Very Compact Backswing - Any Downside?

If you look at the third (broken bat) you see his bat went from pointing back to pointing across the plate, he moved his wrist from his shoulders to infront of his body, while rotating and extending his forearms to get the bat around.

The other two utube examples were weak. One was a swing to the opposite field (like a weak fade in golf where you don't rotate through the ball), and the other was an inconclusive swing. Based on what it showed it was hard to tell if he was late or early in the swing, either way, he had no power in that swing.

If your palm is facing upish at take back, and then towards your target on impact, how did the palm change direction, by rotating the arms.




this is Couples, see how the arms rotate through the swing.
And tiger

If your palm is facing upish at take back, and then towards your target on impact, how did the palm change direction....

It didn't. I turned my body. My hands and forearms don't do anything rotationally until full release after the ball has gone.

Both pictures you have shown of Tiger (who has admitted battling flipping at the ball with his hands and arms) and Couples show full release of the club well after impact. They haven't rotated their arms through impact for the purpose of achieving impact. They're hanging on to the club with one hand lower than the other so the speed they have created in the downswing has crossed their hands over in the follow through.

Attempting to square the cluface for impact by rolling your arms is inconsistent. It need not be done for power, nor accuracy.

__________________
Luke: I don't believe it!
Yoda: That is why you fail.

I agree with Neil18 I don't believe forearm roation is necessary, I don't believe it adds any significant speed to the clubhead, and I most definately belive that it decreases accuracy instead of increasing accuracy as Leverpowergolfer proposed.

Hogan's statements have been examined by many tour players and highly ranked instructors (Nick Price, Nick Faldo, Leadbetter, McLean, Butch Harmon, etc), and from what I recall pretty much everyone (of the top tour players and their teachers) that made reference to Hogan's wishing he had three right hand comments said they believed he was referring to firing thorugh the shot with the right side of the body once he reached hip high on the downswing.

To use more Hogan quotes:

"The actions of the arms is motiviated by the movements of the body, and the hands consciously do nothing but maintain a firm grip on the club." page 82

"The main thing for the novice or average golfer is to keep any conscious hand action out of his swing. The correct swing is founded on chain action , and if you use the hands when you shouldn't, you prevent this chain action." page 93

"Hit the ball as hard as you can with both hands... you must hit as hard with the left as with the right." page 99

Ben Hogan's Five Lessions The Modern Fundamentals of Golf

In addition the successful tour players and their instructors have repeatedly said the majority of the power in the swing comes from the big muscles of the body, and scientific and biomechanical studies support that statement. I have never heard or seen a good player or instructor say that the majority of power came from arm or hand rotation.

Rotating arms or hands in the swing (if even scientifically possible on the downswing - with all the other physics principles at work) would only change the degree of open to close (or closed to open) of the clubface (since it is a rotational movement). Rotational movement of the arms and hands would not increase speed of movement in a target side direction.
Conscious / forced manipulation of the rotation of open to closed (and the reverse) leads to inconsitencies in timing and natural motion, and that reduces accuracy.


All of that aside this topic was established to be about a compact backswing which has no correlation to forearm rotation on the downswing. Why was forearm downswinging brought into a backswing discussion?

Good question! Threads go on a tangent sometimes, but time to get back to the OP!

I like compact backswings. Less to go wrong, less to do.

So do I.......

Here is another proof that hip rotation does not create the majority of club head speed. You need forearm rotation! I have given more than enough proof, you have given only opinion.

Back to topic, a compact backswing is fine, because forearm rotation creates the power!



Ben Witter Baffles Butch Harmon

Butch Harmon was at a recent Ben Witter's Power Golf show in which Mr. Witter was hitting balls over 300 yard while straddling a swiss ball.


When the show was over, Mr. Harmon ask Mr. Witter if he would hit some balls off the swiss balls. He hit around six balls over 300 yards. Harmon just shook his head in disbelief. He stated to Mr. Witter, that what he was doing was impossible. He stated that you have to have hip rotation to produce high clubhead speed.

Mr. Harmon left very baffled.

I have given more than enough proof, you have given only opinion.

If observation is opinion, then we have only our opinions.

I'm bored with those that can't see past their own nose. At no point did I say that hip rotation gives high clubhead speed, so your Butch Harmon anecdote, along with the fact that your powers of observation are obviously clouded by your opinion, which you seem to believe is proof, which contradicts yourself (and which puts you in the same boat as me, whom you deride), leads me to yawn very strongly and leave this one here.

I know what I do. I don't do what you do. You've given me no reasons to do what you do. We see two where there is one. I know the one I see works. I've tried the one you see, and it doesn't work for me.

Keep inventing your own points to argue about if you like.

__________________
Luke: I don't believe it!
Yoda: That is why you fail.