Bom,
Watch this vid of Knudson… We don’t see this kind of thing anymore…
Yeah I’ve watched that one a ton- it’s insane after a while watching him do it over and over again.
I wasn’t dissing his game or anything more just thinking out loud about some of his moves and ideas. How do you see his little over move with his hands? Hogan seemed to do a similar thing as he got older. I’ve always been afraid of that action yet inclined to do it. I wonder is it a match move to flatten the club out. Lucas Glover does a similar thing…
well…
OTT really means getting steep coming down, and cutting across your plane line…
I don’t like the idea of basing OTT on backswing path…
Knudson pulled it inside on the way back very quickly, but this has very good intentions if you are trying to keep your
arms snug to your body, and you want visual reference to the 4:30 line you’re trying to get to on the downswing.
Even though Knudson’s hands looped opposite of Trevino, his shaft still flattens beautifully into a great 4:30 line at P3 which is right were you want to be if you like world class ball striking.
I think Knudson’s action is flawless. I wouldn’t change a thing other than his putting grip.
Yeah he’s clearly not OTT, just over the plane of his backswing which is what I was getting at. As long as you make it onto a good line coming in it really doesn’t matter how you get to it. That’s one of the things I’ve come to really appreciate in time…
He does seem to slow down his left arm and hand post impact more than say Hogan or Trevino do, letting his through swing be more clubhead led than those guys. Those flick photos of his swing on the bottom pages of his book show it clearer than that vid does. I wonder if that vid is a little compressed…
I was fortunate to have watched Knudson play (and practice) many times from the early 70’s to the late 70’s at our tour stop in New Orleans. I too was fascinated by his swing motion - particularly his backswing. It was interesting to me and unlike any other in his peer group at the time. He would address all of his full shots off of the toe of the club and (as lag notes above) draw his arms inside quickly (perhaps addressing it off the toe helps with this??). His upper right arm and elbow hardly moved on the backswing - it would just swivel - much like a door hinge - back…and through. It really didn’t even slide along his side much with the longer clubs. An incredible machine like action. HIs swing did change slightly as the years passed though. I really did not see a lot of “around the corner” motioning (as mentioned on this forum) the last time I saw George play (late 70’s). In those days I was a real fan of Joe Norwood’s teaching and it appeared that George executed Mr. Norwood’s “cross-lateral shift” through the ball onto the flat of his left foot. I may be wrong about that but that’s what I saw. His follow through at this time was more “up” and less “around” than I remembered it being in earlier years. In the dozens of times I watched this man play, I didn’t really see him miss a shot badly!
I agree Cypress.
His swing changed a lot over the years as he got older… a bit looser with the release and not as much around the corner as when he was in his prime. I have no doubt that a top tier striker can do it both ways… Peter Thomson used a similar release.
The cut it left move requires a more fierce pivot action, and this is certainly what Knudson was doing at the height of his career.
I suspect that as George moved from Tour Star to teacher, he realized that the majority of the public was not going to take the time to really grind it out the hard way as he did, so he worked people into the lazy way, more of a dump than a sequenced “fire it through”. That’s just my take on it…
Fortunately, I’m always a winner with my family…oh, and my mistress too. 
Captain Chaos (who is glad Mrs. Chaos isn’t on this forum)
The next segment of my in depth interview with John “LagPressure” Erickson will appear tomorrow 1/27/10 at 2:00 P.M. eastern time at.
http://gothamgolfblog.blogspot.com/
Enjoy
Lag,
Couple of questions:
- In you equipment specs file, you state ‘I am a firm believer in heavier clubs because they put more feel in our hands and do wonders to inhibit over acceleration which is the #1 swing killer.’
Are you talking about the hands over accelerating?
- More of an equipment question. I saw in Jody Vasquez’s book that they measured Hogan’s irons and the swingweights were only a D-1 in the irons. However, it was pretty apparent that he had a ton of weight up in the grips which made for a heavy club overall, but made for a D-1 swingweight. Have you ever experimented with getting more weight up in the grip end of the shaft? Also, how do you add weight to your clubs?
3JACK
Hi Ritchie,
I will just drop this in from a previous thread as I think it is some what relevant here:
Cheers Arnie
Arnie,
Thanks for that…I had read the same thing in Vasquez’s book…and wondered if it was right.
That is interesting that Hogan continued using the very stiff shafts as he got older. Can someone elaborate what is meant by “tipping the shaft”. Does it mean cutting off some of the shaft near the clubhead end, thus making it even stiffer?
eagle
Thanks Arnie…
I would have been scrounging around for that one.
Wishon is certainly more consistent with what others have said also. My gut feeling is that Vasquez is incorrect on a few things.
I have heard from other sources that his irons were ground down across from the back heel diagonally to the toe, so the irons would set open, however, as that would add loft, the clubs were subsequently delofted accordingly.
Also the grips apparently were built up quite a bit, and he is said to have had a wire reminder planted in the grip at about 5 o clock which would be consistent with the face being open with the sole grind he had.
Super stiff, super heavy, I have heard up to 16 ounces with the driver.
If you’ve watched him swing closely, you can see more resistance at the change in direction at the top due to a heavy club.
We don’t see that as much with the modern tour players because of the lightweight heads. Try swinging a heavy piece of steel pipe sometime, and you’ll see what I mean.
No doubt the ball likes to be hit with a heavy head. f=ma or p=mv, either way… there is that “m” in the equation that everyone seems to quite ignorantly ignore these days… These velocity meters at the ranges don’t measure the head weight nor acceleration… so they are basically supplying considerably incomplete information to golfers.
Homer knew this well, and discusses this with excellent clarity in TGM’s chapter 2. I think Homer did an excellent job with chapter 2.
1 Like
Yes Eagle,
that is correct about tipping… you cut off the tip near the clubhead to make the shaft stiffer… I do that to all my X shafts.
Thanks Arnie.
From what I was reading elsewhere, the thought was that the swingweights may have been D-1, but that was because there was so much weight up on the grip and with some calculations they were thinking that non-built up grips and such would’ve made the swing weights in the D-7 to D-8 range.
I found this quote peculiar:
The '63 Hogan IPT’s I bought have this very sharp leading edge as well. Personally, I love the sharp leading edge and haven’t had any problems with hitting them fat. I wonder why this would be a problem since you’re supposed to hit the ball first and then take a divot. Most good players can do that without much issue.
3JACK
One of the ABS touring pros who is getting set to have a breakthrough year…
We get him to the green, he putts it into the hole!
JC contributes also in the private student area of our forum here, along with some of the other touring pros…
and we have some good ones!
Ok,
here is an almost unbelievable story that happened yesterday…
Some guy shows up at my door wanting to sell me high quality steaks and seafood from his freezer truck.
I had my garage door open so he started to comment on my Texas size golf club collection…
So we get to talking classic clubs, and how all this stuff has changed the game to it’s detriment… and get this…
Then he asks me if I have ever heard of Bobby Clampett, Ben Doyle and the Golfing Machine!
We find out that he was on the range with Ben and was one of the early TGM disciples from the early days, and then we
recognized each other… it was Steve Lightfoot.
unbelievable…
We are going to go play some golf this year… he doesn’t play much… so I hope to get him to come over here and say hi.
What are the chances of that?
What’s unbelievable is that you had your garage open with all those lovelies, your car, and who knows what else (classic Gretsch drum set perhaps).
And that there are still door to door guys… 
Get him on board so he doesn’t have to sell steaks anymore!
Captain Chaos
I ran into him “Steve” again today while driving to the market… and he wants to trade me 6 boxes of seafood steaks for a set of my Tommy Armour copper face irons! Do I part with something that I can enjoy the rest of my life for a few good dinners?
We both stopped our cars, and we were talking TGM swing theory and making air swings in the street. People must have thought we were crazy…(just golfers!)
He still talks to Ben from time to time… keeps in touch with a few of the die hards. It would be fun to see one of those classic “Doyle” swings again after all these years.