Not What I Wanted To Work On But I'll Take It

I went to the range yesterday hoping to work on two face on items. Unfortunately, the range was more crowded than it usually is so I did not have enough space to set up my camera that way. I could have just relied on feel and hoped I was doing what I wanted to do but, as I have said numerous times in the past, I just don't trust feel as much as I trust my camera. I decided I would work on trying to keep the length and fluidity of my swing, try to feel like my upper body was not shifting away from the target, and also try to get myself on plane. The results are below.

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Sand Wedge Plane

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6 Iron Plane

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Driver Plane

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Set Up

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Take Away

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Top of Swing

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Downswing

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Impact

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Extension

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Finish

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Again, lots of comments but not much time. The biggest change in the swing can be seen in the downswing frames.  Specifically, the shaft of my club is slightly lower than my shoulder coming out of the top of my swing (frame 4) and the shaft of the club is running pretty close to across my right forearm during the second part of my downswing (frame 5).  If this swing was significantly faster, I would be ecstatic.  Unfortunately, either because I had three things going through my head at the same time or because this swing thought was too forced, I was generating very little power.  Hopefully, next time I go out and hit golf balls I can focus on my swing from face on so I can eliminate one of those variables.

Frame By Frame from May 9, 2013

This is more informational than anything but here is the frame by frame from my driver swing on May 9, 2013. Please note that these are two different swings for the two different angles.

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Set Up

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Take Away

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Top of Swing

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Downswing

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Impact

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Extension

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Finish

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I could spend pages and pages on these 20 frames but I frankly don't have time to go into that kind of detail.  Here are my quick comments by section:

• Set Up:  Happy.  Good angles both down the line and face on. Felt stable as well.
• Take Away:  Trying to allow my shoulders to make a longer, looser turn changed the angle I was taking the club back on.  I don't believe it was a negative thing but it certainly is an interesting change.  I still need to work on not allowing my upper body to shift away from the target but this is an improvement.  I also need to work on not shifting my weight forward towards the ball but, again, this is an improvement.  I also would like to work on tightening up my hip turn (creating a little bit more of an angle between my shoulders and hips) but this is sometthing that will improve as I continue my TPI regimen and is not a priority at this time.  Priority 1 next time I go out is to continue working on keeping my upper body from shifting away from the target and instead, make a solid, quiet pivot.
• Top of Swing:  This is a huge difference.  A long swing during my previous outings was parallel.  I was at least 10 degrees longer on May 8.  The other interesting thing about the top of my swing is I have the club laid off less than during previous sessions without thinking about it.  I believe that this change has contributed to my ability to drop the club inside a little more.  Priority 2 next time out will be to continue working on trying to keep my swing more fluid and allowing my shoulders to turn a little more before starting my downswing.
• Downswing:  This is where I still need some work.  I am not as far over the top as I was during my previous outing but I am still a little over the top.  I would like to see the shaft a little bit farther below my shoulders coming out of the top of my swing but, to be fair, this was not something I was focusing on during this last session.  I would love to be able to move on to working on this but I honestly don't know if I could juggle three swing thoughts in my head.  If I find that either of the other two swing thoughts are coming naturally, I will make it Priority 3 to try to allow my club to drop farther inside before conciously accelerating but I highly doubt this will be something I get to work on too much.
• Impact:  Unforunately, without playing with some other software that I don't really have time to do right now, I couldn't catch impact.  What is noticable however is that my left shoulder clearly is behind the ball at impact so the only other reasons that I would have to hit the ball right would be plane and clubface.  If I can get myself back on plane and the ball is still going right, I will start worrying about clubface.
• Extension:  This is another area that could use work but is not worth my time right now with the other errors that are occuring.  Amongst the items I would like to fix include, but are not limited to, (i) my left leg and hip having a little too much of a hitch through impact (not quite Rory's super hitch caused by extremely quick hip motion but a hitch caused by sequencing that is slightly off for me), (ii) a lack of left arm extension throughout my follow through, and (iii) an early deceleration throughout my follow through.  Note, each of these are related and indicative of some earlier sequencing issues.
• Finish:  This finish makes it look like I am trying to swing hard but I'm not.  In reality, I felt pretty relaxed throughout my swing so this finish is more indicative of me being pretty loose.

So that's where I'm at right now.  I haven't gotten back out to the range since the 8th but I hope that I will soon.  I also have another session scheduled with my TPI Fitness Professional so I am hopeful that all of this is leading up to a strong summer of golf.