My dad hits the ball super super NOT long.

[krschmitt]

I have a bad swing and all his friends who are his age or older have rusty swings...yet he can't hit the ball far at all...he is 58

 

8-iron : 105 yards

Driver : 180-210

 

Does anyone see any glaring problems and I can tell him to work on?

 

Thanks a lot.

 

 

[rickbgolfer]

swaying a little off the ball...

He is unhinging the club to early.. notice the whoosh sound before impact? A good drill for this is to swing the butt-end of the club and make a whoosh sound after impact area.

[sblack5]

your dad rolls his hands to the inside and bends his right elbow immediately off the ball and gets the club stuck behind him before his shoulders have a real chance to turn. he then has to lift the club with his arms to get the club to the top. in doing this, he gets his right arm behind him and his left arm pinned across his chest, making his backswing position very narrow. in addition, as the other poster mentioned, he sways off the ball going back and then moves his upper body back toward the target in transition. if he didn't correct this coming down, he would be extremely steep and take divots to china. to recover from this, he has to do something to try to shallow out the club again and get his hand back in front of him. what he does is open his shoulders a little and then stall everything and let his arms fire through in an effort to get them back in front and thru the ball.....this equals pretty weak contact compared to what he could do if his arms weren't stuck and his body wasn't compensating in an effort to get his hands back in front of him. PLUS, it would have the benefit of making things more efficient for him so that his body didn't have to work so hard to swing the club, on top of hitting it further.

 

the fix......

your dad needs to learn to not roll his hands to the inside and immediately pull the club inside with his bending right arm. the right arm is supposed to bend but not so early. by keeping the right arm straighter for longer, he will both create more width going back (which allows for more potential club head speed), and keep his arms in front of him. by keeping his arms in front of him, his right shoulder won't have to stall to let his arms catch up and get back in front. this means that when he swings down, his body can keep turning down thru the shot and he will hit it with more authority because nothing is slowing down his arms from swinging freely, and his arm swing and body rotation will be in sync instead of compensating for his arms being stuck behind him.

 

drill by Dan C.

 

 

This is a drill to train you to keep your arms more in sync with your pivot and working faster, which has the other benefit of helping you hit the ball farther. I want you to make some swings with both arms straight from side-to-side about hip-high to hip-high. The key part of this is I want you to set/c0ck the club fully, but do it without bending your arms. The majority of golfers over-bend their trailing arm in the backswing and the leading arm in the follow-through. This drill will force the club to stay in front of you and teach you to separate c0cking the lead wrist and folding the arms. The sensation while doing the drill will be that it is very army, but if both arms stay straight while doing it, the club will stay in front of you and you will pivot back and through.

 

You can't swing the club with your arms straight without turning -- it's not possible. The turn will happen subconsciously. The goal here is to swing the arms while keeping them straight and set the club from hip-high to hip-high as fast as possible. This drill is done without a ball, and meant to be done with speed once you feel comfortable with the motion.

Once you feel comfortable doing it without a ball, I want you to go hit balls while maintaining the same feel while keeping your arms below chest-high. If you were to film these swings, I expect the trailing arm to fold slightly (as the club approaches chest high) in the backswing and the lead arm to fold slightly on the through swing.

 

The wrists will c0ck the club slower and later than it feels (it will be very gradual). I also expect the swing to be longer than you feel like it is and the ball will go farther than you expect it. The body will pivot back and through, but it will be doing so as a reaction to the arms swinging while extended. The faster the arms swing, the faster you will/can pivot and the farther the ball will go. This will create a shorter, more efficient and more in-sync swing allowing for consistency and hopefully lower scores.

 

 

 

Above are examples of a golf swing that has both arms are extended with the club setting in backswing and through the ball. The arm swing is in-sync with the pivoting of the body.

[krschmitt]

Thank you very much. Rickbgolfer and sblack5

I will show my dad and see how he can do.

and what a reply sblack.... thanks tons.

[sblack5]

always found that if someone doesn't really understand what is going on, then they won't understand why a fix is recommended to straighten them out. good teachers are good communicators my friend.