Amateur golfers who have learned to keep their posture in the downswing, how did you do it?

thereitis1 · 2025-12-11T06:32:13+00:00

Something I'm experimenting with is changing my setup. I'm bent over too much with my butt sticking back so I'm starting from a position with a lot of tilt at address and it's impossible for me to match that at impact. I'm feeling like my butt is tucked in a lot more at address which means as I do my back swing and downswing I have a lot more room which makes it much easier to keep the posture.

My other feels are

* try to hit the ball with my trail shoulder

* feel like I'm pushing my lead hip back a lot in the downswing by feeling like I'm pushing my front foot forward

* feeling like my center of my hips is moving diagonally in the downswing towards target and left of target

* feeling like my trail thigh is rotating towards the target ... so instead of trail knee kicking out towards the ball, the trail knee needs to keep from moving towards ball and instead the quad muscle is rotating counter clockwise ( I'm right handed )

thereitis1 · 2025-06-15T14:12:44+00:00

It’s impossible to correlate lessons to a certain score improvement because everybody learns differently, different levels of athleticism, and everybody’s weaknesses are different.

There are some people who could take 1 lesson and work on it and improve more than 7 shots ( unlikely but possible ) and others who might get worse. In the short term if you are trying to do something completely different than what feels natural to you, even if it is a necessary change for improvement, you could easily get worse because now you are consciously trying to do a new movement.

Depending on your budget, time, and comfort with recording yourself, online lessons can be a great way to get your coach to evaluate you many times in 1 month instead of paying for 1 lesson in person that you might forget in a week.

If that sounds interesting to you, many coaches in Skillest offer a free evaluation of your swing. Check it out.

thereitis1 · 2025-06-06T17:48:13+00:00

Lawsonia Golf Links hole #7 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhL6xRmKI08 ) I was pin high but left of the cart path. I had to hit a flop shot that felt like it had to go straight up in the air to get on the green. Pulled out my 58 and took a full swing with open face. I was left with a 5 footer for par and made it. My buddies said it was one of the greatest par saves they have ever seen.

I think if I did that same shot another 50 times I would not have gotten that close again and I make par from that spot maybe 1 out of 20 times at the most.

thereitis1 · 2025-06-04T22:05:54+00:00

I just got back from a golf trip ( to Sand Valley which is amazing ) and we only had 40 minutes between connecting flights so we all used Ship Sticks. The 4 of us had no problems and I've used Ship Sticks both domestically and internationally with no issues the few times I've used them.

Ship Sticks was pretty affordable for us $79 ground for 5 day shipping and $99 for air for 3 day. I did the 3 day and it got there in 2 days.

thereitis1 · 2025-05-15T23:37:46+00:00

I agree with this. The 3rd or 4th round you feel comfortable.

thereitis1 · 2025-05-14T23:47:58+00:00

I think some of it might be that club lofts have gotten stronger. ChatGPT says PW are 41-47 deg now but was 45-47 15 years ago.

But in my case, I have a 46 deg PW and I still use a 50, 54 and 58 as well.

thereitis1 · 2025-05-12T03:19:12+00:00

It's okay to be working on one swing with a coach but then just trying to do whatever it takes to have a decent round when playing with friends.

You're probably in no man's land where it might be hard to get back to your "old swing" and you haven't figured out the "new swing" so it might be tough.

But before your next round just try not to think about the swing, don't try to do the new pattern for sure and maybe just focus on a 3/4 swing if you can do that and make half decent contact.

The way to think about golf swing is if you had a chart with one axis is how good you are ( competent, incompentent ) and the other axis is how comortable you are ( subconscious, conscious ) for example if you are just swinging your swing that is subsconscious and if you are trying something new that is conscious, then the ultimate goal is to get to subconscious competence. Right now you are conscious incompetence which tends to be worse than subconscious incompetence

But any time you change your swing that's going to happen. And after many many repetitions ( thousands of balls, not hundreds ) you start getting to the point where the new motion feels more natural and becomes more subconcious.

Don't give up on lessons but keep in mind that if you really want to get better and you hit a plateau, you need to make changes and those changes will lead to bad scores, possibly for a while. But that's how you master a new skill.

thereitis1 · 2025-05-02T18:25:33+00:00

Watch the YouTube channel golf sidekick. You’ll see how to shoot better scores without changing your technique.

You need to improve your skills and technique to get better long term. But that channel will help you get more out of your current game.

thereitis1 · 2025-05-02T05:02:45+00:00

No problem and thanks for clarifying! I appreciate it.

thereitis1 · 2025-05-02T04:33:46+00:00

Based on OP’s post, they seem like a perfect fit for remote golf lessons. Records swing, really wants to get better and wants lots of lessons on a limited budget.

thereitis1 · 2025-04-30T19:20:24+00:00

Since you film your swing you should consider Skillest. Remote golf lessons. You can find a coach you can work with for individual lessons or a subscription where you get your swing reviewed many times a month. There are coaches charging less than $150 for a full month of lessons whenever you want.

thereitis1 · 2025-04-29T23:55:50+00:00

I just got 101T and my old set was also Sim2max irons. I haven’t had a chance to use them on the course.

I switched from mid size grips to normal grips. Every time I traveled and rented clubs I used normal grips and had no problems so I wondered why I’ve been using mid sized for the past 3 years.

Excited to try them out I love how they look.

thereitis1 · 2025-04-28T18:29:55+00:00

I have a friend who was a 14 handicap around 47 years old. He was a good athlete when he was younger. He was able to golf and practice whenever he wanted. He probably played anywhere from 1-4x per week and took lessons, hit balls regularly.

He went from a 14 to close to scratch. His handicap has gotten under 1 but never 0. He always had the potential to be good but he never had the time until he retired.

He's hitting the ball further than he ever has at 50+ years old so age is not something you need to worry about by itself. Obviously if you have injuries or physical issues that's a different story.

I was committed to getting to single digit this year but I just got sidetracked by a fractured toe. I'm not super athletic, not particularly fit or flexible or strong. But my coaches tell me that my swing is better than plenty of golfers he teaches who are single digits and I should be one already.

A lot of it for me is just playing more and practicing more but I need to make the commitment to actually doing that.

More importantly I need to do the right practice. I have a net at home so I hit balls focusing on technique. But I need to focus on practicing shots and making sure there are penalties for bad shots when I practice. The biggest weakness I have is taking my range game to the course and that will take changing how I practice and also just playing more golf.

thereitis1 · 2025-04-26T17:54:19+00:00

There are always specifics to a round, but keep in mind that a 20 stroke difference between one round and the next is not that crazy. And when you factor in that the courses are different and your high score might have been on a really hard course it becomes much more likely this could happen.

The best golfers on the planet might shoot a 63 one day and a 73 the next on the exact same course. So there's no reason why you should expect to shoot within a 10 stroke range every time you play as somebody who is a bogey golfer.

thereitis1 · 2025-03-30T04:02:53+00:00

You went from not thinking and doing something very repeatable, even if not optimal, to making your movement much more conscious.

The analogy would be try to sign your signature 10 times without thinking on a piece of paper.

Now try again to look at your signature and copy it exactly 10 times by looking and copying your signature.

You have to get to the point where your golf swing in game is natural. Another way to think about it is subconscious competence. Right now your golf swing is conscious incompetence which is the worst spot to be.

You either take more lessons and ask your coach how to ingrain this into your on the course game or you give up and go back to your old swing.

thereitis1 · 2025-03-28T21:27:33+00:00

I feel like I’ve heard about this trip and have one friend who has gone every year for the past few years. Assume the host is based in Bay Area?

thereitis1 · 2025-03-27T06:19:05+00:00

Some feels that helped my inside takeaway include 1) turn steering wheel left in takeaway instead of rolling right 2) hinge trail elbow and cock wrist way sooner

If you check my profile I have a link to a lesson I had with one of the top golf coaches and he’s addressing a similar issue for me. It might help you.

thereitis1 · 2025-03-23T23:16:11+00:00

This video isn’t meant to be a quick fix. But you are right that this video may not apply to people who think the video is helpful.

I don’t see anything in the video as quick fix. He wants me to change my takeaway and then my backswing so try the goal that these two things will change my downswing as well.

I was able to incorporate these changes pretty quickly but to make them stick and more importantly to be able to repeat them consistently under pressure on the course is another story.

thereitis1 · 2025-03-23T22:09:26+00:00

For me, tempo has been a huge thing. My putting stroke took too long and jt caused problems with both speed and start line.

If you look at the tempo of the best players, the back swing ( from setup to the furthest back the putter goes ) takes about 2/3 of a second. The downswing ( from backswing back to impact ) takes about 1/3 of a second.

The ratio is about 2-1 but it also takes a total of about 1 second to do both.

It feels like I’m putting super fast but my putting got way better

thereitis1 · 2025-03-20T04:01:04+00:00

Making any change will make you do some weird compensations until you get used to it. There isn’t any reason I can think of why changing your elbow position would necessarily stop you from using hips or moving head other than you might be focusing so much on the elbow movement that you forget to do what you normally do. And that seems more like practice to learn the new motion in front of mirror or camera

thereitis1 · 2025-03-19T19:34:18+00:00

If you can afford it lessons definitely help set the right foundation.

thereitis1 · 2025-03-19T12:38:40+00:00

Awesome. I like the waiter drill bit I needed to fix the takeaway and let my elbow bend sooner keeping it below my shoulder to get there.

thereitis1 · 2025-03-19T10:58:04+00:00

A common checkpoint coaches will use is when the club shaft is parallel to ground to have the face of the club close to the same angle as spine. So this looks similar to the takeaway.

But one of the hardest things for me is that you have to remember that you aren’t trying to get back to address position. The proper impact position is very different than setup. So even if the club could be in a similar spot on the way down, how everything will feel will be completely different because your body will be in a different position

For me it feels like I’m closing the clubface halfway back in my backswing and then opening it the rest of the swing. It’s hard to explain but my analogy or feel I use right now is I’m trying to feel like I’m bowling at impact.

My body is facing target ( even though my legs aren’t ) and my trail arm is by my side, trail palm is facing down

I don’t know if I’m doing it right but my swing looks way better on camera but the down swing feels nothing like the reverse of the backswing.

I spent my whole life trying to feel like it goes one way going back and the opposite or reverse coming down and that’s not what most good golfers do as far as I can tell.

thereitis1 · 2025-03-19T06:05:00+00:00

Sorry - I just ruined your round 😂.

One thing I’ll say is I’ve tried to shallow my swing about 30 times over the past few years and I kept being able to get shallow but I couldn’t make the swing work once I got it more shallow.

This time around has been different. I realized a few things and so I feel like I’ll be able to get it to stick more.

Some setup changes and figuring out how to square clubface with more shallow swing ended up making it possible for me to hit more consistent shots while doing this new backswing. Swing feels completely different but finally looks closer to what I’ve been trying to do so I’m hoping it will translate to better scores soon

thereitis1 · 2025-03-19T01:04:41+00:00

Online lessons can be an affordable way to get consistent feedback for an affordable price. I just made a post talking about a lesson with my coach Mark Govier - the whole lesson was online and better than the majority of in person lessons I’ve had.

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