Re: Hogan’s hands…are those double-jointed thumbs? 
RR
That sort of mobility just isn’t fair. 
Came across this snippet from Sean Foley about Ben Hogan & Co. Guess he gives him credit for being an okayish ballstriker 
:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHPFN9S9LY4[/youtube]
I took it from this series if some of you are intrested in the rest of it:
youtube.com/watch?v=ipTpxACn … re=related
I would disagree with Foley’s suggestion that the old equipment was poorly designed. By his own admission these great golf swings developed from that gear because they had to… out of necessity. That to me means the gear was better… because it taught people how to swing properly, heavier, and flatter.
The modern gear is too upright, too light, too much offset, and golf swings suffer because of it. A proper golf swing can hit any gear, modern or classic…
I have no doubt that the tour’s top tier ball strikers such as Tiger and Westwood, would not have trouble hitting persimmon and classic blades… but if your golf swing is only built upon “game improvement” clubs, with lightweight big heads, perimeter weighting, and lots of off set, your golf swing will not be able to reach it’s full potential… because of the lack of precision feedback the brain needs to keep your swing and feel on track.
1 Like
Lag,
i think both of you are correct, but it depends from what perspective you look at it. Foley might see it from the perspective of “worse design back then” or otherwise put, they simple hadnt had the forgiveness on their equipment you have nowadays and the balls they played reacted much harsher to mishits and as a combination of both mishits were punished much more with more sidespin than nowadays with modern balls + equipment. So he might see these things as “bad design”.
As you and he mentioned - they obviously had to find a way to make it work with the equipment (heads/shafts/balls) they had at hand and figure out ways to strike it consistenly and predictable. And they succeeded in doing so by designing their equipment that way that it produced the most effective swing & shot.
Even if you would put up the numbers of top ballstrikers/scorer/players back then and now and compare them and if they would be equal - we still would have to recognize the fact, that the past generation of players did achieve these numbers under more difficult circumstances.
Thats a difficult argument to sell in a world filled with mediocre golf swings that can make you millions, isnt it? I remember this statement from Mickelson where he said, that a lot of the time when being in a bunker he is no more than 12 feet? away from the pin so he practiced bunker shots exclusivly from this distance. That should give you an idea that these guys are actually pretty smart and certainly analyse their game and their tendencies to death and practice accordingly. But it seems that professional golfers seem to focus much more on different things than the long game, simply because they can - they get away with much more than they would have in the past, thanks to balls that go straighter and further, thanks to more forgiving club technology.
But since golf is a living and evolving game, trends might change, it just needs a trigger, and the focus might return to ball striking again.
I find it puzzling that instructors are always referring to Hogan, and how great his swing was, and how he had things right, then on the other hand they embrace light upright gear that Hogan would never have played, nor would such a dynamic precision swing ever evolve out of light weight, perimeter weighted junk. If the gear is so great, why are we not seeing another Hogan? It’s because of the gear.
Great strikers from the past loved high spin balls because they could maneuver the golf ball, spin the ball, and have in their arsenal a more sophisticated palate of golf shots, instead of these new low spin longer flying plastic golf balls offered today.
I hope that Foley doesn’t make the mistake of trying to get Tiger to flatten out his swing without flattening out his gear to match. Flattening the swing without changing the lie angle of the club can do more harm than good. If you want to talk about getting stuck, then this is a great way to do it… especially if you are moving toward a “Stack and Tilt” style swing.
Proceed with caution.
If you really want to get to Hogan, then you do as Hogan did… and you start with setting up your gear properly… flat heavy and stiff… and work with gear that will give you great feedback, so that your brain can process the information correctly, and this will enable a golfer to improve much quicker.
If you don’t like Hogan’s swing, and think that his style of play is outdated, archaic, and irrelevant in today’s modern game as some do, then his swing simply should not be referenced within the context of the contemporary game. Tiger would be a much better model in my opinion.
When I hear announcers compare Chad Campbell, or Trevor Immelman to Ben Hogan, it simply shows a lack of understanding, and really should not be taken too seriously.
2 Likes
The guy in the video makes me feel like he’s selling something that I’m pretty sure I don’t need and that I’m not going to buy.
Golfers used to be the ones teaching the game and designing the clubs, but that generally isn’t the case anymore- this should tell you something. Like everything else in the world, the nuts are running the nut house, and the smart people are all standing around scratching their heads wondering why they don’t fit in.
Modern clubs are obviously well researched and designed, but for what reasons, and what are they actually designed to do? What’s the goal of a modern club at it’s very core? The other thing is that, again, like everything else, there’s a quality issue. The average pair of street shoes bought today, while supposedly designed for the same purpose, is nowhere close to the quality of the average shoe from the past. The whole structure of society dictates this- everything is profit driven. So while the shoes are made to work, they’re also made to fail because they want you to buy a new pair in the next year. It’s the same with furniture- did you ever look at an old chest of drawers in your grandparents house or wherever it is, they’re like tanks- they’re so well made that they might not even burn! Today we have ikea, and if you want one of the old school pieces of furniture you have to pay a lot of money for it. You can still find it, but it’s going to cost you.
With clubs, it’s the same thing. In modern thinking, old clubs are harder to hit, blah blah blah… but who’s telling that story? Where do you hear that claim made most often and why are they making it? I was giving a lesson yesterday and I asked my student to hit my 73 Apex 5 iron with a tipped X100 shaft and a full cord green victory grip with the taper taped out of it- it’s a substantial club. He was laughing when he was setting up because, in his mind, there was just no way he was going to be able to hit it- he’s about an 80 shooter, and a little older, but can shoot 72 on a good day. He pured 5 shots in a row and was left silent by it. It didn’t add to what he ‘knew to be true’.
Moral of the story- watch out for the propaganda machine, it’s everywhere. And, again, thanks to Lag for the heads up on the old gear!
1 Like
Unfortunately the guys who are running the show are absolutly sold on distance - and as Lag said in the Flat vs. Upright thread, if you are going for distance only, you should go upright. And they are doing pretty much the opposite from what Lag preaches. They gradually make the equipment more upright, they develop materials to make shafts and heads consequently lighter, they keep strengthening the loft on irons (mostly as a marketing argument) and all this for the reason that they can sell YOU, the consumer, new gear that makes you “longer”.
Most of you probably dont look much into the popular equipment forums, but if you read the feedback from these guys - two arguments sell. Distance & Looks - if you read reviews from consumers, accuracy is mentioned as a footnote.
Now if you look at the traffic distribution on these forums - equipment releated threads top everything else by a far margin - it almost seems that equipment is what makes golf play, and the golf swing is seen as a byproduct.
Golf (aside from other sports / areas of life) developed into marketing driven selling machine over time and it seems to increase from year to year.
I have to bring this back to the point of this thread.
Ok then…
Practiced in the freaking cold today and was examining opposing forces in detail. One of my conclusions concerns the R leg angle-post as described in 5 lessons. Perhaps its function was not to prevent the weight from getting outside the R foot, but rather to allow, or assist, the weight with moving, or traveling a smidge to the L foot. It makes sense from an opposing force concept.
If the club is moving R of our head on the move away, a L opposing force will be needed for stability…just the opposite of the down move. Early in this thread is a rear view picture of Hogan at the top. It clearly shows the posted R leg…but even though the L heel is slightly off the ground, there is a strong load to the left side. Almost like a S/T process but not really as the torso moves to load the upper weight R and with a stong lower load L.
From the top…if the club eventually goes L of the head, it may speak to why an opposing force has to created in the R foot for not only stability…but leverage for hitting with the shaft. It’s like you said in an earlier post Bom…if everything goes left than nothing really does…so the R foot loading and pressure on the target move become real important in staying behind the action.
Just some idle thoughts I had today…it may have had something to do with my new Foot Joys which have a fleur di lis on each heel…the Saints logo…in my mind the ultimate opposing force image. RR
There’s a lot in this discussion, RR, and it’s one of the reasons a lot of novice/beginners tend to RP. Like we’ve talked about before, the club is inanimate, therefore it needs to be moved or be set in motion for inertia to take over. On a very basic level, the force required to move it into the backswing, needs to be applied to the front of the shaft. What people tend not to figure out is that it’s a rotational action, so that pressure is always working around the shaft, not back and through in a linear line- SO with these people, the club goes back and they go forward towards the target, and in order to get the club to go towards the target, they go back- classic RP stuff. This has links to the wrist action that Macs noticed in the Small World thread, and it’s got to do with the changing pressures on the shaft.
In my opinion, the left leg/side is fully unloaded even though it doesn’t appear that way, and this is the major mistake the S&T people make. The load is DYING to go left, but it’s squashing down into the right leg, and falling, floating, and being driven across the middle in space, this is what makes the whole thing so potent- it’s stabilized imbalance. As far as I can see it, nothing moves without imbalance, so the term balance is misinterpreted in golf. If we’re balanced in motion then there’s no need for motion, or there’s no motion at all. What we want to do is create an environment where there’s a sort of organized panic, where everything feels urgent and/yet functional. Again, Hogan was a Master at this, he was never really balanced but he was always stable. He’s a genuine genius.
I love the term Stabilized Imbalance. I have been relating to this for the last year or so.
Cool, man… good to hear it… it’s a strong image alright…
Loaded may not be the best term to use for the L side…I can see how unloaded will also work as a descriptive…I like it. It’s just like I was saying about your post…if everything goes left than nothing will. So it may hold true going R–if everything goes R nothing will…so the little L “load” I was referring to might be better described as a little L “hold” while the rest is rotating R, which may create the stabilized imbalance.
You do mean from the top don’t you?
Thanks Bom…interesting stuff! 
RR
Yeah, I tend to have an allergic reaction to seeing the letters S and T when they’re close together, sorry about that…
I like your point, it’s a very good one. It’s kind of like how the swing is in 3D, the weight isn’t just going from side to side, it’s going around too and needs to be stabilized while it’s doing it. This is one of those energy zaps of the Leadbetter era, all the weight went side to side with the upper body with no real urgency or need for that kind of stabilization, it was all just an upper body powered lunge, with no real force. There was lots of talk about resistance and coiling, but it never actually happened.
Lots of good discussion these days…
Cheers
Good stuff.
Had a great outing today…was feeling that L hold a lot which seemed to make the tearing apart in different directions coming back the other way easy to put into motion. Anyway…
Take a look at that Hogan picture on page 2…does the R ankle looked “bowed outward” a little…almost like a bowed wrist. Hoping you know how the ankles move anatomically. I know how the radius and ulna work in the forearm…but how does an ankle move. Can it cock? Can it bend? Can it roll? Can it do all three? Just curious if you have any insight about how it moves. RR
Isn’t he just keeping his right foot flat on the ground? That would make it look bowed in relation to the angled right leg. I suspect he is using the whole foot for traction instead of just the inside portion while working out those inner thigh muscles to stabilize and counter act the forces that go on above the waist.
What in the world! What is that…I know it’s a robot but it looks so out of place for its setting…where is the place and what was the purpose- a promtional thing. Or is it a sentry to the land of Zion. 
I like the leg positions…pretty neat!
You must have forgotten the directive from Dani to you and me…no more red pills 
RR
This little guy can be seen in Japan (where else)… A celebration of the creator of the anime series in which this robot plays it’s part.
streetlevel.com/2009/06/29/r … -28-robot/
Oops I forgot to take my blue pill today… sorry dani
RR,
I haven’t studied the foot/ankle much. The basic stuff from the arm carries over in terms of one bone above the knee and two below leading into the foot. It’s hard to figure out what humans are actually meant to do from a physical perspective. The legs are a lot bigger than the arms, obviously, and I’m imagining we’re the most dextrous and coordinated, and capable in the brain department. I figure our basic physical skill that separates us from the rest is dexterity and coordination. This is one of the problems too, since we do everything with our hands, and our brains and eyes are at the top of our upper body, the inclination is to keep everything up there. Our goal is to move some of the ability to coordinate down into our lower bodies and legs.
You’re observation about that Hogan photo is correct imo, but it’s not just torqued outward, it’s also torqued around. It’s in against the ground as best as it can be on a flat surface- hence the extra spikes down there. In my view that is an effect though, it’s not a cause. It would be very difficult to turn that force into a usable force for club acceleration, if it actually was a cause. What do you think you’d have to do with your body to cause that foot and leg to torque like that? In the sequence I post of Hogan from that sort of 3/4 rear view, his right foot does something, or something is done to his right foot just prior to it’s ‘liftoff’ that causes it to twist outward that would be in line with how I see transition.
There’s lot of discussion these days that I see as linked, it’s really cool.