Watching a bit of Wimbledon and have noticed that, when allowed a full setup, many of the top players seem to almost pause their body while hitting through the ball.

My impression from looking at good players golf swings is that there’s a similar process at work – basically:

1) From address, the body turns back

2)The body (chest) turns to face ball – and then slows or pauses

3) The hands and Arms work across body to the front side of the golfer.

4)The body follows the hands.

Question:

1) Is my impression of the body stopping to face the ball during the ‘impact phase’ of the swing accurate,

2) is this body control a conscious ‘decision’ by the golfer.

3) Is ‘staying behind the ball’ a feeling of delay related to what I outline above

4) I’d welcome any thoughts on ‘rate of motion/turn’ in the body through the ball – How hard? Should you turn to face the ball and hit it? Or turn to get the chest facing past the ball ASAP?

I’m a 90s shooter, and have what I reckon is an overactive body.

Thanks Irspow – maybe they don’t like tennis!

The stuff you have about accelaration and how it works to stabilize etc. is v.interesting, and not something I’ve every really read about before; probably the most intellectually convincing argument against the kind of too much early speed?OTT/based inconsistency errors that most golfers, myself included, struggle with I’ve seen.

I guess what my question boils down to is whether it it is the right idea to try to place the body in the position you want to be in at impact and the ‘hold it’ there, or whether the speed of body rotation is the kind of thing you want to build continually.

I’m not sure I’m expressing it as well as I’d like to, but I hope it makes a bit of sense.

“Hands must be ahead of ball at impact” is advice the learner hears from day one, but I think there is a need for more clarity on the relationship of body and hands during the impact zone.

We hear a good bit about the left arm and the chest and how they work – basically, I’m wondering if a ‘slow’/’quiet’ body is desirable/what the better players use.

Happy to hear from you again Irspow, if you’ve anything to add.

Note that deceleration does not necessarily equal decreasing velocity.

Can you please quantify that statement. Do you mean deceleration of the body does not mean decreasing velocity of the clubhead, or something like that?

Tom – I disagree with your thinking almost 100%, but you are entitled to your beliefs and no one is going to heap vitriol on your head simply because you have a different set of beliefs.

You write-: “I personally would recommend that one should attempt to have his torso accelerating until after the ball has left the club face. Because if the torso is accelerating for as long as possible the MAXIMUM ENERGY TRANSFER, within your potential, can be placed within the ball.”

I think that your statement is nonsensical from a scientific perspective because there is no direct proportional correlation between torso acceleration/speed and clubhead speed. Ball speed is dependent on clubhead speed at impact and not torso acceleration/speed at impact.

This graph has been reproduced many times in many different laboratories using expert golfers, and they all have the same pattern of kinetic sequencing.

Kinetic sequence

It is clear that the pelvis and shoulders slow down in the mid-downswing, and that the lower/upper torso do not continue to accelerate through impact. The reason is obvious – it relates to the nature of human golf biomechanics. The pelvis has to slow down as the left leg straightens and one starts to “hit against a firm left side” (pivot leftwards over a straightened left leg). There is also no advantage to accelerating the torso in the late downswing from a swing power perspective. According to TGM, the downswing pivot action powers the swing via the release of the master power accumulator (PA #4) and there is no “power” advantage to a fast pelvic rotation in the late downswing when power accumulator #4 has already been released. In fact, if the pelvis over-rotates by impact, then it destroys the necessary impact alignments required to ensure a solidly accurate strike.

Here is a photo sequence showing Tiger Woods’ pelvic rotation when he was 16 years old compared to 24 years old.

Tiger Woods at impact

His pelvis had over-accelerated into impact when he was younger. Tiger Woods has repeatedly stated that he always fights this problem of an over-accelerating hip action, and he constantly tries to slow his lower body rotation down so that he can better synchronise the movements of his lower and upper body in such a way that he can maximise clubhead speed and clubface control through impact.

You also write-: “The body’s center of mass is past the ball” with respect to optimum impact alignments. That is obviously incorrect – the body’s mass must remain behind the ball at impact, as can be seen in this photo of Tiger Woods at impact.

Tiger Woods at impact

You also wrote-: “The important thing is that deceleration DOES mean that there is ZERO FORCE is working on your behalf. If there was a contributing force, there would be an accompanying POSITIVE ACCELERATION to go with it.

F=MA, So if F=0 so does A and if A=0 so does F.”

That argument is nonsensical with respect to the golf swing. It is a proven fact that the lower torso decelerates in the mid-late downswing, and it doesn’t imply that there is ZERO force at work where it really matters – the clubhead. Once the lower body has performed its role (releasing power accumulator #4) it doesn’t matter whether the lower torso slows down – from a power perspective – because clubhead speed is maximised by the “correct” evolution of the kinetic sequence (as demonstrated in that graph).

Jeff.

Deceleration of anything in nature does not require decreasing velocity to occur. It is only when deceleration continues until acceleration becomes negative that velocity will start to decrease.
Remember deceleration does not equal negative acceleration.

Well actually, yes, it does. Acceleration is the change in velocity over time. Deceleration is a negative change in velocity over time. Not acceleration

Acceleration slowing down? That’s still acceleration, but at a lower rate .

The rate of change of acceleration with respect to time is known as “jerk”. So if you are slowing your acceleration (but still accelerating) as you swing, you are not decelerating, but you may be experiencing a negative jerk

Which is probably what I’m being at the moment. :)

I have never heard of the term ‘jerk’ used as LarryLong has, but I agree with what he says.

As defined by the dictionary (http://www.thefreedictionar...)

1. To decrease the velocity of.

You are talking about the next level up.

Velocity is the rate of change of position
Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity
‘Jerk’ (apparently) is the rate of change of acceleration.

Using the term deceleration to imply a reduction in acceleration is incorrect and could be very misleading.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/ba...

It’s a beautiful term, isn’t it? :)

To quote the article:

“In the aerospace industry they even have such a thing as a jerkmeter; an instrument for measuring jerk”

We can only look forward to the day when teaching pros catch on and we can all pull out the jerkmeter and improve our swings.

Why cant you have the best of both worlds? Why does it need to be one or the other?

Fast approach speed creating and maintaining force and leverage through impact. We are not exactly swinging into a brick wall now are we? At the moment of impact the ball moves along with the clubhead yes there is some energy lost but is it significant? The ball weighs 46 grams with a co-efficient of restitution of about 0.6, it is not fixed and is free moving. You have a clubhead which also possesses elasticity 0.83 (USGA limits) weighing 200 grams (more than 4 times the golf ball) travelling at 135+mph (in my case). I as the golfer am not exactly a featherweight, muscular 100kg. Are you telling me that when I hit the golf ball at high speed I am going to lose a significant amount of velocity when I am still applying force to the shaft?

Please! I dont just swing into the ball at high speed and stop!

How significant do you want us to believe impact speed loss is?

Jamie Sadlowski swinging at 150-155mph last month put up a ball speed of 217mph!

Lads,

The science is genuinely interesting, but…

On the level of a golfer facing balls and hitting them and tyring to figure it out, would that golfer be better advised to try to maximise his body speed during the swing, or is the body something he should view primarily as an alignment device after the initial turn to face the ball has been completed?

‘Don’t decelerate’ is another we hear a lot down at the 90s shooting level, but does that apply to the body?

Caveat Emptor – ramblings of an ignoramus follow.

Look at a video of a pro golfer in slow-mo, it will probably help you more than I could…

Justin Leonard Swingvision

Note the hips bump towards the target, then turn, which starts the torso / shoulders rotating and helps gets the downswing on plane (approaching impact from the inside).

The shaft / hands angles are intact until just before impact so that the power is released at maximum revs. Notice how the L and R hands roll through / after impact too. That’s where a lot of power gets stored and released. Screw that up and it’s all over.

I think the most important thing is to get the timing right, getting all the things working in the right order while staying on plane. Spinning your hips / body / shoulders too fast of itself is going to be counter productive unless everything is in sync.

Muntz,

Thanks for bringing up Justin Leonard.

He is the one I wish the world would copy. He has that “silly” finish where the club head slips down near his left knee almost, demonstrating over swivel.

Just like Federer’s fore hand flattened out.

If one thing could save golf from extinction it is Justin’s over finish swivel; almost a St. Andrews swing from 200 years ago.

I had hoped he would win 10 Majors, just for the sake of golf.

I am strugling with an article and pictures on this point, now.

Dart, writing articles is so easy – how do you not get it!?

You just write the words on the page in a way that is entertaining, thought provoking and clear.

If you’re still having trouble, I have a video clip I can send you… ; )

Justin Leonard doesn’t roll his hands over through the impact zone. He uses a horizontal hinging action during the followthrough and that hinging action evolves into a finish swivel action after the followthrough phase of the swing. When his clubshaft is parallel to the ground, after the followthrough, the toe of his club is pointing skywards, and that is due to the horizontal hinging action. Jack Nicklaus manifested the identical pattern, and you can see his pattern more clearly from a “bird’s eye” view.

Jack Niclklaus followthrough

You can see that Jack uses horizontal hinging during the followthrough – note how the back of the left hand moves horizontally. When his clubshaft reaches the “parallel to the ground” position (image 4), the toe of the club is pointing skywards. However, note that the right forearm/hand has not rolled over the left forearm/hand. The key factor that allows Jack’s left/right hands to undergo a 90 degree rotation without roll-over is the fact that he continues to turn his upper torso around to the left during the followthrough thereby keeping the club always in front of his rotating torso. If he slowed his torso rotation, then “true” forearm rollover would occur (what people call a “crossover release” phenomenon) during the post-impact phase of his swing.

Jeff.

Beezneeds

If you look at Justin Leonard’s and Jack Nicklaus’ swing, you will see that their pelvis is about 40 degrees open at impact, while the shoulders are about 20 degrees open at impact. They both continue to turn the torso through impact/followthrough so that the club is always in front of the rotating torso. One should never attempt to decelerate the torso rotation through impact – although slowing will happen automtically, and controllably, if the kinetic sequencing of the swing is optimized.

Note how the club is still in front of the center of Jack’s rotating torso in image 5. Justin manifests a similarly-excellent torso rotation through the followthrough/finish phase of the swing. A golfer should keep the head stationary (and back) during the downswing and followthrough phase of the swing, but allow the torso (especially the lower torso) to flow naturally/automatically to the left during the late downswing and followthrough.

Jeff.

Justin Leonards swing is very pure in that vision.

One thing I did notice though as it is aside from the topic at hand is when the commentators said “hitting high on the face gives extra yardage on the new equipment”. I haven’t personally found this, I was wondering what everyone else’s thoughts were?

I find when I hit it high in the same spot as JL did in the vision I dont get good compression, it feels dead and the ball seems to just float! When I hit it middle obviously that is good but I find hitting lower down my driver as a miss is better distance wise for me than higher.

I dont know if the difference is that I am hitting it on the up (by choice) or if the lower lofts (Im primarily using 5°, 6° and 7°) in comparison to the higher lofts (10°+) produce differing results?

Beez: send the video this way too:)

Like Dart, we both find we have plenty of the good stuff to write up but once on paper we often find that we have said something which itself needs an article done on without it being possibly being read the wrong way. I rather think that is how Homer Kelly ended up with so many cross references in his book. So we go back to the ‘grey bit’ and re-write to keep it in the KISS category.

So look forward to the vid!