Chipping video

This video goes along with this post.

LINK

I was thinking about readers who live in the cold.

I live in Southern California where we basically have 365 days of golf weather…aside from the occasional storm like we are having now.

Many of the people who read this blog are in the snow right now.

This is going to sound self-serving, but that is not my intention. Actually it is my intention. As corny as it may sound, I really enjoy helping people with their swings and making the game more enjoyable…and if I can make a few dollars doing it and not have to get a real job…all the better. It gives me more time to spend with my family and all of you.

It dawned on me that this is the perfect time for you to work on your golf game. I have heard so many complaints from golfers in cold weather areas about how the long winter layoff ruins their feel and by the time they get it back, it is winter again.

Since my lessons are about changing feel, priority and perception in your swing, versus micro managing mechanics, this may be the perfect time for us to work on things and have less interference from old bad habits.

I do not need a perfect swing at a golf ball on the range on a 90 degree day. All I need are swings at an object that is the size of a ball.

Some people have those mats with a golf ball that spins around on a post that is attached to the mat…some have those foam balls that even if they hit someone in the face, it will not hurt them. You could even wrap some tape around a crumpled up piece of paper and create your own ball.

The only important thing is you are swinging at something and not making a practice swing (which tells us almost nothing).

If you have some videos that you took just before it got cold…even better. We can see what some of your old bad habits are that are getting in your way, and fix one or two of those before you play again.

At the very least it will keep your feel from getting completely stale. At best you will arrive at your first round after the spring thaw with a new approach that is much easier…before you have a chance to relearn you old way an be forced to fight through that.

Make sure you stretch and warm up slowly. You have not hit balls in a while and your body is cold and the weather is cold. Actually, even if you don’t take any lessons from me…you should be doing this anyway all winter to prepare your body for when you start playing again.

The website is finally ready.

GolfSwingSurgeon.com

I am going to learn this afternoon how to use all of the facets and the administration of the site. It is very innovative and the experience is going to be great for both myself and all of you.

Here are some of the things I know so far:

1. I am going to do the monthly, free, in person lesson for one random student (within the US), starting in February.
2. If the site does well enough, I am going to pick 3 students and the 4 of us are going to play Torrey Pines in the beginning of 2011.
3. There will be two videos for you to film. One from behind (down the line) and one form head on. There are two videos on the site showing how to film the videos so I can get the proper view and perspective.
4. Each video you film must be less than 15 MB. Cell phone camera videos will be acceptable.
5. Along with my thoughts, you are going to receive 2 or 3 videos showing additional explanation of my thoughts visually. For those that care, there are not cargo short and T-shirt videos. I am dressed professionally. All of this can be viewed on the website when you login.
6. In your account, you will be able to view all past lessons.
7. If you buy a lesson package, you will always be able to see how many you have left.
8. Foreign transactions take a few hours for the lessons to show up in your account so don’t panic when they don’t show up immediately.

Fire up your cameras and send the videos to me…tell your friends…tell your co-workers…tell your family.

Hand set

(sorry for the wind static at the beginning of the video)

Just like most things in the golf swing, the amount of handset that is correct for you personally will happen all by itself if you don’t do something to prevent it.

Golfers going back “low and slow,” “widening the arc,” or even purposely trying to keep their wrists from cocking so they can create lag on the downswing (float loading…or load shifting as my German friends call it), end up with under set hands.

Those trying to create more “forced lag” by cocking the wrists as much as possible, or trying to get their swings all the way to parallel when they don’t make a big enough shoulder turn, are two ways to over set the hands…or set the hands too deep.

Most measure the handset angle by the angle the shaft and the left arm (for right handed golfer) create.

Steve Stricker has about a 90* angle and I am sorry to say those that criticize this because of it’s lack of lag and power…don’t know what they are talking about. Stricker may or may not hit the ball farther if his angle was smaller, but his swing is so efficient, criticism of his swing on this subject shows how much the lag junkies have taken over the the golf instruction industry.

Like I say in the video, there is a wide area of acceptable handset. I think it is around 70-90* depending on the individual.

Guess what, this entire passage is technical mumbo jumbo that is all about explaining a concept and is painfully unimportant except for as a guide to understand what you should be doing naturally.

If you have a good setup, a nice medium constant grip pressure, a proper shoulder turn and your backswing stops when your shoulder turn stops…you will create the perfect amount of handset for you. That’s what Sticker does and his is my favorite swing on the Tour right now.

Transition

This post is going to be very simple and let the video speak for it. Having a good transition is about having good rhythm and turning everything is sync together.

We all know backswings that are too fast are bad, but slow backswings and initiating the downswing by isolating body parts are much, much more of a problem with rhythm and transition than fast backswings.

Leading with the lower body on purpose or trying to add lag with the hands are just two of the many examples of isolating body parts to create something that should happen by itself…all these “isolations” do is throw off the transition and take the swing out of sync.

This week…

I’ll surprise you on the order , but…transition (with video), a video that goes along with the chipping post from a few weeks ago, hand set (with video) and video on where your hands and club exit after impact. Like spine angle changes it is a very good thing to help diagnose a problem.

I will eventually get to everything that has been requested on the comments and message board. Don’t feel slighted if I haven’t done your request yet. My brain works in mysterious ways and sometimes better thoughts on some subjects come to me faster than others.

Today’s thought is just about that subject. What to think about when you play and this is just a first step of ideas. You already know you are not allowed more than one swing thought.

Find a mental approach that relaxes you and prepares you to enjoy the day. A mental approach that attaches emotions to your golf score does not work…so find something like puppies, your on year old son running full speed and tackling you…or some really hot movie star running naked on the beach.

If you were offended by the last comment, you definitely aren’t having enough fun when you play golf.

I promise you all, more fun leads to lower scores more than anything else.

Now I need some advice.

I have gotten several emails about having the blog, along with more of my thoughts and stories collated and made into a book. Of course I was flattered, but have no idea on how to go about this or have any contacts in the publishing industry. Anyone who has experience with this or knows someone who knows someone…I would appreciate any guidance you could give me.

I would be disingenuous if I said I had no interest in the monetary gain from such a project, but I can honestly say my first priority is to get the word out to a wider audience. I reiterate that I want golf to be more fun for the golfing public and I think my approach could help a lot of people improve their relationship with the game.

This would probably put me in the category of the DVD and book salesman that I have criticized here so often here, but sometimes you need to fight fire with fire…wow, a cliche, I am becoming a hypocrite already. 😮

Maintaining spine angle

This is a big one that a lot of people have problems with. It is less about fixing this problem and more about listening to what this problem is telling you.

Losing your spine angle can cause a variety of problems, but to fix it, you have to figure what is causing the spine angle change.

First, I want to make you feel better. Tiger loses his spine angle on almost every driver he hits. The times when he is hitting it well, it changes very little, when it changes a lot, he hits those “let go of the club” blocks into the next fairway and diving hooks into the left trees.

There are two main ways to lose the spine angle. A dive and a loss of “tush line.” A dive is what Tiger does and to see if you have this problem, put your finger on the end of your nose on a video from behind and down the line. If your nose moves out or down toward the ball, that is not good. If it happens a little, it’s nothing to worry about, so don’t go out and ruin your swing by trying to keep you head still.

To see if you are losing the tush line, you need a vertical line (same camera angle as above) like an imaginary wall your behind is up against and your body pulls away from that line during the swing. This is also known as standing up or pulling out of it…not to be confused with keeping your head down.

This post is just about educating you about something that is wrong…and losing your spine angle is like a fever. There is very little you can do for a fever, but it shows you are sick. If you can figure out why you are sick, you might be able to do something.

Now, here are a few examples of how these two things happen…and nowhere near a comprehensive list.

If you take the club away low and slow trying to get too much extension, this will most likely pull your head to the ball and you have lost your spine angle.

If you hold the lag too long on the way down, you are not allowing centrifugal force to extend your arms, you will not be able to reach the ball with your current posture and you will have to dive slightly to get the club to the ball.

If you try and set your hands too high at the top of your backswing trying to “increase your arc,” that will pull you out of you posture and as you straighten at the waist, you will lose you tush line.

If you get scared that you might hit the ball fat, your grip pressure increase and you pull your hands into your body on the downswing…that is going to be a right chicken wing and your lower body will lunge toward the ball to get the club to it. Again, loss of tush line.

Bad posture at address can cause both a loss of tush line or a dive.

Again, not nearly a comprehensive list and I invite all readers to add any they can think of.

The website is nearly ready.

I was just told as early as tomorrow, but Monday at the latest.

I think it is going to be fun for everyone involved. At worst, I think I can simplify things and make it easier and more fun to play at your current level.

At best it will be easier, more fun and 2010 and beyond will be full of low scores, your pocket full of all your friends’ money and my picture on the cover of Golf Digest beating up a card board cutout of David Leadbetter…LOL.

PS-I think all readers and students should start taking advantage of the message board attached to the blog. Discussion and sharing of ideas is good. The link will be on the new website and it is on the right side of this page.

Have a great weekend and get those videos ready…btw, the site is configured to take cell phone videos, so don’t worry if you don’t have a good digital camera.

Don’t solve problem “A” by doing the opposite of problem “A”

(Read carefully, as my writing goes in circles sometimes. Actually, you can get all you need to know from the last sentence, so you can skip the mumbo jumbo. 🙂 )

If you try and solve problem “A” by doing the opposite of problem “A,” you will end up with problem “B.”

What you want to do, is just do it correctly…but if you are doing it correctly, it might feel like the opposite of “A.”

OK, now that I have you all good and confused, I will give you some examples and you will understand completely.

If you are aimed too far right and you know this and want to change it, you should try and aim square to fix it. You should not try and aim too far left or you will eventually be aiming too far left.

Guess what? If you change where you are aiming to square, you should feel like you are aiming differently.

Still confused?…me too.

This is the same concept when I was talking about lag. The opposite of a cast is not holding the lag/delaying the release…it is a proper release. You don’t cure a cast by using your hands to hold the lag, because you are just introducing a different problem. If you make a better swing you won’t cast.

If your hips are over rotating, you don’t restrict your hip turn. You figure out why your hips are over rotating and fix that. That is usually a shoulder turn problem. Once you start rotating your shoulder properly, your hips will stop over rotating without restricting them.

The whole point of this is just understand one thing. You don’t want to fix a problem by replacing it with a different problem…then you have two problems and all you can do is pray they cancel each other…and that almost never happens.