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Manuel De La Torre Swing Focus


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Just to be clear....do you think there is a flat spot in a circle or in an ellipse?

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A few reasons for swinging the club back with both hands:

1) As BMC suggested, using the arms and not the hands tends to move you off the ball.

2) You want to move the club so that whenever the club is horizontal it is also parallel to the target line. Easy to do with the hands, near impossible without using your hands.

Steve

 

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In a literal sense, you really can't move the hands or the arms, in a golf swing, one without the other. And he certainly falls into the general school of thought that, if you swing the club/hands/arms, the body will follow, so everything is really involved. So, does he mean hands in the backswing, arms in the forward swing as sensory cues, or is it something else?

To complicate matters, some time last year, I found out there are no muscles in the fingers. It sent me down a number of rabbit holes involving a variety of activities done involving the fingers (golf, resistance training, playing musical instruments, drawing and painting, etc.). It struck me, then, that he would think of the forearms (where all the muscles are that control the fingers) as not part of the arms. It makes me wonder if he considers the forearms as part of the hands, or at least as the motors that run the hands. It that a reasonable hunch, or am I headed down the wrong path?

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It may be the “variety of ways” that are leading you astray. Well, that and seemingly your penchant for overthinking the golf swing. Manny most definitely believed in one and only one way to properly swing the golf club. Swing away with the hands and forward with the arms and everything else moving with them. He used the example of soldiers marching . The soldier in front leads but they all move together.

Titleist TSR4 9° Tensei AV White 65

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Titleist TS3 19°  hybrid Tensei Blue/Titleist TSR3 24° Diamana Ahina

Titleist T150 5-pw Nippon Pro Modus 125

Vokey SM8 50° F & 56° M SM9 60°M

Cameron Newport w/ flow neck by Lamont/ Cameron Del Mar

 



 

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"Here, jump off this cliff."

"Why should I jump off this cli..."

"You're overthinking it. Just jump."

I like thinking about things that interest me. I enjoy thinking about them beyond just the thoughts I need to execute them. A better understanding of how something works, aside from being an entertainment (though, admittedly, that's its primary appeal for me), gives one more faith in its reliability, and that allows one to think even less about it during execution. It's what allows men to go back to being men and mountains to go back to being mountains.

The 'variety of ways' comes from my being easily led astray by something new and peculiar, not a desperate search for the truth. It may not help my scores, but it sure is fun.

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We all have differing reasons for loving the game...carry on.

Titleist TSR4 9° Tensei AV White 65

Titleist TSi3 strong 3w 13.5° Tensei AV White 70

Titleist TS3 19°  hybrid Tensei Blue/Titleist TSR3 24° Diamana Ahina

Titleist T150 5-pw Nippon Pro Modus 125

Vokey SM8 50° F & 56° M SM9 60°M

Cameron Newport w/ flow neck by Lamont/ Cameron Del Mar

 



 

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I ordered the book that @juststeve mentioned. I have been watching the videos of the 1987 clinic and like what I am hearing. My question: is it really as simple as he says it is? My first thought is that it is that easy but if you are not new to the game, you have more work because of everything in your head already about your personal swing.

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You are correct. Today's golfer has access to so much information about the golf swing that it is difficult for them to simply do what Manny said to do. It's not that the other information is wrong, its that it doesn't fit the concept Manny taught. When I first met Manny I had never swung a golf club, there was no YouTube, I'd never read an instruction book, I wasn't really interested in golf, I was just there to humor my father. I was just a good athlete willing to do what Manny asked me to do with the club. Didn't know enough to argue. If someone wants to see what Manny's concept can do for them they need to forget what the think they know about the folf swing and just follow his instruction.

Steve

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I've been slowly watching the Swing Concept video that was linked in an earlier post. Something clicked in my head while watching it. About halfway through the video MDLT has a young guy come up and swing the club. MDLT helps him a bit and I hear the club head brushing through the grass with some velocity. It made me remember something from Penick's Little Red Book. Penick wrote about swinging a garden tool, not sure the exact name, as being great for helping ones golf swing. Pretty sure it was something people would use to take out weeds in their lawn. Long handle with a small blade at 90*s at the end of the handle. I think he had a comment along the lines of if you use one of these not only will you have no dandelions in your lawn but you'll have a pretty good golf swing too.

 

I like simple on the course. I do my best not to be thinking about positions etc when I play. I just swing the club, so this 'speaks' to me. I don't expect a magic bullet but I don't think it will be hard for me to buy-in to it. Regardless, I'll learn a new philosophy which is it's own reward.

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Aside from not being exactly sure what that means (doesn't everyone use both hands?), though my guess is that it's a feeling that the hands are running the show and not the arms (at least in the backswing), or the hips, or the legs, I have an issue in which, whatever led the backswing, usually leads the forward swing, too. I had a little more luck getting the forward swing going, as I think he's describing it, by swinging back with my arms instead of my hands (no problem swaying off the ping-pong ball). I'm coming from hitting too much with my right hand, so maybe I need to think of something else for a while.

Note: I'm not using 'forward swing' to be a pretentious snot (I have other ways of accomplishing that task). I'm trying to cure myself of steepness. Thinking wider thoughts, like backswing/forward swing rather than upswing/downswing (or pick it up and murder it), seems to help.

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In my opinion, it's really a method that is about feels and visualizations. If you over analyze it, it won't work. If you are the type of person who needs to micro manage the swing I would suggest something more like The Golfing Machine or this guy...

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My most common swing thought is "hit the ball with the club". If you asked me, "hit it how?" I'd say "pretend it's the back of my first wife's mother's head. Hit it hard, but savor it." If you knew her, you'd say "ok, I gotcha." Simple and clear (hardly micro-managing). I find some of the things de la Torre says to be a bit vague and maybe even nebulous. In the video I posted of him earlier, I found him swinging with the guys he was working with remarkably clear and very simple. Rather than just dismiss what he says and just copying what I think he does, I'd like to give what he says a chance.

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No, everyone doesn't use both hands to take the club back. Some take the club back with the left hand, some with the right hand, some think the club is carried back by the turn with the hands remaining passive. There are lots of ways to make the back swing, some of them work, but only one is the way Manny taught. That is swing the club head back in the direction of the trail shoulder using both hands.

Steve

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100% agree. My keys are.

1. Visualize the shot.

2. Take the club back with both hands over the back shoulder.

3. Swing the entire club forward with the arms.

4. Visualize the entire club swinging on plane. Inside-target-inside. To me this is the big key. It’s similar to Hogan’s pane of glass.

5: swing around my upper spine. Very similar to feet together drill. I know he talked about a fixed point but for me it’s more about spine angle, being balanced and finishing on the front foot

 

that’s all I ever really think about except maybe the grip and alignment.

Ping G400 Testing G410.  10.5 set at small -
Ping G410 3, 5 and 7 wood

Ping G410 5 hybrid-not much use.  
Mizuno JPX 921 Hot Metal. 5-G
Vokey 54.10, 2009 58.12 M, Testing TM MG2 60* TW grind and MG3 56* TW grind.  Or Ping Glide Stealth, 54,58 SS.  
Odyssey Pro #1 black
Hoofer, Ecco, Bushnell
ProV1x-mostly
 

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Well I some interesting range sessions. I have watched two videos from the '87 clinic. The shorter concept one and the one on the swing that was posted above. Friday and Saturday I tried to do it based on my understanding with a partial wedge shot before my rounds. What I noticed is that I started taking a divot and contact sounded good. When I play a round, I try not to think about my swing. I found years ago that taking a lesson on the course does not work for me. So i wasn't trying to thing about it while playing. Friday I played my best 9 hole round since coming back. Saturday's 18 was a mess, lol.

 

I went to the range yesterday and developed the shanks out of the blue. I looked at my club face and grass marks are by the heel. My miss is almost always off the toe, so I am surprised to see I'm hitting it near the heel all of a sudden. My tempo felt off and I went back to partial PW shots. I addressed the ball closer to the toe and impact moved closer to the center. I started to take divots, which is not normal for me, and heard the click sound of solid contact. I'm a 28 index, so solid contact is not exactly common. I want to wrap up with a full shot. I take my 8i, address it off the toe, finally remember to start the downswing with my arms, and swing. I hear the click of solid contact, some turf goes down range and I have a high, pretty straight, true fade. It was a 'perfect' shot to me, so i called it then and there and went home. For the record, my normal fade is a push fade that I miss right with. So this was a completely different animal.

 

I am excited by the potential I see with this method and it's simplicity. The fact that I moved impact from the toe to the heel was a surprise to me. The positive is I have a better idea on how to get contact closer to center now. Addressing off the toe may be a band aid but I'll take it for now. The hard part will be my mishit toe shot is the push fade that misses right which is still playable. A shank is not...

 

I am looking forward to my next range session to try and build on things. I don't know when the book will arrive but I think I have enough info to get started. I really like the concept and if i can replicate that 8i shot, it will help my game quite a bit.

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