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John: Hey Wayne. Hope you are well. I think we are making some serious progress on the swing. My obsession with the draw is how my hands have gotten into this pattern. So, all I have been doing the past week or so is hitting baby fades. Basically 0 to -2 path on Trackman. When I do this my hand path seems to be so much better. I still need to work on width, wrist set (pushing right palm into left thumb), hands further away from head and keeping right knee flex. I am trying to undo the pattern by taking the club more inside and reversing the pattern. Still have my old loop at the top with the driver though. Check out the swings I sent. I think a lot of good Wayne D things in there. Club not stuck, legs clearing early, club returning up the plane etc.… The one question I have is how will I draw it swinging like this? Just turn my body more right and swing the same way? Anyway, hand path seems to be improving when I am thinking cuts. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Wayne: Hey: you may be thinking cut, but that is just a thought that produces a path that is move conducive to being on plane and thus able to hit a straight shot. To draw the ball, pick a target to the right of where you would like the ball to start, then when you are set up square to that point close the face by twisting the club and leaving your grip in place, aiming the face somewhere in between your body lines and the eventual target. Trackman suggests that the face has 50% influence with the driver, but more like 70 % with the irons. In other words, the ball will start left of the path and right of the face. The face will always be open to the target line, thus the term “push draw”. The revelation to me when I learned this was that I never aimed far enough left or right when trying to work the ball. The benefit is that the swing remains on plane to the body lines, while the difference between the face and path produce side spin that makes the ball curve.
John: Hey. Wanted to report in. Shot 76 (-1 on front) and hit 13 greens today. I get it. Just need to dial it in a little. That feeling of hitting a cut is actually a straight ball. Need to work on the fine details now. Pretty cool feeling to be able to hit a fade, a draw and a straight ball. Short irons were noticeably more accurate. Thanks.
If you haven’t done my lesson yet this was a really good swing from this AM. It’s about reversing the pattern. Not hard to do just need to undo it this winter. Neutralizes my path and frees me up. I will work on more wrist set, hands further away from body, head backing up, right knee flex. By next Spring it’s going to be really good. I am so excited! Thanks.
As you will see, John has every reason to be excited because he has just figured out (with a little help) how to change an age old chronic pattern, which as you know is quite hard to do. We have changed a bunch of things for the better in John’s swing, but still the hands wanted to loop back and drop the right arm behind him in transition, something he hated to see and desperately wanted to change. I sent him a swing of Ken Venturi’s, who pulled the hands and arms way inside and across him before sending the hands back out in front, all the while keeping the shaft leaned back onto the plane, and that image, combined with the idea of feeling like his approach to impact would produce a fade, allowed his hands to change path pretty much completely. I feel confident that this is a much better pattern and that his ability to consistently square the face will improve dramatically.
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