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  • Plane and Path 111

    I have added this as an article so I can refer to it when needed.

    In this article I will try and give some information on swing speed so hopefully along with my two previous "Plane & Path" articles it will it will assist new golfers to improve their game.

    To start looking at the way swing speed can be generated I would like to go back again to the idea of swinging a small weight on the end of a piece of string held between the thumb and forefinger.



    We rotate the string by making circular moves with our grip on the string. You will notice that the smaller the arc of rotation with your fingers the faster and easier you will be able to move the weight at the end of the string. If you increase the size of the circle made with your fingers the weight will progressively slow down. It will get to a point eventually where the inner and outer circles are moving at the same speed.

    We can relate this to our golf swing. In an effective swing as we start down from the top the hands move in a large arc and travel at a similar speed to the club head. The wrists maintain their cock that lags the clubhead behind the hands. In the shaded area of the next picture it is important that the hands and clubhead are traveling at a similar speed to stop the clubhead being cast outwards and loosing the potential speed stored in the wrist cock.


    As the hands get nearer the ball they need to slow and create a smaller arc, this whips the club through the ball in a tight arc that increases speed and releases the wrist cock adding even more acceleration.



    In the attached picture below the images have been made with a high speed shutter that takes a picture at set time intervals, the bigger the space with the shaft the faster the club is moving, the smaller the spaces with the hands (B) show the slower the hands move on a smaller arc. You will notice that through impact the hands have slowed as they pull through a tight arc and the clubhead speeds up as it is whipped through a larger arc.





    Here is a good video that shows the way a reduced arc with the hands at impact can accelerate the club through the ball:


    Here is another that explains the way the left arm folds back so the clubhead can whip through:




    I hope this article assists you to better understand the mechanics of creating good clubhead speed that will hit the ball further.
    Last edited by BrianW; 10-22-2009, 11:27 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Plane and Path 111

    Very interesting. What he said goes against one of the things I've been trying to get into my game. The follow through where both arms are extended at the 5 o'clock position. I'll see what happens. Nice post.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Plane and Path 111

      Hi Brian,

      Why do I see 3 SKs in everything I look at now, He is a one planer with a perfect explaination of how SKILL 2 works, the arc through the ball, with the clubhead just inside the target line before impact and inside again just after impact, achieved by retracting the arms to create momentum and speed through the ball.

      I have seen this guy before he hits a great ball.


      Thanks for sharing it Brian......


      Ian.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Plane and Path 111

        Originally posted by Ian Hancock View Post
        Hi Brian,

        Why do I see 3 SKs in everything I look at now, He is a one planer with a perfect explaination of how SKILL 2 works, the arc through the ball, with the clubhead just inside the target line before impact and inside again just after impact, achieved by retracting the arms to create momentum and speed through the ball.

        I have seen this guy before he hits a great ball.


        Thanks for sharing it Brian......


        Ian.
        Thats right Ian. I can reconsile it all with 3Skills.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Plane and Path 111 - Speed

          Originally posted by BrianW View Post
          We rotate the string by making circular moves with our grip on the string. You will notice that the smaller the arc of rotation with your fingers the faster and easier you will be able to move the weight at the end of the string. If you increase the size of the circle made with your fingers the weight will progressively slow down. It will get to a point eventually where the inner and outer circles are moving at the same speed.

          If you spin a ball on the end of a 1' string like you prescribe for optimum speed on the ball (the center circle of the revolving ball is the dia of the string you are using to spin) and spin and many times as you need to get it up to speed and you put your hand in the way of the ball and it might hurt a bit.

          But if I only make one revolution, but my circle is about 5' dia and my inner circle is moving as slow as my outer circle (but my ball is actually revolving around 6' as opposed to your 1') as you said would happen. I bet I could break a bone in your hand with the force and speed I would produce on the end of my ball. You might have a slightly more speed than my ball, but the force I would create is so much higher.

          So pulling in your left arm as Jeff perscribes would shrink your innner circle possibly creating more speed, but would you loose so much more force an leverage. Do you think that it would actually increase or decrease your ball distance?

          If the smaller inner circle is so good, why don't you just rotate your hand around like the string in the first place? Because you get no leverage or force from it.

          The hands in the black and white pic have slowed, but only because energy is expended through the club. If you slow the hands down down, the club head will slow down, why would you purposefully put the brakes on something to try and speed something else up?

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Plane and Path 111 - Speed

            Its about energy transfer. In order to transfer the energy from the body and rest of the kinetci chain into the clubhead, the preceding part has to stop or slow down. Watch that nike video of tiger woods perfect swing. First his hips stop about halfway down in the swing, then his torso stops, then his hands and arms stop and through impact it looks as if his body has completely stopped moving but the clubhead continues.

            Another analohy for this would be pool balls. When the white hits a color really hard the white will stop and the energy gets transferred into the colour. Or when you go to whip someone with a towell, your hand must slow down (and even reverse direcion) to get that CRACK sound. In fact many power hitters in golf have a reverse direction through impact (tiger snaps his legs, lots of players have an upward thrust of the hips etc).

            Cochran and stobbs did a study on swing speed and force relationship with ball distance. Increasing force does not have a measureable effect on ball distance. increasing speed does however.

            Interesting question though. makes you think

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Plane and Path 111 - Speed

              p.s. its not a purposeful slowing down of the hands and arms through impact. If you tried to do this you would probably lose speed. Its more of an energy transfer as i have mentioned above. Sportspeople instinctively understand this, you can very rarely teach it. its like taching someone to walk, they have to learn it.

              a good drill to get the feeling is to make practice swings into an impact bag and try to recoil the club backwards just after impact. Orget a towel in your right hand and make practice swings trying to get that cracking or whipping sound at impact. if you do this your hands and arms will instinctively be doing the correct things

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Plane and Path 111 - Speed

                Originally posted by lgskywalker37 View Post
                If you spin a ball on the end of a 1' string like you prescribe for optimum speed on the ball (the center circle of the revolving ball is the dia of the string you are using to spin) and spin and many times as you need to get it up to speed and you put your hand in the way of the ball and it might hurt a bit.

                But if I only make one revolution, but my circle is about 5' dia and my inner circle is moving as slow as my outer circle (but my ball is actually revolving around 6' as opposed to your 1') as you said would happen. I bet I could break a bone in your hand with the force and speed I would produce on the end of my ball. You might have a slightly more speed than my ball, but the force I would create is so much higher.

                So pulling in your left arm as Jeff perscribes would shrink your innner circle possibly creating more speed, but would you loose so much more force an leverage. Do you think that it would actually increase or decrease your ball distance?

                If the smaller inner circle is so good, why don't you just rotate your hand around like the string in the first place? Because you get no leverage or force from it.

                The hands in the black and white pic have slowed, but only because energy is expended through the club. If you slow the hands down down, the club head will slow down, why would you purposefully put the brakes on something to try and speed something else up?
                Force = Mass x Acceleration. The clubhead is around 7 ounces, to create force you need to accelerate it to a high speed. Your suggestion would only work if you made the clubhead heavier and used more muscle to swing it at speed to create a greater Force, the problem here is that you could not swing the heavier weight fast enough. This is the reason that golf is a game of speed not muscle.

                Your second point regarding rotation of your hand in a small circle: That's exactly what you need to do but not in the way you are suggesting. It is not possible to create the inertia required to accelerate the clubhead from a standing start to 100 MPH this way, you need to use the rotational forces of the torso and then amplify them through the wrists so that the club can be accelerated by the small inner arc whipping through the large outer arc.



                ALSO: Take another look at the second video in my article by David Blair, he explaines the concept very well.
                Last edited by BrianW; 11-01-2009, 07:54 PM.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Plane and Path 111 - Speed

                  Originally posted by BrianW View Post
                  Force = Mass x Acceleration. The clubhead is around 7 ounces, to create force you need to accelerate it to a high speed. Your suggestion would only work if you made the clubhead heavier and used more muscle to swing it at a lower speed to create the Force, the problem here is that you probably could not swing the heavier weight fast enough. This is the reason that golf is a game of speed not muscle.

                  Your second point regarding rotation of your hand in a small circle: That's exactly what you need to do but not in the way you are suggesting. It is not possible to create the inertia required to accelerate the clubhead from a standing start to 100 MPH this way, you need to use the rotational forces of the torso and then amplify them through the wrists so that the club can be accelerated by the small inner arc whipping through the large outer arc.

                  I am not sure if F=MA is applied to the club head. If the club had is 7ounces and the acceleration is 0 that would mean teh force is 0. But that makes no sence, if you have a club head speed of 100 but are not accelerating at all is your force on the ball 0? What is you are decelerating and area at 90mph by impact, is you force negative?

                  F=MA works with the ball though. 1.62 ounces 89m/s/s = 144.18 newtons of force on the ball.

                  But I am not sure how to apply that to the clubhead. Momentum= mass x velocity. So that would mean a heavier club head would give you greateer momentum if you had the same velocity. But as you said, you don't know if a heavier clubhead would have the same velocity. And then how to you convert momentum to tranfer that to the ball?

                  force = rate of change of momentum? which takes us back to F=MA...

                  or does this go into momentum and the conservation of it and angular momentum?

                  I don't know, I am just throwing out equations here, I am curious myself as I have heard numerous equations thrown out there by people who can't really explain how it applies.

                  Just curious if anyone here knows, I will probly have to take this question to a physics forum lol

                  rogue,

                  We are in agreeance that there is no purposful slowing down of the hands, it is an energy tranfer.



                  also: I do agree that the left arr must fold in the BS, but that has mreo to do with biomechanics and body limits than it does physics IMO.

                  But I really like that video above.
                  Last edited by lgskywalker37; 11-01-2009, 08:37 PM.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Plane and Path 111 - Speed

                    Originally posted by lgskywalker37 View Post
                    also: I do agree that the left arr must fold in the BS, but that has mre to do with biomechanics and body limits than it does physics IMO.
                    Agreed.

                    Its all trade offs really. When you change one thing you can end up losing another. Lots of things that create more speed can inhibit control and strike etc. Things like winding up your body, driving hips hard, dipping and raising posture through impact, hip thrust etc are all power moves but at the cost of control. keeping posture angles perfect through swing, more synchronised lower/upper body moves, less hand rotation etc are more control moves, but usually at the loss of distance.

                    a lot of science is unfortunately poorly quoted in golf. We need to understand that there are many more factors than physics to consider when looking at how someone swings the club.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Plane and Path 111 - Speed

                      Originally posted by lgskywalker37 View Post
                      I am not sure if F=MA is applied to the club head. If the club had is 7ounces and the acceleration is 0 that would mean teh force is 0. But that makes no sence, if you have a club head speed of 100 but are not accelerating at all is your force on the ball 0? What is you are decelerating and area at 90mph by impact, is you force negative?

                      F=MA works with the ball though. 1.62 ounces 89m/s/s = 144.18 newtons of force on the ball.

                      But I am not sure how to apply that to the clubhead. Momentum= mass x velocity. So that would mean a heavier club head would give you greateer momentum if you had the same velocity. But as you said, you don't know if a heavier clubhead would have the same velocity. And then how to you convert momentum to tranfer that to the ball?

                      force = rate of change of momentum? which takes us back to F=MA...

                      or does this go into momentum and the conservation of it and angular momentum?

                      I don't know, I am just throwing out equations here, I am curious myself as I have heard numerous equations thrown out there by people who can't really explain how it applies.

                      Just curious if anyone here knows, I will probly have to take this question to a physics forum lol

                      rogue,

                      We are in agreeance that there is no purposful slowing down of the hands, it is an energy tranfer.



                      also: I do agree that the left arr must fold in the BS, but that has mreo to do with biomechanics and body limits than it does physics IMO.

                      But I really like that video above.
                      With due respect and not trying to be overtly defensive I created these articles to explain my personal views on certain golf issues and hoped that they would assist others with their journey.

                      I really do not want to defend them any further as that was not the reason for their publication. If you have any further comments on the above subjects then please can you raise them in general discussion or create your own articles to outline your own considerations.

                      I am sorry that you did not find them helpful.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Plane and Path 111 - Speed

                        I found your article very good. I have always believed the hands slow at some point-different for everyone-allowing the club head to whip through the impact area. If the hands were to keep moving at the same speed, one would never hit the ball or would at least hit it so late it would travel dead right(for a right hander).
                        My longest drives are the ones where the whipping action is felt the most like taking the driver and gripping it near the head to hear the whooshing sound. If the sound is too soon one is casting, if the sound is too late one is not releasing.


                        Originally posted by BrianW View Post
                        With due respect and not trying to be overtly defensive I created these articles to explain my personal views on certain golf issues and hoped that they would assist others with their journey.

                        I really do not want to defend them any further as that was not the reason for their publication. If you have any further comments on the above subjects then please can you raise them in general discussion or create your own articles to outline your own considerations.

                        I am sorry that you did not find them helpful.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Plane and Path 111

                          No problem, but you might want to copy and paste it and make a blog of it as that is more what that is for. This is an open forum which people like to discuss.

                          Edit: I just saw that it is in "create a golf article", so nevermind.... but since a lot of people ignore the location of threads and just hit latest post or do a search, they don't see that it is in that location and decide to coment on it.

                          If might save you the hassle in the future to make a blog of it or locking it, as I see you allowed supporting comments for it with no problem in the past.... Then if someone has a question they can link to it and ask in a new thread. Just a suggestion.
                          Last edited by lgskywalker37; 11-01-2009, 09:25 PM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Plane and Path 111

                            Originally posted by lgskywalker37 View Post
                            No problem, but you might want to copy and paste it and make a blog of it as that is more what that is for. This is an open forum which people like to discuss.

                            Edit: I just saw that it is in "create a golf article", so nevermind.... but since a lot of people ignore the location of threads and just hit latest post or do a search, they don't see that it is in that location and decide to coment on it.

                            If might save you the hassle in the future to make a blog of it or locking it, as I see you allowed supporting comments for it with no problem in the past.... Then if someone has a question they can link to it and ask in a new thread. Just a suggestion.
                            I believe the 'Article' area is fine for them.

                            Again, with due respect: If people like them and find them useful then great and naturally, one likes a positive comment. If you wish to debate the subject matter further in other threads then feel free. I rather hoped that anyone who had differing views would create their own material outlining their thinking.

                            If anyone wants to ask me a question for clarification then they are always welcome, I just dont wish to get into arguments.

                            Comment

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