Some progress...

Hi Ed,

Answers:
1 - Yes, Body down and body turn are both steepeners, so usually that is balanced by more shallow arm movements (arm rotation and ulnar deviation).

2 - staying in posture tends to slow down the rate of closure, and generally make it less closed. Usually staying down helps the left miss for early extenders.

I hope that helps clear things up.

Tyler, thanks for clearing that up. If we're maintaining that spine angle and using the obliques properly, and the ball is starting to leak to the right, Is more left wrist bow and left forearm supination the only remaining way to close the face?

Hi Ed
Hope you don't mind me commenting on the swing but I've got a couple of things you might want to try.
1. Right and left hand at address are strong which is fine... But it looks like the right hand might of crept further underneath the shaft compared to your previous post. So maybe try to gently tweek that back a bit more side on to the shaft.
2. Pelvis is positioned at address heavily over towards the right leg. I think for balance purposes it should be central with equal flex to the knees so weight is more 50-50.
3. At set up weight looks Very much back in both heels. Weight should start centered in both feet at address.
4. top of backswing weight looks rooted in both heels Which is evident in the left heel roll from face on at top of the backswing.
5. From there weight has to shoot out towards balls of the feet on the way down. That I believe might be why you have trouble with early extension.
Watch this drill from Victor Hovlands Coach
https://youtu.be/0CZNKvGqV14

I would do a towel or noodle under both feet to feel where your weight is moving. When doing your pivot drills at home.

I actually think your swing has some really good movements and the balance may be where your getting stuck with ee.

Hope that helps

Best of luck

Paul

Thanks for the feedback, Paul!

Keep us updated good or bad how you get on

If it's going off to the right, it looks to me like it is a little "wipey" down at the bottom. The supination seems the most likely because the path appears to dart left just after impact.

After my lesson with Tyler in late Jan, I have been working on more forearm release, less with the shoulder. Ball flight is a nice tight draw unless I lose focus and activate the trail shoulder - then it's a big hook. Here are two videos of the progress thus far.

Two questions:

- with the lead elbow bending at 3 o'clock in the follow-through, is it due to more of a roll release, and not enough ulnar on the lead wrist? does the bend matter for consistency?
- still seeing the early extension on the DTL view ... i'm guessing I still need more forearm release, and less from the shoulder, so I can maintain spine angle?

Hey Ed,

Question 1 - The follow-through arm bend could be something to monitor. But keep in mind that its part of your overall pattern. Your clubface is in a pretty strong position, especially for how closed your chest is at the same point. And from the face on, that's a lot of axis tilt for a 6 iron. Both of those help prevent a pull start line with the stronger grip if you aren't more open. The down the line video shows a lot of curve - illustrating the face-to-path relationship.

It's not quite the same, but I did a video on how that combo can cause low point issues, but it can also cause the early extension and lifting through the release in an effort to prevent the face from over closing.

Question 2 - The arms don't look like they are the major contributor to the early extension at this point. I think it's more of a pivot issue, which is complicated by the clubface orientation.

Thanks for the feedback, Tyler - The forearm release drills have taken me on quite a journey to also clean up and incrementally improve a number of things - takeaway, pivot, arm shallowing, more body rotation, sequencing/timing of release.

Not surprisingly, it is leaving the face open. Is it now a matter of really dialing up more forearm release to close the face? I feel "forearm release" as more flex in the lead wrist, and more press in the trail hand...

ps: trying to negotiate enough free time with my spouse to get out of the house for a golf lesson turns out to be more complex than negotiating a nuclear peace treaty with north korea. but fortunately, in the mean time I'm cycling through the GSA videos to get pointed in the right direction.

haha, good luck with the negotiations.

As far as your right issues, the forearms look somewhat better. So if we check your swing timeline, your club face isn't open at shaft parallel (p6). So that means the face is opening up between then and impact. It looks to me that it's steep arms early causing late shallowing. That late shallowing usually causes clubface consistency issues.

If you look at your position here, the body is in a really shallow position. That's a LOT of side tilt that early in the downswing, if we took that away, the club would be much steeper. So the body position reveals some steep arms. Hopefully we can meet up again soon and work through some pivot stuff to compliment the better arm action.

Ok, I have been improving the flat spot by trying to lengthen the swing radius through impact. (Practice swings look better on video than when I actually hit the ball, of course)

By getting rid of early extension, my path now looks to be coming from outside-in. I stopped the banana slice by feeling like I am applying max motorcycle in transition. The ball-striking is solid, trajectory is more piercing - every shot is just pulled, but the dispersion is pretty tight.

Until I can come in for another lesson to work on path, would an adequate temp fix be to aim a bit more right in the setup?

Good job on the early extension. But yes, it does look like that was saving some of your natural path tendencies. So, the pull is likely coming from the lack of ulnar deviation. The lack of UD shows up earlier in the downswing, but is really revealed in this frame here. If that's a tricky one to work through on your own, then you can experiment with closing your shoulders a bit, but that might create more of a big draw given the UD pattern. I think the pattern that matches limited UD the most is the Sergio Garcia fade. Good luck!