Hand Action During Release

I like that 2nd picture of Nicklaus that labeled file-4 you can see the club stays with his turn and doesn’t flip past his body post impact. Kevin Stadler is a player who I think does this pretty well and also has more of a relaxed hands look swingers release but the clubface doesn’t roll over much post impact, ive played with him before and was pretty impressed with how he was hitting it. From the dtl view when the club exits on the other side of his body you can the the face is still square. And from face on his hands look so relaxed they basically come off the club but the clubface still is not rolling over, it looks like the clubface is facing sky at p4.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_pTW1blyeA [/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OouOjj7xzs [/youtube]

One thing I really admire with Nicklaus, and Hogan, being left eye dominate, is how they keep their eyeline still well past impact. I have found that my eyeline will want to drift with my shoulders, which can get me steep.

Jack would be a lot more rolled over by P4. Wrists crossed over, right arm straight.

Jack_Hogan.png

Thanks Lag,

Funny you recommend me to hit some persimmons. I still have them! Power-Bilt 1, 3, and 5. They date back to the mid-70s. They are coming with me to the range on Saturday - I haven’t hit them in so long, but I’m going to use them as at least a training aid to provide more weight and thus feel. Can’t wait to reconnect with those old, dear friends.

My irons I use today are the same as I used beginning in about 1983 — a set of Ping Eye-2’s. I actually never owned a top-of-the-line set of forged blades (I can’t even remember what I had back in my youthful, golf-six-days-a-week days). And when I took up the game again this past summer, I didn’t purchase new irons because I still love those pings, mainly because of the soft feel of the ball on the face. I noticed looking up some numbers on line that they are lofted more than most new irons of today, but I’d rather have control than distance.

Speaking of Lee and Jack…

I saw their head-to-head battle in the final round of the 1974 PGA Championship at Tanglewood (N.C.). Me and my Dad followed them the entire round – they were the final twosome.
Needless to say it was a life-changing experience for me as a golfer and golf enthusiast.

But here is the one thing I have taken from that day – the one thing of which I still have a vivid memory ---- how LOW Trevino’s ball trajectory was. I was rather gobsmacked. I had no idea that somebody could hit shots that low and far (this was my first time seeing touring pros play in the flesh). And it seemed to travel in all kinds of directions, but it also seemed to always end up in the fairway.

I was a LT follower because of his aura (it was so different and I gravitated to his personality). But when I saw his ball in person, I became an admirer.

That was an awesome day.

Awesome post.
This is sort of the thing I was wondering about, and I think Trevino’s trajectory and shotmaking are part of the reason he is so admired. But the more I read about Jack I am equally impressed with his striking ability. The fact that he was one of the longest hitters and still managed to have a number of seasons hitting 70% of the fairways or even a touch more is amazing. It is similar to how well Tiger drove the ball back in 2000, but Tiger hasn’t been able to have that throughout his career whereas Jack seemed to be a good driver for the majority of his career.
Speaking of driving, I went to a simulator the other day with my driver and compared it against the new stuff… I play on old king cobra with a tipped x300 that is D8 and a touch over 14 ounces. Somehow my ball speeds were only slightly lower than the new stuff but my dispersion was noticeably better with my cobra. The guy was pretty confused, but with how strong Tiger is I was thinking he would only loose 10 yards at most by throwing a steel shaft back in the driver. Also on that note, Gary Woodland was testing a three wood with a tipped steel shaft because Callaway apparently made his 3 wood way too hot. Haha for some reason they thought he wanted a 3-wood that went as far as his driver.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwINLfEmAjc[/youtube]

I get the fact that there is a clear difference in release between swingers such as Fred couples and hitters such as Hogan. Where I get somewhat confused is in videos such as the one above. Someone posted this a while back and Lag agreed that it was correct in a hitters protocol. If you watch the video his hands are clearly crossing over at the bottom of the swing. My interpretation of this video is that if Snead were to take a DIVOT with this technique, the resistance would make his hands turn over late into the hit and go low and left. Is this the reason why it is much more difficult to tell a hitter from the swinger when one is hitting a driver? the ground does not provide resistance when one is hitting a driver and therefore the release looks different.

FYI: Hogan does a similar teaching technique as the Sam Snead Hands Snap in the five lessons that is demonstrated in the link below.
http://youtu.be/vmEtiww2wU0

A divot would have some but not a lot to do with it. Both Snead and Hogan demonstrated rolling over of the wrists at some point in book or film instruction. Certainly not how Hogan struck a golf ball, however, he did experiment with it in the Mexico films a bit.

Snead was quite a bit taller so his release would look a bit different. It’s not going to cut left quite as hard, but in general, the intention was similar.

Snead talking about active hand strike in the video is a hitter’s intention. Not the dead hands of a swinger.

You have the extreme poles of the release types… then everything in between. You can always tighten it up or loosen it up.
It’s important to make a choice if you want to simplify the game. Some players use both at times, and often we see hitting with the short irons and swinging with the longer clubs.

The best way to distinguish is to look at the right arm. A straightening right arm moving quickly off the body is the telltale sign of a swinger release.

A right arm that stays firm and bent with the elbow still on the body moving into P4 is the mark of a hitters release generally speaking… unless you are playing off a rotated plane line such as Trevino used.

I think wrist roll through impact has a lot to do with how good your post impact pivot thrust is. Most of the best ballstrikers do a very good of maintaining their wrist alignments from impact to p4, and if you don’t have good post impact pivot thrust I don’t think this is really possible. Even the pictures of Nicklaus even though he had a swingers release this does not look like a lot of wrist rollover to me especially when he’s hitting a driver. That’s why to me the pictures of Peete, Trevino and Norman are so impressive and Furyk does this well also, ive found to get close what those guys are doing it feels like there is no wrist roll through impact. Its very impressive that Calvin Peete is able to hold that much wrist cock and keep the hands so close through impact with the driver, that’s something you don’t see much.

Great picture of Calvin, thanks for putting up.

There was some discussion of the right arm in another thread. I think it is very helpful to not think of the right arm going forward, but I don’t like the down feel myself. Instead, I prefer the cartoon of Player Bradley put up a few days ago, where Player was describing the DS feeling like a boxer making an uppercut. I have posted here and over on SITD that I feel the DS feels like I am swinging up or at least to a point chest high and out down the fairway. If I were to isolate the arms, I would say I would feel the right arm feels like it lowers with the entire right side as I add knee flex in transition. My right arm never feels like it goes forward. The left arm is the forward arm…in that it initiates my hitting action with a pull and then forearm rotation. The pull is the orbit pull that I only am recently beginning to fully understand. The pull is temporary and simply part of the hitting sequence: pull, forearm rotation, pivot thrust, then arms high. Forearm rotation takes care of the “down”, I see no reason to want to feel down. I think this picture conveys what I am feeling better than any pic I have ever found. Even the angle of the shaft at this point is aiming right where I feel like I am going, and note where his head is…lowered and right over the right groin and inside of the leg. That is where the pivot thrust comes from.
Hogan at P3 Aimed.jpg

I like those thoughts nfb.

I be guessin’ the natural instinct is to send energy ‘down’ to where the ball is, but like you said, the down is already taken care of real late and fast. So reversing that natural instinct, should the goal be sending energy ‘up’, and as far as I know there is only one ‘up’ from the top and that is on the other side of where bluebirds fly.

For me personally, I would add one more segment onto your progression: pull, pin, forearm rotation, pivot move, let 'er rip.

Why oh why can’t I… :laughing:

Yes to forearm rotation taking care of the down. But to put it another way, the right arm moves down more than horizontally, if horizontally at all. That’s what I got from Jim’s video. It’s a spiraling feeling down. Totally agree about the upper cut. All this powered by the pivot driving the right palm up, skyward, post impact stuff.

Grady, I’ve noticed a lot of your posts lately are all colored with post-impact subtleties. You may not even realize it in your writings, but I see it and it’s absolutely where our minds should be. Really great thinking.

:smiley: Best Post I ever Read

Diz

Well dip me in tar fat, Diz is here. Nice to have you around.

RR,

The initial pull is down the 4:30 line for me…so it doesn’t pin my left, but rather keeps it out…left elbow down 4:30 line, but does pin the right elbow and moves that elbow in front of right hip. The left forearm rotation is what pins the left arm for me. What is interesting is that as I pull the left my left hand curls a bit under or bows. The bow is under instead of forward. Does that make sense?

Yeah, make total sense. My pull-pin-rotation was probably not the best way to put it at the time. I think you are right, the majority of the pin comes from the forearm rotation and on me the pin is the inside of the L bicep attaching to the outside of the left breast in general terms.

But the pin and rotation are happening so quickly and on top of each other, but my left hand does not curl until the rotation.

Hey…save your pop bottle money and get yourself a sand filled 55’ driving iron and hit it off the ground. The other day I had my ‘Jethro’ math cap on and found that I am 5’7" ( 12 ) and my ABS practice club just happens to be a 48" driving iron ( 4 + 8 =12 )…a numerical coincidence? :astonished: So if’in you are 6"4" it seems like to get to the number ‘10’ you would need a 55" inch club.

Ya’ gotta try something real long, overly long, just for grins. The toe may set up a little at address, but there is minimal room to work from the top and it almost wants to drive itself Hogan style.

…and speaking of cup to bow…one of the best of the best:
cabby.jpg
cabby1.jpg

I like these better:

Hogan before the shaft moves outside his hands…not how his left arm and elbow are out…this is something Drew talked about on SITD…but it is just an effect caused by the way you use your left hand…at least for me:
Hogan Delivery US Open .jpg
And John right after the shaft has moved outside this hands, right before impact:
JE near impact.jpg

Check out some of the concepts are in play in this video of jack fleck at the age of 92.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIvXDY-pF54

Look at the legwork, how low his hands are, left and connected through. Great stuff.

imgur.com/a/Rwevc