Raising the left heel

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Lifter

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counterfall said:
Tiger's flying left elbow in the follow through is really ugly. It looks like he is holding off a hook in that swing. Maybe he was trying for a fade? I personally liked Tiger's swing a lot right after he came back from his knee injury. I think he had trained that violent knee-snapping move out of the downswing and it helped his sequencing at first. An example of that swing can be seen at golf.com:
Tiger Woods Swing Sequence - 8 - Photos - Golf.com

I think he somehow ruined Hank's swing ideas with over-application of Hank's plane philosophy by flattening it TOO much after this point. Tiger's closed-hip squat and lower back arching in transition is unique and dynamic but it killed him when he overcooked those moves.

The Foley swing is probably too rotary for Tiger's tendencies and he may have trouble with it for some time to come. It seems like Tiger's version of the swing looks the closest to what Foley tries to teach compared to Mahan's version of the swing. Or to put it another way, Tiger's swing is more of a ground up rebuild and less of a simple incorporation of the Foley ideas compared to Mahan. His brain is probably dying to perform a down-the-line release as opposed to what he is trying to do now
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I very much disagree with this analysis. I think that, prior to 2009, Tiger was very rotary with his swing his entire career. He had some of the fastest hip rotation in the game, resulting in his knee snap. Haney destroyed this release that won 14 majors by getting him to swing more down his line in 2009. Yes, Haney did reduce stress on Tiger's knee. However, in the process, he destroyed Tiger's rapid hip rotation that made him the most dominant golfer the game has ever seen.

We've seen that Foley is working to get Tiger to swing more left after impact. Hopefully he's working to get the hips to rotate more as well.

In the link below, Ralph Perez at Gotham Golf has some great observations about Tiger's left knee:

Gotham Golf Blog: Tiger Woods, the knee and his swing evolution

Two of the best things Perez says are:

"He use to play to win, left nothing in the bag and focused on scoring. His attitude was, "F...K the knee, I'm winning this tournament and we'll worry about the knee later". Not a bad approach if your goal is to be the greatest ever."

And:

"[Dean] Smith will go down in history as the only man that ever stopped Michael Jordan. The analogy here is that trying to restrict Tiger's lower body motion would be the equivalent of what Smith did to Jordan."
 
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Kevin Shields

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Lifter, if swinging more left is the goal, whats up with that backswing? Thats the furthest thing in the world you would do to help someone....anyone , swing more left.
 
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Lifter

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Kevin, I'm not sure I grasp what you're saying. We know that Haney made big changes to Tiger's backswing in 2009 and especially in 2010, which got him more laid off among other things and down the line post-impact (see this June 2009 Golf Digest article). It's not clear to me what backswing changes Foley himself has introduced that make it more difficult for Tiger to swing left post-impact. Maybe someone with more detailed knowledge of these things could explain.
 
lia41985

lia41985

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spmurph said:
Is there a subset of golfers who would benefit from a restricted hip turn? If so, who would they be?
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Perhaps a subset that sucks the club inside going back and then swings too far right going down may benefit with more of an up the ball, hip slide, rather than turn, feel going back.
 
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spmurph

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I guess I should have meant "minimal" hip turn. Jhonattan Vegas comes to mind.

Reason I asked is because I have been working on my biomechanics and the one difference I noticed is that now my core stretches and turns my torso. It feels like I am turning against my hips. Before, I felt more like the movement came from my hip sockets. The new move feels like the pressure is lifted off my left heel and allows me to use the "step on the left foot" to power the downswing.
 
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DOCW3

New
>>The lean left and his natural squat downswing do not and cannot match up<<

He will not find it "in the dirt!"
 
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Kevin Shields

Super Moderator
Lifter said:
Kevin, I'm not sure I grasp what you're saying. We know that Haney made big changes to Tiger's backswing in 2009 and especially in 2010, which got him more laid off among other things and down the line post-impact (see this June 2009 Golf Digest article). It's not clear to me what backswing changes Foley himself has introduced that make it more difficult for Tiger to swing left post-impact. Maybe someone with more detailed knowledge of these things could explain.
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I may not have detailed knowledge of these things but I do have a working pair of eyes so I'll take a crack at it. Weight forward, steep shoulders, in hands. But im not there, only watching. Im with Brian, we should let it play out a while. But i watched the Tavistock cup and still see popped up 3 woods and loose drivers.
 
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Lifter

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Kevin Shields said:
I may not have detailed knowledge of these things but I do have a working pair of eyes so I'll take a crack at it. Weight forward, steep shoulders, in hands. But im not there, only watching. Im with Brian, we should let it play out a while. But i watched the Tavistock cup and still see popped up 3 woods and loose drivers.
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I dunno, Kevin, it seems to me that both Hunter Mahan and Alvaro Quiros are examples of players with weight forward, steep shoulders and in hands. But they both seem to have no problem swinging left post-impact. See this SwingVision of Hunter Mahan below:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/A8lKDe9Aclw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
counterfall

counterfall

New
Lifter said:
I very much disagree with this analysis. I think that, prior to 2009, Tiger was very rotary with his swing his entire career. He had some of the fastest hip rotation in the game, resulting in his knee snap. Haney destroyed this release that won 14 majors by getting him to swing more down his line in 2009. Yes, Haney did reduce stress on Tiger's knee. However, in the process, he destroyed Tiger's rapid hip rotation that made him the most dominant golfer the game has ever seen.

We've seen that Foley is working to get Tiger to swing more left after impact. Hopefully he's working to get the hips to rotate more as well.

In the link below, Ralph Perez at Gotham Golf has some great observations about Tiger's left knee:

Gotham Golf Blog: Tiger Woods, the knee and his swing evolution

Two of the best things Perez says are:

"He use to play to win, left nothing in the bag and focused on scoring. His attitude was, "F...K the knee, I'm winning this tournament and we'll worry about the knee later". Not a bad approach if your goal is to be the greatest ever."

And:

"[Dean] Smith will go down in history as the only man that ever stopped Michael Jordan. The analogy here is that trying to restrict Tiger's lower body motion would be the equivalent of what Smith did to Jordan."
Click to expand...

That is all fine IF one is willing to continue saying "F...K the knee". I don't believe that Tiger wants to deal with that again (and the potentially shortened career) based on trying to move away from the knee snapping after the surgery. He also had more weight toward his left heel instead of on his toes at impact which moved the rotational torque away from his knee to his glute muscles/ hip joint where it belongs. Unfortunately, the knee joint structure cannot sustain chronic, excessive rotational forces. It's only function is to bend and straighten the leg in a single plane of motion.
However, Tiger is now getting back to being on his left toe at impact as seen the past couple days. He is also complaining of knee and back pain. These two facts are probably not mere coincidence.
As for the rotary comment, I was referring to the release style now being more of a body release than before. Historically, Tiger had more of the traditional crossover release where his hands and grip end of the club are still visible and more away from his body when the shaft is approaching parallel to the ground post-impact from a down the line view. What he used to describe as shaking hands with the target. Or, as cmartingolf says, more axis tilt and more release swivel.

Since I cannot seem to figure out how to upload pics from my computer,

An example of the newer release is here at the 4 second markYouTube - Tiger Woods - Down The Line (Dubai Desert Classic, 2011)

The older release can be seen here at the 3 second mark
YouTube - Tiger Woods on the practice range part 2- 2009 US Open

From 2002 at 0:42 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJwPJUnsX8Q&feature=related
 
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ekennedy

New
Dwurzer,

I would argue with you, but based on your previous posts you are a man of few words and very little actual knowledge.

Just back up your claims without using an ambiguous word like "science."
 
lia41985

lia41985

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Kevin Shields said:
Lifter, if swinging more left is the goal, whats up with that backswing? Thats the furthest thing in the world you would do to help someone....anyone , swing more left.
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Here are a couple of Hank Haney tweets in reply to Frank Nobilo:
@FNobilo starting to see it is harder than it looks, everyone says his backswing is better yet he is hitting it worse, ball flight matters

@FNobilo the more they have "fixed the back swing the more Tiger has hooked the ball
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From: Hank Haney (HankDHaney) on Twitter
 
L

Lifter

New
lia41985 said:
Here are a couple of Hank Haney tweets in reply to Frank Nobilo:

From: Hank Haney (HankDHaney) on Twitter
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I guess I have a couple of questions. First, wise observers have said that Tiger had his clubface "in knots" as a result of working with Haney. So if Haney's criticizing Foley's new backswing, is that very meaningful at all?

Second, do y'all think that the changes Haney made to Tiger's backswing in 2009 and 2010 were good ones? Seems to me the backswing was all over the place.
 
counterfall

counterfall

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Lifter said:
I guess I have a couple of questions. First, wise observers have said that Tiger had his clubface "in knots" as a result of working with Haney. So if Haney's criticizing Foley's new backswing, is that very meaningful at all?

Second, do y'all think that the changes Haney made to Tiger's backswing in 2009 and 2010 were good ones? Seems to me the backswing was all over the place.
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According to Haney, Tiger made some changes on his own that he did not agree with. Tiger also supposedly insisted on certain things that limited Hank's options. He may have been at the extent of his own abilities with Tiger at a certain point.
 
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