Skill 3

Having read this a few times (skill 3) I still cannot make my mind up whether a turn of the wrists is needed or surely the wrists will naturally return to the starting position. What do other golfers think please. I have not tried it yet due to work but have had the book over a week now.

I've always rotated the wrists through impact. Obviously, the wrists are attached to the forearms in a fixed way in terms of rotation. But, focussing on rotating the wrists (as opposed to the forearms) seems to eliminate the temptation to flip the right elbow. So, I basically want the relationship between the elbows to stay the same as the wirsts, forearms, etc rotate. You should also avoid simply flipping the hands.

Some wrist rotation should occur naturally unless you're really consciously holding the club in a particular position. But, certainly, if you lead with the hands into the ball, you will need some rotation to square the club face.

Hi Miffin,

If you take a club, hold it at address then slowly swing it in an arc back then forward while letting the clubface open and close, keep repeating the swing and you will notice that your wrist rotation will happen quite naturally with the movement of the clubface.

Hi Brian

This reflects what I was finding in my round today and have posted in the other skils thread. I was (albeit ocassionally) finding that the rotation just happened when I was feeling good and relaxed about my swing.

I think previously I was trying too hard to rotate hence the erratic results.

See the "late hit" thread.

Skill 3 is a side-effect of "effortless power," not a cause. The opening and closing of the club face itself contributes almost nothing to ball flight. It is the "whipping" action that generates a lot of power in a very short time, and if that action is timed right, the rotation will be timed right.

Just as a "good finish position" is not a skill but a side-effect of keeping the club on plane, skill 3 is not a skill. The skill is timing the whipping action. If you were to graph the angular momentum of the club head, the graph would look like a spike. If the peak happens before the club meets the ball, the club face is still open, you lose power, and get a push (assuming skill 2 is okay) or a slice (if it's way early). If the peak happens after contact, the club face is already closing,you lose power again, because and get a pull or snap hook. Thinking about manipulating the club face from open to closed as a separate action is both pointless and likely to actually get in the way of the correct timing of the whipping action.

The real skill 3 is cracking the whip into the ball.

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

Hmmm.

Somewhere on the Far Side, Todd lights the blue touch paper and retires to a safe distance.

I believe you have it wrong Tod. Rotating the clubface will create the release that provides increased clubhead speed. Its what creates the late hit or lag that all powerful hitters achieve.

Think of it this way: If the clubhead is kept behind the hands in the later part of the downswing how would you whip it through impact to increase power? By a rotation of the wrists that will also accelerate the club through impact, the only other way is by swatting the wrists and this will often diminish the swing arc thus loosing power.

I have the feeling that you assume that 3 skills are suggesting they can produce something different than already used by good ball strikers, they don't, they are trying to get you to achieve the same good ball strike that good hitters have always had by focusing on the bare essentials of the process.

__________________
Best Regards
Brian

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Funny o'l game!

hi Brian
would you agree the Trevino did not rotate his clubface to give him power and he pushed his hands away from the body and held the back of his left wrist at the target as long as he could and as a result he was one on the best strikers of a golf ball ever.
one other thing, has your swing flattened, more of a one plane swing so you come into the ball more from the inside now, have you found you have changed any other things to get you to make better contact with the ball.
cheers
bill

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Bill,

All I concentrate on now is hitting the ball with a 20 deg downward hit up to a 5 iron, a 10 deg up to a 3 wood and horizontal with the 3 wood and driver. It has flattened with the driver and 3 wood.

In my earlier golfing days one thing that screwed up my swing was being frightened to swing on an inside path to the ball, I used to think it would make a slice or push. This made me try steering the club more down the line that created the problem I was trying to prevent.

I have used wrist rotation for power and straighter ball flight for a long time and have worked on a slight inside out path.

__________________
Best Regards
Brian

________________________________
Funny o'l game!

hi Brian
one other thing do you feel you swing round your hips more and its more shoulder turn into the ball and you turn faster.
bill

That suggests a different line of discussion on 3sks.

Namely not what people are trying to do using the concepts but which favourite bit of advice thay have either discarded or are trying to reconcile with one of the skills.

For me, in the context of "no straight lines in golf", it is Leslie King's precept that:

"Clearly, if the ball is to move along the intended line of flight, the club-face (or blade) MUST BE MOVING SQUARELY ALONG THE INTENDED LINE OF FLIGHT DURING IMPACT....and as long as possible before and after impact."

Whether or not this still holds true or not I suppose depends where on the curve or how far before and after imapct the open to closed rotation takes place.

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hi cmays
i was reading about hogan and his weak grip and like you say he did this so the club head would rotate more through impact, but he makes out the club head rotation was due to the grip and nothing to do with any wrist turn, it sounds like you are saying the same thing, if you want a square to square impact zone then use a strong grip, but if you want to swing the way Brian seems to be doing then you should weaken your grip to get more club head turn and get that in to square to closed feeling at impact.
with my type of swing i take it i should be more on the strong side than neutral.
do i have that right
thanks again
bill

__________________
ping zing2 metal driver
ping zing2 metal 3 wood
ping eye2 1 iron
ping zing2 3/9 irons
ping ist 47% wedge
ping zing2 52% s/wedge
ping mb 56% wedge
ping c10 G2I broom handled putter
top flight "T" golf balls
white ping bag

With respect, my understanding is that there are two separate causes of fades/slices, and inevitably most people have a combination

1) Open club face at impact
2) Club face square but moving across the ball at impact - out-to-in - like a pingpong player, whose paddle is square to the intended line of the ball, but moving across it

Rotating the club face is a way of cracking the whip, if there has been proper hinging in the first place. If the club has only been weakly hinged back, rotating will not generate much power. This is further proof that the rotation, in itself, doesn't generate power.

We are, in fact, talking swing mechanics. Rotating the club face, like shifting the weight, or bracing the right knee, or putting the right hand in the "tray" position, is a means to an end. That end is the rapid transfer of angular momentum: cracking the whip. Can cracking the whip be done in other ways? Yes. There's Trevino's method; there are some who make swatting work. Moreover, if you don't happen to see the connection between rotating the club face and cracking the whip, you could easily just lose the point of the whole thing. I certainly did. I found Hagen's discussion of skill 3 as baffling as AJ's "little home run," which it closely resembles.

I understand that, but I reject the premise that skill 3 is, in fact, a bare essential. Skill 3 is an example of swing mechanics in a system that claims to reject swing mechanics. The book discusses the generation of effortless power, but it doesn't discuss the whip effect. But that effect is how the generation of power happens.

Suppose we say something like this: The angle between the club shaft and the left arm must increase from 90 degrees to 180 or 170 or 160 (depending on the club) degrees, so that (a) it gets to its final angle precisely at impact, and (b) the start of that increase should be as late as possible but still consistent with (a). That's the real story of power in the golf swing, and it doesn't mention rotation. Anyone who works on this will discover that rotation happens, just as they will discover that skill 1 won't happen without shifting the weight forward and keeping the spine angle.

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

Tod,

I can only say that the system works great for me and many others here. You appear to me to be holding yourself back with what seems paralysis by analysis, but that's fine if you think it helps.

With due respect I will not attempt to assist you with 3 SKs as I do not think it is a suitable system for you. I do hope you manage to find one that does work though.