Parallel Left - Feels Way Left

[cwdlaw223]

Why does aiming parallel left with your body feel like my shoulders are aimed way left of the target? My mind tells me that I'm aimed at the target when my left shoulder is pointing at the target (even thought I logically know this is wrong).

[rohlio]

because you have been doing it one way for a long time so even minor changes into a correct position will be very difficult for your brain to feel as "normal". It is just like when you video tape yourself doing something that feels crazy different , then watch it on video and it looks like you are doing nothing different at all.

[cwdlaw223]

25 years!!! Hard to change that but I'm going to try. I never really thought of the arc and impact. I just played and got good at timing shots with my setup. I want to take my game further and will need to change. This will take some time. Thanks for the input.

[Richie3Jack]

It's difficult to aim straight at 300 yards out or 100 yards out. Even more difficult with your body because your face is not directed at the target, but to the side of the target. Even army snipers can't aim straight from that distance without a scope and a spotter helping them out to confirm how far they were off. But doing it while facing parallel is very difficult to do, so I usually aim closed or open. Closed on longer shots, open on shorter shots.





3JACK

[johngrahamgolf]

I'm not a big fan of parallel.

Everyone tries to make it a certain way and that way is always wrong.

I once had a student that was a surveyor that always had his stance line point directly at the target. I asked him why he did that and he said, "Parallel is parallel." "If I hit a perfectly straight shot, I'll be just a couple feet away from the stick."

Parallel does not look parallel. It looks converging. Many forget that.

[Richie3Jack]

Great point, John. Personally, I don't bother with it. I used to. Did that for years. All it did was make my swing worse and made me spend a lot of time on something relatively unimportant.






3JACK

[cwdlaw223]

Back to aiming right and bringing it back!!! I feel more comfortable that way anyway!! You guys saved me three weeks of aggravation.

[Richie3Jack]

Aug 24, 2011 8:15:41 GMT -5 cwdlaw223 said:

Back to aiming right and bringing it back!!! I feel more comfortable that way anyway!! You guys saved me three weeks of aggravation.

Lucky you, I only spend about 7 years of aggravation working on it.




3JACK

[carland]

Even if you do not try to set up "parallel left" with the intention of fading or drawing the ball, do you try to set the clubface square to the target at address?

[Richie3Jack]

Clubface? Yes. Body? No.

That being said, it's not a huge deal to me. I know the odds of aligning the face at the target from 100 yards out are slim and none. Hell, 80% of golfers can't aim at the target with their putter from 6-feet away.

I just look for a spot I want to aim at and hope that I'm reasonably close enough. That Plummer and Bennett video shows Tour golfers with massively open clubfaces at address and closed clubfaces at address.





3JACK

[tightdraw]

frankly I think golf instruction in general could benefit from some appreciation of the concept of order of magnitude. So suppose you are aimed more or less at the target, but not absolutely parallel. you hit it well == as you intended -- how big a problem is this going to produce as a general matter? Answer: given how many other screw ups that are more worthy of one's attention, not much. When it's a problem, people overestimate its significance and overinvest in correcting for it. Overinvest in two senses: resources and relative benefit in regards to the resources spent.

The big order of magnitude issue is driving v. short game. You need to practice driving sufficiently to insure adequate distance and playability. after that marginal increments are very costly. but as regards short game -- as issue on every hole and from all manner of position, the relative failure to practice has a disproportionate impact on one's score.

Of course, very very few golfers play golf to improve their score. They play to improve their sense of self worth or manliness :-)

or some such thing.

So in the grand scheme of things 'parallel left' is way over rated relative to the payoff and the likelihood that you are going to nail it.

but investing overall in a repeatable set up to any ball -- one that keeps you in balance through a dynamic movement -- now that' s important. and the reason is because dynamic balance is important on every shot.

[tba]

How does a static repeatable setup keep one in balance through a dynamic motion? Seems that you could have a good setup and still be off balance once the motion starts, I think it's other things that contribute to dynamic balance seperate from a static balance position.

I don't think because you setup a repeatable way statically it ensures your balance dynamically, any static position has in itself balance issues aside from the dynamic balance issue, they can be different and different processes are controlling them. JMO.

And I think different sports demand different degrees of balance. I feel a J.M. comment on its way ... lol.

[Richie3Jack]

I like to look at it as how the direction of the stance affects that golfer's swing. I think when I started to believe that a stance would create a 'balanced, repeatable' swing...I was missing something and not getting the big overall picture.

To me, it's about how it works within that person's swing.

Trevino...'aim left, swing right and walk straight.' He's said that before he became a famous golfer, he struggled with a hook. And that part of what cured the hook was from watching Hogan and basically feeling like he wasn't allowing that left hand to collapse. Or like he showed on the video pretending that the 'back of the left hand and the clubface are the same thing.'

So a part of Trevino's aiming dead left, I would guess that he was trying desperately to get rid of the hook so he opened the stance to prevent that and that helped get his path more square instead of inside-to-out.

Trevino also had a steep attack angle as witnessed by his divots and forward shaft lean with the driver (and low ball flight).

So my guess before he was famous is that his stance was more square, he had rate of closure issues and he hit down and the path was well out to the right. So he figured out that if he opened his stance...the ball went straighter (path moved to the left. And that if he 'held on', the ball didn't hook. So the face wasn't closing over.

Of course, those are just guesses of mine, but it helps figure things out a bit more instead of saying 'this causes this.'

I think most people understand that there is no 1 way to swing a club. I think where they get messed up is realizing that there is no 1 way to fix a certain problem. So thinking that certain setups will create a balanced, repeatable swing is flawed to me.

But believe me...I didn't always think this way.






3JACK

[tba]

newtongolfinstitute.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=golfinstruction&action=display&thread=224&page=1


What effect will J.M's alignment method have on a swing, is it even relevant, as the ball doesn't know if you are standing facing it in any manner, it is only concerned with the impact parameters.

Thus all the different types of line ups/aiming techniques, the ball doesn't care, Jeff.

[Richie3Jack]

alright tba - I understand that you're not allowed to post over at that forum and Jeff cannot post here.

But, that stuff needs to be taken somewhere else.






3JACK