How do you use YOUR arms (vid)

[Smyth]

I watched this video before going out for a round today, and It was a completely different way of hitting. I found the impact much more solid and the swing as a whole a lot more contained, manageable and consistent.

Video:


Feel vs Real here. What I'd usually do (plan view):


How do the rest of you feel on your backswing? taking it out on a line? Lifting it upwards via a bend and a turn? Other?

[uttexas]

This guy is 100% correct. The arms should be relatively passive in the backswing (as far as swinging)---not what I perceived the first time I saw the golf swing on TV. The backswing is shoulder turn and wrist hinge/wrist cock, not an active swinging of the arms.

[iacas]

I must say that I don't particularly like either of the feel or real pictures. The first "real" one is the closest to what I'd prefer to see...

I think that the hands, club shaft, and clubhead (and "arms" too) should begin swinging on their arc immediately and remain on the arc as much as possible. Even if you're a two-plane swinger you have an arc, and that arc in three dimensions is inward (from in front of the golfer to behind the golfer), upward (away from the ground), and backward (away from the target). Any attempts of feelings to get the hands, shaft, clubhead, etc. off the plane is wasted energy.

Kenny Perry and Fred Couples get away with being off-plane, frankly, because they have a noticeable pause at the top. Jim Furyk too (a bit - very few people would want his impact position). They spend extra effort during the relatively unimportant part of the backswing, but end up on plane, pause so there's no residual off-plane movement (or resistance to such movement), and then swing down on a fairly straight plane line.

[Smyth]

This guy is 100% correct. The arms should be relatively passive in the backswing (as far as swinging)---not what I perceived the first time I saw the golf swing on TV. The backswing is shoulder turn and wrist hinge/wrist cock, not an active swinging of the arms.

Exactly the feeling I'm getting in my swing now. Shoulder turn initiates, hands lift up and wrists cock. shoulder turn again, wrists release. Before my main feeling was clubhead along the ground via the arms, leaving the shoulders passive. Pretty much a golfing revelation for me. Watching any of the pros I'd never be able to emulate how they seemed to take the club completely perpendicular to the ground.

[B-Con]

Someone posted a similar (exact?) video to this a while ago. I liked it and started practicing it. I liked the results, but I encountered a problem: I can't coordinate a simple arm "lift" with a flat wrist. Once I started trying to flatten my left wrist at impact, I had to pull my arm across my chest to get the desired offset. So now I lift and pull it in, which is what the instructor in the video is saying many people naively do.

So, I don't see how to combine an arm lift, flat wrist, and a chest rotated past the ball at impact. Insight would be appreciated.

[alo1984]

I'm not feeling this one. To each his own.

Once I started trying to flatten my left wrist at impact, I had to pull my arm across my chest to get the desired offset. So now I lift and pull it in, which is what the instructor in the video is saying many people naively do.

What do you mean by offset? And you should be feeling as though you are pulling your arm across your chest.