New Swing Technique - YMMV

[A.Princey]

I've always fought EE, a strong grip, and lack of clubhead speed potential as a result of poor mechanics. Despite these problems, I have had the ability to piece together a manageable swing and get pretty decent at the game, but maintaining any sort of repeatable ball flight has been tough in the long run, as hooks and poor contact reared their ugly head at times. I have finally managed to figure out a swing that works very repeatedly and with good results. I have as much power and distance as I've ever had due to this change and my ball striking is markedly better, although, I have been practicing more so that in itself is also a contributing factor. Here are the 4 things I've done, mostly at setup to completely overhaul my swing and go from an all out "hitter" to some kind of "swinger":

 

DEVELOP A TRULY NEUTRAL GRIP. Get really picky about your grip(hand placement), on every shot in relation to feel and club face orientation. I found this was the only effective way to eliminate handsy release issues and over-"steering" at impact. GET INTO AN SEMI-IDEAL IMPACT POSITION AT ADDRESS. This is probably out of a Bryson playbook somewhere, but I found by creating an extended LEAD arm feel, almost on plane with the shaft angle, I am able to create less error in club position at impact because less timing is involved due to fewer angles and positional relationships. Also, I bring the TRAIL arm in so that you could almost(or actually) hold a tennis ball between your forearms. Keep the TRAIL elbow down and into the side/abdomen, creating a sort of "triangular" window, as seen DTL. START THE SWING WITH THE FALDO PRE-SET DRILL(takes hundreds of balls to start feeling natural, bear with it!), maintaining the connected TRAIL elbow into the abdomen and extended LEAD arm, almost pointing at the ball. Try to maintain the arm setup from earlier, just rotating the LEAD hand above the TRAIL one to create the preset. Keep this 90* wrist set throughout the backswing and really try to loosen your trail hand grip a lot, use it primarily as a guide for rotating back. The backswing should feel like nothing more that a turn/rotation around a stationary spine angle, where the shaft always feels on plane with the ball, ever mindful to keep that triangular window and connected feeling going back. If you really stay connected well, it's very likely you won't reach parallel due to anatomical restriction(unless you're super flexible), but that's ok. START THE DOWSWING WITH THE LEGS AND HIPS, TURNING LEAD BUTTOCK STRAIGHT BACK and rotating lower body ONLY. A loose grip and mindfulness not to over-grip or muscle the club, is a must here. LET THE CLUB RELEASE ON ITS OWN, because it will if you start uncoiling from the legs hard. Literally, add no extra effort from your hands or arms at all. Here, the downswing plane changes slightly to maintain the triangle arm relationship, by driving the TRAIL shoulder and hands "on-plane" at the ball. This means that towards impact, the shoulder line, hands, and ball should all be on a relatively stable plane together, all working at the ball. After impact, the line through the shoulders should pass relatively close to where the ball was sitting.

This is a lot to digest, and I don't claim to know the golf swing very well at all, but this just plain works for me. It eventually just becomes all about arm setup, posture and your grip at address. Then its just set the club, turn back and turn through the ball. You'll likely start pushing the ball and hitting blocks at first, but contact should start getting real solid. Start in the middle of your bag with a 7i, then work outwards. This will feel really compact and stunted if you keep the TRAIL arm connection that I mentioned, but I've only gained power since going to a more compact swing. I'm sure a small percentage of folks will be leaving yards on the table by not going for a completely full backswing, but this is as consistently straight and long as I've ever been. YMMV, as always.

 

Here's some of my setup in a diagram:

 

[A.Princey]

I cannot create this position consistently on my own, so this whole setup routine that I describe does it for me, and gets me in a position not too dissimilar from Hogan, as seen here in the first minute or so. The preset and setup manipulation gets me into the perfect position for the top of my backswing, so my rhythm and through swing are the only real variables in the end result. My downswing would somehow be a marriage of Bryson and Hogan, if that were possible. If I were going to teach a swing to a beginner, I'd likely get them to do what I am doing currently, way less to think about during the swing.

[Golfbeat]

This looks a bit like Joe Dante's magic move?