Lag on the Launch Monitor

Essential Reading
21

That wasn’t the point. It’s the ignorance that was on display there. Very similar to talking to a pro about bending your irons who has the experience working with persimmons and irons with pinned shafts vs. the pro that is just used to changing grips on cast irons.

You are wrong. Now you are corrected. If you had persevered to module 4, you’d know better. The “advice” when signing up is usually along the lines of get your training club (2 iron) bent flat and that an old wood wood is a great tool for reinforcing the modules.

Captain Chaos

22

I am happy to confirm that in real life Styles is a much more lovable character than he appears in print. :smiley:

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Well, I will say this,
My intention was not to go in there and be some kind of smart Alec. I was simply interested in knowing what my swing speed was with a persimmon, and if the machine was halfway accurate with it’s distance readings.

The problem with these machines first and foremost is that they are not going to teach you how to swing the club. Second,
the so called “prescribed ideal” of a 15 degree launch angle, low 2500 rpm spin rate or what ever smash factors or figures they are promoting for “ideal” is going to help me about twice a round?

I played the other day on a classic old school course here in the bay, and it was very tight off the tee, and I had to shape the ball into the fairways with a combination of curvatures and trajectories. Of the 14 drives I hit, 3 of them were 1 irons off the tee, one was a 2 iron, and one was a 2 wood. Of the nine times I hit driver, four of them I played off the ground just bumping up a bit of turf with my heel to keep the ball teed down really low. Any of you who have played with me have seen me hit this shot. The other 5 drives where two hard draws around a corner and one hard fade. That left two straight ahead pedal to the metal drives where distance was more the advantage than position.

Two shots where having ideal launch angles prescribed by the experts could theoretically help me… but even then…
how much would that actually help? Nailing a drive an extra 20 yards is not going to guarantee a birdie.

Nearly every drive I hit, I have a specific trajectory in mind, curvature and shot shape. It is not only fun to play this way, it’s practical on a proper golf course. I agree with Ben Hogan that the drive is the most important shot, because it sets up the hole. If a golf hole is not designed for positioning of the drive favoring one side or the other for the approach it is simply not a well designed golf hole. The length of a golf course has NOTHING … ZERO to do with the quality of the layout.

I can’t in anyway think that spending time on such a machine is going to help my golf swing. Nothing is going to tell me how I am driving the ball better than playing shots out on a golf course under the vast variety of situations, wind, hole shape and so forth.

The fitting bay is also useless for determining a clubs functionality under real golf situations. I would have no idea how the club would feel or how I would be able to hit different kinds of shots out on the course. How would a frying pan do for me if I wanted to hit a low boring drive… 20 feet off the ground into the wind turning left and hugging the terrain of the fairway? The launch angle machine would say I hit a poor shot, too low… spin rate too high and so forth.

The upright lie angles are absurd with the modern drivers and no doubt very damaging to the golf swing over time, as well as their lightweight nature.

My numbers were respectable because I have a good golf swing. The daily module work keeps my swing fit and is what allowed me to walk into a fitting bay and see positive feedback confirmed by the machine. As far as ABS goes, it’s not only going to help you play properly set up gear, it will help you also with the improper modern gear. But if you play modern gear, you will not improve your golf swing (and I mean what is happening internally within the body) as quickly as if you use heavier flatter gear which will train your swing correctly and also move the “left” vector of possibility significantly to the right and toward the target. It will allow you to actively strike with the hands and forearm rotation without fearing the left side of the golf course, and by swinging on a flatter swing plane you gain better control of your lowpoint for trajectory control, and also the flatter lie angles naturally put the club behind you so you can utilize your pivot rotation correctly. This is why most of the greatest strikers of all time swung on flatter swing planes.

Tall players can still use flat gear. By bending the knees more at transition and through impact, even a tall player can lower the COG and get down into flatter gear. The tall players actually can load more pressure into the ground to assist them post impact than a shorter player. It’s a completely ignorant statement to suggest that tall players are trapped into playing upright gear. A player with short arms can also use the same applied principals.

No one has to play flat heavy gear, but you are leaving both accuracy and distance on the table if you don’t. Hogan wasn’t wrong.

I completely disagree with the notion that one should fit their gear to their golf swing. It makes no sense and is totally illogical. Flat heavy gear is like driving a Ferrari. You are not going to ever learn how to properly handle a high performance car if you only drive a cushy Cadillac.

Learning how to play properly set up gear, with some mass in the clubhead is going to give you more feel and control for precision shotmaking.

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24

:mrgreen:

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That was a very telling video…thank you for posting that. Synopsis: Titanium (with current ball technology) and getting fitted were the largest factors relating to increased distance and accuracy.

Go Low, nobody here is blaming manufacturers for making their technology. Most here are questioning the direction the game is going and why the ruling bodies aren’t protecting the integrity of the game of golf.

Personally, I think there should be one ball for the game of golf. Perhaps it wasn’t as important back in the day, but when you have the type of money in the game now where a pro (Tiger for example) can have a ball manufacturer create a conforming ball for just one guy’s personal swing!!! I don’t know about you, but I do not call that a level playing field.

Captain Chaos

26

There’s a video out there with Martin Kaymer hitting drivers on Trackman and the guy shows him which numbers are better spin,height, etc etc all the bells and whistles very good and interesting stuff after about 30 drives from the same place the guy says something like driver #2 is the better one because of the numbers. Well great by like Lag says what if you have to change trajectory or shape the shot - now the numbers are useless and what if the wind changes ?
The saleman asked Lag to change launch angle on the driver which he did 1 shot low the next high! The saleman judged the book by its cover so he looked like Joanquin Phoenix and had a persimmon driver with a x shaft. Then the salesman made the worse mistake a fitter can make he asked Lag to change the swing- wow.
Do you want a salesman or a clubfitter to change your swing? Think about it a Tour player was told to do that? Lag and Two have played all over the world with conditions changing daily thats why they grind wedges small bounce ,big bounce, straight edges,round edges the turf is never the same!
We have all the technology in the world and i love some of the stuff but why have golf handicaps not gone down over the last 50yrs? Corey Pavin averaged 237 in 1992 now he’s at 253 thats 15 more yards because of the golf ball !

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Go Low
According to club manufactures the average lie angle on tour is1.5deg flat with std length coming in at 92%

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I’m talking flat out ball striking… not who putts and scores the best.

I’m talking Hogan, Trevino, Knudson, Nelson…even Snead for that matter. I’m talking the greats… the greatest strikers of all time. They understood this stuff.

If you disagree, fine… just shows you don’t understand this stuff.

As far as Ferrari’s, it’s easier to buy one than learn how to drive one… I know because I drove my mechanics Dino once, and it was about as comfortable to drive as a 15 ounce 1 iron bent six down. You gotta earn your stripes into that stuff.

29

That may be, but there’s a lot of players that have their clubs upright. For example, Stewart Cink’s irons are 5 degrees upright and his wedges are 5 1/2 degrees upright. He says that his clubs are upright not because he is tall, but because he is upright through impact. Much shorter Scott Hoch has very upright lie angles.

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(Golf Digest What’s in the Bag?) that Vijay’s longer irons are 1* flat, and get to 2-3 degrees flat by the time you get to the wedges, because he is so handsy, and because he hates hitting the ball left.

Ian Woosnam used to use standard length irons at 3 degrees flat. 5’4" means his fingers to floor measurement is pretty short I suppose.
I think Ray Flyod used irons about 4* up, he has very short arms, and Lanny Wadkins, short, very low hands, is about 3-4* flat. Lanny said on TV once that if him and Raymond switched clubs neither one would be about to break 100 (paraphrasing)

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Bubba watson great ballstriking skills? 2 wins in 7yrs?

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I have been on this forum for over a year now. IMO, Styles seems to be angry and looking for a fight at every turn. He may not want or like that persona but I am probably not the only one who interprets him that way.

I love Lag’s character. He never goes after anyone personally but instead sticks with the topic of discussion. I think Lag is a good example of demonstrating the fact we can all learn from each other and we can be civil even when attached.

That being said, the public can only learn the truth about ABS from facts. Styles, your preceived “Lag prerequisites” for being an ABS student, such as using specific clubs or requirements to bend them, are not true and misleading. Of course Lag is going to give direction to his students as to what he thinks is best for them, what teacher doesn’t? I have never read, received an email, or heard Lag say anything other than encouragement.

Styles, I believe it is safe to say you prefer people not label you incorrectly please don’t do that to Lag or ABS. If I have preceived you incorrectly I appologize. I can only go off of what I have read over the past year. If you are not anger and looking for a fight you may want to read and evaluate your words.

33

Since joining ABS my ballstriking has improved dramatically. I am certainly not on par with the ballstrkers you have listed but I do know one thing, thanks to Lag I have been able to keep my misses to the right side of the course. I remember Shawn Foley talking about one miss instead of two and knowing where your miss is headed.

A flatter swing with flatter clubs, the best kept secret in golf. Who knows, maybe the players you noted above, with flatter clubs, may have been able to navigate a course like Hogan and Trevino did.

But like the saying goes, “a person convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

34

Are we talking backswing ‘upright’ or downswing ‘upright’ ?.. If we are talking backswing I can agree with many of those players mentioned …if we are talking downswing we can cut that list in half or a by 3/4 and maybe more …one only has to go visit the Vault and cut some downswing and into impact photos out of mentioned players and show that may not be true

35

Lag did not specify backswing or downswing when he said; “This is why most of the greatest strikers of all time swung on flatter swing planes.” It would be rare for any good golfer to have an upright downswing, so Lag must have been referring to the backswing. Thus, my posted message listing a number of great ball strikers with normal or upright [back] swings.

However, even if Lag meant to say that most of the greatest strikers swung with flat “downswings”, this really should be clarified so-as not to confuse anyone. Is a flat backswing and flat downswing okay - is a normal backswing and flat downswing okay - is an upright backswing and flat downswing okay? Regardless what is okay…virtually all good golfers with a normal or upright swing at the top have a two-plane swing, with the downward part of the swing being a hands/arms drop-down or re-routing move to deliver the club into the ball from the inside, which is a flatter plane. That said, virtually all good golfers with a normal or upright swing at the top have a flatter downswing due to the required drop-down or re-routing move that shifts the plane flatter. A flatter downswing is nothing unusual in a two-plane [normal or upright] golf swing.

Most handicap golfers with a normal or upright two-plane golf swing make the mistake of swinging the hands/arms directly back to the ball from the top-of-backswing position without the required plane shift in the downswing, thus producing a downswing that is over or outside the desired plane. A lot of people may call this mistake an over-the-top swing, but in reality a handicap golfer might not be making [what most people think is] an over-the-top move (by shoving his right shoulder and arms/hands outward) - they just haven’t learned how to get on the second plane (of their two-plane swing) by dropping their hands/arms downward and re-routing the club to deliver the club from the inside.

36

But…if you read Lag’s posts there is a lot of talk that we don’t hit the ball with the backswing and the backswing doesn’t mean so much because history shows lots of different backswings… it was a given that flat means downswing and approach…especially when there is so much mention of the 4.30 line into the ball

Just posting pics of some of the players you mentioned coming down towards the ball…should these be classified as ‘flat’ or ‘upright’

approach.JPG

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Go Low: Excluding the Nicklaus overhead view… How do you define the limits of your “not too upright nor too flat” window? Within that window (however you define it) where would these guys fall out in your opinion…towards the “too flat” boundary or the “too upright” boundary?

Thanks.

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Go low,
Also after you comment on lipouts where would Furyk fit in on the backswing if nicklaus is upright and then what about furyks downswing say compared to Moe Norman would that be too flat. Just curious about definition of upright vs flat. Noticed you mentioned one plane vs two plane aren’t the number of planes infinity on the backswing? Not trying to argue trying to understand how you view golf swings.
Thank You

39

Flat swing dowswing plane in relation to the the spine…

Quite hard to visualise until you rotate the image:

flat.gif

40

Now we might be getting somewhere GoLow and this goes all the way back to the thread “Lags personal equipment specifications”- where all our fun began

Back track a little…you said you didn’t believe flat equipment was worthwhile and that the modern upright equipment was excellent gear…that’s a fact you said

You somehow didn’t believe that upright equipment was a problem for the golf swing… that’s a fact you said

Now I will post some more pictures here of modern players-- let’s forget the old legends for a minute who pretty much all played with correctly set up equipment…

flippers.JPG

OK…I see 7 flippers with the hands shutting the face rapidly…I see 2 that have good clubface control thru the shot… which 2 players swing it the flattest coming onto impact? Is it co-incidence?

do you believe these 2 players can swing flat into the ball and make a solid strike and keep their shaft plane at impact almost identical to their shaft plane at address if they didn’t have flatter equipment?

the other 7 all use upright equipment…they all raise their hands into impact to get that upright equipment to sole out…they are good players…yes…but they all roll the face tremendously thru impact …can they control this stuff day in and day out?..I say NO… I suggest Westwood is the best of the roll/flip bunch as far as ball striking but he does something compensatory to adjust for this (his left arm) that must help him because tee to green he is streets ahead of the other 6 players on a consistent basis

So it goes without saying that a more upright hand position at impact should also match up with a steeper downswing- so all these players will have a steeper (more upright) downswing than the Floyd, Nicklaus, kite pic a few posts back…steep down…steep shoulders at impact…less body turn because the shoulder steepness restricts the turn , so the hands flick and roll…and it ALL comes back to equipment being TOO light and TOO upright for nearly everyone out there…except for a select few who drop them flat and have it worked out somehow through the maze