Posted by: JJA (jjanagnost@worldnet.att.net) on Wed Jan 28 13:54:05 2004

Here is a brief description of the key aspect/learning from Zig's skilltechnology that won the GOLF magazine award.
>
> Why didn't Zig mention this ?
>
> "The X-Factor is the difference between the shoulder rotation and the pelvis rotation during the golf swing. It has been previously thought that it must be maximum at the top of the back swing. Cheetham's group after comparing experts and novices found that the actual increase in the X-Factor at the beginning of the down swing, caused by the initial rotation of the hips towards the target was actually more important than the X-Factor itself. Because this action causes an increase in the X-Factor they called it the X-Factor Stretch. It is believed that the extra stretch during the early down swing allows the upper-body muscles to contract more forcefully and hence provide more power to the down swing."
>
> I think this "x-factor" is analagous to Jack's THT at initiation or Peavy's "frontsidefirmup" (peavynet.com-this is not linear,however,as Peavy claims,it is the coiling/uncoiling or last bit of coiling before uncoiling which is a part of rotational loading and unloading,not much linear about it except how it realtes to blocking of weight shift).Also same thing Bobby Jones noted as the golden move in the downswing.
>
> http://www.skilltechnologies.com/News.htm#XFactor
>
>
Thanks for the link. This is a very good article that explains a key concept that has been in the golf world for a while (as you pointed out, even to Jones in the '20's).

I must say though that I don't think it is the same as Jack's THT. The key item in the X-factor or the X-factor stretch is that the hands don't move. It's the hips rotating before the shoulders rotate that the generates the X-factor stretch. As Jack explains in his video, the THT is primarily a movement of the hands early that generate early bat speed. In his video, he certainly didn't mention hip motion as being crucial to THT, as it certainly is in the X-factor. So I don't the two are really related at all, unless I'm missing something.

In fact, the X-factor and X-factor stretch is really the quantitative description of William's old adage "The hips lead the hands". Or, as the way Epstein now puts it, "the move that separates the hall of famer from the good hitter".

Thanks again - JJA