Switting
 

Since studying TGM, I have increasingly become convinced that a golfer should either be a swinger or a hitter, and not a switter? Do you think that I am wrong and that I am being too narrow-minded in my thinking? Can anyone provide a rational argument for consciously choosing to become a switter, and explain how one synchronously combines left arm pull power with right arm push power?

Jeff.

Jeff, your first instinct is correct. Go put your car in neutral and try to push it and pull it at the same time. It's one or the other. Most golfers have a feel of pushing or pulling and each type of motion has components that must be matched up to work properly.

Switting???
 

Pardon my ignorance, but I do not recall Homer using the term.

All kidding aside, I have posted many times before on this subject and I feel it necessary to get back up on the stump to voice my opinion.

QUIT TRYING TO PURELY HIT OR SWING!!!!!

The "pull" in the golf swing is from the body's rotation, the "push" is from right arm thrust. Why not rotate the body and add some right arm thrust when needed for more power? I believe Homer said that no matter how the lever assembly is moved it always moves in a circle.

Homer also stated that the same pattern is rarely used more than once in a golfer's lifetime so why try to copy it everytime. Use the book to make YOUR stroke better. Sometimes you have to swing and sometimes you have to hit.

Once I quit trying to make a "pure swing" and just work on compression, the results became pretty good.

Great post Golfgnome.

I feel the same way of late and am relieved to read this. Does this necessarily mean it is four barrel?

O.B.

Golfgnome

You wrote-: "The "pull" in the golf swing is from the body's rotation, the "push" is from right arm thrust. Why not rotate the body and add some right arm thrust when needed for more power? I believe Homer said that no matter how the lever assembly is moved it always moves in a circle."

Could you please expand on your point of view? How does one know when one needs right arm power if one is essentially a swinger, and how does one actually add that right arm thrust? Could you detail the entire process starting with the downstroke's pivot action and describe when/how one actually adds right arm thrust power in a synchronised and efficient manner?

Jeff.

I just happen to be watching the original "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and at the opening of the movie all of the children are in the candy store and one of the children asks the candyman a question to which he replied, "do you ask a fish how it swims? Do you ask a bird how it flys? No, they do because they were meant to do."

Anyway, adding right arm thrust is as simple as straightening the right arm down plane. If you were to throw a ball at the ball, wouldn't you be adding right arm thrust? When a pitcher delivers a baseball to the catcher isn't his pivot preceeding his arm thrust? In order throw a ball you first had to learn the components then practice them until you could hit the target. Golf is much the same way. Don't be obsessed with "swinging or hitting". Be obsessed with compressing the ball in order to make it go where you want it to go.

Detailing the process? You better go talk to the fish and the birds.

hearing things?
 

I knew that you could hear animals talk! That's why it makes me very uncomfortable to agree with your post.

Golfgnome

You are free to answer in any manner of your choice, but your answer is evasive by my standards. If we took that attitude (that birds know how to fly, and fishes know how to swing - without thinking about it) and applied it to the golf swing, then we could simply assume that a golfer simply knows how to swing a golf club without having to think about the process. However, the fact that the average golfer's handicap is apparently 97 attests to the fact that swinging a golf club is not so simple, so instinctive, so automatic. That's why Homer Kelley spent so much time studying the golf swing. He apparently thought that he could solve the problem in a few weeks, but then ended up spending 40 years thinking about the problem and testing his ideas.

You state that a person throwing a ball only has to straighten his right arm to execute the throw. That's generally true. However, golf is a two-handed game. The grip end of the club responds to forces from both the left hand and the right hand. The left hand is the conduit for pull-forces and the right hand is the conduit for push-forces. As a switter, you are (by definition) using both forces, and I would like to know how the entire pull-push process is executed.

Jeff.

Bottom line . . . people don't have a clue how the GOLF CLUB WORKS . . .because of the goofuses at the PGA they think that path controls the starting direction of the golf ball . . . and everybody thinks you gotta get behind it . . . club swings left fast . . . face closes fast . . . hard to hit the ball solid from back there . . . . soooooo . . . they instinctively know they have to do something to get the ball to start left and curve somewhere near the target so the start turning their grip into a motor cycle grip . . they can hit short irons a lil' bit but can't hit a driver cause they got loft issues . . .

people can't hit a ball because they get crappy info on the basics . . . the basics of the club and what it has to do to make the ball go to the target.

Time for Chuck Norris
 

In the words of Augusta Golf, I am about to go "Chuck Norris on your ass"!

If my answer is evasive by your standards then I suggest you read some of my previous posts on this subject or watch the videos on this site. Homer did spend 40 years studying the subject and I am greatful for his work. Yoda once told me that when Homer spoke he often glossed over items because he assumed that people knew what he was talking about. I guess I made that assumption with you.

I am not going to rewrite the book, I have spent plenty of time studying, applying, and teaching it for the last several years. I have found that the Star System Triad explains much very well: The 3 Imperatives applying the 3 Functions through the 3 stations which should be sought.

Yoda always tells the story in his schools "there is learning to tie your shoes, then there is just tying your shoes." For those people who are still playing poorly, they are either not applying what they have "learned" or have mastered and ineffecient process or really just don't care. My detailing how I do something will only benefit me. The main ingredient to learning is self discovery. "The instructor can only inform and explain-the student must absorb and apply."

I did not say that in order to throw a ball you only have to straighten your right arm. I said, in so many words, that it is a coordinated motion that is led by the pivot followed by a throwing (straightening) of the right arm.

Golf is a two handed game. However, the left wrist cocks and uncocks by the bending and straightening of the right arm. The flat left wrist must be maintained in order to maintain rhythm. The problem I see with must bad golfers is that they try to "pull" the club through with their left arm, which leads to all sorts of malfunctions. The left hand is simply a clamp which attaches the primary and secondary levers together. The right hand is also a clamp which senses acceleration and direction of thrust.

There is no "switter"!! If you use right arm thrust then you are probably "hitting". A four barrell pattern technically is hitting. Personally, I do not care. I know that when I pivot correctly, I am able to deliver my right shoulder and arm down plane to follow through. My pivot is the "pull" my right shoulder and arm deliver the "push". If I have a passive right arm then I hit passive shots, and I do not care for those.

Most people on this site who have seen me hit a golf shot would probably agree that I look like a swinger. However, I have never tried to limit myself to a "label" and I have gotten better because of it. My game improved when I understood what my right arm and shoulder were supposed to do, go down plane.

I simply can't give you a "detailed" procedure because ONE does not exist. Like I said I simply focus on the Imperatives to produce the shot I want.

I have to agree with Jeff "Norris" in that switting doesn't really exist, it's just a cute term we've adopted to describe mismatched components. If you feel like you push the club then adopt a hitting procedure and vice versa for swinging. Don't make things too complicated, work on your imperatives and your essentials, look of what kind of pivot motion you use, loading, hinge action, etc.

Golfgnome

You wrote-: "Golf is a two handed game. However, the left wrist cocks and uncocks by the bending and straightening of the right arm. The flat left wrist must be maintained in order to maintain rhythm. The problem I see with must bad golfers is that they try to "pull" the club through with their left arm, which leads to all sorts of malfunctions.'

What you are describing is a hitter's action. If you want to be a hitter, that is fine.

However, a switter is a golfer who combines swinging actions and hitting actions.

A swinger uncocks the left wrist by the release of PA#2 - which is a passive action and the force involved is a CF. The only active force that a pivot-driven swinger applies in his 4:2:3 release action sequence is due to the fact that the pivot drives the left arm through PP#4. When the pivot subsides, PA#4 releases and the left arm catapults forwards away from the torso. The moving left arm pulls the clubshaft via the left hand's grip at PP#2. That's the only force that a swinger applies actively - a pulling force at PP#2. The club eventually releases passively due to a CF action, and then PA#3 eventually releases passively.

A switter, by definition, must be applying an additional push force at some time point during the downswing. If you are a switter, then I would like to know when/how that push-force is applied.

Jeff.

Actually the previous description was for a good golf stroke, swing or hit.

Homer and simplicity
 

Homer said that if someone had told him to keep his wrist flat and swing on a straight line that he never would have written the book.

If someone asked him about the golf swing after his 42 years of study, would that answer seem evasive?

By definition?...Homer hoped that we can check all his words with dictionary, but I just can't find the word "switting" or "switter"...:laughing9

Anyway, I read during TGM summit, a Doctor said in order to have "100%" power, you should have both foce applying along shaft (drag loading) and accorss the shaft (drive loading)...intereting stuff...although I know that I will never have chance to attend TGM summit, I would like to ask the Dr. a few naive and silly questions such as:-

Why tradition widom said we swing at 85%?

Is it possible to have better clubface control if we just either apply force along the shaft or accorss the shaft in TGM pattern?

What is the advantage or disadvantage of using 100% power for every swing?

Why a left one-armed golfer can hit a ball 283 yards in 1960's?

Lots of questions want to ask..but I take the advice from Mr. Homer Kelly...to play "my" better G.O.L.F.

And finaly question...Jeff, you switte?

The last word
 

As happens so many times, someone like yourself gets so lost in the "pattern" that they lose sight of what works and what doesn't. In an effort to re-create the wheel you create new terms such as "switting". Homer was very specific in his research and I can't find this term anywhere in TGM. If you wish to use such terminology then I suggest you write your own book and do your own research.

Why I suggested that people not get lost in a specific pattern I meant that they should understand how the accumulators work so they can use them best when needed. There is a HUGE misconception in TGM that hitters do not rotate. This is complete nonsense.

Hogan said he wished he had 3 right hands, does this make him a swinger or hitter? Who cares, he sure did not. If you carefully read through TGM you will find many references to the right arm that will make you understand that it is in no way passive as you suggest.

When you talk about "the only force that a swinger applies actively" you are once again creating a "THE WAY" procedure that will not work for every situation. If a 4 barrell is a hitting pattern so be it.

If you wish to be a book smart "theorist" then I suggest you only use the terms that Homer used in his book. If you want to use the book as Homer intended it, to improve your game and your student's, then I suggest you become less reliant on "perfect patterns" and gain more knowlege on how the components can effect each other, positively or negatively.

I am not a book smart person. When I do schools with Lynn and Ted I feel very inadequate in regards to my lack of recall to specifics in the book. I do feel that I have a great working knowlege of the book and how to apply it to my own game and explain it to my students in an understandable fashion. The book is tough enough to learn without adding "terms" that are not there.

I will not post further on this until the terms are used properly. Switting is not a pattern, so I can't give a detailed description of it.

I don't know what happened to my last post in this thread. It disappeared. I will try to recreate it.

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KOC/Golfgnome

I have never seen the word "switting" in the TGM book. I learnt about the term from this website. Correct me if I am not using the term correctly - but I presume that it is an amalgam of drag loading and drive loading actions. In other words, it means that one incorporates push actions with pull actions.

I would like to know how one can have pull and push actions working synergistically together in the same swing?

KOC - I used to swit, but now I am trying to become a "pure" swinger.

Jeff.

You are a learned and well spoken Golfgnome. Glad to hear from you.

I heard recently that the pros are always seeking a better way of getting the right side into their action and that for the most part their grips were strong on the left side.

Hey is "Hinger" in the book?

O.B.

Pull and then push or swing and then hit
 

It's ideal geometrically and physically for the "machine" to pull the club from the top, which optimizes the clubhead speed at impact, and push (the grip, or pp#3, to bend the shaft) at impact, which optimizes the ball speed at separation.

Both arms and hands can pull, and both arms and hands are needed to push (or bend the shaft against the clubhead and impact).

So, you can pull it fast (without running out of the right arm fold and right wrist bent) and set it up for a pushing-hard. Boom, you'll feel the ball jumps hard and see it goes far.

Good luck!

bts

You wrote-: "It's ideal geometrically and physically for the "machine" to pull the club from the top, which optimizes the clubhead speed at impact, and push (the grip, or pp#3, to bend the shaft) at impact, which optimizes the ball speed at separation".

This is the key point that needs debating. You are implying that a swinger needs to pull the club down to impact to generate clubhead speed. I agree.

However, you then argue that an additional push force is needed to push against PP#3 to stress the shaft at impact, thereby optimizing ball speed at separation. That's where I think that you are mistaken.

Ball speed is only a product of clubhead mass and clubhead speed at impact, and any additional pressure-force/weight pushing against the shaft at impact will not help increase ball speed. My reason for believing that fact is based on this myth-busting argument.

http://nmgolfscience.tripod.com/collisions.htm

The only factors that affect ball speed are i) clubhead mass, ii) clubhead velocity; iii) ball mass; and iv) CER.

Jeff.

I'll contribute to this argument. As a teacher I do not believe in switting. The player will have a dominate tendancy through impact. They will either feel more push or pull. If they feel more push they are hitting. I also agree with Jeff Hull the alignment of the machine is what's important. No matter if the player is hitting or swinging they must have their flying wedges in tact tracing a straight plane line with a hinge action that produces the desired shot.

What BTS describes is hitting.

Sorting Throught the Golf Nut's Catalog.

B-Ray