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Square to the Arc (from Roy)


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My swing.....this will compare the conventionalforearms rotation with the "square to the arc"...not "parallel  to the arc"....golf swing...keep in mind that both swings are on plane but one is square or perpendicular to the arc and the othe is parallel to the arc....pay close attention as to how each is acheived......neither swing looks crazy at all.....lol   hopefully the link works

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Originally Posted by roy2xeagle

My swing


The guy in that video is not 61. (It's Paul Gorman.) Additionally, Paul's clubface is not square to the plane at the top of his backswing, and he certainly, definitely cocks his wrists.

Paul teaches, for the most part, exactly the swing I teach. There's wrist cocking and wrist rolling.

Where's the video of your swing ?

Originally Posted by roy2xeagle

Not true....thats the first way that a golf swing was ever taught...ask any of the old pros....dont know how mant ways i can describe it to you...were not talking about your body rotating here  were talking about your fore arms which are attached tpo the clubface..if you turn your body and dont rotate your forearms the clubface will be 'sqare" to the swing plane all the way up..you will find it pointing toward the sky at the top of the backswing.....the reason nthis works(AND IT DOES WORK) IS BECAUSE THE CLUBFACE NEVER LEAVES THE BALL AND IT STAYS SQARE MUCH LONGER THAN A ROTATING ONE!!!!/....

The clubface doesn't point to the sky.

If you took your left arm from vertical and hanging downward, the clubface is pointing forward towards the target. After moving your left arm (no rotation) 90 degrees so the shaft was pointing straight away from the target, the clubface would be pointing straight down at the ground. Go another 90 degrees (not that anyone can move their left arm 180 degrees, mind you) and the clubface will be pointing straight away from the target. You'd have to go another 90 degrees, or 270 degrees total, before the clubface would be pointing towards the sky.

Ditto if you cock your wrists. Wrist cock does nothing to change the face angle, so if you moved your left arm 180 degrees, and then cocked your left wrist to about 90 degrees or so, it's also going to be pointing straight away from the target - horizontal.

The most skyward it could get - and again, this is at 180 degrees which is not possible - is whatever loft the clubface has.

Originally Posted by Zeph

In danger of repeating myself, where is your video? Could you provide some pictures, video or graphics to demonstrate your theory? Erik explained his view pretty well, with both graphics and pictures in this thread, so far I believe the one who makes the more convincing case. If you don't plan on doing more than repeating yourself, I honestly don't see much point with this thread going on.


To be clear, I'm fine with using none of the third accumulator (wrist rolling) until about P2, but after P2 it's perfectly normal.

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  • 7 months later...

I think you are being a little tough on Roy.

My stock iron shot is square-to-the-arc of the plane.  My right wrist hinges horizontally rather than cocks vertically and I do not rotate my forearms in the backswing.  Going down I retain the cupped right wrist position and rotate through without manipulating the forearms.  So do I think it is possible and effective to swing this way?  I would give that a qualified "yes."

By qualifying my answer, I would hasten to add that this swing for me works only with the irons.  I don't take the irons back any higher than my shoulder.  I'm 220 pounds and fairly strong so I can still generate enough clubhead speed to effectively swing this way.  My 9 iron carries 145, 5 iron carries 195 with this swing.  I like this kind of iron swing because it takes the hand and forearm manipulation out of the swing and allows me to better trap and compress the ball.  But with the driver, fairway woods and hybrids I need to take a more conventional backswing with forearm rotation and a vertical cocking of the wrists rather than a horizontal wrist hinge.  If you make a full backswing I don't see how it is physically possible to get to the top without some forearm rotation.

Works for me anyway.

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take a hammer hold it in your right hand....a 2x4 is standing directly in front of you with a nail started into the board from the right side of the board you will hammer the nail through to the left side...you certainly are not going to 'rotate' the hammer open then shut it back to hit the nail..you simply hinge the wrist and hold the angle and "hit" the nail..the most simple move there is....the wrists actually determine whether the clubface is directly on plane or square or perpendicular to it....with the hammer..the head always faces the nail...just as with the golfclub  the face always "faces" the ball until its taken so far into the back swing that it eventually faces the sky unless you dont take it all the way back...very simple..AND...YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TELL FROM A DISTANCE BETWEEN A SQUARE TO THE ARC SWING OR A CONVENTIONAL"ON PLANE" SWING....and this is also a "single plane" swing..because it doesnt go around AND up and then drops back down near impact.......not saying its for everyone but does indeed work for me....thanks  Roy

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Originally Posted by roy2xeagle

take a hammer hold it in your right hand....a 2x4 is standing directly in front of you with a nail started into the board from the right side of the board you will hammer the nail through to the left side...you certainly are not going to 'rotate' the hammer open then shut it back to hit the nail..you simply hinge the wrist and hold the angle and "hit" the nail..the most simple move there is....the wrists actually determine whether the clubface is directly on plane or square or perpendicular to it....with the hammer..the head always faces the nail...just as with the golfclub  the face always "faces" the ball until its taken so far into the back swing that it eventually faces the sky unless you dont take it all the way back...very simple..AND...YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TELL FROM A DISTANCE BETWEEN A SQUARE TO THE ARC SWING OR A CONVENTIONAL"ON PLANE" SWING....and this is also a "single plane" swing..because it doesnt go around AND up and then drops back down near impact.......not saying its for everyone but does indeed work for me....thanks  Roy


Roy, the simple fact of the matter is that in every golf swing, the clubface does not stay square to the plane past about the position where the shaft is horizontal to the ground on the backswing. In every golf swing (and by that I mean everybody's full golf swing, not any swing ever made), the clubface will rotate to a position that's about 90 degrees from "square to the plane."

If we didn't rotate, the shaft would be sticking out over our heads instead of pointing somewhere down the target line at the top of the backswing. People may feel like they're keeping the clubface "square to the arc" but they're not.

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Originally Posted by iacas

If we didn't rotate, the shaft would be sticking out over our heads instead of pointing somewhere down the target line at the top of the backswing.



Excellent.  Roy, I might add that if we didn't rotate we wouldn't be using our shoulder joints effectively.  They are designed to roll during adduction.  Note that many people are confused between wrist pronation and the upper arm roll that occurs during adduction when the lead arm is brought tight against the chest.  Both appear to "open" the face and both require some undoing before hitting the golf ball.  The difference is the abductive roll on the downswing occurs automatically because of the way the shoulder joint works, whereas supination is an active manipulation.  Keep that in mind when discussing and know what you're arguing against.  Letting the clubface open != getting handsy.

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Think of it this way, your hands do not move off the club. Meaning if the back of your left hand is square to the clubface with your grip, that means it will be square to the swing path the whole time if the clubface is. So meaning, at the top of the swing, your hand will have to point towards the ground at the angle of the swing path. Yet, all golfers have the back of there left hand pointing towards the sky at some orientation. Dustin Johnson has a bowed left wrist at the top, so his is pointing straight up. While others might cup there wrist and the back of the hand would be pointing towards the golfers head. But no golfer can make a full back swing and have there hand pointing to the ground. Its impossible, unless you can pull your arm of your shoulder socket and rotate it around.

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Im having some "up to date" shots taken.    hope to post them soon....but first of all....i understand what u are saying and dont mean any disrespect....if theres any rotation in my wrists it is certainly a very minimal amount...ive been trying to think of ways to best convey my thoughts on this.......and i think this may help..........1..my left hand on the golf club is extremely strong..in other words i have pretty close to 4 knuckles visible at address....with my right hand "covering " the left thumb as you would expect.....2...when i take the club back...my left hand simply has to hinge(with out rotating) and the right hinges back on itself...at 90 degrees the clubface is facing the ground....the right arm stays very close (doesnt disconnect) thru out the swing......in other words i try to keep 2 towells under my armpits when i practice.....the angle ive created is maintained(hopefully) thru impact......3.....If i was able to keep turning beyond parallel the club face would indeed face the sky or be damn close....Thanks  Roy

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I am able to use this method even with my driver and actually hit it further than using rotation...you know what else and this is with the irons of course...my divots are dollar bill long versus a small half dollar size in  the dirt ...meaning the clubface has stayed longer on the ball and down the line...meaning better accuracy....i know youve probably noticed that since u use the square to the arc with your irons.......im curious...i use a very very strong grip...is your left hand strong on the club...thanks for your response...Roy

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Think its missing the "l" at the end of the url

http://www.newhorizonsgolf.com/square-face.html

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Sorry didnt mean to infer that i was the guy in the video(just noticed that you thought i was trying to say that the guy in the video was me)...no..i said that this is my golf swing...and as you can see the driver head is pretty close to facing the ground at parallel...now ive posted a link that explains(with pictures) why Tom Watson Moe Morman David Duval and others used this "square to the arc" method....but you no longer have to take my word for it(which you didnt).....just show me due respect and read the articles.........thank you....

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Trying to keep the clubface as square to the arc as possible, for as long as possible, is a good thing. This method is encouraged by a number of reputable teachers, including Jim Hardy and others.  Where you got totally off course is when you demanded that we accept that you kept the square clubface throughout your entire swing.  This, of course, is impossible.

Check out the picture on your referenced website.  The guy has the clubface 90* open at the top of his backswing, as it should be.  It is definitely not square at that point, since that is physiologically impossible for the "normal" human.

Anyway, it is nice to see you mean no disrespect at this point, since your first posts in this thread were certainly disrespectful to everyone.

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Where you are totally off is that when we say square to the arc thats exactly what we mean..i think its terminology that goes wrong here....if you take a hula hoop..and put a clubface directly in the center of it facing the ground and slide it back keeping it on the hoop the clubface actually turns skyward somewhere close to parallell on the backswing...did you read the whole article?....

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Um, in that link you posted, in the picture over which the title "Square Clubface" is printed, the pictured golfer has an incredibly traditional position at the top of his back swing, with the club face almost exactly parallel to the swing plane.

And for all the aggressive posts, you still haven't posted a video of your magic square club face swing.  Just saying.

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Roy, are you even reading what people are writing here?

In the swing pictured on that site, his clubface is not "square to the arc." He's rotated his left wrist 90 degrees and the clubface is, as we've been saying, no longer "square to the arc."

It's rotated. Third accumulator. If he didn't rotate it, it'd be sticking out over his head.

Your right palm faces forward at setup. At the top of the backswing (rotated about 180 degrees), your palm should face directly backwards away from the target. It doesn't - it faces perpendicular to the target.

That's all anyone's been saying. Please read what's being written.

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Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
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Square to the arc here, then there has to be forearm rotation to complete the backswing. Even Jim Furyk loads #3 accumulator. [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/182539/width/640/height/378][IMG]http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/182539/width/640/height/378[/IMG][/URL]

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Note: This thread is 1110 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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