[Mike O]

Pistol wrote in another thread-: "And while you are digging there can you go in to great detail for me as to how Hogan squared the clubface to the arc relatively early in his downswing and believe me there is some great photos out there that will prove this. Since he got the club "laid off" and open relative to the plane at the top if he just Pulled the club what would happen??"

This is my personal interpretation of what happened to Hogan's clubface at the end-backswing and early downswing.

I believe that Hogan's clubface was frequently slightly open at the end-backswing position, and I think that the main cause was his tendency to cup his left wrist at the end-backswing, which caused the clubshaft to slightly cross the line ( and point right-of-parallel), and also caused the clubface to open.

Here is a photo-example.



Image 1 shows that Hogan's club is slightly beyond parallel at the end-backswing, and pointing slightly to the right of target. I believe that he often ended up in that position because he had ultra-flexible wrists, that allowed his left wrist to upcock (radially deviate) >90 degrees at the end-backswing position. That large degree of radial deviation of his left wrist also caused some dorsiflexion of his left wrist so that his left wrist was slightly cupped at the end-backswing position, which caused his clubface to become slightly open. At the same time, his bent right wrist developed a small degree of radial deviation (upcocking).

I believed that Hogan closed his clubface at the very start of the downswing, so that it became neutral to the clubhead swingarc, by starting his downswing with a very assertive hip shift-rotation movement. That lower body movement caused his clubshaft to fall back/shallow-out, thereby flattening his left wrist - see image 2. When his left wrist became flat, then his clubface became neutral to the swingarc.

Interestingly, Jim Hardy claims that Hogan closed his clubface in the early downswing by means of a counterclockwise rotation of his left arm, that caused his right forearm to "twist and throw" the clubface into a closed position, and that also caused his right elbow to end up behind the right hip, instead of in-front of the right hip, in the mid-downwsing. However, I can see no evidence of any left arm counterclockwise rotation in image 2 or image 3, and no evidence to support Jim Hardy's belief that Hogan used an active right forearm "twist-and-throw" maneuver in his early downswing.

Here is another image demonstrating how Hogan shallowed his clubshaft at the start of the downswing and flattened his left wrist.



Image 1 show Hogan at the end-backswing and he has a slightly cupped left wrist. At the start of the downswing, he starts the downswing with a lower body pelvic shift-rotation movement (hip squaring action) that shallows his clubshaft and causes the clubhead to move backwards (away from the ball-target line) and that also flattens his left wrist. When his left wrist flattens, it automatically closes the clubface to the swingarc.

Here is a third image which clearly shows Hogan's clubface closing slightly at the very start of the downswing.



Image 1 shows that Hogan had a slightly cupped left wrist and a clubshaft that was slightly right-of-parallel at the end-backswing. That predisposes to a slightly open clubface. Image 2 shows Hogan at the very start of the downswing, and one can see his flat left wrist and see that his clubface is now parallel to the back of his flat left wrist, which means that it is neutral to the swingarc.

Jim McLean in his DVD series on Hogan's swing claims that Hogan kept his left wrist cupped in the downswing and he supplies visual evidence.



Image 1 is a close-up of Hogan's cupped left wrist when he is in a mid-downswing position. Image 2,3, 4 shows an early-Hogan sequence demonstrating the same phenomenon - maintaining a cupped left wrist in the downswing and an open clubface. I don't know whether this phenomenon was a feature of Hogan's early swingstyle or whether Hogan selectively kept his left wrist cupped during the downswing at certain times for a particular purpose. I am interested in informed opinions regarding this issue.

My opinions are always open to modification if forum members can provide alternative opinions supported by solid "evidence".

Jeff.

Jeff or anyone else,
I'd be interested if someone could clearly clarify for me what is meant by open and closed in relation to the swing arc. If at impact the left wrist is cupped then the face closes. If at impact the left wrist is arched the face is open. So how does the left wrist moving from cupped to flat at the top of the swing- create a closing motion of th clubface? Never understood this and I have never heard a reasonable explanation- look forward to understanding your perspective.