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Hi Wayne. I have viewed your YouTube stuff for a long time and really liked what your thoughts on the swing. But, you were too far away for me to visit, but I recently noticed you are doing on line lessons. So I figured I would give it a try.
I am 56 and have played golf since I was a kid. As a kid a learned to fear the snap hook and consequently endeavored to hit a power fade. Without much instruction, I became proficient enough to play on the golf team in college at Wisconsin. After college, I thought about turning pro, but lack of money and self-belief led to skip that and go to work. Like many, golf took a detour while I pursued a career and raised a family. But, I never lost my desire to compete and in my 40’s I tried to start competing again. It took quite a few years, but my game improved and I won some tournaments occasionally. I would say my ball striking has always been good enough to maintain a 1 or 2 handicap, but not quite consistent enough to compete at a State or National level.
So about 8 years ago I started taking lessons to try and get better. I wanted to see if I might have one last chance to be really competitive on the senior level. In these lessons I got exposed to the use of video, and whereas I would say many of the lessons helped me, but they also showed me my biggest flaw in the way my lower body slid out from under me and I had to extent early to effectively hit the ball. Needless to say, I have been trying to correct this flaw ever since; thinking this is the root of all my bad shots. My bad shots are clanking the ball on the heel of the club, mostly with the driver resulting in a weak fade that starts right. It goes nowhere and usually puts me in a bad spot.
Unfortunately, in spite of trying many ideas or various drills, my efforts to eliminate this move have been without success. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of videos I have shot thinking my latest idea will show my butt staying on the line and while maintaining my spine angle, but alas the swing stays basically the same. I would never have imagined fixing this would be so difficult, but for me it has been. Making a change in the transition has to be the most difficult task because once the downswing starts you are really moving too fast to control much of anything. I have found putting a stick behind my left butt cheek has been the only approach that has sort of helped but it’s hard to get my body to move that way. Also, I have tried to minimize the movement of my right knee going toward the ball. Putting a stick in between my knees and trying to turn inside it has proved to be futile.
I noticed one of your on line lessons from a while back featuring Chris Mauer discussed a similar issue. I wonder if you were able to help Chris. That lesson did not strike a chord for me, but maybe you have some other ideas. I would love to discuss this with you and see if can make some progress.
As you have seen in numerous online lesson videos I have posted on this site Steve’s issue of “early extension” or “humping the goat” as I famously referred to it on national TV is a prevalent and stubborn problem for many players aspiring to raise an already pretty good game to a much better one. While many times the issue originates from the set up and backswing, but in this case Steve does a nice job in that regard. After that we can pretty much say that the tendency to shoot the legs under the body and towards the ball is just a habit born out of instinct, whether to gain more power or hit from the inside or whatever doesn’t really matter. I believe the focus has to be on keeping the hips deep throughout the swing, and especially focusing on the direction of right leg drive starting the lower body moving into the forward swing since you can only move from right to left by pushing off the right side.
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