Sorting through Swing Thoughts / Accountability thread

[vandyland]

I have started to post too much in the "How did you practice thread" and I don't want to overly dominate that thread so I am starting an accountability thread. Will be funny/annoying to see if I just drop off completely from this but I have been grinding for the last 4 weeks so we'll see. The goal here is to work through a host of my current swing faults and try to build a more fundamentally sound swing.

Main challenge for me is that my "natural" moves are almost all bad moves. I have never been able to play golf with any success without swing thoughts. Playing with an empty mind results in me doing a ton of bad moves and poor contact. So, what I am doing about it? Well I see it as a multi-step process:

1. Identification of "faults" - I am following Monte Scheinblum's "Efficient Swing" video library and I took an in-person lesson with him. His immediate reaction was that my hips don't turn (this has been a recurring problem) and my lead arm and trail arm are pinned to my body. So I know those are problems. In following his video series I also know that need to work on:
- Lead arm forearm rotation and wrist set in the mid part of the backswing (shaft parallel to the ground --> left arm parallel to the ground)
- At top of the backswing it's a big checklist at the moment, full hip turn resulting in pressure in inside right heel, right hand is holding the tray and right elbow isn't bent beyond 90* and recentering has occurred
- Transition is pressure move left and down in the lower body and motorcycle move with elbows trying to touch
- Into the ball I am focusing on trying to get my elbows to touch (they won't) so that I don't chicken wing or DOUBLE chicken wing

wow....that is waaaay too many things.

2. Practicing motor patterns - Well now that I have all the crap up there, how do I fix it? Well, I feel the most urgency to fix what Monte pointed out so that I can go to the next lesson with at least that sorted (or on the way to being sorted). So hip turn and arms off the body are the priority right now. So doing his drills for hip turn in the backswing and fixing the arms with backswing drills. One thing we didn't talk about is exactly how to get the arms off the body a bit but there is some discussion in his video series so I am trying to follow that closely and see if then fixes said problem. So far, I feel like the lower body moves are much harder for me than the upper body moves. Getting a "full" hip turn without overdoing it or massively underdoing it has been challenging. If I overdo the hip turn then I straighten my back leg and my pressure sways outside my trail foot, if I underdo it I can hit the ball okay since that is more my "natural" swing but I am trying very hard to embrace the discomfort rather than flee back to my old swing.

3. Monitoring - I am using video (down the line primarily now) on each session to see how I am coming along. While not an instructor, I have video cues from the Monte videos to see if I am, in fact, getting better at these moves or positions. I am trying to be less interested in contact and results in the short term. It is helpful to hit into a net because I can't obsess over ball flight on some of these motor pattern changes that feel very weird and I naturally hit the ball like crap in the short run. 

4. Staying Committed - There is already some doubt creeping in. I haven't played actual golf in almost a month because I don't know what my swing is right now. What do I try to take to the course? Do I bring my "new" swing that is LITERALLY like 8 different swing thoughts? Do I focus on just the hip turn? I know I can't cave and go back to my old swing but it feels like there are so many parts going on I don't know how I can play right now. I work on this almost every day and I know I may not see real improvement for months. It would be great if I was just changing ONE thing but, frankly, there is too much crap in my swing right now so this is starting to feel like a full rebuild. 

5. Why am I doing this - That is the last question/step. Right now, it is not with some insane belief that my game will ever be "scratch" or "incredibly consistent" but I want to have a fundamentally sound swing and, of course, I want better results. I am tired of being on this hamster wheel of (a) taking a lesson (b) identifying an issue (c) trying to fix the issue with drills that prevent me from playing golf well and then (d) abandoning the change because I just want to play golf and have fun. I think the fundamentals are important because, in the absence of fundamentals, I would have to practice my unsound swing constantly to try to keep it operating. Always feels like it is held together with duct tape. I like to practice but practicing the wrong stuff is kind of what got me here in the first place. I am trying to give myself over to the process.

6. What is success? I truly have no idea. But I think in the short run, my goal is to continue to work through the faults above culminating with my commitment to attending a Monte Clinic in June. I will plan to take one more Monte Lesson at the end of May before the clinic to try to get ahead of what he might see in my swing. My hope is that I can at least make it to the clinic without abandoning all my swing work. I am currently 3 weeks deep into work so that means 10 weeks of practice and attention to this journey is my first upfront commitment. To fall short of that is to fail before I have truly started. I cannot do this unless I get injured or die or just decide to give up golf altogether (hopefully that is the only remote possibility). 

For posterity's sake, let's also just get some cold hard numbers out here (not that Handicap is the best way to measure progress but this kind of shows the direction I have been heading):

Edited April 20 by vandyland

[vandyland]

Got out at lunch today and worked on hitting just a gap wedge with mostly 3/4 swings. Took my shag bag to an empty baseball field and hit about 70 balls working on blending a few concepts:

1. Hip depth, turn
2. Keeping the elbows fairly close together throughout the swing (most importantly through impact)
3. Wall drill feel for downswing

Most of my good shots (lets say 50 out of 70) were turning slightly left and divots were mid depth (it rained yesterday so that may have influenced it). Hit a few SCREAMING thin shots and maybe 1 fat shot. I think the thins come from either not shallowing enough or bending my elbow at impact (despite my best efforts not to). Did not film my swing at all so hard to say how good I accomplished my goals here. I do kind of like the elbows together feel (so long as I don't put too much tension into my arms) because it makes my wrist hinge and turn responsible for my swing length. I have the tendency to fold my trail arm too much which is another variable in swing length so by keeping my elbows close I feel like I solve the following issues:

- Folding my trail arm beyond 90* at the top which makes my swing long and hard to unfold that easily into the downswing
- Makes me set my wrists
- Keeps me from getting the club outside my right shoulder in the backswing
- Keeps me wide rather than collapsing
- Finally, gives me a more consistent impact "level" if my elbows don't flinch at impact. 

So while it wasn't all sunshine in rainbows out there, I found it encouraging. I *think* I could play from the senior tees with this swing right now (I have NO IDEA what these feels do with the longer clubs). So if I got out to the range before the round and literally COULD NOT HIT A DRIVER then I could scale back to a 5 iron and still get around from 5500 yds. If I can hit the driver, great! Sounds like a fun round from 5500 yds. 

[IndyBonzo]

Good luck with this @vandyland.  I will follow with interest. 

[cksurfdude]

Wow kind of a deep dive self introspection in that first post, but a lotta interesting things in there .. and .. a lotta things that sound eerily familiar to my own journey to swing "better"...!

A few comments but first the...

Disclaimer: I am not a golf teaching professional, nor do I play one on TV.

So.. I think you're on the right track by practicing and not playing, working on one thing at a time and also by practicing with a wedge (tho fyi my personal preference is PW) and by hitting into a net to work on motor/movement patterns (aka process) without getting hung up on ball flights (aka results).

Also a fan of Monte's and not sure where but in one of his videos he cautioned about video feedback with respect to the camera position/angle relative to the golfer - so take care setting up the camera the same way each time you use it.

I've been to two of his 3 day clinics each of the previous two Summers; you'd mentioned the June date (NJ) which would be convenient for me, but ... that's right after the MGS Pinehurst trip .. so haven't decided yet which date/location I can go to...

The other advice I'd offer is.. BE PATIENT. Swing changes take time.......

[vandyland]

Against my better judgment I played 9 holes today. Things went surprisingly well. I hit the driver fairly poorly but outside of that everything was humming. Hit 7 out of 9 greens and shot 37. Putted well and hit my irons like a B+ I would say. For whatever reason, keeping the elbows closer at impact was the feel I was carrying through. There were a couple swing where I didn’t shallow like I wanted to and came in a bit steep but got away with it. The swing feels very strange with driver (have not hit driver at all until today) and the longest club I had practiced with today was a 9 iron. Stuffed a 7i to 8 feet from 161 and had it do a full 360 around the cup and not drop (it’s fine it was a good putt). So there is life in me afterall but I have a long way to go.

[RickyBobby_PR]

On 4/14/2023 at 2:01 PM, vandyland said:

2. Practicing motor patterns - Well now that I have all the crap up there, how do I fix it? Well, I feel the most urgency to fix what Monte pointed out so that I can go to the next lesson with at least that sorted (or on the way to being sorted). So hip turn and arms off the body are the priority right now. So doing his drills for hip turn in the backswing and fixing the arms with backswing drills. One thing we didn't talk about is exactly how to get the arms off the body a bit but there is some discussion in his video series so I am trying to follow that closely and see if then fixes said problem. So far, I feel like the lower body moves are much harder for me than the upper body moves. Getting a "full" hip turn without overdoing it or massively underdoing it has been challenging. If I overdo the hip turn then I straighten my back leg and my pressure sways outside my trail foot, if I underdo it I can hit the ball okay since that is more my "natural" swing but I am trying very hard to embrace the discomfort rather than flee back to my old swing.

Motor patterns are hard changes. Before i go deeper at what speed are you doing drills with a club in your hand.

Also with the hip movement drills whether with to without a club at what speed are you doing them?

On 4/14/2023 at 2:01 PM, vandyland said:

3. Monitoring - I am using video (down the line primarily now) on each session to see how I am coming along. While not an instructor, I have video cues from the Monte videos to see if I am, in fact, getting better at these moves or positions. I am trying to be less interested in contact and results in the short term. It is helpful to hit into a net because I can't obsess over ball flight on some of these motor pattern changes that feel very weird and I naturally hit the ball like crap in the short run. 

 

You need face on video as well. You need to monitor setup from both angles, you need to make sure things like grip are correct and pressure shifts are happening properly including the right time. Pressure shifts are also going to help with getting the arms off the chest.

On 4/14/2023 at 2:01 PM, vandyland said:

4. Staying Committed - There is already some doubt creeping in. I haven't played actual golf in almost a month because I don't know what my swing is right now. What do I try to take to the course? Do I bring my "new" swing that is LITERALLY like 8 different swing thoughts? Do I focus on just the hip turn? I know I can't cave and go back to my old swing but it feels like there are so many parts going on I don't know how I can play right now. I work on this almost every day and I know I may not see real improvement for months. It would be great if I was just changing ONE thing but, frankly, there is too much crap in my swing right now so this is starting to feel like a full rebuild. 

GG dives into this in his course and have had other instructors talk about, not to mention always hearing the you play golf on the course and golf swing on the range. Will tie into the motor pattern stuff later.

The gist is while making swing changes you work on that on the range and then you just play golf on the course knowing that the changes you are working on will eventually show up. You may hit or or two shots a round the new swing comes in and that eventually turns into more. It’s also why how one practice is key. It can’t be all drills or all block practice 

[vandyland]

Hit balls on trackman today. Almost everything was tailing off left which, for me, is a good sign. Path was slightly negative and face to path was slightly negative which explains the draw (I think). Was hitting the ball pretty crisply even with what felt like a 3/4 swing. Overall good news but simulator golf is not real golf. Still not hitting the driver very well, feels pretty steep so that will be a work in progress. 

Also, hit the Maltby DBM Gap Wedge on the simulator against my current 50* (Ben Hogan Equalizer II) and a ping eye 2 becu 50*. I have to say (off a mat) I think I liked the DBM the best. Felt good, launched only slightly higher and spun a little bit more. Lost a little bit of ball speed but I am not really chasing ball speed with a GW anyway. I still hits that 115 yd number I am looking for. The big question that I hope to answer is how it plays off turf. If it doesn't dig then I might be picking up a set of DBMs before they disappear forever (just because I have always loved their simplicity and aesthetic and if they play well too....BONUS). I think there is something to the lower VCOG giving me confidence but I need to see if actually fly downrange and not just on Trackman (I am really starting to distrust trackman indoors). 

Edited April 17 by vandyland

[vandyland]

Well today I went to the baseball fields again to hit my shag bag on 100 yd Gap Wedge shots (1 for overall swing monitoring and 2 to test out the DBM going through the turf). It was annoying because the wind was HOWLING at like 20-25 mph left to right and into me. That turned out to be a good thing because I was trying to hold draws into the wind and over the first 30 balls COULD NOT get the ball to draw at all. Eventually I started hitting shots with the club face more "square to path" going back (which feels SUPER closed to me but is actually fine) without letting the shaft get steep or my left wrist to cup. And VOILA, the draw came back. So it seemed, truly, to be as simple as my clubface was open at the top and coming in slightly less open but still open. Now, I feel like I take the club back closed (actually just square to path) and then slightly close it through impact and the result is a better divot, flight everything. I hit some 80 yd 50% wedges with this feel and got them to turn over no problem. Easy to over do this but I think I had let my forearm roll get too aggressive and open my clubface up. 

Overall, it is encouraging. With the square to path feel I have right now it feels very closed, basically I am moving toward/into this position 1/2 way back (not quite this "closed"):

And moving away from this position (open):

 

Edited April 17 by vandyland

[vandyland]

Got up this morning around 5:45 am and went and hit balls on the way into work. Hit about 100 balls working on (1) square to path takeaway and (2) (Cast A) where the club is behind me. If I focus on swinging out to the right (rather than low and left) I had a better ball flight (higher) and cleaner strike. I feel like I am settling into some feels now and not trying to balance 5 things at once.  Overall I left the practice session feeling like I was moving forward...albeit quite slowly. 

[vandyland]

Doing some academic research tonight and I am going to be transcribing all of the No Turn Cast information into an excel spreadsheet (only for me, not trying to share Monte's intellectual property). I find that I learn things better if I write them out and read them and then watch again. Really, the NTC sequence has 5 sections (movements) to it. There are two backswing sections, a transition section and then two downswing sections. Obviously the transition and first downswing section are the mindblowing/major pieces of instruction but I think I was getting TOO much information from "The Efficient Swing." So here I am bouncing back and forth between the two of them (luckily they both follow a similar dogma). Tonight should mostly be me being a scribe and soaking in information rather than running out and testing everything every 5 minutes. 

[CFreddie]

Thanks so much for this thread @vandyland - def giving this thread a follow.

[vandyland]

My busiest day of the week, always, is Thursday but (like a psycho) I still got up and hit a shag bag of balls, this time focusing on CAST B which is the release. Early returns show that this allows me to hit the push draw that was eluding me (at times). In previous sessions, it is my hypothesis that I was either holding the face open (hands ahead feel that got burned into to my swing when I started which is a recipe for blocks and slices unless you really get shallow coming in) or flipping at in kind of a "fake release".

While learning the new release I was having a bit of issue topping the ball here and there but I attribute that (1) a new release feel and (2) focusing so much on the release that I wasn't getting very shallow in transition. Hit a few REALLY nice shots that were push draws like I was hoping to see, hit a majority of "ok" shots that came out fine but not awe-inspiring, hit a few that went mega left and then had some toppers and some very low shots that told me I was probably holding on to my wrist angle too long. I *think* my backswing was mostly pretty good and it looked good on the backswings I videoed (including getting some hip depth). 

I was losing the feeling of "getting the club behind me in transition" a bit when I was focusing solely on the release so now I am trying to marry those two up. It is ALWAYS something but I am still enjoying the process. Probably will hit another 50 balls tonight into my net and 100 balls tomorrow. 

Edited April 20 by vandyland

[cksurfdude]

May have mentioned earlier but am also a fan of Monte's .. and also have his NTC vid .. and also got a LOT out of it, really helping me!!

Keep up the good work .. sounds like progress is happening

[vandyland]

18 hours ago, cksurfdude said:

sounds like progress is happening

I think/hope so. My biggest struggle is with building up from the drills at a reasonable pace. Basically, I have like 3 speeds. Extremely slow to make sure I am doing it, medium speed, and full swing. I am trying to ingrain more patience and spend more time at the 30% speed because I just don't seem to get Cast A correct. As Monte describes, there are two separate movements that go together in Cast A and I understand both of them but, man, I only seem to do one or the other as speed increases. I find wrist flexion almost always happens but it is hard for me to pair that correctly with ulnar deviation. So when I get into flexion, the face is matched up with the arc of the swing but if I don't ulnar deviate enough, I would assume I would hit pull hooks (and for the most part I do). But then I have to tell myself, why are you expecting to hit full shots even remotely correctly? Go back to 30% speed...you moron. Haha. 

[cksurfdude]

On 4/21/2023 at 11:44 AM, vandyland said:

Go back to 30% speed...you moron.

You talkin to me? Are you talkin to me??

Well you must be talkin to me ... 'cuz I do all the same stuff and also need to drill more in slo-mo to get the proper moves down better..!!

Headed to the range in a bit

[vandyland]

Really working on exaggerating the cast A at a mid speed. Here is an example of one that feels CRAZY flat when I do it. Like as shallow as I can make it and still hit the ball:

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, vandyland said:

Really working on exaggerating the cast A at a mid speed. Here is an example of one that feels CRAZY flat when I do it. Like as shallow as I can make it and still hit the ball:

 

You need to make sure you have added the extra left knee flex and pressure shift left in the ntc video that happens before cast a.

working on cast a from a bad position will create bad movement patterns like the right hip coming forward and then stalling the hips. 

[cksurfdude]

23 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

.. bad movement patterns like the right hip coming forward and then stalling the hips

Yes, that *was* me ... before getting verbally bludgeoned by Monte at one of his clinics last Summer!

About 9-10 months later and am starting to make better ball contact more frequently.

So @vandyland keep working on it .. progress will come!

[vandyland]

That’s what I get for posting videos, haha.

[RickyBobby_PR]

Just here to help