Shallowing and hand path

[nevets88]

I knew that hands going out is generally a good thing, but also initially hands go down a little, the Gears videos of the pros below bear that out. Also, noted in the video is hands down a little beginning of downswing (which helps shallow shaft according to vid), then towards the ball (which steepens the shaft).

 

[iacas]

I like the video.

That said, the problem with the video is when they show 3 and 5.

At this point, it's too late. The amateur's shaft is in the neighborhood of 35° steeper. You can see in the video when he plays it forward that the hands shifting out DO encourage the shaft to lay down… but he's too steep, too late to do much about it.

Shifting the hands out DOES cause the shaft to lay down. That's a really basic thing about how forces work - the CG of the club (down about 4" above the head of the club and typically a cm or so in front of the shaft) wants to line up behind the direction of the pulling force).

But in this case, it's too late. Unfortunately, he's not talking about that.

I mean, I have the measurements on the red arrows up above, but I also have the white arrows extending out to show where the shaft is pointing.

The guy on the left HAS to pull down a bit to get the club to kick out and turn the corner to meet the ball. If he swung out he may swing outside or right over the top of the ball. By pulling down, he steepens the shaft a little… which he has to do, because it's effectively too shallow.

The guy on the right HAS to move his hands out to the ball a little. If he swings down where the white arrow points, which is basically the direction the #3 moves his hands from the top, the club will follow right along and he'll swing a foot inside the golf ball.

P.S. Not for nothing… but look at the trail elbow position of the two golfers, and what that does to the wrist conditions, etc.

[mvmac]

I like a lot of the videos AMG puts out, kind of a "common sense" look at the golf swing using Gears and Swing Catalyst.

If anyone is wondering what the impetus is for a lot of their current content, check this out. 

At 1:49, Granato says, "If we want the shaft to steepen late, we want to steepen the hand path early and vice versa, if we want to shallow the shaft early, we want to steepen the hand path early." 

I'm a little confused to what this means but as @iacas said, the hand path moving out will shallow the shaft because of how the COM reacts to the direction of force.

Agree with @iacas that the golfer's elbow positions and shaft orientations are playing a big role with what we're seeing with transition hand path.

I agree with what the video is showing. I think a big part of it is due to where the golfer is at the top and early transition. With a lot of good players the left arm will stay adducted into the early transition so it would make sense the hand path won't be moving "out" a whole lot. 

As the body rotation starts to kick in more and the left arm starts coming off the chest the hand path will move more out and the club will shallow. I personally think a lot of this shallowing trend is overdone, I know some of it is exaggerated to drive home the point at A5 you want the shaft either pointed at the ball or a little outside of it.

---

Saw they just posted Part 2, they had some good observations. Makes sense that if you have more torso rotation it's going to effect the hand path into and post impact. Someone with less rotation is going to have a more "down-the-line" release.

I like that they point out you can have a very functional golf swing without being super open on the downswing. Take a look at Jack Nicklaus at impact, he has very different torso alignments to say Dustin Johnson or Jordan Spieth. Golfers have options.

 

[colin007]

10 hours ago, mvmac said:

I like a lot of the videos AMG puts out, kind of a "common sense" look at the golf swing using Gears and Swing Catalyst.

If anyone is wondering what the impetus is for a lot of their current content, check this out. 

At 1:49, Granato says, "If we want the shaft to steepen late, we want to steepen the hand path early and vice versa, if we want to shallow the shaft early, we want to steepen the hand path early." 

I'm a little confused to what this means but as @iacas said, the hand path moving out will shallow the shaft because of how the COM reacts to the direction of force.

Agree with @iacas that the golfer's elbow positions and shaft orientations are playing a big role with what we're seeing with transition hand path.

I agree with what the video is showing. I think a big part of it is due to where the golfer is at the top and early transition. With a lot of good players the left arm will stay adducted into the early transition so it would make sense the hand path won't be moving "out" a whole lot. 

As the body rotation starts to kick in more and the left arm starts coming off the chest the hand path will move more out and the club will shallow. I personally think a lot of this shallowing trend is overdone, I know some of it is exaggerated to drive home the point at A5 you want the shaft either pointed at the ball or a little outside of it.

---

Saw they just posted Part 2, they had some good observations. Makes sense that if you have more torso rotation it's going to effect the hand path into and post impact. Someone with less rotation is going to have a more "down-the-line" release.

I like that they point out you can have a very functional golf swing without being super open on the downswing. Take a look at Jack Nicklaus at impact, he has very different torso alignments to say Dustin Johnson or Jordan Spieth. Golfers have options.

 

I love that first video with surfer dude. 

Question, can the feel of throwing a spear back and behind you into the ground help with that circle feeling and also shallowing?

[mvmac]

8 hours ago, colin007 said:

I love that first video with surfer dude. 

Question, can the feel of throwing a spear back and behind you into the ground help with that circle feeling and also shallowing?

The video with Gankas? He wants you to keep your hands "up" (in the circle) then lower (dual hip external rotation, Snead squat) and rotate. Keeping the hands up will load the left arm across the chest, depress the right scap and externally rotate the shoulder. So no, throwing the spear into the ground would move them out the "circle".

To feel this, stand next to a wall a couple feet to your right. Make a backswing with a club, grip well down on the shaft so that the grip rests against the wall. Shift a little weight forward and rotate keeping the grip against the wall.

[mvmac]

See what happens when the hands work outward? 

 

[RandallT]

Definitely correct me if I’m wrong on all this, but here are some thoughts (some of you may know this is a topic near and dear to my heart):

1. I find it hard to believe that the hand path downward promotes shallowing. A simple experiment shows that down steepens the club. Am I way off base?

2. Since these lines are two dimensional, they don’t show how much the hands are coming TOWARD the “camera.” Isn’t it possible that there is lateral motion in the initial hand path from the top? That could make the initial hand path appear “steeper” but only from the perspective of the DTL view.

Hope that makes sense as a question.  

I’ve been out of commission for a while on this but I was making strides on shallowing and a key element (I thought) was that my hand path from the top was more of a horizontal move back in a direction toward the DTL point of view than it was downward. It might appear in 2D as downward but that’s not the feel.

I know I know- feel isn’t what’s really going on. But I am confused that this is presenting a convincing argument to consider the hands to move more downward than horizontally. That just feels wrong and has left me a bit puzzled frankly.

Hopefully I’m just misunderstanding something in all this discussion here.

 

 

[iacas]

8 hours ago, RandallT said:

1. I find it hard to believe that the hand path downward promotes shallowing. A simple experiment shows that down steepens the club. Am I way off base?

No, you're right. The video is, IMO, a poor one, because it's "too late" - the pros are already shallow, while the amateur golfer is steep.

Their hand paths are a result of that condition, then.

8 hours ago, RandallT said:

2. Since these lines are two dimensional, they don’t show how much the hands are coming TOWARD the “camera.” Isn’t it possible that there is lateral motion in the initial hand path from the top? That could make the initial hand path appear “steeper” but only from the perspective of the DTL view.

Yeah, but… so? I mean, we talk about "steep" from DL view, so I don't think if the hand path is "wider" (i.e. toward the camera more), that's going to change that. He's not saying the hands go ONLY downward, and not "wide/toward-the-camera" too. He's just talking about the angles from that view.

And I think that's fair. I just think it's "too late." The steep guy is already steep, the shallow guys shallow(-ish).

8 hours ago, RandallT said:

I’ve been out of commission for a while on this but I was making strides on shallowing and a key element (I thought) was that my hand path from the top was more of a horizontal move back in a direction toward the DTL point of view than it was downward. It might appear in 2D as downward but that’s not the feel.

Yeah. How much "out" you can go depends on a few things, including your hand depth and the angle of the shaft.

8 hours ago, RandallT said:

Hopefully I’m just misunderstanding something in all this discussion here.

Did you read my response(s)? The amateur is already steep, and the pros are already shallow. The moves they illustrate don't do anything to "create" them. The amateur shallows, the pros steepen slightly.

The video takes place too "late" to illustrate what I think it tried to illustrate.

[mvmac]

Post from good instructor in Vegas from a few days ago which seems like a response to the Athletic Motion video. 

I like the post and the example is really good but at the same time I feel like all these instructors are focusing on slightly different things. I'm pretty sure the Athletic Motion guys would agree that the hands/arms and too deep at 5 on the left.

My take is that AMG is commenting on seeing a decent amount of good players with the hand path "vertical" early in the transition. I think they're just saying don't throw your hands way out in an attempt to shallow the shaft. Gankas is sharing more of a feel or exaggeration for players that get the hands too vertical and narrow with the wrist angles. Jeff Smith (RadardGolfPro) is sharing more of what happens throughout the downswing and how the body rotation plays a role in the hand path.

[iacas]

I agree with that, yeah.

The AMG video remains a bit disappointing in that they say they're going to talk about one thing, but they really don't; what they talk about was already determined by that point.

[RandallT]

23 hours ago, iacas said:

Did you read my response(s)? The amateur is already steep, and the pros are already shallow. The moves they illustrate don't do anything to "create" them. The amateur shallows, the pros steepen slightly.

The video takes place too "late" to illustrate what I think it tried to illustrate.

Got it. I did see your response, but didn't fully grasp how it answered my confusion about it all. Clearer now as I take my time to really look at the videos, subsequent posts, and think about what's going on. Thanks

 

[atrapasuenos]

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but I've been watching a lot of videos about this topic because I think I came too steep to the ball. I have tried some of the recommendations on those videos but I haven't nailed the feeling. Is there some other drills to shallow the club? Also, is this has to do with Key #3?

[iacas]

13 hours ago, atrapasuenos said:

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but I've been watching a lot of videos about this topic because I think I came too steep to the ball. I have tried some of the recommendations on those videos but I haven't nailed the feeling. Is there some other drills to shallow the club? Also, is this has to do with Key #3?

More like Key #4: diagonal sweetspot path.

[atrapasuenos]

14 hours ago, iacas said:

More like Key #4: diagonal sweetspot path.

Ah, yes! My bad hehe. So, would watching some vids from that key, would help? I tried today to be "steeper" in my backswing with the club and getting at the top ready to not get steep on the way back, if that makes sense hehe.

[Grizvok]

I hadn't heard of AMG before this thread got bumped back up. Really nice channel in general.