Are most amateur golfers being mislead on how to swing?

[Mr. Desmond]

Originally Posted by Patrick57

But I knew that all along.

Ignorance is bliss.

You prove it with every post.

It is sad ... really.

Off this merry-go-round.

[Patrick57]

Originally Posted by johnclayton1982

But it goes way beyond that.  You are right, that you can't "see" a clubface path when you are swinging, but knowing that catching the ball on the out-to-in back path allows you to do things like tee the ball forward to limit your misses right (which I do) or tee it in the middle with the driver to basically insure you won't slice (which I also do).  Knowing the proper ball flight laws lets you adjust the setup to give yourself the best chance of hitting a good shot.

Also, it allows instructors to diagnose your faults much more easily.  If you are slicing, you can work all day on that "open club face", but its not going to fix anything, because it isn't the cause.

There are innumerable things in innumerable sports you can't "see" (proper pronation in a wrist during a tennis serve, for example), but thats a silly excuse for not trying to understand what is going on so you can do better.  Are you suggesting that if we can't "see" it, its silly to analyze it sceintifically? (that is how it is coming across).

Not at all. But don't tell me I should be telling my student to attempt to hit a ball with a 2° open club face along a 4° path. I understand how I do it using ball flight laws - by the way we learn from these laws by watching the flight of the ball and not super slow motion youtube videos - and I explain it the following way to my students...

I teach them firstly to swing on an "In to out" path, fairly easily, then all we have to do is get a feeling for controlling the club face. Open clubface; the ball flies straight right or curves further right, square face; its goes straight right or curves slightly back towards the middle, closed face; starts right but hooks or severy hooks back to the left. Just how many degrees the face is open or closed can't be seen and how many degrees we are swinging from out to in cannot be observed exactly. So like I say we got to activate that important skill called feel. Just like the tennis players you are talking about.

Can we close this particular argument. My students learn to shape their shots when they come to me although I have never read or given them a copy of Homer Simpson's "The Golf Machine" or shown them super slow motion conditions at impact.

Lets keep it simple please!

P.S. I have tried to read Simpson's book but keep falling asleep after half a page. Have any of you tried reading it?

[The_Pharaoh]

Patrick57,

I pity the golfers going to you for lessons. They must all be as barking mad as you.

[Patrick57]

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

Patrick57,

I pity the golfers going to you for lessons. They must all be as barking mad as you.

Thank you, I'll pass on your condolences. But I doubt they'll listen as you didn't say why!

[pjsnyc]

As others have said, just because you can't see something with the naked eye, doesn't mean knowledge gained by using advanced imaging technology is irrelevant.

Here's an analogy - Just because you can't see distant galaxies with the naked eye doesn't mean they're not there. Yes - there is a vetting process and ultimately it helps our understanding of the universe as a whole.

[Clambake]

Originally Posted by Patrick57

Can we close this particular argument. My students learn to shape their shots when they come to me although I have never read or given them a copy of Homer Simpson's "The Golf Machine" or shown them super slow motion conditions at impact.

P.S. I have tried to read Simpson's book but keep falling asleep after half a page. Have any of you tried reading it?

I see your whole problem right there - if you're considering Homer Simpson 's book then the only response you'll get from your students is "Doh!".      Maybe you should try Homer Kelly's book instead.....

[Clambake]

Originally Posted by iacas

Yeah, how do you even respond to that? I guess by not responding to it.

My response to it is pretty easy.    Put cursor on Patrick's user name, scroll down to "Block Member", and click select.     Easy peasy!

[colin007]

[tristanhilton85]

Just my original question here:

Originally Posted by tristanhilton85

Just a quick question for those who think that the path gives the ball it initial direction... If I make a proper swing and take my divot in front of the ball then that means that the club is still on a downward path when it hits the ball, correct?  If this is the case and the path determines the direction of the ball, why the hell does the ball go up and not into the ground?

And the bogus answer:

Originally Posted by Patrick57

I love this. For the initial 4/1000 of a second of impact that ball does start towards the ground but it deflects and there's only one way for it to go and that's up, Take a 3 iron with normal fairway conditions and it doesn't matter how steep you hit down on top of the ball, it still deflects. The flattest flight you are going to get with any club is when you blade it.

And the proof he is wrong:

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

The faith is strong with this one...

No pinching, deflecting, bouncing or being picked up by fairies my friend.

Not a single one of those ball deflected off of the ground.  I'm sure you'll say otherwise.  But humor me for a second, I have another question for you.

While it is widely taught to hit the driver on the upswing, many still hit the the driver on the downswing.  In this case, the club is still on it's downward path, and once again, if path determines starting direction then that ball would have to end up in the ground, right?  Now I know that you say that the ball starts down for the first nano second and the deflects of the ground, but what about in this situation where the ball is on a tee?  What is the ball deflecting off of here?

I look forward to your answer.

[tristanhilton85]

Originally Posted by Patrick57

Does understanding what happens in ridiculous levels of slow motion mean you can translate this into instructions which could help the golfer improve at what he is trying to do.

Yes it does.

Look, just because you can't see exactly how open or closed the club face is at impact with the naked eye, doesn't mean that you can't use this information to help the student.  Obviously the vast majority of students won't be able to "open the club face 2°" on command, but that's not really the point.  The point is that if you have an understanding of the ball flight laws (the real ones), then based on the flight of the ball you can tell what piece needs to be worked on, whether that is opening up the club face a bit more or working on the path.  If you don't understand these ball flight laws or if you believe the "old ball flight laws" as you do, then its hopeless because you'll have your students working on something that just isn't going to work.  That's not to say that some won't figure it out on their own eventually (because they think they're doing one thing when they're really doing another) but you are going to make the process much more convoluted and confusing than it needs to be.

Originally Posted by Patrick57

Not at all. But don't tell me I should be telling my student to attempt to hit a ball with a 2° open club face along a 4° path. I understand how I do it using ball flight laws - by the way we learn from these laws by watching the flight of the ball and not super slow motion youtube videos - and I explain it the following way to my students...

I teach them firstly to swing on an "In to out" path, fairly easily, then all we have to do is get a feeling for controlling the club face. Open clubface; the ball flies straight right or curves further right, square face; its goes straight right or curves slightly back towards the middle, closed face; starts right but hooks or severy hooks back to the left. Just how many degrees the face is open or closed can't be seen and how many degrees we are swinging from out to in cannot be observed exactly. So like I say we got to activate that important skill called feel. Just like the tennis players you are talking about.

Can we close this particular argument. My students learn to shape their shots when they come to me although I have never read or given them a copy of Homer Simpson's "The Golf Machine" or shown them super slow motion conditions at impact.

Lets keep it simple please!

P.S. I have tried to read Simpson's book but keep falling asleep after half a page. Have any of you tried reading it?

That's the thing though... what you are explaining to your students isn't the truth.  Period.  How it works... hitting a ball from in to out with a closed club face does not create a draw... it creates a shot that starts left (because of the closed face) and then curves a given amount based on how much the face is closed/open to the path.  High speed video shows this.

And you have it kind of backwards... learn the laws from watching the high speed videos and the great article here and then take what you learned and apply it to the ball flights of your students.  You are going to get much better results and you are going to get them way quicker.

[johnclayton1982]

Quote:

I teach them firstly to swing on an "In to out" path, fairly easily, then all we have to do is get a feeling for controlling the club face.

I wish a consistent in to out path was "fairly easy".  That may be the case with most, but not with me.  I struggled for months losing distance by cutting across the ball, and I still do it occasionally missing short and right.  I disagree that getting students to swing on an in-out path is fairly easy.  What drills do you do to teach this?  I'd love for a description of your methods, as I have found this (a consistent in to out path) as one of the hardest things for me to do it golf with consistency, *especially* with the longer clubs.

Quote:

But don't tell me I should be telling my student to attempt to hit a ball with a 2° open club face along a 4° path.

I actually think you should be.  Have you ever heard the expression "aim small, miss small"?  Its true.  The smaller and more specific you make your target / goal, the easier it is to get closer.  This is true in putting as well.  If you say "hit it with a 2* open club face" the student will get closer than if you say "hit it with a slightly open club face" and that is better than just "hit it with an open clubface".  Further, if you are using trackman, you can give instant feedback as to how close / far away they were from that magic number, and that really helps.  For example, it is much better to say "I'm going to hit my SW 51 yards to the pin" than to say "I'm going to hit my SW about 50 yards".  Even without instruction, just practice, the students with the more specific goal will do better, all else being equal.

I think people are a bit harsh to you here, but I also think you invite it by seeming to not address the responses head-on.  It is a scientific fact that this:

Quote:

Open clubface; the ball flies straight right or curves further right

is not true.  If it is an in to out swing path, it will not curve further right.  It can't.   The ball won't have right to left spin.  There is no "or".  The same clubface angle and path and speed, etc... will always produce the same shot.  There is no randomness to how a golf ball flies when struck.  There is no "or".

Another example of this is to "hit up' with the driver.  You can't feel, see or tell the difference between a -2* AoA and a +3* AoA without equipment.  But that doesn't stop you from trying to position the tee, stance, etc... to catch it just on the upswing because that is the best way to hit it.  Same thing with path / face.

[bunkerputt]

Originally Posted by tristanhilton85

I look forward to your answer.

I'll field this one.  Golf is a very simple game that comes completely naturally to everyone who ever picks up a club.  Touring professionals make a lot of money, not because they are skilled at something difficult, but primarily because they know someone in the clothing business.  This is simple and basic logic that is obvious because everytime we see them, they are wearing clothes.  Now, golf, being a completely natural game, is composed of active and reactive forces.  The active action of actively swinging a club causes the reactive reaction of the ball to react to that swinging action retroactively.  With the irons, once the ball bounces off the ground, the subtle and arcane field of dirt-density dynamics comes into play.  With the driver, it's a different story.  The most important things are that the aerodynamics of driver face design create a high pressure front that impacts the ball 0.00000139287 seconds before the clubface.  Because of the ideal gas law, the increase in pressure causes an increase in temperature which makes the ball temporarily "hot".  This is what is really meant by a "hot" face.  It comes from basic logic.  Because hot things rise, we know that the ball will rise on it's line of flight.  This should be simple and obvious to anyone with a brain.

[Patrick57]

Originally Posted by pjsnyc

As others have said, just because you can't see something with the naked eye, doesn't mean knowledge gained by using advanced imaging technology is irrelevant.

Here's an analogy - Just because you can't see distant galaxies with the naked eye doesn't mean they're not there. Yes - there is a vetting process and ultimately it helps our understanding of the universe as a whole.

I didn't say it was irrelevant, just unhelpful.

[saevel25]

Actually Bobby Jones copied two golfers of his time that he idiolized, so really his swing wasn't something that just came to him, its something he worked at. Do we all have interesting swings, unique to us, yes, no swing is the same. But all the swings have certain tendencies that are similar. Weight forward at impact, steady head, flat left wrist (wrist ahead of ball) at impact..

As for the ball flight laws,

http://www.tutelman.com/golf/ballflight/ballflight.php

http://www.tutelman.com/golf/ballflight/slice.php

Look at the video with the putter, there is no difference between the putter and the other golf clubs with regards in how the ball interacts with the clubface. Its just on a smaller scale. If you keep the face angle constant to the swing path, the ball will go about 80-90% in the direction of the clubface, not the swing path. The pro's might have thought they were right, but what they had was countless hours of practice and muscle memory. They knew how to curve the ball and how much they wanted to curve it, so i doubt they really set up with the clubface pointing at there target. It was probably somewere left of it, or there body adjusted for it in the swing, and they thought the set up to results were correlated. Its more likely they just knew how to curve and went more on instinct. You can't cheat physics, period, its fact, laws, documented, scientific proof.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by saevel25

You can't cheat physics, period, its fact, laws, documented, scientific proof.

Correct

[tristanhilton85]

It's funny... I was talking to my sister-in-laws boyfriend right now about this topic.  Mind you, he has pretty much no knowledge of golf or the golf swing, but does have a basic understanding of physics.  I simply asked him what would give the ball it's initial direction, the angle of the club face or the path of the swing... he kind of gave me a funny look and said that it was the face angle.  I've had this experience before with other non-golfers, and they all get it right, its the angle of the face, and it's obvious to them.

If all these guys can get it right, how is that so many teaching pros get it wrong?

[mdl]

Originally Posted by Patrick57

Not at all. But don't tell me I should be telling my student to attempt to hit a ball with a 2° open club face along a 4° path. I understand how I do it using ball flight laws - by the way we learn from these laws by watching the flight of the ball and not super slow motion youtube videos - and I explain it the following way to my students...

I teach them firstly to swing on an "In to out" path, fairly easily, then all we have to do is get a feeling for controlling the club face. Open clubface; the ball flies straight right or curves further right, square face; its goes straight right or curves slightly back towards the middle, closed face; starts right but hooks or severy hooks back to the left. Just how many degrees the face is open or closed can't be seen and how many degrees we are swinging from out to in cannot be observed exactly. So like I say we got to activate that important skill called feel. Just like the tennis players you are talking about.

Can we close this particular argument. My students learn to shape their shots when they come to me although I have never read or given them a copy of Homer Simpson's "The Golf Machine" or shown them super slow motion conditions at impact.

Lets keep it simple please!

P.S. I have tried to read Simpson's book but keep falling asleep after half a page. Have any of you tried reading it?

Just wow.  How many different irrefutable arguments that prove what you're saying is wrong can you ignore with continuing assertions that your'e right.  I and a number of others have tried your seemingly preferred style, which is telling stories about our own experience (or about those of famous pros like Hogan), to cast doubt on your whole "just swing naturally" and "don't swing like the pros" panaceas.  You just congratulate us on whatever success we've had and ignore the fact that each story describes a situation where a "natural" swing produced poor results, and making some adjustments that were definitively in the direction of a "pro" style swing and felt VERY unnatural at first produced much better results.

Then others point out that your belief about bal flight laws is literally, provably false, and provide links to a number of different sites and videos that show what you're saying is straight false.  It's not something you can agree to disagree about like some kind of political ideological debate or something.  What you're saying is scientifically, logically, and provably false.

Worst of all, your last defense in this case is that we can't know in real time as we hit whether our face is 0˚ or 2˚ or 4˚ open to the target line, so you'll continue to tell students things that are FALSE.  But after saying we can't tell in real time if our face is slightly open, square, or slightly closed to the target line, so you'll feel free to ignore true facts, you say you teach your students to hit the shot they want by swinging in ways to have the club face open, closed, or square to the target line with a consistent in-to-out swing path.  If the fact that we can't tell in real time what the face angle is at impact means that we can ignore physical reality and pretend that our fictional universe is reality, how can you defend that you teach students to control face angle to produce different shot shapes with the same swing path?  If we can learn to hit with the face slightly more closed or open, and have learned to have a consistent in-to-out swing path that averages 4˚ in-to-out at impact, why can't we learn to have the face open or closed to this swing path to create shots we want given the TRUE physics of ball flight?  We can only learn to have the face open or closed if we believe in provably false physical laws?  Sounds very medieval Catholic church to me...

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by tristanhilton85

It's funny... I was talking to my sister-in-laws boyfriend right now about this topic.  Mind you, he has pretty much no knowledge of golf or the golf swing, but does have a basic understanding of physics.  I simply asked him what would give the ball it's initial direction, the angle of the club face or the path of the swing... he kind of gave me a funny look and said that it was the face angle.  I've had this experience before with other non-golfers, and they all get it right, its the angle of the face, and it's obvious to them.

If all these guys can get it right, how is that so many teaching pros get it wrong?

Yes most non-golfers or beginners get it right far more often than experienced golfer, except Sand Trap members .  Unfortunately golfers are being mislead because they are taught these fantasy ball flight laws