Shoulder Turn & Balance

[lhagsjr]

Hello All,

I haven't been on here much in the last couple weeks. I joined a Country Club and even though its cold here in Philadelphia, I am putting some serious time in at the range. I am going everyday. I decided to not "give up" with golf but to make a 100% commitment to improving. I love it to much and I have only been at it for a year. I am finally making some very slow progress. I no longer get into those funks where all I do it shank it. My contact is not perfect by any stretch but on most swings I get decent contact at least. I know without a doubt when I shank the ball of the heel its because Im just not turning my shoulders/body enough. All hands swing and its ugly.

So, knowing how important it is to get a full 90 degree shoulder turn and coil I am making sure to at least do this on every swing. And the results are pretty good. I am hitting my 8 iron about 140-150 yards consistently. My only issue with ball flight is its carrying a very slight fade that I don't really want. Any ideas on that?

My second question is regarding balance. I feel like I have good posture. Feet flared slightly, slight knee flex, proper distance from the ball and bending from hips.  At set up I feel like I am in an a good position. At times when Im making sure to make my full shoulder turn I feel slightly off balance and sometimes I move ever so slightly towards the ball which obviously isn't good. Usually I still hit the ball OK but I know this is not a good thing to feel off balance. Any ideas as to why? Is there something wrong with the setup? Or am I not performing the shoulder turn properly? I go by the left shoulder replacing the right shoulder position at address theory. I know its hard to say without video. But theories/guesses are cool

I hope everyone is doing well.

Thanks,

Hags

[mvmac]

Yes without seeing the swing it can be tough to say. I would make sure your feet are turned out enough and that the right hip keeps turning up and around on the backswing.

[lhagsjr]

Thank you Mike. I never really thought about the right hip turning around enough, Ive been focusing on making sure my left shoulder is turning enough. This make sense as sometimes I feel like Im turning my left side but it doesn't feel right, Makes sense about the hip idea because that means my left side is turning enough but not my right...

I feel like the balance thing is something so stupid at setup. Ill try flaring out my feet more

Thanks again

[joekelly]

Ben Hogan says in his book 'Power Golf',

"you should never feel that the weight is forward on your feet if you have taken up the correct position'. And, to paraphrase, your butt should stick out a bit.

So, welcome you to check out Chapter III, 'Stance gives you balance'.

[iacas]

  joekelly said:

And, to paraphrase, your butt should stick out a bit.

Define "a bit"… :D

[mvmac]

  lhagsjr said:

I feel like the balance thing is something so stupid at setup. Ill try flaring out my feet more

Just in case you haven't seen it.

Sometimes the weight getting too much into the heels at address can cause the golfer to try and balance themselves during the swing, causing them to "fall" forward a little towards the ball.

[SavvySwede]

Not everyone can get a full 90* of shoulder turn. You are likely making compensations to move the shoulder into the spot you believe it should stop. Do some slo mo swings and try to feel for the true limit of your shoulder turn.

[lhagsjr]

Savvvy you are 100% correct. I was forcing too much of a shoulder turn because I was "trained" to make a full turn. My instructor can never accuse me of not listening. Any tip he gives me I master. I have had 5 lessons and Im thrilled with the improvement but it just takes time. For example when I first went there my grip was terrible and I didnt release the club/turn my hands over at all. The next time I saw him I was turning everything over too much. Pull the ball big time to the left. Now the shoulder turn was a focus a couple lessons ago and forcing it was helping my contact but like I said above overdoing it was causing me to get off balance.

Today's Tip was to try to hit the ball to the 2nd baseman. The result was amazing once I got it. I was hitting 5 yard draws with the ball landing about a 2 yards left of target at maximum distance.

Im curious if anyone else uses/have been given the tip to imagine hitting the ball over the 2nd baseman's head. Of course the first couple didnt go great but once I got the feeling it was great.

My instructor loves where I am except for about the last 2 feet of the swing. Still to flipping with hands at the end and not enough turning through with body.

Ive been at it for about 14 months and finally feel some progress is finally being made. I almost quit like 10 times. I would go to the range and hit shank after shank for months. Anyone who is having a hard time should listen to me. Golf is hard but if you put the work in it pays of EVENTUALLY. FYI I Still shank a few everyday. Maybe 3 or 4 out of my bucket of 50-60 balls..

[joekelly]

Here ya go.

"When you look at the ideal golf posture from the rear the most noticeable feature is the prominence of the golfer's posterior.  The derriere , i i may use the name women's fashion magazines have for it, definitely protrudes."  Ben Hogan. 1948.

There.  I have defined 'a bit'.  Now shall i define 'a butt'?

[saevel25]

  joekelly said:

Here ya go.

"When you look at the ideal golf posture from the rear the most noticeable feature is the prominence of the golfer's posterior.  The derriere, i i may use the name women's fashion magazines have for it, definitely protrudes."  Ben Hogan. 1948.

There.  I have defined 'a bit'.  Now shall i define 'a butt'?

"a bit" is an ambiguous term. It doesn't help in illustrating exactly how much you are talking about. Neither does what Ben Hogan wrote.

[joekelly]

@ Saevel25, you're a frequent, welcome and wise contributor to these pages and i read your comments with care. But Ben Hogan is gone, and only his word and ideas live on.  Asking me to interpret Ben's words and ideas for you won't be useful. My only point is to address the OP and whether his weight is up on his toes, or more back on his heels.  Ben wrote an entire chapter on stance and balance, so i thought the OP may wish to consider his own stance and balance.

If you can improve on Ben Hogan's instruction books, 'go for it'.

[iacas]

  joekelly said:

@Saevel25, you're a frequent, welcome and wise contributor to these pages and i read your comments with care. But Ben Hogan is gone, and only his word and ideas live on.  Asking me to interpret Ben's words and ideas for you won't be useful. My only point is to address the OP and whether his weight is up on his toes, or more back on his heels.  Ben wrote an entire chapter on stance and balance, so i thought the OP may wish to consider his own stance and balance.

If you can improve on Ben Hogan's instruction books, 'go for it'.

Ben Hogan wrote* what he felt. Per the pictures above, his butt is not "sticking out" - not even "a bit" by my definition. If anything, his butt is "tucked in" slightly.

* Ben may not have even written the book. There's doubt as to how much he wrote and how much was cobbled together and written on his behalf, even beyond the typical level of "hire a writer to help me write this book."

[joekelly]

Well, OK.  Stuff about Ben i did not know, the ghost writers, etc.  However, as per the pix,  those old style trousers, big and baggy, may effectively hide his derriere. Photoshop?

Regarding Ben's,  or anyone's,  weight distribution at address, would you say that weight on heels, toes or balls of feet is best?

For me, weight on toes does not lead to clean strikes or smooth body movements.  But i will be happy to read your thoughts.

[iacas]

  joekelly said:

Regarding Ben's,  or anyone's,  weight distribution at address, would you say that weight on heels, toes or balls of feet is best?

For me, weight on toes does not lead to clean strikes or smooth body movements.  But i will be happy to read your thoughts.

Middle of the feet. Not heels OR toes.

[mvmac]

  joekelly said:

Well, OK.  Stuff about Ben i did not know, the ghost writers, etc.  However, as per the pix,  those old style trousers, big and baggy, may effectively hide his derriere. Photoshop?

The photos weren't photoshopped, they are videos off youtube.

I assume you have but might be good to check out this thread again.

[joekelly]

You are right, Mike.  No trick pix in Ben's day.  Hard to believe Ben advocated one thing, 'butt out a bit', and then  did not use his  own  advice.

I'm on that URL as we type.  Thnx.

[iacas]

  joekelly said:

You are right, Mike.  No trick pix in Ben's day.  Hard to believe Ben advocated one thing, 'butt out a bit', and then  did not use his  own  advice.

Feel ain't real. He said he "bumped his hips" but mostly turned on the downswing… and yet Ben slid his hips forward more than almost anyone.

[natureboy]

  iacas said:

Define "a bit"… :D

In a nutshell: very baggy old-school golf pants for freedom of movement.

His butt is clearly several inches behind his heels. If you also look for where the pants bulge / drape over his thigh and calf relative to the apex point of the knee you can estimate where the back of his knee is...about the midline of his trousers. Camera on left is on his hands / toe line. Camera on right is on the ball-target line.

It's very unlikely his thighs are almost as thick as his hips. I don't think he lifted at all, let alone that intensely.

If he was wearing shorts the butt sticking out would be pretty obvious. If his butt wasn't counter-balancing his upper body his weight would be way out over his toes with his head that far in front of his feet.

You may disagree with elements of his 'fundamentals' like foot flare, but I don't think Hogan described things he didn't both feel and also see in his body positions. He did a lot of mirror work at night and in the off season to verify what he was working on. He is most definitely following through on his 'feel' of sitting onto a old fashioned sports stick seat. I believe he said it was about 2-3 inches of tush drop. Pic below is the 'feel', which is similar to but more pronounced than the real above which definitely has knee flex and butt behind the heels.

@mvmac you are right that his lateral hip movement was tremendous and certainly appears to be more than a bump. However, this is because he loaded right while your preference is about 50/50 at the top. Works for you and many others, but not what he intended or did.

His bump was to get 'around' from his loaded rear (R) leg onto his unweighted front (L) leg...his little 'fall' forward move. Once partly planted on his front (L) side his thought / feel was to turn. But he did this while working down the inside of his rear (R) leg into his planted front (L) leg. This action pushed the L hip further forward while he was only focused on turning allowing him a nice path to the inside of the ball.