Here's a couple of swings with my Hogan IPT 5-iron that I recently had a new shaft put in for practice purposes.
I actually had a great range session today and from the Face On view when I put in on my golf swing analysis software program, my impact alignments were very good, so it's no coincidence that my range session was so good today.
The backswing looks laid off more than it really is because I'm not really cocking the left wrist that much at the top. Still some things I don't particularly like, but overall I'll take it.
The downswing looks very good, but the path is still out to the right. Before today I had one nice session where I was either holding the flex of the shaft or coming very cloe to it for about 30 shots in a row. After that session, I was lucky to get 1 shot where I felt I held the flex of the shaft. But today I hit another streak of good swings.
Anyway, getting onto the Hogan IPT 5-iron.
One of the things I believe is that in order to stop the hook, Hogan's first solution was to make the clubs hook proof. They were very flat, they had a rib reminder in the grip that made it so he had to have a weak grip and of course, they had ultra stiff shafts. According to Hogan's personal clubmaker, they were X-stiff and tipped 2 inches, which would make them feel like you were swinging a telephone pole.
I believe that what happened is that he didn't stop hooking the ball until he discovered his 'secret', but in the meantime he developed a tremendous pivot because that's what is needed to hit shafts so stiff.
I wanted to try the same thing, but do it one club at a time. So I did it with the IPT 5-iron. I was supposed to get a 5-iron shaft from Golfsmith's that was supposed to be X100 and then I was gong to have it tipped 1/2" to make it about an X300.
Instead, Golfsmith's service took forever and I just grabbed the shaft and had a local clubmaker install it for me.
When I got to the clubmaker, he said it wasn't even a 5-iron shaft. It measured about 40 inches long and was supposed to be taper tipped as well.
Anyway, the clubmaker said he could drill the hole in the clubhead bigger so it could fit a parallel tip shaft and just tip it about 3".
I get the feeling that it wasn't an X100 shaft that they gave me, but tipping something 3 inches is going to make an super duper Hogan-esque stiff shaft and it does feel stiff, but I hit it really well today.
As we go along I will update my progress and thoughts with the ulta, super duper stiff 5-iron.
3JACK
I like the thinking about stiffer shafts activating the pivot more and Im thinking applying it to my set, or at least try it on a club or two and see how it goes. One question though. How has does it affect distance compared to your regular 5 iron with a good shot? Are you shorter, or about the same?
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Jon
Jon-I just tried it and I *think* I'm about 1 club shorter with that iron on a good shot. I'll have to test it out some more to get a definitive answer, but the preliminary results appear to be 1 club shorter. Of course, that's not the point..just trying to force myself to use my pivot to hit the ball instead of my arms. It feels well when I hit it on the sweetspot though.
ReplyDeletethanks for the info Rich, great stuff on your blog! By the way, in the pivot driven swing you are referring to, I assume you are trying to get rid of independent arm motion wich can kill the transfer of power from pivot to clubhead, but do you at all consciously activate your hands, as in firing them low in the swing. Basically are you aware of any kind of manipulation of the hands coming into and through impact? I ask because I sometimes get great flushed shots when firing the hands low and coming into impact but other times I completely loose it and cannot fire the hands in the right way. Then I revert to what I call "stiff wristslap", where I concentrate on a frozen right wrist feel and use the pivot to accelarate through impact . Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteJon
I don't consciously fire the hands. The exercise in Module 1 and Module 2 of ABS trains the hands, so I do about 50-100 reps of those a day...I can bust them out in less than 10 minutes. A lot of this is about the post impact pivot, but not so much the hips, but the torso. You basically fire the hands into impact and then the post impact-torso pivot takes over into the finish.
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