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Blew It Up, Trying To Piece it Back Together Again

ShotScope
Just_Brad said:
I need reps. I need to get my net up once the weather allows (and chores allow), and just start doing a lot of half and partial swings, and work up to full swings. I need to find that damn face again.
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This is what my new coach encourages - the 1/2 swings at 70% help to promote the right sequencing around your weight, hips etc as you are working much less about distance etc. He is one to focus on getting the sequence and weight transfer correct and the rest will follow.

Keep in there - we'e all been in that place where the face and the ball are magnetically opposed :cool:

A
 
Have you ever done a mobility assessment? I never had and just assumed anything I needed to do was a training issue... then I did a mobility assessment and discovered that my early extension is something that no amount of training could ever fix. Its because my internal hip rotation and shoulder rotation is not good enough to support my swing speed.



Their program is VERY expensive but I've managed to find basically all the info on the stretches/workouts needed. I would bet that if I had gone to take lessons they wouldnt have mentioned anything about this and just tried to fix my early extension via drills, etc.

When spring came around I was determined that I needed to do some swing speed training and came across an 18 Strong podcast with Chris Finn (from par4success). I found the assessment there and have now completely changed my golf goals to be increasing my mobility (which will also increase my speed).

To be honest its actually a big relief knowing that my mobility was holding me back because I felt like I was doing every drill and exaggerating like crazy to get some shaft lean and stop my early extension when in reality, it was just not really possible for my body with its current mobility
 
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Just_Brad said:
Today was lesson #1 of 3 with a new instructor I am trying out. Working out of the facility I am currently practicing in, I figured it was time to look into some instruction that had the ability to look more precisely at what I am doing wrong, with cameras, club data, simulators.

To put it bluntly, I figure I have been wasting my time for the past year, trying to work with an instructor using old methods.

Where we left off last time, I had taken a lesson to fix my setup and change my grip (that I had used for 20ish years). Well we changed the grip, but with no guidance on what to do outside of that. I was frustrated, pretty let down, and I figured that this year was going to be a loss. Not something you want to think with a new set of gear from The Grandaddy to use and talk about.

We got right into it today, starting with a wedge combine to assess short game. It didn't go well. From 25 yds I thought I was ok, garnering 9 points through 3 shots.... and then not tallying a point at all for the rest of the session. 50 yd pitch? 3 straight shanks. 75 yd pitch? 3 more shanks. Embarassed, I finished up and was reassured we won't score a 9 again.

Next up, 7 iron was stickered up, and made some swings. Hook/Pull Hook over and over again. When I did finally hit a good one, if was swiftly followed by more mishits. Not what I wanted to put out there, but probably more helpful in diagnosing what was wrong than anything else I could do.

So super quick, what was good, what was bad?
Setup overall was good. The new grip, good. Stance, ball position, also good.
Bad? Head moving all over the place, putting me off balance.
Out to In path, with an impact position that was creating a double cross.
Does that make sense? I am terrible, but not completely terrible.
Is it affecting everything? Top to Bottom in the bag? Yes.

So what did we do?
A couple drills to work on a better turn, sequencing, and weight transfer. Stop the head movement.
Impact Bag, Swings working to correct the path while avoiding a pool noodle.
Path got better, impact got better, distances and accuracy crept back up to where I thought they should be again.

I have things to work on, and another lesson in 9 days.
More importantly? Optimism that what we are working on isn't completely starting from scratch but adequately addressing issues.
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Great @Just_Brad , keep at it you got this.
 
Been through same struggles. I think switching instructors was a good move. Honestly, that was my first thought with your first post. Just my opinion, but the change of grip to me is just a lazy attempted fix many instructors do. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes a grip change is needed. I truly would not go to an instructor that does not use video to closely examine the full mechanics of the entire swing to see where the true issues lie. It is beneficial to both the instructor, and to the student to see it.

I found learning to shallow out was one of if not the hardest changes to make. It feels so awkward and backwards when first learning but eventually just becomes natural. I haven’t had much free time to practice or play over the last 2 years but I did an iron fitting last weekend and it was all just there and felt better then I have ever felt swinging a club. My ball speeds were pretty close to yours a couple years ago. At my fitting, I was getting around 94mph club head speeds and my best ball speed was just over 130 on a Trackman with a 7i. Never did I think at almost 45 years ago old I would see those numbers.

I guess what I am saying was a I like what you are doing and think you are making good choices. Keep at it because it will all come together and blow your mind eventually.
 
This past Saturday came around, with it being overcast/cold/windy, I had smartly booked in at my practice facility for an hour on a GC3 bay.
Lucky me, one of the units was sent with my instructor when he went for US Open qualifying in South Dakota (he got through to the next round), so I was upgraded into a GC Hawk simultor instead. Typically I don't want to me in the Sim bay, mainly to save a bit of money, but I also tend to think I miss more data on the sim (I prefer the simplicity of the GC3, and the data I can pull from it easily.

Working on path (broken record I am), getting a proper turn and weight shift, and trying to get in a better impact position. Seriously, path and impact are killing me. I know they are improving, but I can't get as much practice in as I want to sort of speed things up and really solidify things.

At one point, I thought my things were starting to go awry, so I scaled it all back. My contact all of a sudden got really bad, so I wanted to get that a bit more consistent. If I can get 150yd carry on the 7i, I am reasonably pleased. Took 7 iron, and just tried to do a shorter swing, smoother, and get the clubface on the ball. Trying to get rid out of Out to In path, with the shorter swing, but just seeing what the carry was with the easy swing. Then trying to keep the same path, same tempo, but get a little longer, and get more carry. I would try to just hit each shot farther than that prior, but keeping the tempo and the path. It was dumb, that I hadn't purposefully tried to do that, but it got me back to the carry I wanted, but kept that path cleaner and kept the ball flight much better.

Then I thought why couldn't I just do the same with driver. Nice easy swing, but working on shallowing the club with the corrected path.
I don't generate a lot of speed, I think my max in a lesson a couple weeks ago was 97 mph, but normal swing is probably more around 92 mph.
I set the target at the range to 220 yds, and would try to hit the drives longer than the one previous. And weirdly it worked. For the first time in ages I had better carry, and better total drive distances, but being straighter and more "playable". No big uncontrollable hooks much to my relief.

Really hoping to get more practice in, and start building some speed back up. Hopefully gain back some more lost yardage but keep some consistency.

Spoiler

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Just_Brad said:
This past Saturday came around, with it being overcast/cold/windy, I had smartly booked in at my practice facility for an hour on a GC3 bay.
Lucky me, one of the units was sent with my instructor when he went for US Open qualifying in South Dakota (he got through to the next round), so I was upgraded into a GC Hawk simultor instead. Typically I don't want to me in the Sim bay, mainly to save a bit of money, but I also tend to think I miss more data on the sim (I prefer the simplicity of the GC3, and the data I can pull from it easily.

Working on path (broken record I am), getting a proper turn and weight shift, and trying to get in a better impact position. Seriously, path and impact are killing me. I know they are improving, but I can't get as much practice in as I want to sort of speed things up and really solidify things.

At one point, I thought my things were starting to go awry, so I scaled it all back. My contact all of a sudden got really bad, so I wanted to get that a bit more consistent. If I can get 150yd carry on the 7i, I am reasonably pleased. Took 7 iron, and just tried to do a shorter swing, smoother, and get the clubface on the ball. Trying to get rid out of Out to In path, with the shorter swing, but just seeing what the carry was with the easy swing. Then trying to keep the same path, same tempo, but get a little longer, and get more carry. I would try to just hit each shot farther than that prior, but keeping the tempo and the path. It was dumb, that I hadn't purposefully tried to do that, but it got me back to the carry I wanted, but kept that path cleaner and kept the ball flight much better.

Then I thought why couldn't I just do the same with driver. Nice easy swing, but working on shallowing the club with the corrected path.
I don't generate a lot of speed, I think my max in a lesson a couple weeks ago was 97 mph, but normal swing is probably more around 92 mph.
I set the target at the range to 220 yds, and would try to hit the drives longer than the one previous. And weirdly it worked. For the first time in ages I had better carry, and better total drive distances, but being straighter and more "playable". No big uncontrollable hooks much to my relief.

Really hoping to get more practice in, and start building some speed back up. Hopefully gain back some more lost yardage but keep some consistency.

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That’s great to hear!
 
Just_Brad said:
This past Saturday came around, with it being overcast/cold/windy, I had smartly booked in at my practice facility for an hour on a GC3 bay.
Lucky me, one of the units was sent with my instructor when he went for US Open qualifying in South Dakota (he got through to the next round), so I was upgraded into a GC Hawk simultor instead. Typically I don't want to me in the Sim bay, mainly to save a bit of money, but I also tend to think I miss more data on the sim (I prefer the simplicity of the GC3, and the data I can pull from it easily.

Working on path (broken record I am), getting a proper turn and weight shift, and trying to get in a better impact position. Seriously, path and impact are killing me. I know they are improving, but I can't get as much practice in as I want to sort of speed things up and really solidify things.

At one point, I thought my things were starting to go awry, so I scaled it all back. My contact all of a sudden got really bad, so I wanted to get that a bit more consistent. If I can get 150yd carry on the 7i, I am reasonably pleased. Took 7 iron, and just tried to do a shorter swing, smoother, and get the clubface on the ball. Trying to get rid out of Out to In path, with the shorter swing, but just seeing what the carry was with the easy swing. Then trying to keep the same path, same tempo, but get a little longer, and get more carry. I would try to just hit each shot farther than that prior, but keeping the tempo and the path. It was dumb, that I hadn't purposefully tried to do that, but it got me back to the carry I wanted, but kept that path cleaner and kept the ball flight much better.

Then I thought why couldn't I just do the same with driver. Nice easy swing, but working on shallowing the club with the corrected path.
I don't generate a lot of speed, I think my max in a lesson a couple weeks ago was 97 mph, but normal swing is probably more around 92 mph.
I set the target at the range to 220 yds, and would try to hit the drives longer than the one previous. And weirdly it worked. For the first time in ages I had better carry, and better total drive distances, but being straighter and more "playable". No big uncontrollable hooks much to my relief.

Really hoping to get more practice in, and start building some speed back up. Hopefully gain back some more lost yardage but keep some consistency.

Click to expand...
So great to hear the success in those sessions. My instructor reposted something the other day that applies and I keep coming back to it on my own range sessions:
"If you can't do it slow, you probably can't do it fast" To your point, slow it down and focus on that weight shift and the path.
 
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