Dowels causing shanking?
 

I notice that when I work with dowels a lot, I tend to shank when I go out on the course. I believe this is because I am aiming the shaft at the ball. When you trace with the shaft of the club, do you trace to a line inside the plane line (the shaft line)? In my desperation I have tried to visualize the shaft location at address or impact fix and aim to pass through that location - that seems to help me a bit. I have heard something about feeling the sweet spot but I can't seem to get that to work. Is it OK to try and aim the shaft rather than the sweet spot?

You have to take into account the sweetspot of the club.

It can be dangerous to work on your swing with an object that doesn't have a sweetspot. However, I'm sure there are people here who can better tell you how to work with the dowels so that the shanking problem doesn't happen.

The Shaft Inclined Plane
 

I read some of the archives on the plane and tracing and had some further thoughts.

I have read that the shaft rotates around the sweetspot. To illustrate this, the example is to hold the grip end in the fingers, let the club hang by gravity and spin the club. Here the shaft clearly rotates around the sweet spot.

But I can't believe that this is what happens in a golf swing. If this was true, then swinging a dowel would result in a very different swing motion than swinging a golf club (or maybe even think of a hockey stick). Rather - it seems to me that the shaft of the club travels on an inclined plane. The base of this plane is along a line that goes through the point where the shaft touches the ground at impact fix - a couple of inches inwards from the center line through the ball. So at halfway back for example, the butt end of the grip should point towards this more inward plane line. Assuming this shaft plane exists, then it's easier for me to envision the sweet spot or club face rotating around the shaft rather than the other way around. I believe this also implies that plane boards are valid training tools.

So, when you swing your dowel you shouldn't be aiming the tip of the dowel directly at your imaginary ball, but rather an inch or so inside the ball where the shaft would hit the ground. Perhaps this is wrong or just extremely obvious, but it subconsciously threw me out of whack for a bit. Once I started thinking about the shaft traveling on this more inward plane, I was making very clean center contact.

I know my "mind should be in my hands" instead of in the shaft but I'm still working on that. Or maybe I just need to get some clubs with the face centered on the shaft :).

I am not sure if the following is correct but see what you think...

Homer stresses the importance of the sweetspot plane. The plane between PP3 and clubhead sweetspot. The trouble is that it is invisble... except when the clubhead is turbed to the inclined plane - when shaft plane acts as a surrogate for sweet spot plane.

The crucial thing about sweet spot plane is that it is the plane that you feel rather than see... but if you want to "see" it then use shaft plane as an approximate.

The dowels "look" like a shaft and there is no distraction of clubhead so it is a good way to learn the concept of alignment rather than position... this alone is a leap of conceptual thinking that you have already made!

But in "swinging " a dowel... you won't really feel much because of the lack of clubhead mass... maybe if you added a point mass ( round lump of lead) at the tip of the dowel and swung it then you would feel and see the elusive "sweetspot plane".

typing "off the cuff" at the moment so see what others say ...

The Elusive Sweetspot Plane
 

Yes - perhaps I just can't feel the lag pressure properly. Here's one other observation though. If the sweetspot plane and the shaft plane coincide when the club is turned to the inclined plane, then this would imply that the shaft should be pointing at the plane line on the ground that runs through ball center. However, when I try doing this with a half swing (like acquired motion), it feels very awkward to me.

I think that the "sweetspot plane" and "shaft plane" only appear the same from down the line view once sweetspot rotated to plane.

Hitters, who tend towards single wrist action. do not turn their sweetspot to inclined shaft plane in acquired motion - clubhead "feels closed"...

Many pro swingers turn sweetspot, or sweetspot is turned, later in swing ...more into total motion... you may feel an early turn to plane as "unusual" for you....

lag pressure will be easier to feel with a "point mass" at end of dowel, i think...

ejhong, Are you hitting or swinging ? I see them as manipulating the LCOG differently. I'm sure you are aware that a clubhead lag pressure point is imperative.

I have been working on making some pictures showing the LCOG....I will try and get something together for you sometime soon.

Sweetspot Stuff
 

The Dowel has a Sweetspot (located at its tip). The Golf Club has a Sweetspot (located on the Clubface). Both should be pointed at the Straight Plane Line.

And except during Start Up and Release, the Dowel/Clubshaft is the On Plane Visual Equivalent of the Clubface Sweetspot's invisible Centrifugal Line of Pull.

Shanking is (1) a total loss of Clubhead Lag Pressure Feel and (2) the ability to deliver that 'Feel' Down Plane into the inside-aft quadrant of the Ball. But the Good News is ...

The same Pressure Point Pressure that will deliver a Dowel's Sweetspot into Impact On Plane will deliver a Clubhead's Sweetspot into Impact On Plane.

The solution, as always, is Educated Hands.

And a Pivot that has been trained to obey.

Dowel with impact bag
 

Not an expert, but this might help.
For me dowel is best used for alignment to trace the plane line esp. Basic and Acquired Motion. To avoid shanking, dowel with impact bag will be more useful for Full or Acquired Motion. When placed at ball position, at impact I look at my hand and make sure it's verticle to the plane( ground). (So when using the club, the club face,not the hosel, will come into impact)

Much to Figure Out
 

Thanks for the clarifications and suggestions. I obviously have some more figuring out to do with respect to feeling and directing my lag pressure. I'm trying to learn swinging - it seems to be progressing although somewhat slowly - I've had a lot of incredible AHA moments but I'm sure there are many more to go.

Lengthening Clubhead Thought Experiment
 

I've been thinking about the sweetspot plane versus the shaft plane some more and came up with the following thought experiment:

Perform your normal swing with a golf club.

Now imagine that the clubface is stretched out horizontally more such that it looks more like a hockey stick - let's say one foot long. The sweet spot remains centered in the club face and is now much further away from you. The shaft length and lie angle stay the same. Imagine swinging this club.

Now imagine that the clubface is stretched even more such that it is stretched out to something crazy like fifteen feet long. Imagine swinging this club.

In your imaginary swings, did the motion and/or plane of the club shaft during the swing differ between the three clubs or was it the same? If it differed, how did it differ? I'd be interested in people's opinions on this (or if somebody can build the clubs and video that would be even better!).

As an aside, did Homer Kelly actually use dowels or used them as a teaching tool?

Yep . . . it's in the Authorized Instructor Curriculum.

What
 

Still don't see how anyone would not benifit from dowels.
I think its the best way to get the motions with speed.
But being not a full TGM guy I would like to here people explain if Im off based.
For and example this is how I into to many junior's how to develop speed and realase on the downswing.I find that kids get real hung up on the clubface and not the left arm(swinger models). With pitching its great for them to on shaft lean.
Anyway if anyone sees any thing that may work better let me know.

Homer's Two Types Of Dowels
 

He recommended the use of both short and long dowels in his written G.O.L.F. curriculums.

And 'Headless' Golf Clubs, too.

:)

School Days
 

Homer Kelley did not use dowels as instruments to create 'speed.' Not that you can't use them for that...of course you can...and I do myself in certain drills.

But he did not.

Instead, he used them only as 'something to hold' as The Hands master their Chapters 4, 5 and 12-3-0 assigments.

A dowel doesn't have the large longitundal pull that a clubhead would because of centrifugal 'effect' (carefully applied word so as not go to that discussion...lol) made by the mass of the heavy clubhead. The great thing about dowels is that they can be versatile to practice the various alignments of the power package. The idea is that when you can keep something onplane by your alignments in motion by itself in a deliberate and positive way without having to deal with sustaining with the Drag or Drive you make on the clubhead. Obviously this effect will be less for the Hitter and here he has a slight advantage because of the nature of drive loading doesn't rely on dragging the centrifugal pull like the swinger.

The light weight of a dowel allows you stop anywhere mid stroke without having to stop the club in motion by not quite the same dramatic fashion as the active muscular resistance used with a golf club would pretty much know what you stop to monitor is the actual placing of where your hands are at. So with a dowel you can stop knowing you actually hit the correct alignments and this way you can practice the various alignments (checklist in 12-3-0) without practicing in a way that will train you to lose the lag presure as your deaccelerating and trying your hardest to resist the primary lever assembly going in to a centrifugally deaccelerated state - per law of the flail 2-k - all the while moving into fake alignments as you deaccelerate. For the same reason it also allows you to do the stroke slower easier if you wish without the weight of the club.

Taken to an extreme as a training aid using a golf club could just become a test to see if you can maintain the alignments and understand the motions to keep dragging or driving the lag pressure all the way down right to followthrough.

They are incredibly versatile.

For example....If you want to check that your left wrist is vertical of your hinge action based on the left flying wedge which is basically maintaining the plane of the left wristcock motion vertical to its associated plane through impact... run the dowel up your left arm - it is far easier to see this plane when you have 2 lines (which is actually the definition of a plane btw). You can now immediately see - yes I have turned my hand to the plane at the top and coming down, yes I have rolled my left flying wedge onto the correct vertical plane for impact, did I keep it vertical at followthrough. This also ensures that you have maintained a flat left wrist for your specific grip type for the emulation of the alignments of a vertical flail as depicted in 2-K. I mean this is only a 1/3 of controlling the club...

Or you practice the right forearm flying wedge coming into its angle of approach into impact.. or just using it as a tool to see your alignments coming down at a slow place where you can stop and hold it for a few seconds.... you could even get a dowel and cut a hole in a sponce ball and use it to lean against your head whilst you practice some acquired motions (cos I would imagine cos for some it might not work after this so that the head pivots in its stationary location to not have a geometrical shoulder turn collision conflict whilst maintaining the advantages of centered arc.

You should really stop though at followthrough because after that period, your onplane thrust is gone and you should just holding onto club allowing the force of the clubhead traveling it is orbit to carry you and you must accomodate it. But you can practice going into a swivel by stopping at followthrough and then just swivel by doing this you always maintain the onplane thrust from the aiming point of pp3 till followthrough and stop and THEN swivel.... It keeps the basic motion in the stroke instead of some fleeting swivel motion.

I am concerned on your idea of aiming the shaft at the ball. The idea is to guide the pressure of the heavy clubhead on your hands and your hands know where to go - alignments and whats creating it. It is a precise tool and a cheap one too :)

Mathew On Dowels
 

Wonderful post, Mathew. Thanks!

Yoda,

Will Homer's written G.O.L.F. curriculum ever be available to the golfing public???

DG

It would be interesting to read it....

Curriculum Control
 

I wouldn't hold my breath, DG. Before the two curriculums -- short and long course -- are made available to the public, they should first be made available to Authorized Instructors. And to my knowledge, the new regime has not yet done that.

I got my copies from Homer.

:)

Yoda,

Ok...thanks for the update.

DG

Who is Homer?

First Name Basis
 

That would be Mr. Kelley. :salut:

What did he do? Never heard of the dude. Did he know something about golf?

what's all the fuss?
 

I've been hitting my dowels just fine. Did somebody get a bad batch that had shank written all over them? :laughing1

Could it be they are off the rack models, not custom fitted? :naughty:

Could they be knock-offs that are unbalanced? :confused1

If you get your daily share of roughage . . . you'll have very regular dowel movements.

Best go to DowelSquadGolf and have Todd fit you with some $7000.00 Matrix Dowels.

i knew it!
 

I knew titanium dowels were next in this evolution.

I sent my dowels to Henry-Griffitts so I could have them Pured and frequency matched. :liar:

Let me write a lil point or two about things I would of also liked to point out... :)

Don't you find with practicing alignments that doing different exercises where the material and weight of what your working on affects the control and allows you to fine tune in a way you could never of before. Instead of this object of weight, you can just go right back to basics and have this perfectly light object you can wield it back and forth, just so light, so easy. You are now given the opportunity to zone in closely. Just getting confident, just getting that perfectly aligned thrust, that perfectly aligned L.F. Wedge..Did I make the dowel pass my hands from impact to followthrough the way I wanted (basic motion segment of the hands - hinge action, no swivels), did I empty all my accumulators all out by the end of follow-through hence full extension where the triangle and the longitudinal center of gravity could actually rest on its own tabletop (plane) with the left arm tilting against the inclined plane after its valient blow... learning to feel that perfectly controlled primary lever assembly, moving in its dynamically controlled radius, that perfect drive or that perfect drag where as little as an object like a dowel may be, it is just enough that you can just get that little reminder of lag pressure in your hands whilst your working to keep you on track on what your aiming and where your aiming it to.....

You can look at the floor and do something just as simple to lets say ...lay a dowel down. Hold the other like a golf club, trace and just glide smoothly down the plane line, with a flying 'perfect speed' like a seagull gliding, gliding (can you see it!) swooping down from the fear striken and looming sky (thanks lynn :) ). That lag pressure floating down the plane by training and sencing by those beautifully acute pressure points 'guiding' operating the way they should be..active or passive, or passively sencing... all floating inside this 3d enviroment....space the final frontier... these are the voyages of the golfing machine exercises... their continuing mission to seek out new space and new alignments... to boldly go to where your pressure points have never gone before.... (Uhmmmmm...lol).

I can tell you who it is from. Homer Kelley - who researched golf mechanics went a metaphorical quantum leap into the furure, encapsulated all for you. He has written it down. It has always been to me that his service to golf is that he always made sure you had a way to go if you really really looked hard enough you could find the answers that you where looking for that no one could answer. He has handed you his map, his guide, the best way to play this game golf. The lines on his map come alive in this still void, he explains this moving structure of the power package, and the physics behind this liquid lag pressure as you drag or drive into this violent collision. The geometric shapes that are made and formed being monitored in the present of the running computer processing its program.

Dowels can do it all for you, perfect geometric alignments, and use the physics to "knock, hell out of it kid"(as Steward Maiden might say)... it is good to remember the child in you that just wanted to beat that ball into oblivion and try and smack and deform the ball without a thought of anything else but you now know how to use that enthusiasm - physics and alignments! When doing an exercise with a dowel it is always good to do an exercise long enough to get in a trance like state where your mind is not conscienciously thinking about this shape, it just does it.... it sees it, it believes it.... its got it!... that is your goal... to own it

Dowels are great !

Liquid lag, aligned.... :)

One of your best! :clap: :clap: :clap: