A while ago I was going to work on club head speed and that basically went nowhere as other issues and thoughts intruded.
But I was thinking in the shower about the prior post, it hadn't been written at that time, and the concepts of speed and power came up.
If you are swinging something and are going to hit something that is heavy, think axe and log, you brace for the impact and the body tightens up and as you hit the log the body is trying to drive the axe through the log.
This an example of power.
Now how about hitting dandelions with a golf club. There is no weight to the flower. We will whip the club through and not think about the hit much as there is nothing important going on at impact.
I think that we average golfers are more prone to think of impact as an axe and log and not cutting off flower heads.
I'm going to see if I can use this to speed things up.
I also ran across a video where the instructor was talking about speed. "If you want get faster then think about being fast past the ball and not at the top of the backswing." Apply the speed at the bottom and not at the top.
Saturday, September 29, 2018
More Plane Thoughts
I just reviewed my earlier thoughts on planes and it looks like I had most of it wrong.
I was watching a couple of videos by Athletic Motion Golf and they measure pros and amateurs and take a look at the differences between the two. And there are differences.
Let me go back to the the various planes. We have the shoulders that swing at a plane that basically intersects the ball. It's inclined to the ground. This angle is important. Too flat or too upright and you have issues getting your hands back to the ball. Oh, you'll do it, but the ball direction and speed will not be optimal. More on this in a moment.
In the prior post on planes I said that the arms which are below the shoulder plane will move up to join this plane and will follow it down as the down swing occurs.
That is not correct.
What Athletic Motion Golf (AMG) says is happening is that the arms will stay in their plane. It is more vertical that the shoulder plane. And it will cross the shoulder plane going back and coming down.
The cross occurs as the arms get over your shoulder on the backswing.
Now the next point is quite interesting. At the start of the down swing we have some minor lower body movement, then the arms will cross back under the shoulder plane. The shoulders will not move much until the arms are moving pretty good.
When the shoulders have rotated back to the setup position the hands will be close to the right thigh and moving into the hitting area. Basically the hands are close to their lowest point to the ground.
But note that the arms are well below the shoulder plane.
One more word on this. Since we are for the most part just moving arms, we can do it briskly, develop some speed (see next post!) and keep the body as a solid support structure to the arms.
The arms drop vertically and by that I mean straight down. There is very little angle towards the ball initially. There does seems to be a "corner" that aligns the arms to the ball. Remember that the club face is going to rotate at impact and the club has to be a bit below the impact plane. If it's not, then an adjustment will be made and inconsistencies will occur!
The hips and such will not be leading the arms through the hitting area. They are turning as the hands go by.
AMG shows that this is what the pros do. Amateurs on the other hand do other things. For example let me talk about a guy I play with a lot.
He lines up the shoulder and arm planes and keeps them together. As he comes down, the shoulders drive the direction of the arms. He hits a very consistent left to right ball flight. The shoulders drive the arms above the proper plane and leave the club face open. So the ball starts left as a pull, then the ball curves back to the right due to the club face.
If he would move the arms first, then shoulders this may all change. I think he'd hit everything straight.
One more example is another friend who has a shoulder plane that in the backswing flattens to become almost parallel to the ground. It is almost as if he has stood up straight and lost all of his initial posture.
Now what does he do to get back to the ball? He has a big problem and it is resolved into a characteristic dance of adjustments to get the club on the ball. It's costing him a lot of club speed. His dance is required to get his body out of the path to the ball.
---
Ok, I'm playing with this in the backyard. Note to self, it's really easy to get winded by swinging at top speed 20 times! It's very difficult to drop the arms. I'll have to try it at the range.
The other issue is to see impact as a dandelion head. If I do this, there is a lot less club manipulation and the speed seems to go up. I'm encouraged about this aspect.
---
This is long enough and we will see what happens when it's put into practice.
I was watching a couple of videos by Athletic Motion Golf and they measure pros and amateurs and take a look at the differences between the two. And there are differences.
Let me go back to the the various planes. We have the shoulders that swing at a plane that basically intersects the ball. It's inclined to the ground. This angle is important. Too flat or too upright and you have issues getting your hands back to the ball. Oh, you'll do it, but the ball direction and speed will not be optimal. More on this in a moment.
In the prior post on planes I said that the arms which are below the shoulder plane will move up to join this plane and will follow it down as the down swing occurs.
That is not correct.
What Athletic Motion Golf (AMG) says is happening is that the arms will stay in their plane. It is more vertical that the shoulder plane. And it will cross the shoulder plane going back and coming down.
The cross occurs as the arms get over your shoulder on the backswing.
Now the next point is quite interesting. At the start of the down swing we have some minor lower body movement, then the arms will cross back under the shoulder plane. The shoulders will not move much until the arms are moving pretty good.
When the shoulders have rotated back to the setup position the hands will be close to the right thigh and moving into the hitting area. Basically the hands are close to their lowest point to the ground.
But note that the arms are well below the shoulder plane.
One more word on this. Since we are for the most part just moving arms, we can do it briskly, develop some speed (see next post!) and keep the body as a solid support structure to the arms.
The arms drop vertically and by that I mean straight down. There is very little angle towards the ball initially. There does seems to be a "corner" that aligns the arms to the ball. Remember that the club face is going to rotate at impact and the club has to be a bit below the impact plane. If it's not, then an adjustment will be made and inconsistencies will occur!
The hips and such will not be leading the arms through the hitting area. They are turning as the hands go by.
AMG shows that this is what the pros do. Amateurs on the other hand do other things. For example let me talk about a guy I play with a lot.
He lines up the shoulder and arm planes and keeps them together. As he comes down, the shoulders drive the direction of the arms. He hits a very consistent left to right ball flight. The shoulders drive the arms above the proper plane and leave the club face open. So the ball starts left as a pull, then the ball curves back to the right due to the club face.
If he would move the arms first, then shoulders this may all change. I think he'd hit everything straight.
One more example is another friend who has a shoulder plane that in the backswing flattens to become almost parallel to the ground. It is almost as if he has stood up straight and lost all of his initial posture.
Now what does he do to get back to the ball? He has a big problem and it is resolved into a characteristic dance of adjustments to get the club on the ball. It's costing him a lot of club speed. His dance is required to get his body out of the path to the ball.
---
Ok, I'm playing with this in the backyard. Note to self, it's really easy to get winded by swinging at top speed 20 times! It's very difficult to drop the arms. I'll have to try it at the range.
The other issue is to see impact as a dandelion head. If I do this, there is a lot less club manipulation and the speed seems to go up. I'm encouraged about this aspect.
---
This is long enough and we will see what happens when it's put into practice.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Catching Up
I've been lax with my postings lately. Not much new to impart. There have been the usual good rounds (2) and a round where it all seemed to regress to earlier days.
I took my usual Thursday off and did some around the house stuff and then went to the range to work on today's latest theory.
I wanted to make sure that my shoulders are staying on plane. I think that I've been getting flatter with the longer clubs. And then when the driver is in hand, I'm so flat that I can't get it on plane, I get outside and then we are talking the pushes and hooks.
So today I made sure I was pretty upright and shoulders were where they should be. Of course it all worked fine on the range, it always does. But I feel more comfortable over the ball with the longer clubs keeping this in mind.
I've updated my notes and all I'll have to do is read then before I go out and play tomorrow.
We had some 90+ weather the last few days and I came back from the range a bit soaked. It sure looks easier on TV.
The Ryder cup starts tonight. The recorder is setup to grab it and I'll look forward to seeing it tomorrow.
As a historical note the Kavanaugh hearing is today. I've got a few things to say about this. I've had a couple of other non-golf thoughts lately. I suspect I'll put then in one of the other blogs. But it seems to me that these are quite unique times in my life time. Lots of things happening and people getting angry and strangely quite a lot of things getting done on a national level. I never thought that I'd see a politician actually do what he promised to do pre-election. What an interesting precedent! Could we be in the position to demand that of future presidents? Might be quite comical. Ok, I won't dive into it here and I've not organized my thoughts totally in any case.
I've a round scheduled for tomorrow. Looking forward to playing. I hit it well on Wednesday with 15 GIRs, but no putts made. It was a 78. Greens were very fast. Long putts were fraught with tension and as the ball would just run out and out.
I took my usual Thursday off and did some around the house stuff and then went to the range to work on today's latest theory.
I wanted to make sure that my shoulders are staying on plane. I think that I've been getting flatter with the longer clubs. And then when the driver is in hand, I'm so flat that I can't get it on plane, I get outside and then we are talking the pushes and hooks.
So today I made sure I was pretty upright and shoulders were where they should be. Of course it all worked fine on the range, it always does. But I feel more comfortable over the ball with the longer clubs keeping this in mind.
I've updated my notes and all I'll have to do is read then before I go out and play tomorrow.
We had some 90+ weather the last few days and I came back from the range a bit soaked. It sure looks easier on TV.
The Ryder cup starts tonight. The recorder is setup to grab it and I'll look forward to seeing it tomorrow.
As a historical note the Kavanaugh hearing is today. I've got a few things to say about this. I've had a couple of other non-golf thoughts lately. I suspect I'll put then in one of the other blogs. But it seems to me that these are quite unique times in my life time. Lots of things happening and people getting angry and strangely quite a lot of things getting done on a national level. I never thought that I'd see a politician actually do what he promised to do pre-election. What an interesting precedent! Could we be in the position to demand that of future presidents? Might be quite comical. Ok, I won't dive into it here and I've not organized my thoughts totally in any case.
I've a round scheduled for tomorrow. Looking forward to playing. I hit it well on Wednesday with 15 GIRs, but no putts made. It was a 78. Greens were very fast. Long putts were fraught with tension and as the ball would just run out and out.
Sunday, September 23, 2018
One For the Ages
I've been looking at some videos by David Bull. He is a Canadian who moved to Japan and learned to be a wood block carver. The blocks, usually cherry wood, are then used to make prints.
I just watched a video where he was talking about the transitory nature of stuff. Cars and phones and washing machines have a life span, but art lasts. He sells prints made over 200 years ago. He is pushing gifts of prints for a very nominal cost that will outlast the giver. It's nice stuff and worth a look. He makes good videos and is an interesting talker.
But back to golf... Tiger has managed to return to a very high level of play. It was very entertaining to me to watch it play out over the last 4 days.
But what has this to do with old Japanese prints?
Ah, we come to the attraction of watching Tiger play. During the times when I've found golf to be of interest, I've seen Nicklaus and Tiger in their primes. I would have loved to have seen Sneed or Hogan or Jones when they were working miracles. There are some film and videos, but it's not the same as watching it occur in real time. The first golf I ever watched on TV was when Johnny Miller shot his 63 at the US Open. It was on an old black and white set we had up on the porch in Palatine. It was a good introduction to the game.
I find Tiger of interest as I am able to watch history in the making. Maybe he will pass Jack down the road. It seemed a sure thing not too long ago. Then it seemed impossible. But now, it just might unfold.
Every victory and well struck putt adds to what he has done. The mastery he controls is inspiring. The power and finesse is art and I look forward to more of it.
Tiger, the non-golfer, is of not much interest. I hope he is happy and enjoys what will come to him down the years. His retirement from competitive golf might be interesting depending what he may turn to. But I want to see the history book rewritten in my time.
Ok, here is a joke that came out when he was having marital troubles:
Tiger has crashed his car and the police have shown up. They look over the scene and talk to Elin, his wife.
"It seems like you hit him with the golf club a few times. How many times did you hit him?" asks the cop.
Elin thinks for a moment and uses her fingers to count out things as she remembers them.
"Put me down for a 6," she answers.
It's funny if you golf!
I just watched a video where he was talking about the transitory nature of stuff. Cars and phones and washing machines have a life span, but art lasts. He sells prints made over 200 years ago. He is pushing gifts of prints for a very nominal cost that will outlast the giver. It's nice stuff and worth a look. He makes good videos and is an interesting talker.
But back to golf... Tiger has managed to return to a very high level of play. It was very entertaining to me to watch it play out over the last 4 days.
But what has this to do with old Japanese prints?
Ah, we come to the attraction of watching Tiger play. During the times when I've found golf to be of interest, I've seen Nicklaus and Tiger in their primes. I would have loved to have seen Sneed or Hogan or Jones when they were working miracles. There are some film and videos, but it's not the same as watching it occur in real time. The first golf I ever watched on TV was when Johnny Miller shot his 63 at the US Open. It was on an old black and white set we had up on the porch in Palatine. It was a good introduction to the game.
I find Tiger of interest as I am able to watch history in the making. Maybe he will pass Jack down the road. It seemed a sure thing not too long ago. Then it seemed impossible. But now, it just might unfold.
Every victory and well struck putt adds to what he has done. The mastery he controls is inspiring. The power and finesse is art and I look forward to more of it.
Tiger, the non-golfer, is of not much interest. I hope he is happy and enjoys what will come to him down the years. His retirement from competitive golf might be interesting depending what he may turn to. But I want to see the history book rewritten in my time.
Ok, here is a joke that came out when he was having marital troubles:
Tiger has crashed his car and the police have shown up. They look over the scene and talk to Elin, his wife.
"It seems like you hit him with the golf club a few times. How many times did you hit him?" asks the cop.
Elin thinks for a moment and uses her fingers to count out things as she remembers them.
"Put me down for a 6," she answers.
It's funny if you golf!
Saturday, September 22, 2018
The Ongoing News
I'm about to conclude that I've been doing things incorrectly.
Now I've been able to move the ball pretty well this summer. But the driver is still the weak spot. Yes, it's gotten better, but it is nothing that I can rely on.
I have two things that I'm try out.
We can start with the easy item and it may be that this has been my algorithm all along. We are talking pitching here. The idea is that we swing a circle using arms and club with as large a radius as we can. Thus we don't hing the wrists and chop at it. We come back at the ball and allow a long flat spot in swing as we hit it. The idea being that we get a nice consistent contact with a consistent club face angle to the ball. I've been at the range for a couple of days and tried this. I'm pretty happy with the technique. The trajectory seems a bit low. I've not taken this to the course. Friday's round was lost to a memorial service for a friend. Monday is the next round and I'm eager to try this out on a course. If you watch the pros this week you will see a lot of this as they bump it along the fringes and greens.
The second swing thought is to make sure the hips are not too active. Get the hands in front of the body and then let the hips go. It's a different take on the swing. The hips don't pull anything around, but we want to get into a good position, close to the impact position before we drive hips around.
This can be thought of syncing the arms to the body. It feels slow, but I'm really happy with contact and distance. I was rolling shots up onto the 250 target at the range. The tees were about 15 yards up, but I am happy to hit the ball 235 or so with range balls.
What I've found is that to do the above, you have to use the torso more than the legs/hips. It may be that I've never really used the torso much. An untapped power source!
I looked for YouTube videos for syncing the driver swing. I ran across a gal who talked about pros having a very solid and stable platform from which to hit. I think this is an important thought. We amateurs are all over the place and have no balance. The pros are rock solid and balanced. If you can be in balance, you can be very consistent.
I've been trying to turn without moving my hips much. Then do not take a too long back swing and then get the arms moving and join the hips, then let the hips go.
I hit some nice shots. I have to think if I hit any bad ones. If they were, they were up in the air and out there. If I can move all of that to the course, I will be happy.
As I've been trying this, my calluses have started to move. I'm getting sore spots on the joints of the little finger on the left hand, The sore spot on the left thumb is in remission. This lines up with what Hogan had in his book. Since I started as hooker of the ball, this is probably a very good sign.
Sadly we have to wait for Monday. Since retirement, I have found weekends to be the bane of my existence. The roads are crowded and the golf course is closed to me!
Now I've been able to move the ball pretty well this summer. But the driver is still the weak spot. Yes, it's gotten better, but it is nothing that I can rely on.
I have two things that I'm try out.
We can start with the easy item and it may be that this has been my algorithm all along. We are talking pitching here. The idea is that we swing a circle using arms and club with as large a radius as we can. Thus we don't hing the wrists and chop at it. We come back at the ball and allow a long flat spot in swing as we hit it. The idea being that we get a nice consistent contact with a consistent club face angle to the ball. I've been at the range for a couple of days and tried this. I'm pretty happy with the technique. The trajectory seems a bit low. I've not taken this to the course. Friday's round was lost to a memorial service for a friend. Monday is the next round and I'm eager to try this out on a course. If you watch the pros this week you will see a lot of this as they bump it along the fringes and greens.
The second swing thought is to make sure the hips are not too active. Get the hands in front of the body and then let the hips go. It's a different take on the swing. The hips don't pull anything around, but we want to get into a good position, close to the impact position before we drive hips around.
This can be thought of syncing the arms to the body. It feels slow, but I'm really happy with contact and distance. I was rolling shots up onto the 250 target at the range. The tees were about 15 yards up, but I am happy to hit the ball 235 or so with range balls.
What I've found is that to do the above, you have to use the torso more than the legs/hips. It may be that I've never really used the torso much. An untapped power source!
I looked for YouTube videos for syncing the driver swing. I ran across a gal who talked about pros having a very solid and stable platform from which to hit. I think this is an important thought. We amateurs are all over the place and have no balance. The pros are rock solid and balanced. If you can be in balance, you can be very consistent.
I've been trying to turn without moving my hips much. Then do not take a too long back swing and then get the arms moving and join the hips, then let the hips go.
I hit some nice shots. I have to think if I hit any bad ones. If they were, they were up in the air and out there. If I can move all of that to the course, I will be happy.
As I've been trying this, my calluses have started to move. I'm getting sore spots on the joints of the little finger on the left hand, The sore spot on the left thumb is in remission. This lines up with what Hogan had in his book. Since I started as hooker of the ball, this is probably a very good sign.
Sadly we have to wait for Monday. Since retirement, I have found weekends to be the bane of my existence. The roads are crowded and the golf course is closed to me!
Thursday, September 20, 2018
The Club of High Confidence
That's what my father used to call his 5 wood. If he had a name for the club at the other end of the happiness spectrum, I never heard it.
I raised the question with the boys while we were having our after round hot dog and frozen yogurt. "Why are some clubs beloved and others tossed to a dark corner of the garage? It can't be that the untrusted club is so different that it cannot be playable?"
Sadly there was no insights from the boys. Just a gentle munching of hot dog, the odd slurp of the soda.
There is a tale about this. Back in the 70s they started frequency matching clubs. One of the first folks to have his clubs checked was Tom Weiskopf. It seems he had a 7 iron that wouldn't be friendly no matter how much he beat balls with it.
But in these days the quality and consistency of equipment is of a very high order. If there is a problem we have to look inward and not at the gear.
I have no other thoughts to pass on. But if there are thoughts out there, I'm happy to listen...
I raised the question with the boys while we were having our after round hot dog and frozen yogurt. "Why are some clubs beloved and others tossed to a dark corner of the garage? It can't be that the untrusted club is so different that it cannot be playable?"
Sadly there was no insights from the boys. Just a gentle munching of hot dog, the odd slurp of the soda.
There is a tale about this. Back in the 70s they started frequency matching clubs. One of the first folks to have his clubs checked was Tom Weiskopf. It seems he had a 7 iron that wouldn't be friendly no matter how much he beat balls with it.
But in these days the quality and consistency of equipment is of a very high order. If there is a problem we have to look inward and not at the gear.
I have no other thoughts to pass on. But if there are thoughts out there, I'm happy to listen...
The Return of Monte
Monte Scheinblum is a golf instructor. He's had some fame in the long driving world and has some interesting videos on YouTube and Instagram. Worth a look if you golf.
One of his drills is called the "Hinge, no turn and cast drill." To perform this you try to cock/hinge your wrists without taking the club back and then try to cast, which is to open the wrist angle as hard as you can.
What actually happens is that you will make a full shoulder turn by just cocking the wrists and when you try to cast, you will end up in the perfect impact position.
Monte's point in this and other things is that the body is incredibly reactive. It will do things to make sure we don't fall over (most of the time!) and get a club on a golf ball from very strange starting points. You can't anticipate what is going to happen, it just does what it needs to.
I've mentioned what 88% of the brain is doing while we think with the 12% left over, and it's how to do things very automatically. It's learned. Watch a two month old whose hands are all over the map as he learns to control them. It is not long and he will be able to grab and hold and reach and all that good stuff. But initially it's all training.
But early development is not high on my list of things to think about. Side note: an agendum is a list of things to do. Agenda is plural! Multiple lists as it were. Is there a Latin word for a list of things to think about?
So, back to golf. If we want to have a better swing then I think (and Monte thinks) we can't worry about the end positions. We want to learn the things that will make the body react to get us to the proper impact position. With this in mind we have the drill mentioned above.
I can attest that it works quite well. But it's not perfect. It's fine for irons, but the driver is still not where I want it to be. So let me dwell on that a moment.
The drill does a couple of things. By trying to cast the club we put a lot of effort into accelerating the right hand. That causes the body to brace against this. The arms move against the brace and we arrive at impact. The stress on using early movement of the arms is promoted by others instructors and I think the foundation for it is accurate. The body has actually started to move a bit too, but the reaction is due to arm movement and that provides the majority of the total reaction. And as I said, this gets you to a nice place with the arms and body synced up and happy and the ball is well launched.
I've just been in the backyard doing some experiments. With a sand wedge I can easily move the arms fast enough that my body can't get ahead of it. This is what I want.
In the drill it seems that there is a large component of moving the club down and not forwards. This also does not require the body to move forward, but maintains a balance. Trying to move the club towards the ball or target seems to activate the body to move in those directions and then we are out of sync.
What I suspect I do with the driver is not move the arms forward, but I'm trying to move the club head around. When I do this the body can get ahead and sometimes to the right and now I am doomed. Moving the club head and not the arms is not what I want to do. I want to move the arms and leave the club behind. That should freeze the body and allow me to be in position at impact.
I tried this in front of my swing mirror and it seems to work.
If my arms weigh 20 pounds and the body 200, then I can be in balance if the arms are moving 10 times the body speed; we have mass * speed to be equal for both parts. If there is an imbalance what will happen? Will the body get in front and keep going? We then stagger towards the fairway. If the arms are too fast, then the body falls backwards? I'm not sure about this stuff. I'll have to try somethings.
However from all of the above, I don't think the model of the body pulling the arms around is correct. We want to launch the arms just a bit ahead of the direction change by the body. The arm movement will force the body to brace and become stable. There will not be a lot of twist provided by the lower body.
There was a drill to hit balls with your feet together. That makes some sense as we want balanced forces. Trying this with irons and driver ought to point out some answers to me. Of course it's not that simple as the swing for an iron and one for the driver are quite different... Sheesh, this is getting complex. But let me try this.
----
After Monday's round: using the wrist cock to get to a full swing position. Then casting with the hands. Feeling the pressure shift to right foot on back swing and left foot early in forward swing. Trying to take as much or more time with the long clubs as with the short ones. Best ball striking in a long time -- maybe forever. Long and straight.
Curious about if the hips are staying level or going up in back swing and then falling forward to left in downswing. See Athletic Motion Golf video on "stop slide part 1".
----
Tuesday:
Trying to make a short backswing. That is, when the shoulders stop moving, the arms do too. Hit three shots like this and very happy with the solidity of them.
Wednesday:
Shot continue to be very good. Scoring ok, putts are not dropping, but there are a lot of easy pars to be had.
I find another Monte video where he talks about the drill for the driver. In this we can cock the wrists to get the backswing, but instead of trying to cast, we try to move the arm off the chest. We need to get the arms moving fast as we have to catch the hips. If the hips are too far in front of them, then we will have to slow them (stall) to wait for the arms to show up. It's not wrong to be slow with the hips and think about being fast with the arms.
I was at the range today. The object was to use the wrist cock and cast motion for all the irons up to the 7 iron, then use the "get the arm off the chest" drill for longer clubs. I'm also making sure that when the shoulders stop moving that the arms stop too.
Ball contact was very good and ball height was a lot higher. No more low 4 woods, everything towered.
I went to the course and played the par three course. This was all irons. The only greens I missed were due to hitting it over greens. I was very accurate and shot shape was excellent. Club ball interactions was of the highest order. Even the divots were objects of wonder.
I saw a graph today of the various parts of the body and how and when they move. The pro didn't more hips or torso or arms faster than the amateurs. His club head speed was 30% faster, but it came later in the swing and the highest speed was at impact. Both of the amateurs were slowing down at impact.
Interesting the amateurs' torsos and hips continued to move after impact while the pro was happy to stop them. The hips stopped first, then torso and then the arms whipped through. Also of note is that the arms and torso speeds were identical until the arms slowed and the club head kept getting faster.
I may play late tomorrow and see if I can take this to the course. Updates soon!
One of his drills is called the "Hinge, no turn and cast drill." To perform this you try to cock/hinge your wrists without taking the club back and then try to cast, which is to open the wrist angle as hard as you can.
What actually happens is that you will make a full shoulder turn by just cocking the wrists and when you try to cast, you will end up in the perfect impact position.
Monte's point in this and other things is that the body is incredibly reactive. It will do things to make sure we don't fall over (most of the time!) and get a club on a golf ball from very strange starting points. You can't anticipate what is going to happen, it just does what it needs to.
I've mentioned what 88% of the brain is doing while we think with the 12% left over, and it's how to do things very automatically. It's learned. Watch a two month old whose hands are all over the map as he learns to control them. It is not long and he will be able to grab and hold and reach and all that good stuff. But initially it's all training.
But early development is not high on my list of things to think about. Side note: an agendum is a list of things to do. Agenda is plural! Multiple lists as it were. Is there a Latin word for a list of things to think about?
So, back to golf. If we want to have a better swing then I think (and Monte thinks) we can't worry about the end positions. We want to learn the things that will make the body react to get us to the proper impact position. With this in mind we have the drill mentioned above.
I can attest that it works quite well. But it's not perfect. It's fine for irons, but the driver is still not where I want it to be. So let me dwell on that a moment.
The drill does a couple of things. By trying to cast the club we put a lot of effort into accelerating the right hand. That causes the body to brace against this. The arms move against the brace and we arrive at impact. The stress on using early movement of the arms is promoted by others instructors and I think the foundation for it is accurate. The body has actually started to move a bit too, but the reaction is due to arm movement and that provides the majority of the total reaction. And as I said, this gets you to a nice place with the arms and body synced up and happy and the ball is well launched.
I've just been in the backyard doing some experiments. With a sand wedge I can easily move the arms fast enough that my body can't get ahead of it. This is what I want.
In the drill it seems that there is a large component of moving the club down and not forwards. This also does not require the body to move forward, but maintains a balance. Trying to move the club towards the ball or target seems to activate the body to move in those directions and then we are out of sync.
What I suspect I do with the driver is not move the arms forward, but I'm trying to move the club head around. When I do this the body can get ahead and sometimes to the right and now I am doomed. Moving the club head and not the arms is not what I want to do. I want to move the arms and leave the club behind. That should freeze the body and allow me to be in position at impact.
I tried this in front of my swing mirror and it seems to work.
If my arms weigh 20 pounds and the body 200, then I can be in balance if the arms are moving 10 times the body speed; we have mass * speed to be equal for both parts. If there is an imbalance what will happen? Will the body get in front and keep going? We then stagger towards the fairway. If the arms are too fast, then the body falls backwards? I'm not sure about this stuff. I'll have to try somethings.
However from all of the above, I don't think the model of the body pulling the arms around is correct. We want to launch the arms just a bit ahead of the direction change by the body. The arm movement will force the body to brace and become stable. There will not be a lot of twist provided by the lower body.
There was a drill to hit balls with your feet together. That makes some sense as we want balanced forces. Trying this with irons and driver ought to point out some answers to me. Of course it's not that simple as the swing for an iron and one for the driver are quite different... Sheesh, this is getting complex. But let me try this.
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After Monday's round: using the wrist cock to get to a full swing position. Then casting with the hands. Feeling the pressure shift to right foot on back swing and left foot early in forward swing. Trying to take as much or more time with the long clubs as with the short ones. Best ball striking in a long time -- maybe forever. Long and straight.
Curious about if the hips are staying level or going up in back swing and then falling forward to left in downswing. See Athletic Motion Golf video on "stop slide part 1".
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Tuesday:
Trying to make a short backswing. That is, when the shoulders stop moving, the arms do too. Hit three shots like this and very happy with the solidity of them.
Wednesday:
Shot continue to be very good. Scoring ok, putts are not dropping, but there are a lot of easy pars to be had.
I find another Monte video where he talks about the drill for the driver. In this we can cock the wrists to get the backswing, but instead of trying to cast, we try to move the arm off the chest. We need to get the arms moving fast as we have to catch the hips. If the hips are too far in front of them, then we will have to slow them (stall) to wait for the arms to show up. It's not wrong to be slow with the hips and think about being fast with the arms.
I was at the range today. The object was to use the wrist cock and cast motion for all the irons up to the 7 iron, then use the "get the arm off the chest" drill for longer clubs. I'm also making sure that when the shoulders stop moving that the arms stop too.
Ball contact was very good and ball height was a lot higher. No more low 4 woods, everything towered.
I went to the course and played the par three course. This was all irons. The only greens I missed were due to hitting it over greens. I was very accurate and shot shape was excellent. Club ball interactions was of the highest order. Even the divots were objects of wonder.
I saw a graph today of the various parts of the body and how and when they move. The pro didn't more hips or torso or arms faster than the amateurs. His club head speed was 30% faster, but it came later in the swing and the highest speed was at impact. Both of the amateurs were slowing down at impact.
Interesting the amateurs' torsos and hips continued to move after impact while the pro was happy to stop them. The hips stopped first, then torso and then the arms whipped through. Also of note is that the arms and torso speeds were identical until the arms slowed and the club head kept getting faster.
I may play late tomorrow and see if I can take this to the course. Updates soon!
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