What do you guys think about this article?

[ChrisM84]

Dealing with arm speed vs. body speed

Article

[ezra76]

This is exactly what my instructor is doing with me. Slowing my hips and speeding up my arms. The article simply reinforces what he's been saying to me. I had my hips clearing too early as well.

[Sean2]

That is my problem...hips clearing too quickly.

 

But: How do you speed up the arms without casting? How do they fall into "the slot"?

[ChrisM84]

What i got from it was that most of todays golf instruction is centered around hitting the ball with your hips.

 

Basically if you were swinging a baseball bat, you dont think of "bumping" or "clearing" your hips to hit the ball, you swing hard with your arms, and your body reacts.

[pocketfulladoubles]

That is my problem...hips clearing too quickly.

 

But: How do you speed up the arms without casting? How do they fall into "the slot"?

 

 

I struggle with casting when I get tired or lazy. I try to think about letting my arms go "limp" at the top and thinking about my right elbow coming in close to my right hip. Then once my arms have fallen, I turn on their power when coming through the ball. Works for me to come from the inside better, while still being able to use my arms which is my natural tendency. So, to answer your question you can speed up the arms, but only as they are coming through the ball after it is in the slot. You cannot force the slot. Another thing I did was to do the Furyk hitch just to get the feel of falling into the slot. There is no way you can cast or come from the outside with such a hitch. Once you feel it, add it to your swing - minus the hitch of course ;-)

[hoganfan924]

I think the guy who wrote the article touches on the true root cause of that students problem but then doesn't really address it in the article. He says "she was out of synch." Well, of course she was, about as badly out of synch as any good golfer I've ever seen. But he attributes this to lack of arm speed. He's got the cause and effect at least partially wrong IMO. Here's what is really going on IMO:

 

He interestingly did not show the students backswing for us to see how out of synch it was before moving into the "delivery position." But I'd bet a month's salary that she had an overly long arm swing that continued well past the end of her shoulder turn, the beginning of her out of synch position.

 

Because she'd been instructed to use "passive arms" and to rotate hard, she gets even more out of synch in her downswing, leaving her arms way behind. In order to square up the clubface, she's subconsciously trained herself to cast the club very early. Due to the physical law of conservation of angular momentum, there is no possible way she can keep her arms and (now fully casted) club rotating at the same rate as someone who maintains their wrist **** later into the swing - not physically possible.

The key to getting more movement during the two frames he discusses is not to speed up the arms, it is to hold the wrist ****.

So she's out of synch at the top, which causes her to cast to square the face, which causes the slow arm speed and a worse out of synch position coming into impact.

 

The solution is not to just speed up the arms. The solution is to get her in synch at the top of BS and transition and keep her in synch while maintaining her wrist ****, which obviously is what she did to improve. I do believe the arms must have enough dynamic tension and must have enough thrust to stay connected and in synch with the shoulder turn. But, reader beware, speeding up the arms in the transition can be a very bad fault that can also cause casting.

[Sean2]

That is my problem...hips clearing too quickly.

 

But: How do you speed up the arms without casting? How do they fall into "the slot"?

 

 

I struggle with casting when I get tired or lazy. I try to think about letting my arms go "limp" at the top and thinking about my right elbow coming in close to my right hip. Then once my arms have fallen, I turn on their power when coming through the ball. Works for me to come from the inside better, while still being able to use my arms which is my natural tendency. So, to answer your question you can speed up the arms, but only as they are coming through the ball after it is in the slot. You cannot force the slot. Another thing I did was to do the Furyk hitch just to get the feel of falling into the slot. There is no way you can cast or come from the outside with such a hitch. Once you feel it, add it to your swing - minus the hitch of course ;-)

That is what I'm working on. Letting the arms follow the hips than accelerating through the ball. If I do this correctly I hold onto the wrist **** longer and release the club at the proper time and not to early, thus getting more lag. Shortening my backswing has helped with this. If I turn too far back my arms and body get out of sync as HoganFan talks about. Tough to break an old habit though. :-)

[pocketfulladoubles]

That is what I'm working on. Letting the arms follow the hips than accelerating through the ball. If I do this correctly I hold onto the wrist **** longer and release the club at the proper time and not to early, thus getting more lag. Shortening my backswing has helped with this. If I turn too far back my arms and body get out of sync as HoganFan talks about. Tough to break an old habit though. :-)

 

 

Very tough! I also recommend Jim McLean's 8-Step swing DVD. In particular, he has a great drill to keep the swing on plane on the start of the downswing. When you get to the top, slide your right hand up the shaft. He starts the downswing with the turning of the knees toward the target, locked in sync with your arms bringing down the club. If you slide your right hand up the shaft, you will be pointing the butt of the club at the target once you bring the club down. The pace should follow the pace of the knees. It is hard to put into words, better to watch. This has also helped me a lot. Great video for ultra-technical swing mechanics.

[justyn]

I am all arm speed, I have a quiet lower body that just reacts to my shoulders and arms. I have tried to unload my lower body more to gain some speed but it only slows me down and hit massive hooks.

[Sean2]

I dug out an old book by TW and he said he generates his power by firing his right hip as fast as he can.

[pocketfulladoubles]

I saw Tiger saying this is a fault for him now though. His new swing has a much slower smoother firing. He's driving better too. Fast movements = less consistency. There are older guys at my course who don't turn much, have slower swing speeds, but hit is pure and square and drive just as far as I do sometimes with my "guns blazing" jerk of a drive.

[pocketfulladoubles]

I am all arm speed, I have a quiet lower body that just reacts to my shoulders and arms. I have tried to unload my lower body more to gain some speed but it only slows me down and hit massive hooks.

 

 

Yeah, I do too. I find that I can control the amount of fade or draw depending on the ratio between how I bring my arms vs. hips through. Slower arms matching the hip's rotation + hitting more upward on the ball = draw. Fast arms with hips clearing first + coming straight through the ball = fade. This is probably not A+ technique, but it seems to work for me. I need to get back to my pro :)

[hoganfan924]

I dug out an old book by TW and he said he generates his power by firing his right hip as fast as he can.

 

Obviously, no one can claim that Woods has "slow hips" or that he restricts the speed of his hip turn. Hogan was also lightning quick with his hip turn but he (and almost all great players) keep their arms in synch with thier shoulder turn. So the key is not slowing the hips down as that would just be a band aid to mask another problem. Keeping the arms in synch with the shoulder turn allows the very aggressive use of the lower core muscles to accelerate the pelvis, which is a tremendous source of power, it's what creates dynamic X-factor. However, you can't keep the arms in synch if you believe they should be "rag doll" loose, which was part of this students problem.

[justyn]

I dug out an old book by TW and he said he generates his power by firing his right hip as fast as he can.

 

Old book!

 

he has a very quiet lower body now.

[Sean2]

I dug out an old book by TW and he said he generates his power by firing his right hip as fast as he can.

 

Old book!

 

he has a very quiet lower body now.

The more I learn about this game the dumber I feel. Sheesh!

[kebeal]

In my opinion her problem was not arm speed but where she is aiming the club. Her hips were only outracing her arms because she was casting, when you cast the club your hands must slow down in order to allow the clubhead to pass them. It doesn't take much to figure out that if your hands are slowing down and your hips are not there is going to be a problem. But here is where I feel he missed the boat; he should be asking why is she casting/ flipping the club? She is not casting due to lack of arm speed but because she is trying to lift or help the ball in the air. Instead of just trying to hit the back of the ball she should be trying to drive the clubhead through the ball and into the ground in front of it. In other words "hit down" and take a nice healthy divot.

 

And not to knock the young lady since I am sure she is a fine player but the term "aspiring tour pro" doesn't mean much to me. I know a few young "aspiring tour pros" who struggle to break 80.

[JeffMann]

Yet another point of view.

 

I think that she doesn't maintain a 90 degree angle of her right elbow in the early downswing and lets the right elbow extend.

 

She should establish the power package (colored in yellow) in the next photo of Ben Hogan and then start the downswing with a hip bump (shift-rotation move) and an active right shoulder drive down the RSP line while keeping the power package intact (leading with her right elbow).

 

 

She has a totally ineffective downswing pivot action. She should mimic Ben Hogan's lower body action in the following video, and get the power package assembly moving fast down towards the ball.

 

 

Jeff.

[juststeve]

Manuel de la Torre explains arm speed better than anyone else I know of. First, understand what Manuel means by the arms. By arms he is referring to that portion of the appendages from the elbow to the shoulder. Second, understand that the "arms" swing the ENTIRE CLUB from the top toward the target in one continuous motion with the body responding. Given those conditions the faster you move your arms the further the ball will go. So long as you swing the ENTIRE CLUB with the "arms" you will not cast. Casting comes from either swinging with the hands, not the thing to do, or trying to accelerate the club head and not the ENTIRE CLUB, also not the thing to do.

 

Hogan's method was fine for Hogan but how many of him are there?

 

Steve

[yoonie]

Yet another point of view.

 

I think that she doesn't maintain a 90 degree angle of her right elbow in the early downswing and lets the right elbow extend.

 

She should establish the power package (colored in yellow) in the next photo of Ben Hogan and then start the downswing with a hip bump (shift-rotation move) and an active right shoulder drive down the RSP line while keeping the power package intact (leading with her right elbow).

 

 

She has a totally ineffective downswing pivot action. She should mimic Ben Hogan's lower body action in the following video, and get the power package assembly moving fast down towards the ball.

 

 

Jeff.

 

what's the rsp line?

[jcjr34]

After looking at that article, I kind of get what that girl's problem was because I went thru the same thing after I read Hogan's 5 Lessons book. Hogan describes starting the downswing motion by initiating the hip turn and letting everything else follow naturally. Well when i tried doing that, it seemed like by the time my shoulder started to 'naturally' turn, my hip had almost completed its rotation and thus I came thru ball w/ a low swing speed as was described in the article. I still to this day can't figure out what I was doing wrong.

Anyhow, that article does have some merit (w/ me at least because I have the same problem as her) and too bad it didn't explain how she got her swing fixed. After closer review of the article I found that the reason why it didn't reveal swing fix, that it's more of an advertisement for something called the "speedchain".

 

"While certainly not as much as Tiger, Noriko did leave here with a faster arm swing. In this photo, she moved her arm 23.6 degrees. That's over 7 degrees faster than when she first arrived. Also, her clubhead speed rose to the mid 90's with a lot of SpeedChain training. She also gained about 30 yards on her drives due to better contact and higher clubhead speeds. And we even were able to slow down her overly fast hips. The culmination of all of this is that she is now able to strike the ball with a tremendously improved impact position."

[JeffMann]

jcjr34 - you wrte-: "Hogan describes starting the downswing motion by initiating the hip turn and letting everything else follow naturally. Well when i tried doing that, it seemed like by the time my shoulder started to 'naturally' turn, my hip had almost completed its rotation."

 

Look at that photo that I posted of Hogan's swing. Note that the distance of his conjoined hands from the right shoulder is the same in both photos - that means that the right shoulder must be moving as fast as the hips are pulling the "power package assembly" down. That's the key! The right side must keep up with the left side. When the downswing pivot action occurs and the hips shift-rotate to the left thus pulling the hands down to the ball, the right side (right upper torso) must be pushing EQUALLY hard to keep up with left side. That keeps the right elbow bent at a right angle. That girl didn't drive her right shoulder down the RSP (right shoulder plane) line sufficiently actively, and that allowed her right arm to straighten prematurely. That article is really an advertisement for a Speedchain device - but that girl-example video really shows the real problem (a poor downswing action where the right side {right mid-upper torso} is too inactive).

 

You seem to have the same problem when you state that the shoulders only start to turn when the hip have completed their rotation. The opposite should occur - the shoulder turn should catch up to the hips prior to impact. See next photo showing narrowing of the hip-shoulder turn angle during the downswing.

 

 

Note that the shoulder turns faster than the hips in the mid-phase of the downswing thus narrowing the shoulder-hip turn angle.

 

Jeff.

[hayam]

Article makes sense, But the explanation is hardly near complete.

[jcjr34]

Look at that photo that I posted of Hogan's swing. Note that the distance of his conjoined hands from the right shoulder is the same in both photos - that means that the right shoulder must be moving as fast as the hips are pulling the "power package assembly" down. That's the key! The right side must keep up with the left side. When the downswing pivot action occurs and the hips shift-rotate to the left thus pulling the hands down to the ball, the right side (right upper torso) must be pushing EQUALLY hard to keep up with left side. That keeps the right elbow bent at a right angle. You seem to have the same problem when you state that the shoulders only start to turn when the hip have completed their rotation. The opposite should occur - the shoulder turn should catch up to the hips prior to impact. See next photo showing narrowing of the hip-shoulder turn angle during the downswing.

 

Jeff.

 

 

Thanks for the Analysis Jeff, I'll work on that! ;)

[ej002]

After looking at that article, I kind of get what that girl's problem was because I went thru the same thing after I read Hogan's 5 Lessons book. Hogan describes starting the downswing motion by initiating the hip turn and letting everything else follow naturally. Well when i tried doing that, it seemed like by the time my shoulder started to 'naturally' turn, my hip had almost completed its rotation and thus I came thru ball w/ a low swing speed as was described in the article. I still to this day can't figure out what I was doing wrong.

Anyhow, that article does have some merit (w/ me at least because I have the same problem as her) and too bad it didn't explain how she got her swing fixed. After closer review of the article I found that the reason why it didn't reveal swing fix, that it's more of an advertisement for something called the "speedchain".

 

"While certainly not as much as Tiger, Noriko did leave here with a faster arm swing. In this photo, she moved her arm 23.6 degrees. That's over 7 degrees faster than when she first arrived. Also, her clubhead speed rose to the mid 90's with a lot of SpeedChain training. She also gained about 30 yards on her drives due to better contact and higher clubhead speeds. And we even were able to slow down her overly fast hips. The culmination of all of this is that she is now able to strike the ball with a tremendously improved impact position."

 

 

I had this problem as well - it seems to be common. I have been working on it. Basically, I took the club back to far (like what Hoganfan said) with my arms. Instead the takeaway should be done with your SHOULDERS and the arms need to stay with them. They should not go to far back and should stay tight to your body.