Maintaining the spine angle

takinitdeep · #16 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 12:31 AM

The butt cheeks tell the story. If one cannot keep one cheek on the wall at all times and have two cheeks showing on followthrough, nothing else you do will matter very much. As the butt cheeks go, so go the spine angle.
And no, size does not matter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianW

Bill,

Please try to detach the discussion a bit from the words 3 skills and more to what I am actually saying.

We have not specified this discussion to be targeted at beginners, it was more about maintaining spine tilt on the BS and FS. It was also not aimed at whether 3SK's would benefit most people, good ball contact will benefit everyone.

Please can we consider my proposition that if the swingpath and contact are implemented correctly then things like spine angle will be OK anyway.

takinitdeep · #17 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 12:34 AM

see my posts in this thread about the butt cheeks.
For example, if the left cheek moves away from the wall on the downswing, you have OTT and pulls with an outside in swing path.
If your right cheek moves away from the wall on the backswing, you have an off plane outside swing and if there is no compensation, an OTT there too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianW

Bill,

What I am trying to covey is that if you make good contact and ball flight do you need to be concerned with your spine angle? OR the fact that you are making good contact does that infer that your spine angle is OK anyway.

I think the idea that you can forget about these things and only concentrate on what the club does as it approaches, contacts and leaves the ball is difficult for people to contemplate and sounds rather simplistic and heretical. Really it just means considering these things from a more lateral viewpoint. If your swing is not striking the ball on the sweetspot and is not making ball then turf contact then a probable cause is loss of spine angle, if you were to work on getting the right ball/turf contact then it would probably improve spine angle retention without actually considering it.

You said:

"if you understand the importance of the spine then you will set up better to the ball and if your set up is wrong i don't think even 3 skills can help you be consistent at ball striking."

3 Sk's can help you here in the same way as you suggest but by a different way of thinking. For example: If you were hitting a nail with a hammer and you started missing it, would you start considering what was happening with your shoulder/elbow/wrist or would you concentrate on the path the hammer was taking to the nail and try again? You certainly would not go and get coaching from a carpenter

BrianW · #18 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 12:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bill reed

hi Brian
you could say the same if you get the spine right then the shoulders swing round the spine and will come back on plane and give you clean contact. i think if your really tried you could make a point of a lot of things done right can give you that sweet hit or just one.
depends on the person and how they swing. we are all so different and we all take things in different ways that why some things work for you but not for me or the the other way round.
putting the club face on the ball square and on the sweep spot is every ones goal and there are so many different ways to do that, there not a right way or a wrong way only the one that works for you.
i know you have found your way.
i think we are saying the same only coming at it from a different view.
cheer bill

Bill,

You may well be correct. The problem with me is I am an Engineer and I see things like contact on the sweet spot within acceptable limits as a fairly black and white task, there is not much room for grey

I cannot see easily that good club contact with the ball can be any different for you, me or anyone else, this is why machines like Ironman can do it time after time. We may differ in how we take the club back, how we start it down and how we end up at the finish but there is not much room for difference through the impact area, remembering the clubface is in contact with the ball for around half a millisecond. If I look at just about all the top tour players they deliver the club to the ball through the impact area in the same way. As I have said a few times now 3 skills tells us nothing new about this it only asks us to think about it in a different and clearer way.

Regarding us having different swings, that's absolutely right, but sorry to have to reiterate this but if our swings deliver the clubface correctly then the result will be good, if not it will be bad.

ubizmo · #19 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianW

What I mean is that in most cases when someone was to swing an object at another like an axe at a tree, A sledge hammer at a bolt etc they have to rotate keep the object on plane and control their posture etc but in nearly every other case no conscious thought is put into the positions of body parts, rather you concentrate on the point of contact.

In Golf it seems more difficult and I can only surmise that is because people are not clear on what kind of contact is required, the natural urge is to hit under the ball which causes lifting and swaying.

I agree that confusion about what contact is all about is one of the things that makes golf more difficult than swinging an axe at a tree or, to use Ian's example, throwing a stone into a pond. So indeed, if you have the wrong idea of what you're supposed to be doing, you're likely to get a poor result.

But that's not the only thing that makes it difficult. Ball striking is a precision act, in a way that the others are not. If the sweet spot of the club is missed by as little as a half inch, the results can be very poor. If the club face is more than a few degrees away from square at impact the ball flight is likely to be very wide of the target. In comparison, swinging an axe at a line on a tree trunk may be difficult, but if miss by a little bit, it doesn't make much difference.

Now think of hammering a nail again, but this time your goal is to hammer it as deep as possible with a single blow. Imagine taking that hammer waaaay back and then striking down forcefully. There's a very good chance you'd miss the nail altogether, or hit it off-center and have the hammer head carom off. And if you were doing this competitively, perhaps a contest to see who can hammer the nail flush with the fewest blows, then you might indeed start thinking about the best way to hold your shoulders, wrists, and so on to make precise contact in a repeatable way.

bill reed · #20 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 12:54 AM

hi brain
what if you swing is bad and you cant get that sweet spot hit and don't know what your doing wrong, who helps you then? i know i have hit shots and had no idea what i did wrong when the hooked or pulled a shot, i think i know some things that could cause it but not what happens for a fact on that shot. i then try and eliminate what i think i did wrong, but if i don't understand about spine angle or weight shift or hip turn how do i know what i did wrong.
do you see where I'm coming from?
bill

BrianW · #21 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubizmo

I agree that confusion about what contact is all about is one of the things that makes golf more difficult than swinging an axe at a tree or, to use Ian's example, throwing a stone into a pond. So indeed, if you have the wrong idea of what you're supposed to be doing, you're likely to get a poor result.

But that's not the only thing that makes it difficult. Ball striking is a precision act, in a way that the others are not. If the sweet spot of the club is missed by as little as a half inch, the results can be very poor. If the club face is more than a few degrees away from square at impact the ball flight is likely to be very wide of the target. In comparison, swinging an axe at a line on a tree trunk may be difficult, but if miss by a little bit, it doesn't make much difference.

Now think of hammering a nail again, but this time your goal is to hammer it as deep as possible with a single blow. Imagine taking that hammer waaaay back and then striking down forcefully. There's a very good chance you'd miss the nail altogether, or hit it off-center and have the hammer head carom off. And if you were doing this competitively, perhaps a contest to see who can hammer the nail flush with the fewest blows, then you might indeed start thinking about the best way to hold your shoulders, wrists, and so on to make precise contact in a repeatable way.

Tod,

I think you have taken the axe example out of context, I did not suggest it was a precision action, only that in doing it you would not need to consider your spine angle etc. I suggested that in striking a golf ball you should be able to concentrate on the task in hand and not on complex body movements, they should take care of themselves.

I also disagree with your proposition that competitive nail hammering would be better if you considered complex body movements. That would really disrupt the motion.

Ball striking is not that complex once practiced in an effective manner. Any task can be made complex if we allow our minds to get cluttered with unnecessary complications.

Good night Gentlemen

BrianW · #22 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bill reed

hi brain
what if you swing is bad and you cant get that sweet spot hit and don't know what your doing wrong, who helps you then? i know i have hit shots and had no idea what i did wrong when the hooked or pulled a shot, i think i know some things that could cause it but not what happens for a fact on that shot. i then try and eliminate what i think i did wrong, but if i don't understand about spine angle or weight shift or hip turn how do i know what i did wrong.
do you see where I'm coming from?
bill

Bill,
yes I see but dont agree.

If you are taught to understand in a simple way how to make good ball contact then you will not need to be confused.

Forget your swing a minute, if your ball contact is bad the there are not that many things that can cause that, if you can detach this from the multitude of swing mechanics and work on correcting the problem through impact then it can be solved easier. There are only 3 things to think about then

bill reed · #23 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 01:17 AM

hi Brian
what the three thing you think off, don't go into detail, just so i understand how you look at things, by the way I'm an engineer too. (instrument engineer) hydraulics/mech and electrical engineer.
bill

bill reed · #24 (**permalink**) 09-29-2007, 11:19 AM

hi cmays
what you say happens if your set up is good and you don't try and power your swing. bit like Brian said in let the swing happen and not try and control it, but i still believe you need that good set up and basic fundamentals.
bill

RandomHero1090 · #25 (**permalink**) 10-01-2007, 02:44 PM

Had a nice round of 74 after some struggles (79, 85 (ouch!)).

What I noticed, which I am going to post on another thread....

I was MUCH more relaxed. I focus on having a "flat" back at time. When you want to flatten your back, you will focus on bending from the hip sockets and maybe stick your chest out a bit. That contracts the back muscles slightly.

Lately I have had some back pain, most likely because I am overdoing the "flat" back. So I relaxed and took my setup and made sure there was no tension in my back. It was still "flat," not rounded, but not to a point where there was tension.

After crushing a drive, hitting a PW to 12 feet, crushing another drive, hitting SW to 10 feet, hitting a GW on a par 3 to 15 feet, RIPPING a drive about 290 on a par 5, following that up with a laser hybrid to reach the green in 2....you see where I am going....I need to work on my putting

What I noticed the entire time, along with 1 other change I will post later, is that my shoulders, torso and hips just rotated. They didn't slide, press, pick up, anything! They rotated on the backswing and rotated on the downswing. My arms when along for the ride.

All I am saying here in the post that is already too long

Take tension out of your entire body and see how you do. I know when I am in the zone, I feel nothing in my body. Its free flowing. Don't force it. Let it happen.

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