.jpg)
This looks pretty funky. Why would a guy who in my opinion had the prettiest swing on tour go through so many permutations?
Steve is a GSED (Golf Stroke Engineering Doctorate), Golfing Machine term for the highest attainable degree. I hear he is currently working with Mike Maves aka Sevam1.
For those who are not familiar with Mike here is a Link to his website, Secretinthedirt.com.
Here is one of his videos. Mike's got some great action through the ball. Some describe his move as "Moegan" a combination of Moe Norman and Ben Hogan. The motion is pretty to watch and very acoustically pleasing at impact.
Just an aside: "The Hat" does something like this in one of his videos, where he pushes a golf cart as a demonstration.
Here's the Elkington I remember.
At some point in between or before S&T and Mike Maves, Elkington spent time with Ben Doyle. I imagine he was getting his Golfing Machine Certifications. Here he is working with Ben Doyle.
Here's what that looked like.
Here's what Elk looks like after working with Sevam1 (Mike Maves).
With the Senior tour quickly approaching, here is what I would like to see.
I think I spend too much time tinkering and changing things that don't need fixing and eventually wind up lost and confused so maybe I just see a lot of that in Elk. I look forward to seeing what changes he will make after working with Sevam1
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Cheating in Golf
You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank as to praise him for playing by the rules.
- Bobby Jones
The BBC's Peter Alliss said: "It's a fact that if you're known as a cheat in golf, golfers ostracise you. You can be a womaniser, you don't pay your taxes, a whiff of BO – but he cheats at golf, oh Colombus, we don't want him in the club."
Golf has always been and always will be a self policing game of honor. I was always taught not to cheat, nobody likes a cheater and nobody wants to play with a cheater. When confronted the standard answer may be, "I'm not playing on the Tour, what does it matter?"
The rules of golf are difficult and sometimes complicated, so I wouldn't expect everyone to understand them all. Sometimes people just don't know what the exact ruling is, in that case it really isn't cheatinng.
I've played with some individuals who when asked to follow the rules and etiquette of the game have replied to me, that I think I'm a pro. My answer to them is "Whatever". I can't really enjoy the game if it doesn't come with it's ancient traditions.
I recently played on a local amateur circuit, where I was flighted to my handicap. At the time I was an 8 handicap, I was amazed at how my companions, who were supposed to be between 8-12 handicappers, were shooting in the high 90's when paired with people they didn't know. In other words they were being watched. These guys would shoot 105 one week and when paired in their regular clique would all come in with low 80's and high 70's. .The only reason I can see why someone would even entertain something like this is low self esteem. If as an amateur, your golf score defines who you are, I really feel sorry for you.
This trend is becoming more and more prevalent among people taking up the game and it is a crying shame that it has to be that way.
Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots - but you have to play the ball where it lies.
- Bobby Jones
Saturday, October 24, 2009
What I wll be working on this winter.
Winter is quickly approaching, and instead of getting depressed I plan on spending more time working on my swing. Here are some of the things I plan on working on.
Below is a Picture of Bobby Schaeffer. Bobby trained with both Gregg Mchatton and Ben Doyle.
Click on the image to enlarge
The amount of lag in that Golf Swing is incredible. Here's one of the keys to accomplishing it.
I need to get back to practicing accelerating the club longitudinally. It's a method I learned from Gregg McHatton. For those who are not familiar with the concept Longitudinal Acceleration, here's a definition of it written by Jon Erickson aka Lag Pressure.
"Longitudinal Acceleration
For our purposes here, we will use longitudinal acceleration to describe the action of the clubshaft. The concept of the shaft itself wanting to expand "telescopically" in length is an important concept for golf. This is at the core of what we will refer to as hitting vs swinging. A limp rope or string magically has a firmness to it when cracked like a whip. It also has a firmness to it while spinning in a circle. This added structure to a normally limp object is what we are talking about here. Longitudinal acceleration creates an added structure and support to our golf shaft to aid in resisting the forces of impact. The object of the swinger's game is to "time" the straightening of the shaft right at the exact low point of the golf swing. If done correctly it can and does work very well. For most, it is NOT done correctly, and that is why you are here reading this article and considering... if you haven't already.... signing up for this class."
His Classes can be found at Advanced Ball Striking
Here's a description written by Howard McMeekin, PGA, who also wrote a simplified version of TGM (The Golfing Machine). The book was written in an e-book fashion and it is called, "The Golf Factory". The e-book can be found here for free.
In the Centrifugal Force Swing (The Swinging Swing), clubhead acceleration is achieved by a downward pull of the grip end of the golf club. This accelerates the clubshaft lengthwise, longitudinal acceleration. This longitudinal motion is maintained until the clubhead gets outside of a perpendicular line of the shaft with the ground. Once, the clubhead gets outside of this line, centrifugal force takes over and leads the clubhead into impact with the golf ball. This longitudinal acceleration begins quickly and the clubhead gains speed as it moves downward, outward and forward, through impact with the golf ball.
In the swinging swing,the club is accelerated in this precise order:
1. Downward pull of the hands starts acceleration
2. Centrifugal Force , the uncocking of the left wrist, adds speed
3. Right arm uncocking adds more speed
4. Body rotation adds the final acceleration
Here's a second explanation:
In the Centrifugal Force Swing (The Swinging Swing), the quick start down motion of the hands retracing the the arc of the backswing is ideal for longitudinal acceleration. This out and out pulling motion on the grip end of the golf club, striving to accelerate the clubshaft lenghtwise, is loading the clubshaft with potential force. This loading action continues until the clubhead gets outside of a line perpendicular to the ground. Centrifugal force now takes over and the pulling force moves from the grip end of the club to the clubhead end of the club.
Click on the image below to enlarge.
I prefer to think that a slight lateral shift brings the hands and arms down in a temporary free fall. I believe I swing my best when I provide as little interference as possible to the motion of the Golf Club. The more I try to help it speed up, the more I actually contribute to it slowing down. Trusting the pivot and throw out action to release the club is the most difficult thing for me to do. Here's an illustration of what I'm talking about.
Here's "The Hat" (Gregg McHatton) Demonstrating Longitudinal Acceleration via one of his famous Drills. In this case he simply let's go of the golf club in mid downswing and watches it fly down the target line while the shaft is perfectly horizontal.
Click on the image to enlarge
Gregg describes this as harnessing the forces generated in the Golf Swing as opposed to overpowering them.
If you are interested in Gregg's or Bobby's videos
You can find them Here
If you are interested in lessons with Gregg, here is his contact info:
Greg McHatton, Vista Valencia G.Cse., Valencia;
661-253-1870
You can also click on the link to the "Swing Code" on the left side of this page.
So my goal next season will be to learn to harness the forces generated in the golf swing and take full mechanical advantage of them. This of course will probably require a visit with "The Hat", but there is no doubt in my mind that it is money well spent.
I also plan on working on my physical fitness, hopefully I can create a golf oriented exercise program. In this case I will consult Rick Neilsen PGA. Rick is certified in Pilates and has also obtained his GSEM (Golf Stroke Engineering Masters) a designation representative of his knowledge of Homer Kelley's, "The Golfing Machine". Hopefully Rick will be contributing articles to this blog in the near future.
To Contact Rick Neilsen simply click on his link on the left side of the page or click here
In response to the comment below made by Rick, here is the TGM Definition of Drag Loading, I think "The Hat" puts his own twist on this based on his own research.
10-19-C. DRAG LOADING Drag Loading is the Rope Handle Technique of the 'Swinger,' an out-and-out PULL, striving to accelerate the Clubshaft lengthwise, from a quick Start Down to Release. Start the Club down as though it were being drawn from a quiver like an arrow --- feathered end first. Maintain this motion until the Release switches ends. This is possible only if, and for as long as, Inertia can hold the Clubhead inside the arc of the Hands or hold to a Line Delivery Path (2-L). Centrifigul Force will set in when the Clubhead crosses to the outside and it will begin to pull into its own incidental orbit per 2-P and 2-K#5. Then further acceleration can be applied only at Pressure Point #1 to support the Pull on the Clubshaft - especially for Short Shot Power.
Develop an 'Instant Acceleration' Hip Action (to the desired Handspeed, per 10-15-B) so that the Throw Out Action (6-B-3) can immediately set up the Rhythm and take over the rest of the Downstroke sequence (6-M-1). (See 2-K and 6-F-0.) With or without Wristcock, always Drag (or pull 10-3-D) a swinging Club Down Plane --- even with only Centrifigul (Angular) Momentum (2-K). (See 10-23-C).
For Clubhead Throwaway prevention, monitor the pull of Centrifigul Force and the Drag of the Lagging Clubhead.
hit em straight
Below is a Picture of Bobby Schaeffer. Bobby trained with both Gregg Mchatton and Ben Doyle.
The amount of lag in that Golf Swing is incredible. Here's one of the keys to accomplishing it.
I need to get back to practicing accelerating the club longitudinally. It's a method I learned from Gregg McHatton. For those who are not familiar with the concept Longitudinal Acceleration, here's a definition of it written by Jon Erickson aka Lag Pressure.
"Longitudinal Acceleration
For our purposes here, we will use longitudinal acceleration to describe the action of the clubshaft. The concept of the shaft itself wanting to expand "telescopically" in length is an important concept for golf. This is at the core of what we will refer to as hitting vs swinging. A limp rope or string magically has a firmness to it when cracked like a whip. It also has a firmness to it while spinning in a circle. This added structure to a normally limp object is what we are talking about here. Longitudinal acceleration creates an added structure and support to our golf shaft to aid in resisting the forces of impact. The object of the swinger's game is to "time" the straightening of the shaft right at the exact low point of the golf swing. If done correctly it can and does work very well. For most, it is NOT done correctly, and that is why you are here reading this article and considering... if you haven't already.... signing up for this class."
His Classes can be found at Advanced Ball Striking
Here's a description written by Howard McMeekin, PGA, who also wrote a simplified version of TGM (The Golfing Machine). The book was written in an e-book fashion and it is called, "The Golf Factory". The e-book can be found here for free.
In the Centrifugal Force Swing (The Swinging Swing), clubhead acceleration is achieved by a downward pull of the grip end of the golf club. This accelerates the clubshaft lengthwise, longitudinal acceleration. This longitudinal motion is maintained until the clubhead gets outside of a perpendicular line of the shaft with the ground. Once, the clubhead gets outside of this line, centrifugal force takes over and leads the clubhead into impact with the golf ball. This longitudinal acceleration begins quickly and the clubhead gains speed as it moves downward, outward and forward, through impact with the golf ball.
In the swinging swing,the club is accelerated in this precise order:
1. Downward pull of the hands starts acceleration
2. Centrifugal Force , the uncocking of the left wrist, adds speed
3. Right arm uncocking adds more speed
4. Body rotation adds the final acceleration
Here's a second explanation:
In the Centrifugal Force Swing (The Swinging Swing), the quick start down motion of the hands retracing the the arc of the backswing is ideal for longitudinal acceleration. This out and out pulling motion on the grip end of the golf club, striving to accelerate the clubshaft lenghtwise, is loading the clubshaft with potential force. This loading action continues until the clubhead gets outside of a line perpendicular to the ground. Centrifugal force now takes over and the pulling force moves from the grip end of the club to the clubhead end of the club.
I prefer to think that a slight lateral shift brings the hands and arms down in a temporary free fall. I believe I swing my best when I provide as little interference as possible to the motion of the Golf Club. The more I try to help it speed up, the more I actually contribute to it slowing down. Trusting the pivot and throw out action to release the club is the most difficult thing for me to do. Here's an illustration of what I'm talking about.
Here's "The Hat" (Gregg McHatton) Demonstrating Longitudinal Acceleration via one of his famous Drills. In this case he simply let's go of the golf club in mid downswing and watches it fly down the target line while the shaft is perfectly horizontal.
Gregg describes this as harnessing the forces generated in the Golf Swing as opposed to overpowering them.
If you are interested in Gregg's or Bobby's videos
You can find them Here
If you are interested in lessons with Gregg, here is his contact info:
Greg McHatton, Vista Valencia G.Cse., Valencia;
661-253-1870
You can also click on the link to the "Swing Code" on the left side of this page.
So my goal next season will be to learn to harness the forces generated in the golf swing and take full mechanical advantage of them. This of course will probably require a visit with "The Hat", but there is no doubt in my mind that it is money well spent.
I also plan on working on my physical fitness, hopefully I can create a golf oriented exercise program. In this case I will consult Rick Neilsen PGA. Rick is certified in Pilates and has also obtained his GSEM (Golf Stroke Engineering Masters) a designation representative of his knowledge of Homer Kelley's, "The Golfing Machine". Hopefully Rick will be contributing articles to this blog in the near future.
To Contact Rick Neilsen simply click on his link on the left side of the page or click here
In response to the comment below made by Rick, here is the TGM Definition of Drag Loading, I think "The Hat" puts his own twist on this based on his own research.
10-19-C. DRAG LOADING Drag Loading is the Rope Handle Technique of the 'Swinger,' an out-and-out PULL, striving to accelerate the Clubshaft lengthwise, from a quick Start Down to Release. Start the Club down as though it were being drawn from a quiver like an arrow --- feathered end first. Maintain this motion until the Release switches ends. This is possible only if, and for as long as, Inertia can hold the Clubhead inside the arc of the Hands or hold to a Line Delivery Path (2-L). Centrifigul Force will set in when the Clubhead crosses to the outside and it will begin to pull into its own incidental orbit per 2-P and 2-K#5. Then further acceleration can be applied only at Pressure Point #1 to support the Pull on the Clubshaft - especially for Short Shot Power.
Develop an 'Instant Acceleration' Hip Action (to the desired Handspeed, per 10-15-B) so that the Throw Out Action (6-B-3) can immediately set up the Rhythm and take over the rest of the Downstroke sequence (6-M-1). (See 2-K and 6-F-0.) With or without Wristcock, always Drag (or pull 10-3-D) a swinging Club Down Plane --- even with only Centrifigul (Angular) Momentum (2-K). (See 10-23-C).
For Clubhead Throwaway prevention, monitor the pull of Centrifigul Force and the Drag of the Lagging Clubhead.
hit em straight
Friday, October 23, 2009
Blades vs Cavity Backs
My preference is to play a classic Tour Blade and thus I am subject to listening to my playing partner's rhetorical nonsense. Usually stuff like, "You think you're a Pro", or other such pathetic hogwash. I prefer a forged blade for various reasons.
1) I like the way they look at address
2)I like the way they feel when struck properly
3)I like the feedback provided on mis-hits.
4)The blade irons I play generally have a higher swing-weight usually somewhere between D3 and D5, which is another personal preference.
5)Save for a brief stint with Ping EYE2's Becu, that's all I've ever played.
6) Cavity Backs won't stop people from coming over the top
7)Cavity Backs can't stop you from skulling a shot
8)It's my money and I'll play what I want.
I read an outstanding article written by The Wedge Guy, which presents an interesting perspective on the debate of "Blades vs. Cavity Backs"
Here's what he wrote:
Blades Versus Cavity Backs: A Golf Club Epiphany
As I've spent 50 years playing this crazy game, and 25+ years in the equipment industry, I've had a number of eye-opening "epiphanies" (the dictionary defines "epiphany" as "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something.").
One of those came in the mid-1990's as I was reviewing some Iron Byron results we were doing at Hogan.
Let me set this up by saying that I've always played blades - I like the shot control, trajectory and feel of them, not to mention the clean compact appearance behind the ball.
But for a few years prior to this time, I was playing Hogan Edge cavity back forgings. They felt OK, and my handicap stayed about scratch, but my game seemed different. There certainly was no question that they were forgiving.
Back to the research. I was looking at a chart of shot patterns of different irons we were testing, and was particularly struck by something I saw.
With Iron Byron set to swing a 6-iron with about 165 yards of distance, the cavity back irons we were testing were producing a pattern on dead center hits that was about 8' wide and about 15-17' long !
These are duplicate swings, dead center impact, and these shots are coming out 3-4' right or left of the target line, and as much as 8-9' short or long !
Not just with one model of iron, but with nearly every cavity back we tested. Now, realize that as we moved the impact further from the center of the face, the forgiveness factor was excellent, but I was puzzled by that "dead center" pattern.
Then I looked at the chart for the new Apex blade we were developing. On heel misses, it was slightly worse than the cavity back models.
On toe misses, the Apex was significantly worse (blades have very little mass out on the toe).
But on dead center hits - our shot pattern was about 1/4 the size of the cavity back pattern ! In other words, the perfect shots were much better !
So that got me thinking. My next round of golf, I dusted off my old set of Joe Powell blades, and I had an eye-opening day.
I was playing very well at the time, but not making that many birdies. That day I hit it within 10' of the flag a number of times, and while I did experience some misses that were worse than I had been getting with the Edge irons, my best shots were better than they had been in some time.
One of my friends who knows my game well exclaimed, "Where's that guy been ?"
He went on to explain that he had noticed I had not been "knocking down flags" for some time, which I usually did at least once or twice a round.
So, I made a permanent switch back to blade irons, my reasoning being that I will judge my rounds much more by the quality of my best shots than the acceptability of my worse ones.
I've kept that philosophy consistent. It's a common belief that mid- to high-handicap players need all the help they can get, and maybe that's true, but I firmly believe that more golfers can play blades than you might think - maybe even you !
There are some very good ones on the market now that have worked on the toe-hit forgiveness, so you might be surprised if you took a set of demos out for a round or two.
Just food for thought and maybe a golf tip that will help you enjoy the game more.
And if you enjoyed that one Here's another one.
I'm becoming more and more a fan of "The wedge Guy" and his common sense insight into the game and it's equipment. You see, most people out there believe it's a lot easier to buy a game than it is to build one.
Hit em Straight.
1) I like the way they look at address
2)I like the way they feel when struck properly
3)I like the feedback provided on mis-hits.
4)The blade irons I play generally have a higher swing-weight usually somewhere between D3 and D5, which is another personal preference.
5)Save for a brief stint with Ping EYE2's Becu, that's all I've ever played.
6) Cavity Backs won't stop people from coming over the top
7)Cavity Backs can't stop you from skulling a shot
8)It's my money and I'll play what I want.
I read an outstanding article written by The Wedge Guy, which presents an interesting perspective on the debate of "Blades vs. Cavity Backs"
Here's what he wrote:
Blades Versus Cavity Backs: A Golf Club Epiphany
As I've spent 50 years playing this crazy game, and 25+ years in the equipment industry, I've had a number of eye-opening "epiphanies" (the dictionary defines "epiphany" as "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something.").
One of those came in the mid-1990's as I was reviewing some Iron Byron results we were doing at Hogan.
Let me set this up by saying that I've always played blades - I like the shot control, trajectory and feel of them, not to mention the clean compact appearance behind the ball.
But for a few years prior to this time, I was playing Hogan Edge cavity back forgings. They felt OK, and my handicap stayed about scratch, but my game seemed different. There certainly was no question that they were forgiving.
Back to the research. I was looking at a chart of shot patterns of different irons we were testing, and was particularly struck by something I saw.
With Iron Byron set to swing a 6-iron with about 165 yards of distance, the cavity back irons we were testing were producing a pattern on dead center hits that was about 8' wide and about 15-17' long !
These are duplicate swings, dead center impact, and these shots are coming out 3-4' right or left of the target line, and as much as 8-9' short or long !
Not just with one model of iron, but with nearly every cavity back we tested. Now, realize that as we moved the impact further from the center of the face, the forgiveness factor was excellent, but I was puzzled by that "dead center" pattern.
Then I looked at the chart for the new Apex blade we were developing. On heel misses, it was slightly worse than the cavity back models.
On toe misses, the Apex was significantly worse (blades have very little mass out on the toe).
But on dead center hits - our shot pattern was about 1/4 the size of the cavity back pattern ! In other words, the perfect shots were much better !
So that got me thinking. My next round of golf, I dusted off my old set of Joe Powell blades, and I had an eye-opening day.
I was playing very well at the time, but not making that many birdies. That day I hit it within 10' of the flag a number of times, and while I did experience some misses that were worse than I had been getting with the Edge irons, my best shots were better than they had been in some time.
One of my friends who knows my game well exclaimed, "Where's that guy been ?"
He went on to explain that he had noticed I had not been "knocking down flags" for some time, which I usually did at least once or twice a round.
So, I made a permanent switch back to blade irons, my reasoning being that I will judge my rounds much more by the quality of my best shots than the acceptability of my worse ones.
I've kept that philosophy consistent. It's a common belief that mid- to high-handicap players need all the help they can get, and maybe that's true, but I firmly believe that more golfers can play blades than you might think - maybe even you !
There are some very good ones on the market now that have worked on the toe-hit forgiveness, so you might be surprised if you took a set of demos out for a round or two.
Just food for thought and maybe a golf tip that will help you enjoy the game more.
And if you enjoyed that one Here's another one.
I'm becoming more and more a fan of "The wedge Guy" and his common sense insight into the game and it's equipment. You see, most people out there believe it's a lot easier to buy a game than it is to build one.
Hit em Straight.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Swings I like to watch.
Here are some of the swings I enjoy watching.
Click On Thumbnail to enlarge.
Probably best described as "Timeless". I believe Tom suffered an injury in the time between the end of his PGA tour career and his Senior Tour Career which altered his swing somewhat.
Purtzer averaged 279.6 yards in 1990 as the PGA TOUR's driving distance leader. Last year, he averaged 295.5 yards, and hasn't gone below 294.8 (2004) as the Champions Tour statistical leader. This year he is averaging 304.5 yards.
Purtzer's 4 key tips:
1. Get fitted for the right equipment. Take advantage of the available technology to find out what equipment -- shaft, clubhead loft, ball -- will be of greatest benefit.
Purtzer: "The modern high-tech equipment only helps if it fits you properly. If it doesn't fit you, it's worse than using what you're using now."
2. Keep stretching. Hitting a golf ball a long way is more about flexibility than strength.
Purtzer: "To me the most important thing is to be able to stay flexible enough to make a body turn -- shoulders, hip. That's the key."
3. Don't fall victim to equipment misconceptions. Stiffer shafts and stronger lofts don't necessarily translate into more distance.
Purtzer: "My way of thinking is old school. The older you get, you want to soften up the shaft to give yourself a little more kick to get the ball to fly, to keep the ball in the air."
4. A trusty driver is a friend forever.
Purtzer: "If it works, why would you change? My driver is three generations old. There have been three upgrades since mine."
The shaft in Purtzer's driver is at least 12 years old. Moral of the story: It's hard to say good-bye to a loyal friend who has been good to you for a long time.
Gregg McHatton
Gregg changed all the perceptions I had about the Golf Swing
Jeff Maggert
It doesn't get any simpler, it seems like he has no wasted motion
Click On Thumbnail to enlarge.
Probably best described as "Timeless". I believe Tom suffered an injury in the time between the end of his PGA tour career and his Senior Tour Career which altered his swing somewhat.
Purtzer averaged 279.6 yards in 1990 as the PGA TOUR's driving distance leader. Last year, he averaged 295.5 yards, and hasn't gone below 294.8 (2004) as the Champions Tour statistical leader. This year he is averaging 304.5 yards.
Purtzer's 4 key tips:
1. Get fitted for the right equipment. Take advantage of the available technology to find out what equipment -- shaft, clubhead loft, ball -- will be of greatest benefit.
Purtzer: "The modern high-tech equipment only helps if it fits you properly. If it doesn't fit you, it's worse than using what you're using now."
2. Keep stretching. Hitting a golf ball a long way is more about flexibility than strength.
Purtzer: "To me the most important thing is to be able to stay flexible enough to make a body turn -- shoulders, hip. That's the key."
3. Don't fall victim to equipment misconceptions. Stiffer shafts and stronger lofts don't necessarily translate into more distance.
Purtzer: "My way of thinking is old school. The older you get, you want to soften up the shaft to give yourself a little more kick to get the ball to fly, to keep the ball in the air."
4. A trusty driver is a friend forever.
Purtzer: "If it works, why would you change? My driver is three generations old. There have been three upgrades since mine."
The shaft in Purtzer's driver is at least 12 years old. Moral of the story: It's hard to say good-bye to a loyal friend who has been good to you for a long time.
Gregg McHatton
Gregg changed all the perceptions I had about the Golf Swing
Jeff Maggert
It doesn't get any simpler, it seems like he has no wasted motion
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Stack and Tilt
Much has been written about this methodology. Some good, some bad. Here's my take on it. I had been away from the game for a few years, 7 or 8 to be exact. Before I stopped playing, I had discovered that in order for me to strike the ball consistently I had to maintain a steady/still head. In the 80's and 90's, a slight lateral move to initiate the back swing and a similar move in the opposite direction to initiate the downswing was all the craze. Dispelling the myth of keeping your head still was part of this instructional package. I bit hook, line and sinker. Curtis Strange was winning back to back U.S. Opens and his head was all over the place. I followed this lead and developed a sway, which had me hitting the ball so inconsistently I almost gave up the game. It wasn't till I read a swing key that my game was rescued. I was looking through Nick Faldo's, "A swing for life" and in the downswing sequence Nick said his key was to," watch the back of the ball and chase it", voila. At that point I realized that the correction to my maladies was a steady head. I proceeded to incorporate this into my game in an exaggerated manner, I kept my head perfectly still throughout the golf swing. My friends and playing partners pointed out that I was reverse pivoting or so it seemed. I had no complaints, I was a member of the Nassau Player's Club, and got my handicap down to a 2 on Bethpage Black. I can't remember how to swing the way I did, but it sure was effective. Fast forward to 2009, I see this promotion for "Stack and Tilt" and thought to myself, I used to swing like this before it was en vogue. In fact a friend of mine who was a pretty good amateur player (he's currently a Pro), said he thought of me when he first saw the swing.
Let's do a brief Genealogy of this type of stroke pattern. Jerry Barber, winner of the 1961 PGA championship, played this way and also taught this way. He was a firm believer in not moving your weight to the right.
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the picture
Jerry Barber
Here's an analysis from Sports Illustrated:
July 25, 1960
Basics Of The Barber Swing
Ray Cave
How does a man so small hit a ball so far? Jerry Barber does it with a different kind of golf swing, one which he says took 10 years to develop. He now feels it is the most simple and practical swing for all golfers, regardless of size or ability. Here are four fundamentals of the Barber swing:
The stance is slightly more open than normal. The feet are well spread and are far enough back from the ball to get them squarely under the body.
The right knee is cocked inward, bracing the right leg. The weight is essentially on the inside of the right foot forward of the instep and on the outside of the left foot toward the heel.
The wrists start to cock the instant the left arm moves the clubhead from the ball and are fully cocked before reaching the top of the backswing (instead of the usual cocking at or near the top of the backswing).
There is no leg action to the right or shifting of the weight to the right. The right leg remains braced. The backswing is virtually confined to the arms, shoulders and chest, resulting in a bare minimum of body turn. Thus, when the downswing begins, the strength of the whole body is ready and able to move instantaneously to the left, down into the shot and right through toward the hole.
Then we have Andy Plummer and Mike Bennet, here's an excerpt from Chris Lewis', "The Scorecard always Lies"
But the hottest names on the range were Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer.
They two initially hung their dual-practitioner shingle out on Tour in 2004. They had their first success in late 2005, spurring Steve Elkington to a second-place finish at the PGA Championship at Baltusrol. Now, in 2006, their stock was going through the locker room roof. The primary reason was a first victory, with Aaron Baddeley at Hilton Head. For new Tour-based instructors, heading out to the range with a first win—especially with a player like Baddeley, who had seemingly lost his way—was the equivalent of wearing a steak suit to the dog pound. Suddenly Bennett and Plummer were besieged by pros looking for help.
Tim Herron was asking questions. John Cook was taking notes during his practice rounds with Tommy Armour III, who regularly worked with the pair. Scott McCarron wanted to have lunch. Ben Crane and Bernhard Langer started sniffing around. So too did Colombian Camilo Villegas, Trinidadian Stephen Ames, and Canadian Mike Weir. “If things keep up like this,” Plummer joked, “we’re going to wind up with half of next year’s Presidents Cup team.”
“It’s funny how the dominos fall,” Bennett said. “If you have success with one guy, everyone wants your phone number.”
They hardly seemed suited to all the attention. Minus their videocams they both looked like misplaced high school English teachers. Plummer, a 39-year-old native Kentuckian, invariably wore white polos and khakis. (Players joked that he was his profession’s answer to Chad Campbell.) Bennett, 38, from tiny Jordan, New York, near Syracuse, was similarly unshocking. Although he owned one or two striped golf shirts, they were usually covered up with beige pullovers. His little square eyeglasses only emphasized his bookish, unathletic look.
Both began teaching by accident. In the early ‘nineties, when they were both mini-tour grunts looking to improve their games, they went out to Palm Springs to work with legendary eccentric Mac O’Grady. O’Grady had just more or less retired from a twenty-year pro career that included sixteen flunked Q-schools, two Tour wins, and a famous weeping fit on the 15th green while in contention during the final round at the 1987 U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.
O’Grady’s bible was a curious little yellow tome called The Golfing Machine, a dense, physics- and mathematics-laced manual penned by a golf nut named Homer Kelley, who worked in the jewelry business but moonlighted as a consultant for Boeing. The book had been all the rage in the early ‘eighties, chiefly because it underlay the youthful success of current CBS broadcaster Bobby Clampett. Clampett, “Mr. Golfing Machine,” lived by the book and had become the youngest player in PGA Tour history to amass $500,000 in career earnings.
In 1984, however, Clampett’s game went south and the book’s reputation went right along with it. Indeed, it was blamed for destroying his career. That, along with its forbidding terminology, sent it into an instructional exile that would last twenty years. As far as PGA Tour pros were concerned, Kelley’s swing elixir may as well have been Jonestown Kool-Aid.
Yet O’Grady never lost the faith. He had grown up with the Machine, reading and rereading it (along with Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet) with a battery-powered lamp as a homeless teenager living in a storage bin in Los Angeles. It now became the cornerstone of his single-minded search for the ideal swing.
When Bennett and Plummer arrived in Palm Springs to work with O’Grady, they too embraced its principles. They soon became “Macolytes,” giving up playing for teaching and working alongside their mentor in his invitation-only “swing symposia.” Eventually, however, they were excommunicated from the flock. Bennett’s transgression, he said, was a week of poor caddying for O’Grady at one of his boss’s rare Tour appearances, at the 1997 CVS Charity Classic. In Plummer’s case it was disobeying O’Grady’s edict not to work with pros like Elkington. One after the other, the two moved back east and took club pro jobs.
Over the years, they kept in touch with each other, and with Elkington. When the 1998 PGA Championship winner invited Plummer out to work with him, they realized they had a foothold on Tour. By the end of 2005 they had also hooked up with Armour; Dean Wilson, the Hawaiian-born grinder who was Weir’s college teammate at BYU; and New Zealander Grant Waite, whose claim to fame was his second-place finish at the 2000 Canadian Open, where he was beaten by Tiger Woods’ famous 6-iron out of a fairway bunker over a lake to a tucked pin on the par-five 18th hole, perhaps the best shot Woods has ever hit.
Bennett and Plummer’s teaching drew heavily, but not exclusively, from The Golfing Machine. “For us, the basic principles are absolute,” Bennett explained. “But when it comes to actually playing the game, some of it is just brutally poor.”
They also adopted some of O’Grady’s teachings. Their humility, relaxed demeanors and teaching styles, however, were worlds away from O’Grady’s. “Mac demanded a lot—he had you standing out on that range ten hours a day,” said Elkington, whose history with O’Grady dated back to the ‘eighties. “But Mike and Andy can fix most guys in two swings.”
So these guys are basically MORAD/TGMers.
Here's John Dunnigan's you tube video "In Defense of Stack and Tilt"
I'll let you guys be the judges, I personally think it's a valid way to play golf.
Hit em Straight.
Let's do a brief Genealogy of this type of stroke pattern. Jerry Barber, winner of the 1961 PGA championship, played this way and also taught this way. He was a firm believer in not moving your weight to the right.
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the picture
Here's an analysis from Sports Illustrated:
July 25, 1960
Basics Of The Barber Swing
Ray Cave
How does a man so small hit a ball so far? Jerry Barber does it with a different kind of golf swing, one which he says took 10 years to develop. He now feels it is the most simple and practical swing for all golfers, regardless of size or ability. Here are four fundamentals of the Barber swing:
The stance is slightly more open than normal. The feet are well spread and are far enough back from the ball to get them squarely under the body.
The right knee is cocked inward, bracing the right leg. The weight is essentially on the inside of the right foot forward of the instep and on the outside of the left foot toward the heel.
The wrists start to cock the instant the left arm moves the clubhead from the ball and are fully cocked before reaching the top of the backswing (instead of the usual cocking at or near the top of the backswing).
There is no leg action to the right or shifting of the weight to the right. The right leg remains braced. The backswing is virtually confined to the arms, shoulders and chest, resulting in a bare minimum of body turn. Thus, when the downswing begins, the strength of the whole body is ready and able to move instantaneously to the left, down into the shot and right through toward the hole.
Then we have Andy Plummer and Mike Bennet, here's an excerpt from Chris Lewis', "The Scorecard always Lies"
But the hottest names on the range were Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer.
They two initially hung their dual-practitioner shingle out on Tour in 2004. They had their first success in late 2005, spurring Steve Elkington to a second-place finish at the PGA Championship at Baltusrol. Now, in 2006, their stock was going through the locker room roof. The primary reason was a first victory, with Aaron Baddeley at Hilton Head. For new Tour-based instructors, heading out to the range with a first win—especially with a player like Baddeley, who had seemingly lost his way—was the equivalent of wearing a steak suit to the dog pound. Suddenly Bennett and Plummer were besieged by pros looking for help.
Tim Herron was asking questions. John Cook was taking notes during his practice rounds with Tommy Armour III, who regularly worked with the pair. Scott McCarron wanted to have lunch. Ben Crane and Bernhard Langer started sniffing around. So too did Colombian Camilo Villegas, Trinidadian Stephen Ames, and Canadian Mike Weir. “If things keep up like this,” Plummer joked, “we’re going to wind up with half of next year’s Presidents Cup team.”
“It’s funny how the dominos fall,” Bennett said. “If you have success with one guy, everyone wants your phone number.”
They hardly seemed suited to all the attention. Minus their videocams they both looked like misplaced high school English teachers. Plummer, a 39-year-old native Kentuckian, invariably wore white polos and khakis. (Players joked that he was his profession’s answer to Chad Campbell.) Bennett, 38, from tiny Jordan, New York, near Syracuse, was similarly unshocking. Although he owned one or two striped golf shirts, they were usually covered up with beige pullovers. His little square eyeglasses only emphasized his bookish, unathletic look.
Both began teaching by accident. In the early ‘nineties, when they were both mini-tour grunts looking to improve their games, they went out to Palm Springs to work with legendary eccentric Mac O’Grady. O’Grady had just more or less retired from a twenty-year pro career that included sixteen flunked Q-schools, two Tour wins, and a famous weeping fit on the 15th green while in contention during the final round at the 1987 U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.
O’Grady’s bible was a curious little yellow tome called The Golfing Machine, a dense, physics- and mathematics-laced manual penned by a golf nut named Homer Kelley, who worked in the jewelry business but moonlighted as a consultant for Boeing. The book had been all the rage in the early ‘eighties, chiefly because it underlay the youthful success of current CBS broadcaster Bobby Clampett. Clampett, “Mr. Golfing Machine,” lived by the book and had become the youngest player in PGA Tour history to amass $500,000 in career earnings.
In 1984, however, Clampett’s game went south and the book’s reputation went right along with it. Indeed, it was blamed for destroying his career. That, along with its forbidding terminology, sent it into an instructional exile that would last twenty years. As far as PGA Tour pros were concerned, Kelley’s swing elixir may as well have been Jonestown Kool-Aid.
Yet O’Grady never lost the faith. He had grown up with the Machine, reading and rereading it (along with Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet) with a battery-powered lamp as a homeless teenager living in a storage bin in Los Angeles. It now became the cornerstone of his single-minded search for the ideal swing.
When Bennett and Plummer arrived in Palm Springs to work with O’Grady, they too embraced its principles. They soon became “Macolytes,” giving up playing for teaching and working alongside their mentor in his invitation-only “swing symposia.” Eventually, however, they were excommunicated from the flock. Bennett’s transgression, he said, was a week of poor caddying for O’Grady at one of his boss’s rare Tour appearances, at the 1997 CVS Charity Classic. In Plummer’s case it was disobeying O’Grady’s edict not to work with pros like Elkington. One after the other, the two moved back east and took club pro jobs.
Over the years, they kept in touch with each other, and with Elkington. When the 1998 PGA Championship winner invited Plummer out to work with him, they realized they had a foothold on Tour. By the end of 2005 they had also hooked up with Armour; Dean Wilson, the Hawaiian-born grinder who was Weir’s college teammate at BYU; and New Zealander Grant Waite, whose claim to fame was his second-place finish at the 2000 Canadian Open, where he was beaten by Tiger Woods’ famous 6-iron out of a fairway bunker over a lake to a tucked pin on the par-five 18th hole, perhaps the best shot Woods has ever hit.
Bennett and Plummer’s teaching drew heavily, but not exclusively, from The Golfing Machine. “For us, the basic principles are absolute,” Bennett explained. “But when it comes to actually playing the game, some of it is just brutally poor.”
They also adopted some of O’Grady’s teachings. Their humility, relaxed demeanors and teaching styles, however, were worlds away from O’Grady’s. “Mac demanded a lot—he had you standing out on that range ten hours a day,” said Elkington, whose history with O’Grady dated back to the ‘eighties. “But Mike and Andy can fix most guys in two swings.”
So these guys are basically MORAD/TGMers.
Here's John Dunnigan's you tube video "In Defense of Stack and Tilt"
I'll let you guys be the judges, I personally think it's a valid way to play golf.
Hit em Straight.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Gorillas in the mist
Do you ever feel like Sigourney Weaver out on the Golf Course? I know I do. You're probably going to ask yourself, WTF is this guy talking about? Well we all know the guy, he's the one who on par 3 hits a 7 iron just because you hit a 6 iron, the guy who might out drive you on a hole, make a comment such as,"You create a subdivision between my ball and yours" yet when the scores on the hole are posted you either beat him or tie him. (I'm currently having some serious Driver issues, which I'll bring up on another post).
John Grund says it best,(paraphrase) "A good player can hit a club various different distances depending on the circumstances and what they are trying to accomplish." So trying to club yourself based on your playing partner is pretty asinine in my opinion.
Here's a Ben Hogan tale which I find amusing.
Hogan was the game's ultimate shotmaker. Name the shot and the trajectory, and Hogan could hit it. He had a great short game, which helped make up for ordinary putting that, in his later years, became atrocious. One apocryphal story goes like this. Hogan hit an iron shot onto a par-3 green, and his playing companion asked him what club he'd hit. Hogan gave the man an icy stare, took another club and another ball from his caddie, and hit it on the green. Then he did it again. And again until he'd used every iron in his bag to deposit a ball on the green. "Don't ever ask me that again!" Hogan barked. for the full article you can go here.
Golf is about shooting the lowest scores, knowing your limitations and playing within them. An inexperienced player trying to play tournament golf and becoming mesmerized by tour level looking swings and tour level distances, is 5 or 6 strokes down before he even tees it up. I have the distinct benefit of having learned to play golf in the inner City, I learned to score and got hustled by some oldtimers who never had the benefit of professional golf instruction. Most of these guys have the funkiest homemade swings you can ever imagine. My home course is Pelham/Split Rock in the Bronx, we used to have some real characters up there. You'd have guys who could hit the ball longer than any tour pro and you'd ask yourself why this person isn't on tour. Then you have the guys who could get up and down from anywhere. Some of these guys played crosshanded, some set up closed and came over the top, some played big hooks and others sliced it. In the 80's and early 90's there was little to no irrigation due to the city reservoir levels being low, so most of the city courses were baked and a hard pan situation arose, and guess what?
Welcome to hard pan golf, where low line drives prevail and everything becomes a putt or a chip. So instead of hitting high towering drives and iron shots, you'd hit punch shots and played the contour of the fairway all the way up to green. It ain't pretty, but it was all we had and we made the most of it. In the late 90's we got an influx of caddies from the prestigious Westchester Clubs (Winged Foot, Westchester Country Club, Metropolis etc.), these guys had game. Most of them honed their skills in the West Indies a lot of them learned to play with homemade equipment. I remember making small talk with this one bloke and him mentioning in passing how he was longer than Tiger, I thought to myself," this guy's full of it". Later that season we had a big money tournament at Winged Foot on Caddie day, we played both courses and each man put $100 in a pool, we had a total of 24 guys. I'm paired with the guy who claimed to be longer than Tiger. We tee off on the 1st hole of the East Course and as I'm walking up to my ball I take a peek at the green and I see a ball sitting on the front fringe and sure enough the guy had driven the first hole. At the end of the day, he went into his pocket and was shut out of the skins. I could go on and on with war stories, but the Bottom Line is the old adage of, "It's not how but how many". Here's a video depicting that very notion.
Seems like I'm off track here, back to the original rant. My irons and woods are scoring tools, nothing more nothing less. Mass marketing tries to instill the thought that distance is everything, the hottest balls, hottest face etc. Don't get me wrong, of course a 300 yard drive down the middle of the fairway is far more effective than 250 yards down the middle. But you still have to get it in the hole. Nick Faldo when playing his best averaged only about 240-250 yds off the tee. Remember Nick Faldo is 6'3" tall and was an athletic specimen in his prime. In fact he was once tested by the British Olympic committee. Here's an article from the Guardian which details their findings.
Golf: Faldo proves fitness
Tuesday, 23 November 1993
ALWAYS one to pursue perfection as far as possible, Nick Faldo pushed himself through a series of tests designed by the British Olympic Association's medical experts yesterday to establish his overall fitness.
The world's No 1 golfer underwent body-fat, endurance, flexibility, strength and concentration tests at the BOA's medical centre in Harrow, doing best in strength ('legs as strong as a downhill skier in short bursts') and concentration ('similar to elite Olympic shooters from the former East Germany').
Faldo, who leads the world rankings released yesterday, will work on a specially designed upper-body programme before being tested again in three months' time.
If I recall correctly when tested for upper body strength Faldo displayed the arm and torso strength of an Olympic Rower. So why would a man of such strength and athletic ability settle for such meager driving distances? One word CONTROL, Faldo was a shot maker in the Ben Hogan mold. He could care less what his playing partners hit into a green, he knew what would get him where he needed to be (ie which quadrant of the green). He also played a persimmon driver deep into the era of metal woods, because he felt that with that club he had control over trajectory and workability. I recall Faldo always over clubbing and hitting a variety of soft fades that would stop immediately or soft shots with no spin which would release upon landing etc. It was poetry in motion, how he would methodically pick apart Golf Courses during Major Championships.
Here's Nick Faldo hitting low running 3 woods and 7 irons 110 yds.
So the next time you're in the jungle surrounded by Silver Backs, remember what it really takes to play quality golf and just ignore them and "Play Your Game"
Rant over
Hit em Straight
John Grund says it best,(paraphrase) "A good player can hit a club various different distances depending on the circumstances and what they are trying to accomplish." So trying to club yourself based on your playing partner is pretty asinine in my opinion.
Here's a Ben Hogan tale which I find amusing.
Hogan was the game's ultimate shotmaker. Name the shot and the trajectory, and Hogan could hit it. He had a great short game, which helped make up for ordinary putting that, in his later years, became atrocious. One apocryphal story goes like this. Hogan hit an iron shot onto a par-3 green, and his playing companion asked him what club he'd hit. Hogan gave the man an icy stare, took another club and another ball from his caddie, and hit it on the green. Then he did it again. And again until he'd used every iron in his bag to deposit a ball on the green. "Don't ever ask me that again!" Hogan barked. for the full article you can go here.
Golf is about shooting the lowest scores, knowing your limitations and playing within them. An inexperienced player trying to play tournament golf and becoming mesmerized by tour level looking swings and tour level distances, is 5 or 6 strokes down before he even tees it up. I have the distinct benefit of having learned to play golf in the inner City, I learned to score and got hustled by some oldtimers who never had the benefit of professional golf instruction. Most of these guys have the funkiest homemade swings you can ever imagine. My home course is Pelham/Split Rock in the Bronx, we used to have some real characters up there. You'd have guys who could hit the ball longer than any tour pro and you'd ask yourself why this person isn't on tour. Then you have the guys who could get up and down from anywhere. Some of these guys played crosshanded, some set up closed and came over the top, some played big hooks and others sliced it. In the 80's and early 90's there was little to no irrigation due to the city reservoir levels being low, so most of the city courses were baked and a hard pan situation arose, and guess what?
Welcome to hard pan golf, where low line drives prevail and everything becomes a putt or a chip. So instead of hitting high towering drives and iron shots, you'd hit punch shots and played the contour of the fairway all the way up to green. It ain't pretty, but it was all we had and we made the most of it. In the late 90's we got an influx of caddies from the prestigious Westchester Clubs (Winged Foot, Westchester Country Club, Metropolis etc.), these guys had game. Most of them honed their skills in the West Indies a lot of them learned to play with homemade equipment. I remember making small talk with this one bloke and him mentioning in passing how he was longer than Tiger, I thought to myself," this guy's full of it". Later that season we had a big money tournament at Winged Foot on Caddie day, we played both courses and each man put $100 in a pool, we had a total of 24 guys. I'm paired with the guy who claimed to be longer than Tiger. We tee off on the 1st hole of the East Course and as I'm walking up to my ball I take a peek at the green and I see a ball sitting on the front fringe and sure enough the guy had driven the first hole. At the end of the day, he went into his pocket and was shut out of the skins. I could go on and on with war stories, but the Bottom Line is the old adage of, "It's not how but how many". Here's a video depicting that very notion.
Seems like I'm off track here, back to the original rant. My irons and woods are scoring tools, nothing more nothing less. Mass marketing tries to instill the thought that distance is everything, the hottest balls, hottest face etc. Don't get me wrong, of course a 300 yard drive down the middle of the fairway is far more effective than 250 yards down the middle. But you still have to get it in the hole. Nick Faldo when playing his best averaged only about 240-250 yds off the tee. Remember Nick Faldo is 6'3" tall and was an athletic specimen in his prime. In fact he was once tested by the British Olympic committee. Here's an article from the Guardian which details their findings.
Golf: Faldo proves fitness
Tuesday, 23 November 1993
ALWAYS one to pursue perfection as far as possible, Nick Faldo pushed himself through a series of tests designed by the British Olympic Association's medical experts yesterday to establish his overall fitness.
The world's No 1 golfer underwent body-fat, endurance, flexibility, strength and concentration tests at the BOA's medical centre in Harrow, doing best in strength ('legs as strong as a downhill skier in short bursts') and concentration ('similar to elite Olympic shooters from the former East Germany').
Faldo, who leads the world rankings released yesterday, will work on a specially designed upper-body programme before being tested again in three months' time.
If I recall correctly when tested for upper body strength Faldo displayed the arm and torso strength of an Olympic Rower. So why would a man of such strength and athletic ability settle for such meager driving distances? One word CONTROL, Faldo was a shot maker in the Ben Hogan mold. He could care less what his playing partners hit into a green, he knew what would get him where he needed to be (ie which quadrant of the green). He also played a persimmon driver deep into the era of metal woods, because he felt that with that club he had control over trajectory and workability. I recall Faldo always over clubbing and hitting a variety of soft fades that would stop immediately or soft shots with no spin which would release upon landing etc. It was poetry in motion, how he would methodically pick apart Golf Courses during Major Championships.
Here's Nick Faldo hitting low running 3 woods and 7 irons 110 yds.
So the next time you're in the jungle surrounded by Silver Backs, remember what it really takes to play quality golf and just ignore them and "Play Your Game"
Rant over
Hit em Straight
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Trajectory
“The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.”
Ben Hogan
I had a discussion today on the range regarding the length of my iron shots and their trajectory. I explained to the individual how I had spent countless hours and perhaps thousands of range balls, with the specific goal of trying to lower my ball fight. I feel the ideal trajectory would be low for the short irons and wedges, medium for the mid irons and higher for the long irons. I find that when I'm playing good golf (which is not too often these days), I'm able to dial the right distances and my misses are usually near pin high. In Tom Kite's book, "How to Play consistent Golf" he points out that the amateur's shot dispersion is usually long or short by substantial amounts, whereas a Pro's misses are usually off line and their distances are usually +/- 1/2 club. My consistency improved substantially when I realized I didn't have to try to "juice" an 8 iron 160 yards on a calm day just to say I could do it and then add a club (7 iron) and try the same thing into a head wind, only to watch the ball balloon and come right back at me. Of course, we realize that by swinging that hard we are increasing the backspin on the ball, but we do it anyway. These days I rarely try to hit an 8 over 145 yards. By swinging within myself I'm now better able to dial my distances and play within the day to day elements (i.e. wind, altitude, lie etc.). I found that when I work on maintaining a light grip pressure and soft arms, I can rely on my body rotation and my center's work to control the speed of my swing. I spend quite a bit of time working on a drill taught to me by Gregg Mchatton which involves just the type of action I previously described, as I accelerate my rotation I increase the distance the ball travels while still maintaining the piercing trajectory I had with the slower swing speed.
Here's a video of me performing this drill. By posting this I can look at my faults and realize where I need work. I can see where I'm still starting a little early from the top, but I'm working on fixing that, also I've exaggerated the lagging takeaway and the forward shaft lean, I always do that when I'm doing drills.
Here's an article by "The Wedge Guy" which I believe addresses this topic perhaps a lot more competently than I do.
Trajectory Is The Key To Shotmaking
Ben Hogan
Being raised in the Ben Hogan country of South Texas, and having been the Marketing Director at Hogan in the mid-1990's, I am a strong disciple of Mr. Hogan's teachings.
One of his proclaimed beliefs about the golf swing was that the key to shotmaking was controlling the trajectory of your shots, particularly with your irons. If you didn't know the flight path of the ball, Mr. Hogan reasoned, then you had no idea how far it was going to go.
Tiger Woods is one of the masters in this area now. With his re-tooled swing, he knows exactly how the ball is going to leave the club almost all the time.
There was a TV commercial where he was hitting balls through windows on different floors of an office building - and he was really doing it !!! That's trajectory control !
I also read a quote from one of the Champions Tour players a few months ago - wish I'd saved it - where in response to a question about hitting good iron shots, he replied, " Hit your short irons and wedges low, everything else high. "
A simplification for sure, but if you watch the Tour players, you rarely see them hitting these towering short irons and wedges. Their shots take off like a bullet on a very controlled trajectory - not too high, not too low.
The amateurs I watch, however, tend to hit their short irons and wedges into the stratosphere, where the wind can do anything to the ball and where they have little distance control.
One key to hitting your scoring clubs on a more controllable trajectory is to take my earlier advice and hit them "softer", taking 10-15 yards off what you think is a "full" 8-iron or pitching wedge. Try that for a while and see if your shotmaking and distance control doesn't get better.
One of the best tips for hitting those more piercing trajectories is to lighten up your grip and relax your arms - a lot !
Feel the rotation of your body core lead everything through impact, so that the hands are ahead of the clubhead as you go through the ball. Try this on very short half swing pitches on the range - very relaxed arms and grip, with a smooth move through the ball - NOT AT IT !
Feel the clubhead trailing the grip, hands, arms and body core. As you get comfortable with this nice piercing trajectory, gradually lengthen the swing and speed up the body core rotation with successive groups of shots, and watch the ball fly further, but still with the same piercing trajectory.
When you get to a point where it starts flying higher and higher, back off. You've gone beyond a "full" swing with a short iron or wedge.
If you know how to control your trajectory, your shotmaking with the scoring clubs will become awesome.
Rant Over!
Hit em Straight.
Ben Hogan
I had a discussion today on the range regarding the length of my iron shots and their trajectory. I explained to the individual how I had spent countless hours and perhaps thousands of range balls, with the specific goal of trying to lower my ball fight. I feel the ideal trajectory would be low for the short irons and wedges, medium for the mid irons and higher for the long irons. I find that when I'm playing good golf (which is not too often these days), I'm able to dial the right distances and my misses are usually near pin high. In Tom Kite's book, "How to Play consistent Golf" he points out that the amateur's shot dispersion is usually long or short by substantial amounts, whereas a Pro's misses are usually off line and their distances are usually +/- 1/2 club. My consistency improved substantially when I realized I didn't have to try to "juice" an 8 iron 160 yards on a calm day just to say I could do it and then add a club (7 iron) and try the same thing into a head wind, only to watch the ball balloon and come right back at me. Of course, we realize that by swinging that hard we are increasing the backspin on the ball, but we do it anyway. These days I rarely try to hit an 8 over 145 yards. By swinging within myself I'm now better able to dial my distances and play within the day to day elements (i.e. wind, altitude, lie etc.). I found that when I work on maintaining a light grip pressure and soft arms, I can rely on my body rotation and my center's work to control the speed of my swing. I spend quite a bit of time working on a drill taught to me by Gregg Mchatton which involves just the type of action I previously described, as I accelerate my rotation I increase the distance the ball travels while still maintaining the piercing trajectory I had with the slower swing speed.
Here's a video of me performing this drill. By posting this I can look at my faults and realize where I need work. I can see where I'm still starting a little early from the top, but I'm working on fixing that, also I've exaggerated the lagging takeaway and the forward shaft lean, I always do that when I'm doing drills.
Here's an article by "The Wedge Guy" which I believe addresses this topic perhaps a lot more competently than I do.
Trajectory Is The Key To Shotmaking
Ben Hogan
Being raised in the Ben Hogan country of South Texas, and having been the Marketing Director at Hogan in the mid-1990's, I am a strong disciple of Mr. Hogan's teachings.
One of his proclaimed beliefs about the golf swing was that the key to shotmaking was controlling the trajectory of your shots, particularly with your irons. If you didn't know the flight path of the ball, Mr. Hogan reasoned, then you had no idea how far it was going to go.
Tiger Woods is one of the masters in this area now. With his re-tooled swing, he knows exactly how the ball is going to leave the club almost all the time.
There was a TV commercial where he was hitting balls through windows on different floors of an office building - and he was really doing it !!! That's trajectory control !
I also read a quote from one of the Champions Tour players a few months ago - wish I'd saved it - where in response to a question about hitting good iron shots, he replied, " Hit your short irons and wedges low, everything else high. "
A simplification for sure, but if you watch the Tour players, you rarely see them hitting these towering short irons and wedges. Their shots take off like a bullet on a very controlled trajectory - not too high, not too low.
The amateurs I watch, however, tend to hit their short irons and wedges into the stratosphere, where the wind can do anything to the ball and where they have little distance control.
One key to hitting your scoring clubs on a more controllable trajectory is to take my earlier advice and hit them "softer", taking 10-15 yards off what you think is a "full" 8-iron or pitching wedge. Try that for a while and see if your shotmaking and distance control doesn't get better.
One of the best tips for hitting those more piercing trajectories is to lighten up your grip and relax your arms - a lot !
Feel the rotation of your body core lead everything through impact, so that the hands are ahead of the clubhead as you go through the ball. Try this on very short half swing pitches on the range - very relaxed arms and grip, with a smooth move through the ball - NOT AT IT !
Feel the clubhead trailing the grip, hands, arms and body core. As you get comfortable with this nice piercing trajectory, gradually lengthen the swing and speed up the body core rotation with successive groups of shots, and watch the ball fly further, but still with the same piercing trajectory.
When you get to a point where it starts flying higher and higher, back off. You've gone beyond a "full" swing with a short iron or wedge.
If you know how to control your trajectory, your shotmaking with the scoring clubs will become awesome.
Rant Over!
Hit em Straight.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Grips
While on the range this evening the thought occurred to me that most average golfers who adopt Ben Hogan type grips would develop a compensating flip move and over the long haul become a hooker of the ball. I believe most average golfers would initially struggle to square the clubface and eventually resort to an intentional flip move. Hogan was unique in his approach to golf in that he practically invented practice, the average golfer doesn't hit enough balls to develop the educated hands to make this grip functional. My observation is that by having the "V" of the right hand pointing at your center or left of center you are promoting a "high" right shoulder and an over plane downswing or a severe re-routing during the transition and a compensating flip. For those that aren't familiar with Hogan's story (and I'm sure most people already know it) here is an excerpt from "The Secret" by Martin Davis.
For much of the early part of Ben's career he fought a terrible hook - a low, hard right-to-left movement of the ball that would come into the green running and hot. As such, it was very difficult to control and worse to judge from day to day.
By 1946 Ben had considered this a desperate crisis. If he was going to make it, he had to figure a way out of hooking. As he described it, "I was having trouble getting the ball in the air. I had a low, ducking, agonizing hook, the kind you can hang your coat on. When it caught rough, it was the terror of field mice."
He tried all of the standard nostrums - opening his stance, using more left arm, cutting the ball and altering his grip. They all worked to relieve his hook, but he subsequently lost distance, especially with the driver. And to Hogan, this was clearly not acceptable. He felt there just had to be a better solution.
Ben left the Tour, went home to Fort Worth and just sat and thought for three or four days. One night, lying in bed, he thought about the way the old Scottish pros taught their pupils to hit the ball. Their concept, called pronation, involves the rotation of the hands to the right until the left hand is almost pointing straight up at the top of the backswing and the back of the right hand is facing almost straight down. From this position the hands are returned back to the ball by reversing the process so that the club head is square at the point of contact.
Although this was not a cure for his hook (in fact the process may even promote one), Ben felt it was the basis for an experiment to which he added two slight adjustments that he hoped would make his swing hook-proof yet not lose any distance.
The first adjustment was a slight change in the way he held the club in his left hand. He simply moved his left thumb approximately 1/4 inch to the left of its usual spot on the inside of the grip handle so that it was now in a "weaker" position on top of the club.
The second adjustment, involving a twisting or cocking of the left wrist, was the more important one. On the backswing Ben would bend his left wrist backward and inward forming a slight V, thus opening the clubface to its fullest at the top of the backswing and not allowing the club to close quickly enough on the downswing to cause the dreaded hook..
I believe this grip will promote a double cocked position at the top and require a substantial amount of forearm rotation, not that there's anything wrong with that but I think that if you are to maintain your flying wedges your left wrist should cock and your right wrist should only fold or hinge horizontally. This grip would also promote a lack of structure at the top and a flopping of the club. My preference would be a "Strong Single Action Grip" (as described in TGM 10-2-B). Instead of trying to explain it myself I've found a video by Jeff Evans, the inventor of the Pure Ball Striker which I think does an outstanding job of describing this grip.
Here's another video in which demonstrates his device the "Pure Ball Striker" while explaining the sweet-spot plane.
Hit em straight
For much of the early part of Ben's career he fought a terrible hook - a low, hard right-to-left movement of the ball that would come into the green running and hot. As such, it was very difficult to control and worse to judge from day to day.
By 1946 Ben had considered this a desperate crisis. If he was going to make it, he had to figure a way out of hooking. As he described it, "I was having trouble getting the ball in the air. I had a low, ducking, agonizing hook, the kind you can hang your coat on. When it caught rough, it was the terror of field mice."
He tried all of the standard nostrums - opening his stance, using more left arm, cutting the ball and altering his grip. They all worked to relieve his hook, but he subsequently lost distance, especially with the driver. And to Hogan, this was clearly not acceptable. He felt there just had to be a better solution.
Ben left the Tour, went home to Fort Worth and just sat and thought for three or four days. One night, lying in bed, he thought about the way the old Scottish pros taught their pupils to hit the ball. Their concept, called pronation, involves the rotation of the hands to the right until the left hand is almost pointing straight up at the top of the backswing and the back of the right hand is facing almost straight down. From this position the hands are returned back to the ball by reversing the process so that the club head is square at the point of contact.
Although this was not a cure for his hook (in fact the process may even promote one), Ben felt it was the basis for an experiment to which he added two slight adjustments that he hoped would make his swing hook-proof yet not lose any distance.
The first adjustment was a slight change in the way he held the club in his left hand. He simply moved his left thumb approximately 1/4 inch to the left of its usual spot on the inside of the grip handle so that it was now in a "weaker" position on top of the club.
The second adjustment, involving a twisting or cocking of the left wrist, was the more important one. On the backswing Ben would bend his left wrist backward and inward forming a slight V, thus opening the clubface to its fullest at the top of the backswing and not allowing the club to close quickly enough on the downswing to cause the dreaded hook..
I believe this grip will promote a double cocked position at the top and require a substantial amount of forearm rotation, not that there's anything wrong with that but I think that if you are to maintain your flying wedges your left wrist should cock and your right wrist should only fold or hinge horizontally. This grip would also promote a lack of structure at the top and a flopping of the club. My preference would be a "Strong Single Action Grip" (as described in TGM 10-2-B). Instead of trying to explain it myself I've found a video by Jeff Evans, the inventor of the Pure Ball Striker which I think does an outstanding job of describing this grip.
Here's another video in which demonstrates his device the "Pure Ball Striker" while explaining the sweet-spot plane.
Hit em straight
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Back to the Future
Hello Golf Guys and Gals. With all the bruhaha surrounding top 100 instructors and pop instruction (i.e. those who teach right from the latest golf digest craze), we're finding a new wave of retro players, those who apparently ignored the trends and hot tips and pursued sound fundamentals, feel and educated hands. These are the guys and gals who were independent enough to develop their own individual stroke patterns and ignore the herd. Perhaps the most in vogue "swing thing" is lag. This was something that was frowned upon during the late 80's and 90's. The word Lag simply means to trail, so when we swing the club there should be a sense of latency between our hands and the clubhead. This can be achieved in various different ways and different people have different keys, perhaps the predominant key is the aim point concept (TGM 6E), which is prominently featured in Bobby Clampett's The Impact Zone.
While recently watching the U.S. Women' s Amateur Championship, I listened as Steve Melnyk described Jennifer Song's downswing as a "buggy whip" move. The fact of the matter is that Jennifer has a swing which conforms to the laws of physics, a swing that is pivot driven and powered by her center's work. Others have described this move as snapping the kinetic chain by using your pivot. These are the types of swings you'll see mainly on the ladie's and junior circuits. Why? because they don't try to overpower the Golf Club. The hacker's tendency to overaccelerate and hit from the top just isn't there.
Jennifer Song
Anyway before I get off track here are a few swings of up and coming players with the "Retro Look"
First we have the Oklahoma State Standout and current Nationwide Tour Player Ricky Fowler. Note how he lags the club on the takeaway and downswing. He maintains a flat right wrist on the take-away and a flat left wrist at impact.
Here"s Matt Kennernecht a Freshman at Stanford University. Note the float loading.
Here's Peter Ellebye . Now that's what I call Lag.
Last But not Least our current U.S. Open Champion Lucas Glover, another float loader. Who by the way is 3rd in total driving this week (down from 2nd last week)
We even have Jim McClean chiming in with his new discovery The V Gap . I hope Jim isn't really serious about this. I have to wonder what might have been if players like Bobby Clampett and Sam Randolph had stuck with what they had and ridden out their slumps, instead of falling into the abyss of Pop Instruction.
Anyway my ramble is off. As soon as I figure out how to podcast I will be interviewing a couple of people of note. Until then yall will have to wait.
Hit em straight
While recently watching the U.S. Women' s Amateur Championship, I listened as Steve Melnyk described Jennifer Song's downswing as a "buggy whip" move. The fact of the matter is that Jennifer has a swing which conforms to the laws of physics, a swing that is pivot driven and powered by her center's work. Others have described this move as snapping the kinetic chain by using your pivot. These are the types of swings you'll see mainly on the ladie's and junior circuits. Why? because they don't try to overpower the Golf Club. The hacker's tendency to overaccelerate and hit from the top just isn't there.
Anyway before I get off track here are a few swings of up and coming players with the "Retro Look"
First we have the Oklahoma State Standout and current Nationwide Tour Player Ricky Fowler. Note how he lags the club on the takeaway and downswing. He maintains a flat right wrist on the take-away and a flat left wrist at impact.
Here"s Matt Kennernecht a Freshman at Stanford University. Note the float loading.
Here's Peter Ellebye . Now that's what I call Lag.
Last But not Least our current U.S. Open Champion Lucas Glover, another float loader. Who by the way is 3rd in total driving this week (down from 2nd last week)
We even have Jim McClean chiming in with his new discovery The V Gap . I hope Jim isn't really serious about this. I have to wonder what might have been if players like Bobby Clampett and Sam Randolph had stuck with what they had and ridden out their slumps, instead of falling into the abyss of Pop Instruction.
Anyway my ramble is off. As soon as I figure out how to podcast I will be interviewing a couple of people of note. Until then yall will have to wait.
Hit em straight
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