I don't think it is body or arms

Whats your view?

IMHO it does not matters what leads the down swing as long as the hands do not out run the rest of the body to impact. GJS

Obviously it has to be technique since Lorena Ochoa is 5'6" in height and 127lbs but can hit the ball 290 yards.

hi
don't know if it just because Lorena Ochoa is so small but the shaft of her Ping driver seems to be really long. but she does have a wonderful swing and always seems so relaxed too.
it seems like the top women are getting better at having an all round game and the top 5 women could compete with the top 200 men golfers.
go back 20 years and the top women were not in the top 500 men.
it seems women's golf is improving faster then mens.
also women seem to all be wonderful swingers and not power golfers like a lot of the top pro men player.
i think KJ Choi is one of the few men golfers who seem to swing into the ball without trying to apply power. his swing is so similar to many of the top women golfers of today. not sure how tall Choi is so thats maybe why he swings rather than hits.
cheers
bill

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KJ Choi might be very strong. It just looks like his not using hitting. Isn't his nikename "tank".

Nobody 'just swings' or 'just hits'.

hi Jbrunk
i was meaning the type of golfer, one that looks like he is very smooth and there no effort through impact and the golfer like say I Poulter that swings faster and seems to put that hit in at impact, both do swing and hit but some look more like there swing is all one smooth motion.
cheers
bill

Here is an analysis of where and how power comes to golf swing:
http://welch-e.com/welch-e/webinars....ntent=webinars

I'd watch all the webinars...

IMHO- "Hitting" is just using different kind of timing and maybe using more wrists, arms and shoulders...

Simon Holmes comments on different styles of release - some smack the ball and others like to steer the clubface more. Simon puts Tiger Woods as a player who likes to steer - control his clubface. (That would make Tiger a swinger - but he realy hits the ball:-)

So hitting and swinging is just a guestion of degree - not about doing one or the other - just you might favor other a little more in your swing. I think my swing changes from hitting to swinging during a round of golf debending on club I use... And it's not intentional

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http://video.aol.com/video/sports-da...action/1957777

here is a great video exactly what i am talking about. "when i do that with my wrist and that with my body, my wrist is not able to realease"

i think like he said most people think of cocking their wrist and when they uncock and cok manually and not automatically it throws them off plane and allows them to cast. rather than cupping and trying to uncupp but not being able to do to the body moving and the arm moving and kenetic linking just as in throwing a baseball.

You don’t worry about the swing plane, you don’t worry about anything. All you have to worry about is being positioned properly, and then swinging back and up to the top and whipping down through impact. You’re not striking the ball, you’re just swinging the club, and the ball gets in the way.

Here's my main concern with this statement. If you say that to most beginners or high handicappers they will just swing their arms vertically up and down and not really engage the body or 'connection' in any way. That will be a weak flippy movement

Once they understand the need for the upper arms to stay close to the body and the right elbow to stay pointed at the hip as the arms lift up rather than move sideways then its more clear how the body and arms move together. The right armpit headcover drill is still the best drill out there IMHO to ingrian this feeling in as you cant just swing your arms sideways

Once you get this sensation of everything working together in a connected way then you can forget 'steering or hitting' with the hands at impact and just shift and turn easily through the ball - which is what i think of just swinging through the ball .. you have to be swinging correctly to begin with

Not sure if you agree? Here's a great article on this

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/...gh-connection/

hi pnearn
i don't know if you saw Padraig Harrington on the practice range before his final round of the open, Bob Torrance had him swinging with head covers under both arms.
it seemed to help his game and he plays so much better than we do so i would say its worth trying it to see if it helps us amateurs.
cheers
bill

why would they swing them up and down? does he apear to do that in the video? it appears to me that he is going horizontally back and forth. it is the spine angle that gives the vertical component illusion. I again relate it to baseball and ken griffy jr. he is well know as a low hitter. but his technique is exactly the same as a high pitch. http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2...iffeyjrca8.jpg
http://www.theamericanmind.com/image...fey-junior.jpg
he hits the ball on with a horizontal force. the only thing that makes it appear vertical is his spine tilt. just as in golf, that is why i don't like the hit down on the ball advice, i think that makes people think all thier effort should be vertical. in tennis if the ball comes at you chest you hit it shoulder to shoulder or foot to foot, not head to foot. it the ball is at knees hight they do the exact same thing but angle thier spine, they dont try to hit down on the ball and swing like trying to split a peice of wood, they hit out.

in golf and what i interpreted form that video is the guy tells us to hit out from back foot to front foot not from heel to toe not from head to toe back to front. the tilt of the spine and the swing plane will make add the verticle component to the swing, there is no need to consoiuly add it. why i was saying the cocking and uncocking is kinda natural, if you try to uncock and hit vertically it will throw you off plane.


well, I agree and I disagree. It is hard to describe in words. Personally I pay atentoin only to the hands just as I throw a ball. i stay plenty connected when I throw a ball just as I stay connected when I swing the club. I get your point though. And not everyone is where I am at in my journey of the learning to swing and it might confuse them. i consider connetion to be a fundemental and the most important part of the swing is fundementals i think. but once all thoose are covered, than you can start learning how to swing.

back and through as he says not up and down from :12-:15 you see the right hand lateral that is good. then at :20-:25 you see the right hand vertical, that is bad.

Hi Golfinguy
i agree about getting the fundamentals right first but i think we think to much about the swing. if we throw a stone we don't think of "weight shift or what our arm does." we let the body do it for us. i think once you have the basics of a swing you can let the body and arms work by them selfs. by that i mean not trying to control them.
start your swing from the right posision then everything else just happens as a reaction to your setup.
cheers
bill

ok, we're on the same page here...

and this is where we differ, kind of. IMO once you have the basics and the feel then you can add the juice. when you first learned baseball you didn't stand on the other side of the yard, you probly started about 6-10' away and got longer and learned without sacrificing technique you can try harder and throw alot farther. i agree that you can't control the swing with the hands like ok i am an inch right i need to move, now i am .5 left ect. but based off practice, you can learn if you move a certain way where your hand will end up as in baseball. if you start your arc here and move this way it will end up passing through here.

i lost my swing a bit ago and ended up changing my plane and learned my swing by keeping the shoulder down passive. then i started by adding wrist only, then i was able to use arms and wrist and really give it some juice. but with out me finding that correct plane, i never would have been able to start giving the ball any juice.

When we are saying that you just swing - and ball is just in the way - we might forget timing. I think that you need to time your golf swing and aim at the ball. It's not just swinging and the ball happens to be somewhere on the line.

I like the exercise where you put headcovers under your arms - and almost every other exercise, too:-) You just need to be curious of the outcome. Exercises make you learn new things about your own body - and it helps you to manage difficult situations on the course.