Do you throw or twist?

[Nels55]

4 hours ago, virtuoso said:

Who are all these “lead side dominated” instructors to which you speak?

I have had lessons with a fair number of pros and watched a lot of youtube instruction.  This is the only one I can recall teaching 'lead arm domination':

 

The method that he teaches using the whippy tempomaster actually does work.  Possibly not optimal but...  There are folks who have golfed with a bag full of whippy clubs.  A pro that I had lessons with did that at one point.  Probably out of boredom.  Anyway good luck hitting a whippy with a trail hand dominated swing!

[ShimJoonW]

We can generate enough power with just your right arm and right hand

 

The right arm is coupled with the left arm and the right arm's  swing power is transmitted to the left arm

 

The right hand is essential for coupling between the two arms 

In the swing, the right hand action makes all kinds of movements in the swing

[virtuoso]

4 hours ago, GreatStrike said:

 

Most all of them... 

Who would you say is the most guilty?

[GreatStrike]

16 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

Who would you say is the most guilty?

 

Most all of them, equally... 

[Nels55]

1 hour ago, Soloman1 said:

i’ll exercise my 5th amendment against self incrimination.

 

but, i’ll offer up two simple ideas about the idea of force on the handle. please do not inflict felonious bodily harm on me until it’s been considered carefully. (not you, nels, but everyone)

 

1. hogan had an awful hook.

 

the image of hitting hard with the right hand moves the handle toward the target and can help keep the head from closing. more of a club head geometry move. didn’t increase the free body speed of the head.

 

2. some people with the club behind may use the hard trail hand hitting motion. just feels like hitting hard with the trail hand, but it’s really part of trying to speed up an arms rotational move for closing the face and head geometry.

 

i may not have said that clearly. it’s martini night.

In my years of experimenting I have done a lot of lead arm / hand dominated swings and also a lot of trail arm / hand dominated swings.  Neither is better then the other imho.  For me lead arm swings tend to produce draws / hooks and pulls while trail arm or hand swings tend to produce fades / slices and pushed shots.  So, I would say that my experimenting is in line with your thinking.  I am sure that will be of great comfort to you as you slowly slip into a martini stupor...  

[ShimJoonW]

Right hand should stay on the club head for a long time, which will increase momentum

 

At the time of Impact between Face and Ball, Head Force transfered  into  ball

 

then an Impulse Is defined by :
Ft = mv-mvo = p (momentum)

Edited March 13 by ShimJoonW

[gvogel]

Freddie Couples - throw?  Tom Watson - twist release?

[virtuoso]

1 hour ago, GreatStrike said:

 

Most all of them, equally... 

What are the buzz words I need to watch out for to determine if a teacher or YouTube guy is teaching lead side domination?

[Golf_Goof]

19 hours ago, GreatStrike said:

 

@iacas - What has not been learned by many golf instructors/teachers of amateur golfers is what Ben Hogan and Ken Venturi knew many decades ago as the quote (below) by Ken Venturi clearly states.   

 

 

When I describe a golf shot and gesture with one of my hands, it’s always the right hand I gesture with. That’s because golf is a right-handed game (for right handers), not a left handed game as some people believe. Hogan was empathetic [sic] [recte: emphatic] about that. The right hand controls the position of the clubface, generates the speed, applies the touch, everything. All the left hand does is hold on to the club, and hopefully not break down on the downswing.

Quote by Ken Venturi

 

Do you think Mr. Hogan and Ken Venturi were expert golfers and likely knew what they were talking about? I think so! 

 

Even a small child learns early-on that most people can't even throw a wadded up piece of paper into a waste paper can from 4 feet away using their non-dominant hand, much less pitch a baseball over home plate or throw a dart left-handed. Yet, golf instructors continue to favor instructing amateur golfers the old school method of using their non-dominant side to swing a golf club.

 

Would you instruct someone interested in any athletic sport to use primarily their non-dominant side for control and to produce speed (which by the way I totally agree that velocity is a prime factor in generating force)? I rather doubt it! And, if you did elect to do that, I strongly suspect the student would become confused and frustrated with the sport very quickly and they would never reach anything close to their natural ability.    

 

My experience confirms absolutely what Ben Hogan and Ken Venturi believes (quoted above). That said, when golf instructors finally give up teaching a lead-side golf swing to dominant right handers and admit a lead-side golf swing is not desirable for them, only then will amateur golfers improve, and improve very quickly - - as quickly as a right hander changing-over from horribly trying to throw a baseball left-handed with speed and accuracy to throwing it with their dominant side... Who wudda thunk the difference such a change-over could make!

 

If instructors continue teaching the old school lead-side golf swing with weak clubhead speed (that lacks much golf ball compressing force) and pathetic swing path and clubface control - amateur golfers will never ever achieve what there're capable of easily achieving in golf. NEVER EVER!    

 

 

 

I asked this earlier but got crickets in response.

 

I'm right hand dominant but swing left, i.e., lead side dominant. Would you suggest I'd do better swinging right? 

 

Roughly 10 percent of the adult male general population is left-handed, but more than 40 percent of plate appearances in major league baseball are taken by left-handed batters.

Edited March 13 by Golf_Goof

[NCDuffer]

This left vs right and the post above has me thinking about baseball and switch hitters.  I grew up playing baseball and much better at it than golf.  I would switch hit fairly often.  I’m right hand dominant and had more power swinging as a righty than a lefty.  I know a baseball swing isn’t a golf swing, but the top (right-when swinging righty) hand provided most the bat speed.

[GreatStrike]

On 3/13/2024 at 7:23 AM, NCDuffer said:

This left vs right and the post above has me thinking about baseball and switch hitters.  I grew up playing baseball and much better at it than golf.  I would switch hit fairly often.  I’m right hand dominant and had more power swinging as a righty than a lefty.  I know a baseball swing isn’t a golf swing, but the top (right-when swinging righty) hand provided most the bat speed.

 

You may be semi-ambidextrous or what some call 'cross-dominant' or 'mixed-dominant'. If so, consider yourself fortunate.  

 

North Carolina is a nice state.  I'm somewhat familiar with the Piedmont area of Winston-Salem and Greensboro as well as Asheville and the Raleigh-Durham/Chapel Hill areas. Love the topography of the state and its beautiful trees. 

 

 

Edited March 16 by GreatStrike
orthography

[Golf_Goof]

Similarly, nearly 70% of hockey players shoot left. 

 

 

[GreatStrike]

2 hours ago, Golf_Goof said:

I asked this earlier but got crickets in response.

 

I'm right hand dominant but swing left, i.e., lead side dominant. Would you suggest I'd do better swinging right? 

 

Roughly 10 percent of the adult male general population is left-handed, but more than 40 percent of plate appearances in major league baseball are taken by left-handed batters.

Yes, if your dominant side is your right side then 'naturally' you have more strength, coordination, touch and skill using your dominant right side to perform any action.

 

'Platoon effect' - MLB managers will put left-handed hitters against right-handed pitchers and visa-versa.

 

Edited March 13 by GreatStrike
orthography

[cav5]

12 hours ago, Nels55 said:

In my years of experimenting I have done a lot of lead arm / hand dominated swings and also a lot of trail arm / hand dominated swings.  Neither is better then the other imho.  For me lead arm swings tend to produce draws / hooks and pulls while trail arm or hand swings tend to produce fades / slices and pushed shots.  So, I would say that my experimenting is in line with your thinking.  I am sure that will be of great comfort to you as you slowly slip into a martini stupor...  

 

 

Edited March 13 by cav5

[cav5]

12 hours ago, Nels55 said:

In my years of experimenting I have done a lot of lead arm / hand dominated swings and also a lot of trail arm / hand dominated swings.  Neither is better then the other imho.  For me lead arm swings tend to produce draws / hooks and pulls while trail arm or hand swings tend to produce fades / slices and pushed shots.  So, I would say that my experimenting is in line with your thinking.  I am sure that will be of great comfort to you as you slowly slip into a martini stupor...  

 

You are correct in my book and should use both feels. This is what I mean by bending the shaft to change the shot in other threads. Inward hands which to me and you apparently is a lead arm feel, will kick the clubhead further out than normal. Hands resist its momentum.

 

Its not your plane, but the clubheads bend path. Opposite for fade which would be high outward hands. To bend the clubhead path inwards means you need an outward lever for the shaft to bend into your hands. You actually increase inward flex (fade) by trying to stop it.

 

Hips only resist on inward flex. Shoulders resist on outward flex. They are opposite. Same as hands/club. You throw the clubhead on inward flex and hold lag on outward flex. IMO people and instructors screw this up. Its hard to process.

Edited March 13 by cav5

[Nard_S]

The swing is all sides, left, right, upper, lower. It's throw & twist, not or. It's push & pull too.

 

The swing is much more levered than often discussed. Limbs "rotate" off the hinges of joints but the direction is essentially linear or levered. A truer "rotation" in the body is axial rotation of the joints. The rest are better seen as levered moves that are blended together in unison & opposition. In the end it takes all four quadrants of body to perform a swing in correct fashion. It takes working in 3 dimensions and the dimension of time, plus added axial planes of joint rotations. It's been a positive for me to see things at the simpler level of how the muscular & skeletal actually work. Much better than the simplistic narratives often attached with teaching golf. It's easier to decipher complex swing talk jargon too, and easier to implement real change towards better outcomes.

[Zitlow]

Shift, turn and throw off the right hip. 

 

 

The right side is like a door closing. 

 

Edited March 13 by Zitlow

[GreatStrike]

Dan G.:

 

I'll do my best.

 

I'm sure you've heard how important it is to have a good grip.

 

I've found that most handicap golfers not only lack a good grip, but they can't make a backswing that sets them up to make a sound downswing. It seems most amateurs start their backstroke with their weak non-dominant lead arm and hand and never really engage or connect their dominant trail arm and hand with the golf club to form a solid arm-club structure needed to make a powerful and controlled golf swing.

 

A sound golf swing is made using both arms and hands. But if the backswing starts with an unequal amount of arm use it is extremely unlikely the golfer will be able to effectively use that abandoned side at any time in his golf swing.

 

An unstable and wobbly transition at the top where the change of direction takes place is often felt by the golfer that doesn't incorporate a solid arm-club structure from the beginning of his golf swing. He finds he lacks the ability to maintain a solid structure when it matters most - at the top and in the downswing, and correspondingly the golfer usually sees poor downswing results because he tries to power his swing and control the club's path and clubface with his weak non-dominant lead arm he used to conduct and guide his backswing. 

 

It should be no surprise that the multiple piece structure consisting of the golfer's two arms and golf club needs to be fortified and reinforced with solidly connected hands. If one of these connection points fails or is weak the entire structure is in danger of collapsing. A huge building crane collapses when one structure support fails. Basically that is what happens when a golfer doesn't have a good grip and doesn't know how to start their backswing.               

 

The correction for this instability and the poor swing results is knowing how to begin the backswing with a solid arm-club structure from the outset. A correct grip and correctly starting the backswing with proper technique actually triggers a wonderfully powerful and controlled downswing to happen. It's a surprisingly automatic and thrilling phenomenon.  By using the right arm as an outward moving piston - the right hand's connection on the club's grip and applying push force on the base (i.e. big knuckle) of the left thumb - this action literally drives the arm-club structure on a powerful and perfect swing path arc that is kept on a perfect radius by the extended left arm - - because the right am is pushing on the left hand's big thumb knuckle to create extension force and stretch out the left arm. To maintain a circular swing arc the golfer's left arm must be straight without any slack.  What I have described is all a neatly packaged method that is highly dependable, tried and true...     

 

What's amazing by using the pushing-out force from the get-go in the backswing, it makes the entire golf swing happen automatically without dealing with the two separate elements -  that is a backswing and a downswing. You'll find the golf swing is literally one self-contained reaction produced by the right arm push-out action.       

 

The correct technique to begin the backswing is so easy and effective it's really chillingly amusing.       

A simple outward push of the dominant right arm that applies force from the lifeline of the right hand onto the big knuckle of the left thumb is all that's needed to start an astonishing movement activity that is the springboard and impetus for a very sound golf swing.

 

This video (below) should help you to understand the technique... Hope this helps!  

 

         

Edited March 13 by GreatStrike
orthography

[emagdnim2101]

I started consciously focusing on a left hand exit today at the range. I’m also transitioning from a Cowx “C” wrist pattern that I developed naturally to an “A” pattern in search of more consistency, so there’s a lot going on, but I was very encouraged by the first session. Contact is indeed very crisp and  in particular it felt like only minor, intuitive adjustments were needed to control trajectory. I hit a lot of shanks and open faced shots (like 300, sorry short game area crew) while I dialed it in, but it felt pretty automatic after that.

 

I’m still figuring out the right hand/arm but suspect it’s simpler than I’m making it, and maybe due more to the wrist pattern change than this hand path stuff. 

[GreatStrike]

Without constant push-out force on the big knuckle of the left thumb to maintain left arm extension and the vital arm-club structure the framework becomes weakly held together and cannot be trusted not to fail and collapse. All that would remain  of the structure is the golf club and the weakest of the two arms, and that inproficient and unskilled left arm is what the golfer must then count on to deliver his club on-plane and on the correct path with speed, energy and a square clubface. That's your typical amateur's golf swing!   

[Golf_Goof]

9 hours ago, GreatStrike said:

Yes, if your dominant side is your right side then 'naturally' you have more strength, coordination, touch and skill using your dominant right side to perform any action.

 

'Platoon effect' - MLB managers will put left-handed hitters against right-handed pitchers and visa-versa.

 

That's decidedly not the case for me and I've tried golf both ways. 

 

Most left swinging ball players aren't left handed. 

 

And a whole lot of pro hockey players would disagree with your assertion.

[GreatStrike]

1 hour ago, Golf_Goof said:

That's decidedly not the case for me and I've tried golf both ways. 

 

 

Good luck as you continue your search... I'm unaware of any other way you could try!  

[Djmc25]

Throw. I rotate too soon and leave the club behind if I think rotate. 

[Nels55]

Internal focus such as thinking of lead arm or trail arm control is generally considered to be the weakest of the five foci if you are into that.  By that system for most people external focus such as focusing on the clubhead or whatever is better then any internal focus.  Even better is target focus and better than that is no focus just trust it and swing.  And the best is getting into the zone.

 

Anyway, focusing on the trail arm or hand will not help a golfer who stands up on the backswing with a flat shoulder turn.  During the swing building process the focus needs to be on learning the correct movement whatever that may be.

[Nels55]

Hmmm:

[nitram]

Hey Nels, ol' Sammy's rehearsing to hit a block fade on the left . . .

[iacas]

9 hours ago, Nels55 said:

Internal focus such as thinking of lead arm or trail arm control is generally considered to be the weakest of the five foci if you are into that.  By that system for most people external focus such as focusing on the clubhead or whatever is better then any internal focus.  Even better is target focus and better than that is no focus just trust it and swing.  And the best is getting into the zone.

 

Anyway, focusing on the trail arm or hand will not help a golfer who stands up on the backswing with a flat shoulder turn.  During the swing building process the focus needs to be on learning the correct movement whatever that may be.

What focus does what is highly dependent on what you’re trying to do. When practicing there often is no target.

 

8 hours ago, Nels55 said:

Hmmm:

 

It doesn’t matter how many times people point this out, he still won’t get it. #FeelAintReal

[GreatStrike]

On 3/13/2024 at 8:49 PM, Djmc25 said:

I rotate too soon and leave the club behind if I think rotate. 

 

@Djmc25 - A word of warning - be careful not to interject a swinger's backswing pivot rotation or downswing pivot rotation when using a dominant right-side swing. It's like trying to mix oil and water - it doesn't work out well!  There is no torso pivot rotation like a swinger. The clubhead is not thrown into orbit during the downswing by the golfer's pivot rotation like with a swinger, so don't let a habit of making a pivot rotation take place when it's not needed and doing so is actually damaging if it is interjected, whether intentionally or by habit.

 

Most dominate-side golfers don't even have to think about or deal with a backstroke or downstroke pivot because the right arm and shoulder is their body pivot! It makes their dominate-side golf swing easy to learn and easy to perform correctly with tremendous consistency and excellent results.

 

For a golfer using their dominant right side, think of the downstroke pivot being your right shoulder moving slightly down plane into position (closer to the ball) as a platform to push against (like  a starting block) in preparation to thrust your right arm 'straight out' from the shoulder. Lanny Wadkins was a big proponent of pivoting his right shoulder a bit down plane in preparation for the outward piston launch of his right arm by the triceps. Over the years many tour player tournament announcers have mentioned it.  Moving the right shoulder slightly down plane closer to the ball prevents the golfer from running out of right arm before impact and it ideally and positively induces an automatic weight shift and proper kinematic sequencing - something swingers often have a very difficult time executing. 

 

What's nice and effective with a hitter's (dominant side) golf swing is the golfer's large muscles are reacting to what the golfer wants his hands to precisely do which is how our body and mind work best, whereas with a swinger's (non-dominant side) golf swing the golfer is compelled to getting the large muscles to pivot and rotate his body to move his hands and arms in a precise manner, which is quite ineffective and instinctively causes most golfers to try to use their stronger dominant hand which usually causes all sorts of problems as it is added to the swinger's torso pivot rotation - making a discombobulated blend of incompatible components of both golf swing methods which is the nemesis of almost all amateur golfers. But causing this incompatibility is especially the case for those golfers that choose to swing the golf club with their weaker, less coordinated, less skilled side as opposed to using their dominant side.  

 

The right shoulder pivots slightly down plane and the right arm triceps straightens the right arm outward like a piston applying push force onto the left hand thumb knuckle which literally drives the arms-club structure in a powerful golf swing. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 15 by GreatStrike
orthography

[Djmc25]

That’s too complicated for me. I’m a simple man. 
 

my swing feel is typically “get the belt buckle going back and down” from the top. This clears the room for me to skip a stone or cut grass in the direction of my intermediate point. 
 

But after reading what you said regarding the right shoulder, yes, when I make my belt buckle down and back move it prevents the hips from getting closer to the ball. 
 

@MonteScheinblum video on how the left hip doesn’t work out, the right hip works back and his explaining the differences between the two along with AMGs “Pro vs Am” hip rotation really cleared up all the EE in my swing. If I hit that belt buckle down and back position and change my concept from rotating around the right hip to pushing the right hip back in the backswing, it’s hard to hit bad shots from there and it frees up my trail arm to perform my throwing motion. 

[iacas]

There’s really no such thing as a hitter or a swinger. There’s really no such thing as a golfer who uses one side of their body, or instructors who teach that.

 

And there’s really no reason to listen to anything said by people who espouse that those things are real and exist in any decent quantity.