Which swing is better?

[Adam Young]

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Originally Posted by iacas

The first question is: how much better is "better?"

60%FIR and 55%GIR before to 85% FIR and 80% GIR. I also have extensive practice statistics. I have always been this way

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Additionally, the backswing is relatively unimportant, and these swings are not all that different:

Almost all backswing stuff. Look at the images above - I'm sure you have - they're not that different.

yes - we are on the same page Iacas

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You've effectively pulled off a parlor trick of misdirection. You distract the audience with everything from the "odd" backswing and even the shorts and t-shirt from the simple fact that the downswings are virtually identical.

yes - the parlour trick highlights the facts that we both seem to agree upon.

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I don't care about the backswing unless it is negatively affecting the downswing. Given that you have virtually identical downswings, it's rubbish to say "no one in their right mind" would take one swing over the other. They're virtually identical from where I'm sitting.

I was told a hell of a lot (and still am to my laughter) that my outside the line takeaway and laid off position and wobble at the top was the reason I wouldn't get where I am - by professionals and coaches. You are obviously far more enlightened than those 90% that you speak of - I am glad.

In terms of "no one would suggest the first swing over the second" - I think you will find NO ONE DID. Even you PM'd me saying you preferred the look of the second one - although you rightfully added that you need more information.    Most other people do not have the knowledge you and I do though, and may waste many many valuable hours trying to perfect their backswings when they could have more important tasks to work on. If this idea that 'you dont hit the ball with your back swing' sinks in a little more for the others then maybe their practice is going to be more efficiently focused in the future.

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"A pretty backswing" is not one of the 5 Simple Keys®.

Good, I'm glad. From what I have seen I am rather impressed with what you guys do and we will share more similarities in the way we teach than not. I don't think I have expressed otherwise? Unfortunately, this doesn't not reflect the industry as a whole, or the people who play this game as a whole. I don't know how sheltered you are from it all, but there are many 'top level coaches' out there who think that a player shanks it because they took it 1 degree inside on the takeaway (which doesn't explain why they also toe the ball). There are also a million youtube videos, books and internet articles promoting the same stuff.

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Five rounds isn't an adequate sample size, by the way. You're asking people to take your word as truth for a LOT and it's based on what seems to be very little actual evidence. You don't have 200 rounds under your belt, 100 with each, on the same course or anything.

You may have mis-read what I said - I have had this funkier swing for over 3 years now. I have played over 80 rounds with it - mainly in the first 2 years, and statistics have been steadily improving with it, although lately stagnated as I have potentially hit my peak/what is humanly possible for me right now given my current practice schedule. The reason I mentioned the 5 rounds thing is that, although I was busier last year and didnt have the time to put in as much practice, I still managed to maintain form with it despite the wilder backswing positions.

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You must define "better technique" differently than I do. I define "better technique" as "the motion that produces better results." You seem to define it as "the motion that looks better" and you include the backswing.

Again, here WE both agree on the fact that better technique is the one that produces the better results. Most people "instructors included" are completely unaware that sometimes, in the same person with the same skill level and ability, a worse backswing can somehow be better in terms of results, therefore a better technique. You are not one of those people (I dont think I ever made any reference to you being one of those people).

But you would be hard pushed to find many people (again, yourself not included) who would say that swing 1 is the better technique. This is because most people/instructors do not look at the picture as a whole as WE do - this was the whole message with the thread. As the downswings are essentially the same, the one with the better backswing (swing 2) would ultimately be defined as better technique by probably 90-99% of the golfing world - most wouldn't even ask about other information.

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Tiger has continually sought to improve (perhaps even if it's just to keep his interest), but at the end of the day, the dude's got 14 freaking majors majors. How many does the next current player have again? Two less than he won just during the Hank Haney phase of his career! You've more successfully made the opposite of your point by citing Tiger Woods. I think he probably knows a bit more about what it takes to win at the level he's at than you or I. More succinctly: Tiger Woods has won 14 majors (in an era when his nearest competitor has 4) in part because he's put a lot of emphasis on his technique.

He also won a load of majors with distinct differences in the overall technique. The thing that remained the same largely was his pattern of misses and impact technique. We are both on the same page when we say impact technique is more important than overall motion. But you could argue this point both ways very succesfully. Fact is, you could give tiger one leg and he would still win (he did, the US Open), because of the things that he possesses other than movement pattern. If you were to put tigers brain in the average handicap player he would instantly lower the score - but how many people work on these things? are they even identified and pushed by most coaches?

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Technique (my definition) is absolutely critical to improving at golf. We don't just think and the ball magically flies towards the target. We use technique to do it.

Yes, impact technique is critical to improving in golf. There are also many ways of improving it. We can change it, or we can make our best ones happen more consistently and more often. This improvement can take many forms too, some of which requires less thinking rather than more, or changing where our thoughts are (club rather than body for example). But you can't see that on ONE video of ONE swing which is how most instructors teach.

The fundamentals (I see - similar to something you posted) are to strike the centre of the face, hit the ground in the right place and then control the speed, face and (to a certain extent) path. These are the 'whats' to do. Where I would differ from a billion other coaches out there is in the 'how'. I leave that up to more interpretation and work more on the 'what' part. Although, I will address the how in certain circumstances - for example if the person is not getting better at the 'what' or if they are doing it in a way that could potentially cause injury. But it is more of a coaching process of working out what is best for that player through suggestions and discussions rather than dogma of 'you must do it this way'. Often I dont have to go into how to do it as much, especially as I get better at defining and setting development tasks for 'what' to do with a client. It seems like once the fundamentals are very very clear in the persons mind and they have better feedback, they start their own path of improvement.

you could argue that everyone knows what they are trying to do. But I see at both ends of the spectrum (tour pro's to complete beginners) that they are more focussed on the how from something they have read in a magazine (e.g. keep your right arm tucked close to your body for a draw) than the 'what' (path and face combo to hit that draw - which largely takes care of the right elbow anyway). This is just an example

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Furthermore, at the end of the day, you're one example (and not a great one given how similar the downswings are), and I have literally thousands of examples that show players with poorer technique (your definition) who played worse than the players with better technique (your definition).

I never said that improving your technique (however you define it) is a bad thing. I just say that it potentially can be bad, and at some point it may be the ting that holds you back rather than progresses you forward (as it did in me and many many others I have seen). There will never be any way of knowing this - as a scientific experiment to test this would be absolutely impossible as there are so many variables. the fact is that you will never know if working on your technique will improve you or make you worse until you try. just like all the examples of the pro's we talked about, maybe Jack would have won 36 majors, Who knows?

The main way to guard against this is to not put all your eggs in one basket. See the bigger picture in golf, all the things I didn't show you in my 'parlour trick' video and work on a lot of things in an equal and balanced way, rather than putting all your hopes on this new backswing  you read in golfers digest.

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Key #4: Diagonal Sweetspot Path. Key #5: Clubface control. Again, none of the keys are "perfect backswing."

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but I am saying that I think you're making generalizations that don't apply nearly as widely as you think.

And I'll also admit that I consider myself and the people with whom I work on a regular basis to be among the better golf instructors out there. I've said before something like 90% of instructors out there flat out suck. So sometimes I forget about those 90% (it's frustrating when I think about them, so I try not to do so, and it helps that I don't encounter them all that often because they're not online, advancing their skill set or knowledge base), and maybe I'm wrong and you're talking about those people, and your generalizations are really fairly accurate. They don't apply to the people with whom I work fairly often, though, but we're a small minority.

#4 and #5 = great. I work on those things too, Don't know a lot of teachers who work on them directly though and I am in the middle of the golf industry coming into contact with teachers of all areas/schools of thought constantly. I see a lot of people work on them indirectly, again not saying that is a bad thing just that a balance of both is a great way to go. I see more (unfortunately) instructors working on backswing position or something theoretically linked to impact than impact directly.

Also the fact you said that my generalisations don't apply as much as you think - I don't know if you read some of the posts in the forums to which this was more directed at? Also, 90% is pretty general. If you try not to think of them, great. But I am talking about these people (again, you seem to think this is an attack on you or your methods, I have no idea why as I never mentioned you or 5 key skills).  And yes, you are a small minority - help make it bigger

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To your point specifically, you can call them intangibles. Some might call them talent. I can make some completely different looking swings and still "find the golf ball" and hit it solidly. I've always been reasonably good at that (hell, look at my god-awful swings from four or five years ago and you'll see that's true - they're horrible, but I always hit the ball and hit it reasonably far, too).

Exactly, I can make many random swings - reverse pivots, cack handed, hammer throw swings, claw grips etc and can still get it around under par. It's these things I am interested in defining and working out how to develop, as these seem to make up a BIG part of the golfer as a whole package.

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Again, your definition of "better impacts" seems to be different than mine. Better impacts always make for better ball flights in my mind because it's the only thing that makes the ball fly - the impact conditions. Improve those and the ball will fly "better." I don't know what you mean this time, but I assume you mean "looks better" again. And again, your impact positions aren't all that different above.

This one phrase in that paragraph would the one I knew someone would pick up on. By better impacts I don't mean it in the extent WE understand it, but in the way the general public see it. For example, is an 8 degree forward shaft lean at impact better as tiger woods does it? Maybe - if you have tiger woods' speed. What most people do not understand is that their wife with 60mph clubhead speed with a 6 iron would be scuffling that ball head height at best if they got into the same positions.

Better impacts are ones that provide better ball flights - not ones that match models which is what most people define as a better impact. Maybe you don't realise that the general public don't realise this or even understand exactly why a professional s the impact they do. They are often not a pro because of their impact positions (static), but are in those positions because they are a pro (and have enough speed to utilise those positions effectively) - this is one of many examples.

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And better backswings don't always improve the downswing, but they do the majority of the time, simply because the golfer has to make fewer compensations just to get the clubhead on the golf ball. For every Jim Furyk who makes his backswing work, there are hundreds or more people who can improve their impact by improving their backswings.

Better backswings can be in a much larger range than most people realise too. And some people don't realise that you can improve a backswing by improving your impact - reverse engineering if you will.  And if it doesn't improve (as mine technically didnt) it doesn't matter as you have a better impact (or more consistent and repeatable in my case)

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From a science perspective, you've not done much to limit the variables to one. You have several variables going on, each of which (and the interplay between each of them) can have big effects. Your absolute BEST swing might be the red shirt one with a 1-2 right-brain activity, but we don't really know.

We tell people all the time that the practice range is the place to practice (rarely is practice a "full swing" of course), and you can get away with having more "brain activity" because you're paying attention to things you shouldn't pay one bit of attention to on the golf course. We tell people when they play, get a single swing thought and go play, but when they practice, do that right, too. Each requires a different approach.

And remember I'm not arguing this because I said red shirt is so much better. I'd take either one depending on the results of the shots, which you hid from us while pulling the misdirection parlor trick. :-)

This is the point, most people do limit the variables to one - how the swing looks. Reality is there are many variables and it is the interplay between all of them that creates a golfer, s you rightly stated.

The second sentence, I couldn't agree with more. We are very lucky people Iacas, we have got to where we are because we understand this, probably innately without ever having being told. Some people can learn it, some people possess this knowledge instinctively. I would say it is one of the biggest defining factors on whether a technical approach can work for you in the long run. But I think you either assume too many people possess this knowledge also, or you have been very lucky in the people you come across. Many of the juniors I played with didn't understand this, at one point I struggled with it a little too (being intelligent doesn't help). Lots of players who come from instinctive backgrounds and start learning technique also do not understand this. To us, now, it seems so common knowledge that it is surprising to think that it should even be mentioned. Just never assume that your client understands this

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Physics and geometry are the same for everyone, so within some pretty wide ranges, there's still plenty of room for individuality, but where there can't be any individuality is on the stuff that matters. You can't play PGA Tour level golf with a shaft leaning backwards with your mid-irons or several other factors which are simply too tedious to list. You can obviously swing like Phil or Tiger, or 150+ other people, and be fine, but all of them apply whatever "technique" (your definition) to apply a surprisingly narrow range of "technique" (my definition) when it matters: impact and the time and space immediately prior to and after those 400 microseconds.

But again, maybe you're talking to the 90%, in which case I might agree with you a lot more.

Okay, now I definitely know you're not talking to me . You're talking to the 90%.

Yes, I am talking to the other 90% and never suggested otherwise, you are awfully defensive. You cant play good golf if you cant hit the centre of the face or the ground in the right place. That we can both definitely put in the bag.

Regarding the tour player stuff, most people you teach are not using tour player skill levels. Putting people in tour player positions may not always be the best thing for them as we have earlier discussed regarding shaft lean. You have to make someone play the best that they can - this entails taking into account where they are now in terms of co-ordination, movement pattern, athleticism, Long term goals, previous ingrained movements (other sports). Would you put a beginner driver in a formula one car? If someone has a long term of reaching 18 handicap, different positions may be more conducive to that goal - but then you know that already, it was aimed at the people who don't. - the other 90% who see technique as things mainly other than the 400 microseconds we both promote more.

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For all we know he might have won 37. Or 0. Or 2. Or 19.

The problem with those examples is this:

• Jimenez might have actually won a lot more and taken three majors.
• Floyd might have been more consistently good.
• Seve might not have needed to be so magical to win if he had been able to keep the ball within the same zip code off the tee.
• A follow-through doesn't have a whole lot to do with anything, but okay, Arnie might have won more after, his brief run at the top came to an end.
• Furyk might have not collapsed at Olympic.
• Nancy might have just recently retired and we might never have heard of Annika Sorenstam (someone who worked on her technique quite a bit, as Yani Tseng does today).
• Montie might have, I don't know, WON AN EVENT IN THE UNITED STATES or six majors.

These types of questions undermine your point. They're the wrong kind of parlor trick. They misdirect off your point. Please don't make them. They hurt you more than they help you, and even at best they simply fail to help you as they're just off-topic and pointless.

We can discuss this until the cows come home but it is purely theoretical. I am sure you take my view more than the point you have made here, and have seen it expressed in some other posts occasionally. You will not convince me otherwise, unless you create a parallel universe where it happened and jack did become more on plane with less of a flying elbow and had 36 majors.

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And you're likely not going to get quite the reaction you had hoped for when you tried to dupe people into feeling dumb by choosing the wrong swing. You and I both know you gave them limited information - one view, one swing, no insight into what your mental thought processes were, what the ball did (and how consistently it did it), and countless other things that would inform someone's decision. People chose the swing that looked better - that had the better "technique" using your definition of "looks," and I can't blame them for that. The majority of the time, people will play better golf with the red shirt backswing than the t-shirt one. One example (you) in which there were umpteen other things (1-2 versus 9 on the "brain activity" chart, etc.) going on that the audience couldn't possibly know doesn't prove much.

I apologise if anybody was made to feel dumb during this. There was certainly no intention of malicious behaviour. The limited information was there for a reason, I want to see how many people actually value this other information, but not many asked - I would have supplied honest answers.

The brain activity stuff is again a point I was trying to make. Science has known for a long time now through too many studies to mention, that too much thinking, and thinking about body positions hinders performance during the undertaking of that activity. That is not to say it cant be a valuable tool somewhere in a healthy plan of improvement. But I don't know too many golfers with healthy improvement plans and I know a lot of golfers - the only ones that do are the ones I have taught.

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PLAYING GOLF and IMPROVING YOUR GOLF SWING are two very different tasks.

quote of the century right here. your tone infers that most people already know this - assuming things like that is very dangerous.

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Nick Faldo.

Interestingly quoted recently as saying if he could do it all again he wouldn't have rebuilt his swing. Many people don't realise Faldo was already a good player before he got rebuilt. But again, this leads us down the road of 'would he have been better/worse' which is impossible to argue. Just interesting that he said this quote.

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This thread seems to make the simple mistake of saying "technique is bad"

If that is the message you got from this thread, I seem to have misjudged you. I thought I knew you :(

[LovinItAll]

Sorry for not getting the quote thing working right....you'll get the idea.

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In other words:

• You spent a lot of time to improve your golf swing.
• You played poorly while constantly being analytical about your golf swing.

Yes and no. There were times when a felt the new swing was visceral, but I still didn't feel like it was 'mine', if that makes sense. Perhaps another half million balls on the range would have done it.

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• You took your improved golf swing, stopped being analytical about it, and played much better golf.

Again, yes and no. There must be elements of the swing that I worked on for 18 months that were/are still in my game, but comparing the before and after at that time (6.5 years ago), my 'better golf' came with my older swing. I should mention that in the process of lowering my index, I spent at least as much time (probably more) practicing my 'old' swing, so the end result - lower handicap - was, in my mind, the result of a lot of hard work on 'old swing' with, I'm sure, some of hte newer ideas tucked in.

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Cuz the way I read that, it's not the "improved golf swing" that was holding you back, if you get my meaning.

I hear what you're saying, and I don't disagree. For me, I have to get out of my own way regardless of what technique I'm currently working on.

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PLAYING GOLF and IMPROVING YOUR GOLF SWING are two very different tasks.

I agree, of course.

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Eventually, you've regressed back to your "natural" swing - the one which kept you at the lowest at a ~3 (and now you're a 6.4).

This is incorrect. My best golf was played 2 years after I stopped 'new swing' with, as I mentioned, periodic releases at scratch or slightly better, but staying between 2-3 on average. I then went through a stretch where I was only playing/practicing 1-2 per week and my index rose to 7-8.

My current index is 4.8 and (hopefully) dropping. I didn't swing a golf club for 6.5 years until this past April, and I've only been able to practice/play every day for the past two months. All indicators are that I shouldn't have a problem getting back down to playing my best golf or better, but it's a process as you well know. I guess I'm saying that I won't be seeking to overhaul my swing again. If that means that I end up at scratch (or wherever) and can't go beyond, I'm okay with that. I'm not trying to make a living playing golf. I'm satisfied trying to get the most from my game myself, but I'm not suggesting that's 'right' - it's just my take on my game, nothing more.

Let me be clear: I'm not saying that I didn't take anything away from the time I spent with an instructor - of course I did. There were some things that he worked hard to ingrain in me that I finally abandoned, and for the better, in my opinion.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Adam Young

In terms of "no one would suggest the first swing over the second" - I think you will find NO ONE DID.

Of course, but that's not the fault of golf instruction. You constructed it that way to know the results. If you could mask their identities (and wipe the memories of those identities away), virtually nobody would pick Rickie Fowler's swing over, I don't know, Adam Scott's, but who has had more success lately? Or Jim Furyk versus your red-shirt swing, perhaps (again wiping the identities and memories of that particular swing).

Your "experiment" was pointless. You purposefully limited information to force everyone to pick the one swing.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Most other people do not have the knowledge you and I do though, and may waste many many valuable hours trying to perfect their backswings when they could have more important tasks to work on.

I think for the majority of people the things they do in their swings start with the backswing. The downswing is then a series of compensations for the backswing. It may only be a 55% majority, but I still think most people would do well to clean up their backswing a little.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Good, I'm glad. From what I have seen I am rather impressed with what you guys do and we will share more similarities in the way we teach than not. I don't think I have expressed otherwise? Unfortunately, this doesn't not reflect the industry as a whole, or the people who play this game as a whole. I don't know how sheltered you are from it all, but there are many 'top level coaches' out there who think that a player shanks it because they took it 1 degree inside on the takeaway (which doesn't explain why they also toe the ball). There are also a million youtube videos, books and internet articles promoting the same stuff.

I'm too lazy to see what I said to get this response, but I think I intentionally shelter myself from garbage like that (edit: "that" = the stuff you're talking about - the really bad instruction) because it's frustrating.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

If you were to put tigers brain in the average handicap player he would instantly lower the score - but how many people work on these things? are they even identified and pushed by most coaches?

That's really not what this thread is about. I still reject the idea that using Tiger supports your case, and think if anything it supports the opposite case more.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Yes, impact technique is critical to improving in golf. There are also many ways of improving it. We can change it, or we can make our best ones happen more consistently and more often. This improvement can take many forms too, some of which requires less thinking rather than more, or changing where our thoughts are (club rather than body for example). But you can't see that on ONE video of ONE swing which is how most instructors teach.

Truth be told, I'll often take one video of one swing (FO and DL, of course), but that's not "all" I have at my disposal. I'll have watched their warmup. I'll have quizzed them. I'll have asked them about their tendencies. I'll have seen their pattern (or lack of a pattern). Etc.

Even the average golfer, as you know, has an incredibly repeating swing. It might vary ever so little producing both, say, fat and thin shots, or pulls and slices, but everything is basically the same with every swing.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

But it is more of a coaching process of working out what is best for that player through suggestions and discussions rather than dogma of 'you must do it this way'. Often I dont have to go into how to do it as much, especially as I get better at defining and setting development tasks for 'what' to do with a client. It seems like once the fundamentals are very very clear in the persons mind and they have better feedback, they start their own path of improvement.

As I said, the physics and geometry provide some pretty narrow boundaries on the "how" but within those boundaries there are a million and a half different ways to get it done. But everything has to be within those boundaries mandated by basic physics/geometry.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

you could argue that everyone knows what they are trying to do. But I see at both ends of the spectrum (tour pro's to complete beginners) that they are more focussed on the how from something they have read in a magazine (e.g. keep your right arm tucked close to your body for a draw) than the 'what' (path and face combo to hit that draw - which largely takes care of the right elbow anyway). This is just an example

Magazines are junk. They teach feels to people when they aren't real (or the person might already do that particular piece well enough). They're "quick fixes." They still sell, and I just lump them in with "frustrating" and try to ignore them. Though occasionally they're good for a laugh .

Originally Posted by Adam Young

I never said that improving your technique (however you define it) is a bad thing. I just say that it potentially can be bad, and at some point it may be the ting that holds you back rather than progresses you forward (as it did in me and many many others I have seen).

I disagree that "improving your technique" held you back and again suggest two things: 1) that I define "technique" differently than you, apparently, and 2) that you didn't conduct a single-variable experiment. Perhaps with your red-shirt "technique" and a quiet mind you'd have been better.

If you're truly "improving your technique" then you're getting better. Technique produces results, so if all else is the same, better technique produces better results. Technique is not "how something looks." That's "appearances."

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Also the fact you said that my generalisations don't apply as much as you think - I don't know if you read some of the posts in the forums to which this was more directed at? Also, 90% is pretty general. If you try not to think of them, great. But I am talking about these people (again, you seem to think this is an attack on you or your methods, I have no idea why as I never mentioned you or 5 key skills).  And yes, you are a small minority - help make it bigger

Like I said, I'm caught between thinking you're talking about me and the 10% because I pretend the 90% doesn't exist and thus disagreeing with you, to then remembering they exist and agreeing with you.

I didn't take it as an attack. I just enjoy discussing things, and playing devil's advocate. Believe it or not, this is my "short" response. :)

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Exactly, I can make many random swings - reverse pivots, cack handed, hammer throw swings, claw grips etc and can still get it around under par. It's these things I am interested in defining and working out how to develop, as these seem to make up a BIG part of the golfer as a whole package.

I don't know that you can teach that much. At some point, there's a level of talent that a golfer has or doesn't have. I can do whatever and find the golf ball. Some people can't do that very well. I've always hit the ball pretty far. Some people will never top 105 MPH with their driver.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

This one phrase in that paragraph would the one I knew someone would pick up on. By better impacts I don't mean it in the extent WE understand it, but in the way the general public see it. For example, is an 8 degree forward shaft lean at impact better as tiger woods does it? Maybe - if you have tiger woods' speed. What most people do not understand is that their wife with 60mph clubhead speed with a 6 iron would be scuffling that ball head height at best if they got into the same positions.

Well, that's a bit of a chicken-or-egg thing. When's the last time you saw a woman who swung 60 MPH with any shaft lean let alone 8° (given a normal ball position, etc.)? But okay, not to belabor that little point.... moving on...

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Better impacts are ones that provide better ball flights - not ones that match models which is what most people define as a better impact. Maybe you don't realise that the general public don't realise this or even understand exactly why a professional s the impact they do. They are often not a pro because of their impact positions (static), but are in those positions because they are a pro (and have enough speed to utilise those positions effectively) - this is one of many examples.

Yeah, we might disagree on that one, or I'm reading you wrong. A lot of people have plenty of speed to get into better impact alignments. Again there are those pesky boundaries of geometry and physics. You don't play good golf without some forward shaft lean, as you know. I'll opt to believe I've misunderstood you here, especially as I said better "technique" ("impacts" now) produce better results.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Better backswings can be in a much larger range than most people realise too. And some people don't realise that you can improve a backswing by improving your impact - reverse engineering if you will.  And if it doesn't improve (as mine technically didnt) it doesn't matter as you have a better impact (or more consistent and repeatable in my case)

Again, you can't even say that it was your backswing that caused you problems before. My money's on the brain activity stuff you listed. You'd have been better served to leave that part out. Less honest, sure, but better served and more easily able to make your point.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

This is the point, most people do limit the variables to one - how the swing looks.

Maybe they do. I don't know - I don't come into contact with those types of people very often (by choice, I suppose).

And you have to agree that how a swing looks will generally inform how it performs (and this is more true the closer you get to impact, as setup doesn't really apply, nor A2, A3 starts to, A4 does a bit more, etc. until you get to A7 where it REALLY tends to inform how it performs). There are exceptions, but generally, it's true.

I could show you pictures of golfers at A5, A6, and A7 and people would generally be able to tell you which is a better golfer.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

But I think you either assume too many people possess this knowledge also, or you have been very lucky in the people you come across.

Perhaps they possess the knowledge because we make it a point of talking with them about it.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Regarding the tour player stuff, most people you teach are not using tour player skill levels. Putting people in tour player positions may not always be the best thing for them as we have earlier discussed regarding shaft lean. You have to make someone play the best that they can - this entails taking into account where they are now in terms of co-ordination, movement pattern, athleticism, Long term goals, previous ingrained movements (other sports). Would you put a beginner driver in a formula one car? If someone has a long term of reaching 18 handicap, different positions may be more conducive to that goal - but then you know that already, it was aimed at the people who don't. - the other 90% who see technique as things mainly other than the 400 microseconds we both promote more.

You're starting to sound like Patrick. He loved to talk about how the average player should not ever try to imitate the Tour player.

Again, the simple truth is that nobody will play good golf without forward shaft lean. Too much may be an issue if they lack speed, but the boundaries established by physics and geometry are what they are, and they're inescapable. They apply to everyone who wants to play golf on Planet Earth.

Every student I teach looks "more like a Tour pro" at the end of the day because they get closer to being within the boundaries I'm talking about. They may never actually get all the way towards "looking like a Tour pro" but they're headed in that direction.

I don't really care for the phrase "putting people in tour player positions." I don't really know what it means, actually. I don't "put" people into positions, but they achieve them dynamically. I don't teach "positions" but positions are illuminating and show progress, particularly when the position is "impact."

Would I put a beginner in an F1 car? Of course not, but I don't really like the analogy. I certainly wouldn't put a beginner in a position where they're adding loft by having a backwards leaning shaft.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

We can discuss this until the cows come home but it is purely theoretical. I am sure you take my view more than the point you have made here, and have seen it expressed in some other posts occasionally. You will not convince me otherwise, unless you create a parallel universe where it happened and jack did become more on plane with less of a flying elbow and had 36 majors.

Well, first of all, Jack wasn't "off plane." Just because he shifted planes doesn't mean he was off plane and thus needed to be "more on plane." The simple truth is you're speculating as much as I would be. You can't know if they would do better if they had changed some things, and you can't know if they'd have done worse.

Just as Tiger can't know whether he should have stuck with Hank, or Butch, or whether he shouldn't have skipped Hank and called up a baby Sean Foley when he was 17 and gotten 37 majors by now. Who knows? Maybe he should have worked with David Leadbetter! (Though, I really, really doubt that one. :D)

Originally Posted by Adam Young

I apologise if anybody was made to feel dumb during this. There was certainly no intention of malicious behaviour. The limited information was there for a reason, I want to see how many people actually value this other information, but not many asked - I would have supplied honest answers.

Oh, c'mon. You knew people wouldn't ask. I didn't say it was malicious. I just think people will feel duped.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

quote of the century right here. your tone infers that most people already know this - assuming things like that is very dangerous.

I didn't assume it. People suck at practicing - I post about that all the time. I put it in bold so it will stand out and people who don't know it will see it.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Interestingly quoted recently as saying if he could do it all again he wouldn't have rebuilt his swing. Many people don't realise Faldo was already a good player before he got rebuilt. But again, this leads us down the road of 'would he have been better/worse' which is impossible to argue. Just interesting that he said this quote.

Got a source? I remember reading something like that recently too but took what he said a very different way.

Originally Posted by Adam Young

If that is the message you got from this thread, I seem to have misjudged you. I thought I knew you :(

It's not, and I think that was made clear when I typed a "summary" that was simply this: The goals and thus the approach to practicing and improving your "technique" are entirely different than the goals and thus the approach to playing golf.

So I'll end with that.

P.S. Actually, I'll end with this: I don't want to turn this into a thread where we're largely agreeing but still sound like we're playing devil's advocate or disagreeing, so if you don't respond directly to my posts, I'll not post again, and everyone else can have their say without more "walls of text" from me.

[bplewis24]

^^^ This is the longest forum page with only 3 posts in the history of the internet.

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by bplewis24

^^^ This is the longest forum page with only 3 posts in the history of the internet.

Not even sure they are disagreeing, or are they? Some kind of pissing match it seems, not sure why, they seem to agree on most points. I thought the Patrick57 reference was a little below the belt and this:

Originally Posted by iacas

I'm too lazy to see what I said to get this response, but I think I intentionally shelter myself from garbage like that because it's frustrating.

was just insulting.

Disappointed Erik you are better than that...

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Ernest Jones

I thought the Patrick57 reference was a little below the belt and this:

was just insulting.

Disappointed Erik you are better than that...

I think you misunderstood (my fault for not being clearer). When I said "garbage like that" I was referring to the same bad instruction to which Adam was referring to when he said "but there are many 'top level coaches' out there who think that a player shanks it because they took it 1 degree inside on the takeaway (which doesn't explain why they also toe the ball). There are also a million youtube videos, books and internet articles promoting the same stuff." I was not calling anything Adam wrote "garbage." I was calling that type of instruction "garbage," as Adam was.

The Patrick reference comes from this . It was one sentence in a wall of text. If you want to pick it out, and add weight to it that I did not, go for it. The fact of the matter is that golfers should swing more like PGA Tour pros. There's a reason they're good and the average golfer is not. Obviously they shouldn't be asked to do things they're physically incapable of doing, but again, physics and geometry don't suddenly change when you become a PGA Tour player.

I don't disagree with much of what Adam is saying in this thread. You got that part right.

I wrote so much because I really dislike weak arguments, and I think a weak argument bugs me more when I agree with the argument. I think several aspects of Adam's position could be improved if he considered the points he was making or just eliminated them altogether. I enjoy discussing stuff like this, and probably went a bit overboard on this (the step-daughter is at her dad's today, so we're not doing anything special), but if Adam is as bright as I think he is this will ideally lead to him being able to make a stronger case for what he believes.

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by iacas

I think you misunderstood (my fault for not being clearer). When I said "garbage like that" I was referring to the same bad instruction to which Adam was referring to when he said "but there are many 'top level coaches' out there who think that a player shanks it because they took it 1 degree inside on the takeaway (which doesn't explain why they also toe the ball). There are also a million youtube videos, books and internet articles promoting the same stuff." I was not calling anything Adam wrote "garbage." I was calling that type of instruction "garbage," as Adam was.

The Patrick reference comes from this. It was one sentence in a wall of text. If you want to pick it out, and add weight to it that I did not, go for it. The fact of the matter is that golfers should swing more like PGA Tour pros. There's a reason they're good and the average golfer is not. Obviously they shouldn't be asked to do things they're physically incapable of doing, but again, physics and geometry don't suddenly change when you become a PGA Tour player.

I don't disagree with much of what Adam is saying in this thread. You got that part right.

I wrote so much because I really dislike weak arguments, and I think a weak argument bugs me more when I agree with the argument. I think several aspects of Adam's position could be improved if he considered the points he was making or just eliminated them altogether. I enjoy discussing stuff like this, and probably went a bit overboard on this (the step-daughter is at her dad's today, so we're not doing anything special), but if Adam is as bright as I think he is this will ideally lead to him being able to make a stronger case for what he believes.

Yeah I probably read more into it than was necessary, once again the internet is not like conversation and sometimes it's easy to misread people's tone. But you gotta be careful with the P57 reference, that little bomb can start a feeding frenzy!

[blue72ss]

In my opinion neither swing looks very good.

Just kidding, both look good to me

[Adam Young]

Originally Posted by iacas

but if Adam is as bright as I think he is this will ideally lead to him being able to make a stronger case for what he believes.

Oh my god, I think... no wait. That is almost a compliment from iacas... well, as close as I'm ever going to get to one. Cheers buddy, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now :)

But yeah, That was the idea, either get a stronger argument for what I believe, or a more balanced opinion, and learn things. It achieved it's objective.

[saevel25]

I think what you need to do, is write down that you think, then re-read it. From your post it does seem a bit jumbled to me. If you want to make a stronger arguement, a big key is structure to your writing.

[JackLee]

I have not read anything in this thread except the OP. The first swing is better, even with the loop. The second has an arm swing that gets ahead of the body movements in the downswing. I consider that a fatal flaw.

[blue72ss]

My conclusion after skimming this thread is that Adam and Iacis have way too much time on there hands!

[bwdial]

I would take either swing and take money from my friends on the golf course.

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by bwdial

I would take either swing and take money from my friends on the golf course.

Me too, I have one swing and it sucks. Having two that give good to great results is mind blowing to me!

[Limpinswinger]

Originally Posted by Adam Young

I have posted two swings here. Which one is better in your opinion? What are your reasons for thinking that?

and

Adam

The only differences I see are that in the first swing: (1) you have a bit of a circular windup (as we say in tennis), but, you adjust at the top and your downswing looks pretty much the same as in your second swing, (2) you overswing a bit at the top, and (3) your right heel comes off the mat in your downswing/follow through.  You also look like you are generating more club speed in the first swing.  It just looks a tad more powerful.  Not sure why.  Both swings look good.  The second swing looks more conventional.  Can't say which one is "better" in terms of how you hit the ball during a round.