Pigamingi: Transition, where the golf swing goes awry

 

Muthaiga professional golfer Greg Snow follows his swing. [Maarufu Mohamed, Standard]

If you asked most Weekend Warriors at what point their swing is likely to go wrong, they will most likely tell that it is at impact.

That is not true: It happens during transition.

A transition takes a very brief moment and may not be noticeable, which is probably why its importance is underrated.

Transition is that period when the swing morphs from the backswing to the downswing. It is a moment that takes a second or two, but it is definitely not an instant in time. Some Teachers wrongly teach their students to stop the backswing, pause, then start the downswing.  That is totally wrong.

Air-borne octopus

The advice to stop the backswing, then start the downswing results in a rushed jerky downswing, lunges at the ball with his upper body, loses balance, arms, club and legs flying all over, evoking the scene of to an octopus falling from a tree!

By the time the club gets into contact with the ball, the golfer is unstable and almost toppling over. With experience, the mind learns to compensate by abbreviating the swing or restricting body weight shift, trying to stop the motion of his upper body and arms.

Due to the effects of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, and the centripetal force of an object making a rotary motion, the club cannot be stopped. With the body stopped, the arms and club cut across the target line from out to in, and voila, you have manufactured a nice slice.

Executing a good swing

To execute a good swing, the first thing to understand is that the swing is a continuous movement. At no point does the body come to a complete stop in the middle of the swing.

Instead, the backswing segues into the downswing seamlessly and continuously, just like a Disco DJs segues one song into another. The two movements briefly overlap.

What happens is that the downswing starts before the backswing ends. That sounds like an oxymoron obviously; a car cannot start moving forward while still reversing.

That double movement is achieved by separating the top part of the body from the lower one. Not with a knife, but with opposite body turns.

Angular velocity... and ferocity: Nanyuki Sports Club Captain Sam Muchiri in action. [Mose Sammy, Standard]

 

From setup, the lower and upper body start rotating clockwise together on the backswing, the shoulders carrying the arms in a one-piece smooth takeaway move.

Up to the point where the arms make a 45-degree angle with the ground, the hips will just be beginning to turn. There will be a small, almost imperceptible lateral shift of the hips to the right.

Left-arm gets parallel to the ground

The left knee will feel like it wants to turn in, rotate to the left, but both feet will still be flat on the ground, and the body weight is still distributed on both feet as it was at setup.

The body turn continues. As he left arm gets parallel to the ground, and the butt of the club points almost vertically down, and it now becomes necessary to raise the arms, the left heel may have started to rise or feel like rising and more weight will have shifted to the right foot.

During the last quarter-circle turn of the arm is when the transition begins. The turn of the lower body slows down, the hip turns almost coming to a stop.

The wrists get cocked, the left shoulder slides under the chin, the left arm points almost straight up as the club shaft points to the target and most of the bodyweight bears on the right leg. The left heel may have risen a quarter-inch or not at all but should have minimum weight on the left foot.

As the above is happening to the upper body, the lower body starts the downswing. The two movements will now overlap, happening at the same time.

Squashing a roach

This is where it gets tricky. How do you trigger the downswing? Different people have different triggers. Most golfers do this by stepping down on the left heel, like Jack Nicklaus as if squashing a cockroach. This pushes the hips to the left, to sort of reverse the small imperceptible lateral body shift mentioned earlier, causing a bodyweight shift to the left.

This cause the club shaft to drop to a lower plane. The left knee, which by this time is pointing at the ball, swivels to the left. If you do it correctly you will feel a sit-down sensation.

In the last part of Transition, you have to actively push off the soft pad of your right foot, which pushes the right knee to the left and causes the right hip to rotate anticlockwise to the left.

That essentially completes the Transition. But what follows immediately after, leading into the downswing, is crucial. Drop your right elbow down towards the right hip pocket, as you pull the butt end of the club towards the ball. This will be followed by completion of the downswing into impact, a topic for another day.

Easy

It might sound complicated but is quite easy to simulate with a popular drill. At the range, tee up six balls in a straight line for an iron shot, towards the guy on your right (for the right-handed golfers). The balls should be at six-inch spacing.

Now set up to the first ball, facing that guy on your right. With your seven iron, take ten half swing practice swings continuously, without stopping; but no followthrough. Imitate a pendulum, as if you are cutting tough grass with a slasher. An easy, languid swing, where the weight of the club controls the movement and the body follows.

Next, do the same and but this time hit the first ball, then advance your body six inches to the second ball and swing through, slashing the tee and advance to the next. Continue until the last one.

Do not worry about where the balls are going, just focus on creating smooth continuous tempo and rhythm as you advance from ball to ball. Once you get the hang of it, increase your swing to three quarters, but still do it continuously.

In the final stage, increase your speed to about three-quarters of your normal swing speed, but still restricting the extent to three-quarters of your usual range. The transition will happen naturally, marked by the feeling of the famous Sam Snead sit-down motion as the left knee rotates left.

Rotary kinematic sequence

There is a nice video on YouTube entitled, “Justin Thomas 120fps slow-motion face on driver golf swing”. Watch the transition at 1:09. It might look just like any other a regular swing, maybe even mediocre, but there is a lot happening behind the scene.

Perfecting that linear and rotary kinematic sequence will result in an easy, smooth swing that will be the envy of your foursome.

Have a smooth transition; keep it in the short grass. 

[email protected], @pigamingi1