Please critique beginner's swing

[nero44]

PW - 7i - Driver

Hello,

first time swing poster, so please be gentle :-) Apologies for the strong light contrast, I hope you can still see enough of the swing.

Background: I just started to play golf about 9 month ago, no lessons yet. I always had some sort of swing, but only recently I've tried to improve my posture and swing (the "ernie els box") to get rid of some slicing. I am a high handicapper (33.6), but eager to make improvements this year. I am looking for some very basic pointers on my swing, nothing too detailed. Perhaps there is something very obvious I could improve...

PW
Quite stable performance. This is an easy swing with 70 yards distance and the ball mostly flies roughly to where I am aiming
http://www.excelade....iew/3vcJLrJB/pw

7i
Mostly stable, constantly too short
http://www.excelade....TzgJtPRi/7-iron

Driver
I've changed my setup frequently, as this has the highest slicing risk. Weight transfer and a straight left arm has fixed some, but I need to slow it down to 75%-80% power, otherwise there is a high slice risk
http://www.excelade....dN6WPszO/driver


Note, the vertical bars in the bottom allows to play the clip in slow motion.

Thanks!

[RookieBlue7]

One thing I immediately saw with the 7 iron swing (the first I watched) is you're taking it back waaay too far and wrapping the club around you. The ball also looks like it's too far away from you, and you're reaching for it instead of getting it more under you. Then, when you start down, you're releasing the club a early and it's causing you to pull the club to the inside, making you cut across it out to in and causing the slice. Try getting the ball a tad closer to you and not taking the club back to far is my advice there. Imagine the swing as a clock face, on the way back, try stopping the backswing around 9:00 instead of around 11:30 where you are now. Longer doesn't mean you'll hit it further, shortening it will store more energy in the coil and shortening it will likely reduce the early release and the massive hands drop from the top.

Same thing with the driver, you're standing too far away from the ball, and reaching for it again. Your hands are way away from your body (I struggle with this problem, getting it too far away from me at times). Instead, stand closer to the ball and get your hands more under you and closer to your body. Again, stop the swing at the top earlier, you're going back real far and it's causing you to try to drop your hands and get them in the slot quicker, making you pull across it.

I'm no instructor, but that's what I see when watching it that is a problem I've struggled with before that's caused me to hit slices. Getting closer (it feels like you're standing on top of it at first) is something that will fix the problems once you get used to it. Stopping the swing earlier at the top will create more power as well as make it easier to get the club back on line coming down. Maybe someone else sees other things, but those are things I saw immediately because they're things I struggled with for a long time trying to create more power instead of storing more in the coil.

[nero44]

[quote name='RookieBlue7' timestamp='1333638130' post='4656579']
One thing I immediately saw with the 7 iron swing (the first I watched) is you're taking it back waaay too far and wrapping the club around you. The ball also looks like it's too far away from you, and you're reaching for it instead of getting it more under you. Then, when you start down, you're releasing the club a early and it's causing you to pull the club to the inside, making you cut across it out to in and causing the slice. Try getting the ball a tad closer to you and not taking the club back to far is my advice there. Imagine the swing as a clock face, on the way back, try stopping the backswing around 9:00 instead of around 11:30 where you are now. Longer doesn't mean you'll hit it further, shortening it will store more energy in the coil and shortening it will likely reduce the early release and the massive hands drop from the top.

Same thing with the driver, you're standing too far away from the ball, and reaching for it again. Your hands are way away from your body (I struggle with this problem, getting it too far away from me at times). Instead, stand closer to the ball and get your hands more under you and closer to your body. Again, stop the swing at the top earlier, you're going back real far and it's causing you to try to drop your hands and get them in the slot quicker, making you pull across it.

I'm no instructor, but that's what I see when watching it that is a problem I've struggled with before that's caused me to hit slices. Getting closer (it feels like you're standing on top of it at first) is something that will fix the problems once you get used to it. Stopping the swing earlier at the top will create more power as well as make it easier to get the club back on line coming down. Maybe someone else sees other things, but those are things I saw immediately because they're things I struggled with for a long time trying to create more power instead of storing more in the coil.
[/quote]

Thanks for your pointers. I will try to stand closer to the ball next time I am on the range. I am rather short, so I can't get too close to it. Interestingly, I've been standing further away actively, as it used to reduce some of my slicing (on the driver only). My line of reasoning was, that "reaching out" would force me to square up the club face upon impact. I'll try to get some front view video next time, hopefully this may give you a better picture.

As for the distance, perhaps I do this to compensate for the lack of torso movement. My fellow golfers always tell me, that I seem to be using solely my upper body in my swing, w/o much torso movement. I'll give it a shot on the range!

[lmelte]

for a beginner its not that bad at all. From setup I'd like to see you with the handle forward somewhere in the middle of your left thigh. This will help you maintain that flat left wrist we all want at impact. Secondly the above member is correct you could move a little closer to the ball try bending from the waist instead of reaching with the arms. Lastly to work on is keeping that left arm straight.
What you do well is you have a very steady head from what i can tell in the DTL view and your path isnt all that bad a little above but you get back down on it in the downs swing

keep up the good work

[nero44]

- UPDATE -

so, I've been to the range again and tried to incorporate some of the comments. Again, the video quality is a bit inferior, but I've tried to focus the cam on myself not on the background, hence the bright sky in the back...


PW
[url="http://www.swingreader.com/video/view/iYtDPWp1/pw"]http://www.swingread...iew/iYtDPWp1/pw[/url]
Tried to stand closer to the ball. Notice my arms, resting more or less vertically down. Not much change in ball flight, but my PW was already kinda okay for the time being.

7i
[url="http://www.swingreader.com/video/view/Fsljx18s/7-iron"]http://www.swingread...Fsljx18s/7-iron[/url]
Also with the 7 iron I try to let my arms hang down vertically, i.e. standing closer to the ball. If you compare this to my first videos, there was always a slight angle. Direction was quite stable, but I am unsure about the distance. On this take, I've hit the ball quite clean so it went quite far. But then again, this couldve been a placebo.

Driver
[url="http://www.swingreader.com/video/view/Zvrnlrml/driver"]http://www.swingread...Zvrnlrml/driver[/url]
Now, for the driver I've included a few seconds more to show a bit of my new setup routine. To get some consistency in my setup I stand upright and position the driver head behind the ball. Then I let the grip fall against the left side of my thigh. I fix this distance of my feet to the ball and position my stance. My stance is aligned on target with my left foot pointing straight on the ball. On the iphone this tool actually lets you measure the angle between your club and your arms. It was 149 before and now is 137 degrees. I take my swing... distance seems equal but perhaps less slicing. Most of my drives today went straight-ish. Also, bending the left knee inward on the backswing seems to have straightened some shots...

Can you see a difference to the former? Changes for the better? Any other pointers?

Feedback greatly appreciated.

[capecodder]

Really cool Nero. You can definitely see the improvement. Getting your hips turned quicker will help generate more power on your drive. Keep it up!

[cogo22]

Looks much better when you feel like you're "closer" with your arms more underneath your shoulders. Keep an eye on where your weight is at address and throughout the swing-looks to me like you have a tendency to get too much weight on your heels. I would say continue with the closer to the ball feeling, but also monitor the weight distribution in your feet. Good luck.