Pivot and arms

[Nard_S]

I think Nail It's post had value, don't think it was whole "truth". Do feel the game is taught too much from a hands back perspective and his view spotlights a glaring weakness in most enthusiasts. Improvement in this game comes in a series of imperfect 70% solutions applied. In that context, it's solid stuff.

 

[swh0507]

Great info, I haven't seen the hula hoop one before, thanks for posting. What is the instructors name?

[glk]

Tyler ferrell

[Krt22]

Tyler Ferrel. His book (the Tour Stock Swing) is very good at explaining the role of both the arms and the body during the swing. It's a bit dry, but a good read if you want to get into the finer details of the swing.

[Krt22]

Yeah the arms thing is a bit weird. One of those feel vs real things IMO.

[dlygrisse]

ding, ding, ding...we have a winner!

[glk]

Understanding Power SourcesTyler has some good video on power sources on his pay site. This one at 27 minutes gives a good overview. Can take a 7 day free trial and see this one and thousands of other - organized a couple of different ways and I understand Tyler is working on further improvements toward accessing video in internet areas.

he also has a forum - that jake hutt has a subsection of his own for questions etc - he is currently giving free advice to healthcare workers that submit videos.

[Krt22]

.

[MK7Golf21]

hmm, I might have to say I'm a doctor now.

[stingerfade]

Hard to translate that kind of feel to golf (For me) as you don’t throw a baseball with both hands on the ball. The left shoulder and chest work completely different when throwing a ball

[FairwaysToHeaven]

subscribed

[Hilts1969]

Totally agree the left arm is somewhat of a nuisance as it has to work opposite to the right arm and the right hand throw doesn't encourage this. You don't have to worry about the pitch of the shaft either.

 

[stingerfade]

Yea it’s frustrating when people say it’s easy! just swing like you’re skipping a rock or throwing a sidearm baseball or a frisbee with the left hand or a backhand in tennis, all of those motions use one arm (except tennis can be both by there as glk pointed out your body stalls and the arms hit the ball -definitely NOT good in golf) so what kind of feels incorporate both hands or is that why golf is the most difficult yet rewarding sport out there??

[KMeloney]

That's because you're right, and it's a terrible analogy.

[Zitlow]

Various body parts are similar in design and function.

Toes = Fingers

Big toe = Thumb

Palms = Soles

Ankles = Wrists

Knees = Elbows

Shins = Forearms

Thighs = Upper Arms

Hips and Shoulders. Abduction and adduction of the shoulder blades play a huge role in the golf swing.

Feet and legs are used for locomotion and breaking. Next time you walk pay conscious attention on how your right foot/leg and left hand/arm are synced in tandem and your left foot/leg and right hand/arm are synced. Walking is a trained reflex pattern that you don't need to think about.

The idea is to train your golf swing so it becomes a trained reflex pattern but good luck if you aren't using your muscles and joints according to their design.

 

[sheldonjhacker]

[GreatStrike]

 

 

https://youtu.be/Z8K3Gctkz7A

 

 

 

[nlk10010]

When you swing with your feet together, are you holding a club or not? Are you swinging at a ball on the ground, at no ball on the ground, or in the air?

Look, I'm a terrible golfer but have studied a LOT of techniques on YT (which should tell you something). There are advocates of using the arms/hands to generate swing speed; i.e. arms first (e.g. Larry Rinker, Mike Malaska) and there are those who promote a body swing, where you torque your body and then initiate the downswing by rotating the hips (Mike McTeigue, Paul Wilson, even Kirk Junge). It really depends on you as to which one is better. If you find that rotating with no club or swinging in the air or with no ball is OK but once you put the ball in front of you things go to pot then you might want to consider a body swing. I know people are skeptical of the "ball-bound" issue but I can tell you seeing that ball in front of me makes me want to hit it with my hands and arms, causing all sorts of problems. I generally just focus down at the ball and try to drive the club head into the ground right where it sits. Bad move. My swing speed is abysmal and fat shots abound; as well I forget to rotate, my body is static.

I WILL say that the arm swing approach is more intuitive (to me at least) and is more comfortable, the body swing technique is weird because, as another poster said, you don't feel like you're generating power. You rotate your hips on the downswing and you need to force yourself to forget about your arms, as long as you maintain a good torque at the top of the backswing that club will come down with a good amount of swing speed and you won't try to manipulate the club head.

Ultimately, you need to decide on one of them and stick to it. Vacillating between the two is worse than picking the wrong one. Believe me, I know.

Good Luck.

 

[kadey]

Re: Nail_It: Another one in this vein (my favorite):

[GreatStrike]

Yes, that is a good one. He understands it!

[GreatStrike]

 

Since people learn in different ways, and require different feels and visuals, it becomes necessary to get a point across in different ways - sometimes the same point in many different ways.

The discussion I proposed earlier in this thread caused some (one in particular) the need to overly criticize what I was saying about 'leaving the club behind' and having relaxed or passive arms. I'll provide a few things to think about (however I suspect some will say something like a golf swing is not like your analogy blah-blah-blah).

When you sling a weight around and around on the end of a string, is the weight lagging behind (i.e. leave the club behind) the rotating movement of the thumb and forefinger? The weight is trailing behind the driving motion, isn't it? If you tried to somehow get the swinging weight to catch-up to the thumb and forefinger the weight would no longer be accelerating and would lose its strong outward orbit centrifugal 'feeling' force. If you tried to somehow get the swinging weight to actually pass the thumb and forefinger the weight would become discombobulated and fall out of orbit. These two problem causing events is what happens with most amateur golfers' golf swings - and the reason why is because the golfer feels the need to overly use their arms in a powerful or speed producing way to move the golf club fast. This brings up another item of thought...

When you sling a weight around and around on the end of a string, what do you focus on - do you focus on the rotating movement of the thumb and forefinger, the tensile taught string, the entire string and the weight, or do you focus on just the moving weight? How about if you were performing the hammer throw? How about if you were swinging on a child's swing (which puts the driving force opposite the hammer thrower or opposite of weight on the end of a string examples) where the shifting weight momentum causes the child sitting on the seat to swing with more outward centrifugal 'feeling' force. Does the child focus on the rope or chain, the attachment point to the swing set, or does he focus on just the moving weight and moving that weight just so - exactly right? How about the hammer thrower? The answer is - all three (swinging the weight on a string, the hammer thrower and the child on the swing) all focus on the weight. More precisely, they unconsciously manage (deal with) swinging the weight. They are not focused on, or overly interested in, the entire mechanism or structure (e.g. golf club, string and weight, ball and chain, seat and rope) - they are focused on the feel of the weight they are in charge of swinging. More specifically, they are focused on feeling that weight swinging forcefully outward.

With a golf swing, the good golfer is focused on feeling the weight of the clubhead. Can you feel the weight on the string if it's not being swung outward? No. Can you feel the golf club's head weight if it's not being swung outward? No. The clubhead must be allowed to (or made to) swing outward (with an outward force you can actually feel) pretty much from the beginning of the downswing. If you try to hold your wrist-club 'lag' angle could you feel the weight of the clubhead? No! You'd be at the mercy of brute strength trying to muscle the club to do the work whereas swinging the clubhead delivers so much more speed and precision. It's this outward seeking heavy feel that is so important. Depending on your individual feel, and your grip pressure and arm tension level, the clubhead can swing outward entirely on its own as you unwind in the downswing or you can physically throw the clubhead outward. The caveat is matching the timing of the body pivot so the clubhead achieves maximum orbit speed at or very near impact, which should happen all on its own accord. If you so-call 'hold the lag angle' you'll end up moving the entire golf club and you will not feel the clubhead swinging outward...because it's not! This maximum orbit speed of the clubhead is an outward moving force that is traveling in a circle, it is not a muscular driven force that is used to physically drive the clubhead into the golf ball and toward the target. It is not the golfer intentionally using muscle energy to swing his arms. It is the golfer using his body to swing the weight of the clubhead outward in a circular fashion and timing its maximum speed for delivery into the golf ball.

In every case (whether you are swinging a weight on the end of a string, performing the hammer throw or swinging on a child's swing set) when the weight has achieved maximum orbit speed determined by the power source (thumb and forefinger, body rotation, shifting of weight) the weight will catch-up to the power source that is driving the weight to swing in a circle. In the case of a golf swing, you want the 'catch-up' to be right at impact. If the 'catch-up' is slightly before impact (and on a good path) it will produce a draw and conversely if the 'catch-up' is slightly after impact (and on a good path) it will produce a fade. Why is the 'catch-up' important? Because you are in charge of swinging the weight in an orbit and at some point the swinging weight does catch-up and will no longer trail (or be behind) the driving force. You want to engage the body pivot so the clubhead impacts the golf ball very near when the clubhead catches-up, which will be its maximum speed. This is when the swing feels effortless and ball feels like a soap bubble and the sound of compression is like a ricocheting bullet, and the golf ball travels like an intelligent-guided missile. To an onlooker, it looks to them like there was very little effort put into the swing.

 

[sheldonjhacker]

Nailed_It !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GreatStrike]

Here is an excellent informative article that touches on what I have posted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Swing Is So Powerful Yet So FragileA golf swing is a powerful and fragile thing. This dichotomy lies in the amazing amount of speed, force and energy a human can create when they whirl a clubhead around their body.

In a split second, however, a very small amount of force can derail a swing and send the ball flying or curving way off the intended direction.

The power in a golf swing lies in our ability to create momentum using centripetal force. This force comes initially from the turning of our torso and then is dramatically amplified by the club pivoting around our wrist joint. 

The fragility of the golf swing lies in the latter. 

You see, the entire length of the golf club is supposed to freely rotate around our wrist joint as the last phase of the swing into impact. 

The complication is that all the muscles you use in your hands to grasp things on a daily basis can distort this natural swinging force that keeps the club stable and on path. The rigidity of the golf club is what makes it possible to distort the swing so easily. Ninety-nine percent of all golfers do not understand this concept.

If I simply give you a ball attached to the end of a rope and ask you to swing it around your body, you will rapidly realize that your hands cannot add or interfere with the swing.

There is no rigidity allowing your hands to squeeze and interfere with the swinging energy. The force is automatic. It is a physical law. It never changes. True skill in golf is learning how to align this simple swinging energy to run into the ball. Once you can understand and feel how this works, you are well on your way to making a hard game simple.

 

Precise. Rotational. Orbit.https://youtu.be/gp47b3QF8yA

 

 

 

[GreatStrike]

 

 

[crucible]

Thank you "Nail It" for presenting this information. I have read Michael Hebron's book "See and Feel the Inside Move the Outside" and have used it in the past to play some good golf. For whatever reason I moved away from it.......in error. I think maybe because we as humans are in search of control or dominance. I can remember a difficult parallel was learning to do less with the hands and arms, they are to be inert as the videos above suggest. I guess my question to you is how do you mentally play this way? I know it sounds nuts but I found that I played better detached from the results, or the phrase "controlled indifference".

One of the things that struck me the most was that the clubface magically would square up if allowed to. As long as I didn't interfere with it by helping the results were pretty good. The feeling was that of being more of a passenger than a driver to some extent. Anyway there is a need for a need for a "I could care less" approach to some extent that helped me.

[Krt22]

Nice way to bookend with the effortless golf swing videos. Is that you Paul?

[GreatStrike]

You seem to be quite observant of how we humans operate. We find something we believe in and then we move on to something new to see if it is better, or to learn if that new tip even works at all. One of the major problems in achieving a good golf swing is (as you said) our deep-seated need to be in-control or have dominance in performing the golf swing. As you know, a sound golf swing is made by relinquishing control, not increasing control. That's one reason why learning the golf swing as a child before [controlling] muscles kick-in has lifelong benefits. Adults learning the golf swing must unfortunately overcome their instinctive need to overly control things. Ernie Els has said that he learned his gorgeous golf swing as a child and learned early-on that when he tried to muscle and control his golf swing the results were bad - so after some period of time he just knew better than to revert back to doing something he had proved to himself over and over did not work.

Yes, golf clubs are designed with that heavy clubhead attached offset on just one side of the clubshaft, which immediately presents a problem for the 'controlling' golfer. The more control and effort the golfer puts into his golf swing the more control and effort they feel is needed to square the clubface and get reasonable distance...and so it goes.

How do you learn to mentally play (swing) while doing less with the hands and arms? The answer is probably not the same for everyone, but I'd say seeing the results and feeling the force of a good swing over and over and over until it becomes deeply rooted in your psychic is the answer. For adults, overcoming the need to muscle and control their golf swing is counter-intuitive and simply does not make any sense whatsoever. That must be overcome. Using one's muscles is not a problem unless you're using them incorrectly that does not help and support a sound golf swing. Usually muscling the golf club is at polar opposites of 'swinging' a golf club. To learn to 'swing' a golf club (in lieu of muscling it and over-controlling it) needs a drastic change in how you think the golf swing should be performed. Most golfers' swings never change - their less than desirable swings continue to produce less than desirable results. Every once in a while they hit the magical shot - it usually happens when they make that casual swing to lay up short of the creek, or they try to hit a slice instead of their usual fade and end up hitting a strong draw. Those mesmerizing shots are trying to tell you something! It's trying to tell you that there's a better way, a different way, a better method. But how do you find it? Ben Hogan said; 'Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.' Jack Nicklaus has said when he practices he will sometimes swing out-of-control on purpose to see the results, and I suspect he wanted to feel the difference it made in the forces he was accustomed to feeling.

Learning what works instead of continuing to swing the same way that mostly gives the same poor results is something that most golfers rarely work on. When you see a tour pro swing they rarely mishit a shot like amateurs do. Why is that? Long ago they found how to produce or achieve the forces that allows them to swing a golf club effectively and efficiently every time. It may have come easily, or it may have taken a lot of trial and error practicing. But once they achieved that 'feel of force' they were able to lock it in their DNA. They've made a zillion swings feeling the forces that works time after time. They may tweak or change a little something in their swing or setup, but they don't give up that feel of the forces. If they lose the feel of the forces they have lost their swing, literally lost it. Bob Toski has said to 'Feel the force, don't force the feel.' He's exactly right. If you can learn to swing a golf club feeling the forces that produces exquisite golf shots almost every time, then it doesn't get any better than that. I believe it is important when making a swing change to back way off on muscle use so you can see the results and feel the forces on a smaller scale, then adding a little umph without over doing it. Baby steps of sorts. When practicing play around by swinging out-of-control like Jack Nicklaus did, or play around hitting ridiculous shots that hook or slice wildly, but try to do it without muscling or manipulating the golf club. The next time you go to the range go there not to just practice but to actually learn. Act like a kid, soaking up feels and results. Cast the club at the beginning of the downswing like K.J. Choi does, see how low you can hit a 8 iron, try to hit shanks with a 6 iron, get your wrists to flip before impact, uncock your right wrist snapping down right at impact, use different grip pressures, act like your wrists have no tendons and are made of stainless-steel ball bearings, swing with your minds-eye on your target and the ball is just a blur...experiment! You will very likely learn a lot about the golf swing you did not know before, and you will very likely see results and feel forces that you have rarely seen or felt before. Forget about body parts and their positions - you don't think about them when walking, running, shooting a basketball, throwing a baseball or casting a lure. You're searching for a force that you can feel and repeat every swing that results in excellent shots.

 

[crucible]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply to my post. Someone said [YouTube] that when playing swing thoughts generally don't work but swing feels can. I tend to agree. Because of the long winter and now the lockdown due to COVID-19 I've spent an inordinate amount of time on golf theory especially the biomechanist approaches. What I've found is that there is much controversy over a broad band of topics and in a way that's good. I've enjoyed the search and it makes one think. Getting bogged down in more detail hasn't helped me in the least, unfortunately. None of the guys that I play with would understand the difference between P1 and P6 or wrist patterns during the release. And it's probably to their benefit.

[stingerfade]

Deep. Interesting choice of words considering your name :)

[GreatStrike]

You are very welcome. I hope what I've offered gives you a bit more perspective to ponder.

The golf swing can be so bizarre and completely illogical to our thinking that most golfers would declare you to be 'off your rocker' or insane to suggest some things that make zero common sense. Again, like Ben Hogan said; 'Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.'  Some things only make sense after giving them a lot of thought - such as when swinging a weight in a circle the driving force must travel in the opposite direction of where you want the weight to travel, i.e. centripetal/centrifugal forces. Or, if you have ever been water skiing - you ski to the right of the boat's wake as the boat travels in a circular path to the left...you better hold on for dear life because the force and speed of the skier ramps up massively.

Here is a video of a golf instructor getting his inexperienced student to try something that is rarely thought about or discussed. The golf instructor wants the student to retain the concave crook in his right wrist as he purposely and forcefully uncocks his right wrist vertically downward (ulnar deviation) at impact. The instructor says he wants the student to stop flipping his wrists sideways (flexion/extension) and his right hand drill should help accomplish that objective. What is interesting about this right wrist snap uncocking vertically down drill is that his drill actually accomplishes two things - one logical and the other completely illogical. The drill makes sense to help the student get rid of his tendency to flip his wrist sideways through impact (losing both speed and clubface control) but the drill also gets the student to swing his golf club in a way, and in a direction, that is totally bizarre, counter-intuitive, illogical, unbelievable, senseless, ridiculous and just downright crazy...and couldn't possibly be correct advice...and will likely cause the student's swing to worsen instead of to improve. But that negative expectation is definitely not the case!

Little do golfers realize that this right wrist snap uncocking vertically downward (ulnar deviation) drill helps promotes a better club delivery - something that many (probably most) amateurs are lacking. The drill generates an action that some might find very similar to the action one makes when snapping a whip or towel. What is so confusing and perplexing is the perception (and the feel) that when doing this drill the golf club will be moving down from far outside a desirable swing arc path, much like chopping downward in front of you with an axe or hatchet. The reality is - the clubhead is delivered appropriately from the inside, not out-to-in. How could this be! Does the drill unconsciously make the student throw the clubhead outward much like how swinging an axe the axe head is purposely thrown-outward (swung) in the delivery stage in lieu of driving (muscularly) the ax head directly at the intended point of contact? Likely so... I suggest when first doing this drill your focus should be on your right wrist, but as you become more acquainted with the drill you move your focus to the clubhead and the forces you feel.

The main purpose of this particular post is to amplify just how important it is (especially for amateurs trying to improve their golf swing) to do as Ben Hogan suggested and Jack Nicklaus endorses - 'reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do...' and when practicing to purposely swing out-of-control to learn new results and feels. I encourage golfers to give this drill some time during practice sessions. You may be very surprised by the increased ball speed, the better trajectory and the different sound of compression you get...if you can overcome the weirdness of what you 'think' will happen.