Flat vs Upright

Essential Reading
81

I suspect we’re all talking about the same thing here. Change the lie, you’ll get sick of offline shots and automatically adapt your swing to suit. However that might result in a positive plane change or a hideous band-aid.

Agree with you Arnie about clubfitters. Their focus is for immediate results so they give the player the best for their CURRENT swing. IMO that retards swing improvement. It’s hard to make a positive swing change if balls start going off line with your previously fitted clubs. I think we all need a lie board and a bending bar at home to progressively change the lies as our swing improves. The stock market would call it a trailing stop loss.

82

Lie Angle is everything, more than that it needs to be set and not screwed with. Remember the player is the dynamic aspect, not the equipment. Think of it this way, is it possible to hit a low cut with the ball 3 inches above our feet? Hell ya. The lie dictates a high hook but the player makes a dynamic alteration and the ball flight changes. Set the clubs up where they need to be and leave them alone.

I remember the day I first began to understand what a golf swing is. I was 1992 and was starting over from scratch. I had my first experiences in big amateur tournaments. I’d played in the Sac and San Joaquin Ams, the SF City at Harding, and the Monterey City at ODM (They used Del Monte as a test course for the Open at Pebble, I had no idea going in and to this day it was the hardest setup I’ve ever seen. Greens rolling 14 and you could hear your spikes crunch on them if they dug in at all; rough so thick in spots you couldn’t see your shoelaces let alone find your ball. I think like 232 won at 210 par for 3 days.). I also tried to qualify for the US Am up at the Sonoma Mission Inn. I was so nervous I didn’t realize who I was playing with even though I had gotten my pairing mailed to me the week before. I remember introducing myself to my playing partners one about 30 and one a year older than me, I had his card. We play the first hole and behind the green waiting was my opponent’s dad. He gave me a nod as I walked by and I said Good Morning. I get like three steps by on my way to the next tee and suddenly stop dead. Wait a minute, why is this guy wearing a navy blue rainsuit on a clear blue day that says NBC Sports all over it? I pull this kid’s card out of my pocket, guess what? MILLER, XXXX… HOLY BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP THAT’S JOHNNY MILLER!!! Omagawd Johnny Miller is watching me play and I’m so stupid I didn’t realize I was playing with his son… Long story longer Andy and one of his younger brothers were playing in the qualifier (I choose not to say who because he made a strategic mistake and I wouldn’t want to go further into it) and I was more of a spectator, but It changed my entire world. I was basically a homemade player from the sticks who found himself out in the real world for the first time. Young Miller had a beautifull swing and was playing a set of dad’s old 70’s Spalding Top Flite Irons lead taped to the point you could barely tell what brand they were and a brand new set of Mizuno Persimmons with gold Aldila Graphite Shafts. He hit what I called ‘airplane shots’ with every club in the bag, taking off real low, climbing up until they ran out of gas and then fell dead onto the fairway or green, I saw him hold a 3 iron onto the 17th green from that screwed up downhill lie everyone always gets and I knew as soon as the ball stopped I was in WAY over my head; I had to start over and find out how to really play this game, it was obvious I was bringing a knife to a gunfight. I made everything in sight that day to shoot 147 and 141 went to a playoff.

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So I was getting ready to leave for my first year of college and I ditched the rest of my tournament schedule for the summer and began asking every good player I had ever met who the best swing teacher was. I got a few recomendations and eventually got the phone number of someone I never heard of down in Stockton. I heard he was a Stanford guy and worked with a lot of their players. He agreed to meet me at a range in Modesto a week later. I got there at 9 in the morning on this god awful hot day in August. I still remember how I couldn’t stop sweating when we would go inside. At the time I was playing a set of box toe Ram TW Irons with X100’s an inch over and 2 up (effectively 6 up) and a 7 degree Tour Burner Taylor Made Driver with a 2 tone FTT-X Ti Shaft at 45 1/2". I would tee it up on either a texas tee or a golf pencil with no eraser and try to hit it like a teed up baseball as hard as I could. Ahh the good old days…hehe… TBQ was setting up a video camera when I met him way down at the far end of this mostly empty range and we were off. Hit a few 7 irons to warm up and then I’ll start filming. OK now he tapes about half a dozen swings from in front of me and behind the target line. Now a few drivers. I hit one and he asked to see the club. He took one look, set it down and then measured it next to his. ‘Son, what the **** is this?’ I look at him kinda weird and didn’t have a chance to reply. ‘Son, this is not a golf club. I don’t know what it is but you’re never hitting this thing again.’ ‘Come with me…’

We go inside this big cart barn and he leads me into a little office with a couch and a TV/VCR on top of a box. He loads a homemade tape of Hogan, Trevino, Knudson, Weiskopf, Nelson each making one swing viewed DTL like on a loop. ‘Watch this, I’ll be back. There’s the water fountain.’ He takes off with my bag and finally comes back about half an hour later. I thought maybe he ditched me and took my clubs figuring me hopeless and should quit. But no, he switches tapes and puts mine in. Now I wanted to quit. ‘What’s the first thing you notice?’ It was the first time I’d ever seen myself on video.

‘I suck…’

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‘No, seriously?’ I was serious. Now he pulls a bunch of laminted photos out of his bag and takes one of Weiskopf out at address. ‘Let’s use this one because you’ve got a similar build, not as tall but similar.’ He pauses the tape and puts the picture next to the screen. ‘Look at the hands, what looks different?’

‘I can only see my right hand.’

‘Good, now look at your back and your neck.’

‘I’m all slouchy, I look like an old man…’

‘Let’s go back out.’

I get my clubs back and all my irons have a bunch of lead tape. After we get back to the range station I pull my 7 iron out and it has masking tape on the end of the grip. ‘Choke up until you’re off the tape. That’s the end of the club now.’ Ok my clubs are too long, I guess. I looked down at the clubhead and I didn’t even recognize it. what the hell!!! ‘All of the irons are set 5 degrees flat off standard and 2 weak. I’m impressed none of them broke…’ he chuckled.

‘You’re kidding right? I’m 6’1!’

‘And? This is right. Hit it…’

We were on the range and in the office watching tape of me and those who know what the hell they are doing until after 7 o’clock. He contorted my swing into positions which made me feel like I was going to break my back. I had to get this new 9 degree Titleist Driver in the air off a tee half an inch off the ground. Along the way I’m sure I whiffed at least a couple. It was a blur. I couldn’t move for 2 days after. The first time I played after I gave up after 10 holes and 2 sleeves of balls.

We met every 2 weeks for over a year and a half and I was introduced to some other people. The first time we played together was about 2 months in at Stockton CC. I shot 70 and hit 14 greens never missing a short iron, my worst clubs as I was terribly upright and steep with a bad, make that no pivot. My scroring avg my first year at college was 74.9 and went down every year. I chopped an inch and a quarter of of all my irons and played them until I got fitted for my Hogan Redlines at the foundary in Ft Worth the next summer, also 1/4" inch under, 5 flat, 51 degree E Wedge and a 17 degree 1 iron. Nowadays if I sole an iron with a standard lie I feel like I can’t even pull the trigger. I guess the moral of the story is you set the clubs up correctly and then leave them alone. I never could get as shallow as Young Miller with the short irons to give the old balatas that low launch angle but I got no complaints, I beat him by three two years later and made it to the stroke play in the Am.

85

thanks for those wonderful posts…

I’m always amazed at how many golfers try to swing flatter, but don’t flatten their gear…
I agree, I can’t even look at a standard lie angle… and I’m six feet tall… and off the shelf drivers are all so upright
it’s ridiculous.

With a flat driver (48 degree lie angle) I can make some of the worst feeling swings and I’m still in the fairway…

86

I experienced similar this weekend, where i thought i had missed badly, but looked up to see the ball going much straighter than i was expecting it to be.

Its almost like the ball has a forward seeking flight.

N.

87

lecoeurdevie
great post(s)—thanks for the stories

1 Like
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I was fortunate enough to play with Lag and Macs yesterday on a trip to San Francisco. It also gave me a chance to play my first round with the custom flat Titleist persimmon driver Lag built for me at 50 degrees. Its the one that is being made up here in this thread: http://www.lagpressure.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=456

Well I can certainly say to anyone thinking of comissioning one that it was super solid and a lot of fun to hit. I was pleased with how it went first time out. With it being that flat and also having an X100 shaft in it you really feel that you can hit hard without worrying about the left hand side of the course. I also had the opportunity of playing a set of Lags Mac M85 irons from the early 50’s again set at 6 degrees flat. Again they were lovely to hit so its given me the confidence to go from 4 to 6 degrees flat when I get home.

Cheers, Arnie

89

Small v Tall.

Flat clubs are easier to hit straight than upright, and small people can go flatter than tall people. So can i for the first time see an advantage to my smallness??

Is the perfect height for a great ball striker lets say about 5ft 7??

like Hogan, Trevino, Moe??

NRG
5ft 6 :smiley:

90

I was reading this thread and it gave me the idea to try some things with my swing that I’ve been working on quite a bit. I used to have a pretty upright swing back when I played college golf and just after I graduated college. I then quit for 8 years and didn’t get back into the game until this past January. Reading some of Lag’s stuff on iseekgolf.com and reading some of the things from the S&T guys, I had the idea of flattening my swing a bit. This actually came into fruition when I had a big struggle with my swing about one week in May and I decided I was going to figure it out on the range, right there and then and wasn’t leaving until them. All I really did was use the right forearm takeaway and as I approached the top of the swing, I just reminded myself to keep the right elbow ‘nearby’ my right rib cage. And voila! I was hitting the ball better. Even better, my alignments and motion just looked really, really good.

I played good golf and hadn’t struck the ball that well since I was in HS (by the time I played college golf I developed an excellent short game out of necessity, but struggled with ballstriking). I also finally started to understand what drive loading felt like and understood lag pressure and how to use it. I hit 78% of my fairways this past summer and I don’t count poor drives that still make the fairway as a hit fairway. In fact, I had a streak of hitting 29 fairways in a row.

Anyway, the dumbest thing I did was I stopped recording my swing and then I lost my AC Power Adapter to my camcorder and decided I would put off looking at my swing until after our club championship (mid October). I finished 2nd in the club championship and hit 38 out of 54 GIR, but wanted to still look at my swing. When I did, I saw in my mind a disaster.

I had that right elbow pinned up against the right rib cage and I was very laid off. On the downswing I was slightly above the plane and bending the plane line. After a month of work I got the backswing looking better, but I would release the PA’s out of sequence causing a very closed clubface in the startdown. Plus my neck would tilt downward and that would hurt my pivot as well. I tried to figure out some things and I couldn’t.

Eventually I got those MacGregor 985’s off of ebay and they were noticeably shorter irons (about ¾” shorter and 3* flatter) and in order to hit them I had to adjust my swing and my address position.

I wrote about it in my golf blog (3jack.blogspot.com/2009/12/answe … -made.html), but the main change I made was I just stood a little further away from the golf ball at address. And suddenly I noticed that my clubface was now square on the downswing (I tried this for 2 days and got the same result), my downswing plane was flatter and I had much less downward neck tilt.

I got the idea a bit from looking at Mike Maves’ swing and he stands quite aways from the ball, but doesn’t look like he’s reaching for the ball either. Anyway, this helped flatten my swing and when I look at many of the problems I had, even though I was able to play at a higher level than most golfers, I do think that golfers generally stand too close to the ball and swing too far upright.

That’s not to say that I think swinging upright is bad and swinging flatter is always good. Whatever you do, you need to go about doing it the right way. One cannot just take the club way inside or turn the shoulders flat and think that now they have a flat swing they’ll stripe it. But I see a lot of golfers, including myself beforehand, they will ‘rock back’ and raise their spine on the backswing and then they have to find a way to get back down so they can hit the ball. I think that’s ‘rocking back’ is most likely due to standing too close to the ball.

Anyway, just my experience about swinging flatter.

3JACK

91

Richie, did you ever try flat clubs?

92

I pretty much had standard lie angles up until right before college. I then got some Ram FX Tour Grinds and wound up getting them about 4* upright with standard length shafts. After that I got some Titleist blades, junked them and went to some Titleist 962 cavity backs, with graphite shafts and about 1" over standard. I can see Lag cringing as we speak. 8 years later I got some Mizuno MP-62’s, +1/4" and 2* upright with steel shafts. The 985’s I have are probably standard length and standard lie. Certainly flatter than my Mizuno’s. I would like to check how well these lie angles hold up for me as I think they do pretty well. The Mizuno’s now feel wayyyy to upright. According to Brian Manzella, the best way to check your lie angles and see how they fit you is to draw a straight, vertical line with a sharpie on the golf ball. If the lie angle fits you, you should see a straight, vertical lie on the clubface. If it’s tilted on the clubface, then it doesn’t fit you.

I’m 6’4" tall, so I really don’t believe I can play with 5* flat irons. However, I think I can play closer to standard or maybe a little flat but I need slightly longer than standard shafts (probably about +1/4"). I plan on practicing with the 985’s quite a bit since I’ve already seen them improve my swing. However, I’d like to get some vintage Hogan blades because while I like the 985’s they don’t feel quite like I thought they would when I catch them flush.

3JACK

93

Ritchie,

At 6-4, you would do well to study George Archer’s golf swing…

He did a few of the Shell’s shows, and there is plenty of footage of his action. He was very clever with how he approached playing golf from that height, and has a Master’s jacket to prove it beating out Knudson for the title in 1969.

94

Richie,

I think you owe it to this place to get a 7 iron bent 5 degrees flat, then report back on how you figured out how to hit it.

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couple of photos of George Archer- lots of knee flex
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96

Lagpressure:

Got to thank you and your site. In the last week, images started coming back to me that were there when I first stepped onto golf’s highway years ago. At that time flat felt natural and easy to do. I guess given my size, ( 5’ 7" and 120 pounds ) I found my way over to using CF instead of thrust. Have a question that will get me back to my roots, and I promise I won’t ask any more questions as I know you are busy. Given the more active pivot engagement do you feel that the finish swivel occurs almost in conjuction with arriving at parallel 5 as I do, or do you feel the swivel occurs a tad earlier, perhaps a tad after the end of the follow thru.

97

Don’t know if there’s some Mod 1 creeping in here, or if its just about the clubs

DTL 7 Jan 09_0001.jpg

11 Jan 10.jpg

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98

Nice NRG…either you are starting to get mod 1 to creep in or the snow on the ground is causing an illusion :smiley:

We can see the shaft and the better 4.30 line…however…take note of shoulders/knees/feet… ALL in a better position ready for some nice rotation speed through impact (or into the bag as you have been training it)
Mod 1 work is already helping some of the other stuff take shape…Good 4 You

1 Like
99

Curious about this. I do not zero out #3 Acc. I want to feel the turn and the roll with every shot I hit save the shortest of putts. I do not even zero it out for putts. When I place the club in the life line to zero it out I feel like I lose the vertical alignment between the club and my left arm. Do you advocate zeroing #3 out for putting? Some great putters had some #3!

100

thought this would be an applicable photo for this thread…

Interesting that both Player and Miller use an identical release going through and past impact, a hard cut left with an angled hinge, yet from two very different transition stages.

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