Cause of Shanks and Mishits

What is the cause? Simple but hard to digest. It is the shoulders over-rotating and go off alignment with the plane. This is hard to detect. Usually the misalignment is cured by over-cocking the club and that is why the resulting late hit cures the misaligned shoulders. However,  when there is no cocking, the shoulders are late in correcting its alignment to the plane and the contact to the ball is met with an open clubface. Mis-hits or shanks occur.

The cure? Make sure the left wrist cock the club first along the plane and turn the shoulders along that plane. Easy to say and easy to make a mistake thinking one rotated along the plane but actually did not. One can check by not cocking the club purposely and hitting with the SOG. If the clubhead hits square, the the shoulders stayed along the plane. Try chipping too. I guess the best way to make me remember is the term "dukot". It is a very restrictive feeling.

The Essence of SOG

What is really behind the Stroke of Genius (SOG)? What really makes it work? Is it muscle memory alone?

Yes it is muscle memory but there is something more than that to make it work. It is the fact that it is a PULLING FORCE, ALWAYS. SOG is the key to use the power of the ground, the power to project the gravity to anything, even the small golf ball! AND THE PULL POWER COMES FROM THE GROUND. Without the ground as a leverage, a pull cannot be executed at all.

So What is the Bottom Line

Now we know that SOG is essentially the pulling force or motion, then what is important in a golf swing is achieving a connection between the ground and the swing. And that means in the golf swing that it is essential to load up the swing, not the cocking or the shoulders, per se, but the point when the swing is connected to the ground. Of course, the left arm, the cocking and the shoulder motions facilitated the connection but those are not the purpose of the swing. They are just facilitators. As long as that connection is made, that is what it takes and required. Nothing more, nothing less.