Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 5, 2014 15:32:33 GMT -5
When I lived in Atlanta I was a member at a couple of courses up north of the city. These courses were right in the middle of large Korean populations. And I soon came to find out just how hugely popular the game is with the Korean population. There is no situation where 1 person plays golf in the family. If they play golf, each member in the family (father, mother, daughter, son, etc) all play golf. And they play and practice a ton.
What I find interesting is that it seems like each of them have Tiger Woods’ How I Play Golf book and seem to try and follow it step-by-step. That was one thing I liked about one girl, Rachel Dai, golf swing. She is taught by her father and is ranked 48th in the world at the age of 16. However, I think she would be ranked higher if she was more active in tournaments.
Anyway, one player that seems to get a lot of rave reviews is Sang-Moon Bae. But, if you look at his metrics, they are not all that impressive:’
Driving Effectiveness: 142nd
Birdie Zone: 158th
Safe Zone: 64th
Danger Zone: 126th
225-275 yds Zone: 53rd
Shots from the Rough: 53rd
Shots from the Fairway: 150th
His best distance was from 150-175 yards where he ranked 40th overall and 58th from the fairway/tee. Given his ability from that distance and his putting outside 5 feet (which was really good), this would explain why he had such a high Birdie % (16th). But given the rest of his ballstriking and his weak Short Game, it also explains why he struggled to avoid Bogeys (175th).
His *game* reminds me a bit of Stuart Appleby’s; a player whose swing is raved about, but the metrics show that is overinflated.
The minor things I see is that his right thumb appears more on top of the shaft and less on the side towards the target. He also doesn't have much foot flare. And then there is the 'flat spine' and 'chin up' posture. I've never even looked at Bae's swing with any intent, but these things tell me that he's likely to roll over the hands in the release because of the grip and will have a fairly steep left arm plane at p4. He generated 114 mph of club head speed in 2014, but I think he could have generated more with these adjustments.
Unlike the typical Korean golfer, Bae does not have a big, wide takeaway. However, it appears he is following the 'textbook' philosophy of having the toe of the club pointing straight up. However, this means the clubface is actually open to the arc. So it will be interesting to see how he compensates for that open face at p2. Higher handicaps usually end up coming well over the top with the club face open. Better players tend to swing more inside-to-out so they can hit a draw with that open face. But too much inside-to-out can be a bad thing.
The hands and clubhead are in line. This may not be Tiger's How I Play Golf, but it appears like this is straight out of some other popular golf instruction book.
Clubshaft is nicely on the baseline here. But, his hand path is not very deep. This is also caused by his lack of hip slant and the knees practically even. Without the foot flare the hips cannot turn as much. And with the 'straight spine', this puffs out the chest and prevents the hands from working more inside from the get-go.
He also has quite a bit of wrist-cock.
Typically a golfer with much less wrist-cock here (i.e. Sergio) will generate a lot of lag using a 'float loading' procedure. Given that Bae has so much wrist-cock, it will likely mean less lag. It will also make the shaft plane on the backswing more upright.
His left arm plane is a bit steep. This isn't the best of camera angles (camera is too low). The big thing I see is that his hips are very level. Compare this to Snead's hips or Bubba's hips:
We can also see this from Bae's caddy view pic as his left knee has not gone that much inward.
Lastly, we've seen Bae dorsiflex his left wrist a little and now his clubface is quite a bit closed. He went from slightly open at p2 to quite a bit closed at p4.
I think P5 from the DTL view is the best part of his swing. He's pronated the left arm and flattened out the club head plane with relation to the hand path plane. He has regained his knee flex to push off the ground.
I believe his instructor is Rick Smith. Smith did the analysis of his swing in Golf Digest and claimed at p4 that 'The swinging set is intact. This helps him keep the club wide as he comes down.'
I know Butch Harmon wants the opposite...wide on the backswing and wide on the downswing.
I tend to agree with Smith's notion. It's not that you can't get the hand path radius wide on the downswing with a wide backswing, but there becomes a tendency for the right arm to fold on the downswing and narrowing the hand path radius.
But to me, Bae's hand path radius has narrowed here. And since he doesn't lag the club a lot, he's cheating some of the lag he has anyway. I think this explains why he struggles with the driver and hits his irons well from 150-175 yards.
Unfortunately, the do not have pics of P6. I like what's going on from the caddy view. The body is opened with some lateral bend. From the Caddy view we see the face turned over a little which indicates a high rate of closure and turning of the hands thru impact. As I mentioned at p1, I wouldn't be surprised that would happen with his right thumb being more on top of the shaft.
In the end, I think he does P5 from the DTL view exceptionally well, and his p7 from the DTL view pretty solid. The rest is not terrible, but is a bit compensation-oriented. I think because he has a pretty smooth rhythm and he doesn't so anything too funky, people like his swing. But they would be better off having a swing that may be a little funky, but does 3-4 position exceptionally well.
I used to play golf with a Korean golfer that played mini-tours in Florida. He was looking for a lesson and I recommended him to George. Afterward he said he liked George, but felt that George taught an 'old fashioned' swing given George looks at players like Snead, Hogan, Palmer, Casper, etc to show what they did. I think Bae would not have to make a lot of tweaks to get a lot better in his ballstriking, but I'm afraid that with my experience with Korean golfers that this would have to be presented to him in a way where it is the 'modern' way of doing things. He could probably learn a lot from the changes that Adam Scott made to his swing.
3JACK
What I find interesting is that it seems like each of them have Tiger Woods’ How I Play Golf book and seem to try and follow it step-by-step. That was one thing I liked about one girl, Rachel Dai, golf swing. She is taught by her father and is ranked 48th in the world at the age of 16. However, I think she would be ranked higher if she was more active in tournaments.
Anyway, one player that seems to get a lot of rave reviews is Sang-Moon Bae. But, if you look at his metrics, they are not all that impressive:’
Driving Effectiveness: 142nd
Birdie Zone: 158th
Safe Zone: 64th
Danger Zone: 126th
225-275 yds Zone: 53rd
Shots from the Rough: 53rd
Shots from the Fairway: 150th
His best distance was from 150-175 yards where he ranked 40th overall and 58th from the fairway/tee. Given his ability from that distance and his putting outside 5 feet (which was really good), this would explain why he had such a high Birdie % (16th). But given the rest of his ballstriking and his weak Short Game, it also explains why he struggled to avoid Bogeys (175th).
His *game* reminds me a bit of Stuart Appleby’s; a player whose swing is raved about, but the metrics show that is overinflated.
The minor things I see is that his right thumb appears more on top of the shaft and less on the side towards the target. He also doesn't have much foot flare. And then there is the 'flat spine' and 'chin up' posture. I've never even looked at Bae's swing with any intent, but these things tell me that he's likely to roll over the hands in the release because of the grip and will have a fairly steep left arm plane at p4. He generated 114 mph of club head speed in 2014, but I think he could have generated more with these adjustments.
Unlike the typical Korean golfer, Bae does not have a big, wide takeaway. However, it appears he is following the 'textbook' philosophy of having the toe of the club pointing straight up. However, this means the clubface is actually open to the arc. So it will be interesting to see how he compensates for that open face at p2. Higher handicaps usually end up coming well over the top with the club face open. Better players tend to swing more inside-to-out so they can hit a draw with that open face. But too much inside-to-out can be a bad thing.
The hands and clubhead are in line. This may not be Tiger's How I Play Golf, but it appears like this is straight out of some other popular golf instruction book.
Clubshaft is nicely on the baseline here. But, his hand path is not very deep. This is also caused by his lack of hip slant and the knees practically even. Without the foot flare the hips cannot turn as much. And with the 'straight spine', this puffs out the chest and prevents the hands from working more inside from the get-go.
He also has quite a bit of wrist-cock.
Typically a golfer with much less wrist-cock here (i.e. Sergio) will generate a lot of lag using a 'float loading' procedure. Given that Bae has so much wrist-cock, it will likely mean less lag. It will also make the shaft plane on the backswing more upright.
His left arm plane is a bit steep. This isn't the best of camera angles (camera is too low). The big thing I see is that his hips are very level. Compare this to Snead's hips or Bubba's hips:
We can also see this from Bae's caddy view pic as his left knee has not gone that much inward.
Lastly, we've seen Bae dorsiflex his left wrist a little and now his clubface is quite a bit closed. He went from slightly open at p2 to quite a bit closed at p4.
I think P5 from the DTL view is the best part of his swing. He's pronated the left arm and flattened out the club head plane with relation to the hand path plane. He has regained his knee flex to push off the ground.
I believe his instructor is Rick Smith. Smith did the analysis of his swing in Golf Digest and claimed at p4 that 'The swinging set is intact. This helps him keep the club wide as he comes down.'
I know Butch Harmon wants the opposite...wide on the backswing and wide on the downswing.
I tend to agree with Smith's notion. It's not that you can't get the hand path radius wide on the downswing with a wide backswing, but there becomes a tendency for the right arm to fold on the downswing and narrowing the hand path radius.
But to me, Bae's hand path radius has narrowed here. And since he doesn't lag the club a lot, he's cheating some of the lag he has anyway. I think this explains why he struggles with the driver and hits his irons well from 150-175 yards.
Unfortunately, the do not have pics of P6. I like what's going on from the caddy view. The body is opened with some lateral bend. From the Caddy view we see the face turned over a little which indicates a high rate of closure and turning of the hands thru impact. As I mentioned at p1, I wouldn't be surprised that would happen with his right thumb being more on top of the shaft.
In the end, I think he does P5 from the DTL view exceptionally well, and his p7 from the DTL view pretty solid. The rest is not terrible, but is a bit compensation-oriented. I think because he has a pretty smooth rhythm and he doesn't so anything too funky, people like his swing. But they would be better off having a swing that may be a little funky, but does 3-4 position exceptionally well.
I used to play golf with a Korean golfer that played mini-tours in Florida. He was looking for a lesson and I recommended him to George. Afterward he said he liked George, but felt that George taught an 'old fashioned' swing given George looks at players like Snead, Hogan, Palmer, Casper, etc to show what they did. I think Bae would not have to make a lot of tweaks to get a lot better in his ballstriking, but I'm afraid that with my experience with Korean golfers that this would have to be presented to him in a way where it is the 'modern' way of doing things. He could probably learn a lot from the changes that Adam Scott made to his swing.
3JACK
