falling or recentering prior to getting to the top and it’s helping. I thought I read he felt like he was pushing as well.  

[getitdaily]

On 1/30/2024 at 1:47 PM, teddyironboy said:

 

First off, the analysis and gifs are awesome. Thank you for taking the time to do that. 🙏

 

I have noticed that my head always moves closer to the ball, but I didn't notice it was only on my "slidey" swings. (Want to also say that my good swings tend to be .5-1.5 in-out, and my "slidey" is more like 2.5-3.5). I think it goes forward because I feel like I have to do that so I have room to rotate.  If I try to back up my head more I always end up on my heels. Even when my head goes forward I'll often fall backwards. When I stand a bit further from the ball, my balance is way better, maybe I have more support and room to get down and left. So could work better for my plane, or possibly just a bandaid? It's something I'm unsure about, so I go back and forth on this.

 

The weight on left toe is interesting. I will try to at least cut my sway in half I think. I don't often see my swing in regular speed because software is laggy during practice sessions, slow-mo kind of hid the amount of sway. Definitely exaggerated that feeling too much. I think I need it clarified what you mean by late, I'm not too sure. Because my guess would be that my hands are getting to the ball too early thus I'm getting my weight shift too late. But a reply earlier said my torso is way out in front.

He means you're late getting back to your lead side. Somewhere between lead arm parallel and the top of the backswing, you need to start pushing into the ground with your lead foot. Get weight going lead side earlier....before the top of the backswing. 

[Valtiel]

On 1/30/2024 at 10:47 AM, teddyironboy said:

 

First off, the analysis and gifs are awesome. Thank you for taking the time to do that. 🙏

 

I have noticed that my head always moves closer to the ball, but I didn't notice it was only on my "slidey" swings. (Want to also say that my good swings tend to be .5-1.5 in-out, and my "slidey" is more like 2.5-3.5). I think it goes forward because I feel like I have to do that so I have room to rotate.  If I try to back up my head more I always end up on my heels. Even when my head goes forward I'll often fall backwards. When I stand a bit further from the ball, my balance is way better, maybe I have more support and room to get down and left. So could work better for my plane, or possibly just a bandaid? It's something I'm unsure about, so I go back and forth on this.

 

The weight on left toe is interesting. I will try to at least cut my sway in half I think. I don't often see my swing in regular speed because software is laggy during practice sessions, slow-mo kind of hid the amount of sway. Definitely exaggerated that feeling too much. I think I need it clarified what you mean by late, I'm not too sure. Because my guess would be that my hands are getting to the ball too early thus I'm getting my weight shift too late. But a reply earlier said my torso is way out in front.

Cheers! A couple things to address:
 

Quote

I think it goes forward because I feel like I have to do that so I have room to rotate.  If I try to back up my head more I always end up on my heels. Even when my head goes forward I'll often fall backwards

That's an interesting feel because normally most people would say the opposite, that getting closer to the ball in any capacity gives them *less* room to rotate. I don't want to say that you're wrong in your feel here, but I want to try to explain how the head position is connected to the overall pivot, especially since you mention trying to "back up your head" which isn't something you actually want to *try* to do, but rather is the result of doing other things more/better. I'm going to try something more detailed here and use a Max Homa iron swing to isolate a few areas as he does a lot of things pretty textbook:



Starting from the top of the backswing to the first move down, note the activity on the left leg in the isolated section. The left knee bumps out towards the target and the left toe is pressured pretty aggressively. If Max were on force plates we'd see almost 100% of his left foot pressure towards the ball of this foot and we'd see an overall right/left distribution heavily spiking towards the left side. The lowering of the head is simply in response to this pressuring of the front side, I guarantee his isn't thinking "drop my head" at this stage, it's just what happens in response. 



Now firmly into the downswing we see how he's used that pressure from the left toe to push the left leg back. At this point the distribution shifts from being firmly on the ball of the foot to pretty close to 50/50 heel/toe, with the overall pressure squarely on that front leg, 80%+ with many guys getting higher than that. Again what happens to his head here (moving down and back) is just in response to this movement. 



Now down into impact we see the continuation if all the above. The left foot is now pressured more towards the heel and the right foot weightlessly banks in towards it. 

Overall this would be considered a very fundamentally "correct" sequence in terms of where weight is going and when. 



Now if we compare your swing here we see several signs that you're just half a step behind/late, mostly focusing on the feet/legs here:

1) Left foot/leg; you're still pressured more towards the toe here and there is still a lot of flex in the lead knee, you haven't pushed it back and straightened quite in time.
2) Right foot/leg; yours is jutting out towards the ball a lot more and generally moving in such a way that we can tell there is still too much weight on it (more below).

All of these things are simply a product of being late with your pressure shifting and sequence. Your hips/pelvis will tell us exactly where your weight is when we try to rotate in the tiny window of time that is the downswing. When you're late, there is too much weight on the back leg, and we'll see it being used too much to create rotation, which brings us closer to the ball. To get off your trail side and into your front side on time (which is FAR earlier for the pros than for ams) keeps the trail leg quiet like Homa above, and gets the lead hip opening to create the rotation we want. All of this slightly *increases* our distance from the ball which is why the head moves back slightly. To do all this you need to...
 

8 hours ago, getitdaily said:

He means you're late getting back to your lead side. Somewhere between lead arm parallel and the top of the backswing, you need to start pushing into the ground with your lead foot. Get weight going lead side earlier....before the top of the backswing. 

....and to do this you'll want to either start re-centering earlier if you're going to shift more like you're doing now, shift *less* in the backswing so you have less distance to travel to get forward like you need to, or likely a combination of both to a certain degree. 

[Golfbeat]

Valtiel is easily one of the most insightful and smart contributors on this Forum. Thank you!