------------------------------- line of flight TARGET
------------------------------- shoulders, hips, knees, feet
Waggling
“As ye waggle so shall ye swing.” old Scottish adage.
“Waggle spontaneously.” Walter Hagen.
“At the moment you stand ready to hit the ball there is a natural tendency to tighten up in your hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders. I have found the most effective means of overcoming this tension is the waggle—abbreviated, easy, loose, back and forth movement with the clubhead. To derive maximum benefit, make these preliminary loosening-up motions in the line-of-flight in which you intend to hit the shot. The manner which you waggle you have a definite bearing on the way you start the clubhead back for the swing. Avoid waggling too much. This defeats the purpose of the waggle.” Byron Nelson.
“The essence of rhythmic swing is to be smooth, for only the smooth swing can be rhythmic. But if you get undue clubhead agitation into your preparatory movement (which is what the waggle is) you will get all the feel in your hands, arms, and shoulders, not in your legs, hips, and back, which is where you should feel that you swing from.” Byron Nelson.
“Then the waggle. About the waggle a whole book could be written. Every movement we make when we waggle is a miniature of the swing we intend to make, The clubhead moves in response to the body and the body opposes the clubhead. It is a flow and counter flow of forces with no static period, no check. There is no check anywhere in a good swing. There is no such thing as the “dead top” of a swing . . . the waggle—which is the bottom of an imaginary swing! Because unless you feel the whole of the swing in your waggle, your waggle is failing in its purpose. The whole meaning and purpose of the waggle is that you shall first feel your swing rightly so that you may then make it rightly. I remember watching Sand Herd make his first Cine pictures. In order not to waste film he tried to do without his customary fourteen waggles (shades of Sergio Garcia) and in consequence he could not hit the ball. He could not make the shot because he had not felt it.” Percy Boomer
“Unless you feel the whole of the swing in your waggle, your waggle is failing in its purpose.” Percy Boomer.
“The main thing to remember is that the waggle is just a little bitty swing that follows along the same path—for maybe a foot or so—that your full swing will travel. The waggle sets the tempo for the whole swing, so that if you’re ever fidgety and jerky with this movement, it’s going to be difficult for you to make a smooth swing.” Byron Nelson.
“If you do waggle, let the action help you preview the shot you’re going to play by waggling along the desired swing path thus, out-to-in waggles for a fade and in-to-out waggles for a draw.” Jack Nicklaus.
“Hogan,” wrote Cary Middlecoff, “placed more emphasis on the waggle than any swing theorist before.” He pointed out that Hogan himself had first become aware in 1932 of how crucial the waggle was when he observed the advantage Johnny Revolta gained by using it for short shots around the green. Hogan elaborated on this idea and applied it to his complete game.
“The bridge between the setup and the actual start of the backswing is the waggle. As a golfer looks at his objective and figures out the kind of shot he is going to play, his instincts take over: he waggles the club back and forth. Many golfers have the mistaken idea that it doesn’t really matter how you waggle the club. They think the only purpose in waggling the club is to loosen yourself up so that you won’t be tense or rigid. The waggle is an extremely important part of shot making. Far from being just a lot of minute details, it is sort of miniature practice swing and abbreviated “dry run” for the shot coming up. As the golfer takes the club back on the waggle, he accustoms himself to the path of the club he will be taking on his actual backswing.” Ben Hogan
“The rhythm of the waggle varies with each shot you play. Don’t groove your waggle. It takes instinct to plan and play a golf shot, and your preparations for each shot must be done instinctively. Let’s say, for example, that you’re 130 yards out from a semi plateau green. You’ve decided that you want to get the ball well up in the air in a steep trajectory, and that you’ll be playing a seven-iron. You want to strike the shot firmly, but you want to hit a soft, feathery kind of shot that will float down onto the green. The waggle will be somewhat slowly, somewhat softly. This is the tempo you will also be using on the stroke, of course. Say, on the other hand, that you’ve got to bang a drive low into the wind on a hole where it’s important to be out a good distance from the tee to get home in two. For this shot, you’ll move the club back and forth with much more briskness, more conviction, more speed, and you’ll swing that way. The waggle, in other words, fit’s the shot.” Ben Hogan
The common denominator among better golfers is that they waggle consistently, instinctively, and they do it on every shot.
II. Swing
Takeaway
There are a couple of schools of thought regarding the takeaway. John Geertsen Sr. advocated “setting the angle early” as opposed to what Lucious Bateman taught, the one-piece takeaway (more about that in Lessons from the Six Under Par Club). In a one-piece takeaway, when your hands are at hip level, the club shaft is parallel to the ground. In “setting the angle early” takeaway, when your hands are at hip level, the club shaft is perpendicular to the ground. Johnny Miller’s (“find an angle and keep it”) record speaks for itself as what can be accomplished with an early set. For the average player—an early set has a tendency to activate the hands too soon in the golf swing. At the time of Johnny’s success, this methodology became very controversial. Hogan, Snead, Lord Byron, Palmer, Nicklaus (to name but a few) all employed a “one-piece takeaway.”
Many golf instructors advocate early angle setting somewhere between the takeaway and when the hands reach hip level. For those, if there isn't a shoulder turn along with the angle set, it activates the hands. Instead of keeping the hands passive, they become active. Once the hands are “activated,” the triangle (both hands on the grip of the club connected to your shoulders) “separates,” and the hands get ahead of the body. Once this happens, power is displaced, and the ball can go anywhere—usually a relatively short distance. By turning the triangle (billiard rack) with the big muscles (shoulders) and getting your left arm and hand extended out and in control, you’re able to capture the feeling of a true pivot. This is not to say that an early angle set is wrong. The student who adheres to the “early set” methodology needs to realize it is imperative to keep the angle behind the body while initiating the downswing.
“There is no action in golf less understood than the use of the wrists, for curiously enough we do not have to work them, but we have to let them work themselves—like hinges on a door.” Percy Boomer.
In support of a one piece takeaway.
“The triangle formed by our arms and a line between the shoulders should never lose its shape . . . it should be possible to push a wooden snooker triangle in between the arms and to leave it there without impeding the swing back or through.” Percy Boomer.
“The wrists cock themselves. If you hold your wrists free to respond to the movement of the swing and to the momentum of the clubhead which sets up that movement, the weight of the clubhead itself will be sufficient to cock the wrists for you.” Percy Boomer.
“At no time make a conscious effort to cock the wrists. By this I am not saying there is no cocking of the wrists. It is the deliberate attempt to do so that causes looseness in your swing—and this is a severe detriment to accuracy and consistency.” Byron Nelson.
“When you swing back to waist high—the shaft parallel to the ground—the toe of the club must be pointed straight up to the sky.” Harvey Penick.
“The wrist cock is an integral part of the backswing,