Percy Boomer clarification needed

[galanga]

Started reading Percy Boomer's book - On Learning Golf. Really enjoying this book - great read. Noticed his set up is essentially the same as Hogan's - Braced up on the left side, left side straight, right side bent, elbows in, etc.

I am a habitual pull drawer of the ball - at least that is the ball flight and I am having the devil of a time fixing it.

Imagine my suprise to read in Boomer's book (in The Controlled Golf Swing chapter) that "The best swing, mechanically, is the one that pulls the ball a little and then makes it turn a bit to the left at the end of its flight..."

What is meant by this? Does he mean it is desirable or that the ball is hit the furthest this way so is more mechanically efficient? I know Snead and Goosen play this way, but is it what you should really play for?

 

[MizunoJoe]

"Pull" in Boomer's vocabulary means "draw", and not a pull in our meaning of the word. He advocates an in-to-out feel of the clubhead to get this right-to-left flight.

 

[diggerdog]

I feel your pain. I am making slow progress with the same affliction. Here is a good swing study. Swing a club slowly to the top and STOP, looking at nothing but the shaft and where it is pointing, hopefullly along the ball-to-targetline. Now, without looking or thinking of anything else, make sure the very frist movement of the clubshaft goes immediately dead straight in the direction the shaft is pointing at the top. Norwwood calls it a chuck out of the right elbow. Sometimes I feel the right elbow as the instigator of this move, sometimes it feels like a right shoulder move, and sometimes a right hip motion. Go to single axis website and do a search of a post called trail side compression. In my case with a 3 quarter max backswing, (former muscle-bound 41 year old endormorph)the grip end points somewhere towards 2:30 with straight ahead being 12. The freaky thing initially for me was that the direction of moving the shaft was away form the ball, not to it. Another mental image is take your stance with a 7 iron, and imagine it is a zebco 33 rod and reel. You take the club to the top and prepare to "cast" the line at a man standing directly on your toe line behind you about 30 yards. While looking at the ball, cast the lure to the man behind you while swinging down to the ball at the same time. Sounds crazy, and probably hasen't been explained well, but has been a miracle. Funny story how i came across this image. Good luck. Be patient, be relentless, get Brian's Never slice Again. The same cure he prescribes for fixing a slice will also cure the pulls, which are its first cousin.

 

[galanga]

Interesting enough my instructor used the casting analogy to me in my last lesson - we are both fly fishing nuts.

Feels very odd, but on video looks dead perfect.

That is going to be a tough move to engrain as it seems contrary to everything I have thought I knew about casting the club. I tend to keep everything tight together on the downswing, so any move outward witht he club freaks me.

What makes it particularly tough is that I mix in dead right pushes with the pulls which is the opposite problem or close. True army stuff.

Will continue with the diligence.

 

[DDL]

Thanks digger for the description and explanation of drag loading. I had always read and heard that one is supposed to pull the buttend of the club towards the ball. However, I suspected that the rope pull/swing technique consisted of pulling the buttend in the direction the shaft was pointing, at the plane line for a longitudinal pull. Pulling at the ball from the top would be a radial pull...not good for swinging. Thanks for the clear up.

 

[Squishband]

Here is a good thought or two to ponder as well...

Feel like you are pulling the shaft lengthwise out of the clubhead... Gregg McHatton
Feel like you are stretching the shaft behind you... Squishband tm LOL

Gregg also says... The golfer need NOT assist the clubhead to get to the ball AT ALL!
http://www.golfresearch.com/blobtest/front2.html

 

[ryantiff]

"Pulling at the ball from the top would be a radial pull...not good for swinging"

Confusion: from the top, straight line delivery path to the ball, I am pulling at the ball, direct by #3 PP and right forearm.

This contradict with the above statement.

 

[galanga]

After further reading of the book, I find Mizunojoe is right, a pull in Boomer lingo is a draw in Yank lingo. Pulling the ball back towards the target or towards oneself.

I am getting more benefits from the pyschological theory in the book than most anything else. The building up of "controls" which are a set of ingrained feels of a good swing. These controls are intended to insulate you from your hairwire emotions. You focus on your controls or feels and perform those with secondary interest on the target and ball. And, his Bogey No 1 idea being that the biggest faults of average golfers are going directly at the target, being an "end-gainer" (i.e., worried about the result), and hitting at the ball. He wants you to build up the feel that an inside out path through the ball sends the ball to the area you aligned to and to overcome the innate urge to go right at the target. He wants the inside out path, with square face and to swing as if the ball were invisible. Of course, this is for normal shots and not ones you need to fade or otherwise work in special ways for special circumstances.

Works great in practice, will see if it works in a tournie starting tomorrow.

Recommend the book.

 

[DDL]

quote:Originally posted by ryantiff

"Pulling at the ball from the top would be a radial pull...not good for swinging"

Confusion: from the top, straight line delivery path to the ball, I am pulling at the ball, direct by #3 PP and right forearm.

This contradict with the above statement.

Iam hoping an AI, or one that plays one on TV would confirm or deny this. But the longitudinal rope pull technique, I interpret as pulling on the clushaft at the target or plane line where the clubshaft is pointing to. If the clubshaft is pointing to the right of the ball, then pulling directly at the ball would not be pulling lengthwise on the shaft, but radially. Unless of course the clubshaft is pointing directly at the ball at the end of the backstroke.

Since diggerdog personally trained with Yoda, I assume what he described is correct.

 

[6bee1dee]

quote:Originally posted by DDL

quote:Originally posted by ryantiff

"Pulling at the ball from the top would be a radial pull...not good for swinging"

Confusion: from the top, straight line delivery path to the ball, I am pulling at the ball, direct by #3 PP and right forearm.

This contradict with the above statement.

Iam hoping an AI, or one that plays one on TV would confirm or deny this. But the longitudinal rope pull technique, I interpret as pulling on the clushaft at the target or plane line where the clubshaft is pointing to. If the clubshaft is pointing to the right of the ball, then pulling directly at the ball would not be pulling lengthwise on the shaft, but radially. Unless of course the clubshaft is pointing directly at the ball at the end of the backstroke.

Since diggerdog personally trained with Yoda, I assume what he described is correct.

I don't understand why after a few lessons with Yoda that diggerdog with his built and backswing is pulling anything. He should be pushing with those muscles. His 3/4 backswing is already in line to push into the ball. The first move should be to drive his right shoulder and weild the clubhead into the back inside of the ball hard. Throw the spin rod away in my humble opinion.