Finish, Right Wrist Extension, Whip

I was sick of looking at my finish with the chicken wing so last night I just said OK why don't I try going back to flipping my right hand over like how I already discovered in this post. Back then I was able even to have beautiful rhythm like here. The reason I had gone away from that is after getting into all the Ben Hogan body release stuff and finishing low and left and not flipping. I think I took it too far as my club face was staying square during my follow through but I was just chicken winging, pulling up, and I lost a lot of whip. The latest work I've been doing with my supinated wrist which allowed my to come from inside without fear of pushing the ball which then allowed me to keep my right elbow more tucked in. I just decided to combine that with the "Rory" move and whip the club around. I eventually was able to come up with a feeling of really having right wrist extension at the top and rolling the club off my fingers this allows me to really dig in my right elbow. That combined with driving my hands on the downswing gives a real whip. I was also just swinging away with practice swings trying to get a lot of whip and trying to drive my right shoulder to groove the feeling then hitting the ball. Another thing I was doing is working on my finish. Keeping my left arm straight for as long as possible and then tuck in the left elbow and let my two arms bend up. Here's the video.

 Right elbow is almost below my left arm. If my shoulder was more flexible and I could keep my left are straight it would look pretty good. I'm finally able to get my right elbow in front of my right hip bone instead of on the side of my body. I feel the whip. Finish is getting better I want to get even more weight and extension on the left side of my body. Here's from DL.

So what I was afraid of with the whip move was that I would go back to an Ian Poulter like flip release. But I guess I've been doing so much low left finish work then it was OK. As long as the flip comes after impact then the club face stays relatively square through impact. I think I'm able to get the whip after impact because the supination allows me to come from inside. My takeaway is still too high and not around my body enough. That's just what feels natural to me. Will probably battle that forever.

In the end balls were flying pretty good, straight, sounding better, even off of grass. Even tried hitting driver and some balls were going pretty good. Swing looks a lot prettier. Will work on getting rhythm back and better contact.

Bowed Wrist

Yesterday while hitting with a friend he said he was working on bowing the wrist at top to help layoff the club. I had forgot about that and tried playing around with it to see what would happen. I had done this before and it did what usually had happened which was a low hook. This makes sense as the club face is more closed at impact. However, that day I had been working on really getting my path more inside out and I was struggling with it and somehow the combination of the two clicked. The feelings that I have were several:

• I'm backhanding the ball with my left hand
• I've got my back to the target at impact
• I can post up hard with my left leg
• I can come from really inside without fear of hitting to the right.

I think it's this last point that really does the most to change my overall swing. I've been trying to come more from the inside while keeping my right elbow bent at impact. I've been struggling with the downswing and just not feeling comfortable with it like I'm getting all bunched up and stuck and can't get any power into it. I just told myself that all changes feel uncomfortable in the beginning. However I've been thinking about how changing my ball position really changed my swing. I've also seen in the past how changing my grip changed my swing (my son's as well). So the body will naturally do what it needs to do to close the club face no matter how hard you try to override them. Just like blinking. And if you give it a different way then it will adjust all the other parts of the swing to accommodate. This is why practice swings are different from real swings.

Since my original flippy scoopy swing was corrected my wrist position has always been good (not broken down) but always slightly bladed meaning that the back of my wrist wasn't pointed toward the target but more slightly toward the right. With this new feeling of backhanding I'm really closing the club face by supination so my body now will allow my to really come from the inside because it's no longer afraid to have the club face open at impact. Even my perspective of the ball flying away from me has changed almost like I'm hitting behind my back.
I saw a video about different ways of closing the club face based on Nesbit's model. I'm going to think about this more. Here's a 3/4 swing version. Left wrist is perfect at impact.

Another thing that came about with this change is the feeling of posting up on the left leg for added power. I've read about that and studied it a little and of course know about Tiger's problems with his left leg but all it seemed to do for me was make me slice or chicken wing more. But now I started to feel that mechanism. When you pull up on the hands and the wrists are cocked the club head goes down. The difference before for me was that with a bladed wrist the club face would just open so I would have to compensate other ways and it didn't feel right. With supination the club face stays closed and I can post without feeling the club face open and it adds more power. I'll have to experiment with this more. I was hitting 8 iron and striping it. Tried other clubs and driver with much less successful results so going to have to experiment with this more.
I'm still having big problems with my follow through and chicken winging. I'm wondering if I'm fighting it and it's a technique problem or it's a flexibility problem as my right shoulder hurts on the follow through? Will work on that more but one more hopeful step in the right direction.

Ball Position

I was looking at my friend's swing from down the line the other day and there were some things I really like about it. In comparing his swing to my swing I notice that he stands much closer to the ball than I do. I compared to some pro swings and I realized that my ball position is too far away.

Before and after of ball position

Went to the range and tried it out. At first it seemed really weird and uncomfortable. Like I was on my heels and I was going to shank it every time. I also had some incredibly fat shots. I kept at it and was eventually able to hit some balls with it. It's amazing how your body will do whatever is necessary to hit the ball as straight as possible and adjust to the new setup. Well as you can see in the video it did several things.

It made my impact position more compact. I think this finally helped me to keep my body rotating instead of firing my right arm to reach out to the ball to impact it. In this new position if I fire out too early then I just hit it super fat. My hands are much closer to my thighs and I'm leaned nicely over the ball. My shaft is more upright at address and impact, I'll have to check the angles with Skypro. The balls were flying pretty good after a while. I still feel like I can't generate much power with this because I'm all scrunched up at impact. I was trying to get the feeling of squatting down and also keeping my backswing lower by swinging around my waist as I always have a tendency to have my hands too high. I also feel like I'm over my heels and I think that makes me stay too much on my right side. My follow through looks horrible. I'll try to experiment with this more, try to get more comfortable with this so I can add power and also need to transfer more weight to my front foot.

I would be more excited about this but I'm purposefully holding myself back because every time I have a breakthrough I usually find something else that's even more of a breakthrough which makes my prior excitement seem kinda dumb. But at least for now this is one step closer in having a correct swing!