Ray Ray's Swing Thread

[bortass]

3 hours ago, RayPlan said:

 

{snip}

But like I said at the top, whether I'm effectively a beginner is a philosophical question. I don't know if I have enough insight to answer that truthfully.

 

I would posit that you are a beginner with regard to seriously trying to become a better golfer which is what this thread is about. At the end of the day, it boils down to experience realistically doing it. Once upon a time I thought I'd git gud and took some lessons over a few years. They were sporadic. I didn't really work on what the pro told me as much as I should. I had no plan or goals. I'd whack balls on the range with no real purpose. End result is I never moved the needle and all I learned about becoming a better golfer is what I had done to date was not it. A very valuable lesson in and of itself but not the greatest. My feel, and I may be wrong, is that you want to get better at golf and are trying to figure out how to actually do that. I don't get the been there/done that vibe when it comes to improvement from you. Perfectly fine and completely normal as well because everyone was/is at this stage for everything they have ever done in life.

 

The simplest way I can frame trying to improve is:

• Determine your strengths and weaknesses.
• Determine what you want to improve.
• Determine how you will improve it.
• Keep track of it to see if you really are improving over time.
• Adjust as needed.

Somethings you come up with may not need any outside help such as course management. Anything related to your swing or technique will require outside help, which is where finding someone to work with will pay dividends in the long run. 

 

A couple things around improvement:

• It takes time and effort. Quick fixes are few and far between. 
• It is not linear. There will be ups and downs which is why the long term trends are what matter, not what you did last round or over the last month.
• There is no done. Everyone can always get better but is the juice worth the squeeze is up to each individual.
• Be realistic in what you are trying to accomplish. You need to challenge yourself but keep it real. As much as I'd like, I'm not gonna drive the ball 300 yards but maybe I can eventually get to 250 if I improve my full swing.
• You ultimately own the process. You are the hero in this journey. Everyone else is just the supporting cast to help and unfortunately sometimes hinder.

 

Edited February 5 by bortass

[RayPlan]

1 hour ago, KD1 said:

 

At the very least start keeping your handicap in an app. A handicap accounts for different course difficulties, different tee boxes, daily conditions, even outlying blow up holes. It's not perfect but it's something and the going standard.

I have The Grint app on my phone, and I've submitted some scores for a few rounds in the last few years, but I missed some, and didn't take full advantage of its more detailed tracking. Need to make that into a habit.

[betarhoalphadelta]

25 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

I have The Grint app on my phone, and I've submitted some scores for a few rounds in the last few years, but I missed some, and didn't take full advantage of its more detailed tracking. Need to make that into a habit.

 

Just so you know, the free version doesn't really give you any of the detailed "stats" that it can. And quite frankly I don't find their detailed stats all that useful. If you use the detailed hole by hole tracker it *will* track things per round like number of putts per hole and distance of first putt, whether fairways (par 4/5) and GIR are hit, penalties / bunkers, etc. But it won't compound those stats into trends for free. 

 

I personally wouldn't pay for the pro version, but I still use it for score inputs and handicap tracking. And we as a group also all use it for skins games / etc, where it automatically calculates course handicap, who gets strokes and when, tracks the # of holes won, etc...

 

[bortass]

1 minute ago, RayPlan said:

I have The Grint app on my phone, and I've submitted some scores for a few rounds in the last few years, but I missed some, and didn't take full advantage of its more detailed tracking. Need to make that into a habit.

 

A habit I would recommend creating that ties into the detailed tracking is post round analysis. You can make this as long/short as you'd like. The point is while the round is still fresh in your mind think about what went well and what didn't.  Look for patterns since they will tell you what does and doesn't need work. You don't want to focus on just what went wrong because that can be depressing, lol. This is a great way to figure out stuff that will not show up in stats, for example wet rough is something that I really struggle hitting out of. Arccos can tell me I dropped strokes from the rough but has no clue as to the conditions. Hitting out of the rough isn't a good thing for me but I know if it's wet, I have to be even more conservative.

 

It's also okay to start small. You don't need to track everything under the sun right out of the gate unless that's your jam. In the 'old days' before tracking apps were common, I tracked a number of stats on my scorecard and entered them into OOB Golf( which has been defunct for years). I never used most of it for anything. Maybe it wasn't worth the effort to track those stats and enter them into the website. Today, I have a bunch of stats, thanks to Arccos, that I don't use often but I don't need to do anything special to get them either.

 

Some stats are useless w/o context like number of putts. I had 32 putts, I must be good! Well that doesn't say that I missed almost every green and chipped it inside ten feet most of the time, so my putting may not as good as I thought.

 

[KMeloney]

4 hours ago, RayPlan said:

 

That's a bit of a philosophical question. I'm 35 now, and those three years were probably the only years in my life that I played absolutely no golf, going back to when I was a little kid. You probably didn't come for my life story, but it goes directly to the essence of the question.

I come from a golf family, with my mom, dad, and older brother all pretty good at the game. I don't know that any of them ever had formal instruction, but my dad played golf in high school and at the junior college he attended, and did well. He's a golf course superintendent, but he would play in club events when I was little and sometimes win. In the 90's, when I was single-digit age, I came to resent the game because I thought I should just magically be better than I was. I played in at least one parent-child outing with my dad when I was 5 or 6, which I have photographic proof of, but no memory of how that went. At some point, it was better for all involved if I just rode in the cart, because trying to play made me and my family miserable. I got all pouty when things didn't go my way on the course. My dad would try to teach me, but I was uncoachable. He would show me things, but I would try a few times, then declare them impossible. My little brain wanted instant gratification at all times, which I later connected with my ADHD once I was diagnosed as an adult. I found video games much more rewarding than golf.

 

When I was 10, I joined a summer junior golf program at the country club where my parents worked at the time. It included some basic group lessons on the range, formal rule instruction, etiquette, but mostly things I had already picked up from being around the game. I played a lot of golf that summer, including the final event of the junior golf program, a tournament. Unfortunately, I was a little jerk to the other kids throughout, including actively rooting for my main opponent's shots to go awry. I ended up tying for 1st in my age/skill group, but lost in a scorecard playoff. I cried and pouted about this, and as a result of my extraordinarily unsportsmanlike conduct, my mom banned me from future participation in the junior golf program. I can't blame her, because I really was raised better, plus she worked in the pro shop and played a big role in running the program, so it was all pretty embarrassing for her. Had I been better behaved, I probably would have steadily improved as I moved up through the different classes. 

 

The next few years, I still spent a lot of time at the course in the summers, so I would play golf with my brother, the club pro's kids, and other members or employees' kids. I was always the worst in the group, and my errant drives (wild, high slices) would really drag the pace of play, since I had to spend a lot of time looking for my ball in the rough, or determining whether it even remained in play. My mid-irons and short game were all pretty decent, and I was pretty good at putting, I just couldn't hit woods to save my life, because of some underlying mechanical flaws that never got addressed. A big part of that was because I remained uncoachable, because I didn't have the patience or the desire to put in the work. I would play with my family on occasions like Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays, and other times, but I didn't have a lot of fun, and I would make everyone else suffer through my poor reactions to bad shots, and my bad moods.

I started to play and practice a bit more as a teenager, and I loved to hit balls on the range, but I could rarely keep my driver or other woods under control. I had a major tendency to overswing and try to kill every shot. The giant slice continued unabated, just getting longer and higher as I got stronger and faster. I could still hit decent shots with mid-irons, wedges, and on/around the green. My lack of control off the tee and my random catastrophic mishits kept me from breaking 90. I could have played a lot more, and it would have been free, but I preferred to spend my time playing games at home. 

 

When I was 19-21 is when I started to appreciate the game much more, but I didn't have as many opportunities to play, except in my summer breaks from school, when I would work on a golf course (doing 8 hours of course maintenance), then playing after work. This was the period where I started breaking 90 and peaked at 84, with the same busted mechanics that I'd always had. If I got lucky, I could hit the ball pretty far. My brother insists I was hitting 300 on those good drives, but I don't know if I can believe that, looking back now. 

 

After college and law school, I was away from the opportunities to play for free that I had throughout my childhood. Once the prospect of actually paying for it arose, I didn't really have that much disposable income to devote to it, and I also didn't have anyone to play with. I also got married in that timeframe. The last hurrah of frequent golf I had was the late summer and fall of 2014, when I was waiting for bar exam results, then looking for a job. I worked on a golf course part-time, changing cups and mowing greens, and I played a lot of rounds by myself. I also started reading golf books, trying to learn "Hogan's Secret(s)," 1-plane vs. 2-plane swings, Stack and Tilt, and other stuff that I couldn't really implement. My attempt to implement Stack and Tilt especially screwed up my swing. I also got fixated on lag as something my swing needed more of. After that, I moved to another state, over 2 hours from my family, so those family outings (which had become less miserable for them) became much rarer. 

 

After moving, I would play a few rounds a year, plus several unfocused driving range sessions. From 2015 to 2018, I started going down YouTube rabbit holes, especially Rotary Swing (Chuck Quinton), which I thought was the greatest thing. Trying to implement that, based on the free YouTube content meant to funnel you into the paid course, did not help me. I started taking video for the first time during that period, and I still have some of them. I posted a swing from 2015 earlier in this thread, where I looked grossly thin, and I had a nasty over the top move. I don't know if that was something I'd been doing for a long time, or if I developed it during that 2015-2018 period, but it sucked. Drives were still the same miss pattern: off-the-planet high slices. 

 

In 2018, my first daughter was born, and my golf game was entirely dormant for 3 years. Then in 2021, I found someone in my office who golfed, but hadn't been out in a long time (like me), and we decided to go out and play on a fall day where we both had the day off, but daycare was open so I didn't have to worry about childcare. We played a pretty easy par 70 course (Pete Dye designed!), and I somehow shot 88. A month later, with a similar holiday situation, we played the same course and I shot 94. I was hooked again, but then in 2022, my second daughter was born. I still managed to find time to go to the range a few times and play 2 or 3 rounds in summer and fall, but not too much. 2023 was a similar story. 

 

2024 was when I went a bit crazy and started taking video in my backyard. I was just making practice swings in the yard most days, taking video. I also went down too many YouTube rabbit holes, discovered AMG (good), but also couldn't get enough golf content, so I watched too many videos with too many different swing approaches, lots of quick tips, band-aids for bad swings, everything the algorithm would throw at me. In August 2024, I got a net, and started hitting foam balls into that near-daily, until the weather and daylight hours became a limitation. I think I played 4 rounds in 2024, went to the range many more times than that, and hit lots of balls into the net, while taking so many videos that I would constantly have to delete dozens of them at a time to keep my phone's 128GB storage capacity from filling up. 

 

So I wouldn't call myself a beginner, because I've played too much, and have much more granular knowledge of the game than any beginner would. I can also hit shots that no beginner would be able to hit, I just can't do it all the time. My busted mechanics have always created a ceiling on my potential, and I never really worked on that seriously until this year.

 

But like I said at the top, whether I'm effectively a beginner is a philosophical question. I don't know if I have enough insight to answer that truthfully.

 

I had to go back to your original post to remind myself what this thread was really about. LOL

 

So, to summarize, despite being exposed to golf at a young age, you just don't play much golf. You might play a lot more in the near future, but recently haven't played much at all. 

 

I think you're getting ahead of yourself here, which might be why you made this thread to begin with. Trying to learn all you can on YouTube and here, trying to make all kinds of swing adjustments hitting balls into a net with no sense for how those changes are affecting the ball flight... It's just backward. It's like expecting to be a great pianist by studying and listening to music, but never touching a keyboard. Even your [what looks to me to be a very contrived] pose at the end of your swings above in a green t-shirt... it all appears that you're hoping to jump right to being a "good player" without actually playing [enough]. For most of us, it just doesn't ever work that way.

 

Hopefully you give yourself the chance to be ok with where your swing and game are right now and just get out there and play, see what is required to keep the ball in play and get it in the hole, and then be able to better assess your game and see where you really need help. 

[RayPlan]

57 minutes ago, bortass said:

 

A habit I would recommend creating that ties into the detailed tracking is post round analysis. You can make this as long/short as you'd like. The point is while the round is still fresh in your mind think about what went well and what didn't.  Look for patterns since they will tell you what does and doesn't need work. You don't want to focus on just what went wrong because that can be depressing, lol. This is a great way to figure out stuff that will not show up in stats, for example wet rough is something that I really struggle hitting out of. Arccos can tell me I dropped strokes from the rough but has no clue as to the conditions. Hitting out of the rough isn't a good thing for me but I know if it's wet, I have to be even more conservative.

 

It's also okay to start small. You don't need to track everything under the sun right out of the gate unless that's your jam. In the 'old days' before tracking apps were common, I tracked a number of stats on my scorecard and entered them into OOB Golf( which has been defunct for years). I never used most of it for anything. Maybe it wasn't worth the effort to track those stats and enter them into the website. Today, I have a bunch of stats, thanks to Arccos, that I don't use often but I don't need to do anything special to get them either.

 

Some stats are useless w/o context like number of putts. I had 32 putts, I must be good! Well that doesn't say that I missed almost every green and chipped it inside ten feet most of the time, so my putting may not as good as I thought.

 

That's the sort of thing I like to do, as long as I remember to do the necessary upfront work of documenting things. Will definitely remind myself to do it next time I play.

 

I hear you on putting though. One of my takeaways from Every Shot Counts is that I didn't need to spend much time on putting practice, because I've always been decent. It would take me way too many strokes to get to the green because of poor ball striking, hence the need to focus my efforts on swing mechanics.

 

Reading greens is a special skill/talent, but anyone can learn how to use a putter. It's stupidly easy compared to dynamics of the full swing. 

 

 

[RayPlan]

10 minutes ago, KMeloney said:

I had to go back to your original post to remind myself what this thread was really about. LOL

 

So, to summarize, despite being exposed to golf at a young age, you just don't play much golf. You might play a lot more in the near future, but recently haven't played much at all. 

 

I think you're getting ahead of yourself here, which might be why you made this thread to begin with. Trying to learn all you can on YouTube and here, trying to make all kinds of swing adjustments hitting balls into a net with no sense for how those changes are affecting the ball flight... It's just backward. It's like expecting to be a great pianist by studying and listening to music, but never touching a keyboard. Even your [what looks to me to be a very contrived] pose at the end of your swings above in a green t-shirt... it all appears that you're hoping to jump right to being a "good player" without actually playing [enough]. For most of us, it just doesn't ever work that way.

 

Hopefully you give yourself the chance to be ok with where your swing and game are right now and just get out there and play, see what is required to keep the ball in play and get it in the hole, and then be able to better assess your game and see where you really need help. 

The pose was only contrived to the extent that I held it for longer than normal, but I was watching what was actually a good ball in flight. I came by that position honestly, but every held pose is contrived.

 

As for your point about the net, my goal is to make better contact, which gets the ball into the air, traveling the direction I intended. It's not hard to tell when I top it, hit way behind it, shank it, or otherwise make bad contact. The ball can provide a lot of useful information even in that short distance, where my goal is to reduce catastrophic misses. The net isn't a substitute for hitting on the range, it's a supplement, because it's easier to go out to my backyard than it is to drive 20 minutes, hit balls for an hour, then drive 20 minutes back, so I can make time for it more easily. I'm still going to go to the range when time and whether permit it, but it requires more planning. 

 

Hitting into a net tests whether I can get the club face to hit the ball. If I can't do that with any accuracy, then it's going to go poorly for me when I play. I know this because I've lived it. My overarching goal is to make better contact more often. If I can't do that in the net, then I can't do it on the range or on the course.

 

And why have I had poor contact consistency? Because I've had bad swing mechanics. The solution is to improve mechanics. Seems straightforward to me. 

 

I'm also not doing the YouTube rabbit hole thing anymore. I stopped that over a month ago.

[KMeloney]

20 hours ago, RayPlan said:

The pose was only contrived to the extent that I held it for longer than normal, but I was watching what was actually a good ball in flight. I came by that position honestly, but every held pose is contrived.

 

As for your point about the net, my goal is to make better contact, which gets the ball into the air, traveling the direction I intended. It's not hard to tell when I top it, hit way behind it, shank it, or otherwise make bad contact. The ball can provide a lot of useful information even in that short distance, where my goal is to reduce catastrophic misses. The net isn't a substitute for hitting on the range, it's a supplement, because it's easier to go out to my backyard than it is to drive 20 minutes, hit balls for an hour, then drive 20 minutes back, so I can make time for it more easily. I'm still going to go to the range when time and whether permit it, but it requires more planning. 

 

Hitting into a net tests whether I can get the club face to hit the ball. If I can't do that with any accuracy, then it's going to go poorly for me when I play. I know this because I've lived it. My overarching goal is to make better contact more often. If I can't do that in the net, then I can't do it on the range or on the course.

 

And why have I had poor contact consistency? Because I've had bad swing mechanics. The solution is to improve mechanics. Seems straightforward to me. 

 

I'm also not doing the YouTube rabbit hole thing anymore. I stopped that over a month ago.

I understand all of that -- but you didn't address the idea of PLAYING a whole lot more than you do/have. You can think you're improving [the look of] your swing just hitting balls into a net, but I think that making changes there without knowing what affect the changes are having on the ball flight might actually hinder your progress. 

[RayPlan]

I'll definitely plan around getting more rounds of golf this season. As for ball flight, does the range not provide at least decent feedback on that? I know range balls can be crap, but in the past, hitting it badly on the range has been highly correlated with hitting it badly on the course. I do hit off grass on the range, as a rule, so I don't get the extra forgiveness that mats can provide. 

 

I'm not just copying positions to look good on video.

[RayPlan]

I've continued to work on backswing, plus weight shift and downswing rotation. I happened to get some really good information that revealed the many ways I was wrong about how I was trying to rotate.

 

I attempted to do too much, too quickly, and predictable results ensued.

 

No point keeping those videos up.

Edited February 7 by RayPlan
Reeling this one back in. My bad

[iacas]

Almost all of those movements are "too big."

[Hawkeye77]

A contrived mess - stop! I’m not a coach and I can hardly watch just the lower body from you FO and in both a literal lateral and actual weight shift (my view) into your left toe on the downswing, and I’ll leave the rest out. 
 

Spend some money get some help but maybe take a break from all this and wait until it warms up, whether you do it in person or online. 

Edited February 7 by Hawkeye77

[RayPlan]

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

Almost all of those movements are "too big."

How much exaggeration is too much when trying unfamiliar movements?

 

I was consciously exaggerating a few things here: right shift, getting the trail hip back, and left shift. 

[iacas]

29 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

How much exaggeration is too much when trying unfamiliar movements?

 

You started this topic at the end of November. They should not be "unfamiliar" anymore.

 

And… stop worrying about the downswing. Nail the backswing stuff. And do it hitting balls. Stuff changes when you have a ball to hit. Backswing, pause, hit. Don't worry about the hit, but do it hitting balls.

 

29 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

I was consciously exaggerating a few things here: right shift, getting the trail hip back, and left shift. 

 

 

I'd wager you can't even see the ball at that point. That's way too much:

• turn (pelvis, rib cage, shoulders, head)
• shift (pelvis, rib cage, head)

 

Also, the clubface is shut.

 

We're well past the month where you said you'd find a local instructor, no?

 

Edited February 7 by iacas

[TheDeanAbides]

17 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

You started this topic at the end of November. They should not be "unfamiliar" anymore.

 

And… stop worrying about the downswing. Nail the backswing stuff. And do it hitting balls. Stuff changes when you have a ball to hit. Backswing, pause, hit. Don't worry about the hit, but do it hitting balls.

 

 

 

I'd wager you can't even see the ball at that point. That's way too much:

• turn (pelvis, rib cage, shoulders, head)
• shift (pelvis, rib cage, head)

 

Also, the clubface is shut.

 

We're well past the month where you said you'd find a local instructor, no?

 

Slightly harsh, but completely fair... and true. 

[RayPlan]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

You started this topic at the end of November. They should not be "unfamiliar" anymore.

Shouldn't, but I consider pretty much everything I did in December to have been misguided and unproductive. A good chunk of January, too. I got a lot of good advice, but I couldn't translate it when actually swinging a club. 

 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

And… stop worrying about the downswing. Nail the backswing stuff. And do it hitting balls. Stuff changes when you have a ball to hit. Backswing, pause, hit. Don't worry about the hit, but do it hitting balls.

Does hitting into a net count in your book? I haven't had time to reassemble it after dismantling it to prep for some major snowfall events in January. 

 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

 

 

I'd wager you can't even see the ball at that point. That's way too much:

• turn (pelvis, rib cage, shoulders, head)
• shift (pelvis, rib cage, head)

For some reason, I just really had it in my head that I would try to turn a lot. I don't think I can honestly say that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe some arrogance that if I can overdo things, I can just dial them way back. Really just bad decision-making on my part.

 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Also, the clubface is shut.

At the top? I might have a misunderstanding about face angle, if so. 

 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

We're well past the month where you said you'd find a local instructor, no?

 

That's true, and it's mainly because I'm having to do more work on weekends due to an unexpected departure and some other staffing changes. There's a realistic prospect in February, so the timeline shifted about 2 weeks on seeing an instructor. 

Edited February 7 by RayPlan

[Petethreeput]

29 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

I got a lot of good advice, but I couldn't translate it when actually swinging a club. 

Exactly why everyone has been standing on the rooftops saying to get an instructor.

 

Proprioception is real, but feel isn't real, and just looking at these two swings I would say your proprioception isn't great and you need another set of eyes on you to get the feel to be real, even if it is just during the lesson.  It will at least help.

 

Don't mean to be a jerk, but some people have the ability to feel their bodies and some don't necessarily and the swing is a series of small movements so if you're off... you can be way off in a hurry.

[RayPlan]

36 minutes ago, Petethreeput said:

Exactly why everyone has been standing on the rooftops saying to get an instructor.

 

Proprioception is real, but feel isn't real, and just looking at these two swings I would say your proprioception isn't great and you need another set of eyes on you to get the feel to be real, even if it is just during the lesson.  It will at least help.

 

Don't mean to be a jerk, but some people have the ability to feel their bodies and some don't necessarily and the swing is a series of small movements so if you're off... you can be way off in a hurry.

I actually have very good proprioception when it comes to most things. While doing this, I didn't believe for a second that I was making a fully cooked, normal swing. I knew I was going to extremes, so that was poor judgment, not a matter of thinking I'm doing one thing, but actually something completely different. 

 

I also recognize that an instructor would tell me not to do that, or possibly even stop me mid-swing. 

[Petethreeput]

14 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

possibly even stop me mid-swing

This is very much possible.  Or at the very least get you to start somewhere. I have never heard an instructor tell a student to think about these three different things during the golf swing, but you are tellling us you were exxaggerating to accentuate three different parts of the swing.  Fix one, the next two will be significantly less, then get the second, etc. I don't know enough to tell which one is the beginning of the end, but I can tell you it's in there somewhere.  I would also guess there are a few in this thread who CAN tell you based on their credentials and years of teaching, and I bet the guy down the street could tell you as well.

 

I will say, as an amateur, even I can see a lot of things (exxaggerated or not) that will throw off a sound repeatable swing.  I can see them, but I can't fix them.  You will save yourself (IMO) hours of fruitless grinding and possibly grooving the wrong thing when for $100 you could at least get some clarity on what you really want to feel or do, and then you can go back and dig it out of the dirt.

 

Ultimately, it is your game and you can do what you want, but if the natural ability isn't where you want to be then you'd better call on the pros to get you on the track.

 

While I am no proprioception expert, I would guess Charles Barkley is significantly more aware of his body on the basketball court but can barely find his rearend from his elbow on the golf course and he is a world class athlete.  

Edited February 7 by Petethreeput

[RayPlan]

I know better, I just got overly excited about a thing and my discipline slipped. I need to get more sleep.

Edited February 7 by RayPlan

[KD1]

3 hours ago, RayPlan said:

I actually have very good proprioception when it comes to most things. While doing this, I didn't believe for a second that I was making a fully cooked, normal swing. I knew I was going to extremes, so that was poor judgment, not a matter of thinking I'm doing one thing, but actually something completely different. 

 

I also recognize that an instructor would tell me not to do that, or possibly even stop me mid-swing. 

 

You'll hear instructors say to feel exaggerated movements to make correct movements, maybe not so much actually do the exaggerated movements... Donnie!

 

 

[RayPlan]

1 minute ago, KD1 said:

 

You'll hear instructors say to feel exaggerated movements to make correct movements, maybe not so much actually do the exaggerated movements... Donnie!

 

 

I've got a plan, OK!

[Hawkeye77]

9 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

I've got a plan, OK!

 

Which includes an actual instructor? 🙏

[RayPlan]

Just now, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Which includes an actual instructor? 🙏

Yes, definitely involves an actual instructor.

[virtuoso]

10 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

I've got a plan, OK!

Ray Ray, I thought the movements in those last videos, although a bit over-enthusiastic, might have bordered on secret genius about the pivot movements. There was something amazing beginning to happen.

[RayPlan]

My brain was doing some internal rotation when I woke up this morning, and I realized something: I killed my swing over a decade ago. I didn't mean to do it, but it's been haunting me ever since.

 

As I mentioned in my memoir several posts back, I briefly played junior golf before getting banned by my mom. But not before I developed a very lateral move on the downswing. I distinctly remember when I started charging my hips toward the target as my primary swing move. It was something I proudly showed off to my family as a kid. I never actually refined that into a proper pivot, but it was part of my swing when I had my best scoring (mid-80s) later when I was in college.

 

Fast forward to 2014, when I started aggressively digging down into rabbit holes with a shovel. Convinced that I could intellectualize golf swing and figure it out through independent study, I read books on the subject. I discovered Stack and Tilt, and became convinced that my biggest problem was that I was moving my hips too much, and it was the reason for my inconsistency. I set about destroying my hip movement, which led me to a develop the shoulders-first, over the top move seen here in my 2015-2016 era swing I posted previously:

 

 

Only now do I realize the damage I did. I killed one of the key elements of the pivot that I learned as a child, and I now have to relearn it as an adult. 

 

My only solace is that I've always been driven to learn, even if I haven't always directed that drive in the most productive way. Good teachers were always the key for me in school. They brought out the best in me.

 

In my infinite hubris, fresh out of law school, thinking so highly of my own intellect and what I could do with it, I destroyed something from my childhood without realizing it. In my arrogance, I never considered getting real instruction. A good teacher might have saved the swing I formed as a child and helped it grow, the way good teachers have always helped me reach my potential. 

 

I should never forget that truth as I continue my journey to improve.

[virtuoso]

19 hours ago, RayPlan said:

 

I attempted to do too much, too quickly, and predictable results ensued.

 

No point keeping those videos up.

Too bad, you were on your way to decoding the Riddle of the Sphinx, but you retreated.

 

To clean those movements up:

 

On the backswing, you must speak to the Sphinx through your sternum.

 

On the downswing you must speak to the Sphinx through your belly button.

[Hawkeye77]

1 hour ago, RayPlan said:

My brain was doing some internal rotation when I woke up this morning, and I realized something: I killed my swing over a decade ago. I didn't mean to do it, but it's been haunting me ever since.

 

As I mentioned in my memoir several posts back, I briefly played junior golf before getting banned by my mom. But not before I developed a very lateral move on the downswing. I distinctly remember when I started charging my hips toward the target as my primary swing move. It was something I proudly showed off to my family as a kid. I never actually refined that into a proper pivot, but it was part of my swing when I had my best scoring (mid-80s) later when I was in college.

 

Fast forward to 2014, when I started aggressively digging down into rabbit holes with a shovel. Convinced that I could intellectualize golf swing and figure it out through independent study, I read books on the subject. I discovered Stack and Tilt, and became convinced that my biggest problem was that I was moving my hips too much, and it was the reason for my inconsistency. I set about destroying my hip movement, which led me to a develop the shoulders-first, over the top move seen here in my 2015-2016 era swing I posted previously:

 

 

Only now do I realize the damage I did. I killed one of the key elements of the pivot that I learned as a child, and I now have to relearn it as an adult. 

 

My only solace is that I've always been driven to learn, even if I haven't always directed that drive in the most productive way. Good teachers were always the key for me in school. They brought out the best in me.

 

In my infinite hubris, fresh out of law school, thinking so highly of my own intellect and what I could do with it, I destroyed something from my childhood without realizing it. In my arrogance, I never considered getting real instruction. A good teacher might have saved the swing I formed as a child and helped it grow, the way good teachers have always helped me reach my potential. 

 

I should never forget that truth as I continue my journey to improve.

 

"I knew eventually it would be about your mother, Raymond." 😀

 

And totally teasing, but ..... forget trying to analyze things, make the appointment whether in person or virtual, keep the appointment, don't tell your instructor any of this (he or she doesn't need to know any of it to get you on the right track) then come back and report how it went - at that point you'll be on your way.

 

 

 

 

[RayPlan]

4 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

"I knew eventually it would be about your mother, Raymond." 😀

 

And totally teasing, but ..... forget trying to analyze things, make the appointment whether in person or virtual, keep the appointment, don't tell your instructor any of this (he or she doesn't need to know any of it to get you on the right track) then come back and report how it went - at that point you'll be on your way.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, no kidding. I wouldn't even want to tell my therapist all this. 

[Hawkeye77]

2 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

Yeah, no kidding. I wouldn't even want to tell my therapist all this. 

Glad you're a good sport - your swing wasn't at all horrible, plenty of good grist for the golf mill.