A Key Image

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
1

Was looking @ Snead’s “key” images and came up with one which I thought was interesting.

It’s quite similar to if one were to depress their house key into a piece of clay. Once the image is formed into the clay, there is only one way to put the key back into the clay.

This image concerns the 4:30 line and P3. I’m imagining a long box, similar to the size that clubs come in, with the top off and the box being filled with clay. If the box is then placed onto 4:30 and then the club is depressed into the clay in a flat, laid-off and open postion…the indentation would then be our intent: To passively drop the club into that indentation from the top.

Going to try today…don’t know for how long however as it will be over 90* outside. :slight_smile:

2

I see exactly what you mean Range Rat, im having that same lightbulb going off in myhead where there is a drop to the 4:30 line and then slowly and with acceleration I can pull through with the left side, or torso, dragging a “silent right side” through. This results in the best ballstriking i have ever produced. When it works Im absolutely striping my 2 iron, amazing feel, crisp contact and great distance.

Some demon comes up though from time to time and interferes. Somehow even though I try to passively drop the right side into the slot something is interfering and Im having a helluva time figuring out what the heck it is. My suspicion is that my upper right arm is somehow resisting the free fall, being stuck like a ratchet, unwilling to “properly” go for the ride. Love figuring this out though, and thank you for your insights.

3

More than likely the hidden key will be on the other side of the rainbow, post impact… look there…

4

Indeed, the solution may just lie in the post impact action, the research is ongoing. The funny thing is when im doing it right I know from the top of my swing that im going to do it right, I FEEL the intentions and I can execute them. But feel and understanding are two different things. The post impact pivot action is mysterious to me but when im striping it down the middle im doing something from impact and onwards that defies explanation as of yet, but the feel comes and goes. In any case I sure it´s something very close to what you teach and I enjoy the great information you offer freely here on the forums, a real goldmine of insight and knowledge. I must admit, the modules are beginning to look quite irresistable considering what ballstriking I have developed just from your forums, incredible stuff.

Regards

CP.

5

Glad to hear you are improving…

The module work for those who take the leap, allows the student to train confidently in a positive direction, and also learn the details of why things work, so they can better understand both their good and bad days. By keeping a close eye on the students, it is easier to improve in a timely manner than by wondering if you are working on the right things and wasting time.

No amount of ball beating will guarantee success. Nor hitting an impact bag either… you have to be working on the right things, with proper intentions, and form. There are many many interrelated aspects to the golf swing, “if this- then that” and this is why we see so many different looking golf swings being successful over the ages.

Understanding hitting vs swinging is the most important distinction that needs to be made if you are seeking instruction, because although both methods can strike the ball well, many of their components are horrifically incompatible. This is the problem of bouncing from one theory or instructor to another… and to be honest, many instructors don’t know the difference in a clearly definable way which can add confusion to a student.

I prefer to teach from a hitting platform because I know it to be the superior method of the two… all things considered, and from direct and personal knowledge being at one time or another a practitioner of both to a high level of proficiency.

Keep up the good work, and we appreciate your contributions here on the forum.

6

Centripetal:

Hard to say without seeing. One of the major pressures that helps me however make that drop is to make sure my hips feel compressed inward and properly stacked upon the flexed legs @ address. Since the R hand is lower and anterior to the L hand, at times that relationship can cause the L hip to open too much @ address for full action and perhaps cause some sequencing problems from the top.

Or…hit some real flat gear and that reverse loop will happen almost automatically. Nice to see there is more than one cheese thief in world. :slight_smile: RR

7

Nothing active that is of importance happens post impact. Everything post impact, whether we want it to be or not, is a reaction to good pre impact active action.
I don’t mean to be confrontational with that, but that’s how I feel. I welcome the debate it brings if it does.

8

Yes,

But everything that happens before impact is also a preparation of what will happen after impact. If I prepare myself for a long and full follow thru with a full shoulder turn and both arms straight towards the target etc - I get more Acc #4 lag through impact. Just to name one instance where “after” makes a difference to “before”.

9

Interesting discussion. The danger with the intention of swinging towards a long and full follow through for instance, is that it doesn’t say anything about how you get there.
Therefore it may work for you while it might not for someone else.
So IMO it’s more important how you get to impact.

10

Hi Bom,

Lag says the correct post impact move is the motor to the swing. I am confident all of us students successfully completing Module 3 would agree due to the difference it has made in our ball striking.

Good to chat again!

11

Perhaps what Lag was referring to was hinge action post impact. If the wrists are rolling before P4, pivot stalling prior to impact is the culprit.

I think if hands release properly, angled hinge is by defaut and roll-over is really a non-issue…and the back of the L hand will look at the sky for a long time.

Would love to hear Two’s comments on this as I believe he said at one time that one cannot get to PV5 directly as it would leave something else unattended…and my assumption would be the unattended aspects would be pre-impact.

I love chicken v. egg…or cart before the horse discussions :laughing: RR

12

Range Rat:

Thanks for the reply, food for tought indeed. I do know that when I do my best ballstriking there is an unrushed feeling and im pretty confident that that feel is in connection with saving the pivot for rotating powerfully through and beyond impact, an awkward position of the hips regarding this intention is very likely to interfere with this procedure. I don´t know about comments concerning what happens post impact has nothing do do with the results of the swing. It may be sound or not as far as physics goes but I have realised that im much more concerned with the fact that when im hitting it my best, Im FEELING an active and powerful move through AND beyond impact with relatively little (based on FEEL… may not be the physical truth) going on velocity wise before that. If that´s what I feel in my best shots than that´s what I will be aiming to produce… the FEEL of doing so, what actually happens is beyond me right now, still under investigation.

CP

(edit: spelling)

13

I think the big hang-up people (non believers) have about post impact work is simply the fact that a ball is there… it is a very apparent line of demarcation for most… but I don’t look at the golf swing that way.

My swing is a complete motion from start to finish… even if there is no ball on the ground… even if I don’t take a divot.
My objective to have the club reach maximum velocity can be anywhere I choose, even past P4 if I want.

The golf swing is a motion that I have control of… I do not let the presence of the golf ball determine how I am going to move my body.

Like Knudson hammered home in his book… “the strike of the golf ball is an incidental event”.

Now, if you are a swinger, and simple trying to snap the whip right at a specific location such as where the ball is on the ground… then the argument that anything post impact having relevance is debatable…

However, if your objective is to hold shaft flex beyond lowpoint, then there is no debate… you have to fully engage muscular activity to do so in a very deliberate manner.

As long as you view the ball as a sign that signals the end of the swing… then you are not understanding the advantages of holding shaft flex, nor are you understanding how to make that happen.

14

Can you say then that all post impact work is initiated pre-impact and continued or amplified after impact?

15

222,

Here are some comments about my observations…not really a debate.

First some quotes that come to mind:

“Begin with the end in mind” Steven Covey ( 7 Habits) Whatever you are trying to accomplish, know and think about what the goal is. Is the “end” the ball… or the finish?

“Aim high in steering” quote from a driver’s education class I took as a teeneager. The point was new drivers and drunk drivers leaving the pub tend to aim at points very close to the front of the car…and end up weaving all over the road. If you pick a spot far off in the distance to aim for, its easier to go straight.

“Once the decision is made to operate, the rest is purely technical” Alfred Blalock MD, inventor of a complex cardiac operation to cure Blue Baby Syndrome. That quote must have amazed students, that he could reduce such a complicated procedure to 5 words …“the rest is purely technical”…because it took great imagination and years of hard work, and skillful orchestration of several disciplines to be successful. But once he did it, when he saw a sick patient, he could see them already cured in his minds eye, and knew it was a simply matter of steps to get to that goal. Similarly, a guy like Hogan after years of hard work , can stand on hole #6 at Carnoustie, a par 5, and see and feel his drive starting down the left side of the fairway, staying in bounds but avoiding the bunkers, leaving him a second shot to the green. Performing it was purely technical once he saw and felt it, but apparently hardly anyone else could orchestrate their body to do it.

For me, the post impact drill work that showed me some post impact action an feelings was like discovering a tool in the box I didn’t know was there…or finding a room in my house I had been unaware of. This may mean I needed it real badly. :laughing: Others, who are already “doing it right”, by happy accident or choice…may not need to learn it.

Now, it is changing my pre- shot planning…I can see the shot options with different eyes, and now my mind and body have different feels for these options based on what I have experienced to accumulate these feels. Even when not playing, I can look off and see and feel how to hit a shot between two trees or telephone poles in the distance…how to start it down the left side and cut it in. Watching TV, my eyes now can see the post impact action of the pros…and I think: it’s almost like they are cheating, hitting it straight because they know how to do this action.

So I suppose it can be said the shot starts in the mind, or wherever feels are stored, and translated to action that includes post impact action. I can’t argue that. But I know I had something wrong for half a century. Much of it was simply thinking the end of the swing was the ball. And it’s like a heard a man say about something else…in this case it would be: you can take everything I have, but not my wife, child , or post impact drill work! :smiley:
eagle

16

Nice read Eagle:

Off topic, but one of my relatives was the first blue baby to be operated on in the U.S. I wonder if the doctor you mentioned performed the procedure. As far as “seeing” things…I’m related distantly to Sacajewa- the indian guide. The first time I ever threw a knife at a tree I saw the flight, saw the knife sticking, etc, and guess what? It stuck from about 30 yards! Instinct passed on, or “seeing”? :laughing:

Zion:

That’s how I see, and feel, it happening.

I’ve always like the mental picture of one being hit by a moving car at 50mph with the car going greater than 50mph post impact as being a greater hit than one in which the car maintains a constant speed of 50mph. The person is still being hit @ 50mph but the accelerated version would seem to cause more damage…however, I’m not inclined to empirically test it. :laughing: Good stuff you golfing nuts. :slight_smile: RR

17

RR

So how about that for a spooky coincidence…a redneck backwoods slow talking country bumpkin form a hick town in Georgia invents a way to surgically cure Blue Bay Syndrome, and the first one in the universe to be operated on is one of your cousins?

And you a relative a Sacajewa…the knife throwing thing…was it the chicken or egg…the Indian or arrow…the Rat or knife??? :smiley:

At any rate, sounds like between the cousin who was the first to be operated on by Blalock… Sacajewa leading Lewis and Clark…and you , there are strong pioneering genes in your family.

Endeavor to persevere. ( Chief Dan George) :smiley:

18

Will have to investigate a little further next time I talk to the family historian. Out of curiousity I read a little on Dr. Blalock and found that the first patient was a girl. My cousin was a boy. It was so long ago the details are sketchy…he might have been the first in Michigan to receive the procedure. I remember the family saying he wasn’t supposed to live very long…but he survived until his late teens, early twenties, if I recall correctly. I’ll find out when time permits.

I suppose we should get back on topic before the natives get restless :laughing: RR

19

Ok RR…you’re right , need to get back on topic. …haven’t head anything more from 222 on this. BTW, could your cryptogragher cousin confirm that the “222” stands for 3 consecutive “2”'s made by Bom? That’s my suspicion. My record is one 2 in a row.

Here a couple of more quotes that relate, came to mind on the way to work.

“Litter, it starts in your mind, and ends out on the street” (old anti-litter campaign from the 1970’s)

“John, the finish is everything” Cary Middlecoff, as told by John Schlee in Maximum Golf

20

Maybe 222 is going through his arsenal of photo’s and other artifacts to present for discussion.

I do know, or now feel, this however when hitting since finding ABS. The Jack-in-the-box feel is really a nice image for me. Bringing the cupped L wrist into impact now, the back of the L hand is skyward for a frightening long time while lowering the body from the top…then all of a sudden there is a"compressive upward" feeling when the hands are firing and the L shoulder area gets deeper behind me.

The PV5 position is really cool too…and I think that position is by default also if one has no wrist roll-over before P4…and it seems that the accelerating pivot is responsible for those things to happen. I’m also finding that if I execute the movements to my liking…at the finish I almost have those recoiling Moe Norman arms that stretch toward the target…it’s a cool feel and one in which the arms feel like they become totally detached from the body.

Strangest day @ the range yesterday…two firsts for me. In the morning I was attacked by a big black rooster and I pulled a lower back muscle during my evasive maneuvers. Then later in the evening some kid shanked a ball off my ankle. I was showing him TGM drag loading and I think he took it too literally as he dragged the darn hosel straight through the ball. :astonished: RR