Thoughts on the Swing

[9-Iron Man]

My miss was always a bad slice. I've been concentrating on squaring the club face at impact by reducing the break in my wrists. When my swing gets lazy, my wrists rotate open at impact. Yesterday at the simulator of the 110 odd shots I took, less than 20 were sliced. The remainder went straight, or left. In fact the vast majority went left. Many to the point of hooking. I'm facing something new here. I took a video of my swing with the new TaylorMade Rescue 11 I'm testing. Shaft is the stock reg flex RIP 65.



The ball obviously went to the left about 143 carry. I went through the video and took some screen shots too.

At the top

Start of the downswing

Impact

Ball Impacting the screen

Finish

Any thoughts Andy? Thanks!

 

[amollerud]

I see a few things. First the start of the down swing is steep (over the top) and you are coming from outside the target line to inside. Working on closing the face should lead to some shots that start at or left of your target and move left. The bigger concern is the lack of a weight shift to your left side at the end of your swing. Hanging back this much makes your swing timing dependent on your hands. This is something you need to try and eliminate from your golf swing. I would start working the weight shift. At the top of your back swing, before you start down feel the weight move to the left foot. Try to get your nose over the ball at impact. Getting you moving will go a long way to better strikes. Once that feels better you can start to work the baseball diamond drill.

 

[9-Iron Man]

I see a few things. First the start of the down swing is steep (over the top) and you are coming from outside the target line to inside. Working on closing the face should lead to some shots that start at or left of your target and move left. The bigger concern is the lack of a weight shift to your left side at the end of your swing. Hanging back this much makes your swing timing dependent on your hands. This is something you need to try and eliminate from your golf swing. I would start working the weight shift. At the top of your back swing, before you start down feel the weight move to the left foot. Try to get your nose over the ball at impact. Getting you moving will go a long way to better strikes. Once that feels better you can start to work the baseball diamond drill.

Thanks Andy. Should I just be shifting my weight straight across from right to left or should it come more with turning my hips?

 

[9-Iron Man]

I put these tips into play this evening while hitting a R11 3 wood and was seeing some much better results. I kept my swing plane flatter to stop coming over the top and tried to shift my weight through the swing. Sidespin pretty much disappeared on a lot of shots. It was a welcome site to see the ball spin on a flat axis. Going to the sim again tomorrow morning (Saturday) and will post another video or two afterwards.

 

[eaglesgolf72]

Yea you need to turn your hips!!! Don't move hips side to side, it's a rotation. You keep your spine and body in the same place, but your hips rotate around your body. Andy is right, keep working on the weight shift. You can tell in the last still frame that your weight isn't on your left side because your right foot isn't completely vertical. Take some practice swings and on your follow through make sure that you have all of your weight to your left side and your right foot is completely vertical!!!

 

[9-Iron Man]

Many apologies for the delay in getting some more video up. Been very busy with house and wedding things and just didn't get an opportunity. These were taken a couple weeks ago after I started to flatten out my swing to stop coming over the top and shifting my weight forward.

From Behind:


Fron the Front: (sorry, I couldn't rotate it)

 

[amollerud]

It looks like the couple of spots we talked about are getting much better. Are you continuing to see better results? Nice work so far and keep working on this.

 

[9-Iron Man]

It looks like the couple of spots we talked about are getting much better. Are you continuing to see better results? Nice work so far and keep working on this.

Actually I am. Driver has to be one of my better clubs in the bag now. In fact my sim session last weekend was my best yet. Pretty much everything was going straight. Sliced a couple drives, but nothing to serious and was able to recover farily nicely. Only got 14 holes in, but I shot a 72 to that point. 4 pars, 8 bogeys, with 2 double pars that were just not good holes. Sim again on Saturday. I'll try to get some video up from there. Busy time for us as we are moving in a week, but I'll try to get it up ASAP.

Thank you very much for the tips Andy!!

 

[9-Iron Man]

Hey Andy, any thoughts on this one? Taken on Saturday. This shot went 240, just missing the fairway to the left.

 

[amollerud]

Not bad. My concern is now the right leg and length of your swing. It looks to me like your right leg locks out and as a result you are getting a bit long with the arms and hands. The feel I would like you to work on is maintaining flex in your right leg all the way to the top. At home place something behind your right calf in a setup position. As you move to the top your goal is to not move what you placed behind your leg. This will get you a feel of a more stable low body. Work on that for a bit and let me know how things go for you.

 

[9-Iron Man]

Not bad. My concern is now the right leg and length of your swing. It looks to me like your right leg locks out and as a result you are getting a bit long with the arms and hands. The feel I would like you to work on is maintaining flex in your right leg all the way to the top. At home place something behind your right calf in a setup position. As you move to the top your goal is to not move what you placed behind your leg. This will get you a feel of a more stable low body. Work on that for a bit and let me know how things go for you.

I'll try that Andy, thanks. I know my swing is way too long. My practice swings are always shorter, but when a ball gets in front of the club, my brain takes over and tries to kill the ball so it gets out there as far as possible. It's something I've been trying to work on for some time now, but is hard as I'm not a big hitter.