I need some help

[Pa Jayhawk]

Switch to a Jim Hardy one plane swing and never worry about "releasing" your hands again. You merely turn around your spine while more bent over and RELEASE your arms ( hands merely hold the club). Boom, straight high shots all day long. Easy as can be.


I think I forgot to mention making the change from my old swing to this new swing took about a year. But still happy with it because I know tempo and timing problems will never be an issue for my long game ever again.

At least to me, it would seem the second part of your statement contradicts the first. IMO, with proper mechanics of any reasonable swing you would never have to worry about proper release as it will just happen naturally assuming you use proper mechanics.

I guess my question would be, why did it take about a year to learn if everything just falls into place naturally. It only took me a week or so to learn proper release mechanics once I knew what it meant, why would I want to spend a year learning a new swing for the sake of not wanting to learn proper release? Not say a one plane swing is a bad thing, as mine more closely resembles one-plane, however to say you don't have to worry about mechanics of a release on a one-plane swing is unnecessary if the rest of your swing is correct could be said about a two-plane swing as well.

Maybe I am missing something, but to me the release on either seems to be roughly the same, and occurs after the transition/non-transition of planes on either of the swings.

 

[LottaBalata]

I've added 15+ yards to my iron game by incorporating a proper release, which I thought I already had.

I think the term "release" is misleading, because you shouldn't be holding the club in any restrictive way that you would have to make an effort to "release" it.

First of all, make sure you are rotating in your swing. It's entirely possible to hit the ball straight and fairly far with an arm swing, but your hands will NOT turn over naturally if you do this. Make sure you are turning around your spine, and that your left shoulder ends up in front of you, AND that your right shoulder ends up behind you. Rotate!

Secondly, stop trying to use your hands. When you first adopt a true rotational swing, you will probably hit make hooks. This is because your hands are still too active. When you rotate, AND you're handsy, you will turn the club over twice, technically.

When you are at address, the club should be square to your target line without any effort in manipulating the club. So if you swing around yourself and don't overuse your hands, you will return you this position; that is, the position if your left hand facing the target, and the clubface being square.

LOOSEN YOUR GRIP. When you turn back, have the toe of the club facing the sky at hip height (did PaJayhawk post this recently? Someone did.). After that, just let things happen. Your wrists will hinge naturally at the top of the downswing. Start your swing with your hips as you should, letting your shoulders and arms follow, NATURALLY. Your hands and clubhead should be the last thing through, and if you keep your rotation going, the clubface will be close to, if not square, at impact.

Problems you may find when you start ingraining this feel are:

a) The hook. Take some slow practice swings and get a feel for how softly to hold the club. All you want to do is hold it, not manipulate it. You will turn the club over with your body rotation.

b) The push. This occurs when your hands are appropriately quiet, but you do not rotate fully. Ideally, you will come from the inside, to square, then back to the inside. If you fail to rotate through impact, you will go inside, almost square, outside. This pushes the ball out to the right.

If these are your only two real mistakes, you're on the right track. Just use 3-4 continuous rotations in the form of practice swings to get the groove in before a swing. Think "Gentle grip, no hands, full rotation." You'll find that your finishing position becomes picturesque by accident- as it should be.

Thanks Silver for the help and info. About my swing. . .I have good rotation back with my shoulders and then forward with my hips. I actually have a great looking swing--excuse me--practice swing! I tend to push a lot. I also grip the clubs WAY TOO tight. I worked on making a conscious effort to not try and kill the bird I was holding. . .I also understand the word release can be misleading. But I did have to make an effort to follow thru completely with my rotation (did that make sense?). My distance on my irons was a bit longer today, and I had a few decent driver swings.

Switch to a Jim Hardy one plane swing and never worry about "releasing" your hands again. You merely turn around your spine while more bent over and RELEASE your arms ( hands merely hold the club). Boom, straight high shots all day long. Easy as can be.


I think I forgot to mention making the change from my old swing to this new swing took about a year. But still happy with it because I know tempo and timing problems will never be an issue for my long game ever again.

I'm 36, I'm not going to try and switch my swing. I have a decent swing, I merely need to make sure everything is done properly.

 

[JasonMacIsaac]

A firm left hand grip will cause a bigger cut. The best way to learn to release the club is to get an old tire, make it so the back of the tire in slighty back in your stance and beat the living hell out of it, try to hit it as hard as possible and as far as possible. Then grab your club and hit the ball, I guarenteed it will go atleast 10 yards farther after doing this drill for 10 minutes.

Use an old club btw, when at the course there is high grass off the first hole, I find the thickest grass and swing hard through it, vijay also uses this drill only he hits balls from the grass.

 

[Res Ipsa]

At least to me, it would seem the second part of your statement contradicts the first. IMO, with proper mechanics of any reasonable swing you would never have to worry about proper release as it will just happen naturally assuming you use proper mechanics.

I guess my question would be, why did it take about a year to learn if everything just falls into place naturally. It only took me a week or so to learn proper release mechanics once I knew what it meant, why would I want to spend a year learning a new swing for the sake of not wanting to learn proper release? Not say a one plane swing is a bad thing, as mine more closely resembles one-plane, however to say you don't have to worry about mechanics of a release on a one-plane swing is unnecessary if the rest of your swing is correct could be said about a two-plane swing as well.

Maybe I am missing something, but to me the release on either seems to be roughly the same, and occurs after the transition/non-transition of planes on either of the swings.

You wonder why it took me a year to completely overhall my swing ,switching to a OP swing? I didn't just change one thing. I changed everything about my entire swing.

I never said it fell into place naturally. It took me a year to learn. My layman's opinion is a OPS is harder to learn but easier to maintain and easier on the body. Thats why I underwent the major overhaul.

As for your last point the release in a tradional golf swing and in Jim Hardy's version of the OPS are completely different. His OP release is done soley with the arms and starts as soon as you start the downswing. Thats the beauty of it you can't release too fast or too hard if you have the proper movements ingrained.

This isn't an infomercial or an argument. I was board at work and thought I'd post what I thought was funny.
My subtle point was he could forgoe learning the proper release for his swing and learn a new type of swing. The new swing of course being much more difficult and time consuming.
I guess it wasn't funny.

 

[dave.]

Res

I use that type of swing, but it isn't new, Hogan started it Hardy gets a bit more complicated with all the alligator arm stuff but I get the overall concept. nice you learn to leave the wrists out of your swing, and rotate hard through the ball, you can become much more powerful. Its my key swing though, never stop turning, hence why I have gone to heavier shafts.

PA, the face being slightly closed at parallel is ops thing, I still use the old fashioned method, toe points upwards. The theory is with Hardy and others is that you can keep the toe closed as long as you want, and for that matter you can swing as hard as you want with the arms coming down, that doesn't matter either, but thats where I part company with his theories.

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

His OP release is done soley with the arms and starts as soon as you start the downswing. Thats the beauty of it you can't release too fast or too hard if you have the proper movements ingrained.

This isn't an infomercial or an argument. I was board at work and thought I'd post what I thought was funny.
My subtle point was he could forgoe learning the proper release for his swing and learn a new type of swing. The new swing of course being much more difficult and time consuming.
I guess it wasn't funny.

Thanks, I guess my point of confusion was that I am sure you had reason for why this held true, but without having really studied Hardy's philosophy, but more just some of the philosophy's of a one plane swing and probably more from a perspective of Hogan. From what I have seen I honestly didn't know how this pertained to the topic of release.

I guess it was more out of interest in having you support that theory to understand why it was true, because while it may be apparent from one that follows Hardy's philosophy, from an outside perspective, or even from my own (and having a swing that more closely resembles one plane) I don't see that as just coming natural with the swing.

I say this because my swing just naturally kind of transitioned from what I learned in two planes to One Plane, and in that time frame I had some serious control and feel issues that were closely related to the manner in which your release the club on a one plane swing. I think my description was that in the transition "It felt like I had rocks in my hands" So again, if you know and use the proper mechanics of Hardy's swing philosophy, you may naturally release the club, however I can assure you that you still need to know how to release. It is just part of his philosophy on his swing as a whole. For which I did not see anything to support why this stood true and did not feel based on my own experience that "swinging more around your torso" naturally fixed this issue.

I still see a lot of people that swing on one plane, and my included on occasion, that do not properly release the club. I guess what I could say is that from my experience I also switched from a interlock grip to an overlap grip because I thought it felt more natural in my release. However I am not about to argue that someone should change to this for that reason. I know with my swing, that is the case because I can feel it when I swing the club. I am also sure there is a reason for this, but without knowing the entire reason I would be hard pressed to argue the point even though I know it is true for my swing. I am sure someone who has spent more time studying the philosophies of different grip may be able provide adequate support as to why this holds true. Even though that someone is not mean, it doesn't mean I would not love to hear the philosophy on how it pertains to the topic at hand.

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

PA, the face being slightly closed at parallel is ops thing, I still use the old fashioned method, toe points upwards.

Although I think it was discussed in the other thread, I think a lot who swing on 2 planes do this as well. While I do not profess to know them all, I believe the one I quoted in Nicklaus would provide support to this theory.

 

[Eracer]

Thanks, I guess my point of confusion was that I am sure you had reason for why this held true, but without having really studied Hardy's philosophy, but more just some of the philosophy's of a one plane swing and probably more from a perspective of Hogan. From what I have seen I honestly didn't know how this pertained to the topic of release.

I guess it was more out of interest in having you support that theory to understand why it was true, because while it may be apparent from one that follows Hardy's philosophy, from an outside perspective, or even from my own (and having a swing that more closely resembles one plane) I don't see that as just coming natural with the swing.

I say this because my swing just naturally kind of transitioned from what I learned in two planes to One Plane, and in that time frame I had some serious control and feel issues that were closely related to the manner in which your release the club on a one plane swing. I think my description was that in the transition "It felt like I had rocks in my hands" So again, if you know and use the proper mechanics of Hardy's swing philosophy, you may naturally release the club, however I can assure you that you still need to know how to release. It is just part of his philosophy on his swing as a whole. For which I did not see anything to support why this stood true and did not feel based on my own experience that "swinging more around your torso" naturally fixed this issue.

I still see a lot of people that swing on one plane, and my included on occasion, that do not properly release the club. I guess what I could say is that from my experience I also switched from a interlock grip to an overlap grip because I thought it felt more natural in my release. However I am not about to argue that someone should change to this for that reason. I know with my swing, that is the case because I can feel it when I swing the club. I am also sure there is a reason for this, but without knowing the entire reason I would be hard pressed to argue the point even though I know it is true for my swing. I am sure someone who has spent more time studying the philosophies of different grip may be able provide adequate support as to why this holds true. Even though that someone is not mean, it doesn't mean I would not love to hear the philosophy on how it pertains to the topic at hand.

Whew! I'm exhausted...

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

Whew! I'm exhausted...

I know, I have that effect on people. I guess I could have just as easily said:

"If you want to make a statement like that, you have to provide support"

However in doing so I probably would both come off insulting and may never hear the logic behind the reasoning, which even if I don't follow it doesn't mean I don't want to hear. I leave the short winded ones to dave., then throw in a few smilies for good measure.

 

[eclark53520]

Whew! I'm exhausted...

His keyboard takes these unruly beatings on a regular basis!

I have a feeling PA was one of those people in school that when told to write a 3 page essay he would turn in a 300 page novel...god i hated people like that in school...just made me look bad...

But i am no longer in highschool, so much love PA!

/threadjack

I just swing the club...i feel that making small changes to my natural swing is much less confusing and i dont get nearly as frustrated as trying to "overhaul" my swing. If i were tryign to win tournaments/money i might try to overhaul something if need be, but i doubt it

 

[Eracer]

His keyboard takes these unruly beatings on a regular basis!

I have a feeling PA was one of those people in school that when told to write a 3 page essay he would turn in a 300 page novel...god i hated people like that in school...just made me look bad...

But i am no longer in highschool, so much love PA!

/threadjack

I just swing the club...i feel that making small changes to my natural swing is much less confusing and i dont get nearly as frustrated as trying to "overhaul" my swing. If i were tryign to win tournaments/money i might try to overhaul something if need be, but i doubt it

I'm a lot like PA. I want to make sure that people fully understand EXACTLY what I'm trying to say, and I usually let my first draft stand, believing that stream of consciousness writing is often the best way to communicate the essence of one's thoughts.

See what I mean!

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

I have a feeling PA was one of those people in school that when told to write a 3 page essay he would turn in a 300 page novel...god i hated people like that in school...just made me look bad...

Naw, I was more the math and sciences type. Perfect 800 in math for the SAT's, 360 in English.

Unfortunately we didn't have access to home PC's in my day, or I could have just programmed them to doing the writing, spelling and grammar for me. Probably just that way because when you work on PC's all day for about 25 years you learn to type about 60-100 WPM, so I still likely spend about 1/3 of the time typing.

If I had to hand write all this crap that comes out of my head, you would be lucky to see one or two 10 word posts a day and probably wouldn't be able to read them without first consulting 6 physicians.

 

[eclark53520]

Naw, I was more the math and sciences type. Perfect 800 in math for the SAT's, 360 in English.

Unfortunately we didn't have access to home PC's in my day, or I could have just programmed them to doing the writing, spelling and grammar for me. Probably just that way because when you work on PC's all day for about 25 years you learn to type about 60-100 WPM, so I still likely spend about 1/3 of the time typing.

If I had to hand write all this crap that comes out of my head, you would be lucky to see one or two 10 word posts a day and probably wouldn't be able to read them without first consulting 6 physicians.

Amen to that, i am just about the same....hate english, love math, science(especially physics) and also work on computers all day long AND my handwriting looks like i had a epeleptic seizure with a sharpie

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

Just to make sure there is clarity on what is meant by the clubface position I mention being "closed" at parrallel, here is a great example, where they actually show the stop position at parrallel from both behind and beside. I think the just of the video also supports what I wanted to say, in that the initial proper swing mechanics may determine the fate of swing, or in this case the release. Again, I don't know how many instructional clips I have seen that stress what I quoted from Nicklaus, or what he shows in this video. It is also a good process that can be checked in preshot routine, without cluttering your mind with to much "Swing Thought"

YouTube - Jack Nicklaus swing tip (1 of 8)

 

[Eracer]

Amen to that, i am just about the same....hate english, love math, science(especially physics) and also work on computers all day long AND my handwriting looks like i had a epeleptic seizure with a sharpie

Lets talk Schrodinger. What do you know?