Post by Richie3Jack on Dec 26, 2013 11:24:43 GMT -5
Fred Couples has long been the golfer whose swing was admired by the public. It was funny how even my friends that never golfed, even female friends, were drawn to Fred Couples. And never has a golfer's swing rhythm matched their presence in life. What I admire about Couples' swing is that it is the very definition of effortless power. There's been a large shift in philosophy about the swing these days from golfers and golf instructors. They seem to feel that unless you swing out of your shoes your swing is not very 'athletic.' I tend to blame this on John Daly. I think once he came along it really changed the way golfers started thinking about the game. And then when Tiger followed this idea started to grow even more. Granted, Tiger doesn't always try to nuke every shot, but he had the ability to turn on the power boost when he needed it and people started to really dig that idea.
From a statistical perspective, it is pretty clear to me that the bomb-n-gouge philosophy is not optimally *efficient* for golfers. I wrote about this in 2013 Pro Golf Synopsis in my 'Extinction of Great Driving' essay and generally I feel that a lot of strokes are being left out on the course by today's longer hitters. While Freddie wasn't overly accurate off the tee in his career, I don't think I ever saw him really go after one. The same with Snead. And I think that is part of the reason why they were able to have great success on Tour despite both being poor putters.
To me, Freddie has the prettiest ugliest swing in the game of golf.
Early in Couples' career he was known for hitting a big draw. He then changed it to a fade which is what he was hitting at the time this sequence was filmed. He later changed back to a draw a couple of years ago. I think he's been a pretty good driver in his career. From looking at his metrics, he probably would have ranked anywhere from 15th to 60th in most years. I doubt he would have gotten in the top-5 because of his accuracy. From the data I have on his Danger Zone play, that's where he usually excelled. And as Curtis Strange once said, I don't think I've ever seen him mis-hit a ball.
The other interesting thing about Couples is that he seemingly didn't have a lot of fanfare coming out of high school and that helped halt some careers at U. of Houston before they got started. There was one story by big-time Canadian Amateur Warren Sye that he and his teammates at Houston were all practicing for an hour or so with their drivers and Freddie just shows up out of the blue, gets out of his car and stone cold starts bombing a 1-iron 25 yards past their drivers. After that, Sye felt that if 'Fred from Seattle' could do that then he stood no chance on Tour.
In this sequence we see that Couple's stance is a bit open. Since he was playing fades, I think he was able to easily shift the baseline depending on what shot he wanted to hit. Couples often said that if he wanted to work the ball, he would simply envision the ball flight and what the swing felt like to produce that ball flight. I think it's really powerful if one can simply adjusted where they are aiming themselves to shift the baseline the appropriate amount in order to hit the shot they want.
He also doesn't have a lot of knee flex. That means that he won't have much straightening of the rear knee and that usually means that the left arm plane at p4 will likely be upright because the hips will stop rotating earlier in the backswing, such as p3 instead of the hip stopping their rotation around p3.5 to p4.
Interesting thing about p2 and p3 is that it is basically an arm lift instead of a body rotation. His hips are barely turned at p2. He also gets fairly wide with his swing radius at p2, but then narrows it a tad at p3. I think this is a big part of why his swing is so rhythmic, the radius stays in tact in the backswing and he does not hyper-extend the left arm. I've found when you hyper-extend that left arm a lot of bad things happen and the sequencing of the downswing can get off, particularly the wrist-cocking and un-cocking.
From the DTL view, at p3.5 Freddie looks like he's going to be well laid-off. But then he does a major re-routing job. At p4 he has really 'coiled' nicely while his head is relatively in the same position. I think part of his rhythmic swing is due to him being able to get this much turn while not having a 'reverse hip slide' at p4. The other part is he goes from looking very laid off to very across the line, but does so all in one motion. Many golfers that come across the line, particularly at the last second of their backswing, tend to have to slow down in order to complete that motion and it looks awkward. For Couples, it's all one nice motion. And with that much rotation and his hands so high, he has a lot of leverage to generate some major swing speed.
At p5.5 from the DTL view many golfers would term this 'over the top.' But, it's not. The shaft has a very shallow angle. The only thing going on here is that the left arm has jutted out quite a bit. But, he's hitting fades here. He also has a tremendous amount of hip slide and hip rotation. This may explain his lower back problems in his career. It's very hard to slide that much and rotate that much. However, it will make for a nice blending of movements that will move the path left (hip rotation) and the path to the right (hip slide). Thus, it creates a fairly square path to the baseline. And thus, he can simply move his address position to shift the baseline and the path. So if he wants to hit a fade, aim left. For a draw, aim a little right. Most golfers have to fiddle with ball position, face angle at address and some swing mechanics.
The other part of his swing that I think makes it rhythmic is the banking of the rear foot while not hanging the head back. When you can do both of these things, the swing tends to be more fluid and less herky-jerky. I have seen video of Babe Didrickson-Zaharias swing and you can tell when she was younger that she was told to 'keep her eye on the ball.' Her swing gets a bit discombobulated in the follow thru. It's not until she got older when she stopped worrying about keeping her eye on the ball that her swing looked very fluid. I also think that was about the time she won 18 LPGA events in 1-year!
Anyway, Couples certainly has a fascinating swing for sure. The mechanics in still motion are ugly as sin, but in real-time motion it's a beauty to watch. And in the end it produced some great results.
3JACK
From a statistical perspective, it is pretty clear to me that the bomb-n-gouge philosophy is not optimally *efficient* for golfers. I wrote about this in 2013 Pro Golf Synopsis in my 'Extinction of Great Driving' essay and generally I feel that a lot of strokes are being left out on the course by today's longer hitters. While Freddie wasn't overly accurate off the tee in his career, I don't think I ever saw him really go after one. The same with Snead. And I think that is part of the reason why they were able to have great success on Tour despite both being poor putters.
To me, Freddie has the prettiest ugliest swing in the game of golf.
Early in Couples' career he was known for hitting a big draw. He then changed it to a fade which is what he was hitting at the time this sequence was filmed. He later changed back to a draw a couple of years ago. I think he's been a pretty good driver in his career. From looking at his metrics, he probably would have ranked anywhere from 15th to 60th in most years. I doubt he would have gotten in the top-5 because of his accuracy. From the data I have on his Danger Zone play, that's where he usually excelled. And as Curtis Strange once said, I don't think I've ever seen him mis-hit a ball.
The other interesting thing about Couples is that he seemingly didn't have a lot of fanfare coming out of high school and that helped halt some careers at U. of Houston before they got started. There was one story by big-time Canadian Amateur Warren Sye that he and his teammates at Houston were all practicing for an hour or so with their drivers and Freddie just shows up out of the blue, gets out of his car and stone cold starts bombing a 1-iron 25 yards past their drivers. After that, Sye felt that if 'Fred from Seattle' could do that then he stood no chance on Tour.
In this sequence we see that Couple's stance is a bit open. Since he was playing fades, I think he was able to easily shift the baseline depending on what shot he wanted to hit. Couples often said that if he wanted to work the ball, he would simply envision the ball flight and what the swing felt like to produce that ball flight. I think it's really powerful if one can simply adjusted where they are aiming themselves to shift the baseline the appropriate amount in order to hit the shot they want.
He also doesn't have a lot of knee flex. That means that he won't have much straightening of the rear knee and that usually means that the left arm plane at p4 will likely be upright because the hips will stop rotating earlier in the backswing, such as p3 instead of the hip stopping their rotation around p3.5 to p4.
Interesting thing about p2 and p3 is that it is basically an arm lift instead of a body rotation. His hips are barely turned at p2. He also gets fairly wide with his swing radius at p2, but then narrows it a tad at p3. I think this is a big part of why his swing is so rhythmic, the radius stays in tact in the backswing and he does not hyper-extend the left arm. I've found when you hyper-extend that left arm a lot of bad things happen and the sequencing of the downswing can get off, particularly the wrist-cocking and un-cocking.
From the DTL view, at p3.5 Freddie looks like he's going to be well laid-off. But then he does a major re-routing job. At p4 he has really 'coiled' nicely while his head is relatively in the same position. I think part of his rhythmic swing is due to him being able to get this much turn while not having a 'reverse hip slide' at p4. The other part is he goes from looking very laid off to very across the line, but does so all in one motion. Many golfers that come across the line, particularly at the last second of their backswing, tend to have to slow down in order to complete that motion and it looks awkward. For Couples, it's all one nice motion. And with that much rotation and his hands so high, he has a lot of leverage to generate some major swing speed.
At p5.5 from the DTL view many golfers would term this 'over the top.' But, it's not. The shaft has a very shallow angle. The only thing going on here is that the left arm has jutted out quite a bit. But, he's hitting fades here. He also has a tremendous amount of hip slide and hip rotation. This may explain his lower back problems in his career. It's very hard to slide that much and rotate that much. However, it will make for a nice blending of movements that will move the path left (hip rotation) and the path to the right (hip slide). Thus, it creates a fairly square path to the baseline. And thus, he can simply move his address position to shift the baseline and the path. So if he wants to hit a fade, aim left. For a draw, aim a little right. Most golfers have to fiddle with ball position, face angle at address and some swing mechanics.
The other part of his swing that I think makes it rhythmic is the banking of the rear foot while not hanging the head back. When you can do both of these things, the swing tends to be more fluid and less herky-jerky. I have seen video of Babe Didrickson-Zaharias swing and you can tell when she was younger that she was told to 'keep her eye on the ball.' Her swing gets a bit discombobulated in the follow thru. It's not until she got older when she stopped worrying about keeping her eye on the ball that her swing looked very fluid. I also think that was about the time she won 18 LPGA events in 1-year!
Anyway, Couples certainly has a fascinating swing for sure. The mechanics in still motion are ugly as sin, but in real-time motion it's a beauty to watch. And in the end it produced some great results.
3JACK