Dear Neville,
First, the good news! I now have the capability to post instructional video clips and will probably have the first one up in a month or two.
Second, I am already a fan of the Old Way New Way website (
http://www.personalbest.com.au), as I have known about these brain issues for quite a while. The "demonstration" posted on that site is of the "Stroop Effect" (word "Red" written in Blue ink -- read the word versus say the color). In fact, I have a t-shirt with the Stroop Effect on it!
One of the main reasons I go to such lengths in giving detailed explanations of what appears to be a simple movement is to buttress the cognitive aspects of the New Way of moving, as I assume that the vertical shoulder plane stroke is new to practically to practically everyone, at least in particulars. So I accept your suggestion to try to discuss the differences body part by body part.
ARMSY STROKE
In the armsy stroke, the main set of muscles recruited to start the stroke and power the bulk of the stroke are the biceps and pectorals -- the muscles that alter the arm pits by moving the arms across or away from the chest. This allows the hands' grip pressure to be set at the outset and to be kept about the same during the stroke. The forearm muscles stay pretty inactive.
The term "recruited" means "picked to act" and this may happen consciously or without awareness. For almost all golfers (not used to paying attention to how the brain chooses to move the body), the recruiting is without awareness. In a sense, that is the definition of a movement "habit" - a usual pattern of recruiting muscle groups to perform a standard movement without awareness. Altering the habit, then, depends to a large extent on making these choices conscious by specifically paying attention to them. The way to pay attention is to think about body parts when standing at address before moving, and feeling these position and state of these parts, choosing in advance which ones to move, and imagining how the movement will proceed and feel if the choice is actually carried out. Then, when you actually move, you pay attention to whether what you really did with your body matches what you planned to do or intended.
A secondary set of muscles is in the abdominal and lower-back region of the waist, where the body turns the upper trunk by muscles pulling against the lower body. These two movements are coordinated so that the arms move a little faster going back and through than the trunk turn. That's why the lead arm folds across the chest a little as the arm pit flattens out going to the top of the back stroke. This will make the lead elbow glide across the belly sideways going back, either in contact with the stomach or just off the surface. If the lead wrist is kept steadily the same orientation as the arm stroke progresses back, the V-shape of lead thumb and forefinger aim straight down the shaft the whole time. This indicates that the wrist is NOT being actively altered by forearm muscles. Even so, the deliberate "sticking" of the lead arm back farther than the simple torso turn naturally carries the arm makes the elbow rotate clockwise (looking at the feet of a right-handed golfer) across the belly, and this elbow action turns or rotates the forearm clockwise as well. None of this action is a deliberate choice, or movement by recruited muscles, but is just a natural consequence of the arms moving farther than the torso going back. There is the sense of sending the arms farther than the torso is sending them, and this is a voluntary if unconscioius movement powered by the biceps and pecs extending and slightly lifting the lead arm going back. But you do not really "want" to rotate the forearm -- just let it happen as the arm moves back.
The return forward stroke is just a reversing of the pattern of muscle activation. The torso turns back with waist muscles and the arms go forward a little more than the torso naturally carries them, powered by the pecs and biceps. The forearm, wrist, and hand muscles are all pretty much inactive, with the V-shape remaining aimed straight down the shaft.
In the 1940s and 1950s, pretty much this same stroke pattern was current, but with some wristiness. The wristiness allowed moving the putterhead farther with less upper limb and torso movement, so it was easier to keep the head still. Sam Snead used to putt this way, as did many others. Quite a few guys on Tour today use some wristiness, which abbreviates the upper body motion.
The basic trick to this is the consistency of the movement of the arms and hands in space. By having independent action of the arms separate from the torso move, the golfer injects issues of coordination and repetition of movement. Timing-wise, the extra extension of the arms-hands past where the torso takes them only comes into play once the torso has done its thing, so there is a phase to this action that only kicks in after the torso is nearing its maximum turn, after which the arms keep going. The tempo and timing of the stroke for consistency and distance control is pretty much timed by the pacing and extent of the torso turn, just like it is in the shoulder-only stroke. The movement pattern's consistency, it seems to me, relies mostly on the relationship of the elbows-in-motion to the belly or stomach. Since the elbows are not actively "lifting" the hands out into space, but the arms are basically hanging and being extended back and slightly lifted as a whole (upper arm out to hands all as a unit being extended and lifted by lead-arm pecs and biceps), this motion leaves the elbows unchaged by muscle action, although the lead elbow will "rotate" clockwise biomechanically as the stroke progesses back. So the way the lead elbow's front or top surface is aimed will rotate going back in a certain way every stroke. The hands are not lifted away from the feet, as would occur if the lead elbow folded closed. The whole feeling is one of leaving the hands low during the stroke, but it is really the way the lead elbow rotates and does not lift or close.
The putter head will follow a trajectory in space that is less rising and flatter back around the feet, that is curving around the center of the stance in an arc shape that is less curved than a circle, and that is a little longer back from the ball than is the case with a vertical plane shoulder stroke due to the independent sticking back of the arms a little.
The choice of how to go forward through the ball is not obvious. The "natural" (i.e., thoughtless) pattern is probably to stay symmetrical -- go forward in the same but reversed way you went back. However, I believe that golfers learn the hard way tghat this is not the best forward-stroke pattern, and more of a down-the-line pattern serves better. So in the forward stroke, there is a reversing of the movement at first but from the bottom of the stroke going forward into the ball and through, the stroke pattern transitions by a wider separation of the lead elbow from the side as the putterhead is lifted or extended square through impact and down the line a little more than otherwise would occur with a truly symmetrical pattern. Hands-ahead and keeping-the-putter-low-thru-impact are basically two ways to get this extending-square effect. Nicklaus' piston stroke is the logical exaggeration of this tendency. Todd Sone recommends a lifting away of the elbow from the side.
SHOULDER STROKE
In comparison, the muscles recruited to start the takeaway in a shoulder stroke are ONLY the waist muscles that turn the torso. The pecs and biceps stay very relaxed and inert. When Loren Roberts sets up, he deliberately relaxes his lead shoulder to make sure there is not some lingering tension in these limb muscles waiting to get involved in the takeaway, as this would tend to spoil the stroke. So he is assessing his body parts and positions and state at the outset, as part of his job of making sure the right muscle groups get recruited in the takeaway.
The plan of the stroke's progression depends on whether you are trying to use a tilted stroke or a vertical stroke. If a vertical stroke, the plan is to move the lead shoulder socket directly down at the balls of the lead foot, so the socket curls down and back in one vertical plane of motion. This action sends the lead elbow gliding across the belly region but without any rotation, as the arm pit shape stays unchanged. There is no independent action of the arms, and the feeling is simply that of a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars with two stubs where arms used to be moving his shoulder frame as a unit in a vertical plane of rocking. The arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, and hands stay inactive, albeit with a little tonic or static tension for steadiness. The line across the shoulders is the "base" of the "triangle," and the arm pits are the two angles of the triangle where the arms (sides) join the base. These arm pit angles stay unchanged, which is accomplished by keeping the line of the shoulder frame moving perpendicular to the butt of ther putter shaft. The shaft points perpendicularly into the plane of the torso at all times in the turn. The vertical action will send the sweet spot of the putter straight back from the ball on a path parallel to the shoulder frame orientation (which should be the same as the putt line, if you start out with shoulders square to the line). The putter face will "naturally" go straight back and the face will "naturally" stay square to the line of the putt and the path of the stroke. The pushing down of the lead shoulder in a vertical way naturally results in the rear shoulder moving vertically up away from the rear foot.
The hands are moved by the shoulder action in a straight line about along the toe line, but the straightness of this path of the hands sends them farther away from the feet and the middle of the stance than is the case with an armsy stroke. This "feels" like the arms are extending back and away from the feet, but it is only because the rear side of the rib cage is getting stretched by the shoulder frame rocking the rear shoulder up. In the armsy stroke, the rear shoulder doesn't rise much, but it rises significantly in the shoulder stroke, and this stretches the side beneath the rear shoulder. This stretching is a positive body feeling to go for, but habitually inattentive golfers just keep the shoulder from rising and let the arms stick back instead to relieve or avoid the stretchedd feeling. Because of this feeling in the shoulder stroke that the arms and hands are actively being extended by voluntary limb muscle action (an illusion from the stretching side -- al;l that is moving is the shoulder frame by virtue of the gut muscles), it "feels" to the golfer that the hands and the putter head are reaching out in a counterclockwise curling away from the feet. (I don't know how many times I've seen golfers describe why they don't like the shoulder straight stroke because of this feeling.) It "seems" that the hands go away from the belt buckle area of the body going back and the forearm "seems" to have to rotate counterclockwise to keep the putter face square as the putter head moves in a Ferris Wheel manner back from the ball. Actually, the golfer has to AVOID allowing the forearms to rotate clockwise. He does this by keeping the shoulder frame perpendicular to the putter shaft as the stroke progresses, keeping the arm pits unchaging, keeping the arms from moving independently farther than the torso carries them, and thus keeping the elbows from rotating the lead forearm clockwise going back. Just go for the feeling of the stretch and ignore everything but the action of the shoulder frame.
The end result is that the hands stay low, the upper body stays completely relaxed, the putter moves straight and square, and no body part has anything to do while the shoulders are rocked from the waist.
The action is just the same when the shoulder sockets are moved in a tilted plane, but it looks different and the stretching of the rear side is lessened. The arm pits stay unchanged and the upper limb and chest muscles are all inactive. In both cases (vertical or tilted), the V-shape in the thumbs stays aimed straight down the shaft.
Going forward, the shoulder stroke may be either e reversal of the action going back or a simple relaxation and free-fall plus a lift past the bottom of the stroke. I like the latter. The former just sends the lead socket up or the rear socket down in a reversed pattern of motion and using the same set of muscles in the waist. In the free-fall, the lifting of the shoulder frame going back has created a state of tension, and a simple relaxation of the waist allows the shoulder frame to free fall back to level. As the shoulders return to level, the golfer "rides" the putter handle down to the bottom of the stroke and experiences the natural acceleration downward, and "captures" this motion pattern and continues it up past impact in a reversal of deceleration and a coasting to a pause at the top of the through stroke. So this free fall stroke has three phases: back, drop, and lift -- all smoothly coordinated with what pattern of acceleration down gravity alone will produce. The lifting is a lifting of the lead shoulder socket in the exsiting plane of motion (vertical or tilted -- and even a tilted motion might transition to a vertical thru-stroke). The lifting begins right at the bottom of the stroke, and before impact with the back of the ball, but the lifting does not raise the putter face very much so that impact is only marginally lower than the middle of the face from top to bottom.
In either the vertical or the tilted shoulder stroke, the line of sight straight out of the face delivers a straight line from ball to target across the ground. When the putter head is moved in the Ferris Wheel or Tilt-a-Whirl down-the-line pattern of motion, the action delivers the sweet spot of the putter straight and square down the line ALL THE WAY. If you looked directly at the sweet spot of the putter as the stroke progresses past impact towards the target, your line of sight from straight-gazing eye to line of putt will always pass over the putter head's sweetspot. In fact, the sweet spot of the putter watched in this fashion will appear to move straight from the ball to the target, and the face will stay square to this line of motion at all times. If you continue a vertical stroke from ball to target and upward until the putter shaft is horizontal to the surface, your putter face should be aimed straight up at the sky, flat like a "Waiter's Tray." This means you did NOT allow the forearm to rotate going through. Almost all golfers allow this counterclockwise rotation of the forearm in the thru-stroke without any awareness of it, and this is a PULL stroke. The culprit is in the lead elbow rotating closed. To "feel" this NOT happen, tighten your whole lead arm from shoulder to finger tips and lift the putter down the line at the target. Nothing will rotate and thre putter will end up square to the sky when horizontal. Now relax the arm and hand and repeat this lifting of the putter -- chances are very good the putter face will rotate closed and aim back behind you a bit (maybe 10 to 20 degrees). This happens "naturally" when the lead arm pit opens.
So, if you are PUSHING putts to the right, you are probably experiencing unnoticed elbow rotation open going back, and this opens the face and the face stays open into impact or the putter head comes inside and then gets delivered on an in-to-out path thru impact. If you are PULLING your putts, you are probably experiencing some unnoticed forearm rotation closed between the bottom of the stroke and impact or you are starting the stroke with the hands or a lifting of the putter (elbow folding) that sends the putter head out beyond the putt line going back and results in an out-to-in path thru impact.
With respect to how the lower body and the head react to an armsy stroke versus a shoulders-only stroke, the armsy stroke has a little less tendency to cause motion but not that much. It "seems" in the shoulder stroke that when the shoulder frame rocks, it carries the head with it as the muscles connecting the scapula / shoulder blade to the neck pull the side of the neck down and press the other side of the neck up. In the armsy stroke's flatter action, this up-down action of the shoulder frame against the sides of the neck is replaced by a twisting / shearing action of the shoulder frame beneath the base of the neck. But in either case, the pivot at the base of the neck is simply rotating but not otherwise moving laterally in space. If the heads seems to move laterally a little in the shoulder stroke, especially the more upright style of action, that does not mean the pivot at the base of the neck is also moving out of a fixed but rotating location. So long as the neck is stable over the middle of the body during the stroke, there is no "sway" resulting from the shoulder rock. Even so, the head tilting above the fixed neck pivot can be distracting, as the eyes and inner ear are very sensitive to motion at this time. It is easily fixed by just aiming the nose at a spot on the ground behind the ball in your setup and then keeping it there motionless as the shoulder rock progresses beneath a fixed pbut rotating pivot and a fixed unmoving head, face, nose, and eyes. This will create a little tension in the base of the neck and might even encourage a little armsiness in the stroke, so pay attention to whether you can hold the head still and feel a good shoulder rock without the pecs and biceps getting back into the act by the neck tension.
The lower body gets its tendency to move in the stroke from the mass of arms and torso moving or twisting athwart the vertical plane of the hips, from the center of gravity of the upper body swaying (mostly) laterally above the lower body's center of gravity (COG), and from conflict of the rib cage with the pelvis as the lower end of the rib cage presses down at the pelvis. There is not usually any desire to move the lower body. In the armsy stroke, there is a tendency for more lateral sway of the upper body off the lower COG resulting from the independent extension of the arms back. This tends to make the hips open in the backstroke. If they do, and they don't get reclosed going into impact, you get a push. So armsy golfers learn not to let the hips open -- as Arnold Palmer did with his pinching inward of the knees at address in a pigeon-toe style. With a vertical shoulder stroke, this is not a problem, as the shoulder move in the same vertical plane the hips are set in. In an armsy stroke, there is not much conflict from the rear rib cage going downat the top of the pelvis, as the move is a flatter and more twisting around of the torso over the pelvis than a descending torso beneath rocking shoulders. The extent to which the shoulder plane of motion nis tilted off vertical; mitigates this conflict. And even in the case of a vertical shoulder stroke, the conflist only arises past a certain backstroke length that is seldom called upon. Nevertheless, when this conflict does arise, there is a tendency for the hips to rotate the pelvis out of the way, to avoid or lessen the conflict. Going to the top of the back stroke, this conflict causes the front hip to move outward, opening the hips. Going to the top of the thru-stroke, the rear hip moves out and the hips close. This slight hip rotation reveals itself in the giving of the knee above the moving hip, so the lead knee gives slightly going back and then the rear knee gives slightly going forward. There's nothing wrong about this -- the focus stays on the upper body moving correctly, as the lower body reaction is just a meaningless result of correct movement, not a cause of error. So don't worry about a little lower body motion -- it's most likely a good thing!
Now, back to OLD WAY NEW WAY. In light of the above, the Old Way is to feel the arms get recruited in the use of the pecs and biceps going back, with a little extension independent of the torso. Everything I consider undesirable in this style starts here. The New Way focuses on relaxing the shoulders, pecs, and biceps at the start, keeping the shoulder rock going despite stretching, and NOT allowing unnoticed elbow or forearm rotation. there's not much more to it really, except possibly fixing the nose in space. I would also try to get the Waiter's Tray position down and see how to get there without using anything except the shoulder turn.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
Over 500,000 visits and growing strong ...