The holiday period is a crazy time - not managing to visit LBG as much as during 'ordinary time', every visit there are 250 new posts! Holidays have meant however, that I've had the chance to visit my brother, and using his superior engineering ability (and his jigsaw), I've built a training aid I've been keen to make for a while. I thought I'd post details here so others could build it and benefit if they want.
The idea, is a dowel with attached flying wedge guides. These consist of two pieces of mdf boards set at right angles to each other. For a basic version the pieces of mdf can just be rectangles, approximately 80mm by 300mm (or 3 inches by 12 inches for you Americans!). You can easily fit the pieces together by making slots halfway into each piece of mdf and slotting the pieces together. Basically, you want to make a shape like this (looking at the edges of the mdf):
L
The dowel is secured down the inside of the L shape with the L at the top (grip end) of the dowel. The dowel should be a bit longer than a club, and the mdf wedges should be secured at the top, so that you take your grip below them. Now you have a guide for setting and maintaining your flying wedges - your left forearm rests against the inside of the left wedge, the underside of your right forearm rests against the right wedge (which is the part of the L approximately parallel to the ground at address). They stay touching throughout the stroke and bingo, alignments maintained.
This was version 1. Version 2 was similar, but instead of using rectangular pieces of mdf, we changed the left wedge piece to this sort of shape (looking face on to the mdf, down the target line at address):
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Sorry for ther bad diagram! This allows you to cock your left wrist and more easily keep contact with the left mdf wedge. Finally, if you want to get really tricky (and we did!), you can set up the top edge of the left wedge so it is approximately parallel to the ground at impact - then you can monitor that topline for hinging purposes (imagine the hinge in relation to that topline (like the topline of a door for horizontal hinging etc)). The easiest way to achieve this is not by altering the shape above, but by simple changing the angle the dowel is attached to the wedge (this will require changing the angle of the slot in the left wedge for fitting the right wedge into).
By the way, we attached the dowel to the mdf wedges with small nails, but you could probably glue or screw them on if desired.
All this might sound complex, but it is actually pretty easy to do, and I've found it an excellent tool for feeling the wedges right throughout the stroke. After building this I went to the course the same day, and finally felt how easy it is to set the wedges and then just deliver them into impact. My short game killed my score, but I drove the ball probably better than I ever have, and it felt so simple - no quickness, just a slow delierate drive of the hands and then - BANG - compression!
Annakin mentioned in another post how important the wedges are, and I couldn't agree more. I would say until you know exactly how they feel throughout the stroke you have little to no chance of playing G.O.L.F.
I'll try to find some way to post a picture of our device later.
I've posted a pic as my avatar. Although its a little hard to see the two mdf bits are at 90 degrees to each other (just like the wedges). You can also see the topline (closest to the top of the picture) which can be used to monitor hinging.
Looks interesting. I wanted to build my own and will go through the explaination a few times. I like the picture but it would help if you had a bigger one to post.
Kev
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Kevin
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Thomas Edison knew 1800 ways not to build a light bulb.
I've posted a pic as my avatar. Although its a little hard to see the two mdf bits are at 90 degrees to each other (just like the wedges). You can also see the topline (closest to the top of the picture) which can be used to monitor hinging.
Chris
Nice pics Chris. Looks interesting...might have a go at building one for myself, do you have bigger pics?
Alex
Chris (my brother) built this device with me while on holiday at my place. He is travelling currently but is happy to share his idea although is away from the internet for the next few days. We didnt have a web site to post bigger pictures hence the atavar. Since we built 2 devices (one each) I can photograph mine at different angles and e-mail them to anyone interested. Just drop me a note.
Chris (my brother) built this device with me while on holiday at my place. He is travelling currently but is happy to share his idea although is away from the internet for the next few days. We didnt have a web site to post bigger pictures hence the atavar. Since we built 2 devices (one each) I can photograph mine at different angles and e-mail them to anyone interested. Just drop me a note.
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