Outside To In and Over The Top Cures

I'm sure Surge talks about this elsewhere, but in my experience as an instructor, an out-to-in swing path comes mostly from a 'throwing' motion at the top with the dominant arm and hand - Surge's instruction of 'skipping a rock' with the trailing (dominant) arm and hand is a particularly good cure for this, but there are other fixes - thinking about (1) the leading arm going straight down the target line, or (2) the trailing elbow coming strongly into the belly, or (3) rounding the upper back so there's more room for the arms to go through can all help - Surge's instruction of initiating the downswing with the 'hip bump' is also good - bottom line, you want to stop 'throwing' from the top - almost all amateurs do this, not a single pro does - Surge talks about tuning too much in this video, but frankly a lot of pros turn way past 90° (Surge even mentions this), but they certainly don't swing outside to in because of it - they all have a strong leading move with the legs and hips, the trailing elbow comes into the belly, and the leading arm goes down the line - one last tip: if it doesn't work to initiate the downswing with Surge's 'hip bump', try engaging your belly muscles right before you start down - the will bring you back into your legs and hips, will draw your back elbow to center, and get you in a safer and more powerful position for swinging through - cheers! - Rolf in MA

I have this problem lots of the time but not because I go into the burial ground. I pull my left shoulder back to soon in my forward swing causing the clubface to slightly open by ball contact resulting in a fade or slice.
If I just hold my swing on the target line just a fraction of a second longer I don't pull my left shoulder back before the club contacts the ball and I don't get a fade. Does anyone else ever have this problem and if you do what do you do to eliminate this move from your swing?

I turn my shoulders too soon and too much in the DOWNSWING! This causes a slice. I cure that by forgetting about the T finish and letting the club momentum carry me to a T finish up on my back toe. The thought of letting the club swing me around really helps. IT also gets me to put some strength into the downswing. And you can't do that without a "bump" motion! Hope this helps some.

I turn my shoulders too soon and too much in the DOWNSWING! This causes a slice. I cure that by forgetting about the T finish and letting the club momentum carry me to a T finish up on my back toe. The thought of letting the club swing me around really helps. IT also gets me to put some strength into the downswing. And you can't do that without a "bump" motion! Hope this helps some.

there are many good, effective ways to swing
Surge's stuff is excellent
but I agree, he has a natural swing, is a gifted golfer, and is applying his techniques and understandings on top of an already good swing
he may be making certain moves naturally - keeping his turn, leading with his lower body - that the rest of us don't necessarily do without working consciously at it

This is an idea that has been helping me maintain good posture throughout the BUS and the start of the FUS. It has resulted in much cleaner and better contact with the ball and better distance and direction control with every club. It works very well with both long and short game shots around the green. It also makes a very easy and controlled way to start the bump when executing any kind of a shot.

I tend to overdo any of the conventional ways of doing the bump. I either get ahead of the ball too much at impact or fall into it with too much weight towards the toes. This of course can cause some inconsistent shots.

For the last two months my goal after doing the final accordion down and assuming a balanced Surge stance is to feel the place in space where my tailbone is and try to keep it there until it is time to trigger the bump. It is very easy to make the correct small lateral move parallel to the target line by sliding the tailbone an inch or so along that parallel line.

My pitching, chips and sandshots are much better also, because I can maintain a consistent posture and distance to the ball throughout the swing if I accordion down to the ball with my weight correctly on the arches of my feet and keep the tailbone in about the same place, until it triggers the forward swing.

All of the above is correct.
I like to add also that any stiffness anywhere in the arms and shoulders throughout the motion from address to tee finish is detrimental. I finally learned to keep my wrist flat, thumbs up, swing both arms and shoulders like a pendulum around my spine with my nose/eyes focused on the rear of the ball untill after impact and finish high, thumb up, close to my ear, and BINGO, no more slice, no more Army Golf.

.....and across equals a slice unless the face is closed then we get a major pull.
Been reading the many comments of my fellow golfers here. This is always a hot topic as so many of us have suffered from the banana ball complex. I certainly agree that there are many causes and cures. I have found two things to be very true. One, that few of us are able to consciously execute a lower body bump easily or naturally and are plagued by a right arm and shoulder that wants to muscle up and dominate the swing which normally increases the out to in power move (well it feels powerful but we no we often get a weak and short right result). Like many of you I have worked at convincing my lower body to initiate the FUS sequence with mixed results. I am one who has seen better results by just getting into the good set up and then keeping the BUS fundamentals as simple and compact as I can and then finding that the bump happens somewhat automatically like Neil of OZ said to just let the back arm drop into the slot rather than muscling it from the top. Always amazes me how far the ball goes when this simple 3/4 swing goes as planned.

The second premise that I find very true is that mis-alignment of the body lines is as Surge said 90-95% cause of all poor shots including the slice. Why? Well as Don has explained many times most golfers tend to naturally aim too far right (for righties) of their target. Then when they take that last look at the target which is way left of the foot line, they open the shoulders left. That sets us up for a swing that has to come from outside to in and can either produce a beautiful banana slice, or hit it dead straight to the right (right where our feet our aimed), or give us a hook as we turn the club face closed in our effort to get back at the target. I think this is one area that many still do not understand completely.

It would help many if we would just trust that parallel left is absolutely vital to curing the slice and other wild shots. Visualize this, you are aimed left of your target in the exact opposite scenario that I described in the last paragraph. Where would your natural club path then tend to be??.....................
................ yes, inside out. To produce a draw what does the club path need to be? Hmmmnn.. yes in to out. What is Don's natural FUS swing path? In to out and slightly back in as he goes up vertically finishing on his left shoulder then recoil and relax facing target. His ball flight normally? A slight draw. He is huge on his set up being parallel left of target. When I played with him it seemed he was aimed too far left but no he was as he should be.
Learning to be parallel left has become natural for me after 4 years of constant correction. I say alignment. There in lies the causes and cures if we would only look at it closely enough. All the other solutions then become much easier.

Something for us to think about.

I managed to get out and practice a little and play yesterday. Didn't go very well overall, mostly because I couldn't get my putting under control. The greens at my local course are very fast, and almost any putt I hit seemed to roll four feet past for the first 12 holes. Downhill putts were even worse. I was also a bit all over the place, as I've been working on setup issues and I haven't quite got them ironed out yet. What's funny, though, was what happened on the final hole. I hit my tee shot into a fairway bunker. I was reminded of the post a few weeks ago from the gentleman who said he practiced full shots from the sand to work on keeping his lower body steady. I held my legs firm, took a swing with as little motion as I could, and hit a beautiful shot that landed and rolled out to three feet from the hole. Best shot I hit the whole day.

Of course, I then went up and misread the putt, not catching the fact that the hole was sitting on almost a little mound that turned my ball hard right 6 inches out. Such is life. It was the fourth birdie putt to find a way to avoid the hole for the round. ;-) Two horseshoed the holes and managed not to fall in. Quite maddening.

Anyway, on the topic of today's video, any way of getting the lower body to move first is helpful as long as it isn't overdone. Out to in is caused most often by the shoulders moving first. I'm among the number on here who can't actively move my hips first in the bump, though, without overdoing it. I have to simply think about lifting the club up and letting it drop straight back down toward my toe line. When I do that, the hips naturally shift just enough forward to bring the club down in the slot, and as Steve Smith says, from there I can swing as hard as I want.

It looks like Spring has finally arrived in my area. I've been out a few times now, and getting out this morning for another 18. It seems a little rougher each new season. More and different aches and pains, less and less distance with each passing winter. I am generally able to keep the ball in play from tee to green, just a stroke behind the long ballers by the time I'm on. That of course means I need one putts for par and two for bogie. Time to perfect that short game which gathered a lot of rust over the long winter.

Haven't posted anything in a while, but check the blog daily. Just thought I'd say, still alive and kicking in Ohio. Glad to finally be out playing, even though I'm presently not scoring well. I love/hate this game.

On another note, for any and all who are suffering or have loved ones suffering, as a result of Mondays act of terror, my prayers are with you.

I just uploaded a new video (first this year) to YouTube.

The ball flight was near-perfect: 1 yard off line right, perfect trajectory and distance. However, looking at it with V1 and drawing lines, I realized that my lower legs were vertical at setup which meant that everything else was off. I have had right knee and ankle problems for the last month or so, which may be the cause; I'll have to work on it.

From what I have read, Stack and Tilt is NOT back-friendly, and if you were able to hit 200 balls without pain, me thinks you were still using a vertical swing. You may have previously been too far loaded to the right, and what felt like heavier left may have actually been more centered and allowed the rest of the PPGS swing to work for you...video would tell the story; if you've ever taped your swing, sometimes what you THINK is happening is not really..but good luck.

way too much is made of these differences in swing 'theory'
when Tiger first came out on tour, he had a 3/4 backswing and shifted very little to his right on the backswing - his was the original 'stack and tilt' - and I'm sure someone else did it in 1920 or 1880, too
I went out with a kid yesterday who never plays golf, he just went along with his friend, my nephew, as a goof
took almost no backswing and hit it a mile
there are legitimate differences to discuss - big weight shift, little weight shift - big turn, little turn
but the only important metric is whether that particular move is better for your body or your score, not whether you're the member of a particular school of swing thought and we're in 'color wars' over it
when I play, I have 2 completely different swings I go back and forth from - a rotating swing, and an arm swing
I play whichever one feels like it will give me the best results in that moment
swing thoughts get stale
muscles get fatigued
golf swings can spiral into a rut
keeping it fresh can be more fun, more interesting - every school of thought may have something useful to offer, as well as its own blind spots and weaknesses
every pro looks almost exactly the same at and just past impact, no matter how they got there or what happens after
let's keep it in perspective, and remember we're playing a game
it's only wrong if we stop having fun

my son used to swing cross-handed, could hit it anywhere, drained his first 2 putts at age one from 20 ft
his uncle 'corrected' him
he still hits the ball 300yds without thinking, when he wants to, but hasn't enjoyed the game since
biggest regret of my golf life was not intervening in that 'correction'
so I agree: work with what's natural and most fun
add fundamentals as needed to improve consistency
most of us aren't going to make money at this game
they say everything comes out in your golf swing
wouldn't it be better if it was your quirky, effervescent spirit that came out, and not all that self-flagellating grim conformity?

I know, funny, I watched a bunch of Broadaway videos yesterday
Dustin Johnson, I believe, also used to play cross-handed from 120yds in
and there was an old-time golfer in the 50s or 60s who did as well
been known to happen