Lag,

You said:

“I have great respect for anyone who takes on golf teaching as a profession, whether or not I agree with their protocol, applications of law and so forth. It is got to be a very tough life calling.”

I will say:

I have great respect for those of you who have aspired to reach the very pinnacle of performance in this great game. I truly admire the perserverence necessary to compete again and again on a level that frankly most people have absolutely no concept of whatsoever. All of you have a very special place in my heart. It would drive me crazy to reach a level of playing ability that high only to struggle in near obscurity. A lot of people don’t realize deeply enough how minute the difference between the Tiger’s of the world and the Q-school guys truly is. Just a stroke or two a round is the difference between sleeping in private airplanes or the back of a station wagon. That life is definitely not for me, so I humbly bow before such tenacity.

As for teaching golf as being a “very tough life calling”, I could not disagree emphatically enough. While I may never be lucky enough to have a young Tiger stroll into my arms looking for a lesson so that I can claim golf enlightenment on my personal behalf when he does what he would have done anyway with any competent teacher, I do have the great priviledge and honor of having normal everyday people approach me and thank me for helping enjoy their lives more.

There isn’t a lot of money in teaching, I will grant you that, as I have not been endorsed by the media. But any teacher that is sane will never have gotten into the business for that purpose. I can say that I derive a pleasure from helping others in this game that can not be expressed in words adequately. I truly love teaching, it is as simple as that. Truth be told, I would do it for free if I absolutely had to (and did not have to buy food, lol). I really love it that much. Corny maybe, but true.

Bottom line, you don’t have to feel bad for me, I am happier getting soccer moms playing in the eighties than I would be playing on tour. You love the competition, I love improving people’s enjoyment of the game. The passions may be different, but I would argue that they are just as rewarding.

Look at it like this. If I get a guy who has never broken ninety in twenty years of golfing and get him to play in the seventies consistently it feels equivalent to me to maybe what you would feel like winning a major on tour. Although I sure could use that big fat check! I really don’t mind not making much money though, I like to think that someday I will be able financially able to play a little more myself though, but I provide a great service and will eventually be rewarded for my efforts without me worrying about it too much.

I have been working on a book for a few years now that I hope will someday reach out to more people than I could ever fit on a lesson tee in my whole lifetime. I like to think that it will be equivalent to giving a few million lessons in just a few years time. Who knows? If it works, maybe I will be able to teach for free in the future. That would be a shock to the teaching industry! “Latest media darling golf instruction author will now only provide free instruction to average golfers! Young phenoms, rich kids, and tour veterans need not apply, they already have all the help they need.” In fact, I hereby promise that I will not become a David Leadbetter or Jim McLean type who goes about prostituting themselves to the highest bidder. Sorry, that is a whole other tangent that should stay between my ears. I respect the aforementioned teachers for some of what they have contributed to the golfing world, I just question their motives at this time of their careers.

I just think that a teacher should be a teacher. Once your goal is simply to make ever more ridiculous sums of money the focus has shifted away from what is important.

I know what I am – I am just haggling over the price.

christ this thread is good!

Homer was a devout Christian. I know he would have taken that last comment as a compliment to his work and how it has affected peoples golf.

Who is homer? Simpson’s?...Beats me.

irspow….your post and a few lengthy ones..It is cool to have a long post but how many people have you lost in that post? A few will understand, science or not? Personally, I cannot read your entire post as why? I could not be bothered mate. I read a few lines, scroll down and thats it…..

Agreed – shorter the better for posts. Very few people like reading war and peace on the web.

Who is homer? Simpson's?...Beats me.

irspow….your post and a few lengthy ones..It is cool to have a long post but how many people have you lost in that post? A few will understand, science or not? Personally, I cannot read your entire post as why? I could not be bothered mate. I read a few lines, scroll down and thats it…..

That’s fine for you Nevil, but there are some of us that truly appreciate IRSPOW’s and LAG PRESSURE’s lengthy posts. The amount of information contained in these posts is phenomenal! Why would you ever want to restrict great golfing minds like theirs?

I am sorry you “can’t be bothered” and it is seemingly out of your comprehension. Im sure your golf game reflects this attitude!

So feel free to skip over them and leave the reading to the rest of us that can be bothered learning off fantastic teachers!

Agreed ˆ¢’Ǩ’Äú shorter the better for posts. Very few people like reading war and peace on the web.

Use your “Edit My Profile” link in the right hand sidebar to add in your signature

That’s a fair call admin but these guys are very special and should be considered as exceptions to the rules. Great information sometimes doesn’t fit into a paragraph. Rather than discouraging great golfing minds from appearing on ISG I think we should be encouraging them to teach us as much as they are willing to give. Those who don’t like reading lengthy posts have the option to skip these posts. The majority of golfers like myself who want to go far in the golfing world truly do appreciate them and the detail they provide. I am personally happy reading war and peace if it gets me where I want to go.

Who is homer? Simpson's?...Beats me.

irspow….your post and a few lengthy ones..It is cool to have a long post but how many people have you lost in that post? A few will understand, science or not? Personally, I cannot read your entire post as why? I could not be bothered mate. I read a few lines, scroll down and thats it…..

Welcome to the forum:)

Homer Kelly wrote the book The Golfing Machine which is the underlaying basis of the ‘good stuff’ in the Golf School forum.

If you teach from a book….you have a problem

What – you don’t.

Most people need a little help with their golfing ambitions, much like Doctors, Carpenters and even Art Students.

People who don’t need help from a book might be those with no ambition, people who learned as kids or people who can’t read therefore study.

How do you suggest we learn or are you the infamous, Tai.

Guru
About 15 pages or so ago in this thread(seems like I’m living here), the guys mentioned that you can source Homers book. Is it possible to get one through you so I can better understand that my #1 power source isn’t from eating baked beans?
I’ve started taking lessons with the pro at Cranbourne GC here in Melbourne. He doesn’t ever use TGM terms, but when he says flat left wrist and hold the lag, I keep asking him if he’s a TGM teacher.
He replies that while he has read it, he doesn’t teach it per-se because he would lose too many students who will think he’s a nutbag.
He started with chipping and is now on pitching(yesterdays lesson).
With just the practice from the first lesson resulting in closer first putts( I had 11 on the back 9 on Saturday), I have already gone from 7.4 to 6.4 in three weeks.
If I hadn’t soaked in all of the merit of the TGM principles by the educators in this thread, I know I would have been reluctant to let the Pro alter my swing so much.
So thank you Lag, Guru, Dart, and others here that help make the journey so enjoyable and understandable.

golfur66: welcome and glad you are enjoying yourself in here. Most of my students get taught in simple language with a few terms explained slowly so it does not come across as ‘what the!’. Sounds like you have a great coach.

e-mail me on golfguruATiseekgolfDOTcom and I can help you out with a book.

TGM is quite different from other golf instruction books…

TGM is based upon law, physics, mathematics, geometry and so forth. LAW. If you argue TMG principles, you’ll have to win arguments with the likes of Einstein, Bohr, Gamow first.

Most golf instruction books should be in the fiction section of the bookstore, and might rightly be “for entertainment purposes only”

. Most instructors teach with smoke and mirrors… Why? The same reason people go to see a magicians showcase… it captures the imagination.

“Complexity is far more simple and workable than mystery” TGM

Golfur66

Glad to hear you are making improvements..
there are reasons for your success.. better application of law..

there are a lot of ways to describe the same thing… but regardless of how one describes something, is doesn’t change the laws behind it.

Agreed ˆ¢’Ǩ’Äú shorter the better for posts. Very few people like reading war and peace on the web.

Use your “Edit My Profile” link in the right hand sidebar to add in your signature

ADMIN, shorter the better for who? One might ask are you not happy with what I feel is the concept of ISG – I personally feel that what these greats post is intelligent and invaluable conversation and advice. This what gets people fired up with their chosen sport and keeps them visiting your site, isn’t thatthe intent? Try putting a dollar value on what is on offer here (this thread) then ponder the value of input from these great people. If some don’t like it move to another thread – surely you’ve got enough to do without shutting good info down by insulting those that give the advice freely. This thread has seen me practice with more dedication, buy and study a book that literally puts me to sleep but gets me dreaming lag and educated hands and has knocked 4 strokes off my handicap. Go figure!!

War and peace often puts internet readers right off. The content has been great in this thread for sure.

I know I have cut my woofle factor down over time in here and most who stick around get shorter posts with the same bang for buck happening….that was Admins thrust, not the quality of the content at all.

4 Strokes! Well done Ditty.

War and peace often puts internet readers right off. The content has been great in this thread for sure.

I know I have cut my woofle factor down over time in here and most who stick around get shorter posts with the same bang for buck happening….that was Admins thrust, not the quality of the content at all.

4 Strokes! Well done Ditty.

Thanks paul – trying to get to single figures before i let the cat out of the bag – this is great stuff and your assistance has been appreciated – looking forward to catching up when we do… I joined Northlakes today – this move will certainly test my handicap but will put me in good stead for this years Australasian ;-)

Ditty – I think you may have got what I said completely wrong there mate. It is a VERY well known fact that on the web people want quick and simple answers.

That is not to say at all that some people will not read long posts but I can assure you 1000% that most don’t. We have page time counts through our web stats over many years that prove this time and time again.

I was not having a go at anybody but after developing websites for 13 years we have a reasonable idea as to what works and what doesn’t :)

There is always room for information – most would prefer short and concise for sure… HOWEVER, I cant really see how these posts could have been cut quite frankly…

To be honest, Homer’s information in TGM is short and concise – but there are 200 plus pages of short and concise for every concievable piece of the pie called golf. This may seem to imply that some of it may well not be needed..But, those who have read and then re read the book, we are still able to learn from it every time..

Why? as many poster have said with it comes wisdom..And with wisdom comes discussion..TEll me Lag, Dart, Guru et al, do you still learn from the book nowdays?

Now admin as for keeping them shorter, well if it loses a few along the way, well maybe they ‘aint gunna get it’ anyway..

and , on another point is does keep your dwell number up on the page view…

Admin – no need to shout I can hear you okay – I don’t think it’s a very well known fact moreso an assumption – I know people that study off the internet and research – they read war and peace and enjoy it – others, well they just read what they want and as much as they want and sit back happy – your involvement with building websites ( I have built 7 using frontpage 98 to dreamweaver) should make you more literate in your posts because you would understand that not everyone reads the same line the same way. What I read in your post was an insult to the people that spend their time writing and giving us good solid information – what you wrote was not insulting but moreso a comment on what you thought the majority (well known fact) appreciated.. Cheers, my shout! :-)

Now to take you to task admin.. this thread has 10490plus independant page views and 480 plus posts recorded since it started a couple of weeks ago.

If people want to just scan the posts, read the first paragraph, and then scroll to the end, then how could you possible say that the length of post has put people off? who cares if they do that..10490 seems to suggest to me that there are quite few out the reading and returning to it..

You are a professional web developer sure, and this thread to a layman could well be described as a highly technical thread on a facet or theory of instruction on learning in the game of golf, and this information is probably coming from some of the most learned minds in the world when it comes to this approach to the game. Most readers may well not get it at all in the first place, but for those of us who do, it has been pretty compelling. It has covered a LOT of ground and probably will cover a whole lot more.

Please, please be more considerate towards the posters when they offer the insights they have, their value has been immense to many.

Too long and boring, or is it wasting space or bandwidth? No, I think not..

Not an assumption…it is a fact.

Frontpage 98… enough said ;)

A little bit of info for you to digest from the king of usabilty

http://www.useit.com/alertb... – 2008

and eleven years before – same story mate

http://www.useit.com/alertb...

You can keep arguing but the facts are against you :)

hahaha frontpage 98 – I get your drift as I have commented accordingly to a friend :-) 98 was way back!!!

Thank the higher beings for smiles ;-)

Touche’ on useit – all I can say is that we are all different and made up of 4 different personalities with one being the stronger than the other 3 – some will read, some won’t read, so what!!

Me, I’m choleric.. others, well some are phlegmatic, sanguine or melancholy.

I suppose it all depends on what sites are looked at with respect to what is read at length – nothing much would be read at a voyuer site but heaps would be read on a news site..

BTW, I wasn’t arguing on reading long posts moreso commenting on the way your post was written… :-)))))))) Your intent being explained and your personality not known this end – I withdraw!

I think I’d like to disappear now into the background so this fabulous thread can get on with war and peace ;-)

Guys lets get back to the topic of the thread :)

U8er: You bet I still find stuff in the book almost every time I open it. Somethings the idea starts hatching and the book gets picked up to see if the brain is ready for the real meanings. It is what makes it a lifetime of fun and games. Darts been at it longer than me but still has a list of question marks to tick off as well.

You guys who are just into the search have so so much fun and
frustration to come. The F part is when the idea is clear in your mind but the body still has to catch up to doing it. You just know you are on the right track then see the money at the green:)

To all those TGM users and teachers in this thread, kick on and if you wish to stick up a side thread on particular topics within TGM just do so as it will make sifting through the length of this thread now a little easier.

Lag,

I absolutely love what you say here:

ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìOne thing I have learned and believe, is that if you really know how to do something, you shouldn't have to practice it much. If it's really YOU, and you really own your motion, practicing is not all that necessary. If you feel you have to hit 200 balls a day to keep your swing in shape, I would question the reliability and fundamentals of that swing.”

I see a lot of really ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìgood” players practicing a lot. We also all know about those practice monsters like Vijay. It must be a mental thing or idiosyncrosy of these guys.

In fact, I base one of my absolute tests of golf swing ability and understanding upon the ability of one to strike a ball perfectly with their eyes closed. I have found that anyone who is a consistently good ball striker has no problem whatsoever in hitting fine shot after shot without seeing the ball.

Often this is exactly how I prove to a student that they have a faulty swing when they insist otherwise. Without seeing the ball, they cannot make compensations they with their hand eye coordination that often masks swing flaws. I usually get the eye roll from them when they fail to execute this way, but I put them firmly in place by hitting quality shots with my eyes closed. They simply cannot dispute the demonstration.

For anyone who has not done this exercise I strongly recommend doing so every so often. After you are sure that you have set-up and aimed properly close your eyes and fire away. If you don't hit your target you will know for sure that your swing is not a swing at all but a series of manipulations on the way to the ball. And I can guarantee that when this exercise becomes easy to perform that you have a solid repeatable swing free from defects of almost any kind.

If you can't hit your target with your mind, you don't stand much chance of doing it with your body either.

Nice post but i tend to disagree with your statements in a lot of ways.
First off great players and ballstrikers actually enjoy hitting lots of balls not only to fine tune what they have but more so in search of something better.
No matter if you think your mechanics are perfect you have absolutely no chance of beating a player who has more natural talent and loves to practice and hit balls i.e Vijay, Hogan and just about every tour player these days.
As far as the blindfold drill and not using your eyes that may be good to prove a point to your student but if you asked me i would think that you unfortunately don’t seem to understand the basic concept that golf is Target orientated sport and i am not talking about the flagstick either or a spot on the fairway etc
Golf is played in the sky and the sooner you can grasp this simple concept then the better
I could never imagine not using my eyes to to set myself up to fire at a point in the sky ( apex of the ballflight being the reference)
always have and always will regardless of mechanics

I would take a perfect motion over talent anyday. :-) Who would hit the ball more consistently Tiger Woods or Iron Byron?

I wouldn’t call hogan or V.J natural talents, if they didn’t beat thousands of balls they never would had been as talented as they became. The natural talent was release from hard work and endless hours of practice

Point is that you don’t get to that level by hitting a few balls every day even if the swing is correct.
Last time i checked humans are not made up of iron byron metal
Last time i checked Iron byron has no idea where to look no idea of wind no idea of judgement no idea of pressure no idea of anything
No contest tiger Woods hands down

The golf swing is a very complex series of events that leads to a “moment of truth”, and that moment of truth is dependent upon what precedes it, and also what follows it. TGM itself fills a niche in the collective of human golf minds, for those who are interested in really understanding the why and how. The vast majority of golfers don’t really care about the geometry and laws that govern ball flight.

This thread, post or rant, is really for the searchers of truth that do in fact care about such lofty ideals. Explaining the golf swing can take time, and any detail left on the table can leave a golfer pulling out their hair for weeks if not months or even years.

I believe “Hogan’s Secret” was really a series of small secrets that were all coordinated and carefully synchronized into a kinetic chain of events that eventually led to a golf swing that was not only dynamically excellent, but EASILY repeatable within the context of the human condition. Now to EASILY understand how such a “swing” can be built out of flexible flesh, blood, skin, pliable fibers and bones… instead of solid steel framing and hinges, or other space age materials, like you would find in such a machine as the “Iron Byron”.... this can actually be more of a challenge than building
a mechanical golfing ROBOT.

Golf is not simple, it is not natural, it is not easy to learn for most,
but with the application of TGM it becomes more simple, more natural and MUCH easier to learn than just HOPING that the one great swing you made last week is suddenly going to repeat itself over and over again and become the new pattern your body produces on call each time you prepare to strike a golf ball.

The new “forgiving” clubs further enhance the myth.

The bottom line is that TGM is not the same as discussing the majority of trivial affairs that clog the internet. Hence another long post! lol

irspow,

Hitting balls with the eyes closed is an excellent drill. I have used it
and agree that a good golf swing will not have trouble hitting solid shots doing so.

On ball beating, it is fact that no amount of ball pounding will guarantee
better long term ball striking. There is a point of diminishing returns, and each golfer will experience that point differently.

YOU HAVE TO BE PRACTICING THE RIGHT THINGS!

My own experience found that ball beating was more required for swinging than hitting. Ball beating helped me loosen and oil the hinges, and also was important to aid my body in applying “A steady and even acceleration” from the top of the swing to the release zone
(parallel 2 to parallel 3). Hitting for me does not require loose and oily hinges as much… nor is steady, smooth, even acceleration so paramount to hitting solid reliable, and most importantly, PLAYABLE type shots.

So in my final analysis of comparing both methodologies, hitting travels better, is more reliable within the framework of the human condition, requires less ball beating, and therefore became my protocol of choice as a touring professional. This choice was also confirmed as the right choice based upon performance.

Does swinging work? YES, would I teach it? YES to some.
SWINGING is the shortcut to power golf with much less effort needed within the swing.

Great posts guys, very informative. My turn to write another long post that majority won’t read! lol (Joking Admin) This my 1000th post so I am making it memorable!! lol

I would like to raise a couple of points in response to the debates once again these are only my humble opinions…

To ball beat or not to ball beat:

I think it truly comes down to the mind set of the individual. I would class myself as a “ball beater” or as I like to term it a “worker”. Ball beaters have an innate mind set of “use it or lose it”. Right or wrong, they can’t help feeling that without regular ball beating sessions they will lose their touch or rhythm. Ball beating provides this individual with confidence that they are in tune and can produce their acquired motion time after time. Ball beaters are likely to be the kids who take everything apart and try to put it back together to see how it works, the are “tinkerers” by nature, the are also probably a little OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive) I know I am! The fact is from a personal perspective I love to just hit golf balls, if finances allowed I could stay at the range all day long hitting balls. Their are equally as many players on the other side of golf. The ones who have the trust in their talent and just go out and play. There is not right or wrong way, there is only ever your way.

I will say one thing though. Just because you hit at the range does not mean that you aimlessly beat balls. Personally I play holes on the range – well Long Drive Grids these days. Training at the range for me is divided up into practice and play. Practice is where I work on my technique, make changes, develop specific motor patterns. Play is recreation of the situation that I am training for. Eg. Long Drive – I set out a grid and play 6 ball sets (as I will do in competition). I use my pre shot routine on each and every ball and imagine myself in a competition environment. Hell I even invite people to watch so I can experience pressure of having “eyes on my performance”. Balls 1 and 2 and trying to get one in play at a decent length. If I achieve this, balls 3-6 are letting it all hang out! (As I would in competition.) Once the “set” is over I put my club back in my bag take a break (1-2 mins) and start again. Practicing can be play if used correctly.

Blind Folded Hitting:

Once again I believe it comes down to the individual. All of us have different sensory perceptions and therefore rely on different sensations in varying degrees. For example a blind person does not have the luxury of visual sensation so they develop keener kinesthetic awareness (Feel) and auditory awareness. Another individual may not have good kinesthetic awareness but great visual skills such as depth perception and spacial awareness. Obviously you use what skills you have. I am personally very kinesthetic in nature, I like to feel things, I like to visualise and “see” things in my mind’s eye. I do practice swinging with eyes closed from time to time, but I prefer to “feel” the swing internally from my mind’s eye and I do this with eyes open while looking at the target. IMHO I don’t believe that being able to physically hit the ball with eyes closed is an indicator of being a good ball striker or having a flawless swing. Evolution enabled me to have good vision so I like to use that also when hitting golf balls. By the same token someone who can hit balls with their eyes shut has very special skills and advanced kinesthetic awareness. Is it an definite indicator of being a superior technician? I believe not.

“Oily” hinges:

I get exactly where Lag Pressure is coming from. To put the term “Oily Hinges” into more lay terminology, I believe this indicates a sense of light relaxed muscles (particularly from the shoulders down) couple with a light grip pressure. A feeling of unrestricted movement and motion, a soft syrupy feeling in the wrists. This is by no means a “sloppy” sensation, it is a more “liveIy”, ready to fire feeling. I know many of my long drive counter parts describe similar feelings. Relaxed muscles are fast muscles. A relaxed muscle will fire/contract at a faster rate than a tense one. A relaxed muscle is also a more elastic muscle which will provide greater range of motion. You can try this for yourself: Grip hard and have tension in your arms and take a backswing note how far back to get. Now be very relaxed, allow a flow of energy through the arms and feel light. How much further back could you swing. I believe for my goals I get better results from being more relaxed and lighter through the arms, I can generate more speed and thus more power with the “Oily hinge sensation”. I get myself into trouble as I did yesterday when I try to “force” power or hit the shot hard. This creates tension and speed is reduced. Once I cottoned onto this, relaxed my arms and just allowed them to swing freely I got my speed back and went on to set a new speed PB. I will now maintain “soft hands” at all times and utilise a free swinging waggle as part of my pre shot routine to ensure I am functioning correctly before pulling the trigger. Hope this helps.

AB

irspow and AB,

these are great posts, and I enjoy reading (yes I read every word! lol)
the feedback and different sensations that people have.

TGM talks about learning “feel from mechanics” so it is always fascinating when another opens up to describe what “law” feels like to them. Many times the sensation of one person will in fact be similar to that of another… and this sharing of sensation is a great way for people to experiment on their own individual path of golf’s “yellow brick road”.

irspow,

As a pro, I might be generating greater club head speed than many amateurs, and the faster the club travels, the tighter the clamps must be that are attached to the grip. (hands) You would have a very hard time wrestling the club out of my hands, or even trying to pry my hands off the clubs grip. The key to this is firm grip, yet free and oiling wrist sockets. In many ways this is might seem like a paradox, but I can assure that it can be learned to be firm in the fingers, yet loose in the wrists.

If I had to add one imperative to TGM it might very well be this.

If I am dragging the club into the hitting zone, let’s say to the 3rd parallel, and I am delivering 90 angle of the left arm to clubshaft,
(big lag angle)....and then I tighten my wrists and resist the clubshaft’s release of naturally occurring centrifugal force… there is a good chance I am going to hit a golf shot that is UNDESIRABLE!
(fat, thin, left, right, shank and so forth)

So, assuming the swinger’s protocol, I might be inclined to stress that a NON INTERFERENCE application of the wrists could be added to what would be imperative to strike a golf ball properly using
the swinging method. With all due respect to Homer, I might argue
the virtues of such a promotion.

In my search for golfing idealism, I came to the realization that the ultimate objective of the swing would be to hold the flex of the shaft all the way to the ball. This could only be accomplished through radial acceleration. Hence hitting. I believe that to reach a level of the game
where a golfer could truly become a rock solid ball striking machine, that would rarely ever miss hit a shot, this would be the best route to pursue. I think Mac O’ Grady was searching along these lines as well.

As soon as acceleration reaches zero, the lag pressure on the shaft releases, and instead of the shaft flexing back, putting pressure on all the pressure points which is the lifeline of the master ball strikers feel,
this feel is diminished and the player will not feel force coming up the shaft until the ball is actually struck. To have the ability to constantly monitor the progression of the flex of the shaft all the way down to the ball and beyond would be the ultimate situation for masterful ball striking.

Now if you say that such a pursuit is not realistic, then swinging would offer the next best solution. The logic behind swinging is that acceleration of the shaft would not be intended to hold the flex to the ball but to “time” the downward thrust of the centrifugal force created in the swing by it’s moving in a circle, and this force is to be dumped roughly at the low point of the golfer’s swing arc.

FORCE equals MASS times ACCELERATION. Therefore, the protocol that would create the most force in a golf swing would have to be hitting… for the obvious reason that as you increase acceleration, you increase force as well. Given the same rate of acceleration, you would be wiser to use a heavier club.
John Morse, who won the Australian Open in the early 90’s new this,
he has the heaviest clubs I have ever seen in a tour player’s bag.

Another advantage of striking a golf ball with more FORCE is that the more force the clubhead creates, the less the clubhead will wobble at impact with the ball, and more of the clubhead’s energy will be transfered into the ball… or as TGM would teach, “to sustain the line of compression”

The problem with hitting is that although this all sounds good, how does a golfer go about continuing to accelerate the club to the ball and beyond? It’s certainly easier to produce speed from the top of the backswing down to the ball, than it would be to produce speed from impact to the finish. The later is essentially what needs to happen.

This is why I believe that golf is the toughest, most difficult game ever invented. A golfer has no choice but to deal with this paradox.

If a golfer can figure out how to do this, actually move the peak accelerate point in the swing past the ball… you might find yourself being one of the greatest ball strikers of all time.

It’s a noble pursuit…

That is possibly one of the best posts yet!! True Genius!

Slinger,

I respect your opinion, but I am not quite sure what you disagree with in my post. I don't disagree with anything you said either. I didn't say not to aim at a target or produce a certain and specific shot, I was just saying two things in general. And they are simply my opinions and not some irrefutable law or something.

I believe that people, after knowing what their target is or shot they want to produce and have addressed the ball correctly with that in mind, have absolutely no need whatsoever to see the ball during the swing unless they rely upon hand eye coordination to compensate for faulty mechanics. If you can not, after addressing a ball correctly, hit it perfectly without seeing it, I humbly believe that you have serious issues in technique. I will repeat, I have never personally known any fine ballstriker who could not do this drill effortlessly. Your experience may vary, and that is fine. I can only relate what I have seen in my life. Invariably in my experience, the weaker the player's swing technique, the more difficult it is for them to produce any kind of satisfactory results without looking so that they could compensate for errors prior to impact. You can argue if you wish, but nothing that you can say will prove what I see all of the time. Bad player's need to see the ball during the swing, good players can lely on their superior technique and not their eyes produce consistent results.

Their is nothing wrong with using hand-eye coordination to swing if it proves consistent for you. I was just noting that it is easy to prove faulty mechanics, not a shortage of ability, to those who believe that their swing is mechanically sound when in fact they are getting the results that they desire by using visual feedback to ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìmake” their technique work.

As for practice. Whatever floats your boat. If your routine works helps you that is all that matters. For every good golfer that you can find who lives on the range, I can match with another who wouldn't be caught dead there unless they were intentionally working on something that radically departs from what has worked for them in the past. I know a lot of really good golfers who avoid the range for the very reason that they feel, for them, that practicing at the range makes them good at the range and not necessarily on the course where it matters.

I personally love to practice at the range, but you will never see me working on the full swing unless I am ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìresearching” something new. I do however spend countless hours putting, chipping, and pitching the ball, because I enjoy it and not because I think that it is ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìnecessary” for improvement. I became completely confident in my long game quite a few years ago. I feel the short game is the only area where improvement always remains for me. I like to try to hole every putt, chip, or pitch unless doing so would incur too much risk in a particular situation. That is my style. It doesn't make it right or wrong, just a part of my nature.

I had no intention to rip people who like to pound a million balls at range markers, I was (maybe poorly) pointing out that I found it to be a perculiarity among some players. Who said that you can't learn more about your golf swing while actually playing golf? For me personally, swinging at the range only produces swings that work at the range. While I believe that nearly everyone has to go through that process at some point, performing while actually playing is far and away more important. I see guys all the time that spend more money at the range beating balls than they do in greens fees. It just is funny to me personally, not an indictment of others. I think you learn a lot more playing golf than playing range.

One last thing about seeing. Don't the greatest players usually stress what they ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìsee” with their minds rather than the eyes? After I see a flag with my physical eyes, I do everything in my power to ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìstare” at this flag with my mind during the swing. It works astonishingly well for me and for many others as well. Looking at the ball or something on the ground, to me, is focusing my mind on something that has no relation to my goal which is hitting my target somewhere else on the course that is definitely not between my feet.

This is not directed at you, but everyone within shouting distance. Anyone can hit a golf ball, all you have to do is focus on hitting it. Hitting your target precisely requires that you focus upon it. I don't play with any good golfers who focus on mechanics or the ball while they swing. I like to say that players who focus on hitting the ball do, but if that is their objective why do they even bother to aim?

Tom

Personally i don’t find it a problem to take what i practice on a range to a course
And i don’t recall writing anything about the eyes looking at a flagstick so read my post again

Lagpressure,
or a beginer or junior, do you think drive loading is the way to go?

Lagpressure – you wrote-: “FORCE equals MASS times ACCELERATION. Therefore, the protocol that would create the most force in a golf swing would have to be hitting… for the obvious reason that as you increase acceleration, you increase force as well.”

Nonsense! The world’s longest driver is a swinger – Jason Zuback. There is no scientific “evidence” that one cannot maintain clubhead lag and therefore a compressive force through impact with a swinger’s action.

This graph represents a swinger’s action, and his swing action ensures that clubhead speed is maximally accelerated to impact.

Clubhead speed at impact

Jeff.

jeffmann,

You are correct in stating that there is no evidence preventing a swinger from maintaining lag through impact. Actually, there never will be either. Also, this all applies to hitting as well. As long as the force of acceleration can remain greater than that of the total accumulated energy already “stored” at any given point energy release would never occur at all. Obviously, limits imposed by human anatomy and equipment tolerances will always “require” the energy to be to be released at some point. But there is nothing that precludes either methodology from striving to approach these limits.

I am of the humble OPINION, that the “average” player will never benefit more from hitting than swinging however. I BELIEVE that hitting requires exceptional strength from the smaller muscle groups and exceptional timing is needed to control all of these fast moving small muscless to work efficiently. BUT this does not mean in any way that theoretically hitting is less efficient than swinging when both are used properly. They are simply different methods of achieving the same thing. Everyone should try both methods to see which is most effective for THEM. Humans are not robots and thus will never prove that one method is superior to the other for every human. We are after all different.

jeffmann,

Not to be confusing, my reference to a “ball striking machine” would be to someone who hits the ball dead straight, with good distance, not a guy like Jason Z who is the longest.. but not the most accurate.

mass times a constant velocity (at a higher speed) can hit the ball farther than an accelerating mass at a much lower speed..
But the guy with the acceleration has a far superior method (assuming a few other things like educated hands, good impact alignments, plane and so forth) to hit dead on straight shots time and time again.

Jeff,

if all the accumulators are released at impact, what is left to continue to apply force on a pre stressed shaft to say the 4rth parallel?

I’m all ears…

irspow,

I have really enjoyed your posts over on the other thread,

Could you clarify acceleration as compared to increasing acceleration?
I have always viewed acceleration as increasing velocity, so would that be increasing velocity increasing exponentially?

Velocity is not something we always feel, as earth is spinning around the sun at 28,000 mph or something like that.. but acceleration is something that we do feel…

since golf is a game of feel, and a golfer’s feel is his or hers lifeblood,
and acceleration creates feel at the players pressure points, I always
go back to stressing acceleration when talking about how to play good golf… or in striking a golf ball correctly.

Now getting back to the hitting vs swinging, I see the potential for reserve power sources with the hitting protocol to be applied after impact and beyond, and I don’t see this potential in the swinging protocol after all the barrels have been dumped via longitudinal delivery… for the simple reason of the bungee whip cracking effect
...once the whip straightens and delivers the snap, games over..

Bio,

I would tend to teach beginners or juniors swinging, for one it’s easier,
and two much more compatible with the short game in my opinion.

To have a great short game, you’ll need to learn swinging techniques
at some point..

If a kid is really strong, big forearms, short and stocky, I might be inclined to start them off hitting.

Lag
In many posts your are mentionning your preference for swinging vs hitting for the short game. Can you explain? I always thought that hitting was more accurate. Do you have more feeling ?
Thank you

Homer Kelley maintained that swinging is easier than hitting?

The Dart stated that hitting is easier than swinging?

Which is true?

Lag,

I am not trying to pick on you as I love your insights. BUT…

If mass times acceleration equals force than the force that you refer to above equals ZERO. Constant velocity equals zero acceleration. So no matter how you state it, when acceleration equals zero so does force. You can multiply any amount of mass you want by zero acceleration and still will be left with zero force.

The equation clearly points out that it is maximizing acceleration which should be of primary concern and not velocity. Try this little thought experiment. What has more energy a brick that sits stationary atop a 20 story building or a brick that has fallen off of a 20 story building just before it strikes the ground? Even though the hurtling brick is whizzing along at a frightening velocity and the other is sitting motionless on the roof they both have exactly the same amount of energy. Well not really. The falling brick actually has considerably less energy because air resistance throughout its motion has removed a considerable amount before it will ever reach the ground! The roof ledge is actually “feeling” more force from the stationary brick than the sidewalk will when it is struck by the now “weakened” falling one. This is why people who don’t understand science cannot really understand what is going on in the golf swing. It is “logical” to most people to surmise that the falling brick has more energy, because they cannot differentiate between different types of of the same energy. In this case the stationary brick has more TOTAL energy than the falling one. The one on the roof is all gravitational potential energy and the falling one, (at the exact moment just prior to impact) is all kinetic energy.

But, Tom, you can’t “hit” a golf ball while not in motion! That is absolutely correct. You simply have to shift your perspective to understand what is really IDEAL. The purpose of any method of swinging the golf club, regardless of your golfing religion or methodology, is essentially the attempt to TRANSFER energy into a golf ball in such a way that it will be propelled towards a target as efficiently and accurately as possible.

Why are all of the theories that maximize velocity wrong? First understand that in order to reach maximum velocity, acceleration will also have to be zero. Huh? Well if you are still accelerating you have not reached maximum velocity. Follow the light. But assume that your acceleration has reached its maximum at the moment of impact and your acceleration is now zero. Well, you now have zero force and a maximum amount of kinetic energy. So how will the following collision take place?

Well the ball will absorb SOME of your kinetic energy for the very short time period that is necessary to overcome the ball’s inertia and a very small portion of its deformation energy. So in the best case scenario in this study the ball will absorb an amount of energy equal to its inertia, VERY SMALL AMOUNT OF ENERGY, and the amount of energy needed to deform the ball until its velocity surpasses that of the clubhead WHICH IS DECELERATING BECAUSE there is no FORCE DRIVING the clubhead at all!

Now imagine the scenario that I have been trying to teach some of the less science savvy people here for a while. All the while ripping me to shreds with no understanding of what they are talking about whatsoever. Now we will accept that the same golfer who made the previous swing with faulty science will now make a scientifically correct swing using sound science principles, because he is willing to actually learn something instead of ignorantly defending or sticking with what he does not truly understand. (Lag, this is not in any way directed towards you, but rather some droolers that troll around here!) You were simply the one that drove me to explain why a lot of people around here are absolutely clueless.

So now this same golfer redirects his efforts towards maximizing ACCELERATION THROUGHOUT impact UNTIL AFTER THE BALL HAS LEFT THE CLUBFACE with little concern as to velocity other that there will be SOME simply because we need to “get” to the ball in the first place which requires some motion.

In order for us to maximize acceleration as described above, it follows naturally that we need to actively apply maximum force at the point when the ball is about to leave the clubface. Huh? Mass isn’t changing people. If mass is constant than the famous equation becomes F=kA. k is not going to change. So to increase A requires an increase in F. If we wish to compress the ball as fully as is humanly possible, thereby allowing the ball to absorb as much energy as possible we should have increasing F throughout the entire compression period until the maximum deformation of the golf ball has occured. Note that you would then have a golf ball that ABSORBED AN AMOUNT OF ENERGY EQUAL TO ITS INERTIA PLUS THE AVERAGE FORCE APPLIED THROUGHOUT THE DEFORMATION AND REBOUND PROCESS TIMES DISTANCE TRAVELLED IN THAT TIME, AND THE TOTAL ENERGY OF MAXIMUM DEFORMATION OF THE GOLF BALL. (minus the energy of sound and heat generated during compression of course.) This far exceeds the puny energy transfer of the previous example. I know, you need more proof, right? Do you people want me to hold it for you in the bathroom too?

But can’t the strong guy develop a lot more kinetic energy than acceleration? Well, let the same strong guy do both swings shall we? We will assume that he is not losing any significant mass during the swing, but he could sure write a good diet book if he could, and we will assume that no parts of the golf club fly off during the swing so that mass will remain constant as well. The only change in mass to the entire system will take place while the golf club is physically in contact with the whopping ounce and a half golf ball.

First we will look at the guy who would be able to apply all of his force at the optimal time so that it would all be converted to kinetic energy prior to impact. The kinetic energy guy would apply his energy at the point where it would maximize velocity when the clubhead would just start to make contact with the ball. Basically he would have allowed sufficient travel distance of the club to occur after applying his force so that it could absorb maximum kinetic energy. The maximum that he could convert into the club would what remained by subtracting the kinetic energy of everything else withing the machine. Namely, all of the kinetic energy of his body must be subtracted from the total energy available to be transferred to the club. So we will assume that this guy has the greatest timing in the world and pulled off the feat of complete energy transformation and transfer of the energy that remains after his body has been taking into acount into the club. He will then accomplish transferring the kinetic energy lost by the club through impact, which will only be equal to the inertia of the ball and the defomation energy that accumulated until the ball surpassed the velocity of the club head. Remember that this approach demands that the clubhead lose velocity throughout the impact with and compression of the golf ball, physics demands it!
So in essense we have a guy with his veins sticking out of his head trying to maximize velocity and only converting about 2/1000 of his maximum force into kinetic energy. Remember he has converted his maximum force into giving the whole system kinetic energy. Think about his mass versus the club and you should get a figure similar as that above.

Now let’s look at the smart guy. Instead of wasting his maximum force to create maximum kinetic energy he chooses instead to use the very minimum force necessary to place the system in a state of perpetual increasing acceleration. How is this done? Well if you look at yourself at the top of the swing and notice how the segments have “separation” meaning different angular position within the rotational movement of the system. Ideally, you would provide only the necessary force necessary to accelerate your torso enough to keep these “separations” constant or growing until the ball leaves the clubface. Why is this so important Tom? Well to decelerate segments of the body in any way requires considerable energy to be directed away from our goal of putting energy into the ball. The more energy that is wasted applying force to decelerate segments the less that is available when it matters, during compression of the ball. “But my body slows down all by it self.” No, it does not. Your body must expend as much energy to decelerate something as it did to accelerate it in the first place. Period. So understand that deceleration of any kind is throwing away energy by the bucket load! In simplest terms, EVERY SEGMENT OF THE BODY MUST CONTINUE TO ACCELERATE AT A RATE HIGHER THAN OR EQUAL TO THAT OF THE CENTER OF MASS OF THE CLUB IN ORDER TO MAXIMIZE ENERGY TRANSFER WHILE COMPRESSING THE BALL. Only in this way is it possible to actually add the average force being supplied by you in addition to the loss of the balls inertia and deformation energy during the compression phase! So how much of an energy differentce are we talking about here?

Well you could wrap a rope around your waist and tie the other end to known masses. When you just reach a mass that will not allow you to rotate your torso during your “transition” move you can approximate you that force by multiplying that mass times the friction coefficient between the two surfaces. That will give you a decent approximation of the maximum force you are capable of. If you then multiply this force by the maximum deformation of the golf ball ball that you usually use, (this represents the distance travelled while compression takes place before the ball rockets off the clubface) This will approximate the energy you place into the golf ball in addition to the that possible by the most idealized kinetic energy swing.

If you take the above force that you are capable of and convert it entirely into kinetic energy of the whole system (you and the club), subtract your body’s kinetic energy and then multiply that figure by the ration of mass of you versus the club you will see how pathetic that energy is in comparison to what you found earlier.

That puny amount is what the other guys rely on most. And only a very tiny amount of that is ever absorbed by the ball. Whatever.

Tom

Lagpressure ˆ¢’Ǩ’Äú you wrote-: ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìFORCE equals MASS times ACCELERATION. Therefore, the protocol that would create the most force in a golf swing would have to be hitting… for the obvious reason that as you increase acceleration, you increase force as well.”

Nonsense! The world's longest driver is a swinger ˆ¢’Ǩ’Äú Jason Zuback. There is no scientific ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìevidence” that one cannot maintain clubhead lag and therefore a compressive force through impact with a swinger's action.

This graph represents a swinger's action, and his swing action ensures that clubhead speed is maximally accelerated to impact.

Clubhead speed at impact

Jeff.

Back at you Jeff, nonsense! Jason Zuback is not the longest in the world!! Mike Dobbyn holds that honour with a 551 yard BOMB! Jamie Sadlowski is also now longer than Zuback holding the longest winning drive at Re/Max of 420 yards!

Jeff your theories are great, but they are just that theories! Lag Pressure can tell you what works practically!! Get out of the way and listen… you might actually learn something!!

Lag pressure is talking optimal golf, length with accuracy! You are using a maximum length example with a Long Driver who needs distance not accuracy. For us 1-2 shots in a 6 ball set is good enough as long as they are bombs!

If I was playing for accuracy with length I would definitely hit! I am just trying to bomb 1 in 6 so I swing!! I can actually do both Jeff and if you were at all practical you would know exactly what Lag Pressure is talking about!

This is a great thread that we have going, please don’t ruin it like you have done so many others! Let the true teachers teach!

philthevet06

the slow syrupy feeling around the greens is a result of the player learning to dump the energy down into the ground, soft supple hands
all the great feel stuff you see.

Hitters typically have shorter strokes, quicker, stiffer wrist, and look like they are popping the ball around the greens. Don’t get me wrong, you can use hitting techniques around the greens too, but the great short games I witnessed during my years on tour would have great sensitivity, like the hands of a fine surgeon… a longer smooth stroke around the greens allows the brain a bit more time to monitor the forces that will be applied to the ball, mainly for distance control.

Royshh

swinging is easier to get distance, to generate clubhead velocity
without a great deal of muscular effort. So in that sense swinging is easier.

Hitting is easier in the sense that it can be applied with less rotation of the clubface, in a more deliberate fashion (the release) with a stiff wristed slapping motion. If you can get an understanding of automatic vs. non automatic releases.

As a player who has implemented both under very high levels of competition, I would say that hitting is easier to hit it straight consistently, but does take more muscular effort. Swinging might be easier to hit the amazing great shots, like a high 1 iron over a tree that lands soft on the green and sets you up for a surprising birdie putt. Swinging might also be easier to hit a drive 40 yards off line
if you dare over accelerate or tighten up at the wrong moment during the downswing under pressure.

In my swing you can see that from B-9 to B-10 there is a lot of body moment in the pivot, but my hands stay a constant distance from my belt buckle, the face of the club does not roll, but stays at right angles to my rotating shoulders, so the release or perceived “squaring of the clubface happens through the rotation of the body and not an independent rotation of the hands (in regard to the body)
as you would see in a swinging approach.

The muscular element here is that the hands WANT TO move away from the body here
if you look again at B-9 to B-10. It takes some strength to keep the upper arms close to the body, and the hands in close keeping the shaft on plane. The left wrist also wants to fully uncock, so I am resisting that as well. The thing that some of the pure TGM swingers don’t quite understand is that this effort, or fighting the natural forces that would be trying to separate the arms and hands from the body, is actually putting pressure on my pressure points, and this pressure is FEEL… and this feel can be monitored to help you hit good golf shots.

Since I am on this topic, I’ll shed a bit of extra insight here too..

When I want to draw the ball, I will make an extra effort to hold the wrist cocked through and past impact, and the harder I hold this, the more the ball will tend to slightly draw… and if I cut the hands left, but allow the wrist to uncock this will create a fade. So when I work the ball, it is not a rotating of the wrist action, or moving my aiming point around in the swings arc, but a conscious and deliberate pulling up on #2 or a letting it go (uncock) that will produce slight changes in the flight path, (fade or draw) This is real advanced ball striking technique, and I know most people will never experience this sensation, but I can tell you that from my experience with a lot of different ways of working the ball left or right, this is by far and away the best way to do it. Basically a huge effort in the hands and body creates a very small effect on the ball.

You wouldn’t want the opposite, small change in the body and hands creates huge changes in the ball fight… but that is how most golfers experience the game..

I like to feel like my worst swings still hit relatively straight shots.

irspow,

I believe I said mass times acceleration, not mass times velocity.
Of course, constant velocity equals ZERO acceleration.
You are absolutely right about about mass and zero acceleration.

I think the example I was trying to make is that a car moving 50 miles an hour at a constant speed and hitting my body in the road will do a lot of damage to me.

But that car will do substantially more damage to me if after it hits me
it is doing 70 miles an hour just seconds after.

I’ll be re reading your last informative post, and thank you for sharing your knowledge of science and physics with us. I am sure there is a lot to learn there..

Lag,

I am not trying to pick on you as I love your insights. BUT…

If mass times acceleration equals force than the force that you refer to above equals ZERO. Constant velocity equals zero acceleration. So no matter how you state it, when acceleration equals zero so does force. You can multiply any amount of mass you want by zero acceleration and still will be left with zero force.

The equation clearly points out that it is maximizing acceleration which should be of primary concern and not velocity. Try this little thought experiment. What has more energy a brick that sits stationary atop a 20 story building or a brick that has fallen off of a 20 story building just before it strikes the ground? Even though the hurtling brick is whizzing along at a frightening velocity and the other is sitting motionless on the roof they both have exactly the same amount of energy. Well not really. The falling brick actually has considerably less energy because air resistance throughout its motion has removed a considerable amount before it will ever reach the ground! The roof ledge is actually ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìfeeling” more force from the stationary brick than the sidewalk will when it is struck by the now ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìweakened” falling one. This is why people who don't understand science cannot really understand what is going on in the golf swing. It is ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìlogical” to most people to surmise that the falling brick has more energy, because they cannot differentiate between different types of of the same energy. In this case the stationary brick has more TOTAL energy than the falling one. The one on the roof is all gravitational potential energy and the falling one, (at the exact moment just prior to impact) is all kinetic energy.

But, Tom, you can't ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìhit” a golf ball while not in motion! That is absolutely correct. You simply have to shift your perspective to understand what is really IDEAL. The purpose of any method of swinging the golf club, regardless of your golfing religion or methodology, is essentially the attempt to TRANSFER energy into a golf ball in such a way that it will be propelled towards a target as efficiently and accurately as possible.

Why are all of the theories that maximize velocity wrong? First understand that in order to reach maximum velocity, acceleration will also have to be zero. Huh? Well if you are still accelerating you have not reached maximum velocity. Follow the light. But assume that your acceleration has reached its maximum at the moment of impact and your acceleration is now zero. Well, you now have zero force and a maximum amount of kinetic energy. So how will the following collision take place?

Well the ball will absorb SOME of your kinetic energy for the very short time period that is necessary to overcome the ball's inertia and a very small portion of its deformation energy. So in the best case scenario in this study the ball will absorb an amount of energy equal to its inertia, VERY SMALL AMOUNT OF ENERGY, and the amount of energy needed to deform the ball until its velocity surpasses that of the clubhead WHICH IS DECELERATING BECAUSE there is no FORCE DRIVING the clubhead at all!

Now imagine the scenario that I have been trying to teach some of the less science savvy people here for a while. All the while ripping me to shreds with no understanding of what they are talking about whatsoever. Now we will accept that the same golfer who made the previous swing with faulty science will now make a scientifically correct swing using sound science principles, because he is willing to actually learn something instead of ignorantly defending or sticking with what he does not truly understand. (Lag, this is not in any way directed towards you, but rather some droolers that troll around here!) You were simply the one that drove me to explain why a lot of people around here are absolutely clueless.

So now this same golfer redirects his efforts towards maximizing ACCELERATION THROUGHOUT impact UNTIL AFTER THE BALL HAS LEFT THE CLUBFACE with little concern as to velocity other that there will be SOME simply because we need to ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìget” to the ball in the first place which requires some motion.

In order for us to maximize acceleration as described above, it follows naturally that we need to actively apply maximum force at the point when the ball is about to leave the clubface. Huh? Mass isn't changing people. If mass is constant than the famous equation becomes F=kA. k is not going to change. So to increase A requires an increase in F. If we wish to compress the ball as fully as is humanly possible, thereby allowing the ball to absorb as much energy as possible we should have increasing F throughout the entire compression period until the maximum deformation of the golf ball has occured. Note that you would then have a golf ball that ABSORBED AN AMOUNT OF ENERGY EQUAL TO ITS INERTIA PLUS THE AVERAGE FORCE APPLIED THROUGHOUT THE DEFORMATION AND REBOUND PROCESS TIMES DISTANCE TRAVELLED IN THAT TIME, AND THE TOTAL ENERGY OF MAXIMUM DEFORMATION OF THE GOLF BALL. (minus the energy of sound and heat generated during compression of course.) This far exceeds the puny energy transfer of the previous example. I know, you need more proof, right? Do you people want me to hold it for you in the bathroom too?

But can't the strong guy develop a lot more kinetic energy than acceleration? Well, let the same strong guy do both swings shall we? We will assume that he is not losing any significant mass during the swing, but he could sure write a good diet book if he could, and we will assume that no parts of the golf club fly off during the swing so that mass will remain constant as well. The only change in mass to the entire system will take place while the golf club is physically in contact with the whopping ounce and a half golf ball.

First we will look at the guy who would be able to apply all of his force at the optimal time so that it would all be converted to kinetic energy prior to impact. The kinetic energy guy would apply his energy at the point where it would maximize velocity when the clubhead would just start to make contact with the ball. Basically he would have allowed sufficient travel distance of the club to occur after applying his force so that it could absorb maximum kinetic energy. The maximum that he could convert into the club would what remained by subtracting the kinetic energy of everything else withing the machine. Namely, all of the kinetic energy of his body must be subtracted from the total energy available to be transferred to the club. So we will assume that this guy has the greatest timing in the world and pulled off the feat of complete energy transformation and transfer of the energy that remains after his body has been taking into acount into the club. He will then accomplish transferring the kinetic energy lost by the club through impact, which will only be equal to the inertia of the ball and the defomation energy that accumulated until the ball surpassed the velocity of the club head. Remember that this approach demands that the clubhead lose velocity throughout the impact with and compression of the golf ball, physics demands it!
So in essense we have a guy with his veins sticking out of his head trying to maximize velocity and only converting about 2/1000 of his maximum force into kinetic energy. Remember he has converted his maximum force into giving the whole system kinetic energy. Think about his mass versus the club and you should get a figure similar as that above.

Now let's look at the smart guy. Instead of wasting his maximum force to create maximum kinetic energy he chooses instead to use the very minimum force necessary to place the system in a state of perpetual increasing acceleration. How is this done? Well if you look at yourself at the top of the swing and notice how the segments have ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìseparation” meaning different angular position within the rotational movement of the system. Ideally, you would provide only the necessary force necessary to accelerate your torso enough to keep these ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìseparations” constant or growing until the ball leaves the clubface. Why is this so important Tom? Well to decelerate segments of the body in any way requires considerable energy to be directed away from our goal of putting energy into the ball. The more energy that is wasted applying force to decelerate segments the less that is available when it matters, during compression of the ball. ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìBut my body slows down all by it self.” No, it does not. Your body must expend as much energy to decelerate something as it did to accelerate it in the first place. Period. So understand that deceleration of any kind is throwing away energy by the bucket load! In simplest terms, EVERY SEGMENT OF THE BODY MUST CONTINUE TO ACCELERATE AT A RATE HIGHER THAN OR EQUAL TO THAT OF THE CENTER OF MASS OF THE CLUB IN ORDER TO MAXIMIZE ENERGY TRANSFER WHILE COMPRESSING THE BALL. Only in this way is it possible to actually add the average force being supplied by you in addition to the loss of the balls inertia and deformation energy during the compression phase! So how much of an energy differentce are we talking about here?

Well you could wrap a rope around your waist and tie the other end to known masses. When you just reach a mass that will not allow you to rotate your torso during your ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìtransition” move you can approximate you that force by multiplying that mass times the friction coefficient between the two surfaces. That will give you a decent approximation of the maximum force you are capable of. If you then multiply this force by the maximum deformation of the golf ball ball that you usually use, (this represents the distance travelled while compression takes place before the ball rockets off the clubface) This will approximate the energy you place into the golf ball in addition to the that possible by the most idealized kinetic energy swing.

If you take the above force that you are capable of and convert it entirely into kinetic energy of the whole system (you and the club), subtract your body's kinetic energy and then multiply that figure by the ration of mass of you versus the club you will see how pathetic that energy is in comparison to what you found earlier.

That puny amount is what the other guys rely on most. And only a very tiny amount of that is ever absorbed by the ball. Whatever.

Tom

I read your post and thruthfully you have NOT stated anything i don’t already know
How much you want to play me for $1000 per hole or any amount larger

AB – I stand by my statement that the longest drivers are swingers, and not hitters. Now, are you going to argue that Mike and Jamie are hitters?

Again (as before), adding statements like “true teachers” simply reflects your personal bias, and doesn’t strengthen your argument about “factual biomechanical issues”.

Tom – you wrote-: “The more energy that is wasted applying force to decelerate segments the less that is available when it matters, during compression of the ball. ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìBut my body slows down all by it self.” No, it does not. Your body must expend as much energy to decelerate something as it did to accelerate it in the first place. Period. So understand that deceleration of any kind is throwing away energy by the bucket load! In simplest terms, EVERY SEGMENT OF THE BODY MUST CONTINUE TO ACCELERATE AT A RATE HIGHER THAN OR EQUAL TO THAT OF THE CENTER OF MASS OF THE CLUB IN ORDER TO MAXIMIZE ENERGY TRANSFER WHILE COMPRESSING THE BALL.”

This statement is totally unscientific. Have you any scientific evidence to support your claim that the lower body, upper body and arms must continue to acccelerate through impact to maximise ball speed off the clubface? According to HK, swing power is maximised in a swinger (who uses a triple barrel swing action – 4:2;3) when the power accumulators have fully released, and release of those accumulators does not require continued acceleration of the torso through impact.

I hope that other forum members have a better understanding of the kinetic sequence and don’t believe your mumbo-jumbo opinions.

Your statement that the body has to expend energy to decelerate the pelvic rotation in the mid-late downswing demonstrates to me that you have an inchoate understanding of human musculoskeletal physiology.

Jeff.

Guys, as I posted yesterday can we please split this thread into some subsegments of your choosing. There are way too many bits to this for readers to be able to follow going on.

“Energy Transfer” might cope with a big chunk.
“Seems as If” a heap more sub plots.

Guys, as I posted yesterday can we please split this thread into some subsegments of your choosing. There are way too many bits to this for readers to be able to follow going on.

ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìEnergy Transfer” might cope with a big chunk.
ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìSeems as If” a heap more sub plots.

Seems as IF …........exactly Guru

AB ˆ¢’Ǩ’Äú I stand by my statement that the longest drivers are swingers, and not hitters. Now, are you going to argue that Mike and Jamie are hitters?

Again (as before), adding statements like ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìtrue teachers” simply reflects your personal bias, and doesn't strengthen your argument about ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìfactual biomechanical issues”.

AB – my posts cannot independently harm a thread if everybody simply ignores my posts. What really harms threads are insulting comments that are ad hominem in character, rather than being “issue” oriented, and you are a recurrent winner in that arena.

Anyway, you will soon get a respite as I am leaving for a 3 week golf trip to Scotland in a few days. I plan to indulge in my other pet hobby interest – producing high-resolution photographic mosaic images of golf courses by stitching together 20-40 individual 12MP images.

Jeff.

Guru has suggested we split this thread into subsegments, as these posts have covered a lot of ground…

I have kept most of my posts here for the simple reason of organization.. being able to reference back to something if I need to.
I find that if I post all over the forum, I find myself not always getting back to a particular post, or even remember that I posted there, which might lead to me not answering a question, and so forth.

I have tried to answer everyone’s questions here with as much insight as I can.. and have enjoyed learning from everyone’s experiences also.

Question for the forum here..

Should we just continue here as we have?

Should I sift through this forum and consolidate ideas and then re post as individual topics?

Would people here rather see me randomly post on various threads?

Should I start a Q and A type thread?

I have kept most of my posts here for the simple reason of organization.. being able to reference back to something if I need to.
I find that if I post all over the forum, I find myself not always getting back to a particular post, or even remember that I posted there, which might lead to me not answering a question, and so forth.

<

Lag
Looking at your swing photos I have the feeling that you are using a dual horizontal hinge action, (wich is not quite the rule for hitting procedure) with left wrist rolling very early in the BackSwing.
Am I right?
If yes what are the advantages vs more traditional angled hinge action?
Thank you

philthevet06,

Typically the hinge action would refer to the action the hands take after impact.. of course this to an extent is predetermined by the intent of direction (longitudinal or radial).. I use an angled hinge as a hitter.. there is no feeling of a roll at all.. the clubface is kept square to the shoulders after impact using the bigger muscles of the body and torso’s rotation.

At parallel 3 both hitters and swingers might look quite similar, but in the case of my release I would use a non automatic release, meaning the shaft is “fired” with a deliberate rotation of the right forearm into the impact area.. it’s a lot like slamming a door shut, once it hits the frame it goes no further.. I taught myself to do this using an impact bag.
The real key here is that once impact is reached, the hips then take over the firing, and the body picks up speed in an attempt to keep the clubshaft accelerating over to parallel 4. In a final attempt to continue this acceleration, the shaft is ripped upward from the flat plane into a high finish by the upper arms again pulling the club shaft from a hands or elbow plane, to a shoulder plane… this action feels as if you are still keeping pressure on the shaft.

There is no doubt that what one feels and what is actually happening
are often different.

If you are to have any chance of holding the flex all the way to the ball, you will have to feel as if you are reaching maximum velocity at the 4rth parallel.

This is why it is SO important that you start the downswing slow,
because to keep the club accelerating, the club must continually increase in velocity, and each golfer must know their own capacity to do so.. if you start too fast on the downswing, and you don’t have the rotational speed with the right forearm into impact, or lack the ability to rotate the hips with great speed just after impact, or you swing into too flat a finish, all these things can cause acceleration to stop,
and when that happens, golf becomes a game of chance rather than of precision.

An unstressed clubshaft arriving at impact will offer a large variety of possible impact alignments.. and perfect might be one of them, but only maybe one in 20? (I’m guessing here)

This is why most golfers who are not good players sometimes hit great shots.. random acts of unstressed clubshaft impact alignments.

The golfer perceives that they did something correct or “right” when in fact they just experienced a random act of chance..

Lag
Thank you so much for your clear and precise explanation.
It seems that I made an important confusion. I thought that we had to have a concordance between the role of wrists during the backswing and during the hinge action. So i.e. for angled hinge : no roll feeling during the backswing and no roll during the impact release. Doing this I was missing a lot of # 2 when using angled hinge.
By the way is it possible to hit with horizontal hinge?

I just realized I sidestepped the backswing issue..

A golfer has several options for the backswing loading

You can set the hands early,
set them gradually
set them late,
or even set them on the way down
these are talked about in TGM as sweep, snap, float and so forth..

Late loads will offer a more shut looking clubface on the way back
an early set should appear to the golfer as an open face going back.

The bottom line is I have seen all kinds of backswings play excellent golf, it’s not one of my big worries, I think where you have the clubshaft at the top is much more important than how it arrived there..

My personal preference is an early set for hitters and a late set for swingers.. the reason would be as a hitter I limit my centripetal force
and drive load the shaft, where as a swinger should welcome more centripetal force, and this is helpful in the transfer to centrifugal (outward) force that is so paramount for the swinger using a longitudinal snapping delivery.

The backswing is not going to be the same visually on the downswing because of the compression of the shaft inward toward the body on the downswing via centripetal force (acceleration toward the center) so a golfer should feel some kind of looping motion, and this should also be seen visually to some varying degree.

is it possible to hit with horizontal hinge?

It would not be at all practical..

The backswing is not going to be the same visually on the downswing because of the compression of the shaft inward toward the body on the downswing via centripetal force (acceleration toward the center) so a golfer should feel some kind of looping motion, and this should also be seen visually to some varying degree.

Lag Pressure throwaway is the root of all golf’s evils

That sounds like the feeling I had yesterday, only put into better and more precise wording!

is it possible to hit with horizontal hinge?

It would not be at all practical..

Lag Pressure throwaway is the root of all golf’s evils

Lag
I will state my opinion here hopefully without upsetting TGM experts ( not directed at anyone on this forum ok maybe jeffmann lol )
I tend to see your swing through impact as being similar to the one employed by Ben Hogan later in his career where the shoulder turn is more level and angle hinge is in use. However this can appear to be more towards a horizontal hinge .
I can be sure that plenty of swing sequence tgm expert analysis
will result in many arguements and differing opinions
BTW you can quote Chuck Evans stating Tom Tomasello as teaching hitting with a horizontal hinge

Slinger – you are correct to state that horizontal hinging can be used with hitting – HK states that fact in the TGM book. Although horizontal hinging fits naturally with a swinger’s swing, while angled hinging fits naturally with a hitter’s swing, a skilled golfer (hitter or swinger) can deliberately interchange the type of hinging to suit his ball flight requirements.

Jeff.

Homer also said about a hitter and a Horizontal Hinge, “I do not know why a hitter would want to use it.”

Too much manipulation to time would be my guess as to why.

Guys, as I posted yesterday can we please split this thread into some subsegments of your choosing. There are way too many bits to this for readers to be able to follow going on.

ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìEnergy Transfer” might cope with a big chunk.
ˆ¢’Ǩ‰ìSeems as If” a heap more sub plots.

It has been mentioned by Lag and Phil that creating various threads may reduce the impact of what is already here and by Lag posting in a number of different threads, he may lose his way on where answers are required.

To alleviate same, what is the chance of having a dedicated forum site as is the case with Golf Instruction, Golf Talk, The Lounge etc?

Call it the Swing Shop or something, (could take the place of Golf Course Architecture maybe) but then Lag will have a home that anybody can go to and he will be able to address whatever the question that is raised of him.

The down side I suppose is that it could be seen as a forum to ask the same questions as would be directed to the Ask Golf Guru forum, but this should not be the case as both Guru and his fellow trust members have a lot to offer that I am sure Lag would not wish to encrouch upon.

Similarly, it would appear that the interest in what Lag has to offer, that interest appears to extend to Guru, Dart and others of the ‘brainst trust’ as welI, is quite solid as well. Already 22 pages, 524 post, 11,000+ visits to the thread. Perhaps this would then allow for the inhabitants of this great site to all have something to offer and to learn in a dedicated forum area.

Just a thought….....

Lag: drop me a line on golfguruATiseekgolfDOTcom and lets see what we can do that you are happy with. I appreciate a bunch your efforts to bring the good stuff to the crew and also appreciate that you are doing it out of a joy of helping out as well as it does take up time from your everyday life:)

Homer Kelley maintained that swinging is easier than hitting?

The Dart stated that hitting is easier than swinging?

Which is true?

Royssh,

I can teach any one to hit in 5 shots. A 9 iron 60 mtrs that are crisp and clean.

I could not guarantee the same result with swinging inside 5 years. A sense of CF takes a lot of trust. Some have no faith that God will release the club for them. Most A graders are quitting and steering to some extent. Eddie Merrins ( top US coach) put his swing in Golf Digest in the 70’s and he was steering and quitting like a pupil. Bent left wrist at the 4th Parallel as we can say now

I think the reason is that hitting approaches the pupils natural urge to hack at the ball and steer. A good hit is not far from that.

However once hitting is “mastered”, swinging is simple because now they know the alignments. FLW. PPP. SPL

Anyone who has been around a while will be trying to swing. That is what they see a right. I teach them punch shots to show them what impact should feel like and they can use it if their swing falls apart.

Swinging requires momentum transfer from an instant acceleration start down and a full roll. Who is going to do that ?

I don’t know why Homer said swinging is easier.

I would love to have a teaching race. Take twenty pupils I pick one then he picks one and lets see who does the best over any time span. Write the book and the movie print the T shits and see what the truth is.

I just realized I sidestepped the backswing issue..

A golfer has several options for the backswing loading

You can set the hands early,
set them gradually
set them late,
or even set them on the way down
these are talked about in TGM as sweep, snap, float and so forth..

Late loads will offer a more shut looking clubface on the way back
an early set should appear to the golfer as an open face going back.

Well said phil.

Here’s a link to Mac O’Grady’s swing just taken a few weeks ago. I’m curious to hear Lagpressure’s comments on Mac’s action. Is his move similar to the hitting action you describe in your swing with the hands and arms cutting left after impact holding off a Centrifugal release down the line?

What’s your take on the low hands position at address?

Curious to hear your comments.

Mac O’Grady Swing June 2008

Mac has such a traditional swing pattern in that video – he uses horizontal hinging followed by a typical finish swivel action. It is the same hinging/finish action used by the majority of PGA tour players.

His hand position at address is also very standard – similar to Badds and Luke Donald in the following photos.

Badds

Luke Donald

Jeff.

The following photo sequence shows that Mac O Grady has the typical swing pattern of a swinger and not a hitter.

MacOGrady

Image 1 shows that he uses a start-up swivel action during the takeaway. Image 2 shows that he completes the left hand roll with an extra 1/4 turn. Image 3 shows that his left hand slides down the plane during the mid-downswing with the back of the left hand parallel to the inclined plane. Image 4 shows that he uses horizontal hinging – the back of his left hand moves horizontally back/leftwards in the followthrough.

Jeff.

Jeff
How is the weather in Scotland?
I am not an expert as you are but my conviction is that we have to take care of “typical swing pattern(s)”.
Homer Kelley point 10 imperatives that may differenciate hitters from swingers. Hinging action is just one of these 10.
Lag loading is what make the real difference. “The correct Lag Pressure Feel… ” says Homer. For myself I cannot appreciate what exactly MacOGrady is feeling.
Maybe Lagpressure can help?

The following photo sequence shows that Mac O Grady has the typical swing pattern of a swinger and not a hitter.

MacOGrady

Image 1 shows that he uses a start-up swivel action during the takeaway. Image 2 shows that he completes the left hand roll with an extra 1/4 turn. Image 3 shows that his left hand slides down the plane during the mid-downswing with the back of the left hand parallel to the inclined plane. Image 4 shows that he uses horizontal hinging ˆ¢’Ǩ’Äú the back of his left hand moves horizontally back/leftwards in the followthrough.

Jeff.

Jeff
Image 1 i kinda see single action wrist cock
image 4 horizontal hinge????
Maybe Dart Guru Lag Bio could drop their opinions for clarification

The categories get blurry at this level. Only the player knows what is going on.

The whole point of knowledge is to get up the ladder, not to argue about the rungs. Make your own ladder when you get good enough, ‘till then stay with a safe one.

He is there and he can do what he likes and think what he likes. Let’s go.

Last post before I leave for Scotland.

Slinger – look at the clubface during the followthrough. One can see that his clubface is near-vertical to the ground at the this time point.with the clubface pointing left-backwards. With angled hinging, it would be facing more skywards at this time point, and be more targetwards-oriented.

Phil – It is my understanding (from Lynn Blake) that a start up swivel action during the takeaway, and a slide of the back of the left hand down the plane in the mid-downswing, doesn’t occur in a hitter’s action. A hitter keeps the clubface more closed to the arc during the takeaway and his power accumulator #2 release occurs at the same time as #3 release, while a swinger releases PA #2 before #3 (in a sequence). You can see that happening in MacOGrady’s swing – he has a very typical swinger’s release swivel action.

Jeff.

Mac is a hitter, always has been… always will be..
Mac will tell you he is a hitter, I can see it, and can assure you
he is feeling it, and all the telltale signs are there even looking at
pictures.

Forget any hinging action on the backswing. Mac could start his swing at the top of his backswing, and would not lose any distance. In other words, you could hand the club to Mac, or place it in his hands at the top of his backswing, and he would be fine starting from there.

Mac is wise to NOT attempt a big load from the transition of backswing to downswing. He knows he would have no chance of maintaining the flex on the shaft all the way down if he did. This isn’t something you can’t see in stop action photos, but if you see him in person, it’s really obvious what he is doing. He has the look that he could stop at the top of his backswing, go have lunch, come back and continue his swing without any issues.

This is drive loading at it’s finest hour.
He loads the lag (flex) on the shaft on the way down, and much further down that most would be comfortable with. He really starts loading the stress on the shaft as he approaches parallel #3 not at the transition at the top.

This (Mac) is classic radial acceleration.

Radial acceleration is like the teeth spinning on a saw blade. (hitting)

Longitudinal acceleration is the force applied like cracking a whip, or water shooting down through a garden hose. (swinging)

Completely different action and intent.

A swinger can utilize things like maximum swing radius, and a big loading of the shaft at the backswing transfer to create a massive
centripetal force to then be unleashed upon the ball via centrifugal force, a snapping action, it would feel like an “out to in.. to out” (think outward backswing, inward loading at the transfer, outward unleashing to the ball) Swinging feels like a three step process when you are trying to MAX it out.

Mac passes up on all this stuff, and focuses on drive loading the shaft through an accelerating rotation of the body. He keeps his hands in close like a figure skater would as they go into a spin…
like a spinning top.

Now if you take Ben Hogan, he loaded like a swinger, lots of lag loading, then added more drive load on the way down. He did both..
but he was smart to shorten his backswing to make this possible.
Is this theoretically the best way to swing a club? YES!
Is this practical for most humans that walk the earth? NO

Hogan had the fastest hips and rotation of any human I have seen.
The only other golfer that I have seen similar is the Peter Senior of the late 1980’s.

I can assure you that Mac experimented with this in his early days,
and came to the conclusion that for him, it would be better to simplify the motion.

I SWING thru (or try to) to HIT the ball away !

my ‘swinging’ or ‘hitting’ thought :)

Now if you take Ben Hogan, he loaded like a swinger, lots of lag loading, then added more drive load on the way down. He did both..
but he was smart to shorten his backswing to make this possible.
Is this theoretically the best way to swing a club? YES!
Is this practical for most humans that walk the earth? NO

Lag how would you add drive loading to lag loading on the way down. Would you activate pp1 and drive it?
Remember i asked before can one switch from logitudenal acceleration to radial acceleration midway into the downswing

You can master anything but let’s get to first base and shoot a few 68’s. Then drive yourself nuts.

Ask first what are we trying to actually do! Then ask why. Then ask how. The answers will not be that hard and life will be more fun.

You can master anything but let's get to first base and shoot a few 68's. Then drive yourself nuts.

Ask first what are we trying to actually do! Then ask why. Then ask how. The answers will not be that hard and life will be more fun.

Are my questions bothering you? If so i would rather you just come out and state it as i am tired of hearing the first base bs

Slinger,

Once you get a clear picture of the true difference between radial acceleration and longitudinal, a light bulb will go off, and you will understand these posts..

I really can’t think of a better way to explain hitting and swinging
and the forces and hinges necessary to execute those protocols.
Go back and re read the posts on here about it, I have posted a few.
But DO ask questions, as a new light bulb may go off for me so I can better explain what I believe to be true..

It is a very hard thing to see unless you have stop action photos..

The high speed photos of the clubface position just after impact to the
4rth parallel are like DNA samples to a forensic scientist. It tells the whole story really.

Moe Norman has all the trademarks of a hitter, yet he is a swinger.
He even talks like a hitter, yet his photos show a full roll duel horizontal hinging after impact. He looks a lot like Hogan but his trick was to swing on almost a shoulder plane. He almost swings on a true non shifting swing plane. This may very well hold the secret to his amazing accuracy and could be the swing of the future. It is the simplest swing I have ever seen. He eliminates so many unnecessary movements it’s easy to see why it repeats so beautifully.

I would have to say that if I were to go back to swinging, I might very well take a look at what Moe does and apply that concept.
He uses what I believe to be the 5th accumulator, but does it swinging, which you can’t do if you are swinging from a flatter plane.

Moe starts by grounding the club two feet behind the ball, well into his backswing, his right leg is already straight at address, closed and turned. He sets himself up to make a great turn every time by setting up at address with half his backswing already in place.

With his hands set high from the start, his impact alignments are right there too, and with great extensor action he picks the ball clean with little or no divot much like a hitter would, and unlike the big divots that most swingers should feel from a standard set up.

Moe in a sense sets new standards for what a swinging protocol can look like. It’s really great stuff, and I am so blessed to have seen him, met him and picked his brain for a few years while I was playing on the Canadian Tour in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Again,

You can’t switch from swinging to hitting on the way down. The force on the shaft from a foot before to a foot after impact can’t do both.
It has to do one or the other.

I believe you CAN stress the shaft hard against pp#3 with a sharp transition, and you CAN drive it further with more stress on the shaft via pp#1 (Hogan’s 3 right arms) but the backswing would most likely have to be very short, a super tight and fast body rotation, with a world class left hip, just ripping violently left during and after impact, and the upper arms tight on the body with an angled hinge. Sound familiar?

That’s what Hogan did… and why his legacy as the greatest ball striker ever… lives to this day nearly 50 years after his final competitive days.

Again,

You can't switch from swinging to hitting on the way down. The force on the shaft from a foot before to a foot after impact can't do both.
It has to do one or the other.

I believe you CAN stress the shaft hard against pp#3 with a sharp transition, and you CAN drive it further with more stress on the shaft via pp#1 (Hogan's 3 right arms) but the backswing would most likely have to be very short, a super tight and fast body rotation, with a world class left hip, just ripping violently left during and after impact, and the upper arms tight on the body with an angled hinge. Sound familiar?

That's what Hogan did… and why his legacy as the greatest ball striker ever… lives to this day nearly 50 years after his final competitive days.

Lag Pressure throwaway is the root of all golf’s evils

Lag
Thanks a really good explanation there and a great visual

Moe Norman n Hogan the BEST in the WOrld of ball striking
thanks Lag…...you should get an honorary Professor in Golf

Dart: Slinger can shoot pretty close to 68s:)

Slinger,

Moe Norman has all the trademarks of a hitter, yet he is a swinger.

Yes Phil,

The full roll hinge is the dead give away.
I had never seen a good player swing on a shoulder plane…
until Moe..
Very different than Mac.

Moe was not super long, but long enough…

Most of the TGM guys from my generation took big divots,
the down and out thing.. Moe would tell me “no divots” or if any
he would say “bacon strips not pork chops..!”

You can master anything but let's get to first base and shoot a few 68's. Then drive yourself nuts.

Ask first what are we trying to actually do! Then ask why. Then ask how. The answers will not be that hard and life will be more fun.

Are my questions bothering you? If so i would rather you just come out and state it as i am tired of hearing the first base bs

Slinger,

That is probably because it’s true.

When someone starts chasing complexity (rainbows) they have missed a basic point. See if I am right or wrong.

Don’t worry I won’t say it again.

PS: I have some photos of young Moe Norman swing down in one of my hard drive. I ˆ¢’ǨÀúll try to post them quickly .

I’m french, but I treat myself…

Here they are
I personnaly love frames 7 et 8 : arms and shoulder are still moving to the end of the backswing; Left knee and hips are already on the way left…

I’m french, but I treat myself…

Moe Norman n Hogan the BEST in the WOrld of ball striking
thanks Lag……you should get an honorary Professor in Golf

If Tiger plays Lefty will he be that good ?
You sure Square is Good ? Don’t Think So !
Good Golf is Fun plus the Great Outdoors…
In the Bag: Clubs and Balls. My Handicap is Bad Golf.

Just for fun …

Thanks Phil,

They look like identical twins..
It sure looks like Moe in the last photo has that
shaft flexed back and loaded, a pre stressed shaft
going into impact.

Like Dart says, you can spend a lot of time worrying
about a lot of things in the golf swing, but really this is
the most basic of points, and the sooner a golfer has
that “awakening” the sooner they are on the path to
REAL improvement.

While I am eagerly awaiting the delivery of my own TGM book in the mail, I think the penny finally dropped when Lag said the hit feels like the teeth on a circular saw and the swing feels like the lag and dump into the ground.
I believe up to now I have been randomly feeling both swings during the one round of golf without knowing the hows or whys .
Which brings me to the point: Is there a particular reason why you would want to use either swing for a particular FULL shot( I read Lags post on why you would swing for the short game and hit for the full shots)?
Now that I know I can use either swing( and have done for years haphazardly!!!), it would be nice to know if a low boring drive for example is better suited to one or the other swing type .
I have noticed that my drives with a hit average 260m with a slight draw and my drives with a swing averages 230m with a fade.
My full swing iron play however is much more inconsistent(only average 8-9 GIR).
Cheers
Golfur

66: The great thing with knowing the difference between then and learning how to produce both sources of power is that it gives you a wide variety of options shot to shot.

Lag likes short game swinging. I would hazard a guess here that he has a fine sense of ‘touch’ in letting CF do its thing from years of practice and play. Many hitters love the right arm piston only approach – fewest # of moving parts in play, to get a short shot from A to B.

In general, you will just know if you are in control enough as a swinger to hit FULL shots time after time in control with all the accumulators functioning to peak capacity or not. If not then hitting is a good option even for full shots as a tame fade is easier to talk to than a harassed hook.

Swings feel roundy oily. Hits feel like a good punch.

Swings feel roundy oily. Hits feel like a good punch.

I think I heard my penny drop :-)

“Kachingggg”

When you say a hit feels like a good punch, are you meaning a punch shot or the motion a boxer might make (I am assuming the tropical fruit punch, spiked or not, is not what you are talking about)?

Boxing motion is on the button. A real thrust as opposed to a pivot pulling the thrust through as baggage.

Should the speed of rotation of the torso (sternum perhaps) control the height of the shot? ( This only relates to any non-full shot as that’s the extent of my lessons so far).
Assume that I want to hit the same distance for each type of shot.
My coach has me holding the lag with my right hand from the end of the backswing and just using a longer backswing combined with a slower rotation for a high shot which will lose the lag earlier.
For the low punch shot, shorter backswing and faster rotation which will hold the lag longer producing the lower punchier shot.
Before these lesson, I used to try to use more or less hand action coupled with different ball position to suit the shot.

Pivot controlled hands are possible but not recommended.

To change height, change clubface action (hinge) and or ball position.

Guru is spot on…
Pivot controlled hands would not be desired by any means.

A faster torso rotation will hit the ball farther, and as the ball goes farther, it will climb higher to do so.

I find I can do about anything with a golf ball from the same ball position. If I need to hit it low, I take a less lofted club, then either shorten my backswing so I still am acceleration oriented, or I might choke down to shorten the radius, but I do that less often.

If I have to hit it higher, I take less club, and rotate a bit faster as to hit it a bit farther.

My normal iron swing feels 80% capacity… so I always have an extra 20% at anytime if I need it..

The reason I don’t swing at full capacity all day is that it is harder to keep constant feel of lag pressure when you are going all out all the time.

Swinging within yourself takes some discipline, and this is a sign of a player’s maturity.

I was listening to Homer yesterday on tape that is. He said if you start back with body first, hands controling pivot is hard to get back before the downswing starts. Better to use a right fore arm take away on plane with firm wrists.

Interesting stuff guys.

Would it be fair to say that proper loading and lag development would be inefficient with a body controlled pivot?

Not sure if it is my place to comment on this thread (being a chopper) but to me, LAG PRESSURE hit the nail on the head in stating, swinging within yourself takes discipline for the “maturing golfer”. It sure does. I used to be tempted to go at it and lose some control but these days I swing “easy”. Perhaps swinging easy is not the right term but understanding what your swing does up and back and eradicating the crap or simplifying it has worked for me.At the start of the year I was a chopper off 8 or so and am down to a 4 chopper and it was through getting back to basics and making things “simple”. A shorter back swing, more compact if you like and “waiting” for the ball. You pull the trigger and if you go at at, you will miss that feel of “timing”.
I watch some of the guys at my club who play off scratch, + or 1/2 handicaps and their swings are compact, their fundamentals are solid and it looks effortless at times apart from a few with shocking anger management skills. Hey, we have all thrown a club in the past.
As for different trajectories, yeah, for sure, change that ball position with your irons, I do, but not too far back/forward. When you get to understand your swing as you improve, one can hit shots with minimal ball position changes. Swing shorter, take another club etc, less follow through, shaping the ball. I find it is great practice to take out a mid-iron on the range and try different ball positions, experiment with a “full” shoulder turn, a turn not so much for shorter shots or punches but beware of the block. It is also great to experiment with altering one’s grip on the range to see what happens bearing. Am I making sense?

Tim28 that sure does.

Interesting post Tim. Playing off single figures by no means qualifies you as a chopper, but I think you already know that!

I like the bit where you say about once you understand your swing one can hit shots with minimal ball position changes. Since working with TGM I am finding I don’t move it at all when I shape on the range. I have now found that if I either alter my aiming point, direct the plane line to my starting point of flight, utilise downswing lag or play with my release types (more often then not combining them) I can hit the shape or tradjectory I desire.

It is amazing that once you understand impact zone dynamics and the laws that govern the geometry and physics of impact, how many new possibilities open up. At times it feels like I am a beginner again.

Even swinging the driver all out, currently am feeling that I have endless amounts of time to apply the club more efficiently through impact. It is a strange sensation!

Keep up the good work Tim.

I like to feel I am always hitting hard with the body… but the better I am playing, the later that hit feels. I like to feel I am really going at it with the rotational speed of the body around 2/3’s of the way down. I like to feel the club is just gliding down from the top, then as the shaft passes the 3rd parallel it’s a very strong effort, almost violent… left knee straightens, hips really firing, torso picking up speed, all this feeling well beyond impact, over to parallel #4.

A half or 3/4 backswing will still have the same sensation of power applied at the bottom. This really creates a feel of sameness from driver to wedge with all the “in between” shots.

This topic was applied yesterday during a round with a fellow pro whom I had traveled with on the Australian Tour in 87. After catching up on things, and talking about equipment changes, we were comparing the blades from the past with some of the newer stuff bigger irons out now, and I had left my 9 iron in his garage. On the first hole I needed a nine iron shot into the first green! The shot called for a soft 9 really, so rather than try to muscle a wedge, I took and 8 iron, and just shortened the backswing, in doing so, I was able to still hit it hard, staying aggressive and setting up the rhythm of my swing for the round. The ball landed with good spin about 20 feet pin high left.

The point here is you don’t always have to swing easier.. often a player will end up quiting on the shot, and or give up the acceleration and impact alignments by going “easy”

Just something to ponder here..

Ball striking doesn’t need to be any different than putting. Putting is a series of different backswing lengths, all day long. On the greens I like to feel the same acceleration, just different backswing lengths.

It’s not a bad idea to go out sometimes and play with every other club missing from your bag.

Again, this is hitting protocol, and quite different than what you might want to feel from a “swinging” sensation.

I like to feel the club is just gliding down from the top, then as the shaft passes the 3rd parallel it's a very strong effort, almost violent… left knee straightens, hips really firing, torso picking up speed, all this feeling well beyond impact, over to parallel #4.

I was listening to Homer yesterday on tape that is. He said if you start back with body first, hands controling pivot is hard to get back before the downswing starts. Better to use a right fore arm take away on plane with firm wrists.

Where did you get the tape Dart?

As the clubhead gains speed, centrifugal outward force will make the club feel heavier as it gains inertia…

As a hitter… the slamming of a door feels correct as the angle hinge slams into impact and keeps an open to square feeling from parallel 3 to parallel 4.

A firm and heavy feeling through the impact arena is certainly desirable… as long as this feeling is maintained well beyond impact.
Sustain the lag..

I just returned from a road trip and played some golf with some old friends who also enjoy a good game of persimmon. The subject of technique vs. technology came up on more than one occasion. One of the young pros we played with had his first experience with persimmon . He had never tried hitting a one iron either. Needless to say it was a tough day for him. This led me to think….. would the average golfer benefit from practicing with “tough to hit” clubs? It certainly takes more skill to strike a long iron high and straight with consistency, than to chop down on a series of 5 wedges. Learning to hit good long iron shots would always be beneficial for any long clubs, especially a driver. The mid irons would benefit as well. After a bit more thought, it might seem the modern game of juiced up distance takes a lot of the need for long irons out of the game, and I am seeing a lot of golfers leaving those “tough to hit clubs” at home or replacing them with other easy to hit combo clubs.

The young pro told us he doesn’t carry long irons, yet was complaining about not being able to find his swing bottom. Nothing could teach you about your swing’s bottom more than a 1-2 or 3 iron. A ball too far back won’t get off the ground… too far forward and the ball would be skulled or hit thin.

Any one else having a similar problem?

I was listening to Homer yesterday on tape that is. He said if you start back with body first, hands controling pivot is hard to get back before the downswing starts. Better to use a right fore arm take away on plane with firm wrists.

Where did you get the tape Dart?

Royssh,

I can’t say

TGM has them on DVD for there instructors. There are 120 hrs. of Homer and team.

There are golf schools, some going through the book and some going though the 580 questions of the instructors examination, Homer only and meal time conversations.

It demonstrates a whole new mind set. I wish the world was ready for it.

ISG aims at being a half way house. All are welcome.

I was listening to Homer yesterday on tape that is. He said if you start back with body first, hands controling pivot is hard to get back before the downswing starts. Better to use a right fore arm take away on plane with firm wrists.

Dart, great quote, that’s going in the filing cabinet, wouldn’t mind sticking it on a wall in every club house, Better set a example I’ll frame the quote and stick it on the wall at work for all students to see.

This led me to think….. would the average golfer benefit from practicing with ’Äútough to hit” clubs?

Lag Pressure throwaway is the root of all golf’s evils

I think I posted a while back that I had put a half set of my old Ram Tour Grind blades from the late 80s into a bag with a persimmon 3 wood and Driver.

When I go back to my Callaway X-20 Tours and FT-5 driver it is a hell of a lot easier!

My thinking behind this relates to when I heard of how the cricketer Don Bradman used to practice his batting by using a stump as someone bowled a golf ball at him.

In almost every other sport, practice is harder than when you play. In golf, we go to 300 yard wide ranges with zero trouble, we take 3 balls to the chipping and putting greens – the practice is easier!

I think the task should be stretching without breaking. Too easy is will bore you stupid but too hard will kill you off.

Pick the degree of difficulty that is most exciting and illuminating.

When you are successful all you need is a sustaining exercise to maintain skill levels.

Good point Styles about practicing..

Make it tougher in practice, and then you go to the course for something easier. I think that is an excellent suggestion.

I played a round today with one of my sets… 1940’s circa Top Flight irons.
It’s amazing, but if you strike them well, they really go. The shafts were just a bit loose for me so the ball would tend to climb a little faster than I like, but after a few holes I could tell where the shafts were kicking. I hit a few really nice shots with them, not sure I had real pin point accuracy with them but again that’s probably the shafts and not the blades themselves. All in all I was able to muster a 71 with such outdated archaic gear. Not sure if I played with new stuff I would have scored much better.. I don’t see how it would have taken three shots off my score. Maybe a few more putts dropping would though..lol

I have to believe that most golfers would do much better taking some instruction or lessons from someone who really understands the golf swing. A new $1000 set of clubs might not lower your scores, but if you put that money towards a series of lessons from people here like Guru or Dart and put in a little sweat, I am certain that would do a tremendous amount more to improve your game.

I just can’t express the value in figuring out how to strike good long iron shots. The short irons will seem easy if you can hit the long ones!! I don’t think anyone is doing themselves any favors leaving the long irons at home in replace of combo clubs.

Nothing is going to test your swings health better than striking a 3 iron. Nothing could do your game better than to figure out to hit the tough sticks. Any player with any high ideas in their self vision should really re think this.

The problem I see with most weekend golfers is that they don’t understand where their low point is…or should be.. You absolutely can’t hit good long irons with the ball too far back in the stance.
You can’t chop down on them like with a wedge or 9 iron.

Hi everyone,

I posted the thread “Flat vs Upright” in an attempt to shed some light upon the subject. Feel free to ask questions here, and as Guru suggested it might be better to break this lengthy thread into sub categories that could be searched on at a later date.

This thread has covered a lot more than just the original posting question, discuss hitting vs swinging… pros and cons. There have been some wonderful contributions here by many on a wide variety of topics.

Again, feel free to suggest topics of discussion or areas of interest that we all can learn from.

John

Just been practicing with a good muscle back iron. A few finger stingers sure makes you wake up that something being used is being lazy:)

I played yesterday with a classic set of 1965 Dyna Powered fluid feel muscle backs irons, it was the first day out with them after re doing all the loft and lies 4 degrees descending from the 9 iron at 44 degrees down to a 16 degree two iron. The one iron I set at 13 degrees. All the lies set at 1 degree flat. The shafts are a little loose from what I used on tour, as I always hit X100’s but once I felt the kick point I didn’t have to chip much. End result? 68.

Tomorrow I’ll be hitting 1974 Hogan Apex. They are great classic blades with the Hogan 4 shafts and I have them all set up the same as the Dyna’s. The shafts are 1 inch longer than the Dyna’s so I might hit them just a touch farther. I don’t use yardages anymore, just a quick look at a 150 marker is about all I’ll do just to get my mind in the ballpark. I’m really just moving my game into a higher state of intuition
and feel, with a freedom that is quite refreshing compared to the days of over analyzing every yardage, or how many clubs of wind, elevation calculations, topography and so forth that can really cripple our natural ability to figure these things out by just using our instinct. I always felt a bit of a tug of war between the whole yardage thing. Sometimes even when I knew the exact yardage and double checked it with my caddie, I would still feel something wasn’t right, and then would often make some kind of indecisive swing that usually would end up with poor results. I find now, that once I decide what club to hit, without the exact yardage to go off, it’s easier to really commit to the shot because I am basing my shot on feel, the feel of what it looks like, and feels like based upon all the factors, wind, uphill downhill, and so forth. Once I get the feeling in my head of the shot and club to hit, it’s just all about execution. I don’t really know how well it would work in competition, but I don’t think my clubs nor the ball itself could know the difference. I also know that I missed many greens long or short back in the tour days armed with all the appropriate info… then feeling really frustrated that I didn’t just go with my gut feeling.

How much do you rely on exact yardages (metering)?

Lag…...I have read many of your posts. Do you wish to have people going back in time with clubs and tech? It is great if you can hit a wood or whatever but I say get with the program mate. It is 2008 and not 1998. I is great to talk about things but to comment about some aspects of golf are…well….I will leave that up to you and and be a bystander for now. Lets help the average golfer?

thats not very useful Jayden. Leave the LP alone, he just prefers a purer form of the game.

LP, the ‘harder’ practice seems to be working. I’ve been using a Wislon Staff FG55 1 iron in practice and when I say its tough to hit, I mean its fecking tough to hit!

However, my Cally 2 iron on the course is easy to hit!

I’ve found that I am getting big 30 yard hooks when practicing with the persimmon driver and 3 wood. I don’t get it as extreme with my ‘modern’ clubs on course though. The 1 iron I tend to push and get a left to right shape.

With regards to yardage, I know that I am happier to know the yardage than guessing. However, one of the best 9 holes of golf I ever played (I missed a 15 footer on the 9th to be 5 under for the 9) was played on total instinct. It was at a time when I had been listening regularly to subliminal tapes and hypnotism tapes. I vividly remember one hole where ordinarily I would have hit wedge but on arrival at the ball I just ‘knew’ it was a 7 iron. I hit the 7 iron to a couple of inches!

Once again though, interesting sub topic.

Learned a lot from watching this year’s Open at Birkdale – seeing Greg Norman hit 5-iron to go about 120 yards into a strong wind along with loads of other ‘odd’ clubbing decisions.

Next week had a wind into me but a ‘7-iron’ shot which I might have easily decided was a ‘hard seven’ the week before.

Hit the 5-iron with a half swing, and got it very nicely to the center of the green.

A clubbing lesson (finally, and not before time) learned…..

Jayden,

Only offering up observations from the only perspective I have..

My preference for older gear is really simple. With irons I like the weight right behind the ball at impact not around the perimeter. If I could show you the set I used for the majority of my competitive days I think you would understand. As far as woods, I like the feel and sound of wood. I can work the ball better left and right off the tee, which I really need at my course, and I have no interest in hitting the ball 40 yards farther on a course that was built in 1886. I like hitting a few wedges a round but not on every hole. I have always preferred the old style gamy kind of courses.. that’s why I loved playing in Australia. So many wonderful, lay of the land, courses,
tight fairways, fast greens, lot’s of wind and elements. It wasn’t always about hitting it far, and then chopping it out of the rough with a short iron. That wouldn’t work at “The Grange”, “New South Wales” or “The Golf Club of Tasmania”

Years ago I had a friend who was a bicycle racer, and he used to train on an old heavy Schwinn bike, and he would also wear baggy clothes to create more wind resistance. He narrowly missed the Olympic Team. I don’t know if that helped or hurt, but it was an interesting approach.

I think Styles is onto something training with a one iron in practice.
It’s the acid test of the golf swing. Get that right and the rest will seem like a walk in the park.

Yardages are no doubt valuable information to have. I don’t think I ever questioned that value much when I was on tour. I wonder if I put too much emphasis on it at times. Worrying too much about it can slow down play, and tend to cripple the mind, and can also offer the “NO WAY” syndrome when you come up short or fly one over the green even when you had the exact # and made a good swing.
“NO WAY” !!!! lol

Styles, great story about that nine holes.. stuff like that really has to make you think.. sounds like you were tapping into something beyond the normal protocol!

How often do you really feel the magic out there? It really is one of the greatest experiences in life when you are totally in the golf zone!

Lag……I have read many of your posts. Do you wish to have people going back in time with clubs and tech? It is great if you can hit a wood or whatever but I say get with the program mate. It is 2008 and not 1998. I is great to talk about things but to comment about some aspects of golf are…well….I will leave that up to you and and be a bystander for now. Lets help the average golfer?

Keep it simple

Comments showing a complete lack of intelligence and understanding? I definitely think so. There is a difference between reading words on a page and understanding what they mean. Obviously you have just encapsulated this for us Jayden!!

LP has NEVER said that everyone should ditch their modern irons and drivers to step back to blades and persimmon. He has offered tools though for anyone to improve. If you can hit a club that has a miniscule sweetspot in training how do you think you will go when you get on course with a tool that has a sweetspot akin to a tennis racquet? I have personally followed LP’s advice also and practice regularly with an old bladed 1 iron, my ball striking has never been better.

The thing is LP plays with these “old” tools to challenge himself (and he also respects and appreciates the games traditions). The man can shoot low 70’s and 60’s with these clubs on modern day courses. How easy would the game be for him if he used the modern technology? I think it would lose its challenge and beauty for LP.

Jayden, stay a bystander if you are going to pass ignorant comments like this, use the tools that make the game as easy as possible, never challenge yourself and enjoy your destiny to always be an AVERAGE GOLFER!!

AB

Styles, great story about that nine holes.. stuff like that really has to make you think.. sounds like you were tapping into something beyond the normal protocol!

How often do you really feel the magic out there? It really is one of the greatest experiences in life when you are totally in the golf zone!

Lag Pressure throwaway is the root of all golf’s evils

How often? Just that one time my friend! :-(

Certainly just the one time for such an extended period of time. There have been magical moments that are fleeting when you approach the green and just know you are going to hole the putt, or when you have to go around over and under something and you hit to 10 feet! The same can be said when you have a tricky pitch that you know if you land it just there it will bounce left then track for the hole.

At the end of the day, those are the moments we all strive for. The problem with the ‘zone’ is that the moment you realise you’ve been in it, you’re out of it!

What about you LP? Can you give us all an example where for 9 or 18 holes you had it on the shortest piece of string ever?

“The Zone” ... quite a topic!

For me there are three stretches that come to mind.

One of the strangest was in the 1983 US Amateur. I was just 19 at the time, I qualified in Hawaii to get their only spot, that I had to win in sudden death playoff. I qualified for the match play after some decent golf, and then won my first match which was a tough one. The second match I played, I beat former Champion Nathanial Crosby, which was particularly tough because everyone was rooting for him, being the son of the beloved Bing Crosby. The strangest match was against Billy Andrade. We were both really off that day. For some reason I couldn’t do anything but hook by driver. I don’t think I hit one fairway.
Billy has the opposite action going and was blocking every drive way right. This being a USGA Championship, the rough was really high, but no matter where I hit, I seemed to end up with a good lie and a shot at the green. Every time I hooked it left, into the deep trees, I would find it, and have a decent lie, and some kind of daylight shot at the green. Even my caddy was laughing! If there were ever mystical forces working out on the course it must have been that day.
Andrade was not so fortunate as he kept having to punch out and scrape for par or bogey. We only had to play 13 holes and I won the match 6 and 5.
Back in those days the final four players got invitations to play in the US Masters, so you can imagine how difficult it could be to get a good night’s sleep, yet alone getting one step closer to winning such an event. The quarter final match I faced Chris Perry who was the collegiate player of the year and had won 7 events that year. I really felt a bit out of my league, but I straightened out my driver and played a hell of a round against Perry rolling in a 15 foot birdie on the 17 to go one up going into the 18th, a long 4 par.
The stage was set after I hit a 4 wood to 40 feet on the left fringe.
Perry hit a long iron in above the hole about 30 feet. I putted up to about a foot good for par. Perry’s putt was straight downhill with about 8 feet of break, one of those “just get it rolling” kind of putts.
I can remember it as clear as day, thinking there is no way he is going to make this putt. I was so confident I had won the match, and a ticket to Magnolia Lane at Augusta. I remember him hitting the putt and watching Titleist rolling around the ball in a circle, it started way left, then took the break ever so slowly, rolling toward the hole.
I remember him raising his putter as it was about 6 feet away, and I watched it drop into the cup, and he was jumping around the green like he had made the greatest putt of all time. It really was incredible, and really tough to get composure for the playoff, but I still had a chance to win.
I remember being so pumped up, and actually believing I could beat this guy, I drove it 40 yards past him and had only a wedge left into a
444 yard 1rst hole. I must have driven the ball 320 yards with a piece of persimmon. Perry hit first, a 7 iron onto the front edge. I fired a wedge at the pin that landed 6 feet from the pin, but hit firm and bounced into the back rough leaving a tough downhill chip. Perry was away and putted up to about a foot, for par. My chip was played nicely landing on the fringe and trickling down the fast green stopping 6 feet past the hole. This time things didn’t go so well and my putt hit the right lip and spun out giving Chris the win. To think I was so close to getting a chance to play in the Masters was amazing
yet as one might imagine, very disappointing. It really was a tough way to lose because I really played out of my head and surprised myself by staying in “the zone” all week right to the finish. The 73rd hole I played well, even the putt was struck well and could have gone in. I still to this day wish I was talking about my experience at the 1984 Masters, rather than my defeat at North Shore CC in Chicago!

Nonetheless, this was the week that stands out as my most in “The Zone”

Greatstuff LG !
what a showdown
i think you are already a legend here with us !

Quick question to the forum,

With all these posts here and hopefully usable and practical information,has anyone been able to successfully apply any of the concepts we have gone over here, and felt some improvement or had any epiphanies of enlightenment?

It would be encouraging to hear some positive feedback, or get a report card on any significant progress made.

Lagpressure,
From you and dart, i have learnt so much more about homers work to teach my students, And there golf is improving at a vast rate of knots, I’m aiming in the future to get you over here and join forces with dart and guru for an iseek golf school, I thankyou for your time and knowledge being the next generation of T.G.M, I’m glad there are guys like you and dart to educated us younger coaches to ensure homers work lives on, thankyou.
P.s here’s some resuslts in the last six months , n.t champion, greg norman classic champion, nt.t junior ,boy and girl champion, a few club champions, vic state rep, a longdrive champ, all my students have improve from advice from dart, lagpressure and guru, thanks boys for showing me easier ways to teach and keep homers work alive

Lag- Great story, thanks for sharing.

Your posts are helping us all. It is especially useful to hear first hand thoughts from someone who has been trained by Homer’s first group of TGM instructors. It is great to know that Homer’s legacy will continue on to the next generation. As you noted when you first came to the board, TGM was treated like some of “cult” back in your playing days. Well, now with such great TGM instructors such as Dart, Guru, Yoda and people like you explaining concepts to the masses via the internet, we are now witnessing Homer’s dream being realized before our very eyes.

Thanks for the feedback, glad to hear that all these attempts at explanations are in fact having a real life effect on real people.
Keep the feedback coming, it’s helpful to me and keeps me thinking too.. I’ve been learning a lot here too, and playing some good golf recently.

I’m going to re post this here for anyone still confused about inside out swing paths…

Inside out swing path is very misunderstood. This as I have said before if because visually we look down on the plane from above… so from that vantage point we see the club moving in a circle… and this circle is going to be visually different going back than coming down…typically a bigger circle going back, smaller circle coming down.

Now if our eyes were in line with the plane we swing on, we would not see the arc of the clubhead, but the club would appear to move back and forth in a straight line. But as humans, we don’t get to see this.
Maybe we could putt like this?

Now TGM talks about hitting the inside quadrant, inside out and so forth… but again it is not really quite like this either.

The hands will appear to aim the butt end of the club right into 4:30
on the back of the ball… but then as the hands approach the ball,
(cocked and turned) the wrists swivel or rotate into the ball and the clubhead nails into the ball right at 3:00 (3:20 if you want to get technical to allow for compression and separation).

There are two ways to do this… (rotation of the wrists #3 power accumulator) first, you can rely on physics to do this, a mathematical formula that has to do with centrifugal force, angles, mass, and Inertia. P = mv or F = ma for you technical junkies.
This is the automatic release talked about in TGM. PASSIVE

This does work, but it makes two assumptions (huge in my opinion).
First, that the wrist are free and flexible.
Second, that acceleration is both steady and even.

If you interfere with the above, in any way, the shaft and clubhead can do any number of horrific and disastrous things.

The second way is to do this non automatically.. as discussed in TGM. In this case you fire the wrists with a muscular force, ACTIVE and not PASSIVE.

Here the hands also aim at 4:30, but at the last second, they fire and rotate squaring the club into the back of the ball 3:00 making a straight divot that basically aims right down the target or flight line.

Sounds easy, but the catch is that the body must still be moving faster than this sudden slashing motion of the hands. This is where you see the fast left hip that aids in the fast torso rotation of the upper body that supplies power to the #4 (left armpit) pressure point.
This really is advanced ball striking class, but if you can get it…
it’s worth a try..
this feels tight, firm deliberate, while the prior (automatic) would feel smooth, relaxed, and trusting.

Either way, it’s important to place the ball just prior to your low point.
(usually just inside the left heel, or straight down from the left armpit)

Quick question to the forum,

With all these posts here and hopefully usable and practical information,has anyone been able to successfully apply any of the concepts we have gone over here, and felt some improvement or had any epiphanies of enlightenment?

It would be encouraging to hear some positive feedback, or get a report card on any significant progress made.

Lag Pressure throwaway is the root of all golf’s evils

Lag
I use to print all your posts, and it is by far one of my favourite instruction book.
I cannot THANK YOU enough for so much sharing.

I actually love your golf stories
it’s like hearing from the ‘horse’s mouth’...a real touring pro telling his life to us !!

Quick question to the forum,

With all these posts here and hopefully usable and practical information,has anyone been able to successfully apply any of the concepts we have gone over here, and felt some improvement or had any epiphanies of enlightenment?

It would be encouraging to hear some positive feedback, or get a report card on any significant progress made.

Lag Pressure throwaway is the root of all golf’s evils

LP,

I think you already know how much I enjoy your posts and information. I am eternally grateful for what you have shared. Undoubtedly you have helped me take some large steps toward chasing that title as well as my dreams and ambitions. You are simply an amazing source of golf information and I personally feel lucky (as I am sure many here do) to have you as a virtual encyclopedia that I can ask anything.. No matter how stupid or off the beaten track it may be, you always listen and always respond encouragingly to get me personally back on track.

Look forward to getting to the US to see you in person, and bringing that long drive title into fruition! ;-)

Quick question to the forum,

With all these posts here and hopefully usable and practical information,has anyone been able to successfully apply any of the concepts we have gone over here, and felt some improvement or had any epiphanies of enlightenment?

It would be encouraging to hear some positive feedback, or get a report card on any significant progress made.

Lag Pressure throwaway is the root of all golf’s evils

You are already aware of how I have switched to practicing with persimmon clubs and blades. As well as hitting a blade 1 iron in practice – the entire ‘make practice harder than play’ approach.

As a low marker, it is unlikely I will see overnight improvements but I do know that all your input is helpful and appreciated.

Some of your hitting info is not applicable to me (yet – I’m sure the Guru will go over it when he arrives in 8 weeks) but I do appreciate it anyway.

If I could ask anything of you, I’d ask how you go about breaking through a plateau of scoring? Right now I’m stuck shooting between 1 and 5 over par. I have birdied every hole on the course many many times so how do I go really low when I am say 1 under after 12?

Lag -

I have definitely learned a huge amount from your posts.

Not so much the advanced stuff – which is stimulating, but I think not for me at this stage.

I have learned a little about Lag itself.

It’s possibly most helpful when I get off track, as it means I have a goal to focus on instead of a bunch of junk tips to try and get a swing back.

At the other end of the scale, I’d say that when I’m playing well, that I’m twice the player I was before I picked up a few things from yourself and Dart and a few others as well. (‘Lag’, FLW, ‘Down And Out’, and ‘No Steering’ are my four keys).

So thanks, and keep it up.

Styles,

Going low ..

Do you think it is a comfort zone issue? Do you feel nervous if you find yourself suddenly playing better than you think you should?
Do you feel some kind of choke factor?

How often are you 1 under after 6?
Let’s say you do this one in 5 rounds.

It could just be statistical probability.

if it’s a 1 in 5 you are one under after 6 and then another 1 in 5 you would do that again for the next 6 holes, then again to finish the round.. that’s (1 in 5) times (3) or 20% times 3.
then really the odds of you posting a round of 3 under par would be about .8% odds in Vegas! lol.. just under one in a hundred rounds.

I might speculate this could be the Dave Pelz argument. The mathematician, statistician’s look at it.

For me, I try to remind myself, that no matter how many under I am at any given time, THE BALL HAS NO IDEA! The physics don’t change because I just birdied the last three…

Of course if you are a mystically inclined, and believe in telekinesis energy fields and this sort of thing, then we could really be having another conversation about golf as the great spiritual discipline that could rival any martial art or yogi practice.

As your swing gets truer and more precise based on law.. and putting as well.. so will your scores.

Relax, keep making good swings, rolling good well struck putts,
and your days will come.

Styles,

Try this.

Ask God for just one more birdie and promise never to ask for anything again the rest of your life. When you get it, ask for just one more etc. He is so busy he forgets the last deal you made.

A great pre shot routine helps a lot too.

lol!

I wish we had emoticons on this website.

I’d put one of me praying, rolling the putt in, then praying some more!

Here is some stuff from the “inside out” post I thought might also be relevant over here…

What does the club feel like after impact?
Does the club pull the body after impact? I would hope not….

I really like to feel that my body is dragging the clubhead even after impact, especially after impact. To do this, I need to have some body left over though.. so that from impact to the 4rth parallel, I still have room to straighten my left knee, clear the left hip, and continue to rotate the torso.. when all that is spent around the 4rth parallel, I then make one last ditch effort to keep the hands ahead of the club by raising the upper arms off the body into a high finish.

I like to ’Äúfeel” as if I finish the swing with the clubshaft pointed straight up at the sky, never letting the clubhead get past my hands.. so what I try to do is sustain the force on the club with every effort and possibility I can muster. The extreme acceleration and velocity of the clubhead I try to achieve does usually have the club finally passing my hands at my finish, so the wrist do fold once everything is finally spent.. but I do everything within my power to resist that feeling.

Thoughts from Dart

Some of the release feelings on the break through line really feel like throw away ( club passing the hands earlier ). The mind can not get it quite right in the early stages.

As the release becomes more slippery is must be delayed longer and longer.

What does the average golfer need to to become fantastic. They all know they can or they would not waste their life. They are only screwed around by the wrong lead.

Thoughts from Guru

I know I ’Äúfeel” the clubhead never gets in front of my FLW in a sweet swing. In a just OK shot its crept a little out of line and I can tell fore sure in the flight and in my follow through with a glance at the wrist. If the FLW breaks down before the ball I have to look at the flight as I have no idea where it would have gone otherwise:)

For our ’Äúmajority choppers” with my tongue in cheek to feel the roll earlier vs the benders hack is a great way to get a sensation of what is correct with only the timing of the roll right or wrong vs the duffers feel we have all had.

Countdown to spending some time with Lag is almost starting.

LP, I ‘ve greatly enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks for sharing all of the information that you have.

A few thoughts on loading …

We have 4 options to load power accumulators 1-2 and 3. In simple terms, cocking the wrists on the backswing. As the wrists cock, the right arm also tends to fold with them.. so all 3 really work together.

TGM offers the following options,
Sweep
Random Sweep
Snap
Float

Sweep we would “set” the hands right away.
Random sweep we gradually cock the wrist on the backswing.
Snap we load right at the top.
Float we would keep our wrists uncocked then load on the way down.

Lag loading refers to the force or pressure we put on the shaft on the way down… or downswing.

Lag loading offers us three options
Drag loading
Drive loading
Float loading

Drag loading is what swingers would use.
They would put the majority of the force on the shaft quickly with a sharp change in direction. This would feel like the body or torso turning quickly, but the feeling of leaving the hands behind, hence the word “drag loading”. You would like the club to feel heavy, like a wet mop, using the body to start this heaviness down the plane towards impact. The goal here is to get the club moving with the pivot, then let it glide down the plane into impact, a steady even acceleration, the wrist feel free and flexible, monitoring the hands all the way down, then dumping that energy and inertia into the ball, and down into the ground.

Drive Loading would be the hitters preference in that the change in direction at the top would be quiet. When you see players on tour with a soft or even bent left arm, this is a good sign of drive loading.
This is almost a preventative measure, to make sure things feel soft at the top. I would tend to agree in that the tighter and more coiled a golfer is at the top, the more there is a tendency to start down quick.
Of course in theory it would be best to be coiled fully, with a straight left arm held firm with the extensor action of the right arm pushing on the left. The drive loader slowly puts stress on the shaft on the way down as the body or pivot picks up speed, and the wrists use a stiff wristed slapping motion at the last moment before impact.

The Float loading can be used in either application.. but is slightly more complicated.

All these downstroke loading procedures are what is referred to as
“lag loading”

I know this can be a bit confusing for golfers familiarizing themselves with TGM concepts.

Any questions? Hope this clears things up a bit.

Well I’ve been waiting for TGM to magically appear in a used bookshop at a good price, but you’ve wetted my appetite LP – I think I’m going to have to pay the price. Thx for your posts.

I’d like to hear your opinion and others on transition loading you mentioned earlier. I agree with your point that Mac could start his swing at the top of his backswing and not lose any distance. And I agree that he’d have no chance of holding that loading. But I’m convinced (at this stage at least) that no-one with a ‘conventional’ swing, not even swingers, can hold that loading. And that’s not because of lack of acceleration and/or strength, but because the shaft bending at the top is in a direction roughly parallel to the clubface. The downswing plane with its forearm rotation will not allow this bending to be kept. Even if it did, bending in a direction parallel to the clubface would not benefit impact.

Any seen retained shaft backward bending at impact, or even the more typical forward bending, is generated purely from the downswing. My guess is that this is why shaft manufacturers are satisfied testing with swing robots that have no backswing.

Lp right a book on all of this , document this so it’s lost for years to come

Stebboko,

I assume you are talking about the loading of the shaft, pre stressed clubshaft to impact and beyond?

Many say it can’t be done..

I know for a fact it can.. I will post pics here soon to demostrate.
I have a set of junior clubs with some whippy shafts that will make it easy to show.

It is a fact that to hold the flex of the shaft all the way to the ball becomes more difficult the longer the backswing.

The problem we face as humans is that it is easier to generate clubhead speed from the top of our backswing down to impact…than it would be to start from impact fix to the finish.

In a most basic sense, it is easy to drop things down than to lift things up.

I’ll say it again.. holding the flex of the shaft to the ball is the holy grail of golf. This can only be attempted by the use of radial acceleration. The swinger doesn’t even try.

It is hard to hold the flex all the way? YES
Is it impossible? NO

For me, this is all golf is..
I would be the first to admit that I love to over accelerate my torso from the top. It is much easier for me to rotate fast from the top to impact than from impact to my finish. I fight this all the time in my own game.. It is very hard for me to rotate my torso from impact to finish… faster than from the top to impact.. but this is what I strive to do when I play golf. Just last week I played and I could feel I was losing the flex of the shaft earlier than I should. The problem is that this doesn’t necessarily show up in photographs or video, and it’s really hard to see on tape if I am playing with X shafts. But I DO feel it. This is one of the reason’s I play with a different set of irons every round. Different shaft flexes, different swing weights, different dead weights, it forces my brain to be very keen and aware of what the shaft is doing.. it’s always about acceleration, and pre stressing the shaft. If I am holding the flex, I can hit any club straight.. I need only about 2 or 3 swings to find out how open the face will be.. the looser the shaft, the more the face is open at impact… so I have to only adjust my release to accommodate the shaft of the day…

I have certain drills I do to work on this (holding the flex). Last week I missed 8 greens and scraped around for a 73. I took three days off to re work the acceleration feeling of the torso and my 5th accumulator, and yesterday I went out and hit 16 greens.. 14 birdie putts inside 30 feet.. got extremely hot with putter and converted 50% of the putts..
3 of them were kick in’s… that’s how pro’s shoot low. You go out and pepper the flag all week and wait patiently for the good putting rounds.

I just can’t say enough how fun golf is when you actually take control of the course and play it like a chess match against the architect.

I was specifically referring to the transition. I very much believe the shaft can arrive at impact bent backwards, despite it being very rare. However it’s coming from the acceleration of the downswing, not from keeping that bend in the shaft you see in ‘top of the backswing’ photos.

You’re suggesting (if I understand you correctly) that radial acceleration will allow the transition loading to be kept. I’m saying no, radial acceleration will cause the bend.

The only importance I see in the transition is the loading of the torso, not the club.

You're suggesting (if I understand you correctly) that radial acceleration will allow the transition loading to be kept. I'm saying no, radial acceleration will cause the bend.

Reply:

No, I have said hitters should try to minimize the transitional lag loading of the shaft so that they can then radially accelerate and attempt to maintain the flex of the shaft all the way down.. a big transitional load at the top spells disaster for the hitter, unless the backswing is extremely short as in the case of this:

holding the flex past impact is possible..

This sequence was taken with a ladies club with a very loose shaft for the point of visually showing the possibility of holding shaft flex to the low point and in this extreme case, all the way to parallel #4.

Note that there is no ball here.. to avoid the illusion of the shaft flexing back due only to impact dynamics.

To do this, I started at parallel 3, then let the club fall for about 6 inches then fire accumulators 2 and 3, violently rotate the body over to parallel 4, firing the right arm after low point, then utilize accumulator #5 to raise the upper arms off the body to keep the shaft behind the hands.. therefore maximum clubhead speed is reached just after parallel #4.

For those that questioned the possibility of this in reality, here is the proof.

Holding the flex past low point.

Lagpressure,

How fast is the clubhead going through impact?Can you achieve the same conditions with your full swing?

The reason I ask is that if the clubhead speed is low enough it is indeed physically possible to keep the shaft stressed thru and beyond impact.

I believe it has been shown on 3D machines that the best ballstrikers all deccelerate hands,arms and hips thru impact…the so called “snapping the kinetic chain”.It may not be what they feel as I’m sure they are trying like hell to maintain acceleration but like we all know,feel and real is different.

I don’t know exactly the MPH of the clubhead speed, but I can say that I would be able to hit an 8 iron over 100 yards starting from parallel three.

The point here is… is it possible? to hold the flex to the ball and beyond? YES… in fact even to parallel four as demonstrated.

Now, could I take the club back 10 inches further on the backswing and do the same thing? How about all the way to the top? Of course if I start the club down slow enough I could replicate the same action from P3 to P4… but the faster I start down, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the flex.

Of course to hold the flex all the way to P4 might be a stretch in reality..
but it still is admirable intent. It is certainly what you would want to feel
if you were in “reality” to hold the flex to the ball.

High speed cameras can tell us a lot here, but I’m still not so sure they can tell the whole story.. with the stiff shafts we use, in my case tipped X100’s, it may appear that the shaft is straight and not stressed back at impact, but just because it looks that way, doesn’t mean there is not some force still on it. With a stiff shaft, you can put a fair amount of force on the shaft before it becomes visually obvious (flex).

In the photo sequence above, I used a very loose shaft to show how holding the flex can be done. Had I used stiff shafts, you might not be able to see it, even though the force is the same. (mass x velocity)

Now, could I take the club back 10 inches further on the backswing and do the same thing? How about all the way to the top? Of course if I start the club down slow enough I could replicate the same action from P3 to P4… but the faster I start down, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the flex.

This is because of a few factors I believe:

a) Whilst the wrist cock is held, the clubhead and arms have equal radial speeds (as in degrees/sec). During the release the arms slow down and the club slows its acceleration substantially, despite the wrists uncocking. Reduce the accelerative force and the bending will subside. You can see in your image sequence (nice job btw), that at impact you’ve had to limit the release so the arms can keep strongly moving forward to keep the acceleration up. Essentially you’ve just rotated the whole swing about 20¬ƒ-30¬ƒ anti-clockwise but still define the old ball position as the impact point.

b) The straightening (centrifugal) effect of swinging anything really quickly – just like a ball on a string. Your half-swing’s reduced speed at impact would have lessened this effect.

Stebboko,

“Essentially you've just rotated the whole swing about 20¬ƒ-30¬ƒ anti-clockwise but still define the old ball position as the impact point.”

Yes, this is correct… this is hitting to an extreme degree, right out to the edge of possibility. (based upon my personal capabilities).
It takes quite a bit of discipline the hold off maximum velocity to well beyond impact.

The balls path is dead straight, right down the plane line.

Holding the flex past impact

Anyone reading know where to purchase the TGM book in Oz, even a 2nd hand copy?

email guru and he’ll sort you out.

Lag,

I know this is probably covered in TGM basic language 101 but, you regularly refer to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th parallels.

Can you please clarify what you mean by this.

email guru and he'll sort you out.

Will do – thx.

Sure Styles,

At address, the shaft is perpendicular to the ground…
as we take the club back, the club with pass through the first parallel about half way through the backswing. At the top the shaft may become parallel again (2nd parallel) on the way down the shaft will hit another parallel (3) before impact, then after impact when the shaft becomes parallel again (4) or often called the follow through.
The finish might be called the 5th parallel

So anytime the clubshaft is parallel to the ground.

It is just helpful for referencing the different phases of the golf swing.
Nothing complicated.

Thanks LP, that’s what I figured but its good to be sure.

anyone want to suggest a new topic here?

Grip, stance and posture?

The importance of a proper finish?

Course management?

dispersion pattern theory?

I like the bottom one as a new thread. Maybe two. One for hitters and one for swingers.

probably a silly question (which if i remember are the good ones)

why would keeping the shaft flexed till after contact be a good thing? surely the point of shaft flex is to translate into further clubhead speed at the point of impact? without translating all that elastic potential into kinetic energy arent you wasting the effort?

i know this answer will involve the word ‘pressure’, but cant nut it out myself

sorry to derail the thread re-direction

probably a silly question (which if i remember are the good ones)

why would keeping the shaft flexed till after contact be a good thing? surely the point of shaft flex is to translate into further clubhead speed at the point of impact? without translating all that elastic potential into kinetic energy arent you wasting the effort?

i know this answer will involve the word ‘pressure', but cant nut it out myself

sorry to derail the thread re-direction

I think this may have been covered before somewhere on this or other TGM sites.
In TGM lingo, I think I read somewhere that it may be to sustain or maintain the line of compression. And because lag has no release.
Also, Dart told me at one of my earlier lessons that a stressed/flexed shaft was better able to transfer all the energy onto the ball whereas without it, the energy at impact with the ball would merely be absorbed into the shaft.

New thread; “Where is your mind”.

What do good players look at when they address the ball, during the swing and how precisely do they think about the ball itself?

Background to this Q is that it comes from a conversation I had with a Tae Kwon Do type who spends his weekends breaking stuff instead of chasing a small ball round a big field.

Was interesting to me how some of the same ideas seem to match up.

One point he made was that rather than thinking about using your whole fist to break blocks or w/ever, you had to think about a precise point in your hand meeting a precise point on the block.

Any equivalent in golf?

Also talked about the importance of momentum – as opposed to speed – and having the inside of your forearm – the bit that leads back from your two ‘inside’ knuckles behind the point of impact to back everything up.

Getting this wrong – off plane? – means a lot worse than a big slice! lol!

So what do you good players look at just before and during the swing? And what is your mind mostly focussed on?

probably a silly question (which if i remember are the good ones)

why would keeping the shaft flexed till after contact be a good thing? surely the point of shaft flex is to translate into further clubhead speed at the point of impact? without translating all that elastic potential into kinetic energy arent you wasting the effort?

i know this answer will involve the word ‘pressure', but cant nut it out myself

sorry to derail the thread re-direction

Soulsman,

We asked Peter Thompson if the shaft was pushed or pulled through impact. After he finished his tea he said – neither. And left us to it. His thought was to get the club moving and stay with it.

Sustaining the lag is the best intention and requires the most attention.

Technically and irrelevant, the club slows down fractionally after release point, especially with hitters, giving some shaft lag loss. The main thing is not to loose it all and have the shaft going backwards at impact.

We can all bend the shaft on the ball at low speed and you will see that bend after impact because the ball bent it back.

The weird thing is that Lag Pressure does not have to great to play the kind of golf most of us want to play,and any Lag is Lag, meaning we do not have to look like Hogan or Sergio with their sharp angles to hit brilliant golf shots. But we do need a keen awareness of it and the rhythm that comes with it.

@SoulmanZ, Tom Wishon talks about how the flex straightening forward doesn’t add any power to the shot because the hands are soft and don’t give the shaft something rigid to whip against.

A backward flexed shaft at impact shows that the release has occurred late enough that there has physically not been enough time for the shaft to straighten. And of course a late release means the period of clubhead acceleration has been maximised.

SoulmanZ,

I think the easiest way to answer your question about shaft flex, and holding the flex of the shaft is that…

The speed at which the ball leaves the clubface at impact is dependent upon the speed of the clubhead itself, both prior to and after impact.
The less the clubhead slows down due to the collision occurring at impact the better.

The best way to describe the sensation is to feel as if the speed of the body, arms and hands reach their maximum velocity well after impact.

Although this is very difficult to “feel”, it is not out of the possibility of the human body to have such a sensation. It really is the “holy grail” of the golf swing. Here lies the secret.

The paradox is that although it is easier to generate velocity from the top of the backswing down to impact….. than from impact to the finish..
this is not what you want to do or feel.

In a way the swing is like a mysterious puzzle. If you can figure out a way to reach maximum velocity at the 4rth parallel (after impact)...... than the 3rd parallel (before impact) you have solved the mystery.
You will soon become one of golfs great ball strikers, and have the world shivering in their boots.

Can you pull the sword from the stone?

Beezneeds,

’ÄúWhere is your mind”
In 87 I was paired in the Final Round with Bob Shearer and David Graham and I couldn’t help but be reminded of this exact concept “where is your mind” as one stands over the ball.

Nothing could be more opposite than these two. Shearer, one or two waggles, a quick look or two and bang! Graham on the other hand… stands over the ball like he is about to perform surgery, careful looking, calculating, and certainly never in a hurry.
Tennis or chess?

This is just a great question… what do people think about? Is there a best way to do this?

One explanation is that the slow player may have to go through a process or checklist before they can “empty the mind” and then “just let go” and execute. The fast player might be choosing to not let anything “get into the mind” in the first place.

From my own perspective, I became a faster player as I became a better ball striker. The more confident I became in my ability to hit the ball on line, the easier it was to let go of a lot of the nonsense that would bounce around in my coconut. Watching Moe Norman rapid fire balls on the range, one every second and a half, showed that you don’t have to think about a lot… to hit a ball long and straight.

Right now, as I play the game, I use the practice swing for two purposes, one to gently loosen the muscles, but more important, to rehearse what I want to feel in the body. I like to work the ball one way or another, and I use a different release action for a draw or fade, so a quick rehearsal there. On full shots, nothing more required, but on partial shots, or wedge shots of varying distances,
I might make a few practice swings to really feel just how hard or soft I am going to swing. These days I play without using yardages, I have to rely more on intuition and feeling, visuals, and feeling the wind and so forth. So once I have a clear sensation of what I need to feel, I aim “the machine”, take a quick waggle or two to establish my swing plane, and then fire. Never a swing thought..

I like to feel my way through the swing rather than think my way through the swing.

LP – hugely interesting again.

“Take a quick waggle or two to establish my swing plane”.

That’s one I hadn’t heard before but it makes sense…..a lot of sense.

Personally, I think I play my best when I’m pretty quick about getting on with it. Like to make what feels like a good ‘to hell with it’ snap judgement and hit it after taking one or two factors into account.

More broadly, the mind/strategy game is v.hard for the inconsistent player because all too often, the same mindset/pre-shot routine will result in wildly different outcomes. That’s why, IMO, it’s hard to develop a great gameface/gamehead when you have a bad technique.

Body language is more than what your body does – there’s an aura thing going on – a million little signals – and you can’t fake it.

Try to stride around the place looking and acting confident with a nice pre-shot routine etc. when you’re actually not, and you just end up looking like an idiot.

If you’ve worked on your technique, know what you’re at, and you’re entitled to be confident in your own ability, it’s a different story.

LP,

I played yesterday at the Glashedy course at Ballyliffen (you would love it). Still very under the weather but was getting it round ok. Got to 16 which is index 1 and a really intimidating drive. Nothing special to do, but it just didn’t fit my eye at all. So I’m wondering what to do and I decide to give myself some ‘LP’ self-talk.

“OK Andrew, you don’t like this tee shot, you’ve already decided its going to be a bad shot. Lets make it really bad, lets put it in the pot bunker over there!”

At the last moment I switch my attention to a stake that if I was on target would’ve left me in the middle of the fairway. It worked a treat! Except!!! I made too fast a downswing and lost my lag and ended up dumping it left.

However, it has shown me that this will be a very useful tool in the future as long as I remember that just because I make a lightening switch away from trouble to target, my swing tempo needs to stay the same as always.

I’m going to monitor this effect and report again on it. I think it could be very useful.

Ballyliffen

Ballyliffen look like a blast,

I hope to get over there and play some of those great classic courses.
I’m sure there are many over there that are not on the “Open” rotation that are as good, better, or more interesting. I’d probably pass on some of the famous one’s for the hidden gems.

I found that to be the same in Australia.. everyone talks about Royal Melbourne but I thought NSW out on the point was just as amazing if not more.

I remember the hype over Riverside Oaks, which was brand new when I was down, and I was thinking, this just looks like an American course, I hope I didn’t come all this way to play a lot of these style courses.

I don’t know what it is like now, but in the late 80’s early nineties, the Australian Tour would host it’s events on the Nations top courses public or private.

That hasn’t happened here in a long time. The love affair with the Pete Dye style PGA or TPC this or that was not at all to my liking. I really believe in the Alister McKenzie values. Let the course follow the lay of the land, intertwine it with the natural surroundings, and make golf a wider experience than just an excuse to sell home lots.

Yeah there are quite a few hidden gems over here.

The Island is split into 4 provinces and that’s the best way to play the courses.

There are crackers like Enniscrone and Portsalon that are a fraction of the price of Royal Portrush and Royal County Down.

I think its something like 80% of the World’s Links courses are located in Scotland and Ireland :-)

Ok,

Let’s think about shot dispersion patterns…
We all have one whether we like it or not.

If you take a shag bag of say 100 balls, drop them in a pile, then place the bag out in the field say about 150 yards out. For me that’s about a 7 iron shot. Hit all 100 balls at the bag trying to hit straight shots.

When you are done, you of course will go pick them up. But before you do.. realize that there is some very valuable information laying on the ground in front of you. Paying careful attention to the pattern you have created with your golf swing. Are the ball evenly distributed around the bag in a circle? What is the average distance from the bag?
Is the pattern more oval in shape? Left to right? or short to long?
Study your pattern and learn as much as you can about it. Are most of the balls left of the bag? right? long or short? Regardless of your skill level, from the tight pattern of a tour pro, to a wild and crazy “all over the place” pattern of a beginner, this can really tell you a lot about your game, your swing, and expectations.

In general, the balls will be in some kind of a circle. The majority of the balls will fall into some kind of circular pattern. You might then go around and pick up the ten worst shots, and toss them towards the bag (target). Now take another look.. This is your 90 percent zone.

Of course the longer the club, the bigger the circle will be. We will all have a tighter circle with a wedge than a driver.

Now next time you are on the course, remember your pattern. This is your reality, and as you decide what kind of shot you are going to hit, you might want to visualize your dispersion pattern and how that would look peppered onto the fairway, or green you are about to shoot at. Does this change where you might aim?

As a pro, I might have a 60 foot circle pattern with a 7 iron. If the pin is tucked left on an green that is 40 feet wide, I would be wise to move my circle over to the right. If there is a hazard left of the green I might want to aim my shot 30 feet right of the hazard, so my most left shot would still keep me out of harms way. My most right shot would have me missing the green 20 feet to the right of the green.

Next you might want to consider wind conditions, and if the wind is blowing from right to left, think about how much the wind might push your ball over.. maybe 15 feet? Move your circle accordingly.

You’ll get the idea with a little visualization.. and going out to play a few rounds with a dispersion pattern in mind might help you manage your game a little better, and shave a few shots off your score without really doing anything different in your swing.

It can also take some pressure off your swing, and help you just relax and think of just hitting another solid shot into your random dispersion pattern.

Once you learn to shape the ball left to right or right to left, you can have even more fun with your pattern.

As you become a better ball striker with your application of TGM!
you can learn to have a pattern that eliminates one side completely,
so that if you have a fade shot, your far left ball will be at worst a dead straight shot, and the most right shot might be your ball 60 feet right with say a 7 iron. Draw would of course be flipped around.

Not sure why I had this thought today, but I have a feeling it could be helpful to a few of you who visit this thread.

Pure genious LP. Will definately do it next time I have the range to myself :-)

I’m with you MrC – Pure Gold LP!

You know, I take my shag bag down to the range and hit balls but never look at the pattern – isn’t that amazing… I will in future though!

The wind is another thing – I can never work it out…sometimes it holds up my ball or moves it generously to outside centre other times it doesn’t make one iota of difference – wind speeds I hear you say – well yes it’s taken into account – I just think at the time, oh well, maybe the winds blowing harder here than 100 metres up the fairway…

Lag, as always a continual thanks for your time and posts – much appreciated!

Dave Pelz calls the dispersion the “Bra Effect” due to the way most people have a collection on the right and left!

Good advice LP

Ditty,

The wind is not something to be ignored.. until golf courses are built indoors we will have to deal with the wind. (the way this game is going I wouldn’t be surprised if indoor courses are the new standard to make it easier for lower scores as is with everything else golf)

I grew up on a seaside course as a kid, so wind was just as much a part of the game as tees and greens. I love windy golf, and my home course now is always blowing a strong breeze off the San Francisco Bay. I prefer afternoon golf for the opportunity to play the wind.

Being a good wind player requires the golfer to have the ability to work the ball both left and right. You need to know how to keep the ball down low too. There are so many opportunities for creativity in the wind. Wind is not reliable, it can gust or just drop out at anytime. Sometimes it’s there and you can’t feel it from your position on the course. I believe the wind requires the golfer to tap into a kind of sixth sense. Intuition, and feel are so important to really get wind down.

A lot of golfers fear the wind, even on tour.. I used to hear guys complain all the time about being on the bad side of the draw…
meaning the wind blew in the morning for the early tee times, then died down in the afternoon giving those late tee times a huge advantage. Then as luck (bad luck) would have it, the next morning was calm for the guys who teed off late the first day then it howls the next afternoon for the guys who caught all the wind the previous morning. This is a fact of pro golf.. and it doesn’t seem fair! lol

In 1987 I drew the bad side of the draw catching high winds at Royal Melbourne and posted a pair of 74’s, just making the cut. Greg Norman opened with a 70-66, and he also had the bad side of the draw! The great players can use the wind to their advantage as often as not.

Wind is a huge factor in the game that is not really talked about enough considering it’s importance.

One of the most interesting comments I ever heard was from Ben Hogan in his famous match against Sam Snead in the WWG match from the old TV series. If you get a chance to watch it on video or DVD pay attention to his description of an iron shot he plays where he talks about the wind to Gene Sarazen. He says, I could FEEL the wind blowing up in the trees, so I knew I had to hit it a little harder.

If you don’t pay attention to this, it can just fly right by you, but read that again, and it really says something beyond the realm of most golfers. He was really in tune, aware on a different level I believe.

There is a lot we can talk about regarding our friend “the wind”...

I’ll follow on from lag, and the “90%” factor can come into your short game also. From putting to chipping, to pitching. The more balls you use, the better.
e.g the 11 ball trick, putt, chip or pitch 11 balls, and take your 5 best and worst away, giving you your “average”.
Now that might seem very few balls, but its a good guide to check where you are with different lag putts, or pitches etc.

I picked up my copy of The Golfing Machine today before I headed out for a round on the Bay. I have had the book since 1978 when I first met Ben Doyle and Bobby Clampett. The edges are frayed a bit and the book has yellowed even more than the cover as it should, much like a fine wine.

Being a devout student of TGM from such early days, and reading and studying it under the finest teachers of that time, I must say it is very interesting to read it after so much time has gone by, and to view it from the perspective of post career rather than pre career!

I certainly do see how and why it can be totally confusing for someone just having a first look at it. I find myself wishing there where more tips on drills and exercises that could help the player to learn the correct feelings that the mechanics would so imply.

In many ways I feel like I want to rewrite it and make it more understandable to the reader from a half life’s experience not just as a student but as a professional touring player and active practitioner.

I believe Homer knew quite well that his concepts would also need instructors and teachers, not so different than a textbook in school.
It is meant to be complimentary to “live in the flesh” instruction.

Much of the component variations are not all that practical, but in his quest for completeness, they are there nonetheless. Everything can work to some degree of lawfulness.. 10-14-D the reverse hip turn variation I can’t ever see needing to do that in any practical golf course situation, but I guess you could hit a ball that way and still have a straight plane line, a pressure point and a flat left wrist!

For those that have a copy in hand there is a great paragraph in 2-S
“The Whole picture” and Homer talks about things seeming vague and disjointed in the beginning, but how bright and clear things can become after study and experience.. and for me to read this from my chair at this point in time 30 years later is really quite visionary.
From my early days as a bright eyed teen with an excited eye on the future of my personal golf game to now a player who “put it into the computer” applied it, and tested it and proved it, on the world stage, then after retiring, had it incubate for a decade or more. It’s really something incredible to come back and open up the book again!

But I really do realize that there are a lot of places in the book that could use a good dose of … “what he really is saying here is” or “It will actually feel like this” or “If you master this drill, you won’t have to think about this or that anymore”

So feel free to fire away with your questions and confusion, I will do my best to tell you the bottom line of all these things TGM.

Lag – I don’t know how serious you are or whether re-writing the book and calling it TGM for Dummies, is feasable, but boy it is confusing even running with the book as the preface states… if it could be in sequential order of learning and less back and forth references it would be much easier…

In this thread you’ve just about written a book and as I’ve mentioned before I have it all printed and foldered as a reference for when I’m studying TGM – and that’s exactly what I have to do, Study and study is hard! I find it difficult but as stated by another member, my initial journey has been wonderful.

I was talking to a Lady Pro today who is a fabulous golfer – she has her swing together and outdrives and out plays all men A graders that I have seen her go up against – a little thing she is too -I was so enthusiatic about TGM that she is going to look into it… I may have to buy her a book…lol

I sometimes have a question or 3 but most times I find the answer in my research from Guru’s notes or from Blakes area but a book, TGM for Dummies would be a god send…

The reason I research the sites is, I don’t know how to ask the question or more to the point, what question to ask – that might sound stupid of me but I’m not a dill, I just get confused with all the back and forth – Guru said in the early days – read the book with a dictionary beside you – I do that but it’s not so much the words but the prattle ;-))

I’d buy a couple of your books just to give away to friends…

Also – thanks for the wind post – if you have time and would like to go down that track with more information, it would be appreciated.

Re the book: i just finished the book on the way home from work today,
i was hoping it would all magically make sense by the end….but no not yet
to me it seems more like how to build a race car than drive one..
i get some of the ideas straight up.. others take another 20 pages and cross references to get it.
i agree with what i understood.. it makes perfect practical sense.. like maths .. but it lacks some love, emotion. i.e some reward for the reader ..i feel it needs some stories or comparisions to actual playing golf

i really want to get it all…i’m going to re-read it and take notes, and scribble all over the pages.. read it slowly and sober.( i read on the bus on way home form work .. usually after the pub—so that might have something to do with it)

but a dummies glossary would be great

or maybe taking lessons from a TGM teacher at the same time would increase the digestion rate?

what do you think..

I’m with you Grant.

I think a glossary would be a great start.

LP, have you read “The Impact Zone” by Bobby Clampett? It would be the closest thing (I think) to what you are proposing.

From my own perspective, I have to say, that with 6 weeks to go before I am able to say “The Guru has landed”, I am doing zero reading of the yellow book and am waiting for instructed tuition.

or maybe taking lessons from a TGM teacher at the same time would increase the digestion rate?

what do you think..

nearly??!!!
if only !!??

It certainly does help, you could go lifetimes without knowing what a true FLW was, or get it shown to you once, by an AI and know it for the rest of your life.

The Flat left wrist,

This is a perfect example of confusion in TGM.

Although categorized as “imperative” I see the FLW as a true by- product of acceleration. If the pivot is accelerating through the hitting area, FLW just happens. Hogan and myself use “double wrist action”
so our left wrist is bent at the top, and on the way down, but as the wrists uncock and rotate into the impact area, the “hitters” acceleration flattens the left wrist by law. I don’t think I could bring a bent left wrist into impact if I tried (assuming a state of acceleration)

A flat left wrist would limit the “full” potential of accumulator #3 for a hitter.

So what this is REALLY saying is that acceleration is imperative, and to accelerate, you would have to be applying pressure on one or more of the pressure points from say 7 o clock to 5 o clock.

Imperatives #1 and #2 are essentially the same thing as described in 2-0 Statement of Principle.

Now with swinging, the FLW is more in a monitoring mode, and what is really IMPERATIVE is that the acceleration being applied on the downswing is “steady and even”. If the acceleration is steady and even, then the club is released properly through the forces that be,
in this case centrifugal force. The FLW is the by product again of acceleration, and the imperative here is really “STEADY AND EVEN”
because you obey SAE then you will hit the shot straight assuming you are delivering the club on plane which is the 3rd imperative.

For the swinger, if the acceleration is not SAE, you could still have a FLW but with no guarantee of a straight shot. I have brought many a FLW into impact and hit all kinds of crazy looking shots, due to acceleration problems. The FLW does not guarantee perfect clubface alignment at impact. I have plenty of high speed graph checks from Ben Doyle’s range in the early 80’s to prove that! lol

We could also look at the Basic Essentials as confusing too.

I have seen a lot of “not so stationary heads” win a lot of money and tournaments. I don’t think Homer really communicate this with as much detail as might be desired by many.

Now it could be argued that the head must be stationary from some point A to some point B during the swing, probably through impact area, and I would speculate that from P-3 to P-4 a stationary head might be “essential”.

There was a guy on the Canadian Tour years ago that would drop his head nearly a foot on the way down, and then it would come right back up like he was bobbing for apples in a sawed off wine barrel. He won 5 times while I was up there. Stationary Head? are we sure about this?
Can we have second look here? Can I get some clarity here? 5 tour wins? Top 3 on the money list? But again I think his head was not moving from P-3 to P-4.. so with some clarity here, maybe the essential is really stationary head from P-3 to P-4.

How about our #2 essential Balance?
This might hold a bit more true in the age of smaller heads of persimmon, but I did see a clip of the kid who just won the US Amateur last week, and he is just coming out of his shoes falling all over the place on his finish with his tennis racket size driver.
He does look balanced to about P-4, but that is about it.

I can say too that I have lost my balance on my finish and still watched the ball sailing down the middle of the fairway with a slight draw shaping perfectly.

I don’t think you would want to be losing your balance during a putting stroke, so that could be essential… or bobbing your head around either. It might be reasonable to apply the essentials to putting.

I might reword the essentials as the three preferences. Or the three “suggestions for ease of repeatability” but I have too much real world experience on tour to go much farther than that.

I wouldn’t argue here for my own sake, as I am one who prides myself on having one of the most stationary heads in the game, I swing with excellent balance and rhythm, but I am aware that there are plenty of good players on tour making millions that don’t do these things nearly as well as I do, as I type into this forum post!

I did see a clip of the kid who just won the US Amateur last week, and he is just coming out of his shoes falling all over the place on his finish with his tennis racket size driver.
He does look balanced to about P-4, but that is about it.
I can say too that I have lost my balance on my finish and still watched the ball sailing down the middle of the fairway with a slight draw shaping perfectly.

Lag – just a thing on Danny Lee’s balance – if you watched the olympics and noted the javelin throwers new approach – it is to throw the javelin as they propel themselves forward which results in them falling to the ground – obviously they throw well before the foul line so that their body doesn’t go over it when they end up prone from propelling themselves forward – they threw further with this action than they did toeing the line on release.. interesting!

momentum ?
a key word of Shawn Clement !

i started to re read the book on the way to work this morning ( forward preface and chapter one) and it makes much more sense the second time around so some of it must be sinking in !!

but yeah i’m with you mr C, as soon as i get some time .. i’m off to see the dart

Talking javelins, anyone notice how they throw with their right forearm on plane with the shaft? Pure transmission of the power via on plane thrust.

i started to re read the book on the way to work this morning ( forward preface and chapter one) and it makes much more sense the second time around so some of it must be sinking in !!

but yeah i'm with you mr C, as soon as i get some time .. i'm off to see the dart

nearly??!!!
if only !!??

Grant,

Pay attention to the first page of the preface.

The idea of Basic Motion and Flat Left Wrist will save you years of tail chasing.

Preface page X right before the table of contents is the key to reading the book.

Basic motion is what the TGM for non Machinists thread clip is all about. Get it right down there and the rest all flows on.

The idea of new topics was mentioned, and one of the things Lag has mentioned before is that you reckon a hitting procedure won’t really work as well as a swinging one in the short game.

Been trying a few things with my chipping lately, and I started to wonder about this.

I then began to experiment with extensor action in the chipping stroke and hey presto, good things started to happen.

Even with the putter, the application of a slight tug down wards with the RH seem to really define the radius of my swing – if I can put it like that – and get me catching the sweet spot.

I would associate extensor action with swinging btw (probably wrong) – though it also seems to me to really promote a great feeling of FLW.

Talking javelins, anyone notice how they throw with their right forearm on plane with the shaft? Pure transmission of the power via on plane thrust.

I think we’re all obsessed – I was also analyzing the javelin throwers.

What stood out to me was the Norwegian guy who blitzed the field thrust it though with a straight right arm, whereas the rest I saw had a reduced swing arc.

Others

I had lately been wondering why extensor action in the left elbow wasn’t used in the golf swing as an additional accumulator – it would be on plane after all and loaded in the right direction, unlike the javelin throwers. I put it down to the loss of radius killing any advantage – any thoughts?

Radius wins hands down. Long lever vs a short one.

GURU When will we get a chance to do our QSEB down under?

Grant,

Pay attention to the first page of the preface.

The idea of Basic Motion and Flat Left Wrist will save you years of tail chasing.

thank dart,

i read through again yesterday.. and just checked it again.. the FLR
it is something i have been concentrating on for a while- .that and correct alignments/set up posture. i think the FLR has allot to do with my greatly improved accuracy/consistency.. no wild slices anymore !!!. most shots now slightly R to L.
will take a better look at the basic motion stuff and do the drills

Right now the only way to get certified is to head to TGM HQ over in the USA or the occasional visit they do to the UK. Down under when we have tried to gather enough bodies to run a course with Mr TGM to come down it just has not even got close. In the old days a GSED was able to teach GSEB level with exams going offshore (I think) for independent marking of the theory side of things. That went the way of the west when the current centralised authorisation process came into play.

For the Amateur player who wants to learn, there is a GSEA which is the same course as the EB. You just may not teach and accept pennies post the course or you lose your Am status under the rules of the game.

The Roadshows Dart and I do are the practical end of what is in the book. We could do 2 or 3 day events with it all though the marketplace with peoples time being so tight these days has made it impractical to gather enough people in one place at one time and at a sensible cost all round to make them fly.

I thought as much, i am kicking myself as a was give the open book test by Mr Doyle in 02 but unfortuntaly it was lost when i was travelling….. i think the price they want (1700usd) is alot considering Mr Doyle gave it to me for free…..
Nick

If Chuck had lost mine I would have gone spare. Took ages to do.
I would drop Joe Daniels line with that story and ask if you can have it to do. He can only come up with a helpful suggestion – one would hope at least.

Where are you based Nick?

Sydney northern Beaches

Guess you have run into Dart in that neck of the woods at some point then?

Guru,

Nick’s father and I were into TGM from the start.

Nick didn’t like his last “full roll” lesson and left me.

You can’t win them all.

His father didn’t like the same lesson. A Doyle casualty. In those days when Ben hit a chip,pitch or punch he showed what looked like a Dual Vertical Hinge and pupils copied what they saw and not what he said. Ben could not work out why they were not getting it.

I notice now he shows lots of Dual Horizontal Hinge and finish swivel.

It wasnt the case I just needed to concerntrate on the scoring side to get my h’cap down for my application for trainee (which i did just! No thanks to the howling Souwester we have had at long reef for the last two months) I agree with the full roll but need a bit more time to work on it.. it feels dangerous because sometimes my pivot parks itself and then the hands flip at it a bit..
But with a few months till my playing test i definatly would like a second look and your help

Thanks
Nick

NickE that is a good answer. Score when you have to. Learn when you can.

Dart,

It’s interesting to look back on the days with Ben Doyle. But I just really have to wonder why Ben was so in love with swinging only? I might guess that it’s just what he learned, or maybe he saw it as the best way to get a beginner off the ground and into reasonably good golf fairly quickly. I might also speculate that it is tough to really have a handle on both within your own motion.

My own swing has been completely transformed into hitting that going back to those swinging drills would be very counter productive.
I completely understand swinging being a former swinger, but if you were to ask me to hit shots the way I used to, I am not sure I could do it very effectively, nor would I want to. I don’t hit the odd space ball anymore, and as a hitter, I love the feeling of the firmness, tightness
and control of the clubface that feels so much more reliable and repeatable to the point I no longer have to practice to go out and enjoy a round of golf.

My point being that Ben may not have been able to demonstrate hitting in a way that would be impressive to his students… other than some kind of little punch shot or something.

I certainly could teach someone to be a swinger, but it would not be by my own awe inspiring demonstrations. I would not do well re visiting those feelings in the body.

This is where I think TGM gets confusing for people, because each instructor really seems to heavily favor one way or another, and as most of you might guess, I would probably favor teaching a hitting procedure, because of my conviction about that method being far superior based upon my own experiences having used both methods.

But I can never forget the great golf Bobby Clampett played almost 30 years ago as maybe the purest swinger of all time. What he accomplished is still honorable and worth a serious consideration for the validity of the swinging protocol.

L.P.
it’s an interesting topic, I do believe homer and ben had many debates over this same topic hitting and swinging, and also large debates how manyy barrels to teach, homer said 2 or 3 were enough, ben believed in learning 4 .
From what I’ve gathered Ben developed his own perceptions of homers work and closed a lot of minds, which homer was the opposite. homer believed you learn hitting first?
But then chineses whispers things dilute over the years

L.P.

I will not tell of the grief I inflicted on people with Drag Loading in the early years.

Now I can teach a good strike to an old lady in five shots if she is a slow learner. People can begin improving from that point on.

Drive Loading is a natural action for anyone and it is so close to steering and hacking which are the natural faults as to be easy to adapt.

Thanks for your help in this regard. What you have said so well, could make a big difference here.

Dart,

It’s so exciting to hear that you are open to teaching hitting to people,
as a TGM guy, I personally believe it is vital to really understand the difference between these polar opposite approaches to hitting a golf ball.

After watching Manzella video, he never mentions the difference between the two, and he talks about all the wonderful swinging techniques which is all great stuff, but then takes credit for David Toms who is not swinging like that. He’s hitting… as he should be.. he’s on tour against the best in the world.. good stuff. But isn’t this confusing for students?

At least with Ben in the early years, all we had to do was look at Clampett to see how it should be done. Ben had Bobby in his hip pocket to point to, and he used him as a reference all the time. It gave credibility to what he was saying in a big way, in a huge way. There was no inconsistency in the message. Bobby does this, Bobby does that, and when Bobby was putting well, we all believed he could beat Nicklaus, Watson, Langer, or anyone the world could throw at him. That’s why the cult grew so big, and Ben’s following still has clout even to this day to some degree.

Take Mac O Grady, he was both the teacher and the poster child.
Their was a time when nobody hit is as good as Mac… and for a while he had half the PGA tour working with him while he was on tour! It’s almost comical really. He could really demonstrate it himself, and that can make a believer out of people really fast.

I had a long talk with Sam Randolph a couple weeks ago, who was a good friend of mine from Junior golf days, we are the same age and both grew up in Southern California. For those who don’t know the name, he won the Junior World title, was a four time All American, Collegiate player of the year, won the US Amateur, and won on the PGA Tour right out of college. He was a guy who had his sights on being the best ever, and he felt that he needed to get a little bit better so he could dominate on the PGA Tour as he had at the amateur levels. He sought out the help of people like Hank Haney,
Ledbetter, Peter Costis, and so forth. These were the guys who supposedly knew the golf swing.

Sam holds to this day that he made the right decision to seek help,
he wasn’t TGM or a technically inspired player, so he had to trust
the so called experts. The problem with these experts is that they
never explained to Sam why he was as good as he was. Sam was a hitter and had a great natural home made and extremely effective action. These different instructors had some kind of model in their heads that everyone should swing like Mark O Meara or whoever.
Sam made a great point to me in our conversation in that these so called experts just couldn’t answer his questions, questions like “why am I in the bunker and not 10 feet from the pin like I used to be?

I’ll take a lesson from Ledbetter or Haney when they can take me out on the course and kick my ass and show me how to do it much better than I do now.. or if they speak the same language such as TGM, then we can talk theory and the application of law that is based on objective things like physics and geometry, not smoke and mirrors, or personal opinion or preferences.

Dart,
Even if you made a little grief with drag loading,I think it’s good you learnt what not to do, And now you can boot blokes like me in the arse and set us straight with what is the right way to teach and wrong , what isn’t effective to which way is most effective open our minds and ensure we don’t close them so no one follows the same path.
I still not sold on swinging, nor am I sold you hit it further swinging.
My long drive guy is a hitter and he’s third best in the country at present and hoping this weekend hits number 1.
Give me hitting any day, wish all my students preferred this method, I could retire

(Will he be in Sydney the weekend after biO?)

Lag: I think that one good thing about having a long time incubating the yellow book and not working directly for too long under someone like “a Ben” for us lot down under is we are not strapped to a single pattern learning process. When our students get together for a hit you can hear them talking on the range or 19th hole along the lines of,
“Boy what a classic swinger you are.”
And,
“I never could do that hitting thing you just nail it with.”

Even at the Roadmap workshops we show hitting and swinging to show that neither is right nor wrong, more that some people are more naturally inclined one way or the other to one type of power generation.

The fact is few know how to teach a hitter when they walk onto a lesson tee and this leads to a longer and tougher learning process for the player.

Blonde or Brunette, don’t mind:)

Lag

Do you consider Steve Elkington to be a swinger or a hitter ?

Reading his book ‘Five Fundamentals’, he seems to be expressing similar thoughts to what you are saying re. your swing.

Cheers

Lagpressure,

I realise this is a TGM based forum and my comments will be frowned upon but as good as Homer Kelly intended to base his book on physics and geometry,does that mean he got everything right?He was not even an engineer.

When I sat my mechanics exam in uni,I used the principles of physics to the best of my knowledge to answer the questions.Does that mean I got 100% in the exam?I sure wished I did.

I am sure Kelly got a high mark in the book but to assume there are no flaws is a very closed minded approach especially regarding such an extremely complex motion like the golf swing.

There have been serious doubts already raised in other forums regarding the validity of sustaining the line of compression.

dap: The book got sent to MIT in the early days. It came back with 100% from the eggs who’s only negative comment was “wish it were easier to read”.

Doubts expressed elsewhere generally are just that. Few have managed to pull the concepts apart before finding their own ideas are somewhere else in the work and actually utilised.

Homer was a man not a demi god that is for sure. Anyone who finds additional work that you can use to improve your golf I am all for as it would have to fit into the engineering dept approach that he took himself.

Guru,

I have heard that the book was sent to MIT but it remains a rumour and not confirmed by MIT to the best of my knowledge.

In case it were true,how serious did MIT undertake the study of the book?The book is poorly written and confusing at the best of times and easily misinterpreted.

TGM HQ have said that the info in the archives. The MIT engineering fellow who did put their eyes to it would be long in their graves at a guess so hard to say how they went about it.

The book is a hard read and confuses more people than enlightens first up that is for sure. Poorly written though portrays that the underlaying info is poor when it is the other end of the spectrum.

Once you get how to work your way around the contents, its full of gems, practical ones.

I don’t disagree that the book is full of gems.I am just saying it’s very closed minded to assume everything is correct.The golf swing is an extremely complicated motion to analyse even with the laws of physics.It’s very easy to get the application wrong.

I would be very surprised if MIT did endorse the book.Homer uses the term “centrifugal force”.Maintstream scientists frown at the term as they believe it’s fictitional.

LHe was not even an engineer.

Dap

Are you certain he was not an engineer ?

Not certain about anything as I didn’t know Homer personally but if anyone can prove me wrong,I am all ears.

To the best of my knowledge,he was an engineers assistant.

CF is recongnised by engineers for what it is so we can disregard that one for a start, an old chestnut. Add to that the Glossary clearly defined how it and many other terms were ulitised within the book to avoid confusion.

Endorsement is not the right world either. Engineers could not find fault with the assistant’s findings.

Hardly think this forum fits into one which is closed minded? I think in here you should find that we have happily said if there is new info that fits the Laws of force and motion that can be used life would progress. Lag’s teachers are a perfect example.

Absolutely,this is one of the less close minded TGM forums otherwise I would not post at all as it would be pointless.

CF is recognised by engineers for its real life applications but they still consider it fictional.I believe it’s real but I would not go into a physics exam using that term as I want to pass it!

Dap, but what term would you use? Legit question.

I believe the term is centripetal force.

Dap: if you do a search into the bowels of this forum you will find that yours truly rather tongue in cheekily said CF was a fictional force:) It started a looonnngggg (and boring to most) physics discussion. haha.

In here we do try real hard to keep to things with practical application and semantics can be left in general to the more in depth forums.

I think we all know a rock twirled on a string is kept tight by CF (or as numbers asks by what other term or collection of terms?)

If you guys do wish to kick on with this idea, set up another thread please:)

I am off for the weekend at this point. Have a great time out there all.

I certainly speak as the guinea pig test subject, and I can certainly explain what things are going to have to feel like when such actions
of physics and law are applied.

I by no means am a physicist, I am the son of an engineer so I probably picked up the analytical mind thing from pop… but the thing about golf is that it is a game of feel, and although all the math and physics, geometry and so forth is going on, you can’t possibly think about that stuff while you are playing or hitting shots. The concepts are not as difficult to understand as they are to execute. I can talk all day about holding the flex of the shaft to the ball and beyond, but I can assure you it is no easy feat.

I have two particular concepts that I believe and apply, the first I speak with strong conviction, that being the hitters 5th accumulator. The raising of the arms off the body after the 4rth parallel. It no doubt can extend the force on the shaft once all the other accumulators have been exhausted… and although it may seem to most that the ball is already gone, I would like to see what would happen if Ben Hogan kept his arms pinned to his body after impact and never lifted them up off the body at all. I believe that if the plane of the club stayed on elbow plane right to the finish with the hands just about hip high at the finish, you would see a huge power loss.
The deceleration that would take place would be disastrous.

The second is the Hogan move again, because from everything I see, it appears that he drag loads it, then drive loads it, then uses a combination of the pivot and 5th accumulator to radially accelerate it after impact. It really looks like a swinger’s move all the way to impact, but all hitter after impact, so my question and hunch is that this is what he did, and I do everything I can to do the same thing,
but I don’t quite have the hip speed Hogan had, but at times I can get it going pretty good with the hips, and it is really a different ball game when you attack the ball with such a power onslaught.

A quicker backswing tempo sets up more centripetal force at the change in direction, the outward turns inward, then the right arm quickly straightens, then that inward force quickly bounces into an outward throw, or centrifugal force, that as it is being assaulted on the ball is then redirected through a fast hip flat torso rotation past the ball into a radial acceleration that is then ripped back up the plane with the raising of the arms up and off the body in a final attempt to keep force on the shaft. The thing that seems to set Hogan apart from the modern players is that his hands looked so soft on the downswing for a hitter.
There is that suppleness, in the float loading that goes on during the start of the downswing, and that is not the look you see typically from a hitter. I really had that look too, but not as a hitter. Now I am pretty firm coming down, and resist that compression centripetal stuff. Hogan didn’t resist it, and that is such a swinger trait.

This is all really high end application stuff, but I just can’t rule out the possibility that this is what he did, regardless whether or not Homer said you can’t do both.

Lagpressure,

I realise this is a TGM based forum and my comments will be frowned upon but as good as Homer Kelly intended to base his book on physics and geometry,does that mean he got everything right?He was not even an engineer.

When I sat my mechanics exam in uni,I used the principles of physics to the best of my knowledge to answer the questions.Does that mean I got 100% in the exam?I sure wished I did.

I am sure Kelly got a high mark in the book but to assume there are no flaws is a very closed minded approach especially regarding such an extremely complex motion like the golf swing.

There have been serious doubts already raised in other forums regarding the validity of sustaining the line of compression.

dap,

Even Jesus Christ was not perfect, he was part man too. Homer admitted, let tomorrows rubbish be better than today’s. If you knew him you would be a better man. He would give you your point of view with humanity. I am sorry you feel so small.

100% perfect is a sad neurotic state of mind. Better than yesterday is saner. Show me better and I will use it. Tomorrow.

He wrote to make you think and look afresh. Same old stuff but know you have to look past your preconceptions and previous misunderstandings. That is why we applaud him, not for his technical precision.

You sound like you need to be given G.O.L.F. instead of having to work for it like the rest of us.

Do the work he advises in Chap.12 and you will get the best results of any system on earth for there is no other that does not try to force you into a their pattern. Here you get to choose your own. you just have to understand enough Physics and Geometry to build you own swing, not pass a theory exam.

If there has been doubt cast upon maintaining the line of compression, let them come to me for 5 minutes and I will alter their point of view. All you have to do is hit a 2.5cm. by 3 mtr. piece of doweling with a chip shot to discover the impact alignments.

Thanks for exposing yourself. I hope you learned something. I presume you are trying to learn rather than destroy something that thousands love.

Not a noble quest or a difficult one. Take up the real challenge.

100% perfect is a sad neurotic state of mind. Better than yesterday is saner.

Mr.C

Thanks. That makes it all worthwhile.

I believe the term is centripetal force.

Dab,

There has to be a linear force away from the centre before centripetal force can pull it into its orbit. We call it centrifugal force for our purposes.

Every one gets it. Then we go to the practice fairway to split pins not into splitting hairs.

Dart,

From the golfers point of view,sustaining the line of compression even well after impact as lagpressure suggests is probably what should be taught as this creates lag and the “late hit”.I believe it’s an illusion thats required to be learnt as the natural instinct is to hit early.

Is this what happens in reality?Can we really influence the ball significantly after impact?The amount of time the ball stays on the clubface is microscopic.Anyway,this is my opinion only and I raise it just as a thought.

If a body revolves in an ellipsis; it is proposed to find the law of the centripetal force tending to the CENTER of the ellipsis.

– Isaac Newton (1687) PROPOSITION X. PROBLEM V.

Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces

The Latin word ’Äúpetitus” means inclining towards, and the Latin word ’Äúfugo” means to drive away. Hence the European scientists of the 17th century (who customarily composed their scholarly treatise in Latin) used the terms centripetal and centrifugal to refer to effects directed towards or away from (respectively) some central point.

I am quite sure we can accept that as a golf club changes direction at the top of the swing, and the torso starts to accelerate it has a tendency to compress the club and shaft into or towards the body.
(Centripetal)

As the body rotation continues at some point the club is whirled into an outward expansion, the inertia of an orbiting clubhead is said to have a centrifugal effect, because continued motion in a straight line would tend to carry the object away from the center. (Centrifugal)

I am quite sure that if I attach a bowling ball to a chain, and swing it around as fast as possible, and you try to catch it in your gut, these forces won’t by any means feel fictitious!

Lag

There’s some cat fight going on in the Lynn Blake’s forum about this very topic. Jack Kuykendall is once again having a go at Homer Kelley. He says that he (JK) is the real only scientific golfer etc. That may be so. He also says that there is no Centrifugal force and the only thing that is keeping or the force which keeps the bowling ball in your example in orbit is the Tension force in the string. I am no physicist but this is what I was also taught in high school physics. I am a TGMer thru and thru but this whole debate is creating more fog for me. Could you please help to clear the fog :)

Dart,

From the golfers point of view,sustaining the line of compression even well after impact as lagpressure suggests is probably what should be taught as this creates lag and the ’Äúlate hit”.I believe it's an illusion thats required to be learnt as the natural instinct is to hit early.

Is this what happens in reality?Can we really influence the ball significantly after impact?The amount of time the ball stays on the clubface is microscopic.Anyway,this is my opinion only and I raise it just as a thought.

dap,

No doubt hacking AT the ball is our biggest tendency and all good golfers hit THROUGH. This is aided and abetted by an inborn miss programing to keep the clubface square to the target as long as possible, this causes slicing and the quitting reaction to get the back in play from the right side.

My antidote is to maximize the awareness of the desired rotation to the finish or at least some point past the ball.

To learn good golf any lag is enough and any release done with precision is enough.

The point of Homer is to get the job done i.e. hit the ball to the target and understand what is happening so as to repair and improve.

Lag

There's some cat fight going on in the Lynn Blake's forum about this very topic. Jack Kuykendall is once again having a go at Homer Kelley. He says that he (JK) is the real only scientific golfer etc. That may be so. He also says that there is no Centrifugal force and the only thing that is keeping or the force which keeps the bowling ball in your example in orbit is the Tension force in the string. I am no physicist but this is what I was also taught in high school physics. I am a TGMer thru and thru but this whole debate is creating more fog for me. Could you please help to clear the fog :)

Numbers,

JK is exactly right and Homer is right in a practical sense as everyone understands Homer and no one understands Jack’s explanation. Jack’s attention getter is to antagonize. He taught me most about Drive Loading.

Scientifically there is no such thing as centrifugal force, it even tricks the engineering students for a while. What there is is a force in a straight line acted upon by another force in a straight line giving a curve because they have different centres. In a golf shot we might throw the club towards the ground and like a dog running out of chain the direction is changed in the direction of the peg that the chain is attached to, causing the dog to flip.

In any case it does not apply to a hitter for he is overpowering all that with muscular thrust.

Let’s try to clear this up..

First we must understand that to hit a straight shot, we need the clubface square to the plane line at seperation, not initial impact.
it will appear to be slightly open at initial impact… closes some, and need to be square at separation. This is why if you look at the world’s greatest ball strikers, they have the clubface much more open at 7 o clock than your average golfer. This is the result of effective power accumulator #3 doing it’s job.

Second, the longer you can hold the ball on the clubface the better.
Even for short shots. Even for putting. You can hit a 3 foot putt with a rapidly accelerating clubhead. Try it..

Acceleration is the holy grail of the game. Acceleration is lag pressure.
Lag pressure is Feel. Golf is a game of feel.

Now to clear up the centrifugal debate, it’s the same argument that Einstein makes about gravity itself. Does gravity exist. Einstein says no. He argues that space itself is curved, therefore something that appears to be falling is actually just occupying it’s natural position in curved space. When you jump off a cliff, there is no force acting on you at all (assuming you are in an air vacuum for you quantum purists! lol). It’s only when you hit the ground that a force is exerted upon you.

Let’s leave the centrifugal force topic to the Einsteins of the world,
and we can go with the force being real because whether or not it is real, the club hits the ball with force, and your body breaks into pieces when you jump off a cliff and hit the ground. It’s real enough for us to play golf.

That has to be the least destructive “look” and discussion on this particular topic in ages. Open minds discussing not slagging an idea. Thank you to all above!

I’m an engineer and Homer has successfully communicated his concepts to me using the phrase ‘centrifugal force’. It’s also a term non-scientific people have more chance of understanding as well. Communication is more important than scientific correctness in this arena. I think he chose well.

Lagpressure,Dart and Guru,

Although i have questioned the validity of a few areas in TGM,I hope this doesn’t come accross as being directed at you.I have no doubt you are all fine teachers/players or both.

I do have a genuine question.Although all of you talk about lag pressure,how important do you consider maintaining pro quality accumulator lag deep into the downswing as lagpressure so eloquently demonstrates in his avatar?Is lagpressure and accumulator lag mutually exclusive?Can you cast a little bit from the top and still have lagpressure at impact?

Also,do you have any tips by way of feel thoughts to increase accumulator lag?

Dap
Remember the club head is lagging to the plane, not the body. So as long as a trailing condition occurs through impact all is still well.

I'm an engineer and Homer has successfully communicated his concepts to me using the phrase ‘centrifugal force'. It's also a term non-scientific people have more chance of understanding as well. Communication is more important than scientific correctness in this arena. I think he chose well.

In Homers very own words – “Keeeerect”.

Homer was expressing a concept that already had the term generally applied to it.

He knew very well that the “force” was Centripetal and that the “equal and opposing reaction to it” was Centrifugal.

There seems to always be confusion about “lag” such as the big angles created by Hogan, or more recently Sergio Garcia, and what is actually lag pressure.

You can hold some kind of huge angle in a static position, that would have zero lag pressure…

Tom Watson didn’t show us a lot of “lag angle” but I can assure you he had more lag pressure than most.

It’s the pressure that is the key… it’s lag pressure that actually puts some feeling in your hands to monitor, aim and utilize.

The bottom line is to put force and better yet, acceleration upon the shaft through the pressure points in the hands. The action of the 4rth accumulator is still going to put that pressure into the hands, because our hands are the only thing attached to the club. There must still be a cohesive tension or connection traveling down the left arm into the hands for #4 to do any good.

Another argument I would make for hitting is that if you can bring a pre stressed shaft into impact, and the club is traveling over 100 MPH at impact, you had better have a firm grip on the club. That type of active firm wristed action gives better support not only to RESIST the compression of the ball, but also to give support for off center hits.

I played the other day, and lost my footing on a sandy tee area while taking a slightly bigger swat at a drive than I might usually attempt,
needless to say it was an off center hit, and this one was right off the toe of my Tony Pena persimmon driver. The firmness in my hands and the acceleration I had presented to the ball really helped the clubface keep its alignment integrity, and the ball still held a pretty good flight and didn’t do anything crazy. I might have lost 25 yards with the miss hit, but I was still right in the middle of the fairway.
With the lighter grip, and longitudinal swinging dump I would have applied in the past with such a miss hit, I most certainly would have found myself in a much worse situation than just having to pull 5 iron instead of a 7 iron.

There is no doubt in my mind that swinging requires more precision at impact than hitting as the above example should clearly illustrate.

Lagpressure,Dart and Guru,

Although i have questioned the validity of a few areas in TGM,I hope this doesn't come accross as being directed at you.I have no doubt you are all fine teachers/players or both.

I do have a genuine question.Although all of you talk about lag pressure,how important do you consider maintaining pro quality accumulator lag deep into the downswing as lagpressure so eloquently demonstrates in his avatar?Is lagpressure and accumulator lag mutually exclusive?Can you cast a little bit from the top and still have lagpressure at impact?

Also,do you have any tips by way of feel thoughts to increase accumulator lag?

Dap,

I like that question. There are three kinds of lag. Clubhead, accumulator ( hand and arm angles ) and pivot lag.

You had best exercise them to see what you can learn. Try a little more and less for the rest of you life and see what works best at you particular age and sentiment. I suggest Acc #3 ( hand motion lag ) as Lag mentioned for the fastest results.

Lagpressure,

I can see your point about a huge angle in a static postion having zero pressure.However,the swing itself is not static.Logic says to me that if maximum pressure is to occur,then maximum lag angle needs to be maintained.If the left wrist hinge is not stretched to the limit of its flexibility on the downswing then doesn’t that mean you are not maximising lag pressure?Maximising is the key word here.

I agree that Watson does not have the lag angle of Sergio Garcia but that could be because he doesn’t have Sergio’s contortionist wrists.Having said that,Watson still has plenty of lag angle compared to most hackers.He can hold that angle pretty late as well.

A better example of sweep release would be Ben Curtis.Ben does seem to flip it a bit through impact and not a great deal of forward clubshaft lean.I wonder if it’s a result of the early release?He won a major so that shows you don’t need to have a perfect swing to get it done.

Dart,

I get LP’s point about trying to maintain lag pressure through and beyond impact.But I have seen so many great golfers hit the ball a country mile with seemingly no effort and they all have one thing in common.They all have good lag angle coming down and can hold the angle so late.That tells me they have maximised lag pressure and can generate a much faster,later release.I think accumulator lag angle is underestimated by TGM.

So how much lag pressure is enough?100% or just enough to get the hands in front of the clubhead at impact?

Dap
Remember the club head is lagging to the plane, not the body. So as long as a trailing condition occurs through impact all is still well.

www.simonwilliamsgolf.co.uk

Simon,

Yes,a trailing condition at impact is necessary to hit the the little ball before the big ball.But isn’t clubhead speed important?

Also poor accumulator angle and rentention appears to result in little to no forward shaft lean and the player is teetering on hitting the ball heavy/thin or even fat.

Hi Dap,

I do understand what you are saying, but there are several things that can be a bit illusionary regarding lag angle.

From a front on, or face on view of the swing, the angle of the clubshaft and the left arm will appear to be smaller angle (in degrees)
or meaning “a look of more lag angle” if the swing is flatter. Also if the shaft is more “laid off” at the top and on the start down this will give that “big lag look”. It’s not that Hogan had double jointed wrists or Sergio for that matter.

Also, there is no correlation between lag angle and lag pressure.
Applying great pressure to the shaft can be resisted by deliberately stiff wrists that don’t bend back a lot and show very little lag angle.
“Tom Watson” All anyone has to do is put their clubhead against something like a car tire and press it against really hard and created a bow in the shaft, and you could do this really at any point in the swing.. you don’t need a big angle to have pressure.

Dap’s point that if you apply pressure to the shaft, that the hands will then go to a fully cocked position, and this is correct if the wrists are free, oily and flexible as would be with a swinger!

Hogan looks like a swinger on the way down, and a hitter after impact. The subject of much debate on these and other forums I’m sure. Can you both hit and swing? Can you pull on the way down and push on the way through?

Recently I have been flattening out my swing plane, something I have wanted to do for a long time, not because I want to have more lag angle, but because the less shift from an upright plane back down to elbow plane, the simpler my swing is, and the less I have to rely on my right arm straightening on the downswing to keep the shaft low and “on or slightly below” plane.

As your #3 accumulator becomes more effective (hitting) in a deliberate sense, the more it is OK to have the shaft slightly laid off on the downswing. It can actually be helpful, in that by having the shaft laid off on the downswing from the top to parallel #3, it increases the potential range of motion of the rotation of the wrists.
Hogan did this, and so does Sergio, and any of the guys with that huge lag look do this. This is one of those little hidden secrets of the downswing, it’s not typically textbook, but it will be covered in my textbook!

Now, also realize that the more the “huge” lag angle is brought down to the 3rd parallel, “the 90 degree lag thing” before impact, the stronger and faster the hands must be. The bigger the load you bring into impact, the greater the requirements are for it’s release. (I am talking hitting here to re confirm) It may look great in photos to show off on the range at a TGM camp, about how much LAG you have, but if you don’t have the hand speed to deal with it… D I S A S T E R ! I can’t tell you how many Doyle disciples I witnessed on the ranges growing up that had these great graph check polaroid photos from Ben’s camera that showed a mountain of LAG…but…. they would just hit the ball sideways on the course because they didn’t have the launch system in place to carry such “responsibility” into impact.

The bottom line here is, the amount of lag angle you have, must be correlated closely to the amount of wrist strength and wrist rotational speed. Better to have less angle and be able to deal with it, than more angle and not be able to deal with it.

Even to this day I can’t tell you how much emphasis I put on my own wrist speed and wrist rotational abilities. It is so important and the faster and stronger the better. After laying off the game for over a decade, I lost a significant amount of hand speed. Now after playing again for 4 months, I have recovered much of that and I’ll post some photos of my swing to show the difference here soon. My hands are much stronger than they were 4 months ago, and I can now carry a heavier load into impact than before, I can flatten my swing, and I can even slightly lay the shaft off on the downswing which is a good thing assuming you can handle it.

This is one of those little hidden secrets of the downswing, it's not typically textbook, but it will be covered in my textbook!

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