It's Time to Expand Golf's Fundamentals to Include Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment

Traditional pre-shot guidelines of square stance, square knees, hips, shoulders, clubface, and two knuckles showing at address can be helpful, but achieve little to insure proper hand, wrist, and clubface positioning at impact.

Hands, wrists, and forearms can easily rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise in addition to the wrists hinging vertically and horizontally during a swing. The clubface angle in relation to the target line can easily change as the hands, wrists, and forearms rotate.

Golfers at all skill levels must constantly guard against improper hand, wrist, and forearm rotation during a swing, and especially at impact. Current alignment guidelines do not provide a solution other than "timing" to explain how hand and wrist position changes from address to impact.

It's time to expand golf's fundamentals to include a method for synchronizing the key variables of potential hand, wrist, and forearm rotation with clubface alignment at impact.

Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment provides a technique for more consistent positioning of the hands, wrists, and forearms at address and impact. The technique can greatly reduce the need for a golfer to rely on their ability to control such rotation during a swing, and synchronize it with a desired clubface alignment at impact.

In addition to providing more consistent hand, wrist, forearm, and clubface positioning at impact, Dynamic pre-shot alignment helps to keep the club on a proper path during the backswing and forward swing.

Undesirable rotation can allow the club to easily travel above or below the swing plane, or too far inside or outside on the backswing. Such variation in swing path requires re-routing of the club during the forward swing in addition to the need to point the back of the leading hand at the target at impact.

Golfers are often seen swinging the club back to waist high in order to check the clubface alignment as part of a pre-shot routine. The clubface can easily be open, square, or closed due to the fact that traditional fundamentals allow for an excess of hand, wrist, and forearm rotation.

Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment helps insure that the clubface angle at waist height on the backswing is correct for the type of shot being executed.

Comparison of Baseball and Golf Swing Planes
 Jack Nicklaus used the baseball swing to show how easy it is to visualize a level swing path at waist height rather than a golf swing on an incline plane.  Here is a video to show how Dynalign Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment can improve both the swing path and clubface alignment in relation to the swing path.

 

Dynalign Produces Stabilized Clubface During Backswing from Dynalign Golf on Vimeo.
Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment is an integrated technique, and can be used to improve alignment for putting and chipping as well as full shots. One basic pre-shot alignment technique can be used for all golf shots. To learn more visit dynaligngolf.com

Right Touch Can Improve Your Distance Control

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Grip and Putter Not Included

New Japanese language Right Touch now available!
新しい日本語右タッチで現在利用できる ！


Tossing or rolling a golf ball with the hand has been one of the most repeated tips used by teaching pros for many years. It has been featured in all major golf magazines, and will continue to be the subject of future articles.

The golf ball toss is a good idea, but it is missing a very important element.....your putter. The Right Touch Trainer is used with your putter to give you the best feedback for improved distance control.

The Right Touch Trainer is an effective kinesthenic training aid to help golfers improve their game.

The Right Touch Trainer improves distance control for all short game shots including putting, chipping, and pitching.



Features At A Glance

Learn Distance Control.......The Most Important Part Of The Short Game And The Key To Saving Strokes............
Feel The Real Distance Controller In The Short Game

The power you put into a putting stroke is judged in a similar manner to the tossing of a ball. The weight of the baseball or golf ball is sensed by the hand and aids in determining how much force to use in a toss or putting stroke. The Right Touch Trainer allows you to feel as if you are rolling the golf ball to the hole with your hand while putting with your putter.

The result gives you the perfect sensation of combined weight and motion to sharpen your sense for distance control.

The Right Touch Trainer extends the classic ball toss technique one important step further by allowing the golfer to feel a ball toss while putting, chipping, or pitching.

Simply tossing a golf ball does not impart any information as to the added lever length of the golf club or the mass of the clubhead. With the Right Touch Trainer attached to the putter's grip and held in the fingers, the golfer is able to sense the total system mass of shaft length, putter weight, and ball weight in motion. The result is a more accurate judgment of the force needed to make the ball travel a specific distance.

The golfer may practice putting balls with the Right Touch Trainer attached to a putter on a putting green, a carpet, or a smooth cement floor to simulate very fast greens. After the trainer is removed for play, the golfer is better able to recall the sensation of holding the ball in the hand while putting on the course. Therein lies the key to distance control.
*Audio temporarily unavailable - captioned video

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How To Choose A Golf Instructor - The Hard Question

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An interesting article by PGA Master Professional and 2009 North Florida PGA Teacher of the Year John Hughes has some helpful guidelines to use when choosing an instructor. See the full article on PGA.com here, http://tinyurl.com/dazrfw

A quote from the article raises a hard question. "Let's face it; golf is not rocket science or brain surgery. However, there are physics, biomechanical, and geometric principles involved with the science of golf instruction. Your golf instructor should have a thorough understanding of these concepts related to the game of golf..."

The hard question, which goes further, that you should ask when interviewing a potential instructor is: "Explain how you teach someone to control the change in the position of the leading hand from address to impact?"

The change in position of the leading hand includes an understanding of pronation and supination.

The answer more than likely will center on performing proper swing motion leading to correct timing of the "release" so that the clubface is in the desired alignment at impact.

Proper timing of the release is made necessary because of the potential variation in leading hand position that can occur during a swing when using traditional alignment guidelines.

Traditional pre-shot alignment guidelines of square feet, hips, shoulders, and two knuckles showing, allow for significant variation of clubface alignment during the swing.

At the beginning of the backswing, the leading hand can easily open or close its relation to the target line. The club also can easily travel inside or outside the proper path.

Despite a perfect backswing, more variation of alignment can occur if you do not remember to tuck your trailing elbow on the downswing.

Once you have learned to perform the perfect backswing and forward swing, you will still need to practice timing your release so that the clubface is in the proper configuration at impact.

Dynalign Golf's dynamic pre-shot alignment technique answers the hard question in a different way.

Rather than starting with a traditional address position and requiring the golfer to create the correct impact position from a multitude of potential positions, the Dynalign technique significantly reduces undesirable potential motion in the hands, wrists, and forearms.

The result is a more efficient functioning of the biomechanism, less margin for error, and most importantly a significant reduction in reliance on the golfer to independently time the release.

Dynalign Golf's dynamic pre-shot alignment technique can enhance your control over clubface alignment at impact for putting, chipping, as well as full shots. That's when the hard questions must be answered.

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Tiger's Alignment: Address and Impact

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The images below from the WGC-CA Championship at Doral on 3/15/2009 illustrate why it can be difficult to maintain clubface alignment from address to impact.

The black lines show the shoulder, arm and shaft angles at address.













This is the same view of address with red lines showing where the hands, shoulders, leading arm, and shaft will be at impact.









The red lines in the next photo indicate how the shoulders, arms, hands, and club have changed position at impact. The leading shoulder has raised approximately 18 degrees. The hands have moved forward, and the angle between the leading arm and shaft has been reduced to a straight line to the ball.
















In the photo on the left, black lines show the starting point at address. The change of angles and position of the shoulders, leading arm, leading hand, and club at impact are indicated in red.










The yellow lines show an angle of about 25 degrees between the leading forearm and the back of the left hand at address.





At impact, the single yellow line shows the flat position of the back of the leading hand and how the leading arm and shaft form a straight line angle to the ball. This position of the leading hand has been called "the position of champions."

In addition to the change in position and angles of the hands, wrists, and forearms, they are also rotating in counter-clockwise motion through impact. Clubface alignment to the target line can easily vary as the rotation occurs.

If the timing of rotation is late, the clubface will be more open than anticipated at impact causing the ball to start to the right of the target line. If the timing of rotation is early, the clubface will be more closed than anticipated at impact, causing the ball to start to the left of the target line.

The rotational motion of the leading hand, wrist, and forearm is supination, and can be more easily remembered with the phrase "holding a cup of soup". The motion of the trailing hand, wrist, and forearm is an opposite motion and is called pronation.

Golfers using traditional pre-shot alignment technique, as shown above, are required to properly time the change in position of the hands, wrists, and forearms as they supinate and pronate so that the clubface is aligned properly at impact. This can be difficult even for the most highly skilled players.

An alternative is dynamic pre-shot alignment, which can reduce the variation in position of the hands, wrists, and forearms between the address and impact positions. Dynamic pre-shot alignment can help synchronize pronation and supination of the hands, wrists, and forearms so that clubface alignment at address is a more reliable representation of clubface alignment as it will be at impact.

Dynamic pre-shot alignment can result in a significant increase in control of clubface alignment at impact by reducing the need to rely on a golfer's ability to properly time pronation and supination of the hands, wrists, and forearms at impact.

Dynamic pre-shot alignment is an integrated technique that also can stabilize alignment through impact for both putting and chipping.

To learn more, visit the Dyn-Align website at http://www.dynaligngolf.com/

Good Times - Bad Times - You Know They Had Their Share At Doral

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Thanks to high speed cameras we can see the fine line between a properly timed release and a poorly timed release that can cost a tour player a lot of cash or even one of the four big titles.

In the third round at Doral, Tiger's second shot into 18 was a 3 iron off a hook lie from 207. Super slow motion video through impact showed just the right amount of hand, wrist, and forearm rotation to keep the shot from going into the water on the left or the traps on the right. Tiger said: "Best shot I hit all day." Good times.

Johnny Miller said, "Look at that left forearm and how he turns down that left wrist and supinates and traps it with that right hand...turns it down.“

This was a much more difficult shot than the 8 iron Tiger flaired off to the right on the par 3 12th hole during his match with Tim Clark. Bad times.

On the 11th tee during the third round at Doral, Nick Watney was leading when he hit his tee shot wildly off to the right. Johnny Miller commented after seeing a late release in the slow motion replay that Nick was, "Just a little late." If this had been baseball, he could have said that one was "just a little outside."

Roger Maltbie said, "He got lucky, lucky, lucky, 'cause that was a horrible tee shot."

An interesting exchange between Dan Hicks and Butch Harmon occurred as Phil Mickelson was playing the 16th hole.

Dan Hicks: "Phil has said that this is the best his game has ever been from 50 yards in. And he also days it's the best he's ever hit it off the tee, as far as being long and accurate. Do you agree with that?"

Butch Harmon: " I do agree with that. He's worked very hard on his golf swing. This is about 2 years we've been together now. What you are seeing is the results of a lot of hard work. He's starting to feel very comfortable with all the changes we have made."

Phil's tee shot on the very next hole was a reminder of the fine line between success and failure.

Johnny Miller: "Uh oh, that was a Winged Footer there."
Butch Harmon: "That is way to the left. I mean that's so far left it's unbelievable."
"The club is trapped behind him right there. He can not catch up with his back hand and this ball has gotta go straight left."

The tee shot didn't cost Phil a US Open as it did at Winged Foot, but he did make a bogey and ended up in a tie for the lead after round 3. He will have to block out memories of both tee shots when he gets to the 72nd tee on Sunday at Doral.

To learn more about supination, pronation, how you can rely less on timing to synchronize your release with proper clubface angle at impact, and how to prevent trapping the club behind you, visit www.dynaligngolf.com .

Callaway FT 9 - Does The Hype Cross The Line?

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New model clubs have always been promoted as being able to hit the ball farther (not further), or to correct slicing, or hit it straight, but Callaway's new FT 9 driver is advertised to be able to do it all.

Finally, the magic golf club. Never though we would live to see a golfer as exciting as Tiger, and now this!

According to the FT9 TV ad, "you can draw one around the lake, bomb one down the middle, or hit a high fade past the bunkers".

Does their new promotion cross the line between puffing the product and misleading claims? Notice that the ad states, "Imagine having the ability to shape shots without sacrificing distance." Just imagine having that ability because that's the only way you will be able to hit a fade as far as a draw.

Did you notice the fine print in the ad? In addition to using a new FT 9 to perform the desired ball flight control, the ad also shows that in order to "draw one around the lake" you need to close your stance. To hit the straight shot and "bomb one down the middle" you should use a square stance. To hit the "high fade past the bunkers" you also need to open your stance. Not exactly breaking news.

What happens when you close your stance and try to draw one around the lake only to curve your ball away from the lake and into the rough on the opposite side? You more than likely were a little late in your release. Since your stance is closed and the face is open, your shot can easily curve in the opposite direction as intended and be much farther away from your target.

In this situation, the FT9's "external web weighting", "carbon fiber body", and "hyperbolic face" may not be enough to save your shot. Instead, you will be back on the range working on the timing of your release.

A more reliable method to use when you want to draw one around the lake is to use dynamic pre-shot alignment. This method goes to the main cause of a poorly timed release by helping to synchronize the pronation and supination of your hands,wrists, and forearms at impact so that the clubface angle is aligned as you intend.

Dynamic pre-shot alignment can work with a wooden Ping Eye 2 driver, which is missing the external web weighting and carbon fiber body and has old fashioned bulge and roll instead of a hyperbolic face, as well as with a Callaway FT9. And the best part is you can actually learn how to use dynamic pre-shot alignment, rather than just imagining you have the ability to control your clubface angle at impact.

You knew the new FT9 ad was pulling your leg anyway, didn't you?

www.dynaligngolf.com

Honda Classic - Don't Forget To Release Your Putter

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It's pretty easy to understand that timing the release for full shots is difficult when using traditional pre-shot alignment guidelines of square feet, hips, shoulders, and two knuckles showing at address.

Traditional alignment allows for a significant amount of wrist pronation and supination through impact on a full swing.

If you are a little late in timing the release, the clubface can be open at impact causing the ball to go to the right. If you are a little early in timing your release, the clubface can be closed and the shot will go farther left than expected for a right handed player.

But how hard could it be to time the release in putting? According to Gary Koch, one of professional golf's finest putters, timing the release in putting is anything but easy.

Gary's watchful eye saw numerous examples of missed putts during the third round of the Honda Classic. Sergio Garcia, who has a gifted short game, had consecutive holes where he was unable to properly release the putter according to Koch.

On 16 Koch said, "Doesn't look like he's releasing the putter as well as he was say about this time last year, that's for sure."

On 17 Sergio again missed a putt to the right and Koch said, "Not releasing the putter very well."

A method to reduce the need to properly time your release of the putter, or irons and woods, can be found in the Golf Shotmaker Manual.

Dynamic pre-shot alignment can significantly improve a golfer's ability to synchronize the release for all types of golf shots for improved control of the ultimate issue on all golf shots: clubface alignment at impact.

The manual can be purchased from the Dyn-Align web site at: www.dynaligngolf.com