Myth of Maintaining Your Address Flex in the Rear Knee

[mvmac]

An instructor Dave, Erik James and I know and like, Brendan Kennedy gave a lesson to a neuro-surgeon yesterday. This is what he told Brendan regarding wear and tear on the spine...."the spine is made to bend, flex, and extend...the most stress placed on the discs/vertebrae occurs when rotation is combined with flexion...straightening the trail leg and extending the spine help to increase range of motion and relieve stress on the segments"

[Bullitt5339]

On The Golf Fix, Michael Breed was addressing rear leg flex.  He pointed to Yani Tseng, who maintains a lot of flex in her trail leg and said he prefers maintaining back knee flex.  Then on his practice swings, it was apparent that he did not maintain knee flex and then went into a drill to keep the rear leg flexed.  But without the training aid, a box, it was clear that he does not maintain his own knee flex.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by Bullitt5339

On The Golf Fix, Michael Breed was addressing rear leg flex.  He pointed to Yani Tseng, who maintains a lot of flex in her trail leg and said he prefers maintaining back knee flex.  Then on his practice swings, it was apparent that he did not maintain knee flex and then went into a drill to keep the rear leg flexed.  But without the training aid, a box, it was clear that he does not maintain his own knee flex.

Thanks for sharing.  She's got a great swing btw, most women should try and copy what she does.

Back to what you said.  Try to make a full turn keeping the right knee flexed in it's address position.  You can't, maybe turn the hips 25-30*?

[Bullitt5339]

Originally Posted by mvmac

Thanks for sharing.  She's got a great swing btw, most women should try and copy what she does.

Back to what you said.  Try to make a full turn keeping the right knee flexed in it's address position.  You can't, maybe turn the hips 25-30*?

In his example, he said in order to turn the hips while keeping the rear leg flexed, you must rotate the knee.  I tried what he was talking about, and it felt completely unrealistic to try, and would seem to induce stress on the rear knee on the backswing.

As soon as the box wasn't behind his trail leg, you can clearly see that he straightens his rear leg on his backswing.  So what he thinks he's doing and teaching is not what he's actually doing.

[Bullitt5339]

Here's a video I found where he clearly does not maintain rear knee flex.

[mvmac]

Here's a good pic

[Beachcomber]

You've just been waiting to show off those shoes!

Originally Posted by mvmac

Here's a good pic

[JaxGolfer1]

Originally posted by mvmac:

Elk definitely has a swing we all should emulate. Sweetest swinger in the game. Plus great style.

[Jhwarren]

mvmac,

Great pic showing the lose of flexion in the backswing. I notice Elk has his right foot square to the target line, while his left foot is flared open quite significantly. Is this something that you would recommend? Would you have a player flare both feet out if they were having trouble turning? I would love to hear your thoughts on these set-up differences. Thanks.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by Jhwarren

mvmac,

Great pic showing the lose of flexion in the backswing. I notice Elk has his right foot square to the target line, while his left foot is flared open quite significantly. Is this something that you would recommend? Would you have a player flare both feet out if they were having trouble turning? I would love to hear your thoughts on these set-up differences. Thanks.

Elk does have right foot flare, about 15 degrees.  I would absolutely recommend flaring both feet, max 25 degrees in the right foot, max 35 degrees in the left foot.  Yes it will help the hips and shoulder turn and help get the weight forward on the downswing because it gives the left knee room to flex forward.

Elk and Arnold Palmer

[Jhwarren]

Hey mvmac,

I was hoping that you could help me something regarding the flexion in the rear knee. I am helping a buddy of mine to get a little better at this great game. He is very athletic and has made tremendous progress. My question is that he has this big dip during his backswing. I have attached a picture to better illustrate what I am talking about. He maintains a large amount of flexion in his rear knee. Could this big dip be caused by maintaining the flexion or do I need to look elsewhere?

[iacas]

In addition to that, he's very rigid at setup too. Look for the "setup" thread in this section of the forum as well, JH.

(In other words, the change in his head height is a product of two things: 1) yes, it goes down a bit because of his trail knee, but 2) it starts too high with too rigid a setup, too flat a back, etc.)

[Zeph]

Hmm. Did someone drug me, dress me in new clothes and make me hit balls at some range I've never seen before? :-\ That swing looked suspiciously similar to mine. Flat back, check. Back knee flex, check. Head drop, check.

[Jhwarren]

Originally Posted by iacas

In addition to that, he's very rigid at setup too. Look for the "setup" thread in this section of the forum as well, JH.

(In other words, the change in his head height is a product of two things: 1) yes, it goes down a bit because of his trail knee, but 2) it starts too high with too rigid a setup, too flat a back, etc.)

Awesome. Thanks for the response iacas. Great advice, as always.

Originally Posted by Zeph

Hmm. Did someone drug me, dress me in new clothes and make me hit balls at some range I've never seen before?

That swing looked suspiciously similar to mine. Flat back, check. Back knee flex, check. Head drop, check.

Hahahahahaha. That would be quite an expensive endeavor to transport you from Norway to Washington DC.

[Ernest Jones]

Watching some LPGA this morning while waiting for the real golf to start ;-) and I noticed that what seems to be the vast majority of the ladies maintain a ton of flexion in their trail leg. Is this a contributing factor in their general lack of distance?

[JetFan1983]

Originally Posted by Ernest Jones

Watching some LPGA this morning while waiting for the real golf to start and I noticed that what seems to be the vast majority of the ladies maintain a ton of flexion in their trail leg. Is this a contributing factor in their general lack of distance?

A small part of it is that, but the vast majority of them just spin their hips out and add side-tilt on the downswing. That's a bigger reason why they don't hit it as far as they could. See Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis for good examples of that. Mostly though, I think a lot of those girls are just really, really flexible. Yani keeps more flex in the back knee than anyone I can think of. But she still smashes it. She has a different downswing move than Creamer and Gulbis though.

I'm definitely not saying to not lose some back knee flex on the backswing though  because a few people can do it Honestly, Yani might end up playing better if Gary Gilchrist let her straighten her back knee more on the backswing, but who really knows.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by JetFan1983

A small part of it is that, but the vast majority of them just spin their hips out and add side-tilt on the downswing. That's a bigger reason why they don't hit it as far as they could. See Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis for good examples of that. Mostly though, I think a lot of those girls are just really, really flexible. Yani keeps more flex in the back knee than anyone I can think of. But she still smashes it. She has a different downswing move than Creamer and Gulbis though.

The right knee decreasing in flex would help some players to keep the arms from lifting on the back swing and maybe keep the head more steady.  Your standard LPGA swing is to keep the right knee flexed, shift the head right, spin the hips on the down swing with the long followthrough with the right shoulder forward.  Yep, Yani does the downswing differently than most and reason she smashes it, like you said JF, doesn't just spin out of it and hang back to create axis tilt.

Good comparison pics, Michelle Wie was longer when she was 14 and playing with Ernie Els.  Look at the spin move and where the weight is compared to Yani.

[mvmac]

Thanks to instructor Terry Rowles for these videos