I have to remind myself that I have hit a few exceptionally good shots (by my standard) with level wrists at address. Quite often it feels inferior to starting from low hands. I am not able to do it from level wrists with a consistent and full power delivery.
Today I've spent quite some time investigating why I produced better impact physics from low hands than from level wrist.
Eventually I found out that level wrists put me too far away from the ball. Not with the lob wedge which I use for basic motion and "turf dragging". Only with the hybrid - which I use to hit the ball into a net.
Low hands at address brings me closer to the ball and swing speed and ball contact gets much better. Why? The obvious answer is that I was more turned at impact than at impact fix. The left sholder was further back and the right shoulder was lower. But in reality, a compensation happened.
Just for fun, I tried to address the ball with level wrists and a shank alignment that would send the ball 45% to the right if I returned the club head to the same spot. From there I really smacked it. Of course I had to try the opposite too. Low hands and club inside the ball. Then I hit it really thin.
This triggered a minor geometric investigation. Hands lower - clubhed gets closer to the feet. Level wrist and clubhed gets further away. No surprise there. Then I switched between the hybrid and the lob wedge. The lob wedge works from level wrists. The hybrid too, if I grip down on the shaft. But not when used at full length. How come? After some more fiddling, I found that by adjusting my spine angle, and possibly my posture to - a sense of reaching out instead of leaning forward. Then low hands and level wrists produced the same club face location. (Mind you these low hands aren't as low as on the swings I showed earlier) I tried a few shots and smacked it pretty good. And the back stroke didn't feel to manufactured either.
I could check my posture by moving hands low and to level wrists. When I had adjusted my posture the two hands' locations produced approx. the same distance to the ball. And perhaps even better - all power accumulators seemed to be pretty well aligned. I got a clear GO signal.
I monitor the club path through the ball through the hands. It has become second nature. I have been able to feel when I have a decent address position for quite a few years now. I'd say the feel is about 80% reliable. But I don't posess the keys I need to fix the address when I don't see the shot I've decided to produce. Not for a full stroke anyway.
Percy Boomer wrote about building controls into the golf stroke. I need reliable keys at address & fix. It will be interesting to check if posture adjustment works tomorrow too. Or if it is just a WOOD method (Works Only One Day). If this is repeatable I will have at least two new and reliable keys for a proper address & fix: The wrist conditions and same ball distance with low hands and level wrists.
I am not convinced that level wrists at address are needed for a compensation free stroke. But the level wrists are so repeatable. And repeatability is a quality I need. When my address is good I play regulation golf. Not by a miraculous short game. But through a bunch of fairways and greens and two putts or short chips + 1 putt. But it rarely lasts for more than 6-12 holes. And then I find myself standing over the ball, unable to visualize proper impact alignments. I think I have had address drifting problems for years.
Yesterday I concluded that I had to have my hands lower than right forearm on plane at address & fix, basically because the ball was getting to far away from my stance line. I hit it thin, fat and a few very ugly high hooks that felt soo good until I saw the shape of the ball flight.
And today - when I eased on the level wrist conditions - I completely lost the sense of being aligned for a proper shot.
This hasn't been a huge concern since I started working on the level forearms at addres. So naturally I had to go back to the level forearm. And then the sense of being aligned came back.
Only this time I didn't level the forearm. I simply forward-pressed the hands on the inclined plane as far as they would go. And then the right forearm was on the inclined plane. Go figure
Then I really felt ready for the the stroke. I will not run out of left arm either. And more forward and less outward will hopefully turn the hook into a straight ball. Time will show.
The net in the back yard is about to give in. The first ball flew through today, so I had to go easy on the domestic ball striking today. Need to take this to the driving range and the course to see if I'm about to crack the code.
Now at the bottom. Unfortunately I am using two different clubs. 8 iron one month ago and a hybrid now.
At least the address position looks better. I actually thought everything would look more different.
Video from the garden:
It's almost embarrassing to compare this with the photo montage of Yoda and Hogan that I posted in another thread. It doesn't require a PhD in golf to see that there's room for improvement.
The swing key I am using here is throwing the club at impact with my Right Wrist. I read about it on another site, tested it in the garden and increased the swing speed immediately. The whole stroke feels different from address to impact. The thought is not very compatible with "sustain the lag" thinking, but impact feels solid.
I don't mind a long back swing, but this looks like overswinging produced by too much tilt. The footwork looks more loose than efficient. There's no reason stopping here. Question is what I should focus on next?
Since I run a web shop, I regularly read visitor statistics. Wnehever I post something here I can see that it is read by quite a few people. So why isn't anyone responding? Have I been to pretentious? If that's the case I hope you will exept my sincere apologies. Fire at will!!!
This is a thread in the advanced section. I think the start of the thread belongs here, but the part that revolves around my game probably belongs in the "unadvanced / lost cause section". But then again I didn't choose my name when I was born either.
Anyways - let's make the best out of it. Share experiences. Give advices. Ask questions. Whatever.
Progress today was that I thought: "Now that I have the hands out from the body - why not try a flatter swing?" And to me turning shoulder plane almost feels like dragging the club along the turf until it's behind my Right hip (actually the left, but it's still Right per TGM)
Well - the flattening plan wasn't my own. S bucket broken in a dozen pieces did the seeding work.
To tell the truth I was quite happy with my fundamentals when I started this thread. I was only looking for a way to stabilize my pattern.
<Now folks; Let us just a pause here so the teaching pro's can complete their LOL's. This is probably something they experience all the time from mediocre old timers like me. It feels good but it aint so . On second thought they are probably to buzy earning a living to read this thread and that is a priority that I understand and respect 100%.
There were some progress today. I am actually starting to get intimate with level wrists at addres. Yesterday I had my first mental "go" signal with level wrists at addres. But it didn't feel as well behaved and controlled as I'd like it to feel. Throwing something into the ground is a bit more dancint than I prefere.
Today I played with lowering the plane, like: How low can I get it? Not very low, but extremely low by my standards. I made it almost down to Ben Hogan low. And the interesting part about that rehersal was that these high, stretched out, over the top, powerless, level wrists, suddenly started to feel right. I was eventually able to aim through the ball.
I was lucky enough to get my wife out on 9 holes today. If I recall correct I hit 6 out of 7 fairways and quite a few greens. And those fairway hits were pretty goodl. Two memorable green hits: One was a pure stroke with a 5 iron from some 175 yards into the wind. High, straight and with soft landing. No turf which is a progress for me, since I'm a natural born digger. The second was a 225 yard par 3 with a lot wind in the face. "How about a pitching wedge-ish drive?" 3/4 stroke with the driver. I almost hit the flag and saved a par on a really tough par 3.
The "flat" swing today felt right and worked pretty good to. And it merged perfectly with my putting because suddenly the head location and angle was the same. I think it would have merged well with my chippings as well, but I don't recall any ordinary chipping strokes today. I guess I hit too many greens
Head and eyes location and angle is btw something fundamental to me and not only to me. My wife rarely plays golf. Her nice draw from some 15 year back has degenerated into a slice during the years when we got kids and "all that shit". So on the dreaded long par three with the wind against she first sliced the ball onto a roof on a quite expencive hose. That was pretty cool by the way. On her provisional I told her to look at a point about 2 feet behind the ball (the Jack Nicklaus focus point I guess). And then she hit a draw. Unfortunately it didn't carry the water but she liked the stroke anyway. I think the eyes' location and focus is an undervalued fundamental in the game of golf. It influences everything. If you don't agree, assume the perfect stance and when you're ready to go - turn and tilt your head and see what happens. I still haven't found where I need to look with a flatter stroke: I think I looked too much away from the ball at times ( a hook look). But the flatter swing plane still produced many OK strokes out there today and at least a couple that was exceptionally good by my standards. Well, I guess the plane was flat only by my standard. It was pretty close to the turned shoulder plane.
Next time I post a video I know I will feel like I'm on a really flat plane. Hopefully it will appear to be flatter than the last videos. And less hip tilt and leg work from the 70's. Hopefully a motion that feels and looks pure. But I will probably basically look almost the same as before. Same old body.
The first person that has a suggestion of next step: I'll try it and report back. As long as it is doable into a net and there is no health risk involved to me or anyone in the neighbourhood.
I started out with two really good birdies today But from there on it was very variable. Each time I am close to doing the right thing the ball goes straighter than its done for years. It will require a lot of work before it becomes second nature, but it is only a matter of time.
Taking the club back to a turned shoulder plane really works for me. But I haven't found the address position where everything clicks in yeat. Not on a repeatable basis anyway.
I shot a few videos and sent them over for comments. He returned a thorough analysis on everything from the putter to the full motion. Then we had a good discussion on the phone. I can heartly recommend this. Taking lessons in person is probably far better, but doing remote lessons is far better than not doing it. Especially when the lesson is given by someone of YodasLuke's caliber.
He said he'd rather see me keep the hands away from the body at address as I've been trying for a while now. I said that that was the plan. Then he showed me a lot of wrongs. The most shocking thing to me was to see that the inclined plane was all over the place. Somehow during the years I've learned a trick or two squeeze the ball pretty hard even when the plane is off. A few years ago I would loose all power when the swing plane was gone. But not now it seems. Needless to say, when the swing plane is such that it takes a Nobel price candidate to describe it with mathematical precision, it is very difficult to control the club face and the club head through the ball....
I have been playing regularly and I have basically been feeding the fish generously with recycled pro-v1's. The irony of it all is that when I address the ball more properly than I've been doing, a whole series of errors creep in. Or at least they grow from minor flaws to gross errors. So a lot of the faults that YodasLuke identified were more or less brand new. It makes you think: Is it worth it? Is it really better? How smart is it to change something just because it's supposed to be better?
At times I have gone back to the low hands for the last holes of a round. The power returns. I can hit a few great drives (by my standard) and play a few good holes in a row. But eventually the ball finds OB or water. Not eventually. Quite often actually. There are about 23 opportunities to find water where I play. I haven't counted the OB opportunities, but there are a lot of house owners there that doesn't have to purchase golf balls so to speak. I, on the other hand, have become a regular "recycled pro-v1" purchaser at Sports Academy.
But the old method still has the old flaws. So I'm still taking the medicine even though it has a bad taste from time to time.
YodasLuke and I discussed laser devices to track the swing plane. I bought a cheap one that attaches to the club shaft and fires both ways. Goddammit how difficult it is to keep the club on plane when you're off. No matter how slow I was moving the club, no matter how I timed the stroke, no matter how much forearm versus pivot I used to start the back stroke - the plane got flatter the further the club was away from impact. For a while there I was convinced that I was doing a pure rope handling, that earth gravity did a trick or two.
But not long after I managed to keep the club on plane by adjusting the stance - and more important - adjusting the heel-toe-balance at address. The heel-toe balance makes a huge difference. Towards the toes and the plane flattens away from impact. Hello hook! All the way back on the heels and the plane steepens.
There is a biokinetic fundamental that says that our weight should be through our ancles (and pretty close to the heels). That seems to do a lot of good for me.
I am not able to keep the plane on will yet. I probably never have. It has come and gone at it's own discresion for 20 years. Everything about zone 1 seems to make a difference to me. Heel-toe balance, left-rignt balance, primary axis tilt, secondary axis tilt, how far out I put my ass. And of course the direction of the pressure points' pressure. And the intent - where I want to be at impact, including geometry and force vectors.
So in more ways than one, I am back on the topic of Zone #1.
Two steps forward:
39 strokes on nine holes on Sunday - while being true to the changes. I worked the ball both ways with driver and approach shots. Had a couple of great approaches with fade. Under 40 is decent on 9 holes for me. The ball striking didn't feel great, but it doesn't need to be perfect to score if the fundamentals are reasonably sound. After the 9 holes I hit 30 balls on the range. And then I immediately got the "got it" feeling. I could basically hammer the ball both ways. The divots pointed where they should and not far left as they have been doing. And the ball went where I was aiming, with the intended curve. I think I am back to where I was before I started to struggle as far as score is conserned. And this time I know where I want to take the ball striking. So this is gonna be exiting.
Handicap in the US.
I now have two handicaps. 5.7 in Norway and 9.7 here in the USA. Go figure. My new home course is difficult but not that difficult. And there is a couple of extra shots due to slope rating as well. Personally I don't like to excel in competition without playing well. But this could easily happen now. The irony of it all is that the slope system is the same in Europe as here, and the handicap system is close enough. If I had just delivered score card for the most recent friendly games over here - which is what they basically asked me to do, I might have ended with a handicap of 12-15. I'm sure that would have made me well regarded among peers in club competitions. The club manager said I was the first person he had encountered who was worrying about getting a handicap that was too high. I said: I want to play in competitions without becoming a sandbagger. At least I have an alibi: They insisted!
Maybe YodasLuke can come up with something to work on that holds me back a few strokes to prevent embarassing good results.
. On second thought they are probably to buzy earning a living to read this thread and that is a priority that I understand and respect 100%.
. So on the dreaded long par three with the wind against she first sliced the ball onto a roof on a quite expencive hose. That was pretty cool by the way. On her provisional I told her to look at a point about 2 feet behind the ball (the Jack Nicklaus focus point I guess). And then she hit a draw. Unfortunately it didn't carry the water but she liked the stroke anyway. I think the eyes' location and focus is an undervalued fundamental in the game of golf. It influences everything. If you don't agree, assume the perfect stance and when you're ready to go - turn and tilt your head and see what happens. I still haven't found where I need to look with a flatter stroke: I think I looked too much away from the ball at times ( a hook look). But the flatter swing plane still produced many OK strokes out there today and at least a couple that was exceptionally good by my standards. Well, I guess the plane was flat only by my standard. It was pretty close to the turned shoulder plane.
But from there on it was very variable. Each time I am close to doing the right thing the ball goes straighter than its done for years. It will require a lot of work before it becomes second nature, but it is only a matter of time.
Hybrid Mode
