Perhaps I’m taking the statement out of context then. Too much to read and I care little about marrying anything going back because I believe the backswing isn’t all that important in context of striking the ball. The most important thing in the “backswing” is to put yourself in the best position to go forward. I can literally pick it up, stop, tell a “knock, knock” joke and then hit the ball if I want. That was more my position and I should have made it more clear; a golfer should find his best way to get ready to move forward. I stand by my original assertion.
Yeah, but would it be a good knock knock joke? That’s the real issue here…
I agree with your point about the backswing being about the best way to get to a good slot type position, it’s really all it is. I see it as more of a structural sort of time in that you can really make it hard on yourself or you can make it easier, there’s no need to paint yourself into a corner if you don’t need to. Trying to create the 430 forms too early can cause trouble and be counterproductive in my view and experience. I think knowing the place you want to get to can really allow for the best and most instinctive way to get to it. I also stand by my original assertion
Cheers,
BOM
Bom
do you believe too early to 4:30 is the same as too deep. Put in an other way, is there a slot position that is too deep? or the deeper the better. I think there may be too deep if you are using standard lies but you can progressively flatten your lie angles to negotiate any depth of the slot. And if you keep matching your slot with your lie angles then the deeper the better as it means a progressively stronger engament of the pivot.
I think I have posted it somtetime before, but its like driving a manual Tranny car in a progressively lower gear. Yes you will be reving the engine up in red.
When I say too early I don’t mean too deep, I mean trying to get into that pitch elbow wrist set situation too early in the backswing, the formation of those angles etc are effects or vapor trails of other things, and are powered as such. Trying to create them is similar to trying to create any other vapor trail position and can actually prevent you from getting deep at all. But get there however is best for you as me and Capt. were discussing.
In terms of too deep, I think you can go as deep as you can handle. You can get in trouble if you try to get deep without having wrist angle in place, or by dropping the right hand below too early, you’ll bottom out too soon doing that. I also think getting the right shoulder low/left shoulder high too early is messy- and that’s an attractive way to feel like you’re getting deep so it’s easy to fall into. The club is the thing that you want to have deep and shallow and you have to be in a position to power it through from there. I like Allen Doyle’s shoulder levels in that photo that Eagle posted in the other thread. So it’s important to keep in mind what it is that you want down there. You guys work some pretty low lie angles, and I’ve gotten into my thoughts on that before, so I can’t really comment on that trade off and/or it’s value. I’ve benefitted from working some flatter lie angles for sure, but for me, there’s a point of diminishing returns with that.
There are several ways to make the adjustment into flatter lie angles… and combining some of the methods is best.
You can learn to hold more wrist cock through impact which I prefer compared to standing farther from the ball by bending more at the waist. You can strike from a platform of more knee bend through impact, and also a wider stance will drop you down lower also. No doubt that flat lie angles make hitting the ball left much more difficult, and in doing so, it opens up the player to a more aggressive forearm rotation into impact, or hitting hard with the hands, minus the left fear. So in a sense it really embraces the hit impulse for hitters, rather than fearing the aggressive strike that plagues the better players using more upright gear. Of course you have to set up your golf swing for it… turning level and all that…unless you aim left and block push it like Trevino did from flat lie angles, but then you just lose a bit of distance due to the steeper shoulders.
It still helps you hit it straighter.
I agree there is certainly a point of going too flat. Being 6 feet tall, I find 6 down is about right for me… and totally comfortable, because I learned to swing around my body over time and not up like I used to. I remember holding Jim Benepe’s clubs which if I remember correctly were 8 degrees flat. He was 5-8 and one of the best ball strikers I saw when I was out on tour.
It’s not something you have to do… in any way… and Hale Irwin shows it is not an imperative to playing good golf…but I have played this game from both platforms and knowing what I know now, I could never dream of going back to upright gear, especially playing as little as I do and not practicing. 300 golf balls a day can make a lot of things work. I honestly can’t remember the last time I hooked a golf shot. I can draw the ball at best with a vicious effort from a standard address position… and that is a great feeling when teeing off for a round of golf.
LOL…okay, okay…dirty limerick then! Actually, I’m horrible at remembering jokes. I just let fly and let the current winds of (im)prudence sort it out.
Well, we seem to agree on everything except the highlighted (highlit?) part as that is what I do. Different strokes for different folks then (I’ve always disliked this saying for some reason) and we’ll have to shake hands and agree to disagree.
How do you like them apples…I pulled this quote over from the other topic and pasted it over here. I’m going to have to pat myself on the back for that one!
Anyway…regarding the art work. It’s just something that I fooled around with before while examining different ways to incorporate a repeatable move-away with the club in my “minds eye”. I don’t really pay too much attention anymore to the back move like I used to though. I think just the intention to drop and then get low and left is all I need.
But for a little discussion. There are 2 radial lines within the circle. The more forward line would be the R forearm @ address and the vertical line- as it lines up to the R forearm speaks for itself. What I found interesting is that when the R hand follows that circle to the perpendicular line…the R hand gets closer to the ground as the clubhead moves upward a little. One would think that if the R hand is getting lower, than the club would also want to get lower and start pushing into the ground…but it doesn’t because of the shoulder rotation about the spine axis.
Just something I played around with at one time…nothing earth shattering however. RR
Nice tech work there, RR, and nice to see that sniffer sniffing around again. Though it looks like a will have to pour a little beverage on the curb for your old avatar- it’s a sad a loss…
I like that diagram. I was experimenting a long time ago with ‘natural’ low point or where the club wants to be. The shoulders seem to want to be level in space, and while relaxed and holding a club, the club tends to wander out to the right as the shoulders level out, putting the right arm in that pretty vertical bottom of the circle position that you had in your diagram. The end up pretty close to where Hogan is in that photo, and also where Moe sets up- I wonder if this is related to why he does that? Maybe. It’s an insightful diagram.
I was reading your post about the shadow and I was left wondering where the light was shining from?
Cheers,
BOM
Yeah…that’s the feeling I get with it too. I like your thought about the shoulders finding their “level”. As to the where the light was: I’ll need to put on my Van Gogh hat and paint up some art work to show where it was. It was just a regular basement light. Pretty cool result and insight…I just don’t know why it took a shadow to show me how to get low and left. Maybe because rats do their best work in the dark? Stay tuned for a diagram.RR
Awesome tech work again, RR. Interesting. There are some shadows that I find very difficult to make good swings with- late the evening long shadows with the sun going down over the back of my left shoulder for whatever reason, makes me hit it thin and not very strong. I wonder does it have something to do with keeping my focus or attention behind me… maybe…
Btw, you can’t go missing again, having the term Rat Head in a diagram about the golfswing is too good for words…
Cheers
I think it’s a strong goal for the backswing/transition/downswing… they unload or unweight the inside leg and dig down into the inside edge of the outside leg to protect and use the COG. It’s a very potent and athletic way to load the body- a sort of stabilized imbalance. A lot of the old golf swings that I like moved in similar way imo- they weren’t afraid to let the left foot up then work that sort of ‘load and fall’ into and off the right leg. A lot of modern thinking looks at the left foot coming up and see it as an inconsistency issue, but the softer and freer the left leg is, the stronger and more stabilized everything needs to be into the right leg- this is a good situation for the golf swing I reckon.
I have to post this if for nothing else its just hilarious to see the robot fall over when it runs out of steam- it’s got huge Monty Python potential.
But in a lot of ways it shows how incredible and capable the human body is, the things we can do without thought just blows my mind. One of my main fascinations with the golf swing is figuring out a way to get the body to do what we need it to do without too much need for interference. There are obviously things to learn and train, but I’m certain we know the basics even though we may not know that we know. Ya know?
Here’s an example of using pressure that may also apply. That’s the only way this little guy can move around in the water…by leaning and moving his pressure.
And…if the boat motor stalls( as in golf), the rope loses it’s tautness, and he’s “sunk” .
Good one, Eagle, I like it. It also opens up the discussion, which is sort of connected to the rotation question, that being is the kid on the board you and the boat the club, or are you the boat and the kid the club? Does the outside move the inside or or does the inside move the outside, or some version of that question. I don’t think it’s purely one or the other at the end of the day because they both effect eachother in terms of drag and direction of effort and motion etc. Though the club wont move by itself, when it does get moving, it does have a motion of it’s own. As do the arms to some degree, I think.
I’ve got a great photo of Jimmy Bruen at the top where he’s so finely balanced between the two worlds that it’s very difficult to see who’s moving what or what’s moving who at that point. He definitely seems to, on some level, be ‘leaning’ against the momentum or weight of his club and arms in space- if they weren’t where they were he may fall over, so it’s some sort of give and take, or tug 'o war deal going on…
Many of these images I see posted reminds me of how important a proper dynamic weight shift is, and how the horizontal pressure/thrust into the ground by the right foot is key for a good and powerful golf swing that sustains the lag. This old 1989 Golf Digest article using scale weights may be crude compared to modern pressure/force plates, but this article about Weight Shift is interesting…especially for golfers that get onto their left leg too early in the downswing by (an unknowingly fake weight shift) just throwing themselves onto the left side without a dynamic thrust from the right side against the ground. They end up with poor balance, no right leg drive, forced pivot and almost always a casting move in the downswing. advancedballstriking.com/weight.html
Note that all the pros (I believe with the exception of maybe Chip Beck) had the majority of their weight on their right foot at impact. While Ben Hogan said he’d like to have three right hands I bet he’d also like to have three right feet/legs too. I have always felt that a dynamic thrust weight shift, which is driven from the right foot against the ground, was needed to sustain the lag and good ball compression.
Good points. Yeah, no doubt about Hogan and the right feet, he was one of the best at that load and thrust action, he was literally jumping off it when going at it hard. I see a direct link from the hands to the feet, and you lose a lot of the right side’s force when you come off the right foot too soon. It’s a classic early acceleration move. That old advice of getting to the left side starting down is a real disaster, and creates, like you say, a casting or early throwing of the club. It’s a real snowball at that point, because It takes a lot to get someone to hold into their right side a bit longer if they’re hitting it fat or behind the ball, because ‘logic’ says you need to get further ahead in order to bottom out later- it gets messy after that.
I’ve read that weight placement article a fair few times alright, it’s an interesting read. Seeing Beck being basically the only one on his left side at impact is interesting considering he was relatively short, while Norman is on the other end of the scale(punintentional)
Weight shift is one of those badly taught areas, the phrase itself is very misleading as far as I’m concerned. A lot of the photos I’ve posted and things I talk about try to address that area because I think it’s so important and far more doable than people think- they’re more athletic than they give themselves credit for, and most people are really underperforming in terms of their power potential. You just have to be willing to maybe lose your breath while swinging a golf club.
RR
Stay tuned for a diagram.RR
