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!

Major Milestone: Right Elbow Redux

Giant day. I've been trying to do this for 3 years. Getting the right elbow bent and on my hip at impact!

I've been slowly coming closer and closer. I've even got the concept of dipping down after impact a la Natalie Gulbis. But today was just amazing. I finally got the impact position that I've been dreaming of forever. How did I do it? Well before I went to the range I looked at some Keegan Bradley videos like this.

and then also Dustin Johnson

and even Bubba

The one thing I noticed is that the really dig in their right (or in Bubba's case left) elbow into their gut and then turn their hips at the same time till their hips are practically facing the target at impact. I've been able to do  this in practice swings but never with a full swing. So one thing that I did was do it in slow motion and then at a half speed to try to get the feeling of the positions. Here's my first try really concentrating on getting my elbow in my gut.

Holy crap that worked! Again another completely different feeling from other golf swings. My head felt like it was turned on my side on the pillow while I was hitting. And the ball actually went OK. I kept going with it and really just had to work on digging the elbow and turning the hips. 

Down the line.

Face on

And before and after side by side

What a difference in swings. Before is choppy and still releasing a tad early. After is just digging in the elbow and turning.

I consider this a gigantic step in understanding the swing and something that eludes most amateurs even some really good ones. The feeling I was trying to get at impact was with my body turned toward the target and completely bent over to the side. I'm going to really have to groove this thing as it does not feel natural at all. And then I'll have to slowly ramp up the speed which will be hard as it will probably throw my timing off. Balls were going pretty straight and that was evidenced from the DTL view as my club face staying stable through impact which is one of the reasons for having the bent elbow at impact so you release later. The hardest part for me was getting that external rotation on the right arm and holding it!

Impact Position Drill

I'm subscribed to several Youtube channels about golf and I've been following Kelvin Miyahira. This video is pretty cool talking about impact position drills.

Here's my version of this drill.

and in slow motion

and from down the line in slow motion

As you can see my impact position is pretty good. Hands infront, left wrist supinated, right elbow bent, left leg almost straight, head down. The follow through looks pretty good as well the chicken wing is gone!

So I would do a bunch of these to try and train my body to feel the impact position. It's way more bent and stretched out than if you just swing. I'm also trying to get my hips really open and turned toward the target. It's a great drill.

What this has done is allowed me to hit high draws which I've never really been able to do since my hips are cleared I can come more inside out. However, I'm topping a lot. But the balls are going straighter.

I'm having a hell of a time trying to groove this swing and get good contact so I am trying to do a hybrid where I have that feeling of keeping my left arm really straight on the backswing and go chin to chin with my shoulders which gives me good contact but the ball goes all over the place with my new impact position:  hips open, right elbow on hip, and lots of lateral bend. I'll have to work on this more.

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.