Might be worth filming yourself hitting some short irons and having a close look with Lag if you havn’t already done so. If your clubs have been flattened - I think you were 2 degrees flat if I remember - I’d be pretty surprised if you were coming into impact “too flat”. As we know the flat plane only matters through impact (or from p3 to p4) so the plane of the takeaway and even your initial transition plane looking in a mirror may bear little resemblance to what is happening at impact in your actual swing motion. Personally I often find when I take it back “too inside for me” my hands come in higher to impact rather than lower. Conversly the opposite is often true that by feeling I am starting the club outside on the way back the loop back inside helps me come into impact flatter. Its just possible that might be what you are feeling, though obviously I’m just speculating. However if you are genuinely too flat then perhaps you can pop the champagne and flatten those lovely blades just a little further . I would guess that the lower trajectory you mentioned might be more likely to do with shaft lean than being too flat.
As I read your post I was thinking the same thing that AA mentioned here. I’ve been trying to put a little more short game time in recently as I’ve been quite focused on the full swing for some time now. I’m 4 degrees flat thru the bag including my SW. As I work around the greens I have to make sure I don’t get too much shaft lean when I want good elevation. I’ve always had a tendency to get lots of lean with all my clubs (module 1 has helped tons) but old habits can be hard to break. I just got back from a range session and hit plenty high soft shots from 80 to 120 with my wedges.
I don’t want to have to change anything in my general motion whether I’m trying to hit a 275 yard drive or a 75 yard SW.
I have the 2nd edition of Ralph Maltby’s “Golf Club Design, Fitting, Alteration, and Repair” released in 1982. Chapter 10 is a 3 page section titled “Changing Lie Of Wood Clubs”, and addresses the use of a “bending block” to change the lie angle by “1 to 2 degrees”. It’s essentially a hardwood block with a notch in it that allows you to apply some leverage to the shaft at the top area of the whipping. Looks like an iterative process of "manual pressure to bend, check it with a lie angle gauge, apply bending pressure again, check with lie angle gauge, etc, etc. (I don’t have the ability to scan the pages).
Maltby sees it as a viable option to move 2 degrees up or flat. How you get to 3, 4, or 5 degrees probably entails the “re-drilling of the head” technique that Lag has discussed.
Isn’t it funny that we now have all these driver head “systems” that allow you to alter open or closed position of the clubface, but no one thought lie angle was important enough to be adjustable?
I was down in LA giving a lesson back in July, and I walked into the pro shop at a range near LAX, and looked at a couple modern drivers just to see what everyone is having to deal with. Beyond the obvious head size, square heads and Vulcan looking things, I just couldn’t believe how upright everything is stock off the shelf.
To me, the woods are the most important clubs to get flat, because it’s the woods where we need accuracy the most to set up the hole for us.
We can really take advantage of the geometry of flat lies with the woods, especially the driver that we can put on a tee, which by raising the golf ball naturally flattens the swing plane just by doing that alone.
I don’t like the idea of bending the shaft personally… it’s not all that hard to drill a new hole, and you can then adjust the way it sits on the ground to your liking as it gets ready to set up with epoxy.
I picked up a set of 1060’s Speed Slot persimmons, and they are really flat… stock… the driver is probably 50 degrees lie angle. I’m setting mine up at 48… so that is pretty close.
Cool, Hogan drivers from the middle ages! That might explain King Harold getting one in the eye from 300 yards out. I gotta have one Going on ebay now!
Actually it wasn’t my concern on set up… It was during the playing lesson I had that this came up. So it’s not my perception, it was ball flight that prompted my question to the Pro. My wedges and short irons were all coming in a little too low, without enough spin. So I turned to him and asked him what was going on, or if he saw anything in those shots. As the round progressed he noted how flat I was swinging with the short irons. Many wedges were going a little right (like a push right, not a left-to-right spin).
Anyway, I think your point about forward shaft lean is very important… actually in more ways than you may have meant. I found a critical problem in what happens if I hit balls for a while is I start setting them too far back in my stance promoting a shut face set up, with forward shaft lean.
So knowing I have this tendency, on top of what you mentioned, I’ll definitely look out for it.
@Lagpressure, believe it or not, I found a modern driver that at least allows me to set the lie angle 1-2* flat. So I have my driver now set square (it used to be one degree closed, and I’m considering 1 degree open now), and one degree flat. Technology can be fun!
either too much shaft lean from the hands not firing aggressively, the ball is too far back, or you are still twisting the club in your hands and shutting it down at the top, then coming down and trying to trap it rather than allowing for proper synchronized clubface rotation.
Lag,
Golf digest created a article i think a yr ago about Tour Pro’s who had more upright backswings where able to shallow out the downswing by x amount of degrees hence the more upright the more loop created down or 4:30 line created and the flatter swings created less loop obviously and only a certain amount of degrees of shallowing. You stated in other posts that you like to loop the swing that it created a more natural and powerful motion. Then with that in mind regardless of flat vs upright it dosen’t matter as long as our intentions are on the downswing to see the 4:30 line prepare for it send the sweetspot down it and smash the ball and reach lowpoint? We hear teachers saying too flat of a backswing causes over the top but they should be focusing on the downswing intentions because Ray Floyd whipped that club around his rt ankle yet downswing was great! There’s a female pro hitting at the range i teach she has won 1.4 mill in last 2 yrs she’s in a major slump and sh’e been practicing the last 4 days 5hrs straight and all she’s concentrating on is her backswing checking her halfway position. She is a Korean player and i know the success they present on Tour but i’m seeing a lot of position golf out there and don’t see that style lasting for 10yrs it seems like that system produces steak golf one yr you have the next yr gone?
Along the lines of trying to go flatter, how do you retain more wrist cock into impact? Not talking about flat left wrist, but working toward lower hands with more wrist cock through the ball… I find it easier to have a flat lead wrist through the ball than to retain some wrist cock and lower hands.
Lag can correct me, but I think the right elbow has a lot do to with it. A flw doesn’t imply amount of wrist cock but does guarantee a good flying wedge. I think it’s more about preserving some #3 accumulator by not allowing the #2 to go to all the way to “level” at impact. If the right elbow starts straightening too soon, then you tend to get to a more level condition. A flatter lie angle encourages more #3 accumulator at impact and a left wrist that isn’t level, but that still has some wristcock left. Very much a “hold-off” feel.
I used to “fight” having too much #3 acc left at impact… Lag has helped me embrace it.
You are correct about backswings being upright having bigger loops to get back to 4:30. I really have no problem with a player doing that… look at Furyk…
But, the question is… is that really necessary? absolutely not…
I suspect that these guys that go up then down, like a quicker tempo, but at the same time feel they need more time to get things lined up, so they “take the long way home” to re route to 4:30. A longer backswing would require a quicker hand speed given the same time frame to go from point a to point b… let’s say initial takeaway to impact.
Floyd was a classic example of the inside takeaway… Knudson was very inside, Moe, and Peter Senior also. Steve Pate, Craig Parry, all inside paths going back… Is this ok? ABSOLUTELY! Some players like to feel the 4:30 line on the backswing…
Others of course feel the outside path helps through the club flat on the downswing… and I really like this move too. Trevino was the poster child for this protocol. Lanny Watkins also. Furyk of course. Even Hogan had a unique spin on this type of action.
You are correct… by saving right arm you save wrist cock also. There is a very strong relationship between right elbow bend, and wristcock.
When the right arm straightens our quickly so does wristcock. This is really right at the heart of swinging vs hitting.
This topic has been beaten to death on other forums as most of us know… but it’s the right HAND that HITS… just as Hogan said… Hogan was not wrong.
The right arm straightening quickly into impact moves the shaft off plane and rolls the clubface. This is the classic TGM down and out stuff, that is wrapped in complicated physics and geometry… and brings a huge timing element into the golf swing. This is where the VJ’s live and ball beaters that fear their feel coming and going. Nicklaus made golf look like it would require great concentration and became the games best… but I like the idea of golf feeling easy, not difficult… but that’s just me!
Most TGM instructors confuse the appearance of the right arm being PULLED straight by the extremely powerful CF pull…as evidence that the right arm is actively driving… this is NOT ALWAYS THE CASE. You can actively drive the right arm out to right field too, but you will loose great distance and clubhead speed doing this. Most of these guys who fly the arms off the body are CF swinging… Fred Couples and VJ are classic examples of CF swinging done correctly. We know they are not driving the right arm because their right hand is almost falling off the club. It’s very passive…
Peter Senior, cutting it left, keeping the shaft on plane, not rolling the clubface, and keeping wrist cock right around the bend.
Very little timing going on here…
He has about the best accumulator #3 rotation I have seen along with Hogan. Notice the frame before impact how his clubface rotates about 90 degrees from about 3 feet before impact. This is happening from a vicious right hand strike.
I’ll be posting a detailed review of this incredible golf swing in the private student area.
what IS exactly the #3 acc? I have read the description (angle betw. club shaft and left forearm, indep. of wrist cock) but I’m not sure if I understand it correctly. The way I understand it: more or less the motion we do in drill 1, when we load the club at the 4:30 position (with an element of wrist cock to get the club a bit higher). Right/wrong?
You’ve got the definition right…Hold the club with your left hand only. Then think of a case (club held more in the palm) of “Zero” Acc#3 and turn your left wrist to the right. The clubhead doesn’t move much. If you hold the the club with “Max” Acc#3 and turn your wrist to the right, the clubhead moves three feet.
Mashie provides a good description. Remember also that you’re assuming a “geometrically” flat left wrist (I think that’s the term).
One thing you mentioned in your description is that it’s independent of wrist cock. I don’t think that’s the case. The more wrist cock you retain into impact, the greater the #3 accumulator would be (I’m pretty sure anyway). Does that make sense?
If your left wrist was totally uncocked at impact, you would “almost” form a straight line between your left forearm and the shaft when viewed from dtl. If you had some wrist cock remaining, you would have more angle between your left forearm and the shaft at impact. That residual angle can create quite a bit of power (I think TGM calls it transfer power) as it moves/rotates through impact.
Mmm, thanks. I think I have it right then. So I get the most “gearing” with a 90 degree angle between shaft and left arm, at least if you measure the distance traveled by club head.
as a couple of sidebars in the Little Yellow Book in Chapter 12, Homer talks about “Basic Motion Curriculum” where the club travels 2-feet back and 2-feet through. Here Homer says to zero out Acc#3. And I think Lag mentioned one time that in his version of the TGM book, ACC#3 is also the angle between the shaft and the right forearm…
. I would guess that the lower trajectory you mentioned might be more likely to do with shaft lean than being too flat.
Going on ebay now!
