Swing Tempo

At this point in my swing development, the most successful period ever, is a good time to look forward and plan what I should focus on next in my practice.

To get some ideas, I contacted a pro who worked with me two summers ago and whom I frequently see at a local range. Jeremiah looked at one of my latest videos and had some good comments.

First, he wrote

Your right leg is too straight at the beginning and throughout the swing, so straight it almost causes you to pivot towards your target(not good). First, try and bend both knees together the same amount and hold during the swing allowing the upper body to coil around the restricting of the hips. Usually, when the the right leg stays straight or unbent at the knee, then the right hip side will tend to follow the turn instead of resisting the turn, producing an effective coil.

No doubt about it. He's right. I haven't thought about my right leg being straight in so long, I can't even remember. I know it was a problem when I first started building a swing three years ago, but somehow, it got lost among all the other details I was trying to think about.

Then, he said,

I'm not certain, but it does appear that you left arm is bending too soon on the follow through. Do your best to keep it straight as long as you can. When the left arm collapses slightly too soon on the forward swing, it sometimes causes the swing path to go from right to left or an in to out swing path. Just keep an eye on that.

Now, this is something that I do keep an eye on. Lately, since I've been hitting the ball so well, I've been concluding that a straight arm isn't causing major problems for me. When I do think about a straight left arm, I think about it in the context of a wide swing, and when my swing is wider, I can see that I hit the ball farther. Definitely, this is something to work on.

Next, he questioned the ball position at address.

What club were you hitting? If it was anything like a 8-sw, I would say nothing, but it really appears that your ball position is way too far back. Remember the general rule of thumb. Four balls........

6-iron dead center of stance
one ball back of that 7-sw
one ball ahead of center 5-iron through 3-wood
driver farthest most ball. two balls ahead of dead center closest to left front foot

In my practice, I'm actually playing the ball in the center of my stance, hitting with a nine-iron. It's the camera angle that makes the ball look so far back in the stance, since the mat is angled diagonally across my backyard, not perpendicular to the camera. Still, I started thinking some more about the ball position. That's why I went back to Hogan's book so that I could see the illustration he uses.

Last, the pro said,

Here's a big one.......your shoulders at impact are almost vertical. Left shoulder is the highest and the right being the lowest. Your shoulders at impact should be generally speaking at a 45 degree angle. Yours are like 180 degrees. The right shoulder should be lowest and the left the highest at impact but no more than 45 degrees. Please do not make this mistake. Correct ASAP.

Wow! I looked at myself, and I could hardly believe how steep my shoulder angle is. I don't know where that came into my swing, but in the next few days, I need to correct that

Then, one other aspect of my swing could use some attention. And that's the tempo. As I said earlier, I've liked to watch real-time pro swings lately so that I can get a sense of their tempo. In my hitting, I feel as though I have a good, relaxed tempo that results in balls hit with good distance and accuracy. As a test, in the video below, I put my latest swing up against the 21/7 swing tempo from the book, Tour Tempo. As you can see, I'm way behind. That's OK, however. I'm very happy with where I am right now. As I work on a dependable swing, and work out the problems that my pro commented on, I can work on tempo, too. That should maximize the efficiency of the swing, a phrase I couldn't have imagined writing more than a few days ago. I would have written something more along the lines of, "My swing, when I get one!"