Ball position

Learned finally about ball position and how to woods should be.

For woods just set club on ground and let it lay flat. This should be impact position. Align middle of body to end of club. Pretty simple.

I was always keeping my driver and hybrid tilted forward and not flat on the ground which opens up the clubface more. And this works for all clubs so very easy to follow.

Swing 1.9: Video Analysis

Went to golfinparis to have my swing analyzed with Rina on the trackman.

He corrected a few key things which I have forgotten to do when I try to change my swing to do other stuff.

1. My wrist have become inactive. I have no lag whatsoever and my body is doing all the work and it feels that way. Need to let my arms relax as well. To correct this he changed my address position.

• Wrists need to be more bent so on takeaway they can hinge more freely. So club is resting more on heel.
• More weight on toes.
• Basically I'm bent over more

For putting this is the opposite where we don't want any wrist action.

2. Grip. My left hand was gripping the club too much in the palm and not enough in the fingers. It should just be the fingers gripping the club. This really helped and I feel the release in my wrists a lot more.

3. Feel. The last part was trying to get me to release my wrists. By not turning my body as much and using my wrists to get the club back all the way.

So this worked and I expend much less effort and hit the ball a little farther. And also my lag is back. I could have corrected this on my own by looking at video but I didn't.

So three exercises five balls each:

1. Address position and then hit 5 balls

2. feet together slightly pointing back 5 balls

3. normal swing same feet position hit right, left, center 5 balls.

Change clubs do it again.

Went to the range today and tried it out and of course it worked. We'll see how things hold up over the long term but I have enough control over my swing now that I can change pretty quickly my habits. It was nice to be able to hit the driver consistently and have some say over which direction the ball is going!

Extension

Was hitting balls yesterday and really trying to get a good extension like my son has!

I believe the good feeling I need to have is when it feels like my arms are being pulled out of their sockets. This way the muscles in my arms are relaxed and fully extended and I let the weight of the club do the work and not have my arms tensed up and end up with chicken wings.

So the thought is to once again concentrate on having the swoosh sound after impact and just let the weight of the club head pull my arms.

Going to have my swing analyzed by video tommorow. Should be very enlightening!!

Here's swing from a few weeks ago.

Head down at contact

Been sick since last weekend but I'm finally over it and went to the range yesterday and played a round today. Really have been working on keeping head down at impact. I finally figured out an exercise to help which is consists of basically hitting some balls without looking at where they're going. Then what I do is see the ball go out the corner of my left eye and I even see kind of what the trajectory is. Then I look up after a while to see where the ball has gone. This allows my right shoulder to stay more square at impact and not come down to hit fat. It feels a little like I'm swinging across my body. Just another thing which I'm getting down to really make my swing better. I think it looks a lot better now. I'll have to film it while hitting balls to verify.

I've also been doing the exercise of swinging with my feet together. This also helps to let the club head do the work. Feeling better about my swing lately.

Oh yeah finally changed grips on my trusty vokey 56*/11*. What a difference it makes. It really is my go to club.

Hogan

Back in France and reading Ben Hogan's book. Wow the thing is dense. Other golfers said that it really helped them and after reading some of it I didn't believe it would help me that much. Last weekend I played horrible. Like 15 over par. Well I've tried several things in the book:

1. keep elbows as close together as possible
2. point inside of elbows out
3. supinate the left wrist

Well this definately felt weird but it helped to keep my left arm straight and maintain my triangle better. Then the other thing I did that really helped my out was lifting my left arm higher on the backswing so that I could get get more left arm going backwards flexibility like the pros. Well the combination of the two worked even though I had just a little time to groove it in I shot my best score ever. A one over par 28. This swing gives me a slight fade though since my arm is higher my swing is more outside in. I'll slowly try to correct that with my swing plane and swinging around my torso and keeping my head down at contact. I was even able to hit my driver with a nice high fade.

So once again I completely changed my swing. It's amazing how I can go back to other swings like stack and tilt or really hitting down on the ball with my weight forward and see how they feel compared to this new swing.

Oh yeah. Marc gave us a super simple putting exercise which consists of putting a club on the ground and sliding the putter along it. I did this with Ryo and me and it helps immensely just getting the putter to go down a straight line. And he said that if you do it enough you see the club on the ground even when it's not there. Well all we think about now is just sliding the putter and the ball goes a lot straighter. I'm so much more confident in my putting now.

Swing 1.8: Hawaii

Took a lesson with Marc at Hawaii Kai. Told me I needed to work on using my arms more because I've been getting too down on the ball. So the exercise he gave me to do is just hit with my feet together. That way my arms go around my body more. The other thing I have to do a lot is watch the club hit the ball and then raise my head. What happens when you raise your head before you hit the ball is your shoulder dips and then you hit it fat. Helped my swing be a little more consistent and got rid of all slices. Now my problem is a hook!

Da boys golfing in Hawaii Kai

3 iron

Played a longer course for the first time today at Marolles. Par 33 I think with a few par 4's and one par 5. The boys told me the fairways were pretty narrow and that it was hard to find balls once they're in the bushes so I figured I wouldn't even hit any driver or woods. So all I did friday was practice hitting 3 iron and grooving my swing for that. Well it worked out pretty good. I consistently hit the fairway and on the 9th hole hit it about 185 meters into the wind. I only pulled one shot to the left and it wasn't so bad. So overall a good day but still shot a 48 because of a meltdown on one hole and two lost balls. Otherwise mainly a bogey round which is pretty good for me.

When we go to Hawaii in a week I'll pick up a 3 wood hybrid and then start grooving and playing that.

Swing thoughts now are that I looked at my swing and have a major chicken wing going on. So I shortened my backswing and trying to really keep my left arm straight to have a solid triangle. Am also trying to remember to accelerate through and really extend through the finish. All the while shifting my weight forward to hit down on the ball. Sounds like a lot but it's working pretty good for now. Will probably take some lessons in Hawaii.