Ed Lyndsay down in Naples, Florida sent in this question a little while ago:

"A subject I have not seen you address is the elevation of ball flight. I have been using the Surge swing for almost a year, I'm 81, 5'5" tall, 145 lbs, 15 index and use a 10.5 degree driver. I hit a high ball and get about 190 yds. Occasionally, I will get a lower trajectory and the ball will go another 10 to 15 yards. Any thoughts on how I might develop a consistent lower trajectory?"

Indeed I do, Ed. Watch the video for what I consider the "undergraduate course" in how to hit a drive with a lower trajectory. There are a number of ways to accomplish this depending on what the specific set of conditions you are facing. It's tough to cover completely in 7-8 minutes, but I'll give it a go! [For the "graduate" level course on this topic, plus a lot more, check out my instructional video, Working The Ball. It has everything you need to know in order to shape a shot precisely the way you want.]

Terry Striano's question below is deceptively simple:

"Is the ball in a straight line with the target, if so the body would naturally be lined parallel left of the target. Please clear this up so I can understand what correct alignment is."

We often talk about Alignment on this blog because as you've heard me say a thousand times before, 90-95% of ALL swing problems are due to faulty alignment. And when I describe how we want to align our toes parallel left of the target, I sometimes refer to the line that bisects the ball as the Target Line and sometimes as the Aiming Line. I use them pretty much interchangeably, but Terry's question got me thinking. Is the Target Line and the Aiming Line always one and the same thing?

Today's daily is the third installment of Doc Griffin's series on Club Fitting and he covers the process by which he determines what type of shaft will give the player the best performance given a set of swing characteristics. As you'll hear Doc explain, this is the longest, most time consuming portion of the fitting process as he needs to develop a database of swings with various club/shaft combinations to find the best solution for the customer. To do this, he employs a very sophisticated and expensive (+$8,000) 3D Doppler radar system to monitor a tremendous number of data points for each swing that goes into the customer's database profile.

I want to discuss a topic that Barry Short, a Surgite from Brisbane, Australia, brought up to me last month.

"Hi Surge,

A question.You use the comment that after the bump, your arms come down in free-fall. How much exertion should there be in the arms to hit the ball? One of my problems is that I tend to really compress my arm and shoulder muscles in trying to hit the ball hard, although I know when I do this it leads to a much slower downswing and less distance. How relaxed should the downswing be?"

This is a really good set of questions, Barry, and what's equally good is the response you got from Charlie Y, a frequent commenter on the blog. In fact, it's so good that I want to share it with everyone that may not have seen it the day last month that I did a video titled Don't Get Lazy During The Swing.

"Exertion, or muscle activation, can be measured by measuring what is called muscle noise. The more activated the muscles, the higher the muscle noise meter would read. In sports clinics, one way that muscle noise is measured at various levels of clenching the fist. The athlete then has to relate it to how he/she feels that he/she activates the arm muscles. I imagine that the transducers could be attached to the arms as the golf club is swung. I was off the scale, and this correlates with my normal state of being a bit over-activated in the arms. It was a very telling experiment. Some of the participants were almost off the scale in the other direction--very calm arms."

Today's daily is from Dave Seeman , our Director of Instruction for the Northeast as well as the Head Instructor for our new Online Golf Lesson program. If you haven't done so already, please go to the the prgram page and check out what this new program can do for your game. You can find the page by clicking on the tab in the navigation bar above.

The drill Dave is demonstrating today is one he uses to help students get the feel of swinging vertically. It's very similar to the one Aaron Baddely now uses now that he has dropped the Stack & Tilt method and gone back to the swing he had as an amateur.

Keep it vertical!

The Surge

If you can't view the YouTube video above try CLICKING HERE. You must allow popups from this site for the link to work.

 Last month, I published a tip on Timing The Bump (Lateral Left Shift), and it generated a number of comments from the Surge Nation including this one from Skipperbill:

"Dear Mr. Trahan,

Many years ago I read a book by Ben Hogan, I was trying to learn the secrets of the then golf swing.  One of the items in the swing was doubling the head speed.  If I recall this meant breaking the wrists. The idea was to have your wrists straighten as the club head approached the ball.  I know you have said in the past not to break the wrists, but in your swing, how does the club head double in speed?" Skipperbill

Within a short time, our VFC (Very Frequent Contributor with over 4,000 comments since I started this blog) Steve Smith answered with what I think is a really good answer.

Today's video tip comes from a question Larry Davis recently sent in via our Customer Service Department.

"Surge, I am having trouble with the rebound/recoil after hitting a shot. I tend to "pose" and watch the shot rather than recoiling in front of the body the way you do. I find this very difficult to do. What is the importance of the recoil and what is a good drill to get the feel of this?"

Larry, this is an excellent question as I often find that my students forget the importance of the Recoil & Relax portion of the Peak Performance Golf Swing. First off, if you are able to "pose" in the T-Finish position that must mean you are making a pretty good swing and maintaining your balance throughout. You're almost there! But there are several reasons why stopping your swing in that upright position is going to prove detrimental in the long run. You see, we need to remember that we are making an athletically-balanced, powerful swing and if we pose at the end of the T-Finish position a number of things are likely to happen that we're not going to like.

There was an interesting question that Sip102 left on the blog last week [Footwear And Footwork] that I would like to discuss in today's lesson.

"I've been using your swing now for almost two years and can say my game has improved since day one. BUT...something always seems to get out of whack. Usually I can figure out the problem and it generally begins with my hands. I know that you cover the Surge Swing numerous times. I've read the manual and watch the dailies. I know you don't like to connect the dots when you break your swing down but I don't recall any daily specifically relating to just the hands except for being flat and no cocking. I know the swing should be automatic. I get hung up reaching perfect impact with the ball. You said the left hand was the power hand yet you swing up with the right. Should I be thinking coming back to the ball with the left and the right just following or thinking just the right hand or should I be thinking squaring the club head? You see my dilemma. This swing thought continues to disrupt my game. Any help will be appreciated."

Sip, you are right about my not liking to break the swing down into minute components. I just think that over complicates the swing and since the ball is only on the club face for .0005 second, trying to create a swing thought about sensing perfect impact is nearly impossible in my opinion. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about how the hands work during various parts of the swing so that you can ingrain that thought into your subconscious mind.

One of our Surgites wrote in a question regarding a drill he saw on the Golf Channel. The drill he was referring to was a rotational drill that involves holding a club across your chest and rotating back and through in order to get a feel for the proper body rotation. He explained the drill in great length and ultimately wanted to know if this drill falls within the confines of the Surge Swing.

As I introduced last week, our Director of Club Fitting Operations, Doc Griffin, will be taking you step by step through the process of club fitting in a series of short videos. The first video was just an introduction into the topic of club fitting and why we believe it's so important to becoming a better golfer. Well, today Doc is going to explain the first step in his process.