Found these amazing books via the golfwrx forum and Mike Maves website. Abe is a British golfer who also won a couple of times on US soil and was known for his length. He was hitting it 310 yards with a hickory stick in the 30’s…
He talks about keeping the right elbow close to the body and winding up the body muscles for speed, consistency and direction.
In short it’s the combination of a stance (open feet, semi-open hips and square shoulders) and winding up the forearm muscles ‘towards the target’.
I have pieced together a document containing the various pages of ‘Length on the Links’ and ‘Down to Scratch’ I included all the pages I could find online but there still are some pages missing.
I don’t know of any way to attach it to the post (.doc or .pdf extensions are not allowed) so if you are interested, please let me know and I’ll email it.
P.S. If anybody has the real book, please feel free to scan in the pages and share them with us
I have a scanned copy of LOTL, i will send you a copy if you PM your email address, i can probably get you a copy of DTS as well, i know someone who has it.
The coiling of both the body (stance) and the forearms is probably the best part of the book for me.
What it does is it braces your left side and provides a feeling of power (and physically gives you power by means of the coiling in the body and arms). It’s a very cohesive feeling as your hips are coiled towards the target the same way as your forearms are. I’m not looking to use this in my swing persé but it’s an interesting feeling to be able to play around with.
I’m really looking forward to Lag’s or anyone else’s thoughts on this:
Stance:
Arms: Left arm:
Take your normal setup.
While keeping your grip/hands in the exact same position, turn your arm counterclockwise until you feel nice tension. It may feel awkward or even impossible at first but it will become easier over time. (Try to turn the arm both sides so you can get a grasp on your range of motion.)
So essentially nothing moves or coils in your arm except for your elbow joint and forearm. (The biceps/triceps will turn a little bit as well as a result but no need to worry about that.)
Right arm:
Take your normal setup. You should have your upper arm pinned close to your chest.
While keeping your grip/hands in the exact same position, turn your forearm counterclockwise. This arm won’t really turn as much (because of the greater angle in the elbow and because the upperarm is glued to the chest), but what matters is that you feel the forearm muscles turning towards the target.
Abe’s idea is to have this feeling at address, then during the takeaway try to keep this tension until the arms give in and roll back ‘open’ to the top of the backswing.
If done correctly, the downswing should feel like an automated reversal of the backswing…
If I keep my left armpit connected to my upper arm and my right elbow close to my right hip I find it sets up a nice little ‘slot’ in which you can swing freely.
I have not read much of Abes book, I gave up after about 30 pages cause I couldn’t work out what he was going on about.
But I have experimented in the past with creating a coil in the right leg by not moving the right knee and lower leg during the backswing and keeping the left heel on the ground for as long as possible. When you do lift the left heel, it releases the built up coil in the right leg. Really starts your hips turning back without any effort at all. But i injured my abdominal muscles doing it so i stopped, was really smacking them though. Started the course here just after that and pretty much forgot about it.
Interesting that so many of the great players chose a diagonal stance in the opposite direction, what are your thoughts on that?
I too have had my interest peaked regarding Abe Mitchell’s books. I have a copy of DTS ordered (pretty rare find so it’s very expensive stuff) and - hopefully - will be getting it soon. There’s much info about Abe on Steve Elkington & Mike Maves’ site www.dirters.com. In fact Elkington has a 7 part series demonstrating his take on Abe’s teachings - highly recommended.
and winding up the body muscles for speed, consistency and direction.
