Golfers Are Consistent - A Golfer's Good and Bad Swings Look the Same and Are Repeatable

[iacas]

not to be picky, but steady is defined as firmly fixed, supported, or balanced; not shaking or moving. Perhaps we need a different word in the golf vocabulary?

And not once have we ever taken that definition because the connotation of "steady" is not "unmoving, still, fixed." C'mon, Julia… Pretty sure you know this. There's simply not a word that means "not moving around too much." We don't need a different word because a) such a word doesn't exist, and b) people know what it means unless they want to cite the literal definition.

[Vinsk]

@Tennessee David Leadbetter. The A Swing. Top 100. That's one.

[natureboy]

I hate disagreeing with Mike, Erik and the more experienced players on this site. Partially out of respect, but mostly because of the obvious. So would someone please explain what just happened to me?

After a couple of days of ok practicing at my private driving range (which is what I call the field next to my property), I went out after work today and couldn't hit anything solid. So I propped the cell phone up and took some video thinking I would see some slight regression in one of the 3 keys I've been working on. There was nothing slight about what I saw. Just a complete cluster#!% of a swing - mainly keeping my weight way back at impact.

I'll accept the probability that I'm just freakishly bad at golf and a complete spazz, but this really surprised me. Once I saw it, I made some adjustments and was able to get back on track - which I feel pretty good about. It just really blindsided me and is reminder of why I don't play in a league.

So if our swings are generally consistent, why did mine regress so drastically? Is it just me? I know even good players have bad days or start to fall back on bad habits, but I always thought it would be a more subtle change.

It's getting less frequent, but this happens to me too. Being tired doesn't help, but I have found practicing tired and focusing on avoiding the fault / doing the positive correction is worthwhile.

Often I fail to get off my trail leg, because I rush the swing and get quick from the top (esp. with driver). My subconscious says "there's no room for the club" and pops the right leg / side into early extension to avoid a drop kick.

[JonMA1]

It's getting less frequent, but this happens to me too. Being tired doesn't help, but I have found practicing tired and focusing on avoiding the fault / doing the positive correction is worthwhile.

Often I fail to get off my trail leg, because I rush the swing and get quick from the top (esp. with driver). My subconscious says  "there's no room for the club" and pops the right leg / side into early extension to avoid a drop kick.

I might be taking out my # @^ on this, but I think one area where better players excel is how aware they are of small changes. Also, they can recognize the feel of a poorly struck ball and know what caused it. You seem to be quite aware of what's going on in your swing @natureboy .

The detail used in your description above is what I'm rarely able to do. If I pull hook a driver for example, I believe it's because I didn't make a full turn on the BS. My upper body/hands/club get to impact before my lower body is in position, I don't get my weight to the left so my path changes. Why do I believe this? Because when I take my provisional, I concentrate on the full turn and I achieve different results. But it could be something totally different.

What I get from this thread is that it can take a small, almost unnoticeable swing variation to cause a drastically different shot result.

However, if I were as serious as I need to be about getting better, I'd video record an entire round. Because I can't feel any differences, I have no clue what changes between a series of really nice shots, and the abrupt change to a series of poor ones or vice versa. I'm likely wrong, but I think it would be more noticeable than the images in the OP.

[iacas]

[JonMA1]

After this weeks practice, I have to resurrect this thread.

Lately, I've started to see improvement on video when hitting into the net. My better swings are not yet close to being natural, but I'm gaining ground. 

Today, I took my practice outdoors and recorded some of it. Not good. Completely fell off the "weight forward" wagon, and worse - could not fix it. Here's the thing that gets me, if I were to go out into the garage and hit into the net right now, the swing would be very different and much better.

If there was anything positive about this, it's that I know how easy it is for my swing to completely change. I'm not talking about a flaw showing up that prevents good contact now and then. This is a completely different swing. In addition, now that I know what the problem is and how to identify it on the course, I will now work on how to get back on track when it happens.

I'm not posting this to contradict anything that's been stated in this thread. Admittedly, I'm atypical of the average golfer. I have problems using drills, I fail miserably at the Five S's of Great Practice despite my best efforts, and what I feel is so off-base from what the video shows, it's a miracle I can make contact at all.

This has to be similar to players who are really good at the range but cannot bring that game to the course.

Anyway, I believe I'll eventually reduce the frequency of what happened today. While It sucks that I had to just give up, at least I've learned something. The truth hurts sometimes.

 

[iacas]

28 minutes ago, JonMA1 said:

Today, I took my practice outdoors and recorded some of it. Not good. Completely fell off the "weight forward" wagon, and worse - could not fix it. Here's the thing that gets me, if I were to go out into the garage and hit into the net right now, the swing would be very different and much better.

Yeah, this topic doesn't say that your swing is the same in vastly different situations. It says that one day when you hit a 6I on a par three to five feet, and the next day when you toe-cut it into the front right bunker, the swings looked basically the same, with very little to tell them apart.

It doesn't say anything about the mental challenges you're finding of hitting off a mat into a net versus outside to a green located an actual 100+ yards away.

Find a way to get better at the 5S of Effective Practice. The trick there is to find a way to enjoy doing it that way. Take more breaks. Mix things up more frequently. Have a good practice session every time. 

[collapse]

Interesting topic because it seems to suggest big muscle big swing motions are not the key since they all look the same.This suggests small muscles are dictating a good or bad strike.

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, collapse said:

Interesting topic because it seems to suggest big muscle big swing motions are not the key since they all look the same.This suggests small muscles are dictating a good or bad strike.

No, not really. It's just a matter of the level of precision needed to hit a golf ball well. Everything has to be working in order to hit a good shot.

[mvmac]

2 hours ago, collapse said:

This suggests small muscles are dictating a good or bad strike.

No, it's what @iacas just said.

3 hours ago, iacas said:

It says that one day when you hit a 6I on a par three to five feet, and the next day when you toe-cut it into the front right bunker, the swings looked basically the same, with very little to tell them apart.

 

[Marty2019]

On 2/18/2015 at 11:28 AM, iacas said:

We hear from a lot of people that golfers are really just looking for "consistency."

 

What many fail to realize is that they're already consistent golfers. They make the same swings, time after time, and because golf has such precise requirements, they get wholly different results. A quarter inch here or a few degrees there are all that's necessary to turn a blistered flag-seeking 7-iron into one that results in a drop and a penalty stroke.

 

This happened to me a couple of days ago.   I was trying to video my swing on the driving range so I could post it in the "My Swing" section.   I didn't get good video because the sun was in the wrong place so I didn't post it yet, however...

Of course I wanted to post a good swing, so I figured, just hit shots until you hit a good one and them edit the video and post the good swing.   So I stood there and hit about 5 shots, all over the place, pulled one, sliced one, one ducky looking hook, finally one on the sweet spot with good tempo and great distance, perfectly straight.   So I knew the last one was the good one.   I went back and looked at these 5 shots in a row, and they all look exactly the same to me.   It's a much better swing than a couple of months ago, and the results are much better overall, and yet, from the video, I make the exact same improved swing, 5 times in a row, and if I didn't already know, then I would never be able to tell which one was a good shot. 

[Big Lex]

Ok. The pictures make the point extremely well.

So knowing this is true, the difference "functionally" speaking, between an expert player and a chopper is that the chopper's swing, while repeating on a "macro" level, produces more variability in the path of the club than does the expert's. So the sweet spot of the chopper's club comes through the hitting zone, for instance, at some locus within, say, a three inch window, while the expert's window is maybe 1/2 inch.

Is this what you are saying? (Not interested in the specifics of the measurements I gave....just the point that the variability is different).

Assuming your answer is yes, my question is: Do you know, or have a hypothesis, as to why an ideal "5SK" swing will have less variability of the club head's motion than will a swing you consider flawed?

In other words, if a person can repeat a swing as consistently as we all do, why doesn't the consistency of body motion translate equally into the consistency of club head motion? Why does the chopper's consistent body motion give inconsistent club head motion, while the pro's equally consistent body motion give consistent club head motion?

If the moderators think this is an off-topic post, please either put it in a new thread or instruct me where it would be appropriate to ask the question.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Big Lex

[iacas]

23 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

So knowing this is true, the difference "functionally" speaking, between an expert player and a chopper is that the chopper's swing, while repeating on a "macro" level, produces more variability in the path of the club than does the expert's. So the sweet spot of the chopper's club comes through the hitting zone, for instance, at some locus within, say, a three inch window, while the expert's window is maybe 1/2 inch.

Path, face angle, low point control… whatever.

23 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Assuming your answer is yes, my question is: Do you know, or have a hypothesis, as to why an ideal "5SK" swing will have less variability of the club head's motion than will a swing you consider flawed?

I'm not sure I understand the question. A player who owns all 5SK is a very good player. A player who lacks one of the keys, or more, is not as good. Also, there is no "one" swing.

But yes, there's more variability at a very small level. The macro and even most of the micro movements are the same, or virtually indistinguishably the same.

23 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

In other words, if a person can repeat a swing as consistently as we all do, why doesn't the consistency of body motion translate equally into the consistency of club head motion? Why does the chopper's consistent body motion give inconsistent club head motion, while the pro's equally consistent body motion give consistent club head motion?

Because we're talking about super small differences.

Golfers don't think that - they hit a bad shot and think "oh, I came over that one" and that's highly, highly, highly unlikely to be the case that something that big changed.

[Big Lex]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'm not sure I understand the question. A player who owns all 5SK is a very good player. A player who lacks one of the keys, or more, is not as good.

Hmmm. Let me try again. I understand that one is "good" and the other is not. I'm trying to get a better sense of why, other than "because it's better, those are the fundamentals." Why do those fundamentals produce less micro variability?

There are many characteristics of good golf (distance, precision, etc.), but whether someone hits is 350 with a draw and plays on tour or hits it 285 and is a club champion, the thing that distinguishes them from the 18 hcp chopper is less variability of their club path on the micro level.

Why is this? Why does having your weight forward, for instance, provide more micro precision? It's easy to understand that weight forward will give, for instance, a descending blow, more speed, more ball compression, than a scooping hit that catches the ball on the upswing. But a priori, it doesn't make sense that weight forward would necessarily have less micro-variability than weight back. Why can't the scooping, weight back swing ALSO be grooved such that it produces micro precision? Certainly, every golfer would prefer to hit a compressed pitching wedge that goes 135 with spin, instead of one that goes 110 and knuckles....but if you could do the latter with as much precision as a pro hits HIS wedge, you'd still be very very good. But that doesn't seem to happen in practice. I'm trying to understand why, or at least what peoples' hypotheses are about it.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Hmmm. Let me try again. I understand that one is "good" and the other is not. I'm trying to get a better sense of why, other than "because it's better, those are the fundamentals." Why do those fundamentals produce less micro variability?

Yes.

A player who flips at the club will hit the ball fat and thin. They're virtually the same swing, but on one (the thin one), he bends his elbow an extra little bit so that he doesn't fat it again. The swing looks virtually the same, but because he's still trying to compensate for a flaw, produces tiny little bits of added variability.

7 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

There are many characteristics of good golf (distance, precision, etc.), but whether someone hits is 350 with a draw and plays on tour or hits it 285 and is a club champion, the thing that distinguishes them from the 18 hcp chopper is less variability of their club path on the micro level.

You keep saying "club path" but there's a lot more to it than that. There's clubface angle, which frankly, is a far bigger variable (the small range considered) relative to path, in my experience. The path of most golfers is one of the more consistent things about their swings. The face angle varies more so - from the PGA Tour to the bogey golfer. And other things matter too, of course - low point control, etc.

7 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Why is this? Why does having your weight forward, for instance, provide more micro precision?

Because they're not compensating to make clean contact with the face pointing where it needs to be given the path. There's not much more to it than that: good players don't need to compensate as much.

If you could somehow make a good player flip at the ball, they'd probably figure out how to play pretty good golf from there. We have a flipper who has won our city championship several times. Big flip. He plays enough that he can control the variability somewhat, but he plays a LOT of golf in order to do this, and he still hits some "odd" bad shots for a scratch golfer. He's learned to compensate well, but he'd be a better golfer (he'd hit the ball more solidly, farther, and a bit straighter) with better Key #2 and thus #3 work. As he discovered in a lesson.

Less compensation for a flaw = a super-micro-level better swing and more repeatability at that level.

7 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Why can't the scooping, weight back swing ALSO be grooved such that it produces micro precision?

Because it's not a good way to play golf, so the golfer hits bad shots, and makes tiny little adjustments or compensations to hopefully hit it a tiny bit better the next time. But their bigger medium to macro level faults still exist.

[Big Lex]

27 minutes ago, iacas said:

You keep saying "club path" but there's a lot more to it than that.

Yes....I know. You are right. Just trying to keep the verbiage down. I'm speaking of club path in a generic way, not how that term is specific to golf swing analysis. So the "path" in this sense includes its face angle, speed, low point.

Thank you for the answer. You seem to be implying that bad swings have an ergonomic disadvantage, and that when you swing bad, you have to make compensations to get the club head to hit the ball squarely. Compensation = more things to do, so more sources of variability. The confusing part, I guess for me, is that those compensations don't show up too starkly in the macro sense. They are there, and they introduce variability, but still on the macro level, the swing looks very consistent.

As an analogy to the idea of ergonomic efficiency....Sort of like if you designed a boat with a broad, wavy, asymmetric bow. It would float, and you could drive the boat straight through the water, but it would require much more steering an adjustment than a boat with a conventional pointed bow (I don't know a lot about boats, so I hope that makes sense...I think it does).  

So, to take a facet of golf teaching, the on-plane swing, we could say maybe that the on-plane swing has the club somehow in a more balanced position for swinging the club head in a proper arc, so the player has to do less to keep that club head on the proper path* (see above), compared to the weirdly off-plane club, which requires adjustments to get it swinging on a proper path. Correct?   

27 minutes ago, iacas said:

If you could somehow make a good player flip at the ball, they'd probably figure out how to play pretty good golf from there. We have a flipper who has won our city championship several times. Big flip. He plays enough that he can control the variability somewhat, but he plays a LOT of golf in order to do this, and he still hits some "odd" bad shots for a scratch golfer. He's learned to compensate well,

I'm glad you mentioned this. My brother used to tell me about one of his opponents that drove him crazy. This was in the 1970s. The guy was 50-something, with a weird, loopy, jerky swing, and could only hit the ball about 190 yards with a driver, a consistent low, weak fade. But he was a legit 4 handicap on a decent golf course because he could control the ball, he compensated well.

But on another level, this is the sort of thing that can drive a handicap golfer like me crazy. If it's possible to play at a scratch level with a big flip, why, rhetorically speaking, go to the trouble to make a major change to stop flipping? Why not figure out how to compensate well? Sort of the Butch Harmon idea of taking what a person does "naturally" and building on that, rather than trying to force someone into something they can't do.

I'm not really looking for an answer to that question. I'm not saying it's a valid question. But it can be very frustrating for an amateur, handicap golfer to watch experts play sometimes and see the way "rules" are broken, and then be told later by a teacher that you MUST learn the rules.

It's a tough game. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Big Lex

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Yes....I know. You are right. Just trying to keep the verbiage down. I'm speaking of club path in a generic way, not how that term is specific to golf swing analysis. So the "path" in this sense includes its face angle, speed, low point.

I'd prefer not to use the word "path" because that has a specific definition already in use.

2 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

But on another level, this is the sort of thing that can drive a handicap golfer like me crazy. If it's possible to play at a scratch level with a big flip, why, rhetorically speaking, go to the trouble to make a major change to stop flipping? Why not figure out how to compensate well?

Because the latter takes a helluva lot more time.

I see this all the time. The five handicapper who has a pretty decent swing can be a 5 handicapper after a month off, but the 5 who is only a 5 because he practices so much (or plays) often sees his timing go to shit and shoots 90 his first time or two out because he can't compensate as well.

My golfer that finished second in the conference championships (when we were playing frequently) didn't break 88 on our spring break trip because he hasn't had a chance to hit balls lately. Shaft is basically vertical at impact. He got the timing (compensations) down pretty well in the fall, and needs to get on his horse or he won't make the squad we take to Nationals in May.

It's easier to learn to do things better than to learn to compensate better. (Excluding some cheater compensations, like moving the ball back in your stance, which is fine if you're an 18 who wants to be a 15, but which starts to bite you in the ass when you're a 9 looking to be a 5).

2 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

I'm not really looking for an answer to that question. I'm not saying it's a valid question. But it can be very frustrating for an amateur, handicap golfer to watch experts play sometimes and see the way "rules" are broken, and then be told later by a teacher that you MUST learn the rules.

It's a tough game. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

You don't have to learn the rules. You can be pretty good if you have enough time to practice and play that you can keep your compensations in place.

But you won't find anyone playing very close to their potential if they're compensating for several things.

[Big Lex]

21 minutes ago, iacas said:

I see this all the time. The five handicapper who has a pretty decent swing can be a 5 handicapper after a month off, but the 5 who is only a 5 because he practices so much (or plays) often sees his timing go to shit and shoots 90 his first time or two out because he can't compensate as well.

My golfer that finished second in the conference championships (when we were playing frequently) didn't break 88 on our spring break trip because he hasn't had a chance to hit balls lately. Shaft is basically vertical at impact. He got the timing (compensations) down pretty well in the fall, and needs to get on his horse or he won't make the squad we take to Nationals in May.

That is a great story. You should tell that story more often. As an aside....regarding your teaching of a college team. You were talking about how there is no objective standard regarding golf teaching. The only way a person comes to respect someone like Leadbetter or Harmon is by their association with great players; following their teaching becomes, on some level, an act of faith. Your work with a college team is, I hope, something you are studying and using as proof of your methods.

 

21 minutes ago, iacas said:

(Excluding some cheater compensations, like moving the ball back in your stance, which is fine if you're an 18 who wants to be a 15, but which starts to bite you in the ass when you're a 9 looking to be a 5).

Another fascinating observation here. Never thought of it until now, but it happened to me. I started golfing with the ball forward, as in the Hogan's Five Lessons book. After a while, I discovered that I hit the ball more solidly and further if I moved it back in my stance. Years later, however, I began to wonder why I was hitting too many hooks and having too much difficulty hitting a driver, so I moved the ball forward again, and worked on some other things in the swing. Moving the ball forward was one of the changes that coincided with me moving down into the single digits.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Big Lex