Underplane, heels, pulls, fats - fixed?

[jake2]

I've struggled last two-three months a lot, not played a whole lot and practice has been mainly hitting balls to a net at home. Here some symptoms:

1. pitch yips similar to flyers66 - found the responses in that thread very helpful, was under plane for sure.
2. Full shots thin off the heel, often so thin that irons shots would not hit the hosel, but would fly low left to right. Solid shots most often relatively straight pulls. Trying not to hit left would sometimes cause what looked like a push-fade or fats with irons. Seemed like I had to swing way left (relative to my stance) to get solid contact. Driver pulls would fly low but relatively straight.
Also had lost quite bit of distance and I've not a very long hitter to begin with.

Things that seemed to help, but would not fix things for sure
- back more in & up, steeper shoulder turn (stack&tilt feel?)
- adding plenty of twistaway and maintaining it
- getting right elbow to right pocket in ds
- worked a lot with my grip, esp. pp#3 feel and practiced right thumb off the club
- trying to add axis tilt coming down
Something in this was starting to hurt my back.

Pivoting properly has been my biggest issue and I've spent lot of time trying to learn it from ground up. I've practiced LCT quite bit lately, but it hasn't been easy, since I've had the tendency to add torque with my right arm (hitting). I should add that I'm one of the least flexible guys around, but I try to compensate by stretching a lot and doing some yoga.

I've watched flipper, NSA & SD video's several times during the last few months. I think I'll try get back into SD soon.

I watched last week the workshop "Biomechanical Approach to Golf Swing Evaluation" (thanks twitch127 for providing the link to the World Scientific Congress of Golf video's) and that got me to pay attention to my hips.
Btw, what's presented as biomechanically correct is exactly what Brian's been advocating all along - turn around your spine.

I needed to add a little hip slant at address to get my spine straight. Then I experimented starting back by rotating my right hip in. All of a sudden my backswing started (what seemed to be) on plane and all I needed was to add some twist (not a lot) and let it go from the top. I had been trying to start by rotating shoulders and that did not work for me.

I've played two rounds since this discovery and I've had some of best ball striking ever for me and still have a some trouble trusting my swing after all the struggle. My distance is also back and maybe a bit more than before - let's see.

I would welcome any comments or suggestions especially on what you think I actually did to seemingly fix my problem.

 

[cmartingolf]

Geez, Jake. That's a long story. Post a couple videos and let us take a look

 

[jake2]

Geez, Jake. That's a long story. Post a couple videos and let us take a look

Sorry, I've not posted video before, so it would take some time to figure that out.
But this was a great comment. I went back to one video I have from the time things were really bad and looking at it I also remembered that I had a tendency to fall forward (weight to toes). Looking at dtl video it's pretty obvious now. I did not let my right hip go back, left hip came forward and spine moved forward in the process. I was rotating around my right leg - literally.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

More than likely you are:

1) Leaning waaaaaaaaaaay too far to the right on your backswing which is causing you to swing waaaaaaaaaay too inside out.

2) Because you are most likely doing number one above, to not avoid hooking the crap out of the ball you are using an extremely open clubface to accomplish hitting the ball and are at times dangerously teetering the line between lagging the hosel and the sweetspot.

you most likely need a lot of work on your pivot and your clubface, and yes, for you to hit the ball solid again you are going to have to swing so far left it isn't going to feel right.

Also you are really going to have to feel like you don't move off the ball at all. Try to move your left shoulder down towards your right shoe sharply and also feel like you make ZERO HIP TURN.

 

[welshdentist]

Jim,

Would this shoulder turn move be felt like this....

Club held across the chest, which would tilt to the right however much axis tilt one has at address.

First move to make that tilt come to parallel and beyond as much as you can without hips and head moving at all, ending with club apearing to be tilted left but no turn of shoulders

Make shoulder turn feeling like no hip turn (but allowing head to move with pivot )

When I do that I feel like muscles are being stretched that haven't been for some time, looking in mirror, bloody hell, looks like a pivot

I know i've just repeated you Jim, but this is how I see what you said...

BTW Jim, you have been on FIRE this last week with information

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

welsh...i didn't get much of what you said

But i want you to FEEL LIKE what Colin Montgomery LOOKS LIKE on his backswing (pivot only).

 

[jake2]

Thanks Jim,

I'll try to experiment with your suggestions this weekend, when I have a chance to practice & play again.

 

[jake2]

Update on my progress

More than likely you are:
1) Leaning waaaaaaaaaaay too far to the right on your backswing which is causing you to swing waaaaaaaaaay too inside out.

2) Because you are most likely doing number one above, to not avoid hooking the crap out of the ball you are using an extremely open clubface to accomplish hitting the ball and are at times dangerously teetering the line between lagging the hosel and the sweetspot.

you most likely need a lot of work on your pivot and your clubface, and yes, for you to hit the ball solid again you are going to have to swing so far left it isn't going to feel right.

Also you are really going to have to feel like you don't move off the ball at all. Try to move your left shoulder down towards your right shoe sharply and also feel like you make ZERO HIP TURN.

Just want to give an update on my situation.

Jim's post was a huge help.

I started to experiment with that and things started to improve. What I found that Jim's suggestions work the best for me now when I use SD backswing.
Keeping that right elbow above the left and the shoulders turning back really helped.

The same feel has helped also on all pitches, even short ones.

It's funny how swinging more left does not necessarily mean the ball would go more left.

For some reason my irons go left easier (looks like a pull-draw) with the same feel compared to the woods. When I get my irons starting straighter, I still tend to push my woods.

Using a grip that's closer to Manzella neutral, seems to produce nice fades with the woods.

When I get my pivot going downswing, I can really let it go and hit pretty long too (for me) and most importantly pretty straight.