Falling with Gravity + Rotation & Extension = the Golf Swing. Learn the Wrecking Ball Drill!

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[@mitchellm873]

Brilliant video... you're a great teacher mate. Keep it coming.

[@markmatthews6839]

Love my “Pro”. Great training aid. Cures over the top- and we all do it- even if we think we don’t. The Pro fixes it.

[@wallinlitwa]

Hi Dan, thank you for graciously and generously sharing a novel understanding and application of an elusive efficient golf motion digestible for us pragmatists out here in the trenches. You have done a great job in clarifying this highly specialized athletic skill. Best wishes for well deserved continued success. -Wally

[@danmartingolf]

Thanks Wally! Appreciate you being on the journey!

[@jstinnett23]

Lightbulb central!

[@joecontreras3175]

Unbelievable Dan - this makes the swing athletic and removes the "technical" aspect of the swing. Best Regards, Joe

[@danmartingolf]

Thanks, Joe!

[@johncarroll986]

Another great video Dan. Your work is paying off.

[@golfdoc1950]

I understand Steve’s point but I believe Dan is emphasizing allowing gravity to control the vertical drop of the club rather than having the arms and hands pull it down. True, it’s the body rotation and the conservation of angular momentum that produce most of the speed in the swing. The nice thing about gravity is that it’s a constant force-no timing necessary if the golfer doesn’t interfere.

[@HolyGrailOfGolf]

Now you're in Palm Springs? It looks like Avondale, but they all look alike. Another great video that most likely few will actually understand.

[@danmartingolf]

Thanks! No I'm still at Hansen Dam for proper lessons. My partner with My True Swing is a member at Monterey CC in Palm Desert. Just been shooting videos out there.

[@thomasjefferson8939]

This is excellent except I have one question for Dan. His Pro training too does not have an actual club head equivalent. That is, a golf club has an off-set head. It is not a hammer, a baseball bat, or a wrecking ball. An offset head in space "wants" to rotate around the hosel. How does a golfer deal with this rotation. Let it happen? Encourage it?

[@thomasjefferson8939]

I meant "tool."

[@thomasjefferson8939]

And Ben Hogan said that he purposely tried to rotate the shaft with his firearms as fast as he could. It seems to me that rotation of the offset shaft keeps the club on plane.

[@danmartingolf]

The PRO is just to get the orbit and the motion together - as with any sport, there are adjustments relative to the tool. But the physics don't change one iota with the club. When the club is truly part of your body, it is no longer something that is in space. It's now a part of your body's system of motion. If you are moving correctly, you would be surprised how steady the face actually can stay. There is very little natural axial rotation of the clubhead until it begins to fold back into the body after impact. If there is significant "face roll" then that player is likely manipulating the shaft to salvage a faulty grip or some other tendency that is rolling the face open in the beginning of the motion. Thanks!

[@thomasjefferson8939]

@@danmartingolf Thank you! Very helpful. I am using the PRO.

[@rayfrosti7849]

I'd be interested in your take on linear and vertical forces.

[@danmartingolf]

Relative to human motion, my take is that these are things that can be measured when any two objects have an interaction. They show correlation in movement tendencies, but not causation of movement itself. Thanks!

[@Ericksonbellgolf]

Something that is potentially differrent with a golf club is that you can potentially let the arm club unit drop more at first. The lower the club is before you rotate the faster you need to rotate to hit the ball, and also, you have more vertical momentum that can be redirected toward the ball. Sort of the opposite of over the top where one needs to stall to hit the ball. I suppose people dont think about the role of gravity in the golf swing because of its constant presence in our lives

[@danmartingolf]

Yes, gravity defines our ability to move efficiently. And our mind definitely forgets that our body is really, really good at movement around our line of gravity and it doesn't need to be so involved with how to move our body parts. They naturally fold and unfold relative to our rotary movements. When our "mind" wants force we try to create it in away that our body immediately finds as unbalanced and reacts by tightening up, which slows down the entire system. It's difficult for most of us simply because of the rigidity of the club and it's center of mass which can make your mind easily react to it's weight instead of learning how to move to make it feel weightless. thx!

[@Ericksonbellgolf]

I agree, yes. What I meant to say​ is that withva club you also have the choice of starting your rotation even more slowly than you would with the pro. This creates a potential for more speed. A swing like Ben Hogan's takes advantage of this. He rotates more slowly at first so he can really go at it through the ball and still be compliant with gravity. Not sure if you can quite do that with the pro. I would be curious to see you address it. @danmartingolf

[@briano6268]

To increase angular velocity/clubhead speed are you saying that you should actively rotate more aggressively or would you say that one’s intention to swing faster will simply cause that to happen?

[@danmartingolf]

I would lean towards intention. To rotate faster is a total body coordination around your line of gravity. When most people try to do something "aggressively" they isolate a muscle group or segment of the body with muscular contraction in an effort to speed up, this creates friction in the system and keeps it from reaching its full potential. Remember as coordinated skill develops, the ability to do it faster with efficiency is a natural process!

[@briano6268]

Thanks Dan. Your KZbin content is great. I bought the PRO in 2018 and watched a few of your videos at the time. Been swinging the PRO ever since but only recently starting really checking out your videos and doing the wrecking ball drills etc... I was a student of Manuel de la Torre the last 10 years of his life and for some reason back in 2018 I thought some of your videos were too complicated. Coming back to them in the last few months I'm now kicking myself for not diving in back then.

[@danmartingolf]

Thanks Brian! Glad you are back to using the PRO! You might want to download the My True Swing app in the app store/google play store. Reach out anytime you have questions!

[@DM-3956]

Forget it. I was going to buy 10 "My True Swing" trainers for my HS golf students until I saw how ridiculous hella overpriced they are @ $97. As a golf coach I made 20 for my students from rope, golf grip, and a dog tug toy and saved over $2,000. Just saying you cold increase volume of sales, lower the price and broaden the market. I might have bought 10 at $25 or even $30. So I made 20 for $16ea.

[@danmartingolf]

First - the info and coaching that comes with it is where the price is set - not the materials . In fact $97 for the tool + knowledge that I impart on learning how to use the tool is an incredible bargain! In my humble opinion, it will save you thousands on golf lessons. Second - if you would simply reach out to me, i would happily send you a bulk order for a discounted price - especially since it is to help your HS team! So please, reach out to me at [e-mail]!

[@Eric-zk2hu]

Great video, I think its your best for me. I never got how your swing would work to hit the ball any decent distance. I guess my thoughts were just the straight wrecking ball drop. But it was an aha moment when you explained about the turn adding to the vertical drop to swing the club outward without guiding it with muscle. It was like after 30 years of changing my swing constantly, oh ok that's why you rotate, its not a violent or rapid rotation it just makes the wrecking ball angle out to the ball and the target line. I always wondered that most swing coaches say its rotation but when you watch really good players hit really solid shots they don't seem to be turning hard or fast as if towing the club with the turn. Once you get the theory you can hit some very straight and very solid shots. It feels pretty effortless like you are applying no pressure on the back of the shaft and it just the weight of the club swinging thru impact.

[@danmartingolf]

Thanks so much! You really got the essence of what I was trying to convey in this video. It's so easy to think you need to apply force to the club (or other parts of the body) to get the swing to function with speed, but its actually a very natural skill that we employ in all of our daily movements. If a player can perceive it correctly, they will get better at it! Appreciate your support!

[@steve8553]

I love the Pro and your videos Dan, but you're misinterpreting the most important part of the physics of the swing. At 1:17 you show the Pro swinging back past your hands when the hands stop. That effect is known as Conservation of Angular Momentum. This is the key force in the swing. Gravity is pretty much a nil effect. Lag is created by your hands accelerating during the downswing. The club head acceleration (release) is caused by the hands decelerating. This happens twice. Once, at the top of the backswing, when the hands slow and stop - the club head wants to speed up and continue back. Second, on the downswing when the hands actually slow slightly before impact - causing the club head to whip. Remember your floppy arms exercise? You twist your body. What makes your arms fly out? Gravity? Sorry nope. It's when you suddenly stop your body's rotation, conservation of angular momentum forces your arms to fly out. It is the deceleration of the body that accelerates the arms. The faster you decelerate, the faster your arms fly. Everything you teach and demonstrate with the Pro is spot-on correct and wrist torque is the major mistake screwing up the whole system. But the reason/explanation is the acceleration/deceleration of the arms and hands. So, gravity is almost nothing. Increasing radius is not the cause of acceleration, but a side effect of the hands slowing and the club whipping. Gee I hope I explained that clearly in so few words. Keep up the good work!

[@danmartingolf]

Steve, thanks for the note! Appreciate it! But here are some things to consider:' The goal of this video is to understand the golf motion to be a whole rotating system of your body and club under the acceleration of gravity - every molecule of the total body and club are one whole folding and unfolding system relative to your rotation and the acceleration of gravity. It’s how you move in everyday life naturally and efficiently. The conservation of angular momentum in it's purest sense doesn't take gravity into effect. It's completely valid EXCEPT all rotating systems on earth are under the influence and constant acceleration of gravity. If COAM applied purely, your arms wouldn’t continually rise from your side as you increase your rotation or fall back to your side when you stopped rotating. So gravity isn’t negligible - it must be respected and successfully negotiated in our physical skills. Second, How do you begin rotating in the first place? You can't do it without the acceleration of gravity and the fact that you and everything around you are already in motion. Gravity gives us the gift of movement and our sensory system has evolved to use it instinctively in all of our movements. Third, if you use you muscles to suddenly try to stop a piece of your whole body as a rotating system, you are actually resisting the radius of rotation from expanding and complicating the system. The golf swing is not just the arms and club - it is every molecule of your body and the golf club as a system. If you apply a sudden deceleration to a part It creates an imbalance that your body instinctively resists to keep from falling over. As for the COAM piece of a system already in rotation, as the radius of rotation increases the more proximal pieces automatically slow down - it doesn’t require a force at all! You never need a conscious application of deceleration of one part to speed up another part - this actually creates multiple axes of rotation which causes incredible chaos in the whole system of the golf motion. That’s why the PRO stays in a straight line when used correctly - it shows you the harmony of the acceleration of gravity combined with the extension of the radius of rotation. Thanks!

[@steve8553]

@@danmartingolf Thanks for the info! Totally agree that any 'odd' forces disrupts the system and ends up reducing the speed and consistency we all want. I super agree that 'the radius of rotation increases the more proximal pieces slow down'. It's what makes a whip snap at the tip. (But that's a long description.) I do believe that the major contributor to head speed is the lag created by acceleration (not using wrist muscles) and then the head whip created by the arms deceleration (not using wrist muscles). I repeat to myself over and over the heart of your teachings: Wrist torque can create the illusion and angles of a proper free-swing, but cannot produce the results. The Pro is the only tool that helps me feel that lesson.

[@danmartingolf]

Thanks Steve! The reason a golf club or the PRO doesn't work like a whip is because of density. The golf club has extreme density at the clubhead which is required so it will compress the golf ball at impact and send it flying. A whip speeds up because the density of the whip tapers down continually which provides an accelerant along the length of the whip because of its reducing density as the wave surges through the loop. That's why the whip has incredible speed at the tip. But that speed could never move a golf ball more that a foot or so because there is no density to compress the ball. What I can agree on is that when using the club correctly, it can certainly have a "feel of it "whipping" ahead as it strikes the ball - but one must be careful that the natural extension of the radius of rotation, not a physical force. And many elite tour pros have used that as their "feel" for swinging the golf club such as Bobby Jones. And it sounds like that image works really well for you! I personally think it's best to think of the golf swing more like a flail or morning star. Or a trebuchet is another great way to look at how everything unfolds. Anyhow - thank you for using the PRO and supporting my channel. Love the conversation!

[@steve8553]

@@danmartingolf Thanks Dan. Bingo! "a trebuchet is another great way to look at how everything unfolds" Oh if I could only convert that image into my actual swing!!! Between you and me ... keeping the wrists free 'swinging' and still holding on to the club is my Holy Grail. Once I get that, my index will drop by 10.