For any golfer who wants to play great golf
Posts tagged Ben Hogan
30 Day No Swing Video Challenge
Feb 12th
Today was a very interesting day. I spent the afternoon with the Head Professional for Sterling Farms Golf Course, Rob LaRosa. I went there because I had just won a Project X driver shaft and I wanted to be fit so that I would know which shaft to get from them. The afternoon though evolved into much more than that.
The conversation turned to different teaching philosophies and the impact of technology on the way that golf is taught. Rob knows that I am a big fan of video analysis. I record and anlyze almost every day. And I have learned a lot of from it. Through the analysis I have learned a lot about the golf swing.
However, I think it has robbed me of feeling the swing. When you look at the PGA tour there are a number of players who achieved their early success and rise to the top as feel players, and who later lost that as they worked with much more technical and position oriented teachers.
We talked about the way the game has been taught recently, with the proliferation of video analysis and the impact that has had on the game. I think there are other players like me, who may have become too reliant on video analysis and reaching certain positions rather than playing the game by feel and understanding at the kinesthetic(mind body feeling) level what their body is doing.
Achieving left wrist supination in the golf swing (Drill)
Feb 1st
Ben Hogan was right that the best swings in the game have this supination action at impact. It allows the club to come into the ball square.
But many players do not fully understand how to achieve this supination. Here is how you can begin to get this feeling in your swing.
One of the most important things I have discovered about this supination is that it is NOT achieved by the wrists or the small muscles in the hands. The wrists are too weak to force this position and too weak to overcome the huge forces that the swing is generating. The way to achieve this supination is to use the large muscles of the body properly in the golf swing.
That sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it? Here is an image of the left wrist supinating, but you can’t force it to happen. You allow it to happen by doing the right things in the swing.
Was Hogan a swinger or a hitter?
Dec 20th
The Gotham Golf Blog has a very interesting post about Ben Hogan.
…Despite what most believe were early struggles in Ben Hogan’s career, here are some interesting stats:
In 292 career PGA Tour events, Ben Hogan finished in the Top 3 in 47.6-percent of them. He finished in the Top 10 in 241 of those 292 events.
The Magic Golf Swing of Ben Hogan
Dec 11th
I love this video. Ben Hogan’s swing is so classic and there is so much to learn from it. Even on his short swings watch how he generates lag and delivers the club to the ball. Just beautiful. Hogan’s swing is the best example of what I talk about in my book. He is efficient and was known for amazing accuracy and shot making.
He never looks like he swings hard but he always hits it solid. Very inspirational.
Ben Hogan helping with the OTT issue
Oct 1st
Today I had a very good ball striking and ended up hitting a lot of greens. Here’s what I did that I believe made a huge difference.
In “5 Lessons” Ben Hogan writes about keeping the left arm tight to the chest on the downswing.
So I started playing around with this. How tight do I keep it there? What’s the best way to do that?
One of the reasons I thought to do this was that I noticed on my OTT actual swings that the arms begin racing towards the ball. And I thought, hmm, if I keep my left arm tight to the chest as long as possible, then the arms can’t race ahead.
Hitting the ball with your entire body
Sep 13th
After a few days away from the game (10 actually) I went to the driving range today. Amazingly the swing thought of throwing the club down the range was still firmly ingrained and I was hitting some really good shots. I began to play around with a new swing thought to see what would happen.
1. The no shoulders swing.
As I’ve been documenting a battle with an OTT move I realized that the first thing that usually happens with an OTT move is that the shoulders turn before the hips do, sending the club over the top. So this thought went like this: don’t rotate the shoulders on the downswing. Now obviously you can’t not turn and still hit the golf ball. This thought does really force the hips and lower body to turn first. I had one swing with this thought that felt like the perfect swing. It was with the driver, the club I fight OTT with the most.
I hit one drive with this no shoulder swing, and the swing felt slow. At impact it felt like I hit the ball with my entire body, and even though the swing felt slow, the contact was completely solid. The ball sailed over the back fence at 240 yds. It seemed that it hit the apex just above the fence, and I have no idea how much further it carried but it was the best drive I had hit in some time. It was dead straight and it had an awesome trajectory. In Five lessons, Ben Hogan talks about hitting the ball with your entire body. I don’t think I had ever truly experienced that until this swing. It was pretty amazing and something I want to feel on every shot.
