I believe the definitions commonly used in the ABS community are:
-hitter’s intention/goal is to hold shaft flex as long as possible and he/she acts accordingly pre and post impact (the exact components of which are described by the ABS instruction but in general include active hands/wrists/forearms, shallow/elbow plane through impact, etc.)
-swinger’s intention/goal is to release the flex in the shaft into the ball and he/she acts accordingly pre and post impact (the exact components of which can be seen in guys like vijay, freddy, etc.)
Not sure exactly where to post this but found some interesting tidbits embedded in this Tom Watson article.
“Release: As long as your lower body is leading, you can throw your right hand hard”
and
“Throw the club through the ball with your right hand (above, right). As Jack Nicklaus said, you can hit as hard as you want with the right hand as long as the lower body is leading.”
I think Tom and Jack got it right (and how could I say otherwise)
In my limited experience, if you lead with your lower body, pushing hard with the right hand doesn’t necessarily add distance. But it’s the ingredient that provide shot making control and the “hit the ball hard feeling”.
I must admit that holding shaft flex isn’t how I approach impact. Shaft flex is something I can’t hold. I don’t have the capacity to accelerate hard enough for long enough to hold it. But when I play well, I can increase the lag pressure right at the ball by pushing hard with the right hand straight at impact. Ahh the good hit feeling that reaches all the way down to the ground. Today I had it for quite a few shots. It’s been a long time since I last had that feeling so golf was exceptionally fun today allthough I failed to convert on the greens.
Holding shaft flex in the golf swing almost defines the word “esoteric”
Holding shaft flex has little to do with strength and power in and of itself.
I can hold shaft flex on a putt from 3 feet or a chip from the fringe of the green.
What you are saying here is true if you are not willing to give up a quick start down from the top. Most golfers don’t like the idea, nor the feel of starting slow from the top because it goes against their basic instinct to generate as much velocity as possible, as quickly as possible.
However, if you work on things like hand speed at the bottom, and post impact pivot work, it makes it much easier to start down slow once your brain feels confident that you have the guns to get the job done later in the golf club’s journey to swing completion.
Most golfers who try to start down slow have nothing at the bottom or past impact so they simply lose distance and feel, and hit horrible shots trying to do this… therefore they don’t continue with that idea of swing slow from the top.
Ideally, you would want to be so quick and strong with both the hands and pivot late in the swing that you simply will always have the ability to outrace your quick downswing… and one of the best ways to do this (other than a lot of ABS work) is to shorten the backswing hand travel, while maintaining the same rotational travel of the torso.
It’s really quite easy to hold shaft flex, not so easy to do it and hit the ball the same distance you are used to. That’s the primary reason I teach students hand speed drills, and pivot work right out of the shoot, so we can get a head start on this objective… because to really master this game, you need both adequate velocity and acceleration. Spending all your time working on your setup, backswing path and where the shaft points at the top of the swing is not going to do you any good in this department. Unfortunately we don’t hit the ball on the backswing.
For me a significant benefit from learning the gradual start down with less haste is it supports improved accuracy and consistency. With ABS you can get this and keep or develop your power too. I admit it has been a continuing challenge to let go of my old lurching jerk down from the top. When I do let go, the improving results make it easier to let go of the old habit in the next swings.
For what it’s worth, I don’t do the quick transition thing. I try to create a condition that enables me to maximise the thrust right before impact. When I am successful I create a load that is too big for me to hold. It is a bit plyometric-ish if you know what I mean. But perhaps a steady and weaker thrust for a longer duration is better. Different way of using the muscles. Running vs cycling type of difference. The steady and long thrust versus the short, plyometric max force burst.
I guess I’ll find out soon since I’m about to start the module work.
Actually it appears that I have two different stroke patterns available.
One with open stance (both toes angled forward), hands close to the body and very flat pivot that produces a very steady thrust throughout the swing. And another that is more as described above.
I prefer the steady thrust wtroke whenver I am able to bring it to the course. I haven’t been that lately so I’d almost forgot about it. But I am able to produce both of the two in the back yard without a ball interfering so there’s still hope.
Sorry Zico i dont get it, what are you trying to say with your post? Imo that was a great strike with a couple of ABS principles applied
Regarding Holding Shaft Flex.
True or false - a weak left hand grip (pressurewise in the last 3 fingers) will prevent us from holding shaft flex.
True or false - a cutting it left motion due to correct pivot motion (esp. with the shoulders at that point) will help us keep the shaft flex longer.
I´m just trying to find out if i´m on the right path to understanding it.
Generally speaking yes… but you could hold shaft flex with just the right hand on the club… but for a full shot… it would be best to fire both hands, just as Hogan described.
Yes, but only if the hands are properly integrated… and likewise, the hands need the help of a properly moving pivot.
Absolutely the best topic, and I personally “feel” the most important, of any [golf related] swing topic…without a doubt. Lag’s explanations and descriptions of a stressed shaft in the downswing and through impact, and why it is SO very important, are fantastic.
If the club shaft is bent (ie. lag), AND the alignment of the shaft bend is perpendicular the clubface (ie. the bend is inline with the clubface… open clubface coming into impact)
What happens when we rotate at the bottom? A bendy-rotation question… Hope you guys can help
Does the shaft flex rotatate ? or does the shaft flex keep the clubhead moving forward in spite of the wrist rotation?
This is why all these great strikers used super stiff shafts… and why graphite never was the choice for the greats because it torqued too much.
You absolutely want to be torquing the shaft, but you also want resistance in the shaft… so that pressure can be applied…
The clubface does want to open if you are holding flex, and this is why you see all these flat rotations going on, because a hitter is doing a lot of the squaring of the clubface with pivot rotation… not just flipping the hands over.
And this is absolutely another reason that if you have a great golf swing, you get rid of the offset on your irons.
This is a pretty good view of the changing shaft pressure/flex during the downswing, by someone who I think is very good at it. An interesting topical aside, a friend of mine was doing some work down at Taylor Made recently and asked the tech guys who were the best strikers they’ve seen- they said hands down, Sergio is in a different class to any of them, but the guy that comes closest, and is way ahead of most of the rest is… Kenny Perry. I thought I’d mention it since he was brought up by Lag in another thread as a good striker. Interestingly, they both utilize significant right foot ground pressure through the strike. Sergio was the first guy that actually got me interested in that area…
What always strikes me in the DTL view , is how Sergio and Hogan get their right elbow so opened/straighter early in the downswing, all along saving some right elbow.
They do, and they keep their sides strong in their purpose and structure too- you don’t see any right shoulder dropping ‘to get it in the slot’, which is actually the ‘anti get it in the slot move’. If you drop the right shoulder there is no slot… well there is, but it’s outside. If you take 3 things in isolation- right knee, right shoulder, and right elbow, there are functional and dysfunctional combinations they can have to get to the ball. The best one, imo, is flex in the right knee, keep the shoulder high and straighten out the right arm- this is the best for a shallow, strong strike. If you keep the angle in the arm, there’s a strong tendency to drop the right shoulder- there’s a chicken and egg in that.
I battled with the Hogan image for a long time when I was playing and learning the game. It’s very easy to look at Hogan and think of his tight folded right arm and his crazy lag, but when you dig into it, much like you point out, he really did let out all those angles pretty early… I think I talked about this somewhere recently, though I sometimes confuse my writing with my posting. I’m going to post two photos that I have together that I think show the two sides of him, and as images or swing thoughts, the can produce very different things. They’re basically my before and after understandings of Hogan’s action… the before one caused me untold pain
RR
