Thoughts and Some Experimental Data - updated

I've got my nose back into Jorgensen's The Physics of Golf, second edition, and was curious about the action of the wrists.

The plots he provides suggest that the wrist to club shaft angle opens up in the downswing at a linear rate -- not, for example, being delayed until the last moment when the wrists can snap and send the ball off at some fantastic speed.

I also took my club head speed unit with me.  This is a couple of years old and sits about 3 feet behind the ball.  You give the club a swing and it will report a club head speed.  Accurate?  Don't know, but it's probably more important that it be consistent.

I was curious if I could just let the wrists open as they do from the torque delivered by the arms and if that would increase or decrease club head speed.

What I learned is:  1) that I don't think it matters much, 2) I cannot swing a club over 100 MPH.  Oh, I saw 100 a couple of times, but it was more likely to be 93 than 100.  I never saw any 96, 97, 98, or 99 speeds - curious!

More later, we are off to eat.
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Updates:

One of the interesting things I found was that the speeds between clubs was not that different.

I usually start with a 9 iron, move to a 6 then 3 wood, then sand wedge, and then driver.  The speeds for these were about 80, 84, 90, 93 - I never got to the sand wedge.  I would have thought the speed differences would have been greater.  Note that each of those numbers was fairly variable and they often overlapped.

I also found that some of the most solid iron hits were with the slower speeds.  Imagine that!

So tomorrow I'll concentrate on swinging smoothly, as trying to hit anything hard did not result in a higher club head speed.

A Couple good days and Perhaps a Suggestion to an Age Old Question

I've gone 78 and 76 the last couple of days.  So the hitting is back on track pretty much.

I've tightened up my lower body at the start of the swing to make sure I don't sway and to make sure I turn.  That seems to work.  I also was doing this while putting and had very good putting ball control.  It was fun!


As my readers will know, the old driver is the problem child.  I had two bad swings on the front today, which cost two shots.  I managed a one over par thanks to a birdie putt and reasonable iron play.

But as I mulled over this, it occurred to me that the difference between the range, where I don't miss the driver -- I can hit 10 in a row without an issue, and the course, where I might hit one in 20 properly, might be just a function of not completing the backswing.

Yes, a victim of my interest / excitement and I get short, quick, and I'm out of sync for the hit.  This came to me on one of the par 5s and I made sure I took it back.  Well, how does high, long, and straight sound? The Greeks and homey phrase, mirabile visu -- and by the Gods they knew about golf apparently.  It looked a bit like a miracle to me.

I followed that with a full swing 3 wood, something I tend to avoid due to erratic results, but low and behold, long and straight and right up the pipe.  So, it was 500 yards or so and in two shots I'm 40 yards off the green.

Next hole is a short par 4, I tee off with a 7 iron to avoid the 23 bunkers.  This sucker is dead up the middle.  I thought it was shortish, but nope, further up the fairway then usual.  A smooth pitching wedge over the bunker and a simple 2 putt par from there.

The last two holes of the day were a lot like that.  I did pull my tee shot on 8 and hit a thin 6 iron approach on 9, but it was all good otherwise.

I'm playing tomorrow and I'll see I can sync my range performance with that on the course.

Update:  I was actually getting that nice splatty sound when I hit a lot of shots.  I've seen one of the pros produce it with range balls, so I think it's in the strike.  I was using a TaylorMade Tour Preferred ball, which felt soft and reacted well.   The shots were creamy feeling.  I sure hope all this continues...

Notes from Practice 5/24/17

In the prior post I noted that Luke Donald, et al., set their lower body quite firmly before starting the golf swing.

I tried to do this today at the range.  I found it worked quite well and put me in a more consistent position prior to the down swing.

I applied this to my short irons.  I typically spend a lot of time pitching and chipping and I expect that things that work there will work in the full swing.  This setting the lower body was quite applicable to the short game too.  I liked the feeling and the solidity of the positions.

But wait there's more!  When I got to these positions, I then could feel that I was not maintaining my hinged wrist through the strike position.  I was able to do less hand compensation as I came into the ball.

I wanted to hit another bucket and see how this worked with the longer clubs, but ran out of time.

So, once again I am filled with hope and exuberance!

Not time for more, I have to clean up for lunch!

A Bad Friday on the Course

My friend David is back in town and I wanted to have a good round.

At the range before we played, the shots were going well until I got to the driver.  I hit about 6 of them and none were good.  An auspicious beginning.

It didn't go much better on the course either.  The first shot was fine and I hit a good 6 iron to the first green.  It didn't end up on the green and I had a simple chip.  It went a few feet past and even though the putt was good, it didn't drop.

That pretty much summed up the day: lots of missed putts, no good drives.  It could have been much better scoring if the putts had dropped as I was chipping ok.

What was going on...  It was my usual fault in that my upper body was getting ahead of everything and then I played catch up with the hands.  Not a good way to play.

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We played again on Monday.  Same thing...  While David almost shot his age on Friday, Monday was not too good for him either.


Ok.  Well, there is always youtube for a quick answer to anything.  I was watching a couple of the golf blogs that I subscribe to  and in one they had Luke Donald and Chris Wood playing with a couple of the bloggers.  The bloggers are pretty good golfers, so this is not as ugly as one might think.  But what caught my eye was how both of these pros "set" their feet and legs prior to a shot.

The swings had active lower body movement, but not a lot.  They also were in no hurry to complete the back swing.  "Hmm," I thought, "can it be unreasonable to copy the swing of a pro?" 

So today I implemented two things.  One was to settle the lower body/legs into position before a swing and, 2, to take a slow backswing.

This worked pretty well.  My drives were good, not great, but they were in the fairway and maybe 210 off the tee.  This distance is good enough for the course I play.  If I can get within 150 yards of a green I can usually par the hole.

I did hit two bad tee shots.  They cost 3 strokes.  I shot 38, 39 with a couple of birdies.  I also missed a ton for short putts.  It could have been close to 72 if I'd dropped them all.

I have a luncheon tomorrow as one of the lab folks is retiring, so I'll practice a bit instead of playing.  Thursday is usually an off day, but I may play then.  I've got a regular group for Friday. 

The new mode of swinging feels weird but I gritted my teeth and did it.  Every time the ball went straight off the tee it surprised me.  But it is a feeling that I can get used do.

I remain your optimistic reporter!

Monday 5/15/17

One of the most interesting parts of being retired and having my schedule is that you look forward to Monday as it is the start of the golf week.

Oh, sure, there are the weekend runs to the diving range and the odd hour at youtube golf videos, but Monday is a return to the course and another attempt to make dreams reality.

I saw a video on youtube that I had initially dismissed as not particularly interesting.  It's called the popcorn drill.  You put down a piece of popcorn then a ball and repeat until there are 4 of each.  Get a club and hit the piece of popcorn.  You are supposed to notice how loose and relaxed your hands are because you know the popcorn weighs nothing and then try to hit the ball with the same relaxed hand state.

But I thought about this.  It's long been clear to me and others that it is rediculously easy to hit broken tees prior to a real shot.  Why might this be?  No expectations, smooth hands, relaxed, etc.

At that point I gave the popcorn drill a bit more respect.

I was trying to just stay behind the ball on today's round.  I find I can swing quite aggressively when I do that.  Everything is in line and synced and it all comes together.

I also applied this popcorn drill stuff and didn't tighten the hands up at impact.

I tied my life time best score with a 37/35 for an even par round of 72.  17 and 18 were tough scrambling pars.  I was hoping to birdie to 18 as it is a par 5.  But a few pushed shots and I was struggling to get on the green in 4.  I rolled in a 6 footer for the par. 

The back nine was a bit different.  I made a long putt on 10 for a birdie, then parred the rest of the holes. 

Lots of GIRs and only one ugly tee shot.  I was quite happy with the hitting.  The relaxed hands at impact proved to be easy to do.  Then it occurred to me that that might be a nice way to putt too.  And it was. 

There is still room for driver improvement; while I didn't miss any, I found myself "saving" a few.  I hit one where everything was correct and it was an effortless swat -- most delightful.

5/11/17 and 5/13/17 Updated!

I've been having trouble being in the proper position to let myself swing freely.

I've been thinking that I've been sliding forward and then having to do frantic things with the hands to hit the ball at all.

I was at the range today, because it was my day off from playing, and I found that indeed I was not maintaining my spline angle when hitting the driver.  Once I managed to stay there, then it freed a lot of things up.  I could swing at any speed I liked and still hit the ball without any manipulation of hands or anything else.

I tried this with the other clubs and was happy with my striking across all of the them.

I play tomorrow and we shall see how it goes.

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5/13

The play on Friday went well; though I didn't score particularly well.  I was very happy with a lot of shots, as much in how well they were struck than where they ended up.

I counted 16 good shots on the front -- I didn't count chips or putts in that, with only a few nasty shots. 

It was a strange round in that I took 2 triple bogies, which are quite rare in my normal play.  They included penalty shots.  I still managed a reasonable 81.

But my attempts to  "stay onside," or behind the ball worked pretty well.  Not perfectly, but I was happy with a number of utility shots.

I expanded on that during my practice session today, the 13th.  Friday's round was the 12th. 

I'm happy that I can do it and could do it for the most part on the course.  More repetitions to drill some of it in, should bring about better play and long game.

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There are some interesting things that occur at the bottom of the swing.  As the hands transition from a downward motion to an upward one, there is a moment where the left hand is going up and the right hand is still going down.  This is described as the moment where there is a snap effect in that the club should rotate around its center of mass and smash into the ball.

I think this is  the only place where the hands are doing different things.  Obviously this is a process that should not be "helped" or interfered with.  But perhaps, even encouraged and cherished.

Does it make the club head go faster?  Well, you are making a small move with the hands, but it is creating a large movement in the club head.  So I'm thinking it affects the club head in a large way.  Have I been blocking or interfering with this?  Hard to say.

My big question in re the golf swing is still is the different in club head speed between the pros and us duffers one of nature or technique?  Can I add half of the missing speed that the pros generate so effortlessly?

Well, Perhaps...

After a couple of rounds of punishment, I wanted to figure out where I had gone wrong.

I got the large basket of balls, which I call the Happy Bucket and started to hit them.  A happy bucket is 154 balls or so.  And it was hot and humid.  The tees at the range are kind of a problem these days as they need to get the mover sharpened.

The grass is long and the teeing areas are uneven.  It's a bit of a challenge as it introduces a bunch of other variables in the equation.

All in all, it didn't go great.  There were a lot of pushes, which is better than yesterday as I was playing with a push slice.  How many balls out of bounds?  It's better you don't ask.

I took a break as I was sweaty and tired and hot.  Sat for a bit and then went back to the chipping area.

I've found that chipping is a very good way to figure out what's off.  Things are more slow motion and yet the distances involved allow for reasonable shot evaluation.

I finally figured out that I've been taking the club back too much to the inside.  Which causes pushes, hooks and all sorts of nasty things.

I was really tired at this point, but someone left 10 balls at the practice area.  I rounded them up and went back to the grass tees.  What a difference.  Drives were solid and strong and straight.  The other clubs fell into shape too.

Now, it does feel like I am taking the club well outside on the backswing.  It may be a struggle to make the change.

Everything is sore and tight.  Lots of fluids and some ibuprofen for the day and we return to the fray tomorrow.