arms during backswing

are the arms during backswing passive? what moves the club to the top of the backswing? arms have to be passive during down swing too? this is pretty clear to me.. bu iI dont understand what actually takes the arms to the top.. I have studied Hogan's book five lessons lot of time, but iI cant understand how to take the club to the top.. thanks a lot

Imagine your arms, your hands and the club form a letter Y at address. Now using the core muscles (your chest) turn this letter Y away from the ball without either side of it breaking down. Check halfway back the arms are still extended, the clubhead is pointing down the target line and the angle of the clubface is the same as your spine angle. From halfway back you then keep turning and your arms will naturally lift (go up) as the right elbow bends. Do NOTHING with your wrists

Think maintain that triangle. If you yank it away with your arms and hands you will have to make all sorts of compensations later but a nice wide takeaway should help set you up for a good DS

thanks G1, Very informative
great post

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In a Hogan type swing around the body, I like to feel a slow upward
pressure with the back fingers and allowing the back elbow to bend on the way back in the backswing.
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I don't understand it.. how do you mean it?

please could someone tell me step by step, how to create good back swing? do I have to lift my arms only with my body? Do hips move during takeway? First takeway move is rotation or side move? I have Jim Mclean video and I like to learn this type of swin.. /Hogan's like.../ Thx a lot,,,

even a better read the second time around
I tried throwing a ball over my shoulder and noticed much more throw with the elbows slightly bent, I almost knocked out a light in my classroom.

Its a complete waste of time to compare Hogan to anyone else; even Hogan didn't understand Hogan; it just so happens he was a natural talent and his swing was his swing, no one elses.
Two problems here:
1. Lots of folks on this site compare pro's and say do this or do that; waste of time and not good.
2. Lots of folks on this site have a my way or highway mentality; no matter what anyone says or suggests they have a better way or have a criticism as to why this or that won't work.
Solution:
Be flexible, acknowledge others' opinions as being valid, don't always discount what others' are saying or suggesting, be open to something different, stay unbiased no matter if you think you have the answer to everyone's problems, and most of all, don't be a "know it all."
Thanks all and thats my 2 cents worth.
Lets not let anyone dominate this site as has happened on so many other sites; lets stay active here and admit no one is a pro!!!!!! We are all just trying to keep our game consistent.

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I tried throwing a ball over my shoulder and noticed much more throw with the elbows slightly bent, I almost knocked out a light in my classroom.
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what is throwing a ball over the shoulder? why? i need recipie for backswing... i cant get club up to the top only with body

I dont tell G1 "great post" very often but in this case I FELT it was, so is my opinion not valid, should I have stated it a different way, YOUR WAY?

sorry for coming across harsh, in golf my pet peeve is when people talk about hogan as you did in your first couple of lines. Who are we to take to task van gough, davinci, picaso, hemingway, einstein, Beethovan, plato, aristotle, or Hogan. Learn what they learned and then you can discuss on their level. Untill you learn that, sit back, listen/read, and you may learn in the process

It has to deal with a freer range of motion in the body. If I can thrown a ball over my shoulder easier then that means I can lift up my arms/club easier

Perhaps it is oversimplifying but I believe there are two extremes

1. The leverage swing. The Adam Scott/Tiger type swing. Left hand pushes the club straight back from the ball. Big wide arc, very high hands at the top. Club speed comes from size of the swing arc and club is looped back down to the inside on the DS. More arm speed, less lag on this swing.

2.The rotary swing. Fashionably called the one plane swing. The Vijay/Hogan type swing. Much more around, much more use of the body, more lag

If youre tall and thin youre probably going to hit the ball further with the leverage swing. If youre short and of a bigger build then maybe better looking at the rotary swing. Ive tried both. Im 6'1 and 13 stone and ive found personally the leverage swing is more accurate for me

There is no right way. If we were all built the same we could all swing the same but we aint so we cant!

Hey folks. I think you are making this way too complicated. Isn't the answer that you do lift your arms slightly but don't use your arms to bring the club and shoulder back. Just think of the drill many of have seen to set the club properly. The one where without turning your break your wrists and then throw your club over your shoulder. Then, in that position, one simply roatates the shoulders back to demonstrate where one should be at the top of the back swing. I submit that the move where one throws the club over the shoulder cannot be done without lifting the arms. Can some provide a link to the video of that drill so our Goldfinch can see what I am talking about.

Never mind. Go to this site Goldfinch and take a look at the right shoulder drill.

http://www.golf.com/apps/instruction...f/archive.asp#

Your turn back should be done almost entirely using the shoulders but once you get your arms straight back you should cock the wrists and lift the arms a bit. To what degree I am not sure but that drill is I think gives you a pretty good barometer.

Very well said. I've been struggling with this for a long time. Never got my hands high enough and they ended up going outside the body. I always got this impression that if I lifted my arms any higher, I would be hitting too steep.

Now I do allow myself to lift them higher and the shots have been better. But I still worry sometimes that I might be coming in too steep with the longer clubs as a result. Any guidelines on this? Thanks!

Passive arms.

Not using the arms does not make sense. Either on the backswing, the downswing or at any other time, it does not make sense. We hold the club with the hands, the hands are attached to the arms, we use the arms all the time.

Don't take my word for it, try it for yourself.

Practice with passive arms, look at the results.
Practice with active arms, look at the results.

The ball does not lie. Ever.

Then again, if passive arms works for you, do that instead. Whatever works, do it. Whatever does not work, don't do it.

Perhaps you are scared of learning something bad? Perhaps you are scared of learning something you can't get rid of later on?

That's ridiculous. If you can learn something, you can learn something else. I read somewhere that Thomas Edison tried 10,000 times before he succeeded in making a functional lightbulb. Now that's a whole lot of learning something bad before learning something good.

How many times did you try something only to find out it didn't work? How many times did you try something until you found something that did work?

It took me a bit over a year to find what works. Oh I tried passive arms, active arms, passive wrists, active wrists, over the shoulder, over the head, snap the wrists, cast the club, short swing, long swing, wide swing, narrow swing, flat swing, steep swing, weak grip, strong grip, head down, head up, forward press, lateral move. Oh my.

Now, I only do what works.

What if I forget? That truly does not matter. If I can learn once, I can learn again. I can even shortcut the process because of all that knowledge I accumulated as I tried out this and that.

Anyway, once you find what works, practice it until you are confident that you can do it the way you want to do it, then forget about it and focus on what really matters.


Martin Levac

Sometimes we get much too analytic in golf about the most basic natural movements of the body.

If you picked up an axe and started taking swings at a tree would you think about how you got your arms to the top of the back swing? Would you consider whether your arms were passive or active?