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

[bortass]

7 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Can you explain what you mean by straight back?

 

is that down the target line or something else?

Yeah, feel versus real. I will try my best to explain.

 

My stock swing has me taking the club too far inside and flat. It's been an issue forever that I have never been able to fix. By straight back, I am trying to keep my hands from going behind me and inside.  Does that make sense?

[bortass]

7 minutes ago, KD1 said:

I see the clubhead seems to be outside my hands when I had the "straight back" feel  versus even with them in the older swing. Am I missing anything else?

[KD1]

3 minutes ago, bortass said:

I see the clubhead seems to be outside my hands when I had the "straight back" feel  versus even with them in the older swing. Am I missing anything else?

 

I don't know how much of it is camera angle but it looks to my eye like your left arm is in a better place.

[GoGoErky]

11 minutes ago, bortass said:

Yeah, feel versus real. I will try my best to explain.

 

My stock swing has me taking the club too far inside and flat. It's been an issue forever that I have never been able to fix. By straight back, I am trying to keep my hands from going behind me and inside.  Does that make sense?

You end up pushing your hands away from you and then roll them and then rotate your whole body which gets them your lead arm low (your lead arm is below your shoulder line) and to an extent flat. You then have to lift and come over the top. Having your right arm bend a lot and tucked so tight isn’t helping either.

 

you need to work on your camera angle too. Camera needs to be at hand height and thru the hands. 
 

The drill Iacas have Brad is probably a good one for you too. You need to feel and have a drastic change in what you are doing 

[bortass]

5 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

You end up pushing your hands away from you and then roll them and then rotate your whole body which gets them your lead arm low (your lead arm is below your shoulder line) and to an extent flat. You then have to lift and come over the top. Having your right arm bend a lot and tucked so tight isn’t helping either.

 

you need to work on your camera angle too. Camera needs to be at hand height and thru the hands. 
 

The drill Iacas have Brad is probably a good one for you too. You need to feel and have a drastic change in what you are doing 

 

Damn, that's what I try to do. The alignment stick/club on the ground is what I use to figure out where to put the camera to be in line with my hands. Guess I'll have to practice my camera setup too, lol.

 

I'll go look at the drill he gave Brad as well.

[bortass]

@GoGoErky

 

This drill:

Quote

Can you do this and show us and yourself the video of you doing this?:

1. Set up without a ball.
2. Without moving your arms at all — just leave them attached to your chest — turn back like the robot below. 90° of turn, arms still stay in the same place attached to the rib cage or whatever.
3. Once you can do that, add a little shoulder lift (still no hinge or elbow bending) to get the arms to roughly the white lines drawn on the robot.
4. Once you can do that… can you do that, pause, and then chip a ball 40 yards?

 

[GoGoErky]

3 minutes ago, bortass said:

@GoGoErky

 

This drill:

 

Yes and if you look in that thread Iacas posted a video doing the drill 

[bortass]

41 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Yes and if you look in that thread Iacas posted a video doing the drill 

I couldn’t find the video but took a quick one of me trying it. My camera was too close and the club gets cutoff. Does this look correct?

 

 

 

[GoGoErky]

1 hour ago, bortass said:

I couldn’t find the video but took a quick one of me trying it. My camera was too close and the club gets cutoff. Does this look correct?

 

 

 

Here’s the video.

 

 

you seem like your in the feel of maintaining spine angle when you move. You stay to bent over in the backswing 

[Chip Duffer]

15 hours ago, bortass said:

I couldn’t find the video but took a quick one of me trying it. My camera was too close and the club gets cutoff. Does this look correct?

 

 

 

Your weight transfer looks much better in this vid. In the other videos it looks more like your right leg is straightening and you rotate your right hip and butt behind you.

 

After not playing much for about 8 months, I’m working to restore the transfer also.

 

A simple image a pro once gave me is it’s a similar motion to skipping a rock on water. It also require weight transfer, turn and maintaining spine angle.

 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

Stop making full swings. I don't know how many times we've said this.

[bortass]

I don't know if I should take this offline but I am going with something that @iacastold @betarhoalphadeltato do which is post a video daily. I am still trying to figure out if I am doing the drill correctly. I've downloaded the video that Erik gave Brad and I notice that Erik gets more upright at the end of the backswing. I think I need to get a better understanding of what maintaining spine angle really means. 

 

EDIT: I added the wrist hinge because I thought I saw Erik do it in the video he shared. It's not included in the instructions to do so and I'm aware of it.

 

Any how here is what I threw together this morning before work. I'm looking for any feedback about how close/far off I am in doing this correctly, not on how I have no fashion sense and dress like a slob 🙂.

 

Edited May 28 by bortass

[bortass]

56 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Stop making full swings. I don't know how many times we've said this.

I have heard that loud and clear and I have a question. If I am trying to just capture swing video of how things look with my swing and not working on my swing, do I just snag P2 or P3 length swings? I get not trying to make a change with a full speed swing and that is what I am trying to do if I go to the range and try to work on things with hitting a ball.

Edited May 28 by bortass

[betarhoalphadelta]

31 minutes ago, bortass said:

I've downloaded the video that Erik gave Brad and I notice that Erik gets more upright at the end of the backswing. I think I need to get a better understanding of what maintaining spine angle really means. 

 

 

 

He can obviously answer, but I think as he was demonstrating the turn/arms portion, followed by a slight lift, and deliberately called out that it was exaggeration... And then looked at the camera as he did it... I doubt that it was any sort of intentional move to get more upright, and probably doesn't resemble his actual swing. 

 

What I've seen from you--and please remember my advice is worth precisely what you're paying for it!--is that you "standing up" is from a too-flat shoulder turn. And from there, the most common and most "natural" way to get back to the ball is OTT... Which is what you do. 

 

I'm not going to tell you what is the most priority thing for you to work on... But Monte's video below--particularly the first 5 minutes--are pretty solid on what turning around your spine angle mean, and the pitfalls of doing it too flat. 

 

 

Edited May 28 by betarhoalphadelta

[TheDeanAbides]

33 minutes ago, bortass said:

I have heard that loud and clear and I have a question. If I am trying to just capture swing video of how things look with my swing and not working on my swing, do I just snag P2 or P3 length swings? I get not trying to make a change with a full speed swing and that is what I am trying to do if I go to the range and try to work on things with hitting a ball.

Yes. If you can't get a P3 swing correct a full swing video isn't helpful. 

[GoGoErky]

48 minutes ago, bortass said:

I don't know if I should take this offline but I am going with something that @iacastold @betarhoalphadeltato do which is post a video daily. I am still trying to figure out if I am doing the drill correctly. I've downloaded the video that Erik gave Brad and I notice that Erik gets more upright at the end of the backswing. I think I need to get a better understanding of what maintaining spine angle really means. 

 

EDIT: I added the wrist hinge because I saw Erik do it in the video he shared. It's not included in the instructions to do so and I'm aware of it.

 

Any how here is what I threw together this morning before work. I'm looking for any feedback about how close/far off I am in doing this correctly, not on how I have no fashion sense and dress like a slob 🙂.

 

 

You’re rotating the left hip forward rather than your right hip back.

Erik didn’t add any wrist hinge. He maintains the same angle throughout the drill swing. If there was wrist hinge you would see something closer to 90° eight when he gets to lead arm parallel or at the top, all he did was rotate his upper body and his right hip back and then lifted the arms.

 

you can see in the photo no wrist hinge and how his right side worked back. His right side got closer to the edge of the mat

 

we can see how your right side got closer to the door

Edited May 28 by GoGoErky

[bortass]

17 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

you can see in the photo no wrist hinge and how his right side worked back. His right side got closer to the edge of the mat

 

 

 

Well crap, I guess I need my eyes checked ASAP because it looks like he bent the wrists to me when I was watching but I see that's not the case in the image you shared.

 

Also thanks for the feedback. I'll make adjustments and see if I get closer to the desired state. I think the door will be a helpful feedback mechanism.

Edited May 28 by bortass

[bortass]

Second try at seeing if I can do the drill correctly. I didn't hinge my wrists and it looks like I did better with the right hip. I felt the right hip move back and it was kinda weird feeling. I also love how bad my balance is when trying to do this slow. I wobble...

 

 

 

[iacas]

6 hours ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

He can obviously answer, but I think as he was demonstrating the turn/arms portion, followed by a slight lift, and deliberately called out that it was exaggeration... And then looked at the camera as he did it... I doubt that it was any sort of intentional move to get more upright, and probably doesn't resemble his actual swing.

 

Yeah, it was a demonstration. Exaggerated in both ways.

 

 

I don't think I've commented a bunch here, @bortass, but those look better. Maybe not perfect, but better is better. You and Brad are working on similar things.

 

[bortass]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

Yeah, it was a demonstration. Exaggerated in both ways.

 

 

I don't think I've commented a bunch here, @bortass, but those look better. Maybe not perfect, but better is better. You and Brad are working on similar things.

 

Thanks for the help! I appreciate it.

 

I am trying to do the drill a few minutes at a time as I can throughout the day as you suggested to Brad.

[bortass]

On 5/28/2025 at 11:05 AM, betarhoalphadelta said:

What I've seen from you--and please remember my advice is worth precisely what you're paying for it!--is that you "standing up" is from a too-flat shoulder turn. And from there, the most common and most "natural" way to get back to the ball is OTT... Which is what you do. 

 

Yeah, that's still a struggle. The drill Iacas gave you, and I'm "stealing", seems to be helping me with a few of my backswing issues. That drill is getting me to feel what it's like to rotate around my spine versus twist my torso(flat shoulder turn).

 

Also thanks for posting your drill videos in your thread. They are helping me get a better understanding of it.

[betarhoalphadelta]

31 minutes ago, bortass said:

 

Yeah, that's still a struggle. The drill Iacas gave you, and I'm "stealing", seems to be helping me with a few of my backswing issues. That drill is getting me to feel what it's like to rotate around my spine versus twist my torso(flat shoulder turn).

 

Also thanks for posting your drill videos in your thread. They are helping me get a better understanding of it.

 

Yeah, the rotate around the spine is one of the things I hang my hat on because it's something I actually do "right"...

 

If by "right" you allow for the fact that I still do it massively out of sequence--hence this new drill to initiate the turn with the chest and not the arms 😂

 

If you ask me--and you shouldn't, for obvious reasons--the reason so many ams have trouble standing up with a flat shoulder turn is a couple of possible things:

• They struggle with core strength. Maintaining all the changes in flexion/extension, tilt, and rotation, is not nearly as physically "easy" as letting yourself stand up a bit in the backswing and turning more flat. Not to say it's a physical LIMITATION and they don't have the strength to do it; but that they "cheat" to make it physically easier.
• They struggle with balance. We all primarily live our lives standing straight up, but the golf swing happens pretty much entirely with your head out beyond your toes. That's massively unnatural and trying to get used to doing it is hard. They naturally want their body to get closer to vertical because that's where their balance is "calibrated", so to speak.
• They can't get over it mentally. Again, let's avoid the physical and balance "capability" someone has... We just don't like doing physical/athletic things bent over. You have to train your brain that it's ok--desirable, even. That's not easy--especially if you never learned/did it properly as a kid when your brain was a little more pliable. 

I liken it to how Patrick Mahomes is not just lauded because he can throw a football ball far and accurately. It's that he's almost supernatural in his ability to make the "off platform" throws accurately. The throws where he can't set his feet properly, or his body is in the "wrong" position, or he's off balance, etc. Amongst 2024 starters, he was 10th in the NFL in completion percentage. But he's the guy that we look at in awe of when he makes a throw and you ask how the HELL he did it!

 

I kinda think of the golf swing as a learned off-platform throw. As someone once wrote (apparently incorrectly attributed to Churchill), "The object is to put a very small ball into a very tiny and remotely distant hole, with engines singularly ill adapted for the purpose." Nothing about the golf swing is natural, and so we have to teach ourselves to do the exact opposite of what comes naturally, in many cases, to get good at it. 

 

Now, probably 90% of that entire rant is wrong. Hopefully someone smart ( @iacas, are you listening?) can come in here and explain why 😉 

[bortass]

Daily videos. They were captured in slow motion, so require separate posts due to size.

 

 

 

 

[bortass]

Sorry about the canted angle, luckily I was able to rotate it so I'm fairly level even if the actual frame isn't.

 

 

 

[GoGoErky]

Getting better. But you also really need to work on your grip. It’s way too much into your palm, you can see how close to the wrist the butt the club is. It should be through your fingers when looking at your down the line view.

 

 

[bortass]

2 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Getting better. But you also really need to work on your grip. It’s way too much into your palm, you can see how close to the wrist the butt the club is. It should be through your fingers when looking at your down the line view.

 

 

 

Damn, I have been working on it, or thought I was... I'll keep consciously working on it and hopefully it will start to stick at some point.  I am glad to read that the drill is looking better though. Like Erik posted above 'better is better' even if I'm not there yet, I'm making some progress.

[GoGoErky]

3 minutes ago, bortass said:

Damn, I have been working on it, or thought I was... I'll keep consciously working on it and hopefully it will start to stick at some point.  I am glad to read that the drill is looking better though. Like Erik posted above 'better is better' even if I'm not there yet, I'm making some progress.

Yep. It’s not going to be perfect on day one or even week 1, but some incremental improvements all the way.

 

WiFi on my flight sux so the down the line video wont load so only commenting on what the fo shows

 

I don’t remember if I shared this grip video on your thread or not, but it’s by far one of the most comprehensive ones on how to grip

 

Do you grip the club out in front of you? At address? Somewhere else?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R30NMUiMMFk?si=UF17gphclsip3v1N

[bortass]

1 hour ago, GoGoErky said:

Yep. It’s not going to be perfect on day one or even week 1, but some incremental improvements all the way.

 

WiFi on my flight sux so the down the line video wont load so only commenting on what the fo shows

 

I don’t remember if I shared this grip video on your thread or not, but it’s by far one of the most comprehensive ones on how to grip

 

Do you grip the club out in front of you? At address? Somewhere else?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R30NMUiMMFk?si=UF17gphclsip3v1N

I have not seen that video before and will watch it.

 

I grip the club in front of me held up at  roughly 45* angle.

[TheDeanAbides]

22 hours ago, bortass said:

 

Yeah, that's still a struggle. The drill Iacas gave you, and I'm "stealing", seems to be helping me with a few of my backswing issues. That drill is getting me to feel what it's like to rotate around my spine versus twist my torso(flat shoulder turn).

 

Also thanks for posting your drill videos in your thread. They are helping me get a better understanding of it.

You'll find it much easier to turn without lifting when you've nailed down your pelvis movement. 

[GoGoErky]

19 hours ago, bortass said:

Daily videos. They were captured in slow motion, so require separate posts due to size.

 

 

 

 

Finally got a chance to watch this one.

 

from the down the line we can see you’re getting away from the concept of the drill. Rig arm bending and some extension of the trail wrists getting the club behind you. The goal is to keep the arms connected to you and just turn without moving the arms, not bending of the trail elbow and no setting of any kind of the wrist.

 

heres the robot Erik used as the example

 

here’s your dtl

 

you need to work on just rotating and no arm movement at all. This gets to what dean mentions above about the pelvis movement.