"Swing Machine Golf" by Paul Wilson

[Vinsk]

‘Effortless’ is simply a poor choice of word for the golf swing. It’s not nitpicking, it’s simply not an accurate description of what is taking place. Hell, Paul is even out of breath when he finishes to go over his numbers. A golfer who swings his driver 89mph is not going to achieve 110mph by swinging with less effort. Smarter effort, I.e. better synchronization of arms and lower body, but it isn’t effortless. Now if Paul means ‘effortlessly’ in that he just does the swing without any thoughts at all and it comes natural to him, fine. But again, achieving that action is very difficult to teach if you just say what it feels like to you.

[James_Albatross]

Iacas, forgive me if I’m being naive - I am not a pro, nor do I have a good handicap (yet!), just trying to understand the swing well, before I spend too many months practicing the wrong thing :).  I have a science background so like to get things right first time. 'The arms are responsible for a significant portion of the clubhead's speed’ just doesn’t seem right to me at the moment, but you can probably tell me where I’m wrong.

It might just be a difference in what we call arms(!).  Arms are connected to the shoulders, and the shoulders connected to the hips, so any hip movement moves the shoulders and the arms, and any muscular shoulder movement (e.g. biceps / traps and the like) moves just the arms.  By saying the arms are responsible for the clubhead speed I’m thinking you mean power coming from these chest and back muscles - where as for me it feels that the arms are doing very little work, other than keeping the arm/chest angle rigid during the initial aceleration. 

So to me it feels like the arms are pulling the club, only by virtue of being attached to the hips, which are generating the speed.  It also seems like really the arms can only pull the hands unit (and club) say 20 degrees, whereas the hip goes through a full 80 degree rotation (-4 at the back +40 at impact).

I’ve seen  couple of scientific papers modelling the swing, with the club speed generated as a combination of a rapid acceleration of the hands unit with the club cocked from the top of the backswing, followed by a controlled deceleration near the area of impact (i.e. release) which causes the club to swing through by centripetal force (i.e. keeping the club from flying out your hands).   What’s more as it’s a double pendelum, fulling releasing your shoulders (i.e. letting your arms swing powerlessly) with the most efficient body turn conceivably imparts even more energy to the club head.

My suggestion (again based on my very limited knowledge of you and golf in general) is that you played golf from a young age, and naturally use your hips to drive the club, and that you have reached a stage of fluidity and accuracy with that movement, whereby to eek every last inch of speed you are powering your arms as well, thus feeling it more in your arms as the arms are naturally considerably weaker than the legs.  My guess is that if you hit it 300 full pelt, you can hit it 250 at least without arms.  If that's the case then to me it would suggest the majority of power doesn't come from the arms rather the 'majority of extra power on top of a fast hip rotation'.  Is that right? 

I came from a place where I was really not getting in a shoulder rotation (i.e. from the hips and waist) and therefore generating club speed with just the shoulder muscles (i.e. the arms) and unrotating my upper body.  Thus for me switching off the arms almost completely, has caused me to really feel the turn of the hips as a driving power.  I imagine as I grow comfortable with that movement in order to hit big I will be able to use more arm muscles to get those extra few yards.

I appreciate the chance to discuss this with people with far more experience than me, and hope to come out from this with a better understanding of what I should be training in my golf swing!

Vinsk I agree totally with you that the swing is not effortless, perhaps Paul means effortless in the arms (ie. biceps/traps).  Which feels effortless to me in comparison to what I have done before.  It’s like when people say you should hold the club lightly, but really you have to grip it very tightly during the release - or it will fly off.  Its more to avoid unnecessary tension in the wrists etc.
 

[dennyjones]

There is a video somewhere on the forum, I can't find it currently but Dave and Erik are sitting on a chair hitting golf balls to show that most of the swing speed come from the arms.  

[James_Albatross]

Is it this video? 

Summary: Normal swing round about 108mph, seated swing about 77 mph.  This leads to their conclusion that the swing is roughly 80% arms.  

This is not quite logically correct though, it's not comparing like with like.  It's kind of suggesting if you kept your arms completely loose and just used your body you would only swing the club 31 mph.  Arm action and body rotation are limited in that they are forces on the same plane.  

What they didnt do was a test to see how far they can hit the ball using only 'ground' - if such a thing is possible.  Perhaps they could compare a shot where they keep both arms fully extended, i.e. no bent arms on backswing, yet still wrist cock?  I reckon I could easily hit a ball way further using only ground rather than using only arms.

The majority of the golf swing speed is caused by the whipping action, which will be high no matter if you use arms or legs predominantly.

 

[iacas]

James, before we get into this, I've got two degrees in the sciences and know my way around.

That said, two things are still relevant:

• Golf is not the place, when speaking to general audiences, for formulas, math, etc. It's often much better to simplify and give the results and not the rest.
• This is a topic about a book espousing a swing theory, and this is - AFAIK - a small part of that. I haven't read the books, and I try not to post too much in what I view as "someone else's topic" much. So I'll try to be brief here (though my "brief" is longer than other people's "brief" ).

That said…

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

‘The arms are responsible for a significant portion of the clubhead's speed.’

@dennyjones got it:

46 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

There is a video somewhere on the forum, I can't find it currently but Dave and Erik are sitting on a chair hitting golf balls to show that most of the swing speed come from the arms.  

The video, which as I was typing this response up you found, demonstrates that without moving the hips or even turning the torso much at all, Dave was able to achieve about 75% of the swing speed just by moving his arms.

Now, before I get into this too far, two things:

First, yes, "moving his arms" involved some muscles in the shoulder, chest, and back.

Second, the swing still "uses the ground" but the GRF that people were talking about quite heavily at the time were the vertical GRF. This video demonstrates how little vertical GRF contribute.

A third, bonus thing: we filmed several swings using the high-end system at Penn State with Dr. Mike Duffy some years ago, and we conducted a number of further tests that further removed even the shear or horizontal ground forces (though nobody's ever really debated swinging on a slick sheet of ice). But at any rate, we got further data and numbers from that which helped both of us.

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

It might just be a difference in what we call arms(!).  Arms are connected to the shoulders, and the shoulders connected to the hips, so any hip movement moves the shoulders and the arms, and any muscular shoulder movement (e.g. biceps / traps and the like) moves just the arms.

No, I'm not talking about the "hips move the arms." If that was the case I could make the assertion that the left knee is responsible for 90% of the swing speed or something like that. The point of our tests was to essentially isolate parts.

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

By saying the arms are responsible for the clubhead speed I’m thinking you mean power coming from these chest and back muscles - where as for me it feels that the arms are doing very little work, other than keeping the arm/chest angle rigid during the initial aceleration.

No, I mean the arms mostly, with a little bit (moving the arms) across the chest. But a lot of the arm motion is due to the triceps, biceps, and the muscles that control your wrists, your elbow bend.

What Dave and I are saying (have said) is that if you could freeze every part of the body and the golfer could ONLY move the arms (from the shoulders down), that movement creates a significant portion of the clubhead speed.

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

By saying the arms are responsible for the clubhead speed I’m thinking you mean power coming from these chest and back muscles - where as for me it feels that the arms are doing very little work, other than keeping the arm/chest angle rigid during the initial aceleration.

I'm not at all interested in "feels." I'm interested in what actually happens.

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

So to me it feels like the arms are pulling the club, only by virtue of being attached to the hips, which are generating the speed.  It also seems like really the arms can only pull the hands unit (and club) say 20 degrees, whereas the hip goes through a full 80 degree rotation (-4 at the back +40 at impact).

The hips move pretty slowly, and they also peak in their speed around impact. Rory's swing can even be shown to be stalled or moving backward at impact during some of his swings.

And conservation of angular momentum doesn't really apply, because the body is not a closed system - we have muscles that can continue to add energy to the system.

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

My suggestion (again based on my very limited knowledge of you and golf in general) is that you played golf from a young age, and naturally use your hips to drive the club, and that you have reached a stage of fluidity and accuracy with that movement, whereby to eek every last inch of speed you are powering your arms as well, thus feeling it more in your arms as the arms are naturally considerably weaker than the legs.

No.

I started playing golf much later than a lot of people, and when I started has little relevance to the thousands of hours I've spent studying the golf swing so that I can understand it and ultimately teach it to the best of my ability.

But also, "no," I'm not adding a tiny bit of arm movement to "eke out" every last inch (??) of speed.

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

My guess is that if you hit it 300 full pelt, you can hit it 250 at least without arms.

Not even close. The opposite is closer to true.

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

I came from a place where I was really not getting in a shoulder rotation (i.e. from the hips and waist) and therefore generating club speed with just the shoulder muscles (i.e. the arms) and unrotating my upper body.  Thus for me switching off the arms almost completely, has caused me to really feel the turn of the hips as a driving power.  I imagine as I grow comfortable with that movement in order to hit big I will be able to use more arm muscles to get those extra few yards.

I'm not interested in discussing feels. Some feels will work with some golfers. Sometimes the opposite feel is what a golfer needs. Feel ain't real. I'm interested in what's real.

4 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

Vinsk I agree totally with you that the swing is not effortless, perhaps Paul means effortless in the arms (ie. biceps/traps).

If that's what he means, he's wrong: those muscles fire in all good golf swings, whether the golfer "feels" it or not.

3 minutes ago, James_Albatross said:

Is it this video? 

 

Yep.

3 minutes ago, James_Albatross said:

Summary: Normal swing round about 108mph, seated swing about 77 mph.  This leads to their conclusion that the swing is roughly 80% arms.

Accurate enough, though again, the video wasn't built to talk about this, but vertical GRF.

3 minutes ago, James_Albatross said:

What they didnt do was a test to see how far they can hit the ball using only 'ground' - if such a thing is possible.

It's not, because the ground is inert, and only "acts" by being acted upon.

3 minutes ago, James_Albatross said:

Perhaps they could compare a shot where they keep both arms fully extended, i.e. no bent arms on backswing, yet still wrist cock?

That's still using "the arms." The wrists are part of the arms by the definition we've established - the shoulders downward (or outward) and the motion relative to the rest of the body.

3 minutes ago, James_Albatross said:

The majority of the golf swing speed is caused by the whipping action, which will be high no matter if you use arms or legs predominantly.

Though you're being vague with "high," I disagree.

Every good golf swing uses the arms, and they are NOT just passive like ropes or poles attaching the shoulders to the clubhead.

The arms, among other things:

• The lead arm moves across your chest and back.
• The trail arm bends at the elbow.
• Both arms rotate slightly.
• Both wrists hinge/cock/flex/extend.

That's the source of a lot of power - the motion of the arms.

Not much hip movement there. No -40° to +40°. Very, very little torso turn there (what you see is exaggerated by the retraction/rounding of the trail/lead shoulders).

What you do see there are the bullet points listed above.

---

The main point remains the same: the arms are actively firing, the muscles are causing motion, and it's anything but "effortless." The arms contribute a significant amount of clubhead speed.

[James_Albatross]

Thanks for the reply, it's prompted an interesting half an hour looking closely at arms in golf swings!

Quote

The arms, among other things:
The lead arm moves across your chest and back.
The trail arm bends at the elbow.
Both arms rotate slightly.
Both wrists hinge/cock/flex/extend.

I agree with all of these things, but none of these necessarily require power being generated in the arms.  I've noticed that at impact the lead arm is still largely across the chest, meaning it hasn't moved much...

Quote

No, I'm not talking about the "hips move the arms." If that was the case I could make the assertion that the left knee is responsible for 90% of the swing speed or something like that. The point of our tests was to essentially isolate parts.

Your test doesn’t isolate the parts, because the parts can’t be isolated in such a simplistic way.  You don’t do that big arm swing in a normal golf shot, it would not be controllable.  If you look at a nice swing e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o1SYXaOHE at the top of the backswing there is about a 30 degree angle of the left arm to the chest, and then at impact, the angle is only slightly greater, say 35 or 40 if being generous.  Tiger’s arms have rotated his hands and the club 5 or 10 degrees whilst his body has rotated it like 120 degrees.  It looks like his hips rotated about 90 degrees, his shoulders about 30 or 40 (relative to hips), and the rest his arms.  His arms don’t get back to neutral until he’s abåout the 4 oclock position after impact. 

I’m not even a good golfer let alone an instructor, and this seems obvious to me.  Thankfully nearly every other instruction I’ve recieved hints towards using the body.  @pwgolfpro has explained it best.  

Look at John Daly’s arm position at impact: https://www.golfchannel.com/video/best-lessons-ever-dalys-power-secrets/
He has hardly moved his arms at all relative to his chest at all at impact!!!

Quote

What Dave and I are saying (have said) is that if you could freeze every part of the body and the golfer could ONLY move the arms (from the shoulders down), that movement creates a significant portion of the clubhead speed.

I now think you’re just plain wrong about this - I wasn’t sure for a bit but the videos of Tiger’s and Daly's swings show the complete opposite.  I think if you freeze your arms and use the rest of your body you will generate more club speed, than the other way round provided the wrists can cock and hinge. 

Set up at impact position, and hold your arms steady, then do a back swing allowing wrist to cock and everything, but no arm movement relative to your chest.  You will hit the ball miles in comparison to just the arms. 

Quote

The wrists are part of the arms by the definition.

Erm... I disagree, but even if we include wrists, you don’t use your wrist muscle strength to drive the golf club, only to cock the club on the backswing.  Ben Hogan writes that the hands and wrists must release through contact

Quote

The main point remains the same: the arms are actively firing, the muscles are causing motion, and it's anything but "effortless." The arms contribute a significant amount of clubhead speed.

I agree with this, but to me it still seems more plausible that the turn contributes more to clubhead speed, as well as plausible that actively relaxing your arms, could increase clubhead speed for people who are using their arms too much.

Edit: Here is John Daly himself:

 

Quote

http://www.espn.co.uk/golf/news/story?id=3211043

It's simple, really. The power in any golf swing comes from turning your body -- first back, then forward, as you swing the clubhead through the ball. Don't believe me? Try standing stock-still, not turning your body, and swinging the club just using your arms.

See what I mean?

Watch your favorite guy on the Tour -- Tiger, Phil, Ernie, Vijay, me, anybody -- and forget about his arms and hands and head when he makes a golf swing. Just focus on his belt buckle.

Edited April 11, 2018 by James_Albatross

[iacas]

8 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

I agree with all of these things, but none of these necessarily require power being generated in the arms.  I've noticed that at impact the lead arm is still largely across the chest, meaning it hasn't moved much...

???

Dude, I was tempted to just stop you right there, and suggest that you still have a LOT of work to do in understanding this stuff.

All of those things generate power in the golf swing.

My responses from here on out, however, are going to be very short, as with all things in life, time is short, and I'd rather spend it watching the Pens game or something than discussing things with someone who thinks this is at all accurate:

8 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

If you look at a nice swing e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o1SYXaOHE at the top of the backswing there is about a 30 degree angle of the left arm to the chest, and then at impact, the angle is only slightly greater, say 35 or 40 if being generous.

No.

8 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

Tiger’s arms have rotated his hands and the club 5 or 10 degrees whilst his body has rotated it like 120 degrees.  It looks like his hips rotated about 90 degrees, his shoulders about 30 or 40 (relative to hips), and the rest his arms.  His arms don’t get back to neutral until he’s about the 4 oclock position after impact.

Those numbers are atrocious. 90° with the hips? 5° with the arms? C'mon.

8 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

I’m not even a good golfer let alone an instructor, and this seems obvious to me.

I am both of those things, and I'm telling you that your numbers are really off base.

And, you know, I've got a bunch of data which shows that you're really, really far off base with that stuff. But hey, it's obvious, so…

8 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

Thankfully nearly every other instruction I’ve recieved hints towards using the body.

I've never said the body isn't used. Duh. Of course it is. But the arms generate a significant amount of the power and speed in every good golf swing.

8 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

Set up at impact position, and hold your arms steady, then do a back swing allowing wrist to cock and everything, but no arm movement relative to your chest.

No you won't.

Try it. In addition to feeling really stupid, you're going to realize how slowly you swing. Go for it. Share the video here.

And no, you don't get to allow your wrists to cock/hinge. They're included in my definition of "arms" (everything from the shoulder down). Never mind that hinging the club makes it likely that your trail elbow will bend.

8 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

I now think you’re just plain wrong about this

Okay, dude. Good luck with that.

P.S. I don't care what John Daly thinks happens in the golf swing. I'm interested in what actually does happen in the golf swing. Keep your mind open.

[James_Albatross]

Ok fair enough lets stop here - I'm gonna listen to John Daly on this one though - seeing his arm barely move, has convinced me - as have the 10 other articles on not using your arms I've read. 

Quote

All of those things generate power in the golf swing.

That's not what I said - I said none of those things require power in the arms. Wrist hinging doesn't require significant arm power.  And cocking your wrists isn't included in the definition of what most people mean by 'using your arms' that would be insane.

Quote

Those numbers are atrocious. 90° with the hips? 5° with the arms? C'mon.

I didn't spend a long time on measurements but check here out, the average pro rotates the hips 87 degrees so i wasn't far off at all 

https://support.zepp.com/customer/portal/articles/1484746-hip-rotation?b_id=3209

 

Quote

the arms generate a significant amount of the power and speed in every good golf swing.

John Daly says no, Paul Wilson says no, other instructors say no.  No doubt they do in some good golf swings but not all.  My mind is still open, but the one piece of evidence saying otherwise (your vid) is clearly not a fair test without the opposite scenario being tested.  I don't have a swing radar so my vid would be pointless.  Also your original statement I was debating was about the arms generating most power - I didn't actually disagree at first with the above statement, now I do!

[iacas]

6 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

Ok fair enough lets stop here - I'm gonna listen to John Daly on this one though - seeing his arm barely move, has convinced me - as have the 10 other articles on not using your arms I've read. 

That's not what I said - I said none of those things require power in the arms. Wrist hinging doesn't require significant arm power.  And cocking your wrists isn't included in the definition of what most people mean by 'using your arms' that would be insane.

I didn't spend a long time on measurements but check here out, the average pro rotates the hips 87 degrees so i wasn't far off at all 

https://support.zepp.com/customer/portal/articles/1484746-hip-rotation?b_id=3209

John Daly says no, Paul Wilson says no, other instructors say no.  No doubt they do in some good golf swings but not all.  My mind is still open, but the one piece of evidence saying otherwise (your vid) is clearly not a fair test without the opposite scenario being tested.  I don't have a swing radar so my vid would be pointless.  Also your original statement I was debating was about the arms generating most power - I didn't actually disagree at first with the above statement, now I do!

What a ridiculously idiotic post. No scientist accepts "what people say" as proof at all.

There have been multiple perfectly scientific studies that demonstrate how much the muscles that move the arms (beyond the rotation of the hips/torso). But you don't want to accept that. You don't want to accept that I know what I'm talking about, and have spent thousands of hours studying this stuff. You don't want to accept that no reasonably scientific person thinks the arms don't do much in the swing, and that it's just a result of whipping from the motion of the hips. You don't want to accept that the double pendulum model is a simple model that doesn't really care about the means of moving the lead arm (the upper "stick" in the pendulum). And you're clearly very, very new to golf if you think that relying on a golfer's "feel" is at all valid.

Nobody's said that the hips don't turn. But the hips are also slowing down well before impact, too, because the next link in the kinematic sequence is using the previous link as a platform against which to act. When the torso slows down… it's because the muscles that move the arms are firing.

Your swing speed would be quite a bit slower if you just swung without moving your arms - moving your lead arm across your chest and upward, bending your trail elbow, etc. I may even be sufficiently amused to make a video demonstrating this.

[boogielicious]

6 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

Ok fair enough lets stop here - I'm gonna listen to John Daly on this one though - seeing his arm barely move, has convinced me - as have the 10 other articles on not using your arms I've read. 

That's not what I said - I said none of those things require power in the arms. Wrist hinging doesn't require significant arm power.  And cocking your wrists isn't included in the definition of what most people mean by 'using your arms' that would be insane.

I didn't spend a long time on measurements but check here out, the average pro rotates the hips 87 degrees so i wasn't far off at all 

https://support.zepp.com/customer/portal/articles/1484746-hip-rotation?b_id=3209

 

John Daly says no, Paul Wilson says no, other instructors say no.  No doubt they do in some good golf swings but not all.  My mind is still open, but the one piece of evidence saying otherwise (your vid) is clearly not a fair test without the opposite scenario being tested.  I don't have a swing radar so my vid would be pointless.  Also your original statement I was debating was about the arms generating most power - I didn't actually disagree at first with the above statement, now I do!

Show your instructors this and ask them how he does it without his body doing that much.

 

[Phil McGleno]

Ha-I admit that I am a follower of @iacas on this site-I literally clicked the FOLLOW button on his profile and I see where he posts as a notification. When they are swing related I like to see what is being said.

6 hours ago, James_Albatross said:

Ok fair enough lets stop here - I'm gonna listen to John Daly on this one though - seeing his arm barely move, has convinced me - as have the 10 other articles on not using your arms I've read.

Buddy what on gods green earth are you talking about here?

You are telling me that John Daly does not move his arms barely at all from here:

to here:

How in the hell did his arms get so high? They are above his belt and all he has done is turn back-SO what made his arms lift up above his head?

Son you are well out of your depths here-As is Paul Wilson suggesting that the arms do no effort in the golf swing.

Good post @boogielicious.

[James_Albatross]

@iacas you were saying 'the main source of power is the arms' - that is what I disputed.  Show me the studies - you keep mentioning these, I keep scanning your post and not seeing them.  I always forget's no fun arguing with people who have no option of admitting they're wrong or trying to find a halfway ground - it's too much like my real job.  Obviously you can't back down as it looks like you're in the business of telling people to use their arms more - well I'm not buying.  You mocked me for saying Tiger's hips rotate 90 degrees, from backswing to impact - pro golfers average hip turn from backswing to impact is 87 degrees.  You mocked me for pointing out something as clear as day to me - I nearly fell off my seat when I discovered that link .

You've shown me one video - and nothing else to convince me otherwise.  What would it take to convince you otherwise? Who's authority or what test would you concede to - would love love love to put some money on this - to scientifically prove that the arms don't generate the most power, I'd put anything you like on it  - I am certain .  Would have to be 3rd party.

@boogielicious Dude is twisting his body right round - sure he's using his arms too here.  But the body is going right round - look at the shoulders.  Besides I wasn't saying that arms aren't used, I was saying that they are not 'the main source of power'.  I think in some swings they are used very little, in others more so, but definitely not 'the main source of power' which is what @iacas was saying.  It's really not a controversial statement at all.

@Phil McGleno Of course you use the arms in the backswing.  But look in my Daly link, at the angle of arms from the top of the backswing down to impact.  That is where power needs to be generated, and that is where I see virtually no arm significant movement - his arm stays tucked against his chest.

 

[nevets88]

46 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Show your instructors this and ask them how he does it without his body doing that much.

 

Also this:

 

[James_Albatross]

To save you the hassle here is what I mean.  John Dalys top of back swing, shoulders at 90 to his stance, upper left arm tucked to his chest, lower left arm at 20/30 degrees

John Dalys impact, upper left arm still against chest, look at the angle of his shoulders.  His lower left arm has extended.

So from backswing to imapct:

Hips: 50 degrees? Not much rotation as other John's swings I've seen.

SHoulders: 85+? Rough and ready estimates.

Arms: 30? Being generous here.

My whole point here is that the arms (ie. shoulder joint and elbow joint) are contributing very little to the angular distance travelled by the hands and club, compare to the hips and shoulders (i.e. legs and body coil). Body total 135, Arms total 30.

I'm spelling it out here. Keeping your lower body still and making a full swing with just your arms is not a fair test, as it's not like with like.  The arms only swing is adding more arm movement to the swing than is there in a normal good swing @nevets88.  In a normal swing the arm movement isn't there.

The majority of the rotation and power is from the body.  I don't dispute the possibility / probability that using your arms will generate more power in total - I just dispute that the arms are the main source. The above is just one argument, I have two others, one with regards to the amount of power which can be generated with legs vs arms, which I probably don't need to over explain...

 

Edited April 12, 2018 by James_Albatross
losing my mind a bit

[iacas]

@James_Albatross, I'm going to save you a whole heck of a lot of time.

I don't believe I've ever said that the arms contribute the majority of the clubhead speed. The video you found was for an entirely different purpose - one which proved our hypothesis correct in how much speed vertical GRF adds to the golf swing - and not for this purpose.

The entire point of my discussion here re: Paul's theory that the arms are "passive" or "effortless" in the downswing is that he's both incorrect and teaching a "feeling" only. The arms are not passive. They expend effort. In every great golf swing, ever.

I did misread your 90° hips thing. For that I apologize. I missed when you switched over to "at impact" and read it as the hips have rotated 90° to the top of the backswing. That said, your 5° lead arm number is still pretty inaccurate:

2D is not a great way to look at these things, @James_Albatross. We live in a 3D world.

This golfer (below) went from barely making my starting squad to being the #1 player for a time and finishing second at our conference championship. Here is his swing from the first time I was able to work with him.

He needed to move his arms faster. He needed to do "more" with his arms.

I believe I've said that the arms generate a significant portion of the clubhead's speed, or contribute significantly, as the entire premise of Paul Wilson's swing theory seems to be that the arms are "effortless" or "passive."

They are not. Not in any great golf swing, ever.

---

Now, you can get snotty - and I'll readily admit to not doing a damn thing to cool the temperature at all - from here, continue to argue something I don't believe I've said, or now to throw in that you're not talking about what the arms do in the backswing, and that the wrists (though controlled by muscles in the forearm) don't count… but I'm not interested.

I've said what I want to say: that the arms are not "passive." They're not "effortless." That there is more to even the downswing than just uncoiling your body and letting your arms get dragged along.

P.S. The Dennis Sales video is a good one. Dennis, a buddy of mine, worked for a number of years with Jon Sinclair (still in the photo on Jon's main page), and Jon's done a LOT of study with GEARs and other 3D and biomechanics stuff. Dennis isn't just demonstrating that because it's a cool carnival trick. The arms are not passive, nor are they "effortlessly" just dragged along behind a rotating body.

[Otis2014]

I posted early in this thread and am returning due to this fascinating discussion over the definition of "effortless."

As someone who has watched every Paul Wilson video produced over the past three years and has had 3-4 in person lessons with Mr. Wilson in Las Vegas I can confirm this - the more I use my arms in the swing the worse the result. When I'm hitting the ball well my arms are not even part of my thought process.

There are plenty of great players and teachers who will and can nitpick the heck out of Wilson's teachings but three years ago I was a 52-year old recreational golfer with a 25 handicap who was worn out after every round and close to giving up the game. Today at 55 I'm a 10 and hit the ball 20-30 yards further than my 30- and 40-year old friends and playing partners with very, very little effort.

All I'm saying is there are merits to Paul Wilson's philosophy. Those who have tried it have far more credibility on the subject that a bunch of video watchers.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Otis2014

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, Otis2014 said:

As someone who has watched every Paul Wilson video produced over the past three years and has had 3-4 in person lessons with Mr. Wilson in Las Vegas I can confirm this - the more I use my arms in the swing the worse the result.

I'm not interested in discussing what things "feel like" in the golf swing. I'm interested in what's actually happening.

You're probably "feeling" the arms "doing" stuff when your body stalls and you throw the clubhead at the ball. That's not the recipe for a good swing, I'd agree.

4 minutes ago, Otis2014 said:

When I'm hitting the ball well my arms are not even part of my thought process.

When I'm hitting the ball well the arms are often the ONLY thing I'm thinking about.

And another student of mine would tell you that when he's hitting the ball well, he's just thinking about getting his left pocket on the wall. And another student would tell you that he feels his hands shift out at the top of the backswing rather than falling behind him. And another will tell you that when he focuses on what his right ankle is doing, he plays his best.

4 minutes ago, Otis2014 said:

There are plenty of great players and teachers who will and can nitpick the heck out of Wilson's teachings but three years ago I was a 52-year old recreational golfer with a 25 handicap who was worn out after every round and close to giving up the game. Today at 55 I'm a 10 and hit the ball 20-30 yards further than my 30- and 40-year old friends and playing partners with very, very little effort.

The last part is a lie, the bold part.

I'm not saying that to be a jerk, but you cannot move the clubhead very fast with "very little effort." Very little effort is used to make a three-foot putt. Or even a 20-foot putt. Or hit a chip shot.

The driver requires a tremendous amount of effort, from a bunch of different muscles in the body.

I'm not interested in discussing feels. I'm glad that, for you, it FEELS like it's effortless. It's not.

I'm glad you've had success, btw. None of this takes anything away from that. Everyone is a feel player, in the end, but not everyone's in need of the same feels, and I generally dislike teaching "feels" to the mass market, because of those differences. Tell my golfer from above to use his arms less or be more "effortless" and he's gonna score himself right off the team.

[James_Albatross]

@iacas you've edited your posts bro - I saved the conversation - you said:

Quote

What Dave and I are saying (have said) is that if you could freeze every part of the body and the golfer could ONLY move the arms (from the shoulders down), that movement creates the majority of the clubhead speed.

Look - I'm all done here because essentially we agree exactly the same thing now - that arms do not generate the majority of the clubhead speed.

I was getting ready for it to be deleted just in case - so I could post it over at golfwrx - but didn't think hey he's the moderator he can just edit what he and I are saying!  Peace bro at least we now agree.

@Otis2014 I agree it feels effortless when I do my 80% swing. It's great!