addendum 5-19-2009 -sorry about privacy lock that prevented viewing earlier.

I had this idea that about performing motion capture of my swing -kind of like the way you see pro golfers to as they get scanned into the games. They usually have white dots taped on all the index parts of their bodies. Using Apple’s Keynote which also lets you record your presentation, I was able to recreate that motion capture. Taking the series of screen shots, I placed dots on the middle of my cap, my shoulders, my hands, and my clubhead, and then took out the picture leaving just the motion capture dots. Keynote has a wonderful and intuitive guide system that makes this very easy.

I recently took a lesson from the inimitable Bill Rose, pro emeritus at our course. He has the ability to distill swing advice to a minimal few principles. The first thing he said about my swing was about keeping the head still from address to contact. Thin shots -looked up and head went up. Chunks -head went down. I have been able to compensate by moving the hands, and getting contact every once in a while, but never consistently. Strangely, it showed up less in my drives and more in my wedges where missteps seem to be magnified.

The video shows what you can do with about 2 hours on the Mac. Taking Mr. Rose’ advice, I spent several hours on the range yesterday evening and found myself hitting in a 5 foot radius around a pin 150 yards away -consistently. Its one of those moments where you just don’t want to leave the range because everything seems to click. Fairway wood -ohmygod -straight, high and mighty.

Now if I could get this to go on the course. I will film this modified swing later this season if it holds up. The other adjustment was taking out the last quarter turn that took me past horizontal -hands to right ear with full shoulder turn again kept me in the slot and made it easier to keep my head still.