I watched your lesson and for the first time I can say I got it after watching so many others and still not getting it right I’m a believer in cause and effect meaning you can’t think of everything while making a swing and for me it’s get to the end position that you show so well a good practice I find is to start from where you want to finish and take it to the back swing do that a few times coupled with the correct knee movement and when you make a swing it just happens Thanks again 👍
Each time I 'hit' from the top and chase the shot with my head, I overuse the right arm (the dominant arm) and the right side of the body - that instantly generates an irrecoverable over the top swing, across the line. Combine that with the release explained and the club face closes violently, twice as much, hence the fear. If you don't use the release, it becomes an ugly slice. In contrast, keeping the right arm more passive and using the vertical ground forces (posting on lead foot for weight transfer), club ends up on plane, from the inside. Do what Danny recommended for club face closing, plus attacking the ball from the inside - guaranteed beautiful draw! One quick comment, when you start hitting from the inside, if you don't transfer weight on front foot (I used to hang on the back foot) you will hit behind the ball, I struggled with that during the adjustment. Thank you Danny for a great explanation and the reasons as to why the release is not there for most of us!!!!
My personal experience and what I now observe in others is that not understanding how side bend the spine in the downswing affects the release of club and textbook “pro” extended finish. That I think is because golf instruction conflates and confuses the terms “tilt” and “side bend”. Biomechanically the tilting / of the pelvis results from leg action. If the spine is straight the shoulders will TILT the same direction in the same amount. Side-bend is the result of sideways curvature of the lower lumbar spine ). It differs in two ways from TILT: 1) It changes the angle between pelvis and spine, and 2) it can be do INDEPENDENTLY from TILT or ROTATION of the hips and spine at any point in the golf swing. I learned how and when to side-bend by screen capturing videos of pro swings and analyzing them frame by frame. Most pros start to side bend in their downswings as their hands swing down past their back legs which creates a significant change in the shoulders vs pelvis angle, dropping the trail shoulder, raising the lead shoulder and pulling the hands down and more down the target line than they had been traveling because the tilting the shoulder also changes the path and force vector of the swinging mass of the lead arm which is the lever arm pulling on the hands! If you compare the swing of new golfer who does not side-bend what occurs is that instead of lead arm mass shifting and pulling the club towards the target, hands and club instead just ‘windmill” in a circle. That allows them to hit the ball with some success but does not allow them to execute that “pro” extension where the club force is allowed to pull both arms and wrists straight then transfer support and axis of rotation from lead to train shoulder. Instead due the circular force vector if the lead arm and clue what happens is the club trying to swing around the body forces the lead arm to bend at the elbow in a REFLEXIVE ATTEMPT to stay in balance in the finish. Why does that happen? Without side bending through impact the body doesn’t have the leverage to control and arrest the club head in the finish, what the two arm extension does, very much like the capture wire on a aircraft carrier slows a landing jet. Pros like Freddie Couples and Earnie Els who are known for their slow fluid finishes accomplish it by being exceptionally good at absorbing the kinetic energy left in the club after impact with the ball with their arms and body. What I discovered was the quickest fix for a noob or intermediate golfer who can’t finish in balance is to start by statically posing the in a side-bent “tour pro” impact position with side bend, forward shaft lean and back foot just starting to come off the ground to release hips for the finish. I have them swing up to the top, hold, then back down into that foreign and awkward feeling (to them) posture 3-4 times noting where their club is hitting in the ground then I put a ball 1/2” further back and watch them hit the best shot of their lives. Their comment is always some variation of “I had no idea a golf swing was supposed to work that way!” and that is the problem with how most instructors teach. Do this and that technique without explaining the goal is to get everything down to that impact position. Once their CONSCIOUS brains understand that’s the goal their REFLEXIVE brains which have been jerking the club around to try to keep them in balance will easily execute the goal. Not perfectly but from a much better baseline of understanding to work from.
100% agree....the fear of the release is often due to the over-the-top hitters fearing going even further left (or right). That's me to a t. And that's the reason I'm working hard to fix my over-the-top move. What no instructors really talk about is that not all of us over-the-top hitters are as exaggerated as instructors demonstrate. Some of us are just slight over the top hitters but even a slight over the top is enough to cause havoc on any course other than wide open courses with large greens. Good video.
Exactly! I'm glad you mentioned that. For videos I like to show the exaggerated over the top move. But as you said, it's also the same for players who are just slightly out to in. I see lots of players on a weekly basis online and in person that chicken wing too, from a swing that is just slightly out to in. Thanks for watching.
Hi Malcolm revisiting this video. Thank you for showing the release from p6 @3:18. Am on my PC so I can watch it frame by frame. Looks to me like a push with the right arm/hand (or throwing a ball under handed to a spot infront of the ball) and then a swivel so that the toe points vertically or even left. Would this be a correct description? Meaning the face moves & rotates differently from p6 to impact vs impact to p8 (or shaft parallel post impact). i.e. is not a mirror image. hope you understand my description. Thanks
That sounds like a pretty good description of a harder release (i.e. greater rate of closer of the clubface from P6 to P8. The feel versus real is a little different for everyone.
❤ thanks for finally doing this topic which I think is a core fundamental topic but 99% of instructors don't cover. the hands and wrists can move in so many different ways to make the club move. I understand that the backswing etc does matter a lot but without knowing how the club should swing, how you intend to release the angles and how to manipulate the clubface for curve or straight, learners will not really benefit. If we can't do feet together swings properly, it's not going to be helpful teaching step drills, shallowing, pressure shift etc. On your topic of release, could you possibly cover in the future how it helps getting hands ahead of ball at impact (good impact position), how to add manipulation in the right way to influence ball flight & curve. & the various mistakes & misconception you see from golfers when attempting a proper release.
Thank you for your kind feedback. Yes, the hands and wrists alone can create so many different ball flights. Educating them is essential to becoming a highly skilled golfer. I have noted your request for a future video on impact. I will look to dive deep on this sometime soon. Thank you so much for watching
I never even realized i was doing it until and older fellow said i was being to wristy. I would always think of mike tyson saying all his knockouts came from the ground up. So yeah, pressing my leg down while speed up my swing then making sure that when the clubhead gets near the ball, its straight before finishing the release.
I watched your lesson and for the first time I can say I got it after watching so many others and still not getting it right I’m a believer in cause and effect meaning you can’t think of everything while making a swing and for me it’s get to the end position that you show so well a good practice I find is to start from where you want to finish and take it to the back swing do that a few times coupled with the correct knee movement and when you make a swing it just happens
Thanks again 👍
Hi Mike, thanks for your comment. Totally agree. Start in the end position and reverse engineer the swing. It's a good drill.
Each time I 'hit' from the top and chase the shot with my head, I overuse the right arm (the dominant arm) and the right side of the body - that instantly generates an irrecoverable over the top swing, across the line. Combine that with the release explained and the club face closes violently, twice as much, hence the fear. If you don't use the release, it becomes an ugly slice. In contrast, keeping the right arm more passive and using the vertical ground forces (posting on lead foot for weight transfer), club ends up on plane, from the inside. Do what Danny recommended for club face closing, plus attacking the ball from the inside - guaranteed beautiful draw! One quick comment, when you start hitting from the inside, if you don't transfer weight on front foot (I used to hang on the back foot) you will hit behind the ball, I struggled with that during the adjustment. Thank you Danny for a great explanation and the reasons as to why the release is not there for most of us!!!!
Thanks for the kind feedback :)
My personal experience and what I now observe in others is that not understanding how side bend the spine in the downswing affects the release of club and textbook “pro” extended finish. That I think is because golf instruction conflates and confuses the terms “tilt” and “side bend”.
Biomechanically the tilting / of the pelvis results from leg action. If the spine is straight the shoulders will TILT the same direction in the same amount.
Side-bend is the result of sideways curvature of the lower lumbar spine ). It differs in two ways from TILT: 1) It changes the angle between pelvis and spine, and 2) it can be do INDEPENDENTLY from TILT or ROTATION of the hips and spine at any point in the golf swing.
I learned how and when to side-bend by screen capturing videos of pro swings and analyzing them frame by frame. Most pros start to side bend in their downswings as their hands swing down past their back legs which creates a significant change in the shoulders vs pelvis angle, dropping the trail shoulder, raising the lead shoulder and pulling the hands down and more down the target line than they had been traveling because the tilting the shoulder also changes the path and force vector of the swinging mass of the lead arm which is the lever arm pulling on the hands!
If you compare the swing of new golfer who does not side-bend what occurs is that instead of lead arm mass shifting and pulling the club towards the target, hands and club instead just ‘windmill” in a circle. That allows them to hit the ball with some success but does not allow them to execute that “pro” extension where the club force is allowed to pull both arms and wrists straight then transfer support and axis of rotation from lead to train shoulder. Instead due the circular force vector if the lead arm and clue what happens is the club trying to swing around the body forces the lead arm to bend at the elbow in a REFLEXIVE ATTEMPT to stay in balance in the finish.
Why does that happen? Without side bending through impact the body doesn’t have the leverage to control and arrest the club head in the finish, what the two arm extension does, very much like the capture wire on a aircraft carrier slows a landing jet. Pros like Freddie Couples and Earnie Els who are known for their slow fluid finishes accomplish it by being exceptionally good at absorbing the kinetic energy left in the club after impact with the ball with their arms and body.
What I discovered was the quickest fix for a noob or intermediate golfer who can’t finish in balance is to start by statically posing the in a side-bent “tour pro” impact position with side bend, forward shaft lean and back foot just starting to come off the ground to release hips for the finish. I have them swing up to the top, hold, then back down into that foreign and awkward feeling (to them) posture 3-4 times noting where their club is hitting in the ground then I put a ball 1/2” further back and watch them hit the best shot of their lives.
Their comment is always some variation of “I had no idea a golf swing was supposed to work that way!” and that is the problem with how most instructors teach. Do this and that technique without explaining the goal is to get everything down to that impact position. Once their CONSCIOUS brains understand that’s the goal their REFLEXIVE brains which have been jerking the club around to try to keep them in balance will easily execute the goal. Not perfectly but from a much better baseline of understanding to work from.
Hi Teddy, thanks for the feedback!
100% agree....the fear of the release is often due to the over-the-top hitters fearing going even further left (or right). That's me to a t. And that's the reason I'm working hard to fix my over-the-top move. What no instructors really talk about is that not all of us over-the-top hitters are as exaggerated as instructors demonstrate. Some of us are just slight over the top hitters but even a slight over the top is enough to cause havoc on any course other than wide open courses with large greens. Good video.
Exactly! I'm glad you mentioned that. For videos I like to show the exaggerated over the top move. But as you said, it's also the same for players who are just slightly out to in. I see lots of players on a weekly basis online and in person that chicken wing too, from a swing that is just slightly out to in. Thanks for watching.
Hi Malcolm revisiting this video. Thank you for showing the release from p6 @3:18. Am on my PC so I can watch it frame by frame.
Looks to me like a push with the right arm/hand (or throwing a ball under handed to a spot infront of the ball) and then a swivel so that the toe points vertically or even left. Would this be a correct description?
Meaning the face moves & rotates differently from p6 to impact vs impact to p8 (or shaft parallel post impact). i.e. is not a mirror image.
hope you understand my description.
Thanks
That sounds like a pretty good description of a harder release (i.e. greater rate of closer of the clubface from P6 to P8. The feel versus real is a little different for everyone.
❤ thanks for finally doing this topic which I think is a core fundamental topic but 99% of instructors don't cover. the hands and wrists can move in so many different ways to make the club move. I understand that the backswing etc does matter a lot but without knowing how the club should swing, how you intend to release the angles and how to manipulate the clubface for curve or straight, learners will not really benefit.
If we can't do feet together swings properly, it's not going to be helpful teaching step drills, shallowing, pressure shift etc.
On your topic of release, could you possibly cover in the future how it helps getting hands ahead of ball at impact (good impact position), how to add manipulation in the right way to influence ball flight & curve. & the various mistakes & misconception you see from golfers when attempting a proper release.
Thank you for your kind feedback. Yes, the hands and wrists alone can create so many different ball flights. Educating them is essential to becoming a highly skilled golfer.
I have noted your request for a future video on impact. I will look to dive deep on this sometime soon. Thank you so much for watching
I never even realized i was doing it until and older fellow said i was being to wristy. I would always think of mike tyson saying all his knockouts came from the ground up. So yeah, pressing my leg down while speed up my swing then making sure that when the clubhead gets near the ball, its straight before finishing the release.
Thank you for watching. Love the boxing analogy.
What are your thoughts on the push down with the left palm, bend back with the right hand during takeaway method?
Typically I like to see pressure from the trail hand thumb pad on top of the lead hand thumb, and maintaining that in the takeaway and backswing.
Enjoyed the content, Ty!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching.
I just point the grip at my belly button because it makes me turn with the club anyway
Nice work, Ben! Thanks for watching :)