My Road to Improvement - 7/9/25 new swing video

[bortass]

@TheDeanAbides You forget that I'm a bit slow and thus must grovel for information. What do you mean by losing hip depth? Is hip depth created when I push the right hip and and into the wall and on the downswing I also push the left hip up and back against the wall? I just want to make sure I understand, so I can research the correct thing.

[getitdaily]

2 minutes ago, bortass said:

@TheDeanAbides You forget that I'm a bit slow and thus must grovel for information. What do you mean by losing hip depth? Is hip depth created when I push the right hip and and into the wall and on the downswing I also push the left hip up and back against the wall? I just want to make sure I understand, so I can research the correct thing.

 

 

[getitdaily]

 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

12 minutes ago, bortass said:

@TheDeanAbides You forget that I'm a bit slow and thus must grovel for information. What do you mean by losing hip depth? Is hip depth created when I push the right hip and and into the wall and on the downswing I also push the left hip up and back against the wall? I just want to make sure I understand, so I can research the correct thing.

Yeah, your right hip is moving off the wall as you approach the top. Watch your right butt cheek in slow motion as you move to the top. 

 

 

 

[bortass]

3 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Yeah, your right hip is moving off the wall as you approach the top. Watch your right butt cheek in slow motion as you move to the top. 

 

 

 

Thanks! I wanted to make sure I wasn't off base with the terminology.

Edited March 19 by bortass

[GoGoErky]

26 minutes ago, bortass said:

@TheDeanAbides You forget that I'm a bit slow and thus must grovel for information. What do you mean by losing hip depth? Is hip depth created when I push the right hip and and into the wall and on the downswing I also push the left hip up and back against the wall? I just want to make sure I understand, so I can research the correct thing.

You’re not pushing into the wall. Use the tree in the background. When you are at setup your blocking it and at the top of the backswing the tree is clearly visible 

[bortass]

10 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

You’re not pushing into the wall. Use the tree in the background. When you are at setup your blocking it and at the top of the backswing the tree is clearly visible 

I see it now that you point it out. Time for the wall drill.

[getitdaily]

If you don't have a tour striker smart ball then I highly encourage you to get one...

[bortass]

1 hour ago, getitdaily said:

If you don't have a tour striker smart ball then I highly encourage you to get one...

I do and have never really used it. I’ll have to look into how to best use it.

[getitdaily]

2 minutes ago, bortass said:

I do and have never really used it. I’ll have to look into how to best use it.

See how your lead arm goes away from you in the takeaway and your trail elbow moves away from the ball? No bueno.

 

Stick that smart ball between your forearms and hit 90% of your practice balls with it. It'll give you the feeling of keeping those arms working closer together and will likely help reduce that outside takeaway.

[TheDeanAbides]

7 hours ago, getitdaily said:

See how your lead arm goes away from you in the takeaway and your trail elbow moves away from the ball? No bueno.

 

Stick that smart ball between your forearms and hit 90% of your practice balls with it. It'll give you the feeling of keeping those arms working closer together and will likely help reduce that outside takeaway.

He's doing much better though. He's one of those players who's fought an inside takeaway by taking it outside, but then pulls it way inside and rolls the forearms from there. It's so hard to correct that because there are two opposing errors, but you're correct to note it. At least he's ending up with his arms in a playable P4 whereas he most definitely wasn't before. 

 

Pelvis is still the priority though. 

Edited March 20 by TheDeanAbides

[getitdaily]

4 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

He's doing much better though. He's one of those players who's fought an inside takeaway by taking it outside, but then pulls it way inside and rolls the forearms from there. It's so hard to correct that because there are two opposing errors, but you're correct to note it. At least he's ending up with his arms in a playable P4 whereas he most definitely wasn't before. 

 

Pelvis is still the priority though. 

Agree the hips need work. But that takeaway fights what he needs his pelvis to do.

 

I see the same arm structure as what he posted in April 2022...

 

 

 

Imo...for the next 3-4 months he should do the following

 

1. 90% of his shots and drills get done using the smart ball. He can cleanup that arm structure while working on hips.

2. I'm not a fan of the wall drill because it limits the exaggeration needed. He should really exaggerate hip depth by forcing his trail hip back as far as he can get it and use video with a line on his butt to see the real of that exaggeration.  The monte video I linked...exaggerate trail hip deeper than the butt line at address and then exaggeration of the lead hip deeper in transition

3. Exaggerate that transition loop behind drill I linked from Jake hutt.

 

The steps...

1. Slow backswing using smart ball focusing on exaggerated hip depth. Staying slow, exaggerate the jake hutt move WHILE exaggerating lead hip depth. Slow and exaggerated to p5. Then stop. 

2. Do 1 again

3. Do 1 again

4. Hit a shot full pace. 

5. Restart at 1

 

Record every 3 or 4 full.swings and see how those full swings look. Depending on how frequently he can hit balls, he could see small change in 2-3 weeks...enough to reinforce the drills are working.

Edited March 20 by getitdaily

[iacas]

Grip, setup, and 9 to 3 drills for awhile. Don't under-estimate what you can accomplish in 3:00 at a time, five times throughout the day in a mirror.

 

@bortass you need some form of feedback. Mirror. Video. Some sticks on or in the ground. Ball between the arms, sure.

 

Gonna be a matter of willpower: doing this long enough, slow enough, etc. to actually make the change.

 

It's not complicated. But it's also not easy.

[bortass]

@TheDeanAbides @getitdaily @iacas Thanks for all the input. I am slowly realizing I have had my head buried in the sand. I had noticed that my old swing videos from over  a decade ago showed the same issues my more recent videos contain. The obvious reason is it's because I didn't actually make any real motor pattern improvements. I just didn't accept that I've been a bit delusional the last 5 years.  I worked on stuff but it had a couple flaws IMO.

 

It was disjointed in that I thought my backswing was okay, so I dabbled with Cast A and B from NTC. First off, dabbling doesn't get the job done. Second while I have issues with both of those wrist movements, they are not the earliest issues in my swing chain. A lot of my full swing 'work' fell into those two traps. My gains with driver and slight gains with approaches during that timeframe is most likely from all the reps and figuring out how to get a little better with getting the club on the ball with my swing, not because I made a fundamental swing change.

 

@TheDeanAbides and @berndgeurts both told me years ago to do mirror work which ties into what @iacas wrote with the 3:00 five times a day. I have never been on board with that, after all the range is where you make the changes! Well, that is a fallacy that I am finally understanding. My office in the new house is big enough that I can grab a club and do some slow work w/o a ball. I could swing a club if I wanted but I do not want to have the missus kill me if I FUBAR and either hit a wall or damage the floor. I have been taking a few minutes here and there throughout the day to try to work on my backswing. Sometimes with a club but never with a ball. I'm also aware of the science behind it's better to practice 15 minutes on three days versus 45 minutes at once.

 

What all this means, is I am starting to actually try to change the motor pattern in a more realistic way. My plan is to keep working on things w/o a ball a few times a day for a few minutes at a time when I can.  I still will go to the range and hit balls but it won't be a daily thing. I don't want to write off the range completely since I still play once a week and don't have a simulator to hit in at the house. 

 

None of this is going to be easy. It'll take who knows how long but I'm confident if I stick with it, lasting changes can be made. I got lucky that just the feel of shifting right at the start of my backswing seems to have improved how I hit the ball with my driver. I am very cognizant that changes may not have a quick positive impact and things can go south on the course before it gets better. 

 

I'm a much better golfer than when I came back to the game at the end of 2019 but it's not because I made big strides in swing improvement. My swing is my largest limiting factor and it's time to try to make it better.  

[TheDeanAbides]

That realisation is the first step, Boris. I think I said it on @betarhoalphadelta's thread - you have to be excited and interested in the new movements. Even though I can't swing a club in anger, there's rarely a time when I see my reflection in any mirror or window when I'm not checking something in my swing for a minute or two. That curiosity is what changes things because it means you're willing to be uncomfortable enough to change and grow.  

[swh0507]

5 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Even though I can't swing a club in anger

Can you expand on what you mean by this? 

[virtuoso]

15 minutes ago, swh0507 said:

Can you expand on what you mean by this? 

I suspect that Deano is using racing driver language. It means putting the car on the limit. So here he would mean a full swing at 100% of effort.

[Nels55]

I suspect that "swing a club in anger" means he can't hit a ball with a club at that moment because he is not playing golf.  It's an old saying that I have heard over the years applied to various sports for instance; "swing a bat in anger".

[swh0507]

57 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

I suspect that Deano is using racing driver language. It means putting the car on the limit. So here he would mean a full swing at 100% of effort.

Ok makes sense. I was hoping he was about to drop some "big hitter the llama" zen bombs on us.

[TheDeanAbides]

 

1 hour ago, swh0507 said:

Can you expand on what you mean by this? 

 

57 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

I suspect that Deano is using racing driver language. It means putting the car on the limit. So here he would mean a full swing at 100% of effort.

 

9 minutes ago, Nels55 said:

I suspect that "swing a club in anger" means he can't hit a ball with a club at that moment because he is not playing golf.  It's an old saying that I have heard over the years applied to various sports for instance; "swing a bat in anger".

 

And the winner is... Nels55! Woop! Woop! 

 

Yeah, I've hit 25 balls at something approaching full speed in the last four years. Really hoping this year is the year my body allows me to play again.

[Chip Duffer]

Bortass, the new videos show you’re definitely working to improve and are making progress. The previous posters comments about the right hip are spot on.

When I was making adjustments to eliminate sliding forward my pro had me focus more on the right leg and hip being stable by feeling my right cheek firm up. As I worked on this a couple of things improved as a result. It didn’t allow me to bring the club back flat or

inside too much. Inoticed my hands were moving back on my toe line and more vertical, rather than outside it or across it to the inside. That’s where I would have to come OTT or get “stuck” and end up with a two way miss.(block or nasty hook)

 

A few times I even put a golf ball in my back right pocket to exaggerate the sense of setting into the right hip and cheek.

 

For a while, I practiced by trying to mimic what Henric Stenson does. After addressing the ball, his “trigger” is to settle into his right hip, then the backswing begins. This helped me minimize sliding forward and staying centered through the bottom of the swing.

 

We’re in your corner Bortass!

[PNWGuy]

19 hours ago, bortass said:

...My office in the new house is big enough that I can grab a club and do some slow work w/o a ball. I could swing a club if I wanted but I do not want to have the missus kill me if I FUBAR and either hit a wall or damage the floor.

 

If you haven't broken anything inside your house while practicing you aren't trying hard enough.

[bortass]

Snap shot from Arccos on my distances based on last 100 shots with that club. Ignore the 60*, it’s not in my bag and I don’t use 14 clubs. Only capturing this in case I actually change my swing some, so I can compare. 

 

[bortass]

A rough day, 52*/46, 98 with an X on #4.

 

I was losing driver to the right until #6 when I started to make myself release the club head. My wrists are pretty passive and I tend to hit push fades. Once I got the wrists going I mostly hit draws with decent distance. It also seemed to help my approach shots too.

 

Partial wedges were good and short game was decent. 
 

Putting sucked and I had four penalties. Three with driver in the first six holes and then one with 5i on a par 3 on the back.

 

I focused on my grip, felt myself start the swing with a shift to the right, and felt like I kept my arms in a better place on the backswing. All of that to say, my swing didn’t feel normal but once I started to use my wrists ala Cast B my ball striking got better. That’s a lot of stuff to deal with, so I’m not surprised about my issues.

 

I do feel okay with how I hit the ball. Overall it was better than usual and driver was okay after 6. It’s progress IMO. Too bad I putt like 💩.

 

I have an 87 rolling off and my index will be 20.0 tomorrow unless PCC kicks in, which is unlikely.

[Chunkitgood]

Or as suggested in the comments to Cowen’s video you can have the idea of hitting with the back of the heel/hosel.   Centrifugal force (yeah, I know it’s fictitious) will close the face if you let it.

[bortass]

On 3/22/2025 at 9:49 PM, Chunkitgood said:

Or as suggested in the comments to Cowen’s video you can have the idea of hitting with the back of the heel/hosel.   Centrifugal force (yeah, I know it’s fictitious) will close the face if you let it.

I'm still trying to figure out what he's doing in the video but want to comment on the bold part. Something I have discovered on a couple of occasions now is I do not "let things happen". Long time ago, and I may still do this, I had a reverse roll and held the face open. Recently we've seen that my lower body doesn't do much in my golf swing. Some people might say, pivot correctly and the lower body will do what it needs to. Me: it's not going to do anything because I won't let it happen because I'm unaware that it's supposed to move a certain way.

 

It's kinda dumb IMO but I seem to need to get myself to actively do something at first otherwise I will do enough to prevent it from happening. Chalk it up to ignorance, lol.

Edited March 24 by bortass

[betarhoalphadelta]

1 hour ago, bortass said:

I'm still trying to figure out what he's doing in the video but want to comment on the bold part. Something I have discovered on a couple of occasions now is I do not "let things happen". Long time ago, and I may still do this, I had a reverse roll and held the face open. Recently we've seen that my lower body doesn't do much in my golf swing. Some people might say, pivot correctly and the lower body will do what it needs to. Me: it's not going to do anything because I won't let it happen because I'm unaware that it's supposed to move a certain way.

 

It's kinda dumb IMO but I seem to need to get myself to actively do something at first otherwise I will do enough to prevent it from happening. Chalk it up to ignorance, lol.

 

This is something I'd love to see some discussion...

 

I definitely agree with you that there are certain things that you just don't "let happen" and hope for the best. It goes back to all the discussion in this forum about things being "natural". No. For most players, what is natural is bad, and needs to be fixed. 

 

That said, I wonder where in the swing--if ever--you have to just let go and let it happen. I.e. at that point doing anything actively is just getting in the way of the swing. Maybe P5? Maybe P6? I.e. if you've done the right things before then, everything's happening so fast that anything you do only screws things up. 

 

For example, I'm reminded of the lesson my son had with Monte. He was hitting everything low. Monte pretty quickly diagnosed that everything up until about P5/P6 was good, and then my son was sort of inexplicably "sawing off" his swing. He showed him follow through pictures DTL of Rory and compared them to my son, where Rory had high hands visible above his shoulder and my son--not so much. So he had my son focus on getting that full follow through with hands high and suddenly he started making better contact and hitting much higher apex. Not until the ride home, but I eventually discovered my son may have been trying to "hold lag" and thus was inhibiting the release of the club, when all he had to do--because what preceded it looked good--was let physics take over. 

 

I have another buddy who constantly focuses on timing "the snap of the wrists" through impact thinking it's the key to hitting it farther. He thinks he needs to do something active there, but when I look at his swing, he's got so many power leaks beforehand that if he fixed them and just let physics take over and ignored anything through impact, he'd add 20+ yards. 

 

For me, I know there are things I do well, and things I need to fix. But I just figure that anything after P5/P6 is a result, and that anything I try to do to actively manipulate from there to impact is only likely to screw things up. If I want to fix something, it's gotta happen before then, and then physics will take over through the hitting zone.

 

Is that correct? I have no clue... Hence why I'm asking the question rather than declaring it so 😉 

 

[GoGoErky]

1 hour ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

That said, I wonder where in the swing--if ever--you have to just let go and let it happen. I.e. at that point doing anything actively is just getting in the way of the swing. Maybe P5? Maybe P6? I.e. if you've done the right things before then, everything's happening so fast that anything you do only screws things up. 

Things won’t just happen usually if your body doesn’t know how to do them. We can use Monte’s efficient swing series and drill one. It’s about the wrists and getting them to work properly. When swinging properly they will set the way they are supposed to, but that doesn’t happen for most golfers so drill one teaches the wrists what they need to do.

 

Same on tension/downswing. Being a good position at p4 makes p5 and beyond easier to happen, but it’s not a guarantee. Cast A, the Justin rose drill are things that teach the body what to do. 

Cast B is something that should happen if cast A is done properly, but as Monte says if it’s not happening then work on cast b, again to teach your body how to do it.

 

So if something isn’t just happening you have to teach it.

 

1 hour ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

For me, I know there are things I do well, and things I need to fix. But I just figure that anything after P5/P6 is a result, and that anything I try to do to actively manipulate from there to impact is only likely to screw things up. If I want to fix something, it's gotta happen before then, and then physics will take over through the hitting zone.

 

Is that correct? I have no clue... Hence why I'm asking the question rather than declaring it so 😉 

Anything after p4 is a result of what you’ve done before that. The swing is half over at p3 and you have approximately .25 seconds from the top of the swing to impact. Anything you try to do at that point will happen sometime after impact 

[betarhoalphadelta]

3 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

Things won’t just happen usually if your body doesn’t know how to do them. We can use Monte’s efficient swing series and drill one. It’s about the wrists and getting them to work properly. When swinging properly they will set the way they are supposed to, but that doesn’t happen for most golfers so drill one teaches the wrists what they need to do.

 

Same on tension/downswing. Being a good position at p4 makes p5 and beyond easier to happen, but it’s not a guarantee. Cast A, the Justin rose drill are things that teach the body what to do. 

Cast B is something that should happen if cast A is done properly, but as Monte says if it’s not happening then work on cast b, again to teach your body how to do it.

 

So if something isn’t just happening you have to teach it.

---

3 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

Anything after p4 is a result of what you’ve done before that. The swing is half over at p3 and you have approximately .25 seconds from the top of the swing to impact. Anything you try to do at that point will happen sometime after impact 

 

These two could be taken as being in conflict. If anything you try to do at say, P5 or P6 will happen sometime after impact, one might think that the forces you set in motion from address->P5 are things that you can change while P5->impact is already predestined by what came before. I.e. at that point you just let it happen. 

 

Note: I don't entirely agree with the idea that you can't control things after P4 in the swing. I do agree that you can't decide to try something halfway through your downswing and make a difference. Your conscious thought -> muscle control system doesn't work that fast. But I think you can pre-decide to do something which does allow you to make changes on the downswing. I.e. if you decide before you swing that you're going to decelerate and stop your swing starting from P5 before you reach impact, you absolutely CAN do it,even if everything you did up until P5 resembled your normal swing. Whereas if you decide at P5 that you're going to stop your swing before impact--ain't gonna happen. 

 

And Cast A and Cast B occur after P4, so obviously he's thinking you can learn to actively do something there. 

 

What I'm wondering is if there's a certain point in the swing that all active control is bad? Let's say P6->impact. At that point can you affirmatively be taught to actively DO something useful in the swing? Or at that point are the forces of physics at work essentially already in motion and all you need to do is hang on for dear life and let them work? And that if you're actively trying to do anything, it's more likely that you're working in opposition to those forces and screwing things up. If something isn't good from P6->impact, it's either "stop doing that, you idiot!" or "well to fix this we have to fix something that precedes P6"? 

 

I can say from Monte's lesson with my son, it was a "stop doing that, you idiot!" lesson--not that he said that, of course. But when my idiot son stopped doing it, he got a LOT better 😉

 

[GoGoErky]

23 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

These two could be taken as being in conflict. If anything you try to do at say, P5 or P6 will happen sometime after impact, one might think that the forces you set in motion from address->P5 are things that you can change while P5->impact is already predestined by what came before. I.e. at that point you just let it happen. 

 

Note: I don't entirely agree with the idea that you can't control things after P4 in the swing. I do agree that you can't decide to try something halfway through your downswing and make a difference. Your conscious thought -> muscle control system doesn't work that fast. But I think you can pre-decide to do something which does allow you to make changes on the downswing. I.e. if you decide before you swing that you're going to decelerate and stop your swing starting from P5 before you reach impact, you absolutely CAN do it,even if everything you did up until P5 resembled your normal swing. Whereas if you decide at P5 that you're going to stop your swing before impact--ain't gonna happen. 

 

And Cast A and Cast B occur after P4, so obviously he's thinking you can learn to actively do something there. 

Anything you intend to do at p5 needs to be thoughts of and planned before you get to p4.

 

cast A is a move that happens later in the swing than when it actually happens in the swing. This is what the drill starts at transition in the ntc drill series so

that you can do them early enough for them to happen at the right point in the swing. If you tried to do cast A later in the swing you wouldn’t do it in time. After transition your pretty much not

changing anything in the downswing before impact.

 

27 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

What I'm wondering is if there's a certain point in the swing that all active control is bad? Let's say P6->impact. At that point can you affirmatively be taught to actively DO something useful in the swing? Or at that point are the forces of physics at work essentially already in motion and all you need to do is hang on for dear life and let them work? And that if you're actively trying to do anything, it's more likely that you're working in opposition to those forces and screwing things up. If something isn't good from P6->impact, it's either "stop doing that, you idiot!" or "well to fix this we have to fix something that precedes P6"? 

Impact is a reaction tow where the club is at in transition/downswing.

 

as Monte points out the most important thing in the swing is transition. Its har fro get a good transition without a good backswing. So you need to set yourself up in the backswing to give yourself a chance at a good transition. Once you you transition that’s it.