Trevino - Hitter - check this out!
 

This is a really good show with lots of good footage and interviews with one of the games greatest Hitters, Lee Trevino.

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The Golf Channel

Saturday, February 12
8:30 PM/ET


Jim McLean: Lee Trevino
Proponent of the 8-step swing method and host Jim McLean breaks down the mechanics of Lee Trevino's swing.

Watching the footage of Trevino is worthwhile, but what McLean says about it may be something else. Some years ago, the front page of Golf Digest promoted an instructional article called something like "Extend Your Flatspot". McLean described this procedure in such a way to promote the idea that the clubhead strikes the back of the ball while moving horizontally towards the target. You can flatten the downswing plane, but the strike is still DOWN and OUT toward low point, and there is no "flatspot" in the arc of the clubhead. I believe that Trevino was one of his examples in the article. I'll bet he uses the word in the show.

What Say You, Goliath?
 

Good thing young David didn't have a Flat Spot in his Slinging Action when he went mano-on-mano with Goliath.

Then again, Goliath might have a different opinion...

Agreed about McLean. He does talk about Lee coming in very shallow through the ball - but as you will see, Lee hits down and talks about hitting down.

Re-air
 

If you missed this show, check out the The Golf Channel listings on their webpage. I think it will re-air several times this month.

Down, out, and forward feels like extending the sweet spot to me.. Lighten up on Mclean. Put some sugar in your koolaid.

DD,

That is the danger of teaching feels, the feels like to me has caused more problems in teaching golf than any other thing in my opinion. Learn feel from mechanics, not mechanics from feel!!!
Your feel is your structure, coould be right for some but not all!!

Todd

Mr. McLean seemed to indicate that guys with more upright swing planes are NOT good drivers of the ball. Well... what about Jack Nicklaus... even Scott Hoch... both pretty good! They are on steeper planes than Trevino, but are ON PLANE! Now... something like 10-7-F or 10-7-H could cause problems. Nicklaus and Hoch are probably using something more like 10-7-E (Reverse Shift), or a variation of this.

I haven't seen this one yet, but this series is one of the better ones on TGC. The one on Mickey Wright is wonderful, Miller's is very good too, as is Player's.

The Mickey Wright show is a must see if they replay it.

Trigolt/Bagger - Any chance that you can make theese shows available to us, like you did with the Moe Norman special?
We don't have the Golfchannel here.

That's an interesting concept..... a repeatable flatspot in an arc. :shock: Attempting to do that could keep me busy for quite some time. :)

You have to give Mclean some credit, though. Overall he developed a pretty good eye. At the time he started plying his trade, there wasn't a lot of video to analyze. It wasn't easy to extricate the critical movements from all of the stuff going on in swings like Trevino's. Plus that was the period when flying legs was all the rage. "Noisy" swings were all over the place. Even Hogan, who was still The Standard, was a magician at misdirection of focus (IMO).

I enjoy McLean's little shows, although not framed for TGM (darn). I'd like him to do Larry Nelson and Craig Stadler for the Hitters.

Charlie

Total agreement.

Learning from a celebrity pro or instructor that teaches feel is a dead end street. Most don’t realize that it is their “feel” they are conveying. I have always felt that perhaps the greatest gift Homer Kelley gave the golfing world is a consistent terminology to help teach. And yet, this is the number one gripe many have about TGM. Feel is “seems to be” and seems to be can be all over the place. Homer isn’t.

I don’t think general golf instruction is as bad as I thought it was, it is their ambiguous language that confuses and prevents students from “getting it.” I remember (as if I couldn’t) the ease Lynn taught us at the workshop- hours, not days or months was all it took to learn.

Hit down with short irons- true.
Sweep with woods, well no, it is still down, not flat. Just swallower, but DOWN.

A user sent us the Moe Norman link - and you will notice we are not hosting that clip and neither is The Golf Channel. We just have a link to it. I actually looked on TGC's website to see if they had any of their shows archived and didn't see any.

So unless someone actually has a clip from the show we wouldn't have access to it.

Does anyone know if Lee actually 'increases' the bend in his right wrist through impact to separation?

That would be the only way to create a 'flatspot' - as the hands drive down, the right wrist bends back - 'leveling' the clubheads orbit into an eliptical shape.

This "flat spot" idea could simply be an ILLUSION.

Yes, but a 'flatter' spot need not be - wide, long, thin divots

Wouldn't you have to change the radius to create a "flatter" spot? There are no flat spots on a circle, but this talk of "flatter" spots is more like an ellipse. And the stroke is a circle.

I will defer to the most knowlegeable, but I'm with you for now. If any arc of the foreswing has a flat spot in it, it's a manipulation. And worse, it's a manipulation that must be REPEATABLE. Timed perfectly.

Using my own limited experience, I get the radius of my arc by the Extensor action working on, and extending my left arm. When extended, it holds the constant radius from my left shoulder. Measures the shot, so to speak. If I move or let my left arm bend, impact and low point get shifted.

Maybe if you hold the lag extra long............ Forget it, a flat spot doesn't make sense and I'm going back to the Basic forum where I belong. :)

Of the clubhead, yes because of the ground.

Of the force, the thrust, no because you are still driving downplane to both arms straight.

So in a sense you are 'scraping the ground', while still driving down, getting that nice thin, wide divot with excellent ball control. Even if it isn't an 'actual', it is potentially a nice way to get people to really feel the bending back of the right wrist.

Hit the ball as low as you can, and you'll get this feel. Get those hands ahead of the ball.

The force is ALWAYS driving downplane, that is what the line of compression is all about, that is what aiming point is all about, driving the hands to both arms straight.

Flat Spot
 

Saying that he has a long flat spot is just his way of saying that he is sustaining the line of compression in non TGM language.

A long, wide, thin divot with an iron implies a sweeping motion with the ball struck near low point, and too large a clubhead path radius coming into the back of the ball, which means #2 throwaway and not hitting the inside of the ball. I don't see how a down and out Impact with an iron can lead to a long, wide, thin divot. I've seen good players with relatively long divots, but they were also deep.

That depends on how you position the circle relative to the ground and the amount of right elbow and right wrist bent, as well as ball position and thrust angle.

No doubt that 'more' divot can be more margin for error, yes.

My Three Cents
 

Three thoughts on this business of Divot Depth:

1. The bottom of any near-circle (Clubhead Orbit) with a five-foot radius (Left Arm and Club) is going to be relatively flat. Not perfectly flat, mind you, but relatively so.

2. When the Ball is played well behind Low Point, the Plane Angle can also be made Flatter, which aids in Divot Depth control.

3. The collision of Ball and Clubface will tend to drive the the lesser-lofted Clubs straight back and the higher-lofted Clubs more into the ground. This 'equal and opposite' reaction combined with the flatter plane of the longer Clubs produces shallower Divots with the Long Clubs and deeper divots with Short Clubs.

Re: My Three Cents
 

Homer said never try- or not try- to take a divot.

I guess the "circle" takes care of that.

Flat spot
 

I create a flat spot....
on the back of the ball.

Hee Hee Hee
:twisted:

This may be a stupid question. Since Trevino has put tape on his left thumb, this can assist the sensing of the pushing on the left thumb #1 pp, is this legal? Since this is a kind of assistance or training aid. If it is leggal then why those specify glove is illegal?

My hypothesis is that Trevino puts the tape on his thumb to keep the glove from wearing out in that spot. I find that hitters wear that spot out more than most.

You can't tape fingers together or have it used as an alignment aid, none of which Lee did.

What I always thought was illegal was Venturi''s use of a wedge in his right shoe to keep inside pressure on his take-away. He said he had a special shoe made for that.

i never notcied trevinos tape on his thumb i also do the same thing on my gloves because otherwise i wear a hole in them after three rounds.

Ben Doyle calls it (the flat spot) the "Wallop of Centrifrugal Force."

I don't get it Brian...