THE IMPACT ZONE......Bobby Clampett

Two days of rain has sent all us rats scurrying for cover.

In the meantime, a friend of mine, Tosmela Rat, gave me this book to read. Some good stuff in it for pondering…

From page 108…"the surprising truth is all golfers from Ben Hogan to Hulk Hogan, actually strike the ball with the club in a decelerating mode…that’s what the best players in the world do: they’re slowing down closer to the ball than their high-handicap friends or playing partners.".

Houston…do we have a problem?

From page 109…"Mr Hogan once sat down with my stepdad, the late Fletcher Jones, and put a sugar cube on a table, then said…The key to the golf swing is that, on the through swing, you want to hit the inside corner of that sugar cube."

Sweet… :slight_smile: RR

Good stuff, RR…

-I wouldn’t disagree with this but I don’t think it’s a simple as just decelerating, it’s more of a leveling out of speed as far as I can tell. If you go from 0 to 100 mph and then stay at 100 mph would that be considered decelerating?

-I think there’s probably more to this…

I don’t see it as a slowing down process once the free ride is over- I think everything is snapping along with acceleration. Maybe he means that the best players release later than other people- cuz’ if he is using a foward aiming point, I doubt he’s slowing down to get there. But he’s a swinger.

I like the sugar cube image…gives a specific point of emphasis versus “the inside quadrant” or “the inside”- I like specific tasks.

I like tasks that challenge the intentions. I used to like to hit thin dimes off of tight carpet. A lot of fun, and not as easy as it would appear at first glance to get loft on the dime and sail it toward the target. If the leading edge of the club and edge of the dime meet correctly…the dime takes off like a rocket…or should I say a flying saucer. :laughing: Probably easier to do with flat gear. Will have to try it.

Think I’ll line up a few sugar cubes today and have some fun. :slight_smile: RR

Bobby is a poster boy swinger trained by Ben Doyle.

I’m sure Lag will have plenty to say on this as he too was coached by Doyle.

I think “The Impact Zone” is a terrific book but it is aimed at swingers and most of it will not be pertinent to what abs students are learning.

With regards decelerating, I think that topic was done to death. Lag talks about the intent of accelerating, bio has data that shows that very few golfers have ever accelerated beyond impact. Compare it to punching through blocks of concrete in martial arts - clearly the fist has decelerated but the intent is to punch through and beyond accelerating all the while.

I enjoy the “inside corner” story.
But when I first encountered it somewhere, several things were not clear to me.
For starters:
How was the cube oriented to Mr. Hogan?
What corner was the “inside corner”?
Exactly what part of the club face hits the corner?
What is the three dimensional path of the club head?
What is the club face orientation at impact?
And so on.

Perhaps the “inside corner” business was self evident at the actual demonstration.
My foggy guess is Mr. Hogan was referring to the 4:30 line.
Anyway, Bom, I think you have it right when you wrote “…there’s probably more to this”.

1teebox,
As they say, ‘you’re a man after my own heart’…
Those are great questions alright. Regarding the inside corner, I suspect that it was faced square to the target line since he used the word ‘corner’. If it was diagonal he probably would’ve side ‘inside face’. Though who really knows what angle he had the corner facing- maybe Clampett’s step father wasn’t paying attention and Hogan was actually showing him- it seems plausible with the reputation that he had. I do think it was on of the edges, though.
I really believe that this discussion is fundamental to doing everything you need to do in the swing, and to do it right. It’s really the apex of all intentions, it has to be. If impact is the thing that’s so important, and is what separates good players from bad, then where that impact takes place on the ball would seem to be an important thing to know. The answer allows everything to happen because it wants to happen, and it needs to happen in order to achieve this specific goal. It’s like hammering a nail- where you want to hit the nail guides the motion of the hammer. In a very simple way, if you’re trying to hit the wrong part of the nail, you’re hammer swing wont be right no matter how much you work on trying to make it right- elbow angle, wrist angle, shoulder etc. If your goal is to hit the wrong part of the nail, you’ll inevitably hit the wrong part of the nail. What might appear to be poor coordination may actually be good coordination towards the incorrect spot. Sometimes I think that the whole golf swing is a vapour trail through this specific point and that the whole fight in golf is due to misunderstanding it. I think Hogan was bang on when he said that that point is the key to the whole golf swing.
There are lots good questions you could ask about that sugar cube analogy I reckon…

Unless we swing on an “eye” plane, we will be looking down upon our swing plane from above, with the club visually moving below and around us in layered ovals, the inside of the cube or quadrant will be a reality.

The 4:30 line shows our intentions here of course.

I glanced through this book at book store recently. What is intriguing to me is his research and resulting concept of various handicaps and where they bottom out their club in relation to the ball. High handicappers are hitting ground slightly before or same time as ball and handicaps get lower the more forward the ground impact is from the ball, with Tour Pros a whopping 4" in front of ball.

This is hard to wrap my head around as one would naturally a swing bottoming that far in front of ball would result in thin hits. So this is very good info for everyone above scratch to ponder as I have never seen this mentioned in this dramatic of a way.

In the equipment section, he is also an advocate of using blades to learn. Though not necessarily for play since he still uses cavity backs in comp.

For a good striker like Clampett, I will never understand the need for using cavity backs. As pros, when we are playing well,
we hit it solid all the time… and the extra ability to work the ball with a blade is going to offset any disadvantage. I don’t think Clampett is doing himself any favors losing the feedback from using cavity backs. He’s a good striker, and would be best to be using blades. He should read his own book.