myths in golf

[jamesh]

Re: myths in golf

It's not much fun when someone is constantly slicing, hooking, topping etc, and not understanding why, it can be one of the most frustrating things. I still ascertain that the way to be a better golfer is through learning sound swing principles and grooving them with good practice, then your bad shots will still be fairly good. It is very relevant what happens in the swing prior to and after impact and there (IMHO) are not many ways of doing it correctly.

Brian, as usual, I think you are dead on. There is a proper and proven way to hit the golf ball, so why re-invent the wheel? I used to try and be a “purist” when it came to hitting the golf ball – I would think about everything and this was counter-productive.

Hogan put it into perspective in Five Lessons, where he wrote (p113) “I had stopped trying to do a great many difficult things perfectly because it had become clear in my mind that this ambitious over-thoroughness was neither possibly nor advisable, or even necessary. All you needed to grove were the fundamental movements and there weren’t so many of them.”

So, now when I hit balls I have Hogan’s book with me – it slows me down and I know precisely what I want to work on. For the longest time I had trouble with my woods – after too much wasted energy I finally noticed that the problem was with the plane of my swing I adjusted it – and my problems dissipated. Without Hogan’s Five Lessons, I have no idea how long I would have gone before figuring out the problem.

James

[BrianW]

Re: myths in golf

Brian, as usual, I think you are dead on. There is a proper and proven way to hit the golf ball, so why re-invent the wheel? I used to try and be a “purist” when it came to hitting the golf ball – I would think about everything and this was counter-productive.

Hogan put it into perspective in Five Lessons, where he wrote (p113) “I had stopped trying to do a great many difficult things perfectly because it had become clear in my mind that this ambitious over-thoroughness was neither possibly nor advisable, or even necessary. All you needed to grove were the fundamental movements and there weren’t so many of them.”

So, now when I hit balls I have Hogan’s book with me – it slows me down and I know precisely what I want to work on. For the longest time I had trouble with my woods – after too much wasted energy I finally noticed that the problem was with the plane of my swing I adjusted it – and my problems dissipated. Without Hogan’s Five Lessons, I have no idea how long I would have gone before figuring out the problem.

James

James,

I have to agree. Hogan set a standard that has generally held true for all these years, he took the black art out of the golf swing. It is tue that there can be countless ways of swinging a golf club but how many of them will survive the test of time?

[BrianW]

Re: myths in golf

I mentioned Ben Hogan and his teachings. Leslie King was another, he studied the way the best golfers did it and devised his teaching method back in the 1930's, which is still taught today.

This website with his 12 lessons from his book "The perfect golf swing" it is worth a read by any new or inspiring golfer. There is also a modern book "The Swing Factory" by his successors Dave Wilkinson and Steve Gould who still teach his methods in King's London Knightsbridge golf school.

http://www.golfpro-online.com/tuition/lking/index.html

[Ian Hancock]

Re: myths in golf

Ian:

Take your back hand in the hand shake position with the wrist bent back towards the arm.

Notice how the wrist will flip flop back and forth.

In the backswing you established that and on the way down you must maintain that so the clubface does not out run the hands or power is lost.

This is upright swingers w/o any angle at the top of the backswing. They hold the angle and release at the last momment.

Now from the hand shake position turn the back of the hand towards the ground and notice the wrist is locked into place. Also notice your forearm has rotated back.

From this position notice the wrist will not break, so you can swing from the top of the backswing down with all the force you can mustard w/o ever having to worry about the wrist breaking. We throw the clubhead at the ball.

Now since the forearms have rotated back, the back of the front hand facing the sky, both palms facing each other with the back of the back hand facing the ground.

If you are rotating back to square with the hands and arms then the club is also rotating back to square.

No effort to rotate back to square it just happens. This is the angle or Hogan type swing.

But:

G-1, I have been to instructors and they told me I had to time rotation or I read a book that you must start to rotate at a certain point in the downswing.

Where did that come from?

You had upright swingers laying the hands off at the top and when they where pulling the club down in front of their bodies they then had to make a mechanical move to rotate. Swing the club upright, let the back hand fall and pull down.

What they did not know or understand is with one small adjustment there was no mechanical action was needed to rotate the club.

So you can have Holders and Throwers as I named them and the best one of the two is the one that matches a person's body type and the one that gives him the greatest ease to play and produces the best results.

There is very little effort in learning the golf swing, in The Secret of Golf many of the old instructors state this and I wanted to see what was going on in David Leadbetter's Camp and he expresses how people try to over-do just as I have stated before.

Good posture, more important than spine angle and understanding that the back of the left hand squares the clubface or the palm of the right hand squares the clubface since they are opposite of one another for the right handed golfer.

Now I am not saying to run out and play with a poor spine angle because posture will take care of that and then there are two schools of thought.

Keep the shoulders upright or allow the shoulders to relax downwards.

Cmays,

Thanks for taking the time to reply,

I have to agree with you on these points, I would suggest the 'Throwers' are two planes and 'Holder' are one planers like me.

Thanks again

Ian.

[Jeff Mann]

Re: myths in golf

Harvey Pennick states that the ball is in contact with the clubface for 1/2 of 1,000th of a second.


How far does the clubface travel during that time period?


Some simple calculations.


Presume that the clubhead is travelling at 100mph, then the distance it travels in 1 second is as follows


100x1760x3x12 = 633600 inches per hour
636000 divided by (60x60) = 1760 inches per second.

If the clubface is in contact with the ball for 1/2 of 1/000th of a second, then the clubface is moving a distance of 0.88 inches during that time period.

There is no doubt in my mind that Aaron Baddeley's clubhead is travelling in an approximately straight line during that time period.

The same applies to Tiger Woods clubhead in this video -- see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ4LzJ6eUzc


Jeff.

[BrianW]

Re: myths in golf

Thanks Geoff,

We can get a bit to technical with this discussion, I don't think anyone can be expected to make these type of micro considerations during the golf swing.

The idea that Leslie King and others suggested was more of a swing thought, "Hit the ball for a long time" "Square the face through impact" "keep the clubface down the target line". We all know that the clubface will be open before and will close after impact at some point. They found that consideration of keeping the face square through impact assisted with direction and contact, hitting through with the back of the left wrist and the palm of the right hand. I can also see that if you exaggerate this action it will have an adverse effect.

What is important is that you reach a position just past impact where your arms are extended fully and the swing reaches it's maximum velocity, was accelerating through impact and the ball is flying towards your target.

[GoNavy]

Re: myths in golf

People also forget that no one can swing in a perfect circle around the spine, due to the weight shift it is moving which make it an elliptical in shape or flatten circles if you will, so going straight with a square clubface at or before or after impact is quite possible. Guess the phyics majors need to recompute with this added movement included.

[BrianW]

Re: myths in golf

People also forget that no one can swing in a perfect circle around the spine, due to the weight shift it is moving which make it an elliptical in shape or flatten circles if you will, so going straight with a square clubface at or before or after impact is quite possible. Guess the phyics majors need to recompute with this added movement included.

Hi GoNavy,

Yes, that's correct, the swingpath is a number of attached tangent ellipses. Ben Hogan has a nice drawing of them in his book "The Five Lessons", it shows a more circular path in the backswing and a much more compact but elongated path in the downswing, the flattest part is at the bottom of the swing through impact.

[Ian Hancock]

Re: myths in golf

Guys there is one thing for sure about this thread.

92 views

91 replies


Sure makes you want to add to the discussion.


So now it is as clear as mud, it's been good to be involved.

sorry 94 views now

93 replies

and counting


Ian.

[bill reed]

Re: myths in golf

hi gonavy
lee trevino manages to have his club face square before and after but he did this by his hips sliding to left and not turning till after he hit the ball and also his arms swung away from his body in an in to out and not around, so he pushed his shots but aimed so far left he still pushed the ball left of his target and let it fade back.
he would set up say 45% left with his hips and shoulders and aim his club face 10% left to turn the ball say 10 feet in the air, he would ajust the fade by ajusting where the club face aimed.
cant think of another golfer that had had his club face come into the ball square for so long, not only into ball but after too.
trevino was good at hitting a draw too.
bill

[Teevino]

Re: myths in golf

"Guys, what about open square and closed square?"

What about just blow my mind one more time cmays.. Just kidding.. I think..
Whew, and all this time I thought square was square..

[takinitdeep]

Re: myths in golf

Ian:
What does this mean?
You now have it and as Leadbetter would say, do not listen to Jim Hardy, the swings have been around long before him.

You are in a wagon wheel, the hub cetner portion and the wheel is standing up, your front arm is a spoke allowing the hand to trace the inside of the wheel. Your arm would travel upwards tracing the inside of the wheel up to waist high, the club would be parallel to the gound and the hands are lifted up to continue to trace the wheel bringing the club up to a 90 degree angle. The upright swing. Two plane because one was going bact to waist high and then you had to left the club up to get it to 90 degrees. The front wrist must be cocked to come up. If the butt end of the club comes up in front of you it travels back down in front of you.

Lay the wheel at a 45 degree angle and your arm and hand moves around the wheel. The angle swing. No lifting, one plane and you just swing around the wheel. The front wrist is coming back in a natural position of the hand. If the butt end of the club travels around you, it travels back around you on the way down.

***Then there are instructors that teach you to come up to waist high in the backswing and from there, set your plane. Allow your hands to come back on the angle path and it is the same as laying them off at the top and you swing back down versus around in the downswing. Raymond Floy swings upright and lays the hands off in the backswing.*** Hank Haney and Tiger woods.

King was teaching the upright, Hogan was teaching the angle, moving the left arm inward along the wheel that was at a 45 degree angle.

Somewhere rotation and nonrotation got mixed in with the clubface being squared which is a different subject.

Throw a little wrench into it. Guys, what about open square and closed square?

What are you saying?

[BrianW]

Re: myths in golf

The ball is in contact with the clubface for 1/2 of 1/1000th of a second.

In fact, the video quotes Harvey as saying that impact itself is best forgotten.

So, all we are trying to achieve in trying to hit the ball "rifle" straight along our intended target line is returning the clubface square to the target line at the point of impact, along an in to in swing path.

Hmmm! I have been thinking about this fact. Now if that holds true what would be the possibilities of achieving square contact at the exact position where the clubface connects the ball during this minute time frame? 1 in 100 / 1000 / 10000 ? Bearing in mind the clubface is coming down through an unhinging set of joints on a 6 foot elliptical radius that is rotating around a flexible sliding axis at 100 mph, when you take into account the lag of the shaft through this zone as well, it becomes difficult to contemplate it would be effective unless these things happened through a straight line.

Sorry, another spanner

[bill reed]

Re: myths in golf

hi
also the bend of the shaft (lag) can also open the face a little and how do you control how much bend you put on the shaft on your down swing, there are so many things that happen in 1/100 of a second i find it hard that some of you think you can control it with your wrists ( aj bonner). the longer you can keep the club head on plane the more chance you have and i think that a tall guy with a more upright swing does this more than a short guy with a flat swing, but if the short guy uses his hips just before impact the short guy can make the impact zone longer as he is comming into the ball flatter than a talls guys steeper aproch.
bill

[GoNavy]

Re: myths in golf

hi
also the bend of the shaft (lag) can also open the face a little and how do you control how much bend you put on the shaft on your down swing, there are so many things that happen in 1/100 of a second i find it hard that some of you think you can control it with your wrists ( aj bonner). the longer you can keep the club head on plane the more chance you have and i think that a tall guy with a more upright swing does this more than a short guy with a flat swing, but if the short guy uses his hips just before impact the short guy can make the impact zone longer as he is comming into the ball flatter than a talls guys steeper aproch.
bill

Well there you go, here is another myth, the club shaft doesn't bend back, it bend forward. Look at some fast motion still of the swing, the shaft will be loaded forward, in other words the clubhead will be ahead of the shaft at impact. I had an old thread on this that explains it little better, I copied and pasted it below.

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Since this can be very confusing, I added some basic drawings to better convey what I'm talking about. Notice how MORE flex will add MORE loft. This is greatly affected by swing speed. Release the club to early and you get the top picture, you loose the load on the shaft. This changes your loft, you loose power, less backspin allows more side spin (hooks/slices) and reduces trajectory. Hope this helps
Attached Thumbnails http://www.golf-tuition-online.com/a...1&d=1143220293

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here is the thread it was in http://www.golf-tuition-online.com/c...iff-shaft.html