By: Fred S on March 10, 2020, 2:43 p.m.
Couldn't hit a draw to save my life. Can square up the face on occasion, but if I don't its a big slice right. I hit a ton of balls but simply cannot figure out what I am doing and its super frustrating. Any help is greatly appreciated!
By: Tyler F on March 13, 2020, 9:08 a.m.
+Fred S Thanks for posting your swing. Would you mind if I did a quick video discussion for the site about your swing? If you agree, can you please post a face on swing?
In the meantime, let's look at the series of checkpoints.
Picture 1 (p2) - The face appears to be square or closed, but compared to the wrists it's not that strong. The v's and the face are pointing in a similar direction.
Picture 2 (p4) - Not a big slice warning there. Let's move on
Picture 3 (p6) - Clubhead is getting slighly outside the hands, but face is in a squarish position. This position of the club getting outside the hands is setting you up for more of a fade path, but not the slice spin.
Picture 4 (before p7) - Now the clubface is in an open position. Something between pictures 3 and 4 created an opening of the face. But that movement was triggered earlier. Between those two pictures, you are holding off the natural face rotation. We have two options to solve the slice. We could either do some motorcycle training to learn to square the face with better shaft rotation. Or we could strengthen the grip. Or we could do a little of both.
Have you played around with the shaft rotation idea? Two good drills to help with later shaft rotation would be:
https://golfsmartacademy.com/golf-instruction/face-rotation-impact-bag/
https://golfsmartacademy.com/golf-instruction/tissue-box-push-toe/
I hope this helps give you some direction.
Tyler
By: Fred S on March 13, 2020, 10:58 p.m.
Tyler:
I am extremely grateful for the response and can't wait to try out the drills you recommended. I've been working at this issue for a while and I simply could not figure out what was causing it. Its really nice to receive some guidance that I feel I can trust. I really appreciate it.
As for your other question, I would be thrilled if you were able to do a quick video discussion of my swing for the site. I don't take many face-on videos unfortunately. I've attached the best one I have accessible at the moment. Not sure if that one will work, but I will try to get a better one this weekend.
Stay safe everyone and thanks again, very much appreciated!
By: Fred S on March 19, 2020, 11:07 p.m.
Tyler:
Again, I am just so, so grateful for your help! The world is a little crazy right now, and its been tough to put in a ton of time on my game, but I can tell you I did get to work on that impact bag drill a couple times and it really resonated with me. I absolutely feel like that drill was going to make a big difference in my game. My ball flight was so much better after just a couple hours working on that drill, I can't wait to put in more time with it. When I performed it correctly, I immediately noticed a difference. The path felt more inside-out, my ball flight was much more controlled and consistent, I was about a half a club longer than usual, and I actually got the ball moving right to left, a shot which I haven't seen in months. I will definitely work on the hogan thumb drill too and I am just on cloud nine with the video review. I will keep you updated on how these drills improve my game in the long run. Thanks so much for your help! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it!
By: Tyler F on March 20, 2020, 3:10 p.m.
+Fred S Glad to hear it's helped quickly. Yes, that right path with the impact bag has been an eye-opener for many slicers. Combines the two key needs into one simple impact feel!
It also makes sense that you would quickly pick up distance. Even if you were hitting the ball solidly, with the open face, you'll lose ball speed with the slice pattern.
Good luck, keep us posted!
Tyler
By: Jules C on March 20, 2020, 5:06 p.m.
I second Tyler's suggestions, but for long term sustained improvement I would add one more thing. I was particularly interested in looking at your transition as well as your shoulders at the top of the backswing.
With a driver you're not going to have as much tilt in your shoulders as you would with say a short iron, but even so your shoulders strike me as too level. The impact of this is apparent in the transition as you go into premature extension of your body. This standing up means you are crowding the ball and eliminating a good deal of the space that you create at address and maintained through much of the backswing -- the space between you and the ball. That space is important because if you maintain it, there is lots of room not only to get your arms in front of your body but also to do so on a more inside path -- which I think Tyler rightly points out is best understood in terms of keeping the clubhead inside the hands.
A chain reaction occurs as a result of early extension. Losing space for the arms to travel on an inside path; the right elbow getting stuck behind the right hip; an inability to do the wipe; that is, to get that right elbow moving across your body. the path heading a bit outside in to get around your body. And so on. Now for many people this would lead them to stall and flip and thus fighting big hooks and smothered shots. But you take a different approach because you continue to rotate reasonably well and definitely do not slide. Now with the outside in path and a flip you would hit smother hooks and pull hooks all day. So to combat that, you actually hold the face open and you end up with a clubface open to the path leading to anything from a pull fade to a pull slice.
The one thing I would add to what Tyler said then is that long term you will have to fight some early extension along with the other pieces Tyler recommends. Then you would find yourself even rotating through the ball more aggressively with no fear of pull hooks even though you will be entering impact with a squarer club face. You will be doing so from an inside path (the shallow) balanced by an aggressively rotating body (steepening move).
I would have liked to see a swing with a mid iron and another with a short iron to see if flat shoulder plane and early extension appear only in the driver or throughout the bag.
That's my 2 cents. Interested to see what Tyler thinks.
Hopefully this is helpful.
Jules
By: Tyler F on March 21, 2020, 12:46 p.m.
+Jules C Coaches can always debate cause and effect. That's one of the fun things about this sport. When I look at his swing, I think the early extension is minor compared to the arm pull. I think the arm pull and the release are the primary issue and the early extension a compliment to the role of the quads in an arm dominant pull pattern.
The early extension may be something we have to address, but I want to see how the pivot adjusts to the better face to path relationship in the release. Often times, that cleans up some transition body movements.
Hopefully, Fred will give us an update when he gets back to playing!
Tyler
