Swing 5.5: Laying off the club

Stumbled upon a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODCzUcP6GLk

I was looking at my swing from behind and noticed that my club angle on the downswing was very steep.  I  incorporated this idea of "laying off the club" and what it did was made my club at impact less steep which allowed my hands to be closer to my body.  That in turn allows my upper body to be more bent over instead of upright thus maintaining my spine angle.

Swing 5.4: Bending over

The one thing that still is missing from my swing is the fact that the pros are so much more bent over that I am.  I am so upright.  So one day I just told myself to bend over at the waist and keep my head over the ball instead of standing up.  This will take a while to get into muscle memory as my tendancy is to stand up.

Swing 5.3: Maintaining spine angle

I've been trying forever to figure out how to not raise up at impact and straighten out my spine.  Well I looked at the video at the moment of impact and compared it to Rory's.  Let's take a look:

spine angle maintained, hands infront of club, right arm still bent.  Left side aligned.

Body too upright, hands barely infront of club, right arm too straight.  Left side not aligned.  Hands behind.

So I signed up for another lesson to work on just this point.  In the meantime I was watching a video of myself swinging with my legs together.  Lo and behold I was in a better impact position and my head stayed the same height as impact.  No straightening up and losing my spine angle!

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Left side more aligned.  Shoulders more inclined.

Well you can't really see it in pictures that much but the video shows that the swing is more correct.  Since my shoulders are more tilted and not level at impact I can better maintain my spine angle because my left shoulder is higher.  So I then figured out that I just need to swing like that in with my feet apart and at power.

Well when swinging with my feet together and noticed that I would bring my hands around faster and naturally supinate my right wrist more.  I don't know why I did this.   But at least I knew what the feeling was now!  It was really leading with the back of my right hand.  I tried to do this with a full swing and really think about supinating my left wrist.  Here are the results before and after.

From a previous post where I was showing progress from before!

Camera angle isn't exactly the same.  Hitting plastic ball into net so not exacly the same.

Hands lagging behind shoulders.  Triangle not maintained.

Great lag.  Triangle is maintained

Hands slightly infront of club.  Head came up.  Left side not aligned.

Hands way infront of club.  Head stayed down.  Left side solidly aligned and wrist supinated!!  

Hips not turning!  Right hand not fully released.

Hips are slightly more turned.  Still need to work on this.  Right hand looks correct and released.  Never seen my right hand like this before but have always been striving for it.

Hips still not turned so having a hard time maintaining triangle.  Left arm wanting to chicken wing

Not swinging full on so club is pointing up.  Hips turned, triangle good.

Well  this was a big piece of the puzzle solved in getting my body in the right positions.  We'll have to test it out on the range and get the muscle memory going.

Swing thoughts to do this are trying to lead with the back of my right hand.  It almost feels like I'm backhanding it bending my right arm and wrist on the downswing but the video shows that it's straight before impact.  But watching the pros their right arms are sometimes slightly bent right before impact so that's ok.  It's a strange feeling and doesn't feel powerful.  I'm almost sure when I try this on the range the balls will be flying horribly.  Probably weak skulls or fat shots till I can get the contact.

If I forget the feeling just go back to hitting with feet together.

Here's the after comparison w/ Rory:

Rory

Still far but looks much closer than before

Here's what it looks like in realtime.  I think I'm starting to get that look that I'm striving for when I see good guys swing.  I still have so much to learn but have made some really great progress!!!

Swing 5.2: Left arm attached to body

Made some major progress.  Worked with a friend at the course.  Really helped with the chicken wings saying that I should really feel like keeping my arms together and swinging as if they are one.  Really conserve the triangle.  I also realized that hands were very far away from my body at impact.  So trying to work on that.  Finally and I don't know how it started but tried to really just not fire my left shoulder till very late.  I think this is helping because my lag is getting better.  It's what Ben Hogan said to do which is just turn the hips first.  I thought I was doing that but infact I was firing the left shoulder and starting my arms way too soon.  All this happens unconscientiously so had to reall concentrate on not doing it.  Anyway keeping my arms straight and as one really helped out my swing and now it looks much more beautiful and not embarassing.  I think I'm really on to something here and might finally have solved the chicken wing problem.