In the second post in this series I looked at how a connected modern swing built on a knowledge of how your body works eliminates the need to twist your forearms in the modern golf swing. (As a quick summary, the rotation of your lead shoulder while connected takes care of all the motion necessary to get your club face on plane, and does it pretty much automatically.) But it creates an even simpler motion in a classic-style swing, and that's what we're looking at today.
I say a 'classic-style swing' instead of just a classic swing because there are a number of swing variations being taught these days, both classic-style and modern-style. Some of these variations are starting to blur the differences between the two and, in my opinion, are better than either of the originals. Many of the old swing thoughts that clearly belonged to one original swing type or the other are not so clear anymore.
Let's look at the originals and then how they've evolved.
The original classic swing developed during the age of hickory, back when shafts couldn't take much stress before they flexed out of control. I think that's why two-plane swings originally developed -- the looping action at the top minimized the stress during the change of direction. Too much leg action created even more stress, so the focus was on the arm action -- the legs were often described as just "moving beneath" the player, as supports rather than power sources. Because of this, players often turned their hips a lot on the backswing.
The club was swung back and up, then looped down and around to create a path from the inside. (Typical swing thought:
Pull down and ring the bell.) In order to make room for this inside path, the hips needed to move toward the target. (Typical swing thought:
Slide your hips forward.) To facilitate a free-swinging arm action, the arms remained unconnected and players often didn't think much about proper leg action -- which often resulted in an over-the-top swing.
The classic swing evolved a bit when steel shafts took over, eliminating much of the looping at the top. Colin Montgomerie is a good example of that classic swing. There's not a lot of worry about bracing his trailing knee, and all of his hip action and arm swing look very loose and relaxed compared to the modern swing. The classic swing is typically an upright swing, with the hands carried very high.
In contrast, the original modern swing -- also a two-plane swing -- developed after steel shafts took over. Hogan's new connection technique was the real revolution here and, since the legs became the main power source and the arms were clearly the weakest link in the chain (hence connection, to help brace them), it lent itself to making a flatter swing.
At the top of the backswing, the legs drove hard toward the target and loaded the shaft. This motion dropped the hands to a lower inside plane but, since now the legs had to start the turn as well as get the hips out of the way of the inside path, the swing required a more complex lower body movement. (Typical swing thought:
Bump and turn.) The trailing leg had to be braced in order to start the downswing with a forceful move, and the hands went around rather than up and down. Ben Hogan is the original, of course.
For a long time instructors said you couldn't combine techniques from these two swings. But once people believe that something can't be done, it generally doesn't take long before someone figures out how to do it. Various versions of what we now call the one-plane swing were born.
And connection was the key. You see, with the upper arms connected to the chest during the downswing, the hips no longer got in the way. Now the hips only needed to move enough to create a good weight shift. And because of that, instructors found lots of new ways to blend the two swing methods. For just a couple of examples:
- Teachers like Jimmy Ballard continued to focus on the leg action but added enough arm power to keep the back straighter. This not only created a more natural throwing motion (remember my own swing thoughts about throwing Frisbees™ and hitting tennis backhands) but relieved some of the back stress caused by all that hip sliding and twisting. Like the original modern swing, this one is flatter and much more around.
- Likewise, teachers like Pete Cowen continued to focus on the arm action but added more leg drive to create more club head speed. Like the original classic swing, this one is much more upright and therefore more up and down. This is the one I want to focus on.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if many of you are using some combination of the two already without being aware of it. If you're having a lot of trouble with your swing, that could be the reason -- a bad combination of classic and modern swing techniques. The fact is, most instructors don't tell you which method they're using -- some of them may not even know themselves, they just know their swing method works. Unless you've taken lessons from a single teacher, you could have patched together some bits and pieces that weren't meant to be patched. (The method I use in
Stop Coming Over-the-Top and in any of my posts that don't say differently is similar to what Jimmy Ballard does -- primarily leg driven, but with a straighter back. I think I've mentioned that before.)
As a side note, it seems to me that the classic style is more common among the European and Asian players while the modern style is more common among American and Australian players. There are certainly exceptions -- for example, Stacy Lewis appears to have more of a classic swing while Graeme McDowell is more modern -- but overall that seems to be the case.
Anyway, for the rest of this post we're going to focus on the connected classic swing. All swings have an 'up and down' component and an 'around' component. For the time being we're going to ignore the 'around' part of the connected classic swing and focus on the 'up and down' part.
In yesterday's post I included a video of Steven Bann demonstrating that you don't have to twist your forearms to get your hands 'on plane' at the top of your backswing. I summed up the connected move this way:
From your address position, with your hands basically in front of your
belly button, your straight lead arm rotates at your shoulder and rolls
up the side of your chest where your lead tricep touches it. At the same
time, your trailing elbow bends and guides your lead arm so your lead
hand finishes just outside and above your trailing shoulder.
So on the way up your hands travel at an angle from in front of your belly button to above and outside your trailing shoulder. (Of course, in an actual swing you'd be turning your shoulders around at the same time. Your hands would reach the top of your backswing when you finished coiling your shoulders.) Your trailing arm disconnects briefly at the top so you can get more height.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just pull our hands straight back down to our address position in order to hit the ball? In this new connected classic swing, WE CAN!
Why couldn't we do it in the modern swing? It's because all the leg drive forces us to focus on the 'around' part of the swing. The swing is flatter so the hands don't move downward as much... and even then they're pulled down by the leg action.
In contrast, a classic swing is focused on the 'up and down' motion in the swing. Therefore, we can do more than just let our hands drop. Instead,
we can actively straighten our arms to get them back down to the address position! As our connected lead arm rolls back down the side of our chest on the downswing, we just pull our trailing arm down so it reconnects... and then we straighten the elbow of our now-connected trailing arm. As our shoulders return to our address position, our hands also return to their address position almost automatically.
And to get to our finish, we just let our lead elbow bend as our shoulders continue to turn toward the target. Our trailing arm, now straight, mirrors what our lead arm did on the backswing. Our hands finish above and just outside our lead shoulder.
In other words, our arms and hands -- when viewed without our shoulders turning -- basically move in a giant V shape in front of our torso. A very simple motion indeed, as shown in the following diagram. (For you lefties out there, the sequence is A-C-A-B where C becomes the top of the backswing and B becomes the top of the finish. Except for the labels, things didn't change enough to warrant two diagrams.)
Yeah, I know -- this is a very different way of thinking about arm motion during your swing. And you have to understand that
this description is specific to a connected classic swing -- it doesn't necessarily describe how the motion feels during a modern swing, for example, because of the dropping action that starts a modern swing's downswing.
I discovered this while changing my own modern swing to a more classic one, and it takes a little effort to get your mind around it. But it didn't take me long -- we're talking a matter of weeks here. And now my swing thought as I start down is simply to straighten my arms and hit the ball. You can really feel the lead arm rolling down into position!
When I first started experimenting with a classic swing, my biggest problem was finding the bottom of my swing because my trailing hand was uncocking too soon. (The classic swing is more upright, so the swing is longer.) This V-shape swing concept helped me get it straightened out.
If you want to experiment with it, I'd advise starting with slow half swings and move to slow full swings. Once you get there, the timing is extremely easy to get because the swing rhythm isn't complex -- just up and back, down and around.
But no matter whether you use a classic swing or a modern one -- an arm-powered one or a leg-powered swing -- you've got to stop twisting your forearms if you want to become more consistent in your game. Staying connected -- and letting that connection control the rotation at your lead shoulder -- is the path to more fairways and greens.
