Swing Video Experiment

[David Hillman]

I'm new here, but I've been watching a lot of the swing videos that have been posted, and reading the commentary. I'd like to propose an experiment, out of curiosity. If this has been done before, I apologize.

The following links are swing videos that I just posted, one each with my driver, 3 wood, 2 iron and 9 iron. Since no one here knows anything about me, let's see who can guess how I hit the ball. Use any description you want; right, left, straight, turning, short, consistent, whatever. Heck, guess my 'cap if you want.

http://planet-torque.com/golf/May-Driver.mp4
http://planet-torque.com/golf/May-3wood.mp4
http://planet-torque.com/golf/May-2iron.mp4
http://planet-torque.com/golf/May-9iron.mp4

Or, comment on the swing itself, but keep in mind, I've never had a lesson.

I'm curious to see how much you can really tell from a swing.

[LyleG]

I would say with the driver that you hit the ball fairly low, with your big miss being a snap smother hook. From time to time you will flare one out high and to the right, with a big slice and minimal distance.

With your irons I would bank on shots with a lot of spin due to a steep angle of attack. Again your miss is a hard low hook or a big high push slice. I would guess your iron play is your weakest part of your game, with a lots of shots coming up short especially on windy days.

[Eracer]

Cool dog!

The one thing that stands out is excessive hand rotation, with a complete breakdown of wrist angles through impact. This is most noticable as you hood the club with your right wrist in the follow-through. This looks to be an effort to close the clubface from an OTT position, which would result, as Lyle said, in a delofting of the clubface at impact. If you let the clubhead get ahead of the left shoulder, you will have a nasty smother-hook. Otherwise, your predominate ballflight is a pull.

You have a tendency towards inconsistent contact, since your swing is so handsy. When you make good contact you hit the ball a ton. But you suffer from more than occasional fat shots. Your upright swingplane lends itself to diminished sidespin, so I doubt you have a big problem with slicing the ball. But you do have the occasional where-the-heck-did-that-slice-come-from?

Great post. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the better golfers here analyze your swing. Lyle is a professional clubfitter, so his thoughts are very valid (yes, I did read his post, but not before immediately seeing the wrist issue I noted.)

[charnockpro]

It is nice to see Elvis's legs are alive and well and attached to your lower body move!!, only joking!!, to be honest there is a veritable buffet of shots available to you when relying on hand action like that, i dont know whether you have any health issues regarding back or shoulders but your start and completion of the backswing seems very reliant on wrists setting and uncocking at the right time, there seems to be early upper body rotation whereby your chest faces the camera when your arms are not even belly button height! this drags your lower body round too, but it is your wrist set that causes all the problems.

I would guess on a good shot you are pretty long, but you have multiple misses in both directions.

[ezra76]

Takaway is inside quick. Impact postion and right after impact I see what looks like a bit of a flip, clubhead does not stay behind the hands. My guess would be overall inconsistant striking with the irons and hooks with the driver.

[dave.]

Driver = strong grip with both hands, so I think you will smoother the ball and hit low hooks, when you correct you will hit weak fades, 3 wood no different, flight low for both, weight is 50/50 instead of loading the back foot so angle of attack looks a little steep, I suspect you sky a few.

2 iron= if you hit that straight its a miracle! strong grip, face looks shutish at the top but you get trapped on the inside AND you flip the face shut due to the strong grip. You will think you are hitting stingers when in fact you are hitting hooky flippers. Thats when you actually don't top it, hit it fat or duck hook it. Get a hybrid.

9 iron not a lot different. Your problem isn't your good shots, its your bad can be either weak fades or big low hooks. Good swing for a self-taught, but you have to get a lesson to sort the grip out and slow the hands down through impact.

Your left side breaks down far to easily, as in left hand, your right just takes over.

[niblick]

i can't stand it when people post "swing videos" when they're not actually hitting a golf shot. give this fellow a ball and a target and that move might look very different.

[Eracer]

Originally Posted by niblick

i can't stand it when people post "swing videos" when they're not actually hitting a golf shot. give this fellow a ball and a target and that move might look very different.

Good point.

[David Hillman]

Originally Posted by niblick

i can't stand it when people post "swing videos" when they're not actually hitting a golf shot. give this fellow a ball and a target and that move might look very different.

I agree in principle, but it'd ruin this experiment if I posted video with a ball zooming off the left or right edge of the picture. I will try to shoot some with-ball video and post that, too.

Thanks for the replies so far, and the interesting commentary. If anyone else wants to play, do so, or let me know, as I will be posting 'the answers' soon. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the single biggest thing I do differently with the woods versus irons, but maybe you can't make it out on the videos.

Originally Posted by Eracer

Cool dog!

Thanks. I use floating golf balls now, and am teaching him to retrieve them...

[charnockpro]

[quote=David Hillman;224770]I agree in principle, but it'd ruin this experiment if I posted video with a ball zooming off the left or right edge of the picture. I will try to shoot some with-ball video and post that, too.

Thanks for the replies so far, and the interesting commentary. If anyone else wants to play, do so, or let me know, as I will be posting 'the answers' soon. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the single biggest thing I do differently with the woods versus irons, but maybe you can't make it out on the videos.


The two differences i spot is the bouncing of the club off the shoulder with woods and not irons and a spectacular foot action on the ones where you let go a bit? Dont keep the secret any longer David let us all know whats the difference?

[David Hillman]

Originally Posted by charnockpro

The two differences i spot is the bouncing of the club off the shoulder with woods and not irons and a spectacular foot action on the ones where you let go a bit? Dont keep the secret any longer David let us all know whats the difference?

All purists close your eyes now...

I hit my woods with a 'baseball' grip, and my irons with a normal interlocking grip. I started this last fall, after developing a blister between my fingers at the range. It worked great to fix a problem I was having, so I've stuck with it. I also putt cross-handed, and have for a decade or so.

Okay, purists can open 'em up.

[charnockpro]

I can see where you get the blisters from!!, maybe from your release??, it was hard to spot, what next? spot which grass blade you moved?

[VtDivot]

Holy leg action batman!!

[David Hillman]

If there's one word that applies to almost every shot I hit, it is "high". Even my 1-iron will climb to over tree-top height, and I have trouble playing in the wind, as a result.

The other consistent trait is clockwise rotation, especially with the woods. I have been told that there is rough down the left-side of the fairway, but I have never personally verified it With the driver, my good shots are a 10 yard fade, and the bad ones are a 50 yard slice. I have never, to my recollection, hit a hook, at least not with this swing. I've been working on this a lot lately ( biting the bullet, instead of simply hitting 1 irons every time and scoring better ) and had it fixed for a while last fall, and again at the range two weeks ago, but progress has been fleeting.

On the other hand, iron striking is the best part of my game. I have a little trouble with inconsistent distance, but they almost always go straight, and way more often than not, where I was aiming. For example, last month I played 9 holes in twilight, and missed just two shots by more than 20' from where I was aiming. Shot a 39, and didn't putt great. Not the toughest course in the world ( 34.9/123 ) but I was accurate enough that I didn't lose a ball playing 8 and 9 in gloaming, where I saw nothing. When I get sloppy with an iron, it will be a pull, or a fade. Still no hooks.

With respect to working the ball, I used to do that a lot, but lost the ability somewhere. I started playing at 14, and my friend and I used to go out to his dad's cow pasture and hit balls. That's a great way to experiment, and we used to hit 'em low, high, hooking, all kinds of shots. After college, I stopped playing for 6 years or so, and haven't re-learned what I knew as a kid.

For the record, I like my Elvis legs. If it was good enough for old-school guys, it's good enough for me

I'm not sure who came closest to describing the results of my swing, but I would like to play with Eracer sometime, just so he can put good swing thoughts in my head by repeating this line...

"Your upright swingplane lends itself to diminished sidespin, so I doubt you have a big problem with slicing the ball."

Thanks everybody.

[Eracer]

OK, now send us some video of you hitting golf balls. Cause with the swing I saw without the ball, there is no way you don't hit hooks...

Happy to help with the positive thoughts, BTW.