3Jack & Trackman Fever

Saturday I got to use the Trackman launch monitor for purposes of finding out what my impact conditions were saying. Before that, I had just made a breakthrough in Module 3 and just started to 'CP Release/Swing Left' with angled hinge on a lot of my golf swings. I didn't bother getting the results e-mailed because I switched clubs and didn't keep track with them. But, I saw the results after each shot and here's what they looked like:

IRONS

The attack angles were generally a bit shallower than the PGA Tour average, but nothing too shallow. I would say with a 7-iron, it was probably about -2.8*. I probably would go as steep as the PGA Tour average, but not very often did I go steeper than that.

But, my other average numbers would look something like this:

0.0* path
-4.0* HSP
-2.0* Path

So, I was indeed 'swinging left' and probably over-doing it a tad.

This was big for me because it looked like the ball flight was pretty straight, but there was a small fade in there that I didn't notice until I really observed it.

One of the thngs I found was that I aimed my body a bit too far left at address. Once I made some changes with that, the path would start 'zeroing out' with the face. Although making that adjustment was a little weird for me. I played 18 after the session and flagged a bunch of iron shots that day.

This is very similar to what Graeme McDowell is doing here:



As you can see, McDowell says to the effect that when he aims square, his path goes about 2* to the right. My stance is more along the lines of the Hogan stance diagram.


So with the irons, I was aiming a tad bit too far left with them and once I aimed slightly more to the right with the body, my path got close to square.

DRIVER

It was easy to see why I've become a very good driver of the golf ball. I pretty much was zeroing out everything. What exactly was that?

- Attack Angle
- Face Angle
- HSP
- Path

So the way I was aimed with the driver was just fine and in fact, I just need to trust myself with the driver even more. Occasionally I would get a steeper attack angle, usually right at -2.0*, but for the most part, I was at zeroes with everything.

Now, there's a swing I can do where I tee it up very high and move the ball position way up to hit the ball with a positive attack angle. When I do this, I gain about 40 yards off the tee. I also found that I pretty much would get this at +4.5* attack angle every time.

However, when you are trying to 'CP Release' and hit up like this, I need to aim wayyyyy to the right. So what I do is when I want to hit this shot is aim the face a bit more to the right of the target and then aim the body almost extremely right of the target. If I don't, I usually hit a pull. I only do this shot on wide open holes with plenty of room left.

All in all, it was a very productive hour. Of course, I got a lot of questions when I posted this up on the forum.

How much does it cost?

It cost me $75 per hour. Usually these places that own Trackman charge something like $100 or so for an hour for *fitting*. This place actually charges $125 per hour for fitting. You should get a cheaper price for this type of ordeal since all they have to do is set it up.

What's the process to do this?

Just e-mail the owner and say you would like to rent a Trackman for an hour and you're just looking for the data to help with your swing. Many owners don't use Trackman for lessons, so this may come off as an odd request, but assure them you are just there to use it for your own data.

How long does this take?

After 20 minutes in the heat, I was sweating up a storm. It really only takes an hour. They can set up a Trackman in about 5 minutes. The data will probably be on a laptop like it was mine. Anybody who can have very basic computer skills can figure it out. I would basically hit a shot, then go back to the laptop about 10 feet away and look at the data.

Any possible problems?

1. You have to be aware of where the target is and make sure it's aligned to where you are aiming. For instance I was hitting very slight fades at the target we selected. But when I looked at the data, it was basically saying I should be hitting a sizeable pull.

Eventually I started aiming a bit right of the target and hitting shots at this new target and figuring out where he had the Trackman aligned.

2. If you take big enough divots, sometimes it won't register the numbers. I had used Trackman twice before and with the irons, you may have to tee some shots up. You can tee them up just like you would on a par-3 though and still take a divot and have the numbers show up properly.

What are the optimal numbers?

Depends what you are looking to do. But I would say that Attack angle is mostly about consistency. Path and face are about consistency as well. But if you want to hit shots dead straight at the target, you need to 'swing left' enough for that to happen.

What is the best thing about working with Trackman?

I only did about 1/4 of all you can do on Trackman, but you're likely to get at least one surprise with your shots. For me, it was that with the irons I swung the club a little more left than I needed to and was hitting a tiny fade and that if I aimed my body slightly right of where I normally do with the irons, I could zero things out.

I also understood that my missed shots were mostly errors with the clubface. I didn't have many missed shots, but if I hooked one, the face got a little too closed and was left of the path, causing a pull hook. With the occasional push, the face was just out to the right too much.

But the big thing is that I certainly felt I made the most out of my practice time, which is important to me because I have limited practice time. Plus you start to correctly analyze what you need to work on and avoid working on stuff that's not important.

Personally, I highly recommend working on Trackman if you're serious about lowering your scores.






3JACK

Grant Waite & Mike McNary

A couple of the best swings you'll find in stereo.



Waite was one of the first names known to work with Mac O'Grady and his MORAD teaching philosophy. McNary has worked in MORAD as well.






3JACK

New Technology, Teaching and Golf

There was a thread that I was directed to over at the forum we shall not speak of that asked the question of if all of the new technology in instruction and the new instructional terminology is overrated.

This certainly creeps up from time to time as golfers seem to want the following in golf:

1. To buy a golf swing
2. To get the quick and easy fix or tip
3. To have the swing come naturally to them
4. If they hit enough balls, they'll automatically improve

You can't do #1 or #2. As Moe Norman once said 'a man cannot buy a golf swing. He must work for it.' #3 is really rare, but the world seems to think that they can be the next Fred Couples or John Daly, too. And #4 can happen, but the world seems to think that they can be the next Ben Hogan (who sought out several instructors) and Sam Snead.

Most people are not anywhere near like Couples, Daly, Hogan or Snead and need to be given sound instruction, then work really hard at it, then kind of figure some things on their own and then have some good hand-eye coordination and a good mentality JUST TO GET TO SCRATCH. Getting to the level of the PGA Tour is really a different story.

Anyway, these days the technology is really amazing. First, we have far better cameras like the Casio EX-FH25.



This is a far cry from the old days of grabbing the big, clunky camcorder that didn't work well in sunlight, provided grainy footage, had to be on a cassette tape and depending on the camera it could miss a bunch of important frames in the golf swing.

We've talked about Trackman and SAM Puttlab. But I think that they actually demonstrate some very important facets of ballstriking and putting.

With Trackman, we understand not only the laws of ball flight, but we understand that impact is objective. And we understand that there is no one way to swing a club.

With the SAM Puttlab, we can see that stroke is not nearly as important as aim and consistency of the stroke. We also start to see that touch and green reading are big factors into putting and guys like Loren Roberts do not have 'the best putting stroke ever.'

A lot of the 'new terminology' isn't so new. A lot of it comes from Homer Kelley's 'The Golfing Machine', which was written in 1941 and published in 1969. And a lot of it describes things most of us have noticed in the golf swing, but it has never been given a term to describe it.

The problem of course is if the instruction is not good, than all of the latest, greatest pieces of equipment will not help the student much. Most people who are anti-video ignore the studies that have shown how people have increased their leaning time just by viewing themselves on camera. And with the Trackman stuff, at the very least you have hard data that one can take elsewhere to a better instructor to figure things out.

Lastly, the greatest piece of technology we have is the internet. We are no longer confined to your typical golf instruction books and magazines or whomever is teaching in the local area. Now we can grab the thoughts of many brilliant people in golf instruction and use it to our benefit, even getting actual lessons thru the internet. We can read about different swing philosophies, other golfer's experiences, and collaborate with other golfers and instructors to put the best possible information forth to the golfing public.

If it wasn't for the net, I wouldn't be playing as well as I am today and I would't be writing this blog. There's always pitfalls, but for me all of the new technology means better golf if you know how to apply it.






3JACK

Swing Update 6.24.10

Here's a couple of swings from today



The 'swing left' is starting to kick in, the extension into PV5 is getting there and the head is not hanging as back as much (still hanging back).

Still plenty of work to do.





3JACK

Moe Norman Award Ceremony Videos

Here's a great set of videos of a ceremony for the late Moe Norman.


















3JACK

Adidas 4.0 Tour Shoe

Here's a video on the Adidas 4.0 Golf Shoes



One thing they like to discuss is 'getting golfers lower to the ground.'

Excellent concept.

In fact, it's one of the things that Moe Norman used to preach, 'getting shorter' in the downswing and 'never get taller in the downswing.'

However, I think it's something where the golfer needs to 'get smaller' rather than having shoes that would get you lower.

Here's a great collage of golfers, look at how much more knee flex they have in the downswing compared to what they had at address.


These golfers are 'getting smaller' by actually using their feet and knees. While I like the Adidas 4.0 Tour shoes, just having a pair of golf shoes that set lower to the ground is something I don't think quite translates into better golf shots.

The problem I see is the modern golf shoes do not have great traction that the old metal spikes had. If you experiment enough with trying to balance yourself, say on a balance ball or just get up on your toes, you will notice that you will start to 'get taller' in order to maintain your balance.

I think the similar thing happens wit the modern golf shoes. The traction is less, you can't get quite be an aggressive with your footaction and you have to balance yourself and you start to get taller.

That is unless you work on having good footaction in the swing.

I saw that Pebble Beach allowed for Phil Mickelson to play with metal spikes. I know that Phil plays with metal spikes quite often. While almost every course requires soft spikes, I think Mickelson has a nice little advantage by playing metal spikes which allow for better traction and better lower body action as he swings.






3JACK

The Champ and Trackman

Here's a familiar face using Trackman.



If you watched the US Open and saw McDowell at all, he was noticeably working on 'swinging left' with his swing in his pre-shot routine.

Obviously, he was mostly hitting a draw though. My guess is that he would like to eventually square his path, but for now he's working on trying to not allow his clubhead path to get further right of 2*.








3JACK