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?