Swing Discussion: Transition to the downswing

[Super Tuna]

Greetings all,

Honestly, I'm not really sure where this thread should go so I figured I would just stick it here for now as it's not quite a Ask the Pro question since I don't really know the question.

Through my golfing journey over the past year and a half my swing has done some major, major changes. In most cases, this is a good thing but in this instance, I'm not so sure. Enter stage right, the Taylormade Speed Sleeve. After the fantastic THP review (I cannot for the life of me find this on the home page. I thought it was a home page review at one time?) I ended up picking one up. Mostly, I wanted it for the weight training to pick up more speed. Seemed the obvious goal. I forgot my rule about obvious goals.

For every obvious goal accomplished at least 2 unexpected results will occur. Holds true for every IT project I've ever done in a foreign environment and in this instance held true for my swing.

Unintended Occurance #1: Entirely cured my over the top swing. The weight is such that if you try and consistently swing over the top, your wrists aren't going to like it. If for nothing else but pain aversion, you're going to stop doing it. Huzzah because to this point, this was my bugaboo. A year or so after using the Speed Sleeve, over the toppers are entirely gone. I liked this UO.

Unintended Occurance #2: My transition entirely changed. I went from having a lightning quick transition to quite a slow one. I'm still not entirely sure if it's a bad habit or not, but I almost pause at the top of my back swing now. I swung the sleeve so many times and would get in a such a rhythm where the down swing couldn't start until I could feel the extra weight settle back. Then I'd effectively transition slowly, dropping the weight to around my shoulders and being pushing. At the time, I thought this was a pretty sweet UO. Now, I'm not so sure.

Something that I tried doing after #2 was something that a instructor showed me and figured I should start copying, which was Gary Woodland's swing. You'll see on a bunch of Youtube videos with him that the backswing was fairly smooth, he has a mid tempo down and then really pushes the power around his waist into the impact zone. Jason Day does something similair as well. As I often took my slap shots the same way, this didn't seem like much of a issue.

Something that my current instructor noticed pretty quickly is that this is causing me two issues.
#1: I'm not setting up properly to be able to handle this. The way my arms go from fairly flexible to hard locked is not letting them rotate around to shut the face. I'm effectively blocking myself out, leaving the face a good 2 to 6 degrees open. Doesn't do that much with my irons but becomes more of an issue with hybrids and a big one with the fairway and driver.

#2: He's seeing that the reason I have to have all my clubs so flat is that I come in steeper to the ball when the acceleration kicks up and if they're not, I can't get the face around the way he thinks it should. While the heel hits and snaps the face shut which is sort of the goal, it does it too much and I go from a gentle fade to a vicious hook.

The obvious solution (I know, I know) seemed to be to alter the setup but frankly he's not sure how to do so in a way that will work and can't seem to do anything about my transition without redoing everything. Honestly, I'm not entirely interested in that. I suspect that some sort of more natural, what ever that means, transition through to the downswing would sort this nicely. I'm just not sure what "natural" means here.

Thus, how do you do your transition? Do you feel like you put extra power into your swing anywhere on it or a time when you try to accelerate more? Is there any pause in your back swing at all? Do you let the club finish coming back before starting the down swing?

I haven't been able to swing nearly as much as I'd like recently with the baby but I'm hesitant on going back to the speed sleeve until I firm up some sort of game plan.

Sorry for the long winded thread here that might be in the wrong place.

 

[Spahrticus]

I don't really "pause" at the transition point, although I do not start my downswing with the clubhead still moving back. From my perspective, I feel the tension build throughout my back and shoulders and my arms/hands stop, then I transition immediately into my fore-swing leading with my hips which draw the rest of my body around. It is all one smooth motion without a definitive pause, but there is no violent reversal of direction at the top. If I am adding power anywhere in the swing it is through impact from when my hands clear my right hip on the downswing through roughly the same area through the ball. Hope that helps, I've never really thought about it all that closely!

 

[TripleBogieTim]

Don't know that I can help with your issue...but definately going to look for a speed sleeve to toy with.

 

[tequila4kapp]

Ah, so interesting...so much of what you write is like listening to a variation of my lessons with my pro.

First reaction: Your UO #2 sounds reasonably correct...transition with the lower body and let the upper body follow. If things were ok before you started doing the Woodland move then don't do the Woodland move. Or to use your vernacular...you implemented another change which will itself have two UO's.

I don't know if I actually do the pause at the top but thinking about a pause at the top is certainly in my arsenal. It helps with tempo (pretty hard to pause if you are overly quick) and allows me to sequence my transition more properly, starting with my lower body (conversely a too fast tempo for me leads to poor sequencing where my arms & shoulders go first and there you have the ugly over the top move).

When I get to the top I don't know that I have any particular thought at the transition but if I did it would probably be something like "DOWN"...just let the hands come down (hopefully) after my lower body has started to do its work. Perhaps something is getting lost in the translation of Woodland to your pro to your post but this talk of moving 'around' the body strikes me as a bit off. Hope this helps.

 

[rbarthle17]

Ah, so interesting...so much of what you write is like listening to a variation of my lessons with my pro.

First reaction: Your UO #2 sounds reasonably correct...transition with the lower body and let the upper body follow. If things were ok before you started doing the Woodland move then don't do the Woodland move. Or to use your vernacular...you implemented another change which will itself have two UO's.

I don't know if I actually do the pause at the top but thinking about a pause at the top is certainly in my arsenal. It helps with tempo (pretty hard to pause if you are overly quick) and allows me to sequence my transition more properly, starting with my lower body (conversely a too fast tempo for me leads to poor sequencing where my arms & shoulders go first and there you have the ugly over the top move).

When I get to the top I don't know that I have any particular thought at the transition but if I did it would probably be something like "DOWN"...just let the hands come down (hopefully) after my lower body has started to do its work. Perhaps something is getting lost in the translation of Woodland to your pro to your post but this talk of moving 'around' the body strikes me as a bit off. Hope this helps.

I know this is a 2 year old thread, but pausing at the top is something I have been doing lately to great effect. I liken it to the pitching windup. If you are not in good balance at the top of your leg kick, your release and delivery will be off and you'll lose control and power. As it pertains to my golf swing, the backswing is all about getting my arms and core in the proper position. At the top of the swing I pause and let my body settle. This gets me to where everything feels right, and I can generate a good swing path and focus on my hips and generating lag for power. It also keeps my head still after the reset, which I have found very helpful in maintaining control. If it doesn't feel right at the pause and I can't get it there quickly, it also gives me a bail out chance to step back (which I have done once or twice).