Pepsi Duck's Golf Thread: Progress...?

[Krt22]

1% improvement is still improvement

[dap]

Better ball flight does not always equal consistent ball flight. Nothing worse than having a great round followed by a disaster.

 

This reminds me of what Jim Furyk once said. He has tried to swing more conventionally and said his best shots were indeed better but he also had no idea where his poor shots were going.

[Jacob Mac]

You tinkered your way to almost quitting golf if I recall correctly. Might want to be careful following this to its logical conclusion

[airjammer]

Does Graeme McDowell also need to fix his right elbow?

 

 

If he was hitting a couple of tee balls out of bounds every round ..darn right.

 

Look at all he has to do to make that work..and he’s a short hitter.

 

Body wise they only thing they have in common is the their right arm...stature..different, grip different..etc.

Pepsi was a 2 handicapper with that elbow. Four years and countless lessons later he still has the same elbow. It is what it is. Some things are just in your DNA. If you haven't "fixed" it in 4 years you never will. Wonder when the penny will drop.

 

While I agree with part of that..pepsi correct me if I’m wrong..I believe he was able to achieve that while playing a lot. Once you become a couple times week max golfer things like this become a lot more problematic.

 

I was once a scratch golfer with a way swing worse than his but I also played 2+ times a week and spent 12+ hours on the range as a recent divorced nightshifter. After 10 years my swing is infinitely better but I couldn’t dream of scratch with a 3 year old. Knowing what I have achieved in the past with a much worse swing is a very big reason it’s hard to me getting better. Once you get to that level you know how to get the club on the ball so you really think you are very close to finding “it” but in reality you are very far away and when the swing thought of the day doesn’t work you stary searching for the next magic one.

 

If pepsi has pretty much two options imo. Learn to play with it by playing very often for money or say I’m going to correct this if it’s the last thing I do.

[Krt22]

Bingo. Work smarter not harder. If you want to play at a high level but can't play consistently, you need to build a swing with the least amount of compensations as possible.

 

Using pros as example's is literal fools good for most amateurs who don't have the time to practice for hours daily and/or shear exceptional ability to put the club on the back of the ball consistently despite a few flaws

 

I'm the forever tinker-er as well, so I get where pepsi is coming from

[b_f_c_99]

Does Graeme McDowell also need to fix his right elbow?

 

 

G Macs swing and Pepsi’s are not even remotely similar. McDowell has his elbow in front of his hip before impact, and has shallowed the club. Pepsi does neither. McDowell does the same thing I did when I played my best. He uses the left wrist bow to push his right elbow down, the club flattens with this move then just rotates hard. I returned to this same thing end of last season. One over was the worst I shot for almost a month. I too fiddled around for over 5 years. Found lots of things that I could make work but nothing was better than what I started with.

[PepsiDuck]

G Macs swing and Pepsi’s are not even remotely similar. McDowell has his elbow in front of his hip before impact, and has shallowed the club. Pepsi does neither. McDowell does the same thing I did when I played my best. He uses the left wrist bow to push his right elbow down, the club flattens with this move then just rotates hard. I returned to this same thing end of last season. One over was the worst I shot for almost a month. I too fiddled around for over 5 years. Found lots of things that I could make work but nothing was better than what I started with.

 

I don’t think he was suggesting that our swings were in any way similar. I think he was saying that even with a trailing right elbow, you can change the other parts of the swing to make it work. I don’t have those other matching parts to consistently mitigate my trailing right elbow.

[PepsiDuck]

Pepsi was a 2 handicapper with that elbow. Four years and countless lessons later he still has the same elbow. It is what it is. Some things are just in your DNA. If you haven't "fixed" it in 4 years you never will. Wonder when the penny will drop.

 

While I agree with part of that..pepsi correct me if I’m wrong..I believe he was able to achieve that while playing a lot. Once you become a couple times week max golfer things like this become a lot more problematic.

 

I was once a scratch golfer with a way swing worse than his but I also played 2+ times a week and spent 12+ hours on the range as a recent divorced nightshifter. After 10 years my swing is infinitely better but I couldn’t dream of scratch with a 3 year old. Knowing what I have achieved in the past with a much worse swing is a very big reason it’s hard to me getting better. Once you get to that level you know how to get the club on the ball so you really think you are very close to finding “it” but in reality you are very far away and when the swing thought of the day doesn’t work you stary searching for the next magic one.

 

If pepsi has pretty much two options imo. Learn to play with it by playing very often for money or say I’m going to correct this if it’s the last thing I do.

 

I definitely don’t get to spend as much time on the course or the range as I used to, especially when I lived in Monterey (ironically when I was playing the worst...). All the tinkering really became a day to day or hole to hole search for the feel to compensate for the right elbow. I’d often get to the range 2 hours before any round because I had no idea if the intent I finished with the day before would work. So I’d “tinker,” which to me just meant finding what internal focus I needed to get my trailing right arm back in front. Sometimes I got lucky and I’d find it early on the range. But oftentimes, in the middle of a round I’ll hit three or four straight foul balls with an intent that had worked on the last 10 shots and suddenly, I’m OB. So I then have to make the decision of, do I keep plugging away with a certain feel in hopes that it gets better, or do I spend my next tee shot trying a new feel and hoping my trail elbow doesn’t get stuck again?

 

I’d prefer to get to a place where I don’t have to fish for compensations in real time...

[dap]

If you look at Furyk at P5( left arm parallel to ground on the downswing), his right elbow also appears to be trailing behind. These guys are major winners.

 

[b_f_c_99]

G Macs swing and Pepsi’s are not even remotely similar. McDowell has his elbow in front of his hip before impact, and has shallowed the club. Pepsi does neither. McDowell does the same thing I did when I played my best. He uses the left wrist bow to push his right elbow down, the club flattens with this move then just rotates hard. I returned to this same thing end of last season. One over was the worst I shot for almost a month. I too fiddled around for over 5 years. Found lots of things that I could make work but nothing was better than what I started with.

 

I don’t think he was suggesting that our swings were in any way similar. I think he was saying that even with a trailing right elbow, you can change the other parts of the swing to make it work. I don’t have those other matching parts to consistently mitigate my trailing right elbow.

 

I understand there wasn’t a comparison. Just pointing out that McDowells elbow isn’t trailing while yours is. And I’m not advocating you change that if it’s so deep in your your DNA. Pepsi, I truly appreciate your drive and enthusiasm, gives us people in the land of ice and snow something to do! It seems to me that you are finding a way to dig it out of the dirt. In my experience some changes can feel weird but good at the same time. Others are just so awful that there is no point continuing with them no matter what magic is professed in them.

[PepsiDuck]

If you look at Furyk at P5( left arm parallel to ground on the downswing), his right elbow also appears to be trailing behind. These guys are major winners.

 

One thing that always boggled my mind, and also made me slightly resentful, was when I watched Gankas’s kids, they’d have that flying right elbow that they’d manage to externally rotate back into their body well before P5...I was just scrolling through IG and saw GG’s video of Tristan Gretzky and just watched his right elbow.

 

Is there a physiological reason why they can do it or I can’t, whether it’s flexibility or range of motion? Or is there something active they do in transition? Or is it something they set up in the backswing so that it happens “automatically” at the top...? Or is it just magic fairy dust...?

 

Screw you, Tristan Gretzky, screw you... :lol:

[dap]

If you look at Furyk at P5( left arm parallel to ground on the downswing), his right elbow also appears to be trailing behind. These guys are major winners.

 

One thing that always boggled my mind, and also made me slightly resentful, was when I watched Gankas’s kids, they’d have that flying right elbow that they’d manage to externally rotate back into their body well before P5...I was just scrolling through IG and saw GG’s video of Tristan Gretzky and just watched his right elbow.

 

Is there a physiological reason why they can do it or I can’t, whether it’s flexibility or range of motion? Or is there something active they do in transition? Or is it something they set up in the backswing so that it happens “automatically” at the top...? Or is it just magic fairy dust...?

 

Screw you, Tristan Gretzky, screw you... :lol:

Like most issues it's probably a combination of a few things. Flexibility could be one. You may never get your right elbow pointed almost straight down in transition like Hogan but you certainly should be able to get it a little more tucked.

 

Another issue I see is that your downswing lacks any compressing down of your chest in transition. It's almost like just an arm drop from the top which really does not actively tuck the right elbow.Most good players compress down bringing the head lower. Your head if anything goes a tad higher. Watch this video on "covering " the golf ball and see if it helps tuck the right elbow a bit more. Your right elbow should pull down in response to the chest going down.

 

[PepsiDuck]

1% improvement is still improvement

 

I thought this would be funny to share...side by side of today versus July 2015 of P4.9 from July 2015...

 

 

[PepsiDuck]

Like most issues it's probably a combination of a few things. Flexibility could be one. You may never get your right elbow pointed almost straight down in transition like Hogan but you certainly should be able to get it a little more tucked.

 

Another issue I see is that your downswing lacks any compressing down of your chest in transition. It's almost like just an arm drop from the top which really does not actively tuck the right elbow.Most good players compress down bringing the head lower. Your head if anything goes a tad higher. Watch this video on "covering " the golf ball and see if it helps tuck the right elbow a bit more. Your right elbow should pull down in response to the chest going down.

 

Great video. The chest down idea seems very similar to the left shoulder down at transition idea, which I had worked on before with the Tour Striker crew. I assume they seek to accomplish the same thing. I can definitely feel the slinging of the arms through impact because I don’t cover properly.

 

The second big takeaway is the right side bend through impact...I guess side bend is just something I’d never really done either in the backswing or the forward swing.

 

In the side by side, I don’t seem to be bent over enough, probably due to my arm slinging. If I had correct right side bend with the arm sling, my divots would be three inches deep...

 

 

[dap]

Not really a fan of left shoulder down because you can reverse tilt if you're not careful. Chest down is the best because it drops not only the left shoulder but also the right and you actively pull down with the right elbow. If you feel like you get your chest closer to the ground on the downswing you also might find you tuck your right elbow more without even realising it. The best way to correct a fault is to fix another fault that causes that fault. You can't just physically try to externally rotate the right shoulder more. It has to happen as a result of other moves.

[PepsiDuck]

Not really a fan of left shoulder down because you can reverse tilt if you're not careful. Chest down is the best because it drops not only the left shoulder but also the right and you actively pull down with the right elbow. If you feel like you get your chest closer to the ground on the downswing you also might find you tuck your right elbow more without even realising it. The best way to correct a fault is to fix another fault that causes that fault. You can't just physically try to externally rotate the right shoulder more. It has to happen as a result of other moves.

 

If this were true, it’d be a complete paradigm shift for me...

[PepsiDuck]

I really appreciate all the discussion over the past week, and I'd like to share something a good friend told me which was hilarious but also sadly true...that this thread had quickly devolved into "an addict...in a full blown crack den of new mechanics"...

 

Yesterday, we played a Superintendent's Revenge tournament, two-person scramble in "full circus mode"...there were holes with 100 range balls scattered on the green around the hole, cart tires and toilet seats on greens, tee boxes in the trees and bunkers, holes in bunkers, and my personal favorite, a 40-yard deep green with the pin tucked a yard off the back edge...and the actual hole on the slope of the false front. It isn't until you see that the pin is just stuck in the ground that you realize the trickery... It was a lot of fun, but I admit I really struggled with all the new stuff that was discussed in this thread. By the end of the round, I was going back to my "old swing" just to keep the ball in play and contribute to the team. After the round, I went to the range for a bit to hit balls, and I quickly realized that with my "old swing," I strike the ball better and it takes a lot less effort to swing the club, i.e., I find it easier and less tiring to swing with my arms than to rotate with my body...

 

So today, I shot a 73 on the same course (without the cart tires, toilet seats, and silliness), my low round of the season. I scrapped the stuff from this week, took my "old swing," and focused on two things that you all pointed out in the first video: (1) my shoulders turn too flat and (2) my forearms roll in the takeaway. I discovered that what felt like early wrist set to me was really forearm roll. So rather than attempt wholesale change of my entire backswing like I did this past week, I simply incorporated those two ideas to my old swing. Turn my left shoulder lower and don't "set the wrists." The result was quality ball striking across the entire bag, and what felt like a really easy 73.

 

Anyway, today was my last day of golf for a couple weeks as I'm heading to Costa Rica with my wife because we needed to use our Southwest vouchers before they expired, so of course we picked the most expensive flight they offered...too bad the Southwest Hawaii tickets have opened up yet...it'll be good to get away from the golf course and come back relaxed and ready to hit the spring season.

[JohnnyMIke]

I really appreciate all the discussion over the past week, and I'd like to share something a good friend told me which was hilarious but also sadly true...that this thread had quickly devolved into "an addict...in a full blown crack den of new mechanics"...

 

Yesterday, we played a Superintendent's Revenge tournament, two-person scramble in "full circus mode"...there were holes with 100 range balls scattered on the green around the hole, cart tires and toilet seats on greens, tee boxes in the trees and bunkers, holes in bunkers, and my personal favorite, a 40-yard deep green with the pin tucked a yard off the back edge...and the actual hole on the slope of the false front. It isn't until you see that the pin is just stuck in the ground that you realize the trickery... It was a lot of fun, but I admit I really struggled with all the new stuff that was discussed in this thread. By the end of the round, I was going back to my "old swing" just to keep the ball in play and contribute to the team. After the round, I went to the range for a bit to hit balls, and I quickly realized that with my "old swing," I strike the ball better and it takes a lot less effort to swing the club, i.e., I find it easier and less tiring to swing with my arms than to rotate with my body...

 

So today, I shot a 73 on the same course (without the cart tires, toilet seats, and silliness), my low round of the season. I scrapped the stuff from this week, took my "old swing," and focused on two things that you all pointed out in the first video: (1) my shoulders turn too flat and (2) my forearms roll in the takeaway. I discovered that what felt like early wrist set to me was really forearm roll. So rather than attempt wholesale change of my entire backswing like I did this past week, I simply incorporated those two ideas to my old swing. Turn my left shoulder lower and don't "set the wrists." The result was quality ball striking across the entire bag, and what felt like a really easy 73.

 

Anyway, today was my last day of golf for a couple weeks as I'm heading to Costa Rica with my wife because we needed to use our Southwest vouchers before they expired, so of course we picked the most expensive flight they offered...too bad the Southwest Hawaii tickets have opened up yet...it'll be good to get away from the golf course and come back relaxed and ready to hit the spring season.

Pepsi, just out of curiosity, do you do a lot of upright rows as part of your BB routine? I am a big fan of lifting and in no way subscribe to the lunatic old-school theories that maintain that is is bad for golf. However, it can be the case that some moves in the gym can ingrain certain motor patterns. I think this has been the case for me with respect to certain things (upright rows, on which I used to go both very heavy for me like near bodyweight, and very high volume at times); it has made my body just "want" to move a certain way around some joints and axes.

[PepsiDuck]

Pepsi, just out of curiosity, do you do a lot of upright rows as part of your BB routine? I am a big fan of lifting and in no way subscribe to the lunatic old-school theories that maintain that is is bad for golf. However, it can be the case that some moves in the gym can ingrain certain motor patterns. I think this has been the case for me with respect to certain things (upright rows, on which I used to go both very heavy for me like near bodyweight, and very high volume at times); it has made my body just "want" to move a certain way around some joints and axes.

 

It’s been years since I’ve done an upright row. I’ve been on the Wendler program for the last few years, so I do very little outside of the four main lifts. The only rows I’ll do are standing (or seated) cable rows. I use heavy bands to do standing rows between sets to help strengthen the muscles in the back that assist in external rotation (e.g., rhomboids and teres major, infraspinatus).

 

I agree that certain aspects of weight training can be detrimental if you don’t balance out your body. People often overemphasize the pushing motions which create an imbalance favoring internal rotators in the shoulder.

[b_f_c_99]

I really appreciate all the discussion over the past week, and I'd like to share something a good friend told me which was hilarious but also sadly true...that this thread had quickly devolved into "an addict...in a full blown crack den of new mechanics"...

 

Yesterday, we played a Superintendent's Revenge tournament, two-person scramble in "full circus mode"...there were holes with 100 range balls scattered on the green around the hole, cart tires and toilet seats on greens, tee boxes in the trees and bunkers, holes in bunkers, and my personal favorite, a 40-yard deep green with the pin tucked a yard off the back edge...and the actual hole on the slope of the false front. It isn't until you see that the pin is just stuck in the ground that you realize the trickery... It was a lot of fun, but I admit I really struggled with all the new stuff that was discussed in this thread. By the end of the round, I was going back to my "old swing" just to keep the ball in play and contribute to the team. After the round, I went to the range for a bit to hit balls, and I quickly realized that with my "old swing," I strike the ball better and it takes a lot less effort to swing the club, i.e., I find it easier and less tiring to swing with my arms than to rotate with my body...

 

So today, I shot a 73 on the same course (without the cart tires, toilet seats, and silliness), my low round of the season. I scrapped the stuff from this week, took my "old swing," and focused on two things that you all pointed out in the first video: (1) my shoulders turn too flat and (2) my forearms roll in the takeaway. I discovered that what felt like early wrist set to me was really forearm roll. So rather than attempt wholesale change of my entire backswing like I did this past week, I simply incorporated those two ideas to my old swing. Turn my left shoulder lower and don't "set the wrists." The result was quality ball striking across the entire bag, and what felt like a really easy 73.

 

Anyway, today was my last day of golf for a couple weeks as I'm heading to Costa Rica with my wife because we needed to use our Southwest vouchers before they expired, so of course we picked the most expensive flight they offered...too bad the Southwest Hawaii tickets have opened up yet...it'll be good to get away from the golf course and come back relaxed and ready to hit the spring season.

 

This is exactly my point, if your chasing a look or something that is so out of your natural instinct it better guarantee much improved accuracy, distance, consistency, pretty much everything. If not you run the risk of totally destroying yourself or at best just trading for a different set of problems.

 

That being said there’s a good chance your timing was just on today, and in a couple weeks it won’t be as easy. But hey man that’s golf. The best in the world struggle with the same problems. Nice round btw!

[PepsiDuck]

This is exactly my point, if your chasing a look or something that is so out of your natural instinct it better guarantee much improved accuracy, distance, consistency, pretty much everything. If not you run the risk of totally destroying yourself or at best just trading for a different set of problems.

 

That being said there’s a good chance your timing was just on today, and in a couple weeks it won’t be as easy. But hey man that’s golf. The best in the world struggle with the same problems. Nice round btw!

 

Thanks! And yep, you were right.... :lol:

 

And I’m definitely not suggesting that I’m suddenly a scratch golfer, or even truly improved, just because of one round. And I agree, what I’m trying to do is minimize the effects of timing, so that my misses, even on a bad timing day, are still playable. Whenever I play with drewtaylor, even if he has been away from the course for months, I’m always impressed by how his misses are barely off the fairway and still very much in play. I’d like to get to that point.