Head behind the ball doesn't make sense to me...?

[iacas]

Hogan's head drops at least an inch in every one of these backswings.

I don't see it. Maybe an inch, maybe 3/4 of an inch, maybe none at all but rather a little twisting of the head leading to a different high spot on the hat - who knows?

You get into that kind of discussion and suddenly we're trying to figure out whether it's 1.5 inches or just 1 inch, or none at all. Better to just say it's next to none. Tell me, where in Five Lessons does Ben Hogan talk about dropping his head?

The intent is to tilt your spine away from the target at transition by shifting the left hip to the target. Right shoulder drops, head drops, club drops into the slot.

What the head dropping has to do with "head behind the ball" is beyond me. I'm not sure why we've even arrived here. Your head, as I said, should stay in roughly the same position it was at address. Your hips push forward and turn - your lower center goes forward while your upper center stays in position - so your spine tilts away from the target on the downswing. We can agree to that, it seems.

The golfer tilts to the right (as in bends his back to the right). The right shoulder doesn't "drop" so much as it moves back on its angled circle. Your club doesn't need to "drop into the slot" if it never left the slot. If it has to "drop" into the slot that's yet another timing move that's unnecessary. The point of the matter is that if you drop the head, you've got to time raising it back up, and the vast majority of golfers are better off leaving it right where it was to begin with. And if we're talking about a one inch drop, again, that's well within the range of "negligible." If the head drops a little, so be it - I don't think talking about it benefits anyone. It's an effect if it happens in your particular swing... and has little to do with the original topic.