Head position at address & pre-setting deloft true "epiphanies"??

[jc4birdie]

Have always fought getting ahead of the ball a bit, w/ all the resultant list of maladies. Was watching some Adam Bazelgette stuff on letting the club load & compressing the ball, and he was commenting on Nicklaus as an example. Well, obviously, Jack had the famous rotation of the head rearwards to where he appeared to be gazing at his focal point from his left eye. Looked it up online to see what folks had to say, most of it positive re: freeing up your turn.

 

Started using it in conjunction w/ Bazelgette's idea of a drill where in he turned loft off and pressed the handle ahead (thereby returning the face to square), and all of a sudden, I'm hitting windows w/ my swing never before, and consistently and w/ greatly increased power. That look we see in stills where the hands get thigh high in front of the right hip on the downswing, head steady and behind the ball, and then just firing down and thru the ball making solid contact....they're all in my swing, rather suddenly. And truth be told, w/ those address modifications, the move itself is stupidly simple: engaged core initiating takeaway, pressure shift into right heel, then targetwards thru the left ball of the foot and big toe. It's all body; no conscious hands/arms. Ball just gets squashed, flies straight and far.

 

Question is one, does anyone else pre-set impact at address like that, and secondarily, what coming catastrophic flaws do I need to be ready to fix?

[Zitlow]

If your head was lunging forward you weren't resisting the club head through impact. Maybe presetting your head like Jack is helping you resist the escape force or pull of the club head away from your 7th cervical.

If you like the way you're hitting the ball there's nothing to fix.

[jc4birdie]

Can you elaborate on the concepts of "resisting the club head through impact", "resisting the escape force", and "pull of the club head away from 7th cervical"? I'm not familiar w/ those ideas from a golf perspective. Thanks.

[Zitlow]

Escape force = escape from the center. I didn't come up with the concept but if you twirl a ball in a circle on a string the ball is trying to escape or pull away from the center of the circle, your hand. So the ball is the escape (pulling) force and your hand is the holding counter force.

If you think of the golf swing as a circle the club head (escape force) is on the circumference of the circle and you're 7th cervical is the center of the circle, it's the holding force with an assist from your right side. The faster your club head speed the more resistance you need.

[ryan84]

I had an instructor do the same thing for me, presenting hands ahead and then in conjunction shutting the face to account for that. I had similar results as you, nuking irons and compressing them like I never had before. However, it turned into a nasty pull hook for me somewhere down the line. So i guess that’s what I’d say to watch out for. I’ve since moved away from that because I felt like it was a swing based on compensations, not sure if that’s true.

[jc4birdie]

Ryan84, the head swivel to the right and focusing thru the left eye is a key for me to avoid the big pull hook w/ these adjustments. I've more than a few times failed to make the subtle head adjustment, and it's ALWAYS left-to-left. It's harder to turn the left shoulder freely without the head adjustment, so you don't get behind it fully, leading to quick OTT.

To me, the whole key to this move is the body-driven nature of it, and being very dead-handed, since you've put the deloft and fwd press inline w/ the lead arm in at address. If you stay smooth and just get thru the shot w/ a stable club face down and thru, without getting handsy at the bottom, as you said, you compress it as never before. Seems easier for me than trying to deloft DURING THE SWING just before impact, which I've never been able to time w/ any consistency. I do it w/ driver & FW too.

[Hawkeye77]

Nicklaus was left eye dominant.

[jc4birdie]

Yes he was, Hawkeye, which is a really good point. His left eye dominance probably led him to utilize that move as his pre-swing trigger, and he reaped all the benefits of getting the chin out of the way for the shoulder turn (perhaps not even realizing those benefits at the time). I actually am one of the few people w/ mixed ocular dominance, meaning some tasks my right eye predominates, some tasks my left eye leads (which mirrors some degree of ambidexterity; I kick a football left-footed, and throw it right-handed for example; shoot a basketball w/ my left hand, and play baseball righty both batting and throwing). So it doesn't throw me off to use my left eye as my focal eye on my impact area when addressing the ball.

Another thing I should throw in for anyone who desires trying to bake in the deloft and club in-line w/ the lead arm at address.....I address the ball off the hosel of the club. Now that may help me specifically and not really relate to the other stuff, as this helps me not "cut in" w/ my hands as I near impact (it actually promotes a shallowing of the club), or perhaps it's compensating for it, in reality. Kind of a derivative of the 2 ball drill where you address the outside ball and hit the inside ball.

Just really hoping that these setup changes can inculcate into sustainable ball-striking. This last 6 weeks or so is like nothing I've experienced in 15 years of playing this game. I'm 55, and when I can dead balls-on accurately hit 6 iron w/ a very soft 5 yard draw to an all-carry, elevated par 3 from 165 at sea level, that's a game changer for me. I know that's not long, but it's average, which is improvement for me....and the solidity of the strike would make it a good idea for me even if distance gains weren't being observed.