Tuesday was Demo Day at Orange County National. Demo Day is always packed and this was no exception. The weather was about high 60’s and gloomy out. I went to the Convention Center first to pick up my badge and then took the Shuttle over to OCN. For the past 3 years, the shuttle has been playing the same Yamaha golf cart with Lee Trevino commercial with the same jingle. It’s gotten to the point that I know that Yamaha has EFI which stands for Electronic Fuel Injection which means no choke and no smoke and that Lee has never had to change a spark plug. This is what audio torture must be like.
One of the big newcomers that was at Demo Day was the new Hogan irons:
IIRC, these are being designed by the same people that own SCOR wedges. You can find their web site at: www.benhogangolf.com/
These have a similar look to Wishon Golf’s 575MMC irons where some of the muscle is cut out. They also build the clubs in 1 degree loft increments so they can individually custom fit the loft for each club. They generally find that there should be 4-degree loft increments in the long irons and 3-degree loft increments in the shorter irons.
Some people were put off by the thick top line, but as an owner of 5 different sets of vintage Hogan irons, I can tell you that Hogan designed their irons with a fairly thick top line and much thicker than most people would imagine.
But, they do feature the blade-on-blade design with the SCOR V-Sole. They will retail for roughly $150 a club in steel shaft and $165 a club in graphite.
I’ve come to believe that Yonex is the most underrated irons OEM out there. A few years ago I fell in love with their EZone Blades and then last year I fell in love with their Ti-Hybrid MB which features titanium inserted into the middle of the club head. This year they are coming out with a Cavity Back model with Graphite inserted into the head.
And I have to say, Yonex did it again with making this club feel and perform fantastic. Unfortunately, they will cost you an arm, leg and some spare organs to purchase.
The most interesting design of a club was the BioMech putters (www.biomechsports.com). As you can see, they have a similar design to the YAR putter with the hole in the middle of the head.
It’s a design to incorporate the handle pressed against the left forearm like Matt Kuchar does.
Tuesday night was the Open Forum 3 held in the ballroom at the Rosen Plaza Hotel right next door to the Convention Center. The first 2.5 hours consisted of Dr. Young-Hoo Kwon explaining his research and findings in the world of Ground Reaction Forces. I was told that the Open Forum had somewhere close to 400 attendees and they could not have picked a better venue as the Rosen Plaza was flat-out tremendous and they filled the place for Dr. Kwon’s presentation and everybody in that room was listening intently.
After Dr. Kwon I was on a panel that consisted of statisticians involved in the game which included Dr. Mark Broadie (Every Shot Counts), Dave Wedzik (golfevolution.com and Lowest Score Wins book), Erik Barzeski (golfevolution.com and Lowest Score Wins book), Stuart Leon (shotstohole.com) and Scott Fawcett (playinglesson.com). We briefly discussed statistics in the game and how golf instructors can use that to help assist them with their instruction.
I had a great time talking to Scott as he is involved with course strategy, mostly for amateurs. He’s a former Tour player himself and uses data and formulas to determine what the best strategies are. His work is very specific compared to mine when it comes to course strategy, but we agreed that laying up and ‘just trying to hit fairways and greens’ is a low-odds strategy that plagues a lot of golfers. I found his thoughts fascinating.
***
Wednesday morning I had a putting lesson with John Graham (www.johngrahamgolf.com) which golf instructor and friend, Brendan Kennedy, set up for us to use his course’s putting green at Legacy Club at Alaqua Lakes. I’ve played Legacy Club at Alaqua Lakes over the years and the course looks in fantastic shape and the staff is always extremely cordial and helpful. If I lived over there, it would be the place I would look to be a member at as they give you the 5-star treatment at a 5-star course.
I had worked on the SAM Puttlab before, but never really got into the stroke mechanics. And every SAM puttlab lesson I had ever seen they use the SAM Puttlab indoors. John actually uses it outdoors on the putting green and measures the golfer on straight uphill putts, a right-to-left putt and a left-to-right putt.
My main issue was that I was usually missing left except on straight short putts where the tendency was to miss right.
I had also read Erik Barzeski’s article on how you should *not* accelerate the putter (http://thesandtrap.com/t/74295/putting-do-not-accelerate-through-the-ball)
I perfectly agree with Erik’s article, just implementing it was another issue.
What John found was that:
1. I aimed too far right on straight uphill and right-to-left putts.
2. I then incorporated a cut-across stroke.
3. I accelerated the putter head into impact
With left-to-right putts I would actually aim too far left…but, I actually putt quite well on left-to-right putts.
John didn’t try to work that much on #2. Instead, we agreed that by accelerating the putter head into impact the face was shutting thru impact. And my guess is on those short straight putts, I may not accelerate as much, but the poor aim was causing me to miss right.
After that diagnosis, we worked on some setup and aiming along with making some changes to the backstroke to help with getting rid of the acceleration.
I learned more about the stroke than I have ever learned in my entire life. I give John the highest recommendation and he is an expert at AimPoint as well. I believe he is in Naples, Florida this week available for putting instruction.
***
After the lesson I went to the show at the Convention Center. I took a look at the MySwing Golf Motion Capture. To me, that was the big hit of the show. Excellent motion capture with data that can be done outdoors or indoors as it is wireless. It only takes about 10 minutes to put on and calibrate along with only weighing a few grams. They have a pro version which has 17 sensors from head-to-toe. Noted biomechanist Phil Cheetham is now working with the company.
I also had lunch with my editor from GolfWRX, Zak Kozuchowski and we discussed some things and came up with some good ideas for the Web site. That while I wasn’t distracted by PGATour.com’s Amanda Balionis having lunch in the table next to us.
Nope, not at all.
From there I did a walk-around and saw that Piretti has a new line of irons coming out.
I also went over to the Edel booth where they were showing the ‘Groover’ swing instruction aid.
This is an aid that hangs onto a pole and you attach your golf club to. We’ve seen similar swing training aids like this one before, but the difference is that this one is designed towards how you wrists naturally hinge. And if you are struggling with one particular area (i.e. swinging too far inside-to-out), you can position yourself differently on The Groover so it trains you to swing more left.
Here’s a pic of Edel’s 8-iron:
And here is a pic of a few of their wedges that I really liked:
Later on Wednesday night was Tweet-Up 4.0. This time it was at Miller’s Ale House. Tweet-Up is really about getting together with people and having a good time and talking about golf on the side. I’ll try to run down the people I met there and at the show or Open Forum:
John Dochety (twitter.com/JohnDochety)
Phil Snow (Trevinogolfinstitute.com)
Chris Trevino (Trevingolfinstitute.com)
Matt Newcomer (Trevingolfinstitute.com)
Jeff Martin (jeffygolf.com)
Lucas Wald (lucaswald.com)
Victor Rodriguez
Lloyd Higley (chicagogolfacademy.com)
Preston Combs (yourpargolf.com)
John Graham Justin Blazer (twitter.com/blazer_justin)
Sara Dickson (saradickson.com)
Megan Padua (meganpaduagolf.com)
David Graham (twitter.com/graham_golf)
Mark Blackburn (blackburngolf.com)
Nick Chertock (golfprogress.com)
Virgil Herring (www.hpga.net)
Andrew Rice (andrewricegolf.com)
Mike Adams (www.mikeadamsgolf.com)
Bobby Dean (edelgolf.com)
Peter Gauthier (twitter.com/myswingpro)
Joe Mayo (twitter.com/trackmanmaestro)
Dan Carraher (dancarrahergolf.com)
James Ridyard (jamesridyardgolf.com)
Chuck Evans (who looks fantastic, by the way --- chuckevansgolf.com)
Mark Csencsits (lehighvalleygolfpro.com)
John Ortega (http://www.costamesacountryclub.com/john-ortega)
Phil Cheetham (philcheetham.com)
I’m sure I missed people because…well, I suck.
But, I had a pleasure of talking to so many people and talking about the game and golfer performance. Probably the most common compliment I got was the study I did on hitting the driver versus the 3-wood off the tee and how that freed up so many people on the golf course and how they started playing better just because of that.
That and the encouragement on my work was something I really appreciated and was a bit overwhelming, in the very best sense of the word.
***
I was out of town for Thursday and Friday and part of Saturday. But on Sunday and stopped by the Lucas Wald 2-day school at Timacuan Golf and I got to see his students hit the ball and it was quite impressive. It wasn’t a school where players would hit shot after shot, but it was more about the patterns that Lucas teaches and how to practice them thru ‘deliberate practice.’ Some of the transformations were already impeccable.
One of the biggest things I have heard is that you can’t teach that! in reference to certain students who generate tons of club head speed. But, not only did Lucas teach himself to gain 12 mph of club head speed (along with the help of Kelvin Miyahira’s golf instruction), but they were able to increase Victor Rodriguez’s club head speed by nearly 30 mph!
There is also the assumption that if you learn how to swing faster using Lucas (or Kelvin’s) instruction that you will hit it crooked. But as Victor showed repeatedly, he hits the ball almost dead straight. Victor was measured at 137 mph on FlightScope. One of Lucas’ students, Sofia Amoroso who is 13 or 14 years old generated 93 mph on FlightScope (LPGA average is 94 mph) and she also hits it dead straight. But, I also saw some other golfers that were using Lucas’ practice methodologies improve right before my eyes.
Afterwards, we went out for some drinks and dinner which included myself, Victor, Jeff Martin, Lloyd Higley, Lucas and another one of Lucas’ students and had fun conversations discussing the game and the ungodly shots that Victor can produce.
It was a fun time and a great learning experience. But for now, I’m exhausted.
3JACK
1 comment:
You deserve to be overwhelmed Rich.
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