http://youtu.be/9p3xuxLMsi0

Is this what is referred to as "casting"? I think my wrist action is very poor but I'm not sure how to practice.

Yep that's casting. When you pause at 0:10, you can see that the forward shaft lean you had at address is gone. In fact, your hands are almost behind the club at impact. The biggest problem imo is that your lower body is inactive. Your hips only begin turning after you've hit the ball. Your position at address is too similar to your position at impact.

I suspect you also hold the club too tightly and have a lot of tension in your forearms/shoulders. You could try to hit a few balls with an extremely light grip pressure (just enough so you don't lose it) and see what happens. That being said you have a pretty decent golf swing with a nice setup and good position at the top. You seem to be hitting it pretty far a guy in handcuffs.

Thanks for the responses martin.

Are you saying if I work on my hips it could alleviate my casting problem?

I do have a firm grip and one thing I think about is trying to keep my left arm straight through contact so I'm sure a byproduct is a stiff upper body. I will practice on the range tonight. I appreciate the compliment right now I carry anywhere between 250-270 but it dies when it lands so I'm assuming that is a result of too much backspin. Last summer my drives were roughly 25-30 yards farther and I remember having a tired left hip during and after rounds so I'm wondering if the loss in range is what I'm seeing due to my problems.

Just to be clear, the wrists arent the problem when it comes to casting?

basically the wrists are an indirect problem. Because of your inactive hips you need to really grip it hard with your hands (which brings tension all the way from your fingers to your back ) and swing hard with your arms so you can hit it a long way.

try swinging with your grip pressure at a 3 with like a 7 iron and only try to hit the ball abut 110 yards...

There are a variety of golf instruction videos on you tube on "maintaining lag" or "stop casting". For sure too much tension in arms and hands is one problem. Another is too quick of a tempo. That is a person might swing so hard from the top of the backswing that he feels he has to "dump" the shaft early or the clubhead will never get to the ball in time, and if it does, the face may be open.

Many people have increased lag retention by starting downswing slower and accelerating through impact. Not only does this reduce tension, and increase clubhead speed, it gives time for lower body/hips to get a head-start on the upper body.


PS> In my opinion retaining lag is probably the last thing a very good golfer can get right. It is not easy. I am not very good but I know it is the hardest thing I have ever worked on, and still don't have it even close to where I want it.

The big problem is that golfers try and hold club tighter to retain the lag in the downswing, but holding tighter equals tension and you cant get clubhead speed with hand/forearm/arm tension.

So, we try to get looser, and for many that makes casting or throwing the club from the top even worse.

It is a paradox: don't let the club release early, but don't create any hand or arm tension while you are holding it back it. It is really a tough thing to get right.

The only place to practice this is the range. You have to be of the mindset that you don't care where or how far the ball goes while you are trying to get the feeling right.

Check out vids and find some drills you like. Good luck.

Yeah as the others have said your swing is very dominated by your upper body, which is very bad for lag and casting.

Lag is something that I think a lot of us have difficulty thinking simply because we spend all out time battling the symptom rather than the disease. It has little to do with anything above your waist, or at least it shouldn't. As long as your hips are opening at a steady (or increasing rate) all the way through impact there is no way to cast the club without crazy manipulation. If your hips slow down or stop prior to impact, then you will always cast/flip/etc. There is just too much force.

The hard part is getting the hips to do what they should :/

I sit in an extremely uncomfortable chair 7 hours a day and I haven't been SS much lately. I wonder if that's why I'm so stiff.

out of interest would you guys say the ball is in the correct part of the stance for a driver?

to me it looks just off centre, I was taught to play a driver with the ball in line with the heel. Is this player / shot dependant?

I was experimenting a bit that day. I usually have it a little more forward in my stance.

At the 10 second mark I see a little bit of a chicken wing in the left arm. Would love to see a view from down the line to see the plane of the backswing.

Gonna head to the range tomorrow I hope so I'll get angles from both sides. What's chicken wing mean?

Means left elbow is bent a little. In the pic that martin posted you can see your left wrist is bent back or cupped at impact like your hand is moving towards the target, it gets even more bent in the next frame. It should be straight or bowed like it is being dragged by your left arm until after impact. I think the reason you do this is because your hips haven't moved out of the way so you have to swing the club with your arms and hands to square it up otherwise the ball would go straight right.

You need to start your downswing with your legs and hips and let the arms follow. Think about turning your left hip back and away from the ball as your first move on the downswing, NOT moving the hips left or towards the target. They should naturally move towards the target just a little bit as your weight is transferred to the left leg. Get them turned out of the way so your arms and hands can come through after and still swing towards the target(imagine your hips being open to the target about 30 degrees by the time you hit the ball. If you get your hips out of the way but still cast the club you will hit it hard left with a hook probably. Thats where getting your hands ahead of the ball with a flat left wrist comes in. And just after impact you want both arms to be straight with the clubhead about 2 feet in front of your left foot like you are trying to keep it as far away from your face as possible. Let the weight of the club as it comes up in your follow through be what makes your wrists and elbow bend.

Another thing I'd suggest (almost always do), is to go through several buckets with your feet together. It will be near impossible to have an upper-body dominated swing with your feet together, and it will force you to use a more lower-body driven, rotational source of power.

I still try to hit about 3 balls with my feet together for every 1 that I hit normally.

I got out to the range tonight and and focused on a lighter grip with a more relaxed upper body. After watching the videos from the front, seems like I didn't really improve my hip movement. I don't know that the videos would really be helpful. Going to try again tomorrow.

Should I be locking my left elbow to keep it straight? That's what I've been doing but I feel like I can't really do that without creating a lot of tension.

I would say no, the only time a big bend in the left elbow is bad is if the club is getting way behind you, and I don't think that's a big issue with your swing.

AFA rotating your hips, I think it's easier said than done without the proper instruction and most don't do it correctly. Sure you can rotate, but you have to be rotating against something in order for this to happen.

There is definitely an easy way to do this imo, but it would take a while to explain (I'll try later). Sevam's video goes into it a little, albeit with an annoying narrator:



Kelvin also talks about it but he's very wordy:

Hip turn part 1
Hip turn part 2

I'll try to explain it my way a little later.

I really appreciate all the feedback I've received. Headed out to the course today and I'm not sure if I have made any progress. One thing I did do is choke up on the club a bit. My driver is Titleist D12 9.5 stiff shaft that I purchased on Ebay and my irons are Cleveland TA3 forged that were given to me a long time ago, so I've never had any of my clubs fit for me. I'm 6'2" or so and I think my arms are longish. I did notice that it felt a bit better after I did this. Also, I tried to get in a bit more of an athletic stance. I noticed in some of my previous videos that I was a bit stiff in the knees.

Here are a few swings:

http://youtu.be/IViRxB7Z5-8?list=UUn...PnzjEPPLEGNjlQ

I just realized I used the selfie facing camera and when I slowed it down the quality was horrible so thats a huge fail. I'll have to get back out there tomorrow and get new videos.

The non slow mo versions are on my channel if anyone is interested in broswing.

Question about this video:

Is there no shaft bend because of the camera speed or because it is an extra stiff shaft?

I see a little bend in DJ's shaft, but it's nothing out of the ordinary imo. The slowmo video is great, and gives a good idea of what you're doing with your legs.

GIF Warning:

Here is Dustin Johnson from transition to impacti-ish:



Here is you



Pay attention the right hip and knee. See the difference? DJ's right kneecap does not move for a few frames, it appears to actually go away from the target (to the left in the picture) and holds it's position, yours slides forward and actually rotates inward immediately before extending. This is because you're pushing off rather than rotating. It's understandable as that's what a lot of people are taught in order to avoid fat shots.

Now look at the left knee, see how DJ's appears to rotate counter-clockwise whereas yours is being pushed under your hipbone?

Add the two together, and DJ's knees gain separation (squat move) while yours do not. The cause of your flip is your hips having nowhere to go and stopping rotation very early. Your lag is fine for the first few frames of the downswing, but as soon as your hips stop rotating everything else catches up. Of course this probably manifests itself into thinking it's a flexibility thing, but very few golfers are flexible enough to recover from that sort of position.

So we know your hips aren't rotating, but it's much more complicated than saying to rotate your hips more or try to get your buckle to face the target. You can do those things fine and it still won't help your flip The key imo is to give your hips the greatest range of motion and then allowing them to rotate as they should. This is done by the squat move that most great players have. In the squat move, your right knee should remain pretty still while your left knee opens toward the target (see DJ above). Jack, Hogan, Snead, old Tiger, Arnie, all the greats did it. Guys like Furyk do 50% of it, which may be why he's not a bomber.. but anyway it's not as easy as just squatting down unfortunately.

The easiest way to do this imo is to flare your feet (in your stance) a little, and start your downswing by pushing off the outside of your right foot on a line parallel to it. That creates the external rotation you need in both hips (squat move) and gives you tons of room to get the hips around without resistance. Your left knee should naturally rotate counter-clockwise as a reaction to the movement, which will in turn open up your hips to the target. It's similar to what Sevam says (pre-turn your right foot, keep rotating clockwise), only I like the term pushing off instead of maintaining clockwise rotation.

Try it yourself, set up with both feet a little open and go to the top of the backswing. From there try pushing off the inside of your right foot toward the target, then try to rotate. Now try going to the top again, and this time push off the outside of your right foot, almost as if you are trying to get your right knee to move into the 4 o'clock position(from an imaginary view from above your head), then try to rotate. You can really feet the difference right? If you push off the left (slide), your left hip gets on top of your left leg and bears so much weight that it's difficult to rotate. Push off the other way and you open to the target in a much easier fashion.

I'd suggest getting that feeling, and then practicing that motion with half swings.

Hopefully that makes sense.

BTW here is someone trying to demonstrate the move using exaggeration. He's doing it more with his left side opening, and that might work better for some people. The point is that room needs to be made for the hips to rotate. Anyway he starts demonstrating it at around 30 seconds.



[edit]

Actually here's him explaining it. Looks like he hits it pretty far

To go with what he's saying about your knees and such... You seem to stand up or by straightening your right knee instead of turning and pushing forward with your right leg. You can see what I mean in the pic. Also back to what I was saying about straightening your arms, the pic shows what I mean by having your arms straight after impact and getting the clubhead as far from your face as possible. Gotta turn the hips out of the way first though. That is the important thing in order to get into this position.



Look at Adam Scott's hips compared to yours. Yours are almost square to the ball after impact and his are way open.

Just wanted to say conceptually I am starting to understand the move now its just a matter of teaching my body to do it. I think I'm throwing my weight forward way too fast which gives my hip no chance to rotate. Videos incoming tonight hopefully.

No progress tonight and TBH it may have been worse. I think I need to take a lesson or something. In my mind I know exactly what I want to do but in practice I just can't do it.

At address, how should me weight be distributed at my feet? How about at the top? And at impact? I think I'm wrong all the way across the board.