Clubhead Outside The Hands At Takeaway: A Trend?

[EmperorPenguin]

Presently, there is a premise that, when looking from behind the golfer down the line, on the takeaway the clubhead must be outside the hands.  The reason is that snatching the club too far inside will result in being laid off and the golfer will come over the top of the ball.  I think this is a recent trend of instruction that is almost assumed as doctrine nowadays.  For those of you who may already know, Leadbetter refers to these positions as Links 2-4, and he insists that 90% of most bad swings stem from the first part of the golf swing.  Maybe Leadbetter set that canon when he grew to popularity?

 

The reason why I am questioning this is because I am watching old videos on YouTube and I see in slow-motion many golfers before Leadbetter's era--let's say, 1985, before he was not so popular--who violate that rule.  They are way inside and way laid off halfway back.

 

I am sure there are many instances you can find on YouTube, but here is one I am presently watching.  This is Kathy Baker's swing with analysis by Peter Aliss.  Here he analyzes Kathy Baker's swing and Judy Clark's swing.  By today's instruction, they both severely violated that rule--or to put it more nicely, deviated from those positions--but Kathy Baker won the Women's US Open using this snatched-in golf swing.

 

 

So who are we to say that snatching the club inside is wrong?  Golfers won tournaments doing this.

Edited September 23, 2023 by EmperorPenguin

[doctor220]

Golfers have won tournaments doing lots of suboptimal stuff. Doesn’t make it optimal for most. 

[umamimami]

ignoring the muscular loading pattern

 

If you take it away inside it incentivizes leaving the face open

 

Look at how much Kathy alters her plane at/aroundparallel 

And look at her insane flexibility.  She’s tilting like nuts to redirect that club from out to down.

 Not only that but how deep behind her her trail shoulder is. Her  trail elbow is behind her torso. Check out her practice swing. 
She does get her arms into a place where there’s massive incentive to rotate through the shot but this is Jim Furyk levels of club awareness. 

It’s possible to do - but is it teachable? 
 

 

 

 

[SNIPERBBB]

Thats not horribly inside. Course I wonder how some of that is because of equipment.

[SNIPERBBB]

Went back and looked at tiger 2000 and tiger 1997 and the 97 is massively outside the hands and 2000 is neutral to slightly outside and has kinda ping ponged back and forth under each new coach

[rooski]

From what I've seen, all great golfers that violate that rule do one of two things: massively overswing (John Daly or Kathy Baker) or massively underswing (Jon Rahm).

 

One of those compensations seem required to get it back on the correct plane in the downswing. It is certainly more neutral and much better, for most golfers, to ensure the clubhead is at or outside of the hands in the takeaway IMO

[Nickb333]

Younger bodies can get away with a lot of swing malarkey imo. 

[EmperorPenguin]

6 hours ago, rooski said:

From what I've seen, all great golfers that violate that rule do one of two things: massively overswing (John Daly or Kathy Baker) or massively underswing (Jon Rahm).

 

One of those compensations seem required to get it back on the correct plane in the downswing. It is certainly more neutral and much better, for most golfers, to ensure the clubhead is at or outside of the hands in the takeaway IMO

 

Check out the late Marlene Bauer.  Way overswung.

 

[baudi]

Mrs. Bauer swings it like a cartoon character (no offense). The flex and balance are amazing.

Edited September 24, 2023 by baudi
grammar

[Socrates]

There was a reason that only a few golfers back then were consistent winners and stars.  They had to have incredible amount of talent and hand eye coordination to overcome a lot of flaws.  Inside, flat, overswings that all had to be compensated for in the downswing before impact.  It was a different time, different equipment and little to no instruction that was any good (back then good players would intentional screw young players with bad ideas so they wouldn't take a check away from them).  Then Jack came on the scene and the writing was on the wall for all those with home-made swings. 

 

Science and technology (Trackman and video) proved many of the old teaching methods to be incorrect and you rarely will find a Tour caliber golfer without a "modern" swing.  Outliers can always be found, but sound modern fundamentals are here to stay.  You can go down the rabbit hole and emulate old swings from another era, but I would think that you are in for a huge disappointment in your game.

[mizunotpz]

You have "the reverse slot swing" as Jim Mclean talks about who was used by Miller Barber, Sam Snead and now Viktor Hovland, where they take it inside but with control of the clubface (not like amateurs who throw it inside cause they have a perception of the club has to be behind you) and then comes back on the inside (depending on shotshape of course). Mclean compares to the old worker who used a sledgehammer, took it inside and then hit the nail everytime. Not a bad way to play golf and lots of those who had this pattern were excellent ballstrikers.

[me05501]

Do you want a swing that requires manipulations/compensations or one that doesn't? 

 

Forty years ago there were a ton of unique swings in pro golf. There are two major differences between then and now.

• We've learned to measure almost every aspect of how the body and club move through space and the optimal patterns have become pretty easy to quantify, and
• The solid core golf ball changed what is possible and desirable from the full swing game and players have much less stress over how the ball is going to behave from shot to shot. 

[Nels55]

If a player uses a side on trail hand grip then the club should be taken back a bit inside as Mike Adams teaches around 2:00 minute mark:

There are no outliers.

[baudi]

1 hour ago, me05501 said:

Do you want a swing that requires manipulations/compensations or one that doesn't? 

Open question: what type of swing or who's swing is free of manipulations/compensations in your opinion?

 

[Zitlow]

The clubhead is outside your hands at address so it has to start back outside your hands, then it comes onto the same plane as the left arm as the swing progresses.

 

Couples eventually gets the shaft on plane with his left arm and the inclined plane. He slings the club off the end of his left arm in the downswing. 

 

 

From his book, "At times my reactions are so good that I feel I can snap the clubhead off the end of my shaft through the impact area with my aggressive releasing motion."

[me05501]

2 hours ago, baudi said:

Open question: what type of swing or who's swing is free of manipulations/compensations in your opinion?

 

 

The one I'm working with is taught by Porzak Golf but there are a lot of others.

 

Seems like every pro-level player under the age of 30 has that modern template swing that's perfectly on plane going back and coming through. They're the slo-mo video/Trackman/pressure plate generation. This may be even more true across the LPGA roster. 

 

It makes a lot more sense to aim for the proven ideal versus using the very rare exception as an excuse to ignore the rule. 

[Nels55]

5 hours ago, me05501 said:

 

The one I'm working with is taught by Porzak Golf but there are a lot of others.

 

Seems like every pro-level player under the age of 30 has that modern template swing that's perfectly on plane going back and coming through. They're the slo-mo video/Trackman/pressure plate generation. This may be even more true across the LPGA roster. 

 

It makes a lot more sense to aim for the proven ideal versus using the very rare exception as an excuse to ignore the rule. 

What do you mean by "perfectly on plane going back and through"?  Backswing plane and downswing plane always differ from each other and the plane back and through must match up with the grip and swing mechanics.  Hmmm, John Rahm and Mathew Wolfe are both in their 20s are they examples of the "perfect plane"?  I am not trying to be a expletive here I am just curious about your thinking on this.  

 

Here is another opinion on standardized swings that you might find interesting:

 

[me05501]

27 minutes ago, Nels55 said:

What do you mean by "perfectly on plane going back and through"?  Backswing plane and downswing plane always differ from each other and the plane back and through must match up with the grip and swing mechanics.  Hmmm, John Rahm and Mathew Wolfe are both in their 20s are they examples of the "perfect plane"?  I am not trying to be a expletive here I am just curious about your thinking on this.  

 

Here is another opinion on standardized swings that you might find interesting:

 

I don’t think anyone would suggest modeling a swing off Rahm or Wolff. Rahm has said his swing reflects his specific physical limitations which most of us don’t have. Zalatoris is another outlier among the younger set. 
 

A good example of what I’m struggling to describe would be Adam Scott. Pure, simple, repeatable and basically free of any moves that suggest rerouting the club or manipulating the face. 
 

Cam Young is another. Other than the pause his move is super simple. 
 

Nelly Korda is another. 

[Nels55]

43 minutes ago, me05501 said:

I don’t think anyone would suggest modeling a swing off Rahm or Wolff. Rahm has said his swing reflects his specific physical limitations which most of us don’t have. Zalatoris is another outlier among the younger set. 
 

A good example of what I’m struggling to describe would be Adam Scott. Pure, simple, repeatable and basically free of any moves that suggest rerouting the club or manipulating the face. 
 

Cam Young is another. Other than the pause his move is super simple. 
 

Nelly Korda is another. 

LOL well, here we go!  I would say that Rahm and Wolfe are as good of a model as any other pro golfer depending on the particular attributes of the student.  I believe that Adam Scott's swing is beautiful but rather technically difficult.  Very few people are built like Adam Scott and have his world class mobility and coordination.  I would say that Adam Scott's swing is extremely difficult to copy correctly and is well beyond most golfers capabilities.  

 

I don't believe that there are any pros who get away with really poor swing mechanics because of their natural abilities.  Their peculiar swings are usually well matched to their particular physical dimensions and abilities. 

 

As for average golfers most are "Upper Core" per Wright Balance and have no business trying to learn a mid core swing like Adam Scott's swing.  They will do much better copying Larry Rinker's swing.

 

Okay, I did my best to express my current not fully baked thoughts on this subject.  There is a lot more that I am mulling over but I did my best to try to convey some of it....

[ChrisSP]

2 hours ago, Nels55 said:

What do you mean by "perfectly on plane going back and through"?  Backswing plane and downswing plane always differ from each other and the plane back and through must match up with the grip and swing mechanics.  Hmmm, John Rahm and Mathew Wolfe are both in their 20s are they examples of the "perfect plane"?  I am not trying to be a expletive here I am just curious about your thinking on this.  

 

Here is another opinion on standardized swings that you might find interesting:

 

 

Thanks for posting that video. Very interesting stuff.