Driver vs 3 wood

[poorputter]

Thanks so much for taking the time to have a good look at my swing and analyse it! I'll try to answer your questions, and comment on your thoughts as best I can.

Totally take all your feedback on board for starters! And I'll try to get some head on footage too!

I'm 5"10, 1.78m. I use second hand kit mainly due to the cost of new, custom fit stuff!

I have had about 5 lessons ever. I'm mainly self-taught.

I wonder if the slight curvature in the back is connected with a tendency to stretch for the ball. Perhaps if ball position and distance to ball were better, the curvature would minimise.

I would say I do have a bit of a tendency to aim down the line of target, rather than having a slightly open stance. Perhaps I get too square to target, and that cramps me for space, meaning I feel the need to stand further from the ball? Looking at this video, I'd say my left foot should be back a couple of inches, to help open my stance slightly?

I do tend to have an "exit left" swing thought because I'd had a problem with shanking, and the exit left helped me get the middle of the club face to the ball. When I was playing my best golf 2 seasons ago, I was drawing the ball consistently, but I haven't done that much at all recently. Misses are either straight left, or high and cutting right.

You can see that on backswing the club face is very closed. I don't suppose this matters, as long as club face on downswing is on a good path? But if you think it will help solve problems, I might need help on how to get that backswing in a more neutral path. Grip obviously will help.

Sounds like lessons is the best option!

 

[the_coach]

for sure lessons the best option would urge you to bite the bullet and get it done - as don't feel you too far aways from being able to play a bunch better golf in regards to more consistent ball to target - learning to score good is something else again

big thing about grip and alignment to target, posture etc is that it has a really big influence on how the subconscious instincts, the brains reactions to all of that set-up stuff want to swing the club to get face to ball to get ball to target

so folks make all these unrealized adjustments as soon as they set the club in motion and then on up to the top of the swing all immediately & instinctively grooves how the swing first starts down for the first couple of inches - the rest of the swing is pretty much happening without any conscious involvement

real big help would be to get couple of alignment stick put one down close to ball position aimed at target put the other parallel to that couple inches off of the toe line - that ways you have a reference for the parallel left target line body alignments

you pretty good at getting foot line, hips, chest, shoulders square to each other just that it's all those lines more aimed at target instead of parallel left of target line - so it's not a question of being open to target line just being parallel to it (although cause you've mostly always aimed everything (body) at target it will 'feel' as if you open)

wouldn't get too hung up over the posture issue though just a tad more neutral pelvic angle so flatter base of spine angle would be great
that base of the spine slight 'hollow' is more about posture angles rather than distance from ball, so more about the angle of the pelvis, if you push the tush/butt out back some and tuck the pelvis under kinda like it would put a belt buckle more looking downwards at the ground and view this in mirror you see this makes more of a 'hollow out' lower back position and how also to do all that requires putting some 'extra' unneeded knee flex in

engage the core muscles around the belly button more and you can immediately feel and see in mirror how this both flattens out the base of the spine and puts the pelvic angle in a good neutral position - also feel how that extra flex/bend at the knees at set-up is no longer needed so from feet to hips can be a little ways 'taller'- so it's as if the knees are just 'unlocked' from straight as opposed to having to bend them

engaging the core around the belly button also gives the big benefit & sense of how the core with the rib cage can control the rotation of the takeback to the top - a bunch easier to be smooth

clubface angle to swingpath relationship plus strike location have the biggest infuence in what line the ball starts on and how then it moves in the air and this is the area that hands-on lessons would help greatly with
plus they'd be able to see exactly what's happening with grip in relation to face angle at address and face angle during the first move away plus how the angles are setting or not
whole path as you move away doesn't look so bad at all

on viewing strike and shot outcomes Pro could decide to give swing thought or use avoidance drills to change path into impact before looking at grip or maybes slight grip change first hard to say not seeing exactly what going down

backswing as a whole is not in bad shape at all path wise
maybes it's more of a grip to face angle issue that's putting a rotational turn in the shaft to close face

- by that mean if you were to just rest the shaft on the lead palm out in front of you hold the very end of the grip in the trail hand and turn/rotate the grip to the left, countclockwise as if you turning down a volume knob
- you'd see how easily a small turn like that shuts down the face - it's that rotational turn on that axis I was speaking too, not twisting or moving the shaft angle way off plane in the takeback - takeaway pretty much on a neutral plane it's not being snatched ways inside or lifted ways outside

 

[poorputter]

Thanks again. More really useful information.

Regarding scoring - that has probably been part of the reason why I've not invested in as much time in practice and lessons as I should. I've generally managed to "get away with it" because of half decent short game. I played a medal on Saturday and scored 79 on a par 72, 6500 yard home course, with 6 greens in regulation. I just got up and down well, and made a couple of putts to get a score round. Nett 69 off my 10.

I've def got some alignment sticks somewhere. I'll dig them out and try to focus some footage on that drill, of alignment parallel left of target. As you say, I usually feel comfortable that everything "lines up" but I perhaps need a conscious thought of giving myself a little bit more room, by separating the line of my club path from my body alignment.

In terms of the club face angle on the back swing, I sometimes have a swing though about feeling that club face open up in the back swing rather than it being shut. So I will practice a short 1/4 turn takeaway and look at the club face and try to feel it facing upwards, before I take a shot. But I'm pretty sure that I rarely get the toe of the club pointing upwards at the point when the club is parallel to the ground in the backswing.

I'll see if I can work on some of these things and do a new video, and look at getting some lessons with my pro.