Correct my swing is not as good as Ben Hogan's

Yea Idk, I'm just going to keep trying to figure it out, in some exaggerated way I guess. I took a bunch of half swings yesterday when I was trying to figure it out, and thought I had figured it out, but I had not figured it out

Aaron, that's pretty damn good swing, even if you are still pronating a little bit. Just keep working at it

Hey man you're basically just starting out and have a much better swing already than many who have played for years.

My point wasn't that your swing should be as good as Hogan's (no one's is), but just that his swing is so technically perfect, that it serves as a good model to identify errors and things to work on. Anyway keep at it and good luck.

Wow, that's a hell of an improvement from your first face-on swings. If you look at impact you're actually delofting the club by a couple degrees and releasing MUCH more with your body... the flip is all but gone. Your hips at impact look like they are quite open compared to the first FO clip (a good thing), and I see no stalling or slowing down of the hips which should bode well for release patterns if you keep that up.

Starting your swing with your hips has made a major improvement, but I'd say that trying to do that AND being mindful of your wrists is going to be tough to do. IMO you're better just working on one for at least a few hundred balls and then introducing something new. Since your hips are already doing good things, I'd say just keep working at that and pick up the arm/hand stuff in a couple weeks.

Eventually there are some things to shore up on your backswing that will more than likely get you delofting/lagging the club even more, but I would hesitate to work on them since you're doing so good with the lower body stuff now.

Also I don't want to be that guy, but Hogan's swing is darn near impossible to copy imo.

Curious why you think that about Hogan's swing? Obviously he was built like a tank, and was naturally gifted, but what about his swing is so impossible?

A good golf swing is hard. Just as difficult to copy Adam Scott's swing imo.

A guy like Duffer based his swing off the Hogan model... clearly he does not look like Hogan when he swings but in terms of the fundamentals, if you're going to emulate a good swing, why not Hogan's?

There is a great drill for it now that you mention that. Position the ball maybe 4-6 inches further forward than your left foot and take like 20 shots at it or so with a 6 iron. You really have to get forward with your weight and hands to even hit the ball that way. You won't be able to hit them very straight, they should all go left, but when you put the ball back where it should be you should try to get that same feeling of having to get forward with your weight and hands.

5/28: 1.5 buckets, some with the ball in front of my front foot

Hit a pretty miserable bucket today where I just couldn't make good contact, except when I hit a couple dozen shots with the ball 6 inches in front of my front foot. I did his these off (mostly left, and often super high) target, but my contact was remarkably good, like probably better than when I played the ball from the middle of my stance. I have no idea. I took a video of one for the hell of it.

Just trying to get the hips to fire first is enough of a confusing work in progress, the plane my backswing is on, taking it away together, making sure my wrists are flexed in the backswing, etc. is so much that I'm trying to just figure out getting my hips through. It's a pain in the ass. I felt like I was hitting the ball "hard" a lot today, just not really hitting the sweet spot. I'm not sure where I was hitting it, didn't seem like thin and certainly not fat, but I just felt like I was really making too much of a 'thud' in contact. Who knows

Wanted to add: I tried to take half swings but I had a lot of trouble trying to take half swings while focusing on firing my hips through first

5/30: 2 buckets

Mixed results today, hit some REALLY bad 56 degree wedges, super fat. Maybe I was standing too close? Kept getting right under the ball, I find it harder to fire with my hips first with shorter clubs for some reason.

As I was going through my swing in slow motion I started seeing where my wrists were at the transition and it felt like my left wrist wasn't flat enough. So I started really practicing bowing my wrists , making sure my left wrist was very far "forward." The result of that was that I was unable to take what I felt were full swings, but my "half swings" (in video form below) were actually pretty full. It felt kind of weird and since I wasn't really getting a full swing I had no distance, but I'd say the results were okay. Wrists at this angle in the backswing tended to lead me to hook it, but I think I did a better job of keeping my hands in front of the ball at impact.

Still think there are too many things I'm sorta trying to focus on: leading with my hips, shallowing out at the top, weight transfer, rotating into my hip, etc. I am mostly focusing on the first one I guess, but I just wind up hitting a bunch fat and then being like "well I guess I have to think about something else, maybe the hips firing thing is already internalized."

Anyone have any opinion on this guys videos? I only watched one when I got down the rabbit hole on youtube one day, but it doesn't seem to bad. I'm hesitant to watch random stuff on youtube because my experience has been that so many people don't really get the science of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V3xsHYrbug

Probably weren't getting your weight onto your front side enough. I have the same miss with my partial wedges.

That definitely feels like a problem, tough to fix so many things at once!

I think your weight is in the right spot. You are just still flipping the club and casting. Your swing looks a hundred times better already. Specifically at impact. You're on the right track with your hips. They are starting your downswing really well. I think if you can stop the casting you'll be so close to a great swing. Check out this comparison pic. 2 things you should look at is 1) the obvious that you've lost the angle between the shaft and your left arm that you start with. 2) look at your right elbow compared to the other guy. His elbow is in tight to his side which allows him to keep the club head back behind him as well as maintain that angle between shaft and left arm longer. This is essential to have any kind of reasonable swing speed. You gotta find the thing that allows you to wait to straighten out your right arm until the last possible moment. You have to keep the right elbow bent as long as possible.

I used Sergio because he's an extreme example and helps illustrate it well.

Aaron, imo you are trying to fix everything in your swing in one week, and it's just going to lead to you jumping from swing thought to swing thought. My advice would be again to force yourself to only work on one thing for at least 5 sessions, hopefully more. I mean like literally the only thought going through your brain from the time you address the ball to the end of the swing is that one thought. If you do this for a while it will become more natural to the point where you don't have to think about it, then you can work on your next correction.

I have been through what you're going through now, and it's not fun...

I like what your hips are doing, so I'd say work on that...and only that... every swing while on the range.

Hogan's swing is beautiful, but there is so much small-muscle manipulation (hands/wrists) that I don't think his swing is low-maintenance.

agree 100%... his swing looks much better......... i work say work on the hip turn and just make sure you getting your weight forward and/or hands through the ball. that's not really 2 or 3 things. it's more making sure you are doing the hip turn correctly.

basically getting through the ball and cover the ball when you hit it.

OP, when i make swing changes. my misses are completely different so it is frustrating as your game is probably somewhat calibrated for your old misses i.e. you aim really far right because you come over the top and slice the ball. like the other day i hit a nice iron shot but it was pure push - no slice. something i've never had a problem with. but presumably i can just straighten that out as the push was a very good hit.

on 2nd thought, maybe just work on the one thing - hip turn - but have some awareness of getting the weight forward and getting the hands forward.

the ironic thing is that with a hip turn swing the hands stay relatively quiet and get in front of the ball

The reason you are hitting shots fat is the casting. Honestly it is your only real issue with your swing that I can see in the face on videos you just posted. It is a lot harder to hit the ball first when your hands are not ahead of the ball.

Seriously, get a "Tour Striker". I actually have one I'd sell you cheap if you wanted.

Yeah, way too much advice with you trying to incorporate all of it. Take one piece of advice and do nothing but work on that for a week until it becomes natural. Then take another for a week. Rinse and repeat. Most players take at least two weeks before any sort of change can take effect, only reason I'm saying one week is because you're beating balls like crazy. Perhaps too much.

There's a saying, practice smarter, not harder.

i agree wholeheartedly on "1 thing at a time"... but... i think he needs to make natural adjustments as he's working on hip turn.

working the hips opens the clubface....... players with strong grips must open hips or they'll pull - pull hook? - everything.

i remember dj's probably worst major shot ever - at least full shot - where he pulled it like made on #3 at pebble. probably his body froze as he was feeling the pressure.

so make sure you make natural adjustments as you are working on things.. maybe this comment was unnecessary as you would do it on your own but basicaly your misses will be completely different and you have to make some moderate tweaks to hit the ball properly.

More of a feel thing than a swing thought, but I think the easiest way to get the feeling of your hands to your left thigh is to hit a ton of punch shots. Your hands have to get in front to keep the angle down.


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I played this course Silver Tip and shot a 96 from the blues, almost definitely my best round ever (which makes sense since it comes after a week that I hit 1500 balls at the range):

• Made a birdie on a 110 yard par 3 (7 feet or so)
• Drove it poorly, missed with my old super slice on a few holes
• Made one putt over 10 feet (~12 footer)
• Still had at least 3 three putt bogeys, greens were in kind of bad shape but that's not really an excuse I can credibly use
• I think I ran pretty good on a bunch of misses, but I guess less bad misses comes with improving
• Took a 10 on a tough par 5 where I was on the fringe in 4, scaled a chip through the green, down a hill, and onto the cart path. Scaled subsequent 75% swing 60 degree, rage quit the hole

I was happy with the round, it was nice to run good after putting in a bunch of practice this week, is good positive reinforcement. I really didn't have any heinous misses that I can think of with irons, so that was nice.

Re: wrist flexion. One question I have about Sergio is that his wrist feels bowed, like bent forward. I tried that with a few shots today when I was at the range, but I felt like I couldn't get a full backswing. It's possible that's still okay. I tried to keep them bent forward in the swing videos I posted today. I understand going back and grinding only the hip turn, but I feel like I should have some idea what my wrists should feel like...

Basically what I'm saying is this: if I am going to bend my left wrist in the backswing, the options are bend it forward, bend it back, don't bend it along the "east and west" plane. Bending it back seem bad because my right wrist won't be flexed enough (should be "flat" in the backswing), keeping it neutral would seem to be preferred but I feel like when I get to the backswing and I'm trying to take a "full" swing, I can't really do it while only bending it north and south, it wants to go a little forward or backward. I could also bend it "forward" more "bowed" like Sergio (I think), but the problem with that is I don't think I can get a full backswing in. Maybe that doesn't matter.

Anyway today I didn't really think about it and the results were okay, but I think deciding how this should feel in the transition seems pretty important.