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

[bortass]

1 hour ago, getitdaily said:

This would be good for you to do...15 or 20lb ball is all you need.

 

 

Would a lighter kettlebell work? We have a couple 10 lbers floating around. The weight is really to have the resistance so the hips/pelvis is forced to move more versus being a workout.

[getitdaily]

3 minutes ago, bortass said:

Would a lighter kettlebell work? We have a couple 10 lbers floating around. The weight is really to have the resistance so the hips/pelvis is forced to move more versus being a workout.

Yeah, the 10lb'r will work. And yeah, a kettlebell will work too.

 

It'll help you feel the way the lower body moves laterally and thr weight will also help you feel what trail arm width in the backswing feels like. 

[bortass]

50 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Two things stand out. You need to feel like you make a concerted effort to shift right straight away: shift, turn, shift, turn remember? 

 

The other thing is that you are far too narrow. Feel much more like you're keeping your right arm straight in the backswing. 

 

Pelvis looks better, but a DTL would help. 

 

Good work! 

 

Thanks, I'll keep at it. I noticed the arms breaking down still even though it feels like I have them straighter. It may be just that I'm a bit better than I was in the past but still not there.

[TheDeanAbides]

5 minutes ago, bortass said:

Thanks, I'll keep at it. I noticed the arms breaking down still even though it feels like I have them straighter. It may be just that I'm a bit better than I was in the past but still not there.

I know it's hard to concentrate on several things, but you're making progress. Weirdly, a proper shift into the right leg will probably help set you up for more width because you'll feel like you have the right leg to move into and then push off.

[GoGoErky]

2 hours ago, bortass said:

I snagged this today, regular and slow motion video. It's just a backswing and I feel my pressure go to the right but I am not sure about how this looks overall. It still looks like I'm going left right away but I'm not positive.

 

 

 

Getting the grip in a better position is going to help things wel. The Vs should be between your right ear and right shoulder 

[bortass]

32 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Getting the grip in a better position is going to help things wel. The Vs should be between your right ear and right shoulder 

So a stronger grip? I've been working on getting the handle more into my fingers but that's the only grip related thing I have done recently.

[GoGoErky]

25 minutes ago, bortass said:

So a stronger grip? I've been working on getting the handle more into my fingers but that's the only grip related thing I have done recently.

Yes stronger in both hands. 
 

Do you hold the grip up in the air in front of you or behind your lead leg Ala Adam Scott and Ricki Fowler?

[bortass]

4 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Yes stronger in both hands. 
 

Do you hold the grip up in the air in front of you or behind your lead leg Ala Adam Scott and Ricki Fowler?

Up in the air with my wrists hinged so the shaft is straight up and down.

[GoGoErky]

4 minutes ago, bortass said:

Up in the air with my wrists hinged so the shaft is straight up and down.

Try holding it at a 45° then grip it

 

If you have a bad grip, you don’t want a good swing”.

 

Harvey  Penick

[bortass]

25 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Try holding it at a 45° then grip it

 

If you have a bad grip, you don’t want a good swing”.

 

Harvey  Penick

I was gonna make a joke about my bad swing but will refrain.

 

I poked around in my stash of clubs and found a very old Intech weighted swing trainer. I do not know where it came from originally. I recall that I somehow went home with it from the course back in 2008. I didn’t buy it and either found it in the trash or the pro had it and just gave it to me. It has the big molded grip trainer on it. Thing weighs about 3 lbs I think. Makes my wonder if swinging it would help any, lol.

 

Im not sure if I’d be better off buying a clip on grip trainer or using this dinosaur instead.
 

 

[bortass]

This is using the weighted club a few minutes ago....

 

 

 

[getitdaily]

1 hour ago, bortass said:

This is using the weighted club a few minutes ago....

 

 

 

YES!

[TheDeanAbides]

8 hours ago, bortass said:

This is using the weighted club a few minutes ago....

 

 

 

Better. Shoulders are turning a bit flat though. 

[GoGoErky]

12 hours ago, bortass said:

This is using the weighted club a few minutes ago....

 

 

 

Your left hand needs to be a little stronger

[bortass]

@getitdaily The weight of the club seemed to help get me to use my lower body to start moving the club. It doesn't feel right when I did it with my arms only.

 

@TheDeanAbides I noticed that I raise my torso which flattens the shoulders. I will need to keep that in mind. So many things to try and juggle, lol.

 

@GoGoErky I'll see what I can do about the left hand, it has the molded grip trainer and I thought I had my left hand in the right spot. I take it the right hand looks better/fine in that video. 

 

I will use this weighted club to work on my backswing, instead of the 6i I've been using, since it seems to be helping me move a bit better.

[bortass]

Well for some reason the video I tried to upload this morning doesn't want to work, so I dropped in on Youtube.

 

It looks like I got the shoulder turn better but I can't seem to stop my left arm from breaking down at the end even though I feel like I am keeping it straight. I'm not sure if I can get the left hand stronger on this grip. I wonder if I just need to get one of the clip on types and not worry about the grip as much when I use the weighted club.

 

 

 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

Haven't seen a DTL, but I'd say that the reason you're breaking down your left arm is because you're still too deep. The clue is how bent your right arm is. You need to feel like you take your arms straight back along the target line to get more out and up. Your arm swing will be shorter, but you'll have the correct depth and width. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

@bortass Have you ever gone down the arm swing illusion mega-thread rabbit hole? 

 

I ask because for a lot of people, IMHO they get their arms too pinned and deep (which causes excess right arm bend) because they fundamentally are misinterpreting how far the arms should move "across" the body in the swing. Getting through the ASI helped me truly understand the concept of width. 

 

I'd love to see you try this:

 

1. Take your normal address position.
2. Hinge the wrists ~90 degrees to raise the clubhead. 
3. Move your hands vertically 6-12 inches.
4. Move your hands laterally so they're directly in front of your right armpit, or PERHAPS your right shoulder. 
5. Turn your body to your backswing position, WITHOUT changing the relative placement of your arms to your body. 

IMHO if you do this with a camera, you're going to realize that your left arm is basically* straight, your right arm is bent less than 90 degrees, and on camera it looks like a textbook position at the top. 

 

(* Note: the left arm isn't ACTUALLY straight. If you look at AMG / Gears videos, pros are not "keeping their left arm straight" or rigid. They're flexing it, but it's just that's it's generally a limited enough amount of bend that it LOOKS straight visually.)

[bortass]

9 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

@bortass Have you ever gone down the arm swing illusion mega-thread rabbit hole? 

 

I ask because for a lot of people, IMHO they get their arms too pinned and deep (which causes excess right arm bend) because they fundamentally are misinterpreting how far the arms should move "across" the body in the swing. Getting through the ASI helped me truly understand the concept of width. 

 

I'd love to see you try this:

 

1. Take your normal address position.
2. Hinge the wrists ~90 degrees to raise the clubhead. 
3. Move your hands vertically 6-12 inches.
4. Move your hands laterally so they're directly in front of your right armpit, or PERHAPS your right shoulder. 
5. Turn your body to your backswing position, WITHOUT changing the relative placement of your arms to your body. 

IMHO if you do this with a camera, you're going to realize that your left arm is basically* straight, your right arm is bent less than 90 degrees, and on camera it looks like a textbook position at the top. 

 

(* Note: the left arm isn't ACTUALLY straight. If you look at AMG / Gears videos, pros are not "keeping their left arm straight" or rigid. They're flexing it, but it's just that's it's generally a limited enough amount of bend that it LOOKS straight visually.)

Great timing! I'm getting ready to go to the range and get some DTL video that @TheDeanAbides has asked for. I will also try to do what you posted and capture it as well.

[TheDeanAbides]

24 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

@bortass Have you ever gone down the arm swing illusion mega-thread rabbit hole? 

 

I ask because for a lot of people, IMHO they get their arms too pinned and deep (which causes excess right arm bend) because they fundamentally are misinterpreting how far the arms should move "across" the body in the swing. Getting through the ASI helped me truly understand the concept of width. 

 

I'd love to see you try this:

 

1. Take your normal address position.
2. Hinge the wrists ~90 degrees to raise the clubhead. 
3. Move your hands vertically 6-12 inches.
4. Move your hands laterally so they're directly in front of your right armpit, or PERHAPS your right shoulder. 
5. Turn your body to your backswing position, WITHOUT changing the relative placement of your arms to your body. 

IMHO if you do this with a camera, you're going to realize that your left arm is basically* straight, your right arm is bent less than 90 degrees, and on camera it looks like a textbook position at the top. 

 

(* Note: the left arm isn't ACTUALLY straight. If you look at AMG / Gears videos, pros are not "keeping their left arm straight" or rigid. They're flexing it, but it's just that's it's generally a limited enough amount of bend that it LOOKS straight visually.)

I almost made a little video for him to demonstrate this and then saw your post. :)

[bortass]

35 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

@bortass Have you ever gone down the arm swing illusion mega-thread rabbit hole? 

 

I ask because for a lot of people, IMHO they get their arms too pinned and deep (which causes excess right arm bend) because they fundamentally are misinterpreting how far the arms should move "across" the body in the swing. Getting through the ASI helped me truly understand the concept of width. 

 

I'd love to see you try this:

 

1. Take your normal address position.
2. Hinge the wrists ~90 degrees to raise the clubhead. 
3. Move your hands vertically 6-12 inches.
4. Move your hands laterally so they're directly in front of your right armpit, or PERHAPS your right shoulder. 
5. Turn your body to your backswing position, WITHOUT changing the relative placement of your arms to your body. 

IMHO if you do this with a camera, you're going to realize that your left arm is basically* straight, your right arm is bent less than 90 degrees, and on camera it looks like a textbook position at the top. 

 

(* Note: the left arm isn't ACTUALLY straight. If you look at AMG / Gears videos, pros are not "keeping their left arm straight" or rigid. They're flexing it, but it's just that's it's generally a limited enough amount of bend that it LOOKS straight visually.)

Snagged some DTL and will post it later. It needs more editing than the above.

 

now to go try and work on things…

Edited April 16 by bortass

[GoGoErky]

2 hours ago, bortass said:

Well for some reason the video I tried to upload this morning doesn't want to work, so I dropped in on Youtube.

 

It looks like I got the shoulder turn better but I can't seem to stop my left arm from breaking down at the end even though I feel like I am keeping it straight. I'm not sure if I can get the left hand stronger on this grip. I wonder if I just need to get one of the clip on types and not worry about the grip as much when I use the weighted club.

 

 

 

 

You’re wrists are setting late and barely much of a set at that which is why things are braking down at the top once the weight if the club takes over.

 

there appears to be a gap between your forefinger and thumb on your right hand too.

 

are you not able to rotate your left hand a bit more inside to get to see at least 2 knuckles?

[GoGoErky]

18 minutes ago, bortass said:

 

Snagged some DTL and will post it later. It needs more editing than the above.

 

now to go try and work on things…

What drill is this? And what’s the goal of the drill?

[TheDeanAbides]

19 minutes ago, bortass said:

 

IMG_5964.mov 15 MB · 0 downloads

Snagged some DTL and will post it later. It needs more editing than the above.

 

now to go try and work on things…

Whatever you're doing in that video. Don't do that!

[GoGoErky]

1 minute ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Whatever you're doing in that video. Don't do that!

Yeah. I’m curious about this one

[TheDeanAbides]

Just now, GoGoErky said:

Yeah. I’m curious about this one

I think he's got the drill confused. Only thing I can imagine. 

 

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

He was trying to do the arm swing illusion thing that I mentioned. 

 

Which isn't really a "drill". It's just intended to give some sense of what the actual arm structure / width should look like... I wouldn't intend for him to try to use this to hit a ball 😉

 

That said, it looked like he tried to make step 4--move your hands laterally in line with your right armpit--and instead rotated about 15-20 degrees. So I'm not sure it got the full point across. Need to do that without turning.

 

 

[GoGoErky]

16 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

I think he's got the drill confused. Only thing I can imagine. 

 

 

Yeah. I was like that’s not ntc and it’s not the drill Monte posted the other day for better backswing with holding the club in front of you, stand up then lift club overhead, turn and forward bend

[bortass]

Good to know I fubared it, lol.

[bortass]

@TheDeanAbides here's DTL and I slowed down the speed to 30%.