The shoulders aren’t moving because it had reached the anchoring position.
You guys, the big part of your body move like the low gear in the transmission, the smaller parts are like the higher gear.
Your core and torso and thigh moved to the bracing position and anchor there so the smaller parts could sling through.
If you do it other ways by just moving your arms and hands, you’ll be flipping at the golf ball.
I don’t have time to go through this, just find out what works for you. Keep in mind, no matter what it may be taught, learn from what has been working for most if not all of the top players.
The moving arms and hands are the last move, after, the body is in position. How did the body get into position? It has to move from the set position at the top of the swing like a wind up spring.
My question is regarding feeling and triggers. The very first trigger on the downswing is 100% a downward pull of the right elbow. It just is. Your slo mo’s in the video above prove it. Im looking to find the sequence. I am trying to ingrain that. Im not trying to copy anyone’s swing, However, the downswing sequence and positions of the great ball strikers are the same. Impact positions are the same I am trying to stop the over the top shoulder move. I get into that position trying to compensate for not sequencing correctly. My tendency, as that split second transition occurs is pulling the right shoulder over first. That’s the over the top move I’m trying to correct. I played yesterday, and when I hit the ball correctly I was getting great results. When I’m not, I’m catching turf first. I’m getting there.
Don’t miss the lower body movement.
Way before both golfers showed the starting of their upper body movement. Watch for the “bump” or the preparation for the weight shift to the left. This happened before the upper body move, including the supposed arm/elbow drop.
Hogan has already shift/ prepared for the transferring of weight to the left at the top of the swing, an early move which personally I could not imitate.
I shift weight to the front simultaneously with the start of the down swing. Hogan was already there when I left the starting line.
Both golfers first move of going after the golf ball were from the ground up.
If you’re having difficulty, perhaps you were missing the details.
I am well aware, I’m not interested in any of that. I’m looking for feeling. All of this stuff happens in a second, What I feel is not necessarily what happens. A good golf swing is in-grained. There’s a lot happening at the same time, but it’s not really, especially slo-motion. If I get out of position, bad things happen. JJ has been so helpful with the correct vids for me KUDOS man and TY. Best part about YouTube is I get instructions from great ball strikers. It’s finding the right one out of millions of videos. Now, to make things even more complicated you have to do all this staying in a decent increasingly faster tempo and not falling out of balance. I’m getting there, I’m not there yet. I’m not changing my swing from a standpoint of looking like anyone, I own my swing. Let me explain it in simpler terms. Have you ever hit that great long or mid iron shot or great drive that just blows out there 40-50 yds past where you expected. Well this past year I was doing that probably 10 times a round. You never knew when that would happen or worse why and how. Sprinkle in there some crappy shots too. Your on the tee and you partners say yea do that every time. Not that easy, but you know it’s there. I am on a quest this winter to find that. I DID IT, NO ONE ELSE! That was my swing, no one else’s. I know it’s not the backswing. I also know the Follow through happens on balance because you executed a good downswing. That’s my holy grail. I am just looking to replicate my perfect swing, I want to do it more on purpose and not by accident. The swing, to me, goes totally against what my brain tells my body it should be doing. Once I nail that correct sequence I’ll be golden.
Have fun going through all the available information to us as visual tool. You seemed to enjoy the visual aid more than finding out which tool best fit you personally.
We certainly did not have all of these gadgets even a few decades back.
I understand because my wife is a visual learner. So are many who I personally know.
The “feel” you’re searching for is long been discussed as the one most difficult point for an instructor to relate to the students. Harvey Penick rely on story telling, modifying a golfer’s existing form in the smallest way by not changing it much. Quite a few depending on the “drills” to band aids over the issue, especially with the new generation of teaching pros who rely on technology these days.
Not until the golfer has that “Ah-ha” moment will the golfer fully experience and understand the lessons and the tips and the drills trying to do.
If you are just looking for that moment and how to feel about a proper transition. I can only tell you what I personally feel and not the best solution for everyone. Certainly will have a lot of disagreements.
The use of body weight + the torsion of the core with the release of the smaller, most outer part of the connection ( arms and hands ) completes the golf swing.
So, How do I feel about when will the starting, trigger, point of transition?
Think is winding up a spring or a thick rubber band. Depending on our individual physical ability, we should know when we reached our limit on the winding. And, when do the winding , unwind? it really has more to do with the person’s built in rhythm and timing.
Nick Price has a very fast winding and release, probably the quickest on the Tour in his days ( probably still is ).
Where Sam Snead had that relaxed, lazy feel swing. But all of them start to come back down to the golf ball when they reached the limit of their winding. Only person I saw with a slight pause on the top of the golf swing was Nancy Lopez.
It worked for her and she is comfortable doing it. Can’t dispute the result.
The valuable lesson I learned from my first instructor as how he explained the winding and the unwinding of the golf swing. Think of the the club head is the end of a sling. One winds up the motion by starting with the clubhead, hands/arms, shoulders, upper torso, hip, thighs, then the feet which connects to the ground.
The unwinding, is the reverse sequence in the winding. By the first motion (trigger) of the lower body, unwinding the torsion built up during the back swing in the reversed order and finishing with weight forward and the release of the golf club head through the impact.
In short, again, the “trigger” you’re searching for should be from the ground up. some like to think it’s the knee, some like to think it’s the push of the feet against the ground.
Never starting off with the arms first, that’ll be a recipe for casting.
One very important tip which the same teach told my more than 4 decades ago, is to feel the club head lags behind the hands, playing catch up all the time until accelerating just before the impact.
I did not understand this until my 4th or the 5th year.
Always appreciated his teaching as the lessons with him trump all the other learning avenues I had went through later.
Mike, have a look at the latest AMG video on shallowing they dropped today.
Might be interesting for you.
Re: shallowing the club at the top of the backswing…
I’ve attended two Monte Scheinblum clinics and subsequently purchased his"No Turn Cast" video … which has been a huge help to me!
Closely related to what Monte teaches - take a look at these two videos…
- from AMG
https://youtu.be/YfvVnWwhQFc
EDIT: just saw jayjay’s post just above … this is the same vid.
…and
- from Shauheen Nakhjavani who explains it all really well (imo)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CnVj8qeu_-8/
@MJTortella Just curious about your progress with this. Are you still sticking with it? Have you unlocked the secret formula?
Just wondering because when I look back through my golf journal it’s funny how many times I’ve found my ‘silver bullet’ and then it quits working, or I stray from that path. Glad I started keeping a journal because I often go back and get reminders of what feels were working for me in the past.
No silver bullet, I still hit poor shots. Except my misses are more consistent. The misses are either fat or toe. Both of those misses are the coming over the top move. The misses are fewer now. I have not tracked distance this winter it’s senseless, but on really good strikes I’m hitting it past players 20-30 years younger than me. I’m very happy with my long and mid iron strikes. The 7W, 3W and hybrids are pretty good and fairly on target. My putting, like everyone is always a struggle and winter is bumpy greens. I am continuing getting better at shallowing the club on the downswing. Once I can get that slot consistent, it’s really going to improve my striking. The other mistake I have is coming up and out of it, that’s mental. To put in perspective, I would say I was hitting about 8-10 really poor shots a round with no distance (Tee shots, iron shots. even my wedge game was affected or afflicted). The distance loss part has been eliminated by 90% or more. The flares or pulls are around 3-4 a round and not 8-10. I want to put context into this. If I am aiming at a green or a FW and I hit the ball into a bunker or leave it short 10 yds into the pond, that’s a miss and likely cost me a shot or 2. The miss isn’t much, but it is a huge miss. It’s the horseshoes and hand grenades close only counts thing. If that makes sense. A decent golfer might be happy to be that close, as you get better and better at ball striking, close doesn’t really quite count. It’s fun to reap benefits of work. Even with that, I make sure I analyze a bad shot as to what and why. I ended last year as an 8cap. I’m interested to see how this all translates, I’m expecting to see a 3 shot reduction in cap this year. I’m very encouraged. Putting in the work is important. I don’t have access to a trackman alot, but I’m hitting into a net. The feedback on the strike is immediate, but I don’t get feedback on direction or dispersion until I get to the range. Range time for me is limited this time of year. We are playing though…I usually walk, not in the winter. This year we bought a cart cover and a heater, so we are pretty toasty even when it’s 35*. The feedback on course has been very positive this winter. I’m sticking with it. Golf is a game of repetition, the more consistently repetitive you can get yourself, the better you can become. At least that are what I have found.
This should go under how was your round, but yesterday was the first decent day we had in awhile 45 and chilly. I wanted a real life follow up to your question how’s the swing work going. I started the round by bogeying the first four holes nothing to speak of but something clicked in. After 4 I hit 12 outta 14 GIR made 2 birdies and 4 bogeys 1 was a 3putt. Went to range right after with a small bucket and it was there. I found what I was struggling with, I know the feeling was looking for, I found it and the ball for all intents was center of the club. This round wasn’t a one off. The swing wasn’t a one off. I had 4 mid irons finish within 18 ft, 3 finished within 7 ft and converted 2 of those. If the putts I had would have dropped, and I did putt really well except 1 hole. I would have carded a 65. I carded a 75. Hard work pays. Drives in this very cold weather were avg 220-245. You can 10% to that in warm weather. I was 50yds past my partner and I was 25 yds past the 2 young blokes that we ended up playing with.
Few things are more satisfying than seeing your hard work pay off with a previously difficult task now being accomplished.
Great job!
Just so you all know what clicked and it’s has been the search for the Downswing motion. I was flattening my downswing, but pulling my elbow and the club behind my right hip…instead of straight down. When I was doing this move…I could feel strain but the arms and club head were not able to catch up to the full motion of the swing, The top of the backswing is ALREADY behind you, so no need to pull that further back. It’s only a couple of inch difference, but you cannot sequence that, at least I couldn’t. So what was happening is the right shoulder would come across and you think you are squaring up, but your not…it’s the “OVER THE TOP MOVE”. Pulling my right elbow, str8 down (same 2 inches) to slightly in front of the right hip instead of slightly behind is the piece I was missing. I have to give a shout to Dewsweeper, he said that to me and it wasn’t making sense until it did!
I mean I was getting into it more than my friends…it was like a vision quest. On the range I was actually trying to hit poor shots…when the sequence is correct you can’t. That doesn’t mean you won’t go offline, you will, but you wont really go off the course like I was having to hit recovery shots.
Well, you had the one moment of enlightenment, as many of them will come if you practice and figuring out what works for you. The fundamental of the what might work better will never change.
One of the thing which stick out to me over the years after looking at all different golf swing from those successful professionals is this, no matter what their golf swing look like going back and to the top, they are all similar when coming into the position of impact.
Some golf swing will produce more accuracy than power and vise a versa . Paul Runyan was successful, but his golf swing was not powerful by limiting the use of all of his muscles ( the turn ion the barrel style), but he had a fantastic short game to make up from the shorter distance.
If we look at all the top professional golfers from the history. almost all of them are/were the longest driver in their peer group. From Bobby Jones to Arnold Palmer to Ben Hogan to Tiger woods, to today’s top ranked golfers.
Maximize the distance according to our physical frame is the goal.
One word of caution, while we max out the power from our physicals make up, we also increased the chance of getting premature injury.
We’ll get carpal tunnel in the hands and wrists from typing on the keyboards if we’re at it for years, so will we get injury from swinging a golf club if we’re at it long enough.
Balance it out so we could enjoy the game, facing the truth not everyone could be competitive in the regional events.
Most of us will be very happy if we do well in our local club-events.
That being said.
Information and visual aide are plentiful these days, unlike the old days we had to extract the information from the teaching professional and paper reading material.
Use the information, pick out those which made sense to you and pout them to practice to find out which method will help your golf game.
Take in and filter, refine, to suit your need.
Ben Hogan fug it out of the dirt by practicing and he had found the secret for his needs, Tiger Woods said at one time that eventually he wanted to be able to understand the golf swing and apply it so he could fix the issues himself when he needed. Even on the golf course during the tournament.
Faldo could take a hint from his caddy to correct his streak of missing the target, all his caddy said to him was to remind him with “chicken wings” .
Greg Norman learned most his game from a book called “Golf My Way” written by his childhood hero, Jack Nicklaus.
Try the tips out and find out which ones will help you as a golfer.
There is no magic bullet unless one was doing something against the fundamental of a golf swing before the correction.
Find the solution to your issue and practice more to “own it”, the ownership of your golf swing is the key to perform under pressure. From the Nassau bet between your foursome to club events…
I used to be so concentrated in my own game, never realized that the focus on my own game put pressure onto the others in my group.
I often walk on to the daily fee public golf facilities as a single golfer when kids were young, so most the rounds back then were played with strangers.
Quite a few times my playing partners of the day would tell me when we exiting the 18th green that they’ll " beat me next time". I hope they enjoyed the round beyond feeling the pressure from my game.
That focus/concentration can be learned and practiced.
If there is one thing you wish to practice between the ears, learn to be able to focus on the task at hands in as little as a few seconds and relax until the next moment.
