Extending the Right Knee on the Backswing

[saevel25]

Neither did hogan completely straighten his right leg on the backswing

There you go, you have it right there... No one completely straightens the right leg in the backswing. There is always some knee flex, but the issue is how much. You do not want to keep the same knee flex as the address position, so the knee in fact Straightens, Straightens is a verb so it describes the motion not the ending condition. We are not saying the leg has to be straight at the end it straightens.

No, they don´t. Have you ever heard of the X Factor

Yep its the angle formed by the direction of the hips and the shoulders, that differenc is suppose to create distance. It has been advocated mostly by Jim McClean i think in the late 90's. But, if you pick up his new revision of 8 steps in the golf swing, he speaks little of the X-factor. Now he has come up that distance is determined by the difference in angle the golf club forms with the hands in the backswing compared with that on the downswing. So really, good extension in the backswing and lag in the downswing create power. If your saying, well you got to brace yourself againts your hips to create coil, thats a bit over-rated.

He didn´t kick his right knee in at address so that it could straighten. He wanted to keep it flexed.

What he wanted to do and what he did are two different things. I want to make sure i hinge the club, so i feel like i hinge it as i start my backswing, not to start it as it just starts going back. But what actually i am doing is a natural gradual hinge in the swing. I have been swinging with such little hinging for so long i have to exagerate it to fix the issue. hogan probably says that because it what mentally got him to a place he wanted in his swing, not taken literraly. And his feeling of what should be done might work for him and not me. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt, but video and pictures can't lie. Golfers right leg has to straighten due to the anatomy of the human body. The hip girdle places the hit joints equal distance from the spine. If your rotate around your spine, that is maintain your spine angle in the backswing, then the right leg has to straighten. It varies depending on the golfer, but its has to. Because the right hip join naturally raises upward when it rotates around the spine, and since its not advisable to lift the right foot off the ground, the knee has to straighten, or your knee dislocate, because your bones just can't stretch.

[LongballGer]

Hogan´s leg did straighten a bit, but if Hogan had video back in the days he would have worked on keeping his knee more flexed. Tiger maintains the same knee flex he had at adress. Watch this clip. His right knee doesn´t come off that line. Go to 1:21.

[iacas]

Oh yes, you´re right. I´m lacking credibility because I didn´t send you a message to get an instructor tag. Well let´s change that. I´m actually Ben Hogan returned from the grave and I know every single secret about the golf swing. I also have a +9 handicap. Credibility issue solved.

Uh, credibility issue definitely not "solved." And grow up, Chris. If you want respect, that's not the way to go about it. Engaging in a discussion with valid thoughts on the golf swing is the way to go, not this BS.

That has gotta be the funniest thing I´ve ever heard. If the hands didn´t raise from address your hands would be at around hip height at the top of the backswing position. This is golf, not discus throw.

You suggested that they raised enough that they would have to drop. The lowest virtually anyone's gonna swing is the elbow plane, so clearly you felt that the hands raised above elbow plane in order to "drop," because you absolutely do not have to let your head move to move your hands up to the elbow plane (or a bunch higher - Nicklaus didn't move his head). Virtually every good player makes contact just below elbow plane, so again, if you'd care to explain what you're talking about, go ahead. You've not done so at all to this point.

Head movement is the natural result of a proper weightshift. When you load up on your right side the head naturally moves to the right. Just like in every other athletic sport.

I can shift my weight weight without moving my head. Furthermore, Ben Hogan didn't advocate a big weight shift. If you simply rotate about your spine, because your chest, stomach, arms, and the clubhead (and all of your head) are "in front of" your spine, you'll get a "weight shift." No head movement necessary.

Other sports are relevant to a point. Additionally, other sports typically allow for a step to be taken in order to move the weight forward, and the weight transfer in other sports is often not as quick or as complete as in the golf swing. Furthermore, the golf swing starts with relatively centered weight regardless of the method you prefer, and includes not only one weight shift but two - minimizing the distance of the first weight shift and, if possible, limiting it to rotational weight shift is important. Golf swings have two shifts - other sports just one. Also, it's much slower to swing by moving your head off the ball and then trying to move it forward on the downswing. Rotational speed is faster.

Somewhere...Curtis Strange is crying now.

Gee, that's useful.

Neither did hogan completely straighten his right leg on the backswing.

Nobody has said "completely straighten." Don't straw man this. Hogan's leg straightened quite a bit. It lost a lot of flex.

Why do you think he said you should pivot around your right leg and use it as a post? He didn´t kick his right knee in at address so that it could straighten. He wanted to keep it flexed.

Ben Hogan turned around his spine. The center of his shoulders was even with or slightly ahead of the center of his hips. Look at page 73 in Five Lessons. His shoulders (and head) don't translate off the ball at all. His head stayed rock steady throughout the backswing, then made a

small circle down, forward, up, and back during the downswing.

No, they don´t. Have you ever heard of the X Factor?

Yep. It's bogus. The guy who invented it won't talk about it and distances himself from it as much as he can.

This guy hits the ball pretty far:

Duh, of course his right knee is less flexed than his left knee. The left knee is always gonna move a little closer to the ball as the hip turns. His right leg is as flexed as it was at address though.

No, it isn't, and even if it remained in the same flex, clearly 17 or 18 or 19 others from the top 20 definitely and dramatically decrease their flex.

Think of it this way. Imagine your tibia and femur. They connect everything from your ankle to your hip joint. When flexed, the distance between the ends of the two is whatever number of inches. Now, given that the ankle is flexed, and that the right hip moves up and back in the backswing, how on earth is it possible for that same angle to be maintained? Do the tibia and femur grow during the backswing? The geometry simply doesn't make sense. The only way that you could maintain the same flex while moving one end is if that end moved in an arc around the radius (the ankle), and that would have the right hip moving downward on the backswing, not level and certainly not up.

There you go, you have it right there... No one completely straightens the right leg in the backswing. There is always some knee flex, but the issue is how much. You do not want to keep the same knee flex as the address position, so the knee in fact Straightens, Straightens is a verb so it describes the motion not the ending condition. We are not saying the leg has to be straight at the end it straightens.

Yep. As has been stated several times in the thread, nobody is saying "completely straighten your leg and lock your knee."

The hip girdle places the hit joints equal distance from the spine. If your rotate around your spine, that is maintain your spine angle in the backswing, then the right leg has to straighten. It varies depending on the golfer, but its has to. Because the right hip join naturally raises upward when it rotates around the spine, and since its not advisable to lift the right foot off the ground, the knee has to straighten, or your knee dislocate, because your bones just can't stretch.

Good - saevel understands the basic geometry.

Exactly right saevel. Good response. Better than my own variation above in many ways.

[saevel25]

http://www.golf.com/golf/gallery/art...3456-2,00.html

Leg at Address

http://www.golf.com/golf/gallery/art...3456-4,00.html

Leg Straighter, Not Straight, but Straighter.

I better know basic geometry, i took 4 years of highschool math + 5 levels of college math...

[iacas]

Hogan´s leg did straighten a bit, but if Hogan had video back in the days he would have worked on keeping his knee more flexed. Tiger maintains the same knee flex he had at adress. Watch this clip. His right knee doesn´t come off that line. Go to 1:21.

a) You said it... Hogan's leg straightened (we can shelve the definition of "a bit" as I would say it straightened a fair amount). And I assure you (and, duh, he did have video "back in the days" - how else would we have video of him?) he knew it did and he did it on purpose.

b) Tiger's knee does not maintain the same flex he has at address. Geometrically, it has to for the reasons both I and saevel have laid out. And what's one of the things Tiger's working on? Doing a bit more of this (in addition to some other bigger things, of course). Geometrically, it makes sense. You can't move the right hip the way it moves in the backswing without the knee losing some of its flex.

Leg Straighter, Not Straight, but Straighter.

Yeah, and if you can look at the pictures you've presented, or the ones I've given, and say "yep, same knee flex as at setup" then I don't know how you'll ever spot something in a student... It's visible, and not only that, measurable (though I would argue that the truest measure of knee flex should be measured perpendicular to the plane that contains the ankle, knee, and hips, which is slightly behind the golfer rather than straight down the line... but that would only make the knee appear a bit straighter in every normal case).

[LongballGer]

I don´t understand what that green line is supposed to mean. Do you honestly believe that´s where his knee is on the backswing?

Haha, this discussion is pointless. There is just no winning against you guys.

[jamo]

You just proved my point. Look at Ernie´s picture and tell me his knee is not flexed. All the other guys try to maintain the flex in their knees, too. Kaymer´s leg straightens somewhat and I know from first hand that he´s working with his instructor to maintain more knee flex. Westwood´s leg straightens and he´s a good ballstriker despite of it not because of it. Phil has more of an old school swing with tons of compensations and he´s terrible off the tee. Not a good example.

Shanks' picture isn't the greatest because he shows a few guys who are almost counterexamples to his point (a point that I agree with), but the examples that favor his point far outweight the ones against it.

Neither did hogan completely straighten his right leg on the backswing.

Where did anyone say he completely straightened it?

EDIT: sorry, that was already covered.

Hogan´s leg did straighten a bit, but if Hogan had video back in the days he would have worked on keeping his knee more flexed. Tiger maintains the same knee flex he had at adress. Watch this clip. His right knee doesn´t come off that line. Go to 1:21.

Tiger's hitting what, a wedge? The wedge swing is much simpler that that of a long iron or driver.

[iacas]

I don´t understand what that green line is supposed to mean. Do you honestly believe that´s where his knee is on the backswing?

It's not where his knee is. The red line went up the outside of his leg at setup. The green line went up more of the seam of his pants at the top (or else the degrees would overlap each other). The angle measurements are correct, however.

Haha, this discussion is pointless. There is just no winning against you guys.

Perhaps the first accurate thing you've said, but I suspect you said it for the wrong reasons.

The reason why there's no winning? Because you're trying to refute basic geometry and decades of players who straighten or decrease the flex in their back knees on the backswing.

[sean_miller]

I can't believe this is even still being discussed / refuted. Sure some guys do it less, but they have other things going on in their swing that justify it. Plus some of those baggy pants are misleading.

To maintain a relatively steady head, while rotating hips and shoulders, the left knee dips toward the ball / ground and right leg naturally straightens a bit. One knee bends more - the other leg straightens a bit.

[mvmac]

Perhaps the first accurate thing you've said, but I suspect you said it for the wrong reasons.

[mvmac]

Check out these right knees. It's all about turning those shoulder's and hips on their inclined planes.

[Zeph]

I don´t understand what that green line is supposed to mean. Do you honestly believe that´s where his knee is on the backswing?

That video is almost useless in this discussion, since both his legs are pretty much a black blur on the video. Why don't you look at some of the other 40-some pictures or 5-6 videos posted in this thread?

If you could demonstrate how the right hip can turn and raise without the right knee straightening, please do.

[$2 Nassau]

Are people really having trouble with the difference between "straight as an arrow straight" and "straighter than it was at address"? Doesn't give me too much faith in humanity. LOL

If the images above of Palmer, Snead, Nelson, etc showed no straightening in the right leg on the backswing, then we'd basically be looking at their exact address positions. Boy those would be some weird address positions.

[bunkerputt]

You can easily let your right leg straighten without locking it. Heck, you can even hit a golf ball from a locked right leg position at the top, but it just takes a bit more timing and lower body movement at the transition to get you back to a solid impact position. I improved my handicap 10 strokes easy when I threw away the notion that you needed "extreme lower body stability" and "maximum X-factor" and just let my hips turn naturally on my backswing with a slightly straightening right leg.

[Shanks A Million]

The reason why there's no winning? Because you're trying to refute basic geometry and decades of players who straighten or decrease the flex in their back knees on the backswing.

There's no winning against anybody when you're wrong. Longball is clearly, demonstratively, measurably, and completely wrong.

I'll say this in another way. 99% of good players straighten their right leg, the other 1% are left handed.

[bunkerputt]

Wow. Re-read the thread. I can only assume Longball meant "If Hogan had swingvision and V1 academy"... otherwise that would be a pretty ridiculous post. Either that, or a pretty impressive camera-slash-time-travel-uploading device.

[goodguy96]

on the stack and tilt system is your back leg locked or just slightly bent on the Back swing?

[michaeljames92]

It is supposed to lose flex yes. It shouldn't lock straight, but straighten more than it was at address.