SwingFreak!

I’ve now gone back to what I’ll call “extreme angle swinging”. My last few posts describe what I’ll call “square swinging”. I’ve bounced back and forth between these two philosophies several times over the years, never quite understanding which is best. Perhaps I’m now starting to see how to leverage either method. Let me try to create the distinction:

Square Swinging:
+ Attempting to keep club head square through impact zone with minimal club face rotation over as long an arc as possible through the impact zone.
+ Good for chip shots and low pitch shots
- Easy to accidentally “cast” when timing gets off, causing slices or pulls. In order to control the face, grip becomes fairly firm, and wrist action doesn’t add to clubhead speed.

Extreme Angle Swinging:
+ Attempting to create maximum wrist angle and shoulder turn at the top of the swing. leading with right elbow, trying to keep grip supple through impact zone so that extreme wrist angle can unwind at the last possible moment through impact for maximum speed.
+ Great for club head speed and taking the conscious mind out of trying to control the club face through impact. Go watch a Jamie Sadlowski video.
- Easy to lose balance, or take incorrect stance / setup. An extreme slice or hook is possible if using body parts in the wrong order.

One thing that’s been messing me up over the years is Hogan’s description of the waggle, and videos of him doing it. It’s pretty clear the left wrist bends but does not cup during the waggle. Yet at the top of the swing it appears to be cupped (by cupped I mean attaining a maximum possible wrist cock through wrist bending and rotation or by any means possible while keeping a sound hogan grip). This led me to experimenting with the “square swing”. I tried swinging with mostly bend and very little wrist rolling open in the swing, leading to a flat, non-cupped left wrist at the top of the backswing. The only way to make a decent shot was to swing with a firm left wrist and a long, shallow arc through impact. As soon as I tried to get more distance by creating more wrist angle, I had a tough time returning to square at impact.

Then I started to wonder if the bent waggle was actually a rehearsal of what the wrist was doing through impact, but much faster than I would be able to see or control on purpose. I wondered if from an extreme cupped backswing I could start with an aggressive hip turn, bring the right elbow through, and then simply let the club swing through automatically, having no chance to control the clubface through impact intentionally. This has resulted in what I’m now calling the extreme angle swing. I’ve tried this sort of swing in the past, but I think why it’s working for me now comes down to a few points:

- my balance is better than it’s ever been. I don’t sway back onto my right foot too much, and I get by weight fully onto my left side very effectively.
- I’ve trained myself to get my right elbow in front of me on the downswing.
- I’ve trained my grip to be supple (not too firm, not too light).
- I understand how to keep the ball fairly close to me. I’ve figured out that I don’t need that much room to get my arms past my body, and realize how easy it is to start with the ball too far away, requiring a last second dive towards the ball most people have trouble detecting.

Anyway, more on this later.

I hope this proves to be the most important of this entire blog.

I had the worst game I’ve had in perhaps 5 years sunday. What’s the best thing about having your worst round? Chances are, the things that were sneakily, behind-the-scenes preventing you from being the golfer you can be, all teamed up and demonstrated in a dramatic fashion why you still suck. Lucky for you, they had to show their ugly heads in the process, and now you can pick them off one by one.

For me, I came to realize that after all this time I still have a tendency of an over-the-top path, even though I was sure I didn’t. What I think I’ve realized today is that having a truly inside out swing plane is going to take more than just grip tweaks, weight shifts, and arm actions; It’s going to take a reinvention and reorientation of what I think the swing should look like (from the perspective of my eyes seeing my body and club during the swing).

Today it started with a small swing making sure the club head travels from inside to outside through impact into a high finish. It takes my right arm being bent and straightening aggressively after impact. My theory is that the club path should never appear to be coming from inside to square to inside again, as it does when I come over the top, or try to swing the club past and around me to the left.

More on progress later.

I find that it’s extremely important to get these three things working together. Here are drills I’ve been using:

Weight transfer drill:

Step 1:

In your backswing get right up onto the right foot (balanced) with left foot off the ground. On the follow through, step down with the left foot, transfer your weight completely and lift your right foot off the ground into your finish. If you’re transferring properly, you should lose your balance and fall forward towards the target. If you fall backwards you’re not transferring your weight enough.

Step 2:

Instead of taking your right foot off the ground, let your right knee turn towards the target through impact, and come up onto your right toe with your left foot firmly planted into your followthrough. Your right toe will have just a touch of weight on it to give it enough friction to be like an anchor preventing your body from tipping towards the target. Too much weight on the right toe means you haven’t transferred the weight enough. In your finish position, your body should be directly facing the target, 99.9% weight on left foot, the right toe with 0.1%.

Right Arm Drill:

Keep elbows as close together as possible throughout the entire swing. Shorten your backswing if necessary to keep right arm snug against right side. From top of shortened backswing, feel like you are leading with right elbow through impact. You’ll probably slice or shank the ball if this is new to you. See “left wrist drill” for help.

Left Wrist Drill

If first two drills are working you may be shanking or slicing now (if your left wrist has been operating incompatibly with a good weight transfer and proper right arm action).

The feeling of the left wrist should not be one of rotating open and closed through impact. It should definitely not be a feeling of hammering. It should be a feeling of bending.

In your waggle, feel like you are bending the left wrist back and forth. Find an old video of Hogan. In the backswing it does rotate open slightly, but what’s most important is that in the downswing, the left wrist rotates closed while simultaneously bending into a bowed postion. Just before impact the wrist is back to 0 rotation, but fully bowed. The wrist flattens by shortly after impact, and stays like that into the finish, where it naturally cocks back a little, perhaps bending back a little as well.

I continued my work on widening stance and maximizing wrist cock, as well as working with followthrough shoulder planes. While I found that a high finish with a steep shoulder plane favoured high fades and flatter shoulder plane favoured lower draws, I stumbled onto a more powerful way to hit low trajectories with a lot of distance and bite, and not necessarily prone to drawing when compared to flattening the shoulder plane. Basically it involved imagining keeping the club head going flat along the ground for as long as possible after impact. This requires an athletic movement of the body to “chase” the club head for as long as possible towards the target before allowing the body to come up and out into finish. Doing so I could hit a really powerful low shot without moving the ball back in my stance or swinging flat. The sound and feel at impact were very satisfying! I could see the ball had a lot more spin than with my usual higher and weaker trajectories.

- Wider stance: My stance had started to get too narrow resulting in too much movement of my hips. Making it wider forces me to focus on shoulder turn and stabilizes my swing. This gives me better balance as well.
- Shoulder plane: With a wider stance and a more aggressive shoulder turn, I started getting a better mental image of the shoulder plane, especially after impact. The right shoulder really heads towards the target and up on a good on-plane swing. My tendency is to swing the right shoulder too flat and around me, pulling the follow – through left of target resulting in a pull-hook. Playing with shoulder plane, I was able to hit an intentional pull, as well as an intentional slice, as well as a powerful down the line swing. Good to practice all three to develop the distinction.
- Wrist set: I’ve been getting lazy with fully cocking my wrist on the backswing. Today I focused on cocking it as much as possible, but not with a cup (instead trying to keep it flat or slightly bowed, though not as bowed as Dustin Johnson at the top). Having an aggressively cocked wrist allows for an aggressive swing with a last-split-second release.
- Elephant Trunk: While it’s essential the right elbow feels like it almost leads the downswing, in reality both elbows need to be close together and in front of the rotating hips as I swing towards and through impact. Both hands need to act powerfully and in unison as if a powerful elephant was whipping its trunk side to side.

Shot a decent 79 the other day even though my drives were insanely short. After debugging at the driving range, I realized that my right forearm wasn’t behaving properly. At impact, I believe the feeling should be that the right forearm is inline with the club shaft. For this to happen the right elbow needs to feel like it’s leading the swing. Releasing early and having the right elbow behind at impact means a weak over-the-top path.

The other thing I wasn’t doing all that well was creating space between my chin and hands. I need to focus on a long spine, shoulders back and down, shoulder-blades actively pulling back and in towards the spine, core muscles activated so lower back isn’t overly curved (my buttocks not sticking out too much but also not hunched either). In this position my neck is relaxed and I can turn my body freely, powerfully, and quickly.

Yesterday I used a “Groupon” for an on-course lesson with a local pro. It was a good experience, despite the course being a little frosty and slippery. Hey liked my action, grip, posture, etc, but wondered why I was swinging at 70%. He mentioned that Tom Watson believed the harder you hit the ball (faster you swing it), the straighter it goes. Basically you impart more backspin which keeps the ball under control (more up, less left or right). My sense is that there’s less chance of timing errors as the movement becomes more athletic and “one-piece”, rather than a highly finess oriented and finely orchestrated movement. So, obviously I’ve been taking my “slow-motion” swinging a little too far The good news is that it wasn’t hard for me to bump up to 85% on the spot, and the results were obvious. His message was to “go for it”, don’t be so “tentative”. He commented that I’ve got the athleticism technique and the core-strength for it, so there’s really no excuse. He also made me realize that swinging at even 90-100% I was finishing in almost better balance than I was at 70%. Finally, the other good news is that my smooth 70% swing turns out to be the perfect knock down shot. He recommended having “three or four speeds in the bag”. Considering that plus a few short game tricks, and learning that a big secret of good golf is to properly analyze the lie and surroundings to come to a shot decision, I guess I’ll have to say thank you Groupon!

Slow motion swinging is brilliant! It really allows a person to experiment and feel the results. Swinging at full pace is like slapping your hand against a brick wall. You become numb to a lot of sensation. Last night I was experimenting with my slow motion swing and thought I’d try again alternating between keeping a square to square club face (reduced left forearm rotation, no left wrist cupping), and an open to closed club face (fully cocked and cupped left wrist, fully rotated forearm). I was very surprised how effective the latter method was proving to be. I was hitting it 20% farther with less effort. Shots were high and slightly fading — but with lots of power. I need to get the slow motion camera out but I suspect my swing probably looked a lot more Ben Hogan – ish cupping and rotating my wrist like that. Very extreme angles. I think the slow motion – ultra smooth follow through was the key difference between last night and the multitude of times I’ve experimented with this in the past. Being stiff and tight prevents the wrist from doing what it’s supposed to.

I think a lot of problems I’ve had in the past (which are the same problems I’ve witnessed with many others) have to do with some sort of last second compensation in an attempt to square the club face at impact. Our brain attempts to compensate for our fundamental swing problems stemming from bad setup, posture, backswing, plane, etc. Of course it’s usually too late and we end up with inconsistent shot making (hooks, slices, etc..) I think a great way to take this “last second compensation” out of the picture is to practice in slow motion. Once warmed up, try to make a slow motion full swing. Slow backswing and through — say 2 seconds for each. With my driver I was hitting about 180 carry using this method. If you are hitting farther try to slow down even more — try to hit 150 with your driver. Try other clubs. Resist the temptation to accelerate at the last second. Focus on even grip pressure with no flipping through impact. See my “guitar string” post earlier. What you may see is that you keep blocking the ball, or hooking it, but now it’s consistent and you can feel what’s happening. Now start working on fundamentals — what are you missing? Experiment until you can hit all your clubs with the path you desire. Try hitting high and low shots in slow motion. Take a look at a video of Ernie Els and imagine you are him — very fluid.

Stick with this and I think you’ll gain new understanding of where your swing is breaking down.

Ever had the experience after taking time off that you feel like you forgot everything and it’s a big disaster starting at the first tee? Maybe you pull the first shot OB, block your approach, hit the chip through the green… whatever. The natural response is frustration.

What I realized is that with a slightly different point of view, coming back fresh can be an opportunity, not a struggle.

My theory is that while concentrated practicing over a long period often results in enhanced performance, it’s not necessarily a direct result of a genuine acquisition of the skills being practiced. I propose that more often than not, one sooner adapts and learns to manage the deficiencies of their swing than actually adopting something new and potentially game-changing. To me this ability to adapt and manage is equivalent to shaking off the “rust”. If you say “I’m rusty” but after several holes return to previous performance levels, then you’ve begun to adapt thanks to prolonged exposure to the activity of golfing. The problem is that once the rust is gone and we’re adapting at full capacity, I believe learning something new becomes very difficult because the brain is completely tuned to the result, not the procedure.

After several days off, we revert to raw technique and fundamentals. This is our opportunity to witness an honest reflection of where we are at technically, if we are willing to be open to it. Most of us are too busy expressing frustration and anger to ourselves and fellow players (“how can this be happening to me!” or “this is a big joke”) that we miss the opportunity to peer directly into the soul of our golf swings. If we pay attention to what happens during these raw experiences, we suddenly have access to potentially game changing insights.