Honest Opinions - What Do You Think of This?

[iacas]

http://www.golf.com/video/golf-tips-slice-proof-your-downswing What do you think? No wrong answers. Just curious what everyone thinks.

[tstrike34]

Originally Posted by iacas

http://www.golf.com/video/golf-tips-slice-proof-your-downswing

What do you think? No wrong answers. Just curious what everyone thinks.

I like the tip.... Something to incorporate... I was wondering about my left elbow... Gonna look at my film to see if that is something I am doing wrong.

Sidebar:  Hey she is a cutie!

[David in FL]

Huh. I've always dropped my right elbow to my hip. Exactly what she says not to do. Seems to make sense, but I'm not a good enough student of the swing to really make a judgement based on anything other than getting on the range and trying it. Gonna do that tomorrow though.....

[jamo]

So she's saying to get your right elbow attached to your right hip. Just from making half swings in It seems like it would be a decent feeling to swing in-to-out if you've addressed other things that could cause an out-to-in swing . In the video where she says she demonstrates it her stance is way open so the only PGA pro video I could find to compare it too is this old one of Tiger: She's probably overdoing some stuff but it doesn't seem all that unrealistic.

[cbrian]

I can almost understand her making a video about the dangers of dragging the elbow/handle like she was doing when demonstrating the "wrong" way. And I can almost agree that the deep elbow feel could possibly create more of a draw. However, there is a very specific context in which those statements would be considered accurate.

IE: Trying to get the elbow in front can cause a bit of handle drag and that can cause some issues. But at the same time, how often is that the issue that is causing your average golfer to slice? I mean sure, lots of people read Hogan's book, but I haven't seen many golfers actually doing that. OR Feeling the right elbow staying deep might help someone that is throwing their arms out on the downswing, but again, most of the time (in my experience) the left arm is out of position because of the backswing and/or sequencing issues.

Overall I wouldn't say its the best "how to fix your slice" tip out there. There are lots of other generalizations that would help far more people. Just my opinion though.

[cipher]

I am not a big fan of the way she presents the tip.  She compares it to throwing a baseball and swinging a bat in which she is confused and wrong about.  In baseball, yes when throwing a ball the elbow is back, but the elbow moves even with the shoulder as the shoulders turn, before the forearm and wrist releases.  And the same with swinging the bat.  The right elbow is back, but usually comes close to the side before releasing the bat.   If you don't do these things you cannot create the power, or the lag in the golf swing.  She is exaggerating the elbow going in front for the purpose of her illustration.  I think that the idea is that it should probably not move in front of your core's rotational point for lack of a better way of describing it.   I think that working with the center of rotation the right elbow can maximize the thrust of the right arm.  She seems to be dropping the elbow against the right hip working with the rotation of the body, I believe it is neither ahead nor behind too much.

[onephenom]

I think most people get the trailing arm too far in front and slice because they stop or slow the upper body rotation, not because they don't try to put the arm into the hip, so I don't agree with this video.

[dkling8]

I've been working on what she said NOT to do, so whatever the consensus is, this thread should be helpful to me...

It seems to me that her "tip" would cause a more out-to-in path, making most people's slices worse. As an early extender, and a recovering over-the-topper, bad things happen to me when my right elbow gets stuck behind. She's correct that if your right elbow gets in front of you, you have to learn how to square the face. But, I believe that your path would be more in-to-out, promoting draws (assuming the face isn't wide open).

[mchepp]

Well...I very much doubt this will help many people. Most of the swings I have seen by us amateurs have major elbow issues, yours truly included. In actual practice her comments are true, a punch elbow can help with a OUTward swing pattern, but so many missing components that likely the slice will worsen. 95% of the swings I have seen on this site should get the completely opposite advice. From the top of the swing if someone tries to do this they will get steep and either early extend to correct the path, or slice.

[WWBDD]

I think she's identified a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

[LuciusWooding]

A lengthy anecdote, regarding a struggle I had with a flaw related to this tip:

I had been keeping my elbow on my hip until about a few weeks ago. Since I knew an in to out swing is what I wanted to encourage a powerful push draw, I figured getting right elbow on my hip and a really straight left arm was a good consistency move since it locked in my elbow's position relative to my body. I also notice most good players, on a dtl view, will have the shaft covering the right forearm more than the left at about P5.5, indicating they're neutral to slightly under plane. So I figured that position would encourage a draw and set out to get my hands really deep at the top (and have to use every bit of my flexibility to make the positions work). My ball flight was mostly about dead straight or pushes when I struck it well, they were my longest and highest shots. My miss was usually a straight fade. I could hit it with my PW-LW perfectly fine, since the shafts were short enough I could manipulate them and I felt I was standing close to the ball, so I didn't swing out as much. I essentially tried to be steeper and more open with wedges since it helps them stop. I also was able to hit partial shots really accurate and solid, like hitting knockdown PWs at the 100y marker and actually hitting it within 4y a solid bit of the time. With long clubs, however, my plane was so shallow and so off plane that I couldn't help but hit it thin and top it. And the shanks would creep in with middle clubs when I tried to draw it more. The driver was usually hit so thin I was getting topspin, like actually blading it with over 110mph and a positive AoA. I was also delofting it when I did hit it OK, which created low knuckleballs with no distance. Strengthening my grip helped for a while, but it wasn't bad to begin with. I had good power mechanics at this point, but I was in a slump.

So the first thing I did was incorporate a forward press and a slightly open face at address. That helped a bit, at least with woods. Something about visually seeing the club aligned to your ideal swing path makes you a bit more confident. But I read something saying if you took the club back extremely inside like I was, your face would be pointing open, and it made sense. So I had assumed it didn't matter where you took it back as long as you swing down under plane, but I realized my concept of where the plane really was had been warped even though some of the positions (all the ones I thought were important) looked OK on video.

There's a proverb in the game of Go, that if one has a bad habit like playing too conservatively, to completely reverse it until you fail in the other direction, then back off into a medium if necessary. I decided maybe my backswing needed an adjustment to be more outside, and hopefully my timing and plane would improve without needing to fix minutiae. If I started hitting my old friend the slice again, maybe I'd need a lesson or to start over from scratch.

I hit the range about a few weeks ago and changed a lot of things. I tried to simply hit to flags to get a real sense of my accuracy and not just down the middle. I did OK (really well for my handicap) with my short clubs. I tried to hit a low fade (with Tiger's action in mind) with my mid irons, and my contact seemed to get a lot better just from intentionally not drawing it. Not only that, but what I felt would be a big cut was a decent shot, even with my long clubs. I think part of it was having my hips too open too early (though I could keep my hips and shoulders more than 110 degrees apart and my upper body still looked aligned. I'm very flexible.) so it was a timing thing as well. (But if you stuck headcovers under either arm, I'd succeed on the drill because I'm flexible enough to hold those positions. So I felt I was "connected", and Hogan said the hips can't turn too fast, in theory, right?)

I had often tried to practice big fades at the range to be ready for an emergency shot, but never considered a small fade to be useful. When I hit draws later on, they were either tremendous and hooky when I tried really going at it with a more closed face, like 20+ yard hooks that started so far to the right they would still land in the fairway, or like a 2 yard push draw when I was just trying to hit neutral and straight. And sure enough, my tendency to hit off the heel, combined with a false sense of where my plane ought to be, turned out to be the culprit. I was even hitting drives too high to be believed with almost no curve and right on line, simply by opening my stance and face by what I thought would be an absurd amount and swinging away.

When one hits from what one thinks is a 15 degree pull alignment hitting up on a teed ball, but the ball flies high and hot time after time without significant curve on the straight path, one rethinks a few things. I think I was swinging in less of an arc before, more of a straight 45 degree path inside out with the ball in the way. When I had adjusted to the new information, I could hit any shape I wanted with consistent height and distance just by focusing on hitting the sweetspot. I know my hands and everything up to my shoulders were still really well educated, but my setup and what I do with my head and shoulders is my only swing thought right now. I have to focus on executing, but the results are getting really good.

Swinging in to out is not in itself the path to hitting a draw, even if you take it to the extreme. I wasted about 6 months on that one. Note to self: next time you're at the range, try hitting it perfectly straight with no curve or push/pull, that will tell you how your alignments are. It's not necessary for playing good golf (I believe having a stock shape is a smart strategy in real life) but if your straight shots can be produced on purpose and you feel like you're hitting it straight when you do, that's a good thing. If your straight shots are an accident when you tell your partner "Watch me hit a 30y cut over those bunkers", that's bad. Even if your ball hits the fairway, it indicates your swing is off.

I thought keeping the elbow on the hip ala Hogan would get an in to out path in a foolproof way. It's not that simple. There was a reason all those pros had steeper backswings than me. And forcing yourself into a position like that can lock up other things, like my neck and shoulders. The tension from it was giving me a hitch on my full swing as well as my putting. I'm not stupid, but I certainly misinterpreted things and that's worth remembering. So even though I picked some good advice to follow, I followed it too much and didn't notice or correctly understand certain problems that developed which I hadn't been looking for. So I was doing a million things wrong to try and make sure I was doing the one thing right, which turned out not to be the right thing anyway. Of course, like all swing epiphanies, mine occurred just before a foot and a half of snow got dumped on the ground.

This tip is not going to fix a slice IMO, since it doesn't address the clubface's angle. What I believe it would do is encourage a pull at first that's more on plane and more consistent than a typical slice. Not that it wouldn't work for some people, since taking a slicer and getting him on plane, even without fully reversing his shot shape, will get better shots. But I doubt they'll begin to draw the ball unless they pull hook it.

Aside from that, if slice fixing tips really worked, there'd be fewer of them. And of course you don't have to hit a draw to fix a slice, but most people won't believe that.

[logman]

I think she's been watching too many Mrs. Kanwar videos

[lumpuckeroo]

I get what she is saying and see her point.

[iacas]

Keep 'em coming guys. I'll share my thoughts quickly later today.

Again, no wrong answers (nor any right ones).

[Ernest Jones]

I think it depends on the player and what their current tendencies are. This is something that would be good for me as I tend to be too steep around A5 so this would help me flatten out a bit. I'm going to play around with it at my next practice session. Of course she exaggerates the opposite move quite a bit. I see what she's saying about the open face though.

[The_Pharaoh]

I didn't think the tip was very well presented, but then it is difficult to record a decent tip in 1:30. Also, I haven't seen many golfers in the exaggerated position she demonstrates. However, the tip itself wasn't bad as I agree with the suggestion for slicers to try and keep their right elbow behind them more on the downswing. Many slicers start their downswing by turning their shoulders which is turn causes the elbows to get too far in front of the body. Result = out-to-in swing path.

[iacas]

The below is all my opinion. Again, no right or wrong, including my post.

I would not have done this tip. I think the percentage of people it helps is much, much smaller than the number of people it would hurt (or who already do this and still slice).

We almost never see pitch elbow from golfers who slice. They almost all have a torso that's rotated too much with their weight back.

I didn't like her justification when she related it to other sports, and found her portrayal of those other sports to be inaccurate:

Pitchers don't "push" the ball. Heck, there's a reason the elbow position down in front is called "pitch" elbow. Hitters also don't have their elbow in quite the position she illustrates, nor are they hitting the same positions as a golf swing - their weight stays back, they're not inclined to the ground, their swing plane is not directed at the ground, etc.

So that's a bad example (and a reason why I tend to avoid trying to relate golf to other sports most of the time).

Next, I'd point out that punch elbow tends to cause two problems. Sitting in your chair, put your hands together like you're gripping a club and put your trail elbow down in front like pitch elbow. Put your hands so that a shaft (if you had a golf club) would be on about a 45° angle. From this position I'll have you two things to get more of a punch elbow position and you'll see what I mean.

1. While trying to maintain as much of the angle between your lead arm (left arm for a righty) arm and your lead side clavicle, move your trail elbow back to your hip. You'll notice that the shaft (if you had one) would steepen quite a bit.
2. Now make the same move but allow that angle between your arm and clavicle to decrease as you move your trail elbow back to your hip.

The second preserves the shaft's steepness, but further loads the #4 accumulator.

A steeper shaft is problematic because you'll tend to swing to the left more as the club's sweet spot "tips out". Your swing direction tends to become more INward.

A more loaded fourth accumulator becomes problematic because, unless you're Charlie Wi and you slide your hips forward FOR-EV-ER, you're going to have a hard time getting it down in time to still have your chest and torso oriented far enough OUTward (nb. this does not mean your torso or shoulders need to be aligned right of the target at impact - I am saying right ENOUGH, in relative terms) to hit a draw.

To wit:

Rather than let the shaft steepen, Charlie allows his accumulators to be delayed. This requires Charlie, to hit a draw, to keep his torso closed longer and to keep sliding forward a really long time on the downswing. At impact, his accumulators have still not released as fully as they have in Jason Dufner's motion. Look at the lead hip and his lead arm in relation to one another - Charlie is WAY forward. He has to be.

Now, I said above that one thing it can do is steepen the shaft. That's true - it can - and that may be the only saving grace this tip has so far as I can tell. In steepening the shaft, what happens? The third accumulator (how much we've turned our lead forearm or opened/closed the clubface) unloads, resulting in a clubface that's effectively more closed to the target line. This idea smells of "old ball flight laws" to me - someone who thinks that a slice occurs because the clubface is pointing well right of the target at impact, not a path that's well left.

I think if you give this advice to most amateurs, they slice the ball more, or they pull the bejeezus out of it.

You can play good golf with your elbow in all sorts of positions. Rory McIlroy hits out a bunch and his elbow is way closer to punch than pitch. I just think this video hurts more people than it helps.

http://thesandtrap.com/t/54238/elbow-position-and-its-effects-on-the-downswing/

---

Now, some quick comments on those posted above. Again, no right or wrong - just my opinion.

Originally Posted by tstrike34

I like the tip.... Something to incorporate... I was wondering about my left elbow... Gonna look at my film to see if that is something I am doing wrong.

I'd stick with the path you're on, honestly. I would not look to incorporate this into your swing (having seen your swing).

Originally Posted by jamo

I would point out a few things:

1) Tiger's more pitchy than she is.

2) She's not nearly as punchy as she describes. Plus she's got a reasonable turning rate (and I believe she hits a pull-fade in the video).

Originally Posted by cbrian

I can almost understand her making a video about the dangers of dragging the elbow/handle like she was doing when demonstrating the "wrong" way. And I can almost agree that the deep elbow feel could possibly create more of a draw. However, there is a very specific context in which those statements would be considered accurate.

I agree 100%. Ditto for the rest.

Originally Posted by cipher

I am not a big fan of the way she presents the tip.  She compares it to throwing a baseball and swinging a bat in which she is confused and wrong about.  In baseball, yes when throwing a ball the elbow is back, but the elbow moves even with the shoulder as the shoulders turn, before the forearm and wrist releases.  And the same with swinging the bat.  The right elbow is back, but usually comes close to the side before releasing the bat.   If you don't do these things you cannot create the power, or the lag in the golf swing.  She is exaggerating the elbow going in front for the purpose of her illustration.  I think that the idea is that it should probably not move in front of your core's rotational point for lack of a better way of describing it.   I think that working with the center of rotation the right elbow can maximize the thrust of the right arm.  She seems to be dropping the elbow against the right hip working with the rotation of the body, I believe it is neither ahead nor behind too much.

I like a lot of what you said there, and you had the same reaction as I did to the baseball stuff. Again, not necessarily right or wrong, just agreeing.

Originally Posted by dkling8

It seems to me that her "tip" would cause a more out-to-in path, making most people's slices worse. As an early extender, and a recovering over-the-topper, bad things happen to me when my right elbow gets stuck behind. She's correct that if your right elbow gets in front of you, you have to learn how to square the face. But, I believe that your path would be more in-to-out, promoting draws (assuming the face isn't wide open).

I would tend to agree with that.

Originally Posted by mchepp

Well...I very much doubt this will help many people. Most of the swings I have seen by us amateurs have major elbow issues, yours truly included. In actual practice her comments are true, a punch elbow can help with a OUTward swing pattern, but so many missing components that likely the slice will worsen. 95% of the swings I have seen on this site should get the completely opposite advice. From the top of the swing if someone tries to do this they will get steep and either early extend to correct the path, or slice.

Yes.

Originally Posted by WWBDD

I think she's identified a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

I think that's put in a funny way, and as it mirrors some of the above comments, I also agree with that.

Originally Posted by LuciusWooding

This tip is not going to fix a slice IMO, since it doesn't address the clubface's angle. What I believe it would do is encourage a pull at first that's more on plane and more consistent than a typical slice. Not that it wouldn't work for some people, since taking a slicer and getting him on plane, even without fully reversing his shot shape, will get better shots. But I doubt they'll begin to draw the ball unless they pull hook it.

I agree that it would tend to cause pulls.

Originally Posted by Ernest Jones

I think it depends on the player and what their current tendencies are. This is something that would be good for me as I tend to be too steep around A5 so this would help me flatten out a bit. I'm going to play around with it at my next practice session. Of course she exaggerates the opposite move quite a bit. I see what she's saying about the open face though.

I think the opposite is more likely. See if you still disagree after looking at the thread I linked to before (or here again: http://thesandtrap.com/t/54238/elbow-position-and-its-effects-on-the-downswing/ ).

Originally Posted by The_Pharaoh

However, the tip itself wasn't bad as I agree with the suggestion for slicers to try and keep their right elbow behind them more on the downswing. Many slicers start their downswing by turning their shoulders which is turn causes the elbows to get too far in front of the body. Result = out-to-in swing path.

Do they? How does the elbow move if the torso simply turns? Wouldn't it just stay where it is, or perhaps even lag farther behind? Not moving the torso and just moving the arms would get the elbow more down in front, IMO.

[tstrike34]

Originally Posted by iacas

I'd stick with the path you're on, honestly. I would not look to incorporate this into your swing (having seen your swing).

Erik,

You are dead on... I did not take film today, but I did try the tip on a whim.... I found myself topping the ball and have my blade open.

But she is kinda cute....