Square Setup ≠ Square Face at Impact

[jshots]

@iacas cool that you got a gears system!

Would it be possible with gears to compare feet angle at address to face to path at impact of some better ball strikers?

I've had a theory that in the quest to be a more optimal ball striker, you should play with a slightly open stance.

If you set up with feet on train tracks, a square face, and hit down on the ball, that would require that your rotate your club face more closed at impact relative to where it started otherwise you would have an open face and hit everything to the right. To me that seems like one of those things that good ball strikers figure out subconsciously (not optimal) by practice and a common hallmark of a good iron striker is they start hitting a little draw.

If you rotate your whole swing slightly open, and hit down on the ball, you don't need any adjustment of the clubface. I've tried that myself and it seems like the ball does tend to be more straight, but I'm not on a gears system to verify that it is what I think it is.

Edited July 22, 2022 by jshots

[jshots]

49 minutes ago, iacas said:

Why?

Quote

If you set up with feet on train tracks, a square face, and hit down on the ball, that would require that your rotate your club face more closed at impact relative to where it started otherwise you would have an open face and hit everything to the right.

49 minutes ago, iacas said:

Why?

A simple way to see sorta what I mean. Setup square to the target and move your body into impact position. You cannot get the club back to square at impact position (handle higher and further forward) without rotating the club with your wrists.

On top of that, because we move the bottom of the arc toward the target and below the ball, at impact the clubhead must be moving from in to out.  With that path, if your wrists have not closed down the clubface at all you will block to the right with a straight ball flight. On the other hand if you rotate the club too much you will draw the ball too far left of target.

My proposition is to improve consistency, you would want to minimize that wrist rotation variable and simply play for the straight shot blocked out to the right by just setting up to the left.

 

Maybe there are other better metrics than the one I was talking about above.

I'm sure the vision I have in my head is over simplified which is why it would be interesting to see with gears 

Given what I'm saying with this hypothetical perfect arc, anyone who lines up on train tracks cannot hit the ball at the target without hitting a draw.

Edited July 22, 2022 by jshots

[billchao]

32 minutes ago, jshots said:

A simple way to see sorta what I mean. Setup square to the target and move your body into impact position. You cannot get the club back to square at impact position (handle higher and further forward) without rotating the club with your wrists.

I think you're forgetting about shaft droop.

33 minutes ago, jshots said:

On top of that, because we move the bottom of the arc toward the target and below the ball, at impact the clubhead must be moving from in to out. 

You can swing down and left (for a righty) at the same time.

35 minutes ago, jshots said:

I'm sure the vision I have in my head is over simplified which is why it would be interesting to see with gears 

I think you're oversimplifying things a lot.

36 minutes ago, jshots said:

Given what I'm saying with this hypothetical perfect arc, anyone who lines up on train tracks cannot hit the ball at the target without hitting a draw.

I don't know why this hypothetical arc is "perfect". You can swing -2° with a face -1° and hit a baby cut at the target.

[jshots]

17 minutes ago, billchao said:

I think you're forgetting about shaft droop.

I considered that changes the picture, shaft twist might change it more. Honestly not sure about that.

 

17 minutes ago, billchao said:

You can swing down and left (for a righty) at the same time.

I think you're oversimplifying things a lot.

I don't know why this hypothetical arc is "perfect". You can swing -2° with a face -1° and hit a baby cut at the target.

You can, but do you want to. To me that adds yet another variable to control. I'm thinking in terms of this hypothetical arc that is more or less parallel to the target line under the assumption that is easier to reproduce. 

 

[iacas]

1 hour ago, jshots said:

A simple way to see sorta what I mean. Setup square to the target and move your body into impact position. You cannot get the club back to square at impact position (handle higher and further forward) without rotating the club with your wrists.

Yes you can.

And impact is quite different than setup. I mean, just look at 70 seconds into this (it should start there):

1 hour ago, jshots said:

On top of that, because we move the bottom of the arc toward the target and below the ball, at impact the clubhead must be moving from in to out.

Not necessarily, no.

1 hour ago, jshots said:

I'm sure the vision I have in my head is over simplified which is why it would be interesting to see with gears 

You don't need GEARS to see that this doesn't hold up.

You can do a LOT of things to change the path, the face, etc. I can hit a big hook with an open stance, a slice with a setup oriented well to the right (see also: almost any hacker/slicer in existence), etc.

I don't see this as a GEARS point of discussion. You're welcome to start a different topic (thread) on this idea, but… I don't think it will go very far.

[jshots]

Since the arc is tilted you can't move the arc bottom below the ball and not hit it in to out without also moving your path way to the left, you'd have to show me that because it seems incorrect to me. Similar with the wrist rotation thing, you can't square the club face from a "good" impact position handle higher and further forward, without rotating your your club shut somehow.
 

I'm just trying to neutralize as much as possible. It would be very interesting to see similar to this video but with irons. You can see some of what I'm talking about how the path is in to out UNTIL the club hits the bottom of the arc.

If not for my apparently dumb theory just to see a real concrete example of path with an iron. Especially someone who hits a fade vs someone who hits a draw.

Edited July 23, 2022 by jshots

[iacas]

I asked you to start a new topic as this is unrelated to GEARS. You didn't, so we did for you. If you have a better title, I'd love to hear it, but this is what we've got for now. 😄

3 hours ago, jshots said:

Setup square to the target and move your body into impact position. You cannot get the club back to square at impact position (handle higher and further forward) without rotating the club with your wrists.

Two things to that.

1. Every swing involves the wrists rotating and hinging and unhinging and flexing and extending, etc. You won't find a swing that doesn't, so setting up constraints like "without  rotating the club with your wrists" is silly. If you couldn't do something with your wrists, you also couldn't lean the shaft more forward to get into an impact position that's different than your setup!
2. You can push the handle forward around an axis along the leading edge of the club and get more shaft lean without actually opening the face.

1 hour ago, jshots said:

Since the arc is tilted you can't move the arc bottom below the ball and not hit it in to out without also moving your path way to the left

You must have a different definition of "way to the left" than I do, because a few degrees will do it.

I appreciate that you're trying to wade into swing theory stuff here, but… virtually nobody swings perfectly square to their feet. Hell, people's chests, hips, knees, shoulders, elbows, and feet are all pointing slightly different directions.

The golf swing is more complicated than you're trying to make it. It's not just a club swinging on an arc, because also… the clubface is opening and closing throughout the entire swing, too. The handle is both farther forward and traveling farther left than it is at setup. Hell, the handle can be going up and left while the sweet spot is going down and right.

1 hour ago, jshots said:

you'd have to show me that because it seems incorrect to me

You're not seeing the bigger picture here. You're looking at things in some perfect geometry world.

1 hour ago, jshots said:

Similar with the wrist rotation thing, you can't square the club face from a "good" impact position handle higher and further forward, without rotating your your club shut somehow.

I mean, do you think that doesn't happen? The clubface opens and closes throughout the entire golf swing.

Why did you post the video?

1 hour ago, jshots said:

I'm just trying to neutralize as much as possible.

To ask it again: why?

1 hour ago, jshots said:

It would be very interesting to see similar to this video but with irons. You can see some of what I'm talking about how the path is in to out UNTIL the club hits the bottom of the arc.

If the swing direction is neutral. It rarely is. This is just basic D-Plane stuff.

[billchao]

2 hours ago, jshots said:

I'm just trying to neutralize as much as possible.

I’m going to do you a favor here, don’t. Different people have different body movements and sometimes your body prefers (or just does more easily) one set of mechanics over another. You can’t teach certain (most?) people to do Collin Morikawa’s wrist action, and it’s just as likely you can’t teach Collin not to do it.

People play high level golf swinging 6° out. Major championships have been won with “not perfect” swing arcs.

 

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, billchao said:

Major championships have been won with “not perfect” swing arcs.

Every one of 'em.

[jshots]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I asked you to start a new topic as this is unrelated to GEARS. You didn't, so we did for you. If you have a better title, I'd love to hear it, but this is what we've got for now. 😄

Why did you post the video?

Sorry bout that. To your OP in that thread, "Show what gears is capable of". All of these things we are talking about would be more clear when seen in the context of gears, that video shows very clearly part of what I'm talking about. Separate thread is fine but frankly its difficult for me to even describe what I'm talking about.

 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

1. Every swing involves the wrists rotating and hinging and unhinging and flexing and extending, etc. You won't find a swing that doesn't, so setting up constraints like "without  rotating the club with your wrists" is silly. If you couldn't do something with your wrists, you also couldn't lean the shaft more forward to get into an impact position that's different than your setup!

I mean, do you think that doesn't happen? The clubface opens and closes throughout the entire golf swing.
To ask it again: why?

What I am getting at, I know its a little out there, but maybe grip rotation is partly a result of that train track setup. With what I described above in the blocked right shot there is less grip rotation I think. Sorry for my lack of terminology, but I think what I'm saying is you want to achieve very little wrist pronation/supination, very static deviation, and more of a focus on flexion/extension which happens more in the plane of the swing. The train track setup requires that you learn a particular amount of grip rotation to get the ball to draw to the target OR to move your path to the left to get a straight shot (also a subtle non optimal thing you have to learn through feedback). 

The why - well we are trying to find optimal ways to swing the club which just means a more easily repeatable swing. It is a common thing you talk about on here, where professional golfers are often not necessarily optimal for repeatability but are still good because they have done it a shit load. It goes into the plane part as well, because while what you're saying is certainly true that you can do it in many different ways, there might be more or less repeatable ways (which I would wager is close to keeping your arc fairly parallel to your feet) so that a golfer that can't hit 1000 balls a week like me can be better with less variables to control and less practice. Hard to really know, which is why gears would be such a cool way to look at it 

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by jshots

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, jshots said:

Sorry bout that. To your OP in that thread, "Show what gears is capable of". All of these things we are talking about would be more clear when seen in the context of gears, that video shows very clearly part of what I'm talking about. Separate thread is fine but frankly its difficult for me to even describe what I'm talking about.

Tons of things can show this, though. It's not GEARS specific.

8 minutes ago, jshots said:

What I am getting at, I know its a little out there, but maybe grip rotation is partly a result of that train track setup.

It's independent.

8 minutes ago, jshots said:

With what I described above in the blocked right shot there is less grip rotation I think. Sorry for my lack of terminology, but I think what I'm saying is you want to achieve very little wrist pronation/supination, very static deviation, and more of a focus on flexion/extension which happens more in the plane of the swing.

Flexion/extension is not in the plane of the swing, and the exact direction it is depends on a number of things, including grip strength, position of the grip in the hands, and several other things. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that flexion/extension of the wrists primarily affects the rotation of the shaft and thus the relative "open" or "closed" nature of the face.

8 minutes ago, jshots said:

The train track setup requires that you learn a particular amount of grip rotation to get the ball to draw to the target OR to move your path to the left to get a straight shot (also a subtle non optimal thing you have to learn through feedback).

No. No no no no no.

EVERY setup requires that you "learn a particular amount of grip rotation to get the ball to draw to the target OR to move…" etc. etc. etc.

EVERY ONE.

Because nobody is a robot. Everyone rolls their forearms some. Everyone changes their wrist angles. Everyone grips the club differently. Everyone has body parts (knees, hips, shoulders, feet, etc.) aligned slightly differently.

Everyone.

8 minutes ago, jshots said:

The why - well we are trying to find optimal ways to swing the club which just means a more easily repeatable swing.

I think you're going down the wrong road (or train tracks).

Furthermore, you don't even "want" a square face, because that'd require a square path to hit playable shots… and if you mess that up, every shot is going to curve away from the target.

You want a path that is slightly left or right of the target. Just like you want a face slightly left or right of the target.

You don't really want a square face or path, because they're so not repeatable, a face that's 0.0° and a path that's 1° right or left curves away from the target every time. Only the 0.0/0.0 shots track toward the target.

[jshots]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Flexion/extension is not in the plane of the swing, and the exact direction it is depends on a number of things, including grip strength, position of the grip in the hands, and several other things. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that flexion/extension of the wrists primarily affects the rotation of the shaft and thus the relative "open" or "closed" nature of the face.

EVERY setup requires that you "learn a particular amount of grip rotation to get the ball to draw to the target OR to move…" etc. etc. etc.

Because nobody is a robot. Everyone rolls their forearms some. Everyone changes their wrist angles. Everyone grips the club differently. Everyone has body parts (knees, hips, shoulders, feet, etc.) aligned slightly differently.

I'm sitting here with a club in my hand, and I can swing it in such a way that the club face stays very close the club path the entire time (it feels and looks that way).  With my wrist setup that seems to be basically no pronation supination, almost strictly flexion/extension. Is that not what you would call in the plane of the swing? I can make a full swing that way and seems to me like its really reducing the "degrees of freedom" in a sense. Like sure I have some rotation, but its much less than the way I normally swing.

 

11 minutes ago, iacas said:

Because nobody is a robot. Everyone rolls their forearms some. Everyone changes their wrist angles. Everyone grips the club differently. Everyone has body parts (knees, hips, shoulders, feet, etc.) aligned slightly differently.

But if you can reduce those a little bit, maybe you can improve consistency?

[phillyk]

30 minutes ago, jshots said:

I'm sitting here with a club in my hand, and I can swing it in such a way that the club face stays very close the club path the entire time (it feels and looks that way).  With my wrist setup that seems to be basically no pronation supination, almost strictly flexion/extension. Is that not what you would call in the plane of the swing? I can make a full swing that way and seems to me like its really reducing the "degrees of freedom" in a sense. Like sure I have some rotation, but its much less than the way I normally swing.

 

But if you can reduce those a little bit, maybe you can improve consistency?

Go ahead and do that really fast though. To make speed, things will have to change to a degree. 

[billchao]

7 hours ago, jshots said:

The why - well we are trying to find optimal ways to swing the club which just means a more easily repeatable swing. It is a common thing you talk about on here, where professional golfers are often not necessarily optimal for repeatability but are still good because they have done it a shit load. It goes into the plane part as well, because while what you're saying is certainly true that you can do it in many different ways, there might be more or less repeatable ways (which I would wager is close to keeping your arc fairly parallel to your feet) 

Nobody swings the club on a path that's perfectly parallel to their stance line 100% of the time. Nobody reaches impact with the face oriented in the exact same position 100% of the time. Nobody.

Repeatability is about finding a swing that you can hit the ball solidly with and still have similar results from the inevitable variations from swing to swing. We're talking about one or two degrees of difference and less than an inch of deviation of impact location on the face. Very small differences. A good player who draws the ball might swing anywhere from +1° to +4° on any given swing.

8 hours ago, jshots said:

so that a golfer that can't hit 1000 balls a week like me can be better with less variables to control and less practice.

The golf swing is still an athletic movement and a skill. It still needs to be practiced and maintained. There's no getting around that.

7 hours ago, jshots said:

I'm sitting here with a club in my hand, and I can swing it in such a way that the club face stays very close the club path the entire time (it feels and looks that way).

Can you tell if your club opened 1° to your path or closed 2° by looking at it? I certainly can't.

7 hours ago, jshots said:

But if you can reduce those a little bit, maybe you can improve consistency?

You can also make your swing worse. Or lose speed. Or any number of unknown possibilities. Our bodies respond to different stimuli differently. It's why, for example, I launch the ball higher with a stiffer and heavier driver shaft, despite the general rule of thumb being the opposite.

7 hours ago, phillyk said:

Go ahead and do that really fast though. To make speed, things will have to change to a degree. 

Right, because increasing speed increases the load and forces at play. The body has to and will react differently.

8 hours ago, iacas said:

I think you're going down the wrong road (or train tracks).

I definitely agree with Erik, here. @jshots you're kind of going down the rabbit hole, and I'm not saying that as a knock. I've been down enough rabbit holes to have my own seat at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

Building a repeatable and consistent golf swing isn't about shoehorning everyone into one particular swing, it's about getting them to hit the ball solidly and then seeing what their tendencies are and building off of that. Some people rotate their hips a lot. Some people find it very difficult to palmar flex. Some people simply don't like to see the ball turn left, ever. You work with what their bodies like to do so they can make the best golf swing for them.

[jshots]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

Nobody swings the club on a path that's perfectly parallel to their stance line 100% of the time. Nobody reaches impact with the face oriented in the exact same position 100% of the time. Nobody.

Maybe if we didn't start on train tracks we wouldn't learn or need to learn to change path. Its hard to say that isn't the case when everyone learns the same way. I mean you learn golf through feedback. Hit a good shot, repeat what you did for that. Of course with enough reps you learn to do it. 

 

1 hour ago, billchao said:

Repeatability is about finding a swing that you can hit the ball solidly with and still have similar results from the inevitable variations from swing to swing. We're talking about one or two degrees of difference and less than an inch of deviation of impact location on the face. Very small differences. A good player who draws the ball might swing anywhere from +1° to +4° on any given swing.

IMO the whole process of getting better at golf is either reducing your variation and deviation either through repetition or through better mechanics. This would fall in the better mechanics category which will make your swing more repeatable.

 

1 hour ago, billchao said:

I definitely agree with Erik, here. @jshots you're kind of going down the rabbit hole, and I'm not saying that as a knock. I've been down enough rabbit holes to have my own seat at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

My birdie putt is gonna be going down the golf hole after I implement this infallible strategy.

[billchao]

46 minutes ago, jshots said:

Maybe if we didn't start on train tracks we wouldn't learn or need to learn to change path.

No, I’m saying it’s literally impossible as human beings to perform an action exactly the same way repeatedly.

49 minutes ago, jshots said:

Its hard to say that isn't the case when everyone learns the same way.

This is just wrong. There isn’t one method to teach people and plenty of golfers learn to play the game on their own.

51 minutes ago, jshots said:

IMO the whole process of getting better at golf is either reducing your variation and deviation either through repetition or through better mechanics. This would fall in the better mechanics category which will make your swing more repeatable.

Your entire argument is based on the flawed idea that a swing arc perfectly parallel to the foot line is ideal. It’s not. For most people better mechanics means swing out a little bit or in.

[jshots]

3 hours ago, billchao said:

No, I’m saying it’s literally impossible as human beings to perform an action exactly the same way repeatedly.

I agree, but its about reducing the margin of error not eliminating it.

 

3 hours ago, billchao said:

There isn’t one method to teach people and plenty of golfers learn to play the game on their own.

While that is true there are some pretty standard things people do, line up on train tracks being one of them, square the clubface to the target being another. Intuitively that is what I think a beginner would do. They think square face means it will go toward the target.

 

3 hours ago, billchao said:

Your entire argument is based on the flawed idea that a swing arc perfectly parallel to the foot line is ideal. It’s not. For most people better mechanics means swing out a little bit or in.

Maybe it is ideal if you are not stuck in the train tracks. Your body is symmetrical and wants to swing along that parallel arc. We aren't talking perfect here, just more perfect

but maybe a parallel arc isn't optimal or natural, my argument here would still be relevant in that you should account for the descending blow of whatever arc is optimal at setup rather than during the swing. 

[iacas]

19 hours ago, jshots said:

I'm sitting here with a club in my hand, and I can swing it in such a way that the club face stays very close the club path the entire time (it feels and looks that way).

Please film a video of this.

The path changes quite a bit. The plane changes quite a bit. All of these things change it:

• Hinge the club up with your wrists. At address, this moves the club straight up toward your nose. Very clearly out-of-plane.
• Extend and flex your lead wrist. This can, depending on your grip, twist the face open or closed and/or move it slightly forward and back (somewhat along the plane).
• Bend your trail elbow as you do in the golf swing. Again, the club moves slightly back, but mostly up, almost perpendicular to the plane. In a similar direction as hinging.
• Lift your arms at your shoulders a bit. Again, very much against the plane like hinging.

Heck, just the arms move the club very much out of "plane":

Look at the left one, from face-on. The club goes from vertical, the hands go up and a little to the right, and the forearms rotate/roll probably 45° or so to the golfer's right.

19 hours ago, jshots said:

With my wrist setup that seems to be basically no pronation supination, almost strictly flexion/extension. Is that not what you would call in the plane of the swing?

No. I have no idea what you're doing and don't like to assume. When I flex/extend, the club twists and the face opens/closes quite a bit.

Film a video or something.

19 hours ago, jshots said:

But if you can reduce those a little bit, maybe you can improve consistency?

At what cost? And are you actually doing that once you move the club out of your field of vision?

9 hours ago, jshots said:

Maybe if we didn't start on train tracks we wouldn't learn or need to learn to change path. Its hard to say that isn't the case when everyone learns the same way.

False statement.

9 hours ago, jshots said:

IMO the whole process of getting better at golf is either reducing your variation and deviation either through repetition or through better mechanics. This would fall in the better mechanics category which will make your swing more repeatable.

I don't see it.

4 hours ago, jshots said:

I agree, but its about reducing the margin of error not eliminating it.

I don't think it's necessarily doing what you think it's doing.

3 hours ago, jshots said:

While that is true there are some pretty standard things people do, line up on train tracks being one of them

Most people aim way the f*** right, actually. 🙂 I wish I could get more people to be aligned on "train tracks." Almost nobody is set up square in the real world.

And I play my best golf with a slightly open stance… from which I hit a draw.

3 hours ago, jshots said:

Maybe it is ideal if you are not stuck in the train tracks. Your body is symmetrical and wants to swing along that parallel arc. We aren't talking perfect here, just more perfect

Yeah, no. Again, Tour players are not all aligned along train tracks. Their ribs, hips, shoulders, knees, and feet all point slightly different directions.

Look at this still frame 8:10 into this video:

The feet are the only thing that's relatively "square" or "on train tracks."

3 hours ago, jshots said:

Your body is symmetrical and wants to swing along that parallel arc.

I don't see many people who demonstrate that they 'want to swing along that parallel arc." If that was the case… I don't even know. It's not the case, though.