Actually, your golf swing is pretty solid. There are two things I noticed that haven't been touched on yet, and I bring them up because I happen to be working on them as well.

First and foremost is posture. You're slouching. It feels uncomfortable at first, but you have to keep your back straight. What happens if you don't? Well...when you swing on the correct plane, you'll take up turf before you hit the ball. You also lose some of the circular motion in your shoulders if your back isn't straight, and that results in lost distance. Here is how I started to develop correct posture. I stood straight up and took a club and put the very end of the shaft against the back of my neck. I held it there while letting the club fall down along my spine. As I bent over at the hips into my swing, I kept the other end of the club against my tailbone. This was hard for me because it felt like I had my rear end sticking out, but now it's starting to seem natural.

The second thing I noticed is that you are standing upright at the end of your swing. This might result in a lot of topped balls. This commonly results in a slice, and I think it may be a large part of the cause of your outside-in stroke tendency. Remember to bend at the hips...not at the waist...not at the back. If you are bending at the hips, you'll find it much easier to hold that position through your swing and into your follow-through. At the end of your follow-through, you should still be bent at the hips at exactly the same angle as you were at the beginning of your swing. My problem, as I alluded to earlier in this thread, is that I tend to exagerate my angle in my follow through so I end up even more bent over at the end of my swing than I was at the beginning.

bjohn13 wrote:

First and foremost is posture. You're slouching. It feels uncomfortable at first, but you have to keep your back straight. This was hard for me because it felt like I had my rear end sticking out, but now it's starting to seem natural.

Bent over with your butt out should never feel natural.

Butt (no pun intended) you are correct. Stick your butt out and bend at the hips. Now once you do that its gonna screw up what you've been working on and you'll probably have to go back to the range and practice - it did that to me, butt it will be good for you in the long run

Lerxst wrote:

bjohn13 wrote: First and foremost is posture. You're slouching. It feels uncomfortable at first, but you have to keep your back straight. This was hard for me because it felt like I had my rear end sticking out, but now it's starting to seem natural. Bent over with your butt out should never feel natural. Butt (no pun intended) you are correct. Stick your butt out and bend at the hips. Now once you do that its gonna screw up what you've been working on and you'll probably have to go back to the range and practice - it did that to me, butt it will be good for you in the long run

Ya....tell me about it. I am having mishits galore. It's like I'm learning the game all over again, but when I do make solid contact, the ball is really starting to fly.

I got all of this so far from two golf lessons, a lot of video analysis of myself, and standing in front of a mirror with a golf club. I'm starting to read Ben Hogam's "Five Lessons" as well. I'm one of those guys who started with a fairly natural swing...so when things started to go wrong, I had no clue what to do. Now that I've started to learn the mechanics of a proper golf swing...let's just say I'm somewhat fascinated by all the little nuances that all tend to be interrelated.

For what it's worth, I intend to take at least one more lesson before the summer is over. This time it will be on chipping. I go through spurts where my chipping is just on fire. And then I'll go through a spurt where I can't hit a green from 20 yards to save my life. A person really shouldn't be missing greens from 20 yards.

I recently adopted the back straight, butt out posture. It did feel quite strange at first but it becomes natural after a few weeks. It allows my arms to hang more naturally and helps me to stop pushing the club through with the right arm. With respect to the chin up comments, I read that if you keep your back straight and look down your nose at the ball, your chin will be up and out of the way for your left arm to stay straight on the backswing. This is my current area for development.
Next thing to fix is my left arm during follow through, the elbow wants to stay on a line and finish in an upwards position, (i think they call it chicken winging) and I don't get a proper release. Until then I won't break 200 yards with a driver.

Having video of your swing is great; I need to do this and have you guys critique my swing. You're getting a lot of good feedback.

When watching the latest video of your swing it does appear you have an outside to inside swing. This is probably the biggest reason why you are slicing the ball.

When you take divots, do you ever check the path of your divots? If you notice they are probably an outside to inside mark.

bjohn13 wrote:

Lerxst wrote: Flatten your plane a bit so that your not going outside to inside cutting accoss the ball. Once you get it a little flatter (inside to out) you'll notice that your ball will draw or hook. I actually have the opposite problem...my swing goes inside to out causing the ball to hook right into the ground (my wrists also tend to come through too soon, which causes a rarely seen pull/hook combo). The odd part is, though, that it will roll 100 yards after it hits the ground. Now, I'm trying to learn to temper that a bit so it will go 200 yards in the air first.

I dig the tips here for sure. I got a pro to shoot 10min. of slow mo video with plane-lines drawn all over the place & comparing me side by side with vids of Els & Woods, which was very eye-opening. I'm a on-again, off-again driver slicer w/otherwise fairly straight shots & plenty of hi-launch heighth. Amazingly enough, my swing usually stays right on plane but I agree that a flatter plane simply based on the driver being the longest club in your bag, which demands a flatter swing plane, is crucial to flat-faced driver contact.
When my tee-box slice rears its ugly head it really ruins my scores as I play in & out of other fairways & tees, missing the proper fairway all the way to the green. I usually hit irons fine, especially in grass & do not suffer from distance issues (PW = 120-130yds) but the driver & sometimes (usually?) 3 wood kill my score because of slicing or inconsistent ball spray-patterns, so needless to say, I can relate.
The 2-ó I want to add here is to not think about inside-out swing path as a way to correct outside-in swing path, which, as stated above, quickly becomes a wicked hook. Scientific studies on golf ball spin prove that a draw hits further than a fade (look it up, promise), so that probably explains the long roll after the hook-air. Bottom line though, true-inside-out doesn't correct a slice, it creates a hook, both of which are far from ideal.
The goal of any golf swing is to swing on plane, take it back on plane & bring it back on the same plane with the club face square, just like you started. If your backswing has flaws, then adding speed (as you should, of course) to your downswing will amplify those same flaws, since generally, what goes up, must come down, & will do so in much the same way. Feel the same on an on-plane backswing as you do with a much faster on-plane downswing & you'll smack the ball square in the middle & put it down the fairway. Don't focus on speed, rather set-up (ala, grip, shoulders, ball placement, aim/alignment) then tempo, swing plane (same back as down) and then follow-thru (I like the pointing belly-button tip...a good one!). And don't be afraid to let the hips and legs help your arms create a fluid, growingly-powerful downswing. An arms-only swing really kills distance & makes it hard to allow the body to swing through (like in baseball, really) to forward, aiming at the target to gain distance & even accuracy, if you focus to much on your arms doing all the work.
Bottom line though, when you're off-plane, so will your ball follow. Swing on plane & you'll place the ball right where it belongs down the fairway, regardless of the club, really. Also, if you're not a man-beast, like at least 6'2"+ & 200+ of ripping muscle, then give yourself a break on club distances. I'm much taller & naturally heavier than the 5'4" guy I play with who hits his driver square down the middle 7 out of 9 holes but only squeaks 230yds (at most, seriously) out of his best drives. Everything's relative to size, not to Tiger, if you catch my drift. Keep on golfin!

I'd like to add a bit to ipv's comment on grip.

I've had a pro show me how to grip the club. I've watched videos on how to grip the club. However, I didn't really "figure" out my grip until I read the first chapter of Ben Hogan's book "Five Lessons". He breaks it down so easily, and he gives a couple of ways to be able to constantly check your grip to be sure you're doing it right. I don't want to post everything in the book here, but the one thing that I've actually been doing lately is that I don't put my right forefinger or thumb on the club at all until impact (or very close to impact). In fact, only three fingers have a definite purpose in the swing at all. The rest of the fingers are simply there to stabilize the club (along with the palms)

The other thing I'd like to bring up is that chapter two in that book is simply amazing. Again, I'm not going to post everything that is in the chapter (buy the book...it's worth it), but I didn't know that the inside of my elbows should be pointing up at address. It's amazing how much more stable my left arm has become in just 18 holes of practicing that. There are a couple of other items related to posture and stance in chapter two that I think have really helped as well. Let's just suffice it to say that on my back nine today, the only club I was mis-hitting was my driver. Everything else made solid contact, and I can't say that about any other round this year.

Others on this form have recommended Hogan's book. Now, I'm going to recommend it too. I'm going to spend another day tomorrow working on stance and posture, and then it's time to progress to chapter three.

Holy crap, so many posts to read!

I just got back from a week long trip, and I'm dead tired - so I'll read this thread tomorrow! Just didn't want you all to think I was ignoring your suggestions

Alright, I read through all the suggestions... looks like the two big things I need to work on are posture and swing plane... I'll try to hit the range a couple times this week and see what I can do

Sounds good man; make sure you submit more video of your swing so we can see the results.

I have a feeling without somebody watching me who knows what they are doing, posture and swing plane will be hard to fix on my own. Need a lesson! We'll see...

Came across this old post, hope the forum helped. I noticed the comments related to over the top, thought you could use this comparison.

Yellow circle is start position for hands. Red line traces hands to the top, green line traces hands to the bottom. Ernie and Vijay are very close in terms their hands being on the same paths on take away and downswing.

Interesting! That's really cool... thank you!

You know, I'm actually quite surprised how decent my posture is in that photo... the body itself almost looks like Vijay's, with the exception of my lack of flexibility not allowing my left arm to keep straight which buggers up the whole thing.

But I absolutely see what you mean with the hand positions. I havent golfed in months, so hopefully I can start with a clean plate next time I go, instead of picking up where I left off with my bad swing.

I'm glad to see you're still around:)

Barely. I only came back because I got an email about a reply to my thread. I haven't golfed in months. I moved to San Diego and the golf out here is far too expensive. $25-30 for a round? Hell no.