Hi Geoff,

Nice to hear you are coming back to Amsterdam; I guess you must have liked it here. I currently work in Amsterdam, it's raining and windy and cold, but I still like it here, so I can see why you want to come back.

It's nice of you that I can ask some questions. Well, I should because some things are very unclear to me at this time. I recently bought pelz's putting bible, and then I discovered your website. I saw that you both teach a straight stroke, but I'm having difficulties in applying it myself.

It just doesn't feel natural to me, but that is probably because i'm just not used to it.

So question 1:

Are you 100% sure that the shoulders can move up and down vertically (which means that they are not a part of the spine angle) ? I always thought they are connected for some part to my spine.

Question 2:

If my back hurts from practicing, does this mean

A) my back is just weak
B) my posture isn't ok
C) this happens to everyone

Well that's it for now, probably more questions to come, because I really like to get my putting a lot better.

greetings from the cold Netherlands,

Bastiaan van Slobbe

Dear Bastiaan,

The human body has a skeletal structure and a connective tissue structure of muscles, ligaments, and tendons, and these all work together to determine how the body moves.

In terms of the skeleton, the three parts to focus on are the spine (and thoracic / rib cage plus sternum), the shoulder girdle or pectoral girdle (clavicle / collar bone plus scapula / shoulder blade), and the shoulder joint (glenohumeral joint).

The spine has a "lateral" range of motion in most people of about 180 degrees. That is, if you lean sideways (in the "frontal" plane), the spine will naturally bend all the way to parallel to the floor. J. Hays & J. Reid, Anatomy, Mechanics, and Human Motion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2nd ed., 1988), p. 57. Not everyone is capable of this full range of motion. The motion of the spine carries with it the rib cage, as all the ribs are attached at the back to the spine. On the front side, the ends of the ribs are connected to the sternum by coastal cartilage, with the exception of the "floating" ribs 11 and 12, which have no connection to the sternum.

The shoulder or pectoral girdle is the clavicle and the scapula (one each on both sides). The clavicle connects the scapula to the top of the sternum (the "manubrium" of the sternum) just below the jugluar notch in the base of the neck. At the manubrium, the clavicle has a "sternoclavicular joint" that is very strong and stable and "synovial", and mostly moves up and down as yopu "hunch" the shoulders up towards the ears or downward. At the scapula, the clavicle has a sliding joint called the "acromioclavicular joint." Let me quote the main anatomy book about this girdle: "The clavicle articulates with the manubrium of the sternum, and this is the only direct connection between the pectoral girdle and the axial skeleton." F. Martini et al., Human Anatomy (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 3rd ed., 2000), p. 180. The pectoral girdle has a range of motion towards the ears and away from the ears (in the frontal plane) of about 4-5 inches (10-12 cm). "These vertical movements are necessairly associated with some tilting [of the spine]." I. Kapandji, The Physiology of the Joints, Vol. 1: Upper Limb (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 5th ed., 1982), pp. 40-41 ("Movements of the Shoulder Girdle"). The shoulder blade is attached to the spine indirectly by the fibers of the rhomboid muscle, which "hunch" the shoulder blades inward and backward toward the spine.

The shoulder joint, or "glenohumeral" joint is what most people think about when you say "shoulder joint." This is a ball-and-socket synovial joint connecting the humerus (upper arm) to the scapula. It is surrounded by ligaments and muscle to form a rotator cuff. The range of motion is very wide in all planes.

In the straight stroke that I teach, my focus is on teaching the golfer how to make the motion. If the golfer is incapable of making the motion consistently and accurately, then I teach them a less desirable motion as an alternative.

The main motion that is involved with the straight stroke is the movement of the spine laterally. This carries with it the whole rib cage. By virtue of the connection of the rib cage to the sternum, this action also moves the clavicle, and thus the shoulder girdle. The shoulder joint itself is not involved in this action. The trick is in how the spine is leaned to the side.

The muscles responsible for sideways leaning of the spine and hence the shoulderframe as a whole are the muscles that connect the upper trunk to the pelvis. The muscles mostly responsible for lateral bending of the upper trunk and spine are the external and internal abdominal obliques. J. Hays & J. Reid, Anatomy, Mechanics, and Human Motion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2nd ed., 1988), p. 63. If you rest your palms on your waist just above the hips with your thumbs in front and your fingers on your back, you are holding your external obliques. To bend the trunk laterally to the left, the left obliques contract and pull the torso down sideways toward the left pelvis. The opposite occurs to pull the right side down. The way to think of making this happen is to think "move the left shoulder joint straight down," as this activates the obliques. The left shoulder joint curls down and also from left to right as the trunk bend progresses. The arm pit remains passive and unchanged, indicating that the shoulder joint itself is not active. The clavicles are turning because the rib cage and sternum are tilting, and not by any independent action of the clavicle or shoulder girdle at the sternoclavicular joint. This is the "vertical plane" shoulder stroke that I speak about. There is no rotation of the shoulders around the spine that would move the shoulders forward or backward of the alignment at address. The shoulders "rock" in a vertical plane, and this plane intersects the ground in a line that is parallel to the putt line. On the follow-thru, the right obliques move the right shoulder down and the left shoulder up as the shoulderframe "rocks" up in the thru-stroke. There sometimes will be a little independent action of the left clavicle upward to help finish the follow-thru and also to insure that the shoulder really stays in the vertical plane and avoids a "pull" action of rotating back as it goes up. Even so, it is preferable not to involve the shoulder joint by opeing the arm pit, but if it does become necessary, then care has to be taken to make sure the arm pit opens correctly with the elbow being moved parallel to the putt line.

This all feels "artificial" and that is the way it should feel. A straight putting stroke is not a normal motion, one that we are accustomed to considering "natural." The "natural" motion is the "default" or "lazy" motion we all make when we turn to see who has entered the room off to our side. This motion "twists" the spine and trunk rotationally. Because of the commonality of this action, there is less resistance in the normal range of rotation than there is in the sideways bending, so it "feels" more comfortable. This is the action used by golfers who default to a gating stroke path that fans the putter face open and then closed in the stroke. If you look at the thunbs or the flat surface of a putter grip at address and watch this as a gating stroke progresses, the flat surface of the putter grip rotates clockwise going back (looking down) and countercloskwise going forward as the face opens and closes. This gating of the face off the putt line makes ball position and precise returning to square at impact critical variables for a successful putt that rolls the ball on the putt line. With a vertical-plane stroke motion, this rotation of the grip and face does not occur so long as the hands are kept inactive. Thus, in a straight stroke, the face stays square to the stroke path AND to the putt line. With this stroke, ball position can vary from the middle of the stance to over 6 inches closer to the target without affecting the line of roll.

I hope this answers your questions. If not, let me know. And of course, feel free to ask other questions also!

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.

Over 45,000 visits monthly and growing strong ...

518 Woodlawn Ave
Greensboro NC USA 27401
336.230.0612 Home
336.402.1602 Cell

AOL/Yahoo Screenname: puttmagic
Email: geoff@puttingzone.com

Dear Geoff,

Thank you so much for eplaining in detail what you teach and how it works. I really hope that I will be able to make the vertical stroke by your method. I'll let you know after I gave it a shot.

I do have a question about your method. You wrote:

The main motion that is involved with the straight stroke is the movement of the spine laterally.

Doesn't this also make your head move from left to right?? That doesn't seem like a good thing to me. Maybe I just didn't understand what you mean with the spine moving laterally. Do you have some sort of drawing to make me understand visually?

Also, I would really like to know what percentage of tour players use the straight stroke and what percentage uses the inside stroke. Do you have any information on that?

greetings and thanks again for all your time and effort,

Bastiaan van Slobbe

Dear Bastiann,

Sorry if this is a little confusing. What clarifies this is to recall that the golfer at address for this sort of stroke has the trunk bent forward over the hips somewhat. With this angle of the upper body to the lower body, the lateral motion of the shoulderframe as a whole is just the beginning of a curling down and under of the lead shoulder. The spine in this attitude actually mostly rotates, but the muscles and the basic movement is still "lateral."

If you made this move bent forward and then stood upright and repeated this same action, your spine would tilt sideways. But bent forward at address, the move simply sends the lead shoulder straight down at the ground and then curling back from left to right under the rotating axis of the spine. The pivot point in the base of the neck (the jugular notch above the sternum) stays stationary in space although it is rotating clockwise as seen from facing the (righthanded) golfer.

The simplest way to see and practice and learn this action is to setup at address in front of a desktop, with your arms and hands hanging near the front edge of the desktop and your eyes looking down to a spot on the desktop. Then, place a rod or shaft in your two hands, wrapping each hand separately around the bar of the shaft so the shaft is aligned parallel to the front of the desk like a battering ram aimed to the left side. Then make the move that sends the left shoulder curling down and back so that the shaft or rod moves left-end down and back and right-end up and back in a smiley face shape. This action DOES NOT send the shaft out of the vertical plane of motion, so the shaft stays parallel to the desk front at all times. neither end of the shaft gets closer or farther from the desk.

You can repeat this with a putter. Setup facing a wall with the toe of the putter about 1/2 inch from touching the baseboard. Move the shoulderframe so that the toe of the putter stays 1/2 inch from the wall going back and going forward, even if it rises slightly going back or forward. Also keep the face of the putter oriented square to the wall at all points in the stroke.

What you should feel in the upper body is something like the rolling back and thru of a barrell centered on the spine. The left shoulder will typically drop only 2-4 inches as it curls down and back (and the right shoulder will rock up the same). Neither shoulder will move forward or away from the line across both shoulders established at the beginning in the setup. The hands and arms are inert or passive. If you make the move without a putter and press both palms flat together somewhat like a prayer gesture, the plane of the palms will be perpendicular to the wall and will stay that way at all points in the stroke.

Still another way to experience this is to setup with the putter square across a yardstick or meterstick. Move the shoulderframe as described and the putterhead should run straight along the meterstick without the face twisting out of square.

In all of this, the head CAN be kept quite still. I personally am not convinced that this motionless head is absolutely necessary, as the real fundamental is the symmetry awy and back to the beginning or bottom of the stroke. This can be accomplished with or without the head rotating, and even with some sway in the pivot, but this is probably not desireable. You should experiment both ways to see what is really fundamental and what is your preferred technique. Sometimes I do it either way -- head still or head slightly rolling with the shoulderframe.

With respect to Tour players in the US or Europe, my information is that a great many European players use the True Plane trainer, so presumably these players are close to what I teach. In the US, the True Plane trainer is not currently available, and the "Putting Arc" is widely used here and this training device is not quite correct. But the new "Cube" by Scotty Cameron trains a "down-the-line" follow-thru or finish that is compatible with my teaching (and easy to do without the "Cube"). So more US players will surely come onboard as the years go by. Unfortunately, players on both Tours tend to follow the herd instinct a lot, so fashions change a lot. I'm looking for the true fundamentals.

Let me know if this explains things more clearly.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone.com
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.

Over 45,000 visits monthly and growing strong ...

518 Woodlawn Ave
Greensboro NC USA 27401
336.230.0612 Home
336.402.1602 Cell

AOL/Yahoo Screenname: puttmagic
Email: geoff@puttingzone.com

Hey Geoff,

I tried your method again last evening and at some point I really thought I had it, but my setup felt really weird and unnatural; i'll probably have to get used to it.

It felt a little bit like only using my arms and not so much my muscles that connect the shoulders (so located at my back). Is that a good feeling or not?

Greetings

Bastiaan

Dear Bastiaan,

Bending at address, hang both arms straight down as if they are paralyzed and useless and move only your shoulders straight down and straight up in a rocking motion. Both hands will move straight lower or higher but only vertically. Then put your two hands together and repeat this. The joined hands will move together back and up in the backstroke, then back down forward to the bottom of the stroke, and then forward and up in the thru-stroke, all in a crescent shape.

The stroke is powered by simply moving the shoulders straight up and down. The joining of the hands on the putter grip is what transforms the path of the stroke into the back-and-thru crescent, just like a pendulum bob on a string or rod.

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone.com
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.

Over 45,000 visits monthly and growing strong ...

518 Woodlawn Ave
Greensboro NC USA 27401
336.230.0612 Home
336.402.1602 Cell

AOL/Yahoo Screenname: puttmagic
Email: geoff@puttingzone.com

Dear Geoff,

Good to hear I can ask my questions. I also have some good news, yesterday I really got the square stroke down! It feels really good seeing my putter move perfectly along the line! Thanks for all your help and input.

But it did created a little doubt, because I really have to bend my head and neck to almost horizontally to get my shoulders to move in line. Is this a correct setup or do you think it will hurt my stroke? I feels pretty weird, and I guess it will look weird too.

Thanks again!

Bastiaan

Dear Bastiaan,

No, you don't have to get your neck bent that far over. The most important part of the setup to get correct is to make your eyes look straight out of your face, and then bend the head to look down at the ball with this gaze still kept straight out. If your gaze gets to the ball with your forehead still tilkted higher up than the chin, that is fine, so long as the gaze is straight out of the face. My torso probably bends forward only about 30 degrees or so, maybe 40 degrees, and there is a mild roundness in the upper section of my back between the shoulder blades, but altogether it is not weird or uncomfortable.

It is true that Harold Swash teaches golfers to get the "cervical spine" (that part of the spine at the top, where the spine meets the base of the neck) horizontal to the ground. He says this is necessary for the shoulderframe to move correctly. But the implicit idea of this is that the shoulderframe is physically "hanging" suspended off the spine, and this is simply not the case. The shoulderframe will move in a vertical plane quite nicely without the cervical spine being forced into a horizontal position by bending the neck.

It is also true that golfers in the 1960s and 1970s taught that the head had to be "flat" -- that is, the face horizontal to the surface. But this was really more about getting the eyes directly above the ball plus getting the gaze straight out of the face. If the gaze is straight down and aimed at the ball AND the face level to the ground, then the eyes will necessarily be vertically above the ball. But you can have the eyes gazing straight out of the face and aimed at the ball -- and that is sufficient. You don't really have to have the head flat or the eyes directly above the ball.

So, a neck bent so that the face is level and the cervical spine level is not at all weird or unusual, but is considered by some very excellent people to be in fact necessary. Not by me, though. But I certainly do not think this position of the neck and head is weird or unusual; I just don't think it is really required if you don't like it.

Cheers!

Geoff