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Hogans inside elbows

Farquod

Short Game Tragedy
Mar 8, 2005
1,165
0
dave. said:
There aren't many videos of Hogan available,I have 4 of them and it does shoe his right elbow cup pointing skywards,so I do disagree with the last post

Here are two pics of his setup that I found. You're right, dave, they ain't common. However--to me--these setup shots look nothing like that drawing in 5 Lessons where his arms are roped together at setup. His elbows are nowhere near as inside his body and up as is shown in that illustration.

JMO
BH2031.jpg
hogan sequence.jpg
 

Augster

Rules Nerd
Supporting Member
Mar 9, 2005
1,473
23
Ah yes, the cure in a book written in 1947!

The elbows pointing up is one of the hardest things to get used to for me. At least, it was until I saw the results. The next toughest is getting the knees to bend in. It is so totally different than my old setup.

Just FYI, Hogan never says anything about stringing your arms together like in the "bands" drawing on page 49.

He writes, "A word of emphasis about the elbows. You want to press them as closely together as you can. When you do this (and the elbows are pointing properly to the hipbones) you will notice that the "pocket" of each elbow - the small depression on the inside of the joint - will lie in the center of the arm, at the midway point. The pockets will be facing toward the sky, as they should, not toward the other. It's a good check. In this position of address, though the left arm hangs relatively straight, the right arm should be broken a little at the elbow as the elbow points in. On the backswing this right elbow must not fly out, and only if it is correctly positioned at address will it be able to fold in close to the body."

Page 48 is just gold from top to bottom. Hogan spends 3 pages talking about, and showing drawings of the elbows pointing to the hips and the elbow "cups" pointing toward the sky. I think he felt it was important.

Glad you are finding it Dave!

EVERYTHING about a good, repeatable golf swing is in that book. And it's an incredibly fast read, so if you get out of sorts, it's a great book to go back and skim to find out what you are doing wrong and correct it.
 

Eracer

No more triple bogies!!
Oct 31, 2005
12,405
8
I must be stupid. I still don't understand why it's a positive thing to introduce tension into your shoulders at address.

Try it. With a club in your hands at address, rotate your forearms until the elbows point out away from your body. the ONLY way to do is to bend your arms at the elbows, and the only way to do that is to tense your shoulders. Tension bad.

Now, try to point your elbows in towards your hips. the ONLY way to do that is to pull your arms into your chest by contracting the shoulders downward. Again, tension.

I know Hogan was great. I love the book. It's taught me a lot. But the "elbows to the hips with banded arms thing"?

Sorry. Just let the arms hang in their natural position and swing the clubhead.
 

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast

Deep in thought
Sep 6, 2005
1,189
0
Eracer said:
I must be stupid. I still don't understand why it's a positive thing to introduce tension into your shoulders at address.

Try it. With a club in your hands at address, rotate your forearms until the elbows point out away from your body. the ONLY way to do is to bend your arms at the elbows, and the only way to do that is to tense your shoulders. Tension bad.

Now, try to point your elbows in towards your hips. the ONLY way to do that is to pull your arms into your chest by contracting the shoulders downward. Again, tension.

I know Hogan was great. I love the book. It's taught me a lot. But the "elbows to the hips with banded arms thing"?

Sorry. Just let the arms hang in their natural position and swing the clubhead.
Not all tension = bad tension :)

Not dealing with the full swing, but with my putting stroke, I discovered I had to increase the amount of grip pressure as the best way to lock my wrists into place, and let the putting stroke achieve a consistent pendulum action driven by my shoulders. Ah ha! I found that a little bit of intended tension was just the thing.

Of course, it's up to everyone to find what they are comfortable with, but if you use Hogan's idea of the elbows, you can eliminate some bad possibilities like a flying right elbow. Doing the elbows this way means you would have to do some awful stuff to get above the shoulder plane, it pretty well guarantees that you'll stay below the shoulder plane. It's eliminates more bad variables than anything, and the tension that introduces to the shoulders is perfectly acceptable.
 

Farquod

Short Game Tragedy
Mar 8, 2005
1,165
0
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast said:
Of course, it's up to everyone to find what they are comfortable with, but if you use Hogan's idea of the elbows, you can eliminate some bad possibilities like a flying right elbow.

Hitch, I had this whole long explanation written up last night that I trashed for several reasons, but I think you got it in a sentence. I also think that minimizing separation of the arms from the body was his point, in particular making sure that your right elbow is "connected" with your right hip on the downswing.

The issue I have with that section is simply the phrase, "A word about the elbows. You want to press them together as close as you can." To me, as Eracer points out, this can be a very forced affair, and depending on your body type, produces a variety of results. I can almost touch my elbows together over my chest, but I can't swing a golf club that way.

Instead, I used the pics on 51 as a guide, which look much more like the pics I've seen of Hogan at setup. The "dynamic tension" is there, but no awkwardness.

I know people like to take Hogan literally and as gospel, but unless you have exactly his body type and tendencies, his positions can require some adjustments, IMO. For my money, this is the most illustrative instance of this in 5 Lessons.

In my case, my left arm is fully rotated, as suggested by the drawings on 49, which forces me to keep it straight through impact, so long as I get my left side through. The inside pocket (read antecubital area) of my right elbow also points outward, but at about a 45* angle, and is tight to my right hip. Again, this allows me to swing through with both arms "as hard as I can," while still remaining connected to my body, and taking the "flying elbow" out of the picture. But that right antecubital area is neither "up to the sky" nor pointing at my left arm. It's somewhere in-between.

For me, it's kinda like what Penick wrote. "When I ask you to take an aspirin, please don't take the whole bottle."
 

Pa Jayhawk

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2005
7,196
62
Country
United States United States
Since coming back from vacation, this was one of the things I used on the course today. Truly amazing how it helped. A few weeks ago I felt like I turned the corner and am playing equal to what I did a few years ago. In large part I think this is due to re-reading 5 fundamentals. I never understood this part of the book. I really feel that it helped my short irons, allowed for crisp contact in my mid irons and probably more in my full wedge shots than any other, and further helped controlling my over swinging of my driver, which has been my key concentration the last few weeks. I will have to video tape my swing in the next few days, but this seems to help in not letting my left arm break down.
 

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