Maintaining Spine Angle and Head Stationary

Well the swing keeps on getting better and better. While hitting the other day a friend who's about scratch was looking at my swing. He noticed that for him I was standing too close to the ball. Well for some reason I had an open mind that day because as soon as someone starts giving me unsolicited swing advice I usually get really defensive and start arguing with them. But I just went with it because I think I was confident with my swing and there's not much more obvious stuff to correct. It just looks pretty good. So I tried listening to him. In standing farther away from the ball I felt like I was over my toes and way too far from the ball but in looking at the tape I did look more athletic. And also I looked more over the ball rather than upright which looks way better. It did give me more room to come inside out so hitting a draw would feel more natural.

Well after that I went to work on other things like keeping my spine angle after impact and really getting my weight over my front foot. I really worked on it and all of a sudden my swing took on a new quality that just looks so much better. It's even more "out in front" and my head stays a lot more stable. I was also really working on the head thing for my neck.

and in slow motion...

The only problem now is that my ball is going all over the place. I knew that would be a problem when I decided to start flipping more but I'm hoping that with time I'll be able to get it under control. My strategy is that a swing that looks so correct has to eventually be consistent otherwise the pros wouldn't use it. This is a list of different swing keys in no particular order that I go through depending on what my swing is doing and what I'm trying to correct.

• Hit with right elbow attached to right hip to get my timing right and get my swing out in front of me
• At top of back swing fall onto front foot to keep me from getting stuck
• Hit with two forearms stuck together to get lag, whip, and power
• Flexion on left wrist to close club face and allow to have hands in front of clubhead at impact
• Keep left arm stiff and touch chin to shoulder to create more precision and feeling of covering the ball with my torso
• Cover the ball with my torso to get my weight moving forward
• Tilt head back at impact to push right shoulder through
• Push right shoulder through to get my swing out in front of me
• Dip head down after impact to maintain spine angle
• Slow down down swing to have smoother rhythm

Being out in Front and Head and Neck

I was looking at some of Tiger's 2000 swings and really like it much more than his later swings. The rhythm is just so smooth and not so violent. The other thing I noticed is that he's so far out in front of the ball towards the target. I call it having your swing out in front of you. Especially the follow through. I've been trying to work on this as I have a tendency to hang back and not push forward. I've noticed especially with the driver that at and post impact I'm really shifting my weight backwards instead of forward. I wish I had one of those weight analysis plates. So I concentrated on the top of the downswing of shifting my weight forward and feeling like I'm falling on my left leg. Here's the before.

And the after

It looks more powerful and correct to me. So I'm glad I found a solution for that. Just need to groove it. The swing keys that I had for this swing was:

• Impact with right elbow and hip stuck together as one unit.
• Get into this position:

See how it looks like Rory's whole body is in front of where the ball was and towards the target. I think visualizing this position helps me get my right shoulder through the ball faster and not stuck.
Here's my position

You can see my head position is very different from his. For one his body is facing the target a lot more than mine. And his head is looking back over his shoulder. So the next thing to work on is my head position. I'm hoping this will also help with my chronic neck pain that I have on the left side of my neck.