Thanks for sharing that Aiguille… cool stuff… and thanks as always to Twomasters…
Aiguille,
thanks for the insightful post. Lot’s of gems in there. Your hard work has paid off, and will continue to do so.
As you can see, golf can be a lot more fun when you start to put good solid fundamentals on your side, and even utilizing
some of the basic concepts of setting up your gear correctly. It all helps make the game more enjoyable when you start to take control of the golf ball with good technique.
One of the great things about golf is that the game changes it’s face when you are able focus on positioning the ball into the proper spots on the golf course, rather than just hit and hope you find it. It will also change your taste in the type of courses that will be of interest to you to play on.
It’s not an easy game, as we all have bad days or off weeks, but the more we understand, the less time we will be spending “down and out” and having the ability to troubleshoot our errors quickly and efficiently, and that is what I am striving for you all here at ABS.
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Aiguille
Great post! I am feeling many of the same things you are. My main lightbulb moment, as was one of yours, was the tying of the arms to the torso, particularily the pressure in the left arm pit area. I am 60 yrs. old and have played off a 1 or 2 handicap for most of 45 yrs. Unfortunately I spent all of that time as a “swinger” with a huge pivot stall, arms running off my chest with a huge CF dump to right field. Not a good way to play. Only hitting a lot of balls and a good short game kept my handicap pretty low. I was still subject to have high rounds at any time though if my timing got off at all. My game was a very high maintenance proposition at best.
When I first started with Lag / ABS and began working with the feeling of arms tied to torso I thought “man - I am already having trouble hooking the ball - everything is really going to go left with this move”. But it wasn’t so. In fact it tended to hook less! Well I am the kind of person who has to understand the physics of any movement as well as the feel. So I have been thinking about the “hitter” action as compared to the “swinger” action.
The difficulty with any type of golf swing is that from P3 on to impact the clubhead / shaft is closing on the ball at a much faster rate than the arms due to the release. You have to find a way to time that release where the clubhead / shaft basically lines up with the left arm at impact. The problem with this is since the club is already racing towards the ball at a much higher rate than the arms the inertia of that club is going to dictate that the clubhead will flip right past your hands unless you do something to prevent that. A “swinger” can’t do much to control that “flip” because he is firing the clubhead down the line or out to right field and therefore has no way to fight the inertial momentum of the clubhead going past his hands and the loss of pressure on the clubshaft. He has to rely on extremly accurate timing to hit it straight. In fact I feel that dumping the club out to right field actually causes the pivot to stall! Think about it. After you let the arms run off the torso the pivot is not going to pull them back in - so the pivot just lost what should be it’s main function - to accelerate the club past impact as much as possible. So my feeling is that the pivot kind of fizzles out after that.
Contrast that with the “hitter”. He has the same issues coming into impact as the “swinger” - rapidly closing clubhead that he has to time the release of. The difference is that he does something about it. He fights like crazy against the CF pull out to right field and “makes” that club “cut” left just as Lag talks about. And I feel that is primarily done by tying the arms to the torso through the ball and beyond. And just as I feel a “swinging” action actually encourages a pivot stall, I feel a “hitting” action encourages a stong pivot through and past the ball. If you have your arms tied to your torso and you don’t pivot stongly your not going to get much clubhead speed or pressure on the shaft. I feel you literally create an almost irresistable “need” to pivot strongly when you have your arms tied to your torso. And though you might think you might end up with slower arm speed with this method I have found that you don’t. The tighter circle you produce with this action actually keeps the clubhead speed high. But the real beauty of this method is the extreme pressure kept on the shaft through and past impact. Think of a line of skaters rotating on the ice in a circle. The harder and faster the pivoting skater turns the more the outside skaters at the end of the line “lag” and the faster they move. I equate this action to the action of cutting the clubhead left in a proper “hitters” swing in that it creates tremendous lag and pressure on the shaft. And when there is lag the clubhead doesn’t pass the hands and when the clubhead doesn’t pass the hands the clubface doesn’t rotate as quickly making clubface control about a thousand times easier than a “swingers” clubhead flip through impact.
These are just all things I am thinking about and more importantly feeling in my swing. I realize that a good pivot starts from the ground up - but good ground pressures aren’t going to do much good if you don’t have your arms tied to your torso so you can cut that club left and keep real pressure on the shaft and keep the heel of the club from passing the toe through and past impact as long as you can.
I have completed Mod 1 and started Mod 2 but unfortunately tore my left front quadricep muscle in a skiing mishap. So I am just now getting to work on Mod 2 where I can learn how to create the correct ground pressures which I so sorely lack.
Lag and his tutorial have helped me tremendously as has Twomasters and everyone else on this forum. I read almost all the posts and have gained valuable information from each and everyone of you. I thank all of you for your help.
dinkbat
dinkbat,
Very informative post. It’s nice to hear it coming from a student… and it’s a pleasure to work with all the students that are applying themselves and getting results.
It’s not all easy, but if you work hard at this stuff… you will get results.
Lag,
Thank you for your gracious words…
From a student’s perspective, its wonderful to work with a teacher who is as enthusiastic, knowledgeable and hard working as you are. I know how passionately you feel about wanting to see all of your students improve.
I love the resources that you and Twomasters have put together for us in the private student forum and I hear rumours of ‘the vault’ ?!
Another huge lightbulb moment for me was the creation of the proverbial flat left wrist at impact. When Lag explained that a FLW at impact was a result or “vapor trail” of proper swing dynamics as opposed to it being created. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I spent a lot of time trying to “create” a FLW at impact with my old CF pivot stall dump to right field swing. All I accomplished was to nearly break my wrist as I tried to stall the inertia of the club flying off to right field. No one is stong enough to resist that force. What a relief it was when began to feel the beginnings of a FLW with my new ABS pivot driven swing (not that I do it that well yet). And the interesting thing is that I don’t actually feel this FLW at impact - I feel it more out towards P4! More edvidence that a FLW at impact is a result of a proper swing - not a cause.
dinkbat
George Knudson agrees with Lag on this one:
George then acknowledges that “I had no idea that to maintain firm wrists was to properly use my legs. I ignored footwork also because I was stuck on golf’s number one misconception … keep the head still. I later learned that the head has to go where the body carries it. The head has nothing to do with the golf swing, the head has no purpose in the swing”
Module 2 is very important from here on in, so try to understand it well.
I know where you’re coming from dinkbat.
When on the TGM train, I could not come to terms with the FLW fascination. I asked, I did not get answers I found satisfactory.
When I first read Lag describing it as a vapor trail, aha. You just won yourself a student.
I am not willing at this point to throw out the 3 imperatives. I have always believed that they are essentially an effect, not a cause. Physics creating the geometry so to speak. I have never seen say an on-plane right forearm as a magic pill, but rather evidence of a right elbow that is not “out.” I think most decent players get that if the body stops the right arm has to straighten in order to accelerate the club. At impact the greats tend to display a flat left wrist…a lag pressure point…and a sweetspot that is tracing a line. How they got there is the kicker! I agree with the vapor trail image. But the vapor trail is great for diagnostic purposes, don’t you think?
Bobscottjnr
But if you are taught to throw out the right elbow - Tricep action (in a controlled way) then it becomes next to impossible to regain the vapor trails.
Personally, I think you are blocking your progress. Throw out your preconceived notions and follow a different path to see where it takes you. Bob, I think you’ll be very surprised where you find yourself even after a short time on the ABS path.
Cheers,
Captain Chaos
They are effects, correct? If I treat them as mere effects can I still keep them? 
I do not know of any great ball strikers that do not have at least a geometrically “flat” left wrist at impact, or lag pressure that they can monitor with the #3PP, or an on plane motion through impact. I get that these things are as a result, and not causal in themselves. I do not think Lag has jettisoned them as a useful vapor trail, has he? 
My stimulus money has not yet arrived so I have not signed up for the modules! 
Yes, you can keep them. 
I just wouldn’t even consider them when doing the program. I misunderstood your intentions.
Sign up when you get a chance, Bob. Hey, since our govt. seems to enjoy spending so much, create a golf swing initiative study and see if you can get a govt. grant…for the betterment of the game, of course.
Captain Chaos
I appreciate your concerns. You are absolutely right! When I am doing my non-module modules I do not think about the 3 imperatives. The only thing I think about it hitting the ball so hard that what air remains in my lungs is knocked out! 
When I do that I seem to find a very fine vapor trail indeed! As for political commentary I will leave it to the real expert my pal Karl “Democracy is the the road to socialism.” Karl Marx
BSJ
FLW may be is imperative with a swinging motion but not with an ABS type hitting motion; the PP#3 is highly overrated (I try to stay away from it because the difference between monitoring and using which will lead to wrist casting is hair thin for me). Finally, to be on perfect plane at impact you have to be under plane entering P3 and shoot above it after P4.
Do you consider Sadlowski’s wrist to be flat or not?
Homer’s imperatives will happen, but not correctly by using flashlights, throwing the arms off the body, or driving the club down into the ground to fake the FLW.
I have all the “imperatives” but not because I am trying to do any of them. More the opposite.
For instance, my torso accelerates post impact, therefore pinning my wrist flat by force, but I actually am trying to fire my hands harder so I avoid the FLW therefore utilizing all the loft on the club. I FEEL like I have a bent left wrist at impact, and strive vigorously to do so… HOWEVER, because my pivot accelerates faster than my ability to fire the club past it, I fail miserably in my attempt, and I end up with a FLW.
Would I ever want to try to create a FLW by direct assertion? No.
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I tend to agree about the effects v. cause thing. Not a popular assertion in TGM circles. Jamie is gonna have to bring his A game if he is going to pick my pocket! 
I knew a former international field hockey that could have kept up with young Jamie. He never beat me either (assuming Jamie is like a lot of scratch players in that you take them off their home track and they become 5 handicappers!) I took on the 8th ranked amateur in the world in a seven round match stretch last fall. I “pipped” him 5 to 2. Double presses and all! I only say that because I do not bother looking at swings of players that may or may not be able to beat me. Parade a better stock of player. They tend have grade A vapor! Cupped at impact is typically no good, a super arched left wrist does not help a whole lot either. As for #3pp, it is for sensing only. Again I feel a lot of pressure in that index finger when I am striking it well. I simply make sensory note of it and move on.
Trying to do them tends to get you going down the wrong path by ignoring the contribution that physics makes. So I guess I believe that physics makes geometry behave! I have changed my mind on that particular point. That is why I am here! Thanks for throwing some flags though!
Would I ever want to try to create a FLW by direct assertion? No.
This statement by Lag moves mountains i dont see any tour player trying to do this! Yet i see teachers trying to force there students to make this move hands 5 feet past the ball down the target line arms seperated from body saying see my FLW . The more you try and create and force a FLW the worse your swing gets. Like Lag says its a vapor trail you can use flashlights wooden dowels tracing to your blue in the face hitting down til the point your club is stuck in the ground this will lead you into frustration because the minute you actually play not only cant you do it you try and to force yourself in making that move.The body stops and the hands flip or you end up dumping yor arms at the ball.
Funny Lag mentions this, I notice I am getting more lag than I have in the past just by going into pitch elbow and getting on the 4:30 line. I’ve been a believer for quite some time that the best way to obtain a FLW at impact is to not actively try to get a FLW at impact and use other methods. Unfortuntely I thought freezing the right wrist was an answer, but I don’t see that. Now that I’m firing the hands at the ball I’m actually getting a lot more lag and not having any issue with flipping. And I’m still using the CF release. Scary to think where it could be once I get the other modules down.
FLW at impact is very important, regardless of what people say. However, it’s more important how you achieve that FLW at impact.
3JACK
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I actually try to fire my hands so hard that it almost feels like I am going to get a bent left wrist…its the post impact pivot and the cutting it left move, if I do it correctly, which stops the flip and gives you the seemingly desirable vapour trail of a FLW ( although not being from a TGM background, I was never burdened with that concern 
I regard the presence of a FLW or no flip as an inevitable byproduct of correct ABS execution.
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