"GAP" - And Then "Your Naturally Effective Swing" Emerges

[virtuoso]

14 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

 

I believe the precise language included the word "emerge"........which seems to make it even more absurd.

Explicitly, if you are a golf instructor and you get your student set up properly.....and they start laying the sod over it...and hitting it toward the maintenance shed....stay silent and wait, just you and the crickets. You can sooth your student by saying, "You didn't hit it that fat..."........don't step in the way and disrupt this thing that will....emerge.

 

Edited September 11, 2024 by virtuoso

[ChrisSP]

6 hours ago, iacas said:

The topic or question IS "if you give someone a good GAP, do they naturally develop a good golf swing that hits consistently solid, straight shots?

 

No. It probably helps a lot of guys build a swing with that as their foundation.

 

But I'll give my player good footwork and a properly sequenced transition and he'll drum good GAP guy every time.

 

The range is littered with players with sound setup fundamentals who can't crack an egg. But I've never see a poor player who has good footwork and transitions well.

[BdaGolfer]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

I'll clarify one thing.

 

This topic isn't "if you put Rory McIlroy in a really weak grip, aim him 30° right, and make him swing from Keegan Bradley's stance" would it negatively affect him? Of course it would. 😀

 

The topic or question IS "if you give someone a good GAP, do they naturally develop a good golf swing that hits consistently solid, straight shots?

On the flip side, if you gave 10 average golfers Adam Scott's setup how many good swings/shots would you see from a large bucket? Where and how would the swings diverge?

[MonteScheinblum]

27 minutes ago, BdaGolfer said:

On the flip side, if you gave 10 average golfers Adam Scott's setup how many good swings/shots would you see from a large bucket? Where and how would the swings diverge?

Whereas if you gave Adam Scott the setup of a 15-20 cap, he’d still shoot a number.

[BdaGolfer]

12 minutes ago, MonteScheinblum said:

Whereas if you gave Adam Scott the setup of a 15-20 cap, he’d still shoot a number.

Do you think he would self-correct during the swing to get into a decent impact position? Intelligent adjustments as opposed to what we amateurs do.

[MonteScheinblum]

1 hour ago, BdaGolfer said:

Do you think he would self-correct during the swing to get into a decent impact position? Intelligent adjustments as opposed to what we amateurs do.

Yes

[ThinkingPlus]

4 minutes ago, MonteScheinblum said:

Yes

And he would look fabulous doing it.

[MonteScheinblum]

10 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

And he would look fabulous doing it.

Yes and people would copy the jacked up setup because the talking heads would surmise that’s why he’s good.

[TheDeanAbides]

3 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

Whereas if you gave Adam Scott the setup of a 15-20 cap, he’d still shoot a number.

Yeah, we see this when they're forced into funky stances due to crazy lies. 

[iacas]

9 hours ago, BdaGolfer said:

On the flip side, if you gave 10 average golfers Adam Scott's setup how many good swings/shots would you see from a large bucket? Where and how would the swings diverge?

 

Many would actually do a bit worse initially, because their compensations, etc. are not geared for that setup — that height, that distance from the ball, whatever.

 

9 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

Whereas if you gave Adam Scott the setup of a 15-20 cap, he’d still shoot a number.

 

Bingo.

[Golfonthemind]

I would argue that having all aspects of GAP somewhere in the range of playability is a prerequisite for being able to perform a good swing. You of course still have to actually perform the swing. I would also argue that the percentage of average to bad golfers who have some portion of their GAP in a highly un functional aspect is extremely high. 

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, Golfonthemind said:

I would argue that having all aspects of GAP somewhere in the range of playability is a prerequisite for being able to perform a good swing. You of course still have to actually perform the swing. I would also argue that the percentage of average to bad golfers who have some portion of their GAP in a highly un functional aspect is extremely high. 

 

I said in the first post that having a good GAP is important.

 

What's at question is whether, given a good GAP, a good golf swing "naturally emerges." As in… you have a beginner, and you give them a good grip, you give them a good setup, you give them good alignment: do they hit "consistently solid, straight shots" just because of that? Or do they have to spend often a LOT more time learning to do the dynamic, post-GAP stuff in the golf swing?

[mshills]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

I said in the first post that having a good GAP is important.

 

What's at question is whether, given a good GAP, a good golf swing "naturally emerges." As in… you have a beginner, and you give them a good grip, you give them a good setup, you give them good alignment: do they hit "consistently solid, straight shots" just because of that? Or do they have to spend often a LOT more time learning to do the dynamic, post-GAP stuff in the golf swing?

100% the latter.

[skim4]

I haven't a clue but I will say - on course alignment and range alignment are so very different. I know that I can struggle mightily with on course alignment and set up compared to when I'm on the range. 

[virtuoso]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

What's at question is whether, given a good GAP, a good golf swing "naturally emerges." 

But, as we all know, except for perhaps one person on the forum, it is not really at question.

 

(..but not perhaps)

Edited September 11, 2024 by virtuoso

[Golfonthemind]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

 

I said in the first post that having a good GAP is important.

 

What's at question is whether, given a good GAP, a good golf swing "naturally emerges." As in… you have a beginner, and you give them a good grip, you give them a good setup, you give them good alignment: do they hit "consistently solid, straight shots" just because of that? Or do they have to spend often a LOT more time learning to do the dynamic, post-GAP stuff in the golf swing?

I guess I don’t know what you mean by naturally. If that means never have a conscious thought on how to move the club and they will eventually look like prime Tiger then no probably not. If that means going and hitting balls and playing a lot and trying to develop feels that result in good golf then yes I think having a good gap gives a person the best chance of doing that. 
 

I bet you could feed an AI bot 10,000 golf swing videos of people of varying levels of skill and then tell it all of those peoples handicap's. From there you could show it still images of just people at setup and it would be able to do a very good job of guessing their handicap. 

[GoGoErky]

27 minutes ago, Golfonthemind said:

I guess I don’t know what you mean by naturally. If that means never have a conscious thought on how to move the club and they will eventually look like prime Tiger then no probably not. If that means going and hitting balls and playing a lot and trying to develop feels that result in good golf then yes I think having a good gap gives a person the best chance of doing that. 
 

I bet you could feed an AI bot 10,000 golf swing videos of people of varying levels of skill and then tell it all of those peoples handicap's. From there you could show it still images of just people at setup and it would be able to do a very good job of guessing their handicap. 

He means that their swing will automatically hit straight shots and not require no need to learn to do the dynamic stuff in a swing.

 

so basically means no need to go practice and hit balls and playing a lot to figure it out 

[Valtiel]

I think it's an interesting topic to look at from the perspective of wherever the individual is currently at on the overall ability/technique/fundamental spectrum:

Group #1 - New players starting out without any real foundation or preconceived notions about golf or the swing. 
Group #2 - Self-taught recreational players with lots of GAP/GASP problems and the compensations that come with managing them. Wide range of handicaps here based on innate ability. 
Group #3 - More skilled players with either minor GAP/GASP problems + compensations OR solid GAP/GASP + minor swing motion problems. Single digit handicaps to scratch and some plusses. 
Group #4 - Competitive players, plus handicaps, and/or pros. Anyone better than scratch outside of their home course basically. 

Like @MonteScheinblum said above, and like @iacas alluded to in the OP, a solid GAP doesn't guarantee anything for Group #1 other than setting a better foundation to move towards Group #3 by way of hopefully avoiding the tar pit that is often Group #2. What emerges from a solidly GAP'd Group #1 will ideally be a more workable foundation but isn't some "nectar of the gods" formula for a "perfect natural swing", especially since there is very little that is natural about the golf swing. Our brain fights two main elements of swing motion pretty consistently, those being what constitutes a correct sequence and executing said sequence while being tilted towards the ground. 

That second group WILL stand to benefit from GAP fixes in the long run, but oftentimes the ingrained compensations are strong enough that it makes them worse until they spend the time to recalibrate. I spent enough time in Group #2 as a junior to know what this feels like intimately. Groups #3 and #4 feel like you're always dealing with a mixture of small GAP stuff and small/medium swing motion stuff and it really comes down to the individual. Plenty of pros talk about how their GAP drifts from time to time and obviously we see all manner of aides being deployed on the range to keep an eye on this. 

@GungHoGolf posted a great video last month showing the multi-year progression of someone that started with *everything* wrong from a GAP and swing motion standpoint. You see him progressing in both, but i'd argue that the GAP elements in that video were pretty well sorted about halfway through and it was mostly motion related things that needed the remaining work. 

Another extreme example is young amateur Scheffler vs. current #1 Scheffler:



Some GAP changes (a little taller now, slightly less knee flex, slightly more forward tilt, higher hands), but *drastically* different swing motions that while aided by said changes certainly didn't just appear naturally. His old takeaway was much flatter/inside and his hands got way deeper. Everything about his "new" swing is much more vertical/in front of him. 

Edited September 14, 2024 by Valtiel

[Shilgy]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

 

I said in the first post that having a good GAP is important.

 

What's at question is whether, given a good GAP, a good golf swing "naturally emerges." As in… you have a beginner, and you give them a good grip, you give them a good setup, you give them good alignment: do they hit "consistently solid, straight shots" just because of that? Or do they have to spend often a LOT more time learning to do the dynamic, post-GAP stuff in the golf swing?

My guess?  If you gave the rank beginner a perfect GAP after a few swings they would start adjusting it in an effort to get better results.  That said if you really got a beginner to set up properly every time their development would come faster than usual.

 

 

 

9 hours ago, iacas said:

 

[Ty_Webb]

10 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Our brain fights two main elements of swing motion pretty consistently, those being what constitutes a correct sequence and executing said sequence while being tilted towards the ground. 

 

This is very true. There is also that what feels fast generally isn't. People try to hit it hard, but they move the wrong things quickly and in the wrong order and get slower as a result. Golf is weird. Other things too like if the ball is going right, the natural thing to do is to try to swing more left, but that increases the face-path differential and it goes further right, so you try to swing further left, etc. etc. etc. 

 

None of those things is fun and so much of the game is counterintuitive. The other thing a lot of beginners do is try to help the ball up into the air rather than letting the loft do the work. No amount of good GAP is going to remove those instincts.

[MonteScheinblum]

32 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

This is very true. There is also that what feels fast generally isn't. People try to hit it hard, but they move the wrong things quickly and in the wrong order and get slower as a result. Golf is weird. Other things too like if the ball is going right, the natural thing to do is to try to swing more left, but that increases the face-path differential and it goes further right, so you try to swing further left, etc. etc. etc. 

 

None of those things is fun and so much of the game is counterintuitive. The other thing a lot of beginners do is try to help the ball up into the air rather than letting the loft do the work. No amount of good GAP is going to remove those instincts.

Me-Look how good that looks and you’re up 3 mph.

 

Golfer-….but how am I going to take this to the course, it feels powerless.

 

Me-I understand, but you’re up 3 mph

 

Golfer-Yes, I know, but it feels powerless.  What should I do to correct this?

 

I have that conversation every day.  Wasted motion feels more powerful.  It’s why golfers adapt bad movements.  Better movements feel powerless and weird.  This fact is a major reason golfers don’t get better and people who scoff at technology say the correct movements are bad.  
 

I say over and over again, “This feels…” is the single biggest reason golfers don’t get better.

 

This feels weird

This feels powerless

This feels like a reverse pivot

This feels armsy

This feels like my hands are too active

This feels over the top

 

The last one I hear every day from  all the people who suffer hooks with 10*+ in to out path when they swing 3* in to out and hit a small draw.  I almost never see those people again.

 

These comments are why golfers are actually able to get better the last 10 years.  The ones who look at LM and 3D numbers are able to reconcile their swing is better, despite the counter intuitive feel.  
 

The armsy/handsy people see less dynamic loft, better sequencing.  The reverse pivot  people see better pressure traces, the powerless and over the top people see better path and higher club speeds and give in to the dark side.

 

Inthe past, all they had was the instructors word and on this forum we see how well that’s received.  😜

Edited September 12, 2024 by MonteScheinblum

[Nard_S]

Good GAP is about reducing variance and promoting proper movement. Not a guarantee that happens, but percentages drop if basic GAP is off kilter. Every solid golfer I played with, guys who break 80 on a bad day, possessed a solid grip, never seen a guy struggling to break 90 on their good day have a great grip. 

[Ty_Webb]

2 minutes ago, Nard_S said:

Good GAP is about reducing variance and promoting proper movement. Not a guarantee that happens, but percentages drop if basic GAP is off kilter. Every solid golfer I played with, guys who break 80 on a bad day, possessed a solid grip, never seen a guy struggling to break 90 on their good day have a great grip. 

 

What's a "good" grip? Take these two:

 

 

Wildly different grips and they'd both smoke the pants off everyone on this forum.

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, Nard_S said:

Good GAP is about reducing variance and promoting proper movement. Not a guarantee that happens, but percentages drop if basic GAP is off kilter. Every solid golfer I played with, guys who break 80 on a bad day, possessed a solid grip, never seen a guy struggling to break 90 on their good day have a great grip. 

 

Correlation ≠ causation. This topic is about causation more than correlation.

 

And if you want to extend it beyond beginners (as the original quote seems to be talking about), consider this:

 

You get a guy who has been playing for 10 years. He shoots 88-95. He mishits it pretty often, plays what he calls is "a pretty straight ball" that's really an 8° pull that sometimes draws a tiny bit but more often fades too much.

 

He has a palmy, weak grip. he's too far from the ball.

 

Fixing this guy's GAP and somehow making him stick with it will likely not make this guy much better alone. He's not going to suddenly start hitting "consistently solid, straight shots." He may get a little better (if you can somehow make him stick with it), but he's still gone shoot in the 80s and 90s. He doesn't see a "naturally effective swing emerge" just because he now has a good GAP.

 

Correlation ≠ causation.

[Nard_S]

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

What's a "good" grip? Take these two:

 

 

Wildly different grips and they'd both smoke the pants off everyone on this forum.

They are both good grips, primarily because both hands are working together. The hand tilt is paired, and something that is often left out of grip talk but how the handle runs along hands is also a big factor. Pro's have it closer aligned with knuckle line. The hinge point of wrist is aligned with "V" of thumb/fore finger, not the flat of wrists, most duffers possess too weak left and too strong right, looks"paired" but it's wrong.

[Ty_Webb]

3 minutes ago, Nard_S said:

They are both good grips, primarily because both hands are working together. The hand tilt is paired, and something that is often left out of grip talk but how the handle runs along hands is also a big factor. Pro's have it closer aligned with knuckle line. The hinge point of wrist is aligned with "V" of thumb/fore finger, not the flat of wrists, most duffers possess too weak left and too strong right, looks"paired" but it's wrong.

 

But if you gave DJ Bryson's grip he's hitting it exit stage right (if he doesn't change anything else). So I think what you're really saying is a good grip is one that fits the swing that goes along with it. If you had a beginner to work on their GAP, which one do you choose and why?

[Nard_S]

4 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

But if you gave DJ Bryson's grip he's hitting it exit stage right (if he doesn't change anything else). So I think what you're really saying is a good grip is one that fits the swing that goes along with it. If you had a beginner to work on their GAP, which one do you choose and why?

Me, personally, neither. Something more neutral but most teachers promote stronger grips in earlier development which makes common sense, so between the two DJ. To me, there's too much emphasis on tuning of weak vs strong, over emphasis on hands working in unison or at the very least not working against each other.

[GoGoErky]

7 minutes ago, Nard_S said:

Me, personally, neither. Something more neutral but most teachers promote stronger grips in earlier development which makes common sense, so between the two DJ. To me, there's too much emphasis on tuning of weak vs strong, over emphasis on hands working in unison or at the very least not working against each other.

Do most promote a stronger grip?

 

most I see talk about a neutral grip. Which instructors promote a stronger grip?

[Golfonthemind]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Correlation ≠ causation. This topic is about causation more than correlation.

 

And if you want to extend it beyond beginners (as the original quote seems to be talking about), consider this:

 

You get a guy who has been playing for 10 years. He shoots 88-95. He mishits it pretty often, plays what he calls is "a pretty straight ball" that's really an 8° pull that sometimes draws a tiny bit but more often fades too much.

 

He has a palmy, weak grip. he's too far from the ball.

 

Fixing this guy's GAP and somehow making him stick with it will likely not make this guy much better alone. He's not going to suddenly start hitting "consistently solid, straight shots." He may get a little better (if you can somehow make him stick with it), but he's still gone shoot in the 80s and 90s. He doesn't see a "naturally effective swing emerge" just because he now has a good GAP.

 

Correlation ≠ causation.

The hypothesis that having a perfect gap leads to a perfect swing without any movement or swing intent isn’t widely held and doesn’t make for great discussion. Discussing the importance of GAP vs movement intent or how the two interplay on each other opens up a larger dialogue for people looking to get better. 
 

You can take your example and flip it on its head. Take the same guy with the extremely flawed gap and give him the best swing feels and intents in the world. He’s again probably still going to shoot in the 80s or 90s. I still stand by that the best place to start when looking to get better is adjusting to a GAP within a functional range and then work on intents that make for playing better golf. 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Golfonthemind said:

The hypothesis that having a perfect gap leads to a perfect swing without any movement or swing intent isn’t widely held and doesn’t make for great discussion. Discussing the importance of GAP vs movement intent or how the two interplay on each other opens up a larger dialogue for people looking to get better.

I appreciate the reply, but that’s not the topic.

 

It’s been said (to be clear it’s not my hypothesis) that if you give a golfer a good GAP, a swing that hits “consistently solid, straight shots” will “naturally emerge.” That’s what I’m attempting to discuss here.