I just read/watched this entire thread and you should be proud of your desire to get better. Great job!!! Your swing has changed dramatically in a short period of time. Kyle seems to be spot on with his analysis of your swing. I would like to add that you seem to control your tempo well, which is hard to do for guys just getting back into golf. Keep working at it and keep updating this thread. It is a lot of fun to see you improve.

FWIW I noticed you don't turn your right wrist between 75%-90% to start your backswing. I always look for this because that's one of the mechanics that I was taught(in my case it's my left wrist to start my backswing)left handed obv. Ever since I started wrist turn at 90 degrees and more shoulder turn it upped my consistency with irons.

I like that

Ya, I'm going to start strengthening myself. Thanks for being vigilant about that and bringing it up. I am not in any kind of shape one could call respectable. I'm going to start with the yoga before any kind of strength training. On a scale of 1-10 on flexibility I'm like a 0.8. Don't want to hurt myself lifting and then not even be able to practice my putting!

Speaking of putting, I've been practicing "the ultimate practice routine" with a 2 hour time limit and I have never gotten past the 30 footers Some day I'll get to practice my chipping. Some day. Getting pretty good at 3 footers though!

Thanks much for this post. I'm very glad that you are getting some enjoyment out of it. I don't want this thread to be a completely selfish endeavor. You may be having fun watching me improve, but I bet I'm having more fun improving!

Also I formally issue a challenge to UCBananaboy!!! He told me I should stick to poker, so I am now forced to whip him into submission for trying to tell me what to do! He recently shot a 75 at cog hill, and I probably couldn't have broken 90 two weeks ago, yet I will still overtake him!!!

To take place this summer, one round match play, one round stroke play, and in the event of a 1-1 split, final round tiebreaker at the par 3 course. I'm sure it won't be necessary, though, I'll probably just finish you off 2-0

First of all I think it's great that you are determined to improve and working hard on your game, so congrats on the improvement you have made so far.

I am not a teacher but I will still give my uneducated advice

The two things I would start out working on would be setup and takeaway.

I agree with Kyle that you are standing too close to the ball and you have your weight on the heels, this could contribute to you falling away from the shot. Your balance is not good when standing on your heels like this. Maintaining balance through the swing is really important and this starts at your setup. If you have a picture of your setup you can check your distance to the ball at setup by drawing a vertical line from your butt to the ground and another vertical line from the front of your shoulder to the ground. You want your feet to be approximately in the middle between these two lines (hope this makes sense) and you should look like if someone gently pushed you from either the front or the back you would be able to keep your balance, to me it looks like if I came along and pushed you from the front you'd have to take a step back not to fall.

Your stance also looks a bit wide to me and it looks like you have the ball a bit too far back in your stance.

As has been talked about a lot already the shaft is too flat in your takeaway. I know how strange it feels to change this as I am struggling with this myself. The practice swings look quite good to me, but here are some things for you to try to do to help you get the shaft steeper in the takeaway. You cold try to take the club back by turning your upper body and keeping the arms more passive during the takeway. It looks to me like your left arm is disconnecting from the body a little so if you try to keep your left upper arm tucked in to your chest more tightly while working the clubhead away from your body maybe this will help you. Oh and I just remember a really great drill from dagolfdoc for this. I don't remember the exact wording and hopefully someone will correct me if I am wrong. Try taking your normal stance but grip the club using only your thumb, index finger and middle finger on each hand. From here you take the club back until your arms are about horizontal. If the arms, shaft and clubhead are moving correctly the club should feel pretty light but if you are doing it wrong the club will feel heavy and you will struggle a bit controlling it using only six fingers.

By the way I like to use the free version of V1Golf to do some analysis and I think that or a similar program could help you as well when you are tracking your progress.

Sorry for rambling. Hope some of it was helpful.

/Michael

Consider your challenge accepted.

Late to the party here, but I will make a couple of comments.

1) I don't think you are too close to the ball at setup. I mean, maybe a shade, but not a huge issue.

2) The reason your takeaway looks funny is because the wrist action is wrong. The wrists can work in 3 different ways. Hold a club straight out in front of you. Now the wrists can either **** (so straight up and down), side bend (left or right bend), or roll. You have too much side bend and roll, not enough ****. Watch this video over and over. When the club is parallel to the ground look at where the logo on each of your gloves is facing. Make yours look more like that.

3) Shoulder tilts are off. Your left shoulder needs to work down much much more. That Fowler video works here too. Even with driver his shoulder tilts are pointing nearly at the golf ball.

Wow, last swing looks decent. Just try to relax a bit.. get your set up correct, but relaxed and you'll be hitting it a ton. You have about 5 years until you can beat UCB, though, no offense.

Yes, you are improving, but let's not jump into the shark tank without a cage just yet. Two words for you Augie---GET STROKES!!!

Seriously though, good job and please keep updating the thread.

I'm so confused right now

what's a good position at the top for a left wrist ? (for right handed)

Depends on the grip imo. Neutral grip will have a flatter wrist, stronger grip will be more cupped.

just bought a white hot 2-ball for $45 off of a guy on craigslist! another nail in UCB's coffin. once i get golf shoes, he's done for.

boss, thanks for the tidbit about wrist-c0ck, it just gave me an epiphany of sorts...i've been trying to bring the club back to the right spot where the shaft is parallel to the ground...but that will just automatically happen if i take the club straight back and c0ck my wrists right away...wow...this is a real breakthrough. i seriously feel like i just had a religious experience. i have a feeling tomorrow's videos from the range are going to be a big difference. thank you.

verno, nobody ever achieves greatness by aiming low. when i take down UCB it's going to inspire an entire generation of washed up 26 year olds to get back on the range and video tape themselves hitting golf balls and then post it on the internets.

beermoney, dog years maybe! give me 200-1 on the match and i just might make a wager!

No problem, glad it made sense to you. Looking forward to your next round of video's, you've made a lot of progress so far.

IMO the biggest thing you should be working on are getting your tilts better. You turn much too level right now, both with the shoulders and the hips. At the top of your swing your left shoulder and left hip should be significantly lower than their right counterparts.

The left shoulder has to work down towards the golf ball. That tilt (and back extension, which you do pretty well) is what gets the club to ascend. Right now you get the club high with arm lift. In conjunction, the left knee flexes towards the golf ball, and the right knee straightens. A feeling that sometimes works for people is that there right hip goes "up" and "back" and not around.

That's kinda the short version, does that make sense?

ya, makes sense. i think it will get a lot better as i get more flexible. i'm comically inflexible. my muscles are like those rubber bands you put on your braces.

today is day 2 of yoga, i actually quite enjoy it. and it's already helping my movement a bit. i think that it's really helped my posture too already.

last video:



today:

WOW

2nd is so much better. One thing that might help with what Your Boss is trying to help you with(how your left shoulder should be lower than your right at the top) is to just think about maintaining your spine angle that you have in the 2nd image.

If you just reached into that image and rotated your upper body 90* think of how your shoulders would look. The backswing should just be you rotating around your spine.

Yea 2nd is magnificent...

First one it looks like you're asking yourself, "is this right?"

Second one looks like you're totally in your comfort zone.

Small samples size and whatnot, however your fundamentals are improving tremendously and if you keep on practicing 3+ times a week and doing the ultimate short game routine You will break 80 this year.

Yoga's gonna help so much too... I think it makes you comfortable swinging the golf club sooner.

The one thing you have to avoid is driving range fever(hitting golf balls past the point where you've worked on the things you set out to work on, trying to fix things that aren't broken, trying to play golf shots that don't fit your swing). Once swinging a golf club stops being mentally draining, go play Golf: Pick a target, hit the ball there, and if you miss then just move to your next shot.

played 9 holes on sunday, it was...interesting. played from the tips, didn't keep score, but i probably would have shot about 40 if i didn't count all of the balls i put in the water/weeds on this hole i put two in the water with my 3 wood, two in the water with my 6 iron, and then i took my driver and hit it about 20 yards short of the green

it's amazing how i can do one thing on the range and then when i step on to the course, completely lose my mind and make horrible swings.

my irons were fairly solid, but my driver was just abysmal. i would say about 20% of the time i hit it very well and straight. about 15% of the time, i hit a bit of a draw that still stays in the fairway. and the other 65% of the time it's a total block that goes straight, but 30 yards right of the fairway.

gonna play another 9 tomorrow, should be fine, as long as i just chill and don't lose my mind and get out in front of the ball while forgetting everything i've been working on. driver is the only club that was horrible. just need to swing like i swing on the range and not like a caffeinated 15 year old.

tonight's video:

If you ever want to score well you have to shorten the backswing. That's the reason your results get worse in the longer clubs.

IMO you have the athleticism and mental sharpness to become a scratch golfer in ten years, but u have to realize there is absolutely no reason to lift the arms like that.

arg, you're right, i forgot about working on that...probably shouldn't even play tomorrow, should just go to the range and start rebuilding, as you say, from the ground up.

Great improvement, especially on the setup.

I'm still not a great fan of the takeaway. I no longer thing that you are "rolling" your left arm, but I do think that your hands are working too much away from your body and your shaft is too flat. I don't think that you are cocking your wrists correctly, you seem to be bending your left wrist instead. Take a look at the Rickie Fowler video that Your Boss posted and compare that to your takeaway. I still think that the dagolfdoc takeaway drill that I tried to describe earlier in this thread could be really really good for you.

/Michael

you are right. i'm just going to forget about what i'm doing right now and rebuild from the ground up. why not? i am not in a hurry.

i need a lot of work on my pitching anyway!!

posting so i remember: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8LWmtuHDco

I hope that going to the range means practicing fundamentals and not banging on golf balls til you feel better. I have a punching bag for the times when going to the range would be counterproductive for my golf game.

When you go practice, begin to practice shorter shots. Learn to keep the ball on target for a 30 yard shot and then work your way up to 60 then 80 then 100 and so on.

Also, for your pleasure

Look at :22- His left side is bracing while the right jumps hard. You can practice this move at home w/o a club in hand.

Augie, couple pictures for you. But first, I want to make note of your grip. It really looks to me like you have the grip in the palm of your hand and not the fingers. What are your thoughts on that?

In this one you can see how Fowler c0cks his wrists instead of side bending them. Go back to my previous post explaining how the wrists can move and get a feel for c0cking vs. side bending. If you can't figure this out let me know and I can give you more details. But this is priority number one for you.



What I want to draw attention to in this picture is the gap between your right bicep and chest. See how much tighter Fowler's is? This is one of the reasons your swing looks so long. Lots of ancillary benefits of getting that straightened out. You'll stay more on plane in backswing, your downswing will be less steep, more speed will be generated, etc.

You do the same thing in your follow through as well. Both arms come off your chest, you lose the "connection" you hear people talk about.

A good drill for you will be to take a couple of tees, or towels, or small headcovers, or anything like that and stick them under your armpits. Right armpit is for backswing, left for follow through. You can do both at the same time though. You should be able to hit balls without them falling out. Just concentrate on keeping those pressure points intact. Will you take a video hitting a couple of shots doing that?

Yo, Bubba swings like that

omg i love bubba! i better not change anything!!

as always, thanks boss and kyle. worked hard at the range today. getting a little better. for some reason it's very hard for me to not take a full backswing!

I cannot advice you anything about swing as I'm new to this game (btw love your tempo) but one thing I noticed: you should place a ball at the back of the divot not in front

check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYyBOycX3D4