The late hit??

[Rackster]

Quite often we hear about the "late hit", i.e delaying the release of the wrists or hands.

Been for a practice tonight. I have been playing OK recently but my ball striking has suffered in recent weeks- pull shots and plenty of heavy shots.

Anyway I was doing Blair release drill (see below link)

http://http://www.golfinternationalm...vid_blair1.htm

Anyhow, i noticed when I was doing the drill I was still hitting it inconsistent and heavy (even on such a short swing- the basic wrist hinge). I asked myself why was this? What I felt was that my right hand was becoming too dominant, especially crossing over the left hand. What I did using the drill was to feel the right hand working more under the left hand during the release. i started getting a good square hit, a good contact and the fat strike had gone. This I was bale to transfer to my full swing.

I know Nick Bradley also recomends such a release, what he calls the puck release. Some may confuse this with scooping, but if you keep the body turning correctly, there should be no scoop.

The basis of this thread- don't over hold your release, let the club head flow.

[Martin Levac]

Re: The late hit??

The faster we accelerate the hands through impact, the faster the club releases from its position. It's a function of geometry and the forces acting on the club. In effect, there can't be a late hit, whatever that means. Even when we resist releasing the club from its position, it takes so much strength that it makes little difference in the end. The club will release anyway. And trying to force the club to release won't do much anyway because the force we use to do that can't be used to accelerate the hands through impact. It's either or. Best to use all the force to accelerate the hands since the club will release anyway however fast we accelerate the hands.

What makes a difference is to wait for the club to catch up. Or slow down the hands to allow the club to catch up. Or flip the hands over at impact.

For a long time, I thought that I had to flip my hands over at impact. I was wrong. In fact, I had to strike the ball first, then allow the hands to flip over. When the hands flip over, the club also passes the hands. When I want to get my hands in front of the club at impact, trying to flip them over will produce a contradiction in intent. I can't intend to get my hands in front of the club at impact AND flip my hands over at impact. But I can get my hands in front of the club at impact and flip my hands over AFTER impact. That, I can do quite well thank you.

I thought that flipping my hands over would somehow allow the club to speed up faster than otherwise and send the ball farther than otherwise. I thought I'd produce more power. I was wrong. The club somehow slows down and the loft increases. It was like switching to a shorter club in mid swing.

[BrianW]

Re: The late hit??

You will increase the power of the shot if the clubface approaches the ball open and turns to closed as it passes impact, it needs to be square at the point of impact. Depending on the club you are using your hands will need to be leading the clubface by a different amount to enable the clubface to be delofted enough to allow solid contact on the sweetspot. If this is executed correctly the hands will be in the appropriate position as the wrists rotate.

Nick Bradley does promote the hockey stick "Puck Release" This uses more of a flipping action to add speed through impact which can be effective as long as the correct delofting has taken place, otherwise all the ills of wrist swatting will happen.

[Martin Levac]

Re: The late hit??

I thought that too but I changed my mind.

Merely twisting the clubhead doesn't produce power in itself. There must be some leverage somewhere. Since the clubhead is basically twisting around its center of gravity, for acceleration to take place where the ball is struck on the clubface, the ball must be struck outside the clubhead's center of gravity. Even if there is a substantial amount of force being produced that way, since the ball is truck outside the clubhead's center of gravity, not all of the power generated will be transmitted to the ball. In effect, some of this energy will be used to twist the clubhead back and won't be used to propel the ball.

If the ball is struck right on the center of gravity (the sweet spot), no amount of twisting will produce additional power whatsoever. What can happen, on the other hand, is that the motion of the clubhead affect the trajectory of the ball as it is struck and whatever we expected will be modified accordingly. This can easily be seen when a ball is struck off-center and the clubhead twists under the impact forces and subsequently affects impact and the ball and the ball's trajectory. This is called the gear effect and today's drivers take advantage of this to correct off-center hits.

[ubizmo]

Re: The late hit??

The rotation of the wrists--opening and closing of the club face--is an anatomically inevitable side-effect of hinging and unhinging, i.e., changing the angle between the club shaft and the leading forearm. It is the unhinging that transfers angular momentum from the arm-chest "triangle" to the club very quickly, ultimately transferring it to the ball's linear momentum.

If the human arm and wrist were jointed in such a way, like a trebuchet, to allow the same degree of hinging without any rotation, the difference in power would be too small to measure. The "late hit" just refers to "release" in the impact zone. "Release" just refers to the sudden transfer of angular momentum, which we experience as the club "whipping" through impact. Interestingly, because of this transfer of angular momentum, the hands actually go slower at impact than they were going before impact, because they are losing the angular momentum that the club head is gaining.

Proof: Set up a club next to a ball on the ground with the club face as open as you like. Now, as quickly as you can, rotate the club head using your forearms, but without swinging the club forward. Just rotate it in place, so it goes from / to \. Strike the ball this way. How far does it go? Six inches? A foot? That's how much distance opening and closing the club face, in itself, adds to your golf shot. That little bit of extra motion of the club head is trivial. The power comes from the sudden change in the angle between leading forearm and club shaft, and instant before impact.

[bill reed]

Re: The late hit??

hi
is it a late hit or is it that both arms don't fully extent till after the ball is well on it way. like hogan said, his arms don't fully extend till the club head passes his left ankle and by the the balls well on its way.
if you turn your hips at address to face the target like when your in the impact zone and then extend your arms you will see the the clubhead is a few inches ahead of the ball and if you start to think of this as the impact zone and not the ball that is a few inches behind then i think you will get that late hit feeling and also feel you hit through the ball cleaner too.
bill

[BrianW]

Re: The late hit??

The rotation of the wrists--opening and closing of the club face--is an anatomically inevitable side-effect of hinging and unhinging, i.e., changing the angle between the club shaft and the leading forearm. It is the unhinging that transfers angular momentum from the arm-chest "triangle" to the club very quickly, ultimately transferring it to the ball's linear momentum.

If the human arm and wrist were jointed in such a way, like a trebuchet, to allow the same degree of hinging without any rotation, the difference in power would be too small to measure. The "late hit" just refers to "release" in the impact zone. "Release" just refers to the sudden transfer of angular momentum, which we experience as the club "whipping" through impact. Interestingly, because of this transfer of angular momentum, the hands actually go slower at impact than they were going before impact, because they are losing the angular momentum that the club head is gaining.

Proof: Set up a club next to a ball on the ground with the club face as open as you like. Now, as quickly as you can, rotate the club head using your forearms, but without swinging the club forward. Just rotate it in place, so it goes from / to . Strike the ball this way. How far does it go? Six inches? A foot? That's how much distance opening and closing the club face, in itself, adds to your golf shot. That little bit of extra motion of the club head is trivial. The power comes from the sudden change in the angle between leading forearm and club shaft, and instant before impact.

Tod,

Why did Hogan supinate his left wrist through impact, See in his book "5 Lessons" page 102 and his images of the swing on pages 106/107.

You are correct in that rotation of the wrists happens naturally through hinging and unhinging, many golfers don't do this though and cast the club with big power losses. One thing I do know is that if I physically speed the rotation of the clubface through increasing my wrist rotation, coupled with good swing speed I can hit the ball very far, If I don't then the ball flight is reduced. Try a high flying, soft landing lob shot with deliberate club rotation, it does not work, you need to keep your hands dead for these shots.

[bill reed]

Re: The late hit??

hi
in the Byron iron and the ping man the two robotic swing machine's both have free hinged wrists and the golf club makes them turn, when they tried to motor drive the wrists they found the distance hit was so much shorter and was also unnatural.
i don't think you can make the wrists turn and control it as it all happens so fast and by the time you think about it the moments past but i do think the mind can control your wrists but more as as part of the overall swing, like per-programing it into you thoughts.
i remember they asked golfers if the saw the ball being hit by the club and almost 78% said they did but research said the club traveled to fast and the brain took snapshots of what happened as the eyes only sent messages at 12000th of a second and the brain filled in the missing parts and gave the impressions of seeing the club hit the ball. i think the same brain thing happens with turning your wrists to get the home run, its pre-programed and the body reacts to it. i think thats why following the same setup to the ball helps you swing.
bill

[BrianW]

Re: The late hit??

hi
in the Byron iron and the ping man the two robotic swing machine's both have free hinged wrists and the golf club makes them turn, when they tried to motor drive the wrists they found the distance hit was so much shorter and was also unnatural.
i don't think you can make the wrists turn and control it as it all happens so fast and by the time you think about it the moments past but i do think the mind can control your wrists but more as as part of the overall swing, like per-programing it into you thoughts.
i remember they asked golfers if the saw the ball being hit by the club and almost 78% said they did but research said the club traveled to fast and the brain took snapshots of what happened as the eyes only sent messages at 12000th of a second and the brain filled in the missing parts and gave the impressions of seeing the club hit the ball. i think the same brain thing happens with turning your wrists to get the home run, its pre-programed and the body reacts to it. i think thats why following the same setup to the ball helps you swing.
bill

Bill,

Sorry but I disagree, I know I can manipulate my wrists through impact with a full swing. It's not something that I do in a millisecond at impact, it starts much earlier when the club has returned to the start of the release and my hands are by my right thigh and continues through past impact.

When I am at this release position my right hand starts powering the club such that my right hand pronates and my left supinates through impact. This way I can hit a powerful drive or iron shot without having to resort to lunging or swinging my arms out of control, was Hogan wrong here?

I have tried the idea of just letting it happen by the use of COAM but to me this produces erratic results. I like to practice hitting balls one handed, it really emphasises the release and rotation of the wrists. This attached video shows it nicely.

[bill reed]

Re: The late hit??

hi Brian
i still think hogans right in saying the only part the hands play in the swing is holding onto the grip.
bill

[BrianW]

Re: The late hit??

hi Brian
i still think hogans right in saying the only part the hands play in the swing is holding onto the grip.
bill

Bill,

He says a lot more than that about the hands

[bill reed]

Re: The late hit??

hi Brian
page 93
what do the hands do? the answer is the do nothing active
for the novice or average golfer is to keep any conscious hand action out of the swing, the correct swing is founded on chain actions, and if you use the hands when you shouldent, you prevent this chain reaction.
bill

[BrianW]

Re: The late hit??

hi Brian
page 93
what do the hands do? the answer is the do nothing active
for the novice or average golfer is to keep any conscious hand action out of the swing, the correct swing is founded on chain actions, and if you use the hands when you shouldn't, you prevent this chain reaction.
bill

Bill,

That quote is out of context. On page 93 he is talking about how to inaugorate the downswing from the top and suggests this should be started by the unwinding of the hips not by by the hands.

I am talking about the release through impact here and Hogan explains through pages 96 to 108 how that should happen, much of it is to do with the use of the hands.

[bill reed]

Re: The late hit??

hi Brian
in the book the secrets of hogans swing he does say "i rolled the face of the club open and away from the ball... and the faster i could rotate it the more distance i got, this is the key to why a 5 foot 7, 135-pound man could hit his persimmon driver 300yds when he wanted too. he then goes on to show how he twists the clubhead with his weak grip to open the clubface more to the sky when swing back to waist level but its all done on the backswing to get him to where he wants to be on the downswing, no working of his wrists to open and close the face he lets the swing do that and the hips control the swing.
and in his 5 fundamentals he does state thats the set up is so important in setting you up for the impact zone and thats whats he on about on page 93 through to 108.
i tried to put a clip of tiger on showing him hitting the driver and the ball compression and the clubface going through impact for at least an inch and there was no rotation as the club came into the ball and at least an inch past the ball, the clip was from the buck open but i cant seem to get it to load on here.
bill

[bill reed]

Re: The late hit??

hi
i think with Hogan he sets you up with the fundamentals to get you to get the club face to make contact with the ball square and on the sweet spot. but with 3sk i think it started with the impact and the square clubface at impact and works back.
both i think try and get the same results but do it in different way to get the same results.
bill