Ok . . . to summarize . . . Right Elbow can ACTIVELY straighten via triceps . . . Right Elbow can PASSIVELY be straightened by CF . . . and 3RD . . . Right Elbow/Arm can ACTIVELY “resist the outward force of CF”
I got the first two options but foggy on the 3rd . . . so I’d like to flesh that out if that’s cool with you . . . .I like Homer am a chop (maybe not as much of a chop as he was but relatively speaking a chop . . . so I’ll defer to your expertise 100%) . . .
There are a few questions I have about the resisting and how it is done via the right arm . . .
So this is the world I live in . . . . feel free to drop an atom bomb upon it . . . . release sequence is 4-1-2-3 for us book nerds . . . so if the right arm doesn’t straighten do you still release #2 and #3 in the same fashion Homer described (Sequenced swingy . . . Simultaneous hitty) . . .or does the 3rd option for the right arm resisting change all that? I know there are numerous pics of Hogan with lots of right arm left after the ball is gone AND he looks “throwy” sometimes . . . is that a piece of this right arm deal?
Another question I’d like to clear up is “full lever extension” . . . which would be fully uncocking the left wrist after the ball is gone . . . do you think that is a bogus deal?
I agree with the post impact stuff 100% . . . now I’m not sure I’d say Homer didn’t know post impact but he for sure didn’t stress it other than back up and in . . . . you look some of the cats with “vaunted” tgm actions . . . they may exit at the ear hole . . . I LOVE THE HOGAN exit DTL body hiding club can’t see no butt cap . . . beautiful slashy free wheeling abandon but still under complete command by Mr. Hogan . . .
For quick clarity here in ABS… P2 is the top of the backswing, P3 the shaft parallel to the ground just prior to impact, P4 shaft parallel after impact, and PV5 is where the shaft would be vertical to the ground before finish swivel. P-vertical-5
Ok… do this…
Tomorrow, go hit a few balls with the right arm only, and maintain roughly 120 degree angle from P3 to P4 with the right elbow pinned on the body and the shoulders rotating as level or flat as possible. If you do this correctly, you will feel a lot of force on that elbow. It will want to straighten… BUT DON’T LET IT!!!
The club wants to move out and away from the body… but this is where opposing forces begins. The resistance here felt in the hands and the right elbow, and at higher speeds even into the right shoulder and into the torso can put tremendous pressure into the hands which a good player will interpret as feel. A good striker can use this feel to do a number of things to shape the ball in lot’s of ways with excellent control that is very ACTIVE and INVOLVED, not passive, hoping, and trusting.
Ben Doyle use to tell me not to steer it… but I realized I like to steer it… right into the target. Of course you have to learn how to steer. Totally let go of the wheel and trust it…? You do that… not me…
Will do and report back! Thanks! The way my right arm works currently . . . probably gonna be tough . . . I took a bottle . . or a case of Doyle pills via the video . . . shaft under and then slings out to the right . . . would likely make you wanna puke in your mouth a lil’ bit.
Quick question . . . where do you want the left arm at P2.5ish? Is it on the stance line or in?
Did this exercise . . . . FREAKIN’ AWESOME . . . at first couldn’t make it happen big face pulls but once I started working my pivot HARD . . . ball was jumping off the face . . .
Did some little half shots with an old blade 9 iron with both hands on . . . . feeling like the arms were really “packed in” as you say . . . . . ripping thru the ball . . . felt like I was trying to tumble an impact bag over in different ways and was really able to hit all kinds of different shots . . . . very different deal for me than the hands out club under and shoot everything off my body . . . I felt like I had a BUNCH OF TRANSFER . . . much different than my typical move which is ALL #2 and NO #3 . . .
I’m sold . . . but need to dig more into y’all’s stuff . . . like some folks say “you can’t tell shhhhhh . . . with a 9 iron” . . . gotta hit some drivers etc.
Sure, because this is what so many great strikers do. Homer failed to catalog this action from everything I have seen in TGM.
Homer’s objective was to cover “all possible swings” with 24 components and 144 variations or whatever the number. A trillion swings all geometrically correct… but where is the frozen right arm “pull against” CF? It’s only what Hogan did, but not good enough for Homer to catalog? Really? What else did he miss?
The stationary head I don’t believe it is essential. All great players heads move down. I don’t think Mac O’ Grady’s head moves down enough. I am glad to hear he has opened up to it moving some. I think there should have been component variations for head movement in TGM and it clearly should be scrapped as anything close to essential.
FLW is another potential swing cancer if you are trying to “force it” void of a post impact accelerating pivot. At best FLW is a vapor trail observational “effect” of a proper golf swing or hit… not in and of itself. Strapping a board to the wrist is golf swing suicide. Good players have a FLW at impact for the most part… because they are doing other things right.
A lot of people who have been trying to find TGM are hitting a brick wall as they get into lower digits, because the only really good component combination is the TGM swinging 4 barrel combo that many have used… but the hitting version is simply garbage.
If you listen, and everyone here should listen to the Sam Randolph interview I recently posted. Sam talks about how the golf swing must be felt in circles and arcs, not straight lines.
Doyle taught me to fire the left knee through impact, but he didn’t tell me how to leverage pressure from the right foot, nor did he explain to me how to create the proper cohesive body tension that would lead toward a real light bulb moment about true internal connection. He would say swing “gutty” but never showed me how to do it. I think he knew there was something there… but didn’t really understand how to get that across to students correctly. He talked about squeezing water out of the ground at transition which was good… but didn’t tell you how to apply proper ground pressures so that you could leverage the pivot post impact with a good dose of force. So what happened is you had all these delayed hip snappers that looked good in a graph check sequence, but everyone was spraying the ball all over the lot because they were losing pressure in the right foot, and they were losing ball compression because they had no way of holding shaft flex with a flailing unsupported pivot and dead hinging hands.
In retrospect looking at TGM, I think Homer really did an amazing job with Chapter 2. That was his big contribution to golf.
He got most all of that right in my opinion. The physics of impact, holding shaft flex being the superior method for deepening ball compression for both the ball and the player’s feel. But he missed a few really big things… and I think people need to know this before they commit to Homer’s Yellow Book Road…
Obviously for Homer the flat left wrist was the holiest of G.O.L.F. holies . . . but I think some people misinterpret the concept . . . certainly not saying you do at all . . . When people axe me what a flat left wrist is this is what I tell 'em . . . as far as what the “brass” types say it is . . . so I could be completely wrong on this . . . This has been a big deal to me so if it is a busted concept I’d like to know . . .
If you look at the flail diagram in 2-K there are 4 points of “articulation” for lack of a better word. The premise of the book is that the body is to be THOUGHT OF as a “machine” . . . obviously this is a simplification because as you have said the body is a complex deal . . . I don’t think he would say the body is really a golfing machine but the concept of thinking it was in your mind may simplify what he thought were the “appropriate” movement patterns. But to your point in the low point thread . . . that may have it’s limitations . . . but again the flat left wrist and its rhythm with regards to the left arm flying wedge were a big deal to him . . . so I need to be sure that I’m not operating under a faulty premise . . so please feel free to detonate this . . .
So the 3 points of articulation are “2 door hinges” (and another conceptual hinge that lays it all on the plane) and a “swivel joint” in the “golfer’s fail” in 2-K . . .
Hinge 1 - would be at the left shoulder and be mounted to the “associated” plane (vertical, horizontal or angled) and thus impart the “hinge motion” of the associated plane (closing only, closing and laying back, and lay back only)
Swivel Joint - that would be like one of them lazy susan type dealies in the left forearm that would represent the movement of the radial and vulva bone or whatever that other one in the forearm is called???
Hinge 2 - the door hinge at the left wrist that only allows motion of the shaft vertical to the left arm . . . like hammering . . . so regardless of grip type the flat left wrist and this here hinge apparatus on the left wrist works like hammering . . . so if you got a turned left hand it there would be cocking and bending to keep the shaft in the plane of the left arm . .
I don’t know if you part ways with the second hinge or not . . . . but according to homer that’s what keeps everything in line . . . the vertical motion . . . so with “real” hammering you’re hammering in a vertical plane . . . but with golf you’re hammering on an inclined plane . . . so according to him it’s the same motion with regards to the left arm . . . it’s just being swiveled around with the forearm (lazy susan joint . . . left forearm rotation) and the shoulder turn . . .
I not sure if you’d part ways with this ether . . .but I think is hinge at the left wrist would be “well lubed” (oh boy) and not ‘rusty’ so it “flies freely” . . . .
So I tell people if you wanna know what a flat left wrist is hammer the ground in a vertical plane . . . then do it on an “angled” plane . . . . to get “golf hammering”
Is that a bogus deal? If it is please light it on fire and blow it up cuz I need to know if I need to re-think the flat left wrist.
Bucket that is ulna not vulva. Remember I taught you all about the vulva bone that is just above the G spot. Remember the come hither motion. Nothing to do with on plane hammering.
The FLW is a vapor trail effect, just like white vapor out the back on a jet in the sky. You could say… for a jet to fly, there must be white vapor coming from the tail of the plane. This must be true because all jets in the sky possess this quality.
The fact is… the vapor is not why the plane is flying, simply a by product. In the case of the golf swing, if the pivot is accelerating post impact,
this then means that the arms attached to it are accelerating, therefore the hands, club and so forth. This simply manifests into a FLW visual when properly executed. Now if you are going to force the FLW without the dynamics behind it… push the arms forward, disconnecting the arms from the body with a bunch of forward shaft lean as many are wrongly teaching in TGM, then that is the equivalent of dumping garbage bags of while chalk dusk out the back of the airplane, thinking, that if the white dusk is there, the plane will stay in the air without a motor.
You do that… not me…
In the flail diagram… is that a passive hinge or is it a hinged motor? Since both arms are on the club, then one wedge will affect the other. If we look at the right arm flying wedge… driving the bent right wrist (Flat Left) through impact) that is all fine, but I don’t see Homer mandating that this be in UNISON WITH FOREARM ROTATION. Is it forced into the ground with a deep divot, or pinned in place by the forces of torso rotation? BIG DIFFERENCE
Again, we have to know if these are passive hinge actions, or motorized by active hand and forearm rotation… two completely differing protocols.
I understand Homer’s take on this… that the wrists either uncock, then rotate for swingers, or work in unison for hitters. But Homer is still looking at this in terms of the swing plane being in 2D. For anything resembling a full shot, the swing plane must be viewed in 3D. This is why when you look at all the great strikers, their shafts point way above the ball from P2 to P3, and appear laid off, because they have added extra forearm rotation which takes the swing plane into 3D. What you need to do is pressure a 3D swing plane into a 2D swing plane from P3 to P4. This is how you crush the golf ball with real compression, better to thing of smashing a 3D apple into a 2D wafer.
This is good stuff, but not at impact… you want the oily wrists for transition through P2, so you can load your angles or create a range of motion that will allow an active strike of the hands and forearms… so essentially then you fire the rockets.
This is not a good image, because it is void of forearm rotation. It only covers half of what you have to do.
There are no bogus ideas… just clearing things up here… TGM loves to talk about the hands… and yes, the hands are very important. The hands
are sensitive like the concert conductor at transition… like a boxer at P3, and like welded or frozen joints at P4. But this entire action is being driven in an arc around the body by the body in unison.
Another fallacy is the whole hand controlled pivot or pivot controlled hands debate. Paul Smith suggests that if you simply move the hands, the body will follow. Ok… that’s fine, but talk about total lack of connection of cohesive body tension. Is the body relaxed like jello doing this? Or stiff as lumber?
What are you building your house out of?
For good ball strikers, any movement of the golf club needs to be initiated by an inner motivation. Otherwise, you are not going to be a very good player. If you don’t get this… your done. If you believe in a hand controlled pivot… let’s go play golf, and bring your checking account routing number.
Though the motivation MUST be inner, it must also be tightly connected, so much that it is not visible to a passive observer. Listen to great strikers like Sam Snead, and read between the lines…
In Sam’s clip at the end of the match with Hogan when he is giving his swing tip…
“You need a nice firm body for a nice firm shot”
I can assure you he is not talking about the latest Jane Fonda workout video.
Cool . . . . so basically an “alignment” produced by proper application of physics . . . . works for me . . .
So I’m not up to speed on what’s in all the modules . . . but sounds like you are training the ENTIRE machine no? So you get to the 4:30 position/alignment and then you learn to move the pivot AND the hands/forearms . . . say you got a cat with “uneducated” hands . . . do you teach him what the correct movements are in isolation with regards to hands or give him the full set of dynamics. As you say the TGM ilk is gonna give a cat “basic” motion . . . if I try to help my buddies doing some 2ft back 2ft thru stuff . . . good chance I’m gonna meet my deductible on the dental plan. I was the poster boy for the chalk dust stuff you speak of . . . I have really nice looking alignments in the power package . . . no throwaway . . . FLW BRW . . .tons of lean . . . freakin’ balls going everywhere . . .
So from the 4:30 point you are looking for the “transfer” via forearm rotation . . . are you also “non-automatically” doing the uncocking or resisting or something else?
I assume this “do this” experiment is to get the feeling of how the “frozen right arm” in the full swing feels when you prevent it from fully straightening due to CF. I realize you wanted 12PB to feel the resistance forces in the hands and right elbow, and right shoulder, but can you expand more on the “frozen right arm”? I’d like to know to what degree (extent or amount) the right arm is kept from straightening…and how you determine how much is too much or too little. Also, how this interrelates with the pivot drive pulling the arms/hands/club out-of-orbit.
Also, do you have any measurement data (e.g. clubhead speed, ball compression factor, etc.) that compares a down-out movement with arms releasing from body and a full [ulnar deviation] uncocking with horizontal roll vs. a “frozen right arm” that never fully extends and a hard pivot that pulls the arms/hands/club left with a left wrist that never fully uncocks and vertically hinges in post impact. (Did I get all that right?)
I am very amused by this method difference of clubhead action in post-impact. And I wonder if there is any limiting factors that may prevent a healthy golfer from accomplishing having the pivot to pull the club left.
I know that when my pivot drive and arms move the club left or inside to 11 o’clock, preventing the club from moving outward to 1:00 o’clock, the sound of ball compression is much different (like a bullet ricocheting) and I often see golf ball “fuzz” on my clubface - indicating either a flush hit or major ball compression, or both.
There is a lot in all the modules… similar to learning the piano… you have to train extensively both sides how to play, and also connected and in unison. Same with the golf swing.
I don’t look at the golf swing as being educated hands… I look at it as an “educated experience”
It’s not just this or that… things need to work together. Pivot and hands. The arms don’t do much in the golf swing.
Just spokes really. The right elbow folds and adds support, but is very overrated as a power source. It basically handles
the slight “plane shifting” and then plays more of a structural role in resisting the post impact outward throw to keep the shaft on plane, limit excessive clubface rotation and stabilize lowpoint. I completely disagree with how Doyle, Lynn Blake and any of the instructors from that embryo promote right arm participation. It’s only good if you want to make sure the left side of the golf course will be part of your visiting experience. I think Gregg McHatton has also departed from that teaching method from our recent discussion. I was glad to hear that when we communicated earlier this year.
This is probably why I am teaching golf. I hope at some point the word gets out to TGMers’ that their Holy Grail has a few cracks in it, and needs some clarification, and a bit of real world sensibility. I am very disappointed in the dogmatic direction that TGM has taken over the years… away from science and into religion. Some of the teachers sound like Sunday morning evangilists who condemn anyone who does not take the whole thing on faith alone. I don’t think Homer would have liked that at all.
To his credit, he did a very thorough job considering he was not a player. He got close on a lot of things. He missed some very key things, and completely dropped the ball on the third and most important right arm variation. Had Clampett not come along with his early success, TGM would not be where it is today. Mac of course saw the flaws and had to cut ties with it.
I had success also but in all honesty, it had a lot to do with my ability to master a safe bailout, and a very good short game.
I could always block my driver way right, so if there was room over there, that is where I would go. I learned how to put the driver on a stub of grass and basically play it off the ground, aim down the left side, and go against everything Ben taught me, and I would “HIT” at it … and that would produce this low cut that I could somewhat control under pressure.
It wasn’t always pretty, but I could get it in play most of the time if right was not a bail possibility. When you get nervous, your grip pressure and wrists tighten, so of course that interferes with CF doing it’s thing to passively square up the clubface with the dual horizontal hinge action. So what that does is send the ball right.
I remember having coach Watney tell me I had a two shot lead going into the 18th at the Tropicanna Golf Club in Las Vegas to win the Big West Championship individually. I just needed a bogey to win. There were white stakes left, and a row of pine trees down the right with the 10th fairway over those trees. So being smart, and knowing I was nervous, and my tight wrists were going to send the ball right… I teed it up a bit higher than normal so I could get the ball up and over the treeline, and took a good rip at it and blocked it right into the middle of #10 fairway. I then hit a 7 iron up an over the trees back toward the green, basically laying up short, and hit a nice little chip up for a kick in par and the victory.
What I didn’t do was try and make a good swing… or put it on the ground and leak it into the right trees. I bailed big time which was smart for the TGM procedure I had going. But when I got on tour, I knew that kind of stuff was not going to cut it. I had to learn to hit the ball where I wanted to all the time, especially under pressure. So I had to figure some things out… and I had to leave TGM because I didn’t want to swing that way. I knew the TGM version of driving the right arm was garbage, and of course that is why Doyle and McHatton didn’t teach it either… I mean not for real full golf swings.
Doyle used to love to criticize all these great players, and suggest they were good only because they had “educated hands”
I used to think… well I want those kind of hands too, so I can have a crap swing and win the US Open or the Masters.
I’ve been called “The Judas” of TGM, but I really think people should know… because there are a lot of very passionate serious golfers who really are seeking truth… and are dedicated, and want to meet their personal potential… and there are simply better fundamentals out there to learn and follow than what TGM has typically to offer. You have instructors who can’t play themselves and they are handing out degrees to 15 handicaps. It’s deplorable. Even Ben could play a bit. I remember Ben shooting 74 at Cypress Point one day. That’s good golf. McHatton can play too… but some of these guys with diplomas…
Mandrin suggested about 80 to 100 pounds of force pulling away from us post impact. I think that seems about right. I don’t need a machine to measure it exactly… I know what 100 pounds feels like.
What you need to do is make up your mind. Am I going to pull against this, or dump and roll? Hit or swing? Then work your protocols around that.
It’s not black and white… you can pull a little bit… a bit more or a ton.
It’s an intention either way. Know your intentions, and why you are doing it. Then work toward efficiency, strength, precision, and mastery.
If you pull, then study Hogan. If you dump, then I suggest you swing like Moe. Those are both great proven models.
My key thoughts are to make sure my right shoulder remains pinned back (like a baseball pitcher after transition) so I have a nice arc for my right arm to swing from. (I don’t want my shoulder moving outward or crunching forward.) I use my right shoulder as a launching pad for a constant and smooth build-up of speed by straightening my right arm…and then pivoting hard at the 3rd parallel. On full shots I tend to use two methods of delivering the clubhead to the ball however; the one (I just explained) that moves (pulls] the club to 11:00 o’clock and my arms stay connected and a firmer grip pressure…or a throw of the clubhead where I feel the clubhead is a projectile without a shaft using very soft hands and arms at the bottom and allowing the arms, hands, club, clubhead to move outward to 1:00 o’clock. I guess the latter method is somewhat like a Mike Austin throwing type action, which I only use (for some weird or odd reason) with a 3 wood or 19* hybrid. Two totally different swing “actions”, yet both a right arm dominant swings.
That said, I am still not convinced (in my mind) that powering the swing mainly by the right arm is still not a “swinging” or “pulling” motion since the right elbow leads the [trailing] hands for the better part of the downswing. I’d say it is first a pulling action “swing”…and then a pushing action “hit” once the hands get even with, or passes, the right elbow. Not that it really makes any difference to me , but… Doesn’t a baseball pitcher first pull (swing) and then push (hit) when he delivers (throws) the ball? Does it depend on where the pitcher’s elbow is located (fore vs. aft) with reference to where his hand is located during the pitching action? Dunno…
I never agreed with TGM that you can’t push and pull at the same time either.
We pull things that are behind us… push things in front of us… simple enough.
However, because we have two arms that join into a triangle at our grip, this allows us the ability to both
push and pull at the same time through the impact arena. This is why I am very militant with students to train
both hands independently.
Lag do you feel that the pull/push point is in the middle of the hands? (where the right and left touch on top of the club). Or can it vary? Ive found that moving the rotation point can dramatically change the compression on the ball and wow this was a real lighbuld moment for me.
Just visualising or feeling the ‘rotation’ point of the club in the middle of the hands with the left hand pulling on one side of the rotation point (fulcrum) and the right pushing on the other… also in time with the pivot…
It was a flashback to highschool physics and a ‘why didnt this occur to me earlier’!
"The force applied (at end points of the lever) is proportional to the ratio of the length of the lever arm measured between the fulcrum (pivoting point) and application point of the force applied at each end of the lever.
Mathematically, this is expressed by M = Fd, where F is the force, d is the distance between the force and the fulcrum, and M is the turning force known as the moment or torque."
RR