Before I go on to brand new topic -- the downcock on the pinnacle of Cristie and Inbee's swings -- I need to feature a chunk more to what I wrote the day before today. It may additionally assist some of you capture directly to this faster.
While the moves I wrote approximately the day past are virtually very natural moves, a number of you can have run into the hassle that Bobby Jones located (and that I wrote approximately in this post) -- particularly, that you may have accidentally interfered with your herbal movements whilst trying to analyze the sport, and now the herbal movements do not experience so herbal anymore. Learning to get from your own manner again may be frustrating.
Unlike quite a few modern swings which might be based on angles and positions, this Hammer Swing is based greater on experience and motion. (Again, that is why a few TV commentators have trouble information how it works.) You without a doubt don't have to analyze any positions -- but if you're looking for one, the nearest I've been able to come is shown in this picture, which I installed the day before today's post:
The vital "role," if you can call it that, is the connection of your hands and trailing elbow as you enter the hitting area, which I wrote approximately at duration the day gone by. This is what takes place in the course of the pass that enables you keep your wrist cock lengthy sufficient to create a variety of clubhead speed at effect.
The irony here is that it's the same position you get into during a short game shot. It's just that you aren't swinging fast during your short game! And since you aren't swinging so fast, it's easier for you to be relaxed. If you're having trouble, it's tightness that's giving you fits -- you're too tight during your full swing.
So, for those of you who found that getting into this position was a little awkward when you made a full swing, try practicing it with a pitch shot. Just swing from waist high to waist high at a comfortable speed. As you start down, your trail elbow will be separated just a little from your side, then you'll just let it drop into the "position" in the above photo and keep swinging through to waist high for your finish.
Once you feel cushty with that, lengthen the swing to shoulder height, keeping that comfortable feeling. Gradually accelerate the swing while staying relaxed until you could swing quickly and easily. And then, when you're cushty with that, stretch it out to a full swing and go through the same ordinary. It's only a matter of gaining knowledge of to swing relaxed in preference to tight. You aren't lifting weights here, so that you do not ought to create "grunt" power.
NOW let's speak approximately the downcocking move. Please recognize that this is a completely non-public circulate -- your natural dispositions play a massive element in how you do it. You don't just say "I want to make this pass the manner Inbee does" due to the fact her pass might not be the way you instinctively do it. As a result, my instructions can also sound a piece... Nicely, sketchy. But there's extra than enough here to help you find the way you do it first-class.
So let's get on with it.
I don't know if you've been looking the Australian Open but if you have, you might have seen lengthy hitter Lincoln Tighe use this downcock pass for the duration of Saturday's spherical. He had a completely restricted backswing -- now not than the picture function Cristie and Inbee are in on the start of this publish -- and he used a version of the downcock to create more clubhead pace. (And he used it very correctly too!) This is a totally versatile technique when you understand it.
The downcocking flow may be speedy or sluggish, lengthy or short, with or without a pause, in any period backswing. It's this versatility that makes it hard for a few players to understand. Way returned once I commenced this blog I did a put up displaying the fundamentals of the circulate using a flyswatter. I'm going to apply that diagram again -- I'll positioned it simply underneath this paragraph so that you do not have to maintain going again to the vintage post -- to assist me explain how you operate it and how the versions look.
In this diagram I confirmed a big downcock, as evidenced with the aid of the flyswatter "shaft" getting nearly parallel to the ground in Figure 3, as it turned into both less complicated to demonstrate and greater common when using a flyswatter. But regardless of how massive or small the downcock is, there are two things that always manifest:
- The hand moves slightly in the direction the backswing was moving. That's the cock.
- The elbow moves slightly downward just after the hand starts moving. That's the down.
Obviously it's a bit more complicated in a golf swing because both hands are holding the flyswatt--uh, I mean the club, and the lead elbow isn't bent. Otherwise we wouldn't need to talk about it -- it wouldn't be any different than swinging a tennis racket. But even when we take both hands and arms into account, it's really not as different as you might think. Why?
Because, as Inbee demonstrates, neither the cock nor the down has to be very large at all. The arms and hands work as a unit, and the moves may feel more like a flexing than a bending:
- The wrist cock may be no bigger than a wiggle.
- Your straight lead elbow doesn't have to bend; it only needs to give a little as you start down.
- And while you may think a pause would happen before the downcock, it may actually happen briefly BETWEEN the cock and the down.
- The bigger you make the wrist cock, the slower it will be. Likewise, small wrist cocks tend to be fast wrist motions.
- It works exactly the opposite with the elbow drop. A big drop is usually a faster drop, a small drop generally happens slower.
- Small wrist cocks generally work best with big drops, while big wrist cocks tend to work best with small drops. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but think about it for a minute. A small wrist cock would be lost too quickly if you dropped your hands slowly. And a big cock/big drop combo would probably throw you off-plane and off-balance.
- Likewise, if your downcock move includes a brief pause, the pause is most likely to come IN-BETWEEN the cock and the down if you use a large wrist cock. The larger your wrist cock, the more time you'll need to "gather yourself at the top" and make a smooth change of direction. Small wrist cocks may not include a pause at all but, if they do, the pause will most likely come BEFORE the initial cocking action.
And recollect that you may move lower back to the original publish and watch each Cristie and Inbee's swings -- and locate videos of Stricker's swing as well -- in case you want to see the swing in action to get a experience for the rhythm. Each player uses a slightly exceptional approach for the downcock, so you'll get to peer a range.
An important aspect to consider is that the duration of your golfing swing doesn't determine what your downcocking move seems like. Take mine as an instance. No rely how long or brief my swing is on any specific day, and no matter how flexible I can be when making my shoulder turn, I ALWAYS end up the use of a large gradual downcocking movement. That's what is natural to me. If I attempt to make a short brief one like Inbee, it feels incorrect and I genuinely can't make it work always.
The concept here is to make your swing feel as natural and easy to repeat as possible. And if for some cause you cannot discover a downcocking circulate that works for you, simply stick with the regular Hammer Swing. Once you begin hitting that ball constantly at the sweet spot, which that swing will help you do, you'll get greater distance from your swing than you might anticipate.
And that need to be enough to get you all going. If you have got particular questions, just post them in the feedback underneath or send me an email. I'll try to come up with a helpful solution.
Just keep in mind: that is YOUR swing. Take ownership of it and it will serve you properly.
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