Hi Tom,
I feel like I had a breakthrough yesterday after experiencing some frustration. I've really been focusing on the downswing of the Flying Wedge Drill in maintaining the cheese all the way through impact and beyond. I guess you can call that Ulnar Deviation or as you say in the flying wedge drill "Point the shaft down to the ground in the finish". At first I began to shank the ball and couldn't figure out what was going wrong until I began to take everything super slow, and discovered that I wasn't moving the hips laterally enough like how you end up with the 90% weight forward drill.
When I began to really incorporate that move of sliding the hips forward and maintaining the wedge I began to hit some beautiful shots (push draws) even out of the soccer field rough that I was practicing at. Thankfully, there were no bystanders around during the first part of this session. My question is two-fold, and may require me sending in a V1 for you to answer.
I noticed when doing this swing and really maintaining the wedge with weight forward that my arms/hands ended up above my left shoulder and to the left of my Left Shoulder. Is that the correct finish point of where you want to be? I could feel my butt tucked way in on the finish as well.
I've attached a photo of the two clubs that I was using (Gap wedge and 6 iron). You'll notice that the ball impact marks are more Heel biased rather than in the center. Is this expected at first, or do I need to make some other adjustment to have impact occur more central to the club-face?
Thanks,
Rjroll
Hi Tom, as I mentioned in this post a couple weeks ago I've been really working on maintaining the cheese wedge, and feel like it's pretty engrained in my swing (drill 2.8). I was also trying to work on the Ulnar Deviation of the Wrist, or what I call U-FLEX, but realized after watching your most recent You-tube video over the weekend that I was doing this wrong.
Went out yesterday and began working on pointing the shaft to the ground with half shots, and couldn't believe how my ball contact changed. I mean it made an instant impact, and also couldn't believe how easy it really is to employ in the swing. I started hitting the pitching wedge, and hit it consistently well with the buttery feeling you speak of. I then moved to my 7 iron and experienced the same feeling of effortlessness with long high shots. I was in disbelief standing there hitting in a soccer field with overgrown grass and striping shots. The only time I've ever felt contact like this was on shots that every once in a while I made that i couldn't explain what I did to get that result.
I then pulled out my 5 and 3 iron and proceeded to have great shots like I've never felt before with these clubs. Admittedly, I did flub a couple of these shots with these longer irons, but nothing more practice can solve.
Just want to say "thank you" for that video as it cleared up the feel that I need to achieve what you described in that video! I still need to practice the Finish that you prescribe, and wouldn't even attempt this Wrist move before nailing the fundaments of S&T first.
Great video - Thank you!
Tom, thanks for providing the illustrations! I really feel like that's how I ended up, but will confirm with video. I looked at the SXXXX module you sent and will pay attention to maintaining the Tilt and the proper backswing. Thanks so much for the instruction!
Sounds like a significant breakthrough indeed, @rjroll. Well done!
In answer to your questions:
1) Below are a couple of pics from the S&T book showing the finish positions of co-authors Plummer and Bennett. From the DTL view the club shaft should reappear just below the lead shoulder in the follow through.
2) You mentioned that you were initially shanking. Might the heel-biased marks have been from that first part of your practice session? If not then you might wish to have a look at this shank-fixing lesson since heel-ward strikes and hosel rockets are closely related.
Keep up the great work!!