Hit Down Dammit!

[dagosa]

Re: Hit Down Dammit!

hi rotator


this is my view and I'm not saying that hitting down don't work or that it works for some but did not work for me and made my game harder. the last 20 years i have been more a swinger than a hitter and i feel i play better because of it.


cheers
bill

Without taking you out of context...I strongly agree with this part of your statement. We are all different, and as a matter of fact, are all constantly changing, both physically and mentally throughout our lives. What works for some, may not work for others, and I dare say, what works now, may not work later in life. That's what makes golf such a challenge game throughout our playing lives. But it also gives us many "little victories" when we temporarily conquer these changes with new ideas and approaches.
Change always happens !! Recognize and adapt.
Thoughts from a retired Calculus teacher.

[bill reed]

Re: Hit Down Dammit!

Hi Bill,

I believe we are on the same track, with a different way of expressing what happens in a "no hitting down thinking swing".

You talk about how the practice swing without the ball and taking it to a high finish invariably results in a swing you would want your real swing to be. The ball gets in the way of the swing of the club and the club bottoms out at the appropriate location. Most golfers will agree with this notion, which they have done swinging at dandelion flowers and asking themselves why they could not make that same swing with the ball in play. When the ball is in front of them and they make the real swing, they do not make the same free flowing swing. As you say, the actual swing becomes disjointed. Specifically, the weight shift, either back or forward, is forgotten, the body hangs back (actually many players fall backwards in their followthrough), the arms and hands throw themselves at the ball with a flipping hitting motion. Oh, how well I remember my nasty swings of this sort, and it creeps in from time to time.

The way I illustrate what you are saying is that, if your weight properly shifts to the back and then to the front, and if your hands lead the club head, and you swing through the ball to a proper finish, the club will have to bottom out at the proper location. ( i.e. the center of gravity of the body will have shifted forward a few inches, and the hands will be ahead of the ball coming into impact, to result in the proper bottoming out.

Ted

Hi Ted
yes i think we agree and seem to be on the same page.
one thing i find with looking two to three inches in front of the ball is my head tills a little more to the target line and also my right shoulder also dips a bit more too at address.
i can feel my left shoulder past my chin on the back swing and if it touched the underside of my chin i know I'm on plane, so it like a check half way through my swing.
at impact it feels like I'm swinging under my chin. but with me playing with a 40degree open stance this might exaggerate things a bit. but i feel this by making a small change like looking a few inches in front of the ball.
cheers
Bill

[dagosa]

Re: Hit Down Dammit!

Hi Bill,

I believe we are on the same track, with a different way of expressing what happens in a "no hitting down thinking swing".

You talk about how the practice swing without the ball and taking it to a high finish invariably results in a swing you would want your real swing to be. The ball gets in the way of the swing of the club and the club bottoms out at the appropriate location. Most golfers will agree with this notion, which they have done swinging at dandelion flowers and asking themselves why they could not make that same swing with the ball in play. When the ball is in front of them and they make the real swing, they do not make the same free flowing swing. As you say, the actual swing becomes disjointed. Specifically, the weight shift, either back or forward, is forgotten, the body hangs back (actually many players fall backwards in their followthrough), the arms and hands throw themselves at the ball with a flipping hitting motion. Oh, how well I remember my nasty swings of this sort, and it creeps in from time to time.

The way I illustrate what you are saying is that, if your weight properly shifts to the back and then to the front, and if your hands lead the club head, and you swing through the ball to a proper finish, the club will have to bottom out at the proper location. ( i.e. the center of gravity of the body will have shifted forward a few inches, and the hands will be ahead of the ball coming into impact, to result in the proper bottoming out.

Ted

I hear your thoughts...the approach I've taken recently, and it seems to work, is; golf is hard. Golf is harder than swinging at a dandelion fluidly, because I don't have to hit the dandelion with a very small part of the blade and at a specific angle of attack and square at impact.
This past year, I have taken a new approach.
If I keep all these contact restrictions in mind prior to and during my swing, I find I have a much shorter, controlled backswing with very little weight shift, and a full unfettered follow through. Squaring the club at impact with the proper set up is now my only thought. Everything else is secondary to "pure contact". It's worked for me. Tempo is much better than some synthetic movement meant to imitate a taught move that really belongs to someone else.
I can't explain it any differently, but my swing is my own. Funny, but when I tape it, it looks much better than when I did focus on my swing. Thoughts of "body parts" doing this or that, no longer get in the way.
I started doing this at the advice of my club pro who convinced me that some have enough athleticism and golfing experience, to start letting go and focusing only on the task at hand. Experience in what you are trying to achieve, will dictate your move to that end, naturally.

[writer4653]

Re: Hit Down Dammit!

Thank you for initiating this discussion. I have maintained,that for me, the intent of hitting down on a ball during the swing did little to establish success. Being aware of club construction ahead of time, with the designer's intent, did more to promote proper swing preparation than anything. Trying to hit down on the ball is like trying to hit down on the ball in baseball, a fallacy promoted for many years resulting in poor contact. A sport I coached for 25 years had hitting set back years with this attitude. Swinging up on the BACK of the ball gets more consistent results for baseball. But, no attempt to swing up should be made as well. It tends to happen "naturally" when weight center is kept behind hitting area which is well out in front. (baseball's moment of truth)

"Cutting" a table tennis ball, or tennis ball, or golf ball, to initiate contact and impart spin, while hitting the BACK of the ball can only be achieved with proper swing prep and weight distribution. Trying to hit the back of the ball with a downward trajectory with a club head kept at proper designed angle with weight slightly ahead, results in a divot after the ball. The farther I more the ball back, the steeper the attack angle, the longer the divot. But during the swing....
NO OTHER THOUGHT is necessary or needed for me other than hitting the back of the ball. Work with the design intent of the club...it will happen.

Many thanks again.

The comparison to baseball is a weak one, given the shape of the bat versus the construction of the golf club; given the ball is moving in one instance and not in the other; given one device has grooves and its counterpart dimples, versus a smooth surface (bat) and another smooth surface with seams; given the plane of the swing in baseball versus the plane of the swing in golf; given in baseball the "left rough" and the "right rough" could earn a player millions of dollars just for hitting there 3 times out of ten; I could go on and on and on. You might just as well say you shouldn't peel a banana because it's hard to peel an egg. You'll have to do a little better than that.

[BrianW]

Re: Hit Down Dammit!

It's a difficult one this.

In reality you need to hit the lower back of the ball before the clubhead has reached the bottom of it's swing arc. Many say hit down and trap the ball between the clubface and turf! I know this is impossible but I agree it is a good swing-thought to get the desired results. If you ask someone to hit the lower back of the ball they will probably misinterpret this command and try to flip their wrists and scoop the ball up (very bad).

The 3 Skills Book 'Nail It' suggests using the imagery of the club having no loft and a nail stuck out of the ball at a 30/20/0 deg angle (depending on club). It then asks you to drive the imaginary nail into the ball using this imagery. Again this is a very unreal but very effective way for someone to make good ball contact.

On reflection, I think your book is most helpful to learning golfers who need to use the imagery as opposed to anaylising the physics of it.

[writer4653]

Re: Hit Down Dammit!

It's being made out to be more difficult than it is, and that in itself is making it difficult. Hitting down, aiming at the top right quadrant of the golf ball, may result in striking the bottom third of the ball in a downwards direction. But the dynamics of the golf club take care of that for us. We need to worry about what we have to do (hit down) so that the "engineering" can take place. Have you ever noticed whether you are going forward or reverse in your car, your foot does the same thing on the accelerator? A golfer would be trying to figure out how to press up on the pedal to make the car go backwards.

[BrianW]

Re: Hit Down Dammit!

It's being made out to be more difficult than it is, and that in itself is making it difficult. Hitting down, aiming at the top right quadrant of the golf ball, may result in striking the bottom third of the ball in a downwards direction. But the dynamics of the golf club take care of that for us. We need to worry about what we have to do (hit down) so that the "engineering" can take place. Have you ever noticed whether you are going forward or reverse in your car, your foot does the same thing on the accelerator? A golfer would be trying to figure out how to press up on the pedal to make the car go backwards.

You have not really answered my post, I thought I had made my point quite clear. A golf club is designed such that you should aim or consider the leading edge as the part that will contact the target ball position. If we used a hammer (for example) the target impact would be in the centre of the face. It is by imagery that we can encourage the golfer to contact the upper back quadrant of the ball with the sweet spot of the clubface.