I have no natural golfing ability whatsoever and thus I have found that the only way I can get better is to have very specific swing thoughts that work, and that I can hopefully engrain with practice and repitition.
As many of you know, I am extremely happy with Tom's methods and they have really helped my game. But with anything, over time it is easy to get away from using the correct mechanics and you revert back to your old bad habits.
For me those bad habits are starting the swing too quickly, coming over the top and moving my head forward on the downswing. I have kept at it and at least for now the following has worked very well for me:
Make sure my elbows are pointing toward my body at address, especially the trail elbow
I have always found Tom's tip of beginning the backswing by trying to "feel" your lead shoulder touching the ground is an excellent way to get your tilt going. But sometimes I do this too quickly or just don't have the right feel to create a good tilt. What I am working on now is the feel of someone pushing my trail shoulder toward the target at the start of the swing, and then I just let my lead shoulder fall to the ground via gravity. Not only does this create a nice tilt but it ensures I do not rush the start of the back swing.
While tilting I focusing on the exteral rotation of my trail shoulder as far back as I can to ensure full extension at the top of the backswing.
The move down is simply pushing off the inside of my trail foot toward the target while I feel that I am extending my trail shoulder even further back.
I keep my eye on the inside back of the ball thoughout most of the swing. I am training myself to actually watch the ball disappear from my sight when the clubhead strikes the ball. This is perhaps the hardest thing for me to do but if I can "see" the ball disappear, chances are it is going to be a great shot.
Let me know what you think and I will keep you posted on my progress. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for this ! Tikt is what I was missing for sure.