It's All About Address

[DataDude]

So I am working on my golf swing and getting rid of my over the top motion. I have swung like this before, but in my infinite wisdom I kept hitting huge push fades so I started adjusting away from that in my swing until I didn't fade or slice it which of course got me over the top again trying to deliver the face square at address.

Fast forward to the present and instead of adjusting my swing I slowly started moving my grip. Instead of left thumb going strait down the center of the grip I moved it further and further towards 3 o'clock (going from neutral to strong in the golf venacular) until the same swing that was crushing push fades was now hitting line drives down the middle.

How many of us know exactly how to swing correctly but that strong powerful in to out swing produces bad results and we never even think to just change where we start. Instead we keep the same grip, same address, same posture and then try to adjust the swing to make it go where we want it and in the meantime the swing becomes less powerful, less consistent, and less fundamentally correct? Even worse we just revert back to the same old crappy swing we had before?

 

[wadesworld]

Golf is about setting up well for the swing you want to happen and then allowing it to happen.

To make a strong, committed swing, your setup must match the picture in your mind. You must be able to allow the club to swing in the direction desired and stay out of your own way. If you have the ball too far forward, you don't have enough spine angle, your grip is too weak, or anything else is wrong in your setup, then you aren't going to be able to make that confident swing and allow it to happen. Your brain knows you won't pull it off. Instead you're going to have to try to reroute the club and try to "manufacture" the shot. Bad things often result. You cannot make an optimal swing if something feels off.

 

[InTheRough]

Yeah, well, I was at the range yesterday. My golf pro was giving a lesson in the lane next to me and I signaled to him I wanted to talk when he was done. Honestly I was hitting the ball like ****. So before we talked he said, "I want to show you something," and took a video of me. "Tell me what's wrong here."

I told him what I was trying to fix, but yeah, this was causing another problem. It was in my set up. So I fixed it on my next swing. Easy peasy. Then we talked. Videos don't lie.

Get two cameras and two tripods. Take a video of the same swing from caddie and down the line views. You'll see what you're doing. It should be the same swing because if you take two different swings you could do something different the next time.