Alleged 4 handicap who shot 89 today :(

[Kelly Bieber]

Gents,

 

I am kindly asking for some help. I am a 4 handicap, however the past month has been atrocious. My miss is either a pull-draw or a block-fade. It feels like forever since I have hit a solid golf shot.

 

Can you please take a look and give me some thoughts? I notice my head sways too much and I may be taking it too far outside on my takeaway.

 

Any help would be appreciated! Here is a link to my swing (5 shots behind followed by 2 from the side):

 

 

Cheers.

 

 

[ksgolfcoach]

Your hips have absolutely no turn, they just slide back in the bs. Get your right hip to turn up and behind you in the backswing, narrowing your stance will also help a lot. This will help get your arms swinging with your turn instead of just lifting

[Kelly Bieber]

Thanks for the advice, very good point!

[Tomed]

in my opinion, i think you need to get your video done in extreme slomo, then look at it. just one video in slomo, not 5 from dtl then 2 fo. as a 4 hndcp you'll be able to see what you're doing that you need to change. if you can't figure it out a slomo video is the first step. the other poster who suggested your lack of hip turn on the back swing made a very valid point. there's a fair amount of sway that will occur when there's little to no pivot in the hips. swaying spells disaster for consistency. if you got to a 4 index, you've got to be a helluva ahtlete.

[chatfieldgolf08]

To me it looks like your hips move quite a bit towards the ball too in the forward swing, giving your arms no room to swing

[Jonnybagadonuts]

Imagine your hips are a door. When you setup to the ball the door is closed, however when you take your backswing
this door needs to open to let the arms come through the door on the downswing.

Your door is always shut, their is no room for your arms to work so you straighten your legs violently in an effort to
make room. This will lead to the dreaded "S" word, heel shots and sometimes snap hooks when you
vigorously flip your hands to square the club face.



What also will help with your hip turn is setting up properly. Your setting up in a chair posistion. it looks like your
right about to sit in a chair. What this does is move your weight closer to your toes on the backswing because
your out of balance.

Stand erect, grip your club, then bend to the ball from your hips while your legs are still straight. Now
bend your knees slightly. What you will notice is that your feet will feel more balanced and grounded. You should
feel as though your knees are just below your hips and not in front of your hips.

Watching videos of adam scott and rory will give you a mental picture.

[BTP]

[quote name='Jonnybagadonuts' timestamp='1375833588' post='7619524']
Imagine your hips are a door. When you setup to the ball the door is closed, however when you take your backswing
this door needs to open to let the arms come through the door on the downswing.

Your door is always shut, their is no room for your arms to work so you straighten your legs violently in an effort to
make room. This will lead to the dreaded "S" word, heel shots and sometimes snap hooks when you
vigorously flip your hands to square the club face.



What also will help with your hip turn is setting up properly. Your setting up in a chair posistion. it looks like your
right about to sit in a chair. What this does is move your weight closer to your toes on the backswing because
your out of balance.

Stand erect, grip your club, then bend to the ball from your hips while your legs are still straight. Now
bend your knees slightly. What you will notice is that your feet will feel more balanced and grounded. You should
feel as though your knees are just below your hips and not in front of your hips.

Watching videos of adam scott and rory will give you a mental picture.
[/quote]

+1 ! Great advice. Your set-up at address immediately set off alarms to me.

[Jonnybagadonuts]

BTW: i did not know you had face on videos until i watched the entire video but your stance
is much to wide. Maybe 4-6 inches wider then what it needs to be. It will almost
be impossible to turn your hips with your stance that wide.


Just due a test yourself. Stand as wide as you can without falling over and try to turn your hips. Now stand
with your feet 2-3 inches apart and try turning, Its going to be much easier......Almost natural.

[Golfer2334]

the guy in the back at 1:43 lol

[spiffdogxl]

Dave Eichelberger once told me the perfect stance width is when your balls are just barely touching your thighs. True story. And probably decent advice.

[pingfool]

lot of potential - bet a good instructor would clean you up 1-2 lessons

in addition to suggestions above on stance/posture/setup etc....

it appears to me that you aiming - relative to the club on the ground - quite a bit left

not sure what your visual target is - but if you're self-diagnosing pull hooks - you could be hitting it where you are aiming
but not @ your visual target

good instructor will establish a target - get you properly aligned on target - then evaluate ballflight and identify cause/effect

clean things up and you'll be back playing to you HC

[Valdre78]

I don't know if it the angle of the face on, but your ball position looks like it may be too forward in your stance. So it would make sense you are hitting hooks, and block push. I would back that ball up about 2 inches. Especially if your miss is a low hook, and a high push.( from you trying to save it from going left) I would start there. Hope it helps

[snookybusby]

Honestly I think you are just coming over the top a little from outside in. To have such a nice swing this is a really common mistake that creeps in on a lot of people. Try just keeping your right elbow closer to your body for an inside out swing path and see what happens.

[dornstar]

You've got a lot of potential, but there's definitely things to clean up. Quick breakdown...

 

1. As others have said, your posture and setup needs a lot of work. Stance is too wide. Butt is too far behind your heels in a sitting position. This puts the weight too much in the heels. You need less knee flex and hips closer to being over your feet. The quick fix for this is to move into the ball standing up, bend from the hips to address the ball and then soften the knees a touch rather than immediately setting up with a deep knee flex. Think of it like you were standing on the edge of a building looking down rather than getting ready to sit in a chair. I had the same setup issues for a long time and with diligence, I was able to fix it rather easily and permanently. I did have to get use to seeing the swing from a different perspective though which was the hardest part. Once it got fixed, I was amazed at how much video of my swing looked more PGA'ish than my old swing videos.

 

 

2. You actually try to recenter yourself during the backswing causing your head to move quite a bit closer to the ball than where it started. Look how you move towards the flag in the distance. Fixing your posture will fix this.

 

 

 

3. With the weight on your heels, it generally leads to everything being too flat (shoulder turn and club). In your case though, you lift your hands outside to start the swing and move your body forward towards the ball. This move plus your lack of hip rotation causes your hands to not get deep enough. They should be closer to the right shoulder rather than your neck at this point with the shaft pointing at or inside the ball. The red line would be closer to what you would want with the circle being the hand position. As you can see, it's not a huge difference, but it is an error that makes the transition difficult.

 

 

 

 

4. In most cases and yours as well, this leads to a steeping of the shaft during the transition as you can see (blue = backswing, red = down). Also, look at the difference between your address shaft position (yellow). From there, you're essentially dead with little hope of getting the club back on plane.

 

 

5. Being a better player and knowing that you have to get the club tracking more from the inside, so you try to save it with early extension aka "goat humping" causing blocks and hooks. Many player will also slide ahead of the ball to try to prevent from swinging OTT as well which will cause the push-slice.. Your butt has moved way off the "tush line" and you have a massive change to your spine angle. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of an 18* change and there's no way you can be consistent with that much fluctuation without world class hands like Phil. Even then, consistency isn't really his forte.

 

 

The fix in my opinion... posture, posture, posture. It will fix a lot of your issues. From there, work on correcting your shoulder tilt and get the club working back steeper so the butt of the club points at or inside the ball. I would hit about a gagillion balls alternating with the right and left leg back which will force you to do many of the things you are doing wrong. Do it until you hate it with a passion and then do it some more.

[BTP]

^ Excellent post, dornstar. Especially like the perspective of the feeling for posture in pretending you are on top of a building looking down.

[dornstar]

[quote name='BTP' timestamp='1392901714' post='8707929']
^ Excellent post, dornstar. Especially like the perspective of the feeling for posture in pretending you are on top of a building looking down.
[/quote]
Thanks. It's hard to communicate these issues on a forum, so I was worried that it wouldn't come across right.

I had similar issues as him although not quite as pronounced and was able to play to a 0 handicap despite them, but I pretty much think I was the worst scratch golfer in the world. If everything was timed up perfectly, I could shoot 70. If not, I could shoot a 90 in a heartbeat and tended to fall apart in tournaments. I remember having an "ah ha" moment after working on these changes for about 3 months where I finally had it figured out. No joke, I probably hit close to 15,000 balls with the right foot/left foot back drills during that time. Once I got it, I reached a level of consistency that was always missing in my game.

[JohSte]

Distract your conscious mind about your swing.
Your worrying too much about the result instead
of being focused on your processes. i.e. your routine.
If you have got a 4 handicap must be able to consistently
strike the ball well.
Have a routine where you sing,count whatever.
Focus on your routine which distracts the conscious
thoughts and you yourself to freewheel your swing.
My 2 cents.

[boxerjoe2011]

You've got a lot of potential, but there's definitely things to clean up. Quick breakdown...

 

1. As others have said, your posture and setup needs a lot of work. Stance is too wide. Butt is too far behind your heels in a sitting position. This puts the weight too much in the heels. You need less knee flex and hips closer to being over your feet. The quick fix for this is to move into the ball standing up, bend from the hips to address the ball and then soften the knees a touch rather than immediately setting up with a deep knee flex. Think of it like you were standing on the edge of a building looking down rather than getting ready to sit in a chair. I had the same setup issues for a long time and with diligence, I was able to fix it rather easily and permanently. I did have to get use to seeing the swing from a different perspective though which was the hardest part. Once it got fixed, I was amazed at how much video of my swing looked more PGA'ish than my old swing videos.

 

 

2. You actually try to recenter yourself during the backswing causing your head to move quite a bit closer to the ball than where it started. Look how you move towards the flag in the distance. Fixing your posture will fix this.

 

 

 

3. With the weight on your heels, it generally leads to everything being too flat (shoulder turn and club). In your case though, you lift your hands outside to start the swing and move your body forward towards the ball. This move plus your lack of hip rotation causes your hands to not get deep enough. They should be closer to the right shoulder rather than your neck at this point with the shaft pointing at or inside the ball. The red line would be closer to what you would want with the circle being the hand position. As you can see, it's not a huge difference, but it is an error that makes the transition difficult.

 

 

 

 

4. In most cases and yours as well, this leads to a steeping of the shaft during the transition as you can see (blue = backswing, red = down). Also, look at the difference between your address shaft position (yellow). From there, you're essentially dead with little hope of getting the club back on plane.

 

 

5. Being a better player and knowing that you have to get the club tracking more from the inside, so you try to save it with early extension aka "goat humping" causing blocks and hooks. Many player will also slide ahead of the ball to try to prevent from swinging OTT as well which will cause the push-slice.. Your butt has moved way off the "tush line" and you have a massive change to your spine angle. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of an 18* change and there's no way you can be consistent with that much fluctuation without world class hands like Phil. Even then, consistency isn't really his forte.

 

 

The fix in my opinion... posture, posture, posture. It will fix a lot of your issues. From there, work on correcting your shoulder tilt and get the club working back steeper so the butt of the club points at or inside the ball. I would hit about a gagillion balls alternating with the right and left leg back which will force you to do many of the things you are doing wrong. Do it until you hate it with a passion and then do it some more.

 

Great post! I was just going to say posture and set up looked off. This is fantastic work!

 

Okay, over the negative stuff. Onto the good stuff...

Having said that, you have a great tempo and a fluid swing. You're a big dude. If you make some small tweaks, you will be back on track!

[cardoustie]

Great post dorn. ... Wow

I concur bug am not as eloquent or detail oriented

Less knee flex, stand taller, release your hips so your butt is not "sucked forward"

Adam Scott posture is a perfect visual

[SLIMER39]

Lose the red shorts and get some sun on those legs and the swing will come.