Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / flipping wrists

Wrist-flipping occurs because it allows you to hit the ball with a lousy, stalled-out pivot. Keeping the pivot moving through the ball will eliminate the flips and get the hands ahead of the ball at impact.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Trigger the Downswing

Learn to use the ground in order to create leverage and a stable platform to rotate around. (Replant the left foot, squash the bug, etc).

Arms first is a one way ticket to Hackerville.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Your average 5 iron distance ??

5i – 195 yds

90 yds – 3/4 56 degree or hard 60, depending on my mood

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Left wrist at top of backswing

my left wrist is bent at the top :(

You’re in good company. Plenty of great players have been bent at the top. As noted above, grip strength dictates wrist position at the top.

If you flatten the left wrist by bending back the right wrist, you’ll be off plane (too flat).

The wrists are more mobile in the bent position. Something to consider if you are stiff-wristed.

Flat at the top doesn’t ensure flat at impact.

Bent at the top will be flat at impact with good downswing dynamics. No conscious manipulations are necessary.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Weight transfer problems

frankyb,

I know of 2 ways to transfer weight:

1. Lateral Shift. As you start back, everything (including head) shifts laterally for several inches until the weight settles into the right foot. Many tour players swing like this (see Tiger 1990s swing), but there are several pitfalls. It’s easy to sway, and if your right hip gets higher than the left, then you have the beginnings of a reverse pivot. Also, you have to drive your hips back to the left during the downswing. This can be difficult to time from swing to swing. Basically the swing is shift and turn back, shift and turn thru.

2. Rotation. If you setup with your left shoulder higher than your right and your left hip higher than the right, your spine will angle away from the target. If you turn your shoulders from this setup position, your spine will stay angled away from the target. This rotation will transfer body mass (weight) to the right. This is very easy to see in a mirror. You can adjust this setup position depending upon club and desired trajectory. To make this type of swing work, you have to be very compulsive about your initial setup angles. The swing then becomes turn back, turn thru. The conscious lateral shifts are eliminated.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Training for impact zone

You can definitely tell when you hit the bag if you are coming in heel or toe first. The impact bag can teach you alot about how to square up the club.

If you like to hit the bag hard, don’t prop it up against a wall – you’ll hurt your elbow or wrist over time.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Tricky half and 3/4 shots

Poor players make too big a swing and then decelerate into the ball on short shots. Good players make a shorter swing and then rotate their core aggressively through the ball. That’s how they hit the two bounce and stop 50 yard wedge shot. Good players really compress the ball on these half shots. Most players hit these shots too timidly.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Australian Long Driver Comp Corner

AB:

How do you train for speed? I do a lot strength/core training and have no significant mobility/flexibility issues, but would like my muscles to fire faster. My course is long (7200 yds), so 20 more yards would be a godsend.

Thanks.

Nidan

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / FLW always?

All that matters is that what ever is dragging that lagging thing is dragging till the job is done.

Legs, guts still dragging arms and club to finish point

Mr. Hart,

I think you just wrote the world’s shortest golf instruction book.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Strengthening the Wrists

I would question the value of having strong forearm muscles because I know of no time-period during the full golf swing when forearm muscles power the swing

The typical tour player has much greater hand and forearm strength than the average club golfer. Strong hands and forearms stabilize the club on mishits and prevent it from twisting when hitting out of the rough. Also, at high swings speeds, the hands and forearms need to be able to support the effective mass of the clubhead, which increases greatly during the downswing. As suggested above, squeezing a hand grip or tennis ball is simple and useful for golf.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / FLW always?

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The flat left wrist is not just an impact postion

Is it really a requirement to have a flat left wrist in the backswing?

Many excellent golfers maintain a bend in their left wrist at the top of the backswing. Hogan and Couples come immediately to mind.
Innumerable other players maintain a bend in the wrist at least halfway back. The left wrist has a greater range of motion in the bent position and cocks more readily than in the flat position.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Golf Stats

I find 2 putting stats useful:

1. # putts/GIR. Good players average < 1.8

2. Percent putts made 2 – 6 ft. Should always be > 90%

For me, the strategy for low scores is pretty straightforward: avoid the expensive miss off the tee and hole all the short putts. Of course, the strategy is easy; it’s the execution that is difficult.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Golf Stats

For example, at Bunbury yesterday, I hit the actual fairway with my drive on only 5 occasions. However, 3 other drives were only a couple of metres off the fairway in good position. Same with my previous two rounds at my home club, where I had a very low DIF stat, but 4 or 5 drives were also just off the fairways in good positions

This is why I don’t think that DIF is a very useful stat. I don’t think that there is a very high correlation between fairways hit and score, unless the course has very penal rough. I would change DIF to PD (playable drive). If you can find it and hit it on the green, then it was a good drive. In fact, a better stat to keep track of is UD (unplayable drive) because these are the true score killers. A playable drive is just step one on any hole, but an unplayable drive costs one or two strokes every time. I’ll take the left rough over OB right every time.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Excercising for golf

Medicine ball throws are great for golf. They combine strength work with speed and they work out the whole body.

Most club golfers need a lot of mobility work (increasing range of motion) on their ankles, hips, thoracic spine, and shoulders.

Stretching means lengthening muscles. You only need to stretch muscles that are abnormally shortened. Typically the calves, hamstrings, and hip flexors need the most work.

Avoid stretches for the lower back. The lower back is a stability joint, not a mobility joint. Core exercises strengthen the transversus abdominus muscle. This muscle’s job is to stabilize the lower back.

Low back pain afflicts a lot of golfers. It is caused by poor mobility of the joints above (thoracic spine) and below (hips) the L-S spine, and weak L-S spine stabilizers.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Starting downswing...

How you start down is very dependent on how you swing back. If your backswing has a large lateral move off the ball, then you need a big hip slide just to get back to the ball. If your backswing is more rotary in nature, then you need less hip bump/slide. A pure rotary swing would just be ‘turn back, turn through’.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / keeping club face square through impact

Publish,

I agree with you that this isn’t a thread for beginners.

It’s too bad that theoretical topics like this inevitably become ego-driven pissing contests.

Technology like K-vests, and others, can provide some real data on what actually happens in a good golf swing. Hopefully, this can lead to better golf instruction and benefit every level of golfer. As we’ve seen in this thread, however, the next controversy will be in data interpretation and trying to make it conform to pet theories/biases.

It may take another 500 years, but eventually the golf swing will be solved.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / keeping club face square through impact

Nidan, your reffering to impact,that graph reffers to impact not the start of the swing, The only reason they are hands first is from O.T.T and why they do this, they don’t know how to load the club properly. And lead pivot first.
Nidan the graph is mis-intrupted, go get back on the vest load your arms first but correctly and view your kinetic chain again. Bet you it will still say hips,shoulders then hands.

Bio,

There is a new article on the TPI website discussing the kinematic sequencing of the transition and downswing. Take a look at it and let us know what you think.

http://www.mytpi.com/mytpi0...

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Head movements

But Jeff you can’t teach body positions golf this is why the average golf score is 100, the average bloke hasn’t been taught loading or pressure against the shaft. If they did they would be off single figures.

Bio,

I certainly agree that conventional golf instruction hasn’t helped very many amateur golfers. But where is the evidence that TGM-trained instructors produce better golfers? Are all your students really off single digits? Are they winning all the tournaments? The naturally skeptical in the crowd would like to know.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / The "Muntz trying to play golf" thread

Muntz,

Congrats on your progress. It sounds like you are on the verge of playing real well.

I think that you are going through what many of us go through when we are trying to break through a scoring barrier. We tend to think of ourselves as a certain type of player ( 80 shooter, 90 shooter, etc). It’s pretty remarkable how often we shoot the score we ‘think’ that we should shoot. Whether we start off hot or cold, our scores tend to end up about where they ‘should’. It’s got something to do with staying within our ‘comfort zone’. Since you now have a better technical game, I bet that pretty soon you will get comfortable shooting lower scores. The next time that you have a good round going, just tell yourself that this is what you have been working towards – that your good play is the expected result of hard work, not the result of playing over your head.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / keeping club face square through impact

biO,

I’ve worn a K-vest and seen plenty of K-vest data on good players. It’s always the same: in the downswing, good players move in a hips, shoulders, arms sequence; hackers go arms, shoulders, hips. There is no illusion – it’s measured data. The illusion is looking at a video and seeing what you want to see in order to conform to the ‘educated hands’ mantra. I know that you are familiar with the TPI website. Their K-vest data will confirm what I’m saying.

Sure, you can drive your arms and your body will respond. It’s just not how good players do it. Athletes, in any sport, work from the ground up.

I did enjoy watching Tiger’s inefficient swing this weekend.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / keeping club face square through impact

biO,

I suspect, If we had Tiger’s K-vest numbers, that we would see that his hips move first and his hands move last on the downswing. I bet that Tiger has a perfect downswing kinetic chain. Even if ‘your mind is in your hands’, the lower body leads the way.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Swingplane

I showed this to a 6 handicapper today and you could see the light bulbs firing up. Until you get what the visual equivalent of getting to a know low point of the arc of your swing is, you will never get it.

“What low point is way up there! Really. OMG.”

Guru,

Could you elaborate on this point?

Thanks

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Swingplane

Jeff,

Nice article.

As usual, well-written, well-researched, well-referenced.

I do think, however, that your target audience is advanced golfers, not beginners.

Nidan

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Hogan - weight on left side

Jeff,

I’m not arguing that Hogan’s weight is on his left side at the end of his backswing. My only point is that it is a tricky business to make any conclusions about weight transfer based on photos. His weight could be on his right side, centered, or left side. It’s all just a guess.

Topic: Ask Golf Guru - Golf Instruction / Hogan - weight on left side

Jeff,

I don’t see how we can infer weight distribution from still photos. Certainly, in the backswing, Hogan has added mass to his right side. However, his right hip rotates back and to the left, counterbalancing his right sided move to some extent.

More importantly, static photos can’t tell us how his body is moving. When you look at Hogan’s swing in motion, his lower body clearly starts moving back to the ball well before his shoulders stop rotating back. In image 2, it is easy to think that Hogan is motionless, but in reality his lower body is already moving forward. What would this do to his weight distibution? The earlier the lower body starts moving forward, the earlier the weight will get to the left side.

Leadbetter published some data about a year ago in Golf Digest about weight distribution. He had pros swing while standing on force plates (the only accurate way to measure weight transfer during the swing). As I recall, at the top, weight distribution was 60% on the right foot – not as much as most people would guess. At impact, however, weight distibution was 110% on the left foot. The increase in weight was due to the very strong downforce that the best players were able to apply to the ground at impact.