Ball Flight rules- hitting a push draw

Quote:

Originally Posted by westcyderydin 

I have a question about hitting a push draw according to the new ball flight rules.

 

I hit a natural little push draw, but if i want to hit a bigger draw i aim everything...set up, alignment and all... a little farther to the right and then swing more inside/out.  then the ball draws to my actual target.

 

Is this how you guys aim to hit a draw?  or do you hold the club open in your hands and swing more inside out while aiming at your actual target?

 

and then the same thing for a fade... i align myself farther left, then swing outside/in.  do you guys do that or do you close the club in your hands and align yourselves to the target and swing outside in?

First, an image:

Unless I've brain farted and made a mistake, that's how those are defined. I've used this image before but the first two parts are relevant...

The way I take what you've said is this:

Your Normal Push-Draw:

Your Bigger Push Draw:

What my images above (the first two) is this:

In other words, while my pieces stay the same and I simply open the clubface a bit and catch the ball a bit farther back on the circle, you're keeping the clubface the same relative to your body but not your target, changing your stance alignment, and adjusting your swing path...

In a pure count we're both changing two things, but I think my two things are easier to change than your two.

If you understand "the grid" as S&T people tend to call it (I still prefer to call it the circle) then you'll understand how, from the same alignment, you can make the same swing and hit a bigger push-draw by simply catching the ball farther back on the circle. You can do that by pushing your hands forward at address, moving the ball back in your stance, pushing forward with the hips a bit more with a bit less rotary motion (i.e. shoulders not so open at impact), or a combination.

For the super-big draws that need to escape some trouble and sling around a tree or something, I hit a pull-draw because a push-draw starts to require that your path be too far to the right to be easily accomplished.

Excellent diagrams! This thread has cleared up a lot of the questions I had regarding the correct ball flight laws and circles & cones (from the S&T book). I always found that chapter difficult to understand and crying out for some diagrams similar to the ones above.

Does this mean that any player that hits up with their driver is playing a pull and the club is now ascending and moving to the left?

I felt that the S&T guys should have dumbed down some of their terminology or at least explained it referring to common golf lexicon. For example, I think it would have been more helpful to have started with a pull is due to coming over the top or out-to-in, and then gone on to say from now on we'll call this hitting on the "front side of circle". I mentioned in the S&T thread that I think the concept is great but the book was poor as a way of explaining the new swing method.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh 

Does this mean that any player that hits up with their driver is playing a pull and the club is now ascending and moving to the left?

Not necessarily, but it tends to be that way.

And of course face angle doesn't always stay square to the plane. If their face is wide open they can swing up and left and still hit a big push (that will then slice like crazy). That's rare, though, as those golfers tend to learn to close the face so they have a chance of starting the ball left enough to fade or slice it back into play.

Pulls and pushes still depend on the face angle more. A duck hook is typically a path to the right with a face that's slightly open, square, or closed. In the latter case it'd be the super-ugly pull-hook, but in the former two it'd push ever so slightly (15% of the initial direction being the club path) and then snap hard to the left.

But if you look around and consider "The D Plane" then this is basically it. Relative to the plane line (i.e. the tangent line at low point), the club is always moving down, out, and forward prior to the low point and is moving up, in, and forward after the low point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh 

I felt that the S&T guys should have dumbed down some of their terminology or at least explained it referring to common golf lexicon. For example, I think it would have been more helpful to have started with a pull is due to coming over the top or out-to-in, and then gone on to say from now on we'll call this hitting on the "front side of circle". I mentioned in the S&T thread that I think the concept is great but the book was poor as a way of explaining the new swing method.

The problem is that's not the cause of a pull... it completely ignores the clubface angle. And whether you're S&T or not, this type of stuff applies to everyone and every type of swing.

I don't particularly like saying that to fade the ball you hit it on the "front side" of the circle because that's after low point, and that's not how good players fade the ball. They simply do one of these two things (or a straight fade, which would be in between):

Please don't be too picky on the exact placement of the circles, the feet, and the line showing "low point." It was a bit of a rush job but I think it should get the point across.

What you'll note here is that the duffer can hit a pull-fade (given his horrible path he's got to pull the ball, again, to have any chance) but he'll almost always do it after low point. That causes contact issues and lots of fat and thin shots.

The pro either plays a push fade - low point still in front of the golf ball - or a pull-fade - also with the low point in front of the golf ball. Very few pros play a pull-fade because as we know a pull goes lower than a push, so the push-fade tends to be preferred. A pull-fade can also turn into a straight pull or a pull-draw a bit more easily than a push-fade.

I hope that answers the question.

You might try getting a protractor and drawing two lines on a sheet of paper at an angle of 3 degrees to each other. Put it on the ground and stand parallel to one line and open your clubface perpendicular to the other one. I think you'll find that 3 degrees is a fairly tiny adjustment.

I've been working on the nine-shot drill this winter, and it was quite a learning process to find out how much I had to dial back what I thought were the proper adjustments. My pro had me work on this drill, but didn't tell me how to do it, preferring to let me figure it out by myself. Only when I just couldn't get a particular shot did he make suggestions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Recreational Golfer 

You might try getting a protractor and drawing two lines on a sheet of paper at an angle of 3 degrees to each other. Put it on the ground and stand parallel to one line and open your clubface perpendicular to the other one. I think you'll find that 3 degrees is a fairly tiny adjustment.

Directed at me? No worries...

Three degrees is a small amount, you bet. But it's enough to miss a 25-yard wide fairway at 250 yards, a 28-yard wide fairway at 270 yards, a 10-yard wide green from 100 yards, and the entire hole on a four-foot putt!

Small adjustments matter in golf. Our targets aren't very big. And golfers can tell the difference between things that are three degrees different.

http://thesandtrap.com/b/the_numbers_game/angles_of_error

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas 

Directed at me? No worries...

???

My comment was directed a readers who might want to find how much 3 degrees at address really is, in order to put your directions into practice.

Thanks Erik! I think I've got it now!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Recreational Golfer 

My comment was directed a readers who might want to find how much 3 degrees at address really is, in order to put your directions into practice.

Was just askin'. :-)

BTW, 3 degrees is not really as small as you might think it is:

Top line is 360˚, bottom is 357˚.

Quote:

Originally Posted by westcyderydin 

so hitting a push draw will go a lot higher than a pull draw, correct?

Yep.