1. That the body is responsible for moving the club around you and that the arms move the club up in the backswing.
2. That this process reverses (and that people rotate far too early relative to the "down") in the downswing.
3. How to get the weight forward.

It's true, too. She might not be able to teach a Tour player, but there are a LOT of golfers who need to work on exactly those things.

Consider how well you do those things in your own golf swing.

I encouraged the student to "be a bit more athletic about the putts in the 'makeable' range. Line up, make sure that everything is aimed where you want it to be, and then take a last look at the hole for speed. When you look back at the ball, GO almost immediately. Be more athletic."

I also wrote "you can’t expect to make a putt, or even think that you should make 50% of your 8-footers, or whatever. This may just be me, but I have always just tried to hit a good putt. You can hit a great putt and a spike mark or something you didn’t see can deflect your ball off-line. You can’t expect to make a putt (or expect to miss it), but you can expect and ask yourself to hit a 'good putt' and then accept whatever the result is."

I then wrote about how "I’m watching a Padraig Harrington video in the background and he just said 'You can’t use the result to determine whether you did it right or wrong. Whether you did it right or wrong is here (points down at where the ball was), the result is a bonus.”

I've queued the video up to that point here:

When you're done watching that, skip ahead to 7:45 to watch another good part.

A good drill for a LOT of players to do.

Note how he also shifts forward with the increased flex on his left knee as he drops the hands down.

This is a bit of what I call "throwing" as well - you can feel it in the left arm OR the right arm. I generally prefer it in the right, but you may feel it differently than I or the majority.

That's it. That's the tweet. 😉

Go watch the video, though.

• Play the black tees on odd # holes, blue tees on even # holes. (Par fives are: 3, 8, 13, 15. Par threes are: 6, 9, 12, 14.)
• The first 16 holes are grouped into four-hole groups: 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16.
• Except for the putter, which may be used on all holes, players may use each club in their bag only one time per four-hole group. If you plan to hit driver on #3, you cannot hit it on holes 1, 2, or 4.
• On 17 and 18, players have access to their full bag (all clubs).
• If you take a stroke-and-distance penalty, you may re-hit the same club.

The way I see it, and the way it proved out…

• The game is designed to emphasize playing golf. HItting shots. Not just "oh, 150? That's a pitching wedge" or "stock yardage, hit a driver on every par 4 or 5" golf.
• It forces players to plan ahead a bit.
• It forces players to think about what shot they want to leave - it's easier to chip-and-run a 7I up from the fairway just short of the green (or putt from 20 yards) than it is to play over a bunker to a short-sided hole with your 9I because you used up your wedges).
• It clearly rewards players who don't go at flags and who can hit greens - they probably won't run out of wedges.

What we found today was that if you were playing well, it surprisingly had almost no effect. If you were playing poorly, it almost multiplied the pain. My assistant coach thinks it's a great game to figure out who can qualify for the #4 or #5 spot on a team week to week, as it really creates separation.

A link at the bottom of that blog post links you to this page, with a self-explanatory title:

For better players, I prefer a little bit of "flow."

Here's a drill you can do to get a bit of a feel for this:

Yes, you also use a wall for this drill, too. 😄

P.S. I know your hands/arms don't truly stay in front of your chest, but compared to how far to the side many/most people get their hands/arms, they stay a lot more toward the front than they're keeping them now.

Jim Furyk too.

Keegan Bradley sets up pretty funny.

Dustin Johnson has a bowed left wrist at the top (as does Jon Rahm, and Graeme McDowell).

Jordan Spieth and Lee Westwood chicken wing it.

Lee Trevino had an odd swing.

Thing is…

• You're not any of those people.
• They're supremely talented.
• They spend HOURS a DAY working on what they do.
• There's nothing that says they wouldn't have been better (or worse) if they switched it up to a more conventional thing.
• These guys tend to be in the minority.

I use Matt Wolff's swing as an exaggerated feel quite often.

That doesn't mean I actually want golfers to swing that way.

If you've got a "unique" thing in your swing, think long and hard about whether it's something that's holding you back, given the above bullet points.

When I was done, it looked to me like the Vineyard Vines whale, so I drew a little tail on it. Here it is:

1, 2, 3, and 4 are A1 through A4 (or Ps if you still prefer those).

• At A1, the pressure is pretty centered.
• At A2, the pressure has reached the farthest back position after a slight shift toward the trail ankle. That shift is basically done by 2.
• From A2 to A3, the ribs and torso "wind up" and the feeling is of a rising COM (even though nothing really goes "up" much except the arms). The early part is where you're "flinging" the club and arms and hands the most, but it's already slowing down by the end.
• From A3 to A4, the body starts to re-center by "backing into" the target. It may have only shifted an inch or so back (the scale of the whale is greatly exaggerated). The lead knee stays soft so the player can "compress" a bit before they "jump". This is pretty passive - let gravity help you do this part. It's not a manual "shove" or a "push."
• As the downswing begins and continues, the pressure shifts down and forward until it spikes back up just before impact. The tail is somewhere around impact - slightly before or after depending on the player. Everything, of course, from the "4" to the "tail" happens very quickly.

Of course, it's not quite like the VV whale as I drew it, because he has a relatively flat back, and I was trying to emphasize for this player the "soft left knee" so I drew the trace a bit more "down" from A3 to A4. I've used the Leaning Tower of Pisa before for the 3-4 stage, or the feeling you have of pushing water back and forth in a bathtub when you're a kid, but this is the first time I'd drawn it out this way. For some players, the flatter (more horizontal) back of the VV whale may be a better feel, but overall, maybe thinking of this logo will improve your "flow" a bit.

Further thoughts here: 

For example, on the backswing, people will often move their hands around, bend elbows in every direction, move the clubhead everywhere, the knees are doing a bunch of stuff, etc. Their backswings are too long, and really, if they just make a little turn and "fling" (I use that word a lot too) their arms up and back, they end up in a good spot.

I think that in students of the game can get caught up in trying to do "too much" and instead if they let themselves just tap into some natural athleticism they can reap some benefits. I've been doing a lot of the drill where you add weight to the club with the Torc (at various heights) to really feel the clubhead "throw" back and up. To do this, the wrists and arms have to be soft, the shoulders have to be soft.

I am considering filming a video with the Torc showing a few of the ways I like to use it, specifically for the backswing stuff. I also use it for pitching work. Maybe I'll make another post specifically talking about it.

I hope I don't sound like that to students. 😄

^ I think there's some of Baader-Meinhof phenomena going on here as I just saw the video clip and was reminded of it again, so now every time I say "do less" I quietly chuckle to myself at recalling the scene.

GOOD!!!

Changing something you’ve done ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million times… should be uncomfortable.

Embrace the uncomfortable!

Comfort likely means you’re doing the same thing. It’s familiar. It’s easy.

Learning happens on the edge of uncomfortable. Exaggerate something. Swing slower. Hit massive curving shots that go the other direction from your typical shape. Shank it 10 times out of 12 if it’s because you’re doing something new. Whatever.

Embrace looking and maybe even feeling a bit goofy.

The only thing that really changes much is the angle at which your arms hang - a bit farther out for driver.

Note: it's not true for all, but it's true for most. Rory tends to be a bit more upright with his driver.

The point of the backswing is to turn your body and to slightly bend your trail elbow, to elevate your trail elbow (to varying degrees), and to hinge your wrists (to varying degrees).

The first bit — what's commonly called "turning your shoulders" — is the most important.

Getting the club to parallel is not even on the list.

These lists are off the top of my head.

Tier 1: No Real Talent

• Grip the club properly - in the base of the fingers, with the right number of knuckles showing for your swing.
• Set up properly - weight over the right part of your feet, arms hanging almost vertically, ball position forward of center.
• Learn the ball flight laws. You only have to learn them once.
• Learn that bad shots happen, and don't require a change to what you're doing or attempting to do.
• Change your grips when they get worn, slick, hard.
• Get a video camera, alignment sticks, and a few other training aids. You don't have to spend a lot of money here.
• Use decent clubs. Your muscle back 2-iron is probably not helping you much.
• Wear sunscreen and sunglasses. Your skin and your eyes are important.

Tier 2: Minimal Talent

• Grip the club firmly while remaining athletically "loose" with the rest of your body. Tension in the wrong places can be a killer. Loose muscles are fast muscles.
• Learn what "start line" and curve your ball has on any given shot. You'll be miles ahead of the game when it comes to solving problems with your swing for the rest of your life.
• Practice effectively. It doesn't matter if you practice for 10 minutes or 10 hours a week, if you can practice effectively, you'll squeeze as much out of that time as you can. Nobody practices perfectly, but 90% effective is better than 30% effective. Nobody hits perfect shots when practicing, either, but you can make changes when practicing properly.
• Learn the Shades of Grey and your Shot Zones.
• Play quickly. Play without fear - golf is just a game we play.

Tier 3: Some Talent

• Learn to putt with a backswing and downswing that are about the same size. If your ball goes too short and you feel you have to make a huge stroke, just swing it faster, but keep the through and backswing lengths the same.
• Learn to hit a chip shot with some forward shaft lean and without throwing the trail wrist. I'm amazed at how few people can do this, even if they're just hitting a shot onto a range with no real target, solely trying to "do" this motion.
• Learn how to make partial swings, particularly with wedges.
• Learn how to have a "B" swing for days when things are not going well.
• Develop a ball flight — it's okay if it changes as you continue to improve — and apply the bullet point in the section above to play it.

I allotted myself 15 minutes to write this post and come up with what I could come up with, and that's it. Please add your own in the comments below.

Rhythm is the ratio and tempo is the speed.

Rhythm
Good putting strokes often have a ratio of 2:1. Again, it's the ratio of the putting stroke. You can have a 300ms backswing or a 600ms backswing, each with a 150 or a 300ms downswing, and that's 2:1. Both strokes have the same rhythm.

Tempo
The tempo is the speed of the putter head. Short putts and long putts should have close to the same time (which is why, for example, I like to have a 78 BPM putting stroke), but will have very different tempos. The shorter putt will have a slower tempo than the longer putt.

Essentially:

• You start with six balls.
• You start from three feet.
  • You putt from three feet until you make a putt. If you make the putt, you take that ball and all remaining balls back three feet.
  • If you miss, that ball or "life" is lost.
• Your "score" is the farthest distance at which you make a putt.

So for example:

• Make from 3'. Six balls remain.
• Make from 6'. Six balls remain.
• Miss, miss, make from 9'. Four balls remain. Two lives lost.
• Miss, make from 12'. Three balls remain, one life lost.
• Miss, miss, miss from 15'. Your score is 12'.

Combine both: do what Tiger Woods learned to do from his dad.

When taking his last look at the hole, he'd take a mental "snapshot" - a picture - of the hole, the green between him and the hole, his putt. Then, when he looks down at the ball, he sees the ball but he also sees the "photo" and then, per his dad's instructions, he "putts into the picture."

I do this, and almost always have, even though when I started playing golf it didn't have a "title."

And I thought some of you might benefit.

So here's that part of the email:

1. Practice is not playing. I'd like them to know that when they're working on their swing, they care what the mechanics are, they care what things "look" like somewhat, they care about making the best MECHANICS or something, to change or improve. But when they're playing, it's all about the results, not what it looks like. Better mechanics eventually lead to better scores, but sometimes you have to find a swing that works THAT DAY.

2. One or two bad shots is not a pattern. If you duck hook it off the first three tees, then yes, you might want to do something different the next time you get a driver out, but don't rush into changing your entire swing thought or game plan after one or two or even three slightly funny shots, or you'll be changing something after EVERY bad swing, which happens more often than people realize.

3. Have realistic expectations. PGA Tour players:

• make 50% of their 8-footers and only 15% of their 20-footers. On better greens.
• Average 2.8 shots from 100 yards out in the fairway. They hit it to about 18' on average.
• Hit about 60% of their fairways, but almost always keep it "between the ropes."
• Hit three to four "great shots" per round on a great day. Their standard is higher, but still… they don't love every shot they ever hit. They also hit shanks, chunk chips, etc. You only see the leaders on TV.
• Get up and down only 2/3 times. Scrambling is tough. But they almost never take two chips or two bunker shots.

Then of course, talk about how having proper expectations for yourself will be very personal. Expectations can be for one shot or for the score for 18 holes.

4. Have proper expectations and goals for entering tournaments, but enter them BEFORE you're "ready" for them. You might have a better way of saying this, but basically, we entered Natalie in HJGT events before she was anywhere near competitive for them… so that by the time she was competitive in them (now), she'd know what they were like. It's NEVER a bad thing to play as many events where you have to put your name and a number up on a scoreboard for all to see - it can only be BAD if you have unrealistic expectations about your abilities. Go into competitive golf with the proper mindset - that you're LEARNING how to compete, LEARNING how to deal with it all, how to handle the slow pace of play, playing under the rules, playing with strangers, everything… go in with the proper mindset and it's all about growth, regardless of the outcome.

But today I gave a C+ lesson that I may have recovered and turned into a B+ lesson, if only by recognizing it early enough.

The details are unimportant, but basically, I found myself talking about something that was probably priority #3 or #4 for the guy. It had to do with hand speed, when really his focus is on his turn and hip drive/slide. He asked a question, and rather than my usual vocal "That's not something we need to worry about now" (or some variant of that), I answered it. Then when I was done I recognized that I'd said too much, that it was unrelated, and I backtracked a bit by saying something like this:

"Look, I just made a mistake, so I'm hoping you can overcome that by forgetting all of what I just said, because it's not related to what I'm trying to get you to do today." Then I spent extra time really simplifying even further and re-iterating the two things I wanted him to focus on quite a bit. More than I might usually do (and I repeat things a lot in a lesson).

I think that being very critical of myself is important, and today I slipped into one of the things I'm most likely to slip into: giving away too much information. It's not about the "giving away" - it's about how if the student is only going to remember three things from a lesson, I don't want one of those three things to be the irrelevant stuff where I just talk about swing theory or something that's not super-specific and super-fitting for them right then.

I'll probably follow up with the guy later on, too, to re-iterate the two thoughts I want him to focus on even more. 🙂

So, a bad lesson in my mind. The student was happy, but I was beating myself up in my head.

Listen, there'll always be science-deniers and the belief that none of what I or other researchers do is necessary. They're going to be eroded away. There'll be fewer and fewer of these people once the community realizes that science and technology are simply about learning and understanding better ways to swing a golf club. I no longer feel bad for the instructors who fight it, because the information's out there. If they've got a theory that's different from mine, fine. I'm open-minded. I'll listen. Maybe I've made a mistake, but if they don't have an argument other than, "I believe in my method," then okay. I can't do anything else. We can't have a logical debate. I just feel bad for the golfers they're teaching.

Emphasis mine.

Unfortunately, another quote applies: You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

I was tempted to post "I doubt it," but I have this blog to use, so I'll use it for a quick discussion of this.

I've taught a few thousand people to putt. I've never seen someone with their finger down the shaft who I would consider a "good" putter. More often - far, far more often - those with their finger down the shaft have distance control issues. The pressure they apply with that finger leads to added loft and wrist flipping, while many good putting strokes have de-lofted putters (4° turned down to 1°) and lead wrists that are slightly more in flexion than they were at setup.

I understand what people think they're feeling - the pressure of the shaft/grip being applied to that finger - but again I've got SAM data and visual data (recorded) that leads me to these types of statements.

I'm not super picky about putting grips. I putt with a pretty standard/classic reverse double overlap. My daughter is a single overlap kinda gal. I've taught claw grippers, crosshanders, etc. I could put the finger down the shaft (at least for awhile), and remain a good putter… but part of the reason I might be a good putter is that I don't put the finger down the shaft, and I've learned to control the putter swing by having a better wrist action than the one that the finger down the shaft encourages.

Again, I've never seen a good putter who can actually control distance well with the finger down the shaft.

Take it for what it's worth.

P.S. If you try to putt without the finger down the shaft for awhile, don't judge the results immediately. Give it some time. And read this:

P.P.S. Just because I've never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It only means I've never seen it…

https://thesandtrap.com/b/the_numbers_game/angles_of_error

Here's a par three that is often a 7- or 8-iron (but can be a 6-iron). A driver on a par five. And another par three that plays from 190-220 yards.

In all three cases, you have about +/- 2 or 3° in which to hit your shot, or else we deem the shot "a failure."

Set your expectations properly, and give yourselves the credit you deserve when you DO hit a fairway or a green. It's phenomenally difficult!