Eureka!!! The setup change that has me BOMBING it

[mr3856a]

So I've been focusing on my setup - grip and stance to be specific - for the last several months. I've always had some issues with my grip which are likely unique to me, so I'll spare you (save for the fact that I've gotten it squared away).

So as to my setup, I've always been a natural one planer, and I've always had a tendency to lean over quite a bit at address. This past week I was looking at my address position down the line in a mirror, and it just hit me that I was bending over way too far. For a guy who is 6'3", I looked about Ian Woosnam's height. I did a little check and held my club, grip end at my shoulder (so it hung straight down), and it showed me that my shoulders were some 3 to 4 inches outside my toes at address.

"This can't be right," I thought. Well, if you read Jim Hardy's "The Plane Truth for Golf," he advocates the one plane swinger to do pretty much what I was doing (though I think he exaggerates some points in the book for emphasis, this being one of them). But I got to thinking about a one planer who is my height, size and build - the Big Easy. I managed to find this picture of his address position on an evil competing forum :



So I just gave it a try, basically going for the feeling that my armpits were over the balls of my feet, and it instantly felt better - more balanced, more relaxed. Then a number of things started falling into place: I actually felt torque between my upper and lower body; I stopped swaying; my tendency to "lift up" at impact disappeared (which I realize now was what my body had to do to keep from falling over forward because of how far I was bent over); and I stopped yanking the club way inside on the backswing and lifting it to the top, which I've always done.

So without even trying it at the range, I took it to the course, just because it felt that natural. Saturday I shot an 84 with a triple at the last after Philly Mick'ing one into the trees on 18. Sunday I shot the best 88 of my life: I eagled the first (after a 290 missile right down broadway), the first time I've ever done that, parred the second (a par 3), then I stood on 3 tee and had all the wrong thoughts about score, what might be, etc. I ripped 2 balls OB left. I settled in and like I said, shot 88 with 3 penalty strokes, 2 or 3 missed 3-5 footers and just a bazaar 6 on a par 3 (bug flew into my eye during my downswing, ball went into the rough, I pitched out under the lip of the bunker and had to hit my bunker shot away from the hole, etc. etc.).

A few things worth noting: I played with 10 clubs this weekend because it was so hot, and yesterday, on the 548-yard 16th, I was 20 yards short of the green with a driver and a 2 hybrid. The hole plays uphill on the drive, and I've never seen anyone that close, much less with driver-hybrid. I've previously hit driver-3 wood to 30 yards short of it. On the 13th, a 325 yard uphill par 4, with that same hybrid (16*) I was right at the 100 marker - i.e. 225 yards uphill. I already mentioned the opening bomb. I hit another drive on 11 (a par 4) 230 yards with the hybrid. I also hit one wedge on one of the par 3's with the perfect strike, and that low, rising up trajectory you see from Tour players with their short irons. The tee was still in the ground, and a shallow divot started a half inch in front of it - on the correct side for once.

Needless to say, I'm pretty ridiculously excited, and I have the feeling this isn't going to be one of those fleeting things, but rather a change to a more sound fundamental that will help produce better golf over the long haul. Just thought I'd share...

[Leaguegolf]

Thanks for sharing. We too often hear about poor play and it's always encouraging to read that someone has found something that has helped them to play better. Keep up the good play!

[droogy33]

Very cool, mr3856a! No better feeling than knowing you're on the right track. Bet you can't wait for the next round.

[Texas Wedge]

Thanks for sharing! I'll put that in my head in the list of things to check if I start struggling in the middle of the round as I sometimes do. I think I do that sometimes, too, but I never can figure out what I'm doing wrong. Yet thinking about some of my days where I'm struggling like that, I can see that as something I might have been doing wrong.

Thanks for the info!!

[Wazmankg]

I get about 3 Eureka !! moments each season. I hope you have better luck with yours mr3856a.

[mr3856a]

Originally Posted by Wazmankg

I get about 3 Eureka !! moments each season. I hope you have better luck with yours mr3856a.

I know, I know... still eureka'ing, though, gonna hit the range later today. Funny thing is, I've played two rounds on the course with this in mind, but have yet to practice it actually. I'll provide an update later.

[alangbaker]

Good work...

I find the same thing occasionally — or at least a similar thing. My weight starts to feel like it's out towards my toes and the club is going too vertically. For me, the fix is to feel that my weight is more back on my heels, which pretty much automatically means my upper body has to change position.

I think I creep back to a more vertical swing because it used to be that a flatter plane would cause me to hook the ball, and even now that I've got that under control, I tend to revert to the feelings that used to work for me.

[mr3856a]

Originally Posted by alangbaker

I think I creep back to a more vertical swing because it used to be that a flatter plane would cause me to hook the ball, and even now that I've got that under control, I tend to revert to the feelings that used to work for me.

I think that's one of the most important things in golf, is knowing your bad tendencies and being able to recognize them.

[GolfSavage]

I'll need to check my posture as well next time out. That may be causing my feeling of imbalance, which results in my taking too wide of a stance and restricting hip turn. When I consciously check my stance width, spine angle, etc. I usually hit pretty well, but if I forget to check those things and just do what's comfortable, I start hitting it less consistently and that leads to less confidence, etc. When I'm doing something wrong with my arms or grip, I can usually self-diagnose the problem. But stance and posture problems usually require someone else to point them out.

[OnePutt]

Okay, how did the range practice go with the new setup? Are you still hitting the ball long and straight? Let me know.

[mr3856a]

Well, this is definitely a keeper, I'm hitting the ball very well ever since I've made this change. I feel so much more in balance now; as I said, I think before I was coming out of my posture (standing up) through impact just to keep from falling forward flat on my face. My weight was so far outside of my toe line there was no other option save for tipping over. I think I exerted a lot of effort just to remain upright.

Now I'm finding myself staying in my posture, and with the nice balance I feel like I can really go at the ball. I hope larryrsf isn't looking , but I've also started really firing my hips to start my downswing. It's something I've always known good players do - heck, you can see it if you watch swingvision clips on youtube - but I've always been more of a complete body-rotation, everything-at-the-same-time kinda guy. I've toyed with firing the hips now and then, but never stuck with it; now I have, and with results. Some balls I've hit the past few weeks have been absolutely annihilated, like 230 yard 16* hybrids and 250+ 3-woods, never mind some of the drives I've hit.

I think this setup change is going to be permanent - nothing but good things so far.

[OnePutt]

Glad to hear it's still working for you. Great news and now I have to reread your original post so I can do the same thing, as needed, and see if it helps me as well. Thanks for your reply.

[JPsuff]

Originally Posted by mr3856a

So I just gave it a try, basically going for the feeling that my armpits were over the balls of my feet, and it instantly felt better - more balanced, more relaxed. Then a number of things started falling into place: I actually felt torque between my upper and lower body; I stopped swaying; my tendency to "lift up" at impact disappeared (which I realize now was what my body had to do to keep from falling over forward because of how far I was bent over); and I stopped yanking the club way inside on the backswing and lifting it to the top, which I've always done.

I've had your post floating around the back of my mind since I first read it a few weeks ago.

I too have been working on my setup and I've been working specifically on a bigger turn and a more pronounced weight shift. Over the past few weeks, I've "had it" intermittently but I never quite got it to the point where I felt it was repeatable.
When you wrote in a later post that: " I think that's one of the most important things in golf, is knowing your bad tendencies and being able to recognize them." You nailed it. My version of that thought has always been that I don't mind doing something incorrectly as long as I know why it's happening and how to fix it. Well I had gotten into the "lifting and swaying" habit and I knew that's what I was doing, but the thing that drove me crazy was that I couldn't quite figure out why it was happening.

So today I'm out there playing and I'm all over the place with my tee shots. I've been chalking it up to "I'm learning", but that never felt quite true. A guy I was playing with had a real nice swing but the most remarkable thing was that he had tons of power but with what seemed to be very little effort and his swing was very compact. I watched what he did and I began to think of your "Eureka!" post.

After the round, I went to the range at the course. It was virtually empty and quiet, which was perfect. I set a 3-iron down to act as a guide and I checked my alignment which was fine along with my ball position, grip, etc. - everything was OK.
So I set myself up so that my armpits were more or less over the balls of my feet and I took the club back very slowly to get a feel for things and I immediately recognized what you wrote about. It almost feels as if I'm sitting on something and I'm just turning on a chair.

So I teed up a ball and I took another very slow swing and made contact just to see what's what and right then I knew that this was going to be good!

I began hitting balls with slow swings and I gradually began to take bigger turns and add some power and before long I was making solid contact. After a few more slow swings I began to bring everything up to speed and I was nothing short of amazed!
I was literally bombing shots over the fence, but the amazing thing is that it felt as if I was hardly doing anything. Not only that, but for the first time in memory, I actually watched the ball leave the tee, which meant that my head was in the right position (instead of following along with my weight-shift and causing God knows what) and I felt like I had complete control over everything.

After I finished a bucket (basically hitting all of the range's balls over their fence and into the woods), I just stood there and said to myself, "This is it! This is what I've been looking for!"

So I'm going to take this to the range as soon as I can and refine it a bit, but I just "know" that this is going to work beautifully. It feels so natural and it feels as if it were made just for me. But the weird thing is that I don't have to think about anything. The weight shift, head position, the turn and all of the other things I need to do seem to happen automatically and without any conscious effort on my part. It's one-plane, it's effortless, it's compact and it has TONS of power.
What more can I ask for?

Thanks for posting about this! It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered!


-JP

[mr3856a]

Originally Posted by JPsuff

But the weird thing is that I don't have to think about anything. The weight shift, head position, the turn and all of the other things I need to do seem to happen automatically and without any conscious effort on my part. It's one-plane, it's effortless, it's compact and it has TONS of power.
What more can I ask for?

Thanks for posting about this! It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered!


-JP

Psyched to hear that, JP!!! I've had a really similar experience; to me it seems that the balance thing was what set me off on the right path. With my armpits over the balls of my feet, as you put it so well, it's like turning in a chair almost - you just rotate so freely and so effortlessly back and through the ball. I really feel like I can go at it now. I've also thrown in slowing down my backswing, and this seems to really let me collect myself at the top and then just launch into the ball with everything.

I went out Saturday and shot 82 with 2 lost balls (2 penalty strokes plus distance, so essentially 4 lost shots) and 33 putts. My personal best as it stands is 76, but my second-best score was 83, so I just beat that and without the lost balls, I would've easily been in the 70's for the second time.

Anyway, this little thing has just freed up everything for me; I'm really excited!!!

[JPsuff]

Originally Posted by mr3856a

I've also thrown in slowing down my backswing, and this seems to really let me collect myself at the top and then just launch into the ball with everything.

OK, this is getting spooky, dude.

I did the EXACT SAME THING! And I am absolutely not kidding you when I say that. As soon as I got the balance thing figured out, slowing down the backswing just seemed like the natural "next step". Now it feels like I'm slowly ratcheting back the arm of a catapult; "Click... click...click... then... POW!"

This whole thing has made me realize just how far forward I was tilted and that I was leaning over the ball waaay too far. That was causing me to pick the club up even thought it seemed like I was turning. I knew I wasn't turning correctly because my angle of attack always seemed too steep and I'd either end up leaving my hands open (push, slice) or try to release them at the last second (pull, smothered hook). I knew I was doing something wrong, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what that was.

But as soon as I set up this new way, it was like a door opened and a light came on and someone said "Glad to have you back!"

I can't believe that simply leaning back a bit could solve so many problems -- even my posture is better ( I was a sloucher) and the weird thing is it doesn't feel strained or forced. It just feels natural.


I'm just amazed. There's no other way to describe it.



-JP

[mr3856a]

Originally Posted by JPsuff

OK, this is getting spooky, dude.

I did the EXACT SAME THING! And I am absolutely not kidding you when I say that. As soon as I got the balance thing figured out, slowing down the backswing just seemed like the natural "next step". Now it feels like I'm slowly ratcheting back the arm of a catapult; "Click... click...click... then... POW!"

This whole thing has made me realize just how far forward I was tilted and that I was leaning over the ball waaay too far. That was causing me to pick the club up even thought it seemed like I was turning. I knew I wasn't turning correctly because my angle of attack always seemed too steep and I'd either end up leaving my hands open (push, slice) or try to release them at the last second (pull, smothered hook).

But as soon as I set up this new way, it was like a door opened and a light came on and someone said "Glad to have you back!"

I can't believe that simply leaning back a bit could solve so many problems -- even my posture is better ( I was a sloucher) and the weird thing is it doesn't feel strained or forced. It just feels natural.


I'm just amazed. There's no other way to describe it.



-JP

This is getting spooky, because I could have posted the same thing about myself, word-for-word.

I'm doing it with pitching the ball now as well, and that has turned around, too. I've always been a somewhat poor pitcher of the ball (ok, to be honest, I've always stunk at it - it's the worst part of my game), and the other day I picked one off a fairway lie from 40 yards or so, hit my spot dead-on 5 yards short of the pin, took one big hop and SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETCH - dead stop, 3 feet right of the pin, hole-high. On Saturday, I shot 82 with 2 lost balls and 33 putts, but I got up and down over and over again - I parred the first 6 holes, and mind you, my index is 15.1.

I really feel like this is that one piece of the puzzle you have to have right in order for everything else to fall into place. Like before, I used to take the club back too far inside and hoist it up to the top, and I could keep myself from doing it if I thought about it, but since this change, I'm dead on plane without even thinking about it.

This has indeed been eureka!

[ringin]

I'm a little late reading this thread, but I'm really excited that you found a new setup that's working well mr3856a.

I'm a fairly tall guy as well at 6'4" and my posture in everyday life stinks. I used to have the "rounded shoulder setup syndrome" until I finally saw myself on video a couple years ago and made setup change. I felt exactly like you did when I started bending at the hips more and keeping a good spine angle that I could swing around. My balance also improved and was hitting the ball so much more consistently. It goes to show that all of us can benefit from getting someone to video your swing from time to time, and that whenever your swing goes south, remind yourself of the basics and you're bound to find the fix. Grip, Stance, Posture, Balance are the keys that I always fall back on. Keep up the good swingin.

[JPsuff]

Originally Posted by mr3856a

This is getting spooky, because I could have posted the same thing about myself, word-for-word.

I'm doing it with pitching the ball now as well, and that has turned around, too. I've always been a somewhat poor pitcher of the ball (ok, to be honest, I've always stunk at it - it's the worst part of my game), and the other day I picked one off a fairway lie from 40 yards or so, hit my spot dead-on 5 yards short of the pin, took one big hop and SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETCH - dead stop, 3 feet right of the pin, hole-high. On Saturday, I shot 82 with 2 lost balls and 33 putts, but I got up and down over and over again - I parred the first 6 holes, and mind you, my index is 15.1.

I really feel like this is that one piece of the puzzle you have to have right in order for everything else to fall into place. Like before, I used to take the club back too far inside and hoist it up to the top, and I could keep myself from doing it if I thought about it, but since this change, I'm dead on plane without even thinking about it.

This has indeed been eureka!

I have yet to "officially" try this with the shorter clubs, but from swinging a few clubs in the yard, I don't see any major problems on the horizon.

I swear to God it feels like I got just what I wanted for Christmas!

I was watching the Women's Open these past few days and since having this little epiphany, I noticed two things about almost all of the LPGA players:

1. They are all "One=plane" swingers, (or at least most are),
2. Almost every single one of them sets up as you described.

Watching the Men's tour, I see too much "physicality"; two-plane swings, and all kinds of movement. I guess there's something to it if you have the time to practice those things every day and really burn it into your mind. But the ladies, are not nearly as physical as the men and as such they simplify things and their approach is (to me) a better example of how the average weekend player ought to look at things. Instead of trying to emulate the ridiculous swing speeds and body movements of the men's tour, it is far easier and far more efficient to emulate the LPGA swings.

Take Inbee Park, for example. You couldn't find a simpler swing yet her average driving distance for this tournament was about 268 yds., but her longest were between 280 and 300. Not too shabby for a small person, and she managed to end up 9-under on a 6,700 yd. Open course and her setup is identical to the one you described.

That's more than good enough for me!


All I can say is that if there is a "Golf Tips Hall of Fame", this one gets in on the first ballot!



-JP

[Golfaddict]

Originally Posted by JPsuff

I have yet to "officially" try this with the shorter clubs, but from swinging a few clubs in the yard, I don't see any major problems on the horizon.

I swear to God it feels like I got just what I wanted for Christmas!

I was watching the Women's Open these past few days and since having this little epiphany, I noticed two things about almost all of the LPGA players:

1. They are all "One=plane" swingers, (or at least most are),
2. Almost every single one of them sets up as you described.

Watching the Men's tour, I see too much "physicality"; two-plane swings, and all kinds of movement. I guess there's something to it if you have the time to practice those things every day and really burn it into your mind. But the ladies, are not nearly as physical as the men and as such they simplify things and their approach is (to me) a better example of how the average weekend player ought to look at things. Instead of trying to emulate the ridiculous swing speeds and body movements of the men's tour, it is far easier and far more efficient to emulate the LPGA swings.

Take Inbee Park, for example. You couldn't find a simpler swing yet her average driving distance for this tournament was about 268 yds., but her longest were between 280 and 300. Not too shabby for a small person, and she managed to end up 9-under on a 6,700 yd. Open course and her setup is identical to the one you described.

That's more than good enough for me!


All I can say is that if there is a "Golf Tips Hall of Fame", this one gets in on the first ballot!



-JP

JP, I've always loved to watch the gals play for that reason. Their swings seem much more easy to imitate than the men. For the most part they seem to have a much better tempo.