Martin Kaymer on The Golf Fix

[Stretch]

Think you missed the obvious.

I'm hoping he's very subtly parodying the stereotype of Germans as having no sense of humor.

[Tiger Spuds]

Think Martin just felt the pressure there. Give him a 5 footer to win a Major and it's no problem, but he's not very good in front of a camera, even in normal interviews. I'd imagine if you asked him to do this in person, one on one, he could show you a thing or two.

[Leftygolfer]

No doubt he's an amazing player. I really like his move. Many many great players play a pull cut off the tee and all that matters is being able to do it consistantly. It just wasn't the best example of a draw and how to hit one.

[MikeLowry5]

Yes, I was expecting a much tighter shot cone from a major championship winner.

It was two shots on a windy day for a TV show. 2 wayward shots does not define his career or ability by any means.

I'll go back to the story a PGA pro told me about watching Lee Trevino top (2) balls off the tee in an event with both going approx 150yds TOTAL. He said Trevino didn't get mad, show any emotion good or bad, but he par'd both holes. PGA pro's hit bad shots too...

[Hollister]

I'm hoping he's very subtly parodying the stereotype of Germans as having no sense of humor.

1. No one ridicules a fellow countryman in the vicinity of me being present

2. No one takes me being offended by non-S&T; golf matters serious 3. No one puts Martin in a corner, hell, I do not know where to put him myself 4. No one takes me serious being pro-non-stackers. Really... 5. No one dares to make no fun of me, pleeease!

[andef]

Maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that he's being criticized here. I say Martin play in the first / second round of the KLM open and he hit at least three or four beautiful high "push draws" with his driver. I'm a bit offended when you say "I think the only real way he knows how to hit a draw is a pull-draw". You don't get to # 3 in the world without having all the shots in your repertoire.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

Very nice. I think Martin got a bit nervous (maybe? considering the wind conditions?) when asked to hit the draw and closed the clubface to end up hitting a pull draw to make sure the ball ended up left. If he would have let the clubface stay open, I think he would have hit a nice push draw.

I don't think he would have. A push, maybe, but I don't think he was in enough to hit a push-draw. Consider how far outside his foot line the camera was and how little "under" the club appeared even from that view at P6.

I think the only real way he knows how to hit a draw is a pull-draw . You saw his massive pull-slice before it.

[Deryck Griffith]

Kaymer seems like a really shy guy so I would assume that this was a case of "on the spot nerves" and lack of experience when it comes to a "clinic" type of scenario.  Kind of ironic when he has to execute these type of shots in front of hundreds of people during a tournament.  I would say however that being "singled out" in a clinic type of fashion is different than focusing individually in a tournament.  That all said, Tiger hits all sorts of crazy beaufitul shots ON CUE at every clininc I have ever seen him do!

As it pertains to Kaymers ability to hit a proper draw, if my memory serves me correctly, didn't Kaymer hit a nice draw onto the 18 green in the playoff of the PGA championship?

[iacas]

Originally Posted by andef

I'm a bit offended when you say "I think the only real way he knows how to hit a draw is a pull-draw". You don't get to # 3 in the world without having all the shots in your repertoire.

Why are you offended? We're not talking about you, and the evidence supports my claim. There are a lot of guys on the PGA Tour - including really, really highly ranked players - who avoid certain shots like the plague because they just can't hit 'em very well. Vijay Singh won't play a draw because he's fearful it'll turn into a huge hook. Hogan didn't like to play a draw for the same reason(s). Trevino faded, roughly 101% of everything he hit. :-)

How are you defining "push draw"? Kaymer clearly hit a pull-draw in the video. If the flag or fairway had been 50 yards left where the ball landed it would have still been a pull-draw. "Push" and "Pull" don't care where the target is.

Sam Snead played a pull-draw and did well with it. He aimed well to the right so he could pull the ball back to "slightly right" of the target and let the ball draw in from there. Trevino played a push-fade, and aimed well to the left for just about everything. Pull-fades and push-draws are also popular shots - more so than the pull-draw.

But the video offers no evidence that Kaymer can play a push fade. He never says anything about opening the clubface and the ball starts on the same left line. He only mentions things which change his path. If you play a pull-fade (i.e. his first shot), you definitely need to change the clubface angle to play a push-draw, and Kaymer never mentions it.

Now I'm not saying Kaymer can't do something, or that the video is definitive proof of anything, but based on the video and some other little tidbits I've seen, I made some general statements which are, so far as I can tell, fairly accurate.

BTW, please watch the second half of the video. I think there is some decent analysis in there that continues to solidify the idea that he likes to hit pull- type shots.

[andef]

I understand that he it a pull draw in the video but you can also clearly see his reaction after he hits the shot, suggesting that he hasn't achieved his intention. Whether that's because the "draw" was of a hook or he pulled the shot is something nobody knows.

At the KLM Open this year ,which he won, I saw him hit push draws. By that I mean shots that started a bit right of where he was aligned and that would the draw. As a far as I know, that's what a push draw is. He might have simplified the way he plays a draw for the golf channel viewers but suggesting that he cannot play a shot because he didn't pull it off in the video seems odd to me. I'm only saying this because I've seen him the shot a series of times and "know" the guy's ability pretty well watching 5+ hours of Euro Tour golf every tournament week.

In addition, I understand that there are some players that are not comfortable with playing a certain shot or stick with their shot shape. However, most players I've seen play, at least on the European Tour, do not have too much trouble playing different shot shapes. At a 5 handicap, I can even pull of these shots pretty consistently. There's no reason why a PGA Tour pro shouldn't be able to do so.

Originally Posted by iacas

Quote:

Originally Posted by andef

I'm a bit offended when you say "I think the only real way he knows how to hit a draw is a pull-draw". You don't get to # 3 in the world without having all the shots in your repertoire.

There are a lot of guys on the PGA Tour - including really, really highly ranked players - who avoid certain shots like the plague because they just can't hit 'em very well. Vijay Singh won't play a draw because he's fearful it'll turn into a huge hook. Hogan didn't like to play a draw for the same reason(s). Trevino faded, roughly 101% of everything he hit. :-)

How are you defining "push draw"? Kaymer clearly hit a pull-draw in the video. If the flag or fairway had been 50 yards left where the ball landed it would have still been a pull-draw. "Push" and "Pull" don't care where the target is.

But the video offers no evidence that Kaymer can play a push fade. He never says anything about opening the clubface and the ball starts on the same left line. He only mentions things which change his path. If you play a pull-fade (i.e. his first shot), you definitely need to change the clubface angle to play a push-draw, and Kaymer never mentions it.

[B-Con]

Regarding the exaggerated draw/hook and fade/slide: Couldn't he have been exaggerating his draw and fade for the (relatively) uneducated TV audience? I don't know what kind of instruction he was given before the filming, but maybe he was told, or maybe he assumed, that a huge exaggerated draw/fade would drive home the point a lot better than just a subtle left/right drift. He also had the wind to contend with, so since it was live he may have not wanted to run the chance of a lazy draw being barely noticeable.

[2bGood]

Originally Posted by B-Con

Regarding the exaggerated draw/hook and fade/slide: Couldn't he have been exaggerating his draw and fade for the (relatively) uneducated TV audience? I don't know what kind of instruction he was given before the filming, but maybe he was told, or maybe he assumed, that a huge exaggerated draw/fade would drive home the point a lot better than just a subtle left/right drift. He also had the wind to contend with, so since it was live he may have not wanted to run the chance of a lazy draw being barely noticeable.

I am sure that is part of it.

Of course on live TV all that Mike Breed can see is the ball goes left and the ball goes right. He is not going to catch the positions etc that you can see in slow mo. Even if he did see the flaws he would have to by subtle about what he said. When you get a major champion on your show, you don't want to "threw him under the bus" for a bad swing.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by andef

I understand that he it a pull draw in the video but you can also clearly see his reaction after he hits the shot, suggesting that he hasn't achieved his intention. Whether that's because the "draw" was of a hook or he pulled the shot is something nobody knows.

One of the points I made was that he never said anything about adjusting the clubface - an absolute must if he's going to hit a push draw and something that's simple enough for an audience to understand.

Originally Posted by andef

In addition, I understand that there are some players that are not comfortable with playing a certain shot or stick with their shot shape. However, most players I've seen play, at least on the European Tour, do not have too much trouble playing different shot shapes. At a 5 handicap, I can even pull of these shots pretty consistently. There's no reason why a PGA Tour pro shouldn't be able to do so.

Yeah, that Lee Trevino, what a chop, only playing one shot all the time... And Jack Nicklaus, loser, always playing a fade... The point I was making there is that 95% of the shots virtually any pro hits with any particular club (driver often has a different shape than the irons) are pretty much their stock shots and they do what they can to avoid hitting the "other" shots. They don't spend the time to practice them and the ways they do to hit them are often nowhere near what they do in reality ("feel ain't real"). Kaymer never said anything about the clubface, so he may very well play a pull-draw.

Frankly, Breed should not have asked him the question... He should know that Kaymer plays a pull-fade as his stock shot and left it at that. I think that even the casual golfer would notice that the balls didn't end up anywhere near each other.

I'm going to stand by what I said earlier (I've seen a bunch of PGA Tour players too), and I still think the video is a valid teaching and learning tool. And that's all that I really wanted to get out of it. I think you're making too big a deal over the "can't hit a push-draw." Of course he can, but under the gun of live TV he didn't and his explanation should make anyone wonder if he truly knows how. But the whole "can he/can't he" only came up in this discussion, not the video itself.

[Deryck Griffith]

Originally Posted by iacas

Yeah, that Lee Trevino, what a chop, only playing one shot all the time... And Jack Nicklaus, loser, always playing a fade... The point I was making there is that 95% of the shots virtually any pro hits with any particular club (driver often has a different shape than the irons) are pretty much their stock shots and they do what they can to avoid hitting the "other" shots. They don't spend the time to practice them and the ways they do to hit them are often nowhere near what they do in reality ("feel ain't real"). Kaymer never said anything about the clubface, so he may very well play a pull-draw.

I think this statement is VERY true and one that many people overlook.  Mr bowed left wrist Graeme Mcdowell is a notorious draw biased player and another bowed left wrist player, Dustin Johnson, only barely learned how to effectively hit a fade with Butch Harmon this year.....again, this year.

That said, if Martin really needed to play a draw in a tournament, I'm sure he could only if he HAD to.  Nevertheless, this video more than anything shows that many of the pros really don't know much about the golf swing (Tiger included).

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Deryck Griffith

I think this statement is VERY true and one that many people overlook.  Mr bowed left wrist Graeme Mcdowell is a notorious draw biased player and another bowed left wrist player, Dustin Johnson, only barely learned how to effectively hit a fade with Butch Harmon this year.....again, this year.

That said, if Martin really needed to play a draw in a tournament, I'm sure he could only if he HAD to.  Nevertheless, this video more than anything shows that many of the pros really don't know much about the golf swing (Tiger included).

Dustin actually worked on lowering his exit, more of a CP release, with two guys named Mike and Andy a year prior... but shhh... he stiffed 'em on the bill. :-)

Agree with the second part. A lot of golf pros don't know a lot about the golf swing, and Tiger's among them, you bet.

[bkoguy07]

Lol at the end "not a big fan of subtly"

iacas your sense of humor is hilarious man hahah (that is if you made this video.. seems like you did :) )

[mtsalmela80]

Then how do they win, and well, be on tour??? What are they doing right that you experts are doing wrong?

[Zeph]

Originally Posted by mtsalmela80

Then how do they win, and well, be on tour??? What are they doing right that you experts are doing wrong?

Talent, thousands of hours hitting balls, great shortgame and putting. Nobody got a perfect swing, so you can point out something wrong from your POW about anyone. That doesn't mean we are better than them (without implying I'm an expert), it just means they could get better by improving that part. As long as they are able to hit the ball far and consistently, it doesn't matter how you get there. For us who can't play close to their level, watching what they do right and wrong is a good way to learn.

We often discuss the flaws of tour players, but we only do it so we can learn and improve our understanding of the swing. Which in turn can be put to use in our own swing.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by mtsalmela80

Then how do they win, and well, be on tour??? What are they doing right that you experts are doing wrong?

In addition to what Zeph said, doing something well doesn't mean they're good at instructing or they know whether what they think they're doing is what they're actually doing. See the Nick Faldo ball flight laws video.

Being expert at doing something and being expert at teaching something are different things altogether. Tiger got to world #1 with some obvious "issues" in his swing and Phil Mickelson's swing is rarely used as a good example because it's got a number of issues... yet they are often #1 and #2 in the world. The current #1 has a dramatically bent left arm at impact. Works for him, won't work for 99% of the rest of the world.