New WIG poster boy

[eaglesandbirdies]

It's easy to see why he is the poster boy with his driving. It's just a shame about his all around game. Think he rarely made many cuts on the PGA tour last season.. but then again he started this season with a win so he may be turning a corner!

Was reading here that the average drive is just under 300 yards on the PGA Tour and his average was around 318 yards last season which is a huge weapon to have against the field if he can improve his driving accuracy which was 175th on the tour!

[Schrodinger]

Hi All
Been spending too many hours reading up on golf articles again and was directed to a free website containing articles by a gentleman called Ben Allen Jnr. Quite an interesting twist on the reasoning behind the evolution of the modern swing from Harry Vardon to Cameron Champ.

I was finding his prose style quite difficult to follow (in any scientific sense) but I am slowly getting used to his unique terminology (and other opinions). If you are interested and have many spare hours during the winter nights , the link is below (you can read all the .pdfs but I don't think you can download them without registering on facebook or google).

http://independent.academia.edu/BenAllenJr

His analysis of Cameron Champ vs Sandra Carlborg (Womens Long Drive champion for several years) is quite interesting but again difficult to read without getting accustomed to his golfing terminology.

Basically:
1. Talks a lot about clubhead momentum and facilitating the club to track on something he terms a 'Downswing Inertial Plane'
2. That when the steel shaft replaced hickory , golfers implicitly found a way to maximise power during transition, retaining that power until release using a specific body action, and then basically the rest of the body movements (in the downswing to impact/follow-through) were actions to 'keep their hands up' with the pull of the clubs momentum and keeping the clubface square to clubhead path. So in essence the 'modern golf swing' is all about 'power' moves being done very early in the transition and mid-downswing, something that recreation golfers do not do.
3. The modern swing golfers did point 2 above 'because they could' without breaking the steel shaft (unlike hickory) and creating superior clubhead speeds by physical effort, but that also meant the creation of something he calls the 'Geometric Curse' . That 'curse' is the strain they put on their lumbar spine regions by excessive lateral flexion approaching/through impact (ie. trying to keep the clubface square to the clubhead path to and through impact for at least a few inches).
4. He claims that Harry Vardon and others of that era , used power sequences later in the downswing and also rolled the club over through impact without the need for excessive lateral flexion. That those more efficient and body friendly mechanics were forsaken for the modern golf swing with the advent of steel shafts.
5. He has proposed a re-engineered golf swing to prevent 'golfers elbow' and lumbar strain while still being able to create clubhead speed by shaft power loading sequences later in the downswing including a pausing of the left arm movement while using a rolling of the wrists/clubhead to/through impact to create a 'burst' of clubhead speed (using centripetal acceleration).

All quite interesting but found his re-engineered golf swing unnatural and the physics behind his claims very confusing (and unconvincing). But hey, yet another different spin on the cause and effect of a golf swing.

[Shawn Clement]

😂😂 thank you for keeping the place rocking you guys; much appreciated! I feel some cool things coming our way this next year! 😀👍

[COSTA103]

Welcome back, Mr. Chairman.... Great to hear from you this Holiday....

Sorry about the dust in/on your locker... I'll get right on it.
(the Locker-Room attendant who you may remember from the last time you visited, is now all grown up and has a family of his own?...)

Add MY best Thanksgiving wishes to all of our American members at Crackpot National.

dude abides

[Shawn Clement]

Also wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy American ThanksGiving and to say I did purchase the pay per view and was thinking about doing a live show on facebook live during the broadcast to answer questions and provide updates;
what do you think?
Shawn

[Shawn Clement]

Hey Guys! It has been way too long; but after this season, my last piece is to get back into the forum and start to say hello in a few threads; I thought it would be fitting to get back into it on this one! Here is the new video just posted today on WRX with Matt Wolff and Cam Champ:

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=RxaS_72mknY

agreed about the backswing and the through swing is completely dependant on his awareness to strain; he has talked about hitting hard, so let’s hope it’s not too hard and he does not get goated into hitting it farther!
Shawn

[kid_fullerene]

looked at Champ's swing - I think the potential back injury or bulging discs occurs in his downswing.. or throughswing.. seems like he clears his hips beautifully and appears to be trying to hold his upper body over the ball ..maybe holding an angle or something.. it appears that the additional energy that can't be contained shows just below his neck and above the tops of his shoulder blades..

not saying that's it.. but I would look there first ..

cheers

k_f

[Alpineberlinette]

Schrodinger,
Women vs men.
No, it’s natural. If I would be a women, I would hold the world record in javelin with 94m, 103 yards. In Germany I was top 20 for men, but the best were far away.
The abilities between both genders are huge.
Similar distance gap we can observe in golf.

[Schrodinger]

Thanks Cally - actually there is am interesting article about the X-factor stretch here

http://www.mytpi.com/articles/fitness/x-factor_essentials_what_it_is_and_how_to_train_it

Wonder if this is the reason why PGA men drive the ball further than LPGA even if the men have, 'on average' , less hip/ribcage' speed than the women?

If true , then it means that X-factor stretch (ie. muscular strength) may somehow play a factor in increasing clubhead speed.

[Schrodinger]

Yes, if its natural and not contrived , he might limit further damage to his discs.

[COSTA103]

Schrodinger,
I know the controversial discussion of McLean‘s X-factor very well, and that he himselve rowed back and emphasized, that the x-factor is not for the back swing, it is a ‘x-factor STRETCH‘ in the down swing.
What we don‘t know, is, whether the enournous early and open hip move of Cameron is a result of Foley‘s teaching, or natural.
Anyway, I am pretty sure this guy has a flexibility here, we normal and old golfers don‘t have.

Another remark.
Yes Shawn has that analogy of the riding on the turntable.
Isn‘t that to illustrate the backswing sequence?
For the downswing he likes to empasize the kinematic chain, and my interpretation is, knee before hip, hip before shoulder.
It is not conscious, but I don‘t believe, these body parts should be synchronously.

Hi guys,
Perhaps MARCUS should be "WIG Poster-Boy"?
As valid and concise points as have ever been made on this Forum!
Well done, Marcus!
(...imagine if English was your FIRST language?

IMHO, we get our leverage for our rotation from the ground-up.
Just makes sense that the knees would participate before the joints ABOVE them?

I've always loved the "turntable" analogy.
But, I've always kind of thought of it as a GUMBY turntable??

Kind of like "wringing out a towel"?
You start at one end and work to the other.
If you "wrung the towel" such that the entire length of the towel turned at the same time, you'd live with a wet towel for a long time.

The reason the "turntable" image works on the BACK-swing is that we're not attempting to exert lots of ENERGY moving to the REAR?
So, we kind of turn the "top" and the "bottom" of the turntable TOGETHER on the way back...
And the additional ENERGY that we exert on the way THROUGH (...geez, I hate that term "DOWNswing"?) COILS the torso naturally.

Yes, I agree Marcus....it is NOT "conscious".
I always believe that we over-think too much stuff already.

Great post (as always), my friend...
I'm really glad that you're still out there.

Thanks

dude abides

[Alpineberlinette]

Schrodinger,
I know the controversial discussion of McLean‘s X-factor very well, and that he himselve rowed back and emphasized, that the x-factor is not for the back swing, it is a ‘x-factor STRETCH‘ in the down swing.
What we don‘t know, is, whether the enournous early and open hip move of Cameron is a result of Foley‘s teaching, or natural.
Anyway, I am pretty sure this guy has a flexibility here, we normal and old golfers don‘t have.

Another remark.
Yes Shawn has that analogy of the riding on the turntable.
Isn‘t that to illustrate the backswing sequence?
For the downswing he likes to empasize the kinematic chain, and my interpretation is, knee before hip, hip before shoulder.
It is not conscious, but I don‘t believe, these body parts should be synchronously.

[Schrodinger]

With regards Cameron being poster boy for WIG , maybe yes for the backswing but imho, no for that massive X-factor on the downswing . Cameron has already rotated his hips to its maximum way early as his club reaches horizontal on the downswing creating massive X factor strain in his lower back (ie. too much separation between his pelvis and upper torso). He is not rotating his upper torso on that pelvic 'turntable' like Shawn does (whose driver distance seems remarkably long - both lefty and righty).

[Schrodinger]

Bulging discs sounds really serious for someone so young.

[Alpineberlinette]

Yes, it’s true.