Snappy's (Matt's) Swing

[Snappy987]

It's not pretty.  I'm just coming back from a 3 month break as well as a wrist injury and the swing is very funny looking.  Here are my main problems at this current moment (there's a few) .
I am hitting EVERYTHING off the toe.  No matter what I do.  I feel I am losing a lot of distance as well as accuracy because of this but for the life of me I can figure out why.  And I'm not talking like 1/8" off the center I'm talking damn near missing the grooves.
I am hitting more chunks than normal.
Having a bit of trouble hitting down on the ball but that improved today a bit.
My misses have all been push fades.  Sometimes it is acceptable and looks like a good shot but other times it is high, short, and crappy.
Alright, so check out these vids and let me know what you think.  Any questions I will gladly answer.
Oh yeah, I think you need DIVX to view the videos but I'm not sure.  I used DIVX to compress them so you might need to have DIVX.  It can be found at DIVX.com.

This is a driver.  I hit it well off the toe but it got pretty good distance (280ish) and landed on the left side of the fairway.  Fairly straight ball flight.
http://www.golfshackchat.com/album/teetogreen86/12mattfaceshort.AVI

This is also a driver.  I hit it well of the toe (again) and it ended up being a push fade.  Not a really weak one, actually flew about 280 and landed in a bunker.
http://www.golfshackchat.com/album/teetogreen86/17mattlineshort.AVI

This is an 8 iron.  I hit the ball very solid (maybe on the center of the face [smiley=wink3.gif]) but it was a push fade, about 10 yards right of my line.
http://www.golfshackchat.com/album/teetogreen86/18mattline8short.AVI

P.S.  These were taken at Torrey Pines Golf Course in sunny San Diego.  Temp only got up to around 65 today but there was not a cloud in the sky .

[sharkattack]

A powerful swing with arm speed.
Your weight shift and hips need more use.  By this I see that you hang back and do not use your hips to drop the club or shift your weight.  Plus you are too bent back with your angle at the start.
Imagine how far you could hit the ball if you used your body too.

Here is a nice pic of the hip action

[KenHoLio]

Here are a few video's too look at.
Your swing plane is good, butt you dont use your lower body much at all.
I think Shark is right about how far you would hit it with your body working with you.
See how the lower body leads the swing ?
Their hips are open when they are coming into the ball with their hands.
Note these first 3 you have to load to get to play ( amybe a cut and paste )

http://redgoat.smugmug.com/photos/5007005-25babd9db42884e55203c9eac0506407.mpg

http://redgoat.smugmug.com/photos/9706362-03cf15c14cecd29c2e9ee84e7afa4170.mpg

http://redgoat.smugmug.com/photos/5124198-O.mpg

Best one's yet...below, I forgot about Brians info from his site.  I wont post the GM stuff to mess everyone up.

http://homepage.mac.com/brianmanzella/.Movies/mr58rear.mov

http://homepage.mac.com/brianmanzella/.Movies/dtatocdriver.mov

[Snappy987]

Hmm, I definitely see what you guys are saying.  But I feel if I were to have my hips open at impact I would flaring the ball out to the right even more and hitting the ball even further off the toe.  To be honest I thought my right hip was rotating too early which was causing me to come up too early and hit all my shots off the toe.  What would the reason/solution be for the toe misses?

[Henry_Picard]

Here's what I see Snappy:
1) In your set up, I like the way your right foot is flared out to help you make a better turn away from the ball, but why do you have your left foot square to slightly turned in, which will restrict your ability to get through the ball? I would suggest aprox. a 10 - 15 degree open left foot as well. Now when you do that you will feel like your lower body takes offf on its own. Just work with it a while.

2) You are fairly flexible for a big man. Good wrist ligaments. You can't change that. You either have it or you don't. You do. But what I notice is that from the rear view you appear laid off, i.e., the club is pointing left of target. This is confirmed by the side view where it is apparent that you don't complete your shoulder turn. As a result, you are going to be laid off, so your first move down is likely to be to the outside. You make a good effort to stay on plane, but since you never were really on plane to begin with it's too difficult to accomplish. So, deepen you turn get you right shoulder closer to your right foot at the top.

3)From the side view you will notice that you first move toward the ball is just that: you are moving forward with you head and upper body. I suspect you are right-eye-dominant and instinctively do that to better see the ball. It is rather old fashoned I suppose, but my teacher, Henry Picard once asked Ben Hogan what the head did in the golf swing, to which Hogan responded, "The chin always points at the foot relieving itself of weight." So the CHIN swivels in the opposite direction of the swing. Henry asked Ben why he did not put that in his book. Hogan said, "I didn't think of it." Now you know the rest of the story. Anyway, that is somewhat passe these days where so many golfer--good ones--let the head go forward. At leat until you bring you upper body under control I would work on that: point your chin at you RIGHT foot at impact. Currently, it point at the target at impact.
There's more to comment on but I'll stop here. That's enough to work on a while.

[rp]

snap,

HP knows what he is talking about. He is very knowledgible about the swing.

HP, good to finally see  you posting here!!

[Henry_Picard]

Nice to be here. That casket was a little stuffy for my taste.

[Snappy987]

Thank you for the tips HP.  I've been working on a bigger turn as I noticed in the side view I basically just flipped my wrist at the top to get to parallel.  I think I could get my hands a bit higher.  I'm not what exactly you mean by...
"So, deepen your turn get you right shoulder closer to your right foot at the top. "
How exactly would I go about doing that?  I thought I was supposed to get my left shoulder over my right foot.  Well, thanks for the tips anyway and in a week or so I'll post some more vids.

[Henry_Picard]

Henry here,
  What I mean by a deeper turn is just that: more turn. You can think of your left shoulder or your right. Take another look at you pics. Notice from the side view that at the top of your turn your left shoulder is closer to the target than your right. So, as a correction, take you left shoulder further behind the ball, almost to the point from you eyes' perspective where you left shoulder is close to your view of your right foot. Now, that's a "deep" turn. I promise, if you make that deep of a turn and don't let your head move up and forward, you will be amazed how much power and accuracy you begin to develop.
 What you want to see in the pics is a full 90 degree turn where a line through your two shoulders points perpendicular, or 90 degrees, to the target line.

[mrslate]

This is great info! I, too, am I big man (like that term sooo much better than any other  !) and I struggle with what is supposed to start the downswing.  Half the experts tell me to keep my lower body quiet and the other half say let the left hip "bump out" to start the downswing, which I think is similar to what you are saying.

Shoulder turn is not a problem for me, but this certainly validates what I'm practicing.  Now if I can only get that club coming from the inside instead of pulling it with the left hand over the top!!

Can't wait for the next tip!  

[Henry_Picard]

Henry here,
  One the prime factors in coming over the top is poor shoulder control. You can't just let the shoulders fly from the top of the swing or you'll surely be over the top. Percy Boomer said many years ago "Leave the shoulders behind." The point: If you fire your shoulders at the target, you're over the top.
  So, try this as a drill: make a backswing with a full turn and hold your shoulders in the fully turned position until you have shifted your weight to the forward foot, then let er rip....

[Snappy987]

Thanks for the help Henry.  I've been sick that past few days so haven't had a chance to get out to the range/course but have been doing some slow mo swings, working on a big turn.  One of my thoughts when I start coming severely over the top (my recurring problem) is to keep my back to the target as long as possible.  Obviously I'm not going to actually do that but it is a good thought for me that helps the hands to come from the inside.

[cthoosier]

Hey snap.  I can't open the file up in QT, so I can't see it frame by frame, but with my excellent pausing skills   i've picked up a ouple of things:

you have a tendency that you rarely see - the shaft is actualy on plane with your LEFT arm at impact.  This seems to be the primary reason for the toe hits.  There are a few reasons for this.  I don't beleive your right shoulder gets low enough to allow your right arm to maintain any sort of an angle, putting it on plane with the shaft instead of the left arm.

This is at least partially cuased by yourloss of spine angle, caused by losing your "tush line" as brady would say. It looks like you are trying to but everything you have into a shot, a la Tiger.  Unfortunately, it causes a breakdown of your fundamentals.

you must maintain your spine angle.  This tush line loss is also atleast partially responsible for the pushes you fight.

hope that helps