Having built the rough outline of my Dunaway-esque swing model, I am now transitioning to investigating it thoroughly to make it optimal.

For myself, this means reverse-engineering the setup (I have the basic setup but my misses yesterday told me that I wasn’t nailing the optimal one on every swing), because everything starts from there.

How do I go about doing that?

Well, it’s a matter of first studying the basic setup, then adjusting it so that I can arrive at impact with everything in place:

• maximum leverage with minimum effort on the down swing,
• proper club path
• appropriate attack angle and
• smooth weight transfer with a balanced finish.

The only real issue yesterday was ball placement, I believe.

If the ball is not in its optimal place at address, one can not make the optimal motion to impact it with the club, as a proper swing with a faulty ball position means all bets are off on distance and accuracy.

I’ll use Mr. Dunaway above as the model for the comments I’m about to make:

There is actually a little theory on grip and ball placement that I came up with morning, and I’ll see the next session out if I’m correct.

Shortly, if the ball placement is off, it will affect the grip and so the ball must be placed accordingly to one’s desired grip.

In this regard, I want a certain grip (I looked at this last summer but wasn’t on the right track until I revisited it building my own model again), which will mean a certain ball placement with regards to my stance, which will in turn mean a certain balance and spine tilt in the setup.

If my theory bears out, I should be able to set up over the ball precisely the same way every time, and of course that will go for every club in the bag.

This theory of mine, if correct, will also explain why there is a required shift in the back pivot and why, when I was swinging with a stable head, my club face kept snapping shut at impact last week.

I haven’t derived this much enjoyment out of swing research in years, I have to say.

More to come.