COMMUNITY

Distance is a combination of a bunch of things. I've always murdered the ball for my swing speed (114ish), but it's because for whatever reason I have ALWAYS had optimal launch and spin conditions. I guess I naturally hit up on the ball and luckily never really had to work on that. I also played basketball in college and have been training fast twitch muscles my entire life. I'm small, aboout 5'10 165 pounds. If you can make a big turn and know how to lag the club properly thats all there really is to it. The club does a lot of the work for you. How old are you? What is your flexability like?

Golf clubs aren't like baseball bats....they are like whips. If you were to take a whip and try to whip something as hard as you could, you would lag the whip properly, and it would snap. Baseball bats need to be forced. Golf clubs don't. So assuming you can try fully, and lead with your hips (two things I've always just done, like you said), the rest takes care of itself.

I think if you want to add power just before impact, using your dominant side, ( right for rightys, left for leftys), I suggest you don't even think about your hands. I use my right shoulder to add power. The lower you go down your arm the more mistakes you will make.

Realistically, depending on age, injuries, and flexibility, and your launch and spin numbers, you may have very well maximized your distance. Than again you may have not. The golf swing is a retarded counter intuitive move, but I think people do a lot of over thinking little things like "setting the club at the top", or not"leading with your right hand". If you are casting the club, stop casting it...don't think of little moves that aren't actually going to make much of a difference, rather, go to the range with a purpose, and feel what it feels like to lead hips first and not cast. You'll probably hosel every one of your shots and feel like an idiot, but you'll be accomplishing something, rather then just whacking balls.

Which reminds me of the teaching of Gary Sowinski at Morgan Run when I started golfing (as a 60 year old tennis player). He missed several Monday qualifiers for the Champion's Tour by ONE STROKE! Gary was a big advocate of "Swing the Clubhead" by Ernest Jones--and later taught by Manuel De La Torre. Their foundation teaching is to DO NOTHING with hands and allow the clubhead to swing in a big smooth circle, the follow-through portion at least as important as the backswing portion.

So while hitting balls during a lesson, if I mishit or hit one sideways, he would always say, "that was hands. DO NOTHING with your hands, swing the clubhead with your shoulders, arms above the elbows, but never hands."

It worked for him, he still drives it 300+ with a swing that looks like Freddy Couples. He could also pull his left thumb back to his forearm! He said he has always been that flexible--but does that quite often to ensure he doesn't lose it. He knew that was the secret of his distance. Bobby Jones achieved the same deep wrist set by releasing the club handle on top with his left hand little fingers. My teaching pro HATES that! ha

Larry

Great advice: "If you cast, stop casting!" Reminds me of Steve Martin giving investment advice: "first, get a million dollars....!"

If anyone could show pros how to teach amateurs to stop casting, they would be a millionaire overnight. Teaching pros have almost no clue how to teach that-- which brings us back to my desire to take lessons from a guy like me who started golfing late in life, but finally got it all figured out.

Larry

I have golfed with Gene Littler and heard him tell a guy who hit it out and asked Gene why that happens: "the hands have no role in the golf swing."

So that adds up with the oldest (and most popular golf swing teaching of all time)-- "Swing the Clubhead" by Ernest Jones.

Larry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v..

How about this? Miller Barber was in his 70s, but could still really nail it long and straight. He won 11 times on tour and many more times on the Champion's Tour.

He pauses on top to give himself time to make that big loop to put it on plane for his downswing. Today they don't teach people to lift their front foot like that, but the rest of his swing is good stuff--especially for seniors.

Larry

In order to fully unleash the "Power of the Pivot" it is crucial to pause at just the right moment. Any miscalculation and you won't end up humping the goat, you'll end up humping the other goat standing beside him. Not a good thing as he is ill tempered.

The pause is commonly referred to as "allowing the club to load". I could be wrong, but it appears that elite players are able to start their lower bodies while allowing the club to still load.

Distance is a function of club head speed, basic physics. Exaggerating and holding the pause longer doesn't generate more distance. So its not the pause that is doing it. It helps ease the transition, which helps creat lag. Loading allows the body to get in time with the arms to to turn and accelerate through the swing.

One of my major flaws is tend to get fast and my arms work to compensate for this creating a tons of other faults. I have been working on an exaggerated pause to help slow my backswing and transition down.

Haha, I understand what you're saying. The reason it's hard to teach people to not cast the club is that it's a really athletic move, and as we all know, some people are a little more gifted athletically then others.

I just know for me, If I'm doing something wrong, I think logically about the golf swing. A while back when I couldn't hit draws with my driver, I sat down for hours and figured out all of the things that would help get the club swinging out to the right. I.E. Staying behind the ball, standing further away, making a bigger turn. I went to the range and tried all of these things for hours, and hours and hours, until, through process of elimination, I figured out how to push the ball out to the right, and bring it back to the left. From there I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked until it became something I can now call upon whenever I need.

I find that a lot of these little moves don't really help out as much as you'd think. For instance, you hear pros telling people that if they want to hit cuts, hold the finish so your club is pointing straight up into the air. Well thats all good and well, but doing that isn't going to get the ball to cut. Rather, IF you finish like that, it's a byproduct of the fact that you executed the cut properly. Just putting the club there at the end doesn't do anything, you need to focus on hitting the ball first. You'll know you did that when you see the ball cut and your finish is held off (Which I don't like anyway, I'm an advocate of if you want to hit a cut, swing left, if you want to draw the ball swing right. Simple.)

I'd really challenge you to figure out logically what makes the club lag. Watch hours of videos of the pros on youtube. Compare them to videos of yourself. Figure out what moves need to be made, then get out there and do them.

I've been playing golf for little less then a year, and am a 1 handicap. I've gotten to where I am by putting hours and hours in on the range, with a PURPOSE. To figure out how to do something I didn't know how to do. You'll feel helpless at first, and look like a terrible golfer to everyone else around you (when I was first learning to hit big high push draws I was snapping balls all day), but you will figure it out.

People definately have athlete advantages over others in the game of golf, but I don't buy that you can't figure out how to do this on your own. I'm more then willing to help you if you want to message me personally, if you want to reach out.


When you understand why everything is and isn't happening with the golf ball when it's in the air, you are in my opinion, halfway to being a world class golfer.

Yeah, I have had enough lessons to know what I should do. But of course the teaching pro is all about the lines-- He wants me to take it up to the correct position and swing it down on plane. Seldom does he say anything but, "slow down" because when I exert too much effort, I lose form. And so does almost everyone else, even Tiger, ha. When we "swing for the fence" we strike out.

So my goal is to swing correctly, hit it crisp and straight, but also as far as possible. I know other guys my age can extend it out there 250+ with a swing that doesn't look "all out." I notice their better wrist set and their later release. So I conclude that's what I gotta do.

Watching Bobby Jones, we see his extremely relaxed arms and he says his grip pressure is as light as possible, the club almost falling from his fingers. Since he was the long drive champ of his time, that level of relaxation is obviously an important goal.

Larry

From the top you should feel like you are driving the butt of the shaft into the back of the ball then once your non-dominant hand gets to or just past the ball you fire through.

Thanks! That is precisely what I am starting to feel-- but only when doing it with relaxed arms and hands. I have learned the hard way that tension absolutely destroys any hope of making a decent golf swing. I can't. When setup with tense arms and/or too tight grip pressure I can't turn, I can't lift my arms to place the club in the correct top position, and I can't relax my wrists enough to allow the club to set on top. And most importantly, I won't shift! It is almost impossible to start my downswing with the weight shift and hips turning toward the target when I am tense. Just won't happen. The golf swing works ONLY if we are very relaxed. THAT is the art that experienced golfers bring to this game. Newbies are too tense until they learn that the hard way.

Which brings us back around to what I wrote to start this thread, I would love to take lessons from a guy who went through what I am going through-- and learned like I did what works and what is deadly poison for a golf swing. Certainly teaching pros should tell us what we should do-- but continuously remind us to relax while doing it.

Larry

Thanks ArmyGrunt, I'd gotten away from that one. I was dropping my hands, but had stopped DRIVING the butt end into the back of the ball. The pop is definitely back!

http://www.revolutiongolf.com/..

This is what I work on too-- on the range and then on the course. Martin says what my teacher does, that we won't need to make handsy compensations to get the clubhead back to the ball if we take it up on the same plane we'll swing it down on. That drill turning with the long stick is the key. It forces us to tilt over further and turn around a stable spine. That pushes our hands up high behind us. But it doesn't really transfer to a golf swing unless we do that drill and then hit a ball, do the drill, then hit a ball, etc. We gotta grind if we're going to make permanent swing changes.

Larry