Very very flat swing

So after starting to break 100 I decided to go to a pro and have him look at my driver swing. I hit drives straight- but only 200 yards on average. A pretty humbling experience.

What I saw on the video was a very very flat swing on the driver compared to any of the pros. I swing it around my body with the head not even reaching the top of my shoulders. The pro said this was more like a baseball swing and this was robbing me of power.

So I tried a swing using a more upright swing on the driver and it was a disaster. I sliced every shot badly and had no distance at all. If I were to go to that swing it would be a long time before I broke 100 again. In fact the driver would probably be relegated to the range for months.

Using my old swing I have hit straight drives 240+. And and am pretty sure I can get to the low 90's with the swing I have now (maybe even high 80s) So I am just wondering, does anyone else use a very flat swing for drives? Do you get good distance from it? Is it worth me rebuilding everything? Or should I just try to work with the flat swing I have?

Video?

It looks a lot like this

TwoSolitudes said:

So after starting to break 100 I decided to go to a pro and have him look at my driver swing. I hit drives straight- but only 200 yards on average. A pretty humbling experience.

What I saw on the video was a very very flat swing on the driver compared to any of the pros. I swing it around my body with the head not even reaching the top of my shoulders. The pro said this was more like a baseball swing and this was robbing me of power.

So I tried a swing using a more upright swing on the driver and it was a disaster. I sliced every shot badly and had no distance at all. If I were to go to that swing it would be a long time before I broke 100 again. In fact the driver would probably be relegated to the range for months.

Using my old swing I have hit straight drives 240+. And and am pretty sure I can get to the low 90's with the swing I have now (maybe even high 80s) So I am just wondering, does anyone else use a very flat swing for drives? Do you get good distance from it? Is it worth me rebuilding everything? Or should I just try to work with the flat swing I have?

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This is a tough situation. Some pro's have pretty flat swings and Tim Clark comes to mind when I say that. I myself have a flatter swing than alot of people but my clubs are fit for me and even though it is flatter than alot of folks I play with, I keep the club on plane very well. I have above average distance on most long clubs but I usually play 1 club more than most of the guys I play with inside 170 yards ie 140 yard 8 iron. Flatter swings often lead to less distance with irons compared to someone with a steeper swing path. The difference is you may be limiting your shoulder turn with the flat swing and losing tremendous power. This is without question something you need to get lessons to help with. Because every individual is different.

2S, this is a tough one man. You could probably get the scores you mentioned buuuuut if you were able to get your swing on plane you may crush those goals. It feels awkward to get the club on plane but once you do it becomes second nature. I had a long sweeping swing and I came over the top a lot (I scoop the ball too but working on it). I know that seems bad at first but I went through some drills last night that really helped. Did your pro offer any up to you? It's tough to change but you can do it!

If you over exaggerate your posture a little, and at the start of your downswing drop your right shoulder, it should allow the shoulder to turn way under. This will make it easier to come from the inside. Even further it would help to keep your weight forward on your front foot.


^assuming youre a righty

thats how i fixed my flat shoulders

flat swings for me = big nasty hooks. but i'm a taller fella, so a more upright swing just feels more natural. i think that it all depends on where you want to go as a golfer. if you're happy now, then just stick with it, but know that you're probably max'd out as far as your distance off the tee goes. i'm assuming you'll want to fix it, and if that's the case, buckle down and get to work.

The vision track is actually an extremely helpful tool for this. Itll teach you to come from the inside, which should give you more distance, and it should adjust the shoulders automatically.

Here's what I see:

Yes, you take the club back on a very flat plane.

But when I "stop and go" with your video, I see that you're club is very much "on plane" as you begin to move into the downswing so you're fixing something as you transition from backswing to downswing. Many pro's do similar things so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

What I see in terms of "robbing power" is that your weight is on the outside of your right foot on your backswing and that you're not quite getting your weight back out front as you come through the ball. You seem to be counter-rotating as you come through the ball and that all by itself will take away a huge amount of power. In essence, you're "slapping" the ball more than "hitting" it.

Before you start messing around with your swing plane, what I would do first is to work on weight shift.

Work towards keeping your backswing weight on the inside of your right foot and work on transferring that weight forward by "chasing" the ball more through impact.

Try "Half-swing" drills from a static "3 o'clock" position (as you see it), ending with a full follow-through which will teach your muscles how to move into the ball and forward as you hit it. This drill will not produce drives of any length to speak of, but it will get you thinking about how to move into the ball and participate in its launch rather than just swinging the club past the ball as more of a "spectator".


Anyway, that's my two one-hundredths of a dollar.


-JP

that's not him in the video, i believe it's just an example.

Well then THAT guy needs to do what I suggested.

Question:

Why post a video of someone else's swing in a post that asks how to fix one's own swing?

Oh well, on to the next thing in life...



-JP

JPsuff said:

Well then THAT guy needs to do what I suggested.

Question:

Why post a video of someone else's swing in a post that asks how to fix one's own swing?

Oh well, on to the next thing in life...



-JP

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lmao JP! i was thinking the same thing.

I had a flat swing, but that was causing me to mis-hit a lot of shots. I put my swing into the slot and my iron play improved immediately. My long sticks suffered until I started taking GolfTec lessons. The instructor adjusted my feet and my shoulders and my back swing. Now I am hitting the ball much better and my misses are little cuts instead of mammoth slices (I still get one every once in a while). The best thing about this is that I am taking about an 85% swing and am seeing some good distances.

TwoSolitudes said:

. . . Is it worth me rebuilding everything? Or should I just try to work with the flat swing I have?

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If your swing is really as flat as the example in the video, you should get with a teaching pro and start over with a good, fundamental on-plane swing. There's just nothing in that swing that is worth saving, and I bet 3 or 4 good lessons and a month of practice will have you farther along that you'll ever get with your existing swing.

Thanks folks. Quite a few views there. JP I don't have the video of me the pro made it ans saved it on his computer. But that one looks pretty similar to what I am doing and in fact you are correct about the weight thing. Funny that some think the swing should be completely rebuilt, while others think a few adjustments could bring out the power I am lacking. Keep in mind that my irons are a different story, still flat, but a much more upright swing and like you say solidK, I need one more club than most of my playing partners.

The pro gave me a few drills which I am trying, but at the range today trying that swing resulted in ZERO good shots. Not even one to get me inspired. All 100 yards with a massive slice. That is pretty deflating for me since I tend to hit 80% of fairways with my driver and don't slice at all with any of my other clubs.

Maybe to start I should just take it once step at a time and work on the full shoulder turn for now....

NFender said:

If your swing is really as flat as the example in the video, you should get with a teaching pro and start over with a good, fundamental on-plane swing. There's just nothing in that swing that is worth saving, and I bet 3 or 4 good lessons and a month of practice will have you farther along that you'll ever get with your existing swing.

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I disagree.

The main issue with the swing in the video is weight shift, but the swing plane itself is fine.

In fact, it's as early perfect as it can be.

(see below)




-JP

Its tough but try not to get discouraged. I think we've all been there where nothing seems to work but if you trust your instructor you just have to trust what they are trying to do. Went to my lesson last night and we didn't worry about where the shot was going at all. Just worried about getting into a position that would allow a good shot. Then work on that from there. Its alot to try and change everything in one lesson. It may take more than a few sessions but it might be worth a shot. Just my .2 cents

TwoSolitudes said:

Thanks folks. Quite a few views there. JP I don't have the video of me the pro made it ans saved it on his computer. But that one looks pretty similar to what I am doing and in fact you are correct about the weight thing. Funny that some think the swing should be completely rebuilt, while others think a few adjustments could bring out the power I am lacking. Keep in mind that my irons are a different story, still flat, but a much more upright swing and like you say solidK, I need one more club than most of my playing partners.

The pro gave me a few drills which I am trying, but at the range today trying that swing resulted in ZERO good shots. Not even one to get me inspired. All 100 yards with a massive slice. That is pretty deflating for me since I tend to hit 80% of fairways with my driver and don't slice at all with any of my other clubs.

Maybe to start I should just take it once step at a time and work on the full shoulder turn for now....

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In a nutshell, here's what I've experienced and maybe you can take something from it.

Long ago when I started playing, I had a very upright "Reverse-C" type of swing (think Miller or Nicklaus). That served me well for many years and power was never a problem. As I got older, I became less flexible (as we all do) and gradually my swing plane flattened out.

Fine.

But I noticed that I was beginning to lose power even though everything "felt" normal. From my point of view, I still felt as if I were making a full turn, but my driving distance kept dropping off until I was barely reaching 250 WITH the rollout (I was used to much longer on the fly).

OK, so what's going on?

I was stumped until I read a post from someone on another board who had similar problems and he told me about flattening my stance as well as my swing. More specifically he meant that with an upright swing, I was used to being out on the balls of my feet throughout the swing. But now that my swing got flatter, being on the balls of my feet was causing me to swing the club as if it were hinged to my belt buckle rather than actually turning around my body.

The freaky thing is that even though that's happening, it still FEELS as if I'm making a big shoulder and hip turn when all I was really doing was just "rocking".

He told me to get my weight back over my arches so that it feels as if I'm standing flat-footed. I did this and I tried hitting some balls, slowly at first to get used to the feeling, and after about a dozen balls or so, I was absolutely striping shots out over the corner of the fence at the range (which I know for a fact is 260 yards away).

Holy S***!

So I then decide to try to add some "Oomph" to a shot or two and POW! Now the shots are flying well over that fence corner and the weird thing was that it didn't even feel as if I was trying all that hard.

What happened was that once I allowed my weight to sit back over my arches, it allowed my hips and shoulders to actually turn around my spine instead of just swinging back and forth in front of it (if you get what I mean by that). The whole setup feels as if I'm sitting on a swivel chair and I'm just turning right, then turning left. But the most important thing is that now my setup matches my swing plane and the whole thing works as a unit rather than two separate actions.

The power I suddenly regained was ridiculous and not only that, for the first time in a long time, I actually felt as if I could ease off to hit a controlled drive out to, say, 250 or so, but that I could add twenty or thirty yards by "letting the shaft out", giving me an extra boost when I need it. Before this little epiphany, I was coming out of my shoes just trying to get to 240 or so.

So the moral of the story (for me, anyway) is that as my swing got flatter, everything else had to flatten out as well and I wasn't doing that. Once I "sat back" and got off the balls of my feet, it was as if someone just handed me the keys to a hot rod.

This all makes perfect sense to me now, but before I read that post, I'd have bet the rent that I was turning correctly and not doing anything wrong.

Sometimes it takes a different perspective to see just what's what.



-JP

JPsuff said:

I disagree.

The main issue with the swing in the video is weight shift, but the swing plane itself is fine. In fact, it's as early perfect as it can be.

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Really? Check out the position at the top (see below). That's not on plane.

View attachment 1341

NFender said:

Really? Check out the position at the top (see below). That's not on plane.

View attachment 1341

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Yes, I'm aware of that. But when he brings the club down, he drops it into the slot and holds it there all the way through and that's what counts.

I liken his swing to a sort of "reverse Furyk" in that he takes the club back very flatly and stays that way until he begins his downswing where everything comes together nicely.

I know that this is debatable, but I think that where the club is from the top down is far more important than where it is on the way up and this guy (as far as I can tell from just this one angle) "corrects" very nicely from the top down.


-JP