'The Textbook Swing'

[golfbaka]

For those of us that are not always quick enough to press the mute button whenever Peter Kostis does his 'in depth swing analysis' the phrase 'textbook this', 'textbook that' always pops up.

I guess everybody here knows that there is no 'textbook swing' so why is this term so bandied about?

Surely all 'a textbook swing' is, is really just a consensus of the day. With Leadbetter's philosophy still just about ruling the roost at the moment -

'athletic set-up', one piece takeaway, cock the wrists, turn the shoulders, resist with the lower body, turn through with body. Straight lines everywhere. (something like that). Who does everybody consider has a 'textbook swing'? Adam Scott, Charles Howell, Justin Rose??!! (remind me how many majors these guys have won?)

[Richie3Jack]

One of the things that appealed to me about Lag Erickson's ABS instruction is that he based a lot of his thoughts by recording tape of the great ballstrikers with unorthodox looking swings. Guys like Peter Senior and Moe Norman, whom John filmed in the 80's which was well before Moe started to get known. He then analyzed what these golfers did and compared them to other great ballstrikers with those classic looking swings and see what they all had in common.

I also like Brian Manzella's story about working with David Toms and re-teaching Toms his old swing and when Toms would go back to his old, bad habits that resulted in a poor shot, but a 'prettier' looking swing...David would tell him 'I bet it looked good on video, though.'

That's a major hazard to me of looking for the textbook swing. Usually it's more about making the swing look prettier instead of making the swing more effective and efficient. And a lot of that is just making the *backswing* look prettier and you don't hit the ball with your backswing.




3JACK

[gmbtempe]

Adam Scott would be pretty close if you ask me. Charles Howell has to much float load and comes down with to much lag at times, under pressure seen that guy air mail greens because he can't control it.

I like Justin Rose's swing a lot.

[golfbaka]

As Lynn Blake would say 'ask the ball which swing it likes better'.

I think alot of the pretty backswing stuff may come from the fact that its pretty easy to see the top of the swing with a low quality video camera. Whereas its virtually impossible to see impact.

Because of the phrase 'the textbook swing' there's an awful lot of really dedicated golfers who are grinding away to force themselves into positions that are just not neccessary.

[mudball]

Feb 17, 2010 11:11:47 GMT -5 golfbaka said:

As Lynn Blake would say 'ask the ball which swing it likes better'.

I think alot of the pretty backswing stuff may come from the fact that its pretty easy to see the top of the swing with a low quality video camera. Whereas its virtually impossible to see impact.

Because of the phrase 'the textbook swing' there's an awful lot of really dedicated golfers who are grinding away to force themselves into positions that are just not neccessary.

Text-book swing - an abused term eh. I think our (golfers) obsession with their backswing even pre-dates poor quality video cameras. So I think you have something there but it's just generally an easy checkpoint to focus on (mirror/someone watching you etc as well as camera).

Who has it? I agree with gmbtempe Adam Scott looks good doesn't he.

[golfbaka]

A textbook swing to me seems to be whoever is getting into whatever positions are fasionable at the time - pick up an old golf instruction book and you'll see a very different 'textbook' swing...