Hogan Power Move, is this the key??

[FlopScotty]

Hi Guys,

Just had a video analysis with my pro and found a couple of errors in my swing. The most important one to fix is that I am not keeping my "tush line" at impact.

Found this video on youtube and are planning to work on this on the range today.

What do you guys think?? Is this the key to better ballstriking?

[Golf'nBiker]

I like this guy...I may have watch every 'tude' lesson he's made...and I have seen a guy do a similar exercise on the range however he was using his bag rather that the mirror. Cheek to cheek, so to speak. I don't kno if this the they key as you asked, but seeing it done by Mr CLEMENT and at the range, it may work for some...as many suggestions/drills do.

[Zeph]

Is this somewhat the same topic which is discussed here: http://thesandtrap.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29616 ?

[FlopScotty]

Yes, great stuff in that thread. Read it after i posted:(

However, there was not a lot of drills on how to achieve this discussed in the thread. Does anyone have any good ones? I will try putting my bag behind me today, I will post how it went tonight.

thanks

[FlopScotty]

OK, back from the range. The tip worked very good. Especially with wedges where I finally could hit a low penetrating shot with lots of stop. This has been one of my main goals this season!

Did not get to try the tip with something actually leaning against my tush, but did it mentally and it worked out great. I am also trying to start the swing with less inside path to keep me from getting "stuck" with arms and club. Doing this together with "swing under me" swing thought worked out good. Still not consistent enough, but getting better.

I will put out new swing video when I get my new Casio high speed camera

[bunkerputt]

That's great advice. It allows you to maintain your spine angle through impact, preserves lag, keeps the club working on the right plane, and saves you from back injury. If it's not THE key, it's definitely a big one to remember and certainly critical for ballstriking. Clement's videos are excellent IMO.

[Ringer]

I know Shawn is very popular and has some good advice. This particular video may work for some because it does allow for a bit more of an inside path to the ball.

But on a whole, I don't particularly like this video. The main reason is because of the lack of weight transfer. It is very "Stack and Tilt" ish where there is no weight transfer to the back foot.

This lack of weight transfer and rotation of the torso where it is, actually means your swing center has leaned forward on the backswing. This is unlike any "Swing" I have ever observed in nature.

Let me give you a thought experiment to illustrate my point.

Take a club and hold the butt end of it between just your index and thumb. Let it just hang there.

Now in order for you to make it "swing" you must initiate the swing by moving your hand very slightly back. Then to get the club to start into the other direction, at just the right time you need to move your hand slightly forward. It's this subtle shift combined with gravity that makes the whole swing happen.

Now imagine trying to move your hand forward in order to make the club go back. It simply doesn't work. You would have to add some other sort of effort to the club with your other hand to make this happen.


Please, take time to really think about what is being said. What may work for you now could end up being a disaster later on down the road. The best way to figure that out now is to see if the information passes a "sniff" test. Here it just doesn't pass my sniff test. There's no real "logic" to what he's saying. There's no explination as to "WHY" it works. I know why it works, and I know why down the road it's going to cause problems.

Just be careful

[Phil McGleno]

But on a whole, I don't particularly like this video. The main reason is because of the lack of weight transfer. It is very "Stack and Tilt" ish where there is no weight transfer to the back foot.

Shawn's not a a stack-and-tilt guy, is he? I think the concept of a "weight transfer" back is outdated. Golfers no longer lift their front foot off the ground and Tiger and Hogan don't/didn't dramatically shift their weight back before shifting it forward. If it's moving that much, it's inherently tougher to time.

I'm borrowing this picture from that hip slide thread... Ignore the hip slide part and just look at their weight at the top of their swings. Maybe, what, 60/40 weight on the back foot? 55/45? The backswing these days is about rotation, and the downswing about moving your swing center ever so slightly ahead of the ball by getting your hips ahead, like that other thread talks about. The backswing just has to get you into position to swing down effectively, and if you slide back even slightly, you have a tougher time sliding forward the proper amount.

Now in order for you to make it "swing" you must initiate the swing by moving your hand very slightly back.

No you don't. Your thought experiment fails because the center of the swing isn't the butt end of the grip. The center of the swing is the sternum (give or take a few inches), and your sternum is surrounded by muscles that can rotate and move the clubhead away from the ball without having to sway side to side.

Sorry. You should have put a little more thought into your thought experiment.

[chspeed]

This lack of weight transfer and rotation of the torso where it is, actually means your swing center has leaned forward on the backswing. This is unlike any "Swing" I have ever observed in nature.

Good post. I like Clement too, and while this isn't my favorite video, I interperet his advice differently. In his explanation, he claims that he does indeed include a weight transfer to the back foot, but that his weight transfer is caused by the weight of the arms and club, rather than by a slide of the hips back. He then transfers weight forward before dropping the club into the slot. It seems to me pretty traditional, although I admit his backswing looks pretty "stack-and-tilt".

[iacas]

I agree with Butch, and not just because he stole "borrowed" my picture. What he says makes a lot more sense - and I agree the thought experiment needed more thought. Taken to an illogical extreme, the faster and/or farther you "slide" in that thought experiment, the faster you can make the club go - which is horrible advice and we all know it.

I also like what chspeed said about the weight transfer. If there is one, it's small, and it's no longer what we used to think of as the weight transfer where very little weight remained left 90% of the way into the backswing.

[Ringer]

Sorry. You should have put a little more thought into your thought experiment.

I put a lot of thought into my experiment. It's a thought experiment that my entire teaching years have been founded by. It's one of the basic fundamental principles of my teaching and I have stood by it for years.

And since when is a "swing" outdated? You can call your version of the "golf motion" whatever you like... but as long as there are students trying to make a "swing" I will be teaching a swing. You say sternum, I say the part of your spine between your shoulder blades. Mighty Tiger does go back, and then returns. Even by your own assesment, there is a "small" weight shift back. You were suggesting maybe 60%. I didn't say that you have to make a LARGE movement with your hand to swing the club between your finger. In fact I specifically said "slightly". As you can see with Tiger, it's a slight move back. When you move your arms and torso back around the spine, by definition you are shifting your weight back as well. However the move Shawn is recommending counters this by actually leaning forward a bit. His idea is to keep the upper body more over the ball, then shift the hips well forward while keeping the upper body over the ball, then spinning the hips hard. Sounds like Stack-N-Tilt to me whether he intends it or not.

[iacas]

I put a lot of thought into my experiment.

Again, I'm with Butch. Crappy thought experiment. If you are basing your whole teaching method on that thought experiment, well, :blech: People have muscles and can rotate about a point in order to move something out at the end of a radius - something your thought experiment fails to take into account.

And since when is a "swing" outdated?

We swing differently now than they did when they had hickory shafts, do we not? Or even when we had persimmon drivers and balata golf balls? Yes, but less so.

Swings can become outdated when information about how the body functions, how we build speed, and so on is gathered.

You say sternum, I say the part of your spine between your shoulder blades.

He said give or take a few inches. Most people aren't a foot thick. I think he's referring to the same spot as you, and technically, I think the swing center is right between the two spots you two have mentioned.

Mighty Tiger does go back, and then returns.

I'm sorry, but unless your definition of this is different than 90% of people out there, I don't see Tiger sliding backwards very much at all. His right hip - like Shawn Clement said in his video - goes backwards away from the golf ball, not backwards away from the target. His weight is about 60/40 at the top.

You were suggesting maybe 60%.

Shawn Clement says it's due to the arms and the clubhead. Seems natural to me that if you start leaning slightly to the right with your upper body (right hand's lower on the club's grip, after all - 55/45) and then add your arms to the right, you could get to 60/40. Doesn't mean you had to even "slightly" slide your hips to get there.

Look at the picture of Hogan at the top. Have his hips slid even slightly to his right? Nope.

His idea is to keep the upper body more over the ball, then shift the hips well forward while keeping the upper body over the ball, then spinning the hips hard. Sounds like Stack-N-Tilt to me whether he intends it or not.

It doesn't really sound to me like you understand stack and tilt well enough to comment on what is and isn't S&T.; From everything I've seen - and if you talk to Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett they'll tell you the same thing - Ben Hogan was awfully close to being a stack-and-tilt golfer already.

[Phil McGleno]

I put a lot of thought into my experiment.

Eek.

You say sternum, I say the part of your spine between your shoulder blades.

Nit-picky much? Christ. Same thing.

http://sites.google.com/site/golfles...erGoesBack.jpg

That picture doesn't show his hips sliding back at all. Perhaps next time you can find a picture that's actually useful? You can't even see his right hip in the first frame and by all of my super-scientific measurements (I held a piece of paper up to my monitor) his right hip hasn't moved to our left at all.

[iacas]

That picture doesn't show his hips sliding back at all. Perhaps next time you can find a picture that's actually useful? You can't even see his right hip in the first frame and by all of my super-scientific measurements (I held a piece of paper up to my monitor) his right hip hasn't moved to our left at all.

Let's try out this image for the heck of it:

Yep, no hip sliding there at all. A pretty stable lower center (which in stack and tilt is [I think] roughly between your belt buckle and your and the top of your tailbone - right in the middle of your body). But certainly no sliding. The "stack" part is really a big part of the modern golf swing (going back to Hogan). The "tilt" is the part a lot of pros don't quite do quite as much as Plummer and Bennett would like to see - Tiger's upper body still leans to his right and he achieves the "reverse K" type backswing position. Ringer, if you want to start a separate thread on this, go ahead. OP, sorry for the brief foray into the wilderness...

[Ringer]

Eek.

So let me get this straight. First you say "eek" because I put a lot of thought into my teaching... then in the next sentence you say I'm being nit-picky? Please make up your mind. Or are you just trying to find things to argue about?

Finally, again I NEVER said ANYTHING about HIPS sliding back. I really am baffled by where you and IACAS thought that I did. I have always said there is a weight transfer to the inside of the back foot. It has always been my position that the right hip stays right where it is while the left hip rotates around it. Like a swinging door rotates around it's hinges. The right hip is the hinge while the left hip is the door knob. Then on the forward swing a hip "bump" is made that establishes a place for the left hip to stay while the right hip proceeds to rotate around it. The two hips flip flop rolls from backswing to forward swing. It's a very very simple concept and works beautifully to create proper weight shift, axis tilt, and shoulder movement.

[FlopScotty]

Thanks for all the good comment from all of you. Don't worry about spinning in to the wilderness from the start of the thread. I think we are still discussing exactly the topic I was hoping for when starting the thread.

I really believe the movements we are discussing here are the key to consistency given that the rest of the fundamentals of your swing is somewhat OK. Just to bad I am always sleeping when you guys are discussing:) However, I was hoping you all could help me and others who have the problem of loosing our tush line in the downswing and through impact.

Ringer: Then on the forward swing a hip "bump" is made that establishes a place for the left hip to stay while the right hip proceeds to rotate around it. The two hips flip flop rolls from backswing to forward swing.

I think we all can agree on what Ringer is saying here. Could you give us any pointers on how to keep that tush line back while doing this? Is it a good idea to try to keep the left hip back in the downswing through impact?

Another thing, a lot of teachers point out that when shifting your weight forward, you need to do it to the inside of the left foot . Looking at tour professionals swings it really looks to me that they have moved the weight all the way to the outside of their left foot through impact. Example: Is this something that can be important in order to really hit through the ball?

[jamo]

Tiger's head might move back on the backswing, but not his hips. Well maybe and inch or less...

[Phil McGleno]

So let me get this straight. First you say "eek" because I put a lot of thought into my teaching... then in the next sentence you say I'm being nit-picky?

Eeek again. Apparently you're dense. When have I ever given you credit for "putting a lot of thought" into anything? I said eek because it's clear you

haven't put a lot of thought into it, or the thought you've put into it has been of a quality well below what I'd hope a golf instructor would put. "Imagine gripping the club between two fingers - how can you move it back?" That's horribly inept on several levels.

Finally, again I NEVER said ANYTHING about HIPS sliding back. I really am baffled by where you and IACAS thought that I did.

Your lousy "thought experiment" talked about moving back and you never indicated what part of the body moved. If you're going to give a lousy thought experiment, at least clarify what it means.

It has always been my position that the right hip stays right where it is while the left hip rotates around it. Like a swinging door rotates around it's hinges. The right hip is the hinge while the left hip is the door knob.

That's even worse. Now the golfer's weight is moving towards the golf ball on the takeaway? The right hip moves backwards, away from the golf ball. The lower center of the body doesn't move.

So, glad we've cleared up that you don't want people sliding at all, but now you've got them moving their left hips but not their right hips? I don't know how you spell crackpot, but I'm starting to think it's R-i-n-g-e-r.

Then on the forward swing a hip "bump" is made that establishes a place for the left hip to stay while the right hip proceeds to rotate around it. The two hips flip flop rolls from backswing to forward swing.

Rolls. Ha ha ha.

So since the left hip has rotated about the right, and is now closer to the ball, and then it bumps forward, and the right hip rotates around it, how exactly is the golfer supposed to hit the ball now that his hips are four inches closer to the ball at impact than they were at setup? I give up.

Is it a good idea to try to keep the left hip back in the downswing through impact?

Never. See that hip slide thread. And yes, outside edge of the left foot. Roll your ankles in the direction of the target, kick the right knee in (not out), and get the hips forward.