Shanking—the STONE TRUTH.

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twitch127

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Um...i hit a nice penetrating lower shot. Standing closer to the ball lets you hit the ball a bit lower and further away a little higher. The reason why i didn't shank it is because i am directing the sweetspot on the ball and not the hosel.
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Explain how standing closer hits it lower and standing further hits it higher??
 
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Jim Kobylinski

Super Moderator
twitch127 said:
Explain how standing closer hits it lower and standing further hits it higher??
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closer you stand the more upright you will stand and unless you create a whole lot of hip slide, you will have less axis tilt at impact and generally hit the ball lower.

opposite for ball further away.
 
starretj

starretj

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Brian Manzella said:
Why will NOBODY answer this simple question?

If standing or moving too close to the ball causes shanks—without anything to do with the sweetspot being blocked by the hosel—why do people with the shanks not hit shots of the CENTER of the shaft's hosel (a straight ground ball), or a shot that hits the INSIDE of the shaft's hosel (a very left-ward roller)???

Huh?
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Because once you get underplane you feel the weight of the shaft and the clubhead because they are virtually in line to your feel at pp#3 which is under the shaft, regardless of face orientation. The addition of the cogs of the shaft and clubhead locates the center of mass between the two.

Jim S.
 
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dsmith2296

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dsmith2296 said:
Simple experiment: Go the range and address the ball normally, then right before you pull the trigger, rake the ball 2 inches closer to your body.

Now make a backswing whilst maintaining all other alignments as they were when you initially addressed the ball and strike the ball without CONSCIOUSLY altering your swing.

What results?
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Jim, you werent supposed to change your alignments or posture in my little experiment!
 
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twitch127

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closer you stand the more upright you will stand and unless you create a whole lot of hip slide, you will have less axis tilt at impact and generally hit the ball lower.
Click to expand...


Don't buy that Jim. You could stand close to it and be as upright as can be and depending on the plane angle of choose to set up on and SHIFT to you can hit the ball whatever height you want. If you stand close to it your more likely to set-up on a TSP or SSP and your angle of attack will be steeper not flatter - (unless you reverse shift) - but normally steeper will cause more spin and higher traj are you telling me Woody Austin, Furyk, Lee Janzen, Chris Di Marco hit it low

You want to hit it lower move the ball aft and in and then adjust your radius. Remember that the clubhead path has 3 dimensions.

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holeout

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dsmith2296 said:
Jim, you werent supposed to change your alignments or posture in my little experiment!
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If I'm not "consciously altering my swing," I hit it flush.

I have to TRY and feel the hosel and direct it at the ball if I want to shank it. Otherwise, the sweetspot hits the ball, period.
 
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dsmith2296

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I still am not sure that I disagree with anyone here. But I have had bouts with the shanks for years. I can flip flop between a 150 yard nine iron with draw to a 45 degree hosel rocket that dribbles 50 yards. I have broken par twice and I have a recorded a 73 tournament score. I have also shot in the 90's within a week if those scores because of the shanks that have crept into my play. I have ranged between a 4 hcp and 10 hcp with an 8 hcp mean through hundreds of rounds.

When they creap in, I just guard against them by making sure I cannot reach the ball with the hosel. This makes for a very flat swing and it has proven to be an acceptable fix.

The recent eureka moment for me was yesterday's lesson wherein I discovered I was rolling my right arm over my left BEFORE impact whilst losing all tilt and moving my head laterally toward the target. If you mimic that condition, you will see that the clubhead will be well BEYOND the ball at impact- assuming a normal address. But now I concentrate on leaving daylight between my forearms prior to impact with my left forearm on top whilst maintaining axis tilt and keeping my head stationary.

Now I can't REACH the ball with the hozel. I don't want to speak prematurely, but today's range visit was the best ever. I even brought out my butter knife two iron and was htting 225 yard stingers. Maybe I'll shoot 90 next time, maybe 80 or 70.

In any event, I can address the ball now directly knowing that I can't reach the hosel to it anymore if I swing this way. See this pic of Toms for my personal visual.

http://redgoat.smugmug.com/gallery/79609_nNLk8#2799824_acnB5-L-LB
 
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J

Jim Kobylinski

Super Moderator
twitch127 said:
Don't buy that Jim. You could stand close to it and be as upright as can be and depending on the plane angle of choose to set up on and SHIFT to you can hit the ball whatever height you want. If you stand close to it your more likely to set-up on a TSP or SSP and your angle of attack will be steeper not flatter - (unless you reverse shift) - but normally steeper will cause more spin and higher traj are you telling me Woody Austin, Furyk, Lee Janzen, Chris Di Marco hit it low

You want to hit it lower move the ball aft and in and then adjust your radius. Remember that the clubhead path has 3 dimensions.

T
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I don't care what you buy, go try it and see what happens. Ask any really good player and ask them what they do to it it lower....majority will say they stand a little closer to the ball. Even this one guy who i've heard is pretty good says the same thing....

















oh ya, Tiger Woods.
 
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lookingtolearn

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Jim Kobylinski said:
closer you stand the more upright you will stand and unless you create a whole lot of hip slide, you will have less axis tilt at impact and generally hit the ball lower.

opposite for ball further away.
Click to expand...

Jim, I have experimented with this and found this to be true. But I still don't quite understand why. I thought that the more you bent over, the less tilt you needed to get the right shoulder on plane. So if you don't need as much tilt, why would you have more, and thus hit the ball higher?
 
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bendet3

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For what it is worth, I have PVR "Tiger's Clinic" off the Golf Channel and he says to hit his stinger (i.e. lower), he stands closer to the ball.
 
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Jim Kobylinski

Super Moderator
lookingtolearn said:
Jim, I have experimented with this and found this to be true. But I still don't quite understand why. I thought that the more you bent over, the less tilt you needed to get the right shoulder on plane. So if you don't need as much tilt, why would you have more, and thus hit the ball higher?
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I'm not quite sure i understand your question BUT the more axis tilt you have at impact will limit how much foward lean you can create and thus how low of a launch angle (not considering spin rates).

Does that help?
 
curtisj76

curtisj76

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How far do you think the ball would travel if you shanked your 4 iron? I just did it in my garage. Glad it wasn't the course.
 
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lookingtolearn

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Jim Kobylinski said:
I'm not quite sure i understand your question BUT the more axis tilt you have at impact will limit how much foward lean you can create and thus how low of a launch angle (not considering spin rates).

Does that help?
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Kind of.

Sorry if I'm doing a bad job of explaining my confusion. I get how axis tilt affects launch, but I'm having trouble connecting the effects that closeness to the ball and posture have on axis tilt. Let me try a different way.

If the ball is closer to you, in order to get the shoulder down plane, it would have to go more down than out (than if the ball were farther away from you), correct? Wouldn't more down=more tilt and thus, a higher ball flight?

The only way I can see that this results in a lower ball flight is if you don't try to add enough tilt and really limit your pivot through the ball.
 
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dsmith2296

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Don't know if this is right but perhaps the lie angle of a club affects its effective loft. So if its more upright, a 7 iron may turn into a 6.5 iron. Thoughts on that.-- although we are way off thread topic.
 
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lookingtolearn

New
dsmith2296 said:
Don't know if this is right but perhaps the lie angle of a club affects its effective loft. So if its more upright, a 7 iron may turn into a 6.5 iron. Thoughts on that.-- although we are way off thread topic.
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Yeah, I didn't mean to get so off topic. Should probably start another thread for my question.
 
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