More on the left leg / knee

[oldwease]

My question here is about poeple's views on the specifics of the left knee action through impact.

At normal address, the left knee typically aligns quite happily with the inside of the left foot. Nothing strange there. I've just been hitting a few balls on the driving range basically making sure that the knee held that position through impact, ie keeping it basically in position over the inside of the left foot. (Prior to that, I would tend to let the left knee move slightly more over the foot as the hips rotated - nothing huge, but different.) Obviously, holding the knee more in position discourages any undue lateral hip shift which is a good thing. I also felt this gave me some really noticeable solidity going into the ball and did nothing to inhibit the clearing of the hips.

Anyone got any views?

[bdbl]

Re: More on the left leg / knee

I swither on this.

Sometimes I'm with you on holding the position, at other times I do the Tommy Armour "move left knee to behind ball" ( I summarise & paraphrase).

On balance the latter - especially because I play with one guy who says its "old fashioned" and seems to get upset by the move - which amuses me.

[BrianW]

Re: More on the left leg / knee

I am a bit confused regarding lateral knee movement, the knee cannot move in a lateral direction (Can it?) You can get the illusion of it moving laterally but only by rolling onto the inside or outside of the foot or swiveling the hips. If you plant your feet firmly it will hold the knee rigid.

[oldwease]

Re: More on the left leg / knee

Of course the knee can move laterally, Brian. Try standing with your feet slightly apart and move the hips sideways. Guess which way the knees move.

I guess to make it a bit easier, the question is to what extent you may want to rotate the knee & upper leg as the hips rotate. This will obviously affect weight transfer to some degree.

[BrianW]

Re: More on the left leg / knee

Stand upright with straight legs, now try to move your knees out or in without rolling your feet. Now flex your knees and try to move your knees sideways without rotating your hips or rolling your feet. When you stand with your feet apart and move your hips sideways it's the ankles that flex.

Wish I had not started this now

[takinitdeep]

Re: More on the left leg / knee

Moderate knee flex: the knees directly over the shoe laces-not over toes, that would be excessive knee flex.
Try hitting balls with no left knee action-not good results
The left knee serves a few purposes in the swing:
1. by flexing as a result of the left foot rolling on the backswing
2. it helps lower the left shoulder under the chin on backswing
3. it acts as a weight transfer device
4. it acts a a stabilizer at impact and beyond as the right knee comes closer to touching the left knee at followthrough
Watch Hogan, Jones, Snead, Jack, Gene, Billy C., Trevino, and most old timers, they relied on the left knee to get them the pivot on the backswing and all of the above points I mentioned.
Even stack and tilt depends on good left knee action.
If you prevent the left knee from doing what is natural to it, you have taken a key element out of your swing and will have to compensate with something else.

[oldwease]

Re: More on the left leg / knee

Thanks takinitdeep. I agree entirely with your points through the general swing. My question is really only through impact.

So, the leg / knee obviously moves with the backswing and returns with the downswing. At impact, though, do you allow the left knee to continue to roll over the left foot as the hips turn or do you basically retain the knee more at the inside of the left foot?

I guess some of this is 'try it and see'. I'm not too sure why I started to focus on this but I just noticed hitting some balls that I was bascially rolling (rotating really) the left kness slightly less than I had been. So, whereas before I would rotate the knee with the hips subconsciously (the knee would probably be right over the foot at impact, then) I just slowed the rotation down a bit. This very slight change actually made the hitting zone (or, some might say, the left side) feel more solid. Ball striking was good (or I wouldn't have raised th issue!).