dropping of your hands

[swingpure]

I have always struggled with the proper down move and the dropping of the hands.

I think I have finally figured it out.

For those who have found out this secret, does it feel like the club is collasping down onto itself? I really feel the head of the club immediately above the butt of the club and then the head feels like it is falling straight down towards the butt of the club.

My instructor kept telling me not to tighten my grip on the club and I played with that and eventually had no releasing feeling until it dropped into position.

It feels fantastic. I will try it at Urban Links tomorrow.

[Shadow]

Re: dropping of your hands

For those who have found out this secret, does it feel like the club is collasping down onto itself? I really feel the head of the club immediately above the butt of the club and then the head feels like it is falling straight down towards the butt of the club.

Regardless of what we feel, the idea of everything DROPPING, and with a feeling of as VERTICAL as possible, will lead to most every golfer achieving the desired INSIDE path to the ball and better ball striking as a result.

I don't feel the club head above the butt as you do, but rather, I feel the head start down behind MY butt and I feel that my hands are actualy moving BEHIND my body. Video shows that my feel is not real, but most importantly, it does show my hands returning to the SHAFT AXIS PLANE, the line drawn from the ball up the shaft, at address from the down the line view. My right elbow follows the SAP to impact, AND my club shaft COVERS or coincides with my right forearm, half way down. If this cannot be visualized look here: http://www.golfbetterproductions.com/the-swing.asp
From the down the line view, pic 3 of John Dunnigan shows the "back & down" move of the hands at the start of the DS, and pic 4 the shaft covering the right forearm, which is the ideal position.

[swingpure]

Re: dropping of your hands

Good site!

One thing for sure that I agree on is, what we feel is happening and what is really happening can be two different things. I know that as I watch my swing on video and as I work on not trying to swing so far back, that where I think my arms and hands are and where they actually are, can be two different things.

I will be excited to see the lag I create and the club path on video with the new move.

It was interesting to read about the positions and path of the right elbow.

[Shadow]

Re: dropping of your hands

t was interesting to read about the positions and path of the right elbow.

IMO, the 3 best ball strikers ever, were Moe Norman, Ben Hogan and George Knudson. All three had their right elbow on the shaft axis plane at the top and it stayed there down to impact. Also, their hands never went above the shoulder plane, the line drawn from the ball through the turned shoulders. This is what John Dunnigan teaches on the site you went to.

More and more Tour professionals are using this "flatter" type swing motion because it is lacks the compensations that an upright swing needs to get the club coming into the ball more from the inside. Baddely, Byrd, Immelman and many, many others, swing this way. Lacking the talent of the Tour professionals, I don't understand why instructors are not teaching this kind of swing as it is better and easier for we mortals to learn.

[cornerstone]

Re: dropping of your hands

I have always struggled with the proper down move and the dropping of the hands.

I think I have finally figured it out.

For those who have found out this secret, does it feel like the club is collasping down onto itself? I really feel the head of the club immediately above the butt of the club and then the head feels like it is falling straight down towards the butt of the club.

My instructor kept telling me not to tighten my grip on the club and I played with that and eventually had no releasing feeling until it dropped into position.

It feels fantastic. I will try it at Urban Links tomorrow.

As far as i am concerned the "tray carrying" position of the non glove hand at the top of the swing is what we should be looking for.If you have this then you also have the flat glove hand wrist at the top.Check and see if you have this in a mirror.

Another key is that at address the club face should look slightly open with the hands ahead of the ball.This is pointed out in a golf digest(july 2007) by Jim Flick who is quoting JACK.

It don't mean a thing if ya ain't got the swing.


I dont know if this is meant to be a play on words but my experience is that a good swing doesnt mean good ball striking.
I have seen many good swings which wont repeat which is the bottom line.

[swingeasyguy]

Re: dropping of your hands

One of the ways I teach this feeling to students:
Either get a weighted club, or swing 2 mid irons together, lazily. As you swing down, you notice: the clubs are so heavy it's difficult to TRY actively to swing it down, it just falls. Feel the momentum of the weight, or gravity, bring the club down. Now, with one club, try to get the same feeling. If you don't, it's due to the fact that your holding it too tight...in my estimation 96% of golfers grip the club tooooooo tight!. When you grip with the proper pressure, the club swings your hands down due to gravity, you DON'T swing the club down. Subtle but huge difference.

Swingeasy guy

[Shadow]

Re: dropping of your hands

It don't mean a thing if ya ain't got the swing.
I dont know if this is meant to be a play on words but my experience is that a good swing doesnt mean good ball striking.
I have seen many good swings which wont repeat which is the bottom line.

Me too, but the reason for many golfers' inconsistencies, are attributed to what they think when they play, not their sound golf swings. No-one can play well with a lousy swing and only some can play well with a good swing. I am sure that you are aware of the kinds of thoughts that ruin good swings and most of those are centred around FEAR, RESULTS, TARGET and/or CONSCIOUS MECHANICAL SWING KEYS. Any amount of these will diminish the quality of any golfer's ball striking.

A good swing will pass through a number of positions on the way to impact and with a proper grip, good shots will result. A golfer whose swing plane is too steep, for example, will have to learn some compensations in order to get the club head into a position from which to hit good shots. Is this a good swing? No/Yes. The Tour professionals have the ability to compensate for flaws, Fred Couples, Jim Furyk are two who posess horrendous swings, but they have the inate ability to adjust at the transition and on the way down to hit superior golf shots. The average Joe, and I will assume that all here, not being Tour professionals, are average Joes, need to learn a simpler, more "scientifically" correct, (On plane - whatever that REALLY means) swing This, combining sufficient correct practice to make the swing a HABIT, and with the correct thinking while playing, will allow the golfer to be the best he can be. From my 48 years of golfing experience, very few golfers know how to think correctly when they play to allow their best play to come out. IMO, most golfers are much better that what they currently score. As Moe Norman once said, "You've gotta get your mind right."

[cornerstone]

Re: dropping of your hands

Me too, but the reason for many golfers' inconsistencies, are attributed to what they think when they play, not their sound golf swings

You are right about thoughts ,they have to affect us,but what i try to do is have mechanics(a dirty word in golf)that will hold up no matter how up or down I am during a round.
Like I said to another member,at the range when things are going well I try all kinds of wacky shots just to see what it takes for my "swing" to break down.I can get into strange positions and still make a decent shot.
What really kills me ,and this is what happens to most handicappers on the course,is when I try and visulaize a very important shot as if on the course,without realizing it my grip tightens and my elbows lock up.This doesnt happen when I have 75 balls in front of me and things dont matter.
I guess the mind thing kicks in and I begin to overthink and do things I dont normally do even when faced with virtual reality.

[Shadow]

Re: dropping of your hands

You are right about thoughts ,they have to affect us,but what i try to do is have mechanics(a dirty word in golf)that will hold up no matter how up or down I am during a round.
Like I said to another member,at the range when things are going well I try all kinds of wacky shots just to see what it takes for my "swing" to break down.(1) I can get into strange positions and still make a decent shot.
What really kills me ,and this is what happens to most handicappers on the course,is when I try and visulaize a very important shot as if on the course,without realizing it my grip tightens and my elbows lock up.This doesnt happen when I have 75 balls in front of me and things dont matter.
(2)I guess the mind thing kicks in and I begin to overthink and do things I dont normally do even when faced with virtual reality.

(1) I would wager that if you saw video of yourself in what you describe as strange positions, that you would be astonished at how normal your positions would actually be. It may FEEL whacky, but it would likely look fine.

(2) I agree that when you are just hitting balls, the shots seem to come off with ease. The obvious question is WHY? When there is pressure of any kind, they don't come off with ease. The obvious question is WHY? So the truly important question is "How can I play on the course, or when visualizing playing on the course, like I practice when I have 75 balls and it does not matter? You have to come up with a thought process when you play, that is the same as when you practice, so that the swing that you have in practice is the one that plays for you, on the course. LOL

If there is an understanding of what must happen when one learns a good golf swing, AND what one must do to play to one's best on the course, the whole process is quite simple. I don't mean to sound condescending, but IMO, most golfers don't and that is based on playing the game for 47 years, with hundreds of golfers from Canadian Amateur champions to beginners. I believe that I have learned what to do, it's not mine and I take no credit for it. Brief story. Using this method of thinking for the very first time, I stood on the 18th tee of my course, 6 under par. At that instant, I thought to myself, "Gee, if I birdie here, an easy par 5, I will shoot 65." Duck hook. Bogey. 67. Still OK, but, not what it should have been.

[swingpure]

Re: dropping of your hands

IMO, the 3 best ball strikers ever, were Moe Norman, Ben Hogan and George Knudson. All three had their right elbow on the shaft axis plane at the top and it stayed there down to impact. Also, their hands never went above the shoulder plane, the line drawn from the ball through the turned shoulders. This is what John Dunnigan teaches on the site you went to.

More and more Tour professionals are using this "flatter" type swing motion because it is lacks the compensations that an upright swing needs to get the club coming into the ball more from the inside. Baddely, Byrd, Immelman and many, many others, swing this way. Lacking the talent of the Tour professionals, I don't understand why instructors are not teaching this kind of swing as it is better and easier for we mortals to learn.

I went to Urban Links and wanted to feel this new move but never had a chance because I spent two hours swinging back too far and coming out of my spine axis. I was actually pretty disappointed but I wasn't beaten.

Today I went back there, actually had a flatter swing path, which as you said gave me better access to the inside swing path. In my old swing I guess I overturned with so much torque, it feels strange to swing and not have that torqued up feeliing. Today I took a back swing which felt as though I was just doing a 40 yard punch shot and I was going all the way back to almost parallel. The swing feels so short, I don't get much of a feeling of the dropping of the hands.

I will be going back their tomorrow and focus a little more on the path of the elbows.

Thanks for the tips

[swingpure]

Re: dropping of your hands

I'm typing this with my golf glove on, I'm so excited. I tried the elbow thing at home here and does it ever feel good. Just doing the motion of getting the right elbow on plane, drops the hands and creates a very powerful swing.

I'm tempted to have the fire extinguisher at the ready as the club head is racing across the carpet so fast, I'm afraid it may ignite the carpet.

Perhaps I am exaggerating a tiny bit , but it feels great. I can't wait to try it tomorrow.

[cornerstone]

Re: dropping of your hands

The flat swing which i believe is the same as the single plane swing does produce a very solid ,compact,powerful strike.
Hogan had a very flat swing but no one copies it.His book is probably the most detailed book on how to swing and strike the ball yet no one seems to use it.
Just recently I tried once again to do the Hogan swing and discovered that while he describes things in good written detail,he leaves out some key elements which can been seen however in the graphics.
If you have his book and see and read how he grips the club in the left hand you probaly wont be able to get the consistent results he does.What he leaves out in the written part is while the club goes through the palm of the left hand,it has to go precisely above the joint of the middle finger where the fingers meet the palm.Its that knobby feeling part above that joint or crease and definitely not in the fold/crease.
Also of course and better explained ,is that the club sits in the middle joint of the left index finger ,over the knobby part just describe and then under the heel of the palm.
This gives you a correct left hand yet one that is still "over" hinged providing a powerful swing but one that will hook.In order to compensate Hogan grips the club in the joints of the middle two fingers meeting the palm of the right hand.
This right hand gripping process may be a little more involved than I just described but when you have the right hand on correctly and remove the left hand,the club should have the compensating open look to balance the left hands wish to close and hook the ball.

If all the above goes well,you should have a naturally flat swing with the hands well below the shoulder at the top.I think you need his book in order to see what I am getting at.

Look forward to any comments on this analysis...cheers.

[Shadow]

Re: dropping of your hands

The flat swing which i believe is the same as the single plane swing does produce a very solid ,compact,powerful strike.
Hogan had a very flat swing but no one copies it

Hogan did not have a flat swing, it was only flatter than some of his contemporaries. At the top of his backswing his left arm covered his turned shoulder plane (single plane??) and his right elbow was on the shaft axis plane, both when looking down the line. If his swing was truly FLAT, his left arm would be below his shoulder plane, when the shaft is parallel to the ground. As he started down his hands moved quickly to the shaft axis plane, (vertical drop) and his right elbow stayed on the shaft axis plane to impact. While these planes are important for improvement, there is another plane check that is essential for good ball striking, perhaps the only one that is truly essential and I have NEVER seen it mentioned on any forum, anywhere.

There are a lot of Hogan followers and several on this site. Many take his book fundamentals as gospel, however, like almost all modern day instruction, it is based on perception and feeling, neither of which is very reliable. No disrespect meant to Hogan, but some of the things he said he did/felt, he did not do.

Both you and Cornerstone sound like my kind of golfers. An insatiable appetite for knowledge, a keenness or excitement when improvement is apparent, and a willingness to make swing adjustment to get better. However, there seems to be one piece of your puzzles missing, and that is related to HOW you practice.

[cornerstone]

Re: dropping of your hands

Hogan did not have a flat swing

Shadow, i think that his swing was regarded as flat.The following quote can be found immediately below the first graphic on this site.


http://www.cegolf.com/swingplane.htm


it's hard to find a golfer who doesn't think upright is right, even though Hogan, with about the flattest plane you of any professional golfer, was the best ball striker of all time

[swingeasyguy]

Re: dropping of your hands

Reading some of the comments here, Swingpure and Shadow for example, are starting to scare me. Remember guys named Ian Baker Finch, Seve Ballesteros? 2 guys who analyzed their swings to death until...their swings did just that...died! In fact I find Hogan's 5 Fundamentals did more to screw people up than almost any other instructional book. It's OK to know what happens in a good swing (and I disagree with those who think Furyk's swing is awful, wanna trade with him?) but Hogans book doesn't tell you how to do it. So I'm going to offer my 2 cents, stuff that Knudson told me himself when I took some lessons from him, and that he talks about in his book, my favourite by the way. On your transition downwards, how about concentrating ONLY on moving your lower body hard towards the target. Imagine yourself with no arms. LET your arms move without trying to make them move. When you understand that, you may start to understand how Hogan swung. When I'm hitting the ball really well, I have to put bandaids on my left toe becuase I've made a great move into the ball. Arms are incredibly loose. I never worry about swing plane. If my toe is sore, my plane is perfect! Just a tip for you young guys!

good day