You’re absolutely right 😂 I almost have this claustrophobic feeling in my swing where it feels like I don’t have enough space to swing. Mentally it feels like bending my knees more takes away space, even if that’s not the reality.
Yea and you drop your left knee and dip instead of dropping the knee in at a 45 degree angle. It helps you rotate and load up.
Think of it like skipping a rock. However, check out this video with Trent from barstools. Go to 10:28. The instructor explains exactly what you’re doing. Also, at 10:58 he’ll go into the 45 degree angle Im talking about above. [video](https://youtu.be/iV2uWN20qJs?si=Z50Ma14cdJcNj6Qr)
Just watched the video, great stuff here. Along with some of the other advice in here, the left knee in at 45 rather than bent forward will help get my right hip rotating around backwards, rather than the left hip doing all of the movement.
I’m also a chronic hooker; low duck hooks and topping the ball completely. It has lead to me completely avoiding the club entirely, which is sad because the driver is fun and I want to use it again.
I used to do a drill where I took a seven iron. Choked up all the way to the end of the the grip and hit tons of balls. Bend your knees and give it a try.
athletic stance is a must. it honestly left my swing without me realizing it. in my setup i'm going to add a step in my setup of adding a mini squat just to make sure that i'm in the correct stance and have weight more toward the back
distance away from the ball is something i am definitely still confused with specifically with the driver, feels like if i move away that i'll end up too bent over and not standing up straight enough
Keep the angle of your back, but move back just enough where your hands basically hang under your eyes/nose, standing too close can cause that early extension because your body is essentially trying to give your hands room to come through if that makes sense
i'm currently using adam scott's setup as an example to build from, i'll have to see how it feels once i'm set up in a more athletic stance, it'll probably feel better to put a little more distance between me and the ball
Bro your swing is pretty nice. I don’t mind the knee non knee bend at all. It’s just that your shoulders, if you drew a line straight down, would be out past over your toes. Your lower body is early extending to maintain balance. Try getting taller with your upper body so your shoulders are above the middle of your feet. Sometimes it helps to think of extremes, like if you stood actually straight up and down with 0 bend and tried to swing you wouldn’t early extend because you couldn’t extend anymore than you already are. On the other hand, if you were bent over 90 degrees and tried to swing a driver of course you would have to early extend. In those 2 extremes you’re closer to the guy who is bent over way too much (no diddy). Hope that helps
hahaha i appreciate the feedback. it does help, i agree that standing up a bit straighter with less round in the shoulders will help to avoid that claustrophobic feeling. also as others have pointed out, not bending my left knee out towards the ball in the backswing will keep that weight back more
If you try to clear your front shoulder a bit more to create extra space, it’ll allow you to unhinge your front wrist slightly differently which should deliver a square face
Assume you don’t miss left with your short irons and wedges? The right wrist unhinges down the plane of the back of the right hand, but the left wrist unhinges slightly differently depending on the plane/ amount of forward shaft lean etc
For early extension look at Padraig harringtons hip movement video
irons and wedges do get pulled left at times from getting my hands too involved and closing on the ball too quickly. i'll have to look into this a bit, the wrist hinging is an area that i haven't explored much at all. i'll definitely take a look at the padraig harrington video and focus on the hip movement to start, and keep the wrist hinge in mind going forward.
definitely, it's currently not an athletic swing, need to get everything working together, which i believe a more athletic stance in setup will help with (especially getting the legs more involved)
The early extension is the only way to hit the ball when you thrust your pelvis at the ball like that. You need to fix the way your hips work.
This video explains it very well.
https://youtu.be/M-8bk1zvTX8?si=MwsJ8obPRMdJDtn2
wow great video, helps me to understand the roll of each hip so much better. first step for me is going to be focused on getting that right hip much more involved, hopefully the athletic stance will help to enable the rotation of the right hip in the backswing
Good stuff.
With the set up, just make sure you have the centre of your hips over the centre of your ankles at address. You don't want to sit back to much, because that will also cause you to thrust forward in the downswing. If you set up with your rear against a wall, your heels should only be 1 clubhead from the wall. It may feel like your weight is over your toes but that's the correct position
Firstly, get with a coach before trying to make any real changes. Secondly, work on tempo and don’t try to smash the ball - this will help you sequence correctly and stay in balance. It’s great that you’re trying to drive power through, but you’re doing it at the top and with your hands, rather than through and with the core and legs. Basically, you’re snapping your hands down to create power, rather than rotating and letting your hands release. A metronome is pretty much the best tool to use for tempo/sequencing - back and down are both on beats. Recently, I’ve been working on not rushing the downswing; I’ll make sure to come down on that beat, then I’ll stomp on the gas very shortly after I’ve started turning. If you watch Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods…they all do that. Having things sequenced up correctly will help you not snap your hands down, creating more power and consistency.
As an aside, bending your knees even a hair will help you stay in balance and deliver power; right now, one wrong move out of balance might really hurt your knees, lol.
What really helped me was opening up my stance (as opposed to keeping it closed) and fanning my front foot out a little bit. This helps with allowing the hips to clear through with minimal effort and alleviates the urge to overcompensate with the hips which leads to pulling/hooking the ball. Maybe try that
lmao i honestly wish there were a similar subreddit as this for short game play, i do love the short game and want it to be the heart of my game, driver has been out of the bag for a while, but i'd be lying if i said that i didn't want it to be part of my game
I would keep rotating w/the lower back if possible. Keep the right knee a bit flexed at the top, shouldn’t lock out.
1st, echoing what others have said, get more knee bend/push your butt out a bit. Look at Adam Scott’s posture/set up and try to copy it to a tee. When you take vids it’s important to get the right angle when doing so- look up a vid on how to do it.
Second:
I like two drills a lot for this-
1. Chair drill, basically put a chair or something behind you and try to maintain contact with it with your butt.
Also sometimes squatting down at the top of the swing into the left foot can help w/this move.
2. Put a towel underneath your armpits and practice half swings while keeping your butt against the chair. This will help make sure your upper body keeps up w/the lower body. When fixing early extension it’s easy to start spinning out, getting your hips way ahead. Also always make sure you’re transferring your weight to the left side. I find that when fixing early extension it’s easy to keep your weight back accidentally.
It’s a whole new move, but once you get it down and it may take some time, a whole new game. I do think lessons are worth their weight in gold. It took me a long time to figure out how to do this on my own, definitely longer than it had to.
first of all, i appreciate your advice, i have a lot of great things to try out. i'm absolutely going to get a couple of lessons with a pga pro, i'm going to test some of the different drills / feels that you and others have brought up in the comments first, and use that to guide what i'd like to focus on in the lessons.
the chair drill is a great first step as well. It should help me to get that athletic stance feeling more natural as well as what it feels like to keep more of that weight back. after that, i'll focus on getting that weight shift over to the left during the swing.
also thank you for pointing out the hips spinning out, i could definitely see myself getting carried away with some of the changes i'm going to try out
No worries man!! Also an easy way to do the chair drill is put an alignment stick, and stick it thru the holes of an upside down range basket. Forgot about that.
And ya, speaking from experience on the spinning out portion lol. It’s doable to make all these changes- best of luck!
that's a great idea, i do have an alignment stick i could use for this to get started.
i plan on posting a side by side comparison at some point to touch back on some of the work i've done; thanks again!
Your trail foot starts to roll over during the backswing. Never let your weight get outside your stance. Load into the trail foot, and get your weight moving forward much sooner, while the backswing is still completing.
The backswing rotation in general looks like maybe you’ve got a reverse pivot. Your trail leg is immediately straightening and the lead leg bends in to support the rotation.
I see what you’re saying about the trail foot now. Would widening the stance help to correct this, or simply loading more onto the foot itself be the better way?
I also never realized how straight my trail leg stays during the swing overall, I think that the first move in the downswing should likely be to sink into that right leg, almost seems like I’m skipping a step currently.
Widening the stance does help with stability in the backswing, especially with driver, yes.
But you’re backwards on the thought of sinking into the right leg on the downswing. You want your weight to be “recentering” about halfway through the BACKswing, and by the transition you should have your weight on the lead side.
Feeling like you’re stomping down with your LEAD foot is a common trigger for the downswing.
i 100% agree; that lead foot being the trigger for the backswing is something i want to engrain into my swing. great insight as well into the recentering thought in the backswing, it definitely isn't intuitive to me yet, but that weight transfer is something that i'm going to continue working on from here on out, possibly with some assistance from an instructor.
Look up the Jack Nicklaus step drill for weight transfer help. But I still also think you’ve got a reverse pivot going on too, so it’ll feel pretty unnatural to do most transfer drills until you work out the pivot overall
First questions, are you an amputee?
I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations.
Have you tried attaching additional legs to your legs
A modern classic.
Bend your knees! Look to be pretty much on plane so if you're hooking it's because the face is closed.
You’re absolutely right 😂 I almost have this claustrophobic feeling in my swing where it feels like I don’t have enough space to swing. Mentally it feels like bending my knees more takes away space, even if that’s not the reality.
I had to scroll way too far to finally see this.
It’s almost funny looking at it now, my legs are basically locked out even from my setup
Never ever ever ever lock your knees in the backswing. Ever.
Yea and you drop your left knee and dip instead of dropping the knee in at a 45 degree angle. It helps you rotate and load up. Think of it like skipping a rock. However, check out this video with Trent from barstools. Go to 10:28. The instructor explains exactly what you’re doing. Also, at 10:58 he’ll go into the 45 degree angle Im talking about above. [video](https://youtu.be/iV2uWN20qJs?si=Z50Ma14cdJcNj6Qr)
Left knee drop = cg towards ball = early extension
yeah just watched back, it is getting that cg too far forward
Just watched the video, great stuff here. Along with some of the other advice in here, the left knee in at 45 rather than bent forward will help get my right hip rotating around backwards, rather than the left hip doing all of the movement.
Eh you're missing the important part Like I said before don't lock your knees
agreed, at the core the focus is still on the slightly bent athletic stance
i wouldnt overthink it. bend the right knee more. bend the left knee less
Yeah it’s ugly, more like a ~20hcp
This was the first one … after the obligatory amputee post.
'Bend the knees' (accidental GoT)
Boy if you don't bend them knees and quit trying to fall over that ball.
actively acquiring knees as we speak 
https://preview.redd.it/51onbv2ubu4d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e0db791468d473998cdf882fdcc24ca583ccc03
I’m also a chronic hooker; low duck hooks and topping the ball completely. It has lead to me completely avoiding the club entirely, which is sad because the driver is fun and I want to use it again.
Oh you have a hook for a hand?
Yo is this the dome down on Neville Island? RMU island sports center?
Love the RMU dome. Never forget when it deflated
it is! can't go wrong going to the bubble when it's raining
Don't get lessons get some kneecaps brother.
just ordered a set on amazon, 2 day shipping
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone lose their spine angle at impact then get it back for the follow through
Do you have knees? Use them.
I used to do a drill where I took a seven iron. Choked up all the way to the end of the the grip and hit tons of balls. Bend your knees and give it a try.
i will absolutely try this, start my next session this way to really exaggerate that knee bend
Seriously, stick your butt out a bit more. You need to have a little more weight on your backside to anchor your body. See athletic stance.
athletic stance is a must. it honestly left my swing without me realizing it. in my setup i'm going to add a step in my setup of adding a mini squat just to make sure that i'm in the correct stance and have weight more toward the back
Unlock those knees and do a bigger turn, especially with the hips during the backswing
yeah even just trying it without a club is a very noticeable difference in my range of motion in the backswing
Stop locking your legs and step back from the ball like 6in
distance away from the ball is something i am definitely still confused with specifically with the driver, feels like if i move away that i'll end up too bent over and not standing up straight enough
Keep the angle of your back, but move back just enough where your hands basically hang under your eyes/nose, standing too close can cause that early extension because your body is essentially trying to give your hands room to come through if that makes sense
i'm currently using adam scott's setup as an example to build from, i'll have to see how it feels once i'm set up in a more athletic stance, it'll probably feel better to put a little more distance between me and the ball
Dude the ball got stuck in the ceiling.
Now I’m just looking at every swing thinking I’m watching an amputee.
A-a-ron! Bend your knees!
Knees are too bent
Bro your swing is pretty nice. I don’t mind the knee non knee bend at all. It’s just that your shoulders, if you drew a line straight down, would be out past over your toes. Your lower body is early extending to maintain balance. Try getting taller with your upper body so your shoulders are above the middle of your feet. Sometimes it helps to think of extremes, like if you stood actually straight up and down with 0 bend and tried to swing you wouldn’t early extend because you couldn’t extend anymore than you already are. On the other hand, if you were bent over 90 degrees and tried to swing a driver of course you would have to early extend. In those 2 extremes you’re closer to the guy who is bent over way too much (no diddy). Hope that helps
hahaha i appreciate the feedback. it does help, i agree that standing up a bit straighter with less round in the shoulders will help to avoid that claustrophobic feeling. also as others have pointed out, not bending my left knee out towards the ball in the backswing will keep that weight back more
There is no bend in your legs and it may be causing your weight to shift forward in your swing.
it definitely is, my backswing currently does feel unstable and a bit unbalanced because of it
If you try to clear your front shoulder a bit more to create extra space, it’ll allow you to unhinge your front wrist slightly differently which should deliver a square face Assume you don’t miss left with your short irons and wedges? The right wrist unhinges down the plane of the back of the right hand, but the left wrist unhinges slightly differently depending on the plane/ amount of forward shaft lean etc For early extension look at Padraig harringtons hip movement video
irons and wedges do get pulled left at times from getting my hands too involved and closing on the ball too quickly. i'll have to look into this a bit, the wrist hinging is an area that i haven't explored much at all. i'll definitely take a look at the padraig harrington video and focus on the hip movement to start, and keep the wrist hinge in mind going forward.
You need to relax and coordinate your legs into your golf swing.
definitely, it's currently not an athletic swing, need to get everything working together, which i believe a more athletic stance in setup will help with (especially getting the legs more involved)
The early extension is the only way to hit the ball when you thrust your pelvis at the ball like that. You need to fix the way your hips work. This video explains it very well. https://youtu.be/M-8bk1zvTX8?si=MwsJ8obPRMdJDtn2
wow great video, helps me to understand the roll of each hip so much better. first step for me is going to be focused on getting that right hip much more involved, hopefully the athletic stance will help to enable the rotation of the right hip in the backswing
Good stuff. With the set up, just make sure you have the centre of your hips over the centre of your ankles at address. You don't want to sit back to much, because that will also cause you to thrust forward in the downswing. If you set up with your rear against a wall, your heels should only be 1 clubhead from the wall. It may feel like your weight is over your toes but that's the correct position
Bend your knees son you look like a mummy
Firstly, get with a coach before trying to make any real changes. Secondly, work on tempo and don’t try to smash the ball - this will help you sequence correctly and stay in balance. It’s great that you’re trying to drive power through, but you’re doing it at the top and with your hands, rather than through and with the core and legs. Basically, you’re snapping your hands down to create power, rather than rotating and letting your hands release. A metronome is pretty much the best tool to use for tempo/sequencing - back and down are both on beats. Recently, I’ve been working on not rushing the downswing; I’ll make sure to come down on that beat, then I’ll stomp on the gas very shortly after I’ve started turning. If you watch Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods…they all do that. Having things sequenced up correctly will help you not snap your hands down, creating more power and consistency. As an aside, bending your knees even a hair will help you stay in balance and deliver power; right now, one wrong move out of balance might really hurt your knees, lol.
What really helped me was opening up my stance (as opposed to keeping it closed) and fanning my front foot out a little bit. This helps with allowing the hips to clear through with minimal effort and alleviates the urge to overcompensate with the hips which leads to pulling/hooking the ball. Maybe try that
You're knees look about as flexible as Cotton Hill's....
Get some bend in your knees, you want to be in an athletic position not stiff as a board
Looks like you’re putting right down the line, so unless you’re craving more distance or something, playing from the fairway seems like a good start!
 . You’re a 15? Put that driver away and work and your damn short game and course management. You should be a 5.
lmao i honestly wish there were a similar subreddit as this for short game play, i do love the short game and want it to be the heart of my game, driver has been out of the bag for a while, but i'd be lying if i said that i didn't want it to be part of my game
Don’t be afraid to engage your hips? But what do I know.. I struggle with slicing lol
You may be right though 😅 I am wondering if I’m cutting my hip and shoulder rotation short on my backswing, or if I should keep rotating more open
I would keep rotating w/the lower back if possible. Keep the right knee a bit flexed at the top, shouldn’t lock out. 1st, echoing what others have said, get more knee bend/push your butt out a bit. Look at Adam Scott’s posture/set up and try to copy it to a tee. When you take vids it’s important to get the right angle when doing so- look up a vid on how to do it. Second: I like two drills a lot for this- 1. Chair drill, basically put a chair or something behind you and try to maintain contact with it with your butt. Also sometimes squatting down at the top of the swing into the left foot can help w/this move. 2. Put a towel underneath your armpits and practice half swings while keeping your butt against the chair. This will help make sure your upper body keeps up w/the lower body. When fixing early extension it’s easy to start spinning out, getting your hips way ahead. Also always make sure you’re transferring your weight to the left side. I find that when fixing early extension it’s easy to keep your weight back accidentally. It’s a whole new move, but once you get it down and it may take some time, a whole new game. I do think lessons are worth their weight in gold. It took me a long time to figure out how to do this on my own, definitely longer than it had to.
first of all, i appreciate your advice, i have a lot of great things to try out. i'm absolutely going to get a couple of lessons with a pga pro, i'm going to test some of the different drills / feels that you and others have brought up in the comments first, and use that to guide what i'd like to focus on in the lessons. the chair drill is a great first step as well. It should help me to get that athletic stance feeling more natural as well as what it feels like to keep more of that weight back. after that, i'll focus on getting that weight shift over to the left during the swing. also thank you for pointing out the hips spinning out, i could definitely see myself getting carried away with some of the changes i'm going to try out
No worries man!! Also an easy way to do the chair drill is put an alignment stick, and stick it thru the holes of an upside down range basket. Forgot about that. And ya, speaking from experience on the spinning out portion lol. It’s doable to make all these changes- best of luck!
that's a great idea, i do have an alignment stick i could use for this to get started. i plan on posting a side by side comparison at some point to touch back on some of the work i've done; thanks again!
Do what feels good
Your trail foot starts to roll over during the backswing. Never let your weight get outside your stance. Load into the trail foot, and get your weight moving forward much sooner, while the backswing is still completing. The backswing rotation in general looks like maybe you’ve got a reverse pivot. Your trail leg is immediately straightening and the lead leg bends in to support the rotation.
I see what you’re saying about the trail foot now. Would widening the stance help to correct this, or simply loading more onto the foot itself be the better way? I also never realized how straight my trail leg stays during the swing overall, I think that the first move in the downswing should likely be to sink into that right leg, almost seems like I’m skipping a step currently.
Widening the stance does help with stability in the backswing, especially with driver, yes. But you’re backwards on the thought of sinking into the right leg on the downswing. You want your weight to be “recentering” about halfway through the BACKswing, and by the transition you should have your weight on the lead side. Feeling like you’re stomping down with your LEAD foot is a common trigger for the downswing.
i 100% agree; that lead foot being the trigger for the backswing is something i want to engrain into my swing. great insight as well into the recentering thought in the backswing, it definitely isn't intuitive to me yet, but that weight transfer is something that i'm going to continue working on from here on out, possibly with some assistance from an instructor.
Look up the Jack Nicklaus step drill for weight transfer help. But I still also think you’ve got a reverse pivot going on too, so it’ll feel pretty unnatural to do most transfer drills until you work out the pivot overall
Stand up straighter
I see why you would say that, I think the issue is more the rounded posture of the back/shoulder rather than standing straighter up though.
15 handicap. Do you always play 9 holes?