Non-Traditional Golf Swing Discussion

I don't even understand that Venetos's video. What the hell is he advocating? You stand like a statue? In that case, what moves the club? Is his swing all arms and hands?

I like all of these. I'm a fan of not giving a crap about tradition if an alternative makes more sense. It's the same reason I switched to single length irons once I found out they existed - in my mind, it was an immediate "yep, that is a better way to do it" moment. Haven't looked back, and results have been great for me. Can't imagine why I'd ever play variable length irons again.

Watching some of the guys on tour, even successful guys, I see a lot of stuff I would not want to emulate. Lots of up/down movement, lots of lateral slide. Never made sense to me to add excessive movement into the swing.

For me, right now, I feel like I sit on a spot and don't move from it. I rotate without shifting my weight back significantly, then rotate back through without shifting my weight forward (since it never really went back.) Consistently of contact is excellent when I execute this, but the ol' habitual hip slide to start the downswing can creep in and sabotage my efforts.

Thanks for sharing.

ZWExton m a fan of not giving a crap about tradition if an alternative makes more sense

The only thing that matters is what happens at impact. The ideal ball trajectory and divot location is harder to accomplish using radically alternative swing methods.

pellmell The only thing that matters is what happens at impact.

THIS!! There are lots of ways to get the club back to the ball in the right position for correct impact - to each his/her own.

I have poor muscle memory and have no idea what I'm doing out there most of the time. My brother-in-law is big student of the swing, and he's always trying something different. He suggested I watch 1atomicgolf and I was watching some of his stuff before his DaVinci Code (which was Channel Lock's predecessor). JH is a hoot, as he often claims that " I can't hit it any better than that," but you usually can't see where the ball lands, so you have to take him at his word. I have tried Channel Lock, and since you play the ball back in your stance and come way inside, it might be easy to groove a swing, as you can't do too much else and still hit the ball. But I found I got about 1/3 pushes way too far right, 1/2 pretty good, and the rest were poor contact hitting too down too much along with the more than occasional duck hook. I found it much more effective with shorter clubs than longer -- to me, it wasn't at all helpful with driver.

I've tried a little of Count Yogi, who was a character and a half and taught a lot of stars back in Hollywood's golden age, and he preached playing the ball forward and swinging up the line. But as one of my swings often looks nothing like the preceding one or the next one, I get similar levels of success no matter what I try. Alas.

Sneakylong I've watched tons of JH's videos and he seems to be a really good guy, but he would try to demonstrate all these different swings and they all looked the same to me.
I remember one swing you HAD to do something. I believe it was bend the left arm straight up. I mean, this was the whole concept of the swing. I posted that in the video he didn't actually do it, his left arm was straight. He answered but it "feels" like I bend it. I didn't argue cause like I said he seems like a really good guy. He's in great shape to for 70+

I switched to the Brian Manzella swing. Back when he came to FGI, but before the discussions got too heated, I printed out an overview of his instructions and changed his left/right identifiers to back/fore so I could understand them as i am a lefty. Initially with my irons, it greatly reduced how often I sliced. I even use it with my woods and my driver. Although I may not get maximum distance from my driver, I will take 90% straighter and 240 from driver (I typically am at worst in the 1st cut of rough) over in the next fairway and 275 any day (which happened 3 times a round). I do have a hook come into play now, but I weaken my grip and that seems to work.

I also did a lot of drills from the little red book, though by now, I am not sure you can call them non traditionl.

ronin74 It's funny, he now says he was wrong all those years. He now advocates pulling the handle of the club up into you somewhere around impact,ifI remember. He's made it big since FGI, he now is often featured in Golf Magazine.

fatshot I think as we get older (I'll turn 73 in a couple of weeks), we sometimes need to re-examine our methods b/c the body can't do the same things it could when we were younger. I think some of these alternative methods help simplify the movements of the golf swing for those of us who because of age, flexibility, or declining athleticism can't hit it quite as well as we used to.

Yes!!!!

The Kirk Junge method at the top is the same single plane swing Moe Norman and Todd Graves teach/taught. Jerry Heard also taught a very similar method, except he set up with his weight already on his back foot, so the backswing had no weight shift, just the turning of hips and shoulders and cocking the wrists. I use the single plane method. Sadly, if you don't get to play or practice very much, any method of launching golf balls any significant distance relatively straight is difficult.

therod
I'm intrigued by Moe Norman! There are a few videos of him giving clinics and demonstrating his swing to be found on YouTube. He looks like a freakin' MACHINE! My only misgivings are the fact that I would have to bend way forward in order to extend my arms as he does, and I'm afraid of what that would do to my back (it's bad already!!).

fatshot To fully appreciate the Moe Norman method their are two technical details to address. Because the club is held in the palms, grips must be thick and lie angles adjusted upright.

therod I still have the VHS of "The Heard Super Swing", lol

pellmell

I have a regular buddy who went to the Todd Graves school (Moe Norman Natural Golf). He ordered his Callaway irons from them. Yep, big azz grips and upright like angles.

I like to see others succeed with different approaches, but I have not been disciplined (or perhaps interested) enough to practice to the point where I can get really good at any technique. Any way you can get the ball into the hole without cheating is fair game.

Single length is a hard concept for me to get my mind around. The reason is that when my swing is on, my contact with all irons seems to be good and my struggles are short game, and sometimes also driver related. Perhaps my swing would be "on" more often with most clubs being a single length, but at this stage in life, and knowing I won't put in the time, I'm just not really willing to experiment. Perhaps when my flexibility changes noticeably my mind will change on that.

I have experimented with most of these concepts and the problem with all of them is loss of distance. They all work better for high swing speed players.Moe Norman was the best ball striker of his time but a very short hitter.