Zeroing Out Hurting Your Game?

[iacas]

7 hours ago, natureboy said:

If Duval was referencing DeChambeau

Since the title of the video is "Duval Talking about Rory" so I doubt very much he's talking about Bryson.

[natureboy]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Since the title of the video is "Duval Talking about Rory" so I doubt very much he's talking about Bryson.

I don't think the video title was correct. Rory is being shown putting on the practice green in the background, but Duval is talking about tee shots and says, "you can't be thinking about science when you're out there", and given DeChambeau comment in one of his interviews that his stock intent ball flight is 'straight', I'm pretty sure Duval is talking about Bryson.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, natureboy said:

I don't think the video title was correct. Rory is being shown putting on the practice green in the background, but Duval is talking about tee shots and says, "you can't be thinking about science when you're out there", and given DeChambeau comment in one of his interviews that his stock intent ball flight is 'straight', I'm pretty sure Duval is talking about Bryson.

@Golfingdad titled it "Duval Talking about Rory" so I'm going to assume that he's not an idiot, and that David Duval was talking about Rory, who they also had on the screen at the time.

And I texted him, and he confirmed: they were talking about Rory.

[Golfingdad]

7 hours ago, natureboy said:

If Duval was referencing DeChambeau's stated 'straight' stock shot being the issue with his poor tee shot on 18 yesterday. Sure, he hit a bad shot under pressure. Any player can hit a poor shot under pressure. If you were a righty playing a stock left to right fade on 18, to hit the same intended target that Bryson had with a 'straight' drive, your start line would be farther left than Bryson's, and if you had the same pressure related body stall error you'd likely put it in about the same place but with a pull rather than a pull-hook.

What's DeChambeau's total experience in Majors again? And yet he's T18 after playing the course three times in some very tough conditions with his 'stock straight'. Did Duval's preference for a single shape save him from hitting into trouble when his game deserted him and his total dispersion / shot variability increased?

I've seen plenty of guys on the Masters' broadcast who have overdone their shape right into trouble. Or on the back pin placement on 16 try to hit a draw when the hole begs for some momentum up into the slope (a more left to right approach) to help hold it.  A set shape is no guarantee of avoiding a hazard. Having a repeating, consistent swing with small errors is what matters. If choosing a shape frequency helps you do that great. I don't think it means you will automatically have a tighter shot dispersion than a player who approaches it like Bryson.

From what I've seen, Bubba works it both ways off the tee far more frequently than 90% / 10% in favor of a fade. He does this to maximize his fairway roll-out or positioning. He's #1 in SG driving. Others may not be able to emulate this approach, because they don't have his 'hands', but that doesn't mean Bubba is 'wrong'.

'Army golf'' (left, right, left right) is to me an indication that your overall swing variability has increased relative to your established 'stock' consistency and/or that you are overcompensating for prior errors on the subsequent shot. Say draw is your stock and you are overdrawing on the day because your swing is a little off. You shift your start line more right to compensate and the occasional block will put you on the right side - you total dispersion has increased because your swing is off. If you understand the normal distribution, like Bryson you can accept seeing different (slightly) than intended shapes so long as your lateral dispersion around the intended target is acceptable.

Bryson's already one under today, so I don't think his big misses yesterday have broken his confidence in his swing approach. What yesterday was for him was a learning experience on tee shot pressure when close to the lead. A body stall in a pressure situation seems to be a fairly common swing error and something he can be aware of and work on for the future.

Duval was talking about Rory McIlroys struggles yesterday, not DeChambeau.

[natureboy]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

@Golfingdad titled it "Duval Talking about Rory" so I'm going to assume that he's not an idiot, and that David Duval was talking about Rory, who they also had on the screen at the time.

And I texted him, and he confirmed: they were talking about Rory.

That fascinating, I had no idea Rory was known for thinking about 'science' when he's on the tee or at all?

Just now, Golfingdad said:

Duval was talking about Rory McIlroys struggles yesterday, not DeChambeau.

Same reply as above. Maybe they started talking about Rory, but DeChambeau was clearly in Duval's head...IMO.

[Golfingdad]

32 minutes ago, natureboy said:

That fascinating, I had no idea Rory was known for thinking about 'science' when he's on the tee or at all?

Same reply as above. Maybe they started talking about Rory, but DeChambeau was clearly in Duval's head...IMO.

Well, regardless, I thought his point, specifically the part about confidence - made by a major champion and former world number 1, mind you, and which is consistent with some points made here by Mike and Erik - was interesting and appropriate for this thread.  That's all.

[saevel25]

17 minutes ago, natureboy said:

That fascinating, I had no idea Rory was known for thinking about 'science' when he's on the tee or at all?

I think that announcers have a tendency to say the reason why players struggle is that they are being too technical with their swing and should only worry about tempo or feel. 

They probably got the word science stuck in their head form using it so much with Bryson. 

 

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

They probably got the word science stuck in their head form using it so much with Bryson. 

Right, Bryson is clearly uppermost in Duval's mind because he's specifically someone who is taking a different approach to the Manichean must be either fade or draw paradigm that is part of traditional golf thinking. Rory doesn't really take a super-technical approach, does he? He works a bit with Trackman, but as far as I've seen he never quotes numbers or gets technical in discussing his game. He seems to play more intuitively the way Duval would like. So why would Duval bring up the 'science' word in referring to him?

I'm not saying that traditional approach can't work. Clearly it can. I'm just not convinced it is the only way to play at a high level. DeChambeau seems to be providing some supporting evidence.

Edited April 11, 2016 by natureboy

[saevel25]

Just now, natureboy said:

Bryson is clearly uppermost in Duval's mind because he's specifically someone who is taking a different approach to the Manichean must be either fade or draw paradigm that is part of traditional golf thinking.

I do think Bryson plays a fade more than anything. He seems to like that low cut shot with the driver. He does seem to want to work the ball a lot. Most PGA Tour players hit small curve shots, but they are consistently curing towards the target with either a draw or a fade. 

Maybe Bryson hit's a very slight curve. In the end I doubt he aims straight and doesn't know how it curves. That doesn't seem like something he would do being such a technical mind. I think he would want to know exactly how the ball is moving. 

1 minute ago, natureboy said:

Rory doesn't really take a super-technical approach, does he? He works a bit with Trackman, but as far as I've seen he never quotes numbers or gets technical in discussing his game. He seems to play more intuitively the way Duval would like. So why would Duval bring up the 'science' word in referring to him?

I think Duval got stuck on the word. He probably associated it with being overly technical. There was a lot of times the announcers mentioned the word, tempo as it was some magical word that could fix all the fault swings on the course. 

3 minutes ago, natureboy said:

I'm not saying that traditional approach can't work. Clearly it can. I'm just not convinced it is the only way to play at a high level. DeChambeau seems to be providing some supporting evidence.

Is he? Does he say he just aims at the target and doesn't know what the curve will be like? 

[natureboy]

18 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I do think Bryson plays a fade more than anything. He seems to like that low cut shot with the driver. He does seem to want to work the ball a lot. Most PGA Tour players hit small curve shots, but they are consistently curing towards the target with either a draw or a fade. 

He stated unequivocally that his intended shot when he pulled it into the Holly Bush and then the TIO was 'straight'. If your stock or most frequent shot was a fade, wouldn't the 18th invite one? Why believe the golfer describing his own intents himself?

I would not be surprised that Bryson works the ball with the driver fairly frequently, because if he has enough face / path awareness to get  a fairly tight pattern around an intended 'straight' then that gives him room to make adjustments to get a good bias for a predictable shot shape on either side of that central pattern and use that for hole strategy. In a similar way that Nicklaus did adjusting off the strong and predictable base of his stock slight cut.

Edited April 11, 2016 by natureboy

[saevel25]

3 minutes ago, natureboy said:

He stated unequivocally that his intended shot when he pulled it into the Holly Bush and then the TIO was 'straight'. If your stock or most frequent shot was a fade, wouldn't the 18th invite one? Why believe the golfer describing his own intents himself?

What's his definition of straight. Maybe for him that is just visually something that doesn't curve a lot but still curves consistently as a fade or a draw. 

A 10 yard draw looks pretty straight over 290-300 yards. 

 

[natureboy]

2 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

What's his definition of straight. Maybe for him that is just visually something that doesn't curve a lot but still curves consistently as a fade or a draw. 

A 10 yard draw looks pretty straight over 290-300 yards. 

It's possible, but as a physics Major, I would expect him to be pretty precise in his terminology.

[iacas]

11 hours ago, natureboy said:

Right, Bryson is clearly uppermost in Duval's mind because he's specifically someone who is taking a different approach to the Manichean must be either fade or draw paradigm that is part of traditional golf thinking. Rory doesn't really take a super-technical approach, does he? He works a bit with Trackman, but as far as I've seen he never quotes numbers or gets technical in discussing his game. He seems to play more intuitively the way Duval would like. So why would Duval bring up the 'science' word in referring to him?

I'm not saying that traditional approach can't work. Clearly it can. I'm just not convinced it is the only way to play at a high level. DeChambeau seems to be providing some supporting evidence.

To what end?

If the best players in the world all, to a man, basically, play a curve… and the reasoning behind it makes sense, and the best you can come up with is "it could be just as accurate," why mess with it?

And for the record I don't think they were talking about or thinking about Bryson much. That's an assumption and a stretch on your part. Rory knows his Trackman numbers. Being aware of them doesn't mean you can't be a feel player, but being "too" aware of them shifts you in that direction a bit.

11 hours ago, natureboy said:

It's possible, but as a physics Major, I would expect him to be pretty precise in his terminology.

You're making a lot of assumptions.

What I do know: of the several driver shots that they showed of Bryson's from behind, where you could see enough ofthe ball flight to tell, they curved.

[natureboy]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

If the best players in the world all, to a man, basically, play a curve… and the reasoning behind it makes sense, and the best you can come up with is "it could be just as accurate," why mess with it?

The best players in the world play a stock curve, largely because that is near-universal accepted golf wisdom as evidenced by Duval's comments. Concluding that approach was 'correct' based on the outcome is IMO circular reasoning / self-fulfilling prophecy / chicken & egg problem. Most anyone who came up with a good swing attempting to 'hit straight' would have been 'fixed' by the conventional instruction. 

If having a shape is better, why isn't more shape preferable? According to the thread pros grow up grooving a stock shape, then most of them work to make this shape relatively small, why?

IMO it's so their range of swing errors is closer to 'neutral' so it's a bit easier to vary the shape when as we saw this past weekend it gives you a better option on a strategically demanding hole or pin placement like a fade to the Saturday pin on 16 at Augusta where a lot of right-handed players who weren't comfortable not hitting a draw bailed short and right because of the fear of sending one down the slope into 3-putt land.

By the conversation with Greller on 12 on Sunday, Jordan called his attempted fade a 'stock' swing. Is he primarily a fader or drawer of the ball? Maybe he has several 'stock' shapes?

Quote

And for the record I don't think they were talking about or thinking about Bryson much.

The reference to 'science on your mind' speaks much more to DeChambeau and the increased volume of the ongoing 'technical = bad' conversation that his approach has caused  than Rory. Sorry you can't see it.

Quote

What I do know: of the several driver shots that they showed of Bryson's from behind, where you could see enough ofthe ball flight to tell, they curved.

If a player says they intend to 'hit straight' and they sometimes get a draw or a fade or a block or a pull, you can't conclude that was their intention, because normal swing errors would be expected to produce a mix of those shapes.

The somewhat random path / face / AoA / impact location errors inherent in any swing (even Iron Bryon & Moe Norman) will produce a roughly normally varying distribution of shapes around the rarely achieved 'perfectly straight'. Just like path / face / AoA / impact location errors with an intended 'perfect 5 yard draw' will produce overdraws and underdraws along with an expected portion of blocks and the occasional cut. Both approaches will yield a similar shotgun type pattern of shot locations around the intended target, if the variance in the underlying swing errors are similar.

Choosing a shape bias to some degree masks the normal variance in shot distribution, because the errors are skewed toward one shape, but they are still there. Did you intend to hit a draw, "Yes", did you intend it to draw that much?..."No, but it drew like I meant it to." I can see how this might be a crutch for confidence-building but it's not proof you can't have as tight a distribution around a target while intending to hit a straight ball. It's as hard to hit a 'perfect as intended' draw or fade as a 'dead straight' shot. Even variances in the ever-shifting air can create deflections around the target on identical 'perfect swings'.

Say a player intends to hit a 3 yard 'stock draw', but 'overcooks and hits a 13 yard draw. Is that a better shot because you 'achieved your intended shape' than intending to hit a straight shot to the same target but it ends up drawing 4 yards or fading 4 yards? Which is the smaller swing error?

Edited April 11, 2016 by natureboy

[SavvySwede]

1 hour ago, natureboy said:

The best players in the world play a stock curve, largely because that is near-universal accepted golf wisdom as evidenced by Duval's comments. Concluding that approach was 'correct' based on the outcome is IMO circular reasoning / self-fulfilling prophecy / chicken & egg problem. Most anyone who came up with a good swing attempting to 'hit straight' would have been 'fixed' by the conventional instruction. 

That's a pretty big assumption you're making. You honestly believe Moe Norman and Dechambeau are the only two players to try and play for a straight pattern? Tour level players are very stubborn about their style of game and won't change what is comfortable to them just to fit convention.

[Golfingdad]

2 hours ago, natureboy said:

The reference to 'science on your mind' speaks much more to DeChambeau and the increased volume of the ongoing 'technical = bad' conversation that his approach has caused  than Rory. Sorry you can't see it.

This is way too big of an assumption.  Partially my fault, because I made the mistake of not realizing that they didn't actually mention Rory by name in the small segment I copied, and that allowed you to form that opinion.  The fact is, Dechambeau basically entered the conversation very recently.  But the "science/trackman/etc is bad" old school nonsense has been championed by many, but mostly by Brandel Chamblee, for several years now - long before any of us had heard of Bryson.  It got big when Tiger and Justin Rose and Hunter Mahan and a few others hired Foley, but that was quite a long time ago at this point.  This has nothing to do with Bryson.

I'm actually willing to accept (and even argue alongside of you :)) the idea that, in theory, a straight shot can be equally as effective as one with curve.  But it keeps getting pointed out to us by many, now including David Duval, that in practice, it just doesn't work that way.  The confidence in knowing which direction your ball is going to curve plays too big of a factor.  There is no reason for me (us) not to defer to that COMBINED knowledge.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

The best players in the world play a stock curve, largely because that is near-universal accepted golf wisdom as evidenced by Duval's comments. Concluding that approach was 'correct' based on the outcome is IMO circular reasoning / self-fulfilling prophecy / chicken & egg problem. Most anyone who came up with a good swing attempting to 'hit straight' would have been 'fixed' by the conventional instruction.

Others addressed this already, but let me mirror their comments. You're just making this up at this point.

Bubba Watson didn't get conventional instruction, and he's one of the biggest curves of the ball out there.

If someone had success hitting the ball straight, why would an instructor change that? I think that an instructor saying "it's working, let's keep that" is far, far more likely to happen than an instructor making a student change to a curve "just because."

And… If you know me at all, I'm not afraid of questioning "conventional instruction."

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

If having a shape is better, why isn't more shape preferable? According to the thread pros grow up grooving a stock shape, then most of them work to make this shape relatively small, why?

Give it a think. I am pretty sure you can figure out why this question doesn't really need to be answered by others here… c'mon man.

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

IMO it's so their range of swing errors is closer to 'neutral' so it's a bit easier to vary the shape when as we saw this past weekend it gives you a better option on a strategically demanding hole or pin placement like a fade to the Saturday pin on 16 at Augusta where a lot of right-handed players who weren't comfortable not hitting a draw bailed short and right because of the fear of sending one down the slope into 3-putt land.

Pros don't vary the shape of their shots very often. They hit their stock shot the vast majority of the time. That's why, as you say, they tend to bail out on certain shots: they're more likely to hit their standard shot than to try to hit a new shape.

Tiger and Bubba (and when he was on, more Tiger than Bubba, as Bubba really tends to fade the long clubs and draw the shorter ones, almost all the time) are the two golfers who hit different curves the most often.

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

The reference to 'science on your mind' speaks much more to DeChambeau and the increased volume of the ongoing 'technical = bad' conversation that his approach has caused  than Rory. Sorry you can't see it.

No need to be condescending, particularly when everyone disagrees with you… the "science" discussion has long pre-dated Bryson. It's you who doesn't appear to be "seeing" this one properly.

I don't worry about "science" or "numbers" on the golf course, but if I need to hit a big draw around the corner of a short dogleg, the "science" helps me understand how to do it better. But at the end of the day I'm just feeling the right alignments, not measuring anything.

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

If a player says they intend to 'hit straight' and they sometimes get a draw or a fade or a block or a pull, you can't conclude that was their intention, because normal swing errors would be expected to produce a mix of those shapes.

I agree, but… so? Most players have a stock shape, and it's not "straight."

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

The somewhat random path / face / AoA / impact location errors inherent in any swing (even Iron Bryon & Moe Norman) will produce a roughly normally varying distribution of shapes around the rarely achieved 'perfectly straight'. Just like path / face / AoA / impact location errors with an intended 'perfect 5 yard draw' will produce overdraws and underdraws along with an expected portion of blocks and the occasional cut. Both approaches will yield a similar shotgun type pattern of shot locations around the intended target, if the variance in the underlying swing errors are similar.

Nobody's debating that, in theory, a straight should could be as accurate.

Nobody.

But when the rubber hits the road, or the urethane hits the steel or titanium or whatever, players have a stock shape that they trust and hit most of the time.

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

Choosing a shape bias to some degree masks the normal variance in shot distribution, because the errors are skewed toward one shape, but they are still there. Did you intend to hit a draw, "Yes", did you intend it to draw that much?..."No, but it drew like I meant it to." I can see how this might be a crutch for confidence-building but it's not proof you can't have as tight a distribution around a target while intending to hit a straight ball. It's as hard to hit a 'perfect as intended' draw or fade as a 'dead straight' shot. Even variances in the ever-shifting air can create deflections around the target on identical 'perfect swings'.

Nobody's arguing with you about that.

But again, golf is not played in theory.

4 hours ago, natureboy said:

Say a player intends to hit a 3 yard 'stock draw', but 'overcooks and hits a 13 yard draw. Is that a better shot because you 'achieved your intended shape' than intending to hit a straight shot to the same target but it ends up drawing 4 yards or fading 4 yards? Which is the smaller swing error?

To the player, yeah, it's probably better than a player who intended to hit a 3-yard draw and who instead faded it five yards, even though the five-yard fade is only 8 yards away.

And good players have shot cones, and shots rarely leave them. In my experience, they aim for their typical max curve, and if a shot comes off with a bit less, that's toward the safe side. I covered this, IIRC, in my Shot Cones thread.

1 hour ago, Golfingdad said:

This is way too big of an assumption.  Partially my fault, because I made the mistake of not realizing that they didn't actually mention Rory by name in the small segment I copied, and that allowed you to form that opinion.  The fact is, Dechambeau basically entered the conversation very recently.  But the "science/trackman/etc is bad" old school nonsense has been championed by many, but mostly by Brandel Chamblee, for several years now - long before any of us had heard of Bryson.  It got big when Tiger and Justin Rose and Hunter Mahan and a few others hired Foley, but that was quite a long time ago at this point.  This has nothing to do with Bryson.

I'm actually willing to accept (and even argue alongside of you :)) the idea that, in theory, a straight shot can be equally as effective as one with curve.  But it keeps getting pointed out to us by many, now including David Duval, that in practice, it just doesn't work that way.  The confidence in knowing which direction your ball is going to curve plays too big of a factor.  There is no reason for me (us) not to defer to that COMBINED knowledge.

Yeah.

[natureboy]

2 hours ago, SavvySwede said:

You honestly believe Moe Norman and Dechambeau are the only two players to try and play for a straight pattern? Tour level players are very stubborn about their style of game and won't change what is comfortable to them just to fit convention.

I would describe it as playing around a 'straight intention' just like other players play around a '5-yard draw intention'. Neither will hit the exact intended target / shape with any frequency.

No I think Trevino pretty much did too. To me, it's not insignificant that he was self-taught. His description of what he called a 'fade' was in contrast to Hogan who played a shot that "moved left to right...but I couldn't do that. I aimed to left field <stance>, swung out to right field <inside approach>, and hit it to center field <straight up the middle>. It was a block." Certainly sounds like the explanations of face/path 'zeroing out' approach I've seen.

I expect that 'must either draw or fade' is an old saw like 'putt for dough' that has been repeated and adopted enough to become essentially golf gospel. I expect that by the time any player is seen to have a bit of talent, they will receive coaching, instruction, and/or castigation that indoctrinates them to the 'right way'. By the time they are a pro, it's ingrained and attempting to change a grooved swing is likely to increase error frequency at least in the short term. Possible examples like Trevino get interpreted by observers in light of this adopted worldview. Trevino had an open stance so he played a stock 'left to right fade', when Trevino's definition of his stock 'fade' was very different.

I'm not saying stock shapes are bad, just that there may not be any inherent advantage to a shape versus the size of the shot dispersion pattern. If you see straight shots go with that and groove your swing / tighten your pattern on the target. If you see curves like Bubba go with that and tighten your pattern on the target.

Edited April 11, 2016 by natureboy