Advanced Ball Striking

Mac was a model of proper spine tilt through the backswing and downswing. This bow to the 4:30 line opened up a clear pathway for his arms to slot so he could work the club down to the P3 launching pad. Notice the right arm under the left coming into P3.

Mac's shoulder rotation is just fantastic. In the third frame, his shoulders are rotated halfway through the backswing
more than most players would dream of getting to at the top of their backswing. His shoulder rotation at the top might be about as good as anyone ever. Only Palmer in his prime might have had this much rotation.

Mac's backswing had good pace to enable his weight transfer to load fully onto his right foot. Mac made a big downward flex of his right knee you can't see well from this caddy view angle, but it put a ton of pressure down his right leg, which further enabled him to delay the transfer of weight so that it happened through the strike, not before. Again, his shoulder rotation from impact to finish was equally fantastic. This is what really separated him from his students. This vicious torso rotation kept stress on the shaft through and beyond impact.

While these are slightly different frame captures from where the shaft and hands are, they are nearly identical if you look at the post impact shoulder rotation.

Hogan's upper arms are quite a bit more packed onto his chest keeping the shaft and hands lower and working left harder.
Hogan's right hand is not as ontop of the club as Mac's which would keep the toe of the club less active through the strike.
Also, much less right arm straightening at this point. Hogan's right arm straightening didn't happen much before P4 as he straightened into finish.

Even in Mac's prime, his miss was long and left more often that it should have been. His method of slotting the club was different than Hogan's but quite effective still. The Mac "right arm straightening" from P2 to P3 worked the hands down toward the right pocket nicely but didn't lay off the shaft as well as Hogan who worked the shaft into more clockwise rotation through transition. TGM had more of an obsession with "On Plane" than it should have.

Lag, the video below was posted on Youtube a while back. It's Gary McCord doing a clinic (in the late 80's early 90's?) and speaking about Mac and the MORAD project. I've found some of the concepts he speaks about very interesting ie. he says he swings the club with his body using rotation; Mac thought him to cut it left post impact instead of letting the arms fly out; keeping his right arm bent and in etc. He goes on and on about how Mac is one of the finest ball strikers he's ever seen and that there is a difference between ball strikers (ie. Mac) and scorers (ie. Tom Kite) and that scorers will beat ball strikers all the time. Really interesting stuff from the time MORAD was in its infancy.

It's an interesting video. McCord was just on this for a couple of months, and I think it did improve his game.
I think Mac changed his ideas over time with the intention of further refinement and improvement. I agree with McCord in that I never liked the idea of zeroing out weight transfer which later became a Stack and Tilt concept. I think he moved more and more in the direction over time. I am sure there was significant weight transfer going on when he was at his prime or prime striking years.

A lot of fine strikers have had their heads cocked into different field of visions. Nicklaus certainly, Watkins, Kite all had unusual head positions. I'm reminded of the story of Knudson shooting 68 at Glen Abbey.... hitting all his shots with his eyes closed.

Of course, it should be noted that McCord is speaking for Mac, so not everything can be assumed accurate as Mac could only confirm during that time.

Lag,

You mention a lot about Mac O'grady's (and maybe Knudson) desire/intent to jam their hands directly downwards in transition into what seems like their right pocket and then use their pivot to bring it all together at impact.

I've been playing around with a Doug Sanders esque flat swing (with a closed stance) and it seems very difficult to go OTT because the error is EASILY FELT. I think you've mentioned before that flat swings are great because you are essentially already in the slot.



The club feels so behind my body because of the flatness and closed stance. It really seems that dropping the hands is the only option and then turning level. Am I on the right path?

Also Lag can you one day when you have time try to show me why Hal Sutton displays this move more than others. You need a trained eye to see it !

The transition can be very complicated and gets more and more complex as one tries to master a deep slotting of the club.
First, one would have to ask "why do this?"

There have been many fine strikers who don't slot the club much, but the advantage of doing so is substantial.

Laying the club off through transition is the ultimate OTT inhibitor. OTT is a steep shaft coming down led by the path of the hands.
Working the club low and left post impact is not difficult for and OTT golf swing. But a masterful swing will slot the club AND work low and left post impact. This is a much more powerful action because the club is traveling a much greater distance AND it allows for a full range of motion for the work of the body and pivot.

What Hogan, Knudson and others figured out was to set up their golf swing to hook the ball....which is a more powerful action, then compensate against that with flat gear, very stiff shafts and no offset. At this point you could further add a flat swing and entry which flattens out lowpoint for a more linear impact compression. You get to a point to where you are TRYING to hook the ball but can't hook it because of the set up of your gear. Now you have opposing forces working against one another. The ball is not going right because you are trying like hell to hook the ball, but it can't go left either because your gear won't allow it. This is how you construct a swing that makes laser like ball striking look easy.... and it is easy once you learn how to configure the body movement and gear set up. This is really where I am leading all the ABS students here.

Mac's approach is aimed more at trying to achieve swing plane perfection. It's more about straight lines and tight tolerances regarding angles and positions. My feeling is that the golf swing is easier to repeat if things are moving more circular creating a series of opposing forces that the player can feel as tangible rather than trying to stay within the boundaries of two track rails.
To me Hogan, Knudson and Trevino had this kind of action in spades. Moe did this as well, but more in a Ferris Wheel approach.

Mac had one of the best post impact pivot rotations of any golf swing I ever saw. I think he missed on the concept of flattening out his gear as much as he could have and didn't grasp the concept of working off plane (slot) at transition which would have helped him not get OTT at times and miss long left. That was always his miss... it wasn't short right (uglier, but easier up and down in most cases). But when Mac was "on", he hit it as good as anyone.

Mac liked to put the left arm on the shoulder line (DTL) and then straighten the right arm down into the right pocket to inhibit OTT. This works as long as the right arm STRAIGHTENS!!!. If it doesn't it's OTT, because he was a big proponent of level shoulder rotation (as I am). It's a very unnatural move, very difficult to teach, integrate etc. But so is slotting the club at transition with a lay off and clockwise forearm rotation. Pick your poison I suppose. But as I mentioned, the latter allows for the more tangible circular motion of the club which seems more in sync with how most everything else in the universe seems to work.

paradigm_shift wrote:Also Lag can you one day when you have time try to show me why Hal Sutton displays this move more than others. You need a trained eye to see it !

It's exactly what Mac was promoting. Straightening the right arm quickly on the downswing and working the shoulders level.
It's a great move if you can get a proper feel for it.

Faldo did this as well. Two big guys who were laser straight hitters... not long hitters, but back in their era, accuracy was MUCH more important than distance..... and it should be in all eras of the game. Unfortunately it's not anymore which has dumbed down the game and made it much less interesting and less exciting to watch.