The Modern Blake swing

[markTHEblake]

This is just to remind me of how crap I am, and to give me some motivation to get some lessons and fix this shut shite for a start.

Actually had a lesson today. Worked on squaring up my stance and the first movement of the takeaway. Might take longer than I thought.

[AndyP]

Terrible! Shocking! Woeful!

Errrm, what are you doing wrong?

[peter_rs]

club face ap.

[Jono]

And you thought mine was shut ...

[Iain]

Weaken your grip....

You don't want to bend your left wrist, you want it flat, so just weaken your grip.

[kwantfm]

That is amazingly shut without any obvious bowing of the left wrist. Iain must be right that it's all about the grip here.

[markTHEblake]

Errrm, what are you doing wrong?

clubface is about 90 deg off line. Toe of the club should be almost pointing down at the ground.

Technically there is nothing that wrong with being a little closed, but not that much and the reason for being shut is combination of many things. working on only a few at a time.

[Iain]

Clubface should be parallel with your left arm, pointing down is open.

But yes, yours is way way shut....

[markTHEblake]

Clubface should be parallel with your left arm, pointing down is open.

I wasnt sure if Andyp would understand that so I went with a simpler description. Now i gotto go watch another Ben Hogan video

[Iain]

I wasnt sure if Andyp would understand that so I went with a simpler description.

This is what AndyP would've seen....

clubface is about blah blah blah ground.

Technically there blah blah blah blah. working on only a few at a time.

[BrisVegas]

tell ya what blakey. if you can teach me how to tuck my right elbow in like that, I'll teach you how to... ummm... actually I got nuthin... Just fix your grip for starters. The rest works alright. Square things up a bit and you'll be able to hit it straighter and (God forbid) fades!

[markTHEblake]

if you can teach me how to tuck my right elbow in like that

Actually that was the first thing the coach has got me have been working on since the champs. So it would seem that this is going to be tucked in even more.

The main issue here is to keep the shaft pointing at the target line through. easier to show you how, except to say to make the exact opposite move that you do in the last 1/4 of your backswing. Doug actually said some time ago that you and i do the same thing here, because we both take it back on the inside and then lift straight up, pretty sure you know what I am talking about.

If i can find the right swing pics (facing target) i can explain better.

Square things up a bit

funny that you mentioned that , thats the first thing we fixed, i feel like my shoulders are aiming 40 yards left now. I was surprised at the number of faults that closed shoulders cause.

[Fishman Dan]

Do you get donuts with your lessons?

[dougkpga]

Hi guys, I am probably getting the better deal with helping mark, in return he helps me with IT stuff. The ride home was great, following the car down the road with directions by Michael Caine through his mobile phone, GPS stuff.

Anyway, I have a blog where I put some stuff fairly regularly (www.dougkerchergolf.com/wordpress). This is an excerpt about Mark's lesson.

"“A” (read Mark) had another problem. His feet were aiming correctly, parallel left of the target, but his shoulders were aiming well to the right. He was feeling like he was slapping the ball and the ball had a 10 metre draw with a 7 iron and when he felt like he made solid contact, the ball would be pushed to the right.

The alignment problem also caused swing problems. He was taking the club straight back, but this was done with the arms only. So he couldn’t start his pivot early enough in the swing, so the arms got out of balance to the body, even causing him to fall forward onto his toes in the downswing.

Once we had the shoulders aligned correctly, he was able to start the club back on line with his pivot. His balance was immediately better, ball contact was solid and the 10 metre draw became a 2 metre draw."

The funny thing is, we didn't even address the shut clubface thing which was causing the big draws (inside out path, closed face).

It's not grip, it's not manipulating the top of the swing position.

It's the takeaway with the arms. To take the club straight back from address with severely closed shoulders, the arms go back and the clubface is shut.

If he had made the correct takeaway with the shoulders, the club would have been going back way inside the line, with a whole lot of other problems to fix.

Well, the feedback was good from ball flight at the range and Mark said he played better next game.

Cheers Doug

[Jarro]

Blakey has shoulders ???

[Webster]

Blake,

Plenty of good players have played with shut clubfaces.

Arnold Palmer

Gary Player

I think trevino was even worse (If I had a picture of him at the top of the backswing I would post it too).

[markTHEblake]

both of those guys are less shut than me, and Trevino is a freak and there are heaps of others. I also beleive that most top golfers are more likely to be closed to some degree. However I am so far shut its not funny and thats not where I want to be.

[Iain]

But there clubfaces are parallel with there left arm, so they're not actually shut....

[scarfie1]

I've seen photos of Tiger and Adam Scott with a more shut face than the one of Arnie.

[Jarro]

Nothing shut about those two pics ... you got your glasses on Jack ?

I can't believe how flat Players swing plane is

[BrisVegas]

that's player's downswing obviously. most good players drop it into a flatter plane/slot on the downswing.

[Jarro]

not THAT flat though

[markTHEblake]

Maybe golfers as short as Player should be swinging just as flat.

[Jarro]

Maybe golfers as short as Player should be swinging just as flat.

Yeah BrisWesty, flatten that bloody swing plane will ya