The Big Easy Swing - Deceptively Simple, But Truly Deep

Was working on repairing my driver swing, and discovered a couple of things that seems to help me....

Then, surfing around, I found this.



It's all there! Everything I was working on and searching for, all in a single video.

What he says sounds so simple, but contains deep bio-mechanical principles (no need to worry what they are, other than they work!)

Enjoy...

Thanks for the video .. let me try that "let the club drop" feeling the next time I hit the range ...

Good post thanks for the video!

Most welcome guys. Took me sometime to nail down all my 'feels', and this useful video contains many of them, all nicely verbalized for me.

The 'let the right side drop' feeling is an important move, present in most good swings, but elusive to achieve unless one knows what to look for. The keyword is 'let'.

'Let' means we don't actively make it happen. Other things that we do, allows this to happen on its own. Tiger calls it "my right side gets a free ride." I didn't know what that mean when I first read it.

Watch Ernie carefully, and you'll see all the things he does to allow the right side to "drop" into position effortlessly.

Thanks! Great video!

Most welcome.

Here's a closer look, not a new video, many might have seen it before but let's dig deeper.



Ernie talks about that little box, keeping the angle of the box, keeping his arm connected with his upper body, and using it to keep the spine angle and staying in the shot.

And then the deceptively downkey statement, "Give it a lash."

That brings all the built-up torque to a powerful release through the ball.

I've seen this guy up close, and he looks like he's moving slowly, never hurrying, until the last moment before impact, and then somehow he explodes through the shot.

Again, watch great balll strikers like Hogan, Garcia, etc, and you'll see a lot in common with what Ernie is saying.

A lot of useful geometry benefits there, and Ernie makes it sound so simple and understandable. If you haven't yet already, try it for yourself and you'll find some magical new dynamic angles which improve your swing, esp for beginners.

Watch how Els sets up approach shot for eagle... FROM THE ROUGH.

And juuust makes it onto the green.

The famous rhythm remains unruffled and the swing looks solidly steady, despite the need to put some power into the shot. Something to be learnt here.

The video may take a while to start streaming, but it's worth the wait.

http://www.pgatour.com/video/r/highlights/top_shots/2011/10/08/mine_11frys_rnd3_9_2nd_eag_els_06522.pgatour/index.html

thanks for sharing lee informative videos

Thanks Lee, really informative and valuable posting.
It reinforced the comment on drop the club/arm and let the gravity take over added by the power of the righ arm. Something which I"m currently working on.

A keeper.

so is Big Easy a swinger? He primarily pulls with left hand, rather than hit with right hand?

I wonder if pro golfers who look like they swing effortless e.g. big E, boom boom, elkington, luke, jimenez, kaymer are categorically swingers rather than hitters.

westwood's swing is not as effortless to me and think there was a prior discussion about him being a hitter of the ball.

i would also say furyk is a hitter, so does dustin johnson, rickie fowler, AK, Jb holmes, mcdowell

rory is a bit difficult to read, I think a swinger, a hard one, but still swinger

just my personal observation.

you mean swinger in the bar is it ?

Ernie said on the clip he just naturally drop his hand (not pulling), so does this constitute a s a new breed of method to hit the clubs ?

The way I do it. Relax arm, rotate hips and body let arm falls in the process right arm get straighten and uncock wrist through the ball for the full extension. Is that a hitter or a winger category, I don't know. I just feel that is the most relaxed and uncontrolled swing hence easy to replicate even without me having to think about it.

That is until I pull left, right, hook, duff etc.

pushslice wrote:

so is Big Easy a swinger? He primarily pulls with left hand, rather than hit with right hand?

I wonder if pro golfers who look like they swing effortless e.g. big E, boom boom, elkington, luke, jimenez, kaymer are categorically swingers rather than hitters.

westwood's swing is not as effortless to me and think there was a prior discussion about him being a hitter of the ball.

i would also say furyk is a hitter, so does dustin johnson, rickie fowler, AK, Jb holmes, mcdowell

rory is a bit difficult to read, I think a swinger, a hard one, but still swinger

just my personal observation.

When we compare the backswing of Els and Westwood, we can see a vast difference. Specifically the height of the backswing, and the position of the right elbow.

A swinger has a high backswing, and pulls right from the top.

A hitter can only punch from behind. So their backswing is truncated (3/4), and/or they must wait for the hands to fall into position before they apply the punch from behind.

Mechanically speaking, swinging is more efficient than hitting, requiring less effort to generate the same amount of speed. The high swing speeds are mostly swingers.

However, hitting, esp for shorter irons, is more accurate. It's essentially similar to a 3/4 punch shot.

Begging to differ with you respectfully, Dustin Johnson is a swinger. Look at his right elbow at the top of his backswing.

Shorter, more muscular build is suited for hitting. Hitting requires muscular power.

Taller, leaner build is suited for swinging. Swinging takes advantage of the leverage of height and length.

I have seen muscular people with limited flexibility try to learn swinging. The result is not good. Flexibility is the issue.

Similarly, tall, lanky people who try to learn hitting (3/4 compact backswing, punch and turn) will not get the distance they can achieve with swinging. They gain some accuracy, at the expense of power and distance.

Having said that, the TGM classification of hitters and swingers is a useful general framework, not an absolute definitive one - witness how people are arguing until this day whether Ben Hogan was a hitter or swinger.

However, the mechanics of levers are well established. When the lever is long, the length can be used to generate maximum Torque with minimum Force. When you hammer a nail, you grab the end of the hammer's handle, right? When you just want to precisely tap in a thumb tack, you grab the handle near the hammer head, to knock it with more precision, right?

That's the difference between swinger and hitting.

yeah, what you said made sense. I primarily just layman-ly observe whether they look effortless or not..my layman observations tell me Ben Hogan swings it, so does Mickey Wright.

what do you think about jb holmes and mcdowell? clear cut hitters? I just see them lunge hard at at the ball from 9 o'clock to impact.

Interesting to see from my kakis, I think I can tell a hitter quite clearly. Swinger harder to see. Sometimes I confuse it with having a nice smooth tempo.

pushslice wrote:

yeah, what you said made sense. I primarily just layman-ly observe whether they look effortless or not..my layman observations tell me Ben Hogan swings it, so does Mickey Wright.

what do you think about jb holmes and mcdowell? clear cut hitters? I just see them lunge hard at at the ball from 9 o'clock to impact.

Interesting to see from my kakis, I think I can tell a hitter quite clearly. Swinger harder to see. Sometimes I confuse it with having a nice smooth tempo.

JB Holmes, from this video, looks more like a swinger. He has a CF release as well, typical of swingers.



McDowell is a hitter. His right elbow gets behind the club early to punch.

sometimes i hit, sometimes i swing.. but most time I top... hahaha.....

in Golf digest there was an article that categorized golfers as throwers or draggers .. the examples they gave were Ernie Els as a thrower and Luke Donald as a dragger ..

Article I can find is here:

http://www.golfdigestcanada.ca/instruction/are-you-a-thrower-or-a-dragger/

As for pictures:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.165756230152246.41039.145745888819947

I tried to focus on the feeling which Big Easy described and shot the best score of my life ...

Even though I still blew up the last 2 holes, I think that's a separate stamina problem

zixter wrote:

in Golf digest there was an article that categorized golfers as throwers or draggers .. the examples they gave were Ernie Els as a thrower and Luke Donald as a dragger ..

Article I can find is here:

http://www.golfdigestcanada.ca/instruction/are-you-a-thrower-or-a-dragger/

As for pictures:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.165756230152246.41039.145745888819947

I tried to focus on the feeling which Big Easy described and shot the best score of my life ...

Even though I still blew up the last 2 holes, I think that's a separate stamina problem

Zixter,

Thanks for your post.

Yes, am well aware of the Jim McLean article.

He made a video posted on youtube criticising TGM, and then followed by writing this article, which is, to put it mildly, a COMPLETE RIP OFF copying the hitter and swinger model from TGM. He even renamed them rather clumsily as thrower and dragger, to make it seem like his original idea. And of course, he gave ZERO credit to TGM in the article.

After that article came out, I lost ALL respect for Jim McLean.

I mean, we all borrow ideas from one another. And if we copy something so closely, the least we can do is give credit where credit is due, instead of CRITICIZING, followed by blatant COPYING, and ALTERING to make it seem his own.

Pathetic...

zixter wrote:

I tried to focus on the feeling which Big Easy described and shot the best score of my life ...

Even though I still blew up the last 2 holes, I think that's a separate stamina problem

Hey, that's really cool to hear. Well done!

Thanks Lee. Don't keep up too often with these teaching pros but will take a look at TGM's swinger-hitter article when I find time ...

I still can't tell the difference that easily, though people like Michelle Wie, Ernie Els are pretty obvious "throwers" to me based on the JML analogy ...

zixter wrote:

Thanks Lee. Don't keep up too often with these teaching pros but will take a look at TGM's swinger-hitter article when I find time ...

I still can't tell the difference that easily, though people like Michelle Wie, Ernie Els are pretty obvious "throwers" to me based on the JML analogy ...

No pbm, you're most welcome, but please... I urge you zixter, use the term swinger and hitter, and you'll get knowing respectful nods from seasoned TGMers. In this case, MW and EE are both swingers.

That is, MW certainly was before Leadbetter got a hold of her and proceeded to take away her natural swinger's swing and turn it into something that can hardly win tournaments. As a comparison, please take a look at Yani Tseng's swing, pure swinger, swing with abandon, no fear. Check it out - Hana Bank Championship - Yani 1st, Michelle Wie T35th. And certainly no artificially imposed mechanics regurgitated by some journeyman coach trying to fit every student into the single cookie cutter swing model his rice bowl relies on.... Why am I ranting? Because the market abounds with swing coaches who try to shoe horn everyone into ONE SWING MODEL because they only know ONE SWING MODEL. All the coaches I knew locally were like that. Ask them about swingers and hitters, and they go... huh?

That's like assuming everyone is built exactly the same. Try to get Charl Schwartzel to swing like John Daly, or Lee Westwood to swing like Jim Furyk - what do we get? Spoiling such a beautiful swing is a crime. Take a look at Tiger now. Butch and to some extent Haney knew they should only enhance a masterpiece, not paint over the canvas.

So, to make sense of the wonderfully diverse and bewilderingly different yet amazingly effective panoply of swings out there, let's stick to long-established terminology, shall we? Using any other term, 'chucker', 'puller', whatever etc, ie. those just invented by some wannabes trying to make it sound like it was their original invention, and one would sound like one made it up on the fly. I am trying to erase 'thrower' and 'dragger' from polluting my memory... yuck.

I didn't know Michelle Wie changed her swing .. Wah lao it's such a pity to see such talent not winning because they took a wrong turn ...

Hope she gets her good swing, whichever style it is, back ...

Still think she is one of the most chio golfers out there ...

zixter wrote:

I didn't know Michelle Wie changed her swing .. Wah lao it's such a pity to see such talent not winning because they took a wrong turn ...

Hope she gets her good swing, whichever style it is, back ...

Still think she is one of the most chio golfers out there ...

Well, most of the coaches with a single swing mode in the rice bowl, it's like going to see a doctor who only has aspirin in his prescription.

So, it's aspirin for everyone, no matter what the ailment.

For most people with mild flu, headaches, whatever, aspirin is all they need. If it doesn't cure, at least it doesn't harm.

And that's your regular weekend social golfer, for whom any structured instruction in any swing model is probably better than no instruction.

But Michelle Wie is competing at the highest level of the game. Mess with her pivot, or mess with her putting, or mess with her physique and diet, and you'd better know what you're doing. Her pivot is quite different now.

On the left is 2004. On the right is 2007.

2004 - very good looking lines, releasing fully against a fully extended fully braced left side, easy to turn through the shot.

2007 - what happened to her lines?



And look at the stats from the Sony Open tournament.

2004
Score: 72-68-140
Driving Distance: 273 yards
Greens in Regulation: 55.6%
Driving Accuracy: 67.9%

2005
Score: 75-74-149
Driving Distance: 267 yards
Greens in Regulation: 58.3%
Driving Accuracy: 64.3%

2006
Score: 79-68-147
Driving Distance: 281 yards
Greens in Regulation: 52.22%
Driving Accuracy: 60.00%

2007
Score: 78-76-154
Driving Distance: 241 yards
Greens in Regulation: 33.33%
Driving Accuracy: 17.86%

As we know, Michelle Wie was known as 'the big wiesy' because she used to have the same easy tempo as Ernie 'the big easy' Els. Pity.

The Big Easy and The Big Wiesy... when Michelle was at the peak of her natural free flowing swing.

Lee, you're not at Sunway range now? I'm shocked!

botak wrote:

Lee, you're not at Sunway range now? I'm shocked!

Ha ha.

Got to let my tendons recover...

Don't overtrain...

Otherwise I can't even turn...

My regular range is no longer Sunway, it's klgcc. But this week, klgcc is taken over by the ladies from LPGA. Not that I'm complaining mind you.