Per Tom's suggestion, I'm reposting a comment I made (on a long dormant post) regarding those first few feet of the backswing. I discuss with more detail below but the main point is this: in trying to overcome my tendency to bring the club straight back (my old swing), I've been overdoing the turn in the very beginning of my backswing. This led to a very low takeaway and I could never find a good, repeatable swing plane. Now, I've yet to "fix" this but can now see that I missed a crucial element along the way and plan to spend some time on this.
Anyone else fight and win this battle? If so, what worked for you?
"Tom: sorry for by absence of late. I've barely played this season but I'm STILL working on getting that beginning of the takeaway down when I practice in my garage. And I'm still watching (and rewatching) a ton of your clips. I really have to get you some swings for V1 analysis and will do so soon. Still having issues with the new Android app but I'll figure out a way to make it work.
I'm writing because I may have had a eureka moment after watching one of your YouTube clips and it may be beneficial to others.
One thing which has been really been giving me a hard time is transforming my swing from a "lift" style to a "turn". I know that I'm far from alone in this. What I - think - I've been doing is focusing too much on the turn at the beginning of the backswing.
Many, many, years ago, I was taught to bring the club straight back and I've been spending my time trying to unlearn this. But I now think I've been overdoing it.
I recently happened upon one of your videos from a few months back ("I Just Made the Golf Swing 1000% EASIER for You...DO THIS!") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q79sz1oLikI and I can now see the error of my ways. Once I started applying your lesson, the swing started to FEEL so different. The first thing I noticed is that the wrist hinge feels much more natural and everything feels far less labored. I hope to get to the range sometime this week to try it out and capture some swings for you. It's the first time I've felt something other than frustration while standing over the ball so that's a plus, for now. Still in search of that "effortless" swing (my current swing is anything BUT effortless) so I can once again enjoy playing golf instead of "golf swing""
James
Wow just watched this and my takeaway looks a lot better after watching this. I had a problem with coming over the top and this helped me bring my swing more on plane. Thank you for sharing
Tom, thanks for the excellent V1 lesson. I'll have more thoughts on everything later and will post my progress to the forum.
Thanks for reposting this, @James Flood. I'll go ahead and pin this post to draw more attention of it. We appreciate you sharing this for the benefit of fellow members!