ef425
'88 Apex Redlines
Posts: 112
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Post by ef425 on Feb 9, 2010 15:39:10 GMT -5
What we know from the geometry of a circle and Trackman is that hitting down on the ball will push the true path of the club more inside to out.
Imagine you have a good fairway lie and a 7 iron in your hand. Assuming you hit down and properly compress the ball and take a reasonable divot, as I understand it if you aim your plane line directly at the target and manage to get your club face square at impact, you will probably miss to the left of the pin because the ball will take off close to your plane line but hitting down will give you an inside out true path (positive for Trackman) which will cause your ball to spin to the left.
Do I have this right? If so I see two primary options if you want to hit the ball at the pin.
1. Open the club face so it points to the right of the target. This will give you a push draw shot that starts to the right and draws back assuming the face is still closed to the path. The Stack and Tilt guys recommend this method and I think they claim it is the primary shot pattern of tour pros.
2. Aim your plane line to the left of the target and aim your club face at the target. This will give you a classic open stance. If you hit down on the ball this way you can zero out your true path and club face angle and hit a straight shot.
Anyone try either of these methods and have opinions on which works better? Am I even generally correct with this stuff?
Thanks again to popular instruction for never explaining the real basics of ball flight.
Emmett
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Post by gmbtempe on Feb 9, 2010 15:45:18 GMT -5
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Post by Richie3Jack on Feb 9, 2010 17:46:13 GMT -5
Imagine you have a good fairway lie and a 7 iron in your hand. Assuming you hit down and properly compress the ball and take a reasonable divot, as I understand it if you aim your plane line directly at the target and manage to get your club face square at impact, you will probably miss to the left of the pin because the ball will take off close to your plane line but hitting down will give you an inside out true path (positive for Trackman) which will cause your ball to spin to the left. You've got the idea. You might not miss that much left and it depends on how much you hit down on the ball. If you hit -1* down, then the hook will be less. Also, remember that 'initial direction' is 85% clubface angle and 15% path. So if you're square with the face angle but out to the right with the plane line, you're ball will start slightly right of the target. But again, depends how far down you hit on the ball and the Vertical swing plane (flatter downswing plane means the further you need to swing left to hit it straight). 1. Open the club face so it points to the right of the target. This will give you a push draw shot that starts to the right and draws back assuming the face is still closed to the path. The Stack and Tilt guys recommend this method and I think they claim it is the primary shot pattern of tour pros. I think the S&T guys want the handle forward. This gets the face pointing out to the right of the target and causes the AoA to get steeper. So the path goes out to the right as well, resulting in a push draw. But, yes...you are on the right track. 2. Aim your plane line to the left of the target and aim your club face at the target. This will give you a classic open stance. If you hit down on the ball this way you can zero out your true path and club face angle and hit a straight shot. You can do this. But I don't think it's necessary to aim open in order to 'swing left.' I was 'swinging left' more and more before I started with Lag Erickson's Advanced Ball Striking and I was doing it while keeping my stance square to the target. The only reason why I started to swing out more to the right going with Erickson's ABS class is that he wants you to work on getting on the elbow plane and getting into pitch elbow. As I work into that, it gets the plane line out to the right, but hopefully as we get into the rest of the modules, he swears that I'll get moving the plane line left to square up the path. But, you really don't need to aim left to swing left. I believe in order to get the plane line left you need to do it with the pivot and the hands post impact. And avoid doing it with the arms. If you do it with the arms, then you'll likely make the dreaded over the top move. Anyone try either of these methods and have opinions on which works better? Am I even generally correct with this stuff?
Thanks again to popular instruction for never explaining the real basics of ball flight.
Emmett I think you have the right idea. Remember, that the amount of 'swinging left' or 'moving the plane line' is based on: 1. Attack Angle 2. Vertical Swing Plane. Moe Norman clearly moved his plane line out to the right. Yet, Moe hit it dead straight on command. What I deduct from my knowledge of D-Plane and the ball flight laws is that Moe had a pretty shallow attack angle. And his vertical swing plane had to match up pretty well with his AoA and plane line. Moe was famous for saying that you shouldn't take big divots and if you watch him hit balls, he really never did take a big divot. In fact, he often referred to it as 'taking bacon strips, not pork chops.' Somebody like Trevino who took some of the biggest divots in history most likely swung quite a bit left if he was measured on Trackman. 3JACK ]
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ef425
'88 Apex Redlines
Posts: 112
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Post by ef425 on Feb 9, 2010 18:54:35 GMT -5
Rich,
Thanks for the comments. I think I understand this game a lot better thanks to your blog and everyone on this forum.
Swinging left is still a mystery. I've even read just about everything I can find on it. Is it possible that swinging left is the same thing as having a straight plane line? Suppose you had a smart stick and made a normal swing, the laser would just trace the plane line. It would be the same if you were swinging the smart stick on one of those swing plane training aids like the Explanar.
So if you have this straight plane line and you aim it at the target it would be near impossible to hit a straight shot if you hit down on the ball. The only reasonable way I can think of to fix this (besides open the club face) is to aim the plane line left.
You said:
"I believe in order to get the plane line left you need to do it with the pivot and the hands post impact."
I admit I'm new at this but it sounds like you want a bent plane line. If you had the smart stick and you aimed your plane line at the target and made a swing, it would trace the plane line up to the ball then somehow swing left or inside the plan line afterward impact due to your pivot.
I may need to go re read all the trackman stuff. I thought I understood everything like the difference between HSP and club path pretty well but perhaps not.
Emmett
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Post by imperfectgolfer on Feb 9, 2010 19:36:52 GMT -5
3jack
You wrote-: "Erickson's ABS class is that he wants you to work on getting on the elbow plane and getting into pitch elbow. As I work into that, it gets the plane line out to the right, but hopefully as we get into the rest of the modules, he swears that I'll get moving the plane line left to square up the path."
How does getting the right elbow into its pitch location get the "plane line out to the right"? What does that mean? Are you not tracing a SPL in your downswing?
Then, what does it mean when you state "moving the plane line left to square the path"? Is this a different plane line? Are you bending the original plane line? How can you be tracing a SPL in the downswing if you have different plane lines, or if you are bending a plane line?
Jeff.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Feb 9, 2010 22:39:02 GMT -5
Going from TSP to the elbow plane (or the '4:30' line) with pitch elbow (coming from punch elbow) gets me 'swinging out to the right' because I'm not used to coming from that flat of a plane that comes from that far inside. Lag's students have said the same thing. Module 1 usually gets them hitting a hook that is playable, which is an indication of the plane line going out to the right. I think it's mostly due to getting too much right arm thrust and not enough pivot come post impact. But I think he wants golfers to master the module first and get to pitch elbow and on the '4:30 line' before they go onto Module 2. But in the end, after you've gone thru all of the modules, it seems that he believes that golfers..even professional level golfers should continue to work on Module 1 because he believes that is so important. I probably mis-spoke on 'plane line left.' It's more of a feel thing. Let's say the VSP is at 60* with an iron. The formula for 'zeroing out the path' is then 1/2 of the attack angle. So a 7-iron hit with a -5* attack angle needs an Horizontal Swing Plane of -2.5* in order 'zero out' the path. I'm more or less 'releasing out to the right' like shown on the pic on the right. I can still come down on the same VSP, but if I'm 'releasing to the right' my HSP moves out to the right. If I'm 'releasing left' like shown above I can still come down on the same VSP, but now my HSP is more left and my path is likely to be more close to 0*. For me I'm trying to go to pitch elbow and get on the 4:30 line and then learn how to 'release left' so I can stay on plane and keep the HSP more left and help zero out the path. Instead I get on the 4:30 line with pitch elbow but I'm releasing out to the right mainly due right arm thrust and lack of post-impact pivot. 3JACK
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Post by imperfectgolfer on Feb 9, 2010 22:50:14 GMT -5
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Post by Richie3Jack on Feb 10, 2010 0:04:04 GMT -5
I think it's along the very same lines. Slice wants the hands to go 'left and low' and he talks a great deal about pivoting properly to do it so you don't have that 'crossover release' which is basically swinging out to the right. Slice also wants you to address the golf ball in a certain way. Lag really doesn't go much into address or grip. In fact, it appears that he doesn't really care how you grip the club and that you can find what grip works for you by doing the modules. For instance, I can only do Module 1 with more of a stronger grip. The left thumb on the aft side of the grip makes it possible for me to properly use the left hand and wrist in doing Module 1.
Also, Lag is very big on 'saving the right arm' (so is MOG and darome). Not only at impact, but past it as well. I don't think I've ever heard Slice mention that and I don't think it's a priority from looking at his students.
3JACK
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Post by TeddyIrons on Feb 10, 2010 7:13:31 GMT -5
Richie, it's not mandatory as part of ABS to try and get into a pitch elbow position. Lag himself does this because it increases the range of hit he must give with his hands, but it also means you need to have the strength in the hands to do it. As we work more and more on the first module, we'll be more able to sustain a pitch elbow position, but myself I wouldn't work on that in the full golf swing from the get go because it could lead to disaster (well, it did for me when I tried messing with it). Getting into pitch elbow will come from how we transition which module 1 doesn't really address. I think module 1 is more about the 4:30 line, reducing arm movement, and training the pivot and hands. We do this from pitch because it encourages all of those things. Lag prefers us to let the modules work their way into our swing DNA naturally. It's very tough to resist working on things though, and I'm doing it all the time.
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Post by gmbtempe on Feb 10, 2010 10:01:37 GMT -5
Also, Lag is very big on 'saving the right arm' (so is MOG and darome). Not only at impact, but past it as well. I don't think I've ever heard Slice mention that and I don't think it's a priority from looking at his students. 3JACK Same thing I have been told...in fact I remember this quite from my less two weeks ago "this arms straight just past impact will kill this swing", the bend in the right arm must be maintained and if you have a little bend in your left just past impact to insure this then thats fine. What I find is that if I don't pivot through the shot, if there is any stall at all, well goodbye bent right arm. I wish I could just lock my right arm bent, my right wrist bend and then just work on pivot through the ball.
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Post by imperfectgolfer on Feb 10, 2010 10:30:31 GMT -5
Greg,
You wrote-: "I wish I could just lock my right arm bent, my right wrist bend and then just work on pivot through the ball."
I think that your body physique and degree of athleticism may not make it possible for you to achieve that goal.
I think that JE's teaching approach is very dependent on a golfer having the athletic ability and flexibility to pivot very actively through impact into the finish phase. I could never execute that type of swing action due to a lack of flexibility.
Jeff.
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Post by gmbtempe on Feb 10, 2010 10:45:58 GMT -5
Greg, You wrote-: "I wish I could just lock my right arm bent, my right wrist bend and then just work on pivot through the ball." I think that your body physique and degree of athleticism may not make it possible for you to achieve that goal. I think that JE's teaching approach is very dependent on a golfer having the athletic ability and flexibility to pivot very actively through impact into the finish phase. I could never execute that type of swing action due to a lack of flexibility. Jeff. Thats very possible Jeff, even when I was playing college football I was never all that flexible though I certainly was a good athlete. I would say from 2 feet before impact to 2 feet after impact its very much like hitting a baseball.
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Post by TeddyIrons on Feb 11, 2010 1:46:51 GMT -5
Greg, You wrote-: "I wish I could just lock my right arm bent, my right wrist bend and then just work on pivot through the ball." I think that your body physique and degree of athleticism may not make it possible for you to achieve that goal. I think that JE's teaching approach is very dependent on a golfer having the athletic ability and flexibility to pivot very actively through impact into the finish phase. I could never execute that type of swing action due to a lack of flexibility. Jeff. Jeff, I would perhaps agree with the athleticism requirement of JE's teaching, in that one needs to pivot hard, although this is something that is part of the training and probably not a pre-requisite. I disagree with the flexibility requirement - in which part of JE's swing is he demonstrating a high degree of flexibility?
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Post by imperfectgolfer on Feb 11, 2010 10:32:28 GMT -5
Teddy,
I think that JE has tremendous flexibility.
I think that it requires a great deal of shoulder joint and scapula flexibility to perform a backswing action where the straight left arm is below the shoulder turn angle in the backswing. Secondly, he has an amazing amount of hula hula flexibility that allows him to start the downswing with an assertive pelvic rotation movement while the upper torso rotation is slightly delayed. I also think that he pivots very actively through impact and that requires a lot of hip joint and spinal flexibility.
Jeff.
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Post by TeddyIrons on Feb 11, 2010 11:12:11 GMT -5
Jeff, I'm fairly certain that JE is not starting his downswing with an assertive pelvic rotation movement. I know this, because it's not what he teaches. He starts down with a little sit down movement, that perhaps makes it look like he has hula hula flexibility, but that is not what happens. I myself am very inflexible, and would look the same. Actually JE has often written that he is not a particularly flexible person. Some of the modules, however, will no doubt increase one's flexibility - I would say that to swing the golf club like JE requires training, on that I would agree.
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