Driving tips Vids

[B-Con]

Yeah this makes no sense... any forward tilt takes loft off as well as hitting on the down swing. How could you then take a 9 degree face tilt it and put it on the down swing (which should decrease it to like 7 or 8) and then go to 12 degrees?

Maybe you are talking about the shaft bending, but that would only add loft if you slowed down through impact which shouldn't be the case.

Did you read my answer? [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cyWGHfudzs]See here[/url] for a much fuller explanation.

[jesup]

Since we are talking about driving, hitting the ball on the upswing with the driver is correct.  The driver (particularly the newer ones) was actually designed to make contact with the ball on the upswing.  This is a general rule taught by most all professional swing instructors.

Keeping your weight back is more of thought during the second half of the backswing and the first half of the downswing.  You should always start at address with your weight evenly distributed.  A lot of players tend to begin their swing by shifting their weight ever so slightly towards the backswing before taking the club back.  I posted my thoughts about this a few days ago, check it out for more details.

While it is fundamentally flawed to literally keep your weight back throughout your swing, it is a good mental note to help prevent the upper body from getting ahead of the lower body.  Another benefit from this mindset is that it also prevents casting (coming down on a plane outside of your swing's natural plane that usually causes a slice, or a dead pull-hook if your hands turn over).

"Keeping your weight back" also goes hand-in-hand with hitting the driver on the upswing.  It just makes sense.

But be careful - your swing should always have a back to forward weight shift, no matter the club selection.  The reason why the descending blow is more prominent as the clubs get shorter is because of [fundamentally correct] ball placement coupled with the design of the club.   Most of the power comes from the weight shift and pivot in the forward knee (the knee closest to your target).  Make a complete, smooth, clockwork-like weight shift.  Drive through the ball with the lower body, the upper body acting as an instrument or extension of the lower body.  This holds true with every golf swing and with every club, but it is emphasized even more with the driver.

To answer your 3 later questions:

1.  Can you clear up on this? What do you mean 'fix the open shoulder?'  You say you fix this by compensating somewhere else in your swing.  Sometimes it's best to not "fix" a problem by mechanically changing your default setup or swing mechanics.  For example, the classic mistake of aiming further right to prevent a hook (for a right-hander).  Minor adjustments that fix timing tend to yield better results.

2.  Answered earlier in this post

3.  The address depends on the golfer, not what any particular person does.  Do we address our clubhead 1/8" behind the ball or 1/2" behind the ball?  You see the discrepancy.

Do what is most comfortable for you, and what ultimately compliments your swing.  Since you are redeveloping your swing, try different club placements.  To start, I wouldn't recommend placing the clubhead more than one inch behind the ball.  At setup, our muscle memory is triggered, and we ingrain a short term feeling of where the ball is at.  This greatly helps ball striking.

Originally Posted by Sai-Jin

Well, I needed to be clearer... ever since I got a new driver 1 month ago, I can't hit the club and I ended up losing all confidence and my swing...

I don't have a slice problem, rather an address problem with the driver all of a sudden.

So those vids are mainly for the "address". I see some people have a back tilt and some don't.

I for one I tilt back, still have 60-40 weight stance front to back when I was swinging my driver 283yds average.

I just got back from the range today and I combined the 2 vids and make it to a medium balance for my preference and it seems to improve my ball flight

and I think I'm starting to get to the point of my old swing.

So the answers I was looking for are:

1. How do the pros fix that open shoulder when they put their club face to the ball? (I fix this by making my right shoulder lower, thus tilting more)

2. Driving the ball... is it up swing? level swing? Down swing? I got so many different replies from people here

and it's driving me insane. Again, "I" up swing the ball.

3. Do we address the ball by putting the clubface next to it? Or is it 4 inches from the ball?

[iacas]

Originally Posted by B-Con

An open clubface is one way -- think of an opened clubface on a wedge for a pitch. S&T; teaches a push-draw, and the push comes from an open clubface. Stand at address, lean the shaft forward, then rotate the clubface a little open. Viola, more loft.

That's one way, yes.

Originally Posted by jshots

Yeah this makes no sense... any forward tilt takes loft off as well as hitting on the down swing. How could you then take a 9 degree face tilt it and put it on the down swing (which should decrease it to like 7 or 8) and then go to 12 degrees?

Maybe you are talking about the shaft bending, but that would only add loft if you slowed down through impact which shouldn't be the case.

First, shaft bend contributes a LOT more than you think. Second, your hands (and thus the handle of the club) does slow down prior to impact. The better the player, the later this slowing down will tend to occur, but it occurs in every swing. The hands are slowing at impact. The shaft kicks forward.

You drive your hands down to the ball, retain the lag, and the unloading of that "lag" slows the hands down and accelerates the clubhead.

One factor not mentioned: clubface roll. The loft of your driver is not 9.5˚ (or whatever) everywhere on the face. On the bottom it's a bit less and on the top it's a fair amount more.

Originally Posted by jesup

Since we are talking about driving, hitting the ball on the upswing with the driver is correct. The driver (particularly the newer ones) was actually designed to make contact with the ball on the upswing. This is a general rule taught by most all professional swing instructors.

Though I'm inclined to agree that hitting up has its definite advantages, I don't agree that drivers are "designed to make contact with the ball on the upswing." Let's not make things up to support our opinions.

The truth of the matter is that PGA Tour pros, by and large, hit the ball with a very slight downward angle of attack. They get plenty of distance already so the downward angle of attack helps them to control it a bit better (flatter left wrist, hands can stay on the circle/plane a bit better). Some opt for a bit more distance, but the majority of PGA Tour players hit the ball with a negative angle of attack.

Originally Posted by jesup

Keeping your weight back is more of thought during the second half of the backswing and the first half of the downswing.

How do you propose someone "keep their weight back" during the "first half" of something that takes about a tenth of a second?

I teach almost everyone a golf swing with a very centered pivot. Because the ball position is forward of middle of your stance with virtually every club, much of my weight is "behind" the ball, but that's different than saying my weight is "back" which implies that it's on my right side and not my left. So be careful, please, because the weight being "back" leads to slices and pulls (and reduction in the loft on the club).

Originally Posted by jesup

While it is fundamentally flawed to literally keep your weight back throughout your swing, it is a good mental note to help prevent the upper body from getting ahead of the lower body. Another benefit from this mindset is that it also prevents casting (coming down on a plane outside of your swing's natural plane that usually causes a slice, or a dead pull-hook if your hands turn over).

To your second point first: the guy whose weight stays back is, without question, the one who is more likely to cast. The guy who gets his weight too far forward is one of the least likely guys to cast.

Weight moving to your right side (or staying there) in the downswing moves the low point back, and so the golfer feels the need to get the clubhead to the ball quickly before low point moves too far behind the ball.

To your first point, I agree that the upper center getting ahead of the ball is a bad thing, but again, please be careful. All good players create what's called "secondary axis tilt." Secondary axis tilt is basically the angle from vertical of the lower center (middle of the hips) to the upper center (between the shoulders, top of your sternum area). This can be created in one of two ways: pushing the hips forward (good) or tipping the head back (not so good) (or a combination of both).

Secondary axis tilt is necessary to shallow the hit through impact. If we did nothing but move our upper center forward we'd have a very steep angle of attack.

But again, I'm asking you to be careful, because in my experience good players get this secondary axis tilt more by pushing the hips forward. So since their balance sensors are in their ears and their head doesn't get ahead of the golf ball (since it's forward in your stance), good players will tell people "get behind the ball" and stuff, while the poorer player will do this by tipping their head back. And that causes problems.

Sliding the hips in the golf swing is one of the "secrets" to playing better golf. I hate the word "secret" because it's not a secret at all... it's just misunderstood and not applied as often as it should be.

And to be clear, I know you know this stuff. I'm just asking that you be careful with the advice because feel isn't real and good advice can be "heard" differently and applied differently than intended...

[Stretch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

You might think so... but you'd be wrong. You've left out consideration for the fact that the clubhead and shaft aren't in a straight line (among some other little things). It's quite possible to have the handle leaning forward, a driver with 9 degrees of loft, and to strike the ball on the downswing, and yet still get a launch angle of 10 to 12 degrees.

Still worrying away at this bone. Not to dog (haha) you, but because I really want to understand it myself. Now I know you didn't throw out specific numbers, but let's just work with what we've got. A 9 degree lofted driver with a zero degree angle of attack and zero shaft bend contribution will launch at approximately 8 degrees. Let's arbitrarily dock a degree for the forward-leaning handle and another degree for a modest downward AoA. So we're now launching at about 6 degrees, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

First, shaft bend contributes a LOT more than you think. Second, your hands (and thus the handle of the club) does slow down prior to impact. The better the player, the later this slowing down will tend to occur, but it occurs in every swing. The hands are slowing at impact. The shaft kicks forward.

The shaft physically cannot bend forward by an amount greater than the distance that the club's center of gravity is behind the center of the shaft. This distance can obviously be slightly larger in woods than irons, because of the depth of the wood head. But the maximum effect is still a matter of a couple of degrees. Quoting from Wishon's "Common Sense Clubfitting":

Quote:

Since it is very rare for the CG to be more than 25mm back from the shaft, no matter the stiffness design of the shaft or the lateness/aggressiveness of the golfer's wrist cock release, the effect of the Z-axis CG position on the shaft will not add more than about 2.5 degrees to the launch angle of the shot.

So let's say, for symmetry sake, we're getting 2 degrees from the shaft in our hypothetical shot. That brings us back to 8 degrees.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

One factor not mentioned: clubface roll. The loft of your driver is not 9.5˚ (or whatever) everywhere on the face. On the bottom it's a bit less and on the top it's a fair amount more.

This is dependent on both the face height and the roll radius of the particular club, but Wishon cites 50mm and 12 degrees as relatively typical for 460cc drivers. A club with those specifications will have a loft 3 degrees higher at the top of the face and 3 degrees lower at the bottom than it will in the exact center. Again, let's add 2 degrees for a slightly-high-on-the-face hit. We're up to a 10 degree launch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by B-Con

An open clubface is one way -- think of an opened clubface on a wedge for a pitch. S&T; teaches a push-draw, and the push comes from an open clubface. Stand at address, lean the shaft forward, then rotate the clubface a little open. Viola, more loft.

You're obviously right, but I'm not sure what the exact relationship is. Meh, I'm just going to assume it's 1:1. Maltby seems to suggest that's the case. A nice push draw would be about 2 degrees open I guess, so let's add 2 more degrees to our launch angle. And we're up to 12 degrees!

I therefore conclude, mostly unscientifically but to my own satisfaction, that Erik is right in stating that you can hit down on a 9 degree driver, with your hands in front, and still launch at 10 - 12 degrees. Not sure it's going to happen much in practice, but that's another argument.

[iacas]

-

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stretch

The shaft physically cannot bend forward by an amount greater than the distance that the club's center of gravity is behind the center of the shaft. This distance can obviously be slightly larger in woods than irons, because of the depth of the wood head. But the maximum effect is still a matter of a couple of degrees. Quoting from Wishon's "Common Sense Clubfitting":

Quote:

Since it is very rare for the CG to be more than 25mm back from the shaft, no matter the stiffness design of the shaft or the lateness/aggressiveness of the golfer's wrist cock release, the effect of the Z-axis CG position on the shaft will not add more than about 2.5 degrees to the launch angle of the shot.

So let's say, for symmetry sake, we're getting 2 degrees from the shaft in our hypothetical shot. That brings us back to 8 degrees.

You're wrong about the shaft not being able to physically bend farther than getting the CG inline with the shaft. The CG starts behind the shaft axis, is "loaded" to be even farther behind it as the hands accelerate, and when the hands slow down, UNLOADS. It's quite possible for that unloading to go forward.

I also think you're quite likely correct when talking about shaft droop - it won't go past CG inline with shaft axis (in real-life situations - it could probably be made to if you went from 0 to a bajillion radians per second really quickly) - but I don't think that's true about it in the direction that affects loft.

But in mentioning CG you're mentioning another factor that can change launch angle.

Consider the fact that you can have two irons with the same static measurements (head weight, shaft, loft, lie, etc). and the same impact alignments (shaft lean, shaft kick, dynamic loft, etc.) but the one with the lower CG will launch the ball higher.

CG placement plays a large role in the launch angle of the drivers as well.

I'm not a clubfitter or a golf club engineer, but that's how I understand it...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stretch

This is dependent on both the face height and the roll radius of the particular club, but Wishon cites 50mm and 12 degrees as relatively typical for 460cc drivers. A club with those specifications will have a loft 3 degrees higher at the top of the face and 3 degrees lower at the bottom than it will in the exact center. Again, let's add 2 degrees for a slightly-high-on-the-face hit. We're up to a 10 degree launch.

You're also assuming that a driver stamped "9" is actually 9... or that the measurement is taken in the middle of the face. If you're building golf equipment for average golfers, which way would you err - on secretly adding more loft or less loft? :-)

That's a bit off-topic, particularly with PGA Tour player launch conditions and equipment, but relates to the average player's game.

[jshots]

0:33

=-O

[iacas]

Originally Posted by jshots

0:33

Camera illusion. Most DSLRs and most film cameras have a rolling shutter.

[johnthejoiner]

To the OP

Get your hands higher at address, most people have their hands too low. Feel like the shaft is pointing at your bellybutton and make sure that on your takeaway you keep the club-head low

[Phil McGleno]

Originally Posted by johnthejoiner and make sure that on your takeaway you keep the club-head low

Why?

The clubhead goes back, up, and in during the backswing. Naturally you'll agree with that. So why "low"?

[mdl]

Thanks for the info iacas.  I'm with jshots still not quite understanding this.

Let's assume you're not hitting a push draw but a dead straight drive, to take the open/closed club face out of the equation.  Assume also that you hit the sweet spot and the loft of the club is correctly marked at the sweet spot.  It makes sense that your hands slow before impact as if you have any lag then your hands obviously have to slow relative to the club have to get the club head to the ball.  But the wrist action is still giving accelerating force to the club, no?  That seems like it should mean that if anything you still have a slight backwards bend (decreasing loft), rather than forward bend, at impact.  Especially if, as you're saying is true on average for the pros, your AoA is slightly downward.  Are you really starting to apply less force far enough before impact that the club head whips in front of the shaft and increases loft at impact?

Is my confusion just an artifact of the pros' having high enough swing speeds that they do actually want a launch angle less than the loft of the driver (for the longest hitters), or as you say, maybe their optimal distance would be 10˚ launch angle but they're willing to have a positive AoA and an 8˚ launch angle for increased control since with their swings an 8˚ launch might go 290 total while a 10˚ launch angle might go 310 total but be in the fairway less?  You hear low teens as optimal launch angle for average amateur swing speeds, which makes me confused...

[johnthejoiner]

Originally Posted by Phil McGleno

Why?

The clubhead goes back, up, and in during the backswing. Naturally you'll agree with that. So why "low"?

To create width, what would you tell him? would you tell him to lift the club straight up

[Phil McGleno]

Originally Posted by johnthejoiner

To create width, what would you tell him? would you tell him to lift the club straight up

No. Width occurs in three dimensions. Up, back, and in. You don't seem to care about anything but back.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by mdl

Thanks for the info iacas.  I'm with jshots still not quite understanding this.

On the issues of why the club reacts the way it does I'm not sure I can help at all, but I'll try to answer your questions as well as I can.

Originally Posted by mdl

But the wrist action is still giving accelerating force to the club, no? That seems like it should mean that if anything you still have a slight backwards bend (decreasing loft), rather than forward bend, at impact.

I understand what you're saying, but the way I understand it, a properly fitted shaft will kick forward at impact, not remain back. I can't really answer this type of question - it's a club engineering question.

Originally Posted by mdl

Are you really starting to apply less force far enough before impact that the club head whips in front of the shaft and increases loft at impact?

I will say that shafts - particularly stiffer ones swung by pros - have a fairly high cycles per minute rate. They don't need a lot of time to kick forward.

That may or may not be relevant given the outside forces acting on the shaft during the swing... I don't really know.

I'm going to see if I can get a club-fitting or shaft expert in here to answer these questions. The downside is that by the time I arrange this, it may take awhile.

[johnthejoiner]

Originally Posted by Phil McGleno

No. Width occurs in three dimensions. Up, back, and in. You don't seem to care about anything but back.

you can have this one for free

[Phil McGleno]

Originally Posted by johnthejoiner

you can have this one for free

Says the ******* who's an 8 and never actually contributes anything besides the one-liner and a video.

I watched the video. I disagree. He says "many people are already out of position in the first 12-18 inches. I agree! And they'll be further out of position if they do that drill.

The club, hands, arms.. even the right hip moves back, up, and in . You tell an average golfer to take the club back "low" and they're going to do it too much.

You seem to get your rocks off on just disagreeing. Good luck with that. Maybe if you putt well you can break 80 next time. Cheers!

[Sai-Jin]

Gosh, that's a lot of replies in this thread... so many to digest.

Well , right now I have lost but regained some of my confidence with my new driver.

But I know that I have a problem with relaxing and still have that "hit hard" mentality which makes my shoulders go up in tension.

But anyways, this is what I want to focus on next:

And yes, these vids are all titled for different purposes, but at the same time, I'm going to try to use his tips to see if I can further

redevelop my driver swing. Right now, my right hand grip is rather strong and it's dominating, thus the first vid.

the 2nd vid is more for my own feel, since I never knew if I were straight / stretched out after impact, but if those

drills will help me be more consistent in the moment of impact,...

So yea, let me know what you guys think and thanks to those who shared their opinions.

[tristanhilton85]

This video helped me out a lot... they do a good job of explaining each piece of the swing and how to execute it properly.

[johnthejoiner]

Originally Posted by Phil McGleno

Why?

The clubhead goes back, up, and in during the backswing. Naturally you'll agree with that. So why "low"?