Swing 5.5: Laying off the club

Stumbled upon a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODCzUcP6GLk

I was looking at my swing from behind and noticed that my club angle on the downswing was very steep.  I  incorporated this idea of "laying off the club" and what it did was made my club at impact less steep which allowed my hands to be closer to my body.  That in turn allows my upper body to be more bent over instead of upright thus maintaining my spine angle.

Swing 5.4: Bending over

The one thing that still is missing from my swing is the fact that the pros are so much more bent over that I am.  I am so upright.  So one day I just told myself to bend over at the waist and keep my head over the ball instead of standing up.  This will take a while to get into muscle memory as my tendancy is to stand up.

Swing 5.3: Maintaining spine angle

I've been trying forever to figure out how to not raise up at impact and straighten out my spine.  Well I looked at the video at the moment of impact and compared it to Rory's.  Let's take a look:

spine angle maintained, hands infront of club, right arm still bent.  Left side aligned.

Body too upright, hands barely infront of club, right arm too straight.  Left side not aligned.  Hands behind.

So I signed up for another lesson to work on just this point.  In the meantime I was watching a video of myself swinging with my legs together.  Lo and behold I was in a better impact position and my head stayed the same height as impact.  No straightening up and losing my spine angle!

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Left side more aligned.  Shoulders more inclined.

Well you can't really see it in pictures that much but the video shows that the swing is more correct.  Since my shoulders are more tilted and not level at impact I can better maintain my spine angle because my left shoulder is higher.  So I then figured out that I just need to swing like that in with my feet apart and at power.

Well when swinging with my feet together and noticed that I would bring my hands around faster and naturally supinate my right wrist more.  I don't know why I did this.   But at least I knew what the feeling was now!  It was really leading with the back of my right hand.  I tried to do this with a full swing and really think about supinating my left wrist.  Here are the results before and after.

From a previous post where I was showing progress from before!

Camera angle isn't exactly the same.  Hitting plastic ball into net so not exacly the same.

Hands lagging behind shoulders.  Triangle not maintained.

Great lag.  Triangle is maintained

Hands slightly infront of club.  Head came up.  Left side not aligned.

Hands way infront of club.  Head stayed down.  Left side solidly aligned and wrist supinated!!  

Hips not turning!  Right hand not fully released.

Hips are slightly more turned.  Still need to work on this.  Right hand looks correct and released.  Never seen my right hand like this before but have always been striving for it.

Hips still not turned so having a hard time maintaining triangle.  Left arm wanting to chicken wing

Not swinging full on so club is pointing up.  Hips turned, triangle good.

Well  this was a big piece of the puzzle solved in getting my body in the right positions.  We'll have to test it out on the range and get the muscle memory going.

Swing thoughts to do this are trying to lead with the back of my right hand.  It almost feels like I'm backhanding it bending my right arm and wrist on the downswing but the video shows that it's straight before impact.  But watching the pros their right arms are sometimes slightly bent right before impact so that's ok.  It's a strange feeling and doesn't feel powerful.  I'm almost sure when I try this on the range the balls will be flying horribly.  Probably weak skulls or fat shots till I can get the contact.

If I forget the feeling just go back to hitting with feet together.

Here's the after comparison w/ Rory:

Rory

Still far but looks much closer than before

Here's what it looks like in realtime.  I think I'm starting to get that look that I'm striving for when I see good guys swing.  I still have so much to learn but have made some really great progress!!!

Swing 5.2: Left arm attached to body

Made some major progress.  Worked with a friend at the course.  Really helped with the chicken wings saying that I should really feel like keeping my arms together and swinging as if they are one.  Really conserve the triangle.  I also realized that hands were very far away from my body at impact.  So trying to work on that.  Finally and I don't know how it started but tried to really just not fire my left shoulder till very late.  I think this is helping because my lag is getting better.  It's what Ben Hogan said to do which is just turn the hips first.  I thought I was doing that but infact I was firing the left shoulder and starting my arms way too soon.  All this happens unconscientiously so had to reall concentrate on not doing it.  Anyway keeping my arms straight and as one really helped out my swing and now it looks much more beautiful and not embarassing.  I think I'm really on to something here and might finally have solved the chicken wing problem.

Swing 5.1: Lag and major breakthrough

Well tried to work on lag and wasn't happening.  So instead I just figured I'd try to work on correct positioning after swing and the lag would eventually come.  So tried to really cross arms and have lateral bend.

Then today for some reason while hitting balls with my son and while working on rhythm I just imagined dragging my right palm on the mat to the left of the ball.  This somehow worked for me and immediately my ball flight was higher straighter and the sound at contact was better.  My shots were much more consistent.

This was confirmed by video and for the first time I actually had lag and my hands were in front of the clubhead at impact.

hands and shoulders at same level.  Wrists still too active at this point.

Club parallel to ground lag is real good.

Hands in front of clubhead.  Head not coming up as much.  Hips should be turned more.

Need more release and hips should be turned more.

Hips are still not turned and release is not as good so lateral bend is bad so slight chicken wing.

So I gave up the release and lateral bend for better lag.  Well I can only concentrate on one thing at a time but the ball flight was much straighter and swing is more powerful with less effort.  Ball wasn't going as far and stopped drawing.  I had a slight fade in fact.  But was very straight.  I did loose some distance but it might have been because of the wind or that I wasn't swinging as hard since I was trying to groove the new feeling.  Next step is to combine lag, release, and lateral bend.

Swing 5.0 beta: Lag

Read Kelvin's series about lag (http://www.aroundhawaii.com/lifestyle/health_and_fitness/2011-10-pga-tour-clubhead-lag-part-1.html).  Thought about right elbow positioning and being behind or in front of the right hip.  Mine was definitely behind so I'm thinking about getting the elbow into my stomach and not my side.  Going to try this on the range tomorrow.

Swing 5.0 beta: Right hand position right after impact

My swing is slowly coming together piece by piece.

• Chicken wings are gone!  This was mainly a rhythm problem and not a try to keep your arms straight problem.  Shorter backswing and then really accelerate after impact cured this.
• Spine angle getting better.  My head is still coming up at impact but bending knees through impact helps get my hips out of the way so I can bend my spine sideways.
• Casting.  Lag is getting better because of better rhythm.  Starting to really feel the whip and acceleration of the club.

Then I watched more videos of Tiger and Angel Cabrerra and all the other pros swings and they all had a right hand turned over and released after impact.  Mine wasn't as released.  So this is the next piece of the puzzle that I'm working on.

Right hand cupped

Right hand more turned over, arms straight, shoulders not hunched

This just looks ugly

Finally starting to look like a real follow through

My shoulders are more inclined so that means that my spine angle is conserved.  Wrists are fully crossed.  It's amazing how just a slight change can make the swing look correct or completely lame.  Best part about this is that ball flight was also good nice high slight draw.


Current swing thought to get swing grooved:

• Swing with the legs, relaxing arms try to feel acceleration and whip with rotating hips and lagging arms, quiet wrists.
• then introduce head and side bend at impact
• then introduce release with crossing wrists after impact

Don't forget on backswing to keep hands low and wrists quiet.

I'm slowly bringing this swing home.  Feels really good to finally have something that looks correct.  The only way I could have gotten here was with lots of video and experimentation, and of course lessons when I get stuck.

Next thing to work on is lag.  Research to do:  getting right elbow tucked in more, which will hopefully also allow me to maintain my spine angle.