Top of Back Swing Position

Here are some tips for where to stop your back swing. I found Nick Faldo's method is best for myself.

Top of Back Swing position:

Nick Faldo's way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKHCGNT-hPw

Tom Watson's way:
http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instruction/2011-01/watson-top-swing

Jon Woodroffe's way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeV3RQR0Kwc

Some notes to myself

I started to apply tour tempo golf (swing-set-through) to my irons earlier, and it worked for a while. Then I tend to have a couple of shanks. Then I slowed down my back swing, making some adjustments...

Recently I had an experienced golfer look at my iron swing (slow takeaway, easy swing, more upright position at the top), and he told me I got a problem with my swing plane. More upright position at the top would leave my natural swing plane, so I need to keep it a little flat...

Then I practiced with this swing adjustment, trying to keep it on the swing plane during the whole back swing. This would also slow down my back swing. It seems to work, except that I would hit it fat occasionally.

Tried this new swing for all clubs including driver and fairway woods during a couple of rounds. Results are not bad, maybe lost some distance for driver, but not too much, around 10 yards...

I thought I would stick to this new swing for good... But tonight at the range, I started to shank again at the beginning all of sudden with 7 iron. Switched to driver, same swing, distance not good. Tried swing-set-through, solid contacts, longer shots... then tried swing-set-through with irons, also solid contacts, straight shots with good distances for almost all irons (9 through 5, did not try PW).

This is interesting... I guess I will have to switch between the two swing styles back and forth, which ever works...

Another note: I found the reason why I tend to pull/hook with fairway woods: I got an inside-out swing path.

Swing Adjustments

It seems I need to struggle with iron shanks every summer (June/July)... Had a couple of shanks

From previous experiences in 2012, tried baseball grip, it works, but I still tend to pull to left as before.
Tried to fully extend arms, and move ball position a little forward, this one does not work as well as before. Maybe extending arms would tend to overswing...

Back to basic, here are some swing tip videos (Paul Wilson) that I reviewed:

How to relax and increase swing speed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROE1r9S9D4
(this is a different approach than swing-set-through, and it takes more practice/time to gain swing speed, but it could help to build a more consistent swing)

How to swing like Ernie Els:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yju_MLjGqWM

Effortless Golf Swing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwpdkuC3H_k

For irons, now I would try effortless golf swing, back swing to a more upright position, try not to over turn / over swing, and use lower body (waist/hip) to generate swing speed. Tried this at Crooked Tree range, and it seemed to be working, at least for this evening...

For fairway woods, I would do the same as irons.

For driver, I would still use swing-set-through method.

I think when I am getting more comfortable with this new swing adjustment for irons/fairway woods, then I will try swing-set-through tempo because at that time I would know exactly where to stop at the top of back swing, and just go there directly and more quickly...

4 Birdies in One Round！

I got four birdies in one round at Glenview on June 2, actually within 7 holes.
Previous personal best was 2 birdies in a round.

Glenview West
Hole 1, par 4: driver, hybrid 4 iron, then chip in from about 15 to 20 feet.
Hole 4, par 3: 8 iron, about 120 yard, putt from about 15 feet.
Hole 6, short par 4: driver, 3/4 swing pitching wedge, putt from 4 or 5 feet.
Hole 7, par 3：8 iron again, putt from 2 feet, gimme range.

However, the other holes did not go that well, with 5 pars, 6 bogies, and 3 double bogies, leading to 80, just one short to break 80.
9 green in regulation, but 1 3-putts, and a couple of bad chips. 31 putts in total.

Struggling with pull / hooks

I have applied tour tempo golf to all clubs for a couple of rounds and several range sessions. The results were more consistent, but now I tend to pull or hook with almost all clubs, especially fairway woods, except for driver, which tends to draw.

I figured that there is too much hand action than body turn, or I started down swing with hand rather than lower body while trying to do "swing set through ". So I spent a couple of range sessions to make corrections. It seems to work, at least pull is less severe for fairway woods and irons. however, driver shots go more straight now, or even fade / push occasionally.

2013 Golf Season Notes

2013 golf season started a little late, at the end of March. So far I have played about 8 or 9 rounds. The first round was at Crooked Tree, and it was terrible, with almost every part of my game in a bad shape. If I recorded my score correctly, it would be around 100...

The next weekend at Glenview was pretty good, amazingly in low 80s. Every part of game seemed to be back to normal, except that I kept pulling fairway woods. Then a week later, it was in low 90s again.

So far, I had about 2 good rounds in low 80s, 3 bad ones in 90s, and others in between. The problem is inconsistency: pull for fairway woods and irons, and sometimes fat shots or off-center hit of irons.

While trying to fix these problems, I found my driver was relatively more consistent than other clubs. Why is that? Driver used to be the most difficult club for me... The reason is that I have applied "tour tempo golf" only to driver, but not to other clubs yet, thinking that I need distance more than accuracy for driver, but for other clubs, I need accuracy more than distance. This is probably a miss. Maybe I should apply it to all clubs.

With this idea in mind, I tried it out at the range (Crooked Tree), and it seems to be working. Another tip to myself, extend the arms, and a little more upright backswing.

Will test it out in a round at Glenview tomorrow...

No More Shanks

A range session, using an empty package box, confirmed it was the outside-in swing path that caused my shanks.

For temporary fixes, I found addressing the ball with the toe of iron face would work most times. I also found using 10-finger grip (baseball) would also work, maybe a little more reliably. Then I used these 2 temporary fixes on the course for a couple of rounds, more often with the 10-finger grip than the other, and I managed to reduce shanks to only 1 or 2 during an entire round of 18 holes.

After a couple of rounds, I started to pull/hook with the 10-finger grip. So I changed back to interlock gripping. At the same time, I noticed one blog post of my own posted last year about ball position and fully extending my arms. I realized maybe I forgot to fully extend my arms. So I tried that, and it worked! I think the reason is that I can extend the impact, i.e., to have a more square and solid impact, by extending my arms during back swing. Since then, I have played several rounds without any shank.

Now I can say I have finally fixed my shank problem. A by-product of this ordeal is that I find a good approach to play a draw -- using 10-finger grip.