Great video debunking another popular golf instruction piece of advice of 'swinging within a barrel.'
And it looks like Hogan is using a shorter iron here as well.
Save the barrels for Donkey Kong.
3JACK
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Footwork Fiesta
Here's some great, but different footwork put on display by Gay Brewer and Billy Casper.
One thing I'm a firm believer in is that footwork is extremely important to the golf swing. The feet often cause the knees to make their action which causes the hips to make their action. That's your lower body pivot right there.
It's funny how many instructors emphasize the lower body starting the downswing, then completely ignore the footwork. If your footwork is bad, then you're starting off on the wrong foot (pun clearly intended).
Does this mean great golfers all had good footwork? Of course not. But I think those with poor footwork (usually the LPGA) start to rely more on their arms instead of their pivot to deliver the clubhead to the ball (also common on the LPGA). And when you do that, I believe you start relying more on hand and eye coordination to control the face, clubhead path and low point.
Let's take a look at Hogan's footwork.
Another great ballstriker, Moe Norman. Take a look at his footwork.
Now Moe is an interesting case because he 'flung' the arms off his chest at and thru impact, but I think it shows that good footwork can never be a bad thing.
3JACK
One thing I'm a firm believer in is that footwork is extremely important to the golf swing. The feet often cause the knees to make their action which causes the hips to make their action. That's your lower body pivot right there.
It's funny how many instructors emphasize the lower body starting the downswing, then completely ignore the footwork. If your footwork is bad, then you're starting off on the wrong foot (pun clearly intended).
Does this mean great golfers all had good footwork? Of course not. But I think those with poor footwork (usually the LPGA) start to rely more on their arms instead of their pivot to deliver the clubhead to the ball (also common on the LPGA). And when you do that, I believe you start relying more on hand and eye coordination to control the face, clubhead path and low point.
Let's take a look at Hogan's footwork.
Another great ballstriker, Moe Norman. Take a look at his footwork.
Now Moe is an interesting case because he 'flung' the arms off his chest at and thru impact, but I think it shows that good footwork can never be a bad thing.
3JACK
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Swing Update 6.5.10
Here's a latest swing update taken with a Hogan Apex PC 2-iron
I'm currently done 550 reps of Module 3 in John Erickson's Advanced Ballstriking Class. Right now I'm working on that and getting into what John calls the PV5 position. Take a look at Hogan in the pic below.
My cranium still hangs back, but it seems to have improved a tad from last week. Also, I think my backswing looks very nice right now as well as my footwork.
3JACK
I'm currently done 550 reps of Module 3 in John Erickson's Advanced Ballstriking Class. Right now I'm working on that and getting into what John calls the PV5 position. Take a look at Hogan in the pic below.
My cranium still hangs back, but it seems to have improved a tad from last week. Also, I think my backswing looks very nice right now as well as my footwork.
3JACK
How To Focus Part 2
Another great video with Shawn Clement on how to focus on your golf shot.
I get asked this a bit because one of things I'm probably best at in my game is hitting clutch golf shots.
My friends and family chalk it up to playing baseball as a teenager at a high level and lots of experience. I chalk it up to much of what Shawn Clement talks about in the video. And a lot of it is just breaking it down to 'if I do this, I'll hit a good shot. If I don't, I'll hit a bad shot. If I do what I want in my swing and I somehow hit a poor shot, there is nothing I can do about it.'
But, I'm supremely confident that if my mechanics are sound, my impact will be sound and the results will be good.
And I hate to harp on it, but D-Plane does come into the picture as well. For instance, sometimes I may be having a good round but remember earlier on in the round I hit some face hooks. I then get up on a hole with a tough tee shot and O.B. left, I now open the clubface up a tad at address and think of what I want to do and what to avoid (closing the face in this instance). Then I just give it a rip.
I talked to a former D-1 college placekicker who played some Arena football and he stated it very similarly. His thoughts were breaking things down to 1 mechanical thing that he's been working on and saying to himself 'if I do this right, that's all I can really do.'
And I've talked to a current PGA Tour star who is a good putter and says he uses the same mental approach to putting. It's not so much about the result, but the process. Did he read the putt as well as he could? Did he feel the pace of putt? Did he take a decent stroke? If he did and still missed...even if it was a 3-footer, in his mind there's nothing else he could do and if he keeps executing that process, the putts will fall.
I've talked about focusing on the 'process' instead of the result for better scores, but I get the feeling from talking to this Pro that the PGA Tour pros tend to have a process within the process that they focus on.
3JACK
I get asked this a bit because one of things I'm probably best at in my game is hitting clutch golf shots.
My friends and family chalk it up to playing baseball as a teenager at a high level and lots of experience. I chalk it up to much of what Shawn Clement talks about in the video. And a lot of it is just breaking it down to 'if I do this, I'll hit a good shot. If I don't, I'll hit a bad shot. If I do what I want in my swing and I somehow hit a poor shot, there is nothing I can do about it.'
But, I'm supremely confident that if my mechanics are sound, my impact will be sound and the results will be good.
And I hate to harp on it, but D-Plane does come into the picture as well. For instance, sometimes I may be having a good round but remember earlier on in the round I hit some face hooks. I then get up on a hole with a tough tee shot and O.B. left, I now open the clubface up a tad at address and think of what I want to do and what to avoid (closing the face in this instance). Then I just give it a rip.
I talked to a former D-1 college placekicker who played some Arena football and he stated it very similarly. His thoughts were breaking things down to 1 mechanical thing that he's been working on and saying to himself 'if I do this right, that's all I can really do.'
And I've talked to a current PGA Tour star who is a good putter and says he uses the same mental approach to putting. It's not so much about the result, but the process. Did he read the putt as well as he could? Did he feel the pace of putt? Did he take a decent stroke? If he did and still missed...even if it was a 3-footer, in his mind there's nothing else he could do and if he keeps executing that process, the putts will fall.
I've talked about focusing on the 'process' instead of the result for better scores, but I get the feeling from talking to this Pro that the PGA Tour pros tend to have a process within the process that they focus on.
3JACK
Thursday, June 3, 2010
A Look at Different Swing Instruction - Part VIII
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
In this part of the series I will discuss the SliceFixer golf swing philosophy and theory.
SliceFixer's real name is Geoff Jones who grew up in Texas and idolized Ben Hogan. He eventually earned a scholarship at the powerhouse University of Houston where one of his teammates wound up being Fred Couples.
SliceFixer wound up trying to change his golf swing in order to keep up with the likes of Couples and things eventually got worse. After seeking out almost every big name instructor, SliceFixer wound up working to discover the swing that he feels works best for the most amount of people and studying Hogan's swing as much as he could in hopes of discovering Hogan's 'secret.'
Eventually SliceFixer wound up discovering many different aspects of the swing and turned his ballstriking completely around. He also wound up becoming an internet sensation of sorts by his many posts and thoughts on the GolfWRX swing and fitness forum.
That led to a poster compiling all of SliceFixer's posts into a .pdf file and calling it 'Encyclopedia Texarkana' and the famous 9-3 drill was formed.
The internet has really helped bring SliceFixer to the forefront. Despite living in small town Texarkana, Arkansas...he's had students fly in all the way from Korea to get a lesson with him. He's also started doing more schools in the country.
The basis of SliceFixer's swing is a certain type of grip that I haven't quite figured out from reading Encyclopedia Texarkana, keeping the #4 Pressure Point in tact, a Reverse K setup position and the 'CP Release' which he refers to the hands as going 'low and left.'
PROS OF SLICEFIXER SWING: He teaches a pivot based swing and consistently develops student's golf swings for the better and gets them to do what he wants which leads to good control of the clubface, path and low point. Also, it's been reported that his students hit the ball quite long. I've seen Slice teach live and he's excellent at conveying his thoughts and instruction and giving the student something to work on for the immediate future.
CONS OF SLICEFIXER SWING: Most people cannot see SliceFixer, so they try to do the 9-3 drill and his swing on their own and almost inevitably fail quite badly.
There's a couple of reasons why. Mainly is that their downswing plane is too upright, so when they have the hands going low and left, the club gets off plane and that moves the path too far left and the golfer hits slices, pulls and wipes. The golfer really needs to get on the elbow plane first if they want to have the hands go 'low and left.' That's what Hogan did.
The other part is that many golfers have poor footwork and that usually doesn't allow them to pivot powerfully and efficiently enough to do the swing.
Lastly, I consider SliceFixer to have a 'method' style of instruction. In fact, when asked about Jimmy Ballard he praised Ballard for sticking to his methodology instead of using different ways to work with different golfers. Slice teaches the same grip, same setup and same type of release to golfers, which is very much a method to me. And I think method instruction has more flaws to it than customized instruction.
PROS USING SLICEFIXER SWING: To my knowledge, no PGA Tour pros are using the SliceFixer style swing. However, Slice's star pupil Matt Loving used his swing and won the Texas State Open. Loving was a fantastic ballstriker. Sadly, he passed away after a car accident this past December.
3JACK
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
In this part of the series I will discuss the SliceFixer golf swing philosophy and theory.
SliceFixer's real name is Geoff Jones who grew up in Texas and idolized Ben Hogan. He eventually earned a scholarship at the powerhouse University of Houston where one of his teammates wound up being Fred Couples.
SliceFixer wound up trying to change his golf swing in order to keep up with the likes of Couples and things eventually got worse. After seeking out almost every big name instructor, SliceFixer wound up working to discover the swing that he feels works best for the most amount of people and studying Hogan's swing as much as he could in hopes of discovering Hogan's 'secret.'
Eventually SliceFixer wound up discovering many different aspects of the swing and turned his ballstriking completely around. He also wound up becoming an internet sensation of sorts by his many posts and thoughts on the GolfWRX swing and fitness forum.
That led to a poster compiling all of SliceFixer's posts into a .pdf file and calling it 'Encyclopedia Texarkana' and the famous 9-3 drill was formed.
The internet has really helped bring SliceFixer to the forefront. Despite living in small town Texarkana, Arkansas...he's had students fly in all the way from Korea to get a lesson with him. He's also started doing more schools in the country.
The basis of SliceFixer's swing is a certain type of grip that I haven't quite figured out from reading Encyclopedia Texarkana, keeping the #4 Pressure Point in tact, a Reverse K setup position and the 'CP Release' which he refers to the hands as going 'low and left.'
PROS OF SLICEFIXER SWING: He teaches a pivot based swing and consistently develops student's golf swings for the better and gets them to do what he wants which leads to good control of the clubface, path and low point. Also, it's been reported that his students hit the ball quite long. I've seen Slice teach live and he's excellent at conveying his thoughts and instruction and giving the student something to work on for the immediate future.
CONS OF SLICEFIXER SWING: Most people cannot see SliceFixer, so they try to do the 9-3 drill and his swing on their own and almost inevitably fail quite badly.
There's a couple of reasons why. Mainly is that their downswing plane is too upright, so when they have the hands going low and left, the club gets off plane and that moves the path too far left and the golfer hits slices, pulls and wipes. The golfer really needs to get on the elbow plane first if they want to have the hands go 'low and left.' That's what Hogan did.
The other part is that many golfers have poor footwork and that usually doesn't allow them to pivot powerfully and efficiently enough to do the swing.
Lastly, I consider SliceFixer to have a 'method' style of instruction. In fact, when asked about Jimmy Ballard he praised Ballard for sticking to his methodology instead of using different ways to work with different golfers. Slice teaches the same grip, same setup and same type of release to golfers, which is very much a method to me. And I think method instruction has more flaws to it than customized instruction.
PROS USING SLICEFIXER SWING: To my knowledge, no PGA Tour pros are using the SliceFixer style swing. However, Slice's star pupil Matt Loving used his swing and won the Texas State Open. Loving was a fantastic ballstriker. Sadly, he passed away after a car accident this past December.
3JACK
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Posture, How Important Is It?
In my latest swing update video I was asked by a forum member about my posture.
I think this video by Sevam1, done last year, was some of his best work and it addresses the posture.
I agree with everything Sevam1 says here. But the thing that I had forgotten about when it comes to talking to and playing with higher handicap golfers is all of the talk about posture.
Personally, I think it's wayyyyy overdone. It's not that I don't think posture is unimportant. But it's usually something that the amateur golfer who wants to take their game to the next level works on religiously. Instead of working on controlling their clubface, clubhead path and low point better at impact...they do tons of work on their posture and usually do it in the 'straight spine' fashion that Sevam1 talks about.
I should know. I used to do the same thing.
I used to spend countless hours working on my address position, aligning myself perfectly square to the target and having the perfect posture, just like Butch Harmon prescribes.
But now I'm hitting the ball far better and I almost never work on my address or posture. Not to say that it can't cause a problem. I'm sure there have been times where I took a pretty good swing at the ball, but was aligned a bit off and that threw my clubface and clubpath in inaccurate directions. And I can easily admit that posture does effect the pivot and I don't have the world's greatest pivot.
The main point being is that one can hit the ball far, far better without worrying about those things so much. And that most people who work on them follow pop golf instructors who teach a posture that is biomechanically flawed and an address position that is D-Plane flawed.
In other words, I would rather break it down on how am I'm going to better control the face, path and low point and how am I'm going to improve my pivot. Then ask if this piece of instruction or this instructor's philosopies will do any of those things.
3JACK
I think this video by Sevam1, done last year, was some of his best work and it addresses the posture.
I agree with everything Sevam1 says here. But the thing that I had forgotten about when it comes to talking to and playing with higher handicap golfers is all of the talk about posture.
Personally, I think it's wayyyyy overdone. It's not that I don't think posture is unimportant. But it's usually something that the amateur golfer who wants to take their game to the next level works on religiously. Instead of working on controlling their clubface, clubhead path and low point better at impact...they do tons of work on their posture and usually do it in the 'straight spine' fashion that Sevam1 talks about.
I should know. I used to do the same thing.
I used to spend countless hours working on my address position, aligning myself perfectly square to the target and having the perfect posture, just like Butch Harmon prescribes.
But now I'm hitting the ball far better and I almost never work on my address or posture. Not to say that it can't cause a problem. I'm sure there have been times where I took a pretty good swing at the ball, but was aligned a bit off and that threw my clubface and clubpath in inaccurate directions. And I can easily admit that posture does effect the pivot and I don't have the world's greatest pivot.
The main point being is that one can hit the ball far, far better without worrying about those things so much. And that most people who work on them follow pop golf instructors who teach a posture that is biomechanically flawed and an address position that is D-Plane flawed.
In other words, I would rather break it down on how am I'm going to better control the face, path and low point and how am I'm going to improve my pivot. Then ask if this piece of instruction or this instructor's philosopies will do any of those things.
3JACK
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