Is that his face-on swing in your Avatar.

Thanks for the vid.  The only thing I am curious about in Stuart's swing is the lack of connection with his left arm so soon after impact.  In my mind that could lead to some timing issues.  Or maybe not...perhaps he just generates so much arm and club speed with his body so open at impact that this is just the natural movement of his left arm.

I think the guy is immediately rolling his left wrist on the BS as Hardy desires.  do any of you see that move?  (I don't know if that is pronating or supinating or what but anyway it seems he is "bowing" it)

doug

The face-on view is from 4 years back and Stuart has made a concerted effort to rid himself of the slide move.  His compact motion has greatly increased his consistency but still needs to work on maintaining his excellent early-season results.

Club,

Great videos  ... thanks a bunch for posting those.  I saved them to my hard drive but couldn't get them to run.  What am I doing wrong?  Thanks again for always sharing great stuff with us.

Clubcaster,

I would love to download these also, but I too cannot open them up. I even downloaded a couple of programs that specifically work with this type of file and get error messages. Let me know if you come up with a fix.

Thanks!

Pete

Clubcaster,

I can view them on your site, and I can save the forum page and then open them in both cases. When I save the file and right click I don't get Explorer as an option. I even downloaded Infranview which will run .SWF in addition to Macromedia Flash. When I try to open the file with either of these programs I get an error message "cannot read file header" or something to that effect. I've never had a problem before - weird huh!?

Thanks for the help,

Pete

Greetings all and a belated Happy New Year,

The Left One has returned from a sojourn traversing continents. Quite a lot of fun - how odd not to have a cell phone constantly ringing -but, however reluctantly, time to return to the grind. On the upside, I'm back on the golf course (though after today's 80-something return, maybe not as much of an upside as I'd thought! Serious rust in those clubs.)

I'll chime in on this thread because I spoke with Stuey last year and asked him about his swing and he looked at me and said, "Dunno". I perservered with another question and he repeated, "Dunno". He genuinely doesn't think about the swing at all. He just does it. He's not interested in how it works or what starts the downswing or what position he's in at the top or any of that.

His coach, Steve Bann, assured me that that's how Appleby works and that he never instructs him with mechanical ideas. However he did tell me that he doesn't consider Stuey (who he says has the same swing he had as a teenager) a one-planer in the Hardy sense because, to him, the one plane swing is limiting in terms of working the ball. Hence, Appleby has more hands in his swing than we'd want. There's also a lot (well, it's all relative) of weight transfer. As has been noted, he moves off the ball and then goes hard to get to his left side.

As an aside, I've noted since just watching golf and not playing it for a while that every good player gets across with the weight on the front foot at the finish. If you're looking for swing thoughts, you could do worse than "finish in balance" or something like that.

Good to be back ...

Lefty

OP,

My experience on the practice tee has been mostly the opposite. I've had the opportunity to hang out on the tee at Bay Hill with Adrian when he was working alot with Robert Gamez. The majority of instructors, especially during the week, don't say much to anything at all about mechanics. Now this is also during a tournament, but I've also sat in on practice sessions with a lot of tour pros and the same is true and I do the same with the professionals that I work with. The mechanics are at an absolute minimum. Tiger is definitely an enigma, one in a billion, and unfortunately countless golfers try and be just like him now. Look at how Jack changed the game, yardages, strategy, slow play, etc. It still blows my mind that Hogan and Snead played by sight! They eyed a target and were like, yeah that "looks" like a 7 iron. The scores they shot like that were nothing short of phenomenal given all the other things working against them such as equipment and course condition.

In my opinion, most people have a fairly decent swing right out of the box, but because they are "trying" to swing a certain way based on what they see or what they've been told, they're natural swinging ability is buried under a ton of mechanics that ruins them for life unless they find an instructor that can help them "unbury" their swinging ability of youth and simplify their understanding of the swing forever - Just like the tour pros have.

OP,

In my opinion, there is more to learn for the average golfer by watching the senior tour than the regular tour. Those guys are not the superstar athletes with loads of natural ability that we see today. They're joe blow from your local club who stopped giving a darn about his swing mechanics and just started to play the game. Wisdom comes with age, but the abundance of youth and obstinance found in golf today leads many to believe they can "overcome" the game with "perfect" mechanics. The old guys gave up on that a long time ago and now make a living doing what they love and flying around in private jets. I'm certain they look down on the average 30 something golfer buying book after book with a fair bit of pity. I'm sure if someone would stop to take the time to ask one of them, they could tell you what you really need to know about the game, and I would bet that maybe 1 out of 100 or less would mention TGM, swing mechanics, swing plane or anything else.

Now on the big boy tour, that's a whole other story that could be talked about forever. When I first started working with Adrian, I met Robert Gamez and asked Adrian what they worked on in his swing, since that's what I thought golf instruction was. Adrian told me, "His putting." "No, I mean, what do you work on on the range," I said. "His putting." If you've ever seen Robert swing, it ain't pretty, in slo mo, his positions are awful. There are a few guys, particularly younger guys who are trying to conquer via mechanics. Charles Howell is a great example of someone who got even more extreme, putting a simulator in his house and then nearly fell off the planet from where he was when he came out on tour. This year he says he has simplified things and isn't so concerned with mechanics. Others weren't so lucky and lost their cards before they could be saved from mechanics. Gossett is a good example of that.

David Gossett: two different teachers are showing me the art and science of the swing - Full Swing

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HFI/is_5_54/ai_101967363 - http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HFI/is_5_54/ai_1 01967363

Thanks the kind words CQ and Uno.

Uno, I too am envious, though I live in Southern Cal and yesterday even thought about wearing a sweater at one point in my round ... . Enjoy your time and I'm sure you and CQ will light it up.

As for the way it operates with the pros, I agree Tiger's generally the exception. There are others who want to know everything but broadly speaking, in my experience CQ's right. Peter Lonard, before he went to Leadbetter, used to email his swing to his coach, Gary Edwin, down under. What were the responses? The "coaching"? Set up, posture, alignment. Never the actual swing. Funnily enough, while we're on Aussies, Adam Scott said when he had his breakthrough win at the Swedish masters a couple of years ago he only putted and chipped. Never hit a ball on the range all week.

Interesting, eh?

Lefty

 Wow, this turned into a great thread. Thanks for posting the clips clubcaster. Welcome back Lefty, and have fun OPlner. I need a golf trip too, i get so damn depressed in the winter.

 It is interesting.  Simple things like set up, posture, and alignment are the things that can get off kilter so easily, 

I know you know this Uno, but for others it's important to understand that grooving your swing and thinking about swing positions aren't the same. (The most infamous anti-Leadbetter story I know reflects just this: he gave Ernie a glove with a black line on it to show how the handle should fit in the hand right before a British Open. Ernie was hitting it sideways on the range and, after a few people asked him what was wrong, he wisely ditched the glove.)

Most touring pros spend time on the range/traps/putting green etc to reinforce what they already know and groove it. Repetition (if it's the right thing you're repeating) equals certainty. Very few of them try to re-invent the wheel every day and, I'd argue, none successfully.

Pros have figured out how to repeat an action to get the ball going, roughly, where they want it to go. It's usually a simple action. Surprisingly so. I played with a guy yesterday who just turned and turned back. A little lift in the arms, so not a one planer as we'd know it, but a body swinger nonetheless. He shot even par and it was the worst score he could've shot on a very demanding Nicklaus track.

Most of the rest of us either can't repeat our swings or, if we can, realize the bloody ball won't go where we want it to when we do! Hence, the Constant Search.

The more I look at the Big Picture, the more I see that CQ is heading in the right direction in terms of keeping it simple and scoring as best you can. I shot a ton yesterday upon my return to the links but it was, as noted above, a very tough course and four or five of my tee shots went into "environmentally sensitive areas" (some by only a few feet) which meant penalties and, usually, bogey at best.

But I didn't freak out as much as I would have even a few months' ago. Of course, I didn't particularly enjoy opening my wallet, but c'est la vie.

Get 'em next time,

Lefty

Hey!  Did my thread get hijacked?

....Just kidding guys . This is interesting stuff.  And welcome back Lefty!

It seems like this forum has attracted a lot of low-handicap players, so by and large you guys really shouldn't be worrying too much about your mechanics.  Please understand the tremendous struggle that a high percentage of us have with mastering the few simple fundamentals, though.  I golf with too many hacks, that have never worried about their mechanics at all, to believe that the high handicappers among us can just forget about technique, and expect to improve significantly.  

Thanks,
ClubCaster
http://ClubCaster.home.comcast.net - http://ClubCaster.home.comcast.net

Club,

In all honesty, the fact that you are a high handicapper is, well, just plain wrong. Mechanically, you have a great golf swing. Yes, you have a bit of an issue with casting, but overall, your positions are very solid. Heck, some of them are probably better than mine. You don't have much of a dynamic transition from the top, and you just start down with the club instead of the body. It's typically a tension, trust and control thing, but don't sweat it, we'll get you straightened out.

-C

Hey CC (I thought we were going to refer to you as X-caster? )

Sorry to hijack the thread. I certainly don't mean there's no room for instruction. But I also have come to believe that having the "correct" positions isn't reflective of how you score. Of course, you need to get the club into the right place at impact. No question there. If you can't do that, then that's going to be step #1. I certainly have had to get that figured out, but by and large I think I have with this one plane/body swing. I don't feel the urge to look around for something better as I used to (obsessively, I might add).

As Skully notes, we tend to forget that we can, in some way, hit the ball in the general direction we want and then get lost in the abyss of trying to perfect that.

I think the road out for us is as CQ says: winning the war between doubt and tension and trust and smoothness.

Lefty

I concur, CC.

My 2 cents: You appear to start down with the hands/arms and engage the body midway down by which time it's too late to get the body "into" the swing as it never really gets the chance to catch up, so there's a disconnect. You're probably lacking distance and when you miss a shot, I'm sure your hands feel the sting. But in the scheme of things, it's a small problem to fix. It's really just a sequencing issue. I used to suffer from a similar malaise and, for me, it stemmed from the fact that I thought I needed to "control" the swing and what better way to do that than with my hands? It sounds very logical and should be, but it turns out the golf swing isn't ...

Lefty

Agreeed CC,

Points has a lot of Jeffy in him. Beyond that, Appleby's not a one planer in the sense we know it because he has very active hands. Hook = active hands with the back elbow in front of the hip.

Lefty

Sorry if I offended you Clubcaster.  I was merely asking for clarification on the subject which was Appleby's one plane move.  It was my understanding that the one plane swing required the club to swing around with the body. 

Since this forum is about helping people, I would think where the club exits on the forward swing is important to helping people with their game.  To bad if you don't feel the same but no reason to right a critical post.

I guess I have should have addressed "someone" then Clubcaster.

In terms of Appleby's release, I stated that it looks very off plane and is one which would hit blocks and the occassional hook.  If it were one plane, I would assume the exit to be lower and similar to the plane at address.

I don't know, I think that after impact there can be more manipulation of the hands and arms that really doesn't make much difference...

Regards,

Bob

His swing i so simple, Basically all he does after gettign in a good set up position is just turn his shoulders back and then turn his hips as hard as he can and just let the club follow. Basically what the one plane siwng is, Turn back turn through.

Where all here saying all this stuff about oh his impact area is like 1.5 degree to high or whatever HAHAHA but all he probably thinks is turn shoulders for the BS and then turn hips for the DS.

Just gota think simple. But i cnat lol, IM A INSTRUCTION JUNKIE. Gota get out of that.