Cook's Golf Swing

[Chipless Wonder]

You guys asked for it, so here it is.

Four months ago a friend challenged me to learn to golf so we could play together. Since then I have had 14 lessons, hit 8,100 balls at the driving range and worked a lot on chipping and putting. I still suck though. Really bad. I have played three rounds on an easy nine hole course, shooting 65, 68 and 55.

I am 5’11”, 195 pounds, 47 years old and new to golf. I probably have more bulk than I need for golf, left over from my competitive powerlifting days, which ended in 1997. I still lift weights three nights per week. Although it’s a routine based on powerlifting, I no longer train to hoist the most weight. More than anything, I guess I am just trying to maintain some semblance of strength.

As you can see in the video, it has been very difficult for me to unlearn the explosive movements I trained for in powerlifting. Smoothness and tempo seem to be completely against my natural instincts. I won't stop trying though!

This video shows me swinging a 7-iron, with and without balls, from the rear and then the front.

Fire away!

[Rogue]

In the words of the heckler from the epic film Happy Gilmore...."You suck, you Jackass!"...but you're still better than me

Seriously though, I know you have worked hard on improving that swing and it is paying off for sure! 10,000 more balls and then you can move on to drivers

[Dixienormas2]

Not a bad looking swing sir. Something about your follow through doesn't look "natural" to me and I just can't put my finger on it. It's almost like you are trying to "explode" and hurry through it. But who am I to call names, if you seen my swing you would be on the ground laughing so hard you would piss yourself. Keep up the hard work and before you know it that score will continue to drop!

[Eemil]

Not bad looking swing at all. You are on your way. I can see that you tried to combine tips from training material. Overall problem with taking bits and peaces that when those are added something else happens also. So, good to hear that you have pro helping you. After that all said here are my comments. IMHO there is two main club head speed generators; spine rotation and right grip. Swing rotation goes around the spine and that needs to be at right place and pretty straight at the time of impact. Grip is essensial to ALLOW clubhead move from one side to the other and generate the whip effect.

Based what I can see from your vid, there is one or two major speed traps on your rotation. Most probably both are from same idea. When I look at your backswing you move your body to right leg and even over to get more body mass moving right to left, right? This idea is ok but your overdo it and it is difficult to get weight shift at right time to the right place. But more importantly it makes rotation very difficult. You can try this next time. Take very narrow stance, keep weight centralized raise your 7 iron (horinzontal) to shoulder level and make baseball hits. Focus on only to the rotation and the test it on regular golf swing without weigth shift. The other speed trap is that you try to make large swing, meaning that your take your hands way back (both ways) which can twist the spine. Sorry that I dont have any good solutions for that but your pro most probably does.

Then the grip. This is one of the key elements. I can not tell excatly how your hands are but based what i saw from vid, my own mistakes and experience. Overall hands are two far away from each others (yours?), we hold it too tight and the club is not enough on the fingers. Someone said that correct strength to hold a club is keep it is like a canary bird on your hand, you need to keep it steady but can not crush it. What you could do is that you lend or buy old blade iron 7 and test different grips at home without the ball. Eventually you feel when your grip allows the clubhead shift from right to left. It took several year for me to understand how much I need to put my hands together, moved to fingers etc.

Finally comment about golf. Golf is not power and length, it is game of accuracy and mental stamina. It makes you humble and at best scenarios you get good friend for the rest of your life.

PS. Sorry about the gramma and typos

[SemiEsq]

Here is scott's pre-lesson swing - he tanned a lot more back then....

[PaintedHeart]

Your swing looks much better than when you started out, at least you are now doing body rotation, not Frankenstein imitations!

As to thinking about having a bird in your grip, that might not be a good analogy for you!

[DevilFish73]

You will make it happen one way or another. Good luck Scotty!!

[alfiwads]

hit the ball with ur practice swing lol, ur club face is open at impact, u prob slice a lot of balls, concentrate on releasing the club head at impact

[Chipless Wonder]

OK. Here we are three months later. I am now seven months invested in trying to learn this game. Sure wish I had started about forty years ago! Anyways, here is what my swing looks like today. Sorry the quality isn't great...

Here's a 3-iron clip in slow motion:



And here's one with a driver. The video has been slowed down, even though the background audio has not:

[Dixienormas2]

Do You have a wee bit of a slice Mr. Cook?