I'm a beginner looking for advice on my swing

[Stat-K]

Hi my name is Joey I'm an emcee/producer from the bay. My room got flooded when the power went out in the room and the pumps got deactivated. Me and my friend were looking for a fusebox to turn the power back on in my room (turns out my house was so old that there wasnt a fusebox) and instead i found three golf clubs my late Uncle Jim gave me when i was about 12. I remembered all the times i went to my aunt and uncles house and he'd pull out his indoor portable putting green and how much i loved it haha, and then i remembered all the times i used to go the driving range thereafter as well and how much fun it was. So right then and there i was like yoooo joey we gotta go up to tilden and go to the driving range. Its been 2 weeks since that day and i've been hooked ever since. It was those random set of events that got me playing and i'm so happy i've found golf.

So i got on here for one main reason i want help and advice for a beginner like me. I just uploaded my golf swing to daily motion to put it on this post so i could get some constructive criticism on my swing and what i should do to correct my (Many I know) Flaws.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8ri88_p1060497


Thank you

Sincerely
-Joey

[nc2tarheels]

Your last swing was your best. By the way, I suck too.....but I'll offer ya some critiques. LOL

-You seem off balance at the end of your swing. Try not to swing so hard. Just barely swing and make contact. You'll still knock the ball 150 yards doing this. I still haven't unloaded on a ball at full potential yet because I'm still practicing on solid contact and getting my game under control.

-Your left foot moves WAY to much. Try to keep it planted. I have somewhat of the same problem, so I'm preaching to the choir. LOL

-Your legs moving and your off-balance swing leads to an inconsistant shot. Slow it down...take your time....and focus on solid contact with easy swings :-)

Hope all this helps!

[Stat-K]

Will take into account thanks haha and another thing. I strained my wrist slightly when i started by doing baseball swing grip LOL (aka ten finger). Now i do varden grip but im wondering how i strained it and what i can do to keep my self from hurting my wrist i usually hit around 75-100 balls everytime i go up

[phatheadaf]

First off nice kicks... for real

beyond that your so new bro, don't sweat the technique yet, get comfortable finding the ball at the bottom of your swing.

Your last swing was your best, I agree w/ the other poster. reason being you swung with your torso, more than your arms.

simple things to start, keep your balance throughout the whole swing, and swing with your torso, let your arms follow. Strike down to make the ball go up, and hit the ball right to make it go left.

Just get out and hit balls, if you fall in love with the good swings; your a player!!!

A.

[Stat-K]

yeaaaauuuuh SB Dunks baby haha i wanna keep my hip hop style on the golf course for as long as i possibly can haha i need swagger when i play, but yeah i love it i just wanna be able to do it as much as possible without hurting my self. You have no idea how helpful this is. I try to go up with experienced people but most people cant go up that much haha

[ezra76]

Welcome man.

If they have lessons at the range, that really is the best way to start. My buddy and I that play together, he took lessons right off the bat, I sort of figured it out on my own. Although we are pretty equal, it took me twice as long to get decent.

It's good that you know about the grip, it's pretty much the most important thing. Next would be posture. You want to be in an athletic position with the back straighter, bent from the hips. You've played basketball? Similar to the position you'd be defending someone off the dribble. Then you want to have the club, hands, arms, shoulders and torso working togther. The arms should stay pretty much straight out with the inner elbows facing up. The shoulders turn back, keeping the arms in front of the torso. Keep the right leg braced and turn into it. Then, from the top, feel the weight tranfer to the left leg and turn the hips. Let the arms feel pretty passive and drop as the shoulders and torso turn back the other way.

The most important thing at this point is just to maintain balance and spine angle. Get the shoulders turning back and then through. The golf swing is rotary motion.

[Stat-K]

Thank you so much. You're right about the lessons, too. Almost every person that goes up with me to the driving range has suggested taking lessons as the best possible course of action. I shall take all this critique to the range and bring you back more video goodness (hopefully better).

[Hackin_Away]

Similar to what ezra said. But try to concentrate on the take away of the club from the ball, starting a chain reaction where your arms begin to take the club away then shoulders would begin to rotate followed by your hips. As many would say think of coiling yourself up like a spring building tension in your lower body and core. Arms should remain relaxed and your grip should be quite relaxed as well, over gripping causes tons of problems and doesn't allow the proper "wrist hinge" and therefore "release" through the ball. A brief pause at the top, VERY brief, dont sit there and hold it for what will feel like forever, but then begin the downswing basically in reverse starting with your lower body and radiating up, this will release the "coil" and bring you back to your starting position accurately (hopefully square to target and right behind the ball). To me in that video it almost seemed like you were swaying a lil too much, meaning you were kind of moving your whole body back at once, which is going to end up throwing you off big time by the time your downswing gets back to the ball.

Also, someone mentioned balance, yea you shouldn't fall backwards at the end of your swing or somethings wrong, also as i think ezra said try to get into more of athletic position to maintain your balance throughout the swing.

The weight transfer will probably further complicate things, but to me it feels like if you start it out mainly on the left side, a good rotation of the body will help the transfer from front to back to front too happen rather naturally.

Now that im done pretending like i know wtf im talkin bout, LOL....i would also suggest the route of some lessons. Its not that expensive, and your so early into your golf life, that you dont have all the bad habits people like me have. This way you can learn the right way from the start!

Been readin some books to help me in a cpl problem areas, and the writer/pga pro, Stan Utley, says "think of your lower body/core as the power (torque), and your arms are the steering wheel". Means you shouldn't be trying to generate the power for the shot with all arms, use that coil (from proper rotation) and the athleticism you probably have to generate the power, and let your arms make sure the power gets back to the ball and with the club face square.

[mddubya]

See if you can catch a replay of this weeks The Golf Fix on The Golf Channel. He shows a tip on maintaining the proper balance and weight transfer that really makes sense. In practice, when you take the club back, lift your left foot off the ground, when you swing forward, lift your right foot up off the ground. This will ingrain transferring your weight back and forth during your swing.

[Stat-K]

Thank you hacking away i will do! ima have to bring this whole transcript up to tilden next time i go so i dont forget haha but yea ill def catch that golf channel the fix if i have the channel, i should have it i got comcast. But yeah everyones been so helpful so far. Anybody wanna share their swings so i can get some visual refrence too?

[nc2tarheels]

[Stat-K]

Originally Posted by nc2tarheels

dude that was real nice! your form was Really good i just need to get more flexible, haha so that i can keep my left arm straight as i wind up so that i can keep my swing in the right trajectory