['Hamas' Jenkins]

Day 1 of the 'Hamas' Jenkins Project

So, I finally decided to say "**** it" and completely retool my swing. I feel like I'm stagnating with the current swing that I have, which is very vertical, and very steep. I'm way too flippy with my hands, and I cannot consistently groove a swing that works for all clubs. It's either short irons, mid irons, or woods, and never more than 2/3 working at once.

In the past I used to push my arms almost straight back and then raise them as I completed my shoulder turn. This led to a huge and deep shoulder turn, but got me way too far outside of my right foot. This combined with the inconsitency in keeping the flex in my right knee made me a very inconsistent ball striker. My swing speed tops out at about 103, which given my flexibility (I can move my legs behind my head and touch my wrists rather than just my fingers to the ground when I touch my toes) and core rotation is just lack luster.

So, after reading the musings of what appears to be a very well respected pro on Golf WRX by the handle of slicefixer, I've decided to move to a modern rotary swing (Jim Hardy would call it a one plane swing). Today I went to the course and worked exclusively on his version of the 9-3 drill, which involves turning your core and hips until the club is waist high, allowing the wrists to set, and then turning through the shot while maintaining the angle of your right wrist (no scooping) and letting your body, rather than your arms, release the club.

I hit 72 straight shots like this with a sand wedge. Most of the early ones leaked way right, several were on the center of the face but fat, many were heeled, and four were out and out s****s. I did hit a few solid, and was surprised how different it feels to truly compress the ball against the turf. It's almost like the ball hits back at you a little bit. The biggest problem is that I wasn't turning away from the ball enough (too much arms) and my arms got caught behind me on the through motion (which led to the heel shots), but my balance did feel markedly better, and for session 1, I'd say it was reasonably productive.

I'm going to do nothing but this drill for the next several weeks to really ingrain the swing changes.

Wish me luck.

HJ.