Daryl/OB thanks. Very cool. Is "Driving the power package" the same as pushing/hitting? Is "not straightening the right arm," the same as driving the right shoulder vs. swinging?

The Power Package is Driven by the Right Shoulder which is also part of the Pivot.

Hip Action Drives the Right Shoulder which Drives the Hands (because of Extensor Action) which Drives the Right Elbow to its Release Location. Unless of course you Shift Planes during the Downstroke. If so, then all bets are off.

Alignment Golf. G.O.L.F. TGM. Long live the Yoda. :)

OBLeft,

Quite a few of your comments here are very similar to how I think and feel in my own ball striking. Including this one.

On the very few occations where I feel like I really own the game, the ball striking virtually becomes one-dimensional. Just choose the plane line, the face angle, the amount of hands forward at impact and how hard to hit it. All this is about pressure point alignment. But I still need a clear picture of how to start the pivot in the back swing to get the right action.

I suppose that bigger shifts are more hazardous than smaller shifts. One shift is better than two, etc. Drawing a line along the Shaft at Address and comparing it to other Shaft Planes during the swing would see some shifting Im thinking. It would have to wouldnt it? Brain Gay's lines are very close together relatively speaking. That is one beautiful and simple machine he has built there.

I think you have to go with whatever works for you.

Further, I am more sceptic to changing the golf shaft angle throughout the down stroke than plain "plane dropping". The latter kan be modelled as an on-plane effort where 9.81 m/s2 towards mother earth. shifts the plane downwards.

Agreed. It's on the course you will know whether you have a reliable stroke or not. Short term muscle memory plays far too big role on the driving range.

I think "control" is a too strong word here. Your hands will not fix your pivot if it goes south. The best thing you can hope for is that the hands senses the CONSEQUENCES of a pivot malfunction early enough to trigger a reasonable successful compensation. Even Tiger Woods is struggling with his pivot and he probably has the best educated hands in the game ever.

Implying that the hands can control the pivot via som physical chain reaction (a right forearm pickup that later on pulls the shoulder turn) is like implying that the tail can wag the dog. I'm not sure whether that's your position, but several TGM followers seem to equate hands control with a right hand startup.

I also find the "hands" emphasis to be far to reductionistic. The golf stroke is a highly complex motion that is mentally handled by a hierarki of routines and (sub concious) sub routines that reaches throughout your body.

I see no reason to simply monitor the hands when we are capable of visualising the whole motion. As I write this, I can think a golf stroke, and while I do it I can basically visit every body part involved and have a closer look at what it does. The hands are important because they are the closest we get to the club face. But the pivot is also important because it's a big, strong beast that can't be physically controlled by anything but itself and with huge influence on the outcome.

I don't know if OB Left has chosen his frasing " Hands to pivot" with care, but I find that more precise than "Hands controlled pivot".

Well, you've certainly come farther in the noble art of ball striking than I have.

The thing I've got going for me is that I basically know whether I will execute a good stroke before I start the takeaway. The stroke pattern works as long as I manage bring it out. My visual responds to my setup and when I do something wrong at address I don't get the right visual. I often get a visual that tells me of the concequences of the misalignment. I don't see the misalignment. But it is always due to a pivot related error.

Hmm... maybe I can turn this around if I visualise the stroke before I start rehersing it?

The Aiming Point Concept uses variable Release Points (Hands controlled Pivot). Each club length has a different Release Point. This allows the Golfer to use the same Pivot for each club Length. Longer Clubs need more time to Square the face than Shorter Clubs. This procedure uses a Flat single Plane on the Downstroke so that the Right Elbow location at Release can differ for each length club. The longer the ClubShaft, the farther forward the Release Point. For me personally, the Release Point for hitting a Draw with the Driver has my Right Elbow almost to my Navel. While hitting a Fade with a nine Iron my Release Point has my Right Elbow just at the front of my Right Hip. With Hands Controlled Pivot, the Release Point of the Right Elbow changes location to accommodate various Club Lengths while using the same Pivot and Stance.

Hogan is a great example of "Fixed Release Point". Hogan, rather than varying the Release Point, varied his Pivot. Longer Clubs have a wider Stance and Right Foot farther from the Plane Line (Closed Stance). With each progressively shorter Club, his pivot stance varied an equal amount. (Pivot Controlled Hands). See 10-24-F 6th Edition, paragraph #2. With Pivot Controlled Hands, the Release Point of the Right Elbow has the same body Location while the Pivot and Stance varies to accommodate different Club Lengths.

You probably have listened to golfers complain that on one day, their "Driving" was excellent but that their scoring irons failed them. The next day, their scoring irons were great but they couldn't hit a fairway from the Tee Box. These Golfers use "Fixed Release Points" and their failure to strike long and shorter clubs equally well on any given day is directly related to not compensating the Pivot.

If you don't vary the Release Point, then you need to vary your Pivot.

It may help everyone by reading this section from the "First Edition".

To me the phrases are one and the same. "The Hands are not educated until they control the pivot."

When I bend over to pick something up off the ground, I am conscious of my hand going to the object, somewhat. But my mind is not in my pivot..... unless my back is killing me that day. The amount of waist bend is controlled by the brain naturally, automatically and this would be another common example of Hands to Pivot or Hands controlled Pivot. The pivot or body enables, facilitates as the hand seeks its target. Now say, for some strange reason I decide to try to pick that object up by putting my mind in my waist bend and locking the arm into some fixed relationship with my waist..........that would be Pivot to Hand. Not very natural , not very accurate either. This is the Shoulder Turn Takeaway analogy. The former has a Pivot , which may even proceed the Hand's active seeking of its Path sequencially.

I suppose you could think about both Pivot and Hand but....that would detract from your control over hand path wouldnt it? Maybe during Pivot training it would be necessary, but once trained let it go. That would be the ideal anyways to my mind.

Bernt, I know what you mean, maybe we're splitting hairs but I think the Hands could fix a Pivot problem. Ive often been searching for something out on the course, trying different things, mostly futile, only to get mad and put my brain in my hands, in my pressure points and to great effect. Its a lesson I keep relearning, actually.

"Grip it and rip it", isnt as stupid as it may sound if you also "direct it".


In regard to Plane Shifting. Homer thought that Plane Shifting was hazardous but once learned, if properly executed was just as effective mechanically. The loss of the Plane Line however, a bent plane line, has implications to the geometry of impact. Bad ones. Hence, 1-L-18.

Wow,

Mindblowing stuff. Thanks for sharing.

I had to go out in the garden to check what I actually do...

When the heat is on I often forget about these issues. I am doing different things at different times. Without being aware of it. Which is probably one of my consistency issues.

When I strike the ball as I want do strike it there is a very strong sense of synchronization between right hip and the release. It almost feels like hitting the ball with the hip. Partly as you describe in the hands' controlled pivot I think. But I can vary the release point - where the hands are when the hip "hits" the ball. So while there are pivot restrictions, there is still plenty of room timing variations in there. But I have to plan it in advance. And I have to visualise the motion.

Been there. Done that. :)

Nowdays, the alignments can click in on a greenside chip'n run and carry over to the next drive.

But half of the time it doesn't. I think you just diagnosed what happens to me when I struggle. The pivot takes command of my hands. Because, while I plan what my hands need to do I forget to plan the release point. As a result, the shot that I visualize isn't the shot that I try to prepare.And that's probably what I do when I am totally lost. Moving every body part around, desperately trying to find a stance where the pivot will take the hands where they need to go to move the ball somewhere close to where I want to take it.:laughing9


Thanks Daryl,

I learned a lot from that post.

I still think that is too much to ask of a pair of hands. And in conflict with how the human machinery actually works.

The cerebellum is working really hard to organize all the micro mootions that makes up the stroke. They run the low level hands' motions - even though you monitor them on a high level. Then you have a middle layer of sub concious. And then - the top of the ice berg - you have a few elements in your concious.

We can only have concious focus on a very few things at a time. And if I had to choose I'd rather think of the hands and delegate the pivot. Because doing the opposite means that you basically don't know what you're trying to achieve. But there are alternatives to the hands as well.

TGM'ers seems to organise everything around their hands motion. Perhaps because Homer said so. I tend to organise it around the club head. It has it's pros and cons. A lot of good golfers seem to start with visualising the shot. Everything else is a response to the planned shot.

It is a given that we need to have a focus that makes us target oriented. But it doesn't have to be the hands.

Further, I think we are basically doomed to never aquire a maintainance free and fault free swing. Parts of the total motion run by the sub concious will break down from time to time. In the end it is our awareness skills (monitoring, interpretation & correction) that provides the consistency. Monitoring the hands only isn't enough.

Which components are most likely to prevent the desired outcome? Why not run those components from the concious too if you have the mental capacity to do it? Or you can group and combine several real components to Key Performance Indicators. Like they do in business.

The "lag pressure" indicator could be a combination of all the resitance and impact shock you feel throughout your body as the club contacts the ball. It certainly says a lot more than just the hands. The "on plane indicator". Wether your arms are round housing, your right shoulder comes in too high or something else, you can basically feel it when a number of components in combination produces a non-flat swing plane. Etc.

Eventually you need to be able to drill down into those indicators and sort out what really happened when the last stoke went south. To prevent the errors from repeating. Or have a "go to shot" that saves the round. Or compensate and hope for the best.
I agree. But your mind probably isn't on your hands either. They are most likely at the ball.

If I throw a ball towards you, so you can catch it with your hand, your eyes will be on the ball flight. Your mind's eye will take your hand to where it will need to go to catch the ball. And your hand will go where it needs to go and catch the ball - AND IT WILL NOT EVEN KNOW WHERE IT'S BEEN.

I haven't played socccer for quite a few years now. But that is probably one of the most sophisticated sports as far as motoric skills are conserned. I don't think any decent soccer player thinks about any body parts while they are playing. They respond to the ball, plan their actions and monitor the ball and the playing field. The command centre of the body operates on a higher level of abstraction than any single body part can represent.

When I drive a car, I basically don't think of any body parts whatsoever. I pay attention to the traffic and where I'm going. Everything I need to do to manouvre the care is delegated to sub routines. Of course I can start monitoring any of the involved motions any time I wish. Further, if I drive the same route regularly, I develop an auto pilot. I still have to watch the traffice, but the rest basically takes care of itself. I've experienced several times that the auto pilot kicks in when it shouldn't and when I get back to "manual" I discover that I'm about to drive where I usually drive and not where I am planning to go today.

In principle, there's basically no limits as to how we can program our sub concious to respond to any stimuli in a certain way. Whether it's the hands or something else. I think Pavlov proved that with his dogs.
Or the pivot and the hands enables as the club seeks it's target.

Or: The pivot and the hands and the club enables as the ball seeks it's target. It's basically our choise. But going the other way - to the hands' side of the ball and away from the target ball will make us forget what we are trying to achieve and is doomed to fail.
I agree.

Let it go. But still be able to bring anything that breaks down back to the concious mind and fix it before the score is ruined. Not hands controlled pivot. General awareness.

I guess whether we are splitting hears depends on the frame of reference. Seen from outside TGM it is hair splitting. But perhaps not from the inside.

I don't think the hands can fix anything that goes wrong in the pivot. The hands' motion is part of a bigger plan. They will sense it when the pivot fails. They will even carry the consequences. And possibly contribute to compensating actions. But the hands will only sense the consequences, not the causes.

I am very pressure point oriented at address but I still lose it from time to time. Still searching for the keys that unlocks my stroke each time. I know they are not to be found in the hands. When I struggle, I just play on and hope the good ball striking comes back. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

I've found many greens on bad days when I eventually shut down the monitors, just take a couple of trial swings and strike the ball immediately thereafter. It's not a conficende booster though.