Today's video is all about the old adage that keeping your head down after impact is the best way to make solid contact. Well, I'm here to tell you that keeping your head down is most likely leading to some of your poorer shots.
Keeping your head down too long can actually cause your forward arm to start breaking down after impact, which means your follow through is going to lead to a pull hook shot. Instead, you need to chase the club down the target line and up to the T-finish.
Get square to the target as fast as you can after impact and you'll start hitting it a whole lot straighter!
Keep it vertical!
The Surge
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Poptarting
Surge, as the old saying goes "its a fine line between pleasure & pain" and so is the difference between staying down and poptarting. I have some slowmo videos of yours and comparing those with mine, show you coming up earlier than me, but even in yours your head is still down after the club is parallel with the ground on the follow through.
From my perspective, the faster the clubhead speed would necessitate a faster poptart, hence the difference between your head and mine.
This maybe part of the problem i have in pulling left as the many changes I have made over the years still has me pulling left, so I'll work on this aspect a little more and see where it takes me.
Fine line between poptarting and staying down
NeilofOz--I have sentiments similar to yours, but not so must about finding the fine line, but staying down enough but not too much. Mine is due to an old habit of coming up too soon, I used to do OK even though I came up too soon, I think because I had very good eye-hand coordination. Then left eye retina damage ruined my depth perception and eye-hand coordination, and I'm finding that I have to stay down longer. At this time, I don't have a problem with staying down too long, but with staying down long enough. That's my problem--how much is enough? I'm having to find the relationship between how long I stay down and how well I contact the ball. Difficult task. CharlieY
The Fine Line
Charlie, me thinks staying down too long is better than coming up too soon, lol.
Have tried poptarting many times, but it played havoc with my swing, so that's when I decided to stay down and bear the inaccuracies, rather than the atrocities. Recently changed my spine angle ( leaning to the right less ) at setup and this has had some effect while but not totally fixing the problem.
The fine line
One more comment about the fine line--I have a complicated problem--my head comes up too soon, but I don't stand up soon enough. I have to find a way to coordinate the two. Thanks to Surge's video, I now understand why my left arm folds too soon--my right shoulder is not "coming around" soon enough and is keeping my left arm from being able to extend. Valuable lesson.
Pulling
Something that I check a lot is the toe up position of the club, in the relax and recoil position. If I am not aggressive enough with the downswing I'll get this flipped over position of the clubface and the shots that Surge describes. Thinking about picking up the pace of the forward upswing, and visualizing Surge's very dynamic move, doesn't give me time to hang back and flip it.
POPTART
Hi, I hope this is helpful. As Surge says in today's video ( At approx. 3.38) 'the right foot, knee, hip, shoulder and head should chase the club to the target'.
I would add that it is an UPWARD swing towards the target. The thought of an UPWARD swing ( which Surge has often stated) may help with the timing of the 'Pop Tart' motion.
I am no expert, just repeating my take on Surge's instruction.
The Upward Motion
Totally agree, this should be foremost in ones mind as it's a basic tenet of the vertical swing.