Baseball Swing, another breakthrough

Well the new grip is holding up and I'm able to continue to swing slightly under plane so I'm happy about that.  The other thing that I really thought about was the constant quest to keep my right elbow even more bent at impact.  I thought that it can't be about holding my wrists back or trying to keep my elbow tucked in or feeling like I'm hitting with my elbow on my hip because those swing thoughts only got me so far.  I had to rethink it.

So I thought about baseball swings.  I started looking at slow motion baseball swings at a home run derby and how they all hit the ball with their right arm bent and then released it after impact.  Just like how you're supposed to with golf.  So I figure if two sports do it that way then it must be the most powerful way to swing. So when I swing a baseball bat it makes perfect sense to hit with my right arm bent and turn in to it with my body for power.  Trying to hit a baseball timing a release with the wrists and extended arms just doesn't feel right. So I tried to just really visualize and apply that thought to the golf ball lying on the ground. It's a lot harder because I think since you're afraid to hit the ground you naturally want to extend your arms so that you're maxed out at impact and can't hit the ground. And going into a swing with a bent right arm feels like you will just hit straight into the ground. I had to really imagine that I was swinging at a baseball on the ground and hit the ball with my whole right side and getting my right shoulder down on the ground. So just a complete rethinking of the impact position. A different swing thought that changed the timing of my whole swing. It's hard because you have to relearn to trust that you're not going to hit fat but I was able to abstract out the ground and do it. And it worked! The results are below.

One thing that changed without even trying was my finish. No more chicken wings. I can't wait to work on this more. The combo of my new wrist position and new baseball swing thought at impact is making my swing look way more correct. More correct than it's ever been. Hopefully this will hold up and then I want to work on getting more lag and power.

Under Plane and Breakthrough

My swing has been pretty stable for the past few months so I've been happy with that.  Since it's winter it's not really a good time to be playing so I continued to work on my swing.  One thing that had been bothering me is my left leg at impact.  For me it was too bent and I wasn't fully posting up until my club was horizontal after impact.  Even though Ben Hogan says to keep the left leg bent at impact in order to keep the hips rotating.  I looked at all the pros swings and they post up.  I guess this is for more speed. Well changing my timing is really hard!

Of course in looking at my swing I saw some things once again my right elbow not being bent at impact which is something that Ben Hogan says is important. In trying to once again get my elbow really tucked in I was experimenting with wrist and hand positions to make it easier to tuck in my elbow during the downswing. I tried to get the right hand more in the fingers and swing more around my body like the whole open and shut the door metaphor. This got me in a better right elbow position which should be in front of the right hipbone again according to Ben Hogan. I then played around with keeping my elbows in at address and pointing then straight down like he says to do in the book. This also helped get my elbow tucked in and I'm able to I think keep it slightly more bent at impact. At least it feels easier to do keep it bent. My son filmed me of course to see if it did anything and the results were really nice. For the first time I'm slightly under plane in my downswing. I've been fighting this forever trying all sorts of stuff like:

• trying to really swing more inside out
• drop the hands down after transition
• layoff the club after transition
• point my right hand up to the sky on downswing
• let the club fall behind me after transition
• ...

All of these got my hands down but never shallowed out my club. And certainly didn't allow me to get under plane.

Before: perfectly on plane but a choppy motion at impact as I had to release early to get clubface squared up. I was fighting trying to keep my right arm bent but couldn't.

After: slightly under plane and turning into the ball with right elbow bent going into impact and not chopping at it straightening right arm just before impact. This is fundamentally more correct!

Once again it's a very different feeling and I'm amazed at how many different ways there are to swing a club. I was striping a couple of 7 irons so the ball flight is there.  It feels reproducible and different but not unnatural. It feels like a breakthrough and I'll see if it really leads to something or is another dead end.

To summarize the change is all on the right arm.  At address have the hand/wrist flex down. I think this is what lays off the club. I'm not sure but will have to play with this more. Point the right elbow down not out and slightly bent. Swing around body and really try to keep elbow in front of the right hipbone at impact.  Also bend over more than I think I need to on the downswing!

Swing work finally paying off

I've been able to take my swing to the course recently and have been playing well. Haven't done this in a long time.  I'm hitting most of the fairways and my approaches have never been this good.  I still have my tendencies to slice but I would call it more of a fade now.  I'm not hitting any real banana balls like I used to about 3 times a round.

My current swing thoughts.
1. Keep weight over left leg
2. Impact with my right elbow on my belly button

When I do these two things I get good contact and the ball goes far.

Next thing that I'll be working on is my post impact position.  I'm chicken winging a lot now and it doesn't look pretty.  I didn't really care that much since I was working on getting my impact down which is stable now.  But now I'll work on post impact positions and trying to keep my hands low after impact.  Right now they rise up.

Neck Pain

Took a break from golf after vacation in Hawaii.  Only payed a couple of times there.  When I came back I didn't pick up a club for a month.  It was a nice break and I was able to do a lot of stuff around the house.  It felt like I was free from prison.  I went back to hit and didn't miss it one bit.  Just didn't feel like working on my swing.  But in the last month I've gotten back into it and once again completely changed my swing.  This time the change was after looking at my swing and got sick of seeing my swing path being outside in.  So I really concentrated on getting more inside out which helped.  The other thing I really had to work on was my head since my neck started really hurting again.  I had to retrain my body to let my head fall.  Sometime it works but my bad habit of pulling up and not maintaining my spine angle keeps coming back and my neck hurts.

And the other big change is after studying Ben Hogan's swing and then something that Bradley Hughes said.  It's about your right hand facing up at the top of the backswing.  Again really working on my right elbow and getting it in front of my body and not to the side.

Safety Swing

A couple of weeks ago I was really working on my right elbow.  Lots of video filming each swing and trying to get my elbow in my gut and then keep bent over at impact.  This has been eluding me forever.

I don't remember why but I tried filming what I call my "safety swing".  This is a swing that I used about a year ago when I would hit gigantic banana slices with my driver.  I played with some friends for the first time and didn't want to hold up the group so I switched to it.  It consists of just keeping my arms straight and then just turning my body back and then forward around my body.  Like a robot.  It doesn't even feel like I cock my wrists or bend my arms.  I did this with 3/4 swings and it felt stiff.  The balls went straight and not far which I thought was normal since the swing is so simple and with no lag.  I looked at it on video though and was very surprised.  What felt like straight arms and no wrist cocking was actually a pretty normal swing.  Even better was that my backswing looked correct!  It just had a different quality to it, the angles were better, club positions better, it just looked correct.  The balls are going straighter and I don't think I lost any distance.  It's been at least 6 sessions that I've been grooving this and it's holding up so I know it's correct. One of the best things is that the swing thought for me is pretty simple.  I just say do my safety swing.  Now that I'm getting used to the feeling though I start to loose it so I just start swinging half swings with my arms straight out and just rotate around my body like a robot.  This is exactly what Ben Hogan was saying to do in this video.

Well here's my lastest.

Confused...

Well I'm confused but I guess it's just part of the process.  Yesterday I was practicing and I noticed that I was still outside in and slightly coming over the top.  A teacher friend even could see that immediately while looking at my video.  I had been working on the idea of clearing my hips.  I was looking for videos about how not to come over the top.  There's a bunch on youtube which go through mainly starting with your hips and not your hands.  Then I saw one by Zach Allen which was interesting and along the lines that I had been trying to do.  It really talks about dropping your club back behind you.  I tried that a lot along with other things this morning that I was trying to correct such as:

• Take club back around body, sticking out but, leaning over, get shaft more upright on backswing.  
• At top try to lean shaft back by laying off and letting club and hands fall back behind body.  
• Rotate through with hips and try to keep my right elbow attached infront of my right hip and turn through while keeping butt sticking out and leaning over even more.

Needless to say this was a lot of stuff but I was making good progress.  And sometimes I would stripe the ball but I was pretty much systematically pushing everything.  But my positions on video were looking pretty good.

Then an older friend, who I love talking to because his son is a teaching pro, came over to chat.  I told him everything that I was working on and he gave me some advice to just keep it simple.  Go back on the plane and swing through the plane.  Just like Tom Watson describes in this video.  Well I don't usually listen to him because he doesn't believe in video and his swing isn't the greatest.  But I tried to keep an open mind and did just keep it simple.  Well I started striping 8 irons.  And it felt natural.  I hit about 10 in a row all to the exact same spot and a lot farther.  And the sound was just that nice thud and then hiss of the ball.  I hadn't had that all morning.  The swing itself felt horrible from what I know I was coming over the top, scooping, chicken winging, and right elbow straight at impact.  Back to old habits.  But when I looked at tape it wasn't that bad.  And it was really hard to argue with the results!  I tried the other clubs and it didn't work as good but that 8 iron was golden.  The funny thing is that my club fell back more at the top when I did this than when I was consciously trying to do it.

So there is something to take away from this.  Sometimes too many swing thoughts and working on a move takes you to a dead end and you just need to swing horribly but naturally and make good contact.  My analysis of this is that basically what was happening to me is that by trying to clear my hips so much I was getting stuck. That's why everything was pushing.  Now I know what getting stuck feels like!  By trying to swing on plane with a simpler swing it brought my right shoulder forward a lot sooner and that allowed me to cover the ball and close the clubface.  But now I'm still a little over top so I'm trying to combine the two of getting my swing path inside out but still staying on plane.  This is quite a journey, one sometimes that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Shafts

Just read a really cool article about shafts and how they work with the golf swing. It talks about the difference between early and late release and how different shafts  react to that.  I also understand why you see the forward bend in the shafts at impact and how that is used to generate clubhead speed!  Fascinating.

Update:  Apparently depending on the shutter speed the forward bend seen in the shafts at impact can be really exaggerated.

Body release vs hand release

After going through most of Bradley Hughes videos on youtube I'm grasping more and more the concept of body vs hands release.  I've put some concepts together like how I've heard about the new swing of all the pros which is with the back of the right hand facing the target on follow through.  Johnny Miller talks about how Ben Hogan used this to take away the left side of the fairway.  Also the low and left finish which Sean Foley has Tiger doing and something that Hunter Mahan has done which is also characteristic of good ball strikers.  I believe this to make Tiger have less of a hands release.  Then also reading how Matt Kuchar changed his swing from a hand release to a body release and that's when he started winning.  It is all starting to make more sense to me.  I also looked at Ben Hogan's swing and people's analysis of it.  The case is basically that all the good "ball strikers" had a body release.  And the hands release guys like Lefty have to rely on timing and aren't know for their ball striking.  One characteristic of the body release is the bent right elbow at impact.  I've finally been able to do this in a natural way thanks to Bradley Hughes.

My body was fighting a steep club angle right at the top of the downswing.  I wasn't even trying to find the slot or even really knew what it was.  So I had to do several things to get my clubface square at impact.  I had to release my hands early which made my right elbow straight at impact which made me have to stand up or else I would be fat.  A hard move.  All this because of not laying off at the top and not finding the slot.  Most of my good amateur friends have this swing.  Some are even tippy toeing at impact.  My hands release swing:

And now a more body release.  This is my best driver swing to date.

My right elbow is clearly bent at impact.  My club is much shallower coming in which allows me to rotate around my body.  I'm still searching for how to get in the slot at the top swing which is a mess but I'm going to work on cleaning that up. The results are also very good, ball is flying far, I can swing all out for the first time in a long time without losing too much accuracy.  I still have a tendancy to push and slice but the ballflight in general is a lot straighter.

I also ordered a Swing Speed Radar so it will be fun testing that out.  I'm all about feedback for optimal learning!

Fundamental tool: The slot

This past weekend has been revolutionary.  Through youtube videos of myswingevolution I got onto Bradley Hughes.  bradleyhughesgolf.com.

The title poped out since I've been doing research on the right arm and trying to keep my right elbow bent at impact.  The title of the video is "The right arm".  I watched this video and it completely transformed my swing.  I've been feeling for a while now that something was fundamentally wrong with my swing since I've been trying slowly and one by one to concentrate on fixing things that I see like conserving spine angle, right elbow, turning hips, head staying down, covering, etc.  I would fix one thing by trying different experiments and techniques and I was slowly chipping away fixing one thing and I was resigned to thinking that I would just have to work away at it grooving things and my mind filled with swing thoughts.  But certain things I just couldn't correct and it really showed up with the driver.  Like my steep angle on the downswing and pulling in of the butt and head going up.  I couldn't swing naturally and had to really control things to get a correct looking swing.  I figured it was a process but deep down I knew that the pros could just "grip it and rip it" and that there was no way they had all these movements grooved.  So there was a fundamental flaw somewhere.

I watched Bradley's video on the right arm and he explained about the slot and how to get into it and then unlike most other videos what to do once you're in there.  And then he did some other great things like show all the things that happen when you don't do this and he basically described all the things I was fighting against and trying to correct one by one.  And finally he explained it over and over really emphasizing and grooving visually what should happen through the entire swing.  He broke it down into two basic things for me which are:

1. Slot the club on the down swing
2. then rotate through like a baseball swing

This felt very different from what I had been doing.  Although I've experimented with this feeling before when I tried to swing like my hands were attatched to my right hip.  I've also tried "laying off" the club, swinging with my forearms, and most lately really sticking my right elbow into my gut which combined is kinda like slotting the club.  These efforts have gotten me closer and I've had some good results but it was a lot to think about.  His instruction was pretty simple and the best part about it was that it worked.  So yes of course balls were flying but how long will this last?  Well it's lasted 3 full days.  As well I showed it to my son and it worked on him.  And to finally prove that it's that simple I asked my daughter who doesn't golf to swing naturally and then to swing with the two swing thoughts and immediately her swing looked good.  This after about 45 seconds of instruction.  Some videos of new swing from down the line and face on.  Swings have never been more correct.  It all fell into place.

I had worked only with irons the first two days and the third day I wanted to test the new swing with driver.  The real test.  I had to exagerate the movements even more which feels like letting my club head fall behind my body and the top.  Needless to say the drives were going pretty straight, even some draws which I never do and for the first time in about a year I could even start swinging all out with the same swing and it held up.  All my other swings had a ceiling where the started to fall apart after a certain point cause I was just fighting the fundamental flaw to my swing instead of just setting up my swing correctly and then being able apply as much power as I wanted.  Then I even started to play around with the swing and was still hitting everything.  And got into "feeling" the swing again something I haven't done in over a year.  This video has saved me countless months of experimenting.  But I haven't found any other instruction out there till now that just is simple, makes sense, and works.

Swinging around body, hunching over, and the right elbow

One thing that's been bothering me for quite a while with my swing is that my right elbow straightens out at impact.  I guess it's a debate whether it should be straight or not.  Sean Foley says yes, Hogan say bent, but most pros are bent and then extend after impact.  There's not a lot of videos on this topic but I did find a couple of them like this one from Mike Pederson.  He's answered a question I had about what to do with my right elbow during the downswing. He says to keep in front of your right hip.  I'm not that flexible so keeping my right elbow down at the top is not natural I have to stretch this and also stretch my wrist back like I'm holding a tray.  So after concentrating on this here's the difference at the top of the backswing.

Setup

Right elbow more tucked in at top

Then while I'm coming down I really try to stick my right elbow into my gut in front of my right hip bone and then rotate the hips.  This does several things.  It makes me hunch over more to get my elbow in there and thus makes me stick out my butt more.  Also by keeping the right elbow tucked in the shaft angle changes on the downswing and is more laid off (less steep).

More hunched over, rounded back and less steep into ball

I know that's incredibly difficult to see the difference but when scrubbing video back and forth you can see the difference better.  This then at impact keeps right elbow more bent, my back more rounded, and my butt more sticking out.

Impact:  Butt stays out back more rounded, right elbow more bent!

 Even though I kinda like the before image position better.  After impact you can see the spine angle is better conserved and butt closer to initial position.

After impact sping angle much better, not standing up!

So I've made a break in the case after a long time trying different things and I'm going in the right direction.  Here's the full video side by side.  The differences are very subtle.

I'm also trying to swing more around my body to help with coming in too steep.  I'll continue working in this direction and then try to incorporate the other tools like the Rory move.  One thing I know for sure is that all the people that say you need to just naturally feel the swing and don't look at what they're doing on video are just wrong.  At least in my case.  My swing is so entirely different now than it was two years ago and it even feels completely different.  The good news is that I've tried going back to my old swing habits and I can't.  I've tried casting on purpose and not supinating and I just can't do it now so some changes are permanent.  So you can change your swing for the better and break your natural tendencies!!