grantc79

Downswing looks perfect now. Backswing is over plane though now Try this......... For your takeaway pull the club back using your right forearm on as straight of a line as possible for about 20 inches or so. Do it pretty slowly and try to make your chest point directly at the club head the entire time you pull it back. Once you move it back 20 inches stop your body pivot and just fan your arms upwards. Don't keep going around or you will be inside. Just think UP. That will have you about as on plane as possible.

Lee Trevino said that I'm pretty sure. As far as a "natural shot" I personally don't think anyone has a natural shot. Learn why a ball fades/slices and learn why a ball draws/hooks. If you want to be a good golfer learn how to make the ball do what you want it to. If you just want to play on the weekend then stick with your "natural shot."

Buy the The Golfing Machine book while you are there Its how Bobby Clampett was taught to play anyways.

Well realistically your aiming point shouldn't really ever be the ball on any shot you hit. The whole idea is to hit the ball first and then the ground with a flat left wrist at impact. If you try to hit "the ball" then you will most likely pick it with a bent wrist and lose power, consistency, and accuracy. If you try to hit the ground with the club an inch or two in front of the ball you will gain power, consistency, and accuracy.

Basically you have the same mindset as JB Holmes I'm guessing. Your plane is a hair under so if you have normal wrist action you would wind up with draws on good shots and pull hooks on bad shots. Like Trevino said you can talk to a slice but a hook won't listen. Its basically just a chicken or the egg situation as far as that goes. Did you have a swing that was a little too inside and thus developed wrist action that would stay away from the hooks or vice versa. Either way you have tons of lag and are quite long (I'm just guessing you hit it a mile because with your mechanics if you don't I'd be shocked) so you basically just insure that you do not over roll the wrist at impact and you take the left side of the course completely out of play. Honestly, its a great way to play golf (see JB Holmes, Lee Trevino and others) who just play straight shots and cuts all day long. That said if you do wind up getting your swing more on plane and develop more of a horizontal hinge wrist release at impact you will pick up some more yards (like you need it) and you will be able to shape shots at will around the course a lot more freely. I'm not quite sure if you want that though to be honest.

I hate to pick because your swing is very, very good but you are under plane pretty after you reach the top of your back swing. It isn't by much but you are definitely under plane as you transition from the top to your forward swing. I'm guessing your misses are a very high cut to the right or a pull draw? If you can generate that much lag while being on plane coming down (which I have no doubt that you can with a little effort) then you'd be pretty deadly.

Actually, it makes the duck hook a bigger issue than you might think

You don't want your hands behind the putter head when you are putter because then you are going to hit up on the ball and top it. The definition of lag is basically the hands leading the club head to the ball so basically yes you do want a tiny amount of lag when putting. You don't want very much at all, but you definitely don't want to not have it. Try putting by bending your left wrist to reach impact and you will understand why.

On every club.

If you are uncomfortable with a club then make that your practice club.

You are basically saying the same thing I am, just in a different way. Lag produces shaft flex. It is called the law of the flail. Basically as long as the ball is of a flail is behind the handle then the ball is accelerating and as soon as the ball catches the handle it immediately slows down. You might view is at constant acceleration but seeing as how it is impossible to achieve constant acceleration without lag then I just refer to it as lag.

Just do what this guy does:

Feel free to pick my brain on anything else you want be it hitting, swinging, or golfing machine related. Hell feel free to call me crazy if you want. I'm hoping to be teaching this stuff one day and I enjoy talking about it to be honest.

Pardon me if I get a little long winded. If you don't want to read this part then skip down to the next section about hitting and swinging.... Bobby Clampett was the golden child of The Golfing Machine basically. Bobby was a student of Ben Doyle's and Ben Doyle was one of the original A.I.'s of The Golfing Machine and was the first person who really "got" The Golfing Machine. Homer Kelly taught him himself. As amazing of a talent as Bobby was, he never really lived up to his potential. Morgan Pressel, Brian Gay, and others of the modern day are doing pretty well though and they are all "TGM" students. Homer always said something to the effect of "Golf as an immensely complex machine is way more tolerable than golf as an enigma" which is what TGM is about. You don't so much learn what to do as much as you learn why to do it. My coach has taught several PGA tour pros and could tell you some very funny stories one of which was a practice round he spent with Jack Nicklaus. He was so excited ot pick Jack's brain on the golf swing only to find out Jack really didn't know much about the golf swing, he was just good at doing it. In short, you shanking the ball or shooting 80 one day followed by 100 the next day isn't a big deal as long as you can figure out why you shanked it. If you don't figure it out it might go away only to come back again another day. The Golfing Machine gives you the how and the why. There are basically 3 types of motions (I'm going to assume you are right handed). Swingers which make up 98% of the golfing world. Hitters which make up 2% of the golfing world. Most people swing because its a natural thing and its what everyone knows and everyone teaches. Hell up until a few years ago Titleist with their TPI school didn't even know about hitters. They since figured it out and called them thrusters. Some famous hitters are Lee Trevino, Arnold Palmer, and Larry Nelson. Other suspected hitters are Craig Stadler, Stuart Appleby, JB Holmes, and Dana Quigley. You identify hitters and swingers by 2 different things: 1: Hitters have a shorter back swing with a club face slightly more closed at the top. 2: Hitters have an angled hinge vs. a horizontal hinge (TGM terminology which I will explain) There are 3 types of hinges (grab a club and you will see what I mean by these). Vertical: Club face stays open well after impact leading to a higher more spinny shot. Use around the green and for flop shots. Angled: Club face closes gradually through impact (Hitters use this). Horizontal: Club face closes quickly, forcefully, and completely at impact (Swingers use this). Vertical is self explanatory and if you ever hit flop shots you will get that. Angled hinging basically the club appears to be closing very early in the down swing and continually to slowly but continually close through impact. This leads to a very high finish. Horizontal hinging is a snappy release of the left wrist late in the swing followed by an immediate "thumbs up" motion on the right hand after impact with a lower more around the body type of finish. See Tiger: Lynn Blake is pretty much considered the Guru now and he explains hinging in this video: As for the difference between hitting and swinging..... Swinging is a pulling process where the body's pivot is used as a coil to generate torque. That torque and coiling effect produce club head speed and power. Swinging uses centrifugal force achieved through body flexibility to create speed. Hitting is a pushing process where the right arm drives the club down the plane line to impact. The body may pivot, turn, or coil but the direct power of the swing comes from the right tricep. Hitting is pure muscle.

The people at Lynn Blake's site are amazingly helpful. As for T.G.M. book, try not to get overwhelmed. A whole lot of people try to read it like a book and get completely lost in it and wind up giving up. It isn't a book you read and comprehend cover to cover. It is more like a science book, encyclopedia, or dictionary even for the golf swing. I picked over the book (and still do) and pick out components or keys that I want to work on for my golf game. You will feel like you are back in school writing down and memorizing definitions just to "understand the lingo" but it is very, very much worth it. Another must read is Homer Kelley's Golfing Machine: The Curious Quest That Solved Golf . That goes into great detail about Homer Kelly and how he did his work which is really interesting. A reader could finish it in just a couple of days with enough time and it will give you some insight as to what you are getting into. Overall, TGM is in my opinion the best golf teaching system on the planet and nothing comes close. It is one thing to be taught how to hold and swing a club. It is a completely broader, more precise, and far better thing to be taught why.

Its always the swing

The yellow line is what is referred to (at least through my learning) as adjusted address. The actual plane line that you want to make contact on is the green line. My coach personally teaches you to start on the green line, then move up plane to the red line, then drop back down onto the green line during your transition and hold it to impact. You'll notice through the pictures Tiger does the same thing. If you are on the yellow line at impact you will have one of these two faults: 1: Compensation of trying to readjust the club upwards at impact which locks the wrists and has you hitting a high push. 2: Correction of issue #1 will lead to an over rolling of the wrists at impact while resisting the readjustment up at impact which gives a pull hook. All shots will be generally thin. If you are on the red line at impact you will have onf these two faults: 1: An over the top pulled draw due to being over plane. The hands wind up orbiting your body rather than traveling down plane. 2: Correction of issue #1 will lead to a delayed wrist roll to prevent a pull hook. This will have you hitting fades with the occasional slice and a chicken wing finish. All shots will be generally fat.

http://www.lynnblakegolf.com/ is where you gotta go. Go to the forums and read everything you can in the hitting section. I'd also pick up a copy of the golfing machine book and start getting accompanied with it.

Lay your golf bag down about 3 feet behind your club head at address. If you let go of the club early you will whack the crap out of your bag. Another is to place another ball 6 inches behind (and slightly closer to you) the ball you are trying to hit. You have to swing over that ball to hit your ball. This makes you release the club later as well.

Long body really helps more but that is relative. You can have someone who is very tall but they don't use their "length" well. Then again you can have someone very small like Sergio who uses his length very well. Realistically (assuming you are swinging not hitting), the longer and further away from your body you can get the club head during your back swing and the closer and narrower you can make your down swing the further you will hit the ball. Technique is the biggest factor. Flexibility is a huge factor as well. Muscles might play into it (back, legs, forearms, and core) if you have the previous two down to a science.

Here is a hitter in action:

You have to think about the hands. The hands are like the clamps on the club that make it work. The basically have to be "educated" to work well. Not having properly educated hands is like having the hinges ass backwards on a door. You can have the best looking door in the world but with hinges on backwards its not doing you much good. As far as hitting and swinging goes most people aren't even aware that there is such a thing as hitting. As a Golfing Machine guy I'm very familiar with both and have done both at one time or another and its really just a personal preference. Hitting is great less flexible people. Swinging is great for more flexible people. Hitting is all muscle power. Swinging is all elasticity. Hitting is harder to learn but easier to do once you learn it. Swinging is easy to learn but you will still find some inconsistency even if you have mastered it. I could go further but to go further would get into lingo like angled vs vertical hinging which you guys probably aren't familiar with. Realistically anyone can do either one but some people are better off doing one or the other. The hardest part of hitting that you will experience is finding someone who can actually teach it seeing as probably 99% of the teachers out there don't have a clue when it comes to hitting.

I try to trace a straight line back with the club for the first 2 feet or so and then I just fold my right arm up. A good way to get this feeling is to imagine you are a baseball pitcher (go watch a video of a pitcher if you need to) and watch how their arm is tucked at the top, then unfolds on the way down, then slides across their body in the follow through. I pull the club away with my right arm (which keeps tension on the left arm and keeps it straight). I basically make the pitchers move in reverse. What you don't want is to be too far inside going because that will lead to pull hooks or a high blocked push to the right. The BIG PICTURE is you have to be at a certain spot when you make contact with the ball. Everyone likes to say that what you do going back doesn't matter but if you are too far off line you will have to compensate in your transition and downswing. This will lead to wayward shots and a loss in club head speed.

Holding the angle between the left forearm and shaft is good. Narrowing the angle is even better. JGC