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Posts tagged Swing Video
Simulator up and running
Oct 19th
So I finally setup the simulator. This will be my practice “facility” for the winter. I will get actual rounds on course when the weather cooperates.
The nice thing about the simulator is that it tells me a few keys stats about my swing. It tells me the swing path (inside out, straight or outside in and by how many degrees). It also tells me whether the club face is square at impact or how many degrees closed or open it is, and it tells me my club head speed at impact.
In my practice session today I have confirmed through hard numbers that indeeed the over the top move is basically history. 9 out of 10 swings where either coming in straight or from the inside. 10 percent were coming in from the outside but only by 3 degrees, which is not too bad at all.
The one thing I did notice consistently which bugged me is that on 8 out of 10 swings my club face was open. Most of the time it was open less than 8 degrees (which is still too much), but every once in a while I’d get one open 12 degrees or more. Really annoyed me. On a 160 yard shot, 12 degrees open face will send the ball 12 yards right of target. This is something I will definitely work on. I want the club head coming in square, or maybe even a degree or two closed through impact, with an inside out swing.
Full Release
Oct 16th
With the over-the-top issue a thing of the past it is time to improve other parts of my swing.
Today I tried something while practicing that led to an eye opening experience. I decided to try to create a fuller release.
I recorded two swings with the first one being my normal swing and second being a full release swing. The full release swing looked much better. It encouraged me to get wider in back and in trying to create a fuller release it ended up creating effortless power. It didn’t take any more effort to create a fuller release, but when I played back the videos I was startled by how much more club head speed the full release swing seemed to be generating. I didn’t have a launch monitor handy so I took an old fashioned approach and counted up the frames for the downswing.
The regular down swing took 7 frames. The full release took 5. And yet I wasn’t trying to swing faster. All I was focusing on was making a full release and the speed generated was effortless. I need to see what this does on the range but I was definitely surprised.
Interesting discussion on Golf WRX
Oct 3rd
I’ve been discussing the psychological effect of the ball on the swing over at GolfWRX and some very interesting things have come up. I want to synthesize the best nuggets of information from it, but I recommend reading it.
The Psychological Effect of the Ball on GolfWRX
Ben Hogan helping with the OTT issue
Oct 1st
Today I had a very good ball striking and ended up hitting a lot of greens. Here’s what I did that I believe made a huge difference.
In “5 Lessons” Ben Hogan writes about keeping the left arm tight to the chest on the downswing.
So I started playing around with this. How tight do I keep it there? What’s the best way to do that?
One of the reasons I thought to do this was that I noticed on my OTT actual swings that the arms begin racing towards the ball. And I thought, hmm, if I keep my left arm tight to the chest as long as possible, then the arms can’t race ahead.
So I videotaped some swings then I went to bed last night.
This morning I got up to play around. The course I went to had no driving range, so I couldn’t warm up the swing that way, but I knew the one swing thought that I would keep in mind througout the round. Keep the left arm tight to the chest. I used a little visualization on my swings, almost feeling as if the left arm got superglued to my body at the top of the backswing.
I felt super-connected throughout the swing, and even though I had my share of errant shots, I was striking the ball more solid than usual, especially with the driver where I hit a few enourmous drives on a cold day into the wind a lot of the time. My irons were really crisp and I felt the way I did on my practice swings. I meant to do the post swing analysis where I rated the shots on how close they were to my practice swing, but I forgot to do that.
Tomorrow I will go to the range with the camera and hit some balls like this, but I have a feeling that it will be good news.
The Practice Swing/Actual Swing Dillema
Sep 21st
I have been talking about this issue now for a while. I wanted to show exactly what is going on so that you see the extent of the problem. I also want you to keep in mind that with the actual swing, I still manage to hit the ball reasonable long and straight.
I would love to hear opinions on what you think is causing this, and of course I am very open to suggestions on how to fix it.
Practice Swing
Actual Swing
The hardest thing to do in golf
Sep 20th
The hardest thing for me to do in the entire game of golf is to have my actual swing look like my practice swing. This is the one thing that I believe will completely transform the game for me when I achieve it.
I had an awesome practice session today. Recorded a lot of 9-iron swings and driver swings. The same thing that I’ve written about kept happening over and over. I would have a beautiful practice swing, and I would follow it with an over the top swing. There were several times when I could have sworn that my actual swing matched the practice swing, until I looked at the video. On those shots were I thought I nailed it, I hit some really solid iron shots. But when I checked the video, still an over the top swing. Ugh!
When it came time to hit driver, I knew I was going to be over the top, the only question was how much over the top. I still managed to hit some bombs. Long, straight and with the right trajectory, from an “ugly” OTT move.
Tim said that it takes 10,000 swings to ingrain a golf move. I’ve heard other theories. 60 reps a day for 21 days. Don’t know which is true. What I do know is that a practice swing is easy and a thing of beauty, and then you put a ball in front of me and I have this urge to HIT IT.
What shocks me is that even with an OTT move I hit the ball as solidly as I do. I wonder if it is going to take me months or years to change this. I know this is a key to great golf .
A friend on Golf Channel’s “The Golf Fix”
Sep 18th
One of my friends, Tim Richman sent his swing to the Golf Fix and it actually aired. You can see the swing below:
He wrote the following message to Michael Breed:
Michael,
Here’s a video of my golf swing in slow-motion. I am very consistent with my driver…and I hit a nice draw – but my iron shots are mediocre at times. My consistent flaw is that I either pull or top my irons. PLEASE HELP!
Thanks, love the show,
Tim from Irvington, NY
During the show, Michale viewed the video from the top of the back swing and said that the shaft was too steep on the way down. He suggested that Tim hit balls off a tee with the driver taking slow, half-swings, to get the feeling of a shallower plane.
I think Michael Breed was right on. It is important to get on a shallower plane. Most amateurs (myself included come into the ball way too steep). If you watch the pros, many of them have a steep back backswing and transition into a flat downswing. Below is the swing of Rickie Fowler. What you’ll notice is how flat both his backswing and his downswing are. Now, this is an extreme example. I have never seen anyone with a swing this flat. But it works for Rickie and allows him to really power through the ball.
