oliverheuler

I agree 100 percent. At the same time we see 95% of amateurs releasing too early and/or scooping the ball. So the question is: What is the best way to teach them to achieve a certain amount of lag and a leaning shaft at impact? Usually they are told to hold the angle longer, to keep the wrists passive in the downswing or to learn a proper dynamic chain from the ground up or from the inside out. Believe me I tried all three methods for years with most of my students and myself. I have to admit that I wasn’t really successful. The approach I am using now works a lot better. Of course I can’t produce miracles but I am a lot happier as a teacher. I have never heard of anyone in the states who does it that way. And I didn’t invent it myself, but learned it from a guy who spent his live researching biomechanics. Since he is no golf pro I altered it quite a lot but still I give the credit to him. But I am no missionary. I don’t want to preach to anyone who his happy with what he knows and how he performs.

Quote: There is no real need to be able to hit the two shots that were mentioned and it certainly is not a defining characteristic of a real golfer. I hope it became clear after my last posting that I also don’t see this as a defining characteristic of a real golfer. And I also agree that there is no real need to be able to hit the two shots. A good example would be Craig Perry winning a PGA-Tour Event at Firestone with a huge fade. He almost brushed the trees on the left with every drive. He simply can’t hit a draw or a fade with any acceptable consistency. But there are young golfers who like to swing as neutral as possible so that they can hit fades as easy as draws. Those players may find it helpful to practice the recommended shots regularly. If your a scratch golfer just hitting one straight 7-iron in the regular height after the other doesn’t stimulate their brain enough. A certain amount of variability during practice is helpful in these cases. Tiger Woods used to practice 9 different shots to one target: Straight, draw and fade, each in low, high and standard trajectory.

Thanks for all of your feedback. As pleasant as it is to get positive feedback, I can of course learn a lot more from videos with mainly negative feedback. I am a student of Marshall Rosenberg and his nonviolent communication, so I try to hear the feeling and needs behind every evaluation. The need I hear here is: "I want to be seen in my beauty as a golfer and not in my inabilities. I want to be seen as I am and stay unmolested by judgements.“ I also acknowledge the fact that this game is extremely difficult and maybe no one needs a reminder that he or she will probably never master it. Of course I know that I too will never master it, although I’ve been trying hard for 30 years. I just added a warning to the video: Warning: This video is meant to be humorous although it contains some technical information that is serious. If you feel offended because you can’t satisfy the description of a "real golfer", keep in mind that almost no one does -- just like almost no biker is capable of elbow dragging, including me. That is part of the joke. I feel that this warning is needed, since the German humor -- and maybe my one in particular -- is quite different from the American. Of course it is open to dispute whether this video is funny, but I thought it was at least obvious that it was meant to be funny when I said: "But we also need a more, immature definition for philistine rough customers like me." But apparently I was mistaken. I am now considering to delete the video since I have learned my lesson and don’t see a need to cause further discomfort among future viewers. I am also aware that the warning can’t save the video from being perceived as offensive. Quote Iacas here: Just after 3:30 you say that you need to swing from the inside out to make the ball start to the right. I'll assume you know that the path doesn't make the ball start to the right, and that it's not the main determinant of horizontal ball launch. You do say the face has to be right-pointing but on the ball flight law type stuff I try to be very particular in my language. I think we agree that a draw needs a combination of a slightly open club face in relation to the target and a club head that is moving further to the right so that the face is slightly closed in relation to the path of the club head. Quote: I also find that for many, push draws go higher than pull-fades. The delivered loft is higher on a right-pointing face than a left-pointing face, all else being equal. Yes, I agree with the ceteris paribus addition. But in reality an out to in swing is often accompanied by a scooping motion (hands behind ball at impact or at least not in front) and an in to out path is often accompanied by punching motion (hands quite a bit in front of the ball). In this case the second golfer will hit the ball higher than the first one. Quote: I disagree that you need to hinge your wrists late in the downswing to hit a draw or get your hands ahead. No you don’t need to hinge your wrists late to hit a draw or to get your hands ahead at impact. But I would say: Hands ahead helps to make the draw more playable, since the necessary path for the draw moves the bottom of the swing back and the leaning shaft will will move it forward again. The question whether it is helpful to hinge your wrists very little in the backswing and therefore late in the downswing is a very controversial issue. I will produce a whole video on that topic to have a better foundation for a discussion that will surely be very controversial as well. But let me just postpone that a little. Cheers, Oliver

I agree. Especially if you are talking about the hand plane. If you just look at the club head you might find some players that swing down on the same path as they swung up and very few ones that are inside of their backswing. Ronan Rafferty from Ireland (Order of Merit #1 in Europe 1989) comes to mind. Also Eamon Dary and of course Jim Furyk. Iacas, can you give me advice on how to proceed with new videos?

I was running the biggest forum in Germany for almost ten years and I respect the rules of other forums. But if my participation requires to write in other threads I'll have to pass. I rather spend my time producing more videos. I wouldn’t abuse the Sandtrap as dumping station though, since I can reply to questions in my threads (as I already did here) or in private messages, but I won’t have the time to keep an eye on more. Writing in English usually takes three times longer compared to German, so I have to prioritize. I hope that is allright but I accept if it is not. Cheers, Oliver PS: If I want to post more videos (and if this is welcome) should I do it in this thread or open a new one every time?

1. Hogan thought that you shift the downswing plane to the right. This would make you come into the ball more from the inside. Good idea to try to do that if you come from the outside. Not a good idea if you are neutral or already coming too much from the inside. Hogan himself was neutral coming down and on the flat side going up. So actually he was over the top of his backswing, exactly the opposite of what he preached :-) 2. I left Hardy out because I couldn’t produce anything without bias. He is a very nice guy and he seems to be able to help some tour players. So I can only recommend to ask other pros if you want an overview of his theory.

Hi! I am new to this forum and I'd like to introduce myself with a video about the different swing planes. Cheers, Oliver