Swivel/Roll Question

[Jimmy A.]

I'm curious why so much roll is advocated. I am thinking the "knuckles scraping the ground" (I believe I read that somewhere on this forum). At one point, this action definitely helped me to learn not to flip it. Instead of the left wrist breaking down, it would roll. However, that action seems to contradict the feeling of an underhand pitch with the right hand, which I also hear a lot about. In recent months, my poor shots had developed, exclusively, into hooks and pulls. In the last couple weeks, I've really focused more on the underhand pitch feeling and the results have been very good. I feel like my legs, torso, and arms are more in sync now also (no one gets out of sync just trying to underhand a ball, do they? The action pretty much seems to take care of itself).

With this underhand pitch feeling, I am definitely rolling the left arm much, much less. In fact, from where I was, it almost feels as if I'm not rolling it much at all. I'm not fighting the flip with this action either. My left wrist feels pretty soft and I have more of a "wet mop" feeling through impact. I'm also finding that, just by varying my follow through, I can control the trajectory fairly well. For the first time I can actually hit it high or low on demand. I'd try that before and may, or may not, get what I wanted out of the shot.

So, getting back to the Swivel/Roll question; Is this "knuckles scraping the ground" feeling more of a stepping stone, or is this just a different action from the underhand pitch motion and either could be employed successfully?

 

[Spike]

I think HK said to master all the releases.

 

[shootin4par]

I would think if you cant hit the ball with the knuckles scraping the ground then you have path issues. maybe a slight outside in. Or if you are drawing the ball too much then maybe you are moving your body past the ball, coming from way inside, and are having to manufacture the release. When I do this is when I get the 20 yard draw that does not do a good job of compression. A leakage hook is what some may call it. Underhand pitch would be for verticle hinging and in the two previous mentioned types of swing would be a band aid, Now there are shots that call for different types of release, by regular shots more towards the side of angled and horizontal hinging

 

[Jimmy A.]

I would think if you cant hit the ball with the knuckles scraping the ground then you have path issues. maybe a slight outside in. Or if you are drawing the ball too much then maybe you are moving your body past the ball, coming from way inside, and are having to manufacture the release. When I do this is when I get the 20 yard draw that does not do a good job of compression. A leakage hook is what some may call it. Underhand pitch would be for verticle hinging and in the two previous mentioned types of swing would be a band aid, Now there are shots that call for different types of release, by regular shots more towards the side of angled and horizontal hinging

Perhaps I'm not doing the underhand pitch correctly either then because, while that is how it feels, my hinge action is not vertical. When the club is parallel to the ground in the follow through, the toe of my club is pointing somewhere between 12:00 and 1:00. So, there has been some roll, just not as dramatic as before.

I was doing one thing that I thought might have been causing some problems with either clubface alignment or clubhead path ... or both. I felt that my pivot might have been quitting a little early and then my arms would get out of sync and ... I don't know precisely what went wrong at that point, but it was wrong! I would come over the top some on many shots as denoted by some of my divots pointing at about 11:00 or 11:30. I started focusing on completing the pivot and things began to go better. Within a few days of that is when I started working on the underhand pitch feeling and things have progressively gotten better since then. My divots are also looking much better now.

 

[golf2much]

Some Roll?

Perhaps I'm not doing the underhand pitch correctly either then because, while that is how it feels, my hinge action is not vertical. When the club is parallel to the ground in the follow through, the toe of my club is pointing somewhere between 12:00 and 1:00. So, there has been some roll, just not as dramatic as before.

At this point in your follow thru, the toe should be be pointing between left of the target line, more like between 11 and 12 o'clock if 12 is perpendicular to the ground.

G2M