Critique my swing please.

insafehands

Hey, I'd be pleased if you could offer a bit of feedback on my current swing from a few videos I've uploaded to YouTube.

A bit of background info:

I started playing golf when I was about 9/10, I'm 19 now, and had a few lessons near the start. I never played with any regularity due to usually been only able to get to courses by bus. I had a few lessons when I was 12 or so but that was it.

I play par 3 courses 90% of the time and tend to get about 5 bogeys, 8 double bogeys, and the rest tb+ when playing on a proper course.

Basically, I'm pretty bad but by short game is pretty good (prob due to the courses I play).

In these vids, the guy in the red shirt plays off 11, and the dude in shorts used to play off 15 but doesn't really play any more. I'm in the brown top.

Playing matchplay yesterday (the vids), I came 3/3 with the (matchplay) scores 3 / 4 / 5 1/2.

Link to vids: http://ie.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=mofobax&p=r

Any info is much appreciated,

Jonny / ish.

1916

Piece of advice InsafeHands.... tie your shoelaces

1916

milltown

I'm no expert on swings but I do know what I should be doing, even if I can't do it consistently, so I'll go ahead and give my tuppence worth.

It looks like you're breaking your wrists almost as soon as you start your back swing. This will give a smaller (effective) swing radius. You will be losing distance due to a higher launch angle and, I think, exagerrating any inherent hooking or slicing.

As I understand it, the more you can get your swing based on the larger muscles, shoulders and trunk, the more consistent it will be. Then you can work on direction and power. Wrists and elbows are not your friends.

BrianD3

I'm not great for evaluating other people's swings - but it does look very wristy/elbowy, I think I saw you swaying (shift to the side) on the backswing and using a fair amount of leg movement too. I'd imagine that you don't generate a whole lot of power with that swing. Try to have a wider arc swing, keep legs and torso tighter and more controlled but turn your shoulder more.

TheDoc

Are you wearing dubes????

Nehpets

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote:

Are you wearing dubes????

And mistreating his clubs! :O

copacetic

nice to see someone risk the wrath of the forum!

I think there are a number of issues (including the dubes! you can't swing properly without proper grip).

The biggest thing I noticed is that your practise swings are much better than your actual swing. During your actual swing you seem to really try and 'hit' the ball and rush everything right from the takeaway. Step one would be to work on repeating your practise swing when over the ball.

Once you can do this you can work on some of the other issue we all have with our swings.

ShriekingSheet

Yeah there's some basics you could work on that'd help you out a lot.

Grip: Your left hand is weak, meaning it's a little too underneath the club. Rotate the hand over to the right so you can see more of the back of your hand. You can measure it by the number of knuckles you can see as you look down. At the moment, I reckon if you look down as you address the ball you can see 1 or 1 and a half knuckles on your left hand. Rotate it until you can see 2 and a half. This gives you a stronger left hand grip.your Your right hand looks ok, you should be able to see 1 and a half knuckles on this. It'll be extemely awkward at first but only for a short time. Half a bucket of range balls should get you comfortable. Don't slip back to the old way!

Take away: As someone previously said, you're breaking your wrists much too early. As you take the club away from the ball think 'low and slow'. Low meaning that the club head stays low to the ground as long as possible giving you a wider arc. The club shaft should only make a 90deg angle with your left arm when your left arm is parallel with the ground. With you, you've hinged to 90degs way before your arm has gotten back that far. Do not sway back to you right in an effort to make a larger arc. Use your arm extension!

Another thing that'll help with this is to get your hips working properly. Your hips are open at address. This means that at address if you put a club accross your hips you'll notice it's pointing left. Your hips should be square along with your feet and shoulders. A good way to work on this on the range is to line up a club on the mat, go behind it and adjust it so it's perfectly square to you target, then use it to line up your body. Again, it'll feel awkward but stick with it. Anyway, what this will do is help you turn you hips properly on the way back. When you swing all the way to the top, stop and check where your hips are. Put the club across them. It should have reached 45degs to the club on the ground. You'll have to work to try get them turned more.

The last thing i'd say is to work on your follow through. The worst shots you hit on the videos were mostly due to what's known as 'quitting' on the shot. Y'know that stabby feeling you get with a short, hesitant follow through when you hit a bad shot? That's quitting on it. The club head needs to accelerate through the ball rather than slow down as it strikes it.

There's no real technical fix, just focus on turning through without hesitation. One good thought it 'shaking hands with the target'. Take your stance without a club and turn towards the target (as you would in a swing) holding out your hand (as you would shake someones hand). The shape of your right hand and arm here is exactly the kind of move you want to be making in your follow through. Look to replicate it in your swing.

There's other stuff going on, like you're making a 'reverse C' shape in your swing which basically means as you follow through your hips sawy forward and your shoulders come back making your mody into the shape of a backwards C. This is a common prroblem and you'll need to kepp yourself more centrally balanced an upright but get the basics right first.

I'm really just writing this for my own interest. The ONLY way to get better and stay better is to go to a pro for a few lessons.

Good luck!

insafehands

Appreciate everyone's advice, partic yours SS, thanks for taking the time!

pwee

I'll give you advice. get lessons from a pga pro. Taking advice here is a waste of a time as you need to know what is causing your flaws not what are your flaws.

imalegend

i disagree pwee as if he did one thing as simple as start his back swing off without breaking his wrists,this would save him a session with a pro and he would get results pretty quick.

My best advice is play with people who know how to play as they will always point you in the right direction.

pwee

Sure i accept your point. My thinking is people will not always set you right. Why is he breaking his wrists(sure its his grip, which a pro will fix before he tells him to stop his early wrist cock)is the question. What if he takes the advice of taking it back low and slow and ends up with a swing where he hasn't set his wrists in the backswing. As for his reverse c that is caused by his left leg straightening? Is it because of his early wrist cock which could then be linked to his grip. Is it that his grip is strong or does he have a coventional left hand but he is not holding it in the correct line across his hand even though it may look okay from the outside.

Only a good pro will no for sure. say you get his reverse c fixed by making him keep his flex in kis right knee in the backswing, now he is cured but what if it was his grip that set of the chain of events that led to straight leg reverse c in the first place.

This is just my 50cent. i don't post here often and i don't want to make enemies. I have seen advice given before and it went wrong thats all.

pwee

The reason im so concerned is that that young lad has a wonderful start to his downswing. i don't want him to lose that, thats why i would say go to a good pro who will nuture and build a swing withot losing that first move do

ShriekingSheet

pwee, we're not talking about tweaking a 5 handicap 15 year old here. He has a beginner's swing. It's not harm for him to have a think about some advice offered.

For example, you're wrong about his grip. It's very obviously weak as regards his left hand. You can't go wrong telling someone the 2 and a half and 1 and a half knuckle set-up. That's accepted standard practice.

One Cold Hand

Pwee, in fairness it's fairly obvious lessons from a pro would be better. I don't think anyone here is claiming otherwise. However a lot of us are experienced golfers and can give him advice on simple basic things, like setup, grip, stance, posture etc. There are simple things that can easily be corrected, as SS said, that are accepted as standard. I think it's fairly obvious from the OP's post that he didn't want to get into a series of lessons, and just wanted a few pointers. I don't think anyone here is trying to reconstruct his swing.

ShriekingSheet

One Cold Hand wrote:

I don't think anyone here is trying to reconstruct his swing.

well i was actually...

i kid, i kid

pwee

ShriekingSheet:" For example, you're wrong about his grip".

At no point did i say that the op had a strong grip. I was posing a question(okay i left out the question mark, sorry:) ) if u look at the rest of that sentence i also pose that he may have a conventional grip but i did not say that he actually had one.

I am quite annoyed that you have said that i was wrong. I have never been wrong in my life:D

Mister Sifter

I was wrong once, but the felling was rubbish, so i've never been wrong again since.

One Cold Hand

I thought I was wrong once, but I was wrong.