Finding the Swing Plane
Last weekend I played 18 holes and noticed something started to seem a little off with my “new” swing. Until this particular round, most of my shots were feeling pure with good compression on the ball, but on this particular day I was hitting a lot of thin shots and rarely on target. Thinking it was fatigue, I took a day off before playing the 9-hole Tuesday round (in the rain), only to find that my swing still felt a little off. Very few good impact shots and rarely on target.
Wednesday and Thursday it rained all day, so I couldn’t make it to the range to try to figure out what was going wrong before my Friday morning tee time. So I arrived at the course about an hour and a half early so I could get some time to figure out where my swing was going wrong. While I had my quality shots at the range, I had very few solid shots during the round – something just wasn’t right with my swing.
Since that round I’ve spent a good number of hours on the range following a disciplined process of taking a shot, analyzing the shot and the feeling of the swing, taking a few moments to feel the adjustment I wanted to make, and repeating the next shot.
I’ve spent about 8 total hours on the range this weekend working through shot after shot, primarily with my 7-iron and 8-iron. It’s been a grueling process, but I’m starting to see progress.
I decided to focus on the swing plane since it has been a big issue for me in the past. Besides, I can tell from my ball flight that for the most part the problem has been related to the clubhead path on the downswing being either too far in-to-out or too far out-to-in.
While I could try to control my arms, hands and wrists more, out on the range I came to the conclusion that my problem was more subtle and indirect – the hip pivot.
Basically, I realized that during the downswing I’ve been putting too much spin in my body and not enough weight shift forward. Or, if I do shift weight forward, I’ve been allowing my head to drift with my body.
Every shot at the range has been focused on allowing my hips to slide forward right before I initiate the downswing. While it’s only a millisecond or less of time, sliding my hips forward at the start of the pivot allows my upper body – arms and hands – to get the clubhead on the swing plane before the downswing is initiated. Once the downswing starts, there’s no stopping it, so this hip movement is crucial to a solid swing.
My shots are perfectly on-target and solid when I execute this hip motion. In fact, the swing is nearly effortless.
After going through all this practice I decided to hit the course for 18 holes both for fun and also to see if my body has started to retrain its muscle memory. Thankfully, the answer is yes, but I have a while to go before I can call it consistent.
Scores for the week are overall good: 81, 79, and 77. My average score keeps dropping and has now reached a low of 82. Handicap has now reached 7.4, also a new low.
Besides the shot consistency, my course management needs improvement. For instance, club selection on windy days is pretty poor. This week has been a fairly windy week, and I missed a lot of greens short on approach shots because I didn’t consider or read the wind very well.
My short game continues to be solid, and I think it’s part of the reason my scores have stayed so low despite missing the green more than I want to on approach shots.
This week I’m off work, so I plan to play nearly every day. On Friday I’m heading back to the Tour Academy for some private instruction, which if I don’t figure it out by then may shed some light on my swing plane issues. So far, I have a tee time planned for Saturday morning at one of the more difficult courses in the Orlando area (Shingle Creek), which I’m looking forward to trying for the first time.
Filed under: Golf Swing, Practice
