Hips

I don't know why I do this but once I'm happy with my swing then I somehow then want to destroy it and go off on another tangent. Or I see another swing like this time I think it was Sam Sneads and I tell myself why doesn't my swing look like that and then I have another thought and want to try it out. I guess I'll accept the fact that I'll never have the perfect swing but will just trust that all these constantly new moves will culminate into a correct swing over time.

The latest move is the hips. I've tried a new hip turn which is just turning the hips and not the shoulders with it. I guess the swing key is thinking like Elvis just turning the hips and not the shoulders or head. This has got me back to a dig the right elbow in thought and completely away from the pull the chain. I've tried to combine the two for more power but I haven't been too successful. It also doesn't feel as natural as pulling the chain and I have to really learn the move. I've measured my speed and I've lost a few MPH but not too bad. Even though it feels weird I've gotten into positions I've never been before which are more correct. Especially my hip turn at impact. I'm not sure if it's the right way to get into them but it's interesting seeing how it affects my swing.

Head Dip During Finish

After a nice period of having a swing I was happy about and hitting the ball better than ever I inevitably started to drift again. I'm really curious what this phenomenon of learning, then assimilating, then regressing is about. And is there a way to affect permanent change immediately of is it just about reps and myelin. I was looking at Sam Snead's swing and Ben Hogan's swing (again). And just really noticed that they maintain their spine angle and I just really lose mine in the finish which gives me a Jordan Speith like look to the finish.

So I just decided in my yard to really think about it and change it. And I came up with one solution which seems to be working. The swing thought is to really try to dip down my head after impact a la Natalie Gulbis. Doing this changes the focus of where I emphasize my swing to after impact which changes my whole rhythm. This is a good thing. And once again it's not a completely different swing feeling but it is on the finish for sure. I'm also really trying to turn my hips more, this also will be a lifelong work to change this. My ball flight with irons changed to more penetrating then rising so I assume I'm getting more backspin but my attack angle is still too high. This shows on video and in my ball flight in general being too high. It used to be so much lower with my previous swing. Here's the before and after.

before

after

I'm now slowly working on shifting my weight on to my left side as I still have a tendency to stay back. I'm hoping this will get my AoA down and thus ball flight down.

I did have a really nice day at the range yesterday and will hopefully continue this week.