Swatting and an experiment I tried

[ThePuttKing]

Looking at my takeaway in a mirror, I can clearly see that I swat my hands from side to side. I've read about the right hand drill and the up and down wrist cock but I can't stop swatting. I've also noticed that at the top of my backswing my right hand is in the wrong position. My fingers are pointing to the sky instead of my palm. (The website on the right hand drill mentioned you should be able to hold a tray with your right hand !)

Anyway I was playing today and hitting the ball miles right and basically all over the place. So I tried this little experiment. I addressed the ball as normal and then cocked my wrists up so the club is in the air. I then turned my shoulders and noticed I was in a good position at the top. I then tried hitting a few balls like this, expecting not to hit the ball at all but every shot I hit went dead straight. I only hit a dozen shots because I didn't want anybody asking me what I was doing. It did look crazy but my shots were great, dead straight with a touch of draw at the end.

So to conclude : My current wrist action is wrong and is the reason for my current poor ball striking. I can't master the up and down wrist cock yet. Hopefully when I start to use "The secret" by Greg Norman - I will start to improve my ball striking.

Oh and does anybody hit a golf ball like I described ?

[gord962]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

Sounds like my drill:

http://members.shaw.ca/gord962/drills/top_position.htm

If you are having troubles swatting, go out to the range on a quiet day (make sure no one is within 3 stalls of you) and try hitting some balls blindfolded. You will soon realize you must swing through the ball, otherwise you will severely miss-hit or completely miss the ball all together.

[1lostball]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

re Hitting a ball this way.In a book called. Lower Your Golf Handcap in under 10 weeks. ByNick Wright. He gives this method as a swing drill adressing the ball then hinge your wrists straight forwards.stop when they wont go any farther with your wrists set in this possition complete your swing by turning your shoulders around your spine angle in the back swing. Not actualy tried it but it looks like it must work. Interesting book by the way. deals with the fisicle and mental side of the game more than how to do.

[ThePuttKing]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

When I tried it I didn't think I would hit the ball. But all my shots went dead straight. I even hit a few 3 irons well and that is a club I don't normally hit straight.

It does look strange though and you can imagine the comments I would get if I tried it on the golf course.

[arch11]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

This drill was in a Faldo faults and fixes video during th 90s

[Simon Woo]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

I wonder, at impact, where are your shoulders facing? If your shoulders are square to the target, then you might have a tendency to swat to get to impact? But if you have rotated your shoulders past square, then it might be easier to come to impact with the wrists still cupped and hence the hands still ahead of the clubhead Anybody can verify this?

[GregJWillis]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

...Anybody can verify this?

Yes. I verify.

[ubizmo]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

Oh and does anybody hit a golf ball like I described ?

I remember seeing a web site by a Scandinavian instructor whose idea was to hit the ball without taking a backswing. Just set the hands and club up in the correct position and hit the ball from there.

I haven't tried this, but in theory it makes sense. After all, the backswing gets the club into the correct position, but since the body is moving, it's easy to miss. If you can place the club in the correct position without swinging back to it, why not do it? If I could hit the ball better and more consistently that way, I'd switch to it and not look back.

On a related note, some time back I asked why not address the ball in a position that mimics, as closely as possible, the position at impact. Greg Willis replied that we don't do this because the impact position is a dynamic position, not a stable balanced one. But I've done a bit of experimenting with this, taking a "normal" setup position, then turning my hips toward the target, making a rather exaggerated forward press before starting the backswing, essentially "rehearsing" a rotated impact position with the right wrist still slightly cupped. Doing this actually works pretty well for me, as if this last "reminder" activates the muscle memory of the position I'm going for.

[1lostball]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

tryed doing a couple of shots today using the wrist cocked first method and it works quite well. 98 was my score but nothing to do with those shots. I have been watching the golf on T.V and the professionals when they setup for a drive and they dont seem to hang about once they decide what they are going to do. they seem to step up to the ball and wallup its gone.there for is it possible that I am putting to much thinking into my game would be interested in your views on this subject. M.O.T car tommorow take my mind off the game for a while.

Chas
burnley
england

[Simon Woo]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

Hi Todd,

I see where you're coming from. I used to have such a slow backswing and long pause at the top, that I was wondering what good the backswing actually does for me except put me in the right position at the top.

But think of it this way, yes you can probably mimick the top position, even pre-twist your hips so that you feel the tension at the right knee/thigh for that coil effect. But how does that guarantee that you will come back to the exact position you want at impact, if you did not start from that position in the first place? So at the end of the day, you will still need to take up your set up position and ensure the clubface is square to target, etc. So it just seems more economical to assume that position and swing back.

At the same time, I recently noticed that improving my tempo does help me in getting better swing speed, although theoretically at the top of the swing your swing speed goes back down to zero and you start from zero in the reverse (downswing). So for me now, a one-two tempo is definitely more powerful than a one-pause-two tempo.

[ThePuttKing]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

I went to the driving range today and I concentrated on getting in the correct position at the top. ( Main focus was having the palm of my right hand facing the sky, as though I could hold a tray of drinks etc). I did this by keeping my left arm more connected to my body in the backswing. I achieved this well and did get into the correct position.

My ball flight was different. My push slice did go but my bad shots were pulls. My allignment seemed okay.

Anyway I've ordered Greg Normans "The Secret" so hopefully that will help matters.

[ubizmo]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

But think of it this way, yes you can probably mimick the top position, even pre-twist your hips so that you feel the tension at the right knee/thigh for that coil effect. But how does that guarantee that you will come back to the exact position you want at impact, if you did not start from that position in the first place? So at the end of the day, you will still need to take up your set up position and ensure the clubface is square to target, etc. So it just seems more economical to assume that position and swing back.

At the same time, I recently noticed that improving my tempo does help me in getting better swing speed, although theoretically at the top of the swing your swing speed goes back down to zero and you start from zero in the reverse (downswing). So for me now, a one-two tempo is definitely more powerful than a one-pause-two tempo.

I do it the same way you and almost everyone else does it, but I just thought I'd mention that there is someone out there who advocates hitting the ball with no backswing at all. I try to keep an open mind about these things, but I haven't tried the no backswing swing, and it's certainly true that just about no one else is doing it. I wish I could find the web site of the fellow who uses this swing.

In his instructional video, Jim McClellan makes the point that the so-called "backswing" isn't a backswing at all; it's a wind-up. The difference isn't just terminology. You're not swinging the club back in the same sense that you swing it at the ball--you're not swinging the club at an imaginary pinata hanging somewhere above and behind you. You're doing something that is more like winding up a spring. The momentum of the wind-up twists your body farther than you could go if you just placed the club up there. I don't know if John Daly, for example, could just pick up his club and place it in the extreme wind-up position that he gets into.

But maybe the lesson is this: For high-handicappers and beginners, the top position should only be slightly beyond what we could achieve without a backswing. Then, when we can do that consistently and hit the ball cleanly, we can try for a little more. I know that for me the biggest danger is contracting and deforming the shape of my swing path. I want that to be a BIG circle--an ellipse really, but it's the weight shift and hip turn that flattens the circle into an ellipse, not my arms or upper body. If I swing too far back, either my arms fold up or my wrists fold up, the circular shape of the swing path is wrecked, and I end up chunking or skulling the ball. I've learned, by videorecording my swing, that even when it feels like I'm hardly cocking my wrists at all, and club isn't even making it to vertical, the club is in fact getting just about to the 2 o'clock position, and maybe even horizontal, so I just go with that feeling. And that works.

For me, the way to avoid swatting is not so much to think about holding the cupped wrist as to think about leading with the hips. If I do that, the cupped wrist takes care of itself. But that's just me. I've learned that if I start doing any conscious manipulation of my wrists, I'm in trouble. So I take a practice swing and rehearse the hip turn, because my particular weakness is a tendency to have dead hips. And I cock the right knee toward the ball a bit at setup, to pre-set that hip turn.

I've been working very hard on this, making dozens of swings without a ball every day, just to lock in the feeling of it. It has begun to pay off. While I still have plenty of work to do on the short game, my full swing has improved a lot, and I'm not the only one to notice it. The 15 strokes I've knocked off since the beginning of August are all about working this out. I played yesterday and noticed that I'm getting more distance and a somewhat lower ball flight, and I'm pretty sure that's because the hip turn is keeping the right wrist cupped a bit, de-lofting the club a little, and the feeling at impact is different.

I think everybody, pros and amateurs alike, will tend to rush the backswing when feeling any pressure, or even when tired. It's as if there is an anxiety about getting the club back to the ball, so we try to minimize the time it's away from the ball. But for me, at least, the more I rush the less time I give myself to get my hips turning, and if I don't turn my hips then swatting is the only option I have left.

[Simon Woo]

Re: Swatting and an experiment I tried

Totally agree on that one, Todd. I feel that if you work your hips correctly, you will put yourself in a good position to have your hands ahead of the club, and eliminate the need to swap. If you focus too much on the small movements like making sure your right wrist is cupped during that 0.2 seconds of downswing, there will be plenty of complications. I believe such small details need to be natural, like you are practising so much in the day to commit them to muscle memory, so you won't have to worry about them when you do a real swing at the course.