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!

Wide Narrow Wide

Saw a fascinating video the other day

For the first time it explained how laying off the club helps close the face. It's physics proved by simulation. I love golf research instead of golf instruction based on ideas or methodologies. So I started working again on laying off the club and wondering how to do that. Then I got back onto Bradley Hughes and how he talked about starting the club upright on the backswing helps to create a loop that then helps layoff the club at the top at the transition. Martin Ayers kinda gets into this too with his power move.

Anyway I've tried doing this "transition" move before and really struggled with it as it just felt like I was trying to whip the club and I had no control over the club. This time just thinking about it differently and introducing a wide-narrow-wide into the loop and it made more sense or felt more natural. Then while also hitting I saw this guy who really bombs it from the back and he has that wide-narrow-wide move as well and you can just see how it concentrates all the power into impact. He looked like a baseball hitter on his follow through.

I'm also wondering if this will affect my timing and help with my right elbow problem?

Well here's the proof of the change which you can see with Skypro really easily.

You can really see how it's just two very different swings.
It's also done several other things all at once:

• I'm getting that "crunching" and shifting forward on the transition that I noticed all the good players have and throughout the years I've tried to imitate by really shifting my weight to the left or sticking out my left hip. These techniques made the swing look a little better but still not quite right. Now it just looks right.
• I have a head drop on the downswing now which all the good players have. And I'm doing this without even thinking about it.

So I would consider wide-narrow-wide one of the simple fundamental things to include in a swing to make it correct. The hard part was finding a swing thought or image to make it feel natural. I showed it to my son who was already doing it a little bit but is now doing it more and he said it definitely changed his ball flight and gave him more power. So this is staying in the bag. Here's an after video.

Lag and Power

I brushed off the Skypro the other day since I saw that they had put up Natalie Gulbis' swing. I compared her swing to mine and one thing that really stood out to me as a difference was the wide-narrow-wide in her swing and how mine was basically getting to be narrow-narrow-narrow. I've also been using the swing speed radar to see if there are any changes to speed with the different swing changes that I'm making. Well I was at the range and had three different swings that each hit the ball ok but with different ball flights. One was my current swing, one was really concentrating on rotating through the ball and trying to keep my right elbow bent before impact, and one was going back to the Bradley Hughes swing which I somehow got away from. This last swing gave me the highest swing speed and is probably the most correct one but I didn't have my camera so I couldn't verify!! But after thinking about the swing and looking at pro swings I think it's correct. I don't know how I drifted away from this swing.

It goes back to trying to get more lag speed in my swing. I need to go wide-narrow-wide and find the slot. Then just groove this swing except this time incorporating the other moves that I've since learned such as swinging under plane. Also I'm thinking that before when I was learning this swing I tried to keep my right elbow off my hip like Jim Furyk but this time I'll try to get it more in my belly. I'm hoping this will also help with the right elbow being bent by changing the timing of my swing. Another thing to try differently this time is being flat with this swing like Ben Hogan, last time I was real upright.

Baseball Swing, another breakthrough

Well the new grip is holding up and I'm able to continue to swing slightly under plane so I'm happy about that.  The other thing that I really thought about was the constant quest to keep my right elbow even more bent at impact.  I thought that it can't be about holding my wrists back or trying to keep my elbow tucked in or feeling like I'm hitting with my elbow on my hip because those swing thoughts only got me so far.  I had to rethink it.

So I thought about baseball swings.  I started looking at slow motion baseball swings at a home run derby and how they all hit the ball with their right arm bent and then released it after impact.  Just like how you're supposed to with golf.  So I figure if two sports do it that way then it must be the most powerful way to swing. So when I swing a baseball bat it makes perfect sense to hit with my right arm bent and turn in to it with my body for power.  Trying to hit a baseball timing a release with the wrists and extended arms just doesn't feel right. So I tried to just really visualize and apply that thought to the golf ball lying on the ground. It's a lot harder because I think since you're afraid to hit the ground you naturally want to extend your arms so that you're maxed out at impact and can't hit the ground. And going into a swing with a bent right arm feels like you will just hit straight into the ground. I had to really imagine that I was swinging at a baseball on the ground and hit the ball with my whole right side and getting my right shoulder down on the ground. So just a complete rethinking of the impact position. A different swing thought that changed the timing of my whole swing. It's hard because you have to relearn to trust that you're not going to hit fat but I was able to abstract out the ground and do it. And it worked! The results are below.

One thing that changed without even trying was my finish. No more chicken wings. I can't wait to work on this more. The combo of my new wrist position and new baseball swing thought at impact is making my swing look way more correct. More correct than it's ever been. Hopefully this will hold up and then I want to work on getting more lag and power.

Under Plane and Breakthrough

My swing has been pretty stable for the past few months so I've been happy with that.  Since it's winter it's not really a good time to be playing so I continued to work on my swing.  One thing that had been bothering me is my left leg at impact.  For me it was too bent and I wasn't fully posting up until my club was horizontal after impact.  Even though Ben Hogan says to keep the left leg bent at impact in order to keep the hips rotating.  I looked at all the pros swings and they post up.  I guess this is for more speed. Well changing my timing is really hard!

Of course in looking at my swing I saw some things once again my right elbow not being bent at impact which is something that Ben Hogan says is important. In trying to once again get my elbow really tucked in I was experimenting with wrist and hand positions to make it easier to tuck in my elbow during the downswing. I tried to get the right hand more in the fingers and swing more around my body like the whole open and shut the door metaphor. This got me in a better right elbow position which should be in front of the right hipbone again according to Ben Hogan. I then played around with keeping my elbows in at address and pointing then straight down like he says to do in the book. This also helped get my elbow tucked in and I'm able to I think keep it slightly more bent at impact. At least it feels easier to do keep it bent. My son filmed me of course to see if it did anything and the results were really nice. For the first time I'm slightly under plane in my downswing. I've been fighting this forever trying all sorts of stuff like:

• trying to really swing more inside out
• drop the hands down after transition
• layoff the club after transition
• point my right hand up to the sky on downswing
• let the club fall behind me after transition
• ...

All of these got my hands down but never shallowed out my club. And certainly didn't allow me to get under plane.

Before: perfectly on plane but a choppy motion at impact as I had to release early to get clubface squared up. I was fighting trying to keep my right arm bent but couldn't.

After: slightly under plane and turning into the ball with right elbow bent going into impact and not chopping at it straightening right arm just before impact. This is fundamentally more correct!

Once again it's a very different feeling and I'm amazed at how many different ways there are to swing a club. I was striping a couple of 7 irons so the ball flight is there.  It feels reproducible and different but not unnatural. It feels like a breakthrough and I'll see if it really leads to something or is another dead end.

To summarize the change is all on the right arm.  At address have the hand/wrist flex down. I think this is what lays off the club. I'm not sure but will have to play with this more. Point the right elbow down not out and slightly bent. Swing around body and really try to keep elbow in front of the right hipbone at impact.  Also bend over more than I think I need to on the downswing!