TXHusker

I certainly don't want to break any rules. Is there a USGA rule that mandates certain swingweights, or that weights cannot be unscrewed from the sole of the wood?

UPDATE: Upon further research, this was a black weight, which means it isn't 7 grams; it's 11. So we shed more than 5 percent of the head weight off. That may not sound like much, but in the hands of a 5'1, 100 pound boy, thats A LOT. He gained around 15 yards. Who knows...we may have completely screwed the delicate set-up of this custom fit club, but all I know is a lot more greens are in play on the second shot for my son, and his score is going to show it. Now he wants to remove the weight from his 3 wood. I told him "That's enough medicine for right now...let's see how this goes." As for the "hole", that was an easy fix - a piece of black electrical tape did the trick.

So much of golf is mental, I would put a lot of weight (no pun intended) into what feels and looks the best to you. My son is a 14 year old competitive golfer, and the Titleist fitting guy kept guiding him toward AP1s. My son tried the 1s and 2s, and he kept going back to the 2s. He said the 1s felt clunky. And investment cast clubs do indeed have more of a clunky feel. So he went AP2 and never looked back. He loves them. Have they cost him any strokes? I doubt it but it's possible. But confidence is a huge issue, so you want to feel confident looking over the club. I'm a 23 handicapper, mostly because I am do a lot of pull hooking into problematic places, but I still prefer a forged iron - Wilson Staffs to be exact. That's just what I have always been comfortable with since I was a 5 handicap in high school. I tried King Cobras, Titelist DCIs, and even some Ping Raptors for a while, and I hated all of them. I don't like cast irons.

Is there anything not kosher about doing this? We've been experimenting with ways to get him more length off the tee so he can start reaching some par 4s in regulation. Today at the park, I simply took the little weight off the bottom of his driver and he said "wow this feels light!" Next thing you know, he gained 15 yards off the tee. I'm no technician but my best guess is the club head became about 3.5 percent lighter (the head weighs 200 grams I think?), therefore his swing speed likely increased 3 or so miles-per-hour, resulting in a longer ball flight and total distance. He was happy! Thoughts?

There are likely tens of thousands of people throughout the world that call themselves golf professionals. When you are serious about your game, you find the one that seems to suit your temperament the best. Every golf professional has his own teaching philosophy. If the professional is worth his salt, he has a core of fundamentals that he teaches. If you don't like your professional's core of fundamentals or believe they are incorrect, you go shopping again. My son's golf professional has worked with some of the best that ever played, and he is particularly good with juniors. If we are going to get the most out of him, we have to buy in to what he says. If he thinks the set-up, grip, posture, and swing start are the most important, then either we buy into that and go on with it, or we find another coach. A big part of the decision comes from the success of the instruction. We are fortunate that my son has enjoyed great success, though he is experiencing some "growing pains" (pun intended) as the course length right now is simply outstripping his physical capabilities. No coach can make a 100 pound kid hit it past 200 yards. The point of this thread was merely to give ONE golf professional's angle on the game of golf. If it is detestable to you or inconceivable, by all means discard it.

Any competent golf swing that has an unconventional grip, setup, or start of the swing, is such due to one or more workarounds.

Each golfer that has anything but toe up at parallel, has learned to make compensatory actions in his swing to get back to square at impact. I believe it is much easier to get back to the ball by going conventional. If you have an unorthodox grip, snatch the club away at the beginning, or purposely lock your wrists to keep them from rotating very naturally, you are having to make compensatory adjustments elsewhere. If you want to spend the rest of your golf life working on these compensations, good for you, and you might even make it on tour some day. But the path to good golf is generally much easier with a solid grip, setup, and backswing. My car runs quite well in low gear, and I could drive it around town indefinitely that way, but the trip to the grocery is a bit more cumbersome.

Jim Furyk is an absolute outlier. Most players with that backswing move wouldn't even sniff the presidents flight at the local club championship.

while no one hits the ball with their backswing, the soundness of the backswing has a lot to do with their ability to get the clubface back to the ball squarely. There is an early wrist cock out there - Hubert Green comes to mind - but Hubie was successful despite it IMO. I know a gentleman who is a pretty good shot with a deer rifle, but part of his left hand is amputated. He worked around it. Hubie Green grooved a way around his early wrist cock and stuck with it. It served him well. But the early wrist cock can cause a lot of problems already mentioned.

There are many good players out there that do not sole the club - at least at the start of the swing. It sort of hovers there after their waggle. It actually makes some physics sense to do it this way - you aren't starting your swing from dead still, and you don't have the resistance of grass on the start of your backswing. It's a lot harder to "start" anything from standstill, than it is to start something that is already moving a bit.

No question. And yes, the elbow often does bend slightly. As for "taking over", I am talking about the hands and arms, for example, picking up the club - jerking inside, outside, etc., The plane is then destroyed. The only way to achieve the proper plane is for the shoulders to dictate the backwing start. Once the club reaches the "shaking hands" position (parallel to the ground) by way of the left shoulder and the naturally rotating wrists, everything else sort of falls in place, at least for us. That is what I call the "toe up" position. If the set-up, grip, and swing start are fundamentally correct, the toe is up. I realize there are tour players that are open or closed in this position, and God bless 'em. But they are having to do some mid-swing manipulation back to the ball for that to work out. Now, if one has a poor grip, he will tend to break up that process and begin manipulating the club. His backswing appears to be a sword fight. His right hand is often the devil in this. He's in recovery mode all the way.

[QUOTE name="Golfingdad" url="/t/77551/setup-grip-and-making-the-swing-automatic/36#post_1064067"] For me it's not at all early (been here over 2 years and more posts than anybody ;)), so I can tell you without a doubt that you have it completely backwards in regards to Erik and Mike. They have no problem whatsoever with posts that disagree with them. They ENCOURAGE people to prove their ideas wrong, because that's how you learn. In fact, if you go back and read Erik's first post again - and do it fairly - you'll see that all he does is state his opinion and ask a few questions. I can assure you that he does this without the least bit of irony or condescension. You posted your opinions on the grip and the left shoulder, and then he posted his. No difference? Stick around here awhile and you'll see that we're just a bunch of guys (sadly, not too many ladies here :() that love golf and love to talk about it. We all agree on some things and disagree on some things, but we're all decent guys. :beer: So .... welcome!! [/QUOTE] I'm good with moving on. Thank you for the welcome!

If you are bending the left arm at the elbow, then the arms and/or hands are taking over the backswing, rather than that being dictated by the left shoulder. In other words, you are creating a false backswing. The big muscles control the backswing. The hands and wrists are merely along for the ride. I never said that the golf swing is a natural thing for almost anyone. It depends a LOT on their mind and their physical talent.

Good question. Certainly by allowing the left shoulder to dictate the backswing motion, the player is giving himself the widest swing arc possible, regardless of his height.

I will see if I can find some decent diagrams of the grip fundamentals I am referring to. I did post a video clip to help explain the "open shoulders" thing. I'm no victim - I just stumbled onto this board and it looked like there was a lot of good discussion on the golf swing. I was just giving my experience with a particular pro. I didn't realize that there was a 5 Keys bias - that's my fault. I just thought it was an open golf forum. I am not concerned about being banned on an internet forum. My life isn't going to change one way or another.

First of all, I never intimated that there is a one-size-fits-all grip or set-up, only that good fundamentals in these areas were important. Certainly, those two factors are critical in determining whether a successful, repeating golf swing can be made. I have no deal about any key #5. Many golf swing issues can be traced back to the before and beginning of the swing.

[QUOTE name="iacas" url="/t/77551/setup-grip-and-making-the-swing-automatic/36#post_1064055"] I quite like discussing things that disagree with what I believe. Great opportunities to learn. I do tend to dislike things that are one-size-fits-all.[/QUOTE] I believe I responded to all of the questions thus far, as well as posted a couple of video clips that might be better at explaining...

It's a little early yet, but as a general rule, I don't think you like any posts that are opposed to your system. Nor any posts that call you out for your boorishness.

it's only been 2 minutes.

[QUOTE name="whatwoodtigerdo" url="/t/77551/setup-grip-and-making-the-swing-automatic/36#post_1064049"] I am not a pro and don't really care about the squabble or anything but grip and setup doesn't matter now? I bet there are thousands upon thousands of pga professionals that would eat anybody's lunch who insinuates that. Or are we supposed to believe that Jim furyk and Dustin Johnson both hit the ball well with very different swings because they meet 5 requirements but not believe that a weak and strong grip both share fundamentals that make it sound. I will agree $1k sounds like milking it way too much but it's definitely worth a couple of lessons for a beginner or someone who is doing it wrong.[/QUOTE] I'll be surprised if your post (or mine for that matter) are still on this board in 10 minutes.

No spamming, just sharing information that might or might not be useful. There are actually only two clips of Carl; the other is of Lee Trevino. As for your right hand move, that's great. As for the $1K, it was a good investment in our case.

Good thing it's a free country and we can each do it our own way, huh?

How important is the grip, the set-up, and the start of the swing?

"Start with the left shoulder" - Lee Trevino