Upper core awkwardness

[PedronNiall]

8 hours ago, Nels55 said:

I have seen a lot of teaching pros who teach a body controlled swing with passive arms.

 

Care to share some examples of any relatively known instructors who teach this?

[virtuoso]

2 minutes ago, PedronNiall said:

 

Care to share some examples of any relatively known instructors who teach this?

Presumably rhetorical....but, this was taught by people that were considered credible from the late 80's until the very early 2000's. No one that is any good teaches that now.

[KD1]

Define "relatively known"

[RayPlan]

40 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

Oh, I had heard about about it. My initial question was a smart a** reply because basically, an upper core player is your garden variety 20 hdcp swing, will all the attendant issues (stand up and slap your arms at it), and Wright decides that this is a natural swing style.....instead of just saying you suck.

Most of those garden variety golfers have no real awareness of what's going on in their swing. I'm a bad golfer, and if I didn't take video, I would have no clue what my swing actually looked like. My subjective experience of the swing is full of blindspots, but I think that comes from a lack of body awareness. I would imagine I'm far from unique in that. I guess the real question is whether Wright's system actually produces better results than instruction that doesn't use it, but it seems like such a difficult thing to test that it's practically unfalsifiable.

 

[ChrisSP]

I'll chime in, as I have some experience with this. I'm a pretty good player. Handicap typically between 1 and +1.

 

But I do things in my swing when I'm playing well that most people don't equate with good players. I'm not very open at impact, my grip is on the weaker side, my ball position is pretty far forward, I play from a narrow stance through the bag, and I tend to early extend a bit and come out of posture at impact.

 

I've taken lessons from highly regarded instructors who tried to change these things about my swing and results never transpired no matter how much work I put into what was being asked of me.

 

I happened upon some of Larry Rinker's videos a few years ago on YouTube and saw a lot of similarities in what the Upper Core player does and what I did when playing my best, so I watched some of David Wright's stuff as well.

 

Ultimately, having been though some on-course struggles a few years ago as a result of trying to get more open at impact and what to me felt like to some radical setup changes, I went to see a certified Wright Balance instructor. I was measured and was a "9", which is the top of Upper Core scale. 1, 2 and 3 are low core, 4, 5 and 6 are mid core and 7, 8, and 9 are upper. I will say that the physical measurements are very interesting. I didn't understand everything they were doing but much of it was designed to determine where you were strongest, especially in terms of stance width, which also influenced your hips at address and grip. It was pretty complicated but also eye opening. As an example, I could stand in my golf posture using a yardstick with my feet in the middle of the 0 inch and 14 inch marks and my hips would be completely square and the instructor couldn't move me no matter how hard he pushed. At 0 and 15, my hips would be wide open and he could knock me off balance with a feather. It was pretty wild.

 

I started playing better almost immediately by getting back to what had worked for me and what would be considered traits of an upper core player. In fact, within 3 months of that lesson I finished runner up in my state golf association's senior match play event. 

 

Anyway, there's more to the core system than just how open your hips are at impact or how you grip the club or your ball position. There's some interesting physics involved as it relates to your body that I think anyone would find undeniable if they go through the testing. 

 

Personally, there are things about the upper core swing that I do find challenging. Most notable for me is the idea of pivoting around my front leg. While I tested using David Wright's system as an upper core player, if you know anything about Mike Adams' stuff, I'm also a rear post player. I'm also more of an under golfer with my trail hand where Upper Core promotes a weaker or neutral trail hand grip. That said, my swing today still incorporates many aspects of the upper core swing with a few tweaks that are more physically natural and seem to help me produce more consistent results.

 

Is Wright Balance for everyone? Probably not. But it doesn't have to be. There are plenty of ways to play decent golf. But to write it off as garbage or to surmise that the upper core swing is what a lot of crappy players do wouldn't be an accurate assessment.

 

My $0.02.

[MonteScheinblum]

4 hours ago, virtuoso said:

Oh, I had heard about about it. My initial question was a smart a** reply because basically, an upper core player is your garden variety 20 hdcp swing, with all the attendant issues (stand up and slap your arms at it), and Wright decides that this is a natural swing style.....instead of just saying you suck.

I’m upper 

[virtuoso]

6 minutes ago, MonteScheinblum said:

I’m upper 

"you want me on this wall....you need me on this wall! You're damn right I ordered the code red!"

[cardoustie]

3 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

"you want me on this wall....you need me on this wall! You're damn right I ordered the code red!"

Better than  a code brown

[PedronNiall]

4 hours ago, virtuoso said:

Presumably rhetorical....but, this was taught by people that were considered credible from the late 80's until the very early 2000's. No one that is any good teaches that now.

 

Nah, wanted some real examples, but yes, my presumption is that no one who uses anything approaching fact-based methodology is teaching a passive arm swing. He mentioned a lot of pros doing so, can't imagine it would be hard to give some names. 

[Nels55]

9 minutes ago, PedronNiall said:

 

Nah, wanted some real examples, but yes, my presumption is that no one who uses anything approaching fact-based methodology is teaching a passive arm swing. He mentioned a lot of pros doing so, can't imagine it would be hard to give some names. 

I heard the teaching pro at my course describe his teaching in those terms the other day.  Milo Lines and his followers are another example.

[MonteScheinblum]

5 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

 

Care to share some examples of any relatively known instructors who teach this?

You’d be shocked.  It’s actually the majority, although slowly diminishing.  
 

I’d say the last 100 people that showed up on my lesson tee with hips and/or shoulders badly outracing the arms…….

 

90 were told to do so with passive arms or arms along for the ride as phrases that were used specifically…..by a pro or golfer better than them.

 

Of those 90, 75 were resistant until I provided them with lots of data and showed them videos of pros.

 

Of those 75, 25 refused to buy it and never came back.

 

People lose their minds on my IG every day when I dare to mention that pros and long hitters accelerate their arms earlier and faster than ams and ams reach higher and later arm/hand acceleration and lose club speed as a result.

 

It’s not complicated.  For you to reach your maximum speed, that hands have to decelerate just before impact.

 

If you don’t accelerate them early, they can’t decelerate late.

 

If your arms trail in transition, the body will have to shut off late to get the club to the ball.

 

Tiger

Jack

Bryson

Sergio

Padraig

Rory

Justin R.

 

All of those guys have some combination of stay closed, arms down early, release early…….the data says the same.  It’s horribly obtuse to turn two blind eyes to this…..just because you don’t like Monte….lol

 

PS-…and no, you’re not supposed to decelerate your arms/hands on purpose.  It happens as a result of sequencing the things I talked about.  You tell someone to decelerate their hands on purpose when their arms are late in transition….which is basically everyone above the handicap of 2….you will not only risk injury, you will look like a money humping a football.  Actually, a monkey humping a football will look down on you.

 

 

 

Edited January 8 by MonteScheinblum

[RayPlan]

1 hour ago, MonteScheinblum said:

You’d be shocked.  It’s actually the majority, although slowly diminishing.  
 

I’d say the last 100 people that showed up on my lesson tee with hips and/or shoulders badly outracing the arms…….

 

90 were told to do so with passive arms or arms along for the ride as phrases that were used specifically…..by a pro or golfer better than them.

 

Of those 90, 75 were resistant until I provided them with lots of data and showed them videos of pros.

 

Of those 75, 25 refused to buy it and never came back.

 

People lose their minds on my IG every day when I dare to mention that pros and long hitters accelerate their arms earlier and faster than ams and ams reach higher and later arm/hand acceleration and lose club speed as a result.

 

It’s not complicated.  For you to reach your maximum speed, that hands have to decelerate just before impact.

 

If you don’t accelerate them early, they can’t decelerate late.

 

If your arms trail in transition, the body will have to shut off late to get the club to the ball.

 

Tiger

Jack

Bryson

Sergio

Padraig

Rory

Justin R.

 

All of those guys have some combination of stay closed, arms down early, release early…….the data says the same.  It’s horribly obtuse to turn two blind eyes to this…..just because you don’t like Monte….lol

 

PS-…and no, you’re not supposed to decelerate your arms/hands on purpose.  It happens as a result of sequencing the things I talked about.  You tell someone to decelerate their hands on purpose when their arms are late in transition….which is basically everyone above the handicap of 2….you will not only risk injury, you will look like a money humping a football.  Actually, a monkey humping a football will look down on you.

 

 

 

I had always known the idea of passive arms as conventional wisdom until I stumbled on AMG's videos. Now whenever I hear it, I say "nuh uh." Mythbustin' makes me feel good.

[TheDeanAbides]

12 hours ago, ThinkingPlus said:

Wow, that's crazy. They aren't even the same species.

Came here to say that! 

[Albatross Dreamer]

23 hours ago, virtuoso said:

What does upper core mean? Just basically no golf related range of motion and flexibility?

I've asked a few times and have never gotten anything. I tend to be skeptical of something I can't at least get the basic underpinnings without taking the course but 🤷‍♂️

 

If it works for someone great!

[Nels55]

3 hours ago, Albatross Dreamer said:

I've asked a few times and have never gotten anything. I tend to be skeptical of something I can't at least get the basic underpinnings without taking the course but 🤷‍♂️

 

If it works for someone great!

I am no expert on Wright balance but here are some thoughts based on what I have read over the years.

 

Dr. Wright was a lower core golf pro who tried to teach his swing to his students.  He figured out that the lower core body driven swing that he was teaching did not work for a lot of his students so he set out to figure out why.  He did a lot of research and came up with the core system which provides different instruction from body driven lower core to arm driven upper core.  So imho realizing that what worked for him did not work for everyone shows an intelligence that does not seem to be universal among golf pros.  Mike Adams did the same thing and came up with his own system that has similarities to Wright Balance.

 

Is Wright Balance a perfect system?  Probably not but I think that it may well be better then most.  Maybe the TPI approach is better or possibly the best approach golf instruction is to be Butch Harmon.  

[Simpsonia]

17 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

I’m upper 

 

So with all this drama between social media tops and bottoms, er I mean uppers and lowers, I always figured it was just a personal choice of what that particular person needs to feel (which ain't real) at a particular point in time, and often influenced by their past athletic journey. Some need to feel lower, some need to feel upper to get to the same place. That also probably changes depending on what the person is working on at the time.

 

You've often mentioned in the past that a person should only have one swing feel at a time. If someone is focusing on pressure shift, they're probably going to be feeling lower, at least for the duration of working on that. Others working on shallowing might feel upper for a while. At least that's how I've seen it as I've considered myself both lower and upper at various points in my swing journey as I work on different aspects of the swing, and ingrain them into muscle memory. 

 

And once no longer actively working on something, or in competition, people just default back to the feel that makes the most sense for them. I imagine a guy like Milo feels lower because he's a relatively small statured guy who came up through baseball as a youth, and swinging a heavy wooden bat as a weak kid takes a lot of pressure shift to get that thing moving (and we've all seen kids swing a heavy bat and it looks like they're leaving their arms behind). But, plug him into GEARS today, and I bet his arms accelerate just as early as anyone else, he probably just doesn't particularly feel that part, which leaks into his teachings. 

 

Then throw in physical limitations as we get old and out of shape (in varying stages), and they color how someone has to feel to swing as well. 

 

At least that's my theory. 

Edited January 8 by Simpsonia

[virtuoso]

On 1/7/2025 at 4:24 AM, Nels55 said:

If you are upper core and you are trying to turn through the ball per Milo Lines et al. you will struggle:

 

I have seen a lot of teaching pros who teach a body controlled swing with passive arms.  According to Wright balance / Larry Rinker 80 or 90 percent of everyday golfers are upper core which often makes for a huge disconnect between teacher and student.  Diametrically opposed teaching. 

I think Milo and Larry should give a clinic together. I would attend.

 

[vernon]

1 hour ago, virtuoso said:

I think Milo and Larry should give a clinic together. I would attend.

 

Now THAT is a case of comparison and contrast!

 

Wow.

[Nels55]

1 hour ago, virtuoso said:

I think Milo and Larry should give a clinic together. I would attend.

 

Milo pretty much teaches everyone the same swing.  Larry teaches 3 different swings with 3 variations of each swing tailored to the students according the assessment tests.  Larry teaches the swing that Milo teaches to students who are suited for a lower core swing.  Larry teaches Milo's swing but Milo does not teach Larry's swing.

[PedronNiall]

5 hours ago, Simpsonia said:

 

So with all this drama between social media tops and bottoms, er I mean uppers and lowers, I always figured it was just a personal choice of what that particular person needs to feel (which ain't real) at a particular point in time, and often influenced by their past athletic journey. Some need to feel lower, some need to feel upper to get to the same place. That also probably changes depending on what the person is working on at the time.

 

You've often mentioned in the past that a person should only have one swing feel at a time. If someone is focusing on pressure shift, they're probably going to be feeling lower, at least for the duration of working on that. Others working on shallowing might feel upper for a while. At least that's how I've seen it as I've considered myself both lower and upper at various points in my swing journey as I work on different aspects of the swing, and ingrain them into muscle memory. 

 

And once no longer actively working on something, or in competition, people just default back to the feel that makes the most sense for them. I imagine a guy like Milo feels lower because he's a relatively small statured guy who came up through baseball as a youth, and swinging a heavy wooden bat as a weak kid takes a lot of pressure shift to get that thing moving (and we've all seen kids swing a heavy bat and it looks like they're leaving their arms behind). But, plug him into GEARS today, and I bet his arms accelerate just as early as anyone else, he probably just doesn't particularly feel that part, which leaks into his teachings. 

 

Then throw in physical limitations as we get old and out of shape (in varying stages), and they color how someone has to feel to swing as well. 

 

At least that's my theory. 

 

Sounds like a reasonable theory. The only thing is that all kids are relatively weak and have to make compensation when using both bats and golf clubs unless they have something properly sized for them as you pointed out. What someone has to do to make swings with something too heavy doesn't directly translate to what they or others within reasonable proportions and ranges of motion need to do to swing something appropriate.

 

My main issue with all of this is as pointed out earlier in the thread, there aren't research papers or models or anything else for us to look at backing the claims around this. With most of what's out there anyone can evaluate whether or not what's being said or shown aligns with validated data. People get upset when someone points out their favorite channel's advice isn't rooted in truth, but objective is objective. 

 

I don't want to dismiss what I'm seeing here out of hand but there's nothing for me to measure it against and nothing I know of biomechanics suggests that sliding my thumb to different positions as I do a little dance will give any relevant information about the most efficient swing for my body, let alone the only proper swing for it. I'm not going to watch a bunch of different videos either to sort out the key claims of all this but nothing shared so far seems rooted in anything of substance to put it plainly. 

[virtuoso]

2 hours ago, Nels55 said:

Milo pretty much teaches everyone the same swing.  Larry teaches 3 different swings with 3 variations of each swing tailored to the students according the assessment tests.  Larry teaches the swing that Milo teaches to students who are suited for a lower core swing.  Larry teaches Milo's swing but Milo does not teach Larry's swing.

Well, I think that is a bit short-sighted of Milo......and if I being completely frank....a little discriminatory.

[ChrisSP]

This is a good video with David Wright that explains his background and the evolution of Wright Balance and the core regions/swings.

 

 

[Simpsonia]

14 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

 

Sounds like a reasonable theory. The only thing is that all kids are relatively weak and have to make compensation when using both bats and golf clubs unless they have something properly sized for them as you pointed out. What someone has to do to make swings with something too heavy doesn't directly translate to what they or others within reasonable proportions and ranges of motion need to do to swing something appropriate.

 

My main issue with all of this is as pointed out earlier in the thread, there aren't research papers or models or anything else for us to look at backing the claims around this. With most of what's out there anyone can evaluate whether or not what's being said or shown aligns with validated data. People get upset when someone points out their favorite channel's advice isn't rooted in truth, but objective is objective. 

 

I don't want to dismiss what I'm seeing here out of hand but there's nothing for me to measure it against and nothing I know of biomechanics suggests that sliding my thumb to different positions as I do a little dance will give any relevant information about the most efficient swing for my body, let alone the only proper swing for it. I'm not going to watch a bunch of different videos either to sort out the key claims of all this but nothing shared so far seems rooted in anything of substance to put it plainly. 

 

There's plenty of published papers on the objective biomechanics of the golf swing, with varying levels of peer review. What there isn't is published papers on all of this upper core vs lower core stuff, because those aren't objectively measurable metrics, they are subjective swing feels. 

 

There's an efficient swing, and then there's a billion tiny variations of that spiraling out in varying degrees of efficiency and inefficiency from there depending on the individual's independent swing feels and physical capabilities. To put it into an algebraic formula, its: swing = swing feel x physical capabilities. 

 

You can quantify the physical capabilities part and come up with more efficient variations of the swing, which is exactly what Dr. Greg Rose at TPI does. Though, to be fair his advice usually ends up with "fix those physical limitations". When they can't fix those (see their recent YT video of him creating a swing for a veteran with an artificial femur), they will create a custom swing for that person. 

 

However, the other half of that equation is a person's swing feels, and those are near as unique as fingerprints, and since they are so subjective are pretty much impossible to objectively measure for the purposes of a published paper. This half of the equation is also where there's ~5k teaching professionals in the US, because it's really freaking hard to translate and teach swing feels between individuals. Also because people are stubborn and resistant to swing feels that don't resonate with them, the average golfer's improvement of the swing is slow to glacial. 

 

Like I imagine that you can read every single one of Dr. Kwon's published papers and come out knowing only slightly more about the swing than when you started, because you don't have a rosetta stone to translate those objective findings into subjective swing feels. At least that's how it was for me, so I rely on a trusted teaching professional (Tyler Ferrell) to translate those findings into a number of swing feels and drills for me to try until something clicks/clicked. 

 

[bladehunter]

33 minutes ago, Simpsonia said:

 

There's plenty of published papers on the objective biomechanics of the golf swing, with varying levels of peer review. What there isn't is published papers on all of this upper core vs lower core stuff, because those aren't objectively measurable metrics, they are subjective swing feels. 

 

There's an efficient swing, and then there's a billion tiny variations of that spiraling out in varying degrees of efficiency and inefficiency from there depending on the individual's independent swing feels and physical capabilities. To put it into an algebraic formula, its: swing = swing feel x physical capabilities. 

 

You can quantify the physical capabilities part and come up with more efficient variations of the swing, which is exactly what Dr. Greg Rose at TPI does. Though, to be fair his advice usually ends up with "fix those physical limitations". When they can't fix those (see their recent YT video of him creating a swing for a veteran with an artificial femur), they will create a custom swing for that person. 

 

However, the other half of that equation is a person's swing feels, and those are near as unique as fingerprints, and since they are so subjective are pretty much impossible to objectively measure for the purposes of a published paper. This half of the equation is also where there's ~5k teaching professionals in the US, because it's really freaking hard to translate and teach swing feels between individuals. Also because people are stubborn and resistant to swing feels that don't resonate with them, the average golfer's improvement of the swing is slow to glacial. 

 

Like I imagine that you can read every single one of Dr. Kwon's published papers and come out knowing only slightly more about the swing than when you started, because you don't have a rosetta stone to translate those objective findings into subjective swing feels. At least that's how it was for me, so I rely on a trusted teaching professional (Tyler Ferrell) to translate those findings into a number of swing feels and drills for me to try until something clicks/clicked. 

 

Can’t be said better.  Bravo.  👏 

[Nels55]

31 minutes ago, Simpsonia said:

 

There's plenty of published papers on the objective biomechanics of the golf swing, with varying levels of peer review. What there isn't is published papers on all of this upper core vs lower core stuff, because those aren't objectively measurable metrics, they are subjective swing feels. 

 

There's an efficient swing, and then there's a billion tiny variations of that spiraling out in varying degrees of efficiency and inefficiency from there depending on the individual's independent swing feels and physical capabilities. To put it into an algebraic formula, its: swing = swing feel x physical capabilities. 

 

You can quantify the physical capabilities part and come up with more efficient variations of the swing, which is exactly what Dr. Greg Rose at TPI does. Though, to be fair his advice usually ends up with "fix those physical limitations". When they can't fix those (see their recent YT video of him creating a swing for a veteran with an artificial femur), they will create a custom swing for that person. 

 

However, the other half of that equation is a person's swing feels, and those are near as unique as fingerprints, and since they are so subjective are pretty much impossible to objectively measure for the purposes of a published paper. This half of the equation is also where there's ~5k teaching professionals in the US, because it's really freaking hard to translate and teach swing feels between individuals. Also because people are stubborn and resistant to swing feels that don't resonate with them, the average golfer's improvement of the swing is slow to glacial. 

 

Like I imagine that you can read every single one of Dr. Kwon's published papers and come out knowing only slightly more about the swing than when you started, because you don't have a rosetta stone to translate those objective findings into subjective swing feels. At least that's how it was for me, so I rely on a trusted teaching professional (Tyler Ferrell) to translate those findings into a number of swing feels and drills for me to try until something clicks/clicked. 

 

They have plenty of publishable research they apparently have simply not published it.  I have tried a bit of there stance width stuff and my hips opened and closed as they predicted so I believe that there is something to it.  

 

Also the mechanical differences between the core swings are more then feels.  They teach completely different movements depending on the core.

[virtuoso]

I flirting with the inflection point. I may need to retire to the social club for a vent session.

[bladehunter]

Just now, virtuoso said:

I flirting with the inflection point. I may need to retire to the social club for a vent session.

I’m curious.  🧐. But I’ve said that already.  Snow coming tomorrow.  It will be my reading for the day assuming it’s just a dusting and not snowpocolypse that causes me to carry water to the heater for sanitary washing  , and cook over an open fire like olden days.  🤣.   Let’s hope for the reading .  

[virtuoso]

1 minute ago, bladehunter said:

I’m curious.  🧐. But I’ve said that already.  Snow coming tomorrow.  It will be my reading for the day assuming it’s just a dusting and not snowpocolypse that causes me to carry water to the heater for sanitary washing  , and cook over an open fire like olden days.  🤣.   Let’s hope for the reading .  

There is a sincere and well meaning, but horrific misinformation apocalypse happening here and in the biomechanics thread. I'm going to have to talk to the grovelers about it. I can't have my little lambs falling prey to this......this......it's like someone took an uzi and sprayed the place down with nonsense.

[Nels55]

3 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

There is a sincere and well meaning, but horrific misinformation apocalypse happening here and in the biomechanics thread. I'm going to have to talk to the grovelers about it. I can't have my little lambs falling prey to this......this......it's like someone took an uzi and sprayed the place down with nonsense.

How about we don't do this here?  I'd appreciate it.

[virtuoso]

4 minutes ago, Nels55 said:

How about we don't do this here?  I'd appreciate it.

Agreed, I hate it when people derail the thread just because they want to red pill everyone. It's narcissistic behavior.