+Tyler F
As always, very helpful. I think the distinction you draw between how to do and how to monitor. I always thought of the motorcycle as a 'how to do' not a monitor what you are doing. And George is as I watched him teach someone who is emphasizing what you want to work on in what order., not necessarily how to do or how to monitor.
just another brief pitch for lag the sweetspot. First, I admit it is neither a view of what the goal is or how to monitor. It is rather an intention to have. I should say that for me trying to figure out what that means and how to do it was not easy and actually changed my entire downswing] motion in ways that coordinated my body and arm sync as well. So if no one minds I will explain. Maybe later I can film it in my house in the disgusting weather of the northeast or next week while visiting my kids in LA.
Compare with motorcycle for example. Imagine I get to top of backswing or anywhere in my swing and do the motorcycle. I can just do it without doing anything else. It is totally a compartmentalized move. If done right it will have a number of consequences. The clubface will be more square or closed relative to the path. That is one thing we know for sure. It presumably takes away a hesitation of rotation; indeed if your brain is working and you don't increase your rotation you will likely hit the ball left and ugly and your brain will adjust. Of course it can adjust in two ways: it can rotate more (the desired response) or it can tell you to abandon the shaft rotation (and that is a possibility because until you see results that are positive from motorcycle, the brains natural response is to go back to the familiar) So motorcycle as such has one guarantee result and creates possibilities for other improvements. All good. But, and this is just my experience, motorcycling is still compatible with a very inside path to the ball and a big push draw. it is also compatible with getting stuck. If all goes well it will increase rotation and improve path as a result, but it is perfectly compatible with leaving arms too deep, etc.
Here's the reason I found the 'lag the sweetspot' more helpful to ME and to the people with whom I work. It accomplishes what the motorcycle does re: the clubface, and a lot more. Why? Take a backswing. have a friend or your teacher or you do it to a student-- put your pointer finger on the sweetspot. Then have the golfer start and continue downswing keeping your finger on the sweetspot as the golfer takes the sweetspot along a path to the ball.. You will find that this can only be done by getting your arms in front your body and by rotating both the shaft and your body. If you don't rotate your body the sweetspot path will be very shallow and the clubface will be open. Cant be otherwise. If you rotate your body but not the shaft you get open cluface and over the top path. To get the clubface sweetspot to the ball successfully your hand path will be out and down, binging your arms in front of your body and; the club itself will shallow modestly (and appropriately depending on length of shaft) and your upper and lower body and arms will move in synch. The key is to feel the pressure on the sweetspot with a finger and direct both to the 'back' of the ball. It should all be done in slow motion. At first, for all the players I have tried this with, until they turn their attention to keeping the sweetspot in contact with the finger, they drop the clubface off the finger entirely whether they motorcycle or not . Over time you will note that not only does doing this slowly lead to a consistent and gradual rotation of the shaft but to forearm supination -- again modest and gradual. It is just my way of controlling face.
I'm in complete agreement with Tyler. He's opened my eyes on a million things and made the first and most significant moves in helping me correct my transition and release. I just found this singular move allows me to achieve all the things he has taught me in a unified matter.
I don't know if Tyler would agree completely but I break up the golf swing in two groups each with three elements. The two major groups divide naturally into learning what a golf swing should accomplish and what it looks like on the one hand and learning how to get your body to achieve that look and accomplish those goals.
With respect to the first the three parts are: face, path and low point
With respect to the second, the three parts are arms; body; syncronization of them. I find terms like sequence too micro for me. The big picture is for me not knowing what moves first then second. It is performing an overall motion in which the body and arms match up efficiently to do the best job they can given your own physical attributes at controlling face, path and low point in a way that propels the ball in the direction you attend for the distance you can achieve consistently. After you can do that you can begin to actually learn how to stop playing the game of golf swing and start learning how to play golf.
It is just my experience alone -- and remember this is coming from someone who has played over 50 years and often competitively if not successfully :-), so I already had a lot in the memory bank -- the idea that has done the most to help me integrate all six components (given other things I already did fine) was to focus on the sweetspot path and to see my intention as lagging the sweespot to the back of the ball.
I have no idea if this will work for everybody. There are lots of people who learn better by finding individual puzzle pieces and then stiching them together. There are others like me who have done that for entire life in the ways they earned their livings (I'm a professional philosopher and law professor and university administrator), but in retirement (sort of), I started looking in general at what the big features were that made sense of most of the little pieces and why they were the right ones. I just started seeing things from their structural architecture, the unifying idea and I just carried that over to golf. I say no more than that it works for me. YMMV.
