Bad Pull draws

[Little Brit]

Great to hear all of this info on this. It has been a problem of mine since I started. It is hard to get the correct feeling. At the beginning I would sway in my swing due to an incorrect pivot, which I overcorrected by not transferring weight hardly at all. I have been going back and forth between the two. Of course it has been causing a lot of inconsistancy and fighting fat shots and pulls. I did start my downswing with axis tilt, but balance wasn't properly there. I have always felt like I had to really fight to get to make a divot in front of the ball.

While I was out practicing yesterday I finally managed to pivot onto my right leg correctly, transferring weight onto my heel, without swaying. That finally gave me the fall feeling of getting back onto my left foot. I had been trying to stay on the inside of my right foot instead of allowing it to relax onto the heel.

I hope it works went I go out for my next practice

Wow! So many moving parts, so hard to translate exactly what to feel, and so little time to do it.

 

[ian d m]

Clubface, clubface, clubface

Fix the clubface and your hand action. At least think about it more..... if you can't fix it or don't believe it, try this experiment on the range: address the ball with the face rotated open 5-15 degrees open - now your worst swing will produce your best result and your best shots before will be high ones to the right. (This will at least slow or stop the onset of the yips).

(Another experiment to try (as long as you are a 12 h'cap or so or even less) is to hit some drivers off the floor - no tees. You will find that the only way to get the ball in the air is to quit throwing the clubhead away with your right hand - but more on this below).

Now start thinking.....how must the clubface be at impact to produce your problem ? And what part of the ball is it contacting ? What are your hands doing to cause this ?

I suggest: you are squaring the club too much with your right hand; this causes the face to square (and eventually close) unpredictably and too quickly. It must be contacting almost the outside of the ball and also too high on the ball. If your best drives during this period have lacked distance then on these ones the right hand is still at fault, doing too much and adding loft; it is just catching more of the inside of the ball.

You'll need a really weak (or actually just a neutral) left hand grip - where the back of your left hand parallels the leading/bottom edge and not the loft; hold on really tight (with both hands) and turn the back of your left hand down (supination), to square the face, as you swing down into impact. This will square the face more gradually and predictably.

If after doing all this you start to find you have become a fader (or even a slicer) then we can deduce your swing has always been too straight or upright (which would, all things being equal, produce a slice) and you have compensated for this by throwing the clubface closed with your right hand. I'd bet you were a slicer way back as a beginner. (Between then and now you had a period where you matched all these mistakes together and played ok.)

You need to flatten your plane to fix this.

Good luck ! Remember not to get hot/temperamental during this - it doesn't help. It actually takes away the abilty to think logically - and you'll need this.

 

[ThomasTheTank]

Wouldn't stopping the chest, i.e., stopping the shoulders pulling the arms, be equivalent to turning off the speedboat motor and asking the crew to pull the waterskier's rope? Seems to me you would want connection from hips to clubhead withOUT a disconnection of the original source of power (the legs).

I have to agree with Brian. I *believe* I pull the ball simply because my shoulder/chest/torso outraces the arms on the downswing. Thus at impact my shoulders are pointing left

I try and feel like I am very centered at address. Weight really down into my feet. From the top of my swing I then feel as if my hands lead the downswing with the feeling like my sternum/core stays behind the ball. Almost as if I want my hands to get to impact before my chest. Its a timing issue. Speed up the hands and slow down the body

I started hitting pulls at my round at the weekend and as soon as I got the timimg back I was hitting nice little draws again

 

[wanole]

ok..I hit some straight and some pull with the chest stopped at impact. I played today and shot an 80 with some big pulls, BUT I thought of a high finish and I hit it much better.

 

[Ricky1990]

Have you tried putting your weight more towards your heels yet? Im telling you now, everyone I see pull draw (not on purpose) has there weight on there toes

 

[Damon Lucas]

Ricky,

Should wanole take your advice, or Brian's?
While you're at it, why don't you give out some stock market tips, and some advice on our love lives??

Cheers,

 

[Ricky1990]

Has Brian seen his swing? So how does Brian know that he is correct if he hasent seen his swing? So thats why im given my opinion because he was still hitting pull draws today.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

Has Brian seen his swing? So how does Brian know that he is correct if he hasent seen his swing? So thats why im given my opinion because he was still hitting pull draws today.

Good teachers tend to know what's wrong even when not seeing a swing. Many people here have been "fixed" by brian, me and other "pros" because we know that certain results are caused by certain things. So you basically take those certain things and figure out which one is going bad.

Then you fix it.

I have a student in England, who has posted on this site, where i didin't see his swing in a year and lowered his handciapped and made him hit it farther.

 

[Perfect Impact]

Another subtle elusive reason for pull-draws is a right hand that is too far around to the right FOR THAT PERSON. In my own case, I must place my right thumb LEFT of top dead center and my palm facing a bit to the left of the target or else I either pull/draw OR my subconscious interferes with the natural release and closing of the clubface BECAUSE IT SENSES HOW CONTINUING TO IMPACT WITH THAT ALIGNMENT WILL shut the face too much. So my swing results in the first case of a pull draw (when it is not sensed that I am in too strong a postion with THAT hand), OR in a partially inhibited release.

Note the cover of Hogan's white book : coming into impact his right thumb is quite a bit around to the left and his palm faces more than a little bit left of the target.

 

[Brian Manzella]

Ok...

ok..I hit some straight and some pull with the chest stopped at impact. I played today and shot an 80 with some big pulls, BUT I thought of a high finish and I hit it much better.

Wanole,

You are on your way.

You had a BENT PLANE LINE.

Let me define: You started to swing down one line—then you wound up on another.

If you are swinging DOWN the "Turned Shoulder Plane" TOWARD THE BALL, you need to swing UP the "Turned Shoulder Plane" THROUGH the BALL and TO the finish.

If your shoulders roundhouse late—sounds like it too me—you need to keep the left shoulder up FEELING and MOVEMENT L-O-N-G-E-R.

You also need to "finish higher" as you figured out, to match the toward the ball move.

 

[wanole]

ok..thanks.....I haven't tried rolling with the high finish yet. TO be honest not sure I could even do it. I worry about the chicken wing with the high finish, BUT I do hit it better.


I did move my weight some back to my heels and yes Brian has seen my swing.

 

[Perfect Impact]

A chicken wing is one of the symptoms of aborting the full release BECAUSE the unconscious senses the overclosing of the face. So rather than abort that wonderful power producer, changing the condition AT SETUP that gives rise TO the overclosing (too strong a r.h. grip, in some instances) can take care of it.

Whatever, if you relate to something else, the point of this might not apply to you.

 

[wanole]

I'm not sure what would attribute to that. I try to have a neutral grip. It's weak if anything.

 

[dodger]

Is the bent plane line in the through swing related to an underplane motion in the beginning of the downswing? The more I drop my hands from the top underplane, the more my shoulders roundhouse late in the throughswing. On wet grass, the shoulder rotation can actually spin my feet enough to dig a hole. Is staying on the turned shoulder plane on the downswing a key in avoiding a bent plane line in the through swing?

 

[niblick1]

Wanole,

You are on your way.

You had a BENT PLANE LINE.

Let me define: You started to swing down one line—then you wound up on another.

If you are swinging DOWN the "Turned Shoulder Plane" TOWARD THE BALL, you need to swing UP the "Turned Shoulder Plane" THROUGH the BALL and TO the finish.

If your shoulders roundhouse late—sounds like it too me—you need to keep the left shoulder up FEELING and MOVEMENT L-O-N-G-E-R.

You also need to "finish higher" as you figured out, to match the toward the ball move.

I don't know if this thread ever helped wanole, but it is in my hall-of-fame of great online diagnostics based on my results.