Sean Foley's Tip for contact. - Page 2

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To be fair, they might say that's who they looked at to develop S&T, but most of those classic guys had HUGE weight shift onto the back foot on the back swing.  I know their story is they tried to distill out of the array of different swings of the masters through the ages, but still, if you personally think the old Snead style sway back and through swing is the pretty, smooth looking style (which equals "athletic" somehow?), S&T's going to look overly constrained and snappy.

 

 

 

No they didn't. Jack kept his head steady (Jack Grout grabbed fistfulls of his hair). So did Hogan. Arnie says it was the most important thing he learned in golf.

 

And weight and pressure aren't the same. They all undoubtedly increased pressure in the right foot on the backswing... just as Mike and I do in our swings.

 

 

(Video moves slightly in the frame so the line is drawn from the same branch in the background downward.)

 

....And here is Bobby Jones!! Centered!!

 

 

 

 

 

First off I might argue that S&T is least constrained because you allowing the hips to turn and rear knee to release some flexion.  Compared to other instructors that want you to maintain address knee flexion throughout the back swing, to me that would be the most constrained.

 

Back to the Snead.  Yes increased pressure in the right foot on the backswing, but not much sway here.

 

Here is the video so you know I'm not trying to cheat :)  Please take a look at what he does and not what he FEELS

 

 

 

 

And Jack keeping the head steady

 

 

 

 

 

 

Didn't Ben Hogan win the vast majority of his majors after the accident?

 

Accident was Feb 2nd 1949.  Can only imagine if he was able to play in the PGA in '53

 

Wins (9)

Year	Championship	54 Holes	Winning Score	Margin	Runner(s)-up
1946	PGA Championship	n/a	6 & 4	n/a	Ed Oliver
1948	U.S. Open	2 shot lead	-8 (67-72-68-69=276)	2 strokes	Jimmy Demaret
1948	PGA Championship (2)	n/a	7 & 6	n/a	Mike Turnesa
1950	U.S. Open (2)	2 shot deficit	+7 (72-69-72-74=287)	Playoff 1	George Fazio,  Lloyd Mangrum
1951	Masters Tournament	1 shot deficit	-8 (70-72-70-68=280)	2 strokes	Skee Riegel
1951	U.S. Open (3)	2 shot deficit	+7 (76-73-71-67=287)	2 strokes	Clayton Heafner
1953	Masters Tournament (2)	4 shot lead	-14 (70-69-66-69=274)	5 strokes	Ed Oliver
1953	U.S. Open (4)	1 shot lead	-5 (67-72-73-71=283)	6 strokes	Sam Snead
1953	The Open Championship	Tied for lead	-2 (73-71-70-68=282)	4 strokes	Antonio Cerdá,  Dai Rees,  Frank Stranahan,  Peter Thomson

 

 

 

 

Do you advocate that the ball be played from the same position as Jack does in his video?  In either case, do you see any problem in doing so?

Six out of nine... that counts as a vast majority, right? 

 

 

I don't think he was disagreeing. I think Mike was supporting your post. :-)

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Yes exactly and like I said, could have been 7 out of 10 if the PGA wasn't scheduled so close to the British Open back then

 

 

I know... I was just pointing out the ridiculous nature of the original post.  I just like sticking my online tongue out. 

 

 

Driver should be further forward in order to get a positive AOA.  This is more of a "modern" way of doing it due to today's ball and clubs.  Good thread http://thesandtrap.com/t/44307/hitting-up-or-down-with-the-driver-in-an-inline-pattern

 

 

 

Q: is Sean's teachings more akin to what may be termed the "right sided swing"?  This is a teaching method out of Australia by Gary Edwin (website: http://www.garyedwingolf.com.au/), and popularized by players like Peter Senior, Rod Pampling, among others. 

 

 

No, I don't think so at all. Foley lists his influences in his DVD and they're Mark Evershed, Leadbetter (he saw him on the range and decided as a kid to be an instructor), Bennet/Plummer, and some other people, but I am almost positive one is not Gary Edwin and that Foley's understanding is not similar to the "right sided swing."

In seeing what Sean does with his players Evershed would seem to have the biggest influence. Evershed is probably the ablsolute best in the business but his personality rubs some the wrong way.  Its strange that his work isn't talked about more on this site.

Agreed

 

 

 

I think a lot of people have trouble understanding the difference between weight shift and sway.  You can (and most beginners do) shift the weight to the right foot by swaying to your right.  Or you can shift weight to the right foot without swaying, by rotating in the backswing and countering, and then reversing this rotation using the right foot.  Every golf swing includes this transfer of forces.  Lastly, you can shift weight to the right foot without swaying or rotating, just by easing the pressure on the left foot (in some cases lifting the heel).  Now, if that's how you shift weight to your right foot, you won't be in balance, and your body will start to move to your left.  But of course, this is exactly what happens in a golf swing.

 

So it can be confusing to look at the top of Snead's backswing, and look at his left foot, and clearly see there's no weight on it.  But you can see, by circling his head and drawing a line from his right foot to his right hip, that he hasn't swayed really at all.  He's "stayed left", and in the downswing he goes further left.
 

-Andrew

Fair enough. I shouldn't have used the word sway, since the old guys kept at least the head centered, and mostly the core too. But I don't back away from the claim that a lot of the old guys had very significant weight transfer to the back leg during the back swing (as Mike noted about Snead), and while I agree that eliminating the extra work of transferring so much weight back and forth makes it easier to have a consistent swing, if you're dedicated to the look of that visually very clear loading of weight onto the back foot before exploding forward through the ball (looking more like a smooth baseball swing that way to my eye), then I still maintain it's at least consistent to not like the look of S&T, even if most of the actual mechanical elements are the same or similar.