Right Elbow Redux II: Driver

So I've been working on driver a lot lately since my recent swing breakthroughs have been with the irons. I've been trying various different ideas all revolving around the right elbow and getting it bent at impact. So I just told myself that today at the range I was going to solve the problem once and for all. So I charged up the handy dandy Casio Exilim and only hit driver for about 2 hours. Now I only hit about 40 balls in that time since I was in full experimentation mode which consists of think, swing, film, analyze then repeat.

So this time I just told myself I had to get in the position of my hips and chest facing the target at impact. I somehow tried a thing where I sort of left my hands away from my body at the top of the backswing and instead of jamming my elbow into my stomach I just rotated my hips and chest toward the target. I tried to feel like I was swinging the club on a vertical plane with my torso horizontal. I filmed it and it was correct. It's a very different conception of the swing than the one I had been trying which was dig the elbow into the stomach and turn the hips. This one is more keep the hands high and just turn the hips and torso. The elbow jams in later in the swing at impact.

My club stays way more on plane. No more manipulating and trying to find the slot. What's funny is that I had this swing feeling 3 years ago! I got away from it. Ha kinda like Tiger going back to his swing when he was younger hehe.

Elbow stays tucked in way longer. I'm starting to understand what clearing the hips means. I'll have to do a video of this because it's hard to explain with words. I didn't hit the ball well but I wasn't going for that.

Looks so much smoother than the funky stuff I was doing before. Still not able to hit all out yet.

I was still pushing and mega slicing the ball so although I was elated that I had solved a problem that had been bugging me for 3 years I wasn't getting the impact high.

The impact high came a few days later when I had to combine the new swing with a more supinated left wrist. I experimented with having the club even more diagonal in my hand. And feeling like I was backhanding with my first knuckle. This is also hard to explain in words. But the driver was bombing and it seemed like I wasn't swinging very hard at all. I was still pushing and slicing but not nearly as bad. I was also playing around with setup positions being more closed since I'm really hitting up on the ball. I even hit two or three slight draws. One that even had that missile-like early low curve and then rise to a nice high draw!

Then I started losing it. On film it didn't look that great so I'll have to have a few more sessions getting this thing down. But I feel I've made a major breakthrough on the driver which will payoff big time this competition season.


Here's a before and after completely different.

Float Loading and Timing

Been going back to Kelvin Miyahira's stuff now that more and more people seem to be getting results with his stuff. Especially this guy.

Pretty amazing transformation I wish I could do it that that quickly. I'm going on 4 years now, but I really do love the journey and discovery aspects. But for all the intense work I do I should have better results I think sometimes.

Right Thumb

First I changed my right thumb to be shorter and more pinched with my index finger. I noticed I was regripping my driver literally at the top of my backswing to this position and it was throwing off my swing. Funny it doesn't happen with the irons though.

Back to Kelvin

I've been inspired by this video which is so exaggerated since he's a long hitter and 18 years old that it helps me develop swing thoughts.

Here's my take at low power really trying to visualize the positions with an 8 iron. It's possible for me to physically get there so the barrier must be the wrong thoughts at full speed.

I shanked this one but who cares I'm only looking at body positions and club face rate of closure. I never thought I'd be able to be so close the ground and still swing the club. It's the most unintuitve feeling if you're just starting golf.

Float Loading and Timing

So I'm thinking that there's no way you can "hold off" to get more lag. The centripetal force is just too great. So I've been playing around with timing of the load and release of the club and trying to do some float loading. I'm really trying to get that feeling that at impact the shaft is pressed up against the outside of my right bicep. This makes the release much later so the ROC is low through impact and I would think gives that elusive right elbow bend. 

Been looking at Gary Woodland's swing lately wow that is a really nice swing!

Staying in the Shot

Was working on driver again today and really trying to change up timing to see if I can't get my hips and chest more turned toward the target. Yesterday I was watching a guy hit and was fascinated by his timing. Real pro style just easy swinging but ball was flying. This got me to thinking about really getting more lag and trying to hit the ball by turning into the ball instead of letting your hands go and releasing through the ball. I thought about this video by Ernie Els describing a "box" and trying to hold it as long as possible and staying "in the shot".

Was talking to some friends about it and by describing how to mentally change the swing from hitting with hands and more hitting with a body rotation and then just letting the hands release I think I started to really feel the difference. At least with my irons some of which I compressed really well. But I'm still having a hell of a time doing this with the driver. I just have to do a video about this because it's hard to describe in words and easier to do with video. I need to think more about the box and staying "in the shot". I can feel how this can lead to some serious power. This is also how baseball players do it when they hit their bodies are facing the target and right elbow digged in.

What's funny is I already went through this before in this post but then I got away from it about a year ago going back to the Bradley Hughes swing and wide-narrow-wide. It's interesting looking back on the journey and seeing as how I wasn't ready to understand certain things and the more I explore the more I understand. And as usual sometimes I have to come back so things several times and each time it's a different take on it or something else has changed in my swing and it combines and makes more sense. But the swing has definitely gone to another level and just looks so much better. Also balls are going straighter with the exception of the driver which is really a hard nut to crack!

Driver False Alarm

So I tried the hands close to the body thing again and tried exploring it more and looked at tape and what it does is it conserves my spine angle after impact, but at impact I'm still loosing spine angle and goat humping. Also my neck hurt after the session so that's how I know I'm jumping up at impact. So I was pretty bummed because it was back to the drawing board. So I looked at Adam Scott's driver swing from DTL and compared it to mine and once again just saw how fundamentally different they were. At impact his hips are so much more turned toward the target and right elbow nice and bent.

So I was playing around with this and went to the range today even though it was freezing out! I trying to find a swing thought to help me get in the right positions. I was working on keeping my left arm across my body as long as possible while keeping my right elbow infront of my right hip. It was kinda  working.

In the end what seems to be the right swing thought is to turn and think about having my chest and hips facing the target at impact. All the while having my right elbow dug into my belly.This gets me in the most correct positions and seems simple enough to do.I was also pushing the ball so I added a little more flexion of the left wrist and that got the ball going straight down the target line. I had to feel like I was hitting backhand with the first two knuckles of my left hand. I was also swinging about 60%. which is way easier to work on breaking old muscle firing patterns when installing new ones.

The balls were going pretty straight and I at least had some control over them, the swing looked correct on video, and my neck doesn't hurt. So I'm going to explore this for now and see if it lasts but it looks promising. What a change from the last post which I guess was a false lead, but who knows maybe it was correct and I'll come back to it later at some point and see how in fact I can use it. I've done it many times before. Well I'm glad I went to the range today despite the freezing conditions!

Unlocking Levels

I had another crazy day at the range. It feels like I'm unlocking levels in a video game. And each time I unlock a level I get new powers which allows me to unlock other levels!!

It's one of the best feelings when you have the moment of discovery and then a little more insight and understanding. Then you can look back at stuff you struggled with in the past and understand why that happened. The question is can you jump to the last level or do you have to go through a progression? Is there a way for someone to tell you exactly how things are supposed to feel and can you do that from the beginning or do you have to progress through steps?

Well what I did was really try to hit my driver like how I hit my irons. What it forced me to do was keep my head down and my body leaned over and the only way to get the club to not hit the ground was to pass my hands through close to my body which then made my my upper body really lean over after impact. I was so happy after this session like I graduated to a whole other level.

I don't think my driver backswing as ever looked better. Balls were straight but all over the place. At least no big slices. Will have to test out again and explore this more!!

Driver Setup Experiments

In trying to relearn how to hit driver I was looking at Dustin Johnson's swing. He gets in positions that I'm really trying hard to get into but I don't think I have enough shoulder flexibility mainly left shoulder across my body and right shoulder external rotation. So I did an experiment with hitting without the ball to see what position my body could get into without the ball and I saw that the club face was squaring up once it got past my left foot. So what I did was moved the ball up on a higher tee and way in front of my left foot then I turned my hips toward the target and got into impact position. I then went through the impact drill to try and hit balls like this to memorize the feeling and position.

Then I started to hit at 100 % because with the ball so far up I felt like I wasn't going to get stuck and I could really get behind the ball like in a baseball swing. The balls went basically straight and where I was aiming for. I haven't done this in a while as I have just been fighting a big slice for the last few months and have to really concentrate on certain swing keys and not swinging hard just to get the ball in the fairway. Well it felt nice to be able to look at a target and swing at it without too many swing thoughts and have the ball go towards the target. So this setup allows me to get in a better impact position. I'll have to play with this some more.

Learning How to Hit Driver Again

Day two of the new Keegan Bradley/Dustin Johnson swing. The basic movement was there but I think I've having a tendency to move my head too forward on the backswing and then too back on the downswing and follow through. I still can't go full speed and I'm slowly building to that but I want to get the basic feelings and spatial positions down then I'll hopefully just let the speed thing happen as I get more comfortable with the swing.

I can really see how this swing keeps the ball straighter as I can almost see the club face being square through impact longer. I feel like I'm almost pitching a ball underhanded leaned way over to the side. So if you throw side armed but are bent over 90 degrees your arm will be going on a vertical axis. I kinda feel like the club is doing this. I can also see on film that the club face stays square longer since I don't release now till way after I've hit the ball.

So I tried to apply the same swing to the driver with some mixed results. The good news is that I've never been able to apply my irons swings to my driver. But I was able to do that today by really concentrating and trying real hard to forget the ball and just work on jamming my right elbow into my gut and then turning my hips completely open. I worked for the first time and I was able to conserve my spine angle for the first time with driver. It felt like a new swing and I was learning to to hit driver all over again. From the back it doesn't look half bad. Still wished my elbow was more bent at impact though.

The bad news is that the head forward then back was exaggerated even more with the driver swing. Here's some video from face on you can see that I'm headed way back with my swing and all of my weight is on my back foot. I'm trying to really get under the ball but I'm doing it too much.

Here's some normal speed of me rehearsing the Keegan Bradley move and then swinging. I was also not swinging full speed but just trying to get feelings down. Well I certainly know what I have to work on now.

Oh another thing is that I think that my neck doesn't hurt anymore. In analyzing before and after video from behind I can see now that the jumping I was doing after impact was raising the whole base of my neck and thus putting a lot of strain on my neck having to try and yank up my head up with it. Now the head stays in place and can come up much slower on the follow through.

Oh and one final thin is that my left elbow on the follow through does not chicken wing as much so because of these things I know for sure that this swing is more correct!