Help how do I stop casting ?

[troie]

Hi Guys,

Over the last few competitions and all practice sessions I have been really struggling with my long game. I booked a lesson with the pro who put the video on me, it seems that I am getting the club head, ahead of hands at impact and am casting the club from the top. The pro recommended that I work on keeping hands ahead of ball through impact

I am practicing this as we speak however it does not seem to be working, I am still casting the club - my head is now done in !!!

Does anyone have any other tips that may help bring my game back on track ?

Cheers

Troie

[aftford]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Hi pal.
Casting can be annoying but it is very simple to cure. Before you practice the drill below you might need to slow your tempo . If your swing speed has increased it can destroy your rythm, this can lead to casting , topping, hitting fat and hitting thin.

Leadbetters pump drill
Take your normal set up and address the ball with a 7 iron. now slowly ( and i mean slowly ) , move your club away to the top of your backswing.
Start the downswing and maintain your wrist cock until you feel your right elbow touch your side, just above your belt line. hold this position for a count of three and then take your club back to the stop of your back swing. Start the down swing again and keep your wrist cock until your right elbow again touches your side. hold for a count of three and really get a feeling of this position. Now go back to the top of the back swing and then swing through to a full balanced finish.

This excercise must be done really slowly until you get a feel for that delayed release and then you can start to speed things up.
Even as little as a 10% improvement will make a huge difference to your ball flight and distance.

Hope you find this helpful

[shootin4par]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

first thing I would look too, when you are setting your wrists the first thing that needs to happen is you cup the rear wrist before you cock the wrists. This sets you in a biomechanical position that makes it physically harder to cast. Go look at pics of ernie els and you will see his first move back is a cup,

[troie]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Cheer's Shootin and Aftford,

I'am going to the practice ground tomorrow morning so i will let you know
how i get on. Hopefully golfing god status is not too far away!!

[Martin Levac]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Hi troie,

The answer to your question is you don't stop casting, you do something else instead. Let me explain.

As you focus on casting and the cure, you forget about what's important and what's not. What's important is to strike the ball squarely in the middle of the face. What's not important is how to swing the club.

Let me ask you a question, would you prefer to know how to dance or how to hit that damned ball? Would you prefer to dance like Tiger or like Daly or like Funk or like Furyk or etc? What do they all have in common? Obviously, not their swings.

The answer to your question is forget about casting and focus on proper contact with the ball.

This is what I do when I forget about the important stuff:

Address the ball, bring the arms not more than horizontal, bring the club back down to the ball. Maintain the head as immobile as I can, maintain focus on the ball throughout even as I strike it and longer even after the ball is gone, resist watching the ball fly to maintain the head immobile. Repeat.

Notice there's no complicated technique to learn here, just the basic stuff: Keep head still, focus on ball, strike it pure.

What do you do when you strike the ball if not send a mass into collision with another mass? Well, power does not come from swing technique, it comes from the transfer of momentum from the clubhead to the ball. The closer to both the ball's and the clubhead's center of gravity you make contact with, the more momentum is transfered, the farther the ball goes. That's it.

100% of 75 is better than 50% of 100.

You know when you strike the ball badly the clubhead twists in your hands? It takes energy to move that club around in your hands, that energy isn't used to propel the ball, it's used to twist the club in your hands. Making proper contact with the ball doesn't twist the club in your hands, it transfers all that energy, the momentum or velocity or speed if your prefer, to the ball.


About the pro teacher that told you stuff about club before hands and whatnot? Don't give him any more money, he doesn't deserve it after having taken you off the right track and further into the woods.

Have fun


Martin Levac

[Simon Woo]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Is there such a thing as holding the wrist angle for too long? I'm also working on holding the angle for as long as I can on the downswing. I realised that it really changes the downswing a lot - now where the hands reach waist height, I feel like the clubhead has to do a lot of catch up. Also the downswing doesn't feel very natural, like it's broken up into two parts.

A more detailed question. When at the top, the hands are kinda behind the body. To do this pumping, do you try to bring the hands vertically down (still try to keep it behind the body), or do you allow the hands to come in front while pumping down?

[aftford]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Is there such a thing as holding the wrist angle for too long? I'm also working on holding the angle for as long as I can on the downswing. I realised that it really changes the downswing a lot - now where the hands reach waist height, I feel like the clubhead has to do a lot of catch up. Also the downswing doesn't feel very natural, like it's broken up into two parts.

A more detailed question. When at the top, the hands are kinda behind the body. To do this pumping, do you try to bring the hands vertically down (still try to keep it behind the body), or do you allow the hands to come in front while pumping down?

The downswing is initiated by the lower body, even in the pump drill.
The clubhead should always be behind the hands on the dwnswing or you will cut across the ball when you release.

Hope this has made things clearer for you

cheers

[Simon Woo]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Thanks for the quick reply aftford! Ok clubhead behind hands is fine, how about hands position in relation to the body? In other words, do you pump the hands down vertically, or is it more of a diagonal pump? In both instances I believe the clubhead will still be the hands and even the body, I'm just not sure how far forward the hands should travel during this time?

[Martin Levac]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

The downswing is initiated by the lower body

Yours perhaps, not mine. I apply force with nothing but my arms. I play much better than a whole lot of people I play with and they all initiate the swing with the lower body. I know of only three players who play better than I do, one is a pro, the other two are enthusiasts. The pro makes it look easy, everybody else makes it look like a pain in the neck. I've been playing for about two years which shows me how much b***s*** all those people are dealing with. Lucky me I don't believe in any of it.


Martin Levac

[aftford]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Thanks for the quick reply aftford! Ok clubhead behind hands is fine, how about hands position in relation to the body? In other words, do you pump the hands down vertically, or is it more of a diagonal pump? In both instances I believe the clubhead will still be the hands and even the body, I'm just not sure how far forward the hands should travel during this time?

Hands and arms comme STRAIGHT DOWN , the clubhead being behind the hands gives the impression that the arms and hands are comming down diagonally.

[BrianW]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Lets try to understand what causes casting and how to stop it.

Casting is caused by throwing the club over the top on the downswing, this is mainly due to starting the downswing by rotating your shoulders and uncocking your wrists, thus throwing your hands, arms and the club outside the swing path, you will have to cut back across the ball on an out to in path causing slices or hooks depending on how you rotate your arms..

To cure it you must develop an inside to out swingpath by the following:

Start your downswing by rotating your hips and dropping your arms straight down so that your hands fall to your hip with your right elbow into your waist, ensure your wrists are still set to the same angle as they were at the top of the backswing. The butt end of your club should be pointing at the ball and the club laid back on a 45% angle. Now release your wrists, arms and shoulders through the ball on an inside to out swingpath with full extension through the ball.

Hope this helps
Brian

[tpg1965]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Start your downswing by rotating your hips and dropping your arms straight down so that your hands fall to your hip with your right elbow into your waist, ensure your wrists are still set to the same angle as they were at the top of the backswing. The butt end of your club should be pointing at the ball and the club laid back on a 45% angle. Now release your wrists, arms and shoulders through the ball on an inside to out swingpath with full extension through the ball.

Hope this helps
Brian

Excellent reply Brian.
Why would anybody want to start the downswing with the arms and hands , beats me.
If you start the downswing first with a slight shift towards the target with the left knee and then a shift with the left hip, this naturally pulls your arms into the correct position ( TAKE NOTE, MARTIN ).

[golfonenemesis]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

very simple, take an easy slow backswing, use more club than you think you need and start your downswing by pointing the end of the club down the ball to target line.
By starting the downswing the hands first and club last, you will create lag, encourage your wrists to release, and, you will stay down on the shot.
Please let me know how this works.

[GreeBoman]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

Leadbetters pump drill

but this helps you to delay the release...which is not the same this as preventing a cast or flipping the wrists...

[Teevino]

Re: Help how do I stop casting ?

very simple, take an easy slow backswing, use more club than you think you need and start your downswing by pointing the end of the club down the ball to target line.
By starting the downswing the hands first and club last, you will create lag, encourage your wrists to release, and, you will stay down on the shot.
Please let me know how this works.

Slowing down and using more club are great suggestions that have worked in my experience. Any time my swing starts getting crazy I slow it down. Doing this will almost always bring back into my mind the mechanics that were working for me before things got screwy.

I have no problem using a nine where someone else might use a PW either. This keeps me in a more relaxed swing instead of trying to muscle up, or swing harder, to ensure I get the ball "there". I always like to know what the other guy is hitting (experienced others only) because I will more than likely go "at least" one club Up. I love the finesse game. Power is not my bag (and for good reason )..

Mr. Levac, I like your forthright manner. And I believe there is some truth in what you say, maybe a lot of truth. But for me, If I had not adopted at least some technique in my swing I can't see me having achieved much, if any, consistency at all. I do believe that things tend to get way to technical in this forum at times, but I take the best, and usually simplest, suggestions and let them work for me. If I'm ever in Canada, I'd be happy to play a round with you and we could talk some b***s**t together .. BTW, I doubt you are applying force with nothing but your arms, unless of course you are a telephone pole . With arms, that is.