Video of swing - Would like help

[Paybax]

Never had lessons

Hello,

I haven't ever had golf lessons before so I am self taught but I have learned a lot from the Internet. I was about a 22 handicap golfer this time last year, but I am now down to 10-12 after getting out about 40 times or so. This year I am looking to cut my cap down in half. I would like to know what you guys think I should work on.

This video has a low frame rate since it was done with a digital camera, so its not the best. As you can hear I didnt hit a very good shot . It faded to the fringe on the right side of the green since my hips were ahead of my hands, I think.

Thanks

Golf shot

[the1stunner]

First things first. If you want to become a 5 handicap, you have to look like a 5, so tuck it in. Your shirt can come back out once you become a +1.0 (like me). Second Is your preshot routine. You don't have one. Your 7 posture changes are not helping you hit solid shots or speeding up your play. I suggest you check out the man they named your shoes after & study his pre shot routine. It is she same every time, to the second. Third is posture. Your upper body looks like it is set up pretty well, but your lower body is not the solid foundation that it could be.

Compare your posture to Nick here. You will see that his feet are as wide as his shoulders. Your feet are much wider than your shoulders. This becomes a problem in your takeaway where your upper body has nothing to turn against & your right leg gives out where as nick turns against his right side. There is another quirk at the top that we will return to. The lack of resistance in the backswing means to return to impact and make contact you need to slide your hips to return to your right side. Your follow through is pretty well balanced for the moves that got you there so kudos to that. But back to the top, I thought I saw that you have no wrist hinge & this always causes a flip through impact. The frame rate was too low for me to see exactly, but I think I am correct with my observation.

 

Also, The reason you missed it right was not because your hips were ahead of your hands. Your hands work fron in to out & if you flip the club with your hands guess where it goes. ------------------------>

To avoid this try to square your club more with your body. To do this,start with your feet closer together, and try to rotate your hips through impact versus sliding them.

 

So where should you start? With a lesson from a solid instructor. I think a few simple adjustments to your setup, A little work on your stability, some wrist hinge & lag to store more clubhead speed. And last but not least, some hard work from you & you could really see your handicap drop 5-10 shots easy. Speaking of easy Check out his lag & stability. :crazy:

Good luck & Hope it helps.

[Paybax]

Actually I am an fast player and always get commented on it. The reason why I have trouble getting into a routine is that I wait until everything feels comfortable. That is something that I will try to work on now though. As for my lower body setup that is something that I did to help control my swing a year ago or so ago since I was having trouble being consistent. You are right though, I did have a low lofted iron but my stance is still way to wide if I want to get a good hip turn. Again I shortened by backswing a while ago, so less could go wrong in my swing but that caused the no wrist hinge that you mention as well.

 

Would the rotating hips also apply to my driver?

 

I have unlimited range access at the course where I am a member, so I will work on those things you mentioned. They all sound very reasonable and %100 correct! At my course everyone has to have a tucked in shirt but I was at a public one so thats the reason for it

 

EDIT - Do you think a non-posing follow through is acceptable?

 

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Ryan

[the1stunner]

1* Actually I am an fast player and always get commented on it. The reason why I have trouble getting into a routine is that I wait until everything feels comfortable. That is something that I will try to work on now though. As for my lower body setup that is something that I did to help control my swing a year ago or so ago since I was having trouble being consistent. 2* You are right though, I did have a low lofted iron but my stance is still way to wide if I want to get a good hip turn. 3* Again I shortened by backswing a while ago, so less could go wrong in my swing but that caused the no wrist hinge that you mention as well.

4* Would the rotating hips also apply to my driver?

I have unlimited range access at the course where I am a member, so I will work on those things you mentioned. They all sound very reasonable and %100 correct! At my course everyone has to have a tucked in shirt but I was at a public one so thats the reason for it

 

*5 EDIT - Do you think a non-posing follow through is acceptable?

 

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Ryan

1)I didn't say you were slow , I said that it slows you down. Not using a preshot routine makes it very difficult if not impossible for you establish a rhythm. Every tour pro has one & every shot it is the same. It helps them get comfortable, so make your own and stick to one.

 

2)You don't need to turn your hips any more than you already do. Check out the Jim McLean X-factor, in it it explains a lot about hip restriction.

 

3) Usually when one shortens their backswing, the goal is to shorten the arm swing while increasing their shoulder turn & maintaining the wrist hinge you should create immediatly. The leadbetter swing setter is made to fix this & your little scoop action.

 

4) Especially with your driver, the only club that it doesn't apply to is your putter. Rotating your lower body is often called "clearing your left side" check out this video

 

5) The reason you see pros "posing" is because they are in balance. If You stay in balance until the ball lands then you will "pose" too.

 

6) The best way to implement swing changes is on the range & in front of a mirror. The golf course is great for learning shot making, touch & feel but not swing changes. I would try to find a large mirror to see the moves you are making & fixing. I feel mirrors are better than video because the feedback is instantaneous. A good rule of thumb is to make twice as many swings in a mirror as you take on a range or a course.

[tarik]

The first thing I noticed was the lack of a wrist hinge. Your wrist should be at about a 90* angle when your left forearm is parallel to the ground. Second, was your hip move on your downswing. At impact you want to focus on making a good hip turn as opposed to a sliding motion, that is what keeps your hips open and why you blocked it right. It should feel like your belt buckle is facing the target at impact. This is the same throughout all you clubs (with a full swing). Finally, the abbreviated follow through is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means you have good acceleration through the ball and your club has speed to burn. Holding the follow through shows better tempo and in return better balance so it may be something to work on in the future. Good luck!

[Paybax]

Okay, thank you guys.

 

I will work very hard on the things you mentioned for the next couple of weeks and hopefully they will soon after be natural.

[taylormadefan]

Next time, I'd also be very interested in seeing a down the line view (camera behind you) of your swing. That can reveal a lot more about plane, posture, and downswing than the face on.

 

You do look a little fidgety over the ball, but if that's what it takes to get you comfortable, then by all means do so as long as you're not slowing anyone down (doesn't look like that's the case). The best player I know (mini tour player) has a very similar move to yours when he sets up to the ball. I don't think this means you don't have a preshot routine (Sergio and Ben Crane both have / had moves similar to yours) and I don't think anyone would say that they lack a PSR.

 

As far as your recoil, Nick Price, Greg Norman, and Mike Weir all recoil the club similar to what you do (especially nick Price). As long as you're finishing with your weight on your left side with your right toe on the ground, and aren't falling over, you're fine (although posing looks pretty cool and it's handy to have when you stick one tight )

 

I agree with the lack of wrist **** issue, that's something I'd add into your back swing ASAP. However, the most pressing thing I see is the lack of a downward strike on the ball. It looks as though you're trying to pick it. How are your divots and contact?

 

As tarik mentioned, I think that could be solved by a little more turn with your hips and shoulders instead of slide.

 

All in all, very impressive for a home made swing. You're doing a lot of things right!

 

Good luck, look forward to seeing it in a few weeks.

[crew_138]

This is what I see in your video.... You look as though you are scooping the ball up ... your left wrist is breaking before you hit the ball. I bet you can get a ton more distance if you keep that sturdy while hitting down on the ball. What was you distance of that hole, it looks like a par-3? You looked like you were hitting a longer iron.

[Paybax]

Yea, you guys are dead on. I am more of a picker off the tee box as well as basically any irons above my 7. That is something I have been working on but so far I can really only hit down on my lower irons. The problem is that I try to swing hard with the longer irons and hit it thick quite a bit.

 

The hole was a 174 yard Par 3, about a half a club to a club shorter due to elevation. I was using a 6 iron to be safe as this was my first round out with the new sticks. I didnt even hit them at the range so I wasn't quite sure on my distances. They are also 1* weaker then the standard lofts of most irons. I agree though, I should be hitting my irons longer then I do.

 

As for the video view, my friend just brought his camera to take for himself to help improve his game by watching what I do. I didnt recommend it . I will get a couple different views around the end of April when I THINK I have things straightened out.

 

Thanks for the comment...

 

EDIT - You should see the great ball flight of my driver though. I catch that thing on the upswing and it goes pretty good. I just need to learn how to create 2 slightly different swings for different clubs.

[taylormadefan]

 

 

EDIT - You should see the great ball flight of my driver though. I catch that thing on the upswing and it goes pretty good. I just need to learn how to create 2 slightly different swings for different clubs.

 

DON'T DO THAT, trust me I struggled with this for a LONG TIME.

 

If you get two swings for different clubs, you will inevitably find that they blend into one another especially under pressure which leads to trouble.

 

If you work on the things mentioned here, you will build one swing that's good for all clubs, ball position and club length will take care of the ball being hit on the upswing / downswing.

 

Good luck and keep working on it.

[easyyy]

that is cool. You loaded that up to our site like that and we are talking about it. Looks like the guy that was filming yo thought your shot was OB right. Is that typical.

 

How did you load up the video. Did you load it to an off site location and then link it> What location? Also yoou swing looks absolutly great for a 22 last year. WOw, that is to be pround of.

[Paybax]

Well I linked it to my own site, I just made a heading for the link. As for the person that swore that was me . Almost all ISP's offer free personal webspace and its super easy to do. If you use Internet Explorers built in FTP program, then all it is drag and drop just like you would if you were moving files on your computer.

 

This is main addy, not much on it. http://members.shaw.ca/paybax/

 

EDIT - My swing hasn't change a huge amount over the years but was getting out less then 10 times a year which always kept me at a 20 cap or so.

[crew_138]

I think it is amazing how fast you cut your handycap down... May I ask what do you work on the most during practice. I know for me I work really hard at practice and feel like Tiger when I leave, but when going to the course I find it difficult to bring what I learned from the range. I need a lot of actual course time to chip away at that handycap. I think you may have a natural ability if you don't go golfing at the course much to have about a 10. I would definately get an instructor and see where you can go from there. Who knows, at the rate you're improving you could be down scratch in a few years.

[Paybax]

I think it is amazing how fast you cut your handycap down... May I ask what do you work on the most during practice. I know for me I work really hard at practice and feel like Tiger when I leave, but when going to the course I find it difficult to bring what I learned from the range. I need a lot of actual course time to chip away at that handycap. I think you may have a natural ability if you don't go golfing at the course much to have about a 10. I would definately get an instructor and see where you can go from there. Who knows, at the rate you're improving you could be down scratch in a few years.

 

Well I got some bad news! I dont practice, I just play golf. I hit the range 1 out of 5 rounds maybe for 20 mins before my round of golf. The other thing is that I have golfed for 8 years or so, but never got out more then 10 or 15 times a year. I was very inconsistent because of that. I got out probably 35-45 or times last year, which really helped get my swing consistent. I have no swing thoughts except I some times say to my self dont lean back or keep my back straight because if I have one issue its hitting it chunky. Also I was only golfing once or at the max twice a week but that was enough to keep my swing some what consistent, which then lead to a bunch of low 80's at the end of the year.

 

I am going to fly solo this year to see how much lower I can go. I was planning on getting into single digits with no swing changes alone but with the little things mentioned above I think I will have no problem doing so. If I hit a wall I will see a instructor but I like to fix things on my own. I had to get a membership this year as well after how I played last year! The key to my game is to play often and that is what I plan to do. I got a membership at the 17th best course in Canada as well as the one of the first stops for the Canadian Tour, so getting into single digits will be very tough at this course.

 

http://www.royalcolwood.org/

[taylormadefan]

Well I got some bad news! I dont practice, I just play golf. I hit the range 1 out of 5 rounds maybe for 20 mins before my round of golf. The other thing is that I have golfed for 8 years or so, but never got out more then 10 or 15 times a year. I was very inconsistent because of that. I got out probably 35-45 or times last year, which really helped get my swing consistent. I have no swing thoughts except I some times say to my self dont lean back or keep my back straight because if I have one issue its hitting it chunky. Also I was only golfing once or at the max twice a week but that was enough to keep my swing some what consistent, which then lead to a bunch of low 80's at the end of the year.

 

 

 

That's just awesome, you sound like a Bubba Watson or J.B Holmes in the making. Keep it that way. Natural golf, that's the key to building a consistant and natural swing. Don't take our advise too seriously, keep experimenting and playing and build YOUR OWN golf swing so that way you can fix it when you need to. I wish I could rid my head of all my swing thoughts at times. :crazy:

 

You must have an awesome short game, keep up the good work.

[Paybax]

Well my short game is lacking, its starting to come along though.

 

Just some more things that helped me:

 

With chipping I really only have one shot! If I only have a couple yards to go I use a PW but if I have 10 or so I use a SW. I had an issue with deaccelerating on my back swing which either caused me to hit it thin and fly it across the green or I caught it thick and it went no where. I focus on accelerating through the ball, so I take a short backswing to make sure I do this. I just take the standard chip shot, making sure to keep my hands are ahead of the clubhead/ball at impact. I actually saw it done on the Golf Channel a week or so ago by Leadbetter I think it was. He got it from an old school golfer, maybe Trevino but they called it something like a burner chip. I cant find it on the internet so I must gave the name wrong, oh well. Oh yea I also keep my stroke for it similar to a putter stroke, all shoulder turn. Its super simple but its something I need to work on if I want to go lower.

 

As for putting, I usually only have 1 three putt every 3 rounds or so, which really helps. I dont have a lot of one putts though but if I am inside 10ft I hit them 8/10 times I would guess. Outside of that I am not as aggressive as I should be since I am afraid of the 3 putt. So how I putt is "safe" putting but I manage to make a birdie once in a while.

 

I also changed to overlapping grip about 10 rounds ago, which has greatly helped my driving accuracy. I had some of the worst shanks in my life the first time out with it but I managed to shoot a 89 still (easy course). That was followed by an 83 on a much harder course, so I stuck with it. Again no range only on the course for me.

 

I would not suggest never going to the range but IMO I would only go if I had something I wanted to work on. Like hitting down on the ball, I will hit up the range for 30 mins to work on before my round. I feel going for anything longer then 45 mins is a waste. On the course you hit ONE shot, wait 5 mins or more and then hit another. I feel you get fatigued after hitting ball after ball very quickly, so you then start shanking them or what not. You then think, hey what happened? I was hitting balls great for the first 15 mins but now they are going every where! I must be doing something wrong with my swing. You will then tinker with your grip or what have you and make your swing worse overall.

 

I also dont want anyone to start a debate over what I think. It works for me and thats how I think

 

EDIT - I use the course as my practice! If I hit a bad shot I sure wont make the same mistake on the next hole. If I have a bad round I get to think about it all week and then I only have ONE chance to improve upon it, then its another week. I never say oh well I guess I will have to go to the range tomorrow and figure out what I am doing wrong.

[peteman29]

1* Actually I am an fast player and always get commented on it. The reason why I have trouble getting into a routine is that I wait until everything feels comfortable. That is something that I will try to work on now though. As for my lower body setup that is something that I did to help control my swing a year ago or so ago since I was having trouble being consistent. 2* You are right though, I did have a low lofted iron but my stance is still way to wide if I want to get a good hip turn. 3* Again I shortened by backswing a while ago, so less could go wrong in my swing but that caused the no wrist hinge that you mention as well.

4* Would the rotating hips also apply to my driver?

I have unlimited range access at the course where I am a member, so I will work on those things you mentioned. They all sound very reasonable and %100 correct! At my course everyone has to have a tucked in shirt but I was at a public one so thats the reason for it

 

*5 EDIT - Do you think a non-posing follow through is acceptable?

 

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Ryan

1)I didn't say you were slow , I said that it slows you down. Not using a preshot routine makes it very difficult if not impossible for you establish a rhythm. Every tour pro has one & every shot it is the same. It helps them get comfortable, so make your own and stick to one.

 

2)You don't need to turn your hips any more than you already do. Check out the Jim McLean X-factor, in it it explains a lot about hip restriction.

 

3) Usually when one shortens their backswing, the goal is to shorten the arm swing while increasing their shoulder turn & maintaining the wrist hinge you should create immediatly. The leadbetter swing setter is made to fix this & your little scoop action.

 

4) Especially with your driver, the only club that it doesn't apply to is your putter. Rotating your lower body is often called "clearing your left side" check out this video

 

5) The reason you see pros "posing" is because they are in balance. If You stay in balance until the ball lands then you will "pose" too.

 

6) The best way to implement swing changes is on the range & in front of a mirror. The golf course is great for learning shot making, touch & feel but not swing changes. I would try to find a large mirror to see the moves you are making & fixing. I feel mirrors are better than video because the feedback is instantaneous. A good rule of thumb is to make twice as many swings in a mirror as you take on a range or a course.

 

That's an amazing piece of footgae. I noticed the ball coming off Tiger's club face quite high up, it didn't look like it was off the exact centre of the face and it was still 295yds.

[Big D McGee]

The first thing I noticed was the lack of a wrist hinge. Your wrist should be at about a 90* angle when your left forearm is parallel to the ground. Second, was your hip move on your downswing. At impact you want to focus on making a good hip turn as opposed to a sliding motion, that is what keeps your hips open and why you blocked it right. It should feel like your belt buckle is facing the target at impact. This is the same throughout all you clubs (with a full swing). Finally, the abbreviated follow through is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means you have good acceleration through the ball and your club has speed to burn. Holding the follow through shows better tempo and in return better balance so it may be something to work on in the future. Good luck!

 

Damn, this is what I need to work on, rotating to my left side rather than "swaying". I always start my downswing with the hips, but too often I sway (which leads to rolling my left foot) instead of rotating. I can feel the difference; when I had lessons about 5 years ago, the pro told me to picture myself in a barrell.

 

Any tips or drills or even swing thoughts that can help me avoid swaying and instead rotate properly? Should I focus on not rolling my left foot on the downswing? Thanks!

 

 

Oh, and that TW swing is awesome!