Posted by: jason () on Wed Jun 15 03:43:56 2005

Jack,
I have been very inconsistent for a while with either pop-ups to left field/shortstop or grounders to the 2nd baseman (Im a lefty). I think I have found my problem in a post I have pasted. Do you have drills or suggestions on what I should do? Thank you.




Jack-

As another golf aside,I think this "hit around the ball" problem often is usually associated with the tendency to pop things up weakly to the opposite field.These undesirable "either or" results are very common of the linear/nonrotational swing and the cause and effect are very similar to the problem of hooking/slicing in golf as follows.

Most beginning golfers do not understand how to swing rotationally and are chronic slicers.This is primarily because they do not understand how to "rotate" or coil/uncoil the body well.

Just as in hitting,to rotate well requires good body action and good lead side/arm action/"connection" (to produce the equivalent of "chp" and "bht") and finally good backside/arm action ( weakly analagous to "THT").If you lose the CHP,coil is interrupted and you can't rotate.If the front side breaks down,you can't tranfer rotation (bad transfer mechanics,no "bht") and the arms take over and rotation breaks down. Even if you rotate and stay connected with a "CHP" and a stable axis of rotation,you still need good back side/back arm action ("THT" to optimize coil/uncoil/rotation/swing quickness)so the wrists do not uncok the ?flail" prematurely.The latter in hitting/baseball is the arm action that is the sine qua non for Nyman's so-called "pelvic loading" or vertical loading to occur,although he (mistakenly I believe) tries to promote this by over-emphasis on middle/lower body).

Non rotational golfers and hitters have limited degree and dynamics coiling/uncoiling which in golf is primarily thought of in terms of a suboptimal "over the top" swing plane,but the same is true of hitting.

This type of inadequate body coil/rotation creates a plane with an angle that cuts across the ball through the contact zone with very late acceleration or with early deceleration then reacceleration as arms compensate with late re-acceleration.

It is somewhat easier to think of this major problem in both golfers and hitters as an outside to in swing path if you have trouble visualizing the entire swing plane/trouble with the "swing plane" concept.The trouble with this inadequately rotational or nonrotational swing plane (besides the fact that working even further back causally speaking that it is the result of inadequate/interrupted body coil) in golf is compounded by the problem of how the clubface is oriented.This is not a problem in hitting due to the round bat.

In golf,then, the "slicer" is really a beginner who has not learned to rotate/swing well so he hits from outside in (swings over the top).

Given this,IF the club face is closed at contact (which would be the equivalent of hitting around the ball/hitting the dead pull/hook in baseball)THEN the golfer gets as a result,the "smothered" pull-hook or "duck hook") which is SUCH a huge problem that he immediately compensates by keeping the clubface open or erring on the side of keeping the club face open which then translates to the big/weak slice that so many golfers exhibit.This is analagous to the weak side popups that kids get in baseball.

SO the basic problem is poor mechanics which create a clubhead path with poor contact angle and poor acceleration characteristics that mean that a solid "on line" hit is EXTREMELY unlikely,but that either a high weak slice or a smothered low duck hook are the most likely results.

The same is true in hitting.Bad mechanics produce a situation that is VERY likely to produce either the pull hook OR the pop up to oppo side and not the more desirable results in between.

Due to the different requirements,this SAME swing flaw tends to be compensated differently in the two sports so that it is thought of primarily as a weak "slice" in golf and as hitting around the ball/"hooking" in baseball (although in baseball it can be either the pull hook or the oppo pop that predominates-realize these are the same mechanical problem but with a different timing error-early duck hook vs.late-weak pop to oppo side).

The fix is the same in both-good rotation and good trnafer mechanics.