After spending a futile hour or more trying to capture my analog video on my multimedia machine, I gave up and decided to write a post without any video. It's too bad because viewers could compare this video with earlier ones and see how the swing is coming along. The good news is that the swing is definitely worth watching!
It's been quite a while since I've posted, mainly because my swing has been changing so much. I knew that any post would be outdated by the next one, and I didn't have time to do that many posts. Now, however, I have some time to describe what's happened to my swing since last spring.
Over the summer, I took a series of seven lessons with Max Galloway at Mohansic Golf Course in Yorktown, NY, and Max was great. Every lesson, where I thought I had made progress that would impress anybody, Max would say, after I made one swing, something like, "You hit the mat first." And that was late in the season. Usually, he would target my weight shift and my left hip. Whatever he said, it was always something very basic and fundamental. And his tip always led me to discover other, more advanced, understandings.
Partly because I felt I was dealing with fundamental swing mechanics, but also because I knew that my swing needed so much work, I stopped playing on the course and just focused on lessons and practice. And every practice involved both the range and the short game, where I would go to the putting green and practice putting and chipping, and sometimes, pitching. It was a good combination, one that I think produced good progress over the whole summer.
By the fall, and even past Thanksgiving, I felt excited at a completely new understanding of some basics that I thought I had learned a long time ago. One was using the fingers of the left hand to hold the club. It turns out that I understood that only partially. I was still pressing my fingers against the left hand palm and losing much of the flexibility and whip that a good swing produces. I also revisited the idea of the right hand, at the top of the swing, facing the sky, and on the downswing, inverting and pushing the club through. I started appreciating the one arm swing drills again, both left arm and right.
And as I began to get the feel of holding the release until late into the downswing, I started to feel, in a completely new way, how the left wrist supinates and pronates, as Hogan describes in his book. And then I started to understand how the left arm coordinates with the right to produce maximum power. At the range, when I got everything right, I felt as though I was hitting the ball as far as many pros do. I can remember hitting a nine iron about 150-155, and the lower irons correspondingly farther. And with a good degree of accuracy. The driver needs work, but I felt that it could wait.
I especially liked swing the PW. With its extra clubhead weight, I could really feel the whole arc of the swing. And that was very gratifying. I could hit really high shots, right at my target, at about the right distance, and with minimal effort.
So my plan is to continue to work mainly with the PW in order to get all the essentials in place. Of course, I always like to have fun and hit the other clubs. I'll continue to do that. And when I feel as though I'm starting to get the feel of that late release, then I think I can start to work seriously with the driver. It's the same swing, but because a player expects distance as a reward, the mechanics change. As my first pro told me, with the driver, you have "to be more patient." Let it go a little bit longer, because of the length of the shaft.
I couldn't do any swinging today because of a blizzard we just had, but I'll update soon as I get to the range and see the results of holding the release and whipping the club through as the left shoulder pulls up. I'm definitely on the right track. I'm also thinking of signing up for a series of lessons over the winter at a nearby range in Elmsford. That way, I'll be able to keep my learning going and also get the advice of a new professional.
First, a little snow has to melt around here.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Catching Up on Progress
In the five months since my last post, I've taken a series of lessons from a local pro, which have led to significant improvements in my understanding of the swing. Note that I say, "Understanding," and not, "Execution." There's a big difference. While now i think I understand what should happen in a good golf swing, I can't actually do it very often. Now and then, I feel as though I can crack the ball, but generally, something is missing. That's OK. I'm four years into learning the golf swing, and, if another pro I've consulted is correct, I have have another six years to go. I'm in no rush.
My first goal, set four years ago, was to develop a good golf swing. It was not to break 90 or to break 80 or to shoot any particular score or attain any specific handicap. By now, I would say that I've achieved my goal. I have a decent golf swing, certainly better than most of the people I see out on my local course, Mohansic. I've achieved my goal. Now I'm hooked. And thanks to the teaching of my pro, Max (at Mohansic), I'm on my way to trying to learn a really good golf swing.
I've stopped playing rounds. I probably played around a half dozen rounds this season, and I didn't record a real score in a single one. Sometimes, I hit balls out of bounds or into lies where I picked up and just took a stroke, and these situations couldn't give me a real score at the end. Another time, when I thought I was playing well, my partners hustled me along to get ahead of the group in front of us, and that made my score unofficial. That was too bad because I played the last five holes at about one or two over par, and my playing partners, whom I joined on the tenth hole, asked me, twice, if I were a teaching pro. I did play well.
But all the other rounds amounted to walking around the course hitting balls. I did get to see two good players, who probably shoot in the 80s, and that was a good experience. I could see that they had a knowledge of the course and a certainty about their swings. The worst they could do was bogey. When they put together good swings, they were shooting par or getting a birdie now and then. It was quite impressive. And neither player had a swing I would want to emulate. I could tell that they had played enough so that they knew what to expect from their swings. Each had an efficient, powerful swing--made without much effort--and both were very accurate. Their short games, too, were skillful. They were good to watch.
So I decided that playing rounds wasn't what I needed. Instead, I devoted myself to practice: the full swing, chipping, and putting. I didn't bother with sand or pitching. Maybe next season.
Each time I had a lesson with Max, he would give me a basic drill, and I would work on that for two or three or four weeks before I felt ready to take the next lesson. In this way, I went from June and into November taking lessons and practicing.
At this point, after my last lesson the other day, I feel as though I understand what has to happen during the full swing. Now my work over the winter is going to be trying to incorporate my mental images of the swing into my physical performance. More than ever before, I appreciate how difficult a good swing is. In my penultimate lesson, I hit a nine-iron for Max and thought I hit it well. He said, "You hit the mat first."
That was a tremendous revelation. Whereas I was used to judging my swings by ball flight, not I started to add the sound of the clubhead hitting the ball first. It's an adjustment I'm still working on.
I plan to pick up my lessons with Max in the spring. I've realized that the timetable for learning a good swing is open-ended. I can't set a target date. Instead, it's better if I continue to think about practice and improvement. My lessons with Max have also showed me that I can't learn the swing without a good coach.
Winter is coming, I've got my drills, and I'll continue to practice on the range. At the same time, I'll work on chipping and pitching in the backyard. Putting will be more difficult, but maybe there's some way I can work on it in the living room. At the end of the 2010 season, I'm philosophical. I'm doing as much as I can. The golf swing will improve slowly. I need help and I need practice. That's the best I can do. I'll see how it goes during the next five months. It just snowed or sleeted up here outside New York City, and it's only November 8th. It could presage a long winter.
My first goal, set four years ago, was to develop a good golf swing. It was not to break 90 or to break 80 or to shoot any particular score or attain any specific handicap. By now, I would say that I've achieved my goal. I have a decent golf swing, certainly better than most of the people I see out on my local course, Mohansic. I've achieved my goal. Now I'm hooked. And thanks to the teaching of my pro, Max (at Mohansic), I'm on my way to trying to learn a really good golf swing.
I've stopped playing rounds. I probably played around a half dozen rounds this season, and I didn't record a real score in a single one. Sometimes, I hit balls out of bounds or into lies where I picked up and just took a stroke, and these situations couldn't give me a real score at the end. Another time, when I thought I was playing well, my partners hustled me along to get ahead of the group in front of us, and that made my score unofficial. That was too bad because I played the last five holes at about one or two over par, and my playing partners, whom I joined on the tenth hole, asked me, twice, if I were a teaching pro. I did play well.
But all the other rounds amounted to walking around the course hitting balls. I did get to see two good players, who probably shoot in the 80s, and that was a good experience. I could see that they had a knowledge of the course and a certainty about their swings. The worst they could do was bogey. When they put together good swings, they were shooting par or getting a birdie now and then. It was quite impressive. And neither player had a swing I would want to emulate. I could tell that they had played enough so that they knew what to expect from their swings. Each had an efficient, powerful swing--made without much effort--and both were very accurate. Their short games, too, were skillful. They were good to watch.
So I decided that playing rounds wasn't what I needed. Instead, I devoted myself to practice: the full swing, chipping, and putting. I didn't bother with sand or pitching. Maybe next season.
Each time I had a lesson with Max, he would give me a basic drill, and I would work on that for two or three or four weeks before I felt ready to take the next lesson. In this way, I went from June and into November taking lessons and practicing.
At this point, after my last lesson the other day, I feel as though I understand what has to happen during the full swing. Now my work over the winter is going to be trying to incorporate my mental images of the swing into my physical performance. More than ever before, I appreciate how difficult a good swing is. In my penultimate lesson, I hit a nine-iron for Max and thought I hit it well. He said, "You hit the mat first."
That was a tremendous revelation. Whereas I was used to judging my swings by ball flight, not I started to add the sound of the clubhead hitting the ball first. It's an adjustment I'm still working on.
I plan to pick up my lessons with Max in the spring. I've realized that the timetable for learning a good swing is open-ended. I can't set a target date. Instead, it's better if I continue to think about practice and improvement. My lessons with Max have also showed me that I can't learn the swing without a good coach.
Winter is coming, I've got my drills, and I'll continue to practice on the range. At the same time, I'll work on chipping and pitching in the backyard. Putting will be more difficult, but maybe there's some way I can work on it in the living room. At the end of the 2010 season, I'm philosophical. I'm doing as much as I can. The golf swing will improve slowly. I need help and I need practice. That's the best I can do. I'll see how it goes during the next five months. It just snowed or sleeted up here outside New York City, and it's only November 8th. It could presage a long winter.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
My Local Course: Back Nine
The tenth doglegs left slightly across a flat field, seemingly easy to get to. A surprise is in store when you arrive at the green, however. There's a relatively flat shelf on the left, but on the right, the whole green tilts toward the bunker on the right. If you try to go for this green, you have to be as accurate as only a professional can be. Therefore, I think that laying up is the right move. From there, you can chip or pitch up towards the pin and leave yourself an uphill putt, rather that an impossible downhill situation. A bogey here is a good score, for me.
Eleven is another tough hole to get to in two. Even with a good drive, which will probably end up in the rough, since the fairway is relatively narrow, you still are looking at a five-iron or maybe even a four hybrid to get to the green. Since it is protected on both sides by bunkers, and again slopes toward the fairway, you might be well off by approaching short and chipping on. I'm sure you're beginning to see a pattern here. Once on or near the green, you're in pretty good shape. A bogey here is another decent score.
The next hole is fun. You can hit a drive, and if you hit it well, it'll go over a slight rise in the fairway and roll down quite a bit. A drive here of 275-300 yards is quite possible.
The next shot is where the problems begin. After a long drive, you're now standing over a shot on a downhill and, probably, sidehill lie. Only a really good golfer can get this short pitching iron or sand wedge onto the green with any accuracy at all. Most of us will probably skull the ball or flub it entirely, wasting a prefectly good tee shot. What seemed to be an easy par at first now turns out to be a complete disappointment and a bogey at best.
Adding insult to injury, the next par three demands a perfect tee shot. A five-iron is pretty much the right club for me, but you have to hit it very well or you'll end up in trouble in the greenside bunkers or way down the slope on the right. Take a par, if you can get it, and move on.
Fourteen is fun, starting from an elevated tee with plenty of room to hit to on this dogleg right. If I'm set up with a good drive and a decent lie, I can try for the green. If not, the smart play is to hit something in front of the green, pitch or chip on, and one- or two-putt for par or bogey.
Fifteen is all uphill, with a rolling, lumpy fairway with few flat spots to hit to. Lately, I've been able to hit the green in two with a seven-iron second shot, and even birdied it the last time I played it with a nice, curling fifteen foot putt. It's a treacherous green, however, steeply slanted toward the fairway, with no flat areas. If you're not beneath the hole, you're in deep trouble. If you miss your first putt, you're almost certainly looking at a three-putt, at the very least.
Sixteen is a par hole, a bit of a respite from the rigors of this course. You can reach the large green in two, and as long as you're below the hole, you should be able to get your four.
Seventeen is also a friendly layout, starting with a straight tee shot and a good second shot to a large green. It's slanted toward the fairway, but not too bad. Most of the time, you can expect a two-putt here.
The finishing hole is a 180-something par three, slightly uphill, with bunkers on both sides. Once more, stay below the hole for a good chance at par. I've been hitting a 4-hybrid here the last few times, with good results, but now that my swing has improved a bit more in the last couple of weeks, I could probably hit a five-iron, if the pin placement is in the front.
Last time I played the back nine in a full round, I shot 41, with four pars and a birdie. I should have had another par on thirteen, the elevated par three, if it weren't for a three-putt. So if I can put together a front nine like this, I'll be very close to my goal this season of breaking 80.
Eleven is another tough hole to get to in two. Even with a good drive, which will probably end up in the rough, since the fairway is relatively narrow, you still are looking at a five-iron or maybe even a four hybrid to get to the green. Since it is protected on both sides by bunkers, and again slopes toward the fairway, you might be well off by approaching short and chipping on. I'm sure you're beginning to see a pattern here. Once on or near the green, you're in pretty good shape. A bogey here is another decent score.
The next hole is fun. You can hit a drive, and if you hit it well, it'll go over a slight rise in the fairway and roll down quite a bit. A drive here of 275-300 yards is quite possible.
The next shot is where the problems begin. After a long drive, you're now standing over a shot on a downhill and, probably, sidehill lie. Only a really good golfer can get this short pitching iron or sand wedge onto the green with any accuracy at all. Most of us will probably skull the ball or flub it entirely, wasting a prefectly good tee shot. What seemed to be an easy par at first now turns out to be a complete disappointment and a bogey at best.
Adding insult to injury, the next par three demands a perfect tee shot. A five-iron is pretty much the right club for me, but you have to hit it very well or you'll end up in trouble in the greenside bunkers or way down the slope on the right. Take a par, if you can get it, and move on.
Fourteen is fun, starting from an elevated tee with plenty of room to hit to on this dogleg right. If I'm set up with a good drive and a decent lie, I can try for the green. If not, the smart play is to hit something in front of the green, pitch or chip on, and one- or two-putt for par or bogey.
Fifteen is all uphill, with a rolling, lumpy fairway with few flat spots to hit to. Lately, I've been able to hit the green in two with a seven-iron second shot, and even birdied it the last time I played it with a nice, curling fifteen foot putt. It's a treacherous green, however, steeply slanted toward the fairway, with no flat areas. If you're not beneath the hole, you're in deep trouble. If you miss your first putt, you're almost certainly looking at a three-putt, at the very least.
Sixteen is a par hole, a bit of a respite from the rigors of this course. You can reach the large green in two, and as long as you're below the hole, you should be able to get your four.
Seventeen is also a friendly layout, starting with a straight tee shot and a good second shot to a large green. It's slanted toward the fairway, but not too bad. Most of the time, you can expect a two-putt here.
The finishing hole is a 180-something par three, slightly uphill, with bunkers on both sides. Once more, stay below the hole for a good chance at par. I've been hitting a 4-hybrid here the last few times, with good results, but now that my swing has improved a bit more in the last couple of weeks, I could probably hit a five-iron, if the pin placement is in the front.
Last time I played the back nine in a full round, I shot 41, with four pars and a birdie. I should have had another par on thirteen, the elevated par three, if it weren't for a three-putt. So if I can put together a front nine like this, I'll be very close to my goal this season of breaking 80.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
My Local Course: Front Nine
As a beginner, I've identified my goals and have chosen ways of meeting them. Basically, I want to break 80 on my nearby public course. In all my previous posts, I've talked at length about developing my swing, but never about where I would apply it. Just today, that impetus arrived.
I subscribe to the Andy Brown email, and I spent some time today with his latest two emails, both about the common mistakes that amateurs, like me, make. The videos were great, and I highly recommend them. Go to the videos or subscribe to Andy.
The first lessons come from John Richardson, a Scot who has written a book called Dream On about learning how to shoot par within a year, after never breaking 100 before. You'll definitely benefit from watching the videos, but they reminded me about the importance of having goals and strategies. I think I've kept both in mind as I've concentrated on building my swing, and I've also thought about how to play the course that I'll probably play most regularly, my local public course, Mohansic, one of Westchester County's public courses. John advocates developing a plan for playing your primary course, something I've been thinking about for about the last six months or so, or ever since I could tell that my swing was becoming effective. This is a good time to lay out the ways I can see myself playing this difficult (in my opinion) public course.
Located in Northern Westchester just off the Taconic Parkway, it features a hilly landscape, trees and woods lining narrow fairways, and some very difficult greens. After playing it, on and off, for a couple of years, as I've been building my swing, I have some clear ideas of the way a novice golfer, like me, can play this course successfully. That means breaking 80. Even though I feel good about my game, I'm not so sure I can really do that on this course.
When I think about strategy for Mohansic, I think that most amateurs, with the amount of experience I have, will usually shoot in the 90s here. You really have to be sharp to do better than that. The main reason for this is the greens. I'd say that all of them pitch toward the fairway, and many are so tough that it's better not to attempt to get on in regulation. You're probably better off hitting a lag and pitching or chipping up to the pin. If you find yourself above the hole, most of the time, you better get ready to three- or four-putt. It's really discouraging. Basically, at least the next few times out, I'm going to try this strategy and see what happens. If my short game is accurate and dependable, I'll have a shot at breaking 90.
A pro from a driving range near me, Brian Lamberti, during some kind of pro-am last fall, shot 18 consecutive pars, the best score of the day by a couple of strokes, and something that seems quite remarkable to me. He's a top-notch golfer, to begin with, finishing high in the Massachusetts Open last summer and winning the New York State Open at Bethpage Black last fall, winning the tournament in awful conditions on the last day (rain and wind) with three consecutive birdies on the final three holes to win by a stroke. A superior golfer by any standards. And it takes a player like Brian to play Mohansic gracefully. The rest of us are constantly in trouble. Here are my thoughts on the best way I can play the course.
The first hole is the easiest on the course, although the green is hidden from the tee box. It's a gentle dogleg left, 340 yards or so (I'm going to use approximate yardages for my description, since I know, from pacing off my shots, that the yardages on the scorecard are not accurate), over a hill and then down a slope toward a green that, while relatively flat, is protected by bunkers on the right and left. If an approach shot is too strong, it'll fly the green, roll down a steep hill, and wind up somewhere near the entrance road to the course, a bad place to be.
So assuming I can hit either a straight drive, or, even better, a little draw, I should get over the hill and walk up to a second shot, probably a pitching wedge, to the protected green. If I'm in the rough, which is probably the case, given the narrow fairway, that makes the shot a little tougher, but, still, I have a PW into the green, which, since it's relatively level, I always decide to shoot for. From my drive position, I hit my second and probably land somewhere on the green. If the shot strays, and I find myself in a bunker, it's no big deal. The green is so relatively flat that I can blast out and still have a putt as my next shot. If I'm short of the green, that's a good place to be. I can chip or pitch on, going uphill slightly, and have a good chance of getting close. With any luck, I should get a par.
On the next hole, the course begins to exercise its personality. I'm faced with a drive uphill, with a tall tree on the right, around which I should try to hit a fade. Naturally, most of my tee shots find the branches of this tree and carom off to the right behind a red maintenance barn, with no option but to pitch out onto the fairway and take the third shot from there.
But let's be optimistic. My ideal shot is to aim right down the center of the fairway that I can see (since there's quite a hill in front of me) and hit a slight fade to the right. Hit correctly, this cut should take me down the fairway which slopes down toward the green. Let's suppose that I can do that. Now I'm looking at a shot of probably 150 yards. Here's where the subtleties of the course come in. It's not simply a 150 yard shot with an eight-iron. I'm probably on a downhill lie and it's probably slanted a little toward the right. Not a gimme, in other words. So now I'm hitting from a downhill, right-tilted lie toward a green that is slanted right, also. Right toward a larger bunker on the right. The whole landscape tilts toward the right.
This is where my general course strategy starts to come into play. To me, the smart play is to hit anything that will get me close to the green, but in front of it, taking the traps, left and right, out of play, and allowing me to chip aggressively toward the pin. Anything else is asking for plenty of trouble. I could find myself in a bunker, or on the green someplace where I couldn't possibly get a long first putt close to the hole. To minimize my difficulty, I think the wisest course is to hit something that will land short of the green, and because it's in longer grass, will stop, without rolling too much. From there, I'd like to be able to chip close to the hole and make the first putt. That would be the dream scenario.
After missing the first putt, I walk away with a bogey toward the third hole, a par three featuring an elevated green protected by two bunkers. If you miss with your tee shot, probably an eight-iron, you're either on the beach or pitching up a steep hillside. If I can hit the green, I'm pretty confident about two-putting for par.
The fourth is a long, long par four, with a long, uphill drive as the first shot. Assuming I hit a decent drive, about 235 or so uphill, I should have a second shot about 200 yards to the green. Like the first hole, this one is protected by bunkers and trouble behind the green. Again, the smart shot is to hit something that will get me short of the green. Then I can chip or pitch on. Are you starting to see a pattern? So, with luck, I get a par or, more likely, a bogey.
Now we come to a very difficult par four, with an uphill drive, followed by a second shot over a vale to an elevated green. Again, we're looking at bogey at best. My tee shot is woefully short, leaving me a three-hybrid second, which lands short of the green, but on the uphill, a good place to be. I hit a good chip and get close to the pin. A two putt, and I have bogey, a good score.
Feeling pretty good, I step onto the teeing ground on the next hole, an uphill par three with bunkers left and right and disastrous results for the golfer who hits over the green. This is probabably an eight-iron for me. I feel it's a seven, but it I hit that, I'm probably above the hole, and you don't want to be there.
So I hit an eight and find myself short. That's a good place. From there, I can chip up and then putt for par. A bogey here is not such a bad thing.
I can get back to par on the next hole, I think, a 370-something hole straightaway. If I can hit a good tee shot, I can get over the first hill on the fairway and with a good roll, find myself just a pitching wedge from the green. It's tricky, though, The green slants toward the right and front. The smart play, I still think, is to play to the front of the green, a shot which will take both right and left bunkers out of play, and then offer a nice chip shot close to the hole. One putt should do it. Of course, we can't one putt, and we take our bogey, feeling that we're even.
By now, we're used to conceding to the course, aren't we? The eighth hole reminds us of our limitations. Not a long hole from the middle tees, it is still an uphill layout and dogleg left, great for players who draw the ball. Still, even if the player hits a good draw, he still has a good pitching wedge up the the elevated green, a treacherous green under the best of circumstances. If you hit above the hole, this is one place where you cannot possibly keep the ball on the green if you miss your first putt. So you have to be below the hole, no matter what. Then, just take your medicine and putt uphill and take two or three putts. That's the best you can hope for.
The ninth hole is a conundrum. I can hit a great tee shot, hit a good second shot, and still have have no good view of the green. Your third shot is an act of faith. Two large bunkers right and left, and a huge fairway bunker just in front of the green, I'm not sure what the best play here is. I have hit the green in three, which means a good two-putt and I've got my par.
I've never broken 50 on this front nine, but with the progress I've made since last year, I should be able to keep my score close to 40 or so. We'll see. In the next post, I'll describe the back nine.
I subscribe to the Andy Brown email, and I spent some time today with his latest two emails, both about the common mistakes that amateurs, like me, make. The videos were great, and I highly recommend them. Go to the videos or subscribe to Andy.
The first lessons come from John Richardson, a Scot who has written a book called Dream On about learning how to shoot par within a year, after never breaking 100 before. You'll definitely benefit from watching the videos, but they reminded me about the importance of having goals and strategies. I think I've kept both in mind as I've concentrated on building my swing, and I've also thought about how to play the course that I'll probably play most regularly, my local public course, Mohansic, one of Westchester County's public courses. John advocates developing a plan for playing your primary course, something I've been thinking about for about the last six months or so, or ever since I could tell that my swing was becoming effective. This is a good time to lay out the ways I can see myself playing this difficult (in my opinion) public course.
Located in Northern Westchester just off the Taconic Parkway, it features a hilly landscape, trees and woods lining narrow fairways, and some very difficult greens. After playing it, on and off, for a couple of years, as I've been building my swing, I have some clear ideas of the way a novice golfer, like me, can play this course successfully. That means breaking 80. Even though I feel good about my game, I'm not so sure I can really do that on this course.
When I think about strategy for Mohansic, I think that most amateurs, with the amount of experience I have, will usually shoot in the 90s here. You really have to be sharp to do better than that. The main reason for this is the greens. I'd say that all of them pitch toward the fairway, and many are so tough that it's better not to attempt to get on in regulation. You're probably better off hitting a lag and pitching or chipping up to the pin. If you find yourself above the hole, most of the time, you better get ready to three- or four-putt. It's really discouraging. Basically, at least the next few times out, I'm going to try this strategy and see what happens. If my short game is accurate and dependable, I'll have a shot at breaking 90.
A pro from a driving range near me, Brian Lamberti, during some kind of pro-am last fall, shot 18 consecutive pars, the best score of the day by a couple of strokes, and something that seems quite remarkable to me. He's a top-notch golfer, to begin with, finishing high in the Massachusetts Open last summer and winning the New York State Open at Bethpage Black last fall, winning the tournament in awful conditions on the last day (rain and wind) with three consecutive birdies on the final three holes to win by a stroke. A superior golfer by any standards. And it takes a player like Brian to play Mohansic gracefully. The rest of us are constantly in trouble. Here are my thoughts on the best way I can play the course.
The first hole is the easiest on the course, although the green is hidden from the tee box. It's a gentle dogleg left, 340 yards or so (I'm going to use approximate yardages for my description, since I know, from pacing off my shots, that the yardages on the scorecard are not accurate), over a hill and then down a slope toward a green that, while relatively flat, is protected by bunkers on the right and left. If an approach shot is too strong, it'll fly the green, roll down a steep hill, and wind up somewhere near the entrance road to the course, a bad place to be.
So assuming I can hit either a straight drive, or, even better, a little draw, I should get over the hill and walk up to a second shot, probably a pitching wedge, to the protected green. If I'm in the rough, which is probably the case, given the narrow fairway, that makes the shot a little tougher, but, still, I have a PW into the green, which, since it's relatively level, I always decide to shoot for. From my drive position, I hit my second and probably land somewhere on the green. If the shot strays, and I find myself in a bunker, it's no big deal. The green is so relatively flat that I can blast out and still have a putt as my next shot. If I'm short of the green, that's a good place to be. I can chip or pitch on, going uphill slightly, and have a good chance of getting close. With any luck, I should get a par.
On the next hole, the course begins to exercise its personality. I'm faced with a drive uphill, with a tall tree on the right, around which I should try to hit a fade. Naturally, most of my tee shots find the branches of this tree and carom off to the right behind a red maintenance barn, with no option but to pitch out onto the fairway and take the third shot from there.
But let's be optimistic. My ideal shot is to aim right down the center of the fairway that I can see (since there's quite a hill in front of me) and hit a slight fade to the right. Hit correctly, this cut should take me down the fairway which slopes down toward the green. Let's suppose that I can do that. Now I'm looking at a shot of probably 150 yards. Here's where the subtleties of the course come in. It's not simply a 150 yard shot with an eight-iron. I'm probably on a downhill lie and it's probably slanted a little toward the right. Not a gimme, in other words. So now I'm hitting from a downhill, right-tilted lie toward a green that is slanted right, also. Right toward a larger bunker on the right. The whole landscape tilts toward the right.
This is where my general course strategy starts to come into play. To me, the smart play is to hit anything that will get me close to the green, but in front of it, taking the traps, left and right, out of play, and allowing me to chip aggressively toward the pin. Anything else is asking for plenty of trouble. I could find myself in a bunker, or on the green someplace where I couldn't possibly get a long first putt close to the hole. To minimize my difficulty, I think the wisest course is to hit something that will land short of the green, and because it's in longer grass, will stop, without rolling too much. From there, I'd like to be able to chip close to the hole and make the first putt. That would be the dream scenario.
After missing the first putt, I walk away with a bogey toward the third hole, a par three featuring an elevated green protected by two bunkers. If you miss with your tee shot, probably an eight-iron, you're either on the beach or pitching up a steep hillside. If I can hit the green, I'm pretty confident about two-putting for par.
The fourth is a long, long par four, with a long, uphill drive as the first shot. Assuming I hit a decent drive, about 235 or so uphill, I should have a second shot about 200 yards to the green. Like the first hole, this one is protected by bunkers and trouble behind the green. Again, the smart shot is to hit something that will get me short of the green. Then I can chip or pitch on. Are you starting to see a pattern? So, with luck, I get a par or, more likely, a bogey.
Now we come to a very difficult par four, with an uphill drive, followed by a second shot over a vale to an elevated green. Again, we're looking at bogey at best. My tee shot is woefully short, leaving me a three-hybrid second, which lands short of the green, but on the uphill, a good place to be. I hit a good chip and get close to the pin. A two putt, and I have bogey, a good score.
Feeling pretty good, I step onto the teeing ground on the next hole, an uphill par three with bunkers left and right and disastrous results for the golfer who hits over the green. This is probabably an eight-iron for me. I feel it's a seven, but it I hit that, I'm probably above the hole, and you don't want to be there.
So I hit an eight and find myself short. That's a good place. From there, I can chip up and then putt for par. A bogey here is not such a bad thing.
I can get back to par on the next hole, I think, a 370-something hole straightaway. If I can hit a good tee shot, I can get over the first hill on the fairway and with a good roll, find myself just a pitching wedge from the green. It's tricky, though, The green slants toward the right and front. The smart play, I still think, is to play to the front of the green, a shot which will take both right and left bunkers out of play, and then offer a nice chip shot close to the hole. One putt should do it. Of course, we can't one putt, and we take our bogey, feeling that we're even.
By now, we're used to conceding to the course, aren't we? The eighth hole reminds us of our limitations. Not a long hole from the middle tees, it is still an uphill layout and dogleg left, great for players who draw the ball. Still, even if the player hits a good draw, he still has a good pitching wedge up the the elevated green, a treacherous green under the best of circumstances. If you hit above the hole, this is one place where you cannot possibly keep the ball on the green if you miss your first putt. So you have to be below the hole, no matter what. Then, just take your medicine and putt uphill and take two or three putts. That's the best you can hope for.
The ninth hole is a conundrum. I can hit a great tee shot, hit a good second shot, and still have have no good view of the green. Your third shot is an act of faith. Two large bunkers right and left, and a huge fairway bunker just in front of the green, I'm not sure what the best play here is. I have hit the green in three, which means a good two-putt and I've got my par.
I've never broken 50 on this front nine, but with the progress I've made since last year, I should be able to keep my score close to 40 or so. We'll see. In the next post, I'll describe the back nine.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Right-Wing Politics and Swing Correction
As I get older, I find that many of my views become more conservative. Aside from a woman's right to choose and the NRA and probably a number of other issues, I sort of get what the Republicans stand for. They have the assets and they want to keep them and retain their status. That's completely understandable. If I were one of them, I'm sure I would feel the same way. Definitely, I'm leaning to the right. The trouble is, so is my golf swing.
Or has been, lately. I've noticed that I'm pushing the ball right, unless I'm very conscious of bringing the butt of the handle to the ball from the inside. When I look back to last fall, I was doing the same thing, pushing to the right, but I didn't really understand why that was happening. Now I think I do. The reason that I'm pushing right is that I'm coming into the ball with the face open, and something that is supposed to happen that will square up the clubface is not happening. At first, I thought it was the clubhead path. But even when I was sure that I was coming from the inside to the ball, I would still tend to push it right.
In situations like this, I go immediately to the research department. YouTube is generally the first place I look for help, but in this case, I finally went to a DVD I have of A. J. Bonar talking about the driver. He's a long-winded teacher, but a good one, and I've had loquacious teachers before who taught me, in unintended teaching outcomes, to be patient and listen. Finally, A. J. talked about turning the toe of the club around as you come into the impact zone. I had watched his video several times before, but I think I just wasn't ready to understand this crucial point. Now I did. It helped me to picture what my own swing must look like coming through impact: an open face, with the arms dragging the clubhead through the ball at the point where the clubhead should be moving at its greatest speed.
The obvious answer was to remember a few things. One of them was where the release beings. So I did some research online and refreshed my memory about that, reminding myself that the release begins at about hip level or where the left arm is about at a 45 degree angle to the level of the ball. Then I remembered how the left arm has to slow down in order to let the clubhead swing through at maximum velocity, thrown by the right hand, creating forces that result in that classic image of the overlapping forearms after impact. Until now, I've been trying to achieve that position consciously and manipulatively, which, I've learned for myself, doesn't work. That started to help.
Then A. J.'s admonition to control the toe of the club added another dimension of understanding. As I practiced that, I could see that it added more power to my driver swing. Still, I was lacking that really powerful "Bam!" at the ball (as Johnny Miller likes to say), and, on top of that, I was still hitting that mat before the ball way too frequently. Something was still missing. Even a neophyte, like me, could see that. Then I discovered what that missing piece was.
In a recent post, titled "Sean of Arc," I talked about how I was trying to let my swing describe an arc. In that post, which was only a few days ago, I thought I was making progress. Now I know that it was just another example of how "hard-won" or "hardly-won" swing improvements can be.
As I experimented with A. J.'s metaphor of turning a screwdriver counterclockwise after impact, I suddenly felt the missing piece of my swing. That was the part after hitting the ball. I've always felt that this was not right, but I never understood why. Now I think I do. After impact, the clubhead has to continue on its arc, but at this point in the swing, the arc is upward. It is not flat and out towards the target, and the right hand does not control its path. No, it's still the left hand that is in charge. As the left hand turns to toe counterclockwise, it also lifts and allows the clubhead to follow a circular arc.
Once I realized this, I suddenly understood how these good players swing through the ball without hitting the mat or hitting mostly tee. They are swinging on a perfect arc, and they have located the bottom of the arc precisely where the ball is waiting. And their perfect arc is what gives them that beautiful follow-through up and around the left shoulder.
Once I started practicing this at the range, I really had to laugh to myself. This was the answer, I thought, as I hit balls right at my target. Of course, now and then, I'd push one to the right, but that didn't bother me. I knew that what I needed was practice. Finally, I was at the point where I could make a correct driver swing and repeat it without serious error. As A. J. says, controlling the toe is the mark of a good player. But, in my experience, what teachers fail to explain or illustrate is the way the left hand and arm bring the club UP after impact, completing the arc that the backswing and downswing previously established.
Another thought occurred to me as I though about A. J.'s advice about the toe. That movement is probably what Hogan meant when he talked about "slinging" the ball down the fairway. I mentioned this in an early post and thought I understood it then, but I don't think I really did at the time. Now, when I hit the ball, I can actually feel the toe moving and slinging the ball. Once again, like countless other examples, here's a case where I thought I understood an aspect of the swing but really didn't. This part of the learning process, now that I think about it, may be essential. Maybe the first time you work on an element of the swing and you think you have it is just a preliminary stage, one that sets you up for a later, full understanding. I haven't made a full inventory, but it does seem that I have to learn certain parts of the swing twice.
There is no new video, simply because my discoveries are so recent that I haven't had a chance to videotape them. I was going to do some swing practice today, Saturday, May 8th, but, once again, the Mistral is blowing—powerful, gusting winds of probably forty to fifty miles an hour at times. Instead of hitting with the driver, I went to the local public course and did some putting and chipping. The winds were enough to move putts as they rolled and nearly knock me off balance. When I realized that the winds were drying out my eyeballs, I decided it was time to go home and have some red wine and start getting dinner ready.
I'm very excited about my new understanding of the swing, though, and I can't wait until tomorrow to get out on the range and out on the course to try out a much-improved swing. Then, maybe, I'll have some good video to post. While my politics may continue to drift to the right, I'm expecting my shots to move toward the center.
Or has been, lately. I've noticed that I'm pushing the ball right, unless I'm very conscious of bringing the butt of the handle to the ball from the inside. When I look back to last fall, I was doing the same thing, pushing to the right, but I didn't really understand why that was happening. Now I think I do. The reason that I'm pushing right is that I'm coming into the ball with the face open, and something that is supposed to happen that will square up the clubface is not happening. At first, I thought it was the clubhead path. But even when I was sure that I was coming from the inside to the ball, I would still tend to push it right.
In situations like this, I go immediately to the research department. YouTube is generally the first place I look for help, but in this case, I finally went to a DVD I have of A. J. Bonar talking about the driver. He's a long-winded teacher, but a good one, and I've had loquacious teachers before who taught me, in unintended teaching outcomes, to be patient and listen. Finally, A. J. talked about turning the toe of the club around as you come into the impact zone. I had watched his video several times before, but I think I just wasn't ready to understand this crucial point. Now I did. It helped me to picture what my own swing must look like coming through impact: an open face, with the arms dragging the clubhead through the ball at the point where the clubhead should be moving at its greatest speed.
The obvious answer was to remember a few things. One of them was where the release beings. So I did some research online and refreshed my memory about that, reminding myself that the release begins at about hip level or where the left arm is about at a 45 degree angle to the level of the ball. Then I remembered how the left arm has to slow down in order to let the clubhead swing through at maximum velocity, thrown by the right hand, creating forces that result in that classic image of the overlapping forearms after impact. Until now, I've been trying to achieve that position consciously and manipulatively, which, I've learned for myself, doesn't work. That started to help.
Then A. J.'s admonition to control the toe of the club added another dimension of understanding. As I practiced that, I could see that it added more power to my driver swing. Still, I was lacking that really powerful "Bam!" at the ball (as Johnny Miller likes to say), and, on top of that, I was still hitting that mat before the ball way too frequently. Something was still missing. Even a neophyte, like me, could see that. Then I discovered what that missing piece was.
In a recent post, titled "Sean of Arc," I talked about how I was trying to let my swing describe an arc. In that post, which was only a few days ago, I thought I was making progress. Now I know that it was just another example of how "hard-won" or "hardly-won" swing improvements can be.
As I experimented with A. J.'s metaphor of turning a screwdriver counterclockwise after impact, I suddenly felt the missing piece of my swing. That was the part after hitting the ball. I've always felt that this was not right, but I never understood why. Now I think I do. After impact, the clubhead has to continue on its arc, but at this point in the swing, the arc is upward. It is not flat and out towards the target, and the right hand does not control its path. No, it's still the left hand that is in charge. As the left hand turns to toe counterclockwise, it also lifts and allows the clubhead to follow a circular arc.
Once I realized this, I suddenly understood how these good players swing through the ball without hitting the mat or hitting mostly tee. They are swinging on a perfect arc, and they have located the bottom of the arc precisely where the ball is waiting. And their perfect arc is what gives them that beautiful follow-through up and around the left shoulder.
Once I started practicing this at the range, I really had to laugh to myself. This was the answer, I thought, as I hit balls right at my target. Of course, now and then, I'd push one to the right, but that didn't bother me. I knew that what I needed was practice. Finally, I was at the point where I could make a correct driver swing and repeat it without serious error. As A. J. says, controlling the toe is the mark of a good player. But, in my experience, what teachers fail to explain or illustrate is the way the left hand and arm bring the club UP after impact, completing the arc that the backswing and downswing previously established.
Another thought occurred to me as I though about A. J.'s advice about the toe. That movement is probably what Hogan meant when he talked about "slinging" the ball down the fairway. I mentioned this in an early post and thought I understood it then, but I don't think I really did at the time. Now, when I hit the ball, I can actually feel the toe moving and slinging the ball. Once again, like countless other examples, here's a case where I thought I understood an aspect of the swing but really didn't. This part of the learning process, now that I think about it, may be essential. Maybe the first time you work on an element of the swing and you think you have it is just a preliminary stage, one that sets you up for a later, full understanding. I haven't made a full inventory, but it does seem that I have to learn certain parts of the swing twice.
There is no new video, simply because my discoveries are so recent that I haven't had a chance to videotape them. I was going to do some swing practice today, Saturday, May 8th, but, once again, the Mistral is blowing—powerful, gusting winds of probably forty to fifty miles an hour at times. Instead of hitting with the driver, I went to the local public course and did some putting and chipping. The winds were enough to move putts as they rolled and nearly knock me off balance. When I realized that the winds were drying out my eyeballs, I decided it was time to go home and have some red wine and start getting dinner ready.
I'm very excited about my new understanding of the swing, though, and I can't wait until tomorrow to get out on the range and out on the course to try out a much-improved swing. Then, maybe, I'll have some good video to post. While my politics may continue to drift to the right, I'm expecting my shots to move toward the center.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Mistral
In the spring of 1889, continuous, strong winds almost drove Van Gogh mad and may have induced him to cut off part of his left ear. His antagonist was the great wind of southern France, the Mistral (in French, it means "Master"), which sometimes blows at 55 miles per hour.
My ears are still intact, but after two days of blustery, gusting, sometimes powerful winds, I could imagine the maddening effects of the Mistral. In my little practice area in my backyard, I could hardly tee up a plastic practice ball before it was blown across the flagstones. Comic relief defused my frustration whenever I hit a ball out far enough that the wind took it and swept it to one side. Hard as it was to assess how well I was hitting the ball, the Mistral didn't stop me; it did test my patience, though.
In other respects, including the blustery winds, Vincent would have loved this afternoon: an azure sky, completely clear of any clouds, intense sun, and intensely illuminated foliage. The light alone reminded me of the way the Impressionists taught us how light affects what we see. Brilliant light, brilliant shadows tune our perceptions to a fine pitch. On a day like today, our senses are hyperactive. We seem to see every distinct thing in our range of vision. This accentuated vision may be what enabled me to see the rotation in KJ Choi's swings on YouTube. In this Impressionist landscape, I had a very productive practice session.
Watching KJ carefully, and comparing it to the model golfer in the Arnold Palmer video, I noticed how the hips turn, but also how the left shoulder suddenly rotates to the top of an arc right at impact. I've noticed this before, and read before about getting the left shoulder up as quickly as you can. Now, in the receptive mode I found myself, I could see the logic. Moving the hips quickly and bringing that left shoulder up quickly both would combine to propel the swing of the clubhead through the ball. For me, this is a break-through understanding. Suddenly, I realized how the pros hit the ball so far.
As I worked out these swing subtleties, I wanted to go out and see how they would contribute to way I could actually hit a ball, on the range. So I wrapped up my practice, ignoring the Mistral, and headed for the range.
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. The Mistral was blowing harder here than it was in my backyard. I quickly realized that this multiplied difference only made sense. I've noticed that all weather conditions are accentuated here on the range at Mohansic. It must have something to do with the elevation. The range is at a high point and faces a long expanse, stretching towards the Hudson River, with nothing to block any weather patterns moving from West to East. Today, the range seemed like some of the Adirondack outcroppings I've climbed to: cold, windy, and completely exposed. Now and then, the wind blew over one of my clubs (even though it was in a club stand) and blew a ball off the tee. The wind seemed, for the most part, to be blowing from right to left, rather than in my face. This seemed fine to me, since I thought I could hit right-to-left shots and use the wind as an aid.
As I think I've indicated, I was working on rotating my hips and lifting my left shoulder right at impact in order to get the most clubhead speed that I could. Naturally, many things went wrong. I was trying to do too many things at once. But now and then, I felt as though I was getting a good hit on the ball. And my goal here was to see how far I could hit the ball. That was my measure of success. Finally, on one stroke, probably using a real ball, not a range ball, I hit one that I hooked to the left, but deep, and when it landed, it flew through the tree branches at the far end of the range, at the 250 yard mark, flying through a branch and sending a few leaves fluttering to the ground. I've never hit a ball that far here. It was only one ball, but it gave me an indication that my swing was improving.
That shot was probably about 255 yards carry, slightly downhill, and compared well to a drive that I saw Villegas make on the Golf Channel where his carry was 264. His swing speed was 116, which means that mine is probably around 110 or so. That means I'm OK. And I'm really just beginning to swing the driver with thoughts of distance. The best is yet to come.
After this session at the range, I went out the tenth hole, thinking I would hit a drive or two or three, then hit a couple of approach shots, and then do my short game practice around the green. The first drive I left way out to the right, long gone. The second went right along the line I had planned, and the third followed the second, just a little bit right.
When I came up to me balls, I hit the first perfectly, with a 4-hybrid, just short of the green, and hit the second, over a short pine tree, right of the green, but long, into a greenside trap. Here's where the short game comes into play. When I chipped the first shot, I chunked it, hitting ground first. I had it hit a few practice balls afterwards in order to get the right feel. Then, on my second shot, which ended up in the bunker on the right, I hit a good shot and landed on the green, rolling toward the hole.
All this tells me that I can play this game in a reasonable manner. Shooting in the eighties is what I ought to expect. To break eighty, I need to play more and tighten up my game. The plan now is to continue working on the swing arc and to go out as much as I can to play a few holes, practice various shots, and practice the short game and situations around and on the green to build up my skills and confidence in chipping, pitching, bunker play, and putting. Future posts will describe my progress.
In the video below, you can see how my swing is improving, with more width, more turn on the backswing, more hips, and the right arm straighter and longer than before. I can tell by the way I'm hitting the ball that the swing arc is getting better. Tomorrow's practice will isolate the release of the left arm, training the arm to slow down while the left hand supinates and the right hand throws the clubhead past the hands. This very sophisticated combination of actions, which are measured in hundredths of a second, is the key to a good swing. This is where the clubface is squared up and where clubhead speed and power are generated, the most difficult and the most exciting part of the swing.
My ears are still intact, but after two days of blustery, gusting, sometimes powerful winds, I could imagine the maddening effects of the Mistral. In my little practice area in my backyard, I could hardly tee up a plastic practice ball before it was blown across the flagstones. Comic relief defused my frustration whenever I hit a ball out far enough that the wind took it and swept it to one side. Hard as it was to assess how well I was hitting the ball, the Mistral didn't stop me; it did test my patience, though.
In other respects, including the blustery winds, Vincent would have loved this afternoon: an azure sky, completely clear of any clouds, intense sun, and intensely illuminated foliage. The light alone reminded me of the way the Impressionists taught us how light affects what we see. Brilliant light, brilliant shadows tune our perceptions to a fine pitch. On a day like today, our senses are hyperactive. We seem to see every distinct thing in our range of vision. This accentuated vision may be what enabled me to see the rotation in KJ Choi's swings on YouTube. In this Impressionist landscape, I had a very productive practice session.
Watching KJ carefully, and comparing it to the model golfer in the Arnold Palmer video, I noticed how the hips turn, but also how the left shoulder suddenly rotates to the top of an arc right at impact. I've noticed this before, and read before about getting the left shoulder up as quickly as you can. Now, in the receptive mode I found myself, I could see the logic. Moving the hips quickly and bringing that left shoulder up quickly both would combine to propel the swing of the clubhead through the ball. For me, this is a break-through understanding. Suddenly, I realized how the pros hit the ball so far.
As I worked out these swing subtleties, I wanted to go out and see how they would contribute to way I could actually hit a ball, on the range. So I wrapped up my practice, ignoring the Mistral, and headed for the range.
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. The Mistral was blowing harder here than it was in my backyard. I quickly realized that this multiplied difference only made sense. I've noticed that all weather conditions are accentuated here on the range at Mohansic. It must have something to do with the elevation. The range is at a high point and faces a long expanse, stretching towards the Hudson River, with nothing to block any weather patterns moving from West to East. Today, the range seemed like some of the Adirondack outcroppings I've climbed to: cold, windy, and completely exposed. Now and then, the wind blew over one of my clubs (even though it was in a club stand) and blew a ball off the tee. The wind seemed, for the most part, to be blowing from right to left, rather than in my face. This seemed fine to me, since I thought I could hit right-to-left shots and use the wind as an aid.
As I think I've indicated, I was working on rotating my hips and lifting my left shoulder right at impact in order to get the most clubhead speed that I could. Naturally, many things went wrong. I was trying to do too many things at once. But now and then, I felt as though I was getting a good hit on the ball. And my goal here was to see how far I could hit the ball. That was my measure of success. Finally, on one stroke, probably using a real ball, not a range ball, I hit one that I hooked to the left, but deep, and when it landed, it flew through the tree branches at the far end of the range, at the 250 yard mark, flying through a branch and sending a few leaves fluttering to the ground. I've never hit a ball that far here. It was only one ball, but it gave me an indication that my swing was improving.
That shot was probably about 255 yards carry, slightly downhill, and compared well to a drive that I saw Villegas make on the Golf Channel where his carry was 264. His swing speed was 116, which means that mine is probably around 110 or so. That means I'm OK. And I'm really just beginning to swing the driver with thoughts of distance. The best is yet to come.
After this session at the range, I went out the tenth hole, thinking I would hit a drive or two or three, then hit a couple of approach shots, and then do my short game practice around the green. The first drive I left way out to the right, long gone. The second went right along the line I had planned, and the third followed the second, just a little bit right.
When I came up to me balls, I hit the first perfectly, with a 4-hybrid, just short of the green, and hit the second, over a short pine tree, right of the green, but long, into a greenside trap. Here's where the short game comes into play. When I chipped the first shot, I chunked it, hitting ground first. I had it hit a few practice balls afterwards in order to get the right feel. Then, on my second shot, which ended up in the bunker on the right, I hit a good shot and landed on the green, rolling toward the hole.
All this tells me that I can play this game in a reasonable manner. Shooting in the eighties is what I ought to expect. To break eighty, I need to play more and tighten up my game. The plan now is to continue working on the swing arc and to go out as much as I can to play a few holes, practice various shots, and practice the short game and situations around and on the green to build up my skills and confidence in chipping, pitching, bunker play, and putting. Future posts will describe my progress.
In the video below, you can see how my swing is improving, with more width, more turn on the backswing, more hips, and the right arm straighter and longer than before. I can tell by the way I'm hitting the ball that the swing arc is getting better. Tomorrow's practice will isolate the release of the left arm, training the arm to slow down while the left hand supinates and the right hand throws the clubhead past the hands. This very sophisticated combination of actions, which are measured in hundredths of a second, is the key to a good swing. This is where the clubface is squared up and where clubhead speed and power are generated, the most difficult and the most exciting part of the swing.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sean of Arc
With that appellation, I wonder if Jeanne d'Arc ever played golf. Maybe she became famous for the length and arc of her swing. If she wasn't, she still stands as a paragon of a good golf swing. And she stands as an aide mémoire for me. My first name, Sean, which is John in Gaelic, is also Jean in French, not a far cry from the feminine, Jeanne. So I—Sean, John, Jean, Jeanne-manqué— am striving, in my latest practice sessions, to lengthen my swing so that I can produce the beautiful arc that we all see in the Arnold Palmer Somaxperformance videos on YouTube. Yesterday, I wrote how difficult a swing like this is. Today, I have good news to report.
First, though, a disclaimer. Because of my body type and age and many other factors, I'll never have anything remotely resembling the swing of the anonymous golfer who can drive the ball 375 yards with "effortless power," and I am aware of my limitations. However, or (as the current jargon has it, a locution that is entirely regrettable) "That being said," I can improve my swing by trying my best to imitate the Somaxperformance swing. Yesterday, I thought it was impossible. Today, I can see some encouraging improvement.
Let's start with the backswing. By looking in my patio double-door glass, I've been checking out my backswing, and I can see that I can get into a fairly good position, with my left arm fully extended and straight and my right arm underneath. When I perform the backswing, I'm learning to use the right arm to help draw back the left and heft it into position. Through practice, I've learned that I'm in the correct position because there is some sharp stretching discomfort in my left shoulder. If it doesn't hurt a bit, then I'm not quite there. I've also learned to feel the left hand bowed a bit at the top, while the right hand is underneath, supporting.
After two days of practice, I've learned to feel my progress in the middle knuckle of my right hand. That's the key to creating clubhead speed. It's also a key indicator for chipping and pitching, but I'll talk more about that later. Once I get back, fully stretched out—and painfully aware of that—I practice several movements or swing thoughts. One, of course, is starting with my left knee and then rotating my hips. Next is letting my arms swing down, as a result of the rotation of my hips, into the hitting area. At this point, my weight should be on the left heel, or pretty close to it. Then I arrive at the "cast point," where I start to let the left hand release and the right hand starts to throw the clubhead. For me, this has been a deadend. For some time, I've felt that my swing really ended here. And in my latest practice, I've been determined to get beyond this wall and continue the swing all the way to its conclusion.
After many, many swings with plastic balls in my backyard, trying to get the feeling of extending my left arm straight to the top of the backswing and then coming through with the hips leading the way and finally the left wrist releasing and the right hand firing through, I started to get a new sensation. It was a feeling that both hands were acting as one. The left hand releasing and the right hand throwing felt as if they were happening together. Once I had this feeling of unity, it was easier to feel the two hands staying together to complete the swing arc over my left shoulder.
This was very exciting. And to test the efficacy of the swing, which I had been practicing with only the driver, I started hitting a few nine-irons now and then, just to see what would happen. To my surprise, the swings felt great. I could feel the left arm stay straight and then the right arm stay straight during the follow-through, just what anyone would want. I didn't even try for a full swing. A reasonable backswing and an abbreviated follow-through, where I could see my right arm fully extended, was all I wanted to achieve. The swing of an easy nine-iron to a green with a high degree of accuracy—that's all I was after.
Now the swing was starting to take on a completely new character. The hands were working more as a unit, the clubhead was starting to speed past the hands after impact, and I was beginning to feel as though I could finally control the clubhead speed. In the video below, you should see the left arm straighter than before, and the right arm straighter and longer after impact. As an added bonus, I've included a few chips with a nine-iron and a few full swings with a nine-iron. To me, these chips and swings are solid and repeatable. Of course, the true test is actual play. In the meantime, I can't wait to continue developing the swing arc.
First, though, a disclaimer. Because of my body type and age and many other factors, I'll never have anything remotely resembling the swing of the anonymous golfer who can drive the ball 375 yards with "effortless power," and I am aware of my limitations. However, or (as the current jargon has it, a locution that is entirely regrettable) "That being said," I can improve my swing by trying my best to imitate the Somaxperformance swing. Yesterday, I thought it was impossible. Today, I can see some encouraging improvement.
Let's start with the backswing. By looking in my patio double-door glass, I've been checking out my backswing, and I can see that I can get into a fairly good position, with my left arm fully extended and straight and my right arm underneath. When I perform the backswing, I'm learning to use the right arm to help draw back the left and heft it into position. Through practice, I've learned that I'm in the correct position because there is some sharp stretching discomfort in my left shoulder. If it doesn't hurt a bit, then I'm not quite there. I've also learned to feel the left hand bowed a bit at the top, while the right hand is underneath, supporting.
After two days of practice, I've learned to feel my progress in the middle knuckle of my right hand. That's the key to creating clubhead speed. It's also a key indicator for chipping and pitching, but I'll talk more about that later. Once I get back, fully stretched out—and painfully aware of that—I practice several movements or swing thoughts. One, of course, is starting with my left knee and then rotating my hips. Next is letting my arms swing down, as a result of the rotation of my hips, into the hitting area. At this point, my weight should be on the left heel, or pretty close to it. Then I arrive at the "cast point," where I start to let the left hand release and the right hand starts to throw the clubhead. For me, this has been a deadend. For some time, I've felt that my swing really ended here. And in my latest practice, I've been determined to get beyond this wall and continue the swing all the way to its conclusion.
After many, many swings with plastic balls in my backyard, trying to get the feeling of extending my left arm straight to the top of the backswing and then coming through with the hips leading the way and finally the left wrist releasing and the right hand firing through, I started to get a new sensation. It was a feeling that both hands were acting as one. The left hand releasing and the right hand throwing felt as if they were happening together. Once I had this feeling of unity, it was easier to feel the two hands staying together to complete the swing arc over my left shoulder.
This was very exciting. And to test the efficacy of the swing, which I had been practicing with only the driver, I started hitting a few nine-irons now and then, just to see what would happen. To my surprise, the swings felt great. I could feel the left arm stay straight and then the right arm stay straight during the follow-through, just what anyone would want. I didn't even try for a full swing. A reasonable backswing and an abbreviated follow-through, where I could see my right arm fully extended, was all I wanted to achieve. The swing of an easy nine-iron to a green with a high degree of accuracy—that's all I was after.
Now the swing was starting to take on a completely new character. The hands were working more as a unit, the clubhead was starting to speed past the hands after impact, and I was beginning to feel as though I could finally control the clubhead speed. In the video below, you should see the left arm straighter than before, and the right arm straighter and longer after impact. As an added bonus, I've included a few chips with a nine-iron and a few full swings with a nine-iron. To me, these chips and swings are solid and repeatable. Of course, the true test is actual play. In the meantime, I can't wait to continue developing the swing arc.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Swing Arc
As I related in my previous post, I'm working on keeping the left arm straight through the backswing and downswing, and then, after reviewing Hogan's Five Lessons, keeping the right arm straight in the follow-through. These long arms, creating the radii of the swing arc, provide the width that everyone who talks about hitting for more distance will tell you. It looks easy in any examples you find on the Web or in books or magazines, but it's very hard to do.
I did all my practice today in the backyard, constantly viewing myself in the camcorder or in my reflection in a patio sliding door. I wanted to see what my left arm looked like at the top of the swing. Even after some practice extending that arm and using the right arm to support the left, I found that when the club hinged, the left arm broke at the elbow. More trial-and-error showed that if I relaxed in my wrists in order to let the club hinge, I could keep my left arm relatively straight. But I could feel the exertion this required. Frequently, I felt like sitting down and resting, just listening to the traffic go by.
At the same time I was working on a straight left arm, I was also working on turning my hips and sequencing my swing. As I moved in slow motion, I could see how the swing is supposed to work. I could also see how the right hand throws the clubhead and straightens out in the follow-through past impact and remains straight way up into the finish. I can do this (sort of) in slow motion, but I can't do it in a real swing. It's all too much to manage. Although I couldn't put it all together, there were parts that I felt were starting to become manageable, and they were enough to induce me to go the range and try out my swing.
The results were pretty good. I concentrated on the driver, but the nine-iron and a 3 hybrid both felt good, too. With the driver, I was hitting the ball fairly consistently, but not any farther than I was before, even though I was trying my best to relax, stay wide, and turn my hips. I must say, though, that the drives felt good. If, in the end, I can carry a drive only 230 yards or so, I'll be satisfied. It feels good to see the ball go flying out there straight and clear the tree with the yellow "200" yard marker next to it.
Obviously, it's going to take quite a while to develop a swing like the Arnold Palmer video advocates. It's so seductive. "Hip Speed = Effortless Power." Who could resist that? Just study the video and do what Arnie does. Sure. And study Mariano Rivera and then try to throw a cut fastball like he does.
On the positive side of this problem, I think I'm in fairly good shape behind the ball. That is, I think my backswing is OK and my downswing is OK. Not great, but passable. As I already mentioned, I could use some more sophisticated sequencing, using my legs and hips to generate more speed in my shoulders and arms. But, for an amateur, and a neophyte as well, I'm in relatively good shape.
My main problem, and the goal of my practice for the foreseeable future, is allowing the club to follow the swing arc. My right hand doesn't really fire out through the ball at impact, and the left hand doesn't really supinate enough. As a result, I generate speed only during half the swing. According to Hogan, the swing reaches top speed just after the ball. In my case, I think my top speed happens before the ball, and nothing of consequence happens after impact. This has been a problem I've been aware of for quite some time, now. Solving it, needless to say, is more elusive.
That Arnold Palmer video, especially the model swing of an anonymous golfer at the end of the video who produces "an effortless 375 yard drive," is now the image of the swing I want to have. I need to continue working on the swing so that it continues to build up speed past the ball. As I've said before in these posts, my swing speed is really expended before it reaches the ball, the problem of most golfers. Nonetheless, I now have success to build on. My two outings on the course have shown that I have the potential to score well. To me, that means that I can also learn a complete, full swing—with good sequencing and good hip speed—that will give me drives of at least 250 yards carry. Once I start hitting that mark, I'll know I finally have a complete swing.
In the next few days, let's see what kind of progress I make.
I did all my practice today in the backyard, constantly viewing myself in the camcorder or in my reflection in a patio sliding door. I wanted to see what my left arm looked like at the top of the swing. Even after some practice extending that arm and using the right arm to support the left, I found that when the club hinged, the left arm broke at the elbow. More trial-and-error showed that if I relaxed in my wrists in order to let the club hinge, I could keep my left arm relatively straight. But I could feel the exertion this required. Frequently, I felt like sitting down and resting, just listening to the traffic go by.
At the same time I was working on a straight left arm, I was also working on turning my hips and sequencing my swing. As I moved in slow motion, I could see how the swing is supposed to work. I could also see how the right hand throws the clubhead and straightens out in the follow-through past impact and remains straight way up into the finish. I can do this (sort of) in slow motion, but I can't do it in a real swing. It's all too much to manage. Although I couldn't put it all together, there were parts that I felt were starting to become manageable, and they were enough to induce me to go the range and try out my swing.
The results were pretty good. I concentrated on the driver, but the nine-iron and a 3 hybrid both felt good, too. With the driver, I was hitting the ball fairly consistently, but not any farther than I was before, even though I was trying my best to relax, stay wide, and turn my hips. I must say, though, that the drives felt good. If, in the end, I can carry a drive only 230 yards or so, I'll be satisfied. It feels good to see the ball go flying out there straight and clear the tree with the yellow "200" yard marker next to it.
Obviously, it's going to take quite a while to develop a swing like the Arnold Palmer video advocates. It's so seductive. "Hip Speed = Effortless Power." Who could resist that? Just study the video and do what Arnie does. Sure. And study Mariano Rivera and then try to throw a cut fastball like he does.
On the positive side of this problem, I think I'm in fairly good shape behind the ball. That is, I think my backswing is OK and my downswing is OK. Not great, but passable. As I already mentioned, I could use some more sophisticated sequencing, using my legs and hips to generate more speed in my shoulders and arms. But, for an amateur, and a neophyte as well, I'm in relatively good shape.
My main problem, and the goal of my practice for the foreseeable future, is allowing the club to follow the swing arc. My right hand doesn't really fire out through the ball at impact, and the left hand doesn't really supinate enough. As a result, I generate speed only during half the swing. According to Hogan, the swing reaches top speed just after the ball. In my case, I think my top speed happens before the ball, and nothing of consequence happens after impact. This has been a problem I've been aware of for quite some time, now. Solving it, needless to say, is more elusive.
That Arnold Palmer video, especially the model swing of an anonymous golfer at the end of the video who produces "an effortless 375 yard drive," is now the image of the swing I want to have. I need to continue working on the swing so that it continues to build up speed past the ball. As I've said before in these posts, my swing speed is really expended before it reaches the ball, the problem of most golfers. Nonetheless, I now have success to build on. My two outings on the course have shown that I have the potential to score well. To me, that means that I can also learn a complete, full swing—with good sequencing and good hip speed—that will give me drives of at least 250 yards carry. Once I start hitting that mark, I'll know I finally have a complete swing.
In the next few days, let's see what kind of progress I make.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Late April Assessment
Shakespeare's birthday has just passed. April 23rd is widely accepted, and that date provides circularity to his life, since he also died on the same date in 1616. The Bard was no golfer, but thinking of his tragedies, histories, and comedies provides us with a rich reference as we study the game. As a neophyte, I have no tragedies to relate, but history and comedy constantly accompany me as I develop my swing.
Foreknowledge disarms us of extreme reaction. After a long winter of solitary practice from a flat mat in my backyard and from an occasional bucket of balls on the range, I knew that hitting on a course would be an entirely different experience. And I was correct. When I went out on my local public course in the evenings to try hitting a few balls from the fairway, the slightest variation from absolutely flat produced exaggerated results. For example, on the most convenient fairway for practicing after hours, the land sloped to the right, and that gentle slope produced dramatic pushes and slices. It took me several days of assiduous practice to correct this tendency.
Then, when I actually played two rounds, I found that I couldn't reproduce my practice swing. Apparently, too many swing thoughts overloaded my mental circuits, and my muscles were confounded. Chips and pitches and bunker shots that should be routine turned out to be disasters. They made me look as though I hadn't done any practice at all. Despite my history of assiduous practice, my short game was a comedy. Fortunately, I expected this outcome. I knew that my game needed actual experience on the course. I endured the ignominy of these shots, knowing that soon I would overcome them as I became more familiar with actual play.
My first round matched my expectations. During the front nine, I flubbed every conceivable shot, except for drives, which, generally, I hit well. Actually, I was surprised that my score was as low as 54. It felt much worse. The back nine was a distinct improvement. Although I didn't finish, I was hitting the ball better, and more confidently, and was playing basically bogey golf. On one hole, which I've always dreaded, a 181-yard par three over a valley, with a steep hill on the right of the green and greenside bunkers on the right and left, I hit a 4-iron to within a foot of the pin, located at the rear of the green. A tap-in gave me an easy birdie. The six holes I was able to finish made me think that I needed just more experience with the short game and I would be OK.
Two days later, I played another round. This one happened one short notice. My playing partner from the first round called me up and wanted to play right away, and we were able to get a tee time forty-five minutes after my call to the pro shop. That meant that I had no time to warm up. And it showed in the front nine, where I shot 53, finishing with a 10 on the last hole. I hit some good shots, but a triple, a quad, and the last hole obscured two pars. Then my playing partners left me, and I joined the twosome behind me to finish the round. One of the players was a relative beginner, like me, and the other, a long-time player with a good game.
D., the good player, seemed to be a long hitter, but as time went on, I discovered that I could hit at least as far as he could and generally could hit more accurately. On the tenth hole, he hit a beautiful drive about 290 and made the green with his second shot, while Joe and I hit off to the left of the dogleg left and had long shots to the green. Mine followed a tree line on the right, but I had a nice wedge onto the green, and two-putted for a bogey. D., who was on the green in two, three putted. Realizing that I could drive as far as he could, I suddenly thought that with a good drive, I could reach this green in two also. This was a thought that never would have occurred to me last year, a measure of how far I have come.
During the rest of the back nine, I generally had the honors, getting four pars and a birdie on a par 4, for a total of 41. This was the kind of evidence I was looking for, proof that I could not only break 90, but also reasonably think about breaking 80. Experience was the only thing I was lacking.
This back nine also reminded me about the importance of the short game. I hit some really good chips and pitches, and I designed my practice, after that, to work on the game around the green. Each evening, I went out to the tenth green and hit chips, pitches, putts, and bunker shots. Over and over, hitting from different lies, including the most difficult ones I could imagine. That short game is getting better, but that repeated practice also taught me how difficult it is to achieve consistency. I can see that I'll be taking my shag bag out there many evenings.
In addition to this practice on the course, I've also been studying my basic swing. Initially, I was looking for more distance. Then I came across this Arnold Palmer video on YouTube. It showed me several aspects of the swing that I haven't appreciated enough until now. One is the hip turn. After watching this video, I realized that I never really understood the role of the "lower body," as Hogan puts it, in another YouTube video. The other aspect of the swing that I have misunderstood is the role of a straight left arm. All along, I've been bending mine in my effort to emulate the image of the pro golfers who have the club parallel to the ground at the top of the backswing. What I didn't understand was how important a straight left arm is to achieving maximum clubhead speed during the downswing. The Palmer video made me think of the Iron Byron videos I've seen on YouTube and how the straight left arm is crucial to the maximum release of the clubhead at impact. Now, I've started working on changing my swing in two fundamental ways. First, I want to move my hips to start the downswing. That will allow me to clear the left side and bring my arms into the hitting position. The second is to keep the left arm straight during the backswing. This is difficult, and requires the support of the right hand. But after studying this Palmer video, I'm sure it's the right way to go. So far, I've just practiced the swing without hitting a ball. These changes require so much practice and concentration that it will be a while before I can actually hit a ball this way. The next post will describe the results.
Foreknowledge disarms us of extreme reaction. After a long winter of solitary practice from a flat mat in my backyard and from an occasional bucket of balls on the range, I knew that hitting on a course would be an entirely different experience. And I was correct. When I went out on my local public course in the evenings to try hitting a few balls from the fairway, the slightest variation from absolutely flat produced exaggerated results. For example, on the most convenient fairway for practicing after hours, the land sloped to the right, and that gentle slope produced dramatic pushes and slices. It took me several days of assiduous practice to correct this tendency.
Then, when I actually played two rounds, I found that I couldn't reproduce my practice swing. Apparently, too many swing thoughts overloaded my mental circuits, and my muscles were confounded. Chips and pitches and bunker shots that should be routine turned out to be disasters. They made me look as though I hadn't done any practice at all. Despite my history of assiduous practice, my short game was a comedy. Fortunately, I expected this outcome. I knew that my game needed actual experience on the course. I endured the ignominy of these shots, knowing that soon I would overcome them as I became more familiar with actual play.
My first round matched my expectations. During the front nine, I flubbed every conceivable shot, except for drives, which, generally, I hit well. Actually, I was surprised that my score was as low as 54. It felt much worse. The back nine was a distinct improvement. Although I didn't finish, I was hitting the ball better, and more confidently, and was playing basically bogey golf. On one hole, which I've always dreaded, a 181-yard par three over a valley, with a steep hill on the right of the green and greenside bunkers on the right and left, I hit a 4-iron to within a foot of the pin, located at the rear of the green. A tap-in gave me an easy birdie. The six holes I was able to finish made me think that I needed just more experience with the short game and I would be OK.
Two days later, I played another round. This one happened one short notice. My playing partner from the first round called me up and wanted to play right away, and we were able to get a tee time forty-five minutes after my call to the pro shop. That meant that I had no time to warm up. And it showed in the front nine, where I shot 53, finishing with a 10 on the last hole. I hit some good shots, but a triple, a quad, and the last hole obscured two pars. Then my playing partners left me, and I joined the twosome behind me to finish the round. One of the players was a relative beginner, like me, and the other, a long-time player with a good game.
D., the good player, seemed to be a long hitter, but as time went on, I discovered that I could hit at least as far as he could and generally could hit more accurately. On the tenth hole, he hit a beautiful drive about 290 and made the green with his second shot, while Joe and I hit off to the left of the dogleg left and had long shots to the green. Mine followed a tree line on the right, but I had a nice wedge onto the green, and two-putted for a bogey. D., who was on the green in two, three putted. Realizing that I could drive as far as he could, I suddenly thought that with a good drive, I could reach this green in two also. This was a thought that never would have occurred to me last year, a measure of how far I have come.
During the rest of the back nine, I generally had the honors, getting four pars and a birdie on a par 4, for a total of 41. This was the kind of evidence I was looking for, proof that I could not only break 90, but also reasonably think about breaking 80. Experience was the only thing I was lacking.
This back nine also reminded me about the importance of the short game. I hit some really good chips and pitches, and I designed my practice, after that, to work on the game around the green. Each evening, I went out to the tenth green and hit chips, pitches, putts, and bunker shots. Over and over, hitting from different lies, including the most difficult ones I could imagine. That short game is getting better, but that repeated practice also taught me how difficult it is to achieve consistency. I can see that I'll be taking my shag bag out there many evenings.
In addition to this practice on the course, I've also been studying my basic swing. Initially, I was looking for more distance. Then I came across this Arnold Palmer video on YouTube. It showed me several aspects of the swing that I haven't appreciated enough until now. One is the hip turn. After watching this video, I realized that I never really understood the role of the "lower body," as Hogan puts it, in another YouTube video. The other aspect of the swing that I have misunderstood is the role of a straight left arm. All along, I've been bending mine in my effort to emulate the image of the pro golfers who have the club parallel to the ground at the top of the backswing. What I didn't understand was how important a straight left arm is to achieving maximum clubhead speed during the downswing. The Palmer video made me think of the Iron Byron videos I've seen on YouTube and how the straight left arm is crucial to the maximum release of the clubhead at impact. Now, I've started working on changing my swing in two fundamental ways. First, I want to move my hips to start the downswing. That will allow me to clear the left side and bring my arms into the hitting position. The second is to keep the left arm straight during the backswing. This is difficult, and requires the support of the right hand. But after studying this Palmer video, I'm sure it's the right way to go. So far, I've just practiced the swing without hitting a ball. These changes require so much practice and concentration that it will be a while before I can actually hit a ball this way. The next post will describe the results.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Rhythm and Release
Realizing that I was making important progress on the swing, I went right back to practicing, studying some YouTube videos to help me out. One video in particular helped me with the rhythm of the swing, which you'll see in the video below.
As I practiced that drill, I came to understand a new subtlety of the release: how the follow-through traces the same plane as the downswing. I know this sounds obvious, but all along, I thought that the follow-through would take care of itself. As I practiced the rhythm drill and felt the relaxation in my arms, I started to sense how the club wants to return inside the target line during the follow-through. For some reason, I had never paid much attention to this before. But as I practiced the swing in slow-mo and thought about what probably happens, I began to think that when the left hand releases, the clubhead naturally wants to follow the arc that has already been established during the downswing. That arc takes the clubhead inside the target line. However, that's not all that happens. What also happens is that as the left arm snaps the clubhead through the hitting zone, the right hand, after throwing the clubhead, finishes on top of the left and both hands finally swing through, away from the target, and swing around the head, or top of the spine, as the swing concludes.
This is what I was seeing in the side-by-side video of Ernie Els and Michelle Wie. Finally, I started to understand how their beautiful follow-throughs happened. The left hand actually snaps the club through the hitting zone, quickly moving from a pronated position to a supinated position. Now, I have known about pronation and supination ever since I first cracked open Hogan's Five Lessons book, but until now, I never understood what he meant. The movement is so fast that deliberate control is impossible. The best I can do is think about where in the swing I want this snap to happen and then try to do it at some visual point in my swing. It's pure guesswork. If I get it right, then the shot is perfect. If I miss by a little, then either I block the shot right or I pull it left. So that release point is crucial. And I think it's the same problem for every golfer, even the pros. It's all about timing. Sometimes you're right on, but other times, you miss by a little. And that's why the pros find themselves in the rough or in a greenside bunker. This release point isn't the only fine point that my practice today revealed.
I also started to see how the left arm supinates from impact into the follow-through. It's an instantaneous kind of movement. At one milli-second, the left hand is pronated, but in the next, it's supinated, with the right hand seeming to ride on top of the left. I spent the rest of the day working on this feeling. At the range, I felt great. I could shape shots and hit with reasonable consistency. Now and then, I could feel my left arm working properly and whipping the clubhead around the swing arc. But I had too many swing thoughts: a relaxed swing rhythm, bowing my left wrist, letting the clubhead lag, coming through and throwing with the right hand, supinating the left hand and letting it go freely into the follow-through—all this was too much for me. But I know that I'm on the right path. More practice in the next few days will give me the results I'm looking for: a rhythmical swing with accuracy and distance.
As I practiced that drill, I came to understand a new subtlety of the release: how the follow-through traces the same plane as the downswing. I know this sounds obvious, but all along, I thought that the follow-through would take care of itself. As I practiced the rhythm drill and felt the relaxation in my arms, I started to sense how the club wants to return inside the target line during the follow-through. For some reason, I had never paid much attention to this before. But as I practiced the swing in slow-mo and thought about what probably happens, I began to think that when the left hand releases, the clubhead naturally wants to follow the arc that has already been established during the downswing. That arc takes the clubhead inside the target line. However, that's not all that happens. What also happens is that as the left arm snaps the clubhead through the hitting zone, the right hand, after throwing the clubhead, finishes on top of the left and both hands finally swing through, away from the target, and swing around the head, or top of the spine, as the swing concludes.
This is what I was seeing in the side-by-side video of Ernie Els and Michelle Wie. Finally, I started to understand how their beautiful follow-throughs happened. The left hand actually snaps the club through the hitting zone, quickly moving from a pronated position to a supinated position. Now, I have known about pronation and supination ever since I first cracked open Hogan's Five Lessons book, but until now, I never understood what he meant. The movement is so fast that deliberate control is impossible. The best I can do is think about where in the swing I want this snap to happen and then try to do it at some visual point in my swing. It's pure guesswork. If I get it right, then the shot is perfect. If I miss by a little, then either I block the shot right or I pull it left. So that release point is crucial. And I think it's the same problem for every golfer, even the pros. It's all about timing. Sometimes you're right on, but other times, you miss by a little. And that's why the pros find themselves in the rough or in a greenside bunker. This release point isn't the only fine point that my practice today revealed.
I also started to see how the left arm supinates from impact into the follow-through. It's an instantaneous kind of movement. At one milli-second, the left hand is pronated, but in the next, it's supinated, with the right hand seeming to ride on top of the left. I spent the rest of the day working on this feeling. At the range, I felt great. I could shape shots and hit with reasonable consistency. Now and then, I could feel my left arm working properly and whipping the clubhead around the swing arc. But I had too many swing thoughts: a relaxed swing rhythm, bowing my left wrist, letting the clubhead lag, coming through and throwing with the right hand, supinating the left hand and letting it go freely into the follow-through—all this was too much for me. But I know that I'm on the right path. More practice in the next few days will give me the results I'm looking for: a rhythmical swing with accuracy and distance.
Friday, April 16, 2010
The Release Revealed
The hiatus between my last post and this is easy to explain. My swing continued to improve daily. That meant that any video or daily narrative would be rendered "History" by the next day's revelation. As days went by, I thought about this blog, but I was moving along with no defining moment to talk about. Now there is.
Basically, over the last month or so, I've been working on the final piece of my swing: the follow-through. What happens after impact has become my focus. Until I arrived at this point, my swing thoughts ended at impact. All my thoughts, all my practice were grounded in one outcome: a relatively powerful propulsion of the golf ball down the fairway towards a target. After impact, my swing really looked like a spring flower wilting in strong sunshine.
I knew it was a problem. My first strategy was to treat the problem as a lack of momentum. I started doing gravity swing drills and trying to use my left arm to whip up speed. That wasn't the answer, but it did serve a purpose. It did show me how fast a swing can be. Generally, the pace of my swing is fairly safe. As my son once told me, my swing looked good, but "it's slow." In the last few days, I worked on that left arm—trying to swing it as fast as I could and finishing high over my head and letting the club come down over my back. That helped, and I felt as though I was getting more distance. The mental image of swinging up high like that also reminded me of the way some of the seniors swing, Nicklaus in particular, and that similarity encouraged me.
When I went to the range, however, I could see that I had a problem. Too often, I was pushing the ball right, blocking it. If I got the timing exactly right with my hands, I could hit the ball where I wanted to, but this effort was unreliable. I had noticed this tendency out on the course, where I practice hitting off the turf in the evenings. Lately, I've been practicing the second shot on one fairway where the ball is slightly below my feet, usually producing a push or slice. I thought it was that kind of lie that was my problem. I thought that once I learned how to hit that shot, my troubles would be over. But pushing the ball at the range, too, showed me that I was wrong. The problem was with my swing.
I found the solution the other day after hitting two hundred balls. My analysis was that during the release, my hands continued to move forward, even though I felt I was throwing the clubhead with my right hand. The result was that I never gave the clubhead a chance to square up at impact. I finally got the feel of slowing down the left hand to give the right a chance to throw the clubhead and get ahead of the left hand into the follow-through. This worked beautifully, adding a key missing piece to my swing. Naturally, I couldn't wait until the next day to do some more practice. That night, I dreamed about the right hand crossing over the left.
At the range the next day, my shots were perfect. Right out there straight, time after time. Having established that kind of consistency, I started experimenting with shaping shots, hitting slight draws and fades using the advice from the very helpful Johnny Miller video on YouTube. His advice worked perfectly. Now I felt as though I had made a significant advance in my accuracy. I could see that the next challenge would be to add more distance.
When I catch it well, I can carry a 5-iron about 175 yards, and a good drive flies about 230 or 240. To me, this is fine, but I feel as though I ought to be able to hit even farther with my new understanding of how the swing works at impact and in the release. I also realize that I'm swinging too hard to get these distances. Often, after a long drive, I'll lose my balance. In my next post, I'll probably be describing my attempts to develop better tempo to get both distance and accuracy. As much as my swing has improved, there is a world of difference when I look at a really good swing. It's way out in front, like the favorite in a horse race, and I'm like the young Seabiscuit, way back in the pack, but gaining.
In the video below, you'll see me rehearsing with my driver, working on a good coil and turning level left during the downswing and on my new release. I've been studying Els on YouTube and the video showing Michelle Wie and Ernie side by side. My full swing is an attempt to emulate what I see them doing. I'm also going through the motions of the release where the club whips through from parallel behind the ball to parallel in front of it.
Basically, over the last month or so, I've been working on the final piece of my swing: the follow-through. What happens after impact has become my focus. Until I arrived at this point, my swing thoughts ended at impact. All my thoughts, all my practice were grounded in one outcome: a relatively powerful propulsion of the golf ball down the fairway towards a target. After impact, my swing really looked like a spring flower wilting in strong sunshine.
I knew it was a problem. My first strategy was to treat the problem as a lack of momentum. I started doing gravity swing drills and trying to use my left arm to whip up speed. That wasn't the answer, but it did serve a purpose. It did show me how fast a swing can be. Generally, the pace of my swing is fairly safe. As my son once told me, my swing looked good, but "it's slow." In the last few days, I worked on that left arm—trying to swing it as fast as I could and finishing high over my head and letting the club come down over my back. That helped, and I felt as though I was getting more distance. The mental image of swinging up high like that also reminded me of the way some of the seniors swing, Nicklaus in particular, and that similarity encouraged me.
When I went to the range, however, I could see that I had a problem. Too often, I was pushing the ball right, blocking it. If I got the timing exactly right with my hands, I could hit the ball where I wanted to, but this effort was unreliable. I had noticed this tendency out on the course, where I practice hitting off the turf in the evenings. Lately, I've been practicing the second shot on one fairway where the ball is slightly below my feet, usually producing a push or slice. I thought it was that kind of lie that was my problem. I thought that once I learned how to hit that shot, my troubles would be over. But pushing the ball at the range, too, showed me that I was wrong. The problem was with my swing.
I found the solution the other day after hitting two hundred balls. My analysis was that during the release, my hands continued to move forward, even though I felt I was throwing the clubhead with my right hand. The result was that I never gave the clubhead a chance to square up at impact. I finally got the feel of slowing down the left hand to give the right a chance to throw the clubhead and get ahead of the left hand into the follow-through. This worked beautifully, adding a key missing piece to my swing. Naturally, I couldn't wait until the next day to do some more practice. That night, I dreamed about the right hand crossing over the left.
At the range the next day, my shots were perfect. Right out there straight, time after time. Having established that kind of consistency, I started experimenting with shaping shots, hitting slight draws and fades using the advice from the very helpful Johnny Miller video on YouTube. His advice worked perfectly. Now I felt as though I had made a significant advance in my accuracy. I could see that the next challenge would be to add more distance.
When I catch it well, I can carry a 5-iron about 175 yards, and a good drive flies about 230 or 240. To me, this is fine, but I feel as though I ought to be able to hit even farther with my new understanding of how the swing works at impact and in the release. I also realize that I'm swinging too hard to get these distances. Often, after a long drive, I'll lose my balance. In my next post, I'll probably be describing my attempts to develop better tempo to get both distance and accuracy. As much as my swing has improved, there is a world of difference when I look at a really good swing. It's way out in front, like the favorite in a horse race, and I'm like the young Seabiscuit, way back in the pack, but gaining.
In the video below, you'll see me rehearsing with my driver, working on a good coil and turning level left during the downswing and on my new release. I've been studying Els on YouTube and the video showing Michelle Wie and Ernie side by side. My full swing is an attempt to emulate what I see them doing. I'm also going through the motions of the release where the club whips through from parallel behind the ball to parallel in front of it.
Friday, March 19, 2010
New Swing at the Range
With the spectacular weather the last few days—temperatures in the mid-60s and above, and clear, sunny skies—the golf courses around here opened long before the daffodils will. The courses may be jumping the gun a little, but, suddenly, I felt a decision was necessary. Knowing several improvements I wanted to work on, I thought I could very well continue hitting my plastic practice balls in my backyard and videotape my progress. On the other hand, I also knew that my swing was good enough to take out on the course. Or, at least, I was pretty sure it was good enough. After some dialogue with self, I decided it was time to play.
Then the question became, Do I go directly to the course and see what's going on with tee times? Or should I go to the range first and see how my swing works with real golf balls? Since I already have, in my shoulder bag, several early-bird tokens saved from the fall, I decided that I might as well go to the range and see if I could get a mat.
Since I arrived at the range early in the afternoon, around one o'clock or so, it really wasn't bad: half a dozen cars in the parking lot. So I got my bucket of a hundred balls and started hitting.
Starting out with a 9-iron, which is what I've been practicing with in my backyard with the plactic balls, I could hardly believe how well I hit the ball. I went through the bag and felt good about each club. I did have some questions about distance, and I did pull a few balls left, but, overall, I couldn't have been more gratified.
The driver required a few adjustments, but there, too, I was happy, hitting straight drives out there, about a 230 carry. Very satisfying, considering I haven't been hitting that club at all during the winter practice.
The results were so good that I started modifications as I went along. Mainly, I wanted to delay the release and lengthen the follow-through, which (to me) means throwing the right hand, fully releasing the left, and finishing with both hands far out toward the target and resolving somewhere around my back.
The more I worked on these points, the better the shots became. I hit the pitching wedge for accuracy and found it was going around 120 and, within reason, around the flag. The nine (here I keep in mind the Johnny Miller video on YouTube, where he's hitting at that island green at Sawgrass, a 145-yard shot) was going straight out there, about 140 carry. How could I not be happy with that?
Recently, I read something that amateurs don't hit their irons with that much diffence. Where the pros can hit irons with around ten yards or so of difference between each one, the distances amateurs hit their irons are more clustered together. That's what I found with my own swings. The distances I was getting, however, told me that my swing was in good shape. My six-iron was going over the green where the flag is supposedly 155, and my five-iron was going out there about 175 or 180 carry. All my distances are measured as carry. I don't know what difference that makes, but that's my yardstick.
The more I hit, the better the results. With the club control I have now, I can make adjustments and actually make a swing. After dozens of swings, I started to feel the lag and the way the release brings the club down into the ball, with the left arm squaring up the clubface and the right hand supplying the propulsive forward momentum.
As I say, the distances I got today were very gratifying, but I know that I can hit still farther. One of the aspects of greater distance is a quicker tempo. In the video below, you'll see me swinging in the backyard at a 27/9 tempo. If I can speed that up to to 24/8 or 21/7, I'll get commensurately greater distance. See the Tour Tempo book for a detailed explanation of the 3-to-1 ratio of the golf swing. Let the movie load completely and then play it to see how the audio syncs up with the video.
Then the question became, Do I go directly to the course and see what's going on with tee times? Or should I go to the range first and see how my swing works with real golf balls? Since I already have, in my shoulder bag, several early-bird tokens saved from the fall, I decided that I might as well go to the range and see if I could get a mat.
Since I arrived at the range early in the afternoon, around one o'clock or so, it really wasn't bad: half a dozen cars in the parking lot. So I got my bucket of a hundred balls and started hitting.
Starting out with a 9-iron, which is what I've been practicing with in my backyard with the plactic balls, I could hardly believe how well I hit the ball. I went through the bag and felt good about each club. I did have some questions about distance, and I did pull a few balls left, but, overall, I couldn't have been more gratified.
The driver required a few adjustments, but there, too, I was happy, hitting straight drives out there, about a 230 carry. Very satisfying, considering I haven't been hitting that club at all during the winter practice.
The results were so good that I started modifications as I went along. Mainly, I wanted to delay the release and lengthen the follow-through, which (to me) means throwing the right hand, fully releasing the left, and finishing with both hands far out toward the target and resolving somewhere around my back.
The more I worked on these points, the better the shots became. I hit the pitching wedge for accuracy and found it was going around 120 and, within reason, around the flag. The nine (here I keep in mind the Johnny Miller video on YouTube, where he's hitting at that island green at Sawgrass, a 145-yard shot) was going straight out there, about 140 carry. How could I not be happy with that?
Recently, I read something that amateurs don't hit their irons with that much diffence. Where the pros can hit irons with around ten yards or so of difference between each one, the distances amateurs hit their irons are more clustered together. That's what I found with my own swings. The distances I was getting, however, told me that my swing was in good shape. My six-iron was going over the green where the flag is supposedly 155, and my five-iron was going out there about 175 or 180 carry. All my distances are measured as carry. I don't know what difference that makes, but that's my yardstick.
The more I hit, the better the results. With the club control I have now, I can make adjustments and actually make a swing. After dozens of swings, I started to feel the lag and the way the release brings the club down into the ball, with the left arm squaring up the clubface and the right hand supplying the propulsive forward momentum.
As I say, the distances I got today were very gratifying, but I know that I can hit still farther. One of the aspects of greater distance is a quicker tempo. In the video below, you'll see me swinging in the backyard at a 27/9 tempo. If I can speed that up to to 24/8 or 21/7, I'll get commensurately greater distance. See the Tour Tempo book for a detailed explanation of the 3-to-1 ratio of the golf swing. Let the movie load completely and then play it to see how the audio syncs up with the video.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
New Opening Day, New Swing
This afternoon, I stopped by my local course, Mohansic, to see what was going on, and, to my great surprise, the flags were on the greens, the markers lined the fairways, and the place seemed fully open for business. So I'll try to get out tomorrow and see how my swing performs.
Today, another beautiful day of sunny skies and temperatures in the mid sixties, I spent hitting my plastic practice balls. I thought of going to a nearby range, but thought better of it. The last time I was there, it was packed in the afternoon, full of local high school and college golf teams and eager duffers. With the great weather, I assumed that the facility would be insane and that staying home and using the time I would otherwise have spent waiting for a mat to get in some quality practice at home. That turned out to be a "capital idea," as my father was fond of saying.
My swing feels very good right now, ready to take out on the course. My focal points have been mainly my follow-through and my posture and knee-flex at address and during the backswing. In the video below, you'll see a closeup of my knees, and I think it shows that I'm OK here. My right knee stays flexed throughout. Weeks ago, my pro, Jeremiah, pointed out that my right leg was straightening during the backswing and cautioned me to correct that. I think that's done, or at least under control.
In general, I think my flexibility is limited, both during the backswing and during the follow-through, but it's the best I can do. And, for me, I think it's sufficient. I gauge my swing in the way that I hit the ball. If my distance isn't the greatest, well, that's the best I can do.
But today, I felt I was really getting the feeling of both hands working together, the left hand squaring up the clubface and the right hand providing that down-the-line power push. Suddenly, I understood why people, like Hogan, said that the swing actually is faster past the ball than before. The reason, I think, is that the release initiates a powerful physical force that begins before the ball and continues to gather incredible speed at the ball and past it. The result, if performed with both hands coordinated, is a nice, loose follow-through where the club is at least at your back, or, in an ideal swing, past your back and swinging toward the target.
As I worked on using both hands, I understood the function of each. The left hand performs the release, from any lag that you can preserve, and the right hand gives the club a push (like pushing a child in a swing). The problem is that all this happens so quickly near the ball that you have to try to feel your hands, and the positions they occupy, long after impact, way up in the follow-through, when your hands are up in front of your head. For me, I like to visualize the left hand snapping the clubhead down to the ball and through it (remembering the L-drill), and the right hand driving through the ball with the right wrist bending ever left, bending the left wrist back, and both hands continuing to somewhere behind your head (if you're flexible!).
So I did some practice swinging, right arm alone, to give me the feel of what the right arm and hand actually did. That's when I started to visualize the right wristbone bowing out after it threw the clubhead through the swing arc. In response, the left wrist supinates, as Hogan describes it, and finally is bent back as far as possible by the force of the swing. After a swing, if I felt this left wrist bent back, with the right wrist on top of it, I knew I had just hit a good shot.
As any golfer who has done any practicing knows, these little things are absolutely confounding for a neophyte. I can hit several perfect shots in succession. Then, with one little mental change, everything falls apart, and I shank the ball way off to the right. A good golf swing, it seems, demands perfect execution. Anything less and you have either a mediocre shot or disaster.
Last, in addition to all these fine points, the factor that continues to grow on me is the importance of relaxation during the swing. As my first pro, Mark, told me, "Tension kills a golf swing." More and more, day by day, practice bucket by practice bucket, I'm gaining more understanding of what he meant. With all the fine points in place, with complete relaxation, you'll have a good swing.
In the video, I've left in several consecutive real-time swings so that you can see how I practice and what can go wrong, and I've included shots from face-on and from behind, with that special close-up of my legs. You'll also see that sometimes my follow-through is complete, and abbreviated in others. I can feel this difference during the swing. That's the good news. Correcting it and establishing a swing with a complete, relaxed follow-through is another. But I'm hot on the trail!
Today, another beautiful day of sunny skies and temperatures in the mid sixties, I spent hitting my plastic practice balls. I thought of going to a nearby range, but thought better of it. The last time I was there, it was packed in the afternoon, full of local high school and college golf teams and eager duffers. With the great weather, I assumed that the facility would be insane and that staying home and using the time I would otherwise have spent waiting for a mat to get in some quality practice at home. That turned out to be a "capital idea," as my father was fond of saying.
My swing feels very good right now, ready to take out on the course. My focal points have been mainly my follow-through and my posture and knee-flex at address and during the backswing. In the video below, you'll see a closeup of my knees, and I think it shows that I'm OK here. My right knee stays flexed throughout. Weeks ago, my pro, Jeremiah, pointed out that my right leg was straightening during the backswing and cautioned me to correct that. I think that's done, or at least under control.
In general, I think my flexibility is limited, both during the backswing and during the follow-through, but it's the best I can do. And, for me, I think it's sufficient. I gauge my swing in the way that I hit the ball. If my distance isn't the greatest, well, that's the best I can do.
But today, I felt I was really getting the feeling of both hands working together, the left hand squaring up the clubface and the right hand providing that down-the-line power push. Suddenly, I understood why people, like Hogan, said that the swing actually is faster past the ball than before. The reason, I think, is that the release initiates a powerful physical force that begins before the ball and continues to gather incredible speed at the ball and past it. The result, if performed with both hands coordinated, is a nice, loose follow-through where the club is at least at your back, or, in an ideal swing, past your back and swinging toward the target.
As I worked on using both hands, I understood the function of each. The left hand performs the release, from any lag that you can preserve, and the right hand gives the club a push (like pushing a child in a swing). The problem is that all this happens so quickly near the ball that you have to try to feel your hands, and the positions they occupy, long after impact, way up in the follow-through, when your hands are up in front of your head. For me, I like to visualize the left hand snapping the clubhead down to the ball and through it (remembering the L-drill), and the right hand driving through the ball with the right wrist bending ever left, bending the left wrist back, and both hands continuing to somewhere behind your head (if you're flexible!).
So I did some practice swinging, right arm alone, to give me the feel of what the right arm and hand actually did. That's when I started to visualize the right wristbone bowing out after it threw the clubhead through the swing arc. In response, the left wrist supinates, as Hogan describes it, and finally is bent back as far as possible by the force of the swing. After a swing, if I felt this left wrist bent back, with the right wrist on top of it, I knew I had just hit a good shot.
As any golfer who has done any practicing knows, these little things are absolutely confounding for a neophyte. I can hit several perfect shots in succession. Then, with one little mental change, everything falls apart, and I shank the ball way off to the right. A good golf swing, it seems, demands perfect execution. Anything less and you have either a mediocre shot or disaster.
Last, in addition to all these fine points, the factor that continues to grow on me is the importance of relaxation during the swing. As my first pro, Mark, told me, "Tension kills a golf swing." More and more, day by day, practice bucket by practice bucket, I'm gaining more understanding of what he meant. With all the fine points in place, with complete relaxation, you'll have a good swing.
In the video, I've left in several consecutive real-time swings so that you can see how I practice and what can go wrong, and I've included shots from face-on and from behind, with that special close-up of my legs. You'll also see that sometimes my follow-through is complete, and abbreviated in others. I can feel this difference during the swing. That's the good news. Correcting it and establishing a swing with a complete, relaxed follow-through is another. But I'm hot on the trail!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Saint Patrick's Day
As you'll see in the video below, St. Patrick's Day in the Northeast was beautiful—about 60 degrees and sunny and all our snow melted. It won't be long now before the local course open and we can go out and see how all the practice over the winter pays off on the course. Personally, I'm very optimistic. My swing feels really good and looks really good to me on video, and when I go to the range, as I did the other day, the swing holds up with real balls. I can't wait to start hitting off real turf.
For the past couple of weeks or so, I've been working mainly on the follow-through, trying to complete the whole swing. This is the last piece of my swing-building. Everything else is in place.
I've decided that hitting plastic practice balls in my backyard and into my driveway makes the most sense for me. The balls give me good feedback, and hitting them is free. Each day, I hit hundreds. This way, I can make various changes from swing to swing and instantly see the results. It's also easy to set up my camcorder and watch my swing whenever I want to.
The video shows that I have limited flexibility going back and following through. Still, you can see some differences from my swing weeks earlier. To start, on some of the swings, I'm concentrating on keeping my head still, and you can definitely see that. On all the swings, I'm trying to keep the swing going, all the way to its conclusion. You can see this, too. This full follow-through involves releasing the left hand, but also firing through with the right side. When both moves happen simultaneously, the result if fantastic. And I can actually do this, from time to time.
At this point in the evolution of my swing, I can see that complete relaxation is required. I also see how the left hand is supposed to react at release and how the right hand fires through, giving the swing more clubhead speed. I'm able to keep pretty good balance and to keep the flex in my right leg on the backswing and keep my head over the ball.
Today, for example, in addition to these fine points, I started trying to incorporate the Tour Tempo idea, that is, speeding up my swing for maximum distance. It wasn't too hard to do, since, at this point in my development, I have pretty good club control. And instantly, I could see the ball going farther.
It seems to me that now, to get ready to break 90 and then to break 80, I need to work on a consistent swing, putting all these thoughts together so that I don't have to think about them one-by-one during a round. That would be impossible. But I'm very close to having the swing that Hogan promised me when I began reading his book. I couldn't feel more gratified. Pretty soon, I'll be able to write about my first forays out onto the early spring turf.
For the past couple of weeks or so, I've been working mainly on the follow-through, trying to complete the whole swing. This is the last piece of my swing-building. Everything else is in place.
I've decided that hitting plastic practice balls in my backyard and into my driveway makes the most sense for me. The balls give me good feedback, and hitting them is free. Each day, I hit hundreds. This way, I can make various changes from swing to swing and instantly see the results. It's also easy to set up my camcorder and watch my swing whenever I want to.
The video shows that I have limited flexibility going back and following through. Still, you can see some differences from my swing weeks earlier. To start, on some of the swings, I'm concentrating on keeping my head still, and you can definitely see that. On all the swings, I'm trying to keep the swing going, all the way to its conclusion. You can see this, too. This full follow-through involves releasing the left hand, but also firing through with the right side. When both moves happen simultaneously, the result if fantastic. And I can actually do this, from time to time.
At this point in the evolution of my swing, I can see that complete relaxation is required. I also see how the left hand is supposed to react at release and how the right hand fires through, giving the swing more clubhead speed. I'm able to keep pretty good balance and to keep the flex in my right leg on the backswing and keep my head over the ball.
Today, for example, in addition to these fine points, I started trying to incorporate the Tour Tempo idea, that is, speeding up my swing for maximum distance. It wasn't too hard to do, since, at this point in my development, I have pretty good club control. And instantly, I could see the ball going farther.
It seems to me that now, to get ready to break 90 and then to break 80, I need to work on a consistent swing, putting all these thoughts together so that I don't have to think about them one-by-one during a round. That would be impossible. But I'm very close to having the swing that Hogan promised me when I began reading his book. I couldn't feel more gratified. Pretty soon, I'll be able to write about my first forays out onto the early spring turf.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Throwing with the Right Hand
I seem to be on a roll, here in the Northeast, deep in February, with snow covering the yard and wind blowing plastic balls off the mat. Even to go out, I have to put on several layers, then a fleece coat, a scarf, a knit hat, gloves, and my Sorrel boots. That's all OK with me because the results have been very gratifying. From my last day at the range, I can see that I've come a long way. I've learned to relax and swing with confidence, and I'm seeing greater distance and accuracy than before.
And every day that I go out to practice, I know I'm going to learn or feel something new. During the session, my swing is going to change in some subtle way. I can never predict what that change will be, but whatever it is, it will make my swing better. I couldn't ask for more. The golf paradigm seems to be this: keep putting in the practice and the golf swing will gradually reveal itself. There's no magic here, no shortcuts.
And you have to be ready and receptive. When the revelations come to me, they trigger aspects I read about or saw on video or heard from a pro. And, all of a sudden, something makes sense in a way that it never did before. As I've said, several times before in these blogs, you think you know, but you really don't. Not until you have the concept working in your nerve synapses and muscle fiber. When the concept gets down to the anatomical and physiological, then you can say to yourself that you understand.
Now, to recapitulate a bit. On Saturday, two days ago, I went, with some measure of trepidation, to the range to see if I could hit real balls with my practice swing. On previous attempts, my practice swing served me well for the first go-around through the irons, but when I started to try for more distance, the swing fell apart, and I could hardly hit the ball.
This time, the practice swing prevailed. I remembered to stay loose, and through all the irons and hybrids—even the driver—I was relaxed. As a result, I hit the ball very well. I didn't get the distances I wanted, but I didn't worry. That will come later.
When I returned to my backyard to start hitting plastic practice balls, it was with a renewed sense of confidence. Yesterday, my swing was the best it has ever been. I could hit ball after ball right at my target, the tall Norway Maple.
Today, the difference was that I got the feel of throwing the right hand. Maybe it was something I saw while watching Paul Casey and Ian Poulter in the Accenture Match Play. Somehow, I got into my head, and into my imagination, the right hand turning over and finishing into a long follow-through. With my pink practice balls, I tried to emulate that look. And very quickly, the sense of what the right hand does became clear. It's what Hogan means when he talks about the second baseman's throw, with the right arm down low and the forearm hanging back, ready to sling the ball to first.
From my experience at the range, day before last, I was primed for this new aspect of the swing. Hitting real balls, I found myself, without consciously trying to accomplish this, turning over the right hand and finding my forearms crossed on the follow-through, just as all the online instruction advocates. Particularly with the driver, I found that if I could replicate this feeling, I could hit a good ball.
At some early point in today's practice, I remembered that feel of the right hand swinging through and over the left. Mentally, I coupled that with what I remembered of Hogan and began to sweep the club through with my right hand. Instantly, it made all the difference—in both the swing and in the result. The swing started popping the ball out there, towards my target, time after time. Direction was almost no problem. Neither was distance. When everything flowed, the results were sublime.
Realizing that I had stumbled upon a great secret of the swing, I started concentrating on maximizing the benefits of this new swing. You'll see the results in the video below. No longer did I worry about the club being parallel to the ground at the top of the swing. And no longer did I think primarily about the shoulders turning sharply, with the left shoulder coming away from the target line and enabling the snap of the wrists. All I attempted to do was to swing back normally, keeping behind the ball, and then to swing forward and to swing with both the left hand and the right.
This is not easy. Sometimes, the left hand would dominate. Other times, the right. But if I took a practice swing and mentally laid out a plan for the real swing, invariably, I would hit a good ball.
Naturally, this kind of success excited me, and I hit bucket after bucket. I took some time out to film my swing using the Callaway balls and the Almost Golf balls, a real test of how well the swing was working. By the end, as the sun was setting, I felt as though I could hit ball after ball towards an imaginary target in my driveway. Accuracy and distance were all taken care of by the way I executed the swing. I really didn't have to think about the ball—or about impact—as long as I carried out my swing plan.
Take a look at the video and see what you think. I show some swings today, and one in slow motion. At the end, I compare today's swing with one taken about a week ago. To me, I see the longer finish in today's swing. What I take away from this video is that I need to practice a full release and follow-through. I can see that I'm not really releasing the club fully. After impact, at some point, my muscles call a halt to the proceedings, whereas they should just let everything go, right up to the conclusion. Still, in the side-by-side last part of the video, I think you'll see that today's swing improves upon the one from a week ago.
And every day that I go out to practice, I know I'm going to learn or feel something new. During the session, my swing is going to change in some subtle way. I can never predict what that change will be, but whatever it is, it will make my swing better. I couldn't ask for more. The golf paradigm seems to be this: keep putting in the practice and the golf swing will gradually reveal itself. There's no magic here, no shortcuts.
And you have to be ready and receptive. When the revelations come to me, they trigger aspects I read about or saw on video or heard from a pro. And, all of a sudden, something makes sense in a way that it never did before. As I've said, several times before in these blogs, you think you know, but you really don't. Not until you have the concept working in your nerve synapses and muscle fiber. When the concept gets down to the anatomical and physiological, then you can say to yourself that you understand.
Now, to recapitulate a bit. On Saturday, two days ago, I went, with some measure of trepidation, to the range to see if I could hit real balls with my practice swing. On previous attempts, my practice swing served me well for the first go-around through the irons, but when I started to try for more distance, the swing fell apart, and I could hardly hit the ball.
This time, the practice swing prevailed. I remembered to stay loose, and through all the irons and hybrids—even the driver—I was relaxed. As a result, I hit the ball very well. I didn't get the distances I wanted, but I didn't worry. That will come later.
When I returned to my backyard to start hitting plastic practice balls, it was with a renewed sense of confidence. Yesterday, my swing was the best it has ever been. I could hit ball after ball right at my target, the tall Norway Maple.
Today, the difference was that I got the feel of throwing the right hand. Maybe it was something I saw while watching Paul Casey and Ian Poulter in the Accenture Match Play. Somehow, I got into my head, and into my imagination, the right hand turning over and finishing into a long follow-through. With my pink practice balls, I tried to emulate that look. And very quickly, the sense of what the right hand does became clear. It's what Hogan means when he talks about the second baseman's throw, with the right arm down low and the forearm hanging back, ready to sling the ball to first.
From my experience at the range, day before last, I was primed for this new aspect of the swing. Hitting real balls, I found myself, without consciously trying to accomplish this, turning over the right hand and finding my forearms crossed on the follow-through, just as all the online instruction advocates. Particularly with the driver, I found that if I could replicate this feeling, I could hit a good ball.
At some early point in today's practice, I remembered that feel of the right hand swinging through and over the left. Mentally, I coupled that with what I remembered of Hogan and began to sweep the club through with my right hand. Instantly, it made all the difference—in both the swing and in the result. The swing started popping the ball out there, towards my target, time after time. Direction was almost no problem. Neither was distance. When everything flowed, the results were sublime.
Realizing that I had stumbled upon a great secret of the swing, I started concentrating on maximizing the benefits of this new swing. You'll see the results in the video below. No longer did I worry about the club being parallel to the ground at the top of the swing. And no longer did I think primarily about the shoulders turning sharply, with the left shoulder coming away from the target line and enabling the snap of the wrists. All I attempted to do was to swing back normally, keeping behind the ball, and then to swing forward and to swing with both the left hand and the right.
This is not easy. Sometimes, the left hand would dominate. Other times, the right. But if I took a practice swing and mentally laid out a plan for the real swing, invariably, I would hit a good ball.
Naturally, this kind of success excited me, and I hit bucket after bucket. I took some time out to film my swing using the Callaway balls and the Almost Golf balls, a real test of how well the swing was working. By the end, as the sun was setting, I felt as though I could hit ball after ball towards an imaginary target in my driveway. Accuracy and distance were all taken care of by the way I executed the swing. I really didn't have to think about the ball—or about impact—as long as I carried out my swing plan.
Take a look at the video and see what you think. I show some swings today, and one in slow motion. At the end, I compare today's swing with one taken about a week ago. To me, I see the longer finish in today's swing. What I take away from this video is that I need to practice a full release and follow-through. I can see that I'm not really releasing the club fully. After impact, at some point, my muscles call a halt to the proceedings, whereas they should just let everything go, right up to the conclusion. Still, in the side-by-side last part of the video, I think you'll see that today's swing improves upon the one from a week ago.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Tensions
When my children were little and learning to use a Mac Plus, I remember how they watched it boot up. As icons started to fill the little screen, they would say the "tensions" were appearing, meaning all the Mac extensions. In the way that parents do, we started mimicking the delightful language. Mac "extensions" became, forever, Mac "tensions."
I've tipped my hand already, but at least I've introduced the theme of this post, which describes my latest discovery about the golf swing: no "tensions"; complete relaxation is the key. Now, you're saying to yourself, "That's SO OBVIOUS!" But stop for a minute. We all have similar memories of people telling us—our pros, our friends, magazine articles, videos, and so on—how easy the efficient golf swing is. But we all have the same trouble. We're all laboring under a set of misconceptions. And beyond that, we are all trying to understand a "letting go" that is impossible to convey in words or by example. As my first pro, Mark, told me, "You have to feel it."
Readers of this blog will remember my reaction to that advice. I thought, "That's ridiculous! You have to be able to teach someone what you're talking about!" But here I am, going into my fourth year of learning a good swing, and I'm just starting to get the "feel" of it, and I've read books on the subject, I've seen countless instructional videos on the Web, I've taken numerous lessons, and I've paid close attention to every little piece of potentially helpful advice or teaching that I've come across.
If I were correct—that you can teach the elements of the swing—then I would have mastered it long before this. The fact that I haven't is proof enough for me that I was completely mistaken. Mark, with all his experience as a player and as a teaching pro, knew far better than I did: in its essence, the swing is ineffable.
No one taught me how to relax and just swing. No one could. That I'm finally getting that feeling of release is a product of several years of practice, and, specifically, a few months of the one-arm drill. That's what really brought me to this point. With this drill, you can't muscle the club, and you can't consciously guide it. All you can do is to start the backswing, pause at the top, and then turn and let the club come through into the release and impact and, finally, follow-through.
Practicing the drill over and over, I set certain positions for myself: on the takeaway, at the top of the backswing, and at the release. The flight of the plastic practice ball tells me how well I did. I don't worry about bad hits. Those will happen, and happen every time you make the slightest change to your swing thought. I understand that. And it's OK. I'll work on it and refine the feel of it and correct what's wrong with it until the swing works. The one-arm drill is all about fine-tuning your musculature and nervous system to perform highly-stylized movements, measured in milliseconds.
Now, when I finish the one-arm drill and go to the full swing, I feel this sense of relaxation, of looseness. I feel as though I'm turning and whipping the club, and it's going through paths determined by all my time up until now practicing discrete aspects of the swing. But, most of all, I feel absence. That sounds like a conundrum or a paradox, but I am conscious that I have given over control of movement to the swing. I am no longer "making it happen." It is happening because I am letting it happen. Allowing it to happen.
And the results are encouraging. I can hit ball after ball right at a target I've chosen. The accuracy varies, naturally, and so does the distance, but there is a real sense of control. With my
Callaway Hx Soft Flight Practice Balls and the "Almost Golf" balls, I'm aiming just to miss the side of my house and hit shots way up in the Norway Maple in my backyard. Most of the time, I can do that. And I have no doubt, that with really serious practice, I could do it without fail.
Now I have the sense of losing the "tensions." I can make a full swing and feel as though it is effortless. See what you think, in the video below. The shots feel so good. I don't think I'm mistaken in looking at my swing on video and seeing that I'm in good shape. We all continue to improve our swings, and my next post will take a look at the role of the left shoulder in the golfer's attempt to rotate around his spine.
I've tipped my hand already, but at least I've introduced the theme of this post, which describes my latest discovery about the golf swing: no "tensions"; complete relaxation is the key. Now, you're saying to yourself, "That's SO OBVIOUS!" But stop for a minute. We all have similar memories of people telling us—our pros, our friends, magazine articles, videos, and so on—how easy the efficient golf swing is. But we all have the same trouble. We're all laboring under a set of misconceptions. And beyond that, we are all trying to understand a "letting go" that is impossible to convey in words or by example. As my first pro, Mark, told me, "You have to feel it."
Readers of this blog will remember my reaction to that advice. I thought, "That's ridiculous! You have to be able to teach someone what you're talking about!" But here I am, going into my fourth year of learning a good swing, and I'm just starting to get the "feel" of it, and I've read books on the subject, I've seen countless instructional videos on the Web, I've taken numerous lessons, and I've paid close attention to every little piece of potentially helpful advice or teaching that I've come across.
If I were correct—that you can teach the elements of the swing—then I would have mastered it long before this. The fact that I haven't is proof enough for me that I was completely mistaken. Mark, with all his experience as a player and as a teaching pro, knew far better than I did: in its essence, the swing is ineffable.
No one taught me how to relax and just swing. No one could. That I'm finally getting that feeling of release is a product of several years of practice, and, specifically, a few months of the one-arm drill. That's what really brought me to this point. With this drill, you can't muscle the club, and you can't consciously guide it. All you can do is to start the backswing, pause at the top, and then turn and let the club come through into the release and impact and, finally, follow-through.
Practicing the drill over and over, I set certain positions for myself: on the takeaway, at the top of the backswing, and at the release. The flight of the plastic practice ball tells me how well I did. I don't worry about bad hits. Those will happen, and happen every time you make the slightest change to your swing thought. I understand that. And it's OK. I'll work on it and refine the feel of it and correct what's wrong with it until the swing works. The one-arm drill is all about fine-tuning your musculature and nervous system to perform highly-stylized movements, measured in milliseconds.
Now, when I finish the one-arm drill and go to the full swing, I feel this sense of relaxation, of looseness. I feel as though I'm turning and whipping the club, and it's going through paths determined by all my time up until now practicing discrete aspects of the swing. But, most of all, I feel absence. That sounds like a conundrum or a paradox, but I am conscious that I have given over control of movement to the swing. I am no longer "making it happen." It is happening because I am letting it happen. Allowing it to happen.
And the results are encouraging. I can hit ball after ball right at a target I've chosen. The accuracy varies, naturally, and so does the distance, but there is a real sense of control. With my
Callaway Hx Soft Flight Practice Balls and the "Almost Golf" balls, I'm aiming just to miss the side of my house and hit shots way up in the Norway Maple in my backyard. Most of the time, I can do that. And I have no doubt, that with really serious practice, I could do it without fail.Now I have the sense of losing the "tensions." I can make a full swing and feel as though it is effortless. See what you think, in the video below. The shots feel so good. I don't think I'm mistaken in looking at my swing on video and seeing that I'm in good shape. We all continue to improve our swings, and my next post will take a look at the role of the left shoulder in the golfer's attempt to rotate around his spine.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
K.J. Choi Gave Me My Latest Swing Tip
The weather in the thirties, snow on the ground, gloves on my hands, Sorrels on my feet, I'm still out there practicing every day, two hundred or so swings each time. I can feel the cumulative effect. I'm getting the feeling of a swing, rather than a hit. And, as a result, I can see a longer follow-through, rather than an after-thought.
I've also continued to study online videos, lately the one on YouTube of K.J. Choi, particularly the Swing Vision one when he's hitting a six-iron, but also the one where he appears with Jack Nicklaus at the Memorial for a clinic (Paul Casey appears at this clinic, too, and this video is just as important as the Choi video).
In the Memorial clinic, I was really taken by the loose, relaxed way K.J. swings. It seems so easy, and everything falls readily into place. The same with the Casey video. He's hitting a 5-iron there, and it's no sweat for him to hit it 195 yards. But let's focus on the K.J. Swing Vision with the 6-iron. I've seen this so many times, I can't tell you. And I've heard Bob Kostis, the narrator, tell us how K.J. keeps his head down "to ensure that he releases his hands and arms through the hit." I've listened to this over and over again, but I didn't really start to understand what Bob was saying until today, when I hit a couple of hundred practice balls, working on the role of the right hand.
Finally, I started to see how the right hand throws the club. I'm also reminded of the great Ernie Els video where Bob talks about Ernie pulling down with his left arm but throwing with his right hand. Today, for really the first time, I began to have this feeling. I wanted to feel a good hinge and lag at the top of the swing, and I wanted to feel that I was going (as Els says) "deep into the shot" before releasing. Then, at release, I wanted to feel the right hand—the index finger—throwing the club through. Once I felt relaxed enough, I started to do that and the results showed it.
Time after time, I was able to swing and send the ball right at the tallest part of the Norway Maple in my back yard, my target. As I was developing this subtlety, I was filming my swing, and, at one point, I filmed myself saying, as I walked away from the hitting mat toward the camera to stop recording, "This is getting scary." What I meant was that I was hitting ball after ball right at my target, and with plenty of distance.
In the video below, you'll see the results of this practice session. You'll also see a little test I did to check my tempo. Using the audio files from my book Tour Tempo, I measured my swing against a 21/7, 1 24/8, and a 27/9 tempo. You'll see how I'm slow on the first tempo, but almost right on with the last.
Last, I've included a side-by-side clip of my swing from yesterday and one from today. While they're both very similar, I think you'll see that today's swing is more assured. It's a little quicker, and watch the follow-through. I want to see the right hand going all the way through—up and around. Like K.J.
I've also continued to study online videos, lately the one on YouTube of K.J. Choi, particularly the Swing Vision one when he's hitting a six-iron, but also the one where he appears with Jack Nicklaus at the Memorial for a clinic (Paul Casey appears at this clinic, too, and this video is just as important as the Choi video).
In the Memorial clinic, I was really taken by the loose, relaxed way K.J. swings. It seems so easy, and everything falls readily into place. The same with the Casey video. He's hitting a 5-iron there, and it's no sweat for him to hit it 195 yards. But let's focus on the K.J. Swing Vision with the 6-iron. I've seen this so many times, I can't tell you. And I've heard Bob Kostis, the narrator, tell us how K.J. keeps his head down "to ensure that he releases his hands and arms through the hit." I've listened to this over and over again, but I didn't really start to understand what Bob was saying until today, when I hit a couple of hundred practice balls, working on the role of the right hand.
Finally, I started to see how the right hand throws the club. I'm also reminded of the great Ernie Els video where Bob talks about Ernie pulling down with his left arm but throwing with his right hand. Today, for really the first time, I began to have this feeling. I wanted to feel a good hinge and lag at the top of the swing, and I wanted to feel that I was going (as Els says) "deep into the shot" before releasing. Then, at release, I wanted to feel the right hand—the index finger—throwing the club through. Once I felt relaxed enough, I started to do that and the results showed it.
Time after time, I was able to swing and send the ball right at the tallest part of the Norway Maple in my back yard, my target. As I was developing this subtlety, I was filming my swing, and, at one point, I filmed myself saying, as I walked away from the hitting mat toward the camera to stop recording, "This is getting scary." What I meant was that I was hitting ball after ball right at my target, and with plenty of distance.
Last, I've included a side-by-side clip of my swing from yesterday and one from today. While they're both very similar, I think you'll see that today's swing is more assured. It's a little quicker, and watch the follow-through. I want to see the right hand going all the way through—up and around. Like K.J.
Friday, January 29, 2010
From Sawgrass to Sixteen Degrees
That's how cold it was today, with a bitter wind to bring the chill factor down to around zero. I couldn't last long outside, but just long enough to hit a bucket of 50 balls and pick them all up in the fresh snow, probably two inches or so, that fell yesterday when Boreas, the Greek god of winter (his name meant "North Wind" or "Devouring One"), shocked, no doubt, by a few warm days and thawing soil and sod, decided to put an end to all ideas of spring and sent this sunny hillside back into the frozen caverns of deep January. This modern mythology serves as an object lesson to all avid golfers in the Northeast. Take a club out on your lawn in January, especially when all the snow and ice have melted away, and you will anger the gods!
Foolish mortal, I ignored the gods and took my trusty 9-iron out into the teeth of the gale. My plastic balls too light to stand still on the hitting mat, with my Callaway Soft-Flite balls and my Almost Golf" balls, I hit my two buckets in the course of the afternoon. That was all I could manage. I knew that if I tried for more, I could definitely count myself among the certifiably insane. When it comes right down to it, I don't know why that thought even occurred to me. The idea of hitting outside today at all was completely insane. Even in extreme circumstances, like these, there is humor, if you can ignore the sore throbbing of your nearly frozen fingers long enough to think about it. At the end of my second bucket, as I was wandering around the backyard with the shag bag in one hand, I thought that if I fell down for some reason and couldn't get up, I would be frozen solid by the time anybody found me, a solid statue to the mindlessness of my preoccupation. Thankfully, the outside ordeal was worth it.
The reason that I was willing to confront the elements for a few swings was that, since my practice two days ago, I had a new realization, and I wanted to try out my swing to see if I could do what I imagined I should do. And that thing was a full swing. A completely relaxed swing around a full arc, just like Bobby Jones. No muscular control that would prevent me from a complete follow-through.
You're saying to yourself something like, "Well, what do you think you've been trying to do these three years?" But that's where I now know more than you do. This thing—this golf swing—is so subtle and recondite and elusive that we amateurs can hardly reach the end of our exploration of it. As my wife often says to me after a practice, "That's what you always say! 'I've got it!'" She's right, and by now, I know that all I have, after the last practice, is the latest revelation and that there are many more revelations to come.
This one happens to be about the weight of the club and being able to swing it around an arc without interposing oneself. In other words, I'm starting to feel the sensations associated with actually swinging the club, instead of controlling it. Now, if you've been reading my posts, you'll know that this idea has been growing on me. Even lately, with all the help of the left-arm alone drill, I tend to think about the swing as ending at the ball. If you look at my videos, including the one below, you'll see how I characteristically take a slow motion practice swing that ends at the ball, not one inch farther.
So my idea, which came to me, I think, yesterday, when it snowed all day, courtesy of Boreas, was that I needed to loosen up even more and let the swing go all the way to the follow-through. By now, I think my left arm knows about the release. What I needed to teach it was to continue right on through without interruption or hindrance. As Mark, my first teaching pro, said, you swing "and the ball is in the way." Such a simple thought, but how difficult to do.
So today, I concentrated on being loose and relaxed. I wanted to feel the club hinge at the top of the swing. I wanted to feel the clubhead lag behind the swing. I wanted to feel the club go flying through the release and continue into the follow-through and finish up over my shoulders, the way the pros do. And I wanted to be able to still hit the ball where I wanted to! That's a big condition. As you know, if you change the slightest thing in your swing, that change has major ramifications, all of them bad.
In my layers of warm clothing and my too-thin gloves, I worked on feeling loose. On keeping my left arm as straight as I could. On keeping my right knee flexed. On keeping the lag deep into the swing. On letting the club go and feeling a complete follow-through. As you'll see in the video, I succeeded to an extent. I made progress. And that's what we want from a practice session. Especially at sixteen degrees.
Foolish mortal, I ignored the gods and took my trusty 9-iron out into the teeth of the gale. My plastic balls too light to stand still on the hitting mat, with my Callaway Soft-Flite balls and my Almost Golf" balls, I hit my two buckets in the course of the afternoon. That was all I could manage. I knew that if I tried for more, I could definitely count myself among the certifiably insane. When it comes right down to it, I don't know why that thought even occurred to me. The idea of hitting outside today at all was completely insane. Even in extreme circumstances, like these, there is humor, if you can ignore the sore throbbing of your nearly frozen fingers long enough to think about it. At the end of my second bucket, as I was wandering around the backyard with the shag bag in one hand, I thought that if I fell down for some reason and couldn't get up, I would be frozen solid by the time anybody found me, a solid statue to the mindlessness of my preoccupation. Thankfully, the outside ordeal was worth it.The reason that I was willing to confront the elements for a few swings was that, since my practice two days ago, I had a new realization, and I wanted to try out my swing to see if I could do what I imagined I should do. And that thing was a full swing. A completely relaxed swing around a full arc, just like Bobby Jones. No muscular control that would prevent me from a complete follow-through.
You're saying to yourself something like, "Well, what do you think you've been trying to do these three years?" But that's where I now know more than you do. This thing—this golf swing—is so subtle and recondite and elusive that we amateurs can hardly reach the end of our exploration of it. As my wife often says to me after a practice, "That's what you always say! 'I've got it!'" She's right, and by now, I know that all I have, after the last practice, is the latest revelation and that there are many more revelations to come.
This one happens to be about the weight of the club and being able to swing it around an arc without interposing oneself. In other words, I'm starting to feel the sensations associated with actually swinging the club, instead of controlling it. Now, if you've been reading my posts, you'll know that this idea has been growing on me. Even lately, with all the help of the left-arm alone drill, I tend to think about the swing as ending at the ball. If you look at my videos, including the one below, you'll see how I characteristically take a slow motion practice swing that ends at the ball, not one inch farther.
So my idea, which came to me, I think, yesterday, when it snowed all day, courtesy of Boreas, was that I needed to loosen up even more and let the swing go all the way to the follow-through. By now, I think my left arm knows about the release. What I needed to teach it was to continue right on through without interruption or hindrance. As Mark, my first teaching pro, said, you swing "and the ball is in the way." Such a simple thought, but how difficult to do.
So today, I concentrated on being loose and relaxed. I wanted to feel the club hinge at the top of the swing. I wanted to feel the clubhead lag behind the swing. I wanted to feel the club go flying through the release and continue into the follow-through and finish up over my shoulders, the way the pros do. And I wanted to be able to still hit the ball where I wanted to! That's a big condition. As you know, if you change the slightest thing in your swing, that change has major ramifications, all of them bad.
In my layers of warm clothing and my too-thin gloves, I worked on feeling loose. On keeping my left arm as straight as I could. On keeping my right knee flexed. On keeping the lag deep into the swing. On letting the club go and feeling a complete follow-through. As you'll see in the video, I succeeded to an extent. I made progress. And that's what we want from a practice session. Especially at sixteen degrees.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Playing #17 at TPC Sawgrass
Bad things lead to good. At least that's what happened today. After the awful experience at the range this morning, I had a very rewarding practice back home in my yard, on a glorious January afternoon, about forty degrees and blue skies and bright sunshine.
By now, you know my proclivities. I went back to the basics: the one-arm drill. At first, I was terrible, swinging just as I had at the range. Then I started to make a few adjustments, and by my second bucket (60 plastic balls), I was hitting the ball pretty well again. And what made the difference was my recollection of something I had come across several times in the past when the concept was over my head.
It's the idea that at impact, the hands slow down, and the clubhead goes flying ahead. Now, it's seems so obvious. But, until this moment, I never understood this part of the whipping action of the swing. This is how good golfers generate their clubhead speed. It's not the swinging of the arms, or a rush anywhere in the swing. It's what makes a swing like Els has look so effortless. It's an accelerating motion from the top down to impact. At that exact point, where the hands are ahead of the ball, the hands slow down and Hogan's supination takes place.
Once I got this concept, I could hardly believe how effortless the swing became. It was just as Johnny Miller said. You bring the club back steeply, with that early hinge, and then you don't have to do anything until the release. You turn to a certain point (don't ask me where, right now) and then you stop the forward movement of your hands, and you turn the club, leading with a bowed left wrist. Nothing could be simpler. Right? Right! Sure! It's taken me over three years to get to this point!
With greater confidence, I was able to start thinking about accuracy with my 9-iron and the one-arm swing. This is when I started playing #17 at Sawgrass, just for practice.
You know that hole. It's the one that's an island. If you miss, you're in the drink— stroke and distance. Try again. There's nowhere to drop. And this is the hole that Johnny Miller hit to when I described his teaching lesson on pressure in a recent post. For me, this hole has lost much of its terror. With my new understanding of the release—stopping the hands and letting the club go flying ahead—I had a new consistency that I have never felt before. More and more often, it seems, the parts of the swing come together, the coincidence enabling me to dial it in and go for birdie.
The other day, keeping count as I hit 60 balls, I hit roughly a third for possible pars, another third for birdie, and the last third went in the drink. That didn't really bother me because I was able to pick them all up with my shag bag, #17 being my imaginary practice hole in my driveway, where I had put down the empty bucket and hit to it from a flagstone path about thirty yards away. The lawn is too soft to hit to, and I leave footprints when I walk around picking up balls. So this offered a good alternative. I really liked Johnny Miller's video, and getting used to the idea of hitting to a difficult target and avoiding real trouble seemed like a good way to practice.
By now, you know my proclivities. I went back to the basics: the one-arm drill. At first, I was terrible, swinging just as I had at the range. Then I started to make a few adjustments, and by my second bucket (60 plastic balls), I was hitting the ball pretty well again. And what made the difference was my recollection of something I had come across several times in the past when the concept was over my head.
It's the idea that at impact, the hands slow down, and the clubhead goes flying ahead. Now, it's seems so obvious. But, until this moment, I never understood this part of the whipping action of the swing. This is how good golfers generate their clubhead speed. It's not the swinging of the arms, or a rush anywhere in the swing. It's what makes a swing like Els has look so effortless. It's an accelerating motion from the top down to impact. At that exact point, where the hands are ahead of the ball, the hands slow down and Hogan's supination takes place.
Once I got this concept, I could hardly believe how effortless the swing became. It was just as Johnny Miller said. You bring the club back steeply, with that early hinge, and then you don't have to do anything until the release. You turn to a certain point (don't ask me where, right now) and then you stop the forward movement of your hands, and you turn the club, leading with a bowed left wrist. Nothing could be simpler. Right? Right! Sure! It's taken me over three years to get to this point!
With greater confidence, I was able to start thinking about accuracy with my 9-iron and the one-arm swing. This is when I started playing #17 at Sawgrass, just for practice.
You know that hole. It's the one that's an island. If you miss, you're in the drink— stroke and distance. Try again. There's nowhere to drop. And this is the hole that Johnny Miller hit to when I described his teaching lesson on pressure in a recent post. For me, this hole has lost much of its terror. With my new understanding of the release—stopping the hands and letting the club go flying ahead—I had a new consistency that I have never felt before. More and more often, it seems, the parts of the swing come together, the coincidence enabling me to dial it in and go for birdie. The other day, keeping count as I hit 60 balls, I hit roughly a third for possible pars, another third for birdie, and the last third went in the drink. That didn't really bother me because I was able to pick them all up with my shag bag, #17 being my imaginary practice hole in my driveway, where I had put down the empty bucket and hit to it from a flagstone path about thirty yards away. The lawn is too soft to hit to, and I leave footprints when I walk around picking up balls. So this offered a good alternative. I really liked Johnny Miller's video, and getting used to the idea of hitting to a difficult target and avoiding real trouble seemed like a good way to practice.
Me on #17 at Sawgrass
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Discouragement
After a couple of weeks of practice in my yard, the one-arm drill and hitting Callaway Hx Soft Flight Practice Balls and "Almost Golf" balls with a full swing, I went to the range early this morning, eager to try out my improving swing.
At first, I hit the ball well, starting with the 9-iron, which I've been using exclusively in my yard. Nice and easy and smooth, hitting balls real high and around 120 yards. Looked good. Then I went down through my irons, all pretty good. Not great, but good for not hitting them in a long time.
Trouble began with the utility 4 and 3. I hit a couple of decent shots, but, for the rest, I topped them or shanked them, all kinds of bad swings. Then, in a display of utter perversity, I tried the driver, too. How bad could it be? I thought. Really bad. As Lily Tomlin says, things are going to get worse before they get worse. Couldn't hit it to save my life. Anticipating that it would be a disaster, I took only four balls with me to the next mat with a driver tee in it. So bad, I had to laugh. Black humor.
Then, trying to regroup, I went back to the nine, which was awful, even worse than before. So bad I took a few one-arm swings to try to get my tempo and path and bowed wrist back again. I was able to hit a couple of balls OK, pulled hooks left, but at least they were airborne, vaguely resembling a golf shot. I couldn't wait to get to the last of the 100 balls in my bucket.
On the way home, I surveyed the debacle, the wreckage of my swing. No more forecasting breaking 80. I'll be lucky to break 100, or worse. I may spend another season going to the course only occasionally and spending my time practicing instead. I'm not panicking, since the same thing happened the last time I visited the range. From that experience, I knew that transferring a swing with practice balls to a swing with real balls is hardly automatic. With real balls, the desire to get the distances you think you should have destroys your relaxed, smooth swing with lightweight balls.
Back home now and ready to go outside and begin the one-arm drill again, I'm hoping that, at some point, I'll be able to maintain my swing, first at the range, and then on the course. But the greatest lesson is that a golf swing is like Mt. Everest. If you want to learn the swing or climb the mountain, you cannot expect to do it on your terms. Just as you have to cling to the mountain take the right path and make the right steps, you have to let yourself go and immerse yourself in the swing. You must become the swing. As an old Russian piano teacher once adjured me (and I didn't know what she was talking about), "The music is in you!" It's a hard thing to get over the concept of yourself as an individual, as a being or entity, and give yourself over to something else—a belief, music, motion and transcend the self. But that is what golf demands. Probably all sports do. Become the music, become the tennis serve, become the baseball swing, become the Zen archer, become the golf swing. Just think of those lines from Yeats' "Among School Children."
At some point, you have to lose yourself. When you're making a golf swing, you're not you any more.
Callaway Hx Soft Flight Practice Balls and 
"Almost Golf" balls with a full swing, I went to the range early this morning, eager to try out my improving swing.At first, I hit the ball well, starting with the 9-iron, which I've been using exclusively in my yard. Nice and easy and smooth, hitting balls real high and around 120 yards. Looked good. Then I went down through my irons, all pretty good. Not great, but good for not hitting them in a long time.
Trouble began with the utility 4 and 3. I hit a couple of decent shots, but, for the rest, I topped them or shanked them, all kinds of bad swings. Then, in a display of utter perversity, I tried the driver, too. How bad could it be? I thought. Really bad. As Lily Tomlin says, things are going to get worse before they get worse. Couldn't hit it to save my life. Anticipating that it would be a disaster, I took only four balls with me to the next mat with a driver tee in it. So bad, I had to laugh. Black humor.
Then, trying to regroup, I went back to the nine, which was awful, even worse than before. So bad I took a few one-arm swings to try to get my tempo and path and bowed wrist back again. I was able to hit a couple of balls OK, pulled hooks left, but at least they were airborne, vaguely resembling a golf shot. I couldn't wait to get to the last of the 100 balls in my bucket.
On the way home, I surveyed the debacle, the wreckage of my swing. No more forecasting breaking 80. I'll be lucky to break 100, or worse. I may spend another season going to the course only occasionally and spending my time practicing instead. I'm not panicking, since the same thing happened the last time I visited the range. From that experience, I knew that transferring a swing with practice balls to a swing with real balls is hardly automatic. With real balls, the desire to get the distances you think you should have destroys your relaxed, smooth swing with lightweight balls.
Back home now and ready to go outside and begin the one-arm drill again, I'm hoping that, at some point, I'll be able to maintain my swing, first at the range, and then on the course. But the greatest lesson is that a golf swing is like Mt. Everest. If you want to learn the swing or climb the mountain, you cannot expect to do it on your terms. Just as you have to cling to the mountain take the right path and make the right steps, you have to let yourself go and immerse yourself in the swing. You must become the swing. As an old Russian piano teacher once adjured me (and I didn't know what she was talking about), "The music is in you!" It's a hard thing to get over the concept of yourself as an individual, as a being or entity, and give yourself over to something else—a belief, music, motion and transcend the self. But that is what golf demands. Probably all sports do. Become the music, become the tennis serve, become the baseball swing, become the Zen archer, become the golf swing. Just think of those lines from Yeats' "Among School Children."
Labour is blossoming or dancing whereOr the familiar image from Zen in the Art of Archery.
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
"(...) The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art (...)"
At some point, you have to lose yourself. When you're making a golf swing, you're not you any more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
