Why do we worry about the backswing?

[jonnygrouville]

Something I have been thinking about for a while so figured it would be a half-decent idea for a first post (unless it turns into some rambling tirade). There are certain places I could not raise this kind of subject, but it seems that this is an appropriate place to be asking 'Why do we worry about the backswing?'

I know Richie has commented on his blog that he is putting more focus on his downswing and impact at the moment. There is also the old axiom that 'you don't hit it with your backswing'.

What does anyone think?

Seems to make sense to me that the more conventional backswing and top of backswing position, the less compensations you will need to include to make it to the place you want to be at impact. The more you can make the downswing a reaction to what has been set up at address on the way back, the better?

Yes, feel free to wheel out the video of the greats of the game that have had all kinds of crazy backswings and idiosyncracies in their actions. These guys are the top tiny percentage of a top tiny percentage. They have great short games and enough talent to make their swings work for them, to add in all the little compensations they need to get the clubface back to square.

For a 32 year old accountant who gets to the course once every two weeks and can make it to the range once a week (maybe more if the global economy stops hitting the big red panic button twice a day) and the vast majority of the golfing masses, surely, the less compensations the better.

However.

Every now and then I'll be struggling at the range and go back to my 'junior swing'. This is as easy as falling off a log. Long, loose, lots of 'flail' as my college coach used to call it with a look on his face like a bulldog licking p!ss off a nettle. I know now this is a lagging clubhead takeaway, float-load and a bucket load of 1960s style lag and drive of the hips. Fine when I was a kid of playing lots. Would hit lots and lots of greens, never practiced my putting or wedge play, never worried about the hook or two a round and could break par without breaking a sweat.

Not so good for the time poor accountant. I am clearly nowhere near where I used to be at impact, so I am now thinking that putting those kind of angles into my swing in the backswing is a better idea. Too often the high floaty backswing leads to a high floaty position at impact and a high floaty drive somewhere off into the boondocks. Am I allowed to say 'early set' around here?

Sorry. It has turned in to a bit of a tirade and, to some degree, a purely rhetorical argument as I am personally kind of set on the early set at the mo, but still very interested to hear people's thoughts on the subject.

Cheers.

[Richie3Jack]

I don't have a problem with working on the backswing because sometimes it's the reason why a golfer's downswing sucks. Make a change here or there in the backswing and the downswing can improve. In fact, the first thing I would worry about in any backswing work is the clubface.

When I go to the range, I usually do a lot of observation of other golfers and one of the things I inevitably see, from golfers of all ranges...especially ones struggling with their backswing...is that their clubfaces are wayyy closed in the backswing. I had this same issue as well and getting that clubface square was a huge help. I'm not a fan of a very shut clubface in the backswing. Some can get away with it, but I think it gives most golfers a world of problems.

Also with my observation, the range is usually filled with people only working on the backswing. I don't have a problem with that but I think it's greatly overdone.

Although I think the reason for it is that most of the golfers don't understand the downswing or impact at all.




3JACK

[mudball]

jonnygrouville

It actually goes further than that - excellent post by the way - there are a number of schools of thought on this. When I was growing up the backswing was really important - Jack Nicklaus was in his prime and I, as a young kid, read his books like Total Golf Techniques.
My memory of what I saw from Jack Nicklaus and what I read in my younger years was that the backswing was all about building power. Long, slow, low takeaway, reach for the sky - get into the right position at the top of the swing so that you could unwind and release all that pent up muscle tension into the back of the ball.

Whereas, a teacher such as Leslie King would say (and I didn't read him until much later in life) the backswing has got nothing to do with power at all - it's just to position you so you can swing the club and the arms down into the ball.

If you read TGM you will see that where you finish your backswing and where you cock your wrists are all customisations.

As I said I grew up with Nicklaus - if I didn't try to cock my wrists early my hands would be above my shoulder before the wrist started to cock!
As it is - I try to cock early and net result is neither late or early.

I think there is a lot to be said for the early wrist cock - it gets it out the way - it's also more consistent for swings of different swing lengths... I just wish I could do it

[imperfectgolfer]

If you watch this swing analysis of Bruce Lietzke's swing, Jim McLean states that there is nothing wrong with a golfer having that type of reverse-slot backswing action.

www.thegolfersnation.com/tgn/online/index.php?/en/Bruce-Lietzke.html

I think that Jim McLean is dead-wrong. An extreme degree of reverse-slot swinging predisposes to an OTT move.

Here is Bruce Lietzke's swing.



Note that he comes down slightly steeper than the TSP and hits a fade due to an out-to-in clubhead swingpath through impact.

A golfer can play a "controlled fade" if he can control the OTT move. However, a less skilled golfer will likely go more OTT in an uncontrolled fashion - see this next series of photos.



That golfer is coming down way over (far steeper than) the TSP.

Jeff.

[Richie3Jack]

I get McLean's point. The issue I have and where I disagree with people like Trevino is that if those guys with those unorthodox swings were coming to a teacher, it would almost likely be due to them struggling with their swing. It's not like they would be striping the ball and THEN go to a teacher.

That's why most golfers get lessons in the first place, they are *struggling* with their golf swing and need it repaired. Chances are, IMO, that if a golfer like a Lietzke needed a lesson, they probably are starting to make that deadly OTT move that is caused by the club going too far inside on the backswing. I think it's quite plausible for a golfer to not have a problem and then suddenly develop the problem...almost overnight.

Still, I think there ration of working on the backswing to the downswing is really out of whack in the golfing world.




3JACK

[starretj]

Feb 6, 2010 11:32:04 GMT -5 imperfectgolfer said:

If you watch this swing analysis of Bruce Lietzke's swing, Jim McLean states that there is nothing wrong with a golfer having that type of reverse-slot backswing action.

www.thegolfersnation.com/tgn/online/index.php?/en/Bruce-Lietzke.html

I think that Jim McLean is dead-wrong. An extreme degree of reverse-slot swinging predisposes to an OTT move.

Here is Bruce Lietzke's swing.



Note that he comes down slightly steeper than the TSP and hits a fade due to an out-to-in clubhead swingpath through impact.

Jeff, I don't believe that you can make any claim to what plane Bruce is using from this sequence. The camera angle is terrible, it is actually behind his rear end in relation to where he is aimed. If you have some better footage you may want to use it instead. From picture #5, it would be hard to argue whether he is on plane or not, but it is not terribly far from the turned shoulder plane one way or another. It might be possible that he hit his fade because of a slightly open face with a perfectly straight plane line.

Jim S.

[mudball]

To be fair Jim - Jim McLean roomed with the guy and he describes it as a slegehammer swing (over the top of his backswing).
Yes you are right the camera man was probably not filming that sequence so we could debate it years later - Bruce is aiming left and it looks like he is set up to fade the ball.

But if his backswing was less inside and more on plane then his OTT move would appear much less pronounced wouldn't it? But I think his 'unorthodox' backswing exaggerates the change in plane - his downswing plane is actually quite orthodox - as can be seen from the front view.
Just shows there are more than one way to skin a cat - and the guy clearly could play!

[Richie3Jack]

Lietzke was well known for taking the club well inside, looping and creating a big fade. It was remarkable not only that he hit the ball consistently well with teetering on making a dangerous 'wipe' move, but he could hit the ball so accurately and even a bit on the long side with such a big bending curvature of flight by Tour standards.




3JACK

[starretj]

Mudball and Richie I agree with you. Richie, your assessment of fading the ball a lot by tour standards is correct, but most people don't understand how tight tour standards are. I watched Bruce warm up and play here at the Bellsouth Champions Tour event and it wasn't like he played a big cut like you see at the local muni. It was also a very powerful flight with the cut, not one of those puffballs. In my opinion, his loop made it look like a bigger OTT move than it really was, as was mentioned.

Jim S.

[jonnygrouville]

Great stuff guys! Very interesting. Sorry, but this is going to be a hefty response.

I definitely agree on the clubface control issue. Having control of this at impact will have the most immediate impact on your game. A tendency one way of the other will shape the whole of your swing and making any changes to influence that will probably ruin your game for a while as it is tough to take out the other compensations.

I think compensations becomes the underlying theme for this discussion. Do you remove the need or groove the compensation?

Harrington and Faldo are the two examples that spring to mind when I think of people completely changing the shapes of their swings to remove the need for compensations and then become greats of the game. Without Bob Torrance or David Leadbetter on speed-dial, twelve hours a day available for practice, etc. is it folly for any amateur to attempt anything of the sort? Am I the equivalent of the crank building a space-rocket in his garage at the weekend with a mind full of power-packages and flying wedges instead of Kepler’s laws of planetary motion?

I find Richie’s blog heartening in this respect as he has changed the shape of his swing. And not in the standard internet ‘I wnt 2 range last nite and tried yr 2 plane swing – it was rubbish LOL!!!’ way.

I also agree that there is a lack of understanding of downswing and impact. My question here would be whether you can consciously influence much of the downswing? You would clearly prefer to change something in the address or the backswing to set the wheels in motion to attain the impact you are after. I remember having a lesson once where the guy told me that, as a ‘good’ player, I should just be practicing my impact position by wedging the club against a doorframe and presetting impact. Is this the kind of thing more people should be doing?

I’ve read Leslie King and even had some lessons from ‘The Swing Factory’ in London (that I won in a long-driving contest – long story), the modern inheritors of his theory. That is probably a separate discussion about the top of the backswing. Not only whether it matters if it is ‘right’ or not, but does it matter if it is ‘static’ or not?

I haven’t read TGM though. Given the vagueries of the local postal system, I am also not sure how I am going to get hold of a copy. I will investigate.

Regardless of the camera position, Lietzke’s swing is interesting in the context of this discussion. Considering picture two, how would your normal amateur hit a half shot from there? I’ll tell you. With great difficulty.

It is a good example of an ‘over the top of an underplane backswing to end up consistently bang on plane’ (OTTOAUBTEUCBOP?) and my original queries. Some teaching seems to say go for this as if the backswing doesn’t matter. Is it more the case that the average amateur would see more improvement if they did focus on impact? That’s your backswing; deal with it. Let’s work on improving your compensations. However, for every Lietzke, there are thousands of golfers with the same ‘shape’ of swing shooting in the hundreds.

This loops back to discussions on golf instruction. What would you do given five half hour lessons to change the typical OTT’er under the Lietzke sequence above?

To some degree, this seems moot. There is no right answer. Will the guy practice in between lessons? Will he mind spending three months hitting it to the four winds until the big backswing changes you want to make take hold? Or do you give him a sticky plaster (band-aid?) that will get him beating his mates on Sunday and keep applying these fixes? And fixes is probably appropriate as he will get hooked and be back for more! Seems a conflict of interest to make permanent changes so he won't need as many lessons.

Whatever the case, give him the squarest backswing in the world and he will probably still hit it sideways, depending on how long he has been swinging like that, his athletic ability, co-ordination and so on.

It will also depend on the type of teacher. Get the camera out and let’s change your address, let’s change your takeaway. Any schmo with a computer and a Leadbetter book can do that. Even with a camera, the better teacher will still have an eye for the whole dynamic motion including impact and the braver ones of these will try and fix the dynamic.

I remember my college coaching. The coach would ask ‘Did you win?’ to which I would normally reply, ‘Yes, but I hit a couple of big rights where I think the clubface got a bit shut on the way back and I got underneath it and…’ by which time he had walked away.

If you want me, I’ll be in the garage.