An "inadequate weight transfer" is a golfer's sometimes futile attempt to get the ball to start more to the left because he has an OPEN CLUBFACE......

as root causes go, the OPEN CLUBFACE at separation is a blockbuster...and the cause of most of the "ungolflike" motions on the driving ranges near you.....but you already knew that, leo...didn't you?

You have to approach this problem in baby steps. Try the feet-together-drill with Pitching Wedge to Driver, then short chip shots with the irons, slowly increasing stance width. It's not something that's going to happen overnight :)

Thanks Mike...I get it. Seems like almost everything has to do with the clubface.

Hey weightshift :)

Some good thoughts there. Many people (teachers and students) have said how wonderful they hit the ball when their feet are together. I would like to expand on this drill with some thoughts to try and help him a little further, and what it concerns is that of moving the head - bobbing and swaying.

However people rely on their crutch of swaying and are thus lazy to fully pivot.... When they are told to keep a stationary head usually they don't pivot because it takes an effort, then golf instructors in their efforts to get results quick, tell them to move it back...etc etc.

Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead...etc etc all emphasise it in their literature with the stationary head as the ideal. Jack Nicklaus called it golfs unarguable fundamental. It amazes me looking back when I was learning to play a bit when was a kid from books, that I would listen to a teacher like leadbetter and others over sources of the best players....

Weight shift is a result of the hip motion under the stationary head and its not a big huge thing. Good golfers can't lift their left foot off the ground for example....

A stationary head is an ideal... correct? Hogan's head was not fixed ...it moved a little back on the backswing and forward and down on the downswing transition. Maybe it was stationary relative to the rest of his body motion during the backswing to downswing transition.

You either "load and sustain the lag" or "move the right shoulder down", which is gonna "keep the right shoulder on-plane or down".

Hi Mathew.
Yoda wrote (in another thread): "In my own case, unless I consciously monitor the situation -- which I rarely do -- I am totally unaware of the degree of Hip Slide. However, at one time I worked pretty hard on that Component and still do emphasize its 'parallel to the Plane Line' motion when I practice my Lag Loading via Downstroke Waggles. And here, there is enough lateral motion to transfer the Weight to the left side as the Body begins to Pull the Arms and Hands toward their Impact Locations."

Many of the golf greats may or may not moved very very 'slightly' in certain slow mo pictures, but their intentions are towards the ideal are very clear and it certainly can be done. Many mistake the look of turning the head even though its still stationary as defined by a fixed point in space as the head as though it was moving backwards to the right. This is because the head is not shaped like a soccer ball...

Really all the golf stroke requires is some point on the top of the spine to stabilise the motion, yet the head is preferable because you can use your eyes to monitor if it has moved....there is no other point you can use that has anything that can match that advantage(ie point between the shoulders).

How do you know what their intentions were?

And what is the ideal?

So, if the head were shaped like a soccer ball the perceived movement to the right would not exist...explain this to me.

Which particular point?...the base of the neck?

Jack Nicklaus - chapter 6 of Golf My Way - "I regard keeping the head very steady, if not absolutely stock still, throughout the swing as the bedrock fundamental of golf. It is inviolable as far as I'm concerned" - italics on "the" is his...

Ben Hogan - Chapter 5 Power Golf- "The body only coils. Your head doesn't move" when describing his backstroke mechanics on p53 and then on p68 describing a frame pre-impact - "The head is still stationary"...

Look at my signature on what Bobby Jones thought....

and thats just three great players... I got alot more quotes too but I think you get my point.

The ideal is to use your eyes inorder to detect any wrongful deviation in head location. There is no control for the point between the shoulders, which is why Homer Kelley didn't advocate it.

Well think about it - if the head is in a fixed point in space and it turns slightly, how would it look to a camera face on....

I prefer describing that point as the point between the shoulders - but close enough.

Hogan's Words vs Actions
 

Hogan spoke of things in his books about his swing techniques/mechanics that actual swing sequences prove otherwise. I understand that his swing mechanics changed after his near fatal accident. His head did move down and forward on his downswing prior to impact as his lower body drove forward...at least the sequences that I have seen show that. Tiger has a similar move...I believe.

Regardless if he did or did not have a stationary head on any or every stroke he took, he clearly understood it to be the ideal - infact all great players do. I also include Tiger Woods to that list who over the last few years has become an advocate of the stationary head.

I mean I really don't see how anyone can visualise the power package structure and not see the undeniable need for a stationary point at the top of the spine as one of the elements that controls the shoulder motions.

Per 1-L-2, the head is allowed to turn (but not sway or bob), but surely this rotation will change the way your eyes look at the ball. Doesn't this make the "eyes argument" obsolete, as I do not know of any great golfers who does not turn their head slightly on the backstroke?

Head
 

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This is true. Most, if not all, tour players have a slight swivel of the head near the TOP or END of their backswing. The head does not necessarily move laterally, but TURNS(rotates) slightly to the right.

Someone that is very RIGHT EYE DOMINANT may have problems with this. What do you think?

I am assuming this "problem" you are talking about has to do with alignment. If so, I don't think it's a problem as long as the golfer is looking directly at the ball (as oppose to gazing downwards, i.e "looking down your nose"). He is then able to see a straight line perpendicular to the leading edge of clubface to the target.

You lost me on this one . . . my particularly feeble braincell is not firing at full steam.

Help please . . .