Another am I shallow post? :)

[electrical123]

Can I get less steep with my driver?

[Valtiel]

2 hours ago, electrical123 said:

Can I get less steep with my driver?

Steepness/shallowness isn't the thing to be looking at here, it's club path:



You're pretty close to being on plane (ignore height, focus on angle) in such a way that I wouldn't consider this a steepness issue. What you have is an early extension issue caused by what you do in transition....a move that brings you towards the ball and thus kicks the club outside a bit which gets you coming a little down and across the ball. You're actually in a pretty good position to fix this because you don't have the severe secondary compensations that often come with early extension...you're suffering because you're really only doing one thing wrong which is compromising part of your downswing in a pretty simple and predictable way. I note that because most people with this issue tack on a compensation or two, especially the type trying to hit draws from your positions, and that makes it harder to unwind. Here though it appears you've just shifted the ball towards the toe of the club at address, knowingly or unknowingly. You were either hitting the ball towards the heel and getting really weak fades or you just found that hitting the ball slightly toe side sometimes keeps the ball from over-cutting. Or the inverse is true and you've always addressed the ball out there and learned to move in a way that neutralizes that (coming towards the ball). My money is on the former though, but either way i'd reckon that's your miss (over cut/slice) with maybe the odd two way pull miss every now and then. If so (or if not, i'm going either way lol), this is why:



Starting with address....pretty solid except for the fact that when viewed in motion you appear to settle into your heels too much (i'll explain why this matters):

 

This is tough to see, but in the first frame you look pretty 50/50 heel to toe, maybe favoring your heel every so slightly, then when you "sit" into your posture there is a slight pressing down in the heels of both shoes. The tiny amount isn't important, it's the fact that anything is moving heel side at address. You'll rarely if ever see that in pros with the back foot, they're always slightly towards the toe....50/50 at the absolute "worst" with 30/70 heel to toe being far more common. The front foot can vary more, but towards the ball of the foot is still more common. The reason this matters is that it largely determines you much you can rotate/push "back" with the right leg. You need to be towards the balls of your feet to create movement backwards, so start there so you can push back towards the heel during the backswing with the trail foot while keeping weight slightly toe side with the front. Start too much towards the heel of both feet and the back leg can't rotate back long enough in the backswing and the body needs to shift forward to weight towards the ball of the front foot. 



In a vacuum this is great. If I only saw this I wouldn't be able to guess what your problems were at all. Club is in a perfect spot, solid turn, right hip deepening etc. All great stuff. The hips may be opening a little early, but I only say that because I know what happens next. In a vacuum I likely wouldn't think that. 



This is where the problem is. You run out of "back" like I mentioned above and you shift towards the ball noticeably to get your front foot toe side pressured. Whether because of your setup or just not fully learning how to rotate properly going back, this pushes you towards the ball and without additional compensation moves you towards swinging more from the outside. 



As you transition we see the hips continuing to pull away from the red line as your right hip drives forward a bit more than it should. This is usually because you've kept pressure on your back leg a little too long, but that's a common symptom of the rotational stuff I covered above so we can consider this part of that and not focus on it too much. 



From here into impact you actually make a really good move, and again in a vacuum and without lines I would assume you're a pretty good player. You create a solid amount of rotation with your front side and your right side stops driving towards the ball completely. Like the first move in the backswing, this is good stuff. I can tell you've either been coached pretty well or you've done a good job yourself studying/understanding lower body rotation.

The *only* problem is what happens in the middle when you lose depth/come towards the ball to get to your toes to do this. The key is to have enough of that toe pressure (especially in the front foot) so you don't have to rock forward like that as you arrive at the top. And to do that you need to start with getting your address pressure squared away. Slightly towards the balls of the feet (60/40) with that forward pressure on the front foot staying there (or even increasing slightly) so that by the time you reach the top you don't have to shift your body forward to get that. Feel free to practice lifting your left heel to get this feeling in the backswing, and you might want to feel your hips come in (towards the ball) a little bit address to get that pressure forward.

The goal is to create the rotational move you're seeing above but along the same line your butt was touching at address, not in front of it. If you can do this you'll likely want to adjust the ball position back into the middle of the face at address. Or you can even address it towards the *heel* like Adam Scott does to really encourage staying back instead of coming forward. Feel free to follow up if you have any questions. 👍

 

[electrical123]

This is very well written, thank you very much for this. I have noticed that I move into the ball in the backswing and have tried to fix it.  But you break this down to a very fine detail. So good.

 

My initial thoughts and feels to keep me from going towards the ball is to try and keep my weight into my heels at address and back swing which in my mind would stop me from going towards the ball.

 

So I guess it’s a little more counterintuitive with my setup.  Little more weight on my toes which will then help my hips get deeper in the backswing.

 

(Its kind of funny as I hone in my golf swing is some of it is counterintuitive, steeper angle with the shoulders in the back swing helps get the club more on plane on the downswing.?)

 

I’m a definitely going to try this next session. And thank you very much for this response. Hoping to get to a low single digit by the end of the season.

[Valtiel]

48 minutes ago, electrical123 said:

My initial thoughts and feels to keep me from going towards the ball is to try and keep my weight into my heels at address and back swing which in my mind would stop me from going towards the ball.

 

So I guess it’s a little more counterintuitive with my setup.  Little more weight on my toes which will then help my hips get deeper in the backswing.

Yup, exactly. That is one of the many "Chinese Finger Traps" in the golf swing where you have to do the opposite of what you think you should to get what you want. The more you sit back towards your heels, the more you will come forward in the swing because your body wants to balance and use the front of your feet to engage with the ground. The same goes for all sorts of other things too with the unholy trinity being weight in the heels + ball in the back of the stance + hands way forward and low. The heel bias for the reason you mentioned (trying to stay back), the ball back in the stance to get a descending blow, and the hands forward to get that "shaft lean". In reality though you usually get the opposite; the heel weight at address *causes* you to come forward, the ball back in the stance encourages hanging back and "flipping" at the bottom, and the hands forward and low at address ends up with hands back and high at impact. All the opposite of what you want. 

Take video of your next session if you can, just know that this will likely take some time and re-calibration so don't expect everything to click right away. Most of the rest of your swing is pretty solid (although a face on view would be good to confirm that) so don't muck around with anything related to club path, takeaway, or any "shallowing" moves. The club should naturally want to get on/stay on a good plane when you rotate correctly from where you are right now, so you don't need to force it anywhere. 👍 

[electrical123]

Things are definitely getting better when I had more weight on my toes at address only if it’s a small amount.  For some strange reason I had a hard time hitting my normal draw and it turned into a fade, (starting right of the target line). Also the cool thing was my left heel was naturally lifting off the ground in the back swing a tiny bit.

 

sorry if I’m being too anal about things but off the tee is making me a golfer that can barely break 80.  If I can clean my tee ball things may fall into place.

Edited July 14 by electrical123

[Valtiel]

15 hours ago, electrical123 said:

Things are definitely getting better when I had more weight on my toes at address only if it’s a small amount.  For some strange reason I had a hard time hitting my normal draw and it turned into a fade, (starting right of the target line). Also the cool thing was my left heel was naturally lifting off the ground in the back swing a tiny bit.

 

sorry if I’m being too anal about things but off the tee is making me a golfer that can barely break 80.  If I can clean my tee ball things may fall into place.

 

IMG_7878.mov 13.59 MB · 0 downloads

You've definitely reduced the problem a bit, although the same core pattern is still there in that once you start shifting towards your front side you're still coming forward towards the ball a bit. Less than before, but still there. That's to be expected in your first attempt so no worries. 

Your overall swing pattern isn't really that conducive to a draw though so I wouldn't get hung up on what is or isn't "normal" at this stage, not until you're fully moving correctly. Two things to think about as it relates to that:

1) Try really hard to recognize and feel that move I pointed out in transition where when you shift you come towards the ball as well. Being able to feel when that's happening will be important to neutralizing/stopping that. And as an extension of that...
2) Try to also recognize how much pressure is on your right foot at the top and what you're doing with it in transition as well. The fact you pop up on to your right toe pretty early in the downswing suggests that you're also using that right foot for a lot of drive/power in the downswing and that's a difficult thing to manage, especially from an accuracy standpoint. You see that kind of move in guys like Justin Thomas and while it creates a lot of vertical force potential, it tends to push you towards the ball as you need to be up on your toes to use that power which is something that gets you leaning towards the ball to achieve. What this means/will feel like is that when you're shifting forward at the top of the swing that your right foot banks inwards towards the left foot more and less "up on the toes".

If you're doing this right it will actually feel more like your pelvis is moving slightly away from the ball, not towards it. Looking at it like a clock face with 12 o'clock being towards the target, your lower body if shifting towards 1 o'clock in transition, and you want to feel more "11 o'clock" which is what you see in pros. It's tough because this doesn't feel particularly intuitive or natural....it's much simpler to get up on your toes where it feels powerful/mobile, but you want that for your front leg way more than your back as that front leg is the driver of power and rotation in the downswing. 

[Pepperturbo]

@Valtiel Steepness/shallowness isn't the thing to be looking at here, it's club path:

 

When my swing gets cattywampus, it's often my path. Great explanation and images. Thanks. When my ball striking is on, that's when distance and proper trajectory are there.

Edited July 14 by Pepperturbo

[electrical123]

10 hours ago, Valtiel said:

You've definitely reduced the problem a bit, although the same core pattern is still there in that once you start shifting towards your front side you're still coming forward towards the ball a bit. Less than before, but still there. That's to be expected in your first attempt so no worries. 

Your overall swing pattern isn't really that conducive to a draw though so I wouldn't get hung up on what is or isn't "normal" at this stage, not until you're fully moving correctly. Two things to think about as it relates to that:

1) Try really hard to recognize and feel that move I pointed out in transition where when you shift you come towards the ball as well. Being able to feel when that's happening will be important to neutralizing/stopping that. And as an extension of that...
2) Try to also recognize how much pressure is on your right foot at the top and what you're doing with it in transition as well. The fact you pop up on to your right toe pretty early in the downswing suggests that you're also using that right foot for a lot of drive/power in the downswing and that's a difficult thing to manage, especially from an accuracy standpoint. You see that kind of move in guys like Justin Thomas and while it creates a lot of vertical force potential, it tends to push you towards the ball as you need to be up on your toes to use that power which is something that gets you leaning towards the ball to achieve. What this means/will feel like is that when you're shifting forward at the top of the swing that your right foot banks inwards towards the left foot more and less "up on the toes".

If you're doing this right it will actually feel more like your pelvis is moving slightly away from the ball, not towards it. Looking at it like a clock face with 12 o'clock being towards the target, your lower body if shifting towards 1 o'clock in transition, and you want to feel more "11 o'clock" which is what you see in pros. It's tough because this doesn't feel particularly intuitive or natural....it's much simpler to get up on your toes where it feels powerful/mobile, but you want that for your front leg way more than your back as that front leg is the driver of power and rotation in the downswing. 

Thanks for this. I’ll sit on it for a bit and try to engrain this stuff. To be completely honest I kind of knew these things I was doing wrong but didn’t know how to fix them. 
 

I played today and took some video, it’s definitely getting better. Much appreciated for the detailed responses.

 

 

[Valtiel]

3 minutes ago, electrical123 said:

Thanks for this. I’ll sit on it for a bit and try to engrain this stuff. To be completely honest I kind of knew these things I was doing wrong but didn’t know how to fix them. 
 

I played today and took some video, it’s definitely getting better. Much appreciated for the detailed responses.

 

 

Sure thing and best of luck! Your overall moves currently are a lot better than mine were before I learned this stuff and made the changes so keep at it...it took me a good 6 months of regular practice to start getting comfortable with it to the point I could play "golf" and not "golf swing" if that makes sense. A couples drills I did along that way that helped with drilling these new ideas in were:

- Feet Together Drill. I'd do this with a gap wedge or short iron usually. Feet together, flair the front foot out a touch, and make swings ramping up towards as HARD a swing as I possibly could while staying in balance. When you're used to doing anything that brings you towards the ball in transition you *will* lose your balance doing that here which is good...it gives you quick feedback. You're already pretty good at using your front leg for power it looks like so this one should be pretty easy for you, but it helps with highlighting when you're using your back leg when you shouldn't be in transition/downswing. 
- Modified Freeze Drill. Instead of the traditional "swing to the top -> freeze -> swing down" which IMO actually isn't a great drill for most...you instead swing about 2/3rds of the way back, freeze there, then complete the backswing while you start the "shifting towards the front leg" part of the lower body pivot. Since as you probably know you're meant to start this transition towards the front leg before the backswing is done, this more clearly divides draws a line when you should start doing that without being disrupted by the momentum of the swing or via any maladaptive means of shifting you might have. Specifically the tendency some people have to push off of their back leg to start that shift forward....not necessarily a bad move in isolation (see Collin Morikawa or even Scheffler a bit) but it has to be done a certain way. If you aren't careful it's easy to do this by rocking up towards your right toe (or keeping more pressure there) because it feels more powerful and thus move towards the ball. This modified drill gives you the opportunity to catch yourself doing that learn to transition without the need for that move. 
- Close Stance Drill. This one is riskier but it can help as long as you don't go crazy with it. Take your normal stance and scoot towards the ball to the point you're addressing it way out of the heel while keeping a lot of weight towards your toes. Then make smooth 75% feeling swings while trying to hit the center of the face. It's risky because it's easy to manufacture some ugly stuff to make contact, but the goal is to encourage a sense of (correctly) moving back away from the ball throughout the swing so you gain space instead of losing it by coming forward. Being up towards your toes encourages you to to feel like you gain balance by settling down more towards the middle of your feet as the swing progresses, so in that it's like a drill version of the opposite of your current swing and it's issue. Make sure to still keep some toe pressure on that front foot though for the same reasons as I mentioned before!

Fun bonus points for doing *all three* drills at the same time, haha. 

[electrical123]

Feeling it. Your a legend!

[vandyfan]

On 7/13/2025 at 11:13 AM, Valtiel said:

Yup, exactly. That is one of the many "Chinese Finger Traps" in the golf swing where you have to do the opposite of what you think you should to get what you want. The more you sit back towards your heels, the more you will come forward in the swing because your body wants to balance and use the front of your feet to engage with the ground. The same goes for all sorts of other things too with the unholy trinity being weight in the heels + ball in the back of the stance + hands way forward and low. The heel bias for the reason you mentioned (trying to stay back), the ball back in the stance to get a descending blow, and the hands forward to get that "shaft lean". In reality though you usually get the opposite; the heel weight at address *causes* you to come forward, the ball back in the stance encourages hanging back and "flipping" at the bottom, and the hands forward and low at address ends up with hands back and high at impact. All the opposite of what you want. 

 

Thank you for posting this so eloquently. You have helped me before with my swing so I read most of your posts but this is especially me. I have my weight towards my heels to keep from drifting toward the ball but your explanation shows how I am exacerbating my drift toward the ball by doing that. Dynamic balance and all that....

[Valtiel]

1 hour ago, electrical123 said:

Feeling it. Your a legend!

Very nice! If we compare to the two previous vids:



We can see you've quieted down that right side significantly and noticeably reduced how much you're coming forward. Not completely, but enough to where you're establishing a good baseline via moving differently which is exactly what you want. Keep pushing that feeling to get it ingrained! You can probably feel even more "right foot banking inwards" as your right hip is still driving "up" a bit too much in transition, but nothing catastrophic. Overall you're still making a much better move here. 

A cool thing that we didn't even discuss is what your left arm is doing now in response to this change. In the first swing you can really tell that you were trying to keep your arms "in" and kind of close to the body, which makes sense as a compensation given how much you were coming towards the ball. In the two updated videos (and in the gifs above) you can clearly see more separation between your left arm and your chest, which is good! Maintaining your distance from the ball allows those arms to swing through much more freely as you're not having to compensate as much. 

One last thing to keep in mind as you continue working on this and testing out the new feels is how you want to go about generating more power (should you want to). To stress the system and really lean into this you'll want to feel as much of that as possible coming from the left leg. Stomp down harder, push it back faster, or just generally feel like that is where your conscious effort is concentrated. Really feel like that is the thing that kicks off the downswing and pushes you *away* from the ball as you're coming down while the right leg is just along for the ride. Doing this right really helps propel your upper body rotation and thus your arms down towards the ball vs. when you drive with your right side too much which brings you forward, this requiring compensation to get your arms down to the ball (like you were doing a bit originally). 

Keep it up, great work!

 

50 minutes ago, vandyfan said:

 

Thank you for posting this so eloquently. You have helped me before with my swing so I read most of your posts but this is especially me. I have my weight towards my heels to keep from drifting toward the ball but your explanation shows how I am exacerbating my drift toward the ball by doing that. Dynamic balance and all that....

Cheers! Glad that was helpful 💪

[tthomasgolfer605]

In all your swings, your swing trigger is squatting downward. It will take some work, but get rid of that. 

[electrical123]

5 hours ago, tthomasgolfer605 said:

In all your swings, your swing trigger is squatting downward. It will take some work, but get rid of that. 

I’m not sure how i developed that. Thanks for mentioning it.  I’m blaming fast eddie on instagram for that one haha.

[electrical123]

On 7/15/2025 at 10:56 AM, Valtiel said:

Very nice! If we compare to the two previous vids:



We can see you've quieted down that right side significantly and noticeably reduced how much you're coming forward. Not completely, but enough to where you're establishing a good baseline via moving differently which is exactly what you want. Keep pushing that feeling to get it ingrained! You can probably feel even more "right foot banking inwards" as your right hip is still driving "up" a bit too much in transition, but nothing catastrophic. Overall you're still making a much better move here. 

A cool thing that we didn't even discuss is what your left arm is doing now in response to this change. In the first swing you can really tell that you were trying to keep your arms "in" and kind of close to the body, which makes sense as a compensation given how much you were coming towards the ball. In the two updated videos (and in the gifs above) you can clearly see more separation between your left arm and your chest, which is good! Maintaining your distance from the ball allows those arms to swing through much more freely as you're not having to compensate as much. 

One last thing to keep in mind as you continue working on this and testing out the new feels is how you want to go about generating more power (should you want to). To stress the system and really lean into this you'll want to feel as much of that as possible coming from the left leg. Stomp down harder, push it back faster, or just generally feel like that is where your conscious effort is concentrated. Really feel like that is the thing that kicks off the downswing and pushes you *away* from the ball as you're coming down while the right leg is just along for the ride. Doing this right really helps propel your upper body rotation and thus your arms down towards the ball vs. when you drive with your right side too much which brings you forward, this requiring compensation to get your arms down to the ball (like you were doing a bit originally). 

Keep it up, great work!

 

Cheers! Glad that was helpful 💪

I really exaggerated the feels tonight. Right foot banking in, left foot pushing towards the ball.  The right side is annoying and wants to create power, it’s hard to stop.  Going to keep hitting balls to get the right haha. Goal is to get to a mid single digit handicap by the end of the year. We shall see.

 

also swing my be getting flatish………

 

I looked at a couple videos as a kid and noticed that my right side is active.  Seems to be ingrained since I was young.

 

The comparison from my last better video from a week ago has my right side not up as much but I think tonight it may be better even though it is up? Not sure?

 

Edited July 25 by electrical123

[slytown]

Still not much hip depth. You just don't turn in your backswing much. You may want to work on a one piece takeaway.

 

You have good arm and wrist usage. You also do a good job of turning in the downswing, but without depth in the backswing, you are always going to be OTT.

[electrical123]

On 7/28/2025 at 6:36 AM, slytown said:

Still not much hip depth. You just don't turn in your backswing much. You may want to work on a one piece takeaway.

 

You have good arm and wrist usage. You also do a good job of turning in the downswing, but without depth in the backswing, you are always going to be OTT.

this is more of an updated swing.  Went to golf tec to see my numbers.  Things look good other than shoulder tilt.

 

a work in progress.  I have noticed my arms and hips are a little out of sync.  So could be contributing to bad tilt?

[slytown]

Arms are still doing most of the work in the backswing. Its why u dont have the tilt. Downswing still looks good, so if ur striping it, dont worry about it. U are swinging pretty flat, which is why u dont have much launch.

[electrical123]

4 hours ago, slytown said:

Arms are still doing most of the work in the backswing. Its why u dont have the tilt. Downswing still looks good, so if ur striping it, dont worry about it. U are swinging pretty flat, which is why u dont have much launch.

I’m currently a 10 hdcp.  My tee shots are what’s killing me right now. Looks good but still have decently big misses on the course.  Today I was thinking of the timing on my arms and body.

 

i was watching video and its obvious that im not in sync.

 

So any tip helps.  Thanks for the input!

[Valtiel]

You're rotating flatter in the backswing with the upper body via your hands going inside early. Your hand path needs to get more vertical going back with the feeling of your left shoulder working down under your chin going back, not up and across it like it is now. You're currently getting stuck a little deep/inside/steep via your hands getting too far behind you and the club getting across the line at the top. A feeling you can visualize is that all your arms do is lift upwards in the backswing while your shoulders take care of the "around". Right now your hands are sucking back inside in the backswing and the club is getting really flat...then steepening at the top (across the line)....then rerouting back to flat again in the downswing. It's more/bigger moving parts that require more timing, and if going back flat you either have to commit to *staying* very flat via keeping the club laid off (think Jon Rahm or Daniel Berger), or you have to learn to back steeper. 

Also you're still addressing the ball out of the toe which, if you're hitting too many toe strikes now, is because you aren't losing hip depth anymore and coming towards the ball. You might want to consider centering the ball in the face at address.