Hi Joe,
Appreciate your informative response! It's great to hear from someone who's been to similar path. This gives me more confidence in staying on the (right) course in my golf journey.
I think you're right in suggesting that I might have disconnection between shoulder and arms. What happened before was that my arms hinged from shoulder so on downswing, the shoulder always turned faster than arms and when the ball was struck, not only the club face was open, but the power of upper body was not transferred to the ball at all. I believe now by focusing on "keeping hands in front of body" at all time (except after contact), the C-force is working and power transfers well to the ball. The dead wrist helps in a similar fashion by allowing power to be transferred from arm through hand to the club- unlike my old days when the wrist could be not yet unhinged/released when the ball was struck.
Oh, another interesting thing I found was that with club face looking at ball as long as possible during take off, the recoil sequence was good from top to bottom. But if I allowed club face to rotate away from the ball at early stage of take off, the torso or even hips would turn first, when there's no recoil between shoulder and torso. I think this is not good.
I got all these ideas from watching US Open where Rocco always did his pre-shot routine of that awkward-looking short swing. I thought- gee maybe that would work for me by applying it to full range of my swing. I went to range on Sunday night with such thought and found its positive effects far exceeded my expectation. With the responses I got here, I think I'll keep doing it to ingrain it into my brain and muscle. Then when it's also working well on the course, I may gradually experiment with some wrist hinge.
Choking down on driver? Ok I'll certainly try it. Likely will play many rounds of golf next 2 weeks when I'm no family vacation visiting relatives and old friends. If I can't solve the driver riddle in time, I'll simply tee off with 3 wood instead.
Best,
Ehien
Quote:
Originally Posted by crossgrain
Probably shaft length. Try choking down a bit on the driver and even taking a shorter swing with it.
I went through the exact same process you are describing several years ago, and I believe you are ablolutely on the right track. But this should not be confused with ultimately not breaking the wrists. The comments by the gentleman in the post above about wrist break being integral to swinging are accurate, and refreshing to read. You'll get back to that I am confident. In order to clarify my point, consider the idea, employed by many, of "holding back wrist release".
What happens to muscle tension when one attempts to delay release? The muscles in the hands and forearms are then "keyed" in the wrong direction! Why do that? What you are actually doing by attempting to NOT break the wrists, is keying the muscles in the direction of the hit. And that is exactly what you want. Eventually you will discover how to manage muscle tension in such a way as to, rather than prevent break, RESIST break, allowing club C force to eventually take over and break the wrists with the muscles then keyed in the direction of the hit, allowing for a natural release as you term it, and a very powerful strike.
I actually choked down on all my sticks when at the point you are. When I learned to employ the above, I was dead flaberghasted at launch rate. A lifelong 140 8 iron suddenly became 160 choked down with a "3/4 swing". Dead straight. This is why I inquired as to the definition of full swing. If that definition does not include the individual's viable range of motion (IVROM), then it is an inaccurate and misleading definition.
As far as your hand/torso position? Please sir, don't let anyone talk you out of that. If you assign to the arms/hands thier proper function, which is to maintain positions and tensions established at address, (And that is quite enough work for them to do), you will soon be swinging in the manner the gentleman is refering to; freely but properly keyed, with BOTH arms maintaining position (they are both holding the club, aren't they?), and I expect the right elbow will be less bother.
The reason I asked about connection is because all of the above is contingent upon it. If you don't maintain shoulder leverage, it's kind of hard to make any of the above work.
Joe Hill
|