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Hi Wayne,
I have been a follower/subscriber for around 4-5 years. I have probably watched almost all the videos that you have posted. I am a pretty athletic 36 yr. old that played college baseball. It wasn’t until mid-2015 that I was able to join a club and start working on my swing. I currently am a 2.4 USGA index but my strokes gained app shows me that I hit approach shots like a +3 to +6 and drive like a 9.In the past I have tried to get my takeaway to come up the shaft plane at address, but I just can’t seem to get this to work. I can move it perfectly in a practice swing, but with a ball there, my mind wants to snatch the club and lift instead of rotating. I figure you will see a correlation with my trigger.
With the help from your videos, I have progressed a lot since mid-2015. Here is a link to a video of where I started from. http://www.hudl.com/technique/video/view/fdTuWQQU
As you can see in my starting video, I did not use the ground at all. I have worked hard on lowering in the backswing and trying to keep the hips deep on the forward swing. I can’t seem to lower more in the downswing and using the ground through impact still is a bit of a foreign concept. My hips are a little tight, so I just started going to a TPI/MAT guy to help increase stability and mobility in my hips and right shoulder. I have a bit of a hip stall it seems and just don’t know exactly what my lower body should be doing post impact. I think part of this could be physical limitations that don’t allow me to fire the glute and post up on the left hip. But it also could be that I don’t know exactly what I should be doing.
Currently, I am working on sequencing (lower body starting forward swing while upper body is finishing backswing) and keeping my hips deep (utilizing half-shaft in ground).
I have about 5 weeks before my next important event, and wanted your help putting together a plan on what to work on in what order. I currently have time to practice 6 days a week for at least 2 hrs./day.
Thanks,
Erik Johnson
One of the things I find regularly with good players who don’t quite hit the ball as well as they would like is an overactive trigger. Erik is a good example of this and I spend a good bit of this lesson discussing in detail what he is doing to get his swing underway and how that affects everything else. One of the reasons why these online lessons aren’t shorter in length is the degree to which things that happen early in the swing complicate what comes directly after, and as the swing unfolds each complication makes it less likely that a consistently strong impact position can be achieved. Erik can certainly put the club on the ball (note the nice line of compression at impact) and he has a very nice, powerful rhythm, but to be a more consistent ball striker I believe he must tighten things up and quiet down his movement from P1 to P2. As Erik forward presses his hands while sliding his upper body to the right as he starts his swing his left arm over pronates and his hands roll well away from his body. His right arm looks for more height and depth as it gets to the top and thus pulls behind him, and when the right side of his pelvis spins away from his tush line in transition his right arm gets stuck behind him. Erik has the right ideas in his head as shown by the nice rehearsal swing he does before stepping into his set up, and what I show him here will hopefully help him achieve what he is looking for.