D-Plane and Ray Romano

On our forum we've been talking about the 'Haney Project' starring Ray Romano. And in the past we've discussed things like D-Plane, the 'new ball flight laws' and what constitutes 'thinking too much' in the golf swing.

It never ceases to amaze me how all sorts of golfers, even instructors, are insistent on believing that the golf swing and instruction HAS TO BE simple.

Why?

Because they are afraid of 'thinking too much.'

The problem is that whether we like it or not, the golf swing is a very complex subject. And even worse, trying to make it simple often times just leads to confusion which leads 'thinking too much.'

As I stated once, 'too much thinking, not enough understanding.'

THAT to me is the key. Understanding the info. If you really understand the subject, then you will not be as confused and you will cease 'over-thinking' things.

Some golfers are lucky enough to be very sharply in tune with their swing and how to adjust...almost subconsciously....in order to properly strike the golf ball. But, there are not many Fred Couples types in the world.

There also were not many Beethoven's or Mozart's in this lifetime either, but for some reason golfer's tend to believe that it doesn't apply to golf.

Go figure.

When watching 'The Haney Project' it's very obvious that Romano's big issue is his lack of clubface control. It's also very obvious that Romano is very confused as to why his missed shots are so bad.

This is where a simple 'new ball flight laws' explanation helps.

Believe me, I've been there. Right now I'm hitting a pretty nice push draw (that I would like to straighten out, but I'll live with it for now).

What does the 'new ball flight laws tell us?'

My clubface is OPEN at impact and my path is a little further right of the clubface at impact.

That's a big difference from the 'old ball flight laws' which would tell me that my face is CLOSED at impact and my path is out to the right.

But let's say the initial direction is at the target and then hooks hard left of the target. The old ball flight laws would tell us that the path was at the target, but the face was closed. The 'new ball flight laws' would tell us that the face is SQUARE and the path is too far out to the right.

That's a big thing to know. And that takes some thinking. But if you UNDERSTAND the facts, you can start to put yourself on the right path to correcting the problem.

Here's a golfer who hit a bad shot, a ground ball to the left.



I'm sure his playing partners would tell him 'hey, you looked up on that one.' Y'know...'keeping it simple.'

But let's take a look at him at impact.


So what's happening is that his buddies are not helping him and he just gets more confused.

What's worse is his buddies will tell him other simple things like 'try a smoother takeaway' or 'swing slower' in order to get him to 'keep his head down' when he's ignoring things like swing plane, clubface, low point, pivot and footwork.

That's a big reason why golfers haven't improved their average score in the past 80 years...too many of them want a quick fix and a simple solution when the swing takes work and is a complex endeavor. The key is to understand the swing by understanding certain parts at a time.

Some golfers are able to pick up many parts of the swing and understand them quite quickly. Some need more time. But being in fear of working to understand the complexities of the swing will just make things more confusing from my experience.





3JACK