Driver Swing Help

Posted this in another thread, but thought it would be better here.

amollerud: I have gotten plenty of critisism on my iron swing, I would like a bit of an analysis from you on my Driver swing seeing as you gave DD a pretty thorough examination as well. I am not struggling at all and hit the ball fairly straight, I just feel I have a lot of flaws and am not maximizing power and precision. This was my swing last year, not sure how much it has changed this year. Here are two views: I really feel I need help with the hip turn, my hips sway. Also I know you are going to say that my hands need to be ahead of the clubhead. That was just a simple mistake and usually does not happen. My swing feels very sloppy.

Behind Driver: http://www.swingacademy.com/swinganalysistool.aspx?id=1237

Face On: http://www.swingacademy.com/swinganalysistool.aspx?id=1236

Thanks in advance.

Dent, to be honest with you the swing looks pretty darn good. You look very good at set-up the only real concern that I have from the 2 swings that you showed me would be the body work on the take away. You have a sway with the lower body and that leads to you swinging with more arms and less with the big muscles. To cut the sway there are a couple of drills for you to try. The one that I would stress with you is a drill where you set up with your feet together. Ball position is in the middle of the feet. I want you to make full swings from that position. I don't care where the ball goes while you do this. What I want is you to pay attention to what your upper body does. I want you to feel the turn back and through with the upper body. The other thing you need to pay attention to is which way you feel like you are falling over. This is a great drill to check to make sure that you have a balanced swing. Once you get a feel for the turn I want you to take it a bit farther and drop you left foot back so it is behind the right foot. What this will do is restrict the shoulder turn on the way back and prevent taking it back too far but will allow you to get to a full finish. Let me know how this works for you. Other than that move on the take away the swing looks very nice.

That is perfect! I was looking to find a drill to promote hip turn and not a sway like I currently have. I will try this tonight and let you know. One more thing, after I've done this a couple times, how can I incorperate it into my swing so it stays with me permenantly? Or will it just come naturally after awhile?

It will start to come naturally....but once you get the feel of that good turn with your feet together I want you to work hard to try and duplicate that FEEL when you set up to a ball in the normal position. Please let me know how it works.

amollerud said:

It will start to come naturally....but once you get the feel of that good turn with your feet together I want you to work hard to try and duplicate that FEEL when you set up to a ball in the normal position. Please let me know how it works.

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I gave it a try today, and surprisingly was really balanced with my feet together, My weight seemed pretty stable on both feet. As I went and setup for my real shot I felt pretty confident and could already feel my upper body doing most of the work on the takeaway, it was all arms, chest and shoulders. Which felt really good. My lower body was stable and quiet. I have a really lousy video of it, but you can't see much because it's so dark.

All I can say is that I'll keep working on it and more hip rotation will certainly come.

That is great to hear dent. Keep working on it and you should find that the ball really starts to jump and it will feel like you are doing less work to make it fly. I am glad to hear that you are working on this. Let me know how it goes and I will get you some additonal drills to try and help you work this through.

amollerud said:

That is great to hear dent. Keep working on it and you should find that the ball really starts to jump and it will feel like you are doing less work to make it fly. I am glad to hear that you are working on this. Let me know how it goes and I will get you some additonal drills to try and help you work this through.

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Great, thanks for your help!

I'm gonna do the drill in my basement for a bit until I get back out to hitting a real ball. Will update you soon!

Great post.

I have potentially a similar problem with my swing. The direction of the ball with all my clubs in the bag is inconsistent and I have been told that I sway on the backswing. That would make sense as I have to compensate on each swing to try and hit the ball in the desired direction. I find some days are better then others but I think that is becaase I am just compensating well that day as it never last. I always have a blow up hole or two based on a shot hit OB or badly. I am a 8.8 handicap and my average score is 85. When I am doing a good job of compensating I can shoot in the 70's.

I work with a guy who is a really good player (sratch) and has helped a lot of people. We have worked hard over the last few months getting my setup right (grip, posture, alignment...etc). I was recently told by my the local Pro at my golf course that my set up look fantastic. However, when I approach the guy I am working with about this swaying issue he does not have a drill but just keeps telling me to make sure on the backswing that I get set into my right hip. When I am working with him we tend to get me hitting the ball pretty consistent but when I am on my own I cannot seem to find it. This feet together drill sounds intersting and I was wonder amollerud if this will also help with my potential swaying problem?

Thanks for any advise you can offer.

ZM this is a great drill to help with the sway. It will also help you feel the proper turn and balance in the swing. We have a video of this drill and the variations of it on THP TV. It might be worth a watch for you. If there is anything else you need some help with please post it here or PM me. I will do what I can to help.

This drill really works great! I actually use it in my pre swing routine on the course. Just a couple of swings with the feet together to get that feel and then step into my address position. It's pure gold for balance training. Good luck to all. P.S. I had a partial knee replacement on my right knee so it's very important that I train myself with a good balance technique. Good luck!