Swinging left?

[Bigwill]

I once read a quote attributed to Sam Snead, and also heard Bob Toski (I think) say that said that a perfectly straight shot felt like a cut. Anyone have this experience, and is this what swinging left is supposed to feel like through the ball?

 

[Brian Manzella]

Trace a straight Plane Line

One of Golf's big mysteries for better players, is how far left the clubhead travels pass low point, in order to trace a "Straight Plane Line."

One of my all time best Manzella-tricks, is to place balls on the visual (to the golfer) equivilent of this "swing left" alignment.

You then just "follow the yellow brick road" and--if you have some clubface control--absolutely STRIPE it!

 

[Bigwill]

Is there a way you could put measurements or something (hope that makes sense!) to the "yellow brick road"? I'm a feel-oriented learner, so I would love to be able to set this up at home so I could get the feel for it.

 

[nevermind]

I felt this for the first time a few days ago. Have had terrible trouble hooking the driver or in an attempt not to hook leaving it way right for a long time now despite hitting the irons better than ever, but the other day I was hitting balls and tried putting the idea/image into my head that the clubhead would go left just after impact... felt like I was cutting accross it but damn did the ball fly straight. Im real excited bout this.

 

[bmctigue]

It's a visual trick, right? Move a club shaft along a straight surfact like a bench or something, and notice that from your vantage point, the club head seems to come left after low point, but if you look down the clubshaft, it is still pointing at the plane line. Am I right, or am I missing something?

 

[tradekid]

This is what I use quite often. I have a short practice club about 2ft in length with a 7 iron head attached. I have one laser pointer attached to the grip end and one near the hosel. I just make slow practice swings tracing the lasers along the base of the inclined plane. Find a long wall. The base of the wall represents the plane line and swing the club past impact and try to keep the laser pointed at the base of the wall with a BENT RIGHT WRIST. Make sure you do a finish swivel and watch how far the hands have to swing left to keep the laser pointed at the base of the wall. Until I did this I had no idea how far you needed to swing the hands to the left.

 

[puttmad]

I have found a good exercise to illustrate this point is to swing only with your left hand, doing half swings backwards and forwards (with a pivot), whilst keeping your left upper arm stuck to your pec muscle and allowing your left elbow to bend soon after "impact."

You find the club naturally comes back to the "inside" and "up" and by the time your hand is approaching waist high on the follow through the clubhead will be further left of the target than your hand, ie. the clubshaft is sloping up to the left with the butt pointing back down at the target line.

 

[Brian Manzella]

It's a visual trick, right? Move a club shaft along a straight surfact like a bench or something, and notice that from your vantage point, the club head seems to come left after low point, but if you look down the clubshaft, it is still pointing at the plane line. Am I right, or am I missing something?

You are right.

When I use the "Yellow Brick Road" trick, I also have the balls spaced so that a "customized" solution to hip, hands, and open clubface alignments, can be used to create the desired ball flight.

 

[golfbulldog]

Home Made Ben Doyle 'style' mat?

If you get a sheet of clear perspex/glass to use as your half-plane board... place this on a large sheet of paper... mark the base of the plane ( the plane line) position plane angle according t o lie of particular club...do slow motion swings keeping all shaft on the perspex plane from impact to beyond follow through ( different to finish!) and get somebody to mark the sheet of paper where the clubhead appears to be...

Do this once and repeat with different club and lie angel for slightly different positions ( different colours)... then you have the visual equivalents marked for life?

Not done this myself but i think it would work well and provide exact locations once the plane board is removed.