[comdpa]

Richard,

Thanks for taking the time out to type what Percy Boomer wrote.
The setup sets the stage for balance.
Typically, I find that if a student is in a balanced position at adjusted address, he will have an easier time staying in balance throughout the swing which means it will be easier for him to keep the clubshaft on plane etc.

Care to define what goes in a good setup? This is hardly a topic that ever gets discussed, but is sooo important.

Opposition and Sense of Balance

All the imperatives get alot of "column inches" ...so too does the stationary head.... but very little seems to be written about balance.

I was reading Percy Boomer's book again and liked the following passages. He stresses that balance is not just a side-to-side matter but an up-and -down matter.... you need to be balanced in 3 dimensions.

Percy Boomer “On Learning Golf” page numbers refer to my copy of the book (Classics of Golf 1988 edition)

- Pg 204

All golf is opposition. We are in a state of opposing in every phase of our swing, even in the waggle. The very feel of the club head is only sensed when we are in a state of opposition to it.

… At the bottom of the swing the forces and positions will be reversed. The body comes down when the club head is up and goes up as the club head comes down. Opposition again. These up and down movements are not something we do consciously, they are automatic adjustments of balance in opposition.

- Page90

“As the club-head arrives in the region of the ball our body (because of its comparatively short degree of action) has already got back into its ‘opposing’ position, with left heal back on the turf, left side straight and firm and right hip twisted into the left one – the whole giving a sense of secure brace to the whole body.”

- Pg 202 -203 ( rearranged paragraph order )

… The first thing to get clear in your mind is the difference between pulling up your body and stretching up through your body. This latter is essential to one of the most important feels in golf – the feel of down through the ball. And it is relevant to note… that the higher you want to pitch the ball the more essential is this down feeling, a feeling which is the opposite of scooping the club head up.

Now let me explain the difference between lifting up the shoulders and head and stretching up through the body from the feet and legs. …It is an established feel in all good golfers that they stretch down through their arms as they come into contact with the ball, but you cannot stretch against nothing so they have to stretch up from the feet to set up the necessary resistance in the shoulders. We have to fix the top of our swing by giving it something to pull against, otherwise we cannot stretch tautly down from it. We fix the top and by bracing and stretching up to hold our shoulders firmly in place.

- Pg 204

There is a clear difference between lifting the shoulders and holding them up. If we lift our shoulders we lift our arms out of position, but if we push up from our feet we may be using an equal or greater muscular force simply to hold our shoulder in position against the terrific down-pull of the club-head. Consequently we may even feel that we are rising up when actually we are doing no more than resisting in an upward direction the force of the club-head which is pulling down. That is why you may find if you study a whole film with an up-on-the-toes finish, that in spite of the up-on-the-toes movement the head and shoulders have not been raised even a fraction of an inch.

Percy does a great job of describing the sensations one might feel in 3D balance. Very much to do with the physics/dynamics of golf... just add in the geometric alignments and looks good!