The D-Plane, Trackman, NBFL, etc. thread

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
41

I’m currently trying to get on a Trackman, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. There’s one I know I can get on, but it’s about 1:45 away from my home. The other is about 30 minutes away, but I am not sure they will let me on there. They should since it’s easy money. I figure at worse, it will cost me $125 for 1 hour. But I’m going to try and negotiate (when I say negotiate, I mean haggle :slight_smile: them down a bit since I’m not asking for a lesson nor am I asking for a clubfitting. I just need somebody to set it up and save the data and e-mail it to me.

Right now I’m in Module 3 where I believe TM can be most beneficial to learning ABS because TM does measure ‘swinging left’ with its horizontal swing plane measurement. And you can figure out if you need to swing more left or less left (you can overdo swinging left or swinging left too early in the downswing) by checking what the path is doing. I also plan on doing some driver swings, mostly to measure the HSP and path, but also the attack angle and spin rate. Eventually I’d like to do some Trackman work where I take a heavier persimmon driver vs. the lighter titanium driver and measure the differences in deceleration after impact.

3JACK

42

Hey Macs…need your help on this one.

Was screwing around this morning seeing how low I could get from the top and this one time I just nutted this iron that felt so good. Now I very seldom look at my divots…thinking they must be good if I nutted it.

For some unknown reason, this time I looked at my divot and said to myself…“what the hell!..what is that”. After looking at it for a moment trying to come to grips with it…I almost simultaneously recognized it as a letter “J” and recalling I read something about that pattern on ABS.

Couldn’t wait to get home to ask you if you are still seeing that pattern in your good iron shots.

Thanks… :slight_smile: RR

43

Today I got on Trackman. This was my first ‘real’ time on Trackman. I had been on it twice before, but didn’t understand any of the numbers at the time. It’s really cool because it took them all of 5 minutes to set up. The numbers were on a laptop and if you have any semblence of computer skills you can operate this yourself. The only problem was the range I was at has you hit into water with floater golf balls. But, my goals were to see the club data, not the ball flight data. I hit so many balls with just about every club in my bag and I didn’t note what club I was using with what swing, so it wasn’t worthwhile e-mailing the data to me. Basically I would hit a shot, go back to the laptop and look at the numbers. While it may seem tedious, it wasn’t bad at all since it was about a billion degrees and the laptop was under the shade.

A few days ago I had a ‘breakthrough’ with Module 3 and I started to ‘swing left’ and do it with angled hinging. Not all of the time, but probably about 50% of the time. I figured that my clubface control was really, really good. I honestly believed it to be as good as 1/2 of the PGA Tour. My path I figured was now more square, but still a bit too far to the right. I figured I was swinging left, but not swinging left enough. I was guessing that my ‘numbers’ would look something like this:

+2* face angle (face pointing right of the target)
-1* horizontal swing plane (‘swinging left’ by 1*)
+3* path (path 'inside-to-out)

And when I hit a push, I probably had a face angle of around +3*. But remember, I just had this ‘breakthough’ a few days ago.

Man, I was wrong. And I’m glad I was wrong.

With irons, it would look like this with a 7-iron:

-2.8* attack angle
0* face angle
-4* HSP (swinging left by 4*)
-2* path (path is 2* outside-to-in)

My shots looked pretty straight, but with Trackman, I could start to see the ever so slight pull-fade with them. I also started to realize that I aimed my clubface well at address, but my stance was a bit left of where it needed to be. When I changed the stance a bit, I started getting ‘zeroes’ and after the session at my course I flagged about 5 shots.

Now, with the driver I was putting up some world class stuff. I was pretty much ‘zeroing out’ everything. Attack angle, face angle, path, HSP. Since my attack angle was at 0.0* (or close to it), the HSP needs to be at 0.0* in order to square up the path. Occasionally I’d get one where I would hit down on the driver by about -2*, so something to try and get out of my system.

And while I was using ‘floater’ balls, I could tell that my driver was getting too much spin and the landing angle of the ball was too steep. The 3-wood was really bad. Getting used to aiming my body with my irons a little more to the right is something I have to get used to. But I was really flagging shots when I got on the course today. And I probbly only used about 1/4 of what you can do on Trackman.

3JACK

44

I was on Trackman myself on Thursday. This was a different one from earlier in the year and it was interesting. Earlier in the year I was told to switch from the project X 6.0s to Nippon 985s as they were lighter and have a softer tip. This would get my spin rates higher I was told.

What was interesting was that although my numbers stayed the same, Robert the operator had a completely different take on them. He actually said it would be a crime for me to use the lighter shafts and that he had players who are coming in trying to achieve the numbers I had. His recommenndation was to stick with the project xs for now and in fact I would benefit from user a stiffer X1 shaft.

I hit three different 6 irons. The TP9s with the regular shaft ballooned and travelled the least distance. My Cally X20 tours were about 182 and had what he felt was an ideal trajectory. Finally I hit a Miura 6 iron with a KBS X1 shaft in it which flew a fraction higher but boy did it fly! 200 yards!

The end result is that I am saving for a set of Miura’s which I need to get befor ethe end of the year as they are changing the grooves in January to be tour conforming, something I really don’t worry about!

45

I’ll be getting new shafts in my Hogan’s when I feel my swing is about where I feel like it’s good enough. Project X’s quality control is pretty bad, plus they are light. I fooled around with a Nippon shaft and had a D-6 swingweight with a ton of lead tape, but I agree with Lag that the clubs are better off having a heavy static weight and a heavy swing weight. KBS shafts are very nice, but unless they are X-Stiff, they are pretty light as well. Even stil, they launch pretty high. I’ve got extra sets of Hogan irons, so I’ll probably switch a few different shafts in and out of a 5-iron and see how they perform.

3JACK

46

Sorry RR
Missed that one completely. Yes that is what Lag recommends for divot shapes. The hook of the J representing the fast turning post impact torso.

47

Yes, and holding wrist cock also… so you don’t slice it off the planet.

48

If your objective is to hit the ball straighter, and have better overall feel and distance control on your shots.
I have been using a progressive swing weight up into my shorter irons and wedges… from D4 with the long irons into E-0 for wedges with excellent results. This really helps because I don’t play very often.

When I was on tour, my gear was pretty conventional… probably to my detriment. I now understand why a lot of the older pros used really heavy gear, especially with the rigors of their travel, driving the tour and staying in campgrounds when the money wasn’t there. You really need to feel the clubhead… I could “fix” this with ball beating, and a number of other oddities, but I wasted a lot of time on Tuesday and Wednesday trying to find my swing for the opening round on Thursday, when my time would have been much better spent studying the golf course, and planning my strategy for playing.

I couldn’t rationalize doing that unless I felt I knew first where the ball was going first. Live and learn. I have learned a lot more about golf by not playing, and fortunately missed out on the slow boil of the water that many have experienced moving into longer lightweight gear over the last decade… which has eroded so many fine golf swings.

49

Could not agree more with that. I have an archaic wedge with an F3 swing weight and that thing swings itself. You really can not manipulate that heavy a club very easily.

50

Riche3Jack,

Old thread but I wanted to ask Rchie3Jack a question about Hogan and the D-plane. You mentioned the progressive manner in which Hogan set up to the ball. Specifically, open with the shorter irons to closed with the driver. If I understand the D-plane concept at all Hogan set up open with the shorties to allow for the angle of attack that had the clubhead moving cross-line, and he set up closed with the driver to adjust for a clubhead that was moving left. I took a look at the diagram in Five Lessons and noted that hogan utilized a slightly closed stance for long irons as well. Surely, due to the fact that long irons are also hit on the down beat hogan should still have employed an open stance (assuming that he set up square to his plane line) in order to zero out his divergent numbers? Also, rotating the plane line right of the centerline for a driver (closed stance) assumes a ball postion forward of low point, correct? Looking at Hogan footage, it does not appear to me that his ball was forward of low point i.e. the club head was not yet moving up and left. I realize that you can swing on a plane line that is not parallel to your stance stance line. What do you think?

51

Bob sent me this via e-mail and I responded to him there, but figured I would respond here as well.

  1. Low Point isn’t always directly opposite of the left shoulder. Typically for good players it’s approximately opposite of the left shoulder on a consistent basis. Some good players it will be a little forward or a little back of that left shoulder for a normal shot. Bad players will have it move all over, well back of the left shoulder and well out in front of the left shoulder (although typically poor players have the low point too far back). And the low point is in part due to the amount of right wrist bend. I don’t think anybody can really tell by looking at a swing where the low point really is for a golfer. I don’t think Trackman can tell you either, but since it gives AoA, we get the idea (steeper the AoA, the further forward the low point is with relation to the ball).

  2. We also don’t know exactly what Hogan was trying to do. He may have preferred to draw his long irons, fade his driver and hit his short irons straight.

  3. The average AoA with a 3-iron for a PGA Tour player in 2009 was -3.1* according to the January 2010 Trackman newsletter (trackman.dk/download/newslet … etter6.pdf) The average AoA with a 9-iron was -4.7*. The average AoA with a 6-iron was -4.1*. There’s a clear progression here, shorter irons are hit down more than longer irons. With that, we don’t know what Hogan’s AoA’s were. And he played in a time when irons have zero bounce angle.

I have 2 sets of Hogan’s with a zero bounce angle (1963 IPT’s, 1967 PC5). I can tell you that it is not advisable to hit far down on these irons. I don’t have an issue hitting the ball first and then taking a divot. But if I hit a bit down with these irons, often times the club just gets stuck in the turf. Hogan seemed to take large divots with his short irons. But I think with those old 0* bounce angle irons, it was impossible to not take a large divot with them. My guess is that his AoA was a bit shallower than PGA Tour standards of today.

Furthermore, awhile ago I talked with Brian Manzella about the Hogan ‘sound’ that he made when he hit it flush. Brian has staed that he can make that sound and was thinking of putting together a video where he would have Trackman and some sound measuring device showing the difference in the sound of a flushed ‘regular swing’ and a flushed ‘Hogan swing.’

I couldn’t quite get the exact answer, but from what I gathered was that it had to do with the AoA being shallower and having less shaft lean and striking the ball slightly up higher on the face. Now, I could be wrong on that, but that was something else that gave me the impression that Hogan’s AoA was a bit shallower than the rest of the Tours. Also, Trackman has shown that the more you hit down on a club, your smash factor (ball speed / clubhead speed) goes down. I don’t think there’s a definitive correlation between smash factor and the ‘sound’ you can make, but I think it’s probably close and probably another thing pointing to Hogan having a shallower AoA than most Tour players.

So with that, if his 2-iron was at -1*, that means that he has to ‘swing left’ to square up the path. But he may have ‘swung left’ quite a bit more than most golfers who ‘swing left’ and had to close his stance a bit with a long iron in order to get the path where he wanted it.

3JACK

52

Interesting, and thanks for posting…

Can we get a bit of clarification on Bob’s background?

53

If I am the “Bob” to which you refer allow me to clarify! :smiley: Firstly my name is not really “Bob” :astonished: My name is Scott. My golfing alter ego is Bob Scott Jnr :slight_smile: I used to crack my friends up with on course commentary pretending to be Bob Rosburg. :blush: I am not originally from these parts (originally from South Africa) although I am proud to call myself an American today. I came to America on a D1 golf scholarship, after a decent junior golf career competing against the likes of Ernie (and brother Dirk) Els, Retief Goosen (pronounced with a gutteral “g” if you please), and a slew of really talented players that never fully came to light (Peter Pascoe, Ben Fouche, Desvonde Botes etc.) I peaked in my freshman year! Since then I have played to low single figures (never higher than 3 since I was 15 :sunglasses: )with occassional bursts of sub-par golf, although seldom in the pressure cooker of tournament golf. I currently coach a high school golf team, and will soon celebrate my first “college player signing.” This player’s success over a relatively short period of time is in large part due to what I was able to glean from studying Homer’s work, as well as some of the ideas I have learned from this site. I owe a debt to Richie3Jack who did a lot of the “leg work” on helping me to understand the D-plane concept.I am an enthusiastic layman that regards golf as more of a puzzle.

54

Great, thanks for the insight.

I had two opportunities to play “The Sunshine Tour” down there back in the 1980’s, and I think that is one of my regrets that I didn’t play down in SA.

Must have been great to play against those guys back then.

55

I caddied for a year on the Sunshine before I left for the States. I loved watching local favorites like John Bland, Tony Johnstone, Mark McNulty, Nick Price, David Frost, Fulton Allem. I was in the gallery for John Daly’s 1st professional win (I think it was his first, the Trust Bank at Kensington I think it was.)

I have attended 2 PGA’s and 2 US Opens and a couple Tour Championships and to this day after watching the best over the last 15-20 years, the best pure ball strikers that I have ever watched was a quirky character from SA by the name of Simon Hobday. He played on the European Tour for many years. It seemed as though he never missed a shot. Given the weather and the fact that golf (and rugby!) is in the blood i am sure SA will continue to churn out the talent (although we have disowned Sabbatini! :smiling_imp: )

Humewood CC in Port Elizabeth is still the best layout I have played. It was also one of Bobby Locke’s favorites. Bobby Locke was a member where I played my junior golf. I would rush to the course after school to watch Bobby play the last few holes of his regular Thursday round. I recieved a brief putting lesson from the maestro himself. Unfortunately, I was oblvious to what he was saying and cannot distiguish from what I read about his putting style in his book. I do recall the surprising “lick” sound that ball made coming off his putter. Then he did play with “rock” golf balls. He called everybody “master.” In fact the Henning brothers as well as Gary Player played a fair amount of golf on the same course.

56

trackman.dk/Media/Videos/Josh-Zander.aspx

I wondered what Lag thought of this video…the teacher in the video is stating we need a different iron swing and a different driver swing…we need to aim differently for irons and woods… I also think he is off the mark that we don’t see on the PGA Tours a great driver of the ball who is also a great iron player, because apparently two different swings are needed to be good on both fronts in today’s golf world… Lee Westwood does fairly well with accuracy and length on the tee ball and is a green in reg machine…Joe Durant 2nd in driving % and 3rd in G.I.R for 2010…being 2 examples off the top of my head

I notice by playing with the old persimmon clubs if you hit up on them , like this guy and trackman followers suggest, you are doomed…so my question is…the older smaller heavier clubs allow you to make the same swing throughout the bag. Why would we want to have two different swing types when most people can’t even get one swing type correct.

Do you need 2 different swings because of the big headed equipment?.. I am guessing if you use a smaller headed metal driver (closer to persimmon size) your swing would be more similar and not have the need to hit up on the ball as they suggest…

Is this another mis-step by equipment companies by making these huge heads with the design of having to now make a player hit ‘up’ on the ball to make the club do what it now should do…as opposed to hitting down and thru into low point like we have been designed to do and told to do our entire golfing lives.

I now see why as the equipment got ‘better’ …my game deteriorated based on this hit up/hit down mentality.

57

I think the modern big driver allows you to hit up on the ball more and hitting up on it reduces the underspin which gives a better trajectory and longer distance. His use of the hoola hoop was very helpful in understanding D-plane actually - and it makes perfect sense, assuming you are hitting up on the driver which is not at all a given for a lot of player even with modern titanium. I think you’re right that with persimmon hitting up on the ball is either not so easy, or not recommended. I’m not convinced by his argument on needing two swings though. Surely we can use the same swing and change the ball position or alignment. Also, IMO, the lie angle of the clubs increases as we go up the irons, and this affects the plane line of attack, so I don’t see why we should be thinking being underplane for longer clubs and over plane for short irons. Did Hogan really have that stance because he intuitively understood D-plane? Good question. What did he write in his book? His famous stance diagram confirms he did this, but was it to encourage a bigger shoulder turn for the longer clubs?

I’m a real duffer on this topic. I think Lag covers this in module 8?

58

The best offering on youtube about D-plane is Brian Manzella’s

youtube.com/watch?v=uepMzddHpas

TM, I agree that the two swing approach adds variables, but if you want to increase the launch angle (+ attack angle) as well as lower the spin rate (lower dynamic loft) it is the way to go. Can you spot a flat belly 30-50 yards? Of course you can still hit down on it but the gigunda driver heads are almost sky-proof. I have taken my McGregor MT driver out for a + attack angle trial. It did not go as badly as I thought it would! I just did not need to tee it up as high.

Once you figure out just how far left (-attack angle), or right (+ attack angle) you are good to go! :wink: Trackman throws out a lot in degrees, but there is way to equate the degrees into yards at a certain distance. So if you hit an 9 iron 150 yards with -4* attack angle if you want to hit it dead straight you will have to rotate your plane line (for the lack of a better term) to aim at a target say 6 yards left, then get the face to be square to the target at separation. Presto!

I have increased my driver carry by 18 yards by changing my attack angle from -2* to + 3.2ish* I have to admit that I am having a lot of fun with my toaster at the moment.

Whatever good players think/thought they did/do with regards to ball flight dopplar radar has settled the debate. This swinging left business is going to be around for a while! :wink: The flatter your plane (vertical plane angle in Trackman-speak) the more left you have to swing with a negative attack angle.

D-plane answers the very basic question of how one goes about hitting a ball straight. “On-plane” with a square face is not going to cut it (I mean is not good enough!) This explains why a great many decent players make a good move but still hit it left. With a -attack angle the true/resultant pathis going to be “skewed” to the right relative to the target line as well as the baseline of the plane. So it is absolutely true that the true path must be on the same line as the target line while the face is perpendicular to that line (square to the target.)No doubt R3J covered this, but the D-plane is huge deal.

59

I can’t see the video on this computer, but I’ve heard the Trackman philosophy for awhile now. If you understand the ‘Geometry of the Circle’, it’s easy to understand what they are thinking, although I don’t quite agree that it’s mandatory. And like twomasters said, I disagree that nobody is a good iron player and driver player. Hell, Nicklaus was downright phenomenal in his 40’s with the driver and the irons.

Anyway, we hit down with the irons. We all know that. With the driver, the golfer can hit down, can hit ‘flat’ (0.0* attack angle) or can hit up on the ball because the driver is placed on a tee.

The shallower or more upward the attack angle gets with the driver, the further that golfer will hit the ball. For instance, Trackman did an article on Kevin Streelman where his attack angle with the driver went from -5* to -1* (so, he was still hitting down a bit) and he gained about 40-50 yards of distance with the same clubhead speed. My attack angle with my driver is about 0*. I can hit up as much as +4.5* and when I do, I gain about 40-50 yards of distance with the same clubhead speed.

Trackman likes the upward hit with the driver because it adds carry and lowers spin, which will allow the golfer to hit it further. However, accuracy and precision in my mind may suffer. Some guys can consistently hit up on the ball and hit it quite accurately and consistently (i.e. Kenny Perry). I know I struggle with the accuracy and precision when I try to hit up on the ball.

Now for the ‘Geometry of the Circle’ stuff.

From the face on view, when we swing the clubhead, it goes in a motion that looks similar to the shape of a circle. That’s why Homer Kelley called it the ‘Geometry of the Circle.’

This circle is also on an inclined plane.

When we hit down on the ball with say a 7-iron and take a divot, the ball is behind the low point. When we hit that ball with that 7-iron, we hit the ball first…then the clubhead goes down-outward-and forward to the low point. Then once it reaches the low point, the clubhead goes upward-inward and forward to the follow thru and the finish.

So in the instance of the 7-iron, if the low point is pointing directly at the target, the clubhead PATH will be pointing to the right of the target (aka inside-to-out path). Why? Because once you hit the ball, the clubhead goes down-OUT-forward to the low point.

So what Trackman prescribes is to aim the body left in order to get the low point pointing left of the target. That way the path will be more square to the target. Why? Because the clubhead will always go down-out-forward to the low point, but if the low point is left of the target, the ‘out’ will not shift the path inside-to-out.

Again, that’s Trackman’s prescription for squaring up the path with the irons…aiming the body left. But what Lag teaches (swinging left) works just as fine. Trevino ‘aimed left’ and it’s not surprise that before he became famous he had a problem with the hook. Why? Probably in part because he didn’t aim left back then and his path went out to the right which will impart hook spin. So he aimed left and got that low point left of the target which got that path more square to the target (I watched Lee a bunch of times and for the most part his stock shot is pretty dead straight, he can just work it whatever way he wanted to).

Now, with the driver Trackman prescribes hitting up on the ball.

When we hit up on the ball, that means the clubhead has already passed the low point.

So that means the clubhead goes past the low point and works upward-INWARD-and forward.

So again, if your low point is pointing at the target and you are hitting up on the ball, that means your path will go LEFT (outside-to-in) with relation to the target causing a slice spin. So what Trackman wants golfers to do is to aim the body right in order to move the low point right of the target which will mean that when the clubhead goes inward, it will now be directed at the target instead of outside-to-in.

Like I said, Lag’s ‘swinging left’ technique can work just fine with the irons without having to ‘aim left.’ Look at Snead, he aimed right with every and swung far left enough to do just fine. With the driver, I suggest that a golfer not hit too far down with the modern driver. Probably anything more than -2* is too much. The new drivers have the sweetspot so high that I don’t think you can hit it accurately and precise if you hit too far down on it. Plus, Trackman has shown that the more you hit down on the ball with the driver, the smash factor decreases.

However, from my experience if you are hitting up on the driver on purpose, you probably want to aim right because it’s very difficult to square up the path otherwise.

This is why I think Kenny Perry got better as he got older. Perry’s low point is right of the target. If you watch him, the guy has more bend on a 9-iron than he does with the driver. Why? Because he hits down on the 9-iron and with the low point right of the target, the path is going well to the right of the target (very inside-to-out). But with the driver, he hits up on the ball (he’s one of the tour’s longest drivers and only generates 110 mph of driver swing speed). And because his low point is right of the target, hitting up will only STRAIGHTEN out his ball flight. That’s why he drives it so well these days.

I believe if we were still with persimmon or even metal, Perry probably would be either off the Tour or more or less a journeyman.

3JACK

60

To keep this post clean, I just wanted to quote the meat and potatoes of Two’s post.

First off, what a deep video. If you really think about this, there’s a lot going on in that explanation and to be honest I’m not even sure he’s looking at the correct ‘factor’ in determining your swing arch.

This topic fascinates me because I have believed what this man is saying very much through my own experimentation. BUT I believed it for entirely different reasons.

There is NO doubt to me that what he is saying has some merit. Stack and tilt makes a HUGE deal about this. They refer to it as the “point of tangency” in the golf swing. WHERE IS THE BALL IN RELATION TO YOUR POINT OF TANGENCY? That’s what this entire video is about. Again Stack and Tilt refers to “Two societies of ball strikers: Those who’s point of tangency comes before the ball (slice/pull) and those who’s point of tangency is after the ball (push/drawers).”

You can argue this, but I’ve ready every singly piece of info you can get on SnT and these are very much hard driven principles in their ‘system’.

But is what this guy says true? Is it a factor of hitting straight?

What I do know with 100% certainty is when I take out my 45" driver, I MUST feel like I am swinging right more, MUCH more than with a wedge or I risk a slice. ABS calls this getting deep into 4:30. But I always assumed it wasn’t -anything- to do with angle of attack because I believe I can still make a downward strike with the ball position higher in my stance… but instead I thought it was a direct relation to the length of the club.

This video makes me think though… of how many times I was just hitting my irons straight, and this same swing might turn into a ‘fade’ the longer the club I hit. BUT on days where I am really drawing my short-mid irons, then those days usually my woods/driver are going straight. So I can’t really argue against what this guy is saying since I can and have replicated it in my own swing. (but again I thought it was more about club length than angle of attack.)

On a side note, what he mentions about Hogan’s stance is 100% true. It’s even in his Fundamentals book.

Thanks for digging that up Two. I’m sure it will bring some good debate here. :wink: