Video - Throw clubhead outward immediately.

[OrangeGravy]

For a lot of people it really does come down to there being a club face that needs to be squared/controlled or whatever however you want to say it. That for some (maybe most?) is what drives people to make the many incorrect manipulations in their swing, myself included. Before baseball games or practice often times we'd play baseball-golf. Start at one point and play fewest strokes to another point across the field. Swing a baseball bat like a golf club at the baseball sitting on the ground, no problem fully releasing the bat. It's the only that makes sense to generate enough power/speed to get the ball moving with no loft etc... Put an iron in my hand and the concern shifts to no left/right and a host of other things that for whatever reason make it much harder to want to release the club. If I grab a putter and try to hit the ball down the fairway, I would freely release the putter. Maybe it's loft combined with a club face, who knows, but it's real for many

[North Texas]

Sounds good. Now, can you explain what you mean in the simplest words possible. Pretend that I am 10 years old. Pictures, i.e. video, always helps. Thanks.

[COACH9]

Even hitting a baseball has two very different theories. Linear or rotational hitting. I preferred teaching kids rotational hitting. That way they could use their body to generate some power. Hardly seemed fair that their bats were only a handful of ounces lighter than a juiced up Major Leaguer.

[TexasTurf]

The interesting thing is that both the linear and rotational camps top teachers can't identify which players are using those techniques.

[COACH9]

Think the best way to tell is if they have circular hand path vs more a linear hand path. Tough to tell sometimes unless looking from above.

[GreatStrike]

Watch Shawn Clement's free-flowing, totally non-manipulated wrist action in this video. This beautiful wrist action is first seen at 1:25 and at 4:25 and again many other times later throughout the video. You will see that there is no added torque or muscular manipulation needed to square the clubface. He is allowing (letting) the club's weight and momentum to 'baton twirl' his wrists (including his lower forearms and hands) as opposed to muscularly applying force to the grip of the club in an attempt to create clubhead speed. He is using (swinging) the golf club as it was designed to be used as a result of the clubhead being attached on one side of the shaft. No handle dragging or manipulation in that swing in attempt to speed up the clubhead or to square the clubface! If there was muscular manipulation it would drastically slow down clubhead speed and Lord only knows where the clubface would point at impact.

[torbill]

I see that what’s old is new again. Jimmy Ballard has been teaching this for as long as I can remember, as part of “connection”.

Ballard describes it differently, but the result is the same. Ballard wants you to connect your left elbow to your rib cage throughout the swing (hold that handkerchief in the arm pit) and fire the right side as hard as you can on the downswing. If you do this correctly the left elbow folds after impact. The video in the OP is the best demonstration I have yet seen of the accelerating effect of keeping the left elbow on/close to the body and letting the elbow fold - the clubhead flies through the hitting area effortlessly. Conversely, if you pull on the handle it is much harder to generate clubhead speed through impact.

Ballard doesn’t teach throwing the clubhead from the top. He tells you to fire the right side and “spring the shaft”. What he means by this is to start the downswing such that you put a bending torque on the clubshaft right from the beginning. If you throw the clubhead like in the OP video you are going to spring the shaft.

Whether we use Ballard swing principles or the ones in the video, we are going to get the same result - straight, powerful strikes, again and again. Assuming that we do it right... ;-)

[flatnstuck]

The throw motion that Austin advocates seems be much more of a rotation of the forearm to almost produce a clockwise waving motion of the right hand as opposed to a pure throw/casting motion. This seems to drive the trail elbow into the side and get the shaft into a position where minimal rotation is required to square the face from delivery into impact. It also seems to make it hard to over rotate the face to a closed/closing orientation before the club head can reach the ball.

I think of it like a light version of the position Moe Norman often demonstrated where he looked like he was trying to hit his trail foot with the back of the club head. And that more as a feel than an actual position. In reality the club appears parallel at P6 with the face slight facing the target line so that all that remains is a bit of a slapping motion with the wrist to hit the ball. YMMV.

[GreatStrike]

Watch where the 'arm pivot' (as Mike Malaska calls it) starts well before the impact zone in the video below. This is much like in the 'baton twirl' video by Shawn Clement (I posted earlier in this thread) the twirl movement starts well before the impact zone. Both of these coincide with the Shawn Clement video (a few posts up from this post) as well as the Steve Pratt's 'throw the clubhead' video drill - they all demonstrate that the start of the wrist motion necessary in order to get the golf club from one side of their wrists to the other side of their wrists starts well before the impact zone.

Steve Pratt's 'throw the clubhead' drill doesn't specifically address or demonstrate the pivoting, swiveling, tumbling, twirling action of the wrists, but nevertheless his drill gets you thinking (hopefully) just what wrist action is necessary in the release phase in order to deliver the club for maximum clubhead speed with accurate clubface alignment at impact. It's all about getting the golf club from one side of your wrists to the other side of your wrists without flipping, fanning, extending, rolling or dragging. If you are guilty of making any of these incorrect wrist movements you should spend 100% of your practice time learning how to execute the proper wrist action before moving forward in learning anything else pertaining to the golf swing...because if you don't learn the proper wrist action everything else you learn is really inconsequential.

Learning to execute the proper wrist action is at the top of the list of important necessities when it comes to the golf swing. You can have the best shoulder turn, arm position, wrist cock, hip turn, backswing, footwork, elbow position, hip speed, arm speed, pressure use of the ground, body pivot, axis tilt, secondary tilt, side bend, shaft loading, squat, sequencing, transition, balance, grip, shallowing the clubshaft, swing plane, arm connection, etc., but if your wrists don't work correctly then your golf swing is left with an inferior mechanism/technique - it lacks the one thing that every sound golf swing must have to hurl the golf club from one side of your wrists to the other side of your wrists without interrupting or interfering with the club's swinging motion, its speed or alignment.

 

 

[Hackinator]

nice video.

[COACH9]

The left arm adduction thing was huge for me. I had that arm way across my chest.

Had no idea of how that was effecting my impact position until I saw the AMG video.

Corrected that and got back my missing 20 yards.

 

[GreatStrike]

Hopefully it all is beginning to make sense, it's all starting to add up. Multiple instructors exclaiming the same thing in their respective videos. The wrist action is probably the most overlooked element of the golf swing, and if you can't perform proper wrist action then nothing else you do really matters. It's like having a yo-yo but no string...like having a strong desire but no tool. Virtually all the focus of the golf swing is with something else. The most important element of the golf swing is hidden in plain sight.

[OrangeGravy]

I've never understood how anyone could break down a golf swing into positions like many do and actually play golf with any level of success. This video does a fine job of showing how futile it can be chasing positions (specially from still photos) without knowing what gets you into those positions properly. Even knowing what properly gets someone into those "proper" positions, it's still a very general piece of knowledge that requires the ability to personalize an adjustment to a specific person's swing flaw.

For me, just trying to hit the ball as hard as possible will put my body into a closer position (compared to proper swing mechanics) than trying to hit "positions" ever would and I think same would.

[Nard_S]

.

A big factor in too much abduction is right arm over fold. AMG has a video where Pro's peak arm fold is around 65* & Joe's is 90*. I experimented with driver to limit over fold and it certainly felt weird but I drilled some really hard hits with it.

It's instinctual to lift club with arm fold, not instinctual to limit arm fold and use more upper arm socket lift. I'll work this.

 

[COACH9]

I've been drilling on it lately.

A put my cooler bag between my upper arms and practice my backswing.

It keeps my left arm on the left side of my chest and limits how much my right elbow folds.

[Nard_S]

That's seems like a solid method, I'll try something like that.

[COACH9]

I've seen Gankas do it with a range bucket with some of his students.

Those don't feel quite as secure. But my cooler bag with a towel balled up inside is softer and easier to secure between the arms for me.

One of the added benefits of drilling it is it makes me complete my turn. I think sometimes I cheat the turn by dragging my arms across the chest.

[blehnhard]

"Wild Bill" Melhorn advocated using the "grass ship" as a training aid for this very motion. Hogan considered him the best ball striker of that time. I guess one of the grey areas is how much, if any, can or should be added as the club reverses position in relation to the hands/wrists.

There are advocates of the totally free unpowered "hinge" as well as advocates for supplying some "force" to add speed. If one wants to begin ulnar deviation from the top it would seem to me that it would require some muscular effort to overcome the inertia/weight of the club/clubhead.

When practicing with the "SwingRite" trainer (both older and newer versions), I must add some amount of force to the ulnar deviation (which in my case I feels begins just before hands reach waist high) in order to create enough speed to make the trainer "click" near the bottom of the swing. When applying this force to assist ulnar deviation, I feel as if I am throwing the weighted end away from the target and then allowing the pivot of the body to bring the club around to impact.

Bruce

 

 

 

[SHAFUA]

Craig Hanson has a great video too

 

[mocokid]

what is the grass ship?

[blehnhard]

Should be whip, not ship

 

[GreatStrike]

Bruce meant "Wild Bill" Mehlhorn (with an 'h' as the third letter of his last name), and the training aid he advocated was called a 'Grass Whip'.

 

[ThinkingPlus]

Grass sickle. True Temper even makes one for clearing long grass and weeds out of a ditch. True Temper 38 in. Steel Double Edge Grass Shear - Ace Hardware

[Krt22]

Do you know the flex of the stock shaft?

[glk]

and the bounce options.

[ThinkingPlus]

No, but if anyone has doubts that True Temper used to be American Fork and Hoe this product pretty well nails it.

[GreatStrike]

Here is an old video taken back in 1977 of sweet-swinging 'Slammin' Sammy' Snead practicing his oily golf swing at The Masters in Augusta, Georgia. You'll see Hale Irwin, Andy Bean, Seve Ballesteros and J.C. Snead watching him. Pay particular attention to how Sam Snead 'allows' the weight and momentum of the golf club to swivel/twirl/pivot his wrists which allows a non-interference method of movement for the golf club to get from one side of his wrists to the other side of his wrist. It's easy to sense that Snead is not using physical muscular force to make the golf club move from one side of his wrists to the other side of his wrists, nor any muscular force to square the clubface. And, he certainly isn't dragging the handle through impact. Sam had a pure golf 'swing' that lasted well into his upper years...https://youtu.be/TT68ZSiiPqE

 

 

 

[blehnhard]

Thanks to Nail It and Thinking Plus for cleaning up my "mess".

[mocokid]

Snead is 65 in that video, unbelievable. take a look at the iron swings about 1:30, his caddy with the white bag aint moving too much to left or right.

[GreatStrike]

I think Sam took a nasty 8 on #12 in the second round and withdrew... Tom Watson beat Jack Nicklaus by 2 strokes to finish at -12 and won $40,000 with Jack Nicklaus taking 2nd place and winning $30,000.

Others seen in the video finished as follows:

5 Hale Irwin -6 $12,500

T19 Andy Bean -1 $2,500

T33 Seve Ballesteros +3 $1,950

T40 J.C. Snead +5 $1,900