Hitters or swingers…

Would love to hear your pro’s and con’s of both techniques..

I played a few of the world tours a few years back, and might be able to give some
insight into what that all meant on tour.

I was a young Doyle disciple back in the Clampett days, and studied the Mac side too… so I am pretty up on both swinging and hitting, and have come to some pretty useful conclusions
about all things G.O.L.F.

L.P
is there really any pro’s and con’s it’s what ever works for the invidual, to be honest I can floor either, hitting suits some and swinging suits others.
I can do both techniques and depends in what suituation I’m in to which I use,
I’m interested to what it meant on tour ?

Welcome to the forum lag’. Drop me an e-mail to golfguruATiseekgolfDOTcom :)

We’ll, I must say that swinging and the use of longitudinal acceleration
I believe to be the superior method of all things feel. Dumping the power package on the ball with soft hands is just a beautiful thing around the greens for all the chips, flops and around the green wedges.

I would argue that swinging makes a huge assumption that our hinges are always well oiled, free and flexible. The steady even acceleration to the moment of truth depends on exactly these things… steady, even,
and well oiled firm, but flexible hinges.

We of course can debate the pressure gauge software inside the computer. Everyone seems to have a different setting. I am not likely to go into the red on a weekend game with guys at the club, but coming down the final three holes to win the South Australian Open might put me well into the red! lol

It’s natural when we feel pressure to tighten up, and these states of muscle constraint do not do well for the free flexible hinges.

Now if you have the mind of a Nicklaus, and pressure does not bother you, then your computer will keep pumping oil to those hinges right to the award platform on the 72nd green. For me that was not usually the case!

Once I learned how to hit, with a tight grip pressure, and radial acceleration with an angled hinge, I found that to be much better under the gun, and as my computer would cut off the oil and my muscles would tighten, I would typically just rotate a bit faster and I would just have to remember to pull one LESS club down the stretch
and since I would practice with a very tight cohesive body tension,
those moments would really just seem all too familiar…. I found I was able to perform much better under pressure with pure hitting techniques.

Greg McHatton once asked me why I would want to pull the club out of orbit with the angled hinge, and the answer was really quite simple. So I could hit it straight consistently!

Is Peter Lonard a Hitter?

Is there a downside to Hitting? Do you have to have forearms like Popeye to make it work…?

lag…dumb it down a bit please mate, I get confused easily at the best of times :)

lag…dumb it down a bit please mate, I get confused easily at the best of times :)

A bad day at golf is better than a good day at work.

Yeah me too please lag. You are obviously going to have a bit to offer on the threads, but really don’t need another Jeffman who talks in other world academic speak.

(No offence intended Jeff, just that some of your responses are just soooo hard to comprehend)

I’m trying to make sense of the posts as well. I did however think immediately of this clip on YouTube:

Golf Blooper

Cheers,

Mick

I think he’s trying to talk in layman’s terms actually, but you probably have to have some idea of the TGM concepts in play though

LagPressure

You present an interesting perspective on hitting versus swinging.

Your idea that swinging depends on well-oiled hinges makes sense to me, and I can readily believe that a swinger could therefore have more day-by-day swing inconsistency than a hitter, who powers the swing with a radial thrust (in an pick-axe manner).

You wrote-: “Greg McHatton once asked me why I would want to pull the club out of orbit with the angled hinge. Could you please expand on this point about pulling the club out of orbit with angled hinging?

Jeff.

OK,

In simple terms..

Swingers are the guys with the long flowing swings, smooth and effortless looking (don’t be fooled though)

Hitters look more like short backswing, quick swing, that kind of thing.

I didn’t mean to sound over the top…
I assumed this was a golf machine thread and that everyone here spoke that G.O.L.F. language..

The heart of what I was saying is that I think pure swingers have a harder time under pressure, and in my years on the tour, I saw the games best using hitting methods. Clampett and I had a long talk about it one year at Q school. He agreed.

The best striker I ever saw was Peter Senior from Australia. I was there when he we waxing everyone from Norman in his prime, Faldo,
no one could touch him. No swinging going on with that fine move.

Swingers pull, hitters push. I believe there are purists on each end of the spectrum, most players do some of both, often not all that effectively.

MUNTZ

I believe hitters sometimes lack the touch and finesse, and it is much more based on strength, that is correct, Popeye would be a hitter for sure… Swinging can give you tremendous length with the proper application, and minimal overall body strength. If you want to just flat out hit it long… swing.. If you want to rarely miss a fairway, hit.

From a purely ideological standpoint swinging is superior I believe.
But for me hitting proved the better method to win money and tournaments on the world stage.

Yes you are correct, but to maximize the dynamics of law, swingers have things like maximum swing radius, snap loading, and full dual horizontal hinge action to give it that classic long smooth look… and a lot of wallop!

As far as the book, I don’t think it leaves much to interpretation, and the objectiveness of it… is what lands it in truth… and not imagination.

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

No mystery in the golf swing.. I agree…

Lag pressure is the secret of G.O.L.F.

According to a video of Greg McHatton, Greg said when he took part in one of the G.O.L.F. week with Homer, Homer said he don’t like “Swinging”...coz that is too easy…It will be interesting to see Greg with a “Hitting” video.

BTW, lagpressue, please share with us more.

JEFF

“Greg McHatton once asked me why I would want to pull the club out of orbit with the angled hinge. Could you please expand on this point about pulling the club out of orbit with angled hinging?

Ok,

If you were to let go of the club at impact the club would of course bounce off the ground move away from you.. say towards 10 or 11 o clock. Aiming the hands at the inside quadrant of the ball.

Now if you go with that momentum you can use a full roll of the wrists and let the arms move away from the body after dumping all the force on the ball and then into the ground. This is the Doyle, McHatton approach, and it works well. I know. I can swing that way and have won tournaments with that kind of swing.

Now if you fight that expanding circle action, you have to use an angle hinge, no wrist roll and the club is released by the rotation of the body. If you stand behind a golfer with this motion, the hands will quickly disappear around the body after impact… kind of like cutting it left. This is more the Mac O Grady motion. Hogan was all about this too. By pulling the club out of it’s natural longitudinal orbit,
you create a massive amount of pressure in your hands, on all three pressure points. This pressure in your hands is FEEL! and this is the feel that you can learn to utilize to control the ball exactly how you want to…. a three yard draw, a five yard fade, low, high, it’s all yours if you can learn to do it. Warning! You have to have strong arms and hands if you are planning on rotating fast and hitting it far!

On top of that, you have to learn what I believe to be the most difficult swing move in all of golf. Straightening the right arm out quickly on the downswing…while the torso turns flat or at right angles to the spine or axis. It’s a great move to master though, because if you can do it, you can’t ever get over the top of the shot and pull it.
For those who are still confused, it feels like you are coming right over the top to hit a big pull shot, but instead, that hands move straight down, as if they are going to land in your right hip pocket, but your shoulders are turning as flat a a 15th century spanish globe.

I have seen that move win a lot of money and tournaments.

Lag pressure is the secret of G.O.L.F.

AMEN!!!!!

Thanks for sharing there Lag. It is a great thing to be able to use both hitting and swinging for different circumstances. Just being aware of when they are so that you can make the change is a topic all on its own:)

Swinging is oily fluid motion. Hitting is more power thrusting right arm biff. Now guys go re- read that post and I hope it makes more sense now.

Hitters lose distance, but can make it up with strength. I have always believed that to hold the flex of the shaft all the way to the ball is the most difficult thing ever asked of the human body! The hitters nirvana is to hold the flex of the shaft passed impact. Remember, when acceleration reaches zero, the shaft itself releases, even if the clubhead is well behind the hands. It’s tough to see it even on high speed video. This is why tour pros still hit bad shots. With X shafts we don’t have much room for error here. Hitting the ball with a pre stressed shaft is the meaning of sustaining the lag. Many people get confused between the angle of the shaft and the left arm, the big deep lag look, Hogan, Sergio, etc… and true lag pressure which is the physics of actually stressing the shaft. Tough stuff my friends.

To hit the ball far you only need clubhead speed, but to hit it straight everyday, you need acceleration. My goal is to have the clubhead moving faster AFTER impact, which leads to the 5th accumulator, but I am not ready to start that discussion with die hard golf machine
purists…LOL

The only guy I have ever seen do it all the time is Moe Norman. Moe used to tell me to take bacon strip divots, not pork chops! To each their own I guess but Doyle was all about serving pork chops…

Swingers are the guys with the long flowing swings, smooth and effortless looking (don’t be fooled though)

Hitters look more like short backswing, quick swing, that kind of thing

I believe hitters sometimes lack the touch and finesse, and it is much more based on strength, that is correct, Popeye would be a hitter for sure… Swinging can give you tremendous length with the proper application, and minimal overall body strength.

If you want to just flat out hit it long… swing.. If you want to rarely miss a fairway, hit

Hi Lag Pressure,

Welcome to Hell… I mean ISG… hahaha (only joking admin!)

I happen to agree with Serenty, I don’t doubt your knowledge but I think you have over generalised a tad.

Not all hitters have a short quick backswing as I would class myself as primarily a hitter, however I have a long, slow backswing to fully wind up.

Im yet to be convinced that golfers are purely one or the other, primarily yes, but purely no. I think blending sometimes occurs and golfers will exhibit characteristics of both hitting and swinging.

To all that are reading this, I am in no way denegrating TGM as I am extremely interested in it and am in a learning phase.

Let me explain:

I personally have a long backswing wind up – slow and controlled. At the beginning of the downswing I “pull” the club into what I would term a “hitting slot”. From here I hit hard with the right hand snapping the club through impact. For me on the way back is a “swing”, from halfway down point in the downswing I am very aggressive and take advantage of muscular strength to “hit” the ball.

Does this make any sense to anyone?
(I am not trying to be smart, am trying to learn)

As far as swinging being the ultimate in achieving length off the tee, I think you will find that almost every long driver in the world would describe a strong “hitting” sensation through the impact zone with the dominant trailing hand. By the same token It would be rare to find one though that doesn’t exhibit the long flowing backswing of a “swinger”.

Is there ever a hitting sensation in a swinger or a swinging sensation in a hitter? Are there hybrid models in TGM?

You either hit or swing. Reason for this is one is an Angle of Approach and the other an Arc of Approach. They are directed in two different ways. Right arm thrust is a straight line thrust. Swingers are arcs.

How you swing back can see the pattern components mixed. How you swing down has to be one or the other or you have a train wreck in terms of clubhead and face control.

A swinger can feel a straightening right arm via extensor action (right elbow is stretched straight). A hitter feels it through outright use of the right elbow straightening as hard as it can.

My goal is to have the clubhead moving faster AFTER impact,

Good luck with that one!

You either hit or swing. Reason for this is one is an Angle of Approach and the other an Arc of Approach. They are directed in two different ways. Right arm thrust is a straight line thrust. Swingers are arcs.

How you swing back can see the pattern components mixed. How you swing down has to be one or the other or you have a train wreck in terms of clubhead and face control.

A swinger can feel a straightening right arm via extensor action (right elbow is stretched straight). A hitter feels it through outright use of the right elbow straightening as hard as it can.

Thanks Guru,

Makes more sense, hopefully when I am a little more TGM saavy I will be able to explain what I am talking about in correct terminology.

Over generalisation on characteristics of hitter (fast, short b’swing) v swinger (long, flowing b’swing) led to my initial confusion. I definitely head straight at the ball from downswing (cutting off my arc, so to speack), which classes me as hitter?

My goal is to have the clubhead moving faster AFTER impact,

Good luck with that one!

down and out…did ya get that?

I want all the energy transferred into the ball personally

Is it worth learning to swing and hit?

But not swit.

Sure is worth the effort to see the differences and then use them when its appropriate.

Lag’: Happy to have 5th accumulators thrown into this forum. The forum is about good golf info and I for one am open to the ideas as long as you are happy to educate as there will be questions! Our sort of motto in here is;

“There is on such thing as a silly question. If the question makes no sense then it shows the light bulb is not even close to being wired up and plugged in yet to make it a fathomable question.”

Guru is correct…

Radial acceleration and longitudinal acceleration are mutually exclusive.

try to do both, train wreck..!