Dear Steve,
Thanks for the compliment.
In putting, at least the way I teach it, you also want to "stay connected." I'm not entirely sure what is meant by the phrase in the full swing, although I believe it means not letting one section of the body outrace another but instead have a coordinated leading-following relationship (lower body, trunk, arms-hands). The notion of the "triangle" in a shoulder stroke implies a similar "connectedness." By "triangle" I mean the shape of the relationship of the line of the shoulder frame (base of triangle), and the lines of the two arms to the hands (sides of the triangle). If the "triangle" comes unconnected as we are discussing the notion, one or more of the three angles of the triangle change -- the angle at the lead armit, at the rear armpit or at the hands on the handle. if you include the putter in the shape, it all looks more like a "Y" than a triangle.
Here's a fairly conventional illustration of what is usually meant by the "triangle":
I would draw the line for the base of the triangle across the top of the shoulder frame, and would have my arms a little straighter naturally, without the crook in the lead elbow shown above.
We can explore the different aspects of a "connected" triangle action, but I would stress at the outset that establishing a base-level of muscle tone in the setup that is needed to preserve the triangle shape during the stroke motion does NOT mean the stroke is not made with a very relaxed and casual body as a whole. The muscles that move the stroke are not involved in the triangle shape, but are in the waist area, and most of the connectedness in the stroke comes from gravity and biomechanics positioning rather than muscle tension in the upper chest and arms and hands. So overall, even though there is a certain base-level muscle tone used to connect the triangle into a unified whole, it still feels very relaxed and casual and easy to move smoothly back and forth.
The specific aspects of a connected triangle setup and stroke (in what I consider an optimal technique) include:
@ A fully relaxed hanging of the arms and hands
@ Elbows hanging vertically below the shoulder sockets
@ A slight in-turn of the elbows towards each other accomplished by a little extra bicep / upper arm tension
@ Lead edge of putter handle fitting along the lifeline of the lead palm, which conforms the shaft to the line of the forearm and angles the whole hand down a bit ("look at these filthy shoes" gesture)
@ Lead hand thumb aimed straight down the top of the handle and thumbtip flat on the handle but not especially pressed tight
@ Grip pressure set and held steady at about 2 on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being as tight as you can grip, or about the same as shaking hands with a fine lady
@ No obvious "play" left in the elbows other than a mild angle between upper arm and forearm that results from normal muscle development (i.e., elbows not held "tucked" back at sides of ribs higher than they normally hang
@ Distance from pivot to bottom of putter sole established by NOT lifting the hands any higher than they hang when placing the grip onto the handle but rather by soling the putter flat to the surface (even if the lie is uneven of tilted towards or away from the feet) and then "bringing the body and hands to the putter" so that adopting the grip does not alter the soling, the face aim, or the position of the handle in space
@ A slight hovering of the putter, not in the air, but with the sole slightly on the cushion of the grass, just not resting inertly onto the turf
@ Joint pairs set square to the putter face aim, starting with the skull line across the eyes and working back and down thru the neck to square the lower joint pairs in sequence (shoulders / elbows / wrists as one unit, hips, knees, ankles) to end with "happy feet"
@ Starting the triangle with the lead shoulder shoving the putter head back from the dock -- by aiming the lead shoulder socket straight at the balls of the lead foot and letting the shoulder frame work in a vertical plane rocking beneath a steady neck, versus staring the putter back by pulling / pushing the dead weight on the ground with the hands and arms independently, as this very often sends the putter head away from the stance out beyond the line of the putt into a loopy stroke path
@ A sense that the shoulder frame as a whole is a unit not unlike a heavy wooden ox yoke hanging by a metal ring on a peg so that it is balanced level to begin with and is easily tipped down on the lead side by a single finger pushing it down, with the rear side necessarily tipping up the same amount, poising at the top heavily, ready to drop and swing downward once the finger is removed
@ An optional sense of pulling the putter head back straight from the ball with the palm of the rear hand as if pulling a cord straight back with the cord connected to the lead shoulder socket by a pulley centered between the balls of the feet and oriented parallel to the putt line, thus coordinating the pulling back of the hand while moving the lead shoulder down and back over the balls of the feet so that you can't really tell whether the hand is pulling or the shoulder is pushing
@ The armpit on the side of the extension of the stroke (rear on backstroke, lead on thru-stroke) does not open, as this indicates independent and unconnected arm action separate from the shoulder frame movement
@ Hands do nothing and there is no sense of "reaching" back or thru and flat top of handle does not roll back or roll thru
@ Elbow on opposite side of stroke extension (lead elbow on backstroke, rear elbow on thru-stroke) does not glide across abdomen
@ Hands on extension of stroke stay out over a line across the toes rising naturally with the extension, rather than arcing around the stance at about the same distance all the time and not rising as much
@ Pivot at base of neck does not "follow" the putter head back in the backstroke and does not "chase after" the putter head going forward, but the base of the neck stays steady in plane and the neck stays aimed perpendicularly into the line of the putt established at setup as the shoulder frame workes beneath the pivot
@ A sense that whatever stability is set in the lower body allows the golfer to putt from the top of the body with the pivot in the base of the neck steady in place and the shoulder frame working in a plane parallel to the aim of the putter face rocking or swinging beneath the "bar" of the perpendicularly set neck
@ A stroke tempo that conforms with gravity such that the starts and stops are not abrupt and there is no sense inside the palms and fingers that the handle is getting "wagged" or "waggled" by the abruptness of the action and the insides of the palms experience a steady grip pressure in which "nothing changes" during the stroke
@ A sense of "patiently riding the handle down" in the downstroke and letting the putter build its own speed gradually without rushing the stroke down
@ A sense that the hands fall naturally and gracefully from the top of the back stroke back to the same space (and same orientation) they occupied at address, neither closer to the thighs nor farther away as the hands swing thru this bottom area and then continue upward in a gentle, symmetrical arcing up to the end position
@ A sense that the hands are "heavy" (like two gloves full of wet sand) and unused except to help the putter fall and swing, which is accompanied by a total lack of concern for stubbing the putter coming down because you are putting from a stable top of the body with the hovering of the putter sole at address having established the maximum low-point of the putter
@ A thru-stroke powered by the lead shoulder rocking vertically up (and bringing the rear shoulder down in a coordinated way), so that the shoulder socket on the lead side acts a little like the engine on a train pulling the cars uphill (but see below), the cars being the lead arm, the lead hand, and the putter all as one unitized train being pulled up by the lead shoulder with the pivot remaining directly above the middle of the stance as initially set (this makes lead-wrist "breakdown" irrelevant) -- the only reason this is a voluntary action at all is because unless there is some lifting of the shoulder frame into the thru-stroke, the downward dropping of the shoulder frame is not sufficient by itself to rock the lead shoulder up enough, and the shoulder frame action stalls out, the arms flap onward independently, and this causes a pull
@ The stroke action coasts to the top of the backstroke and then starts down on its own, accelerates smoothly to a peak speed at the bottom of the stroke, and then coasts up to the top of the thru-stroke with the shoulder frame rocking up to just keep the lead socket out of the way of the free-swinging costing conclusion of the stroke with only a very slight sense of the engine actually having to tug the train uphill (sort of like the whole train started on the top of one hill, drifted accelerating down to the bottom of the valley and then coasted up to the top of the next hill)
@ As the rear shoulder rocks down and a conflict develops between the bottom of the rib cage on the rear side and the pelvis below it, the forward stroke does not come unconnected by seeking to avoid the conflict by redirecting the rib cage rear-side lapward to keep the body comfy and without conflict, but instead keeping this area of the body "casual" as it tugs the torso down, thus raising the lead socket vertically up (or alternatively, coordinating a little well-timed "give" in the rear-side knee that lowers the rear pelvis slightly -- a Crenshaw action)
@ A preserving of the forearm-hands orientation for some substantial distance past impact, so there is no lead-side rolling of the hands and forearms to the inside (the flat top of the handle does not change planes in a rolling)
@ The putter handle stays aimed into the midline of the body by keeping the relationship of the top edge of the putter face and the line across the rocking shoulders the same (perpendicular and centered) at all points in the stroke
@ A sense that the base of the neck stays vertical and parallel to the putt line and the line of the neck stays perpendicular to the putt line while the shoulder frame rocking transpires
@ Unless the head and face are held fixed in position during the stroke, the head and face will "rock" in a coordinated way with the shoulder frame such that the face always aims at the putter head and the base of the neck will rotate with the shoulder action but not come out of plane or twist (the head and face are held steady by the neck muscles by pointing the face straight down at the putter head in the setup and keeping the face -- and nose -- aimed there during the stroke)
@ A timing sense that the putter head always drops back to the exact middle of the stroke with the same amount of time between the top of the backstroke and the bottom of the stroke, regardless of the size of the backstroke, and that when the putter head swings thru the bottom area, it is "swoshing" low and flat across the tips of the grass blades at its peak speed
@ An overall sense of a baby elephant safe in the shadow of its giant defender mother lazily swinging its trunk from side to side over the tops of the savannah grass by a whole-head rolling that swings the trunk with a lazy tempo without any whipping of the trunk, always the same size swings from side to side
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The challenge to staying connected always comes at the extreme extensions of the stroke going back or going thru. This challenge mostly arises once the putter head gets significantly outside the feet in a shoulder-width stance.
Going back, it helps to have a sense of driving the lead shoulder down and back beneath a straight neck in order not to quit the shoulder action too soon, as this leads to independent arm and hand action, opening of the rear armpit, rolling of the forearms to change the putter face, and a stroke path that is arcing off line.
A related key to staying connected going back is to be patient and allow the backstroke to complete itself by coasting to its own easy conclusion, instead of you stopping the backstroke and throwing the switch to "forward" -- let the backstroke transpire on its own by starting the backstroke with a gentle driving shove back and then let the putter head coast to the top of whatever backstroke it wants, so long as the backstroke as a whole consumes about the same amount of time as the falling down of the putter head takes from top of backstroke to top of follow-thru.
If you started the stroke not from the static position at the bottom in a still setup but from poising the putter at the top of the follow-thru and let it drop backwards and down on its own and then coast to the top of the backstroke, and then kept up a sequence of casual swings back and forth, the total time of one swing from side to side is roughly how long the backstroke should require to get a shove at the start and then coast to its own end at the top. In my scheme, the count "one potato ... two" mimicks the timing of gravity between the "toe" and the "two", but a full and relaxed backstroke requires that ther golfer not jump in and truncate the backstroke and instead allow the full four-syllables of "one potato" to transpire as the backstroke coasts to a stop. Resist the urge to get the backstroke over with early by waiting for the putter head to start down gradually on its own.
Going forward, the challenge of staying connected is to avoid a sense of "hitting" thru impact in favor of a sense of the graceful swing of the putter moving by itself with accurate form beneath the fixed neck, as if the neck is the top bar of a swing set and there is no twist in the path of the swing coming down and then rising up beneath the bar. This graceful swinging up does require that the lead shoulder frame be moved up just ahead of the natural swinging pace of the stroke, to avoid stalling the stroke form out and flapping the arms / collapsing the triangle with the lead armpit opening.
The trick to moving the shoulder frame up in the right pacing is riding the putter handle down while sensing te natural timing of the swing and then making sure the lead shoulder moves up just ahead of it. here is no rush thru impact and no pulling the putter up, just a smooth staying ahead of the swing as it coasts to the top of the follow-thru. There is a patience for the accelerating fall of the putter head to reach the bottom by itself, so it is good to avoid doing anything coming down except being patient (and assured).
The other trick is not allowing the upper torso to twist the shoulders so the lead shoulder comes back off square in the follow-thru or the rear shoulder does not jut outward following the putter head, and this mostly means not avoiding the conflict between the bottom of the rear rib cage and the pelvis while the pivot remains over the exact middle of the body at setup and the base of the neck does not twist out of plane parallel to the putt line. It also means not reaching or sticking the putter thru impact to a predetermined end position with the hands, as this rolls the forearms and causes a pull. Just move the shoulder frame only, and let the hands keep their orientation on the handle without rolling. Staying casual and relaxed as the stroke moves into this challenge area in the thru-stroke lets the conflict in the rear waist area develop without muscle tightness resisting the movement. Stay casual and the maintaining of a connected form is a lot easier to perform accurately.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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