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**stianvm** · 07-19-2006, 11:21 PM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

Wish i had some useful tips for you, but i aint much of an error spotter when it comes to swinging. But i have one tip for you, take the cam to the driving range and film hitting golfballs instead of airballs, since that paints a clearer picture of the swing.

But for whatever its worth, the swing looks pretty good

**lgskywalker37** · 07-20-2006, 04:26 AM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

from what I see is that your swing is really flat. look at this website for the shoulder tap http://www.newgolfswing.com/newgolfswing06.php

that should get you bit steeper and you come from the top look at this video, i think it might help you stop that http://www.ritson-sole.com/golftips/2005/sept05.htm

you need to drop your hand vertically before you start to unwind, that could also help you casting, it seems you have started releasing when you hands are waist high read this link also I think to help you start from the top http://www.newgolfswing.com/newgolfswing07.php all this is helping you do is delaying the unwinding, you have worked so hard to get a tight coil why unwind from the top when you can keep your coil later in the swing and then explode. you watch most pros and they are still have abou 45 deg of hip to shoulder winding while their hands are waist high in the downswing, then they unwind..... that is where lag and power comes from.

that helps you start with the body and have "wooden arms" intill about hands are about waist high and retain that "eternal tirangle" as long as possible.

i also like gregs RHD http://members.cox.net/gregjwillis/LESSON1.htm
and impact drill.

you seem to also move your head a bit in the backswing (you move it back to were it was at impact) so that is good, but that can lead to inconsitancy. it is hard at first to not move your head if you are used to it, but you will find you have a tighter coil it you keep it still.

other than that it looks good to me you will find that when you learn to "drop it in the slot" that you will go a lot further and it will feel more effortless.

i am no pro, but that is what i see, hope it helps

**detonum** · 07-20-2006, 07:03 PM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

stianvm: good idea, but kind of hard to do, since i have quite an old digicam that can take only 40 seconds of video, and I don't have a laptop.

lgskywalker37: thanks for the well thought reply.

I went to the range today, at first I just concentrated on fixing my swing plane. According to the shoulder tap it's correct now. Once I had that down, I didn't see much of a change except for a slice. Also I tried to keep my head more still.

Then I started trying to drop my hands abit before I start moving my hips. It was hard at first but the "hand dropping" is getting easier... my shots started getting very straight, but my clubhead still mashes to the ground/mat after the ball and leaves the short and deep divot, where the club head almost stops or slows down a bit. I must be doing something quite wrong. Do you have any idea what it could be?

Also, I'm losing alot of that "tight coil" (uncomfortable, stretchy feeling) with the hand dropping. Am I doing it wrong?

**lgskywalker37** · 07-20-2006, 11:46 PM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

Originally posted by detonum

Then I started trying to drop my hands abit before I start moving my hips. It was hard at first but the "hand dropping" is getting easier... my shots started getting very straight, but my clubhead still mashes to the ground/mat after the ball and leaves the short and deep divot, where the club head almost stops or slows down a bit. I must be doing something quite wrong. Do you have any idea what it could be?

Also, I'm losing alot of that "tight coil" (uncomfortable, stretchy feeling) with the hand dropping. Am I doing it wrong?

as far as your club hitting the ground after the ball is always good, but mats can be decieving make ablsolutely sure that the divot is after the ball not before.
if you look at that link i gave you in the 3rd pargraph that might help with you keeping of the coil. when you are at the top of your swing you should have around 45 deg X factor (hip to shoulder ratio). in your downswing you start out from the ground up as you have probly heard and then as that link says with the Tsquare method moving your left hip foward untill it naturally unwinds brings the shoulders with it and your x factor will still be 45 when you hands are waist high and then you release with your right side all that stored up power. the tsquare hip tilt should let the hand drop normally into the slot and then let you fier through the ball with your right side and that should help you get a full high release with good extension

i like this website http://www.golfinternationalmag.co.u...wermoves17.htm
and this is an exelent picture of releaseing of the club
http://www.golfinternationalmag.co.u...wermoves15.htm

read all his power moves if you want here http://www.golfinternationalmag.co.u...aker/index.htm

**detonum** · 07-22-2006, 09:10 AM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

Thanks again lgskywalker37.

I went to the range again and started keeping that coil longer on the downswing. I noticed that when i keep the coil longer (to about waist high) my wrists don't release early, so I get that lag. Also when my hands just drop, I'm not getting that much of the deep divot feeling. I hit one shot with my 7 iron that was just off the charts for my distances (which are not very long), perhaps I'm onto something

Also, my shots are now a draw or straight.

I'll work on the swing some more, and in a couple of days I'm going to video my swing again to see the progress.

**detonum** · 07-23-2006, 11:09 AM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

Okay, I've got the new videos.

I think my position at the top could be even more higher.
If I stop the frames at impact and the one before it, I can see that I have that nice lag in the wrist release.

My head does still move a little bit in the backswing.

Comments will be appreciated!

This time I uploaded it in two formats: quicktime video (mov) and avi. It's easier to watch individual frames in quicktime player so I uploaded it too.

http://www.tommikaikkonen.com/swing2.mov

http://www.tommikaikkonen.com/swing2.avi

**Martin Levac** · 07-24-2006, 10:39 AM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

I think I see what could go wrong as soon as you begin hitting balls.

The major difference between swinging freely and hitting a ball is the deceleration the clubhead is subjected to when it hits the ball.

Free swing, no deceleration.

Hitting a ball, deceleration.

This deceleration helps control the club past the point of impact so there's less need of extensive movement or superfluous force to bring the club to a halt on the follow-through. As you swing the club freely, you don't have this help so you must do something extra to bring the club to a halt. You must expect to put in extra efforts to bring the club to a halt which you wouldn't do if you were to hit a ball instead. This could force you to turn the shoulders more than what's normally required on the downswing and follow-through. It could force you to turn the hips more than what's required, also on the downswing and follow-through. If you were to hit a ball instead, you'd expect to put in less effort because of the help that this deceleration would bring.

This excess turn that you normally don't do if you hit a ball will cause all sorts of misshap with the clubhead. It could help produce a slice, it could help produce an out to in swing plane, it could force you to take your eyes off the ball earlier than what you'd normally do. It could force you to believe that the free swing is the result you must arrive at when you actually hit a ball with the club. That's exactly the mistake I made very early. The true result is when I hit a ball and after, everything else is secondary to that result.

I learned about all these potential and sometimes real effects gradually as I practiced more and more hitting balls at the range. I compared what I used to do as I swung the club freely during the first winter after I started playing golf to what I now do during my extensive practice sessions.

Bear in mind that this deceleration that I speak of is quite significant, on the order of about 40% of velocity before impact. Such a significant amount of deceleration makes quite a difference in the perceived weight of the club as you swing it, especially around the impact area where the club normally feels heaviest because that's where it normally moves the fastest as well. This difference in perceived weight will certainly cause a significant difference in the effort you put in to control the club at and after impact or what would be impact if you were to hit a ball instead.

Even if you can't practice at a range, it would be preferable to hit balls in a net indoors at your house or elsewhere so you could learn about this deceleration and learn to trust it to do its part in bringing the club to a halt on the follow-through.

I thought I had a beautiful swing and people told me so frequently when I played but that makes no difference whatsoever when the only thing that matters is the result, where the ball ends up. Now I don't care about what others think of my swing, I don't even care about it myself, all I care about is proper contact with the ball and where the ball ends up so I swing with that purpose exclusively, not to look good. As a side effect of this focus, I put much less effort in the swing for a much better result, much better than a whole lot of other people's results who put a whole lot more effort than I do.

As you practice hitting balls more and more, you'll come to change your expectation of the effort you must put in to bring the club to a halt on the follow-through. By changing your expectation of the effort you must put in at impact and after to bring the club to a halt, you also change the preparation you do in anticipation of this effort. This preparation could make the difference between a clean hit and a slice. It will also become less important to prepare for what happens after impact so you'll be able to focus more on what happens before impact and put more effort there and that could only be a good thing since what happens before impact is more important anyway.

It's the difference between looking good and producing good results.

Martin Levac

**Laserman** · 07-26-2006, 03:37 AM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

Hi,

It's kinda hard to see your hands in the video But My bad shot is a hook also. Try gripping the club with the V's a bit more forward to Your left than normal which is called a weak grip. If You consistently hit hooks and You switch to this grip You will soon discover if it's a grip problem or a Swing problem. Just by switching to this "Weak Grip" my hook has disapeared. The Vs point to Your chin and left shoulder in this grip. Proper grip is more essential than most folks realize. Boring yes, but effective!!

Barry

**detonum** · 07-26-2006, 04:32 AM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

That's very interesting, Martin, and possibly true. I can't really hit balls at home, so perhaps I should take my camera to the range sometime to see what I do when I actually hit a ball.
I was looking at Tiger Woods' ultra slow-mo golf swing ( http://www.nike.com/nikegolf/swingpo...gportrait_tout )
and I saw just how the impact decelerates the clubhead.

Thanks for the tip Laserman, I'll give it a try when I have hook problems, we'll see how my swing changes.

Yesterday I had Junior golf practice, and our "coach" there had a look at my swing. We were practicing with the driver, which I am slicing, but I don't with 3 wood, so I was wondering if my swing plane is wrong, or clubhead open. He said that the swing plane was still too flat, and I was taking the backswing too far, which lead to a out-in swing because of my fast hips. He let me work on that for a while, then he instructed me to go closer to the ball at address. That worked; I started hitting really crisp and straight shots!
I'll work on those things for now.

**msklar92** · 07-26-2006, 01:01 PM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

You have a nice basic fluid swing. The main problem I see is that you are getting your hands way behind you. When this happens, You have to pull the club through. Since the club lags behind you are always playing catch up and can cause a hook or push depending on how fast your hands are. There is a large separation of the elbows on the back swing. Basically elbows should remain the same distance apart throughout the swing. Try the feeling of cusping your right wrist back on the backswing such that it feels as if the palm of your right hand is facing the ground. This may prevent you from fanning the club going back and bringing it more back on a more upright plane. Hope this helps, Mike.

**lgskywalker37** · 07-29-2006, 10:05 PM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

I just got back from vacation the other day but your new and improved swing seems pretty nice, much better than your old swing.

**detonum** · 07-30-2006, 05:28 PM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

Thanks for the replies. After working on the instructions the coach gave me, I was hitting way longer and way crisper than ever before, but then i started noticing that my swing path was out-in once again. I tried to let my hips be more active, but it didn't work. I tried hitting more from the inside with my hands..It just didn't work. I occasionally hit some draws, but those were just lottery wins.
So today I went to my backyard once again and filmed my swing. I noticed some improvement, my swing plane was more upright and shorter. But something made the swing out-in. I couldn't tell.

Then I read your reply again, msklar92. I had not given it much thought because I was working on my coaches instructions. I looked at the seperation of my elbows in the backswing in the video I filmed. So I tried a couple of practice swings at home, keeping in mind the distance between elbows, not letting the right elbow drift away. I looked at the mirror, and it made my backswing much more upright. Also in the downswing, it felt much more free to swing the club. My right elbow was propably blocking that from happening freely. I went outside and filmed my swing with the correct elbow distance, apparently my backswing and downswing felt too free now, my club was going way past parallel! Im going to have to keep the backswing really short now.

Could the right elbow be causing the slice? If the right elbow gets left to the side and far away from the left elbow, when i start turning and my hands move towards impact, the right elbow cannot go through my body so it goes to the outside, causing my left arm to pull, and therefore the out-in swing..
I'm gonna try it on the range tomorrow. I'll tell you how it goes.

**detonum** · 08-02-2006, 06:39 PM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

TRULY GLORIOUS NEWS, my friends!
I have just added ALOT of metres to my distances, and fixed my slice at the same time!
It was not the elbow thing. Although it did help my swing some amount, it was not it.
In some thread in this forum, I read that you should try to keep your back to the target as you start the downswing. I read it this evening and went to try it out on the range.

It was a success. It made me keep that tension I built in the backswing alot longer, and it made my hands fall down "in to the slot" as I moved my hips to the left.
I previously hit my 4 hybrid (22 loft I think) some 150 meters on the course (about 160 yards i think) now the shots roll close to the back net of my range (about 230 meters to there, that's about 250 yards), and range balls are alot shorter in long distances than the better golf balls that I use on course, atleast so I have experienced.
Pitching wedge was over 110 meters. Atleast 100 meters in the air.

Even slight mishits go quite far. I now hit a straight or a draw. Bad shot is a hook, I pushed a couple of times though (wasn't a huge push though). 80% of the shots were straight/slight draw. I didn't slice even once. I think I faded one, but it might have just been a push.

I'm just completely amazed at my new distances. Just, wow.

**gman4500** · 08-04-2006, 11:37 AM

Re: Criticise my golf swing

Yeah, matts at the range can mess you up unless just hitting a driver off the tee. You need to hit off the ground imho.