Secret In The Dirt - Golf's Greatest Social Network

Good evening everyone.
I was informed that a few people on the site had been following some of my youtube videos recently and I was asked to join the Secret In The Dirt site by two of your posters 1lovegolf24 and kevskigolf via youtube.
I have been fortunate to know 'Elk' for a long time from playing golf over the years and one of my golf career highlights was representing The International Team in The Presidents Cup with Elk as a team mate. Elk gave me his blessing to join up on the site and add whatever I can to help assist the network of golfers who frequent the site all trying to better themselves. If I can help at least one of you then that's one more person improving themselves and gaining enjoyment from this great game.
I stopped playing approx 3 years ago for various reasons and launched myself into a career of teaching golf. When I stopped playing competitively I took a long hard look at my game over the years and wondered WTF happened. Why was it so easy when I was young and then when I got taught (in my mid 20's) the game became so much harder on a daily basis.
So I spent a lot of time analyzing, comparing, wondering, searching videos, pictures of myself from all different stages of my golf career and then compared, watched, noted and started looking at many different areas of the swing.
that's a quick analysis of how I have come up with my swing thoughts and how I try relate them also to when I watch others swing.
I have also been fortunate to play and be- friend many of the world's finest players of the past 25-30 years so watching, listening and talking to them has also helped shape my thoughts.

It's been certainly interesting and a lot of fun to pass on my knowledge in person to the students who have come to see me for assistance with their games. I take pride in the success I have had with these golfers to date as most of them have just been your 'average to poor golfer' looking for a way out of the golfing doldrums and most have improved significantly.

I know being an ex player doesn't automatically make someone a good teacher...but I have put a lot of time and effort and research and thought into what I am conveying and put the diligent practice into it also to confirm or deny the end results myself and enjoy seeing the return my students have gained.
I am not over technical. Golf made simple is much easier to comprehend than having 8000 thoughts and equations in your head all for a 1 second swing.
I hope I can add something to this site and will try answer as many questions as possible. If I miss a few or skip a few, please forgive me.....
I have been on a few forums before and I swear winning golf tournaments was easier than trying to please a mob of people sitting at a keyboard sometimes!! So be gentle. i will do my best to answer what I can and will always be adding new videos to my YouTube channel (golfaus).....
For more information you can visit my website www.bradleyhughesgolf.com
the site is relatively simple....just like the game should be....but it's the information that is more important than the pizazz....

Bradley,

Figured you and Elk would know each other from your playing days. I have been to your site and would encourage everyone to take the time to look through all of the information. I find your information simple to follow, and supported by video analysis. Welcome to the dirt

Bill

Bradley, Watched your vids and read the entire web-site a few weeks ago. Agree with your views on modern equiptment. I use a set of Hagen Ultradynes and will NEVER use any metals. I think your ability to keep it simple is needed here. I deplore what is happening to the game. Welcome aboard.

Mr. Hughes, welcome to the Dirt.

I have also been to your web and utube sites and have really injoyed the information and videos you have put out there. Very simple, easy to understand information that has been proven to work.

I have a question, if you don't mind. Since you put alot of stock into "impact position", in your teachings, could you share a little more on your thoughts about impact position?

Thanks,

Mark ,1lovegolf24

Awesome! Someone posted one of your youtube videos on a thread I made for improving my swing. I watched every video on your channel since. Good stuff!

Bradley, thank you for joining here and offering your knowledge and help, thats very much appreciated! If you are interested and get a chance to talk more about Ben Hogan clinic slow motion feel swing video fragment included in your latest video on YouTube that would be great.

Welcome to The Dirt Bradley, I've gotta add that its almost been 4 weeks since I first saw one of your youtube vids and it has completely changed my motion. I'd never realized that I had been a "stall the body, dump the arms, throw the hands at the ball, rollover hooker, base it all on timing" kind of golfer for 30 years. I played lots of pretty good golf that way but rarely good under pressure and not consistent round to round, obviously.

For some reason I also could not grasp body rotation until I heard you describe the role of the bent right arm/wrist and the pressurizing of the shaft thru the impact area, with the grip disappearing from view post impact from a dtl view. My "release" and ball flight have totally changed and I'm loving it. No fear of going left. Actually my entire golf paradigm has shifted. Chipping and putting have changed as well. I've been re-reading Hogan, E. Jones, Boomer, Maves, Martin and others and its making sense. I've read your stuff, seen your videos, followed your discussions on other boards, and then you re-introduced me to John Erickson, aka lagpressure, and that is an entire other discussion.

So I'm just trying to say "thanks" for putting your golf experience, knowledge, and passion for the game (the traditional game) out here for all to learn.
btw, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my recently purchased persimmons, thanks for the encouragement to play golf like we used to play it.

Andy F.

Mark,
As I see it golf has been and always should be not only about distance BUT control and distance control.
It shouldn't really matter how far I hit a club so long as I can hit it a similar distance each time. If I can't do that then I may as well play with a blind fold on.
I believe impact should have a bent right arm and our knees, especially the right knee/leg should have some flex to accommodate this. The shoulders should be opening through the shot and the club should angle off through impact staying in tune with our center and not go flying off in a parallel line to the target line.
These are some of the main reasons we can gain control of our ball. The right arm supports the club. The knee flex gives us some nice support down below 'in the dirt' so to speak.....to support our pivot action. We can then control distances by pivot speed and not by just wailing away with the hands as I witness so many people want to do. It's much harder to control your distance and certainly your accuracy when the hands are the main power source.
Our clubs have a lot of numbers on the bottom of them.... they are numbers!!!! not yardages....so we have a lot of options to play a shot and should be able to choose many clubs to play the same specific shot. Using mainly your hands will eliminate most of those options.
That's a quick thought. Will add many more.

I always like to show evidence of my thoughts. The right arm/right leg and shoulders opening through the strike is confirmed by the pictures below



Nelson, Middlecoff, Peete, Sanders, Graham. Miller, Trevino. Palmer

and again here



Dickison, Thomson, Hogan, Player, Graham, Smith, Watson, Jones

Vastly different from what we are seeing more of today even with all the technology of computers, swing programs, bio mechanics and advanced technology.




PS...I am not in any admonishing the players pictured in their ability as golfers....just showing how far off course all this stuff has become.

Bradley,

Thanks again I appreciate you backing up your beliefs with photo's and video's. These young guys can bomb it and shoot some lights out scores but they can also hit it off the planet right and left nothing like Hogan in the Shell match 14 fairways 18 green and he was hitting a ton of long irons and fairway woods to those greens. I think Houston Country Club played just under 7,000 yards. It was a clinic for sure.

Question I saw the video you posted on Mr Hogan's slowmotion swing clinic. It clearly shows his shallow downswing and you clearly point out how his wrist and forearms are wide open into impact. What's your thought on rotating the right hand into impact to square the club? Mr Hogan said he wished he had 3 right hands the video show him rotating the right hand dramatically 17-18 sec point.

Great learning video IMO

Bill

well Bill, that makes two, see my previous post. i'm interested to hear from Bradley on this as well. here are two snaps from that video that roughly can act as reference points







what i'm interested to hear from Bradley is what exactly he thinks Ben Hogan does there between 1 and 2 in terms of feel and what he is demonstrating. there are 3 videos i know of of him doing slow motion swings. while those videos were clearly taken at different points of his life that move right there he does it exactly the same and, check this out, he speeds it up in that area considerably if you note the pace of the rest of the swing he demonstrates at.

i'm not gonna present my own thoughts or theories on this here, just really wanna hear from Bradley on this.

Those two frames show not only the club face, wrists and forearms being open but a lot of wrist cock. Most people would try and get rid of wrist cock by throwing the right hand at the ball losing the dynamic impact alignments and straightening their right arm and probably straightening their right leg to make room for that downward throw so they wouldn't dump the club into the ground.
.
Hogan rotated the wrists and forearms on a more horizontal angle coming in for landing with nice bacon strip divots. He could do this as hard as wanted (3 right hands) and never fear the ball going left like he did in his earlier days. Why.... because the right arm was still supporting the club and not throwing the head down and out. He just turned the club in from a shallow approach like he was going to hit the inside quadrant of the ball and then put the head straight into the back of the ball at 3 o'clock square on the same horizontal turning level.
The feet and knee support into the ground allowed for the wrist cock to be held longer. He knew the pivot had to work hard and take over from the second frame to keep the club staying on true plane beyond the strike and create power that way instead of hitting just with the hands and quitting his bodily rotation to create power.
You can see how well he kept his alignments all the way to end with everything working in tandem in this frame right here
He had his clubs flat to give him an assist with all this motion into impact visually and action wise.

Bradley,

Thanks for clarification if I understand you the forearms and wrist stay rotated open until the very last minute keeping wrist cock as well. Also keep flex in the right knee which helps maintain wrist cock. At impact you can hit it as hard as you want without going left. The pivot rotates left and provides additional support and power.

I will give this a try and report back

Great stuff

Bill B
Too true...it takes forearm and wrist strength to do this....that's why I always suggest to my students to swing a real golf club that is a little heavier than what gets thrust into our hands today...as that really helps us attain this rotation and flexibility and strength.

As for Hogan's clubs...we have heard a lot of belief's and thoughts over the years... Jackie B probably held his clubs and will know better than most.....but I think the evidence of just how flat his clubs were is right there in front of us at USGA House in the shape of his 1 iron he hit into the final hole at Merion. The club is laying perfectly flat on the ground in the picture they have on their website. When measured it weighs in at 51 degrees.....Very flat when you consider it is probably the length of today's 3 iron

Bradley

The heavier clubs and flatter lie angle makes perfect sense. When do you think about rotating right hand is their a drill to practice this other than obviously the slow motion video you shared

Thanks

Thanx Bradley! would you say that below video of him chipping represent exactly the same thing just scaled down version of it ie in terms of what his arms and hands do thru the hitting area ?

Brad - welcome
as you know already you have already been a major influence on my game - i just got my 1978ish Hogan Apex PCs!
although not heavier per se (nothing some lead tape wont fix) you can really see how the club just wants to sit open
there is little mass in the heel so you can come in shallow and the heel wont dig.

the "right angle golf" video dismantled the previous theory i had been working to about being "on plane" on the downswing.
i also want to get the image from the Flat left wrist video at about 1.16 mins and frame it
this was my eureka moment.

thanks
kevskigolf

Brads best
www.youtube.com/user/GolfAus#p/u/6/txk0fWSyLXw
www.youtube.com/user/GolfAus#p/u/5/qrhDByp-v0E
www.youtube.com/user/GolfAus#p/u/4/U2oh1e-_bs0

Bradley,

Can you amplify what you are saying about "turning level".

The issue I have with this phrase is that I see Hogan moving his left shoulder up and back as the hands reach the point of his right thigh. I think he did this to shorten the hand path and redirect the angular acceleration of the clubhead, as he unloaded the cocked left wrist from "cupped" to "bowed" (through supination?) in a very fast move (right at the right thigh)...

THEN he could hit with as many right hands as he wanted with force across the shaft, and not fear any rolling over until after impact.

Jules Alexander's photo Study in Power has a good capture of the move at the right instant.

Cheers,
Drew

Drew Art,
See attached picture below....level turning shoulders as opposed to more vertical steep shoulders
That should allow you to see the difference.......Even put Elk there at the end of the top row!!!

yes Anton.....chipping is basic motion....the swing should be pretty much a longer version except for specialty flop shots, punch and grabs etc
You can visually see exactly what the wrists and forearms are doing in that chip motion. face is wide open and a little rotate through....so again he is turning the club through with a rhythmic one two ... not throwing the club at the ball (been there and done that with my chipping!!!)... i remember what that is all about
I haven't seen Elk's short game video that people are talking about but I would assume this is at the essence of it as Elk was/is a great chipper of the ball

Bradley, thanx for taking the time to answer my questions, much appreciated! I have Elk's short game video and while he is doing it a little different from Ben Hogan its still pivot driven even at that scaled down version and he actually talks about what exactly his legs are doing in that video. Ben Hogan talks about that chipping action in his Power Golf but he doesn't emphasize it enough, he says "very little movements from legs if any" or something like that which most people would misread as "keep legs quiet, don't let them move/pivot" and thats kills that motion right there. thats what i did trying to learn it at first but then realized the part legs play in it thru experimentation and i gotta say thats the best way to chip the ball i know of, after it got ingrained my only problems became distance control and face angle for specific shots, Elks video does address the later so it has been huge help to me, once i see the shot i don't worry about executing it because that motion holds. i wish i could say the same about full swing shots but i'm working on that and with the insight you have provided here and elsewhere i think i'm on the right path.

Bradley Hughes wrote:

Thanks, Bradley.

I guess my conception is that "level" is a relative construct, and does not mean flat. In that sense, the shoulders turn more or less level to the swing plane as it varies, and therefore more level with the driver than with a shorter iron...

Where you look, and when you look before and after impact, however, I think you will have different perspectives on whether the shoulders turn "level".







I certainly see some turn here that is not flat.

Drew, i don't want to inject my opinions here on this thread but if you look at shoulders level relative to waist line / hips level with Ben Hogan in particular you might see it from a slightly different perspective, just saying.

It really depends on the trajectory and shape of shot Hogan was hitting........He could look vaguely different from the same angle based on what he was doing with the shot...but for the most part he. is shallowing his plane down, keeping his shoulders closed to increase the range of motion with his shoulders from closed to open to help pull the club through and not hit the shot with his hands by stalling his body engine.
This is a great sequence I have from the Shell Match showing such a thing.



There were other fine examples of the same things going on in many other great players that I also like to look at besides Hogan....such as Miller, Player, Thomson and Snead...all very similar motivations in their swings with a different look because of their build, height, strength etc...




have always loved Knudson's swing...as you can see in this sequence his shoulders look reasonably square at impact but we then see what happens..... It's a great motion and again points to a similar path or intentions of the golf swing..... All these guys were held in pretty high regard for their striking of the ball





The shaft plane through and beyond impact and the appearance of the clubface (neutral or closed) as it appears up into the throughswing above the shoulders is the big giveaway as to just how much these guys are turning through the shot.

anton wrote:


+1 nicely noted Anton....now we're cooking

This is a good observation because Hogan from this angle it gets distorted a little...... His shallow approach into impact can cause this to appear more vertical with the shoulders than it seems....
In the pic the shoulder pattern is reasonably close to the hip pattern on that pic but again it is all relative to the trajectory and the shape he was after on the shot and we can only guess on that side of things.