One great thing about the golf journey is never knowing where your next epiphany is going to come from; in this series of articles and videos I’ll translate what I’ve learned from my latest epiphany in a way that will help my fellow golfers with their ball striking.
Click the picture above to see a video of me hitting 2 shots.
Namely, I will prove to you what the BEST, not “the only” way mind you, but the BEST way to move to hit a golf ball;
- By BEST, I mean the way to move that is the least stressful to the body, and
- the way that is most dependable in that no timing is required…instead of trying to time the sequence of movement of one body part versus another,
- I am informing you of an approach here that relies on innate reflexive movement for timing-free ball striking.
> Plus this BEST approach can be learned later in life; I started learning this approach at 57 years old…I am 60 now,
- and as you’ll see below, my club head speed with a 6-iron is that of the average PGA tour pro.
We’ll start out by explaining what you are seeing in the graph above before moving into more interesting territory.
Recently I visited my local certified Kinesiologist who has a side business focused on helping golfers with their movement.
My first session was a physical assessment to see where movement was limited plus hitting golf balls into a net with kinesiology sensors on body parts represented on the above graph to measure:
> sequence of movement of those body parts relative to each other [as you can see in the above screenshot from my Kinematic Sequence Report], and
> speed of movement in degrees per second;
- To explain, if I jumped up into the air and twisted my hips in a full circle [360 degrees] in one second then my hip speed would clock in at 360 degrees per second.
Sensors were placed on my:
> lower back to measure HIP movement as represented by the red line on the above graph,
> upper back to measure SHOULDER movement [green line],
> upper left [lead] arm [blue line], and
> back of the left wrist to measure hand and club movement [brownish line].
Now for breaking into more interesting territory; below is a marked up table from my Report with insights regarding;
> my “Hands Govern Hips” technique as learned from my mentor, Peter Croker, PGA-Australia,
Versus
> the mainstream “Hips Govern Hands” approach used by Tour Professionals because they were largely trained from an early age to move in this way.
The average Pro and I have the same sequence of movement, but the difference lies in how we achieve this movement;
> and understanding the details behind the differences between my-Croker “Hands Govern Hips” approach versus the mainstream “Hips Govern Hands” approach is the key to understanding how the Croker approach is the BEST approach for mere mortals:
- (Again) by BEST, I mean the way to move that is the least stressful to the body, and
- the way that is most dependable in that no timing is required…instead of trying to time the sequence of movement of one body part versus another,
- I am informing you of an approach here that relies on innate reflexive movement for timing-free ball striking.
There is absolute agreement between these 2 approaches in terms of the transition sequence;
> that is, hips first, shoulders second then arm(s) and finally the hands into impact.
But the mainstreamers insist it is intuitively-instinctively obvious therefore that in order to get this desired sequence requires the golfer to “fire the hips” first in transition and the other body parts will be PULLED along sequentially, with the hands being the last to be activated.
Further, the mainstreamers cite the benefits of the extra torsional “stretch” that occurs within this kinematic sequence that leads to more club head speed; it goes like this
> when the hips twist first, it creates a torque force and resultant “stretch” between the lagging torso and the hips,
> and when the torso stretch “snaps”, or fires, and gets pulled into action by the twisting hips, that action creates a torque force and resultant “stretch” between the lagging upper left arm and the torso,
> and when the upper left arm stretch “snaps” and gets pulled into action by the twisting torso, that creates a down-cocking “stretch” in the wrists as the wrist angle relative to the club shaft gets more acute.
> Ultimately all of that twisting, torqueing, stretching and snapping-firing and pulling builds one upon the other sequentially from largest muscle groups down to the smallest [from hips to hands] resulting in a lot of club head speed at impact…
- IF your body is young enough, or, if older, conditioned enough, to handle all of those forces on it.
- IF you start learning how to time all of these moving parts at a certain window in human development [like between 5 or 7 and 12 or 14 years old] when it is possible to learn to do such things as learning a new language, for instance.
Instead, I’m here with the good news that all of the above is totally unnecessary and that there is a body-friendly, timing-free way to hit the hell out of the ball to send it on a frozen rope toward your target – and to do so reliably even with minimal practice.
> how the hands react reflexively to the free momentum of the club head,
> and how the body reacts reflexively to the hands’ reactions to the club head’s momentum.
> In this way you will learn how to “simply hit the damn ball” using innate, in-born reflexive actions versus trying to time various phases of a swing.
In the 4-minute video clip below I show how the hands move the hips in timing-free fashion in more detail from our “Hitting The Damn Ball” Series – Part 1”,
> and how that reflexive hand action initiates a gentle and early hip opening action,
> that is, with NO twisting and NO stretching and NO snapping-firing…
- and no timing…
- …watch in the video clip how my hip starts opening automatically in response to my hands reacting to the free momentum of the club head.
Okay, I’ll wrap up here by planting the seed for Part 2 where I’ll get into a more detailed, yet practical, comparison at various phases of the mainstream golf swing versus my Croker golf swing.
So, just take a look at these relatively naked graphs of the Kinematic Sequence graphs of both of these swing techniques and see if you can notice some differences.
Again, I’ll present marked up versions of these graphs for discussion in Part 2 of this video and written series comparing and contrasting the mainstream “Hips Move Hands” technique versus my “Hands Move Hips” technique.
Tour Pro Model Kinematic Sequence Graph from K-Motion.com
Ted’s Kinematic Sequence Graph
Yours in better ball striking through maximum ball compression,
Ted Williams, Certified Instructor – Croker Golf System
Feel free to write me with any comments or questions; TWilliams@MyGolfingStore.com
