I Early Extend - Why? - What Else? [Video]

jmrski2 · July 29

Shot my worst 18-hole round in 5 years on Sunday. Couldn’t keep a tee shot on the planet, especially driver. I’ve played to as low as a 5hcp, but my game has been trending in the wrong direction.

Had a range session today and took some video. After a lot of thoughts bouncing around my head, I honed in on staying connected with my lead (left) arm. I was tucking my shirt under my left arm pit religiously and it was a significant improvement over Sunday ball striking. Lot of wayward shots still. Videos appear to show some serious EE - especially as clubs get longer. Driver miss is typically a push fade, or straight pull. Same with longer irons (4-6).

Any clues on what’s causing this? Tips or drills to focus on?

I will post videos in the replies.

jmrski2 · July 29

Pitching wedge

jmrski2 · July 29

7 iron

jmrski2 · July 29

5 iron

jmrski2 · July 29

3 wood

jmrski2 · July 29

Driver

MonteScheinblum · July 29

Need face on.

End of backswing gets out if position and EE helps you recover.

jmrski2 · July 29

Will need some time for a face on. Will get one during my league round tomorrow.

But yes, I was surprised to see how far in front of my face the club head was getting at the top, especially driver.

MonteScheinblum · July 29

2 minutes ago, jmrski2 said:

Will need some time for a face on. Will get one during my league round tomorrow.

But yes, I was surprised to see how far in front of my face the club head was getting at the top, especially driver.

Looks like your hip rotation and shift is the root cause of that, but want to make sure.

sundaypins · July 29

All upper body mainly because from whatever angle the legs are soft noodles and unable to assist by driving upper action. We knock a man in the ring down with our arm and fist, we knock him out of the ring with our feet and legs driving the arms and fist, so you're basically throwing something against your legs instead of bringing something with your legs. Hip action solution.

17 hours ago, jmrski2 said:

Any clues on what’s causing this? Tips or drills to focus on?

Edited July 29 by sundaypins
spelling, or because I can, choose one.

Valtiel · July 29

14 hours ago, jmrski2 said:

Any clues on what’s causing this? Tips or drills to focus on?

It's a pretty deep dive, but the nutshell version is that you aren't setup to rotate correctly with your lower body and likely don't really know *how* yet either. This is one of the many "common colds" in the golf swing, because rotating and sequencing correctly with the lower body is not something you can just go do intuitively.

Everything AMG discusses in this popular video is relevant to you and what you're doing wrong, as they highlight with the "Am" example. You're setup straight legged and "unathletic" at address and you turn towards the ball in both the backswing and the downswing, which is what causes early extension as you need to "stand up" to make contact if you're progressively moving towards the ball throughout the swing. I made a graphic here that many people found useful as a way to illustrate this.

Fixing this is hard....it's like learning how to do a cartwheel as an adult. The unintuitive sequence of learning to rotate what will feel like "away" from the ball in both the backswing and the downswing in order to *not* come towards it AND learning how to sequence your weight shift ahead of the upper body components of the swing to make this happen are all things that are pretty 180* from what you're doing now. Your overrunning backswing position (especially with the longer clubs) can also make this feel impossible as you're also having to manage the club getting out of position at the top in a way that everything has to work around. The face-on videos @MonteScheinblum wants to see will help highlight this as well.