Discover Your "Natural" Golf Swing

[SPJr]

I'm very interested to hear some thoughts on this video.

You may want to just skip ahead to 3:15 in the video to hear the instructor's outlook and the lesson begins shortly after.

[Vinsk]

Yes. And my natural swing is a cold shank. I can do it eyes closed, looking away and talking while I swing. He’s a lucky dude.

[Patch]

The video has some good points, that would help "some" golfers, and of course, not so much for others. 

I am actually working on something similar right now, with my main focus on my impact position with the club face. Just getting to that impact position with a balanced, good tempo swing speed.

[billchao]

My natural swing sucks, that's why I practice so much.

I guess if I never wanted to break 100 it would have been fine.

[SPJr]

42 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Yes. And my natural swing is a cold shank. I can do it eyes closed, looking away and talking while I swing. He’s a lucky dude.

Yes - my thought exactly, haha.

35 minutes ago, Patch said:

The video has some good points, that would help "some" golfers, and of course, not so much for others. 

I am actually working on something similar right now, with my main focus on my impact position with the club face. Just getting to that impact position with a balanced, good tempo swing speed.

How's that working out for you? Any promise?

[RFKFREAK]

I look back at my natural swing (first post in my swing thread) and shudder.

[Vinsk]

5 hours ago, Patch said:

The video has some good points, that would help "some" golfers, and of course, not so much for others. 

I am actually working on something similar right now, with my main focus on my impact position with the club face. Just getting to that impact position with a balanced, good tempo swing speed.

Well you’re probably one of the lucky ones too. I have no sense of club face. I’m spatially dyslexic and regarding the club I have no innate proprioception. I do however have some precise innate ability to hit the hosel without any thought or conscious control. I can hit that small area of the clubface with amazing precision. But 1/2” away from that spot is for some reason incredibly difficult. 

[GolfLug]

1 hour ago, Vinsk said:

I have no sense of club face. I’m spatially dyslexic and regarding the club I have no innate proprioception. 

I think we just feel what we touch - shaft/grip and the mind projects and some sense how the toe of the club face twists the shaft one way or the other. Close your eyes and have someone hand you a club so that you would hold the shaft parallel to the ground - arbitrarily placing the toe of the club one way or the other. I guarantee you will be able to tell which side of the club face is facing the roof/sky. That's is club face sense in a static state. Dynamic club face sense is just an extension of the static sense and a really a matter of repetition. 

You do have innate proprioception. If not you would just fall every time you look up. It's just that it is flooded/washed out when we hyper focus on the ball. Just for kicks if nothing else, try using an external 'sense' anchor like a audible metronome when you swing. You will be surprised how much it will help you sense your limbs/overall form through space. 

I can't explain why a sound sensory input would help your spatial sense but it just does. I know you have a medical background so you probably have a better explanation of why. 

Sorry, I know this all off topic, but I have think a natural golf swing is an oxymoron. 

Edited September 4, 2018 by GolfLug

[iacas]

1 minute ago, GolfLug said:

Don't think anybody does. I think we just feel what we touch - shaft/grip and the mind projects and some sense how the toe of the club face twists the shaft one way or the other.

I don’t know that I agree. I think our abilities can be good here. For example in that super strong and super weak grip thread I can still deliver the clubface the right way by knowing how my body needs to be arranged.

[GolfLug]

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

I don’t know that I agree. I think our abilities can be good here. For example in that super strong and super weak grip thread I can still deliver the clubface the right way by knowing how my body needs to be arranged.

Yes, I edited that out as I realized. You beat me to the punch.

Point being it doesn't have to be natural. It can be developed.

Edited September 4, 2018 by GolfLug

[SPJr]

at 17:30 in the video, he asks the instructor "do you play golf like this?"

The instructor's response is:  "I want to. I'm scared though."

[Vinsk]

19 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

ou do have innate proprioception

 

19 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

I think we just feel what we touch - shaft/grip and the mind projects and some sense how the toe of the club face twists the shaft one way or the other. Close your eyes and have someone hand you a club so that you would hold the shaft parallel to the ground - arbitrarily placing the toe of the club one way or the other. I guarantee you will be able to tell which side of the club face is facing the roof/sky. That's is club face sense in a static state. Dynamic club face sense is just an extension of the static sense and a really a matter of repetition. 

You do have innate proprioception. If not you would just fall every time you look up. It's just that it is flooded/washed out when we hyper focus on the ball. Just for kicks if nothing else, try using an external 'sense' anchor like a audible metronome when you swing. You will be surprised how much it will help you sense your limbs/overall form through space. 

I can't explain why a sound sensory input would help your spatial sense but it just does. I know you have a medical background so you probably have a better explanation of why. 

Sorry, I know this all off topic, but I have think a natural golf swing is an oxymoron. 

Yes I do have proprioception...just not with the club. Once I begin moving with any amount of speed it just becomes a crap shoot for me. Like I said in another post (change the dang picture) I actually made a real nice backswing position... @mvmac would probably even say it was pretty damn good..yet to me it felt like I must’ve looked ridiculous and was getting chuckles across the training facility. Lol. But I get what you’re saying. I just think I lack what many have has something natural. Nothing is natural to me in the golf swing. Nothing.

6 minutes ago, SPJr said:

at 17:30 in the video, he asks the instructor "do you play golf like this?"

The instructor's response is:  "I want to. I'm scared though."

Guarantee you he wouldn’t break 80.

[nevets88]

We all learn differently and process information in a variety of ways, his method may work for some, but not for others,  it's probably just me, but I would not take a lesson from this pro, granted I skipped around in the video, his descriptions are a little bit vague and he spends so much time talking, a bit about himself. It's all just a bit too fuzzy for me, but if you're getting results from his instruction, why mess with success?

[iacas]

The instructor spends far too much time, IMO, hitting balls himself. Save some of the balls for the student, man!

2 hours ago, nevets88 said:

We all learn differently and process information in a variety of ways, his method may work for some, but not for others,  it's probably just me, but I would not take a lesson from this pro, granted I skipped around in the video, his descriptions are a little bit vague and he spends so much time talking, a bit about himself. It's all just a bit too fuzzy for me, but if you're getting results from his instruction, why mess with success?

Yeah… not a big fan of this lesson at all.

As others noted, if your "natural swing" is good, you might not need a lesson. Most people have a pretty horrible "natural swing" though.

---

Good gosh, seriously, he's hitting twice as many balls as the student.

Ugh.

[Diece]

George Knudson did something similar,

He used to practice with his eyes closed.

I've done it and I can hit a ball reasonably well with my eyes closed. 

Knudson's whole premise was that the golf motion is, for the most part, natural once you take care of the involuntary motions like stance and grip.

An interesting stance on the game and his book "Natural Golf" goes over his philosophy quite well.

I tried to incorporate his ideas into my own game and I didn't really see much of an improvement though.

[boogielicious]

19 hours ago, Vinsk said:

Yes. And my natural swing is a cold shank. I can do it eyes closed, looking away and talking while I swing. He’s a lucky dude.

Mine is a power hook, into the woods or nearby livestock if they are near the course.

[Lihu]

Reminds me of a Moe Norman clinic 😂

[JonMA1]

I don’t think the video is complete bs. From what I saw, it has less to do with a natural swing and more to do with how some of us discard some of the good things we might be doing on our practice swing once we hit a ball.

I don’t know how to fix this (wish I did), but I’m not sure that practicing by looking away from the ball would help.