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Progress in rebuilding my swing

SharkHat

SharkHat

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My swing
I went to the range last night with a friend. I was hitting my irons much better than even three weeks ago. I made good contact and the paths were pretty straight. Lofted clubs actually have loft in them now instead of staying 8' off the ground. Distance was moderate, but since I'm focusing on swinging easier until I get things worked out that's to be expected.

I'm still having trouble with the driver. Contact is better with only one sky shot when I tried an awkward adjustment. I didn't top any balls at all, which is a definite improvement. Unfortunately the ever present slice still plagues me with the big stick. I'm not letting that sidetrack me though, or take up too much practice time yet.

This morning I did some setup and half swing drills in the garage. I'm still getting comfortable with keeping my weight forward and getting my body into the swing instead of all arms.

Feedback is welcome.
 
I had a mediocre range session yesterday, but it was all my fault. I was frustrated before I got there (work stress, spat with the wife, etc), so my focus was not where it should have been when I started. This led to me banging away instead of focusing on slowing down. I was able to settle down about halfway through.

Things I focused on:
Address and setup
Stance and spine angle
Soft hands


Things I noticed I was doing wrong:
I was letting my hands move out away from my body at address instead of keeping them close.
Ball impact was approaching the hosel once again. If I'm not paying attention, this will be a problem.


By the end of the session I did settle down and had a string of good shots with the 9I. My last 20 balls went at a target mound near the 120 marker. 9 of 20 landed on the mound, 3 flew over, 5 were left, 3 were right.
 
I apologize if this seems like my personal journal, but I think it's helping me quite a bit to have to analyze my practice in order to turn it into a post that others might read. I'm getting to the point where I can actually identify my mistakes and try to correct them instead of just getting frustrated and hitting away.

I ducked out and hit the range during my lunch break today. I split a bucket with my buddy, and since we were short on time I made several mistakes. Early on I think that when I would focus on rotating my shoulders and hips, I would forget to keep my right elbow close to my body. If I focused on keeping my elbow in, I tended to sway instead of rotating. If I tried to 'uncoil' with my hips first, I tended to raise up and top the ball. Arm tension was creeping back in. As last time, I finally settled down and was able to at least finish out with a decent string of good shots with both the 8I and 6I.


Tonight after the house quieted down and my wife and son were in bed I did some more drills.

Tempo drills - swinging nice and easy, stopping at checkpoints from time to time to analyze position and plane. I focused on keeping my arms relaxed but straight. These felt great, and it seemed to generate good speed at the bottom. Follow through felt very balanced and natural.

Backswing drills - from Golf Fix last night, put an obstacle behind me along the target line, close enough that failing to rotate my wrists would cause me to hit it. This felt good and helped me relax my arms.


Lessons learned in the past two days:
Rushing my backswing makes me rush my downswing. This tempo really puts me in a bad place. It introduces sway, tenses my hands and arms, and probably even more that I don't recognize yet. Most of my mishits seem to stem from this. During the drills this is easy to overcome so far, since I'm usually inside and don't want to explain any destruction to my wife. I need to carry this over to when it counts too. I think that I was hitting the ball so poorly for so long that putting the ball back into the equation causes a certain level of doubt and stress.


Basically I need to relax and remember that it's just golf. Golf is fun, right?
 
For me as well, the one thing that always keeps me motivated doing something is tracking my progress.. Doesn't matter what it is, I NEED to see improvement to keep focusing on achieving a certain goal. What you are documenting is great in that aspect! (whenever I go out with friends I always keep the scorecards so i can compare them..)

I am a beginner golfer as well so can't really give you advice on training but sounds like you are doing an awesome job. One thing I noticed is when I am time crunched at the range, hitting all my balls just to finish them is probably more detrimental than anything.. Leave a few and focus on the shots you have. I was told once by an elder that one thing you will learn in life is it's okay to leave an unfinished beer at a bar/restaurant.. I guess that kinda applies :)

Keep it up!
 
Things I've focused on in my practice sessions the last few days:

Keeping my backswing and tempo controlled. This has helped me stop swaying onto my back foot and has resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of mishits. Good contact is happening much more consistently.

Rotation rotation rotation. Getting my swing out of my arms felt very awkward at first, but is now feeling much more natural. I can definitely tell the difference in the feeling if I let the arm swing creep back in.

Right arm passive. I've been happy enough with my progress, and felt that my swing had improved enough to justify trying out a fitting. While I was there, the fitter suggested that I was still pushing with my right arm too much. He also noticed that my shoulders were open with the driver. The fitting went well, and I pulled the trigger on the purchase with confidence. They replaced the grip on the driver for me while I was there, but I'll have to wait for the irons since they're getting extensions and grips.



Results at the range this morning were better than I could have hoped after only two weeks of rebuilding. The driver is showing signs of life. After squaring my shoulders to the target line instead of ball, contact was MUCH improved. In no way was I hitting it 100%, but the improvement was very encouraging. When I was swinging through the ball instead of at the ball, it was giving me good 220 yd carries into playable territory. Several were dead straight, some had a little fade.
 
SharkHat said:
Things I've focused on in my practice sessions the last few days:

Keeping my backswing and tempo controlled. This has helped me stop swaying onto my back foot and has resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of mishits. Good contact is happening much more consistently.

Rotation rotation rotation. Getting my swing out of my arms felt very awkward at first, but is now feeling much more natural. I can definitely tell the difference in the feeling if I let the arm swing creep back in.

Right arm passive. I've been happy enough with my progress, and felt that my swing had improved enough to justify trying out a fitting. While I was there, the fitter suggested that I was still pushing with my right arm too much. He also noticed that my shoulders were open with the driver. The fitting went well, and I pulled the trigger on the purchase with confidence. They replaced the grip on the driver for me while I was there, but I'll have to wait for the irons since they're getting extensions and grips.



Results at the range this morning were better than I could have hoped after only two weeks of rebuilding. The driver is showing signs of life. After squaring my shoulders to the target line instead of ball, contact was MUCH improved. In no way was I hitting it 100%, but the improvement was very encouraging. When I was swinging through the ball instead of at the ball, it was giving me good 220 yd carries into playable territory. Several were dead straight, some had a little fade.
Click to expand...

Keep up the good work, and don't hesitate to update as things progress, sometimes threads move so fast that not many are getting to see them, doesn't mean no one is reading buddy.
 
Thanks for the encouragement guys.

My back and hands needed a little break, so I didn't hit any balls today. I did spend some time practicing setup routine and address position. Everything is starting to feel more natural, even a stance that used to be uncomfortable.

Short sets of full swings in the garage felt good too. Lifting my chin to allow my left shoulder to rotate under helped me keep from losing focus on the target line. Confidence in the swing smoothed things out and made it feel like my swing speed was increasing nicely, with no right arm push.

I think I should be able to hit the range tomorrow for some real feedback, and I'm planning to hit the course next weekend to see where I really stand at this point.
 
Latest range session was a mixed bag.

Most of my drills have been with the irons, and it showed this outing. Forcing myself to follow a setup routine has payed dividends. I was comfortable at address and backswings were smooth with a faster downswing. Tempo definitely feels much improved. Shots with the PW/9I/8I were towering in comparison to the thin jarring shots that were my previous norm, with my 9I coming down on or near the target mound around 130. 5/6/7 felt good, also with improved contact and improved trajectory and distance. I left the hybrids in the bag for this trip.

Setting up with the driver is still awkward to me. Confidence is still very low with the big stick. Contact was decent (improved), but I'm still leaving the clubface terribly open and I wasn't swinging through the ball. I'm still optimistic that this will come around soon as I get more comfortable with everything else.



I'm anxious to pick up my new irons and get them in play. I scheduled a tee time for Sunday afternoon, and plan to get to the range again at least twice before then.
 
Spent some time with a smaller bucket and the driver today.

Warmed up with my 8I and then focused on trying to find a good setup routine with the driver. Started out pretty poorly, shots were very high and moving briskly to the right. Repetition and just focusing on the process instead of the results settled me down and brought things closer to the line. By the end of the bucket my shots were lower trajectory, and had settled into a moderate fade. Distance was not great, but approaching playable. My goal of finding a comfortable address was met, and left me confident that further improvements are achievable.
 
Practicing with a purpose is the first step towards getting better.
 
SharkHat said:
Setting up with the driver is still awkward to me. Confidence is still very low with the big stick. Contact was decent (improved), but I'm still leaving the clubface terribly open and I wasn't swinging through the ball. I'm still optimistic that this will come around soon as I get more comfortable with everything else.
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I think you're right. Once the irons are grooved in and you feel comfortable, you'll be a little more confident about adjusting your setup/swing with the driver. That's how I found it anyway.

Keep updating us. I like how you've got a good plan and structure to what you're doing, and I think you'll reap the rewards from that.
 
Today was a bust, nothing was working right. I think I've been overdoing the practice, as my hands and wrists were sore, which probably lead me to make unconscious corrections. Overall, I wish I had sat this one out.

I'm not gonna consider it a setback, just gonna wipe it off the books.
 
In retrospect, I think that yesterday's problem session was the best thing to happen, and the timing was perfect. It forced me to stop and evaluate what pieces were missing to cause such a dramatic backslide.

I spent some time last night thinking about why my wrists and hands felt so bad, but my back wasn't hurting at all. I came to the conclustion that I've been getting the rotation and pivot down, but my arms were still a problem. I was still casting and trying to muscle the club around. I decided to try the casting drills and confirmed that that was a definite problem.

I did some drill swings last night, focusing on keeping the hinge until the club is lower, and WOW. I think for the first time I actually understand what releasing the hands is supposed to feel like, and why it generates easier club speed. This was the best swing feeling I've ever had, and it felt very repeatable.
 
Played 18 today on one of my favorite courses. Hit 5 fairways, and only had one hole where my driver got me in trouble. I had to line up left and play the slice, but the playability off the tee was greatly improved.

Chipping and putting today were great. I had 3 chips from inside 40 that were left under a foot from the hole, 2 looked like they had chances to go in.

Irons were problematic today. My swing felt good, but everything was squirting way off to the right. I was definitely not getting the clubface closed on full swings. This proved to be very frustrating, since most of these were from very playable positions that should have given me a good shot at the green. My best iron shots were actually from positions where the ball was well above my feet.
 
Mini breakthrough at the range today. Lack of confidence after speeding up my swing caused me to compensate by increasing my grip tension. My left wrist was blocking the release.

To ease things up, I started off by swinging with my feet totally together. Free shoulder rotation and release felt nice and easy, ball contact was as good as I've ever hit it. Power was obviously lacking, but square impact was my focus for the day.

Widening my stance led me back down the banana slice path, until I tried rolling my left hand forward a bit at the top of my swing. This was uncomfortable, but slowed me down enough to relax and flush the ball.

Results tonight were encouraging.
 
I had a great range session today. A bit of a rough start, but I tried something weird and it worked like a champ.

Since it seemed like no matter what I tried I couldn't reliably get the clubface to close, I finally tried adjusting my left hand to be more on top of the club. At address, this felt like it was putting some tension in my forearm, but a couple waggles worked it out. What tension remained was good, and I think helped me keep my left arm straight.

Wow...

Flush contact with every club in the bag. Long and straight, with only a little push/pull dispersion every now and then.

I'm definitely ready for my day of playing hooky and getting out for 18 tomorrow!

ETA: Post session feeling is like the final piece of a puzzle finally fell into place. I'm almost giddy.
 
Right elbow close?

Right elbow close?

SharkHat said:
....... I made several mistakes. Early on I think that when I would focus on rotating my shoulders and hips, I would forget to keep my right elbow close to my body. ................
Basically I need to relax and remember that it's just golf. Golf is fun, right?
Click to expand...

Right. Relax is the key to the best times at golf no matter what the outcome. Oddly enough that is what also makes you play better.

I am fairly new to golf but have been taking lesson lately and have been working at NOT keeping my right elbow close, turning with the shoulders only to half way back and keeping the club on the outside of the swing path established at address. Creating width. My understanding is right elbow close is very old school, a common beginner mistake, and causes over the top or a multitude of other problems. Width definitely gives power. Your thoughts?
 
The width of an all arm swing is actually exactly what I've been trying to get away from. It felt powerful, but was inconsistent and uncontrollable for me.
 
As long as it doesn't look like charles barkley you will be fine

1305220792_Charles-Barkley-playing-golf-.gif
 
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Range session after work again tonight. I was encouraged by my round in Friday, where I hit 7 fairways with the driver and had a few decent iron shots. 2nd hole on Friday was actually the best on-course drive of my life. I did struggle with some slices and tops coming back, but overall still had improvement.

Today I got a slow start in practice, with some mishits rearing their ugly heads. I slowed down and focused on feeling my posture and getting over the ball more. Once I did this, my release fell into place and I stopped the tops/chunks.

After a few strings of well hit balls, I switched to playing out imaginary holes, which also felt really good. Getting the feeling of smooth proper contact relaxed my hands and wrists from their "brace for impact" tension, and everything went better.
 
Reality bites back. The shanks came back with a vengeance. My misery was compounded when my assumption of what was causing them took me in exactly the wrong direction to correct.

I've been feeling very comfortable lately with my new setup and address routine, posture, rotation, and most of the swing. The parts that I've been struggling with have been grip and releasing my wrists. I overstrengthened my left hand grip position, and I think that this exaggerated my problems. I had been trying to get my right arm completely out of the swing, which caused a severely late release.... I started seeing the problem even in half swings and chip shots. Lots of 45° or worse squibs to the right.

So....

Downstairs to the man cave with a 9I, a SW, a carpet square, and some plastic practice balls. 5 hours of Sunday Player's coverage in surround sound to keep me in the right mindset, and a few targets to hit in various ways. My focus was on getting the club face square at the proper time, and to not do so by casting the club and dragging it through the bottom.

I started with the ball near the trailing edge of the carpet square. If I hit fat, the whole square would move. I started out with putter swing chip shots. Worked up to short 1/4 swings to a laundry basket about 10' away. Then I tried getting the ball up quickly and over the ottoman. Half swings picked the ball up to across the room into the basement window curtains (4'x3' maybe). I did try some low power full swings as well, but wasn't comfortable with clearances, so I left off there. Having novel targets/obstacles was incredibly beneficial.
 
Last night's range session was the best so far during this process. Showed progress, but still not perfection. Luckily perfect is not my goal.

There were a few mishits. Luckily I was able to focus on and identify what I had done wrong and correct it quickly. Two common slips for me are hunching my back (which puts me back into an arm swing) and swinging too steep (which puts me into the shanks). I'm learning what the symptoms of each are. Probably 10 to 15% of the bucket went to waste with these shots.

Once I felt a good groove was happening, I didn't have to focus on trying to be hands/flippy to get square at impact. I think this was mostly happening on the steep swings, which left me with some bow in my wrist at the top. On plane, focusing on the butt of the shaft pointing at the target line brought my wrist flat naturally. Good rotation around a proper posture brought me back square. Easy swings hitting flush felt GOOD.

I spent half of the bucket playing out imaginary holes again. Imagined carry and trouble left/right worked great at keeping my focus. I made sure to not rehit any shots, to force myself into club transitions. In the last 15 balls or so, my back was a little tired, and I caught myself hunching. I was able to correct within three shots, and get back on track.


TLDR: Current Status = Pleased with progress, still working hard
 
I think that I'll probably slow down on updates to this thread for a while. I'm not sure I can adequately convey how pleased I am with the results that have come from the last 5 weeks. It's fair to say that a great portion of those results came due to trying tips or drill recommendations that I found here in this section of the forum, and from advice I found in the GolfTec Ask The Pro section. Without THP I would still be playing the course 30 yards at a time.



I got out yesterday for 18 with my boss and two coworkers. This was the first time that I had played with any of them, and I fully expected to be the worst of the foursome. I shocked myself in several ways. On the first tee I pulled my driver to the left, nearing the out of bounds. With 135 left, this put a stand of trees halfway between me and the green. A nice 9I cleared the trees cleanly and landed on the green, two putts for par. I was completely dumbfounded. After this result on the first hole, I actually felt confident over every single shot that followed. Not false confidence, but I actually settled down and visualized every shot knowing that I could make good clean contact and advance the ball. Obviously not every shot worked out, but poor shots did not plague me the way they used to.

I shot the low round of the foursome with an 89 (46/43) with 4 pars and a birdie. Considering my last rounds have been of the "don't count penalty strokes", "stop scoring/pick up at 10", "I wish I had brought more than 2 dozen balls", "self-destruct/club over the knee/110+" variety.... I'm beyond speechless.

I'm giddy.




ETA: For clarification, even though I'm giddy I know that I still have some work to do. Like I said early in the thread, I think that the accountability of analyzing my progress as part of the process was invaluable to me.
 
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When you start making good contact most of the time try to focus more on the target you want to hit. Don't look at trouble or where you don't want the ball to go, your body and subconscious mind don't really understand negatives very well and they can lock you onto those bad areas instead of the target you want to hit to. The last thing you look at before you swing should be the spot you are trying to hit. When you can tee off and you don't notice the pond on the left until after you are headed for your ball in the fairway then you will know your focus is on the right target in front of you and not on the trouble off to one side or the other.
 
I had a total of 5 shots in the round that were not good contact. 1 shot was fat (tee shot), 1 was thin (edge of bunker, awkward lie), and 3 that were topped were all below my feet.

Now, that said, I did have some shots that were pulled or pushed offline, but contact was good and I kept them playable pretty well.
 
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