[Jeff]

vj

I have a few questions regarding your concept of planar shifts in Hogan's swing.

This is the photo from your book.



You have drawn two planes - a backswing and downswing plane - and implied that Hogan swung on the lowered downswing plane because of the movement of his center of mass leftwards in the late backswing, so that it is closer to the pivot axis. I cannot understand your point of view from two angles.

First of all, why have you drawn the plane lines in those positions? My TGM-based understanding of a plane is that it has relevance to the movement of the clubshaft. Hogan never swung his clubshaft along those planes. The backswing plane you have drawn is Hogan's glass pane representation - where the glass pane rests on his shoulders. However, Hogan never swung his clubshaft on that plane. Hogan only stated that his left arm brushed against that plane in the late backswing, and that his hands never went above that plane.

Surely, one needs to represent the shift in clubshaft planes in the TGM-manner.

Here is a photo showing Hogan's clubshaft/hand planar shifts.



The green line represents your definition of the backswing plane (pane of glass resting on his shoulders). The yellow line is the turned shoulder plane, and the red line is the clubshaft-at-address plane, which is also the hand plane (butt end of the club points at the belt-buckle). During the backswing, the hands/clubshaft move from the hand plane to just below the turned shoulder plane, and during the downswing the hands/clubshaft move down to a point at impact where they are back on the hand plane. So, in what sense does Hogan swing on a shallower plane during the downswing compared to the backswing?

I think that Hogan shallowed the clubshaft during the downswing as a result of his downswing (not backswing) hip shift-rotation movement. One can see that happening in this posed photo of Hogan.



Hogan stated that the clubshaft would flatten as a result of the hip shift-rotation movement that starts the downswing. It is my belief that this clubshaft-flattening phenomenon will happen even if the pelvis doesn't shift left-laterally in the late backswing, so that the center of mass is closer to the pivot axis. In this posed photo, Hogan has not shifted his pelvis left-laterally (like you describe) and he can still flatten his clubshaft plane in the early downswing. I believe that it can occur due to the shift of the pelvis left-laterally in the downswing - because the movement of the pelvis left-laterally causes the lumbar spine to move left-laterally thereby creating a greater amount of secondary axis tilt, which then causes the right shoulder to move more downplane (more groundwards) when the shoulders rotate perpendicularly around the spine in the downswing. In other words, I think that all golfers will exhibit this clubshaft shallowing phenomenon if they move the pelvis left-laterally during the downswing (not backswing), and that any clubshaft-flattening phenomenon has nothing to do with a backswing phenomenon whereby the center of mass moves closer to the pivot axis.

Jeff.