That is an amazing sit down by Lincicum. The term squat in golf cuts the journey short. A squat is a discrete sit down with the aim of balancing on the toes. While this kind of sit down/free fall on your bottom aims at balancing your weight on the tips of the heels (especially the right). If he were not moving or stops his motion right at this point, Lincicum would certainly fall flat on his bottom.
Had a lot of fun with this todayâŚdoing a little practicing for an upcoming event this SundayâŚhavenât played in months so it should be fun to see how things go. I was getting cupped and inside going back and bringing, or intending to at least, that cupped relationship back to impact. The funny thing wasâŚit forced a flat drop so pronounced that it feels way under âplaneâ but it really isnât. The more I attempted to keep the cup intact and feeling under âplaneâ, the more actively the pivot became aggressively active at the right timeâŚit seems that it almost has to or youâll get a squirrely shot. Itâs almost like the subconscious knows that if you are that far cupped under the plane with a flat shaft plane and an open faceâŚyou better use the body correctly, or else! 
RR
That cupped/open face/bounce into impact idea is one of the most important things Iâve ever learned about the golf swing.
But the power is in the front part of the foot, so while itâs a sit down or loading into the right leg, it needs to still be alive and not stuck in the heel. Pitchers, ice skaters, and good golfers come in off the whole of the foot, itâs not a spin up and out, but they do get the final thrust from the front of the foot through the calf muscle. You canât jump very high off your heels alone because all youâve got is the thrust from your knee bend and you donât utilize the power of the foot. Itâs a fine line, as ever, but psychologically itâs very difficult to get yourself to go down deep into the heel alone, because there just isnât a whole lot of power in it, and your sub conscious knows that. So that loading into the leg needs to feel and be alive and powerful in order for you to actually do it, or you wont.
Do any of you have negative expierences with range mats? I seem i keep blocking longer and middle irons straight right off mats, whereas when hitting from grass my miss goes back to normal (left). I dont really know if thats just an effect of hitting of mats (maybe blades and mats dont match so well? ) and if i actually should bother about it? Any similar experiences?
Mats make the club bounceâŚin my opinionâŚbecause it is a solid harder surface that you canât dig thru like real turf⌠just like the feel of bouncing a wedge on hardpan and making the gallery run for cover⌠so you get a bad read on whatâs really occurring sometimesâŚ
Range Rat can chime in as I believe has more experience on this subject- but I avoid mats like the plague
The chimer is in the houseâŚ
Some disjointed thoughts about mats. They are not the same obviously as turf, and my practice on mats is limited to only driver and low-teed fairways woods where I can use under both circumstances rubber teesâŚsaves time that way. But even at thatâŚthe footing traction can be a little different on a mat for those two circumstancesâŚthe harder mat surface does not allow those stupid rubber cleats to torgue properlyâŚwhich can cause some feel disturbances and differences in the feet which will be noticed when going to grass and teeing up one there.
Perhaps the only advantage in using a mat for iron shots is that, provided the mat is on level concrete, you are guaranteed a level lieâŚwhich is good for beginners practicing some basics as it removes ball elevation levels from the equationâŚwhich is one less thing to worry about when trying to learn. HoweverâŚas Two said, mats are forgiving as the club can bounce fat into the ball and still get a pretty good result. Most people Iâve noticed on mats are not honest with themself about contactâŚthey think they hit a good shotâŚbut that same action on turf would have produced many dead nightcrawlers. If a person is honest about contactâŚyou can tell by the sound and flightâŚthen mats are an OK alternative if thatâs all you have at the momentâŚlike at a non-green golf store.
But flush is flush whether itâs on a mat, turf, concrete, wood decks, or your neighbors roof! If you happen to be on a matâŚhonest that the contact was solid, flushed and not a touch thin or fatâŚdirectional problems would not necessarily be the fault of the striking suface under your feet.
Perhaps whatâs happening: when on a mat one can sense a harder than normal surface and will almost âflinchâ and pull out of the shot a little causing the right miss. Hard to say though without knowing and seeing the action.
Grass is the only true measure however with all of itâs varying lies and conditions and should be the primary option for all turf shots. 
RR
Iâm sure Vegas will at some point offer up an 18 hole indoor golf course played of 8 million square feet of artificial turf⌠but until that day arrives⌠Iâll stay on the grass.
The great thing about grass is that a divot gives you such wonderful information of what happened if you know what to look for. Sometimes I am more interested in my divot than the shot itself. I remember dragging Twomasters over to my divot on #15 at The Olympic Club, because it was one of those divots that flaired off to the left, but the ball started right of the target and drew into the pin.
You just canât have that total experience hitting off a mat.
Thx for the replies guys. I really despise hitting off mats, but during the winter months its the only option i have when i want to try something out in my long game.
As you mentioned before, the impact makes many people dishonest about their shots and as a consequence and in my personal expierence it seems you loose your original tempo and go harder after it since you can get away with more - which is disasterous once you go back on grass.
And one more thing - when i started playing golf i hit A LOT of mats and obv. the shot quality wasnt too good (fat/ thin - lots of vibration going up the shaft), so i always had trouble with my wrists becoming really sore and it was pretty painful. First i thought that was a problem from hitting too many balls and to many bad shots in general. Now i experience this problem to a smaller degree, but only when i hit off mats. I can hit off grass all day long, hit it fat or thin and receive my punishment via feedback, but that doesnt seem to matter. But the standard range mats we use seem to always make my wrists sore again after some time.
So yes over the time i came to the conclusion that range mats are the devil - unfortunately sometimes you have no other choice than to pair up with him 
In the Ben Hogan thread i referred to McIlroys Pivot stall with his hips - as other´s have mentioned. Now i stumbled across video of Villegas. Its amazing imo how little pivot you can use from P3 to hit the ball once you set up everything else properly - he almost stalls completly with his upper and his lower body pivot and the last bit of club acceleration he derives from his arms and hands only - i think i never seen it that extreme before:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlRm9XnMrHE[/youtube]
Comparing this to Ben Hogans fluidness this is pretty much on the other side of the extreme. But it seems to be more and more common these days. Why is this? Is this a kind of swing that gives you max. power?
Good points Kafka. I think Villegas is spending a lot of his shoulder rotation early in the downswing so by the time he gets to P3 he needs to fling the arms off his pivot. Saving shoulder turn is key to ABS, but in other places out there in the golf instruction world you hear talk of snapping the kinetic chain, where the pivot must fire then stall to pass the energy onto the next segment in the power chain, which then fires and then stalls and passes on etc etc. I think I read Lag recently write that this is like cracking a whip, very much a swingerâs protocol, compared to a pivot-driven hitting protocol.
This is what golf swings develop into⌠with long lightweight gear. And this is exactly why we are not seeing a next generation great ball striker like a Hogan. The new swings are getting more velocity, but the players canât feel the clubhead like they used to with heavier gear, and more connected pivot rotations.
Pivots canât turn that fast, so to get the clubhead speed that is available with the modern technology, it can be achieved with an arm and hand throw⌠independent of pivot rotation. As wonderful as the speed is⌠there is a disconnect from the core rotation, and independent arm travel happens, and the player canât keep pressure on the shaft as effectively as if the pivot was driving it the whole way. So the players donât have quite the feel in the hands they used to⌠or the connection of the entire structure right through the heart of the body, which is much easier to repeat than a more flailing arm throw.
With the heavier gear, the players didnât have to rotate as fast to keep connected. Heavier gear encourages the bigger muscles to get involved, and this kind of deeper body connection is why most all the greats of the past played heavier than normal gear, even for that time. You can really see it in the foot action of the strikers of the past.
The greats of the past used the mass of the clubhead to add a significantly deeper compression to the ball, with the clubhead not slowing down as quickly due to the forces of impact. It was a more forceful or momentum based strike. Now itâs more of a fly swatting. Off center hits get punished much more with lighter gear⌠hence the perimeter weighting⌠but the downside of that⌠which is not talked about, is the loss of feedback needed for improvement.
Without the feedback, even better strikers find themselves getting worse slowly over time, like swing cancer. Big heads and lightweight gear were experimented with even as far back as the 1940âs. I have some of those sets.
So what we get now are faster swings with less precision⌠more armsy, less body, so they end up being less repeatable, and we see far fewer top strikers.
I sometimes struggle to understand the concepts discussed here (lack of terminology/history and foreign language), but that was a great and crystal clear explanation imo! Thanks Lag.
Lag said:
Talk about coining a phraseâŚwhat a perfect analogy.
I thought so too. Havenât heard it before but itâs spot on.
So what is the minimum weight to be considered heavy?
ABS = swing chemotherapy
If that doesnât workâŚthereâs always âsexual healingâ. 
Cheers,
Captain Chaos
Lag - you used the term âlaying it off in the third dimension from the top of the backswingâ in some previous posts, like many great ballstrikers did in the past. A current example would be Sergio Garcia - and the opposite to it Steve Stricker?
I assume this âlaying it off in the third dimensionâ prepares for a flatter entry and a better entry along the 4:30 line?
Now - as i mentioned Garcia already - some of the TV dudes âanalyzedâ his swings and they contributed this kind of move from the top, back to his childhood, where the clubs in relation to his body size were heavier obviously. So they assumed that this move developed naturally by using âheavy clubsâ. On the opposite site - with the current craze of âlight lighter 0 gramsâ - this would very much hinder such a development in a swing especially with the kids, if they jump on this bandwagon?
Do you see a relation between this or am i´m just completely off here? Since somebody asked before, what heavy actually means, then i would guess, if i have a D6 swingweight, and i cant really feel the heaviness on top of my backswing, maybe i should step it up a notch or two?
I think Lag has said this a mumber of time but with n ot enough EMPHASIS IMO. The swing weight is a formula invented by some dude in the 20s I guess. It is a measure of the club to the concious mind. I think to the more important unconcious (Kinesthetic) mind the total weight may be more important. As an example I have a set of M75s which are i/2 " shorter and a set of Golden Rams at std lengths. They both have close the same total weight. But the M75s are a D2 while the Rams are a D6-7. Intrestingle my daughters irons with graphite shafts are also a D2. I ahve another example of two sand wedges where a slight increase in length makes it way high on the swing weight scale.
Short story the M75s are my favourites. I think a heavy total weight may be more important than swing weight. So what is heavy. Its not by all that much. I think heavy by an ounce or even less is what makes a club as heavy.
Ironically I measured all of my titanium drivers and they are i the range of 290 t0 310 grams (total weight including the shaft).
I also measured an older steel head driver which is not all that big. It is actually heavier than a persimmon head. I am going to reshaft it some time with a steel shaft. I think the COR on those should be close to wooden drivers and in that case I dont have a problem with them as they will be much easier to mass produce.