pitching shanks....

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Bill Miracle

Bill Miracle

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These things just came outa the blue about 2 weeks ago. I've been having a lot of success with chips and pitches. About 2 out of 10 will do it. The other 8 are decent to great.

What gives to cause these? I don't shank anything else.
 
c21heel

c21heel

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I got into a habit of this a couple years back and I almost quit the game. I believe I was shanking the 20-40 yards pitch shot because I rolled the club way to the inside on the backswing and I didn't turn my both my hips and shoulders through on the forward swing.

Another reason I have seen discussed on this board is people often times forget to incorporate the horizontal hinge as a result of too much focus on the flat left wrist. Hope this helps.

I hope I never get into hitting those hosel rockets again :)!
 
bergsey

bergsey

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Bill Miracle said:
These things just came outa the blue about 2 weeks ago. I've been having a lot of success with chips and pitches. About 2 out of 10 will do it. The other 8 are decent to great.

What gives to cause these? I don't shank anything else.
Click to expand...

There can be a number of causes.

For me it was the right hip / elbow collision (rotating the right hip first and getting stuck on the downswing) your brain automatically moves the club outside of the plane line to avoid the collision and hosel hits can be the result. Mainly was happening with the short stuff as well as the timing was off and i was rushing back to the ball instead of taking my time

As a diagnostic tool i always now setup with a tee a few inches behind and outside of the ball. If i get stuck and come over the top i hit tee first then ball...

If you are swinging truely inside out and still shank it then there are a couple of other scenarios i'm sure others will offer suggestions for !
 
RicoSuave

RicoSuave

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Bill Miracle said:
What gives to cause these? I don't shank anything else.
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On the range it also sometimes happens to me and I think c21heel describes the root well.....

c21heel said:
Another reason I have seen discussed on this board is people often times forget to incorporate the horizontal hinge as a result of too much focus on the flat left wrist. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

So if this happens (most of the times the last pitch before a tournament on the range) ;) I concentrate on Brian´s wedding-ring-feel an it is gone. :)
 
Bill Miracle

Bill Miracle

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Just an update...

Focused the last 2 days on trying to get rid of that fungus in my swing. As was mentioned above, it was on the 20-50 yd pitches.

I focused on hitting the ball with HH and hitting more towards the toe side of the center of the clubface. That really helped.

Also, with my 55* SW, I got maybe one out of 30 pitches shank. With my 50* gap....5-6 outa 20. Though that club got much better when I started focusing on what I mentioned above.

I will say this...my good pitches are the best I've ever hit.

Still, I'm interested in knowing about the shank video Brian. I don't want to be guessing at getting this under control.
 
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trev141

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I've seen it, though I'm probably going to bastardize what it said...
I think what Brian said was that the problem was having the clubface too open at some point in the downswing to where you get under the sweetspot and feel the hosel rather than the sweetspot. So you think the hosel "is" the sweetspot, and try to hit the ball with the hosel.

That's probably horribly messing with what Brian was saying but that's as much as I can remember.
 
huestisc

huestisc

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trev141 said:
I've seen it, though I'm probably going to bastardize what it said...
I think what Brian said was that the problem was having the clubface too open at some point in the downswing to where you get under the sweetspot and feel the hosel rather than the sweetspot. So you think the hosel "is" the sweetspot, and try to hit the ball with the hosel.

That's probably horribly messing with what Brian was saying but that's as much as I can remember.
Click to expand...

That's definitely part of what he said. He also said that if an ant was on the clubface, make sure that the ant could see the ball as the clubhead comes into impact...if the face was too open, the hosel would be in the way of the ants view....if the hosel leads the impact, well then, you know what happens....

I'm not sure if the video is still anywhere on the sight or not, but it was a short little one filmed in Brian's apartment, but still the best cause/effect explanation I have ever seen or heard for the shanks. I believe he expands on this in Never Slice Again 2.0, but I haven't seen it yet...just bought it but still haven't had a chance to download and watch.
 
Bill Miracle

Bill Miracle

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I think I finally figured it out...

I was dipping my right shoulder down too much when swinging towards the ball.

I'll get nsa2.0 and check it out. Hopefully, Brian will post the video from his apartment on shanks as well (HINT, HINT :) )
 
Bill Miracle

Bill Miracle

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OK, enough...I can't get rid of these $#&*($## shanks.

Man, I am swinging so well right now with all my clubs. Twice, I'm 60 yards in front of the green, laying 2, on 2 par 5s. I'm thinking birdie, right?

SHANK, SHANK. ended up par / boogie (missed the putt). Same on a par 4 where I bombed a drive...tried to run a 7iron up to the hole from about 80yds...shank into a sand trap.

I've been going to the range and I always start off hitting beautiful chips and pitches. Then, out of no where....during the same practice round...I can't hit a decent pitch to save my life and I can't get back to normal until the next day.

I would love to get my hands on the shanking video out there!!!! Or hear from the master on this.

One question I have now...on a 30-60 yard pitch...do I want any right wrist bend to take place in the backswing? I have someone telling me to lean the shaft forward at address and then freeze that position with the hands and just turn the body to ht the pitch. That doesn't feel right to me and....I'm trying to get out of a foward leaning shaft at address.

Seems like my best pitches come when I swing back and let the right wrist fold back a little and also bend the right elbow a little. I feel lag when I do this.
 
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Perfect Impact

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More often I find that shanks -- in the shorter clubs - are because the armclub gets longer during the shot -because we tend to soften the arms for "touch shots". So when the armclub stretches a bit during the swing, it is too long and the clubhead has to go SOMEwhere. It will either go down and your shot will be fat, or it will move out from your feet and your shot will be a shank.

Besides that, if you wear glasses it is possible that with the ball closer to your feet, your glasses cause MORE refraction - giving you an image located further from your feet than where the ball actually sits.

Yesterday I went back to the optometrist to get mine adjusted so that there would BE no refraction of that kind. I was having to "aim" considerably south of the SS to hit the ball pure.

With pupils, the most common reason for their shanks is failure to take up the slack in the left armclub prior to takeaway.
 
S

shootin4par

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Bill,
one common problem on shanking short shots is setting up too close to the ball. set up to the ball and then after the set up see how much space between your body and the but end of the club. Maybe that is it, maybe not
 
Burner

Burner

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Perfect Impact said:
Besides that, if you wear glasses it is possible that with the ball closer to your feet, your glasses cause MORE refraction - giving you an image located further from your feet than where the ball actually sits.

Yesterday I went back to the optometrist to get mine adjusted so that there would BE no refraction of that kind. I was having to "aim" considerably south of the SS to hit the ball pure.
Click to expand...

George,

I, too, wear glasses and doubt the accuracy of the image displayed (I have NEVER, knowingly, hit a bad shot - understand?). However, getting the "attention" of a non-sporting Optometrist is far harder for me than him parting me from my cash.

Can you elaborate on this aspect at all, please?
 
P

Perfect Impact

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Depending on your prescription (my wife's doesn't do this, mine does) if I lift and lower my glasses while they are on, the image I see drops and rises proportional to the amount I move the glass up or down. So it takes an extremely small lift or drop of the glass situated THERE for the image of something 5 feet away to "move two or three inches"

So "which image should I aim at? The one when my glasses are up, or the one when they are down?" And the adjustment is made through the width of the nosepiece -- how far apart the pads determines how high the glasses sit.

Without the glasses on, prior to the adjustment, i would have to aim 2" lower than the ss of the ball. After adjustment I hope to be able to aim RIGHT AT the ss for centered impact.

It is the same phenomenon as looking down through the top of a fish tank from the side: the fish is "norther" than you discover he really IS located when you walk around to the side. Refraction. Except with my prescription the fish was "souther" causing me to shank when I aimed AT the SS.
 
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