Golf is Hard...But It Is Also Fair.

[Righty to Lefty]

 

[Tanner25]

5 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

@Tanner25This is exactly why I don't look at the ball and it is because I trust that it has been placed on my swing arc and that it will be struck by the club head because I trust impact. This goes along way to eliminate the hit reflex that many golfers have and it will help you develop lag tension naturally without trying to hold on to the angles.  

 

 

Very good, R to L. This puts the "how to" in your method. Now, it makes sense, "think about the follow through not the ball". Appreciate it. 

[Righty to Lefty]

19 hours ago, Tanner25 said:

 

Very good, R to L. This puts the "how to" in your method. Now, it makes sense, "think about the follow through not the ball". Appreciate it. 

Right on and I will always look to explain a given concept in many different ways and immediately I knew this video would be useful to help some grasp the concept while the mathematical explanation is digesting. It is not your job to hit the ball, it is your job to make sure that the ball is placed somewhere along your swing arc and will happen to be struck inline with your intentions. If your trail arm extends prior to impact your are trying to hit the ball, but if you are feeling that area where the club reaches full extension like Chris Ryan suggests, then the ball will be struck along the way and that is a very important distinction to understand the nuance of because trying to hit the ball will create tension in the swing motion and make the body do a lot of crazy things as a result.  Keep digging for the answers and I think your eyes will be wide open to the way to truly make lasting improvement in this crazy game.     

[Tanner25]

I like the vid on why Tiger would swing left on his DS in his pre-swing. Another golf mystery solved 🙂

[Righty to Lefty]

20 hours ago, Tanner25 said:

I like the vid on why Tiger would swing left on his DS in his pre-swing. Another golf mystery solved 🙂

Absolutely keep your questions coming because a lot of the solutions sit in plain sight so long as you are paying attention and also know how to interpret impact. There is no such thing as a "secret" in golf because golf is math based at a fundamental level. The mental toughness to relentlessly repeat is the key though and pros are very good at that aspect but you still see them spray the ball all over the yard and still manage a score because they know where to miss on a given shot.  My buddy who was a tour pro would always tell me "I can't tell you how I'm going to make birdie every time, but I can absolutely tell you how I'm not going to make worse than a bogey" and that always stuck with me.  

 

I asked him what his best round ever was and ironically it wasn't his lowest ever score! His lowest score ever was 10 under but his best round ever was a round where he hit every fairway and green and shot 4 under.  He said it didn't matter what he shot, hitting every fairway and green is true mastery.  I don't think people can truly comprehend what Jin Young Ko accomplished when she hit 63 greens in regulation in a row or Lydia Ko going 114 holes without making a bogey or worse as that just doesn't even seem humanly possible!! Nevertheless keep your questiions coming Tanner25.  

[Tanner25]

Thanks, R to L. As a long time releaser/flipper of the club angle/lag. I am not executing what you are saying. I feel like if I try to get the low point forward of the ball, I do my normal release and throw the clubhead 4 inches ahead of the ball/dragging the clubhead to the ball, with released energy - not stored energy. 

 

That's cool that you have access to a pro. If he was my friend, I would ask him what are the basic/must have elements of the full swing that all good golfers do.

 

I do agree, pros are good at managing their misses and they scramble and grind well. I remember on Saturday during the PGA Tour Champions, the commentator said, Steven Alker keeps coming up well short on his approaches. I was surprised he won the tournament the next day. That guy has a great sand, putting and short game. He has 16 career wins on multiple tours. But, seemed to have come from no where. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Tanner25

[Righty to Lefty]

On 10/27/2022 at 2:55 PM, Tanner25 said:

Thanks, R to L. As a long time releaser/flipper of the club angle/lag. I am not executing what you are saying. I feel like if I try to get the low point forward of the ball, I do my normal release and throw the clubhead 4 inches ahead of the ball/dragging the clubhead to the ball, with released energy - not stored energy. 

 

That's cool that you have access to a pro. If he was my friend, I would ask him what are the basic/must have elements of the full swing that all good golfers do.

 

I do agree, pros are good at managing their misses and they scramble and grind well. I remember on Saturday during the PGA Tour Champions, the commentator said, Steven Alker keeps coming up well short on his approaches. I was surprised he won the tournament the next day. That guy has a great sand, putting and short game. He has 16 career wins on multiple tours. But, seemed to have come from no where. 

You aren't fully grasping the total concept just yet as you are still reacting to the ball instead of ignoring the ball and accepting and trusting that it  will be struck.  If you feel like you are having to manipulate any aspect of your swing motion...you are out of position in relation to the ball and you need to move yourself to a different location and retest. It is important to note at this point that in golf you are not sending the momentum of your swing to the target, (I have to get mathematical for a moment) you are sending the momentum of your swing at a tangent angle to your swing arc depending on what point along your swing arc your begin to lever the shaft with your trail hand.  

 

I will go to my favorite diagram of a planet in orbit around the sun but you can imagine it on a tilted plane and it would be a golf swing:

The only part of this diagram that you really need to concern yourself with is the lower left section where at the shaft parallel on the downswing the arrow is point straight down, and at low point of the arc it is pointing along the target line.  This is showing you where you would need to direct your force at any given point and notice how none of them are at the target until low point.  Force applied to the club at any point other than sometime between shaft parallel on the downswing and just prior to low point would be wasted effort.  You have to figure out at what point along your arc you can begin to lever the shaft with the trail hand and still maintain your lag tension and this will depend on how fast twitch you are where the more fast twitch you are the closer the club head will be to low point of the swing arc before you begin to lever the shaft.  But for a right handed golfer all of these vectors will have you directing your momentum of your swing out to the right of the target line in all instances regardless of the point along the swing arc that the shot is struck.  You are not swinging to the target...your are swing right of it. This is a much deeper subject but I just wanted to get you started on understanding the concept that most efficiently generates force in the golf swing. 

 

Here is a youtube video that is actually mentioning the exact concept and this is very useful because this is truly how power and speed are most efficiently created in the golf swing: 

 

 I will also mention this very quickly and expound on it later.  Never ask anyone about how they swing the club...it is irrelevant because we are all unique athletes with different capabilities physically.  A pro discussing their swing motion is telling you how they play golf, they are not telling you how golf is played as that is what impact does and that is a very important distinction to understand.  Also 99.99% of pros have absolutely no clue how they do it because they are playing purely from an athletic perspective where they are relying on "feels" developed from playing the game from a very young age and performing millions of repetitions.  The adult learner doesn't have this option because we simply don't have the time to sacrifice so we have to speed up the process as best we can and that is why you must understand impact mathematically and try to translate it to "feels" as quickly as possible instead of digging it out of the dirt like most pros have done.  Lean on pros for course strategy and knowledge but swing motion advice from a pro is mostly useless in my opinion because they don't truly know how they do it. I will go into more detail on this later on but hopefully this will get you pointed in the right direction.    

Edited October 30, 2022 by Righty to Lefty

[Righty to Lefty]

Another common misconception is that many think that the golfer is accelerating the club head into impact when in fact, yes, the club head is accelerating, but the golfer should actually be doing their best to decelerate the butt end of the club.  If you are trying to accelerate the club into impact then you are never fully transferring speed into the club head and thus you will be slower.  Your hands are not working together in a golf shot, they are working in opposition to each other much like a hockey slap shot where the top hand is working to stop the handle while the bottom hand is trying to accelerate it so they are working in direct opposition to each other to accelerate the golf or hockey stick, with the only difference being that in the golf swing the hands are right next to each other.  If both hands were working in the same direction then speed and power would never be transferred onward to the club head. Whereas when they work in opposition to each other they create stability and reduce club face closure rate which is a good thing.  

 

This attempt to decelerate the butt end of the club does a few very important things, first it stabilized the club head, it forces rotation (I will put up a video I made for a buddy about doing the stop the handle drill without rotation that I will post and you can feel for yourself just how much force builds up at the hands), and finally it transfers speed and power onward to the club head.  Anytime you are working in opposition to the club you will be in balance and anytime your are moving in the same direction of the force being created by the club you will be out of balance. 

 

 

 

I have since moved on from alignment stick to the ultimate stop the handle tool, the tsunami bar!! 

https://www.tsunamibarsports.com/product/swing-balance-multi-stik-magnum-63/

 

@Tanner25

Edited November 1, 2022 by Righty to Lefty

[Righty to Lefty]

Low point control is everything in golf @Tanner25: 

 

[Tanner25]

5 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Low point control is everything in golf @Tanner25: 

 

 

 

R to L,  Thanks, for sharing. This is easier to understand and apply for the driver backswing as you are placing the club back and body back. How do you apply the same concept trying to get the low point forward with the irons? That is what I am struggling with. Not the concept. But, the execution.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Tanner25

[Righty to Lefty]

19 hours ago, Tanner25 said:

 

 

R to L,  Thanks, for sharing. This is easier to understand and apply for the driver backswing as you are placing the club back and body back. How do you apply the same concept trying to get the low point forward with the irons? That is what I am struggling with. Not the concept. But, the execution.

The same exact way that you set your low point of your swing arc behind the ball for a driver or a ball being hit off a tee you can set it forward of a ball being hit off the ground and it will be stuck as the clubhead is moving downward. As long as your low point is in front of the ball it will be naturally struck with a negative angle of attack. You just have to understand that dynamic and note the location of your low point on a given shot.  The swing motion is the exact same for a driver and an iron, the only difference is the location along the swing arc that they are being struck and that must be understood. 

 

That is why I often use the models for my descriptions because the low point is marked on it so that you can see it and that is very important.  Also the setting the low point video is showing you exactly how to set your low point in front of the ball as you have to literally put it in that location just the same way that it would be set behind the ball with a ball being hit off a tee depending on the tee height. The beauty of a ball being hit off the ground is that it is the exact same low point for all clubs being hit off the ground from fairway wood to wedge and the build of the club will provide the proper angle of attack for you.  Moving in a semicircle around the ball moves your low point and you determine where it is set in your preshot setup. 

 

Here is the video that I used for the model representation. Notice how when he moves the pencil to a different location on the swing arc that he spins the trashcan lid in a semicircle to reorient it to the target line because there is only one point on the swing arc that will touch the intended target line. That semicircle movement moves his plane angle or shoulder line left or right depending on the whether or not it is on a tee or off the ground and this also moves the low point of the swing arc and sets it. This is the exact same way that you must move your low point and you have to develop a reference for knowing its location on every shot that you hit. Keep the questions coming...you are almost there!

  

[Tanner25]

I get it, as said in the D-Plane video and use of the garbage can cover, it is a tilted arc (swing plane). For irons, it tilts out to in. For a driver, in to out. Executing it is another issue.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Tanner25

[Righty to Lefty]

On 11/4/2022 at 2:42 PM, Tanner25 said:

I get it, as said in the D-Plane video and use of the garbage can cover, it is a tilted arc (swing plane). For irons, it tilts out to in. For a driver, in to out. Executing it is another issue.

Take a practice swing and note where the club is touching the ground...place the ball accordingly on the swing arc...swing away with your natural swing motion, note the results, and adjust accordingly depending on how well the actual shot matched your intentions.  

 

The process literally takes about 20 seconds: 

 

[nitram]

On 11/4/2022 at 6:42 AM, Tanner25 said:

I get it, as said in the D-Plane video and use of the garbage can cover, it is a tilted arc (swing plane). For irons, it tilts out to in. For a driver, in to out. Executing it is another issue.

Tanner, to work on these respective swings, try using a PW or 9-iron hitting 60-70 yard shots. For the driver, about half speed, or hard enough you can reach a full finish. It won't take long until you have it down.