The Body Is Least Responsible for Squaring The Clubface According To Athletic Motion Golf

[Goober]

4 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

The body is going to react to where the club face is on every swing. It’s why we all have some sort of compensation in our swings. Some less than others who have more face control throughout the swing. Even DJs swing has body compensations for his swing. He’s just spent way more time than most amateurs working on his swing. People would be surprised how many of the best don’t have perfect swings. Even Adam Scott who everyone considers the perfect swing actually moves away from the ball in his backswing because of where his balance points are and has some slight stall to compensate for clubface positioning

So if someone was going to put on the time to try DJs motion eventually they will develop movement to hit the ball in the direction they want. Will it be optimal? Doubt it. 

People can really go over the deep end with this stuff. If not careful. There is a reason why people cast and early extend. For many that is the only way they can advance the ball. Adding in this other stuff without fixing the root problems could be disastrous. I wonder how many have permanently ruined their golf games from overdoing some of this readily available info ?  Or how many have gone so far of even quitting this great game because of it 

[RickyBobby_PR]

8 hours ago, Goober said:

People can really go over the deep end with this stuff. If not careful. There is a reason why people cast and early extend. For many that is the only way they can advance the ball. Adding in this other stuff without fixing the root problems could be disastrous. I wonder how many have permanently ruined their golf games from overdoing some of this readily available info ?  Or how many have gone so far of even quitting this great game because of it 

What people do in the transition and downswing are compensations for the clubhead being out of position in the backswing. It could be as early as by club parallel they are out of position. Lack of hip depth and rotation will cause issues that have to be compensated for like dumping the right shoulder. So many including myself at times try to implement swing changes at full speed and that’s not going to be successful. We also have bad practice routines and are focused on the shot result rather than the movement.

My guess is there’s not that many people who look at tv and say I’m going to try DJs swing or Furyks, or even Wolff’s. If they do they don’t stay with it long because of what I mentioned about result oriented vice movement.

Pros thing swing changes in terms of years just look at Justin rose who recently said he’s been working on his current swing for 11 years. Monte posted last year on wrx about how amateurs think about swing changes and it’s nowhere near the way pros do and high handicaps are typically looking at it from swing to swing.

I see lots of the same people at the driving range I’ve been going to for the last 10+ year and most of them have the swings as 10 years ago. There probably 5-6 people who actually work on their swing to get better. Everyone else is just beating balls

[NC Golfer]

I am guilty of not getting a result in a few swings or a few rounds and on to the next tip. I might be wrong. But, isn't the golf swing mostly, a full coil, back to the target, body driven turn and a swing from the ground up on the follow through? I know it should work. But, never give it time. I think one reason is if you play 8 months out of the year and maybe 1-2 times per month, you don't want the season spent on something that should work and playing even worse than our band aid swing. 

Edited February 16, 2022 by NC Golfer

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, NC Golfer said:

I am guilty of not getting a result in a few swings or a few rounds and on to the next tip. I might be wrong. But, isn't the golf swing mostly, a full coil, back to the target, body driven turn and a swing from the ground up on the follow through? I know it should work. But, never give it time. I think one reason is if you play 8 months out of the year and maybe 1-2 times per month, you don't want the season spent on something that should work and playing even worse than our band aid swing. 

The turn is relative to the swing length. The shoulders and hips turn in relation to each other. 90* shoulder turn is usually 45* hip turn. All body parts must be used in proper sequence. What that sequence is varies on instruction approach. Pete Cowen has the coil you refer to like going up a spiral staircase. There’s the pivot driven swing like Mike Adams refers to. There’s those who are mostly center pivot driven swing where the body doesn’t move off the ball and pressure shifts from the upper body turned over the trail leg.

What works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for someone else. A persons flexibility/mobility is going to determine what they can or can’t do. Then working on swing mechanics that work best for that golfer. Tony Finau and John Rahm are good examples of two different body types that both show a swing that gets club parallel to the ground at the top of the swing isn’t necessary to hit the ball with a lot of speed. GG talks about no need to get the club past 10 o’clock if one doesn’t have the flexibility and iirc from his course the stock swing he teaches that position is where the swing ends for a large majority of golfer.

[Clay5477]

As we know, there is no shortage of wingnuts posting on YouTube, etc. Some of the golf videos I've seen are just laughable examples of people trying to monetize their social media presence. I don't have a problem with making money. I wish them luck.

But, you clearly have to be at a certain knowledge level yourself before you can decide who to listen to and who to ignore.

I love the AMG guys. They don't peddle opinions, or old myths, they've got some actual facts.

[Goober]

2 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

The turn is relative to the swing length. The shoulders and hips turn in relation to each other. 90* shoulder turn is usually 45* hip turn. All body parts must be used in proper sequence. What that sequence is varies on instruction approach. Pete Cowen has the coil you refer to like going up a spiral staircase. There’s the pivot driven swing like Mike Adams refers to. There’s those who are mostly center pivot driven swing where the body doesn’t move off the ball and pressure shifts from the upper body turned over the trail leg.

What works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for someone else. A persons flexibility/mobility is going to determine what they can or can’t do. Then working on swing mechanics that work best for that golfer. Tony Finau and John Rahm are good examples of two different body types that both show a swing that gets club parallel to the ground at the top of the swing isn’t necessary to hit the ball with a lot of speed. GG talks about no need to get the club past 10 o’clock if one doesn’t have the flexibility and iirc from his course the stock swing he teaches that position is where the swing ends for a large majority of golfer.

Bingo. Maybe that is why I’ve been able to break 80 most of my rounds and hardly play (wish I could play more :() . I was taught at a very early age clubface control. Especially at impact. My swing may look horrendous if I ever filmed it ( only saw it once in the early 1990’s). But I can honestly say Ricky… at hip high transition and into the follow thru I feel very little flipping or snapping. This is when im really on. When I lose that feeling is when things go a little haywire at times. And I go back to my basic drills I was taught as a youth back in the mid 1980’s. 
 

and as s side note. I really like Monte and his videos. He truly focuses more on our amateur games and spends less time analyzing what the top players in the world do. Hard to compare a handicap golfer to DJ’s ability and work ethic . It isn’t even a fair comparison 

[Wildthing]

Just thought I'd add a few graphs from Jon Sinclairs database. This shows how the wrists move for  65 worlds best 'Tour Pros' and are obviously being used to help  align the clubface  and path  (it's not just the body). Complicated stuff!

 

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

34 minutes ago, Wildthing said:

Just thought I'd add a few graphs from Jon Sinclairs database. This shows how the wrists move for  65 worlds best 'Tour Pros' and are obviously being used to help  align the clubface  and path  (it's not just the body). Complicated stuff!

 

 

Everting has to move in sequence and working together. As Monte says about the cast a move in the no turn cast. Straightening of the trail arm along with bowing and releasing the wrist set with nobody rotation is what everyone thinks of as casting the club and is bad. That movement combined with body rotation and you have a good swing pattern.

All of this is above what most golfers need unless they are trying to learn the way the swing works and/or to help improve their coaching skills.

[sohopro]

I once had two players come in for a fitting and both had the same swing speed with their 6 iron but player A hit it 180 and player B hit it 160. The only difference was that player A delivered a loaded, leaning shaft to the ball and player B's shaft had already released prior to impact and instead of delivering energy he had dissipated it. So the actual clubhead speed had very little to do with achieving max distance. The only way for a shaft to remain loaded and the wrists uncocking closer to the ball is by continued body rotation. Once rotation slows or stops, or if the arms move faster than the body, the wrists WILL release. It's simple physics, nothing can stop this from happening. At some point in the through swing the hips will stop rotating once the left knee straightens. There is a finite amount of hip rotation possible in the golf swing, it's limited by both of your feet on the ground. Ultimately, as the right foot comes of the ground and the right knee touches the left knee the hips will turn a bit farther. Then the rest of the body will continue to turn until it can't anymore. Almost all tour players, with very few exceptions, will finish with their chest facing left of the target(for right handed golfers). Most amateur's chests finish right of the target, one of the key differences in the swings. Sequencing the body and arms properly is the key to a fluid powerful swing. Just look at Cameron Champ. Does he look like he's swinging forcefully? No, but he creates a lot of speed because his sequencing is virtually perfect. Look at this video at 1:31 and see how his hands are at the ball before he begins releasing his wrist cock. And the shaft is still leaning slightly at and just beyond impact. Left leg is straight and hips have finally stopped rotating. You can't argue with video.

 

[flyingwedges]

On 2/16/2022 at 6:20 AM, RickyBobby_PR said:

I see lots of the same people at the driving range I’ve been going to for the last 10+ year and most of them have the swings as 10 years ago. There probably 5-6 people who actually work on their swing to get better. Everyone else is just beating balls

Oh how true.  I spent 6 years rebuilding my swing to what it was in my early 20s, with a very good instructor. Never once went back to old moves that were compensations.  While working the instructor, and also working on his swing  changes with him, so many  others on the range would amble by and ask for the swing tip of the day, hit 10 balls and go to the first tee    Once rebuilt, the old motions were gone forever.

[NC Golfer]

15 hours ago, sohopro said:

I once had two players come in for a fitting and both had the same swing speed with their 6 iron but player A hit it 180 and player B hit it 160. The only difference was that player A delivered a loaded, leaning shaft to the ball and player B's shaft had already released prior to impact and instead of delivering energy he had dissipated it. So the actual clubhead speed had very little to do with achieving max distance. The only way for a shaft to remain loaded and the wrists uncocking closer to the ball is by continued body rotation. Once rotation slows or stops, or if the arms move faster than the body, the wrists WILL release. It's simple physics, nothing can stop this from happening. At some point in the through swing the hips will stop rotating once the left knee straightens. There is a finite amount of hip rotation possible in the golf swing, it's limited by both of your feet on the ground. Ultimately, as the right foot comes of the ground and the right knee touches the left knee the hips will turn a bit farther. Then the rest of the body will continue to turn until it can't anymore. Almost all tour players, with very few exceptions, will finish with their chest facing left of the target(for right handed golfers). Most amateur's chests finish right of the target, one of the key differences in the swings. Sequencing the body and arms properly is the key to a fluid powerful swing. Just look at Cameron Champ. Does he look like he's swinging forcefully? No, but he creates a lot of speed because his sequencing is virtually perfect. Look at this video at 1:31 and see how his hands are at the ball before he begins releasing his wrist cock. And the shaft is still leaning slightly at and just beyond impact. Left leg is straight and hips have finally stopped rotating. You can't argue with video.

 

sohopro, Welcome! It sounds like the body and sequencing (hips) are the most responsible for squaring the clubface. To keep an iron shaft loaded that is too flexible, does this proper body and hip rotation become critical?

Edited February 19, 2022 by NC Golfer

[Haro]

This thread is too deep for me. To keep it simple stupid I just keep the clubface relatively shut to my left arm grip ( I think that what called strong) and adjust my posture and ball position   The face will square without much hand manipulation with my swing as long as I keep driving with my lower body 

Wedge shots from 60-90 yard range is when I purposely keep face open with my grip and not shut 

[Wildthing]

On 2/18/2022 at 9:26 PM, sohopro said:

I once had two players come in for a fitting and both had the same swing speed with their 6 iron but player A hit it 180 and player B hit it 160. The only difference was that player A delivered a loaded, leaning shaft to the ball and player B's shaft had already released prior to impact and instead of delivering energy he had dissipated it. So the actual clubhead speed had very little to do with achieving max distance. The only way for a shaft to remain loaded and the wrists uncocking closer to the ball is by continued body rotation. Once rotation slows or stops, or if the arms move faster than the body, the wrists WILL release. It's simple physics, nothing can stop this from happening. At some point in the through swing the hips will stop rotating once the left knee straightens. There is a finite amount of hip rotation possible in the golf swing, it's limited by both of your feet on the ground. Ultimately, as the right foot comes of the ground and the right knee touches the left knee the hips will turn a bit farther. Then the rest of the body will continue to turn until it can't anymore. Almost all tour players, with very few exceptions, will finish with their chest facing left of the target(for right handed golfers). Most amateur's chests finish right of the target, one of the key differences in the swings. Sequencing the body and arms properly is the key to a fluid powerful swing. Just look at Cameron Champ. Does he look like he's swinging forcefully? No, but he creates a lot of speed because his sequencing is virtually perfect. Look at this video at 1:31 and see how his hands are at the ball before he begins releasing his wrist cock. And the shaft is still leaning slightly at and just beyond impact. Left leg is straight and hips have finally stopped rotating. You can't argue with video.

 

Sorry but this is a long post:

When you say loaded shaft , do you mean lag angle between lead arm and shaft?

Not sure what you mean when you say "actual clubhead speed had very little to do with achieving max distance".

Please see Dave Tutelman's website  Smash Factor - Myths and Facts (tutelman.com)

 The 'Smash Factor'  is defined as  "the ratio of ball speed to clubhead speed"

Here is an extract from his website showing the formula that relates to Smash Factor.

Vball  =  Vclubhead

1 + e 1 + m/M

cos(loft) * (1 - 0.14*miss)

• e = Coefficient of Restitution. For a modern driver this is pretty much stuck on 0.83, because (a) the USGA/R&A rules say it can't be more and (b) manufacturers know how to build to 0.83 and even higher.
• m = Ball mass. This is 46g, for pretty much the same reason as COR is 0.83. The rule says it can't be more, and less gives poorer performance. A lighter ball may have more initial ball speed, but its lower inertia gives it less "punch" through air resistance. Ball manufacturers learned long ago that heavier balls go farther, and the Rule makers learned almost as long ago to limit the maximum ball mass. So all balls are just about 46g.
• M = Clubhead mass. For most modern drivers, this is within a couple of grams of 200g. But it can depart significantly for design reasons. It is an unusual design that is far from 200g, but they exist. We'll explore this more below.
• loft is a property of the club. For most Tour drivers (and most drivers in the hands of amateurs) it is within a degree of 10º. But we will explore what happens when this varies.
• miss is the distance, in inches, that impact misses the sweet spot of the clubhead. It should be noted that the factor 0.14 dates back to about 1990, when driver heads were small and made of wood. Today's driver has a much higher clubhead moment of inertia, so the factor is correspondingly smaller. I haven't seen any data, but I suspect it is more like 0.07-0.10.

As you can see velocity of the ball V_ball  is directly proportional to velocity of clubhead V_clubhead

"The only way for a shaft to remain loaded and the wrists uncocking closer to the ball is by continued body rotation. Once rotation slows or stops, or if the arms move faster than the body, the wrists WILL release."

""Once rotation slows or stops, or if the arms move faster than the body, the wrists WILL release. It's simple physics, nothing can stop this from happening."

Why should continued rotation of the body prevent the club from releasing ? I've read that it's the hand path vs clubhead path that is responsible for the passive uncocking of the lead wrist (unless you want to muscularly uncock your wrists)?  I can see the value of continued rotation and not stalling because it would allow your trail shoulder to get closer to the ball so that you didn't 'run out of trail arm' .  Unfortunately,  the physics of the golf swing  (especially to explain 'Release')  is not very simple at all and the high tech equipment to find out what forces/torques are involved (via the hands) may be too expensive to research ( maybe millions of dollars). Some golf scientists and instructors still use the physics of the 'Driven Double Pendulum' and 'Centrifugal Force' to explain the golf swing in some pragmatic way but that is not the whole truth (it is more complex- see video below from Dr Sasho Mackenzie).  It would get even more complicated if one tried to figure out the physics of how to square the clubface by impact . Dr Sasho MacKenzie has provided a possible mechanism through research which involves less muscular effort from the lead forearm to supinate in the late downswing.  From 3D graphs of Tour Pros it's mainly the lead forearm rotation that squares the clubface, especially in the late downswing between P6.5-P7.

A correct kinematic sequence from the ground up (if you can do it) seems to tally with what most 'Tour Pros' do ,but the time difference between the rotation of pelvis, torso/ribcage, shoulders, arms, wrists is still incredibly small for the 0.25-0.35  secs it takes during transition and downswing to impact.  Also , if your like me and don't have much flexibility between the pelvis/torso and can't do that crunching side-bend that you see many golfers do , then its impossible for me not to go OTT with a dominant body driven golf swing, I have no option but to use my shoulder girdle muscles more dominantly to pull my arms down/out  while just trying to get my body out of the way of my swinging arms/club.

 

 

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Wildthing

[Wildthing]

Here's another article by Dr Phil Cheetham (this is just an abstract of his full dissertation)

PhD Dissertation and Presentation

The Relationship of Club Handle Twist Velocity to Selected Biomechanical Characteristics of the Golf Drive

Abstract

During the downswing all golfers must roll their forearms and twist the club handle in order to square the club face into impact. Anecdotally some instructors say that rapidly twisting the handle and quickly closing the club face is the best technique while others disagree and suggest the opposite. World class golfers have swings with a range of club handle twist velocities (HTV) from very slow to very fast and either method appears to create a successful swing. The purpose of this research was to discover the relationship between HTV at impact and selected body and club biomechanical characteristics during a driver swing. Three-dimensional motion analysis methods were used to capture the swings of 94 tour professionals. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine if a correlation existed between HTV and selected biomechanical characteristics. The total group was also divided into two sub-groups of 32, one group with the fastest HTV (Hi-HTV) and the other with the slowest HTV (Lo-HTV). Single factor ANOVAs were completed for HTV and each selected biomechanical parameter. No significant differences were found between the Hi-HTV and Lo-HTV groups for both clubhead speed and driving accuracy. Lead forearm supination velocity at impact was found to be significantly different between groups with the Hi-HTV group having a higher velocity. Lead wrist extension velocity at impact, while not being significantly different between groups was found to be positive in both groups, meaning that the lead wrist is extending at impact. Lead wrist ulnar deviation, lead wrist release and trail elbow extension velocities at maximum were not significantly different between groups. Pelvis rotation, thorax rotation, pelvis side bend and pelvis rotation at impact were all significantly different between groups, with the Lo-HTV group being more side bent tor the trail side and more open at impact. These results suggest that world class golfers can successfully use either the low or high HTV technique for a successful swing. From an instructional perspective it is important to be aware of the body posture and wrist/forearm motion differences between the two techniques so as to be consistent when teaching either method.

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

21 hours ago, Haro said:

This thread is too deep for me. To keep it simple stupid I just keep the clubface relatively shut to my left arm grip ( I think that what called strong) and adjust my posture and ball position   The face will square without much hand manipulation with my swing as long as I keep driving with my lower body 

Wedge shots from 60-90 yard range is when I purposely keep face open with my grip and not shut 

Have never heard anyone talk about clubface in relation to their arm. 

[JeremyAlder]

As I know, the most important in golf is the core, not the hands. I feel how my chest muscles work when I'm playing. However, the information that Wildthing presents from Dr. Phil Cheetham's dissertation makes sense. I had the final year university project about the same topic, and the source I found also claimed that rapidly twisting the handle is the best technique. https://essays.edubirdie.com/dissertation-proofreading-service helped me write more on the subject, and I assert it is the dissertation proofreading service everyone needs. The top writers put various points of view and research case studies in the discussion. I've found that two movements - rotate and tilt - have a huge effect and are essential to playing golf since the best players in the world use them.

Edited June 28, 2022 by JeremyAlder