Is there a 'correct' arm action in golf?

Thinking of a coherent system where your arms are part of the whole is maybe the best way to approach arm action.

In terms of golf books, there are two main systems (big muscle and small) and then there are the individual styles of the great players.

The Great Players

The great players never agree on many things. Jack Nicklaus said his arms worked automatically as a hinged lever “entirely as a result of other forces being exerted by the rest of my body”. Ben Hogan said the right arm action was like throwing a ball baseballer style, half sidearm, half underhand. Tommy Armour said he got a lot of his power by hitting with his hands, and so uncocking his wrists late.

Looking at somebody's arms when they swing is a good way to tell whether they are a small muscle type player or a big muscle type.

Big Muscle Swing

1. Your arms should have little active involvement in the swing.

2. Your arms should maintain the triangle shape they start in all the way through the swing. Percy Boomer said you should be able to hold a snooker triangle betwen your arms “without impeding the swing back or through”.

3. Your arms should not move away from your chest. Boomer said the “thorax and biceps should become one in movement.” Jimmy Ballard has a drill where you swing short irons holding something like a glove under your left armpit so your left arm and chest don't seperate.

Small Muscle Swing

Originally, the only point of the small muscle swing was to get the clubhead moving like a pendulum. What you did with your body and your arms wasn't something to consider - just concentrate on getting the pendulum swinging. If anything, just keep your arms relaxed. Ernest Jones taught students to hold a club and a pendulum at the same time and then make half swings so the club swung in sync with the pendulum.

Later small swing teachers like Jim Flick or Bob Toski got more detailed, describing the swing paths and resulting arm actions that were part of swinging the pendulum properly.

Best Blades Ever?

Mizuno MP-33's are the best blades ever made, according to an Internet survey.  
A golfWRX.com forum on the subject "Best Blade Ever" voted the top three blades ever made all came from the Mizuno MP series.


"Best Blades Ever"

Mizuno MP-33	9.7% of vote
Mizuno MP-29	5.3%
Mizuno -MP14	4.6%
Hogan Apex	4.6%
MacGregor VIP	4.1%
Mizuno MP-32	3.4%
Maxfli Australian Blade	3.2%
Titleist 681	2.9%
Miura Blade	2.4%
Nike Blade	2.4%
Mizuno TN-87	2.1%
RAM Golden Ram Tour Grind	2.1%
Cleveland TA1	1.9%
Titleist 680	1.9%
Titleist 690	1.9%

Organised by brand, the favourites were:

Mizuno	29.9% of vote
Titleist	12.1%
Hogan	8.7%
MacGregor	8.0%
Wilson	5.6%
Cleveland	3.6%
Maxfli	3.4%
Miura	2.4%
Nike	2.4%
RAM	2.2%

Only forum members were allowed to vote and at the time of counting there had been 412 votes.

These are basically the blades forum members had used and would recommend. You can probably buy any of the clubs mentioned above second-hand and still use them.

"Accuracy":
I can only claim rough accuracy in the counting of the results. I don't know the difference between a 1976 Hogan Apex and an Apex PT - I just put them in the same "Apex" category. Similarly, Miura clubs all got clumped into the one category. Also, some Mizuno clubs have different names in different countries. There were lots of complications and I'm not an expert, so I guessed at times.

Incidentally, "blades" refers to the oldest and simplest design of iron head - basically a flat slab of steel with grooves on the front. The other, more recently invented type of clubs are interchangeably called cavity backed, game improvement or perimeter weighted irons. I think blades are generally tougher, cooler and prettier than perimeter weighted clubs, but they're also generally more difficult to hit and they give you more ability  to shape your ball-flight.

REVIEW: The Golf Swing by David Leadbetter

The swing taught in this book:

“it is the efficient coiling and uncoiling of your torso in a rotary or circular motion which maximises centrifugal force.” p.44. 

Also,

“... the gist of the athletic swing: correct linkage of the various components of your body with your hands, arms and club produces a dynamic motion.” p.11

Basically, you need to get your body angles right in your setup, make your pivot control your swing, and keep your arms and hands passive. A 'big muscle' swing.

Leadbetter is a modern instructor who works with tour players like Ernie Els and, earlier, Nick Faldo. His teachings have apparently had a huge influence on the modern game.

A lot of these teachings seem to derive from Percy Boomer, but without the brilliance or insight of Boomer. In fact, Leadbetter's book is a bit mechanical and stodgy. Where Boomer avoided swing dissection and taught a whole swing in the first lesson, Leadbetter chops the swing into 11 stop-motion sections and 15 key intervals, and you don't hit a ball till you've got all that worked out. Every page of the book has an illustration of some minute detail of the 'athletic' swing he teaches, and all that detail would be a bit too uptight for me if I was trying to work through this book.

On the other hand, Leadbetter is always practical and coherent, while Boomer could be a bit odd and convoluted at times. More importantly, though, Leadbetter's book came out 50 years after Boomer's, and uses simplified, evolved versions of the ideas.

While I don't think anything Leadbetter teaches here is his own original thought, that's probably of little interest if you just want to play better golf.

What I do like is Leadbetter's good judgement. This advice works. His instructions are clear and useful. And this is a complete, coherent system, proven in practice and taught with diligence.

This book would appeal to ambitious young players. It's the kind of advice tour professionals rely on. It is up-to-date and ready for the tour. Leadbetter also backs it up with instructional DVD's, teaching schools worldwide and endless merchandise.

I suspect this book would be better for instructors than students, because the level of swing dissection it requires must make swinging fluently a bit of a contradiction.

I think if this book were just the grip, setup and pivot sections, without the stop-motion mechanics, it would be better for players. Better still, add some over-arching ideas so students can think of the swing as a whole, fluent event.

I should also point out: this swing won't suit anybody with a bad back, and Leadbetter's 'athletic' swing also needs some athletic ability. If you have a natural inclination to use your arms and hands when you swing, maybe you should consider studying a small muscle swing.

 Related Posts:
Leadbetter's Wii Game
David Leadbetter, The Corporation
Video: Leadbetter on Ball Position
our bookstall * full amazon

What Books Do Readers Recommend?

Please add your recommendations in the 'comments' section below. Any golf book you think other readers should know about.

I'm not going to review an endless list of books on my blog. Every time I read a new book, I change my swing, and I suspect that can lead to insanity.


* Image from George Eastman House at Flickr.com

Percy Boomer's Connection Voodoo

I've been surprised lately how cool and smart Percy Boomer's ideas on 'connection' are, once I got my head around them.

To Boomer, 'connection' meant having the clubhead connected to the 'force-center' throughout the swing. To understand that, he said, you have to learn by feel.

First, do what Boomer calls the 'embryo' of a good swing:

“Take up your normal stance before the ball... (being careful this time to keep your left arm and the club shaft in a straight line from shoulder to club head). Now, turn your body aroundfrom the knees only until your club head is a yard back - making no use of any movement above the hips...” p.91

Do that, and it will be the pivot that carries the club head back. You will be passive from the waist up and active from the hips down.

“...once you get the correct feel of the carry back, you will find the rest of the swing flowing from it naturally.” p.92

So, try to swing like that. Start with your knees. Use your lower body. Stay passive from the waist up. Let momentum move your arms back and allow it to bend back your passive wrists (Boomer's definition of 'passive' is to have something “abstain altogether from acting when it might act.” p.171)

Then start the downswing by reversing that knee movement. Your body below the waist must be the source of power and control in the swing. The feeling of the downswing becomes thicker and heavier, in my experience, and your whole body becomes part of the swing.

The odd and interesting 'center'

Now, there's a detail which I find really odd and interesting. That is, that there's a 'center' of the swing, and it is different depending on the length of the shot. If you control the swing from that center, things will hopefully go fabulously well, and you will have a single point from which to feel and control the whole swing.

“...The simpler the swing the better. The ideal is to bring it down to a one point center of feel... Because the correct swing is the application of centrifugal force, the center whirling the periphery around. So we must have a firm center for all shots. The shorter the shot, the lower down in our body do we feel the center to be. Fundamentally, the whirl around is always the same, but while in the drive we feel we whirl mainly from the hips, in chip shots we feel the whirl comes chiefly from the knees...”p.214.

I tried that: I did the embryo-start swing with different clubs and tried to feel where the center of the swing was in my body. It's really surprising. My results were:

lob wedge: top of shins.
9-iron: top of knees.
4-iron: mid thigh.
hybrid: just below hip joints.
driver: hip joints.
a different driver: spine, just above hips.

What you apparently need to do then is to use that center when you swing. So, using my hybrid, for instance, I would feel the force-center just below my hip joints and power and control the swing centered on that feeling. If I was using my 9-iron, I would concentrate on the center sensation just above my knees.

On my first attempt, I rushed down from the top and the swing got disconnected and the problem was really obvious. To me it felt really clear that the club head disconnected from the 'center'.

“Between the club head and the force-center there are a number of connections in the swing (such as the wrists and the shoulders),and should any of these connections be broken, should our swing become disjointed, then the feeling of the club head cannot be transmitted back to the force-center.” p.135

When I managed to swing as I intended, my 'center' dragged the top of my body through the reverse and the downswing. There was a clear feeling of a build up of really thick momentum throughout the downswing. The club head pulled outward and my arms were stretched out by the pull of the club head.

It feels like a really powerful and coordinated way to swing.

* In the past, however, I've found this Boomer stuff too complicated. I never did manage to ingrain it into my swing. Now that I understand a bit more about it, I'll try it again.

* Boomer said a few times in his book that the 'force center' is in the pit of the back and at other times he said it moves depending on the length of the shot you're playing. That confused me a bit. I've decided the center moves according to the length of the shot. I can feel it. I guess, if you're interested, you should experiment and decide for yourself.

(All the quotes in the article are from On Learning Golf by Percy Boomer.)

A related article: What is connection?