In another post it was mentioned that some don't know where to look when reviewing their swings. While I've described my previous 'benchmark' for '6/100s' I thought it would be useful to illustrate the position I examine when I review video of myself and what I mean by 'pro' performance in holding the angle. The following pictures of Freddy Couples were taken from the source for the
DG video clip:
The red line indicates body center at address. The yellow line indicates the lead arm and the club. The green line in the last photo indicates the trail arm and hand.
I've always looked at the positions for photos #2 and #3 but did not use the position in photo #1 as one of my benchmarks. After reading Bertholy I do.
1) Acute angle between shaft and lead arm when lead arm horizontal in the downswing. The shaft should appear to pass close to the trail shoulder. This position is the one for the 'photo' from the Bertholy article
'THe Secret of the Late Release'.
2) Club at or above horizontal when hands reach mid-line of body at address. My previous benchmark was 'club at or above horizontal when hands reach trail leg'. As I've posted before I had a need to upgrade this for myself. Clearly pros do better (in part due to lower body shift forward).
3) Club in line with lead arm and trail wrist bent at impact.
I picked Couples in part because he is so anti-mechanical and his swing which he developed as a child has not changed according to him. He has never worried about hitting the ball. Would we all were so lucky. While Couples developed this swing 'naturally' (as did Snead) if you examine the clips of Daley, Love, Norman and Woods in the DG library, you will see that they are all nearly identical to Couples at these points. In addition if you do the same comparison with the 'engineered' swings of any of the Leadbetter crew you will find the same.
These are the standards I use to evaluate my swing (BTW - Scott matches as well) and what I consider 'pro' performance in holding the angle. Have I been able to achieve this with Bertholy? Yes I have. #1, #2 and #3. But not yet all the time and not without a lot of focus. It has yet to 'filter in' to my swing. I can not achieve these benchmarks without using Bertholy or my previous home grown version 'Levering'.
If you want to achieve 'pro' performance in this element of the swing, you now have some standards by which to gage 'pro' performance.
Peter
