Chunking the ball

[Surefire]

Well I have to disagree because physics is pretty much right 99.99% of the time and physics states otherwise. Imagine a child swingin on a swing similar to a golfswing just on diffferent planes. The lowpoint of the swinging action is actually the exact same point where the swing would sit at rest.

Taking your child sitting on a swing example, the low point is directly below the pivot point. agreed? Now take the golf swing, you hold the club in your lead arm. The shoulders rotate around the spine, and the lead arm pivots around the shoulder. So the low point of the lead arm is when it is directly below the lead shoulder. The same with the club, it pivots about the lead wrist, so its low point is directly below the wrist when the arm is directly below the shoulder. If you hold the club in your teeth, then the low point will be directly below your teeth, spine and sternum. I think you are assuming the golfers body is one lever, rather than a machine made up of multiple levers.

[jambalaya]

Taking your child sitting on a swing example, the low point is directly below the pivot point. agreed?

Exactly, rotate about the back leg on the backswing and the front leg on the forward swing. Of course you can believe whatever you want if it helps you hit your shot better.

[jhantonio]

I agree with Righty to Lefty.

Tiger Woods says this in his book "How I Play Golf" on page 117:
"The golf club travels in a circluar path during the swing, with the lowest point of the circle occurring directly below the sternum."
And Tiger coninues to say regarding his 5-iron:
"The ball is positioned slightly forward of center at address. Nevertheless, I still can hit down on the ball because my body moves forward laterally on the down-swing, which moves the bottom point of the swing closer to the target."

This is also what Shan Clement exactly says in his YouTube video that Righty to Lefty referred to, regarding the bottom of the swing arc and how it shifts a little to the left during the downswing due to the weight shift.

I don't know about you, but when there is a conflict in theories, I will go along with the best player in the world.

[Righty to Lefty]

Wow, I posted this a while ago but I guess that if the thread has good info in it then it will never die!

[jhantonio]

I think good players, especially good ball strikers, mistakenly believe the low point is below the left-shoulder socket, because they make good weight transfer to the left during the downswing and crush the ball and see that the divot is to the left. They just forget to take into account the dynamic part of their downswing that moves the low point to the left, and instead think that the low point is statically or geometrically below the left-shoulder socket.

I think this is also the reason beginner golfers have trouble hitting the ball well. They place the ball on the left of their stance believing that's the low point of the swing, but because beginners have a weak weight transfer, they keep hitting the turf before the ball.

[B-Con]

This isn't my area of expertise, but if we're going to talk physics/geometry I think there are variables that need to be decided on:

1) How do the arms and the chest match up at impact?
The example of using a child's playground swing is on the right track, but the arms are levers and the base they're connected to (the chest) changes places during the swing, causing the arms to get pulled around the body, not just back and forth. The arms are across the chest on the backswing, but out in front of the chest on the follow-through. They're most certainly not just hanging in front of the chest forming a simple low point.

2) How does the chest rotate or bend? Does the right shoulder end lower at impact than it started?
If the right shoulder gets lower, it's easy for the low point to be moved to the left of the center (sternum).

I think it might be better to debate which is a better low point, as it looks to me, from my admittedly quick analysis, that you could have two different swings, one with a low point at the left armpit and one at the sternum.

It seems to me that the low point at address is the sternum, and that would be the low point if you simply rocked your shoulders like you were putting, and the low point of a (pro's) swing is likely the left armpit.

[edit]
Oh, and:
3) What plane are we using to assess the low point during the swing?
At address the chest is square to the swing path. During the full swing it is not. EVEN IF the low point of the swing is the sternum, crossing the arms over the chest and swinging with a rotating chest will put the low point out farther left according to the INITIAL square-to-swing plane we viewed from. If the low point is in front of the chest and the chest rotates left, the low point would go with it. In that sense, the low point would be to the left from the initial viewpoint and in the center of the rotated viewpoint.

[jhantonio]

Yeah, I used to think the same thing.
The left-arm levers on the fulcrum of the left-shoulder socket, so the lowest point had to be below the left-shoulder socket.
What HAD convinced me more than anything was the diagram by Brian Menzella, TGM-certified instructor.
I wish I could post the diagram, but it shows the left-arm lever working against the shoulder rotation.
Although the diagram didn't include the clubshaft lever on the fulcrum of the left wrist, it was still clear from the diagram that the lowest point was indeed directly below the left-shoulder socket.

But then, I realized the shoulder rotation and the left-arm lever does not occur on the same plane -- that would the the plane of the 2-D drawing in the case of the diagram.
When each motioin is studied INDIVIDUALLY, the shoulder rotation is inclinded from front to back, but more importantly, the left-arm lever draws with the left hand (therefore with the clubhead) a concave "V" from the reference point of the shoulders, during the downswing and the followthrough. This is the INDIVIDUAL motion of the left-arm lever when nothing else in the body moves.
It's only when the left-arm lever is combined with the motion of the shoulder rotation, does the left-arm lever draw an inclined "U"-like arc.
So what dictates the RESULTING circular arc of the clubhead is the shoulder rotation.

If you can't agree with the individual motion of the left-arm lever, then you can't agree that the low point is geometrically below the sternum.
To me, fancy diagrams and limited 2-D geometry of combined motions just do disservice to golfers.

[jhantonio]

Besides, Tiger must be right, right?
I mean, after all those years of working with thousands-of-dollars-per-hour golf coaches . . . . :)

[Righty to Lefty]

This is one of my old posts to this question but it proves my point throughly:

Well I have to disagree because physics is pretty much right 99.99% of the time and physics states otherwise. Imagine a child swingin on a swing similar to a golfswing just on diffferent planes. The lowpoint of the swinging action is actually the exact same point where the swing would sit at rest. No matter how much force you apply to that swing is going to swing on the same path and have the same lowpoint unless you change one of the varibles such as the spine ( the bars that support the entire mechanism) or the arms and wrists (the chain that connect the mechanism to the spine or support) Those are the only factors that can move the the swings lowpoint. How can the lowpoint of the swing be outside of the center of the mass or the left armpit? The swings lowpoint can be moved but its lowpoint changes in equal proportion always. Now I have looked at alot of swings in slow mo and the theory still rings true. If the lowpoint of the swing at address was the left armpit then you would have to choke down on the club at address even from a flat lie to allow room for the club to reach that low point or you would drive the club into the ground before you even hit the ball because at the center of mass or the spine, the club would still be descending for another five or six inches depending on how wide your chest is! At address all parts are inline but at impact the hips lead the hands to impact. The the center of the mass doesn't change it simply moved in proportion. A slight forward lean at impact shifts the swings lowpoint forward of the ball an inch or two and that is how you strike the ball first then the ground because the lowpoint of the swing moved in front of the ball. If you stayed centered then you would actually catch the ball as the club was ascending and that is a skulled ball. A more accurate representation would be a tetherball and pole. If you hold the ball a predetermined distance away from the pole the ONLY way that you can manipulate that arc would be to lengthen the rope connected to the ball during the swing or physically move the base of the whole mechanism. No matter how much force you put on the rope you can't change that swing arch at that particular distance away from the base.

[Zeph]

I won't go into details, since this is already being discussed in another thread, but I'll just point out the obvious.

That the lowpoint is always below your sternum is wrong. If you have any control of your swing, you can manipulate the swing bottom to be anywhere really, within reasonable limits. The most common lowpoint for good players tend to be anywhere from 3-4 inches forward of the middle of your stance to in front of the left foot. The position depends on the swing and club usually. The common demoniator for PGA pros however is that the lowpoint is 3-4 inches in front of the ball at most shots, and the ball position is never (at least for stock shots) behind the center of their stance. Some play every club inside the left heel, so the lowpoint is in front of the left foot.

The children swingset example doesn't work here since our arms and wrists are not fully extended all the time. The straps that the swing is attached to will by gravity always be pulled as far down as they can. We set up to the ball with bent arms and wrists. The swingset is also stationary, while the swing is dynamic, and most importantly the weight is moving forward before impact.

To answer the original question, which is 2 years old by the way, the following are cause of hitting the ground before the ball:

- Weight too far back at impact
- Flipping/clubhead throwaway/loosing the flying wedge

You can look up threads on "Sliding the hips" and "How to maintain the flying wedge" for tips and drills on how to work on this.