My Swing (Mgardiol)

[iacas]

11 minutes ago, Mgardiol said:

Putting might be "easy" but it's definitely not the least important shot.  In fact--There's no such thing.  All shots are important.

Putting has the lowest "Separation Value" of the four main skill areas in golf (listed earlier). It is the least important skill, of the four, in golf.

From 20 feet, virtually everyone two-putts most of the time. You can't get so good at putting that you make an inordinate amount of 20-footers. There's too much randomness, too much precision required, and greens are not perfect surfaces. My grandma (may she rest in peace) made 30-foot putts now and then, but never in her life would she hit a driver like I can, and rarely in my life will I hit a driver like Rory can when he first rolls out of bed in the morning.

If you were to select a random golfer and wager $25,000 of your own money on them against Rory McIlroy but you get to pick the game, you'd darn well better pick the second game:

• Both players hit 9 approach shots from 175 to 225 yards and their proximity to the hole is measured.
• Both players play a 9-hole putting match with holes ranging from 15 to 30 feet.

Even a 90-shooter putts better than a PGA Tour player 10% of the time. A scratch golfer about 30% of the time. But neither of those generalized players ever, for a full round, strike the ball better with their drives or approach shots.

[Mgardiol]

You Drive for show, you putt for dough.  Bubba Watson won the MASTERS on a  HOOKED DRIVE, a miracle ONCE IN A LIFETIME FLUKE trouble shot(sure his skill and knowledge had some to do with it, but I'd bet fate and some luck were involved too),  and a SOLID TWO PUTT.  I end my argument.    Or was it a three putt?  I don't remember now.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Mgardiol

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Mgardiol said:

You Drive for show, you putt for dough.  Bubba Watson won the MASTERS on a  HOOKED DRIVE, a miracle ONCE IN A LIFETIME FLUKE trouble shot(sure his skill and knowledge had some to do with it, but I'd bet fate and some luck were involved too),  and a SOLID TWO PUTT.  I end my argument.  

Without trying at all to be confrontational, you're wrong. Putting is simply not as important as ballstriking (driving, approach shots) and is still marginally less important, overall, than the short game. These aren't so much opinions anymore, either, but facts… and at this point you can choose to be open and listen and read and learn, or you can continue to tout things that have been pretty much disproven recently.

Bubba is consistently one of the most average to below average putters on Tour. He's high in the rankings because his ballstriking (and in his case his distance) plays such a large role.

Bubba won that Masters on the 10th hole after he managed to make a full swing approach shot that found the green while his opponent failed to find the green. They both took two putts. Oosthuizen was in the playoff, in large part, due to a final-round albatross that required no putting.

In the 2014 season, during which Bubba won the Masters by three, he was T110th in Strokes Gained Putting. He was 24th in GIR and 17th in GIR+F (fringes). http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.02437.2014.html First in driving distance, 14th in Total Driving, and T13th in Ball Striking.

You can't make an eagle putt if you're not on the green in two.

[Phil McGleno]

@Mgardiol-You realize you are arguing with a guy who literally-And I do mean literally-Wrote a book on scoring, yes?

People far smarter than you or I have written a lot of stuff about this.-Putting is important but it is not as important as other things in golf.

[Mgardiol]

Fine Eric.  We disagree.  Nice chatting.  You can't make an eagle putt unless you can.  If you're not long enough or accurate enough to reach a par 5 in two, best you can hope or strive for is to hole out.  That is rarely ever going to happen.  The more realistic practical way to go about it is making  that one-putt birdie.  You can throw all the statistics you want in my face to skew the fact that the ball must be holed in order to record a score.  Most of the time that is done with a putter,  not a driver or an iron.  Proximity to the hole--yes I understand the correlation between it and making putts.  That part makes sense.  Some players are better than others-- that is a given, but I think a lot of what you are saying is comparing apples to oranges in a sense.  But that's just how I see it.  

 

-I agree to disagree.  But thank you --all very interesting stuff.

[Lihu]

5 hours ago, Mgardiol said:

ok 6-7 years big deal fwiw.

Well, I'm no Moe Norman....  There will be variation in ball flight because for one, its still a work in progress-- and two, all I was thinking while hitting these shots was "slot it between the pole and the back of the cart".  If I was concentrating on hitting the same height, it probably would've looked that much more consistent.  The bottom line is, they're all ending up in the same place for the most part and the ball is doing what I want it to do.  On top of that, I like to think as if I'm greatest putter who ever lived so if I'm off by a little, big deal.  Scoring takes place on the putting green.  You cant simply suggest a handicap over the fact that some of my shots come off at different heights. pshhh.

6-7 years ago with a conventional swing, i would try to play a fade and 3 out of 10 times I would end up a hitting a push draw.  The ball would end up at the target just fine, but how can one be confident in his shot selection when you're not sure how the ball is going to come off the club each and every time.  It got to the point where I couldn't take the club back.  This led me to the one plane swing, Moe Norman, etc.

Yeah, some of those pros like Moe Norman can look totally unconventional, but still make it work somehow.

Nice push-draw flight!

 

I've actually seen another golfer at my range making a very similar swing. One thing I am currently working on is straightening that lead leg out at the finish through proper weight shift. Speaking of which I noticed that there is just a little bit of backwards sway. Not sure if it affects your swing or not?

 

[Mgardiol]

Thank you, Lihu.  The "push draw" i feel comes as a result of my right heel leaving the ground too early.  Just an old habit creeping in from my conventional swing.  So admittedly. it's still somewhat of a work-in-progress, but I'm quite pleased with it at the moment.  The back sway is in part caused by the same right-heel mistake, but in this side view video my left knee is not bending early enough in the backswing. It should start bending before I finish my backswing.  My knee should only then, move forward towards the target--which initiates everything for the downswing, for me at least.  The left knee needs to be moving backwards before it can go forwards, and it is what initiates the downswing.  Rolling my feet but not lifting them.  Then I just swing my arms.  

 

So, yeah.  Side view vid has some flaws right there for you.  :)

Moe Norman said he wanted his left knee over his big toe and bent at impact btw

Edited March 15, 2016 by Mgardiol

[iacas]

I'm not going to belabor this point after this post, so if you don't respond, I'm done as well.

3 hours ago, Mgardiol said:

Fine Eric.  We disagree.

It's not really a matter of opinion. It's basically a fact with which you're "disagreeing" at this point. It's like disagreeing that the earth is round or something at this point.

Putting is less important than driving and approach shots. It's even a little bit less important than the short game. That's not an opinion.

3 hours ago, Mgardiol said:

You can't make an eagle putt unless you can.

My grandmother (when she was alive) could make an eagle putt from 25 feet, and you - no matter how much you practice 25-foot putts, will never be able to make even about 25% of them consistently, let alone substantially more.

Virtually everyone averages about two putts from that distance, and even if you can find a way to average 1.9, you're going to gain a full stroke every TEN times someone else who averages 2.0 putts has the same putt. Yet hitting the ball as little as 20 yards farther with the same angular accuracy can result in several strokes saved per round.

People are very close in their ability to putt. There's very little that separates a PGA Tour level putter from even a guy who shoots in the 80s. The guy who shoots in the 80s will putt better - for an entire round - than an average PGA Tour player 15-20% of the time. They'll almost never drive the ball or hit approach shots better than a PGA Tour pro for an entire round.

3 hours ago, Mgardiol said:

If you're not long enough or accurate enough to reach a par 5 in two, best you can hope or strive for is to hole out.  That is rarely ever going to happen.  The more realistic practical way to go about it is making  that one-putt birdie.

You're missing the fact that being able to get on the green in regulation - or under regulation - is by far the better option.

If you have a poor putter but give him a bunch of 35' eagle putts, he's going to score better than the good putter who only ever has 20 footers for birdie. Heck, give me a bunch of 35' eagle putts left-handed and I'll wipe the floor with Ben Crenshaw in his heyday from 20'. He's only going to make about 20% of those, tops. I just have to two-putt 20% of the time to beat him, and any that I make is a big huge bonus.

3 hours ago, Mgardiol said:

You can throw all the statistics you want in my face to skew the fact that the ball must be holed in order to record a score.

Totally beside the point, which you are missing.

Perhaps a few extreme scenarios will help you understand the point:

- Player A plays a course with 18 par fives. He's an average putter, but a great ballstriker. He hits all 18 in two. He averages 2.33 putts per green. What's he shoot?

- Player B plays the same course. He never hits a par five in two, and fails half the time to get it on the green in regulation. However, he averages only 1.33 putts per hole.

What does each player score?

A: 4.33 * 18 = 78, or 12 under par.
B: 4.33 * 9 + 5.33 * 9 = 87, or 3 under par.

This despite the fact that one player, B, had 18 fewer putts on this fictitious course.

Hitting the ball on the green and giving yourself a putt - an area of the game where every level of player is surprisingly close to one another (even my grandma can make a 30-foot putt, or my 13-year-old daughter), is SO much more important than "putting" that it's not even silly. No, you can't go out there and four-putt regularly and expect to be good, but the equivalent to that is someone who whiffs and shanks every other shot they take, or racks up ten penalty strokes from OB and water hazards per round. The full swing (driving, approach shots) matter significantly more.

To point this out further…

Quote

Imagine a game in which you pair two average PGA Tour players with two average 80s golfers. Team A will play by having the pro hit every shot that requires a Full Swing Motion (roughly every shot from 65+ yards), and the 80s golfer will play every short game shot and hit every putt. Team B will play the opposite way: the pro will hit every short game shot and putt after the 80s golfer plays every shot from the tee to about 65 yards.

On a typical 7000-yard golf course, what might you expect these teams to score? Which team would win? …

… Team A can be expected to wipe the floor with Team B. It’s not even that close. On average, Team A can be expected to shoot even-par 72, while Team B struggles to break into the 70s and averages about 80. That’s a full eight shots.

I could (figuratively) beat you senseless with all kinds of stats. I won't. As @Phil McGleno said, I've literally written a book on this topic. It's due out for a DVD release soon. It's been purchased by thousands of golfers, Top 100 Instructors, and has already seen 20-30 teachers sign up to teach their own LSW Clinics, which are also received incredibly well. Many people have called it the best golf book ever written, and that's thanks in large part to the fact that we break a lot of old myths, like "drive for show, putt for dough."

Seriously, I don't care if you're the greatest putter in the world… the guy putting for birdies is going to beat the guy putting for pars almost every time.

Of course most of the time you hole out with a putter, but get this… on average, every player of every ability level taps in nine times per round. If you shoot 72 and tap in nine times, that's 12.5% of your score. Substitute in a player who barely knows what end of the putter to use and, guess what? You're still shooting 72, because they just have to tap the ball in. Anyone can do it.

Half of the holes you play result in a putt that virtually everyone in the world can make. The rest include putts from three feet. Or ten feet. Or even thirty feet. They're putts that even my grandma can make. Not as often as I can, no doubt, but way, way more often than she can hit the green on a 440-yard par four in two.

3 hours ago, Mgardiol said:

Proximity to the hole--yes I understand the correlation between it and making putts.  That part makes sense.  Some players are better than others-- that is a given, but I think a lot of what you are saying is comparing apples to oranges in a sense.  But that's just how I see it.

We're talking about golf. And scoring.

Putting is the least important of the four skills in golf (short game is a close third, though).

I'll leave you with some links to some threads:

Others can point the way to more. The full swing - driving and approach shots - are what truly separate golfers. The ability to get the ball on the green, or at least very close to it, in regulation is a HUGE determinant of your score.

Some final points for your thought and consideration:

• If you were forced to play all of your short game (inside 65 yards or so) shots and putts left-handed but got to hit your full swing shots righty, would you beat the opposite version of yourself: the guy who had to hit all of his full swing shots lefty but got to hit his putts and short game shots righty?
• If putting is so important, why can I putt with a wedge and still beat people who are not very good ballstrikers? Heck, I can beat a nine handicapper putting with my foot while he putts normally. Why is that?

---

Don't answer them here. I meant what I said - I'm done discussing this here if you are. There are tens of threads here which go into this in detail. There are hundreds of pages on the Web, and books (like mine, and Every Shot Counts). You can't really "disagree" with something that's a fact, and that's kinda what's being discussed here… facts.

You play well, and score well, because you strike the ball well. Your putting helps, but not nearly as much as your ballstriking.

[Mike Boatright]

A plus 1 is ridiculously good honestly and I don't mean to be rude but your swing doesn't look to have enough speed to be that good. Maybe you can hit it exactly where you want it everytime but I just don't see enough speed to be that  good and speed is kinda a prerequisite to be a +1 unless you play an easier course from the white tees always then id say your good at scoring and congrats that's good :)

 

 

Prove me wrong post a video of you smashing a driver 285 Then... That's club pro material 

 

 

This is speed me hitting it 275 off the deck on the green what a great shot lol :)

Edited March 16, 2016 by Mike Boatright

[Mgardiol]

It's not "my swing".  I've only been farting around with the Moe Norman style swing for a little over three months now.  I've played this game since I was 7 yrs old.  I was a natural, never took beginner lessons or anything.  I am now 38 and have enjoyed the game as a fine player ever since.  You are being rude from my perspective, but you can be whatever you want.  That's on you.  My home course is La Purisima GC  in Lompoc, CA.  Look it up.  You'll see how easy it is from the back tees, let alone the white tees.

 

Anyway, I'll find some time to film more soon.  Stay tuned in.  Thanks.

I have always had tremendous speed with "my" conventional swing using a driver.  I can definitely get more speed and distance with it.  My accuracy is great.  My consistency is as good as anyone's--but that's the one area where I'm never satisfied.  When I heard that Moe could hit it straight every time I decided to take a gander.

From the start of this little swing project of mine, I've been experimenting with Moe's swing using a driver and thus far, I have found that the one thing that is difficult to prevent from happening is having a particular old habit fom creeping in, right at the moment of impact(my hips try to turn which causes my right heel to  lift off the ground early).  I have personally termed it as"spinning out".  The result of this happening is almost always what resembles a power-draw ball flight, at best.  I have since learned that my stance needs to be much wider to help prevent my hips from turning, which is what ultimately causes the right heel to come up early.  

In order for me to get this right, I have to sssslllloooowww dddoooowwwwwnnn.  I "gear it back".  I swing my arms easy, and my hips just slide like they're supposed to.  My right foot stays planted--my heel stays down on the ground until the ball is long gone.  The ball goes dead straight and carries roughly 260(tough to determine exactly but I think I barely carried a bunker yesterday I lasered at 255)but in recent weeks I am finding it anywhere from 280-305 total distance.  It's more of a "just get it out there in play" shot, but It feels effortless and looks that way, too.  Speed is not a word I would use to describe it either.  But I get effortless accurate distance, call it modest if you will.

Lastly, I've discovered that by training my hips to not spin and thus training my feet to stay quiet, all I have to do to hit the ball much further, is to swing my arms faster.  That is where core speed comes in.  That is what I'm working on now.  I've got it to work.  The ball carries at least 30 yards further and straight as an arrow.  My right foot rolls inward but the heel stays down when I do it correctly.   I'm working on my core strengthening and I feel I'm going in the right direction.  I attended a demo the other day that Bryson Dechambeau made an appearance at, and he made the same point that he has two different driver swings.  One to keep it in play, and one that he just flat out bombs dead straight as well.  Still looks pretty effortless, though! :)

I'm having fun employing both swings lately.  I find my conventional swing has gotten better in the sense that I'm learning to keep my feet more quiet which has always been my problem area.

nice DOD Mike!

[Mgardiol]

Here's Driver.  I mess this one up big time, but it still works.  Work in progress. See the video description for details on what I do wrong.  https://youtube.com/watch?v=rflHRjwHOH4

thanks all

[Lihu]

2 hours ago, Mgardiol said:

Here's Driver.  I mess this one up big time, but it still works.  Work in progress. See the video description for details on what I do wrong.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=

 

thanks all

Yup, that was smacked okay.

BTW, You need to type the link on one line then hit enter:

 

 

[Mgardiol]

 

[Mike Boatright]

22 minutes ago, Mgardiol said:

 

Terrible swing quit the game what are you doing!!! JK that's an interesting move there pretty straight that's all that matters I don't see any tour players doing this action or Moe Norman type approach> It obviously has less axis with little to inside or outside of the ball eliminating side spin which is a good thing just curious though what type of misses do you run  into?

[Mgardiol]

Mike,

LOL

My miss is far less frequent now, but was almost always a draw, ranging anywhere from a baby draw to a power draw/almost a hook--but not.  Pretty rare lately.  

However, now--once in a while I'll get a little under one and it will take off much higher than desired but still straight.

Working on it non stop.  Better day by day.  Just gets easier and easier.  Even the long irons are cooperating.

 

Thanks!

 

Marc

 

 

Edited March 25, 2016 by Mgardiol