Sorting through Swing Thoughts / Accountability thread

[vandyland]

Still under a lot of snow today but hoping to maybe get out on the simulator sometime this weekend. Have not hit balls since Sunday so feeling like it has been ages. 
 

simulator was all booked up but we have enough thawing to hit today..

 

Edited January 21 by vandyland

[cnosil]

On 1/12/2024 at 9:38 AM, Jim Shaw said:

Good morning, so I went to bed thinking about "casting" and woke up thinking about "casting" I PVR'd Dubai and I have not seen one player doing what I would call "casting". Possibly making a bit more of an extended move from the top but not much. And these guys are the best in the world. Rory is not casting, just saw a slow motion shot of his driver swing. I may be interpreting it differently. 

@RickyBobby_PR you can correct me if I am wrong but I saw this and immediately thought of the NTC cast A and B; isn’t that what Tiger is going here?

https://www.instagram.com/golfteachersapp/reel/C2NATVGLbv8/

Monte does some demonstration of each in this video.  

 

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

42 minutes ago, cnosil said:

@RickyBobby_PR you can correct me if I am wrong but I saw this and immediately thought of the NTC cast A and B; isn’t that what Tiger is going here?

https://www.instagram.com/golfteachersapp/reel/C2NATVGLbv8/

Monte does some demonstration of each in this video.  

 

 

You are correct in that it’s similar to cast A. What Tiger isn’t doing is adding flexion on the lead wrist. He’s unfolding the trail elbow and getting the left arm off the chest

This is probably closer to the Justin Rose drill.
 

What he is really doing and what Justin rose does is trying to get the arms moving earlier to better sync up. For Tiger this goes back to his early days with Butch where Butch had him feel like he moved the arms first in the swing. Helps prevent getting stuck inside similar to what Justin shows in the video where he says he doesn’t want the club too far behind him

To touch on cast an and b a little. Cast a is an exaggeration drill for what happens in each swing as part of the transition and shallowing of the club. Cast B is about the release. Cast B isn’t needed for everyone. Some who gets the release naturally from cast a doesn’t have to be worried about cast b. Those who don’t get the proper release from cast a need to add in the cast b drill.

lots of added information, hope this helps 

[Jim Shaw]

1 hour ago, cnosil said:

@RickyBobby_PR you can correct me if I am wrong but I saw this and immediately thought of the NTC cast A and B; isn’t that what Tiger is going here?

https://www.instagram.com/golfteachersapp/reel/C2NATVGLbv8/

Monte does some demonstration of each in this video.  

 

 

so that makes sense to me, the modern move that he calls casting is not the casting I grew up with, I can live with that, call it what you want, the modern good move is not even close to the old bad move. thanks for the video...

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, Jim Shaw said:

so that makes sense to me, the modern move that he calls casting is not the casting I grew up with, I can live with that, call it what you want, the modern good move is not even close to the old bad move. thanks for the video...

It’s not a modern move, it’s what Jack did and many others. It’s just that we know it’s happening now because of better video quality and then the invention of 3d.

The bad golfers cast in two different ways. They throw away the angles at the top with the wrist and don’t add lead wrist flexion which also prevents proper turn, this is what everyone knows of thinks of as casting which is why there tends to be questions around Monte’s use of the term cast and what cast a is, but Jack said you can’t cast early enough, what is missed in that statement is that it’s based on a good pivot and rotation. But the concept of this  cast goes way back. The golf swing hasn’t changed over time, the good players all have similar movements and they have been measured and compared on 3d systems showing the similarities between them. What’s changed in modern teaching was hip restriction in the backswing, because of what people thought based on 2d swings, similar to the hold the lag approach which we now know is a face on 2d appearance and not what happens in the swing

the other bad cast is the kicking of the club out towards the ball also referred to as over there too and leading to the out to in path 

[Jim Shaw]

22 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

It’s not a modern move, it’s what Jack did and many others. It’s just that we know it’s happening now because of better video quality and then the invention of 3d.

The bad golfers cast in two different ways. They throw away the angles at the top with the wrist and don’t add lead wrist flexion which also prevents proper turn, this is what everyone knows of thinks of as casting which is why there tends to be questions around Monte’s use of the term cast and what cast a is, but Jack said you can’t cast early enough, what is missed in that statement is that it’s based on a good pivot and rotation. But the concept of this  cast goes way back. The golf swing hasn’t changed over time, the good players all have similar movements and they have been measured and compared on 3d systems showing the similarities between them. What’s changed in modern teaching was hip restriction in the backswing, because of what people thought based on 2d swings, similar to the hold the lag approach which we now know is a face on 2d appearance and not what happens in the swing

the other bad cast is the kicking of the club out towards the ball also referred to as over there too and leading to the out to in path 

the -3D-4D is new to me as well, just saw it on this site...

I don't know when and where Jack ever talked about "early casting" but i am sure you have some "youtube" to back it up. When we discussed Jack's superpower it was always about his "tree stump" legs, there was never any discussion about "upper body" hits. Actually thinking about it now thee wasn't a general discussion about upper body and lower body hits until fairly recently lit my career, Craig Stadler, now we talked upper body hits from him. 

Even with 3D and 4D and whatever D get's thrown at me, casting is a negative connotation and I will not buy into that verbiage other than "don't cast". 

[RickyBobby_PR]

8 minutes ago, Jim Shaw said:

the -3D-4D is new to me as well, just saw it on this site...

I don't know when and where Jack ever talked about "early casting" but i am sure you have some "youtube" to back it up. When we discussed Jack's superpower it was always about his "tree stump" legs, there was never any discussion about "upper body" hits. Actually thinking about it now thee wasn't a general discussion about upper body and lower body hits until fairly recently lit my career, Craig Stadler, now we talked upper body hits from him. 

Even with 3D and 4D and whatever D get's thrown at me, casting is a negative connotation and I will not buy into that verbiage other than "don't cast". 

Dont cast is just a bad way to look at the swing.

As discussed when there’s no rotation it’s bad. When there’s rotation it’s what happens in the golf swing. It’s how the club moves away from the target.

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

On a separate note there was discussion in here not long ago about the sequence of club moving first and hips last,

here is a good video of Sean foley explaining and demonstrating it

 

 

[Jim Shaw]

2 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Dont cast is just a bad way to look at the swing.

As discussed when there’s no rotation it’s bad. When there’s rotation it’s what happens in the golf swing. It’s how the club moves away from the target.

 

Well change the description then. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 minute ago, Jim Shaw said:

Well change the description then. 

There’s no description to change. It’s the same move the only difference is the good golf swing has a proper pivot and rotation and the bad swing has neither

[vandyland]

5 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

On a separate note there was discussion in here not long ago about the sequence of club moving first and hips last,

Totally agree with this. It feels like a massive wrist set just to un-do years of a "one piece takeaway" and finally I can feel my body "reacting" better. 

On a separate note, to casting, check out 5:50 in the video (5 minutes and 50 seconds) where Rory is describing "widening" on the downswing. Seems like he is promoting a cast and DEFINITELY not holding lag...

 

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

54 minutes ago, vandyland said:

Totally agree with this. It feels like a massive wrist set just to un-do years of a "one piece takeaway" and finally I can feel my body "reacting" better. 

On a separate note, to casting, check out 5:50 in the video (5 minutes and 50 seconds) where Rory is describing "widening" on the downswing. Seems like he is promoting a cast and DEFINITELY not holding lag...

 

 

He is advocating for him to have the cast feel. The issue with the other guy is the fire the hips approach. That leads to the hands lagging behind as Rory pointed out and that the guys swing wasn’t necessarily holding lag but rather he’s not releasing it and his motion is preventing it.

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

On 1/24/2024 at 8:18 AM, cnosil said:

@RickyBobby_PR you can correct me if I am wrong but I saw this and immediately thought of the NTC cast A and B; isn’t that what Tiger is going here?

https://www.instagram.com/golfteachersapp/reel/C2NATVGLbv8/

Monte does some demonstration of each in this video.  

 

 

The beginning of this live is really good. It delves into what I was saying with the term cast. When Monte goes onto the hitting area and demonstrates the same move done right and done wrong is key.

When he starts the video he touches on the taboo thoughts out there about the term cast but then talks about how every pro does it without question 

[vandyland]

Well, made an investment into my practice space and I have a Rapsodo MLM2Pro coming my way (should be here tomorrow). Excited to have something to add to my practice that will give me some data and I will be interested to see how the combine feature, in particular, could/would help. I have done combines on trackman before and I like the challenges of changing distances and grading myself against my previous self and whatever metrics they establish for various handicaps. Assuming setup goes smoothly I could do a week where I do a combine every night and see how much I vary night to night. Anyway, I am in the "very excited" honeymoon period but will see how easy it is to setup, connect, and how accurate I feel the readings are. I don't need it to be dead on but primarily want a carry number that is +/- 2% and start line and curve to be fairly accurate. 

I haven't hit many balls as I was in NYC for work for the last 3 days but excited to get into the launch monitor space. I may start an unofficial thread since I don't want to get in the "official" MLM2Pro thread. 

[Jim Shaw]

20 hours ago, vandyland said:

Well, made an investment into my practice space and I have a Rapsodo MLM2Pro coming my way (should be here tomorrow). Excited to have something to add to my practice that will give me some data and I will be interested to see how the combine feature, in particular, could/would help. I have done combines on trackman before and I like the challenges of changing distances and grading myself against my previous self and whatever metrics they establish for various handicaps. Assuming setup goes smoothly I could do a week where I do a combine every night and see how much I vary night to night. Anyway, I am in the "very excited" honeymoon period but will see how easy it is to setup, connect, and how accurate I feel the readings are. I don't need it to be dead on but primarily want a carry number that is +/- 2% and start line and curve to be fairly accurate. 

I haven't hit many balls as I was in NYC for work for the last 3 days but excited to get into the launch monitor space. I may start an unofficial thread since I don't want to get in the "official" MLM2Pro thread. 

a great investment for you @vandyland. I am interested to see some of the graphics 

[vandyland]

I am interested as well @Jim Shaw, unfortunately FedEx is still in a bind from the snow 8 DAYS AGO so my unit is hung up in the FedEx system. It will get here when it gets here I suppose. I did hit balls both nights and played on Sunday. Driver wasn't really cooperating (losing it right) but irons and wedges were pretty good. Shot 77 with some fairly bad driving and tough conditions (course had been rained on for 3 days straight so wet, dormant bermuda everywhere and it was 40 degrees and windy). Encouraged more by the ballflights and ability to pull off certain shots more so than the score which I would prefer to be a few shots lower. Looking forward to the sim getting here and seeing how it can influence/inform my practice sessions at home. I can definitely see how it could help or if I misalign the unit it could also really hurt. 

Update: It arrived! I just have to get home and get the kids to bed and then hopefully have it fully charged for setup later tonight. 

Edited January 29 by vandyland

[vandyland]

So after a long wait for charging, firmware update and kids to go to bed I got the Rapsodo out. I find it to be very fun to fiddle around with but I think I need to dial in the setup a little bit because I was getting some odd spin readings (like 2000 rpm on a normal strike with a 7 iron). I think the lowish light of the floodlights outside at night is probably not super conducive to perfect readings. I will have to try it during the light of day to see if there are differences. Overall flight seemed correct, I knew when I flushed one or pulled one or hooked one or cut one. I am going to start a testing thread elsewhere but my first impression is that this livens up my practice session. I am not sure I would use this to do "gapping" as I think some of the distances are a little questionable but I makes hitting into a net a lot more fun. 

[vandyland]

Had a really good session last night with the MLM2Pro. Carry distance is a little short (I think) but this is a handy little tool for working on my swing via the video and the metrics. Very easy to align and setup and then you set a target and off you go. A highlight from my session was hitting my target 11/11 times:

Ball flight matches what I usually see out on the range and the course. When I mishit one, the distance suffers and I could even feel a few where I spun out a little and knew they were going to fade and they did. Overall, happy with the feedback I get (early days so far) and now I have to upgrade my net so I can hit wedges into it. 

2/2/2024 - Hit balls for an hour on the range and liked what I saw for the most part. I am struggling a little with my takeaway in so far as getting my wrists set early AND flattish. If my wrist set delays it sets off a chain reaction in my swing. Overall thoughts remain the same...

- early wrist set keeping club in front of chest as we turn and lead wrist flat
- from the top, hands first with the cast away from me and resisting the urge to open up hips or shoulders
- on the downswing, lead arm should come off the chest and body turn should be delayed as long as possible. 

Also was able to get my TS1-IM demo out there and we may have a winner there.  Felt like it outperformed my PTxPro today (no launch monitor data to compare to). I thought it was going to launch low but it, thankfully, does not. Just hits beautiful shots right in the window that I want. Seems a *little* flatter in the air than my gamers but that could also be the fact that it is 1.5* stronger. 

2/4/2024 - Golf gives and golf takes away. Had a great range session on Saturday, hitting balls right in the preferred windows and all that. Fast foward to sunday's round where I shot 86 and couldn't really keep the ball on the planet. Very frustrating. Felt like I was having issues "locating" where to put the club in my backswing. I haven't gotten on my MLM this past weekend as I was tired/sick a little bit so hoping to fire that back up this week. 

Edited February 5 by vandyland

[vandyland]

This was an interesting video, confirms a lot of what I am working on in my sequencing.

 

[vandyland]

Also, I have been struggling MIGHTILY with my sand game the past few rounds. Like at the point where I am just trying to get it out and on the green rather than trying to get up and down. We have fairly soft sand and I am using a 58* Glide with 10* of bounce so maybe I should go dig out my Cleveland Smart Sole 3 S wedge with like a zillion degrees of bounce. I know things are bad when I am hoping equipment saves bad technique. Obviously there is something going on with my sand delivery and I would just guess I am coming in too steep. Any tips @RickyBobby_PR?

[RickyBobby_PR]

16 minutes ago, vandyland said:

Also, I have been struggling MIGHTILY with my sand game the past few rounds. Like at the point where I am just trying to get it out and on the green rather than trying to get up and down. We have fairly soft sand and I am using a 58* Glide with 10* of bounce so maybe I should go dig out my Cleveland Smart Sole 3 S wedge with like a zillion degrees of bounce. I know things are bad when I am hoping equipment saves bad technique. Obviously there is something going on with my sand delivery and I would just guess I am coming in too steep. Any tips @RickyBobby_PR?

Going to steal Monte’s bunker basics while making some assumptions here.

Assuming you haven’t taken a wider stance than your normal iron/wedge swing that would be the first thing. Widen the stance a bit and of course dig feet in a bit.

Assuming you are probably split 50/50 pressure wise or maybe even favoring the lead side. Instead tilt a little away from the target. Think maybe like a 7i tilt.

Once that is all taken care of then jts just making a regular golf swing. Backswing length somewhere around lead arm parallel and then follow all the way thru.

enter the sand somewhere behind the ball

[vandyland]

Did a Rapsodo MLM2Pro Combine last night with targets at 110 yds, 130 yds and the usually driving component and my score went up to 70.0 which was an overall HDCP score of 3.8 (about right). My distance/accuracy hdcp for the 110 yd shot was +1.4 HDCP level, the 130 yd shot was 7.4 HDCP  and the Driving was a 4.9 HDCP (I was hitting them left tonight). 

I was found something that worked better in my takeaway and I felt a more deliberate dropping of my arms in the downswing which was helping with overall contact but I overdid it a tad (I was exaggerating) and that led to some left shots but overall pleased with the session. 

[vandyland]

Well, I think I am already getting my money’s worth out of my MLM2Pro. I have found two things very valuable, (1) impact vision and (2) smash factor. I have a toe miss that was particularly bad this week and I could finally SEE it on impact vision and basically any 7 iron shot with a smash factor of less than 1.31. I spent about 30 minutes working on my center face contact and I *think* I was taking the club back with a slightly open face and then it was staying open a bit coming into impact, presenting the toe. 
 

[vandyland]

Hit balls on Sunday (which was a mistake for my body as I am battling a pinched nerve) and played 18 holes and have noticed a few things. 

(1) Backswing is getting flat again (not sure if I should care or not). I find I hit the ball better that way so maybe that is all I need to know there.
(2) Squared front foot (rather than flared open) seems to help me control the early firing of my hips better and get my hands down faster
(3) I was starting to watch the club going back again so trying to focus more on the ball.
(4) Early wrist set is still key (and will always be), a late wrist set is very hard to time consistently unless you are Gary Woodland

Will probably need to take the rest of the week off from hitting balls and exercising as my pinched nerve in my neck is not going away with all this activity (obviously). 
 

[RickyBobby_PR]

22 hours ago, vandyland said:

(1) Backswing is getting flat again (not sure if I should care or not). I find I hit the ball better that way so maybe that is all I need to know there.

Guess it depends on what is considered better. It’s probably giving you the shot you are used to, but will eventually result in some of the inconsistencies you’ve seen.

As you make swing changes contact is going to be good at times and bad at times. But eventually will be better and more consistent than the incorrect swing.

This is where practice has to be broken up and when working on movement practice contact doesn’t matter.

From Monte 

There are two kinds of practice.

Movement pattern practice 

Ball striking practice.

You shouldn’t mix them and ironically ams analyze the opposite way they should.

22 hours ago, vandyland said:

4) Early wrist set is still key (and will always be), a late wrist set is very hard to time consistently unless you are Gary Woodland

Gary and also Brooks are a couple example of guys who have to make some compensations in their swing like early extend and hold off. They are better at timing their swings over and over because of the amount of time they have spent working on it. All swings have some compensation in it, the best of the best are that way because try can repeat the compensation the same way each swing

[vandyland]

3 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

As you make swing changes contact is going to be good at times and bad at times. But eventually will be better and more consistent than the incorrect swing.

Per Monte, he thinks it comes from me bending my trail arm too early. So I *think* if I keep my trail arm more disciplined it will raise my overall lead arm angle/swing angle AND be more repeatable. Just a hard habit to break like all swing issues. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, vandyland said:

Per Monte, he thinks it comes from me bending my trail arm too early. So I *think* if I keep my trail arm more disciplined it will raise my overall lead arm angle/swing angle AND be more repeatable. Just a hard habit to break like all swing issues. 

Agree and yeah changing motor patterns isn’t easy and takes time. This is what movement practice does. It’s where you do slower movements focusing on the change. Swings where you swing to a point where the hands are about waist high and don’t bend the elbow but also set the wrists late. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

On 2/12/2024 at 11:12 AM, vandyland said:

1) Backswing is getting flat again (not sure if I should care or not). I find I hit the ball better that way so maybe that is all I need to know there.

Something for you to try and help not turn flat.

 

[vandyland]

Well, posting has slowed down as I continue to battle a neck injury. I did play yesterday on a quasi golf trip so there was no getting out of that round. I scraped it around in 76 but never felt confident with my driver (I think I hit driving iron off the tee like 6 times yesterday). Irons are fine, wedges are fine but the driver swing feels completely lost and off the rails. My handicap has inflated to a 5.0 which is fine and probably more accurate than the 2 I got down to last summer. All this back and forth over my swing I realize that I just always settle back into my old swing...it never goes away. I can't really make a concrete change as far as I can tell. 

[vandyland]

Hit balls last night for about 45 minutes and spent most of that time trying to diagnose the biggest contributor to my toe strikes. Not surprisingly, I found it was not reaching/extending my arms through impact. I wouldn't call it a "chicken wing" exactly but definitely chicken wing lite. That was causing me to exit left very early and present the toe to the club. So after a while of slow, exaggerated follow throughs I was able to actually move my miss to the heel side which was encouraging. I always have a bunch of junk going on my swing but this was relatively new. So add it to the list!

The List of things I struggle with depending on the day:
- Properly timed weight shift (Monte identified)
- Lower body leading and hands falling behind
- Lower body/shoulders spin out
- Trying to "hold lag" which I know I don't want to do
- Eyes watching club in the backswing (Monte identified)
- Late wrist set
- Flat backswing
- Lead arm getting stuck on chest on the way down
- Trail arm folding too much and too early in backswing (Monte identified)

WOW! That is a lot of things. Center face contact is my main pursuit at the moment. I appreciate my rapsodo MLM2Pro helping me with both impact vision and smash factor which goes a long way to telling me if I am striking it in the middle.