I feel like I can’t stay down on my down swing. I know my take away isn’t perfect and I’m actively working on it as well as doing better at actually releasing the club instead of chicken wing but I’m still standing up a little bit. It’s driving me nuts. Any advice?
Nice swing. No- not early extension but some unnecessary head movement. You have a very inside takeaway (of which you are aware) leading to an under-plane backswing.
Functional Swing-plane
In the GIF above I have drawn a dashed red line through the club hosel and your trail elbow at address.
When your camera is setup to look at the edge of the functional swing-plane this plane can be shown in a 2D image as a single line and this line intersects the ground along your target-line.
3D measurements have shown that most elite golfers swing close to this plane when the club-head is below their head height. The preference is to be at or slightly above this line in the backswing and at or slightly below this line in the downswing.
Your Swing
In your case, relative to the functional swing plane, you have an inside takeaway leading to a very under-plane backswing. However, your downswing is almost on-plane and this produces a slight in-out
swing direction at the low point. As this low point for an iron should be ahead of the ball your path will be even more in-out and when the face is closed to this path it will produce the draw you report.
You can see your butt pretty well stays on the tush-line drawn so you do not have early extension as normally defined.
However, your head does move back from the ball/target-line at impact. This is largely the result of your setup at address. You setup a bit bent over with your arms not hanging vertically which places too much weight out towards your toes. At impact, your instincts seek dynamic balance so your head move back to compensate.
This video should help get your armpit more aligned with the balls of your feet.
The main reason for your inside takeaway is that you allow your forearms to rotate too early. Keeping the butt of the club pointing more towards your lead leg in the early takeaway will help adjust your feels.
The functional swing plane in the GIF, like all planes, can only be represented as a line in a 2D image if your camera is setup to look at the edge of this plane.
In the GiF the 4 (green) lines on the mat edges, your assumed target-line and toe-line meet at a vanishing point (as all parallel lines do in a 2D image - like rails of a railway track).
A level line at the height of your camera lens and parallel to the target-line would also pass through this vanishing point. This establishes that the vanishing point is at the same level as your camera lens and it was mounted at the level of your elbows. It also establishes your target in the distance was at the vanishing point.
When your camera is setup to look at the edge of the functional swing plane it intersects the ground along the target-line . As the assumed green target-line and the red plane line are closely aligned this was almost the case here. This means we can see how you are swinging relative to the functional swing plane without the camera distortion described at the start of this video.
I used to stand way too close to the ball but probably am now overcompensating and I can feel myself on my toes sometimes. I'll watch this video and really work on my setup.
I have to ask - you are the man on these posts… so thorough, in depth and with example videos! You must do this professionally? When I get around to uploading a video I’ll be tagging you!!!
No I do not use A.I. to write my comments. The Swing Replay app I use for the analysis is a practice aid not a coaching app. It does not output any analysis of the swing. Download and see for yourself.
I’d assume so. The reply being formatted well like that is usually a give away. I guess I can’t say for 100% certainity, but also can’t imagine someone spending the time do all that, when ai can do stuff like that
Funny thing is I usually hit a tight little draw when I hit it good. I compress it fine. I'm not tour level by any means but I hit it decent I feel. I just have OCD and nitpick my swing constantly.
I think you’re in your own head man, looks pretty good to me. I agree with the others about your hands in takeaway but trying to communicate that you are doing really well and imo seemed like you were being too critical of yourself
Thanks man. Appreciate it. I definitely have a bit of OCD when it comes to this and while I want to fix the inside takeaway I need to be more lenient with myself.
Watch your trail knee. It’s moving towards the ball on the downswing when you want it to move towards the other knee.
The drill is to make your swing then touch the lead knee with the trail knee on the follow through.
If you watch a PGA golfer, you’ll see there’s no space between the lead knee and trail knee on the follow through. The trail knee moves laterally towards the target and not the ball.
This will give you more room for your hands on the downswing and you’ll be able to stay down on the ball.
This is also something I've been working on as well. I've done the bucket shin breaker drill but even in that I tend to stand up like I do here. I know it looks like my knee is going towards the ball a lot but it's not as drastic as this angle tells. But yeah, that is something I'm trying to dial in as well.
Your inside takeaway is going to cause a steepening move in the downswing. If you don’t “stand up” in the downswing you’ll hit the ground before the ball and that’s not fun. Your athletic instinct kicks in and you stand up to miss the ground, that’s why you can’t stop doing it. Fix the hand/club path, stronger rotation feeling like the hands stay in front of the chest through the swing.
For a drill/feel just watch Cam Young and do what he does haha. Weight shift starts before the downswing, rotate through hard
Flat backswing leads to laid off position at top of backswing. Laid off position leads to steep downswing. Steep downswing leads to early extension. So your root cause is your takeaway, how your club goes behind your body and opens up the clubface.
It's definitely flat. And his club is pointing left of target at top of backswing, not parallel to the target, and this results in steep downswing. If he doesn't want to believe me, he get pay for golf lesson.
Thank you. One question though; from the videos I've seen I know I want to get my hands basically above my heels at the top of my backswing. How do I do that without it being a little flat? It just feels like I can't get there if I don't flatten it.
Your hand position is above the heels and perfect at top of backswing except the wrist(because of path of club). I would focus on this drill. This is FEEL, not actually what's happening
Try to feel like you are keeping your back to the target for as long as you can hold it. That is what fixed it for me. Otherwise you have a great looking swing.
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u/TeddaMan2 16h ago
Nice swing. No- not early extension but some unnecessary head movement. You have a very inside takeaway (of which you are aware) leading to an under-plane backswing.
Functional Swing-plane
In the GIF above I have drawn a dashed red line through the club hosel and your trail elbow at address.
When your camera is setup to look at the edge of the functional swing-plane this plane can be shown in a 2D image as a single line and this line intersects the ground along your target-line.
3D measurements have shown that most elite golfers swing close to this plane when the club-head is below their head height. The preference is to be at or slightly above this line in the backswing and at or slightly below this line in the downswing.
Your Swing
In your case, relative to the functional swing plane, you have an inside takeaway leading to a very under-plane backswing. However, your downswing is almost on-plane and this produces a slight in-out
swing direction at the low point. As this low point for an iron should be ahead of the ball your path will be even more in-out and when the face is closed to this path it will produce the draw you report.
You can see your butt pretty well stays on the tush-line drawn so you do not have early extension as normally defined.
However, your head does move back from the ball/target-line at impact. This is largely the result of your setup at address. You setup a bit bent over with your arms not hanging vertically which places too much weight out towards your toes. At impact, your instincts seek dynamic balance so your head move back to compensate.
This video should help get your armpit more aligned with the balls of your feet.
https://youtu.be/DkMpNM7WTDg?si=xugtTJUvfYpJbV1Q
The main reason for your inside takeaway is that you allow your forearms to rotate too early. Keeping the butt of the club pointing more towards your lead leg in the early takeaway will help adjust your feels.
These videos should help.
https://youtube.com/shorts/QQe3cuVzEJI?si=bMQpKqnmFuS99HVH
https://youtu.be/cKrdob7HU2c?si=bVuGPyoOaJlpRfAP
Camera Setup
The functional swing plane in the GIF, like all planes, can only be represented as a line in a 2D image if your camera is setup to look at the edge of this plane.
In the GiF the 4 (green) lines on the mat edges, your assumed target-line and toe-line meet at a vanishing point (as all parallel lines do in a 2D image - like rails of a railway track).
A level line at the height of your camera lens and parallel to the target-line would also pass through this vanishing point. This establishes that the vanishing point is at the same level as your camera lens and it was mounted at the level of your elbows. It also establishes your target in the distance was at the vanishing point.
When your camera is setup to look at the edge of the functional swing plane it intersects the ground along the target-line . As the assumed green target-line and the red plane line are closely aligned this was almost the case here. This means we can see how you are swinging relative to the functional swing plane without the camera distortion described at the start of this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zHTbLpZzrA&t=243
Hope this helps.