Swing advice

[socky]

http://ubersense.com/m7Wg4AdA

Hitting my irons pretty well at the moment but wondered if I could get some swing advice.

Vid is of a pretty decent strike with a 7 iron.

I'm trying to deloft the club at impact but looks as if I've not quite managed it also looks like my back swing is too long and my stance is a bit narrow - do you agree?

Any suggestions, or things I should be working on?

Cheers!

 

[garyinderry]

grab your wedges and practice putting and chipping!


Nowt wrong with that swing. what are you going to get from de-lofting the club? a few more yards, big divots and a lower ball flight? forget it! its not worth the hassle. that swing looks sound to me!

 

[socky]

grab your wedges and practice putting and chipping!


Nowt wrong with that swing. what are you going to get from de-lofting the club? a few more yards, big divots and a lower ball flight? forget it! its not worth the hassle. that swing looks sound to me!

Hey thanks for the reply, I guess I was hoping for more distance and a stronger ball flight. You are right though I do need to practice getting it in the hole. I've been working on my chipping but guess I've become too caught up in ball striking, if a shoot a poor round but strike the ball well I'm still happy. Perhaps that's the wrong mindset...

 

[the_coach]

Hitting my irons pretty well at the moment but wondered if I could get some swing advice.

Vid is of a pretty decent strike with a 7 iron.

I'm trying to deloft the club at impact but looks as if I've not quite managed it also looks like my back swing is too long and my stance is a bit narrow - do you agree?

Any suggestions, or things I should be working on?

Cheers!

Agree always worth it's weight in gold to practice & get better turning 3 into 2 from 100 & so in.

Pretty good swing motion here, obviously from this angle alone can't tell which direction the swing path is.

Do you with the irons generally move them left to right with a your miss, but good ones pretty straightaway? if swing gets a little ways off do you sometimes catch them a little ways fat?

Am thinking that although you have some pretty good strikes & contact in your game, for you to contemplate this the ball flight is a little higher, so little less than ideal traj. with the irons (would guess the driver & metal from a tee providing you get the face angle square through impact overall go pretty good?)

Nothing wrong with looking for a forwards leaning shaft through impact as that will provide best optimum flight & distance with the irons.

Looking at this swing here although given the frame rate & blur difficult to see exactly but shaft looks more in line with the hands at impact, so the shaft more vertical at collision.(ideal for the driver)

Given this is a 7i & given what your looking to achieve, it wouldn't hurt any to have a tad wider stance, couple inches for more solid base you can turn over, so having a vertical line down from the middle of the hip sockets that falls inside the stance rather than through the feet.

It's about getting turning the weight left, the body & arms staying connected as you rotate & swing down.
As to get a forwards leaning shaft with your irons, as you should. (anywhere from 6º to 10º is ideal but even 4º is a good start)

Transition first needs to be triggered by the lower left, weight into the left foot downwards using the ground pressure, this then move the left knee & thigh left & the hip moves only a tad laterally towards target but importantly it then turns left & clears, weight going onto left heel, right foot rolls inwards right knee moves a little towards target.
This allows the space for the hands to lead a forwards leaning shaft, by enabling then to get to be more in front of the left thigh as the head remains over top of the back of the ball.
So as the weight too is now predominantly on the left leg through impact you will also be able to swing downwards into the back of the ball, lowest point of the swing arc couple inches target side of ball.

So ideally at impact there's that forwards leaning shaft angle.
At this point the left arm & shaft are not in a straight line (that happens with the irons a little ways after in the follow through, & there's still some angle retaining in the back of the right hand (feel the right palm is still facing towards the ground more rather than looking to target) the right arm has not yet completely straightened either.

If you have an impact bag put it couple feet in front of where the ball would be on your target line (but no ball hit in this drill) feel that weight left at transition, left hip turning out of the way & that you get to where impact would be with that angel still in back of your right hand, then feel the club then release through after so when you make contact with the impact bag then both your arms are then straight- you do this with slow 50% swing effort. (not at full swing speed so full blast into the bag as that could damage your wrists)

Other thing you could do with an 9i or 8i on grass with ball on a small tee pressed right down so the 'cup' on the ground. Place a bag towel (folded in half -not rolled) around 4" trailside of the ball, then make some 70% swings.

You'll have to start transition from the left foot, & clear/turn the left hip left out of the way for you to be able to get the hands there first so you can contact ball first ground second, divot target side. If not you'll hit the towel first. (can also do this with a second ball instead of towel around 5" trail side back of the ball you hit -this a little more difficult)

So main takes are if you leave too much weight on the trail foot, trail side coming into impact the shaft will be more vertical through impact so higher flight.
Have to get that weight left tt start transition, important though that this not a big jump or slide laterally left with the hips. It's pressure through left foot downwards into the ground & then left hip turned left out of the way, feeling like the hands get in front of the left thigh, while the head stays top of backside of the ball.

If you put yourself in an impact position a few times as he does here, then do the drill with the towel, should help you some.

[video=youtube_share;vuwlT2NKK7k]http://youtu.be/vuwlT2NKK7k[/video]

 

[the_coach]

interesting take here on practice that will help ball first contact, ground second, so better traj. flight that isn't a ways over high so optimum distance with the irons. think the vid is a little wrongly titled - should be - for forwards leaning shaft rather than lag.

although at first look at this drill it may not seem so (but look at impact position & shaft angle when he lowers the club to the ground.
you can just double side a small flat piece of card -that's square to the leading edge of the clubface at the height he has the bat. (if you have an old club old bat you could easily make one up)
if you have a good imagination you can just bring the shaft of a club (at the height where the bat would be attached) to the upright alignment stick to practice the impact position.
but whichever make sure every time you do it you lower the club down as he does to feel & check the impact position.

[video=youtube_share;TTKdh-QcGpA]http://youtu.be/TTKdh-QcGpA[/video]

 

[garyinderry]

this quest could be slightly damaging to his driving as mentioned above!

I drag the handle ahead of the clubhead a lot and make good ball turf contact all the time! it doesn't help my launch with the driver though.

you often hear about people being good iron strikers but not great drivers and vice versa. I think my swing suits hitting balls off the turf but doesn't lend itself quite as well to getting a good launch angle with the driver!


also, with quite a picky swing, it lends itself to winter golf as you wont be digging up half the course with a big negative angle of attack.

thoughts coach?

 

[socky]

Thanks for the taking the time and trouble to get back to me. I'm going to work on better weight transfer and rotation in to the ball and will update with another vid in a few weeks time.

Do you with the irons generally move them left to right with a your miss, but good ones pretty straightaway? if swing gets a little ways off do you sometimes catch them a little ways fat?

At the moment good shots are straight but I always feel im in danger of jsut pusing the ball right, with the occasional pull left. Have been making my grip strong to try and squre the clubface easier.

Am thinking that although you have some pretty good strikes & contact in your game, for you to contemplate this the ball flight is a little higher, so little less than ideal traj. with the irons (would guess the driver & metal from a tee providing you get the face angle square through impact overall go pretty good?)

Spot on really, although I'm push/fading my driver, starts straight or right and then goes further right.

Looking at this swing here although given the frame rate & blur difficult to see exactly but shaft looks more in line with the hands at impact, so the shaft more vertical at collision.(ideal for the driver)

Yeah I can pause the vid on my iphone and while the shaft isn't leaning backwards, it looks straight up and down at impact to me.

 

[JustOne]

this quest could be slightly damaging to his driving as mentioned above!

I drag the handle ahead of the clubhead a lot and make good ball turf contact all the time! it doesn't help my launch with the driver though.

you often hear about people being good iron strikers but not great drivers and vice versa. I think my swing suits hitting balls off the turf but doesn't lend itself quite as well to getting a good launch angle with the driver!


also, with quite a picky swing, it lends itself to winter golf as you wont be digging up half the course with a big negative angle of attack.

thoughts coach?

You need to keep your head behind the ball, more with a driver. Set up with some spine tilt AWAY from the target, this allows you to 'sweep' the ball more and get better launch characteristics as it shallows your angle of attack.

 

[garyinderry]

You need to keep your head behind the ball, more with a driver. Set up with some spine tilt AWAY from the target, this allows you to 'sweep' the ball more and get better launch characteristics as it shallows your angle of attack.

after a poor season hiding the driver in the bag I went for a driver lesson two weeks ago. pro just got me to stand square, ball way up in my stance and said hit from the inside.

drives much better now. about twice the height of an old good one!

he showed me a video of first swings and club head was shut coming into ball and rolled closed just through impact. low hooky result as you can imagine.

trying to keep the head square for longer through impact.

drives these days are either straight and long or long and a bit hooky. still work to be done! signs of improvement.

been hard getting used to the ball so far forward. works for launch though and iv hit some of my best drives ever!

 

[garyinderry]

oh and every time I try to add extra spine tilt I just end up blocking it miles right!

 

[JustOne]

Playing the ball way up in your stance will effectively keep your head behind the ball. Same sandwich just a different filling

The only issue being that sometimes you 'chase' the ball with your upper body when the ball is too far up in your stance so I'd rather play the ball from the CORRECT place and add some tilt.

That's just me and the fact that when putting a swing into words on the internet I'd rather get people hitting the ball properly, but if what you're doing is working for you then stick with it :thup:

 

[the_coach]

this quest could be slightly damaging to his driving as mentioned above!

I drag the handle ahead of the clubhead a lot and make good ball turf contact all the time! it doesn't help my launch with the driver though.

you often hear about people being good iron strikers but not great drivers and vice versa. I think my swing suits hitting balls off the turf but doesn't lend itself quite as well to getting a good launch angle with the driver!


also, with quite a picky swing, it lends itself to winter golf as you wont be digging up half the course with a big negative angle of attack.

thoughts coach?

The quest to have a forward leaning shaft with the irons so deal better solid contact with the total release of the stored angles after contact, after the divot & in the follow through completely released some 2' (ft) after strike will produce optimum speed & so transfer of energy so optimum ball speed plus the 'ideal' lean between 6º to 10º also produces optimum traj. & flight. This won't hurt the driving ability as the difference between the two is in the set-up & ball position.

I mentioned the OP's driving probably being pretty good if a square-ish face angle just really to confirm what was going on with the iron swing. Wasn't referring to it as a negative.

The hands still have to get to the ball slightly before the clubhead with the driver.

Golf is predominantly rotary, but it's also a pulling not pushing force when you look at the physics, hands have to get there first. the fact that the shaft angle is more vertical at impact (viewed from the front) in relation to where the hands are to the club head, is all taken care of by the ball position forwards opposite the left armpit & on a tee, plus the postural position at set up & through impact.

So the stance is a wider so the secondary spine tilt being a lot more pronounced when you look at the shoulders, so right shoulder a lot lower here than if would be with an iron, plus ball position is somewhere around opposite or a little ways in front of the sternum with the iron.

All your really doing is helping pre-program through set up where the low point of the arc is with the 2 different physical clubs, as the low point in a correctly timed in sequence swing motion will always fall around the sternum.

Through the transfer of weight & hip clearance left as you swing with an iron that dynamic rotational movement has moved the sternum some so the low point is now in front/target side of the ball that in the static address position was a little further back. so forward leaning shaft ball first ground second low point 3" to 4" target side of the ball, means best solid contact as you can retain the angles in the right hand right arm also for optimum speed, they dont' fully release until after impact.

It's the same dynamic motion with the driver swing still transition starts from the lead lower side, left hip clears hands lead, but that set up/ball position now means when the driver goes through the low point somewhere around where the sternum is the clubhead still has 3",4" or 5" of travel which now is upwards before it gets to impact, which also makes the hand/clubhead relationship, shaft angle from front on more vertical, sometimes shaft even leaning a little ways backwards - though the hands & handle have still lead the shaft & clubhead into the strike.

Also as the ball much further forward in the inclined hoop 'circle' the clubhead swinging on, at contact the swing direction (thats the bit of the swing below the waist in essence) will always be swinging further to the left, whether the hoops pointing right of target - in to out or hoop pointing left of target - out to in.
(as in the thread I started the other week http://forums.golf-monthly.co.uk/sho...path-direction )

 

[garyinderry]

Playing the ball way up in your stance will effectively keep your head behind the ball. Same sandwich just a different filling

:

when I say way up in I mean its way forward from my old position! off to the range.

 

[the_coach]

when I say way up in I mean its way forward from my old position! off to the range.

You will need to look at your distance away from the ball G, the distance that butt end of handle so hands are from your body, & close that down a good ways. So the upper arms in light contact with the sides of your chest/pecs so the arms hang a deal more vertically. If it's still the same distance as it was?