Today's daily is the next installment of Doc Griffin's series on custom club fitting. In this video, Doc covers some common misconceptions on how lie angle is measured before he gets into the weighty subject of determining the proper MOI--Moment of Inertia--for each client.

In my opinion, getting the MOI of the whole club correct is right there at the top of the list of things that are essential in a custom club fitting. The MOI of the club is important to matching the swing feel of all the clubs in the bag. Current club fitting theory states that if all clubs in a set are made to have the same, identical MOI, the golfer will be more consistent because each club will require the same effort to swing.

Wilfred Perkins sent in a question asking how he can work the ball using the Peak Performance Golf Swing.

"I have been using Don's technique for several years. I am 83, so I enjoy every outing, realizing that something could happen anytime which would conclude my golf. Do you have suggestions as to how I can learn to work the ball? I do not hit long. I usually drive with my three wood, because I am more accurate, and hit it as long as I do with a driver. My distance is around 175. Thank you for considering my request."

Today, with the help of my Swing Surgeon Plane Trainer, I'm going to show you the correct position of the back elbow during the forward upswing. This lesson was brought on by a question from Charles, who said he was having a problem with pull hooks. Some instruction says to stick your back elbow into your right side on the way through, but with a vertical swing this will cause your club to become extremely laid off.

 George Groskopf from Jefferson, Wisconsin sent a note to me a week or two ago asking to clarify whether there are actually two Bumps in the Peak Performance Golf Swing.

"Surge,

"Would you please clarify The Bump for me? Just before you ring the bell on the
backswing, your forward hip moves laterally forward to initiate The Bump.

In one of your previous instructions, you talked about standing up AFAP, like a pop tart out of a toaster and no one did it as fast as you wanted. You went on to say one day while watching a TV broadcast the announcer said "look how he hits down on the ball". The light bulb went on as the PPGS swing is all about up -- the FUS the Forward Up Swing. The bump is automatic. How good is that ! We get the bump for free! Are the two "bumps" the same?

Please keep up your daily video tips from the backyard driving range! Thanks, Surge, for making golf fun again."

Phil Roethle, a Maryland Surgite from the early days of PeakPerformanceGolfSwing.com, was curious about how Ben Hogan's swing compared to the PPGS and asked if there were any similarities between the two.

In a nutshell, Phil, not many. I never had the privilege of seeing Hogan play in person, but as many in my profession have done, I have studied his swing and discussed it with other professionals who knew him and had seen him play often. I've come to the conclusion that he had two, very different swings, during his career. When he first turned pro he had what I jokingly refer to as a Left Woods Swing. It was characterized by a very wide stance and a huge turn and upper body rotation that took his swing way past parallel. The net result was that he had a major league swing that often produced prodigious hooks.

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.