Form and Distance - what to work on next?

[volfan]

This will be a little lengthy so I can explain this the best way possible.

I am in my mid-40s and I was a casual chucker from the mid 80s to 2011 with breaks as long as 5-6 years in between small pockets of active playing. In 2011 I snapped an Achilles tendon and had to rehab it after it was repaired. I thought walking hills (I live in the mountains of East Tennessee) would help me and the local courses are just the thing I thought for me to build my calf back up and increase flexibility. I kind of, for the the first time took it seriously, and wanted to get better. I had some bad habits and took a lot of the advice I had read on here to try to fix it. I took all high-speed stuff out of my bag, I eliminated my x-step.

At this point, I started playing regularly with some friends who were a lot better than me. I throw RHBH almost exclusively and use a 2-finger power grip for distance and fan for accuracy. I was hitting about 280-300 with teebirds and about 260 with a buzz/roc. My putting was still horrible. I did a lot of field work and fixed a lot of the mechanical issues with my form (again based on videos and what I read) and started to see more and more snap and increased distance. I added a couple of sidewinders and could get them out to about 315 with decent golf lines. I played a lot in 2012 and qualified for Am Worlds in 2013. At the end of 2012 I moved to Chicago with a job change and did not get to play much in 2013 and started playing again occasionally in the spring of 2014. I started really focusing on technique and started not being able to throw the sidewinders without them diving right hard. Fast forward to about 3 months ago. I started adding higher speed stuff back to the bag and saw huge gains in distance. If I was loose, I could get a gstar wraith out about 380 and could hit 350 on my teebirds just about any time I want on a golf line. I had a couple of close to 400. Last week I threw a gummy champ tern as far as I ever thrown a disc backhand on a hole.

Now, here are my distances I can get normally:
Roc3 - 300-310
Teebirds - 350-360
Wraith/Thunderbird - 380
Tern - 400-425

My main question is, I am doing this from a standstill. I get good snap and weight transfer and have slowed down and gotten smoother on my throws. Should I continue to work on being accurate and smooth from a standstill or attempt to add in an x-step? Most of the people I play with will be in Advanced Masters should not be outdistancing me so much as to give up more than a handful of strokes.

Here is a crappy video of my form.

http://vid115.photobucket.com/albums/n281/svodenik/form_1.mp4

Any and all help would be appreciated.

 

[sidewinder22]

Your arm swing looks good although your balance is too far behind your front heel during the throw(easier to see in a rear view video), and not quite getting off your rear foot/weight forward pushing from the toes/instep. Your followthrough swings your body around your front leg to the left side of the tee pad and forward, if you are bracing better you will stay straighter without swaying to the left or you will even finish to the right in the followthrough with enough momentum.

I like that you start your backswing on the front leg and load onto the rear leg, although you can turn and load into your leg/hip and core a bit further. Your stance looks too closed and probably why are end up swinging around to the left so much in the finish. I'd keep the feet more inline but still slightly closed and turn more into the rear leg/instep.

Bring the rear foot forward and behind:
http://betterdg.com/topic/14-video-on-hip-bump-by-dave-feldberg/

Push from the rear instep into the wall and behind:


You want more internal hip rotation:


Forward tilt/pressure:

 

[volfan]

thanks for the quick feedback, I was wanting to show the main mechanics but this video, shot about 5 weeks ago, I was nursing a torn right achilles so I could not brace like I normally do. I had that operated on last week so I am now spending my rehab time trying to get my mental game better and looking at all of the things I can do when I get back on the course in a few weeks.

The brace comes back fairly easily and I got the hip turn/weight shift from a long career in ball golf and softball. I just had to swing around the last few weeks before surgery.

 

[TalbotTrojan]

You might see some gains from adding the x-step. It might also throw off your timing and you will certainly need to get a feel for accuracy again. If you can really throw those distances from a stand still, why not just stick with it? Keep having fun!

 

[slowplastic]

I'm battling with this too...I usually do 370-380' stand still and occasionally get more. On trying to add the X-step, as TalbotTrojan said, it can mess with timing. I would actually throw shorter with an X-step and have more chance of nose up. It took some time to get used to the footwork/timing enough to be able to only focus on the hit while doing an X-step. I'm still not good at it, but already I'm seeing the same distance as my stand still, sometimes 10' more...but it feels like less effort. It's a very slow step so far for me, but I feel like I have to do less loading up, it happens naturally.

It may not be instant and it may mess up your hit timing initially. It did for me. And it's still not really adding much distance, I need more practice. But it's worth experimenting with, because already I see that I feel like it's a bit less effort to walk into a long throw than to try to charge up like crazy from a stand still. On shorter stuff I still prefer the added aim benefits of stand still.