Leverage vs "Swing"

Leverage vs "Swing"
By Mike Cortson
I have been a student of the golf swing for over 20 years. I have been a PGA Tour player manager for some of the best players over the years including Australian Hall of Fame golfer, Bruce Crampton. Needless to say, I have been around the best players up close and personal where I never wasted the opportunity to study. I am a lawyer, now retired. I was also valedictorian of my law school class and law review editor. I am a research nut. My golf library is loaded with every important golf book, article, and video I could get my hands on. I truly have left no stone unturned.

Having had the good fortune to learn what Ben Hogan was actually doing in his golf swing as it was taught to his only pupil, John Schlee, I have been amazed at how other teachers, and I mean big name teachers, have totally misunderstood just what it was Hogan was doing. Pictures and films can guide you to what it was that Hogan was doing, but only if you know where to look. If you don't know what you are looking for it is hard to know it when you find it.

Ernest Jones author of "Swing The Club Head" is the father, if you will, of the swinging versus hitting school. Much like Count Yogi, Jones was a proponent of allowing the club head to swing freely to generate as much speed as possible to create force. The force equation of F (force) = M (mass) x A (acceleration). Nowhere in that equation do we see F as part of its own creation.
Yet there is a school of thought on leverage as the method to be used to create force. Leverage in and of itself is a force and by the law of physics has no business in the equation F = M x A, as it would tend to fly in the face of physics making the equation F = M x A + F, or some such thing. So by applying force on the wrong side of the equation actually defeats the outcome.
There is more going on in a golf swing than just F = M x A so it would seem. To sort is out I had to break this down even further to clearly understand how this all worked. And I must tell you without having had the benefit of knowing what Hogan was actually doing I would probably be floundering around expounding "swing theories" rather than science.
Joe Dante, in his book "Four Magic Moves", came as close to understanding what Hogan was doing as anyone of his day. Unfortunately, his focus was on leverage in "delaying" the hit by locking the "backward wrist break" from the top of the back swing on through the hitting area.

That truly uncomfortable feeling of breaking the wrists twisting them under and holding them tight in that position will indeed get you into Hogan's impact position albeit in such an uncomfortable and contorted position that a student will quickly give up on that method. He discussed Conservation Of Angular Momentum (COAM) but didn't express how it works in the golf swing. He did mention the ice skater using COAM to spin fast by holding her arms in close to the body to speed up but did not understand how that actually works in a golf swing. Hogan called it "loading up", as Schlee told me. How it got released was a mystery to Dante. So "leverage" is actually part of the "A" in the F = M x A equation. Getting your body in the proper position to maximize COAM is the key, and it doesn't need to be all that uncomfortable.

In 2003 I was terminally diagnosed with cancer and the shortly thereafter had a massive stroke landing me in and end of life hospice program in a nursing home. I managed to overcome all that and hobbled out of the nursing home on June 11, 2004. I was indeed and still am totally and permanently disabled with all sorts of residual maladies. Yet I still had the golf bug and was determined to teach this beaten body to play golf again. I have little physical strength left and I am not all that big at 5' 9". So I can't generate a lot of power. But I knew that "power" had to do with electricity and not mechanics. In the golf swing we are trying to create force not power.

When I focused on the mechanics of the swing and allowed the club to swing allowing my body and wrists to flow naturally into the proper positions to create speed and what appeared to be leverage, I found that it was just a matter of getting myself set properly for the Hogan impact position at the finish of my back swing and then rotating my body back toward the target keeping the "launch sequence" in order; knees, hands club head all going to the target in that order that I was able to apply the club face dead square to the ball hitting it dead straight with appreciable distance. The faster I rotated keeping the proper sequence the farther I hit the ball.
Hogan deliberately hid what he was doing and I know exactly where he made his "secret" transition. Like a magic trick; once you know how it is done you can't help but see it happen. I actually demonstrate this "secret" in my DVD "On Target Power". COAM plays a huge roll in creating force. COAM is part of the "A" in F = M x A. Also what is further misunderstood is what constitutes the "M", mass. Mass is not just the club head alone. Mass constitutes every bit of who is swinging the club, not just the club head. If you merely swing the club head using solely its mass you are what I call hitting the ball with a bicycle rather than a dump truck. When you can get your entire body moving along with the club head now you are putting as much mass as you have times the acceleration you are generating with COAM. When your hands get down close to your right hip you are now in the ice skater's position and the faster you can rotate from that point them more COAM you can apply to the "A" part of the equation. It is literally FREE power and now for you, no longer a mystery.

If you want to learn how to do this properly I would strongly suggest that you get my book, "The Secret to a Great Golf Swing" as well as my DVD "On Target Power". You can order the book at your local bookstore if they are out of stock or order it from my web site. The DVD is available only from my site, http://mikecortson.com/ with a direct link to the DVD at http://benhogan.ws/ . You can also book a lesson with me either here in Southwestern Michigan, indoors during the winter by calling me at (269) 326-0736. I do travel and you can call me to discuss the details.

Hit 'em straight!
Mike