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

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
61

One thing I don’t like about the modern drivers is the balance feel or sweetspot location. With a persimmon, the sweetspot is very close to the shaft relatively speaking. With a modern frying pan, due to the size of the head, the sweetspot would be located about where the tip of the toe would be on a persimmon, and also very high and might not even be on the golf club of a persimmon. This is a very substantial consideration. In my set, the sweetspot on all my clubs is very much in the same place because I also remove ALL OFFSET from my irons. My woods have a bit of face progression which allows me to tee the ball slightly forward of where I would have my irons, but the shaft in the same place relative to my lowpoint. I’m talking half an inch… and it’s just something I feel really. This is the reason clubs were designed the way they were … they knew what they were doing back in the 1950’s when I think they really got gear right. Compact mass intensive heavy heads.

The modern driver is asking a lot of the player in the way of adjusting. Joe Durant is an example of a guy who drives it straight and hits good irons. Interestingly enough he swings very much along the lines of what I would promote. So it can work with modern gear. I think the dump and roll swing is going to have trouble with the modern gear because so much is based upon timing and finding the sweetspot rotational centers, and weighting, and shaft flex being correct for the lighter heads and on and on…

I don’t think I would have any trouble hitting the modern gear reasonably well… I just am not interesting in hitting the ball that far on the kind of golf courses I enjoy playing. I don’t like the sound of it… I don’t like the look of them, I don’t like the feel of them, I can’t stand the toe being up in the air, and I don’t like having to alter my swing to accommodate them.

62

I don’t think it’s a big deal to swing with the shaft way inside the ball, but this does require a totally different feel and if you grind balls working on this, then go back to irons where the mass is much more central to the shaft you have an issue…

The equipment manufactures continue to make clubs based upon wind tunnels and maximizing swing speeds with total disregard for a players feel and compete disregard for keeping flow of dead weights and lie angles continuing throughout the set. Given that pros playing everyday, and grinding balls have a better chance of working through the inconsistencies in the gear, amateurs are the ones who inevitably suffer the most.

63

Yeah, the sweetspot on a titanium driver is basically up near the bordering edge of the top of the head and usually slightly towards the toe. Every OEM rep will tell you to avoid hitting their titanium drivers off the low heel part of the club at all costs.

It’s not rocket science of psychoanalysis to figure out what these OEM’s try to do with these clubs…they try to make them so they can provide band-aid fixes for the hacker. One thing hackers tend to do is hit it off the toe. Usually because their club handle (the grip) is very high because the shoulders turn to vertical, and they pivot stall and throw the arms at the ball (aka swinging right). So they make these clubs more upright and put the sweetspot more leaning towards the toe…and golfers never improve their swing mechanics becasue these technological ‘advancements’ just encourage the pivot stall and ‘swinging out to the right.’ I don’t know about you Lag, but from what I see, I see a lot more golfers of the past when they were using persimmon were ‘swinging left’ than I do now with the modern player with titanium drivers.

To me, the golfer who really wants to swing the club better and try to get their mechanics more in line with the ballstriking greats like Snead, Hogan, Knudson and Trevino wind up being the losers here. It can be done, but it takes a lot of hard work because the gear isn’t compatible with those mechanics.

Today’s equipment fits more of the swing of a Ricky Fowler. But he’s a ‘by tour standards’ a mediocre wedge player in part due to his mechanics of ‘swing out to the right.’

3JACK

64

And this is why I am trying hard to find something that can work with what Lag has taught me, and still lets me use something somewhat modern for a driver.

I think part of this swinging right issue has more to do with how… odd the modern driver is compared to a good, forged iron. They are so ridiculously different, they require a different approach. I don’t like the feel or idea of swinging right with a driver/3 wood, but it seems mandatory to get a half arsed ball flight out of it. This (I’m concerned) may also be counter productive to my iron swing!

Someone mentioned the Heavy Driver coming out. I have tried to alter my modern driver to make it fit my iron swing better, but it’s hard to do when you don’t have a tour van at your disposal.

The other consideration here is that the stuff “we” or “I” buy off the shelf for a driver is marketed to the masses and will act quite a bit different than a tour player who wants D5, an 80 gram shaft, and a 44" length. I can buy the same brand, but chances are it will have a mass produced “Made For…” shaft, at 52 grams, and 46" .

It’s pretty frustrating.

I know Lag doesn’t like modern drivers for lots of reasons, but for those of us that feel… the need to leverage the distance, it is very frustrating trying to make it fit.

65

I think most of us who feel like we need to have the extra distance provided by the high COR driver heads but don’t want to “sell out” and mess with the uber-light, expensive monstrosities you find on the rack of the local golf shop these days should narrow their search to the designs from 1998 - 2003 or so. Titleist, TM, even Callaway had some good stuff then

COR measurements started in 1998 and were capped at .830 in 2002 or so. Head sizes peaked at 460cc’s then as well. There were plenty of good drivers produced in that timeframe that had a more traditional look, had some weight, and can still (with a good swing) move the ball out there long enough to compete today.

IMO after 2003 or so, the heads really started to get light and they started jacking around with all these adjustments (I prefer to call them temptations), bizarre non-traditional shapes, and in general it became all about “the gimmick” and window-dressing.

The shaft is still very important, but it shouldn’t be any more difficult to get the “correct” one put in a 2011 driver model as one from a decade earlier… and at a fraction of the resultant cost.

robbo

66

Highly speculative about Kenny Perry, although I understand your point. Also,I would bet that Rickie Fowler is in the top 3rd on tour as far as wedge play, although I have not checked…OK I…did he ranked 56th from 50-125 yards. Ahead of Furyk, Mickelson and Els (and a host of so-called premier ball-strikers like Allenby) But I get your point with the release out to the right.

Josh Zander’s video is a good intro. Brian Manzella’s as far more informative (if not chatty!)

Seems like an advanced ball striker can take the ball anywhere that he wants to. It is a lot easier to hit down with my persimmon, so isn’t hitting a modern driver on the upswing a more challenging propostion? Just kidding!

67

According to Trackman, Perry’s path goes as much as +6* right of the target (inside-to-out), the most of anybody on Tour. I find persimmon very difficult to accurately and precisely hit when you’re hitting up on the ball. The titanium drivers are much much more suited for that. Most of Perry’s success came when he was in his 40’s, right in the middle of the titanium rage and big advancements in titanium. I think basically he was allowed to hit up on the ball more which allowed him to hit it further and straighter. If I could gain 40 yarders and have a straighter ball flight, that’s a tasty advantage.

Fowler I don’t label in that group of ‘couldn’t play if we were with persimmon’ because he has a pretty self taught golf swing and I think he would’ve made the adjustment. But when I see Fowler’s swing, I see a lot of Bobby Clampett.

3JACK

68

I am very much a fan of Kenny Perry’s swing… well more of his downswing than his backswing. :slight_smile:

I often wondered out on the forum what components in his swing make him hit a modern driver so well? He stays on his right side a long time, and he saves a lot for impact, and certainly doesn’t possess the long, pulling action of a true swinger. But even at 50 he still pounds it.

I find it interesting that you’re telling us he hits it… 6 degrees out to right field? With his strong grip, that makes it a pretty big recipe for over cooking the ball left, but he keeps it in a play most of the time.

Oddly enough when I am trying to ‘put one out there’ I -feel- like I’m swinging 6 * in to out… but now that I know Kenny Perry DOES swing 6* in to out, I’m betting realistically I’m probably more at 1-2* in to out.

Interesting stuff.

69

Perry swings 6* out with some of his irons. His driver is closer to zero. He basically keeps the bottom arc of his swing (low point) out to the right of the target with each club. And because the attack angles change with clubs…his path goes further out to the right with shorter irons and that’s why he hits a big bending 9-iron, but a baby draw with the driver. Perry’s downswing is pretty much anti-ABS because he swings so far out to the right.

Strong grips really have no effect if you hit a hook or a cut. Trevino had a very strong grip, so did Azinger, and could hit the prettiest cuts you would ever see. I have gone to a much stronger grip as well and the only thing that causes me to hit hooks is well my shoulders get too vertical thru impact (path goes out to the right too much). Perry ‘pounds it’ because he hits up on the ball.

Last year Perry’s average clubhead speed with the driver was 110.9 mph. That ranked him 125th fastest (out of 192 players) on Tour. One guy who swung the club at a similar speed was Kevin Na, also at 110.9 mph.

But last year Perry was 68th in total distance. Kevin Na was 167th in total distance.

Why?

Because Perry hits up, Na hits down with the driver.

Perry was 88th in total carry, Na was 183rd in total carry

Perry had the 5th lowest spin rate, Na had the 180th lowest spin rate.

Here’s some guys that Perry hit it further than last year, despite them having a far superior amount of clubhead speed.

John Senden – 117 mph
Ricky Barnes – 116.5 mph
Kevin Streelman – 115.6 mph
Trevor Immelman 115.6 mph

I think what surprised me most with Trackman is when they found that hitting down with the driver causes a decrease in smash factor. That right there told me that the modern day drivers, with the sweetspot so high up on the club, you really can’t hit very much down on them at all if you want to hit them effectively. I think that’s what Tiger Woods and Charles Howell III made the mistake of doing. They started to struggle with their swing, particularly with the driver, and probably tried to hit it lower to keep it in play…but that actually just hurt their accuracy, power and precision even more.

I think one can ‘swing left’ and still hit up on the ball if they know where to aim. But I think if you’re ‘swinging left’ with the titanium, you probably want to keep it at a ‘flat hit’ (0.0* attack angle) for optimal effect. And you can still hit it long (PGA Tour average is -1.2*) and accurately, by today’s standards.

One more thing, it appears that FlightScope is finally getting their product to match the accuracy of Trackman’s with their new X2 product which will be about 1/3rd the price of Trackman. I’d still like to see a side-by-side comparison done, but very promising nonetheless.

3JACK

70

Again, very interesting info. But I want to just clear up a few ‘minor’ things…

This isn’t really true. Let me just kind of tweak that statement:

And

I personally think those are more accurate. Just my personal opinion though.

One more minor correction…

This isn’t really quite what I meant… entirely. If you look at guys with super strong grips that push/fade the ball, a lot of them do swing left. It just compensates for the face being ‘less open’ through the swing. My observation was that K.P. dumps out to right (no real attempt at swinging left) AND has the super strong grip.

I think good examples of the alternative style, where you have a strong grip, and strong pivot swinging left would be:

This information to me is very interesting. I play with some guys that just demolish the ball and I’d have to say they sure seem to have a ‘Sergio-esque’ descending blow on the driver. That being said I know J.B. Holmes puts his driver ball WAAAAY up in his stance, and I know he swings hard, but not ‘Tiger hard’, but still out drives him. (I don’t know stats, these are just ‘old school’ observations of mine.)

I’m not disagreeing with you at all… just trying to figure out what’s better… massively drawing your 9 iron, and hitting a straight driver, or hitting a straight 9 iron, and slicing a driver? (This is assuming I’m understanding your data correctly?)

71

A few months ago I was playing golf with a couple of junior golfers that both hit the ball very long. One was a lefty and the other was a righty. The righty would hit his driver about 300 – 325 yards. The lefty would bomb it about 315 – 340 yards.

They were friends, but the righty kept thinking that he needed to take one less club with the irons than the lefty because the lefty bombed it further than he did.

This was despite the fact that anybody could tell that the righty actually generated more clubhead speed. The righty’s swing wasn’t unorthodox, but it was certainly unique because he swung it so fast that it would make a WHOOSH in the backswing. Then on the downswing he would hit it ultra-hard.

They were both the same size and everything, so you could clearly tell the righty was generating more clubhead speed.

So when they would get on a par-3, the lefty usually hit first, the righty would ask him what he hit and would say ‘well, I need to hit a club more’, then proceed to fly the green.

The righty also hit a hook with the driver. Reason for all of this was the righty had the ball teed down and further back in the stance. The lefty had it teed up very high and up in his stance. So the left had the advantage from a distance perspective because he was hitting up on the ball and the righty was hitting down (and probably way too far down). But once they got the irons, I think the righty was in reality a little longer with his irons.

That’s why I say if you’re looking to LEGITIMATELY gain power, you gauge it by how much further you are hitting your irons. You can cheat it with the driver, but if your irons are going further (provided you didn’t change your set of irons), then you are legitimately hitting it further.

I think what Perry does is difficult to do. It ain’t easy, IMO, to hit up on the driver, regardless if you swing right or swing left. I think the swing right guys it’s easier to do, but in total it’s not easy.

And if you have poor mechanics, but hit up on the driver, you may have 95 mph clubhead speed. So yeah, you’ll hit it further, but it’s not likely you will be overpowering golf courses like Perry often does.

3JACK

72

Hmmmm, I think I am the righty, but inconsistently so.

I am just interested by all of this because I have discovered what that video is stating, but in a different way.

Two seasons ago I was a very hard working ABS type of swinger, but I always hated how short my driver went. I hit it low… and would get gobs of roll, but if I had a valley to clear, I usually wouldn’t. But my irons were gold… very happy with that.

I spent the next year trying to come to an understanding where I could get more yardage without giving up my accuracy. I gained yardage, but also at times, an uncontrollable fade. So I traded off a shorter, sometimes hooky, low driver flight, for a longer, less controllable one. I changed my swing a bit, and I also moved the ball up in my stance more last year.

So I guess that’s why I find this topic very interesting, because in part it makes me wonder if it’s a good idea to move the ball up, and swing more right, or keep it back, and keep swinging low… It’s certainly something to think about.

I admit in part that I am ‘smeared’ by the fact that I regularly play with 2 or 3 guys that are constantly going for the greens on par 4’s with their TP Taylormade Super-Whatever-it-is-this-week drivers. It can be hard to ignore that.

73

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with moving the ball position up if you’re hitting titanium. The other day I was playing and was striking everything well except for my driver. I then noticed on a tee shot that I hit hard, but wayward, that my brand new wooden tee snapped in two. That was an indication to me that I was hitting too far down on the ball. I then took a look at my ball position and I thought it was too far back, moved it up a bit and hit great drives to finish out the round.

Think about what the Smash Factor is:

Ball Speed / Clubhead Speed = Smash Factor

According to Trackman, they are saying the smash factor will likely go down if you hit down on the ball. Of course, they are talking about the modern day driver.

So they are saying say that the clubhead speed will stay the same, but the ball speed goes down. Smash factor is mainly there to help determine the quality of the strike. The better the strike, the higher the smash factor. So if you hit down on a driver and it feels like you hit it well, but your smash factor is lower, then it’s a telling sign to me that with the sweetspot so high up on the driver, a golfer cannot afford to hit down with the driver very much. Maybe -1* to -2*, but anything more than that, you are hurting the quality of your clubhead strike.

3JACK

74

But… what you are saying is, if you want to hit the modern driver far BUT not slice/fade, you have to adjust your plane as well (not just the ball position)… correct?

75

A little talk about sweet spots on frying pans, so I guess this would be a good place to insert this. I’m still not sure I fully buy the notion that frying pans have larger sweet spots, or even sweet spots located in different areas of the face. Here’s what Harvey Penick had to say back in 1993.
[i][b]
Pupils think I’m crazy when I say this, but the sweet spot on the new oversize drivers that are all the rage at the moment is smaller than the sweet spot on the regular size drivers.

By sweet-spot, I mean the no-roll spot- the place on the clubface where a squarely struck shot is launched with no immediate spin to the left or right.

Let me explain it this way: If you want to drive a small nail into a board, would you select a big hammer or a small hammer?

With a small hammer you can hit the nail with any part of the head and drive it home. With a big hammer you have a larger area which to hit the nail, but at the same time you have greater risk of hitting the nail off-center and bending it.[/b][/i]

My thinking on this is somewhat like the Stretch/Skew function on a paint program. If I put a singular dot in the center of the paint window and start maximizing the image to say 400 %, the dot is still there, but it is very large and blurry…or lacking clarity from the original size image…the sweet spot is diluted.

Thoughts? :slight_smile:

76

Kenny Perry pic below…it looks like he has decent position here with the club and hands going left around with his turn through… I am believing this to be a 6 or 7 iron or 8 iron shot on the Par 3 8th hole at Muirfield Village
I don’t know Perry’s figures but this pic seems to contradict the hit to the right view?.. I know this maybe one picture and may not tell the whole story but does trackman tell the whole story also?..do they test on the range or on regular holes during tournament play?
I would think the variable of range versus real golf may shed some different light…any thoughts on that Richie?..sorry to get all skeptical again, i am just not a huge fan of the launch monitors and such that I used on tour because they were range dependent and not real time on course in tournament situations which are two different playing fields.
I never used trackman so it may be different but I would rather know my on course numbers than a range number so just asking the relevant question with regards to that. It sure looks like Perry is doing something different to what is suggested

perryimpact.jpg

77

You know I really don’t think he does dump to the right, but it’s something that gets said a lot so rather than be argumentative, I just went with it… I mean in that picture it sure does appear like he is staving off CF throw.

I just didn’t want to muddy the waters with a discussion of if KP dumps right or not. :wink:

But again, his is a swing I study, because it does a lot of what I think the ‘right’ things are. And often when I’ve struggled, as mentioned before, Lag has pointed to some specifics in his swing (I won’t get into detail) that have helped me tremendously.

Sorry I don’t mean to threadjack… I just thought the plane consideration based on ball position was something I could learn from… maybe not… maybe I’m beyond learning. lol

78

Wouldn’t it be the other way around? That’s what I get from the TM stuff. If he is hitting down, he would have to path more left. It looks to me that his stance is a little open.

I don’t know what Lag was referring to about taking some pocket change to a hardware store, but I think I may have to buy a hula-hoop at my local toy store and check on this TM stuff. :laughing:

79

Whoever made this diagram sure figured out the D-Plane :open_mouth:

On short irons you are coming in steeper so you contact the ball well before low point and the club is traveling out away from you. To hit a straight ball you will need to open your stance.

On the driver, if you are hitting up slightly, you will be making contact after lowpoint and the club will be moving more to the left. To hit a straight ball you will need to close your stance.

Ball%20position.jpg

80

That looks like it’s from Hogan’s book, or Knudsen’s book. Both have similar diagrams.

Funny, I could never take an open stance with anything longer than a wedge… it just feels wrong!