Myth of Maintaining Your Address Flex in the Rear Knee

[Jack Watson]

Tom Watson here mentions the left knee breaking in on backswing in this quick clip.

 

To me the left knee break is what gets you to the left on the downswing.  If I take an address posture and turn the shoulders a little like a partial bs then in isolation straighten the right leg I don't go left.  I could stay in that position all day however if I do the same thing partial turn and release the left knee inward,  my weight goes left.

 

[Jack Watson]

In a way imo it's similar to throwing a ball.  If I pretend to throw a ball the first thing that happens is my right instep feels pressure and stability and my left leg releases getting ready to step forward.

[Jack Watson]

Sergio here raises the left heel as the left knee breaks in.

 

[Jack Watson]

Robert Rock is technically very sound.  The left knee doesn't move much here.  To me it's so different from Watson or Wright.

 

[billchao]

1 hour ago, Jack Watson said:

Sergio here raises the left heel as the left knee breaks in.

 

This thread isn't about the lead knee.

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, billchao said:

This thread isn't about the lead knee.

Bingo. Pretty clearly so @Jack Watson.

[Jack Watson]

Ok,  fair enough,  my only comment is that straightening the right leg in isolation does not get much movement for me in terms of hip rotation.  Again, if I take a golf posture and extend my right leg all the way,  really it doesn't move my hip very far at all in rotation nor does it move it much higher .  

The title of the thread referring to maintaining the rear leg flex  as a myth totally ignores the left knee action that accompanies this intention.  So I brought up the elephant in the room.    

Imo the idea to maintain the right leg flex is not a myth at all when you release the left knee going back.

There I'm done.  Sorry to disturb the modern gurus

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Jack Watson said:

The title of the thread referring to maintaining the rear leg flex  as a myth totally ignores the left knee action that accompanies this intention.  So I brought up the elephant in the room.  

I don't think that's the elephant in the room at all.

This topic deals with one specific piece - and one people have gotten wrong or misstated many, many times in the past.

1 hour ago, Jack Watson said:

Imo the idea to maintain the right leg flex is not a myth at all when you release the left knee going back.

I don't agree. And there have been hundreds of articles written that push this myth/misconception.

1 hour ago, Jack Watson said:

There I'm done.  Sorry to disturb the modern gurus

That's got nothing to do with it. We're just trying to keep things on a specific discussion.

Releasing the left knee is completely off topic. Start a different topic on that if you want to discuss the LEAD knee, not the TRAIL knee, which is in the title of this topic.

[saevel25]

http://www.golfwrx.com/460658/the-benefits-of-maintaining-flex-in-your-rear-knee-during-the-backswing/

Quote

In general, the more flex you have, the greater you’ll restrict your turn. This is great for players who over-rotate or lose control of their weight during the transition.

Players tend to over-rotate or over-swing because they do not rotate correctly. 

Players tend to lose their ability to shift their weight because limiting the reduction in flex in the trail knee will cause golfers to shift laterally because the right hip does not go back and around enough. 

Quote

So if you go back to the photo of Tiger above and look at the yellow dot, you’ll see Tiger has maintained his weight on the inside of the rear foot. This gives him something to push off on during the downswing and provides him the stability he needs to use the ground most effectively.

If I remember correctly, PGA Tour players do not actually push off on their right foot. 

This seems like another one of those articles that just looks at one person as an example. The author tries to hedge his comments by stating that this sort of advice depends on the golfer. He doesn't really make a good argument for maintaining the knee flex presented at address through out the backswing. 

[Jack Watson]

I read the link and became dumber.  Article was another 'let me take ten minutes and write this filler'. 

Some people in golf can support that idea better than others.

[mvmac]

I was going to post the wrx article but @saevel25 beat me to it. Agree with everything Matt said but I'll still give my take. The article is misleading, it only mentions two "benefits" and it's based on a false understanding rotation and how the pressure/weight operates in the golf swing.

Quote

In general, the more flex you have, the greater you’ll restrict your turn. This is great for players who over-rotate or lose control of their weight during the transition.

Golfers don't over-rotate, they just don't pivot properly. If you turn your torso at about a 90 degree angle to your address bend and keep the head steady, I honestly don't think you can "over" rotate. Well maybe, but it would be a very rare circumstance. Look at guys like Bubba or DJ, John Daly or Lexi on the LPGA, they all make huge torso turns.

If you're losing control on your weight during the swing (whatever that means) then just manually restricting your rotation isn't going to help much. That'd be like your car making a weird noise every time it went over 30mph and instead of looking into what's causing the noise, you "fixed" it by never driving over 30mph. Crap plus crap isn't going to result into some successful motion. 

Quote

Restriction of the hips is one thing, and we as teachers can argue that point until we’re blue in the face. Few teachers, however, would advocate allowing the weight to shift to the outside of the rear foot on the backswing. When this happens, your rear hip will slide out, setting up a reverse weight shift. This will cause you to “hang back” through impact, meaning there is too much weight on the rear foot during impact.

Again, that's more of an issue of not pivoting correcting, you can still slide your hips back maintaining flex in the knee (which can sometimes be the cause of the slide.

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

This seems like another one of those articles that just looks at one person as an example. The author tries to hedge his comments by stating that this sort of advice depends on the golfer. He doesn't really make a good argument for maintaining the knee flex presented at address through out the backswing.

I also think the camera angle is a little behind Tiger which would make it look like the knee doesn't lose much flex. I can find video of Tiger playing great golf where he releases some flex.

[dennyjones]

thanks for a better understanding.   I was confused by their article.

[BallMarker]

I never take instructions literally.

For me, after I truly understood few basics principles,( such as grip, spine angle, being on plane, shoulder turn, weight shift), things became easier. Everything else needs to happen naturally and seamlessly.

Everything else is too much thinking, and screws my game.

I'm certainly not saying I'll ever be good enough to play on any kind of professional tour. But, I shoot in the mid to upper 70's, so, I happy.

Edited August 3, 2017 by BallMarker

[saevel25]

25 minutes ago, BallMarker said:

For me, after I truly understood few basics principles,( such as grip, spine angle, being on plane, shoulder turn, weight shift), things became easier. Everything else needs to happen naturally and seamlessly.

The only one principle you nail is weight shift. By weight shift, it's not a lot of lateral weight shift in the backswing, but getting a high percentage of your weight forward at impact.

[BallMarker]

2 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

The only one principle you nail is weight shift. By weight shift, it's not a lot of lateral weight shift in the backswing, but getting a high percentage of your weight forward at impact.

True.

I think it was Tom Watson who said, you should feel like you're swinging in a tube....or something like that.

I think he meant, you shouldn't move laterally for more than 3-4 three inches in either direction.

A golf swing is a series of subtle movements that can add up to a 300 yard drive.....  

[saevel25]

3 minutes ago, BallMarker said:

I think it was Tom Watson who said, you should feel like you're swinging in a tube....or something like that.

I never take much from PGA players when they say they "feel" such and such. Feels may or may not produce the actual movement we think they should.

 

[mvmac]

[lastings]

I'm sorry if this is addressed in here somewhere.   I tried to read through the thread, but it's a pretty long one.  

Is it even possible to make a full hip turn and full shoulder turn, while maintaining address flex?  I'm seriously standing in the middle of my office right now trying to do it and I can't seem to get past a 3/4 without feeling like my spine is about to fall apart.