|
Golfmats, Golfmatten, Limpiapiés de golf |
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
| www.LongGolf.com | |||||||||||||
| Long's Putting Stroke | |||||||||||||
|
Long's Swing Modeling System & Long's Swing Preferences
by Steve Long
|
|||||||||||||
|
The best way to find your best swing.
Two exercises for a complete swing development program.
No man or machine can yet indicate your exact proper swingplane(s), but you can find and practice it yourself with a golf club and the exercises below.
Note: This web page is at present a living document--it receives updates. And it contains original research.
Table of Contents Preferred Swing Setup: (Address) and the ATA, ACA, trailing elbow Preferred Movement During the Swing Combining the exercises: The Four Step
Long's Swing Modeling System and Long's Swing Preferences are mixed together here on the same page. Long's Swing Modeling System is not a new kind of golf swing, but an enhanced way of learning a swing that is already popular. The Modeling System helps to produce quickly and correctly many swing features which are considered important or critical, and it encourages some features which are normally considered optional. The Swing Preferences are recommended golf swing techniques which exist independently of the Modeling System. Long's Swing Modeling System provides a number of new swing learning tools. These include an independent production of a downswing without a backswing, building a swing backwards from impact to address, and the ability to find the correct swing plane for any setup or club. One of the main problems in learning a golf swing is to get the swingplane right. Even good golf teachers have had no way to determine the proper swingplane with any exactness. Golfers who don't take lessons can be way off the correct plane. Golfers who take lessons are more likely to be closer to it. Now there is a way for all of them to find that elusive correct swingplane. Teachers can teach it; golfers can learn it on their own. Another main problem has been the learning order. If the execution of a downswing depends on a backswing, as is normally the case, and the backswing is incorrect, then the downswing is largely a compensation for an incorrect backswing, and both are incorrect. With the method taught here you are given the tools to learn the downswing by itself, so as to get it right independently of the backswing. Then the backswing is constructed to go with that downswing. In this regard is the swing learned "backwards," in terms of order. As you will see below, it is also learned from impact backward to the top position and then backwards from the top position to the address position. It is, however, not like learning to walk backwards in order to learn to walk forwards. It is more like learning to take small steps before taking big ones, or taking one step at a time before taking two or more at a time. This method can help you determine:
and provide:
Long's Swing Preferences, as options that can be used with or without the Swing Modeling System, includes among other things:
Long's Swing Modeling System is comprised mainly of two Special Exercises and variations thereof, and by some Swing Preferences. It will generate or specify most aspects of a good or correct swing, including features never before generated, such as swing plane, but it does not try to cure every problem or define every detail of the swing, such as grip or stance width. The system defines the downswing with the Downswing Exercise. It defines the backswing using the Backswing Exercise. The Downswing Exercise, or a version of it, should usually be done before the Backswing Exercise. The Downswing Exercise includes finding the top position. With a top position, the backswing can be found. This is explained completely below. For a video of the Special Exercises, see below. After a short introductory period, the exercises, if done correctly, become models for the real swing.
The Downswing Exercise is a continuous back and forth training swing that grows from a short swing into a full swing. It produces the top position of the backswing much better than the backswing can itself. At the same time, the Downswing Exercise produces the proper swing plane. Just finding the best swing plane is a public service for anyone who gets near a golf course. It is impossible for an observer to see the exact swing plane, even with video, and even more difficult for the person swinging the club, yet this exercise produces it on demand. It also allows practice and development of the downswing, from impact backward to the top. The Downswing Exercise bypasses the normal backswing by replacing it with a "returnswing" that goes from the end of the followthrough to the start of the downswing. The returnswing makes use of momentum. By the time the club reaches impact position, going in the reverse direction, it has generated a lot of momentum that helps keep the direction intact. This momentum is what makes possible the determination of the swing plane and the improved position at the "top" (the top of the backswing). It can overcome the tendencies and bad habits that are ingrained or pre-existing in your swing, including your backswing. After practicing an improved downswing with the downswing exercise, a backswing is needed before hitting a ball, a new backswing designed to go with the new downswing. The new backswing leads into the new downswing. To utilize any particular downswing, the backswing must take us very close to the top position and the muscle tension array at the top position of that downswing. Otherwise we are forced to use some other downswing. In the ordinary golf swing we usually make backswings that vary somewhat or even considerably, as well as being far from ideal in the first place, and then we improvise or respond automatically with a downswing that tries to make the best use of that backswing. This is the basic problem with the normal swing method. The downswing is usually a response to the backswing. The way it should be is that the downswing is made correct first, then the backswing is tailored to it. The backswing sought after in these exercises can be relatively easily reverse engineered. Instead of starting the practice of this new backswing at address, the normal way, we start at the top of the swing. The top is first found with the Downswing Exercise, then it becomes the starting point for the Backswing Exercise. We go from the top to address, and then make the actual backswing back to the top, then without stopping repeat the process, down to address, back up, etc., each time feeling for that top position and tension array that was just created by the Downswing Exercise. If we lose the feeling of the correct top we have to start over with the Downswing Exercise and find the top again. The basic procedure is to first use a proper setup, then do the Downswing Exercise, and then the Backswing Exercise seamlessly after the Downswing Exercise. This means that as the final returnswing to the top of the Downswing Exercise is finished, we switch over without stopping to the Backswing Exercise. There are variations on this described later on. Do these two exercises until it feels like you can do the backswing correctly from address, and you are ready to hit a ball. There is also a special technique called waddling that takes you from the exercise to the ball hitting. You must learn to waddle. Those are the special exercises in a nutshell. For a full description and instructions, read on.
Long's Swing Modeling System is designed to make your swing improvable, much of it automatically so, and in the quickest possible way. How? With Long's training method, you develop your swing by doing two exercises and their combinations and versions. You can also improve your swing by considering and adopting some or all of the features and preferences of Long's Golf Swing Preferences, such as the constant Arms to Torso angle (ATA). Warning: These exercises will change your swing if you want them to, maybe even if you don't want them to. If you don't want to change your swing, don't adopt the changes that are recommended by the exercises. Or to be really safe, don't do the exercises at all. If you do them, there could be a brief period where your swing becomes unfamiliar and less predictable, but soon or immediately the improvements will take hold, if you keep doing the exercises. While it doesn't guarantee to deal with every problem, it offers tools that will deal with basic problems that have not been dealt with adequately before. The exercises depend on the use of momentum and incremental progression. Incremental progression in this usage means gradual change in the length or speed of the swing. For example, starting with a static pose, then going to a slow swing or a short swing, and then increasing the speed or length. It's a good way to get things right in the realm of movement learning, and it should be used more in golf. The Downswing Exercise makes extensive use of incremental progression. The use of short continuous swings in the Downswing Exercise generates a complete correct movement with little room for error. They, the short swings, then become part of longer swings. It is a good idea to hit balls with the short swings before going on to the longer swings. If you cannot hit a short swing shot, there is probably something wrong that will plague a longer swing. Momentum is the phenomena of moving mass continuing to move with the same velocity unless acted upon by an external force. In addition to those stated above, changes to your swing are made in the following ways:
The Downswing Exercise is based on a number of realizations. The first realization is that the ideal swing plane can be found or approximated by using a continuous back and forth motion. The backward part of this motion, from the end of the follow-through to the start of the downswing, bypasses the imperfection of real backswings, allowing a pure downswing to emerge. For a discussion of what a swingplane is, and what an ideal swingplane is, see below. The second realization is that short hard continuous swings, done correctly, create correct body movements in the hitting zone. The short hard continuous swing can be made very accurate. It can coordinate the body very quickly and strengthens the weak muscles. It is a kind of slow motion exercise, in that the actual velocity is low but the motion seems quick. The third realization is that longer swings can and should be built from shorter swings. The full swing by itself is easy to do wrong. Because the short swing is more accurate, it makes sense to create the long swing by gradually extending the short swing. It also allows one to have short swings that feel and function much the same way as the longer swings. The fourth realization is that swinging gradually harder exposes weaknesses and limits, and allows the attempt to correct them. This is another example incremental progression. The Backswing Exercise is based on the realization that because the downswing can be found more accurately without the backswing, the backswing must be created after the downswing, and for the downswing. Once the downswing is determined with the exercise, then a backswing is created that leads into the downswing. The top position is the starting point for the backswing exercise. You can work on the right downswing by itself, with no backswing at all. Then when you have the downswing you want, it is relatively simple to make the backswing that goes with it. Relatively simple, but not easy. I am convinced that a good backswings are more difficult to execute than good downswings. With this method, you have a fighting chance because at least you will find out what the backswing should be and then you can deal with the difficulty of repeating it. When there is more than one way to make a swing work well, the author has chosen the way that can be checked or measured either at address or during an exercise. As a result it can be practiced and improved upon more easily. The author has found that some features of a good swing can best be found, or only be found, with exercises. One such feature is the swing plane and top position. Given a choice between swing features, one should pick the features that are measurable in a normal swing, measurable in an exercise, produced automatically by an exercise, or measurable in the setup. Measurable means that you can fairly easily monitor some aspect of your swing just by observing it with or without making a simple measurement. For example, for head height, you can watch your head in a mirror or window reflection, or even your shadow, and whereas you could not easily measure how much it moves, you can see if it stays at one height. Therefore, the feature of choice is "keep your head at one height" (until impact). Golfers can experience the force of the Exercises by seeing how fast a swing can be learned opposite-handed (left-handed if you are swinging right-handed normally).
The terms flat and upright refer to the angle of the swing plane as seen down the line. The terms can be used in various ways, usually referring to either the inclination as a comparison between golfers, or to refer to being off from what might be the best for an individual golfer or even sometimes for an individual with a given club and lie. In this article it refers to the latter: for a given club and lie of an individual, with the further specification of a given impact position. For a given impact position, there would be one ideal swing plane that is neither upright nor flat, but in between. The great golfer Tom Watson had the unfortunate experience of having had an upright swing plane, where the hands are above the ideal plane at the top. At least he said he did; I have not checked it on old videos or film footage. He said he had adopted the upright swing because he wanted to swing like Jack Nicklaus. I presume this was back when Mr. Watson was young. Watson said he abandoned his upright swing during the Heritage Golf Classic in 1992. Stressing the importance of this change in his swing, he remembers the exact time, and believed he had finally "figured out the golf swing." He said he was tired of hitting fat shots and shots off to the right. Tom Watson video He won his eight majors before he fixed his swing in 1992. Imagine how many more majors he might have won had he been using the improved swing! At age 59 he virtually won the (British) Open. He might have challenged or exceeded Jack Nicklaus, in majors or all time wins. All because of a flaw in the swing plane. One unfortunate consequence of a less than ideal swing plane is that it is difficult to swing hard and hit the ball solid at the same time. The author can attest to this. Having had an upright swing plane but needing solid hitting and reliability more than distance, power was purposely limited, so hitting distance was also limited. Even with easy swings, it is still harder to hit the ball solid than with an ideal swingplane. An upright swing, as Watson had used, naturally tends to go below the ball. Why does it do that? And why does a flat swing plane tend to go over the ball? Before answering that, let's define the term swing plane. If you imagine a golf club with a rope coming out of the butt of the grip, and a cowboy who can hold the rope and spin the club very fast over his head like a lasso, you get an idea of what a swing plane is. The important idea is that the club generates a plane, or something close to a plane. It sags a little because of gravity, making a conical section, but it is close to a plane. If the cowboy doesn't do anything to change the path of the club, like moving the rope up and down, the club stays in one plane. On the other hand, if the cowboy disturbs the plane, the new movement will tend to be in a new plane, because the club stays in one plane unless there is a force to deflect it from its momentum-directed path. Most of the weight of the club is in the head, so the head momentum determines more of the path than does the shaft. Let's say the club inscribes a plane as it goes into the ball. If that plane is extended in space to where the hands and clubhead go during the downswing, that is the ideal swingplane on which it is better to go. The sooner the club enters that plane during the downswing, the better. Staying in one plane in the downswing, although no one does it perfectly, is preferable in a golf swing because it is difficult to change the swing plane in a repeatable way. Another advantage of a single downswing plane is that it allows the golfer to change the swing speed without having to also adjust the forces that adjust the plane. This means swinging harder and easier with fewer mishits. It especially means more consistent short swings, as in pitches for example. If the swing plane is not passing through the ball, it must be changed during the swing until it does, or a mishit will occur. Almost all of this re-alignment of the plane occurs during the backswing and the beginning of the downswing. The further along in the downswing the club goes, the less chance there is of successfully adjusting the path before impact. Inside-out and outside-in refer to different clubhead paths, and they also describe a direction of the swing plane. The ideal swingplane would have the right inclination and the right direction. Note that the backswing path and plane is usually quite different from the downswing path and plane. Few golfers use the same plane for both. Just to make it perfectly clear, the ideal swing plane referred to here is the one used on the downswing, not the backswing.
How can you get close to this ideal downswing plane? You do the two exercises described in painstaking detail below: the Downswing Exercise and Backswing Exercise. Outside of the Downswing Exercise, there are basically two ways to try to find the ideal downswing plane: 1. Trial and error, which may or may not help, although it's the normal method. It works best when you are forced to play the ball closer or farther from your feet so as to make solid contact. It works less well when you experiment with ball position or the top position, unless you desperately need a different top position. 2. Visually: With advanced video stop motion and software you can capture the club shaft at impact (or better yet the line from sweet spot to grip) as seen down the target line, then draw a long line on the screen over the club shaft and up to the top position. Then you back up the video to where the hands are at the top position and see where the hands are in relation to the aforesaid line: above, below or on the line. This method is not fully accurate unless the camera is located in the swingplane, which is difficult to achieve. You would need one camera on the target line behind the hands and another on the target line through the hands at the top. The way advocated here, in the Downswing Exercise, is the use of a returnswing. See the Downswing Exercise below for instructions how to do it. Basically you use momentum to carry the club backward from a follow-through position, to and through impact position, and then to a correct top position. Unfortunately the normal backswing itself doesn't have enough momentum to serve this purpose; it gets distorted quite easily. The Returnswing has much more momentum, and takes the club to a better position. It is still vulnerable to manipulation by the player so it needs to be done properly. Incremental progression, growing the swing from short to long, and a softness in the hands improves the accuracy of the Downswing Exercise. The Downswing Exercise can even be used while playing, and it's legal. It looks natural so that most folks won't notice your doing something special. Touring pros sometimes use a quick version it unconsciously while playing. To repeat, the accuracy of the downswing plane in the Downswing Exercise depends on a careful but feasible use of a "returnswing," a reverse direction swing that actually throws the arms and club to the top of the swing. At present this is as close as one can get to the correct swing plane without carrying around a specialized video system. It may be more accurate than the video given the limitations of the video setup. Your swing plane problem is not likely to be solved permanently or immediately no matter how you do it. Old habits die hard and come back when you least need them. In addition, the golf swing is constantly changing and slipping away, thanks to the human body's imprecise movement and setup ability. So you probably will need to be able to refind the swing plane at various times. Hence the need for a portable on-demand method.
To do these exercises you need to memorize and follow the rules. Admittedly this requires a certain amount of effort but it is something you can then use forever. It is usually easier to learn with the support of a good teacher. A good teacher can usually see your failures more quickly than you can yourself. But most teachers do not have the tools to cure or see everything. The teacher's toolbox will I think be enhanced by using the new tools here. The tools here also help the golfer improve more on his or her own, with or without a teacher's help, thus imparting a greater ability to self-diagnose and self-cure. Hopefully there will be fewer problems to cure as well. The method does not preach a new kind of swing, so the end goals remain the same, but the route of reaching those goals is different. It might be difficult to find a teacher willing to learn additional methods, but if you look enough, you can probably find someone. Everyone is encouraged to print out this copyrighted material for personal use.
Below you can find the following sections:
Preferred Swing Setup: (address):
To start working with Long's Swing Modeling System, you need only provide the proper grip and a fairly normal wrist action, and a few other things like stance width and ball position. The rest will be developed by the exercises and instructions. Use a good grip, preferably the Vardon. Avoid a hook or slice grip. Study carefully some good pictures of the grip. The Preferred Swing Setup is mostly about setting up for a real golf swing, one where a backswing and downswing are made in the common fashion. There is also discussion of how different setups will work with the Swing Modeling System.
The ATA and ACA at address and impact. (I am having some trouble showing the labeling on this illustration. There are four angles in this picture. The upper left label would read ATA at address. Just below that is the ATA at impact. To the right are the ACA at address (upper) and the ACA at impact (lower).
The ATA and ACA. Whether to swing in one "groove" rather than a multitude of "grooves" is the main issue here.
ATA and ACA at Address and Impact for Tiger Woods and Ernie Els
How to keep an ATA and ACA
Setting and measuring the ATA (arms to torso angle) using the trailing hand measurement. This method creates an ATA similar to that of Woods and Els. The ATA setting shown here creates an ATA of about 46 degrees plus or minus a few degrees.
The trailing hand measurement. You can measure the address ATA as a distance between the lower belly and the pinkie of the leading hand (left for right handed play) as shown in the photo. It looks kind of funny to measure it, but that is a small price to pay for better golf. There is no perfect ATA that I know of, at least for now, but the the measurement as shown is easy to make and the setup it produces looks pretty good. It actually measures to be about the same, perhaps a few degrees greater, than what Woods and Els use. It needs to be kept the same in order to start the swing on the same basis each time. Els and Woods go to an impact ATA of about 56 degrees, which has the arms sticking out more and up higher than the address ATA. The impact ATA is what we use during the Downswing Exercise, and that is found by raising and forwarding the hands (usually) into impact position without moving the clubhead. There will be more on that below. If you are already the owner of a golf swing, you have a number of options. You can use the angle or angles that you already have, or you can change them immediately, or you can let them evolve over time. In addition, you can keep or change the difference between the address ATA and impact ATA. Even if you prefer to use a different ATA for different clubs, you can still use the Downswing Exercise and enhance your ability to quickly create or verify the right swing plane for each particular club. Indeed, the Downswing Exercise will be especially useful if you have to struggle with different ATA's for different clubs. In any case, you may discover that you have a tendency to use a flat or upright swing plane. Or you may have been trying to use the same swing plane for different ATAs. If the latter was the case, you probably had some clubs that worked better than others, when the ATA matched the swing plane. If you use an ATA that places your hands outlandishly close to or far from your body, you might consider changing that. With this setup method you could even choose the swing plane or top position you like and then find the ATA that goes with it. You would start the Downswing Exercise without a specific impact position but find it at some point during the exercise, by noticing where the clubhead passes through impact, then take address position and measure the ATA with the clubhead at that impact point.
ATA and ACA differences between address and impact, and considerations of the trailing elbow
With the trailing arm still bent at impact, the leading shoulder is back and up a bit compared to how it would be if the trailing elbow were straight at impact. When the leading shoulder is back and up, the clubhead travels a bit closer to the torso. If you swing this way without compensating for the effect of a nearer clubhead, the clubhead can be one or two inches up and inside of the ball at impact, enough to cause a serious mis-hit! So. How is such a compensation made? There are a number of ways. The compensation can be made at address or during the swing, or both. If made during the swing, it means the upper torso moves closer to the ball during the swing. For example, the torso could lean forward on the backswing, or dip on the downswing. If made at address, it means that the upper torso is partly or wholly moved closer to the ball before swinging. Probably the most common way is to position the hands lower at address than at impact. With the hands lower at address, the entire upper torso is closer to the ball. At impact the hands then are higher, which extends the clubhead further away from the left shoulder, but the left shoulder is back, so the clubhead is pulled back in. In other words, the two compensate for each other, and if they cancel each other out, and everything else goes fortuitously, the hit is solid. The other approved method is trailing bent elbow bent more. The more it is bent at address, the more the shoulders rock and the closer the upper torso comes to the ball. To the extent that the trailing elbow at address approaches the angle it will have at impact, the less compensation is required by other means. For example, the hands could be higher at address. Most players have the trailing elbow bent to some extent at address, but a small bend doesn't do much, it doesn't shorten the arm and rock the shoulders much. With greater elbow bending the upper torso gets increasingly closer to the ball. Actually there is another method not yet mentioned. You could set up with the ball aligned to the heel of the club. Or when the ball is teed up, setting up with the ball elevated above the center of the club face gives the effect. In these cases the clubhead is outside the sphere that passes through the ball. The clubhead is also below or above the ball at address, requiring a return to the ball on a different line. Use none of the above methods and instead just hit with a straight trailing arm (not advised; it's OK if you don't get hurt). Remember that a mixture of methods will work. Rory McElroy impacts driver with a bent trailing elbow that was straight at address, sets up a little close (club face below the ball on the drive) and may dip a little on the downswing: video of Rory Mcllroy drive
Other matters in the setup:
Preferred Movement During the Swing This section contains suggested movements for your real swing, but you learn and practice them in the Exercises so that hopefully they get transferred to your regular swing. The hands, wrists and forearms should move in the classic form. The leading forearm rolls as it moves, but this movement is automatic in response to other correct movements. Rolling of the arms and hands refers to a movement that opens or closes the clubface. The hands in the impact zone could (should?) stop rolling momentarily so as to improve the accuracy of the clubface direction (more on how to achieve this later). There is no purposeful rotation of the hands at any time. On the follow-through the forearms cross each other. Keep your torso centered during the backswing. The center of mass of the upper torso should stay put on the backswing and the downswing until well after impact. This is highly advised. Some pros "move off the ball" a little, away from target, but some don't. It seems it would be easier to just locate the upper torso mass at address where it will be at impact and just keep it there. The downswing exercise tends to do just that, to locate the upper torso mass in one spot, but I think it is quite possible to do the downswing exercise with the upper body moving back and forth, albeit difficult to measure and control the amount of movement. You would have to move right and left by feel, whereas a steady location can be monitored fairly accurately. The thing to avoid, as with any swing, is the "reverse pivot" where the upper torso moves toward target and/or the hips move away from target on the backswing. That would be a good way to be at higher risk of losing control of the swing. The traditional advice is: "shift the weight" to the trailing side, but this is an indefinite instruction that allows a wide selection of places for the torso to go, including staying on center. It allows students to choose for themselves just how much the torso moves or doesn't move in a range from slightly toward target to far from target during the backswing, all the while feeling like it fulfills the rule of shifting weight away from target. You might ask how staying torso-centered can create a weight shift or the feeling of it. When the arms and club move off-center to the trailing side they are in fact a substantial bit of mass going to the trailing side. In addition, the act of accelerating the arms and club in the takeaway creates a reaction force in the trailing foot that feels like a weight. A centered torso turns but does not move out of its location on the backswing. On the downswing the lower torso and hips turn and slide toward target while the upper torso mass stays put, or rather should stay put. Why do it this way? I believe it works better in a number of ways. It allows the mass of the upper body to stay in one location, which is easier than moving it. It also allows the leading knee to retain a fixed angle during the backswing rather than bending more or bending less. Note that as the torso turns, the head and eyes travel around the torso axis, because the head usually sticks out in front of the torso. If the torso stays centered, the head and eyes travel away from target on the backswing and toward target on the downswing. Conversely, if the head rather than the torso is kept centered on the backswing, then the torso mass moves a little toward target, making the backswing and the downswing more difficult to execute. It often leads to that unpleasant feeling that there is no way to get back to the ball and hit it straight or no way to start the backswing correctly. It would be very convenient if the head could be kept in one place during the backswing, it being easier to measure a centered head than a centered torso. Unfortunately it just isn't a good idea. It is a little tricky to see or measure whether the upper torso stays centered on the backswing. If you try to stay centered by looking in a mirror or window reflection, a faulty result is likely to occur. The head and even more so the eyes are moving around the torso axis as it turns, moving away from target, and creating ever changing views. In addition, as the upper body turns on the backswing, the torso changes its appearance, its width. But if you watch your shadow in front of you, with the sun or a light shining from behind, you can see fairly well if the torso stays centered, even though the profile changes. The profile of your torso, as seen from the front or back, gets narrower as you make the backswing. It should shrink on both sides equally; the centerline of the shadow should not move. Another way to check torso location is the following: Stand straight up without a club, arms by your sides, weight exactly and equally distributed between left and right (or however you do it at address). Make a full shoulder turn in the backswing direction, and make an effort to turn in place. The leading arm hangs; the trailing arm should be placed behind you. The leading knee should not increase or decrease its bend as it moves. After reaching a full turn, lean over gradually forward without leaning to the left or right. As you lean over the leading knee must bend more. The amount you lean over will depend on which club you are hitting and the lie. Try various leans. Repeat the whole process from the beginning. While you are at it, make sure that your hips turn without moving right or left. When you do the downswing exercise you should make sure you achieve this top position, in case the exercise does not produce it automatically. The exercise tends to produce the proper position automatically but a golfer who has done it differently for some years might have difficulty changing. Once learned, torso centering can be monitored by feel with only occasional double checking.
Warning: The following exercise is hazardous for anything that gets in the way of your club. Don't swing in the dark, next to an open door, or where you can't see what is coming toward you. A person or pet who gets hit could get a devastating if not fatal bashing.
The Downswing Exercise promotes a correct swing plane, length of swing, wrist hinging, timing, balance, and other body positions throughout the downswing. The exercises are done almost entirely without hitting balls. The procedure here describes the method for beginning users of the Downswing Exercise. The procedure can be streamlined and shortened for experienced users by expanding the length of the swing much more quickly.
You can sense and judge the timing of the hands/clubhead arrival at impact because you have practiced it just moments before, with the shorter swings you took. If you have observed proper timing at each stage of the exercise, then your goal is already achieved. However, with an actual swing to hit a real ball, there is a tendency to swing harder than during practice. This can change your timing. That is why you may sometimes wish to use maximum force on the downswing when you reach the very end of the Downswing Exercise, and it wouldn't hurt to use maximum force at the very end of each swing length increase, just to make sure the timing is right. (As noted below, you can find the proper swing plane and top position without using full force). In case your timing is wrong, it can be adjusted by three separate means: 1) the amount of wrist bending, with more bending for more delay of the clubhead in relation to the hands, 2) the speed of the arms on the downswing, with more speed delaying the clubhead, 3) the force applied to the straightening of the wrists on the downswing, with less force delaying the clubhead. There is a fourth means which can be used when the swing is shortened into the region where the wrists normally uncock. This is a rare very short swing but illustrates the physics. At less than full force, you can control the timing directly, like for a chip or pitch. At full force, the wrists must be less cocked the shorter the swing, or the timing will be wrong. For normal swings the following applies. Say for example that the clubhead arrives at impact position before your hands and you cannot or do not wish to change the force applied to arm movement or wrist bending, and you don't want to shorten your swing to the point where wrist uncocking begins, then the only option is to use greater wristbend at the top, in order to delay the clubhead by coming into the wrist uncocking region with a greater wrist cock. The opposite applies if your hands arrive at impact before the clubhead (i.e.., use less wrist bending). Another method, probably the most common, is to use the maximum amount of wrist bend, say 90 degrees between the upper arm and the club as measured in the swing plane, and then limit the force applied to either straightening the wrists or pulling the arms down. Another solution would be exercise that increases the strength of the wrist straightening or the arms pull-down, whichever is the weak one.
Variations of the Downswing Exercise
Combining the Exercises: The 4-Step
Try using the same ATA on your chips and pitches as you use on full shots. If you have to change your ATA to do that, you must decide whether it is worth it to do so. You have to estimate the sacrifice in time and performance that would be required to change over to the new ATA. It might not be too bad. Since you are free to use more or less wrist bending on less than full power shots, you can do the same on chips and pitches. The main advantage of using more wrist bending is that the clubhead follows an arc with a smaller radius, and thus can better avoid grass that is in the way to the ball. Another advantage is that there is more clubhead travel and velocity for a given amount of body movement. The advantage of the less wrist bending is that some folks need it, because they don't hit the ball solid with wrist bending. There might also be an argument about which why controls distance better. While I have not seen scientific evidence on this, both ways can probably work equally well with equal practice, assuming solid contact with the ball. At address, for chipping or pitching with a short swing and wrist bending, the hips can be set into impact position, or close to it, to allow room for late wrist action and clearance for the right elbow, without having to make a quick big hip movement. For a medium length swing the address position of the hips can be normal because there is more time to move them into impact position. A way to slow and smoothen the hip slide/turn is to start it early, even quite early, while the club is still going back. This is a luxury only for shortened swings.
There are many other things to learn about the golf swing. For example, when you hit balls on the course instead of the driving range, you will find yourself on uneven ground much of the time, requiring adjustments. Even flat courses have tees that are not level. You can be cruising along with good shots and suddenly hit a hook from a tee without knowing why, if you didn't adjust your stance for a teeing area that puts you on your back leg a little. You were supposed to bend the forward leg a little more. So it goes with the rest of golf. There is no end to refinements.
Alignment to a target: "Rifle Aim" You probably know how to lay a club on the ground, aimed at the target, so that you can line yourself up to it during practice. On the course you can do a variation that works well and quickly. I call it the Rifle Aim because it looks a little like sighting down a rifle, and I don't know what others have called it. You have to decide first whether you are going to make practice swings before or after making this alignment. Let's say you make some practice swings first and have already finished with that. Take the approximate address position for the shot. With both hands holding the chosen club a few inches under your eyes, clubhead toward target, and with most of the shaft to the target side of your head, rotate your head and sight down the shaft. Point the shaft at the target. Then, without moving the club, look down at your feet in such a way as to see the edge of the shaft and your feet at the same time. Then align your feet in reference to the shaft. Then finish taking your address position, checking ATA if you must, and then waddle, if necessary, until the clubface is positioned correctly behind the ball. Hit the ball. If you are having difficulty with your swing, it might help to make practice swings as the last step before hitting. In that case, do the alignment first. Take your address position six inches further away than for hitting. First make the alignment as described above, then make the practice swings, then waddle the few inches into hitting position, moving the feet equal amounts so as to preserve target alignment. Hit the ball.
This page is updated frequently. Check back for additions and changes. Good luck and good golf. Feedback is welcomed. contact: Steve Long Pauenweg 68, 47661 Issum, Germany Tel. 02835 444331 from inside Germany or + 49 2835 444331 from outside Germany or email to mat at longgolf.com 1. Turning too quickly back to the ball on the downswing is a common fault. This normally takes the arms outside the intended line. Even more undesirable is a compensation for this mistake wherein the rear arm, by pulling sideways to the rear, keeps the forward arm on path in spite of the over-rotation. This is a common swing. It can work but it is not as reliable. A flat swing is likely to cause topping or shanking; conversely, an upright swing is likely to cause fat toe shots. Wrist movement exercise for rank beginners: Take an impact position using a reasonably correct grip with any golf club. You are going to move the club between about 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock, approximately horizontal to horizontal, back and forth continuously, without moving the leading arm very much out of position, although it rotates in place. The trailing elbow bends on the backswing and straightens on the downswing. On the follow-through the forearms cross. The back of the leading hand must stay approximately parallel with its forearm. These are classic golf positions.
Copyright © 2004,5,6,7,8,9,10 Steve Long, All rights reserved except as noted. Please feel free to quote or copy with attribution to Steve Long, Long's Swing Modeling System, or this web page. Ok to copy for personal use or hand outs to students, with attribution. Please date all copies, as the content changes.
|
|||||||||||||
