What’s better? A fast moving club head with a short length and changing club face, or twice the length including all the body mass rotating athletically with a constant, square club face?
About 15 years ago I was practicing getting out of deep rough close to the green and had a HUGE revelation. I realized that the ball could easily come out every time when I had the shaft in line with the front arm, kept my wrists exactly the same during the swing, and used my entire body mass (rotating) to move through the grass and bring the ball out. This kept the face exactly the way it was at setup, giving me the loft I wanted and solid, centered contact. It also kept the club face square to the intended target line since I was not using my hands to chop at the ball. This was amazing. It was so easy. Keep my hands passive and use my body turn to bring the ball out.
This concept lead to a lot of thought for the full swing and other shots around the green. “Let the body turn be the source of power not the hands.” This also lead to the more natural athletic concepts you hear me talk about. I could see this move in many other sports moves, and even in every day life when we just subconsciously use or body to do a job.
Now Mass vs. Speed. We are all trying to get the ball to go straight and a certain distance using a golf club. This can be achieved many different ways. I now knew, that you can hit the ball solid (in the middle of the club face) and straight every time, when you don’t let the hands disrupt everything. I was amazed to learn the ball actually would go farther when hit with more mass rotating at a slower rate. Yes! It is awesome! Now, what prevents this from happening, is when you let your hands take over to hit at the ball, four bad things happen:
1. Your body stops rotating!! (no one hits and rotates at the same time, it is one or the other). Your body stops to support the “Hit”.
2. Your radius is cut in half since you are now hinging your wrists at impact to create more speed at the club head. The club head does speed up, but the length is cut in half (shorter radius).
3. The only mass moving with the club head (to help move the ball) is your arms and hands (since the body stopped rotating).
4. The club face direction changes (not what we want).
So the opposite of this is, to have all your body unwinding athletically trapping the ball. Here are the benefits… since the shaft is in line with the front arm and not changing, we hit the sweet spot of the club face every time producing solid repeatable contact and predictable distances, the ball goes straight since your hands are passive not changing the club face and we get more distance because the length stays the same since we are not flipping the club head with our hands. Whew! That sounds great!!
The best thing about all this, is by removing extra movements and allowing the Large Muscles (shoulders & body turn) to control your swing, this occurs naturally.
* FYI – Watch when a baseball player hits it out of the park… it is usually as he is rotating with the bat in line with the front arm and no flipped wrists…food for thought… Ross