Johnny Miller Golf Academy Episode

[mdl]

I caught this the other day and actually ended up getting a notebook and taking notes!  I've spent a couple range sessions thinking about his tips and it feels like they could help me take another step in the right direction.  I especially liked his point that one way you can tell between "players" and "golfers" (with "players" being the better) is the position of the right wrist at impact.  His visual of how it should look (basically still cocked back at impact) really got through to me somehow.  Of course I know not to flip and to keep the hands in front of the ball, but it's really been helping me to think of getting to the desired position at impact, rather than just staying on plane and keeping the hands generally in front of the club head.

I found pretty much all of his other advice super useful as well.  Anyone else catch this and think it was useful?

Side note.  Is his claim that he could have won a lot more tourneys and majors but sort of pulled back in his thirties to spend time with his family just an old guy telling himself stories cause he wants to feel he was even better than he was, or is it essentially true (at least the part that he pulled back and didn't put in the time required to at least see whether he could have become a Nicklaus or Palmer level champion)?

[mtsalmela80]

I liked his brush brush idea. Seems so simple in hindsight, but taking practice swings so that your swing is bottoming out in front of the ball will probably make a really fat hit less common (my number one problem in golf right now, period)

[iacas]

Originally Posted by mtsalmela80

I liked his brush brush idea. Seems so simple in hindsight, but taking practice swings so that your swing is bottoming out in front of the ball will probably make a really fat hit less common (my number one problem in golf right now, period)

If it works for you, great, and keep at it.

But in my experience people's swings vary quite a bit from their "brush brush" practice swings. Even at full-speed without a golf ball people's swings look remarkably different. You've heard the saying about people having Tour-quality practice swings, right? Well... yeah.

The only time I've ever found "brush brush" to work well is on pitches and chips, because you can accurately represent your swing (it's shorter and slower) and you can use the "brushing" to get a feel for the ground and grass.

"Brush brush" seems to me to be too similar to just thinking "get your swing to bottom out in front of the ball." People can brush brush a hundred times in a row and it probably doesn't change the odds of them fatting the next shot with an actual ball more than a percent or two because they don't know HOW to bottom the swing out more forward, they can just do it at a slower "brush brush" speed.

[mdl]

Originally Posted by iacas

If it works for you, great, and keep at it.

But in my experience people's swings vary quite a bit from their "brush brush" practice swings. Even at full-speed without a golf ball people's swings look remarkably different. You've heard the saying about people having Tour-quality practice swings, right? Well... yeah.

The only time I've ever found "brush brush" to work well is on pitches and chips, because you can accurately represent your swing (it's shorter and slower) and you can use the "brushing" to get a feel for the ground and grass.

"Brush brush" seems to me to be too similar to just thinking "get your swing to bottom out in front of the ball." People can brush brush a hundred times in a row and it probably doesn't change the odds of them fatting the next shot with an actual ball more than a percent or two because they don't know HOW to bottom the swing out more forward, they can just do it at a slower "brush brush" speed.

Yeah, this makes sense.  The brush-brush piqued my interest but it definitely seems like something that's only really useful if you're already an excellent iron hitter and just need to get a feel for exactly where the ground is relative to your stance (on a not perfectly level fairway lie), and maybe a routine that helps enforce not thinking too much.

In general though I really like the idea of thinking about impact, rather than writing that off as happening too quickly to think about.  Obviously a couple exciting range sessions with some new tips happens all the time, so I won't make any grand claims, but I've struggled for a long time with video telling me I've got lots of good pieces of the swing but I never think explicitly about impact position and my natural move is to come from the inside but not get the face closed and with long irons especially I can really consistently alternate between 3 push-fades and 1 pull-hook (in trying to correct it).  I've worked hard to fix that but still am relatively inconsistent in exactly what impact position I achieve.  Thinking explicitly about getting to the impact position and face angle I want has, at least so far, really seemed like something that could help me a lot over time and let me work towards more consistent shots rather than more consistent general swing pieces and just sort of hoping that that leads to a consistent impact position.

[iPutt]

I did actually take one thing away from his episode and that was his slight forward press trigger. I tried it out on the course and range and it really does make it a little bit easier to start the swing by not starting from a completely still position. I make sure I'm not exaggerating the press or anything like that and start the swing right after.

[TourSpoon]

I just watched that episode and I enjoyed listening to what he had to say. There were a lot of good points that he brought up and it's always good to hear it from a different perspective of someone who you know was a great player.