Slow hands

[armydiver]

Anyone have some drills?

I have come to the conclusion that I either have slow hands or my lower body is too fast. When I really slow my swing down, and focus on turning the hands over I hit it really nice. Today was awsome (except the putting as usual) So, it seems that I really cant go after the ball as hard as I know I can. How can I speed up my release, so that I can really turn hard? My miss lately has been holding on to the shot, as far as I can tell.

[Dariusz J.]

I have come to the conclusion that I either have slow hands or my lower body is too fast. When I really slow my swing down, and focus on turning the hands over I hit it really nice. Today was awsome (except the putting as usual) So, it seems that I really cant go after the ball as hard as I know I can. How can I speed up my release, so that I can really turn hard? My miss lately has been holding on to the shot, as far as I can tell.

 

You need to ensure that your downswing is a pure rotation. What you are probably doing is joining the linear motion with the rotational one in the same time. Try to set your vertical axis of rotation + CoG transfer earlier, the best is to set both before the real downswing phase starts.

 

Cheers

[69 another time]

I have come to the conclusion that I either have slow hands or my lower body is too fast. When I really slow my swing down, and focus on turning the hands over I hit it really nice. Today was awsome (except the putting as usual) So, it seems that I really cant go after the ball as hard as I know I can. How can I speed up my release, so that I can really turn hard? My miss lately has been holding on to the shot, as far as I can tell.

 

You need to ensure that your downswing is a pure rotation. What you are probably doing is joining the linear motion with the rotational one in the same time. Try to set your vertical axis of rotation + CoG transfer earlier, the best is to set both before the real downswing phase starts.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

You always have some very good answers but you have to be a theoriest to decipher them :rolleyes: . Lets see are you saying that he is getting ahead of the ball and he needs to make the transition first [ returning right arm to side, slight hip bump ] and then make his downswing. or?

[juststeve]

armydiver:

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a golf swing in which the hands and arms swing the club freely past a quiet body. In my opinion it is the bast kind of swing for the vast majority of golfers. It is the kind of swing taught by Jacobs, Toski, Flick, de la Torre and a host of other teachers who specialize in teaching the game to ordinary golfers.

 

Your problems I think is the belief that “going after it as hard as I can” is either a good thing or involves the use of the body. Neither is the case. Someone who goes after it as hard as he can will never be a complete and consistent golfer. It is very rare that one needs to go after it as hard as he can, although I see folks do it on every par three on the course.

 

You should also disabuse yourself of the notion that the body is the source of speed and distance. It isn’t. The vast majority of the speed you generate in a swing comes from the educated use of your hands, with lesser amounts attributable to the free swinging of the arms. I remember once seeing Bob Toski hit 250 yard drives off his knees.

 

You have already discovered for yourself that you can hit the ball “really nice” in your words when you concentrate on using your hands with a passive body. My recommendation is that you practice doing that until you do it better. You are on the right path, don’t be diverted by the body oriented fad that current right now.

 

Steve

[Dariusz J.]

You always have some very good answers but you have to be a theoriest to decipher them :rolleyes: . Lets see are you saying that he is getting ahead of the ball and he needs to make the transition first [ returning right arm to side, slight hip bump ] and then make his downswing. or?

 

Yes, more or less. One needs to set the vertical axis and the CoG of the pelvis area before the downswing begins (a'la post-secret Hogan). Only then the downswing will consist of pure rotation only.

 

 

armydiver:

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a golf swing in which the hands and arms swing the club freely past a quiet body. In my opinion it is the bast kind of swing for the vast majority of golfers. It is the kind of swing taught by Jacobs, Toski, Flick, de la Torre and a host of other teachers who specialize in teaching the game to ordinary golfers.

 

Your problems I think is the belief that “going after it as hard as I can” is either a good thing or involves the use of the body. Neither is the case. Someone who goes after it as hard as he can will never be a complete and consistent golfer. It is very rare that one needs to go after it as hard as he can, although I see folks do it on every par three on the course.

 

You should also disabuse yourself of the notion that the body is the source of speed and distance. It isn’t. The vast majority of the speed you generate in a swing comes from the educated use of your hands, with lesser amounts attributable to the free swinging of the arms. I remember once seeing Bob Toski hit 250 yard drives off his knees.

 

You have already discovered for yourself that you can hit the ball “really nice” in your words when you concentrate on using your hands with a passive body. My recommendation is that you practice doing that until you do it better. You are on the right path, don’t be diverted by the body oriented fad that current right now.

 

Steve

 

Sorry, Steve, you are wrong, mate. The greatest ballstrikers in history of the game had, first of all, great main body motion, and not "brain in hands". Only inefficient pivots require help from arms and hands to execute a decent shot. It's physics.

 

Cheers

[juststeve]

Dariusz:

 

I wonder what you think I’m wrong about. Is it everything? Do you think I’m wrong in contending that one can play excellent golf with the swinging motion controlling the pivot?

 

If I’m wrong in advocating a hands controlled pivot who else do you think is wrong? A large proportion if not most of the top hundred golf teachers teach just that. Are Flick, Toski, de la Torre, John Jacobs, Eddie Merrins and Ernest Jones all wrong? If so it feels kind of good if you think I’m wrong as well. We could list a bunch more with whom I agree but I think you get the point.

 

I’m not sure you are right about the “greatest ballstrikers in history of the game”, whoever those might be, but the point you make is irrelevant even if its true. I don’t think you can document a single example of a great ballstriker who didn’t have fine highly educated hands. It may very well be true that once you learn to find the ball with educated hands you can move on to perfecting the pivot, but a good pivot without eductaed hands will never result in good contact.

 

The greatest ball strikers are not the ones who post here and ask for help from the likes of you and I. These are club and public course golfers who want to hit the ball a little bit better so they can enjoy their game more. If you think the best way to help them is to convert them to Hogan’s swing you are naive indeed.

 

This thread is a case in point. Armydiver began it because he discovered something that made you uncomfortable. For him swinging the club with his hands past a passive body caused him to strike the ball better. For the pivot fundamentalist I guess that doesn’t compute, but never the less its true. Your advice was to tell him to stop what was working and comply with your theory about how to swing a golf club. Its like a doctor bleeding a patient. In theory it works but the patient dies.

 

I’m currently a member at three clubs in Texas. When I walk up the range it is clear that the majority of my fellow members can’t even make what I would call premium contact with the ball, yet they’re working diligently on their pivot, their hip turn, their leg drive and their shoulder turn. Over the three clubs that’s hundreds of guys. They are victims of modern teaching concepts which while applicable to and fine for elite golfer have nothing to do with them. I wish everyone would understand that what’s good medicine for a tour player is not good medicine for everyone. Not every problem at every level is solved by working on the pivot.

 

Steve

[yoonie]

You always have some very good answers but you have to be a theoriest to decipher them :rolleyes: . Lets see are you saying that he is getting ahead of the ball and he needs to make the transition first [ returning right arm to side, slight hip bump ] and then make his downswing. or?

 

Yes, more or less. One needs to set the vertical axis and the CoG of the pelvis area before the downswing begins (a'la post-secret Hogan). Only then the downswing will consist of pure rotation only.

 

 

armydiver:

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a golf swing in which the hands and arms swing the club freely past a quiet body. In my opinion it is the bast kind of swing for the vast majority of golfers. It is the kind of swing taught by Jacobs, Toski, Flick, de la Torre and a host of other teachers who specialize in teaching the game to ordinary golfers.

 

Your problems I think is the belief that “going after it as hard as I can” is either a good thing or involves the use of the body. Neither is the case. Someone who goes after it as hard as he can will never be a complete and consistent golfer. It is very rare that one needs to go after it as hard as he can, although I see folks do it on every par three on the course.

 

You should also disabuse yourself of the notion that the body is the source of speed and distance. It isn’t. The vast majority of the speed you generate in a swing comes from the educated use of your hands, with lesser amounts attributable to the free swinging of the arms. I remember once seeing Bob Toski hit 250 yard drives off his knees.

 

You have already discovered for yourself that you can hit the ball “really nice” in your words when you concentrate on using your hands with a passive body. My recommendation is that you practice doing that until you do it better. You are on the right path, don’t be diverted by the body oriented fad that current right now.

 

Steve

 

Sorry, Steve, you are wrong, mate. The greatest ballstrikers in history of the game had, first of all, great main body motion, and not "brain in hands". Only inefficient pivots require help from arms and hands to execute a decent shot. It's physics.

 

Cheers

 

Darius- steve wasn't talking about the greatest ballstrikers in the game, he was talking about teaching the average hacker an effective swing method. I tend to agree with steve on this- there's more than on way to swing a club. Some are more effective, some are more difficult, some require a greater investment of time, some require greater athleticism, and so on and so forth.

 

The quiet body with arms controlled swinging seems to be the best compromise for the average golfer in terms of ability to learn and to execute.

[MrParr1Noid]

Oh Good! Let's see if we can get an "I know the golf swing better than you do" going here, that will make for good reading. :russian_roulette:

[Dariusz J.]

Dariusz:

 

I wonder what you think I’m wrong about. Is it everything? Do you think I’m wrong in contending that one can play excellent golf with the swinging motion controlling the pivot?

 

If I’m wrong in advocating a hands controlled pivot who else do you think is wrong? A large proportion if not most of the top hundred golf teachers teach just that. Are Flick, Toski, de la Torre, John Jacobs, Eddie Merrins and Ernest Jones all wrong? If so it feels kind of good if you think I’m wrong as well. We could list a bunch more with whom I agree but I think you get the point.

 

I’m not sure you are right about the “greatest ballstrikers in history of the game”, whoever those might be, but the point you make is irrelevant even if its true. I don’t think you can document a single example of a great ballstriker who didn’t have fine highly educated hands. It may very well be true that once you learn to find the ball with educated hands you can move on to perfecting the pivot, but a good pivot without eductaed hands will never result in good contact.

 

The greatest ball strikers are not the ones who post here and ask for help from the likes of you and I. These are club and public course golfers who want to hit the ball a little bit better so they can enjoy their game more. If you think the best way to help them is to convert them to Hogan’s swing you are naive indeed.

 

This thread is a case in point. Armydiver began it because he discovered something that made you uncomfortable. For him swinging the club with his hands past a passive body caused him to strike the ball better. For the pivot fundamentalist I guess that doesn’t compute, but never the less its true. Your advice was to tell him to stop what was working and comply with your theory about how to swing a golf club. Its like a doctor bleeding a patient. In theory it works but the patient dies.

 

I’m currently a member at three clubs in Texas. When I walk up the range it is clear that the majority of my fellow members can’t even make what I would call premium contact with the ball, yet they’re working diligently on their pivot, their hip turn, their leg drive and their shoulder turn. Over the three clubs that’s hundreds of guys. They are victims of modern teaching concepts which while applicable to and fine for elite golfer have nothing to do with them. I wish everyone would understand that what’s good medicine for a tour player is not good medicine for everyone. Not every problem at every level is solved by working on the pivot.

 

Steve

 

 

Steve, thanks for explaining your point more widely. It is hard not to agree with a vast majotity of what you wrote in this post, therefore, I do apologize for creating a false image that you're wrong in everything.

The part that I cannot agree with you is that a good pivot without educated hands will never result in good contact. Au contre, the good pivot per se will exclude the physical possibility of flipping as well as will eliminate the possibility of a crossover release because of simple physics rules.

I also believe that it is much easier to teach such a good pivot than to "relocate the brain" to the most distal parts of our bodies that are the most prone to timing issues. I will not argue that educated hands are a bad thing, not at all. But exactly because we are trying to help golfers like you and me we should take the simplest and least time-consuming measures. The more, in learning a proper main body motion and subduing the arms/hands to it, we have such sciences as physics, biokinetics and motorics.

Do you need to educate e.g. a nunchaku chain ? No.

IMO, what we need is to have a biokinetically sound pivot + subconscious mind training in e.g. trusting in a club's loft. This is what I believe in, and I am the best example of it since my hands are not educated at all and neither I flip nor I have a tendency to a timing dependant release. The more I am only a theorist and not a great player.

 

Reasumming, the OP wanted to find a way to allow him to turn as hard as he can while eliminating the issue of leaving his arms too much behind him. It's a classic example of an angular disproportion between the upper and lower body turn that happens in the downswing. Similar what Tiger Woods had/has with the driver - he fights with inconsistency caused because of speeding up his arms/hands resulting with an inconsistent crossover release. What he would need and what he has already started to do is to narrow the angular disproportion between hips and shoulders at impact, i.e. to learn how to turn better the upper body as all great rotary swingers did in the past. In fact, this is what I'd recommend to everyone instead a long way of educating hands.

 

This is just my opinion, to be honest.

 

Cheers

[armydiver]

Didnt mean to start any contraversy. Indeed I did/do hit the ball nicely with this swing thought that I am working with now. It seems so effortless with no loss of distance, that I am wondering/tempted to see if I can hit it even better. I do appreciate the feedback. I still do feel that I if could speed my hands up somehow it would result in better control and distance.

[juststeve]

Armydriver:

 

Now that I’m off my hobby horse I can offer a few suggestions about speeding up your hands.

 

1. Just wording with the swing will over time make you better at it and your hand action will get faster.

 

2. I consider hitting balls with the feet together to be a master drill. You will learn to find the ball with the hands and without interference from the body. I can hit the ball about 85% of my normal distance with my feet together. So can you if you work at it a bit.

 

3. Learn to make one handed swing, just the left hand, just the right hand. Henry Cotton multiple Open Champion performed this drill. Start with the ball teed and progress to hitting shots off the ground. Its not so easy so stick with it.

 

4. Check your grip. Mostly fingers in the left hand, just fingers in the right. Lots of relaxation in the forearms and wrists lend speed to the hands.

 

5. Although I don’t endorse everything he teaches, watch the A.J. Boner s Secret Of Golf Infomercial. Watch how A.J. swings the club past a quiet body. It’s a good mental image for what you are trying to do.

 

6. See if you can find something from Mark Evershed, a less well known Canadian Professional. He has some great ideas about creating speed with the educated use of the hands. You will find his ideas about the bent right wrist are important to hands oriented swingers who sometimes fall prey to the flip.

 

Steve

 

P.S.

 

Don't worry about my dispute with Dariusz. There is a lot of merit in what he says as well.

 

S.

[yoonie]

steve, i think darius has a lot of good things to say. very mechincal, and I may not always agree with him, but he usually has a lot of valid points and interesting ideas, even though they're biomechanically oriented.

 

And darius, i diasgree with you statement. You can make pretty good contact with an arms powered swing. the problem is directional control, especially under extreme (read: not the average guy's weekend round) pressure.

[David C]

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

 

I can make the best pivot or best arm swing in the world, I can do everything Dariusz or Leslie King described, but if I'm thinking about topping the ball or my mind thinks 'let go of the club and fling it down the fairway' or 'block it right with an open face' my body will listen and perform.

 

If I told you to stand facing 180 degrees and try and hit the ball, you'd probably find a way to do it.

 

Your hands can wreck your swing, as can your body. And your head. Do anything too quick and you can wreck the swing. As you can too slow.

 

(If you're talking physics, by the way Dariusz, I think you should learn about Mike Austin. Also, bear in mind that you have no idea who the recipient of your knowledge is - may be he has a medical problem? Would be a shame if you created a duty of care between yourself and the recipient inadvertently. Is your advice - not just you; is anyone's advice proscriptive here?)

 

Whatever method you use, your mind controls your body and therefore there has to be timing involved in any swing method. Your best bet is to get a pro to teach and more importantly be able to observe you.

 

I can imagine that swinging a certain way may increase your handspeed; or it may not. Imagine spinning a yo-yo on a string and whirring it round, your fingers being the centre of the circle the yo-yo path will describe: you won't have to move your hand/wrist/fingers much to really get the yo-yo twirling. And there will be an optimum weight for that object/yo-yo to be on the end of the string.

 

Anyway, not knowing which technique you apply, you asked the question! I'm not a pro, PI or Doctor, but I would imagine that having conditioned your body properly, limbered up and stretched and conditioned your hands, if you want to move any body part quicker, you have to train it quicker: swing a shaft with the head cut off, Use light weights and shift them quickly; use a speed ball and take up boxing. Not all boxers are naturally quick, so they train.

 

Whatever you do, consult a professional at a gym - muck your hands up and it can effect the speed you type, driving your car etc. and if you are serious about increasing hand speed, you might be risking injury.

 

ps: One thing my pro got me doing was controlling the club head - releasing the club rotationally at different points to hit different shots, holding the clubface off; flipping it, opening it through impact, keeping it square. He'd have me start the ball over the range markers that are in a line down the middle of the range, then hit a screaming hook 60 yards left. Or: 'Imagine you're behind a tree and you have to bend the ball 90 degrees around it to reach the green' - to do that, you've got to release and close the club FAST from what feels like hip high in the downswing. Or we'd go to a practice green and he'd have me hit a pitch shot that lands and rolls 30 yards along the green as fast as I can. Or slowly; or at different speeds. I had to be able to hit three in a row before I could hit a different shot shape. He'd have me in the end bay and have me aiming wide right and bringing the ball back 60yards left with the driver, or aiming square and using just my swing and not my alignment to send the ball right and use my hands to bring it back left. Or hit a high draw or a high hook. to hit a 40 yard wide, high hook shot over a tree you really have to release that club quickly and rotate it quickly.

 

Your hands alone create these shots and the golfer who can use his hands at different speeds and in different ways has more shots to call on and can work the ball in a variety of ways and playing conditions. They will become a more complete golfer; but...

 

You might start trying to run before you can walk.

[Dariusz J.]

Don't worry about my dispute with Dariusz. There is a lot of merit in what he says as well.

 

S.

 

And viceversa, Steve, and viceversa. Good you mentioned the grip - very important thing that I should have mentioned as well in my post.

 

 

steve, i think darius has a lot of good things to say. very mechincal, and I may not always agree with him, but he usually has a lot of valid points and interesting ideas, even though they're biomechanically oriented.

 

And darius, i diasgree with you statement. You can make pretty good contact with an arms powered swing. the problem is directional control, especially under extreme (read: not the average guy's weekend round) pressure.

 

Thanks, mate. BTW, I never said that one cannot make a good contact with a hand-oriented motion. I'd even say that the compression may be slightly better as well as SS. What I say is that this kind of motion is more dependent on timing issues.

 

 

I can make the best pivot or best arm swing in the world, I can do everything Dariusz or Leslie King described, but if I'm thinking about topping the ball or my mind thinks 'let go of the club and fling it down the fairway' or 'block it right with an open face' my body will listen and perform.

 

If I told you to stand facing 180 degrees and try and hit the ball, you'd probably find a way to do it.

 

Your hands can wreck your swing, as can your body. And your head. Do anything too quick and you can wreck the swing. As you can too slow.

 

(If you're talking physics, by the way Dariusz, I think you should learn about Mike Austin. Also, bear in mind that you have no idea who the recipient of your knowledge is - may be he has a medical problem? Would be a shame if you created a duty of care between yourself and the recipient inadvertently. Is your advice - not just you; is anyone's advice proscriptive here?)

 

Good points, David. You're absolutely right.

 

Cheers, Gents.

[juststeve]

Dariusz:

 

It seems that what separates our theories is you concern about what you call timing, what I would call feel. Let me start by agreeing that if what I did in the golf swing was to make an ad hoc adjustment to square the blade to the ball at impact, differently for each shot I hit, that would require a great deal of timing, probably too much to accomplish on a regular basis. That’s not, however, how athletic timing works.

 

Consider a baseball pitcher. Release the ball a fraction of a second too early and it sails over the backstop, a fraction to late and it bounces half way to the plate. How then was I able to throw strikes? By using athletic feel, not timing in the sense you mean. Almost all little boys learn fairly easily to release the ball at the right time to pay a game of catch with their father. In fact most learn it pretty quickly and without anyone explaining the timing necessary to throw the ball to Dad and not over his head. Its as though that kind of timing were hard wired. Perhaps our would be ancestors who couldn’t hit a prey animal with a rock starved to death and left no offspring. Perhaps we are all the descendants of folks who could easily master that kind of timing.

 

Consider the golf swing. I’ve hit thousands of high draws in the past and internalized the way it feels to hit a high draw. Repeat that feeling and repeat that shot. It is not the kind of ad hoc timing that is difficult, it is the simple recreation of a swing internalized over thousands of repetitions. It isn’t the kind of timing you fear but rather the feel we all acquire when we learn to walk or feed ourselves or tie our own shoes. If you were to over analyze any of those everyday activities you might convince yourself that so one can walk down stairs, it required too much timing.

 

I find that if you take a raw beginner, teach them to hold the club, align them parallel left of the target, and simply invite them to hit the ball toward the target, you will get a fine semblance of a golf swing. They quite naturally strike the ball. They quite naturally square the blade to the ball. They even learn to approach the ball from inside the line to hit the ball down the line. Not perfect by any means, but my observations convince me that it is quite natural to hit a ball toward a target with a stick. That’s sort of what golf is. What I advocate is refining those innate abilities to make the strike more efficient but no less natural.

 

Steve

[cowboybuz]

Sometimes the best remedy is to think less of what the hands do in regard to the golf swing. Try keeping your hands soft and fell the forward release from the ground up. No bother to the cross-over or any other hand manipulations. Swing the club and keep the grip light.

 

Focus? Try to see how soft you can keep the hands throughout the swing and don't clmp up!

 

If you stay at and behind the ball at and during the swing, your hands (being soft) will release as you allow your leggs to first do a bit of a lateral move. By keeping your head at and behindthe ball, will alow your hips to clear out of the way, thereby a good release >> providing you keep soft hands. good luck!

[Dariusz J.]

Steve, my answers in bold below:

 

Dariusz:

 

It seems that what separates our theories is you concern about what you call timing, what I would call feel. Let me start by agreeing that if what I did in the golf swing was to make an ad hoc adjustment to square the blade to the ball at impact, differently for each shot I hit, that would require a great deal of timing, probably too much to accomplish on a regular basis. That’s not, however, how athletic timing works.

 

Well, maybe so, but for me feel and timing are two different things. Timing is just an incorporation of the time dimension into ur spacial 3-dimension reality. The problem is that our brain (conscious and subconscious) deals with this 4th factor that is completely different in type, if I may say this way. I simply follow the rule that the more distal a body part is the more it is prone for such timing issues because e.g. the time of reactions via neurons plays its role or it is more dificult to control the bones, muscles and ligaments that are far away from the neurologic center of our body.

 

 

Consider a baseball pitcher. Release the ball a fraction of a second too early and it sails over the backstop, a fraction to late and it bounces half way to the plate. How then was I able to throw strikes? By using athletic feel, not timing in the sense you mean. Almost all little boys learn fairly easily to release the ball at the right time to pay a game of catch with their father. In fact most learn it pretty quickly and without anyone explaining the timing necessary to throw the ball to Dad and not over his head. Its as though that kind of timing were hard wired. Perhaps our would be ancestors who couldn’t hit a prey animal with a rock starved to death and left no offspring. Perhaps we are all the descendants of folks who could easily master that kind of timing.

 

 

A very good point. I am a basebal laic, but I've been playing tennis for a while before on a decent amatour level and, IMO, it is much easier to react towards a moving ball because it is your subconscious mind that decides for your body on the base of pictures sent to our brains. When the ball is static, unfortunately, your conscious mind prevails and the body reactions are not spontanic at all.

 

 

Consider the golf swing. I’ve hit thousands of high draws in the past and internalized the way it feels to hit a high draw. Repeat that feeling and repeat that shot. It is not the kind of ad hoc timing that is difficult, it is the simple recreation of a swing internalized over thousands of repetitions. It isn’t the kind of timing you fear but rather the feel we all acquire when we learn to walk or feed ourselves or tie our own shoes. If you were to over analyze any of those everyday activities you might convince yourself that so one can walk down stairs, it required too much timing.

 

Yes and no, IMO. First, the existence of the so-called muscle memory was not proved yet. Secondly, as I said above, the subconscious spontaneous reaction in case of golf does not exist or is very limited.

 

I find that if you take a raw beginner, teach them to hold the club, align them parallel left of the target, and simply invite them to hit the ball toward the target, you will get a fine semblance of a golf swing. They quite naturally strike the ball. They quite naturally square the blade to the ball. They even learn to approach the ball from inside the line to hit the ball down the line. Not perfect by any means, but my observations convince me that it is quite natural to hit a ball toward a target with a stick. That’s sort of what golf is. What I advocate is refining those innate abilities to make the strike more efficient but no less natural.

 

I disagree with this, honestly. A raw beginner who knows that the ball lying on his feet level must be struck toward the target will surely try to hit OTT, because it gives him the feeling of power. Moreover, if his goal is to bring the ball airborne, he will flip, because it is natural to try to hit the ball from the bottom. That's why I consider it as very crucial to educate a beginner's conscious mind and to explain why he neither should flip (loft awareness) or hit OTT (awareness of the rotary nature of swing motionbecause the ball lies not only down but also in front of the body).

 

Steve

 

I have a feeling that we are currently leading not only nice but a very very important discussion, my friend.

 

Cheers

[birly-shirly]

I have come to the conclusion that I either have slow hands or my lower body is too fast. When I really slow my swing down, and focus on turning the hands over I hit it really nice. Today was awsome (except the putting as usual) So, it seems that I really cant go after the ball as hard as I know I can. How can I speed up my release, so that I can really turn hard? My miss lately has been holding on to the shot, as far as I can tell.

 

armydiver - I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that what you're really after is greater clubhead speed, rather than a faster turn through the ball for it's own sake.

 

That being the case, I can't recommend highly enough that you get yourself a swingspeed radar. This will give you unambiguous feedback on the speed that you're generating. It will also let you play around with different moves and emphasise different parts of your swing to see what does result in greater clubhead speed.

 

I'm not saying that the same thing will work for everyone - but in my case I found that fast hips and core rotation didn't do much for my clubhead speed. Concentrating on a faster arm swing, both back and through, did.

 

I think there are some great ideas and drills posted above - but the radar lets you evaluate what works for you.

[yoonie]

armydiver- there's so much said about the one plane swing in modern instruction, especially stuff ab out turning the hips as fast as you can. The way you swing, you have to be PATIENT. Bump, then turn as hard as you can when you feel the club drop maybe. Think adam scott- he's not spinning out as hard as he can, he's waiting for the club to drop into the position he wants. Same with John Daly even.

[dream_stryker]

I have come to the conclusion that I either have slow hands or my lower body is too fast. When I really slow my swing down, and focus on turning the hands over I hit it really nice. Today was awsome (except the putting as usual) So, it seems that I really cant go after the ball as hard as I know I can. How can I speed up my release, so that I can really turn hard? My miss lately has been holding on to the shot, as far as I can tell.

 

armydiver - I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that what you're really after is greater clubhead speed, rather than a faster turn through the ball for it's own sake.

 

That being the case, I can't recommend highly enough that you get yourself a swingspeed radar. This will give you unambiguous feedback on the speed that you're generating. It will also let you play around with different moves and emphasise different parts of your swing to see what does result in greater clubhead speed.

 

I'm not saying that the same thing will work for everyone - but in my case I found that fast hips and core rotation didn't do much for my clubhead speed. Concentrating on a faster arm swing, both back and through, did.

 

I think there are some great ideas and drills posted above - but the radar lets you evaluate what works for you.

 

+1

 

It took me getting one of those devices to prove to myself that there is diminishing returns on hip speed after a certain point. The swing speed radar convinces you that swinging harder or pivoting faster is not swinging FASTER :russian_roulette: . All the speed is created by a properly sequenced transition. Honestly, I couldn't feel the difference between a 115 MPH swing and a 97 MPH swing. I spend days playing around with different techniques to figure out something i could do with the body or arms on the downswing to increase swing speed. The speed came (and still is coming) as I learned to execute a synced upper and lower body. Whether you believe in talk wagging dog or dog wagging tail. You STILL must transition smoothly to get the hands from Above plane to ON plane before your hips turn past square. If you're late max acceleration is past the ball...early and you're casting.

[armydiver]

Thanks guys for all of the responses. I appreciate all of the advice given so far. I have been concentrating on relaxed forearms and wrists and it seems to be helping me hit it cleaner and farther. I was only late on one drive and one iron shot today (9 holes)

 

Birly you are right, that was exactly what I was looking for. I will check into the swingspeed radar. Any suggestions on where to buy one?

 

I am pleased with how things are progressing. I dont yet have as much control as I used to, but I am making great contact, and that alone is worth the new swing ideas Im using. I cant believe how easy I can swing and still smoke a shot. I guess its all in the release (at least this week)

 

Hopefully very soon this will payoff by dropping my hdcp to the single digits. Thanks again.

[birly-shirly]

I got a belltronics unit from ebay and am well pleased with it. I've not tried to benchmark or calibrate it against other more expensive set ups - but it been pretty consistent for me, which is I think the main point. There's another thread on here if you search for radar where others discuss the different units they have. I think there was also a general feeling that the radar units compared favourably in accuracy to trackman-type systems.