Advantages Of the Centered Head
 

The Head Pivot Center is --ideally -- Centered between the Feet. In addition to the sensory advantage you have mentioned, it also offers an immediate visual confirmation of compliance with the Pivot Center requirement. It is an absolute, just as is the Straight Plane Line and the Flat Left Wrist and the Parallel to the Plane Line Clubshaft (when it is Parallel to the ground).

It also serves to Center other mission-critical Components -- the Shoulders, for example -- in preparation for their Uncompensated return to Impact.

Despite these advantages, the player can choose to locate that Head Center behind or in front of the Visual Center.

Or choose another Center altogether.

The question then becomes...

And you are very right to ask here, Bob...

Why do so?

It's Centered
 

I give up, Birdie.

See what you want to see. Do what you want to do. But if Adam Scott in this sequence doesn't have a Centered Head...

It simply ain't possible.

KK Lynn....I see what you mean....

And it's close....

But it's always been "precisely between the feet."

Maybe my definition of precision is excessive? I dunno.

...

And the pic has been altered, no?

(again, I realize the upward slope PROBABLY would tip the scales towards the back of center end of the debate....but it's not a sure thing IMO....and not a good pic to analyze then...we need more...IMO)

Birdie,

With all due respect to your love of The Golfing Machine and your participation on this site -- which, by the way, I appreciate sincerely -- have you bought the book yet?

...

And regarding Homer Kelley and his consideration of the Head Pivot Center...

Yes, he thought about it.

A lot.

And he specifically referenced it -- Bucket, run your search and tell us how many times -- and deliberately chose it over the 'point-between-the-shoulders' alternative (mentioned once and as just that, a deliberately rejected alternative).

So...

Homer made his choice...in no uncertain terms...and made that choice known to all who choose to read his work. Yet, in his own inimitable way, he did not mandate yours. [2-H].

Plow new ground here, Birdie.

Homer Kelley has already plowed his.

This might be one of the best posts regarding the why's behind a stationary head. Most posts really just regurgitate the book.

I think if you discount the sensory advantage then you can make a solid case of another static position/reference point.

I think either position still requires a stationary point of reference at or above the shoulders rotation arount point, a dynamic point would complicate and require timing to make a solid consistent stroke. Probably not repeatable for most, especially with age.

The Head Center Does Not Require "Middle of the Feet"
 

C'mon, Birdie.

I have stated Homer's own preference -- and my own -- for the "between the feet" location of the Head Pivot Center. It was Homer Kelley's ideal (as implied by the Chapter Nine photos in the first six editions and specifically stated in the 7th). But...

In numerous posts, I also have stated his practical adivce to students:

"Set your Head at Impact Fix and leave it there."

If that Fix location is "precisely" in the middle...fine. If a bit behind...fine. If a bit in front...fine. Just locate it and leave it and use it as a Center. Homer Kelley was all about golfers on golf courses, not golfers in the lab. I wrote these very same things in my first posts on this subject months ago, and I reiterated that position as recently as today. My message has been consistent. Why then, is there any perception to the contrary?

There is no mystery:

To serve his own agenda, one self-avowed "competitor" has assigned me the uncompromising doctrine "Head dead still and precisely between the feet." Homer and I get one location in time and space, and he gets everywhere else. Ridiculous.

So, your quote above is not true, and if you want to know exactly where I stand on this G.O.L.F. subject -- or any other for that matter -- then read my posts. All 4,000 some-odd of them. My positions are there, clearly-stated and available at the click of your mouse.

Meanwhile, beware the self-serving misrepresentations of another.

Here you is . . . .
 

1-L MACHINE CONCEPT 1. The Stationary Post (player’s head) accurately returns the Clubhead through the ball (Centered Arc).

2-0 A. The Three Basic Essentials are:
1. A stationary Head

2-H The spine, between the shoulders, is the center of the Shoulder Turn only, not of the Left Arm, except by specific extension of the Swing Radius. Because, Swinging from the Wrists, the Left Shoulder, the Right Elbow, the Waist or the Feet, show it to have just to many exceptions. Though the “Head” Pivot Center is recommended, it is not at all mandatory.

The important thing is that the true Swing Center - for all components - is around a Hinge Pin with one end at the top of the Stationary Head and the other in the ground precisely between the Feet, with no regard for Body Location or Position at any time. These lines may be a duplication. If found eliminate one of them.

More to come . . . gotta go eat!

Exposing the Truth
 

No, Birdie, the photos in the Scott sequence were not "altered." They were rotated approximately one degree toward the horizontal in order to remove the sloped bias of the original tilted camera angle. All Stroke relationships were unchanged.

And the only reason I did that was to counter the absurd analysis of the aforementioned "competitor." The day after I posted the sequence here as an example of the Head-Centered Pivot, he chose to use the exact same sequence on his site as an argument against it. As "proof," he drew reference lines -- I had drawn none -- purportedly perpendicular to the horizontal plane, i.e., the ground. In fact, given the slope bias, those lines were not perpendicular, and when I exposed that error, his argument collapsed.

As it should have.

More head . . .
 

2-J IMPACT ALIGNMENTS . . . Clubface alignment also includes the requirement that the center of the Clubhead arc be so located that the Clubface strikes the ball before it strikes the ground. If the Clubface is centered on the ball while soled behind it any distance whatsoever, the radius of the Clubhead arc must be shortened or the Club will meet the ground precisely where it had been soled. This procedure of shortening the radius of the stroke is popular – that is pulling in the Hands at Impact by raising the head and shoulders a guess-timated distance, or pulling back the Left Shoulder, or bending the Left Arm, all with that same “precision."

3-F-7-C BOBBING is raising and/or lowering the Head by faulty movement of the back or knees, and disrupts the Shoulder-to-ball radius

9-1 ZONE 1 . . . The Pivot involves twisting the body and shifting the weight during the Stroke so as to maintain balance, a motionless head and any required tilt of the torso. All motion is in a preselected sequence and spacing of whatever Components are being employed. Emphatically, Hands are not educated until they control the Pivot.

AXIS TILT Example – pouring tea.
Mechanical – To change direction, the helicopter Pilot alters the plane of the rotating blades by tilting their axis in the new direction.
Golf – To change the plane of the Shoulder Turn without moving the Head, the golfer must tilt the Shoulder Axis by moving the Hips.

BALANCE Example – a hula dancer.
Mechanical – State in which all opposing forces cancel each other out.
Golf – Holding the center of gravity of the body inside The Stance without moving the Head.

PIVOT Example – revolving door.
Mechanical – That motion of a body moving around a center point.
Golf – A multiple universal-joint assembly between the Stationary Head and the Stationary Feet holding the Clubshaft “On Plane” by positioning and adjusting the Lever Assembly, through the #3 Accumulator, as directed by the Right Forearm.

PIVOT CENTER Example – thetherball pole.
Mechanical – The point on which an assembly is suspended or erected to stabilize and limit that assembly’s possible travel – the Hinge Pin.
Golf – Some point on the body kept stationary throughout the Stroke, to stabilize the motion.


STATIONARY HEAD Example – a spinning skater.
Mechanical – Same as Pivot Center.
Golf – Chosing the Head – rather than Between the Shoulders as the Pivot Center.

That's all the head references that weren't clubHEAD or aHEAD in the book.

Let me know what you want next Boss . . . if anythang.

I wonder if the Hinge Pin is really meant to be vertical to the ground? Can at Impact Fix can you have a bit of tilt to the right at the top while still having bottom of the hinge pin precisely between the feet?

Clearly this hinge pin is not meant to be the blance point of the golfer in the golf stroke (if that was so, then weight would be equally distributed at impact).

A Hinge Pin is normally costructed such that its movement is at right angles to stationary post. If the right shoulder is driving down, might it not have to be tilted in order for it to be the most efficent?

These are intended to be just questions not trying to make an arguement one way or the other. Just trying to understand the application of the Hinge Pin.