Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis
If the earlier posts were in a lighter vein, this one is deadly serious – ARE YOU PEOPLE LOSING IT?
You’ll let everyone tell you what to do except the one person in the world who has researched the golf swing from an anatomical perspective for 18 years?
Peter Jacobsen has has a hip replaced, several knee surgeries followed by a replacement, and seven back surgeries. Yet, approach his agent or any other Seniors’ agent to inform them that there’s information available about how the joints work in the golf swing – and they’ll respond with (if they deign to respond at all) something like, “he’s quite happy with his current swing coach”.
Swing coach? In the 21st century? You folks can probably make more money suing your swing coaches that playing on the Seniors’ Tour! A swing coach was someone (in the long-ago 20th Century) who gave you a random collection of swing ideas and expected you to perform. Which you’d do if your own concepts leaned in that same general direction – all subjective, un-researched, unproven-in-science concepts.
No-one thought to ask, “is the human body actually capable of this particular movement?” Everyone said, “this is how the best golfers do it, so everyone else should do it that way too.” In the meantime, how did the so called ‘best golfers’ do it? They had no concept either (scroll down to the next post below where they’re admitting they’re trying this and that and hoping for something or the other)
Last chance, senior golfers, to learn something useful:
(explained here in right-handed-golfer terms)
FACT No. 1: the ball must be connected on it’s INSIDE RIGHT QUADRANT, BELOW IT’S EQUATOR (and preferably at the maximum speed you’re capable of, which is actually wasted unless you connect the ball on the right spot, a Catch-22 situation)
FACT No. 2: you can ONLY do that if your right upper-body and arm – ALL OF IT – are BEHIND and BELOW the left arm at IMPACT
FACT No. 3: and THAT can only happen if your RIGHT SHOULDER, ELBOW, FOREARM AND WRIST are positioned in a very specific manner at the top of your backswing. That is, with the shoulder in external rotation (forearm in line with upper arm when seen down the line and elbow pointing almost towards the ball), elbow as minimally flexed (bent) as possible, forearm semi-supine (supine means palm facing forward when you stand in normal upright posture), wrists neutral (not bent at all in any direction) so they do not interfere with the LEFT ARM’s ROLE as RADIUS of the SWING
EXTRA FACT: If you want speed on top of PRECISION OF CONTACT, then your body MUST NOT DROP the LEFT SIDE (hip, knee, ankle) during your backswing, as that interferes with the PURE ROTATION your BODY MUST MAKE, for MAXIMUM SPEED.
In OTHER WORDS, your RIGHT SIDE MUST REMAIN LOWER THAN YOUR LEFT all through the backswing. AND if you KEEP THE RIGHT SIDE DOWN, it’s another catch-22, your right arm will fold in a more appropriate manner. THAT’s WHY RIGHT SIDE DOWN is a MAGIC MOVE.
FINAL FACT: Your body CANNOT behave like a merry-go-round during the backswing, while the arms try to ferris-wheel. Why? Simply because you’re not God. So, it’s easier if the body is rotated pre-swing, then all you do in-swing is move the left arm where you need it to go (WITH NO FURTHER ROTATION), while preventing the right arm from bending inappropriately (FACT No. 3 above).
IF YOUR BODY IS POSITIONED CORRECTLY, your joints can all act in a synchronized fashion to unwind correctly for very crisp contact, and because they work in the MANNER THAT BEST SUITS THEIR DESIGN, there is LESS CHANCE FOR INJURY.
Some examples of BODY and RIGHT ARM positions which are not ideal. [the LITMUS TEST for a GOOD vs POOR IMPACT is HOW the RIGHT ELBOW IS ABLE TO STRAIGHTEN – if it is forced to straighten while the shoulder is internally rotated and the forearm prone, the result is MEDIOCRE]
Tom Kite (in the foreground is the only professional caddie on the Champion’s Tour – Sandy Jones – Go Sandy!). Top of backswing: Left side – hip, knee, ankle – down, right shoulder internally rotated (elbow points backwards), right wrist extended (bent backwards). THEREFORE, a weak, SMOTHERED impact, NOT connecting the inside right quadrant of the ball. Note the internal rotation of the right shoulder compounded with a protracted shoulder weakens the quality of impact even more.
See Tommy Armour III, Bernhard Langer, Chip Beck. Can YOU help improve their swings based on the information above? Their swings explained over the next few days.
As regards ‘SMOTHERED’ impact. Go to the golf videos section of this blog and scroll down to one titled, “Is YOUR golf swing a lot of BS”? (B=BLUDGEON, S=SMOTHER)
PARTIAL SOLUTIONS DO NOT HELP, the UPPER and LOWER BODIES form TWO KINETIC CHAINS and ALL JOINTS of each kinetic chain NEED TO BE CORRECTLY ALIGNED FOR MEANINGFUL RESULTS – ONLY the MINIMALIST GOLF SWING SYSTEM positions ALL joints correctly. The RATIONALE for the MGSS may be seen in the ‘what it is’ section of this blog.
