Posted by Dexter Francois
| Posted in
Golf Courses,
My Rounds,
putting,
Swing Mechanics,
The Driver,
Video Instruction
| Posted on Saturday, August 21, 2010
I played a round of golf today at Keysgate Golf Club in Homestead, FL with my good friends Hurchell and Marc. I was excited because it was the first time we were playing at this facility. I love playing new courses. My collection of club logo balls is growing. I am up to 35 as of this post. It should be more, but there have been a few pro shops that did not have one available.
Marc had to work in the morning and we had to rush to make our tee time. As a result, we did not have time to hit balls before the round. We got to the course, paid for our round, and went straight to the first tee. Hurchell lives near the course so he was warmed up and ready to go by the time we got there. It ended up being a rainy afternoon, so on top of not being warmed up, we had to deal with soggy course conditions.
I was disappointed that I did not get a chance to warm up because I wanted to work on some things in my swing that Mike Southern of the Ruthless Golf blog had pointed out too me. Mike is doing a four part series on my swing demonstrating how to get rid of the over the top swing or the "loop" as I like to call it.
In part 2 of Mike's dissection of my swing, he pointed out a few quirks in my takeaway that were causing my loop. The areas were:
* Dexter has an over-the-top swing because he gets his hands in a bad position early on.The following stills illustrate what Mike is talking about. The black lines are where the club should be. As you can see, my right elbow is tucked into my side and bent way too early in the takeaway. Even Marc, who has no real idea of swing mechanics, pointed this out to me on the tee box.
* He gets them in this bad position because he bends his right elbow too soon.
* He bends his right elbow too soon because he doesn't turn his shoulders early enough in the backswing.
* If we teach him how to turn his shoulders properly, then his elbow won't bend too soon, which means his hands won't go to that bad position and he'll stop swinging over the top.
In Mike's next post(part 3), he will give me and my fellow loopers(not caddies, but guys & gals like me who swing over the top) some drills to work on to help cure our ugly swings. Now that I understand why I am coming over the top, these drills should help to ingrain the proper technique in my takeaway in order to stay on the proper plane throughout the swing.
The following is footage of my approach shot into the 18th green. The loop is evident but I have to stick with it until I get the drills from Mike. The flag was placed on the top level of a two-tiered green. Unfortunately I hit it onto the bottom tier. This left me with a difficult 45 foot putt uphill to save par(I hit a bad tee shot and had to chip out on the prior shot). So what do think? Do I make it? Check it out.
Have a good round and always hit your target.
P.S. Marc wanted to make sure that he received credit for his camera work. So...Thank You Marc!
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