Lag - I have seen research that measures the combination of momentum and CF at around 100 lbs just after impact. Don’t recall the source off the top of my head, but could be Dr. Jorgensens book The Physics of Golf. If you did not resist this pull, you would literally be pulled off of your feet, toward your toes, and fall flat on your face. So - you need to resist not only with arms to chest connection pressure, but with your bigger posture muscles too - legs, hips, back.
Gerry and other lovers of all things golf neurological may want to read “The Neurological Basis of Motor Control” (if memory serves, I am in Hawaii and my copy is back in the office in Oregon) a book Mac O’Grady suggested I read back in 1994. He talks about the “open loop” versus “closed loop” circuits for learning and executing body movement patterns. Basically the sensory feedback loop system versus the motor dominant habit system I talked about here in the past. One allows for some small change in the movement pattern and the other does not, ie is like the dominos falling. It has all been programmed in advance and once the first “domino” is triggered to fall, the other dominos follow inexorably. The first domino is your physical swing trigger, usually a tricep contraction of both arms that stretches the arms very slightly. Most tour pros do this and my guess is that for most it is unconcsious.
BP
thanks for the reply. Do you use any methods to circumvent this Sensory Discordance. I am also fascinated by your mention of “Meditation” and believe that is why striking a golf ball the right way can be so addictive.
Here’s something I’ve spent maybe 20+ hours with a video camera trying to understand and correct it. It’s extremely frustrating.
I’ll swing the club back and through continually 4 or 5 times, just missing the ball. I’ll be loose, stepping around a bit. Then I decide while the club is still swinging to swing through the ball this time, still relaxed and loose. That decision I purposely delay for as long as possible in the backswing. The swing feels identical but the camera shows the practice swings have nice turns, nice plane etc but the swing I hit the ball with is a dog’s dinner with an incomplete shoulder turn, arms working up and loss of spine angle. I understand why people forever tell me to swing like my practice swing.
And I can see the dog’s dinner developing halfway through the backswing! I’m convinced I haven’t even decided to hit the ball this time at that stage, purposely trying to convince myself it’s just a practice swing for as long as possible. I’ve even tried a substantial pause at the top to give me plenty of time to make the decision there. Same thing. It’s like my subconscious knows that I’m going to decide this time to hit, and does the damage even before I feel I’m making the decision.
Steb - your problem is very common. Its called being Ballbound. Or - making a reaction - physically, mentally and emotionally - to the presence of the ball. It is at a minimum a mild form of the yips, but it can be quite severe. The difference between the non-ball and ball swings is quite dramatic. And not just in terms of mechanics but also balance, tempo and rhythm as well. Your subconscious “decides” well before any detectable conscious mind or will power occurs. This is called the “readiness potential” and is explained in the book I mentioned earlier, “The User Illusion”.
We have a whole golf school devoted to the problem of being Ballbound called “Rip It to the Target”. You can indeed learn how to not react to the ball - but to swing through and past its position on the ground as if it were not there. It helps most of our students to focus on a spot on the ground about two to six inches in front of the ball and to not look directly at the ball.
Exactly! Book ordered! Author potential for inclusion in my Last Will and Testament.
It happens with my eyes closed or looking away, it’s like some primitive response that constricts the torso by recruiting blood away from it to the limbs readying them for fight or flight, even before I decide to go to battle.
Macs - I refer to this issue as one of 29 sensory Illusions in the golf swing, number 29 to be exact. It makes you feel like impact/compression are lasting longer than is really happening. So - a useful illusion! It explains how good strikers talk about impact/compression and how science is at odds with their feeling. The Time Delay is a big part of this. If you are awake inside your swing - (few golfers are truly awake during impact especially) you can train yourself to see the blur of clubhead and ball, ie a grey/whitish blur that is about a foot or so long, you can actually see the ball as a blur right after impact. We call this a Strike Image, one of many possible single conscious mind focal points a golfer can use during the swing to improve the odds of his success. It also helps ones Balance and ability to stay in your posture or Spine Angle. I am consulting in the design of a sophisticated training aid that works along similar lines.
You can also anticipate and hear the sound of impact. The ball is long gone by the time your ear hears it of course. And you can feel impact - it is really quite aways away from the clubhead when you feel it. I don;t know of any precise research on how far in front of the clubhead exactly but likely a foot or two or even more. The kinetsthetic and propiorceptive channels are much slower speed than the visual and auditory input.
So -Intend to feel the ball compress and stick to the face - even though when you are feeling this as “impact”, impact has already happened. The illusion is that because we think - incorrectly - that we can experience impact in real time, because we can seemingly see it and hear it as it is happening, and this “extends” the time interval that we feel the ball on the face. (Our common sense tells us that we are feeling it, seeing it and hearing it all at the same moment in time. An illusion) Hence H Kelleys and others obsession with compression.
A side note to the amateur golfers posting here, when asking a question to a golf teaching professional or tour professional, it is really a good idea to let us know what your current handicap or average golf score is, since the answer can often depend on your current skill level. I am always amazed when looking at other golf forums how much bad information is exchanged and how many mis-understandings occur, because that vital information is missing. I have been teaching full time for almost twenty years now and this is one of the first questions I ask a new student.
Steb I’m just like you and ballbound as BP puts it.
I’m just starting M3 and I feel it will help a lot with this problem because it redirects your focus to what happens beyond the ball, and even with just a few practice swings incorporating M3 my swing thought was M3. Of course this was without a ball and it may change if I put a ball down - which I don’t intend to do just now. Nevertheless I think what Lag talks a lot about, the Intention of accelerating beyond impact, will be greatly helpful in this problem of being ballbound.
Sorry to butt in, but this is just fantastic reading, long live Lags thread!! Some ridiculously great golfing minds here, both scientific and practical or both.
BPGS1, you obviously have a school? Is it cool to ask on here for website details etc? Love to check out as much as possible, (is it balance point?)
Lag,
From a Moe point of view what do you think of the attached picture below? (Power Golf page 34), I know George knudson’s thoughts on this. do you think this would be a good check for swingers setting up more like Moe, certainly looks similar to Moe at address to me and would make sense if infact Moe did use this book whilst developing his swing (a gut feeling of mine), Moe is just obviously reaching out more.
i cant seem to get the image to view direct on your forum. so here is a link
also do you remember if Moe made any comments about the pictures he carried about that he showed you? was there any particular picture that caught your attention?
Golf swing is a dynamic fluid motion.
Looking at the human motion in a golf swing you need to understand how the human body anatomical wants to move and create speed.
To measure and understand how the body moves in a golfswing you need to use EMG data, force data and motion data.
EMG is how the muscles actively function in movement.
Measuring human motion and measuring human motion in sport research has found in the human body moves a certain way to create speed from the ground up.
Tennis, throwing acting or any hitting action the human body has similar movement patterns to create speed and motion from the ground up.
This is called the Kinetic link.
This is natural movement patterns and this how the body wants move and create speed.
You can train the body how to create these movement patterns and once the body learns the natural way to create speed this becomes automatic and these patterns develop in your golfswing.
When you play you just swing the club your body knows what to do.
Golf movement patterns of the golf swing are similar to tennis or a throwing action or batting action.
You can use movement patterns techniques away from the practice fairway to train the body to perform a golf swing motion.
It’s not.
I’ve not seen a TGM instructor use the Angle of Approach for swinging.
That quote is not in the 7th edition, although it is logical. Don’t know what the 6th edition said. My inkling is
that the 6th is the best. The 7th says,
“The Arc of approach is most compatible with the on-line Swing and the Angle of approach with the cross-line Hit.”
But it also says the two are always interchangeable. (Which two, of three? You’d have to see that in context to
understand the reason for the question. Homer needed a competent editor.)
You can always use the true geometric plane line as the Basic delivery line. The clubhead blur on the ground will
be seen as covering an arc.
Tomasello “edited” or rather, assimilated the changes for the 7th, a difficult job from hand-written scribblings on
a ream of paper. I’ve seen some good stuff that was dropped, and some changes in the 7th I didn’t much care for.
There was some confusion on the point as it was backwards in a hand transcription of notes from a not very good
tape recording of Homer in a Masters class. When I asked at LBG about the discrepancy the answer was “Swingers
use the Arc of approach (or the true plane line).” All these are optional useful equivalents.
Homer was asked “Why use an Angle of Approach?” He replied, “I guess because it satisfies the urge to ‘steer’.”
Blake responded to that quote “That’s only for Hitters. Swingers, ignore it.”
Knudson despised this position…He liked the arms to hang in a very natural way, and certainly most great strikers don’t set up with their right forearm down low. Later in his career I don’t think Hogan set up like this photo either.
Personally I don’t have a problem with it at all. It may not be as comfortable to have the elbow down low, on plane or whatever… but we do bend the right elbow or fold it up on the backswing, so by setting up with more bend in it at address,
we essentially eliminate extra movement during the backswing. I like having as much shoulder turn as I can on the backswing, but with minimal hand travel… I can get more shoulder rotation if my hips are fully turned and to do that I have a fairly straight right leg at the top… so I simply start my swing with a straight right leg at address. It eliminates the need for me to have to move the right knee on the backswing. Moe taught me this, and said the right leg works best as simply a post to turn on. I start the downswing with a flex in the right knee… it’s my trigger…and this happens before the backswing is completed actually… just as Knudson promoted. If I can eliminate a moving part of the swing, without losing power, I am all for it.
The set up although helpful, just as I mentioned above is highly overrated in my opinion as is the backswing. The intentions need to be in the right place, but there simply is no “one way to do it”. I have yet to ever see a golfer that moves the clubhead on exactly the same path on the way back as on the way down. The fact that centripetal force plays a role in the golf swing assures us there will be a difference. What I mean is that at change in direction, the shaft moves toward the body or inward “centripetal” and the backswing is only going to be centrifugal “outward” so no matter how hard you try to swing on the same path you simply will not.
As far as Moe and the flip book… he would simply say something…then pull out the book and say… “look and HOOOOGAN…
look at HOOOOOGAN” and that’s all you’d get out of it…
There are at lot of similarities about how Hogan and Moe swung the club, certainly both were very pivot driven and had fantastic cohesive connection throughout their bodies. Fantastic rotation, but how they released the club are totally polarized.
Welcome. I don’t think the guys on the former home of this thread ever understood the off plane equal angular spiral stuff I tend to “not be very in love with”. The big down and out impact with the arms moving off the body with dead hands, moves the shaft into an off plane or parallel plane, post impact (unless you swing on a shoulder based plane). My students who are on or into module #4 are well aware of this now, and by fixing this up, the results are compelling. We learn to create swing plane through the use of opposing pressures and forces, rather than trying to find it in the dark with a flashlight. The thing the students find most shocking is that to be on plane they have to feel as if they are not…
Personally, I only want to be on plane from P3 to P4… we don’t hit the ball on the backswing. The purpose of the backswing is simply to load up the power sources, and move the club on a dynamic pathway that will set things up nicely for us at the P3 launching pad. There are a lot of ways and very relevant ways to find access to the 4:30 line we talk about here… that’s all the module #1 students learn right from the get go.
I can’t think of any point in my golf swing that I am feeling that the club is on plane, although it most certainly is where it needs to be.
Good to have all the “Usual Suspects” here again… been a long and winding road to this place. Now once we get Jeffman to start posting, we can start selling tickets to the rollercoaster ride.
Welcome Loren
First up I am no expert; far from it. But I believe even with the ARC of Approach, the shape of the arc will matter i.e wider Vs tighter. Lag wants our divots to turn acutly leftward post imapct like a “J”.
Yes. It depends on angle of attack, meaning steepness of plane. Shallower would be wider, steeper
would be tighter.
Lagpressure’s angle of attack is very shallow, hence Angle hinging will approach the characteristics
of Horizontal hinging, more clubface closing. I believe he is yanking it left to make a “J”.
Arc of Approach is an optical illusion, y’know, because we’re looking down through an inclined plane. If it
was inclined up to eye level, or very steep, it would be a straight line.
It’s not the actual 3D clubhead path, which is on plane. It’s the visual of it on the ground to the player.
Why, Thank You, John, Lag.
I registered way back when, in the beginning maybe, some time ago.
I really enjoyed your dad’s company that time. We’ll be motoring by Sedona, twice,
in December for Christmas. Not sure we’ll stop there. Maybe on the way back.
Now, at P3, which must not mean “Parallel 3” as nothing is parallel if the butt of the
club is pointing at 4:30 on the ball, is there a way to visually check that it’s on plane?
Maybe P3 is right forearm parallel to the ground instead of the clubshaft?
The parallel in this context is that shaft being parallel to the ground. As in:
P1 = the first time the shaft is parallel to the ground on the way back
P2 = roughly the top of the backswing
P3 = parallel before impact
P4 = parallel post impact
There is also PV5 = where shaft is vertical or perpendicular to the ground
