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LongballGer

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Everything posted by LongballGer

  1. I like how you resort to personal attacks everytime you can´t win an argument. Quote: I don't define it as that, clearly. I said no PGA Tour player has a swing that's not technically sound. How would you define technically sound then? Quote: No. I'm saying that you have no idea how fine the line is at that level. Tiger also didn't "take a lesson" - he essentially overhauled his swing (again). Apples and oranges. So did he become more consistent after his swing change or not? Believe whatever you want to believe though. It´s not my job to convince you or anyone on here of anything. This is my last post on this forum.
  2. Quote: Make no mistake about what I've said and will say again: a good instructor can improve a good player's consistency within a single lesson. We do it time after time. Then why does it take Tiger 2+ years to make a swing change hitting it worse and less consistent during that time? Are you saying that his instructors suck? Quote: Like who? It's a biased statement because you'll cite people like Hogan and whatnot - people who existed before "instructors" became as popular as they are now. Plus Bobby Jones had an instructor (he learned from Stuart Maiden, IIRC), and Ben Hogan was known to pick the brains and discuss the golf swing with lots of players. Arnie was taught by his father, and Jack and Tiger both had/have instructors. I doubt they were working with a trackman or drew lines on a video screen. I imagine the advice they got from their instructors was "Work on tempo", "Swing smooth" and then were left alone. Nicklaus said he saw his instructor once or twice a year. Quote: He's said so. lol, what else is he supposed to say? Quote: You hit a shank in one of your videos as a result of wanting to change something in your swing. Quote: None of them have swings that are not technically sound. Depends on how you define technically sound. As I said I define technically sound as having a swing that gives you the opportunity to hit good shots, doesn´t matter what it looks like. If you define technically sound as having swings without any so called swing faults then almost nobody on tour has a technically sound swing. Luke Donald thrusts his hips at the ball and rolls his wrists over hard after impact, Bubba has a funky backswing, ricky backs off his head from the ball a good six inches at impact and swings way out to the right, Westwood has a chicken wing etc... I could go on and on. There are many college kids with more technically sound swings than pga tour winners yet they are nowhere near as consistent from tee to green.
  3. Quote: I guess I took your point to be: 1. The best way to get better is to trail and error your way through many thousands of golf balls. 2. Technique is not important because is does not yield immediate results 3. Once a player achieves good technique, practice should no longer be required because, as you put it, "Your technique didn't change." "1. The best way to get better is to trail and error your way through many thousands of golf balls." Yes! I believe that every movement especially the golf swing is an individual thing. Working with a good instructor can greatly benefit ones game especially in the beginning. However if a guy naturally moves 6 inches off the ball, but hits the ground in the same spot pretty much everytime I think it´s a bad idea to tell him he´s doing it wrong and needs to stay centered because "It makes you more consistent" or because it looks better on video. As long as you do whats important in golf it doesn´t matter what it looks like. There is no one swing that works for everyone. Everyone is different. Staying centered for example might work for some people, other people play better if they move off the ball. Kids learn how to walk by falling down over and over again. There are no walking instructors.It´s the same with a golf swing. There is no way around it, you have have to hit thousands of balls to get better. The more errors you make and the more you adjust your swing accordingly the faster you´ll get better. If you have a good instructor that guides you in the right directions you´ll improve even faster. "2. Technique is not important because is does not yield immediate results" As I said if you can compress the ball and have a predictable shot pattern IMO that´s all the technique you need. After that the only thing that will make you more consistent is practice. If technique was the primary determinant for consistency guys like Eamon Darcy, Jack Nicklaus, Ray Floyd would have never been able to break 90. "3. Once a player achieves good technique, practice should no longer be required because, as you put it, "Your technique didn't change." My point was the exact opposite of that statement. Since a better technique doesn´t improve your consistency, not practicing for a period of time will make you less consistent even if you have a "perfect" technique. Quote: Originally Posted by Jhwarren Perhaps I misread or misunderstood your point. With regards to original thought posed: "I don't think better technique makes you more consistent" I completely agree. Repetition makes you more more consistent. Now, is it consistently good or consistently bad? What's the benefit of consistency if it doesn't lead to lower scores? I think we need to move the discussion away from simply being consistent to being consistently good. The part about Jim Furyk is a good point. It was the basis for my last comment and Bubba and Rickie that you referenced. Furyk is a world-class player. His technique and consistency are excellent. Would he benefit from changes to a more "conventional" swing? I agree with you, no. But I do think you are mistaken if you think that he is self-taught and that he did not have some instruction along the way. His father is/was a Golf Professional. I guess I took your point to be: 1. The best way to get better is to trail and error your way through many thousands of golf balls. 2. Technique is not important because is does not yield immediate results 3. Once a player achieves good technique, practice should no longer be required because, as you put it, "Your technique didn't change." By the way, good post. You raise some interesting things to think about and it has led to a good discussion. I look forward to continuing it.
  4. I never said a golfer with "no swing flaws". I could make a list of almost every swing fault there is and then show you a player competing at the highest level that has this certain "fault". I´m also not saying that golf instruction is worthless provided your instructor knows what he´s doing. If the guy that hits 50000 balls works with a good instructor IMO he´ll improve faster than the guy that just goes at it alone. However if you have an instructor that constantly tries to force his student into certain positions and nitpicks the tiniest "flaws", having his student repeat slow motion drills to no no end just to make it look pretty on camera while justifying this by saying "It´ll make you more consistent" I´d pick the guy that hits 50000 balls on his own, provided he is constantly experimenting and making adjustments and watches his ball flight. (I guess this is what you were trying to say with your last sentence which I basically agree with?!) That´s the reason why kids learn so fast. It´s because they are being left alone and experiment by making mistakes and figuring out what works for them .There is a reason why the best ball strikers in history have all been self taught. However if you go to any driving range you´ll see people hit terrible shots, doing their same shitty move over and over again while expecting different results. This still doesn´t refute my point though. Would Jim Furyk be a more consistent player if he had a more conventional swing? If you "corrected" his setup to make it more conventional would he immediately hit the ball more consistently? I don´t think so. Would he be a more consistent player after converting to a conventional swing 5 years down the stretch? I don´t think so either. Did Tiger become more consistent under Foley?
  5. They basically refer to it as a shot that moves from left to right. There are two different ways to do this. You can either hit a cut by opening your stance and opening the face a little at address a la Freddy Couples or you can set up with a square stance and cut across the ball with an out to in swing path a la Martin Kaymer.
  6. I have never seen anyone become more consistent after a golf lesson in my life unless he had an obvious move that didn´t enable him to hit the ball properly (reverse pivot, scooping etc...). Do you teach a lot of high handicappers or beginners? What you notice in advanced golfers is that after an immediate technique change their better shots might get better (more distance, tighter shot cone etc) but their worst shots also get worse. He´s gonna hit tops for example that he never hit before. He´s not going to be immediately more consistent though. Even you put up a clip of yourself shanking a ball while working on technique. If technique made you more consistent then why do you get worse if you don´t practice for a long time? Your technique didn´t change, right? Quote: Originally Posted by iacas Many people do. Many of our students do. Good players sometimes have to take a step backwards before they can take two steps forward. I disagree with your first post too. A "better technique" by definition is almost something that makes you "more consistent" (it could help you hit the ball farther, and I suppose that's not "more consistent.") Quote: And what percentage of the golfing population does all those things? Very, very, very.....very few do I wouldn´t say very, very, few. Most high single digit players can can compress the ball properly and somewhat have an idea what their ball is gonna do when they hit it well.
  7. You kinda contradicted yourself in the first sentence. Why is it that when you make a swing change that is supposed to eliminate barriers to consistency you start to get worse first and even less consistent? Shouldn´t you immediately start to become more consistent with a better technique?
  8. Provided you can already compress the ball properly, hit it far enough and have a predictable shot pattern any technical change you make after that won´t make you more consistent and is a purely cosmetic change. If a better technique made you more consistent then you wouldn´t have to practice and you´d immediately become a more consistent player as long as you "hit the right position(s)", right? Well everyone that has ever made a swing change knows that it doesn´t work that way. In my relatively controversial opionion I think consistency is simply a product of practice and hand eye coordination. If you have a total beginner for example with a shitty swing he´ll hit a ton of tops, duffs, shanks etc..., but have him hit 50000 balls and he´ll be much more consistent and hit less tops, duffs etc... while basically swinging the same way. If someone makes a swing change and gets better afterwards it´s because he practiced more and not because his technique improved. Technique simply enables someone to have a chance to hit the ball solid, but it doesn´t make you more consistent. Thoughts?
  9. Yes, that something "extra" is called intense, efficent practice over many, many years. There isn´t a single world class athlete in any field that "did not practice hardly at all". Even seemingly underachievers like John Daly spent thousands of hours as kids working on their craft. Reminds me of the math geniuses at school that claimed to never really study then later on it turns out their parents made them study math for an hour and a half before school every single day.
  10. I've been Playing Golf for: 5 years My current handicap index or average score is: low 80s My typical ball flight is: draw The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: push Videos:
  11. At 16 years of age Bubba would have already been golfing intensely for 14 years. Nobody is born being good at anything. The people that pick up a golf club the first time and seem to have "talent" is because they already developed good hand eye coordination and athletic ability playing other sports in the past.
  12. And yet you have guys like KJ Choi who started playing golf at the age of 16 hitting golf balls on the beach because the next golf course was 3 hours away. He shot his first par round when he was almost 22. YE Yang didn´t even pick up a club until he was almost 20 years old and then served multiple years in the Korean military after that. What exactly is talent? Take Bubbas hook shot to win the masters for example. Many people after they saw that shot thought, "wow, that guy is talented". What people forget is that he has already been golfing and practicing intensely almost everyday for 33 years hitting that shot thousands of times in practice and working on his game for thousands of hours when he was a kid.
  13. I think you can do it man. Put over 50% of your time in the short game. Pros practice their short games for 8 hours everyday. You need to be able to get up and down 85% of the time. Pros also make 95% of 10 foot putts, so make sure to practice your putting a lot. I hate to say it, but if you can´t carry your 6 iron 200 yards you have 0 chance of making it. I also suggest bathing in ice water everyday to make you mentally strong. I got this tip from David Toms after he shot the course record at my club (a 58 using only a shovel and baseball bat as clubs)
  14. I actually feel the opposite when I watch them on TV. It seems like they never make any mistakes. It seems like every bunker shot is an inch from the cup, every 150 yard approach shot is within 5 feet and every wedge shot either in or also a couple inches from the cup.
  15. You should be better than a 22.9 handicap with that swing. Having said that I bet your bad shot is a shank. The reason being you thrust at the ball on the downswing with your lower body, causing your arms to not have any room on the way down and you hit it on the hosel. A good drill I recommend is the "heels up drill". Simply lift your heels a little bit in the air when you adress the ball and then focus on replanting them again on the downswing. This teaches you to transfer your weight towards your front heel on the downswing and fixes the early extension fault.
  16. I like the baseball swing. It´s just that your shoulder turn gets too flat. Try feeling like you have a steep shoulder turn on the way back. With a steeper shoulder turn your swing is $$$.
  17. Make the swing change automatic and get down to a +3 handicap.
  18. Quote: I never dumbed it down those simplified terms. Sure, if you took a 20 year veteran of the game who carries a 25 handicap and suddenly had him practice the right things as well as practicing every day, sure, he would improve a helluva lot. But that would require a lot of mental realizations on his part which, let's be honest, most players never make. Exactly. How many people do you know that have spent 3 hours every single day practicing intensively for 10 years? It´s not a lack of physical talent that is keeping people from making the tour. Otherwise you would have never heard of Tim Herron, Rocco mediate etc. You can´t tell me that they are superior freak athletes. I´m also not buying the "they are born with superior hand eye coordination" argument. Quote: Did you just completely forget this conversation we had in this thread a couple days ago? And didn't you say that (I'm paraphrasing) studies show that practicing more than five hours straight is counter-productive (I'm assuming when you say "sunrise ...til dawn" it was a misprint and you meant "sunrise til dusk")? It may be your opinion that young South Korean female pros, for the most part, don't know how to practice. But, hey, they are still professional players so they obviously are doing something right. Yes, practicing more than 5 hours is a waste of time, but they still practice for 5 hours even if some of them practice more productively than others. Last time I checked practicing for 5 hours daily is better than beating half a bucket of balls once a week. Quote: And it's quite possible that Norman was just "beating balls" too. It's just happened by random chance that he naturally did the right things, so the ball beating was beneficial. Yes, although I do believe he also had someone teaching him. You can never hit enough balls as long as you are engaged in what you are doing and working on the right things. Quote: Tiger has great talent, but everyone knows that during his prime years, no one worked harder than he did. I'm not sure where you got the impression that I believe he was just good from day one. But you are simply ignoring the very critical piece to all of these guys' careers which is, for lack of a better word, talent. That's the foundation for all the good things they do on the golf course. But built upon that foundation is the endless amount of hours of hard work that gave them the careers they have. So what is talent then? IMO it´s simply having the determination to work hard and smart for many years. I believe there are thousands of kids out there right now that could be the next Tiger, but they a) lack access to golf and instruction b) don´t have the drive/work ethic c) don´t have supportive parents.
  19. I believe it is possible although it´s gonna take at least 10 years if you work really hard. There is nothing "magical" about becoming a tour pro. The secret is that there is no secret. It´s simply about working hard and smart for a lot of years. If you are really serious about this then you need to: a) find a good teaching pro and take a lot of lessons b) You need to be able to play year round c) Put in at least 3 hours of deliberate practice every single day. Don´t do it all at once. I recommend splitting it into two 90 minute sessions. One in the morning and one in the evening or so. d) Play in a tournament at least once a week e) Practice on the course whenever you can. f) repeat c for about 10 years without getting lazy or burned out. Y.E. Yang started playing golf at 19, so it is possible to make it.
  20. Yes, I´ve seen plenty of them practice. However many of them have no idea how to practice and just engage in mindless practice which is a complete waste of time. The other day I witnessed some Korean girl hit the same exact straight forward chip shot from the same place for 2 hours straight while her ambitious father yelled at her everytime she hit a bad chip. There is a difference between practicing with deliberate focus and mindless practice. If you practice with your mind (doing specific drills, making slow motions swing while being completely engaged in the movement etc...) after an hour even the most dedicated individuals will be completely mentally drained. If all you do is practice with your hands you might as well go to the clubhouse and get drunk which is equally effective.
  21. I´m pretty sure that practice schedule is overhyped. There is no way to not get a burned out after a couple weeks of that. Studies have shown that 5 hours of practicing with full concentration is the absolute max a person can do with plenty of breaks and anything more than that is counterproductive. Most normal people even struggle with focusing on a single task for one hour let alone five. I read an article about Tom Lewis and his daily schedule from Mon-Friday was practicing putting, short game and hitting balls for one hour each and then playing 9 holes.
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