So I've been playing for just under a year, and was hoping y'all could give me some feedback on how my swing is looking. Any advice is appreciated

First impression is on alignment. Your shoulders are pointing more open (pointed right) while your lower body is more closed (pointed left). I'd work on trying to get feet, knees, hips, and shoulders better aligned.

Something is also funky with your grip. Hard to get a good look, but it may be a little too weak and I'm not sure the left and right are married together well (V's made by your thumbs may be pointing different directions). It puts your hands in an awkward spot at various points in the swing.

You do have a wide/outside takeaway which is something a lot of golfers struggle to do (many amateurs snatch it to the inside), but helps set up a good downswing. I think getting your grip right may help smooth it out a little more. I'd also work on turning your shoulders a bit more on your backswing and relying on your arms a little less.

Overall, solid swing for someone that is still pretty new to the game.

DannyDuberstein said:

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First impression is on alignment. Your shoulders are pointing more open (pointed right) while your lower body is more closed (pointed left). I'd work on trying to get feet, knees, hips, and shoulders better

Something is also funky with your grip. Hard to get a good look, but it may be a little too weak and I'm not sure the left and right are married together well (V's made by your thumbs may be pointing different directions). It puts your hands in an awkward spot at various points in the swing.

You do have a wide/outside takeaway which is something a lot of golfers struggle to do (many amateurs snatch it to the inside), but helps set up a good downswing. I think getting your grip right may help smooth it out a little more. I'd also work on turning your shoulders a bit more on your backswing and relying on your arms a little less.

Overall, solid swing for someone that is still pretty new to the game.

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I always have this problem with my alignment, especially with my shoulders. I have struggled a lot with a slice and close my stance a little to try and swing more from the inside.

I actually have a pretty strong grip to try and fight my slice, but I'm starting to wonder if my right hand is somehow moving during my swing.

One of my big issues is my arms... my upper and lower body come out of synch a lot and I pull my arms across before rotating my hips.

And as far as squaring the face of the club, should that happen with the body, or the hands? I've been working on trying to "put my left elbow in my back pocket" on the downswing and square up with my hip rotation, but just want to confirm that this is correct.



Sorry so many words

Only feedback I've got is you need to turn your shoulders and hips during your backswing. You clear your hips coming down and through but there's no coil on the way back.

Also second the thought on your wide swing path.

It may be that your hands aren't aligned - ie one hand is strong but the kther not as much. Check where the V's that your thumb and forefinger make point.

Getting your shoulders more square and turning them more should help woth that slice. If you start with them open and then don't turn them as much as you need to, you end up coming across the ball outside-in.

With a proper alignment, grip, and shoulder turn, the clubhead should square itself. I've always found there are too many moving parts happening way too quickly to force it any other way.

Ag_07 said:

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Only feedback I've got is you need to turn your shoulders and hips during your backswing. You clear your hips coming down and through but there's no coil on the way back.

Also second the thought on your wide swing path.

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So essentially Its all arms on the backswing then I fire my hips/shoulders on the way down?

Makes sense for my slice,

Your feet look like you're set up for a hook. Move your left foot forward, even w/the right foot.

Start your backswing w/your waist (core), not your arms. Left hand looks strong on grip. Try clapping your hands together w/the shaft between the hands. V's next to thumbs point at left shoulder.

Rotate shoulders more, preferably right shoulder at 90 degrees or more on backswing. Your belt buckle (hips) should turn approx 45 degrees during backswing.

Because your natural power side is the left arm, your swing is too left-hand dominant. Check out Vijay Singh's swing. His right hand comes off the club on the follow through. Think pulling the club through, rather than pushing.

A face-on video would also help. Want to see the improvements...plz post a new video in a few months.

Stop wasting your time and find a pro to help you. Most of the people on the internet giving you advice have as much knowledge of the swing as you do.

It is hard to know what your target line is. If the target line is from the camera through the ball, then your lower body is way out of square. The toes of your left foot are about where your right heel is...get your feet aligned and that should help with you knees and hips.

Your takeaway starts way too much on the outside, and relative to your close stance it looks even more towards the outside.

The result of your strong grip is that a) your club face is slightly closed at the top, and b) it comes down closed so it appears you "scoop the ball" through impact, holding off the club face to resist a big hook. I am guessing you put a lot of spin on the ball with really high lofted shots and are not considered a very long hitter.

I would work on your setup to be more square, weaken your grip so it isn't such a pronounced strong grip (and one that doesn't shut the club face so much), and a takeaway that doesn't start so much on the outside.

My preference is to not try and alter any part of a swing until your setup is corrected. You can change your backswing, turn, hip rotation, hand position, shoulders, whatever term you want to use, etc. all you want but with that setup it is all for naught and you are just treating symptoms, not the underlying problem.

CapCity12thMan said:

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It is hard to know what your target line is. If the target line is from the camera through the ball, then your lower body is way out of square. The toes of your left foot are about where your right heel is...get your feet aligned and that should help with you knees and hips.

Your takeaway starts way too much on the outside, and relative to your close stance it looks even more towards the outside.

The result of your strong grip is that a) your club face is slightly closed at the top, and b) it comes down closed so it appears you "scoop the ball" through impact, holding off the club face to resist a big hook. I am guessing you put a lot of spin on the ball with really high lofted shots and are not considered a very long hitter.

I would work on your setup to be more square, weaken your grip so it isn't such a pronounced strong grip (and one that doesn't shut the club face so much), and a takeaway that doesn't start so much on the outside.

My preference is to not try and alter any part of a swing until your setup is corrected. You can change your backswing, turn, hip rotation, hand position, shoulders, whatever term you want to use, etc. all you want but with that setup it is all for naught and you are just treating symptoms, not the underlying problem.

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Normal ball flight is actually about a club lower than most of the people I play with. As far as spin, my ball is usually within 3' of where it lands on the green from 100 in... Have never backed one up though. And I'm probably slightly shorter than average in length, with my 7i being 150 yds with roll.

Cen-Tex said:

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Your feet look like you're set up for a hook. Move your left foot forward, even w/the right foot.

Start your backswing w/your waist (core), not your arms. Left hand looks strong on grip. Try clapping your hands together w/the shaft between the hands. V's next to thumbs point at left shoulder.

Rotate shoulders more, preferably right shoulder at 90 degrees or more on backswing. Your belt buckle (hips) should turn approx 45 degrees during backswing.

Because your natural power side is the left arm, your swing is too left-hand dominant. Check out Vijay Singh's swing. His right hand comes off the club on the follow through. Think pulling the club through, rather than pushing.

A face-on video would also help. Want to see the improvements...plz post a new video in a few months.

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I think I have a face on with my wedges, i'll have to look

Head on from yesterday. Got stuck on my back foot... Stance too wide?

More spin with high ball flight means less spin when it lands so I wouldn't expect you to back any thing up ever. And don't worry about that anyway...it doesn't mean much.

Your side on view shows you sliding the club under the ball in that scooping motion that I mentioned. I think this is driven by the lack of turn in your hips, you have no turn at all you are just dipping and then "reversing C" through impact which results in the scooping Put a club parallel to ground on your belt buckle and square to your target line...turn 90 degrees, don't dip.

You can clearly see the dip in your last video.

Look where your waistline starts and watch it dip as you bring the club back.

CapCity12thMan said:

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More spin with high ball flight means less spin when it lands

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Is that true?

The longer the ball is in the air, the less spin it has when it lands, yes.

Worked on my wedges a little Saturday, trying to get my alignment better

Not real sure why the videos are such ****ty quality... looks like they were shot on a Motorola RAZR

Hey man, pretty good looking swing, especially for someone just playing for a year. There are some good tips above. One thing I notice (especially after you mentioned sometimes having your arms in sync) is that your swing seems to be based pretty heavily on your arms, which appear to deviate a bit from your body. If you focus on keeping your upper arms (armpit area) pressed a little tighter against your chest, while moving arms and torso more as a unit, it might help you. Just speaking from personal experience as sometimes even today I start letting my arms run the show and it can lead to all sorts of head scratchers on the course and at the range.

Keep it up!

Some people may disagree with my approach, but part of the enjoyment of golf for me has been developing my swing on my own and letting it evolve over the years, since I started about 8 yrs ago.

If you haven't already, I would recommend pulling "proper swing" and "swing tip" videos on youtube and trying to incorporate some of those tips and fundamentals into your own swing. I may just be a more visual learner but I never really understood the technical jargon of swing mechanics. It helps me to actually see it (with some basic narration) and then try to incorporate and mimic at the range and on the course.

If you watch 3-4 videos back to back, the light in your head may come on once or twice, highlighting a flaw or two. They may even be videos on different swings. The tricky part imo is merging/balancing technical fundamentals with a natural and comfortable swing tempo and rhythm. Unless we've been golfing our buttsoff our entire lives or hit hundreds of balls each day, i think most of us have a range session every now and then where we are cognizant of the proper fundamentals but our rhythm is just screwy and the ball isn't doing what you want as a result.

Here is a vid that really helped me a few years back...

Been working on keeping clubhead from going so far outside on takeaway, not having stance so closed, and using more body, less arms

Tandy...

Suggerstion #1 - Never take swing advice from folks on the range, or folks on the internet who are doing nothing more than telling you what they 'think' you're doing wrong. It's easy for folks here to comment from their couches, but, the advice given may help one aspect of your game while introducing a bunch of other compensations.

Suggestion #2 - If you're dead set on posting the YouTube videos for advice, post them in the Instruction Forum over on GolfWRX, as there are several instructors who can (and will) give you pointers within the thread you post. I see it all the time. If you want to PM them on GolfWRX for specific questions, they'll be glad to help. Some of those guys are REALLY interested in helping people reach their goals. I would search for "iteachgolf" (Dan Carraher)..."MonteScheinblum" (Monte Scheinblum)...."FW Golf Pro" (Michael Martin).

These guys are the cream of the crop, and they also offer video lessons for a nominal fee.

Suggestion #3 - Search out and find a local pro that can set up a learning path and plan with you. Tell him/her your goals and timeline. Then work like heck to reach your goals.

It seems like you genuinely want to get better, otherwise you wouldn't be posting these YouTube vids every so often. Don't take this post as me knocking the effort, as that's not my intent.

I'm just trying to get you to where you want to be in a more practical, and less time consuming manner.

jj9000 said:

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Tandy...

Suggerstion #1 - Never take swing advice from folks on the range, or folks on the internet who are doing nothing more than telling you what they 'think' you're doing wrong. It's easy for folks here to comment from their couches, but, the advice given may help one aspect of your game while introducing a bunch of other compensations.

Suggestion #2 - If you're dead set on posting the YouTube videos for advice, post them in the Instruction Forum over on GolfWRX, as there are several instructors who can (and will) give you pointers within the thread you post. I see it all the time. If you want to PM them on GolfWRX for specific questions, they'll be glad to help. Some of those guys are REALLY interested in helping people reach their goals. I would search for "iteachgolf" (Dan Carraher)..."MonteScheinblum" (Monte Scheinblum)...."FW Golf Pro" (Michael Martin).

These guys are the cream of the crop, and they also offer video lessons for a nominal fee.

Suggestion #3 - Search out and find a local pro that can set up a learning path and plan with you. Tell him/her your goals and timeline. Then work like heck to reach your goals.

It seems like you genuinely want to get better, otherwise you wouldn't be posting these YouTube vids every so often. Don't take this post as me knocking the effort, as that's not my intent.

I'm just trying to get you to where you want to be in a more practical, and less time consuming manner.

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Thanks JJ, I'm planning on starting a series of lessons soon, as I rec'd a lesson pkg for Christmas.

And I never thought about these other compensations, but they are definitely happening. Once I started to takeaway more inside, I started hitting hosel rockets, and had to make adjustments. That's honestly probably one of the reasons I'm not seeing much improvement: I'm trying to make changes constantly

And JJ, you are right about me truly wanting to get better. I put in the work at every available opportunity, but probably could use a good foundation on which to build. Hell, I was on the putting green for an hour and a half yesterday working on starting line. I'm either dedicated or insane, not sure which.... Maybe both

jj9000 said:

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Suggerstion #1 - Never take swing advice from folks on the range, or folks on the internet who are doing nothing more than telling you what they 'think' you're doing wrong.

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This is big. One dude randomly came up to me on the range one day to coach me up, and it ended up completely screwing up my swing. It was bad before he gave me "advice" and it got worse afterwards. I ended up finding a good setup and swing that works for me that I can be consistent with. Not one piece of "advice" he gave me is being utilized.

Couple of shots from today

You're standing on the wrong side of the ball.

Azeew said:

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You're standing on the wrong side of the ball.

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Sometimes I feel like I'd be better off right handed

So I've been watching the tourney and see that nearly everyone holds their finish. I see I don't. Does it matter?

The old saying is that it's "the report card of the swing". Generally means you transitioned your weight properly, and in order to finish with good enough balance to hold your finish, you likely had a good controlled swing, your tempo was solid, and your body was in decent position along the way.

Some teachers use it to correct issues during the swing - if a student concentrates on getting to the right finish, many of the little issues during the swing tend to correct themselves.

You swing with your hands. Hence you have absolutely zero power.
Learn to turn your shoulders. Keep your hands and wrists loose. They get pulled along by your arms, which follow your shoulders. It's like snapping a towel.