New Swing Thought from One of Ben Curtis's Coaches

I was at a local driving range today when I was approached by an elderly gentleman known as "Smokey" and I came to find out that he was a friend of my grandfather and also a former teacher of Ben Curtis and various other well-known players.

Anyways he came to the point of teaching me a new swing thought and I wish to have some opinions from other players out there.

He said to pull the right elbow back as if you were making a muscle in your right arm, which naturally pulls the left arm straight across the chest and sets the club on the proper swing plane. He also said to keep the hands high which will drop the club into the power slot and create a consistent ball flight swing after swing. He said the only thought on the downswing should be straighten out the right arm.

Any thoughts on this swing sequence/method would be appreciated!

I'd say that anyone who has coached a major winner probably knows a little bit.  I like the pulling the left arm across the chest thought, that's standard one-plane swing. Also, the straightening the right arm on the downswing.

How did it work for you?  Did you notice any improvement? It would be great if you could continue to see him.  Probably has lots of good info for you.

Seems a little to much to think about if you ask me....but I do like the thought of making your right arm straight...makes you release and get extension it seems like

It won't guarantee getting on a "proper" plane, but if you bend the right arm too late, it can probably work.

That's a bit funny. How will getting the hands high ensure you are able to drop it into the slot? On a two-plane swing the hands are high and you have to drop them from the top of the backswing to get into the slot. On a one-plane swing you don't lift them, but keep them in the slot all the way. I think the one-plane swing require less timing and can be easier to play with.  A lot of pros get the hands high and drop them, so it works if you do it right, but many amateurs struggle with dropping them into the slot. A common fault is to lift the arms high and never drop them into the slot, they just throw them out at the ball and come over the top.

That's far too general. It may work for one out of ten people, but everyone is different and everyone needs different swing thoughts. Some may feel the hips going forward, some to straighten the right arm, swing the left arm faster, etc. I don't understand how an instructor can say the only thought on the downswing should be this or that.

It took me a few balls to get used to but I picked up on it pretty fast. I will continue seeing him as much as possible once a week I hope and still continue seeing my other coach as well.

Everything I mentioned weren't swing thoughts I was just trying to describe the swing. He said to get the hands high from the start (one-plane swing), sorry if I made that a little inconspicuous. He said the only swing thought should be to get the right arm straight and it truly is an easy concept if you don't let your mind get in the way.

He also taught me another lesson that was really relating to golf, but life in general:

He said there are 3 things in life:

1. Right

2. Wrong

3. What you are unsure of

He said everyone has their own swing and the ability to play the game to their greatest ability and the only thing that is stopping them is that they are unsure of the proper way to do it. (Sounds reasonable enough to me)

Where do you come up with this?  For all you know, it may work for 9 out of 10 people.  I would say you should open your mind to some other ideas; you might find that there is a wealth of knowledge out there. Not to be nasty, but you're an 11.  You must have a few things out of whack in your game.  Maybe this swing thought alone will take you to a new level.

I know if Ben Curtis' coach offered me some advice, I would be sure to seriously give it a try. I wouldn't immediately criticize his advice.

If you take the club back too much below the plane (as I am guilty of, at times) it is very easy to then lift up above the plane at the top, then go over the top on the downswing.  Keeping the hands high going back may just be a feeling of ensuring you are on plane, when combined with pulling the club across your chest.  I don't know exactly what Smokey means, of course, but when I make an effort to feel my hands coming back a little higher, the plane is actually flatter.

Wouldn't keeping the hands high be the opposite though?

I think it's too general. It might work for 1, 9, 0, 10, or 5 people, though - I agree we can't know. Some people straighten the right arm too much on the downswing. Some don't do it enough. I've seen both.

It's too general just to chuck at a person without knowing. Was the coach referring to what Ben feels? If so then again I'm back to not having any issues with that tip. Doesn't seem to - but he has a system and I would have liked to see it. I can imagine what he means with the muscle move thing but could be wrong.

Sounds very two plane though, and I'll teach people those swings about 20% of the time, depending on some factors.

If the hands were high at the top of the backswing, yes, it would probably be more of a two-plane.  But what I was referring to was bringing the club inside too quickly.  I'm not great at explaining it, so I looked through my copy of Jim Hardy's "Plane Truth Master Class" book.  Here's what he wrote (pp. 49-50):

"Another problem of the would-be one-planer is getting the club moving too quickly to the inside, a movement that is then followed by a lift of the arms to get the club up to the top.  This inside-then-up move is quite common. Usually the player is moving his or her arms correctly; however, the hips are turning too early, too fast, and too much, resulting in the club moving back in a flat, merry-go-round fashion rather than halfway between Ferris wheel and merry-go-round.  Once this player get to that crucial halfway-back point in the backswing, there is only one thing he or she can do, and that is to lift the club up with the arms to the top. When this player does reach a full top-of-backswing position, most often the club shaft will be pointing across the line, or to the right of the target."

If, in starting back, the hands were too inside, or too far below the plane, a feeling of keeping the hands higher, at least to the halfway-back position, might reduce the chances of lifting up to the top.

Come up with what? I said it may work for one out of ten. It could be ten out of ten if you got the right crowd. I'm just pointing out that saying everyone should just have one swing thought from the top won't work. I don't care how many percent it works for, as long as it doesn't work for everyone, you can't say it in such a general way. That is of course if this instructor was talking in general or to someone in specific. From the way OP wrote it, I read it as a general statement.

I would say I've got a pretty open mind to golf, which is why I don't like generalizations like this. I don't know this guy and never met him, so I have no idea if he's a good instructor or not, I'm just basing my comments on what he has said. I've tried that swing thought and it doesn't work for me, which means I won't go around telling everyone they should do it. What has my swing got to do with this topic by the way?

These tips are pretty standard stuff, I don't rate them higher just because the instructor of some good golfer gave them. The right arm muscle may be good for me, since I have a tendency to bend the right elbow too late. It's on my notebook, but currently not at the top of the list. I don't criticize the tip, I criticize the way it was told. I could spend a lifetime trying out random tips from famous people in the golfing world, but it won't guarantee I'll get better. I prefer to act on things based on real problems in my swing, made evidence by from a video.

I'm not saying everyone should swing on one plane or that a two-plane swing doesn't work, because it obviously does. I'm just saying that I don't agree with his statement that getting the hands high will make sure you get into the slot. You can get too low and you get too high, but what does "high" mean to us anyways? High hands is a feeling, and for most of us probably not what we believe is happening in any way. Some might interpret it as swinging like Jim Furyk, while others barely get the hands on a shoulder plane. High hands is in my head a two-plane swing, which almost require you to drop them into the slot from the top. So I think he's got it quite the wrong way around, a one-plane swing is closer to being in the slot.

Here is an example. Blue line is the backswing, red line is the downswing. As you can see, Tiger's downswing path is curved, he must drop them from the top. Charlie's arms are lower at the top and his hands plane on the downswing is almost completely straight. Some people may swing like Charlie if they think about taking the hands back high, but as long as you don't know this, it's not worth a whole lot. Does anyone disagree that Tiger's hands are high and Charlie's low or in the middle? Matt Kuchar takes the hands back very deep and low, at the top he's probably a bit lower than Charlie, but not a whole lot. And again, it depends on what your goal is. If you want high hands, think about taking the hands back high. If you want them low, think about taking them deeper. But as far as "the slot" goes, you are closer to it with a one-plane swing at the top of the backswing. Everyone says to "drop the club into the slot", so you need a move to compensate for the high hands, getting the club into the slot, ie. is the club not in the slot at the top. One he's dropped the hands, he's close to the plane Charlie is at. My logic tells me therefore that Charlie is already in the slot with lower hands.

Also, I pick swing thoughts based on my problems, not just trying random stuff someone says. Why should you only think about straightening the right arm? Who does it apply for? What about those that straighten the right arm too soon? Being open minded is good, but being able to criticize random advice without any explanation is in my opinion more important. It means you actually want a good explanation for why you want to do these things, not just do them because someone famous said so.

That's an interesting way to put it. Speaking of open minds, I'm not saying the swing of middling (at best) PGA Tour player Charlie Wi is flawed in any way, but his overall golf game sure is when compared to his top peers. He has the odd good result, and he's not a Grant Waite kind of awful, but if you were a bit more OPEN MINDED with your swing examples, they might carry some more weight.

4 time PGA Tour winner:

Won last week:

And for the hands high example - how about some really hight hands?!?

I thought the original post was pretty neat. Being able to have a well-respected teacher (maybe not by you, but by Ben Curtis) look at his swing and offer some pointers is something that a lot of us would love to have happen. I took that the OP's original comment about high hands was related to his swing, not an everyone-should-do-it sort of thing. From that, you have turned it into a "Charlie Wi vs Tiger" high-hands discussion. Why not accept the OP's post for what it was? You say you criticize the way the tip was told, yet you don't know how it was told, or in what context. It might have been just one comment that resonated with the OP among several other comments.

You obviously put a lot of research into your swing; more than I do, for sure. But, as much as you want to critique instructors' advice, it might benefit you to stop every once in awhile and actually listen to what they have to say. Might just help your game.....Just sayin'.

I honestly didn't know what was going on when he approached me. I go to another instructor that is well respected in my area for his work with junior golfers (his one student is the number 1 player in the world under the age of 12), but I listened to his advice and learned a lot about the man. In fact he offers lessons to all juniors every Saturday and doesn't charge anything from them. He said his only rule is that I can't have more fun than him. I assume he does this because of the person he is, but also because he is 72 years old.

And by the way I'm not saying he is Ben Curtis's coach now, but was when he was younger and still in this area (Youngstown,Ohio), which leads me to assume that it may have been during Ben's college years at Kent State.

I didn't want this to turn into a battle of who is right and who is wrong. I simply posted this to see what others thought about what he was telling me. As for one-plane and two-plane swings I don't know what they are. Keep in mind that I'm only 15, so it isn't like I'm some amazing player that swings exactly by the book, but I manage to score decently well in my own right.

What he was really explaining about pulling the right arm back like you were making a muscle was the point that in order to create power it must originate from the muscles and then be transferred from them down your arms into the club and then into the ball. He used an example of hoeing in the garden. He said that you would never pick the hoe straight up over your head between your eyes and swing it, but rather that you would pick it up on your strong side, forming a muscle and then releasing that energy from the flexed muscle.

His teaching may sound confusing the way I put it, but it was actually one of the easiest concepts to follow, because it was such a simple move. In all actuality though, its the same swing of many other teachers just taught in a different way.

This $#@$ is always paralysis by analysis...you have to find what works for you, and you alone. If this is the swing thought you need to make good contact...keep going with it.

This thread is not about me, so I'll keep it short. I don't use those players as models because they don't fit the pattern I'm working on. I don't care how Charlie putts or chips, I'm only interested in his full swing. I could and do use others swings as well, but in general, Charlie is the one I'm trying to emulate the most. I use him most of the time when demonstrating simply because I've got a dozen of videos of him on my computer. I could use anyone with a one-plane swing, but it's convenient when I already got the footage. I also got a bunch of Tiger videos. And honestly, what does it matter who I use as an example when they do the same thing?

And why is everyone talking like they know what goes on in my head?

Then I have misread the original post, which is my bad. If the tips the OP received was specifically for his own swing, it's a different story. I don't know more than what the OP shared. I haven't turned it into a discussion, I just pointed out my thoughts, which might have been based on misunderstanding the OP. Still, the OP asked for our thoughts, on which I'll have to say that you really should post a video of your swing. If we are going to give advice on some advice you recieved from watching your swing, it would greatly help if we saw it too.

I know I'm probably a bit too critical at times, but that doesn't mean I don't listen to what people has to say. Actually, the fact that I go to such lengths to discuss their statements would prove that I really read what they say and think it through. Think it through enough to share my own views on it.

Cool. Like I said above, if you have a chance to get your swing on camera, I'd be happy to share my thoughts on it. It is difficult to tell what I think about advice you get from someone watching your swing when I'm not. The feelings are all valid if it is indeed something you need to work on.

What is your handicap by the way? I would be a bit careful with working with two different instructors at the same time. They might contradict eachother and leave you confused in the middle of it. I don't know which of them will work best for you, so you'll have to figure that out yourself. If you're really lucky, both will work at the same time, just keep in mind that there are a lot of different ideas when it comes to the swing, some of which directly contradicts the other.

Interesting swing thought.......Sometimes on the range I will use a similar thought -- i.e., when taking the club back, it should feel like you are lifting the club up with the middle two fingers of your right hand (RH golfer) and pushing the club down toward the ground with heel of your left hand.

I know there is a lot of debate about the right way and wrong way to swing a club, but there are a LOT of ways to get the ball around the course....I think people need to accept that fact.

Me too.

I wish you good golf (and good times) and even though I encourage people to worry more about hitting balls than hitting positions (speaking from experience), since that seems to be your approach, seriously take look at Mark Wilson's game. Great stats (when he's on) and a genuinely solid swing that, to my untrained eye, is a great example of the positions you're striving to hit.