Hogan stressing the waggle is somewhat strange from today’s viewpoint, as few to almost no touring pros waggle now days. Nicklaus do not waggle at all during the setup, and players since do little waggle. Until the driver swing is grooved to the extend that it can be perform automatically, using the waggle can help speed up the development of the groove.

The waggle is performed with minimal lower body movements. The slow motion release drill can involve the hips turning back and forth with the legs working. The left heel (for a right handed player) can lift off the ground a little to shift weight to the right leg during the small back swing, while the right heel can lift off of the ground somewhat to begin shifting the weight back onto the left foot and the left leg with the left heel replanted onto the ground during the forward swing. The head is kept relatively still. At the point of impact at the back of the ball position, the right kneed is bent toward the left to make room for the right shoulder to turn more steeply downwards, and thus allowing the left shoulder to turn fairly steeply upwards. The upper body is somewhat closed going into the release, and turn to a little open at the impact point.

The amount of waggle and release drilling contributes to Hogans accuracy and consistency. Hogan changing to a very “weak” grip for a relatively none tall build may result in the need for a lot of drill practicing to groove the extra amount of hand and arm rotations to square the club face.

In the forward swing for the driver, as the hands swing down to about in front of the right hip (for a right handed player,) and the hands swing down about in line and below the right shoulder (with the shoulders still a little closed,) the hands release and rotate counter-clockwise (with the shoulders turning to a little open) into the ball to square up the clubface at the impact point.

Some instructions describe turning the back of the left hand to face the target (and thus squaring the clubface at the impact point.) At the same time, the right palm turns to face the target.

Another way is to imagine gradually reducing the loft of the driver clubface back to the loft at setup during the final release, By reducing gradually the loft of the driver clubface releasing into the ball, the hands, arms and shoulders will turn automatically the proper amounts to square the clubface at the point of impact. After the the clubhead passes through the point of impact, the loft of the driver clubface can either to continue to gradually decrease in loft, or the loft can be held to point for a moment looking at the target at ground level. This will help keeping the back of the left wrist flat going through the impact point and beyond.

The issue is that if a player uses a “weak” grip when he naturally should use a “stronger” grip will tend to push the ball. It may be that players whose shoulders stoop somewhat naturally will have there hands naturally turn inward, and a “stronger” grip will be more natural.

In my opinion, shifting the head back a little during the later part of the downswing should not be overly and consciously forced to happen in the ideal swing. It should be subconsciously “allowed” to happen by not trying to fight against physics, so as to allow any alight head movements that are natural outcomes of the laws of physics. For example, Nicklaus said in his book that when he was a teen first taking lessons, his teacher held the hair on his head to keep his head still during the swing. Nicklaus has a very still head during the backswing, and with a fairly small amount of head moving back during the later part of the downswing to impact. He appears to be trying to not make any unnecessary head movements, but still allowing some head movements where is natural to have such movements (according to the dictates of the laws of physics.) Nicklaus keeps his head shifting to a minimum during the backswing by the configuration of his setup. At the end of his backswing, he allows his left heel to lift well off the ground to allow a full shoulder turn back. He makes a sharp and rapid shift back to his left leg and heel by planting his left heel down. In his video, Nicklaus said that once he rapidly replanted his left heel, he will swing all out right from the start of the downswing to gain maximum clubhead speed, but only after the left heel is replanted will be swing all out. Tiger Woods in his book has the first part of the downswing not at all out until later in the downswing.

Another thing about the grip, is that the new clubs can have synthetic club grip materials that offers a natural tackiness and contouring, which allows the club to be gripped with minimal pressure, while still maintain full control.

Thank you for all of these comments. Very insightful. As far as the driver is concerned, I am trying to get my head and upper body to go back a few inches during the downswing just as you mentioned. My main swing issue right now is that I have a tendency to over rotate and when swinging drive my head through the ball which produces either a push or a pull hook. When I keep the head behind the ball, even to the point where it is moving backwards as the slow motion videos of pros shows, I make better contact and square up the face. It’s the same thing that I am working on with all of my clubs right now, I have spent too much time rotating my entire body through the ball and need to correct that and work on maintaining a good spine angle through the swing.

Thank you for all of this!

Dan

The driver is the only club where the ball can be teed up above the ground to eliminate the ground from impeding the striking of the ball, thus making the striking of the tee shot a lot easier. Besides, the newest drivers have super big clubheads and clubfaces to make striking the ball easier. Being the longest club, the driver allows the hands action to be slower (as compared to the long irons, for example) and still offer long distances.

The driver is difficult for beginners because it is the longest club so that the ball is the farthest away to make precise contact; however, for experienced players, this should not be a problem, specially with the new super-sized driver heads. The driver is also difficult for the beginners as it has little loft, so that beginners try to swing up at the ball to “lift” the ball into the air, resulting in a lot of topped shots; however, for the experienced players, this should not be a problem, as the driver still has enough loft to fly the ball into the air if the ball is contacted at the level of the sweet spot or above on the clubface without any swinging up at the ball. For the average golfer, the problem of the driver is that it imparts the most side-spin to product big slices (and hooks.) For the experienced and properly trained player, most side-spin problems can be controlled. Being the longest distance producing club, any deviations of clubface angle even small is amplified after the ball travels a long distance to land in the rough and in the trees. While the proper grip can deliver the clubface consistantly square at ball impact, inconsistent arm swings can change the clubface angle at impact from late and early hits.

A “late” hit is when the hands have swing past the “ideal” point of impact for the driver before actually contacting the ball. An “early” hit is when the hands have not swing up to the “ideal” point of impact with the hands when the ball is hit. When the ball is hit late, the clubface tends to be left “open” pointing to the right of target (for a right-handed player.) When the ball is hit “early” the reverse happens. This can be seen by setting up with the driver clubhead lying on the ground. With the driver clubhead lying on the ground, if the hands are moved forward, the clubface opens, and if the hands are moved back, the clubface closes. Even champions often inconsistently hit late, or hit early losing many championships after pushing shots way off line after hitting late.

It may be worthwhile to develop the ability to monitor, or to even control the precise position of the hands at the moment of impact to prevent late and early hits to eliminate push and pull shots of the driver due to clubface angle from being off.

First it is necessary to choose the “ideal” position of the hands at the moment of impact for the driver. Many champions advocate hitting the drive at or near the bottom of the swing arc. Sam Snead in an article said to neither hit the driver on the downswing nor on the upswing, excepting for special situations. Jones said to hit the exact back of the ball. The back of the ball offers a very precise and easily distinguished “point of aim” for the hand position at the moment of impact, while still offering half a ball width of upswing to the swing arc. When the hands are timed to be precisely inline with the back of the ball at the moment of impact (thus neither late nor early,) and with the proper grip squaring the clubface, and with the proper setup is help hit the ball on or near the sweet spot, and with a reasonably accurate swing path into the ball, the physics of this proper arrangement of the geometry of the club and ball cannot but land the ball somewhere in the fairway (assuming there is no drastic side winds.)

The driver can be the one of the easiest club to hit with the proper geometry aligned.

With the rear shoulder low, and thus the forward shoulder high during setup, the initial takeaway will be turning the forward shoulder back down (and thus raising the rear shoulder backup at the same time) to swing the arms back with minimal to no movement of the hips and the front kneed. Turning the shoulders back to even height with each other is moving back to a normal and natural position of the shoulders (assuming the player has both shoulders at essentially the same height when standing normally) that will not need the hips and legs to move to adjust. When the front shoulder (left shoulder for a right-handed player,) reaches the point of rotating below even level, the left knee starts to bend out (and in) to allow the leading hip to lower to make room for the leading shoulder to turn down below even level (height.) In the modern backswing, this delay of the start of the turning the hips back results in less turning of the hips during the backswing, which makes the swing more compact with less unnecessary movements during both the backswing, and the downswing. With less unnecessary movements, the swing can become more accurate, and powerful. The delay of hip turn also encourages a more upright backswing than an overly flat backswing.