Tiger Woods took 2 years to feel fully comfortable with his swing changes under Hank Haney and Tiger works much more on his swing than I do, so I’m going to keep that in mind as I make these changes. In all, I have a dozen or so changes I’d like to make and I’m guessing each one will take me 2-3 weeks to feel comfortable given the amount of time I currently alot to practice, so this could potentially take 9 months. That’s an awful long time and certainly not how I would teach a student unless he was seriously committed or needed to be committed seriously to a loony bin.
I am going to look at this as earning my bachelor’s degree in biomechanics, so it’s as much for education as it is for anything else. I’ll be discussing these changes here in some detail as I progress, but will be reserving the really good stuff and the explanation for the changes for the Member’s Vault members. Without further ado, let’s look at today’s swing sequence after a couple hours on the range this morning:
You can click the image for a larger view. In frame 1, I have a made a slight adjustment to my setup, anyone guess what it is? Overall, I’m pretty happy with my setup from face on and will only likely change one more thing from this view. Again, I’m primarily focusing on setup changes right now and have a swing thought or two that I’m trying to feel in my actual swing. Changing my setup is enough to leave the brain confused, so I’m trying not to overdo it. In frame 3, I’m really trying to make some changes here and in frame 4. My tendency is to over drive too hard with the right side. This gets me into the position I’m in in frame 5 where I’ve delofted the club a bit too much (this is a 7 iron) and my hands are a bit too far out in front of the ball at impact. Part of my interest in making these changes is to alter this impact position so that my hands can actually slow down and release the club a bit more. I’m actually losing clubhead speed here because I haven’t had time to fully release the club.
In the end, a lot of what I’m working on is simply a matter of rotation, but biomechanically correct rotation. After a couple hours of work on the range with the 7 iron, I picked up the driver and my first swing was 122 mph, that’s a fairly high first swing for me, I’m normally in the mid teens range, and it felt pretty comfortable. I can feel how I can power my swing with even more of the big muscles than I do already, which is going to allow my to swing faster with less work while actually protecting my muscles and joints rather than putting them at greater risk for injury.
right foot open at address?
I mean left foot, sorry
Right foot is square, although it doesn’t really matter. I think the camera is slightly ahead of center.
Have you got a little more weight on your back foot than normal, Chuck?
Yes Dean, that’s it. It’s too much here and my right leg is not at the angle I want it, but in the end I’m trying to setup more 50/50 and over corrected here.
Chuck, did you check out that Move video on youtube? Basically it involves lifting the toes of your right foot and kinda corkscrewing your foot clockwise into the ground in order to create some real torque. With practice this totally automates the transition. You then do the same thing, albeit to a lesser degree, with the left foot in order to create that torque to hit against.
Basically Sevam is saying this was the key Hogan developed and what he meant by “the secret is in the dirt” AND why he had an extra spike on his right shoe AND why he hooked the crap out of that tee shot on 18th at Olympic when his foot slipped.
Be interested to hear your thoughts.
Dean, just watched it. Alison does a very important grounding technique that is part of the setup changes I made this weekend that I’ll be discussing in a video. I tried his technique since I was here hitting balls just for fun. I lost 10 mph of clubhead speed with the driver immediately. I then watched another video where he was talking about how far he hits his 6 iron – about 165. I’m going to pass! Throwing away 20 yards might be fine for some, but that’s no bueno too me.
Cool. Just glad to get some feedback
I’m looking forward to the upcoming videos for us members. I notice both you and Tiger at the top of the backswing from the face-on view with an iron have a significant gap between the shaft and the top of your head. On my videos, the shaft is either at the top of my head or even behind it. Is this simply due to camera angle, or is there more to it than that? Keep up the good work!
Ed, it’s more likely due to your hands being very deep and your shoulders rotating a little too flat.