Trebuchet Revisited

It has been a "best of times, worst of times" kind of week.

I started with the ability to rotate the shoulders and "spin" and had one of the best ball striking rounds of my life.

Of course by Tuesday that was no longer possible.

Then Wednesday brought sunny skies and incredible putting, how about 11 putts for the first nine?  Yes, well, more a demonstration of exquisite chipping than putting, but nothing makeable got away.  But the back nine was another story; the putting as fine, but the chipping as weaker and swing thoughts stopped being effective.

I took the day off today and went to the range.  I'd like to recapture some of the early round swing thoughts from Monday.  I also had looked at a number of videos that provided some insights that I wanted to test.  One of the videos talked about our old friend the trebuchet. 

The trebuchet had been in operation as the superior siege weapon from about 40 BCE until gun powder siege weapons took over.  So, per Wikipedia, 1200 years or so.

The trebuchet uses a weight to swing an arm, to which is attached a rope with a sling on the end of the rope.  A full sized trebuchet can toss a 200 pound payload a couple of hundred yards with the properly sized counter weight.

The golf swing has been compared to the trebuchet.   We have the lower body acting as the weight.  The hips turn and eventually the left hip will move away from the target.  That provides a slow down / stop that transmits energy to the arms.  As the arms approach the left thigh (assuming a right handed golfer) they slow down and the club finishes the job by pivoting through the wrists with all the stored up energy. 

What I was trying to do today was to not interfere with this sequence of the various levers.  The physicists will tell you that you can actually help the club whipping by the additional application of torque, but it's very difficult and the timing has to be exact.  The thought is that you can't do it consistently and thus is probably not worth the effort.

My swing thoughts were to make sure I got the left hip to turn properly.  Thus I'm avoiding a slide towards the ball and hoping the hip, getting to the proper position, would provide me enough speed to give me as much or more ball speed.  I would expect that since I am not trying to do more than spin the hips that I ought to get more consistency out of this type of swing.  The second thought was to just let everything but the hips react to the torque of the hips and not try to help it.

As usual with this kind of change is that I'm trying to do less and it's difficult to "just let things happen" and not try to help it.  It requires mental discipline to do this.  Perhaps that is more aptly called a fear response.  Afraid that if I don't hit the ball "hard" it will not go far.  I find myself swinging harder the more yardage I'm expecting.  This is an on going problem and I get away with it for the most part.  But there is something about the driver that brings out the worst in this.  I think that just moving hips and waiting for the rest to happen is a very good thing for me and is worth the effort to do it enough so that I will trust it.

At the range, this seemed to be pretty effective.  I pulled a few and such, but when I could just wait for the club to come around and square itself, I was getting good contact and good distance.

Chipping with a modest amount of shoulder turn and wrist hinge, is a lot like the full swing.  It was good practice to chip and pay attention to the unaided swing of the arms and club.  It seemed to work well too.


Speaking of mental games, I ran across a video in which a sports psychologist was interviewed.  He was talking about the thoughts of winning before you've won and the fear of losing before you've lost.  His take was that we all do this.  We can't not do it.  The solution is to let your mind babble along, but turn your concentration to what you are trying to do.  Or "get in the moment."  The thoughts of what you are trying to do, will drown out the unproductive thoughts of the various fears and "what ifs."


The new putter is continuing to perform quite nicely -- thanks mom!  Putting requires a lot of concentration for me.  That might be because I'm not a very natural putter and have, until lately, not paid a lot of attention to the skill.  But I'm practicing more and the number of putts is dropping.  It's rewarding to see the progress.

Ok, tomorrow is another round and many chances to try new things.