[John Graham]

Yes. Vertical Hinging is layback with no closing. Continuously. Although the collision does wreak havoc upon the underlying geometry and obscures things. The ball hits the face as hard as the face hits the ball.

OB.

There are some major issues I have with this idea. With an iron, the ball hits the face below the cog and since momentum must be preserved, the clubhead is deflected lower at separation than it was at impact. It has to deflect downwards thus reducing loft.

Check out this video.

I'm guessing the first one is vertical hinging and you can see it deloft during the impact interval.

JG