Spine angle

I hope I'm getting some of this swing thing clear in my mind.

As many of you know, I've had a huge problem lately using the easiest clubs to make decent contact with, 6-sw. Why could I make good contact with my driver, 4 and 7 fairway woods, and 4 and 5 iron-woods and yet fail to make any kind of decent contact with my 6-sw irons?

In my mind (I haven't had a chance to prove it outside) I see that my spine angle was not increasing as the clubs shafts decreased in length. It seems so elementary that many of you have to wonder how GTO let such a nut join!

What I have been doing is standing with the same spine angle (I'm using "spine angle" as in toward the ball, not away from the target. Is there a difference in the terms "spine angle" and "spine tilt"?), regardless of the club used. My hands would be closer to my body and my knees would be bent a bit more to accommodate the shorter shaft, but my spine angle remained the same as for the longer clubs. In other words, I have been standing as upright for my shorter irons as for the longer clubs. Result? Take up tennis?

It seems too elementary to be true. It's almost as though I was trying to swing "one plane" for the longer clubs and "two planes" for the shorter. Does this make sense, or is this old guy just wacky?

Bill

While I don't readily have an answer for you (as my spine angle is steeper for irons than for woods), I can assure you that spine angle and spine tilt are two different things.

Spine angle is towards/away from the ball.
Spine tilt is towards/away from the target.

You've already answered to yourself why you make good contact with your woods and long irons, but don't hit your short irons well - you're not steep enough.

Try bending a bit more at the waist for your short irons (this will steepen your swing).

Broadus,

In "Swing Like A Pro," Ralph Mann pulls apart the common elements of 100 top pros.

A couple of things:

1. Ball position varies only a 2-3 inches off the left foot for all clubs driver to 9 iron. This is completely different than what most books teach, but is what the pros do.

2. Spine angle hardly varies at all driver to 9 iron.

I would suggest that there are reasons why all the pros do this on a regular basis. You can always find exceptions, but the "average" approach is probably best for starters.

What does vary?

Hands from thigh distance. When you hold a driver at setup, your hands will be farther from your thighs than when you hold a 9 iron.

You really can't feel 6 degrees for tilt (and it could be all the camera angle), however, notice the hands to thigh distance.

Again, V1 Home can give you many of these answers. A great investment.

For the wedges, Pelz (my other favorite) suggests a different swing and ball in the center of the stance.

Theo

Attached Images

Steve and Spine.JPG (66.8 KB, 14 views)

Thanks, Theo. I would have never thought that.

Anyway, I went out and hit some 7 irons this afternoon. Pathetic. I think it's between my ears. How I can hit my driver, fairway woods, and 4 and 5 i-woods and not hit my irons I'll never know. And I used to love to swing my irons. Looks like I'll just find a set of 6-pw hybrids or iron-woods.

Thanks again.

Bill

Bill,

Allow me a bit of rumination:

A brief bit from a famous neurologist out of USCD, VS Ramachandran, from his book Phantoms In The Brain:

This little experiment may have interesting implications for day-to-day activities and athletics. Marksmen say that ifyou focus too much on a rifle target, you will not hit the bull's-eye; you need to "let go" before you shoot. Most sports rely heavily on spatial orientation. A quarterback throws the ball toward an empty spot on the field, calculadng where the receiver will be if he is not tackled. An outfielder starts running the moment he hears the crack of a baseball coming into contact with a bat, as his how pathway in the parietal lobe calculates the expected desdnation of the ball given this auditory input. Basketball players can even close their eyes and toss a ball into the basket if they stand on the same spot on the court each time. Indeed, in sports as in many aspects of life, it may pay to "release your zombie" and let it do its thing."

VS is simply repeating what we all hear, all the time: Trust Your Swing.

Our conscious mind can only process data at about 29 Kbit/s. Our unconscious mind processes at about 500Mbit/s to 1Gbit/sec. (Or 20,000 times faster.)

The problem with the swing is that our conscious mind plays tricks on us because we keep thinking that we can capture consciously something that is happening much faster than we can process the data.

Two answers:

1. Let go
2. Get video tape

I practice the later.

Theo

Well put.

Bill