Mike and Dana's hip turn video lesson

[JeffMann]

Consider this vide lesson by Mike McNary and Dana Dahlquist on the proper hip turn.

 

Hip turn video lesson

 

They claim that the proper hip turn involves a more upslanted hip turn (right hip higher than the left hip) during the backswing - rather than a horizontal hip turn. They cliam that it has a number of advantages.

 

First of all, by straightening the right leg in the backswing, they seemingly imply that it allows the right thigh to generate more power during the downswing. I am personally sceptical of ACTIVE right thigh movements being required for swing power generation in the full golf swing.

 

Secondly, they state that the shoulders become steeper in the backswing as a result of an upslanted hip turn maneuver during the backswing, and that it allows the shoulders to more easily turn down steeply during the downswing. However, if you look at Dana's DTL video sequence where he has a steeper backswing shoulder turn angle, you will note that his clubshaft comes slightly OTT (clubshaft passes above the right forearm and the clubhead get outside the hands) in the early downswing. So the question becomes - is that the best method of generating a steeper shoulder turn angle in the downswing while avoiding an OTT movement of the clubshaft?

 

Consider Sergio Garcia's approach.

 

See this swing video, and note how he turns his pelvis horizontally in both the backswing and downswing, and how he keeps his right knee slightly flexed throughout the backswing.

 

 

Also, note that he has a relatively horizontal shoulder turn in the backswing, but a much steeper shoulder turn angle in the downswing. How does he achieve a steeper shoulder turn angle in the downswing. I believe that it is the synergistic effect of two simultaneously-occurring movements at the start of the downswing - i) a hip shift-rotation move that squares the hips; and ii) a concomitant right shoulder dipping action (as if one side-leans the right shoulder down towards the right front trouser pocket with the intent of putting the right shoulder in the right front trouser side-pocket). This right shoulder movement is actually an attempt to drive the right shoulder down the RSP line - as shown in this photo.

 

 

In the first image, the green line depicts Sergio's horizontal shoulder turn angle at the end-backswing position. The yellow line is the RSP line - drawn from the right shoulder to the ball. In image 2, the yellow line is drawn across Sergio's shoulder turn angle, and that yellow line perfectly matches the yellow line in image 1 thus demonstrating that Sergio drives his right shoulder down the RSP line during the downswing.

 

I think that the advantage of Sergio's downswing action is that the clubshaft shallows out at the start of the downswing and passes through his right forearm (and not OTT - above the right forearm) during the downswing. By contrast, I think that Mike/Dana's approach may result in a slightly too steep clubshaft angle of attack during the downswing.

 

What do you think?

 

Jeff.

[dana dahlquist]

Secondly, they state that the shoulders become steeper in the backswing as a result of an upslanted hip turn maneuver during the backswing, and that it allows the shoulders to more easily turn down steeply during the downswing. However, if you look at Dana's DTL video sequence where he has a steeper backswing shoulder turn angle, you will note that his clubshaft comes slightly OTT (clubshaft passes above the right forearm and the clubhead get outside the hands) in the early downswing. So the question becomes - is that the best method of generating a steeper shoulder turn angle in the downswing while avoiding an OTT movement of the clubshaft?

 

You hit that on the head.

Did you see how strong my grip was in that swing and were the ball started? It started left. Mikes started right.

He was hitting it higher and I was hitting it lower. That’s why my arm is more out on that swing and it is closed.

 

What I still don't really get is the debate over the swing. That does not make your game better; it will only set you back.

 

Here are two examples of very close yet separate ball flights

fade left arm a little higher left arm comes out on the downswing more here.

Push draw or fade, left arm lower arms drop more (more hip slide possible)

 

These are to prove the point. I think your looking at the downswing as being limited to very few if only one downswing plane line. There are alot, depends on the shot. Its all about arm linkage.

[JeffMann]

Dana - you write-: "What I still don't really get is the debate over the swing. That does not make your game better; it will only set you back."

 

I don't understand why debating different ways of executing a golf swing will set an intelligent golfer back. I personally think that if an intellectually-curious golfer fully understands the different options/methods of executing a golf swing, he will be in a better position to make ratiional choices that are better suited to his individual body type/individual swing style.

 

Jeff.

[uscheese]

I didn't know this video existed...thanks Jeff!

[Asleep]

...What do you think?...

I think Dana Dahlquist knows what he's talking about, and so do a heck of a lot of other folks. :russian_roulette:

 

If I lived out there on the left coast, he'd be my golf coach.

[JeffMann]

Asleep

 

Do you believe that Dana knows what he is talking about because of something you read on his website, or do you have additional information from other alternative sources? I cannot personally judge his golf instructional knowledge based on his website - because the website doesn't seemingly offer any informative content regarding his golf swing knowledge.

 

Jeff.

[jeffy]

 

Dana-

 

Who is that masked man? I'm drooling. CP release, correct?

 

Jeff

[dana dahlquist]

That photo is of Grant Waite. From David Orr

[jeffy]

That photo is of Grant Waite. From David Orr

 

That name popped into my mind as a possibility...though I was expecting your reply to be "just one my everyday students"...

[Kerry_Bunker]

Dana:

 

Awesome instructional video. While I am waiting for my copy of TGM by Homer Kelley to come in the mail, do you have any other links for instructional pieces similar to the one above that you did with Mike on Hip Turn ? (I know you also replied to me about a week ago that you were working on a video with Mike, but I am an impatient fellow).

[Calamity Todd]

Great video Dana.....thanks. Beautiful illustrations.....

[iteachgolf]

this calling out is getting rediculous. dana teaches and is on this forum because he wants to help the average golfer improve. whether or not you agree with his methods you should respect his intentions and his ability to help his students. until you start helping golfers and better this game of golf the persecution has to stop.

[golfer.61]

jeffy,

 

 

I think you need to take into account the physical build of sergio and Dana, they are completely different ...sergio is probably 59ish and Dana 62-3ish...the hip and shoulder plane will be more pronounced with someone taller....also the hips and shoulders are moving more in a perpendicular motion relative to the spine angle....if you understand this along with the proper pivot action, you master the swing....its not rocket science....Dana you are a very patient man....lol

[Asleep]

Asleep

 

Do you believe that Dana knows what he is talking about because of something you read on his website, or do you have additional information from other alternative sources? I cannot personally judge his golf instructional knowledge based on his website - because the website doesn't seemingly offer any informative content regarding his golf swing knowledge.

 

Jeff.

 

Give it a rest, Jeff.

[JeffMann]

Mizufan

 

You write-: "his calling out is getting rediculous. dana teaches and is on this forum because he wants to help the average golfer improve. whether or not you agree with his methods you should respect his intentions and his ability to help his students. until you start helping golfers and better this game of golf the persecution has to stop."

 

I NEVER questioned Dana's intentions with respect to his wish to help the average golfer improve. I don't for one second question his good intentions and his sincere committment as a professional golf instructor. I have only questioned the wisdom of a few biomechanical points (eg. having a steep pelvic tilt, and subsequently steep shoulder plane) and I believe that this forum is PRIMARILY designed to allow golfers to debate/share golf instructional opinions.

 

You seem very willing to question my intentions, and seemingly imply that I am not trying to help golfers better their game of golf. That claim is patently untrue, and my FREE website ( http://perfectgolfswingreview.net ) is TOTALLY devoted to helping golfers improve their golfing skills. You may not agree with my golf instructional material, and you are free to criticise it from ANY angle. I would not be insulted by ANY criticism directed at my golf instructional ideas/opinions, so I cannot understand why Dana should object to some criticism directed at his golf instructional ideas/opinions.

 

Jeff.

[jeffy]

jeffy,

 

 

I think you need to take into account the physical build of sergio and Dana, they are completely different ...sergio is probably 59ish and Dana 62-3ish...the hip and shoulder plane will be more pronounced with someone taller....also the hips and shoulders are moving more in a perpendicular motion relative to the spine angle....if you understand this along with the proper pivot action, you master the swing....its not rocket science....Dana you are a very patient man....lol

 

golfer.61-

 

For the love of God, PUHLEEEEEASE don't confuse me with JeffMann!!!

 

I'd encourage Dana and others to just ignore him. I tried to be helpful to him by directing him to Dana's video because he was so clueless about stack & tilt and related patterns, and he turns it into this abortion of a thread. I apologize to all.

 

Jeff

[golfer.61]

jeffy my bad..it is very confusing....lol.......

[KevCarter]

Jeffy,

 

No need to apologize. This thread and threads like it have led me to study some very exciting ideas about the modern golf swing presented by Dana. I'm afraid I would not know of Dana without seeing these threads. There are not many resources for learning these ideas right now, but I think there will be in the future. Great stuff!

 

Kevin

[ej002]

Dana,

 

Is is not possible to have a somewhat vertical hip tilt while keeping the right leg flexed? Is the point to have some verticalness in the hip tilt or to have the straight right leg push your weight forward?

 

I guess my question is it possible to have both?

[dana dahlquist]

Dana,

 

Is is not possible to have a somewhat vertical hip tilt while keeping the right leg flexed? Is the point to have some verticalness in the hip tilt or to have the straight right leg push your weight forward?

 

I guess my question is it possible to have both?

Sure you could but it will have less than your did at address.

 

I tend to find if you work on a slight loss of it being bent overall is a better fit.

[rosskoss]

Jeffman, I'd really be interested in knowing your thoughts on the ideal/perfect swing.

[scores]

The first thing I thought about when I saw the pictures was how free the right elbow is and the second thing was how I was told not to swing like that!!!

 

Great video

[JeffMann]

Other than personally attack me for bringing up a contrary point of view, no forum member is actually discussing the biomechanics of the Dahlquist/McNary recommendations. Hoping that there is at least one member who will actually discuss the advanatges/disadvanatges of different swing approaches, here is another attempt to actually discuss biomechanical issues.

 

Consider this series of images from the hip turn video.

 

 

Here McNary is showing the "apparent" advantages of having a steeper shoulder turn in the backswing. He specifically states that it allows for a steeper attack on the ball. Note how he demonstrates the movement of the clubshaft during the downswing. It is a classic OTT move where the clubshaft descends down to the ball from ABOVE the hands and this causes the clubhead to get outside the hands (image 4) which will result in an outside-in clubhead swingpath.

 

I regard this clubshaft swingpath as being totally contrary to what a PGA tour golfer tries to achieve (whether hitting a driver or iron). A PGA tour tries to get the clubshaft to approach the ball from an inside track so that the clubhead is BEHIND the hands.

 

Look at this series of capture images from a Sergio Garcia swing video.

 

 

In image 1, end-backswing position, note that Garcia has a horizontal pelvis turn and relatively horizontal shoulder turn. That allows his hands to get far back behind the right shoulder.

 

Image 2 shows that Garcia starts the downswing with a horizontal hip squaring action that causes his clubshaft to shallow out. Image 3 shows the effect of that critical shallowing action - the clubhead is BEHIND the hands when the hands reach below waist level. In other words, the clubshaft angle of attack is totally different to the McNary/Dahlquist recommendation.

 

Rosskoss asked me to state what I think is the ideal/perfect golf swing. I think that with respect to this SPECIFIC issue - the clubshaft should ideally approach the ball from BEHIND the hands and never above the hands.

 

Here is a photo coomparison of Ernie Els with the clubhead BEHIND his hands and an anonymous golfer who has his clubhead coming from ABOVE the hands due to an OTT move.

 

 

From my perspective, any biomechanical swing recommendation that encourages an OTT move is NOT ideal. There is a concurrent thread running at the moment called Struggling with the over the top move!!!!, 8 months with the dreaded over the top

 

This is the series of capture images from that golfer's downswing.

 

 

Note that he has the typical OTT move problem that plagues so many golfers - red ring shows his clubhead outside his hands due to the fact that the clubshaft approached the ball from ABOVE the hands.

 

I believe that his solution is to start the downswing with a hip shift-rotation move that gets the clubhead to approach the ball from BEHIND the hands.

 

If any forum member disagress with my recommendation, and prefers the McNary/Dahlquist approach, why don't they produce a counterargument that is based on biomechanical reasoning - rather than reactively lambasting me for disagreeing with the McNary/Dalhlquist approach.

 

Jeff.

 

Error-correction - I drew the red ring over the wrong object. The clubhead is actually slightly lower, but still outside the hands.

[JeffMann]

Scores - whoever told you that the "right elbow shouldn't be free like that" was giving you good advice. Look at the photos of Sergio Garcia and Ernie Els in the above post - note that the right elbow is tight against the side and it slides alongside the right shirt seam near the right hip. I think that the right elbow should never freely float in space in front of the right hip as can be seen in the McNary/Dahlquist series of photos and the photos of the golfer who has an OTT problem.

 

Jeff.

[dana dahlquist]

Jeff,

your not looking at a real motion swing and the camera was on my toestance line. Which is about 15 to 20 degrees off.

The club would never be over plane (simple terms) in the swing. Like the videos I have posted of Mike or Clark or Anna. All never are over plane. Thats why the topic was on the body and not the shaft(s).

 

Its kinda like looking at the golf magazines pitcures of Badds, they are not in real motion.

[dana dahlquist]

Jeff,

your not looking at a real motion swing and the camera was on my toestance line. Which is about 15 to 20 degrees off.

The club would never be over plane (simple terms) in the swing. Like the videos I have posted of Mike or Clark or Anna. All never are over plane. Thats why the topic was on the body and not the shaft(s).

 

Its kinda like looking at the golf magazines pitcures of Badds, they are not in real motion.

jeff ,

When I get back from teaching today Ill post my swing and you tell me if its a over hows that..

[hoganfan924]

Other than personally attack me for bringing up a contrary point of view, no forum member is actually discussing the biomechanics of the Dahlquist/McNary recommendations. Hoping that there is at least one member who will actually discuss the advanatges/disadvanatges of different swing approaches, here is another attempt to actually discuss biomechanical issues.

 

Well Jeff, I can think of a few reasons why people on this board don't care to engage you in a "discussion" of golf swing biomechanics. It has nothing to do with the value of the discussion, it's all about how you approach it and what you contribute:

• You post other members material without their permission and try to start threads using (and misinterpreting) their material
  
• You don't even properly draw lines on the video in order to correctly understand what is going on an then use your flawed analytical techniques to put down members of this board who are very accomplished instructors, players and students of the game
  
• You resort to calling other people names (let's see, you called me crazy, paranoid and silly for starters) and belittling them
  
• You have nothing unique to contribute. The knowledge flow in any discussion would go in one direction only. Your posts seem more designed to provoke rather than inform.
  
• You know almost nothing of MORAD or TGM yet you want to engage in a discussion about them with instructors who teach them (again, nothing to contribute on your part). You do this in a very provocative, belittling and confrontational way.
  

If you want to earn the respect of the members of this board and get them to engage you in a discussion, you should apologize for you antics, go away for a while, do a lot more homework (how about loosening up those tight pursestrings of yours and going to a MORAD school?) and come back with a lot more humility and an earnest desire to contribute and learn.

[kosmosspoetz]

JeffMann,

 

Your language concerning your references to club to hands relationships is very imprecise. "the clubshaft should ideally approach the ball from behind the hands and never above the hands." How are "behind" and "above" related? Normally, it would be "behind" vs. "in front of" and "above" vs. "below." How can you expect to learn anything without any attempt at precise terms? How much behind the hands at what point in the downswing and from which view? Surely, you want the clubhead behind the hands from face on view.

 

At some point, the clubhead must be outside the hands in the downswing in order to hit the ball. Where should that happen? For what kind of shot? How far from the inside should we hit the ball? How shallow or steep do you want the angle of descent of the clubhead? Where should the shaft be pointing at various reference points in your ideal action. What reference points on the body are you using to define these relationships?

 

From a given top of backswing, what movements would tend to shallow the clubshaft and which ones would tend to steepen the clubshaft? Specifically speak to hip, torso, and shoulder movement. What effect will these movements have on the downswing handpath?

[JeffMann]

Hoganfan924

 

I am not surprised that you wouldn't offer any biomechanical reasons for rejecting my biomechanical explanations, and that you would only perpetuate your ad hominum attacks on my underlying intentions for discussing this "issue". If I labelled you paranoid or crazy, it is only because you are totally biased in your perspective - for example, when you state that "I want to provoke and not inform". I think that my posts are actually very informative from an explanatory perspective (although not your favored perspective).

 

If any forum member is actually going to address the biomechanical "issue" of the "optimum" clubshaft angle of attack, it is obviously not going to be you or Dana.

 

Jeff.

[JeffMann]

Kossmosspoetz

 

You criticism that my explanation is imprecise is valid. I apologise for my incomplete explanation.

 

Hopefully, this post will explain my position better.

 

The term "above" or "behind" the hands refers only to the down-the-line view.

 

Consider Aaron Baddeley's downswing.

 

 

At the start of the downswing, the clubshaft should cut across the mid-lower part of the right upper arm. If the clubshaft cuts across the upper 1/3 of the right upper arm or across the right shoulder (area in red) than that implies a too-steep clubshaft attack path. Slightly later in the downswing, the clubshaft should optimally be in line with right forearm (coming from behind the hands) and not be in the red zone (coming from above the hands).

 

Obviously, the clubhead will be in front of the hands, which is defined as any point closer to the ball-target line than the hands (from a down-the-line perspective), when the clubshaft gets below the hand level - see next photo.

 

 

Note how the clubhead is in front of the hands (closer to the ball-target line than the hands) at this point in the swing - AFTER the clubhead drops below the level of the hands. In a golfer who comes OTT, the clubhead will often be in front of the hands (closer to the ball-target line) even when the clubhead is ABOVE the level of the hands, or AT the level of the hands, or in the red zone. Then one can use the term "outside the hands" to describe that phenomenon.

 

Regarding your second question-: "From a given top of backswing, what movements would tend to shallow the clubshaft and which ones would tend to steepen the clubshaft? Specifically speak to hip, torso, and shoulder movement. What effect will these movements have on the downswing handpath?"

 

Movements that shallow the clubshaft angle are an INITIATING hip squaring action that occurs PRIOR to any shoulder rotation in the direction of the ball-target line + an active dropping of the right shoulder in the direction of the RSP (right shoulder plane) line, which causes the right elbow to be pulled very close to the right hip area.

 

Movements that steepen the clubshaft angle are i) a failure to initiate the downswing with a lower body move combined with ii) a tendency to rotate the upper torso down to the ball in the direction of the ball-target line (as demonstrated in the photo below), which causes the right elbow to "float" away from the body.

 

 

Another secondary reason why the clubshaft angle can be too steep - when the golfer simply pulls the grip end of the club straight down in the direction of the ball with, or without, certain accompanying body movements (like sliding the spine/head in the direction of the target).

 

Jeff.