That’s exactly why I’m recording - I realized there’s a huge disconnect between what something feels like and what’s actually happening. In that video i seriously felt like i was only taking a half swing for some reason, and a few other things.
It’s such an improvement from where I was at, I was casting really bad and my swing looked almost vertical. It looked horrible, and what was weird is it didnt FEEL horrible. So that’s why I’m recording now for feedback.
It is working a lot better than the machine’s numbers did for me. Sometimes they’d give me numbers and I’d be so befuddled what I even did to get there. With the video feedback I feel like I can see precisely what I’m doing and make those feel vs reality connections in my head.
Highly recommend, although people do stare at you when you do it lol.
That’s definitely a great tool to give you a snapshot of your swing. I took a few lessons for an insanely reasonable price a few years ago, and the first thing he did was fix my swing plane. Think I paid $125 for 5 hours of one on one instruction from a pro at one of the city courses here. Highly recommend.
I spent probably 50 hours with a decent pro and he could not fix my plane. This is the only thing that has remotely helped, and I’m still a little outside there.
What I did with those lessons though is I gained a really decent short game. I track my up and down % and it’s nearly 50% at the moment. It’s only that low because my 4-7 feet putting is awful.
I spent all of last year unemployed and taking golf lessons trying to fix my swing.
I always had a super casty and vertical swing.
Three things I needed to fix and I started hitting the ball about 20 yards farther with my irons and 30-35 with my driver:
Stronger grip. My original grip almost had both thumbs lined up down the sightline of the shaft at address. I had to roll my left hand rightward about 90 degrees and rotate my right hand under the club but less extreme of a shift.
Stop the butt suck. Almost everybody with a casty swing (your practice swing doesn’t look too bad on this but look for it in other videos) stands straight up into impact. So your butt goes from out and away from the ball to sucked in and your body stands straight up. This eliminates your power and your ability to get in front of the ball at impact, and leads to #3.
Bend the right elbow through impact. As a result of standing straight up on every golf swing for 10 years, I had to figure out how to make contact. How I did that was by having my right elbow straight through the golf swing. This meant that at least that was stable through my swing and as long as I did everything else the same, I’d make solid contact. It was shitty contact, but still. Once I stopped the butt suck, what happened? I started hitting everything fat or popping up my driver. Which makes sense because if every other point with my body is 3 inches lower to the ground, and my body is the same in terms of the parts making contact with the club, then I’ll contact the ball 3 inches lower with the club. So the only fix for this is to have my right elbow bent.
Biggest things I’m going to start working on this year:
Continuing the fight against sucking my butt in
Really separating “Transition my weight to the front foot” and “turn through the ball” into two separate processes
Hopefully get my full swing into a good enough place that short game can be the main focus of my practice.
Starting the year at around a 5.8 index, would like to be a 3-4 by the end of 2021.
Played the round of my life today. Hands down the most fun I’ve ever had golfing and I hardly ever have what I’d call “fun.” It’s usually just stressful.
The score is really really disappointing - a lot of the bogeys were 3 putts after I hit GIR. My putting was just abysmal. With everything else though i was throwing absolute darts.
I knew it was gonna be a good day when I nearly drove the green on the first hole which is ~275. I had so much power for some reason. Everything was hit fairly straight, with a few small 2-5 yard fades.
The real hero club of the day was my cobra f9 3 hybrid. I usually cant hit the longer clubs for shit - but I was crushing this thing about 200-210 today. Longer than some of my drives tbh. Having a fairway club you can blast out 200 confidently is such a life saver. I felt so little pressure off the tee because I knew I had the hybrid shot in my bag today.
I was +8 after 4 holes and managed to be only +14 after 15. Then an unfortunate meltdown around the green on 16, and some disappointing bogeys to finish. The way I was hitting the ball - I should’ve shot low 80’s. I am gonna work on nothing but my putting this week. It’s so trash right now.
It was kind of embarrassing. It was a 145 yard par 3 over a ravine. Very narrow but wide green. I thought I could get a smooth 6 up there but there was a far left pin placement. So since my miss has been a pull i just aimed center of green, ripped the shit out of a pulled shot, and landed ~5 feet from the hole. Probably a 15 yard pull lol. I made the putt.
I had 3 other missed birdie putts that were fairly close and makable.
Think the bend in right elbow at impact is going to be huge for me. I’ve been working hard on stuff that I now remember gets me in a position that results in a bent right elbow pre-impact but forgot what the point of it all was, lol.
Just started messing around with getting from P6 to impact while focusing on maintaining that right elbow bend and think/hope I just learned how you get shaft lean at impact the right way…
Does “butt suck” happen when you start to release the club too early? For some reason when I try to release at the last possible second it feels like I do less of this.
Can’t imagine trying to keep my right arm straight (as a righty) through impact. It feels impossible. I mostly focus on keeping my left arm from breaking down (chicken wing) which honestly is rarely an issue for me. The big issue i have is my right elbow flaring out in the backswing rather than staying tucked in to my body. It’s a factor in my casting motion.
However, john daly flares out his elbow like I do and it feels more comfortable to me.
The biggest things I work on is shifting my weight forward through impact (not doing so causes loss of power, mishits, and slices), leaning too far forward and on my toes (causes mishits and shanks) and making sure I start my downswing with the club pointing behind my body and not away from it (helps my slice). I have an extremely inside takeaway that I try to mirror on the downswing.
Yesterday however there were no such thoughts. I just confidently stepped up to the ball and whacked it with what I felt like was an easy swing but my club head speed had to be higher than usual because I picked up 15-25 yards on all my clubs. Funny how if you try to crush it by swinging as hard as you can, that can result in loss of distance. Weird ass game.
Walked 9 before the rains came. Was about 43° and the course was soggy. Snow has somewhat melted but I still found it a bunch, haha. Didn’t play too terrible despite the bloated score. It was all Driver. Just horrific, started waaay right and gradually worked toward waaaay left. I need a lesson. Or I need to learn to hit a FW off the tee. May try to race to a nearby course after my 1pm dentist appointment tomorrow or play snow golf at home, it’s just not melting here, ughhh.
Played quite a bit a couple of years in HS, junior membership. Very occasional since. Broke 50 for 9 exactly one time. Chipped in for bogey on 1. Otherwise it was mostly double bogey golf.
I don’t get his decision to use his driver and leave himself with the second shots he did.
Saturday he’s buried in the rough and has to go up and over a bunker to a short pin. Sunday he has the most awkward shot in golf, the 60 yard bunker shot.
How is he setting himself to make eagle in either of those situations? Landing it on the fairway and keeping it in the fairway was out of the question.
