Mickey Wright does have a good swing!

The real reason that men pros hit it further is... TESTOSTERONE

This enables men to develop more muscle mass, and strength, thus... more distance. Remember the controversy in Olympic women's swimming a few years ago?

Women have it, but not naturally as much.

so you're saying that Michele Wie has a lot of testerone and thus hits the ball a long way?

Wie uses a wide pulley Swing and starts losing Left Wrist Cock when her hands are just below the shoulder on the DS. When her hands reach the right thigh, her shaft is at best horizontal, and maybe a little below. Her huge arc and fast arms give her power. She looks very feminine, and I doubt she has above avg testosterone, but she does have a lot of fast twitch muscles.

Michelle Wie has a very good technique, is a good athlete, and is about the same size or bigger as a young Tiger Woods. Most of the very long hitting women, are about the same size as many men.

I doubt that Michelle has an unusual level of testosterone. She is a tall girl with long levers, and a good swing. She can probably fly the ball about 270 or 280. That's very good, but would not be unusual on the men's tour. With the new balls and equipment, Fred Funk can probably get close to that.

Actually... I asked a doctor(MD) what she thought the answer to the original question was. Her one word answer was... testosterone.

If you took two athletes (one male, one female) exactly the same height and weight and had them train exactly the same way... the male would be stronger because of the testosterone advantage.

Remember the Olympic Swimming controversy?

OR Testosterone. Even if Michelle Wie hits it 300 yds, she doesn't have a genetic makeup that automatically puts more strength in her body. It's the same reason we don't let other athletes inject themselves with steroids, because it's an unfair hormonal advantage. It has no bearing on their skill or mental toughness. You might as well say that it's ageist for Little League not to let 17 year old kids from the Phillipines to play.

Sexism is NOT stating that men and women are biochemically and physiologically different. That is medicine. Sexism is taking someone's theory of biology without fact and making a generalization (like a certain Ivy League president).

As an aside, I don't think Michelle Wie will dominate the LPGA, at least until she develops a better putting game/mental toughness.

Pulley
 

MizunoJoe,

I would like to hear more about this. MOST of the players that I have seen that have the small pulley swing... can not really explain how they accomplish it. That is, they just naturally or instinctively do it that way. I have, of course helped people with very SWEEPing releases and throwaway, learn to get more towards a Snap, or do you think the Releases and pulleys are totally different things?



Also... how do you think High hands, Low hands, and Hand Speed affects the pulley?

(This should probably be moved from the Lounge to Advanced.)

I agree. I would LOVE to see a good How To elaboration on this. A clip would also be good.

lagster this kinda parallels my point of view in the physics thread...in general for a human "golfing machine":

more mass->more muscle->more acceleration->more distance

...so i think maybe we're saying mostly the same thing with different words...cheers!:-)

-hcw

lagster,

The question, "do you think the Releases and pulleys are totally different things?" is an interesting one. First, what is the "pulley" section of the Swing? I consider it to be where the straight line path of the hands ends and the circular path begins. That begs the question of what if there is no straight line, for example a circular hand path? I suppose that's the largest possible pulley. The release can begin anywhere. A large pulley Swinger can be a sweep or snap releaser, or random variations of the two. However, in my mind the small pulley exists to complement the snap release with maximum Left Wrist Cock retention.

But how do we get a large or small pulley? The large pulley is created by keeping the Right Hand as far away from the Right Shoulder as possible by using Extensor Action. The small pulley is effected by directing the straight line effort toward the ball with a relaxed trail arm. The large pulley Swinger lays the shaft on the line, while the small pulley Swinger lays only the butt of the shaft on the line - that is, viewed from the front, when the large pulley gets his hands to the right thigh, the shaft is horizontal, for the small pulley, it is above horizontal. In my opinion, EA makes the horizontal position of the shaft at that hand position, the best the large pulley Swinger can do.

Left Wrist speed for the small pulley is lower by necessity, because the butt of the club moves a smaller distance during release, whereas the large pulley requires more LW speed during release to keep the butt of the club ahead of the clubhead at Impact. In fact, this is one way to characterize large and small pulley Swingers - by how fast their Left Wrists move through Impact. The bigger the pulley, the faster the LW must move.

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MizunoJoe,

It sounds like what you are saying is that with a BIG PULLEY SWING(STROKE), EXTENSOR ACTION is employed. This is where the rope like left arm is stretched by the action of the on plane right forearm.

With the SMALL PULLEY SWING... it sounds like BOTH ARMS ARE LIKE ROPES, AND extensor action IS NOT employed. Also...what do you believe keeps the left arm radius intact... momentum, centrifugal force, etc.?