Grins

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Mike for this thread! I went through the setup slowly before my round this morning. Fortunately I was doing most of this very closely to what you recommended. Three things stood out: 1) The "anatomical snuff box" as an alingment tool for my lead hand 2) The "long lead thumb": I was keeping the spaces between both thumbs & index fingers tight - I think from a Martin Hall lesson on TGC (I remember him putting a golf tee between the thumb & index finger of each hand & making them line up). The long left thumb felt better & definitely allowed me to hinge my wrists more naturally & freely. 3) The picture of the green dot drawn on your right index finger really caught my attention! I drew a dot on my finger too just before I left the house. Prior to this, I had my hands in a "pretty close" position from a casual glance, but keeping that dot on the side of the grip & lining up the "snuff box" & left thumb just made my hands feel really strong with a very strong but natural hinge. The whole round, my shots went straighter and farther than I can ever remember. It just seemed like I was getting effortless power! I shot a personal best 93, and it should've been lower, but I was hitting everything much longer & missed 2 par threes long & ended up having to punch out from under pine trees. I have to believe that most of this was due to tweaking my grip, since I didn't really change anything else. I just am having a hard time believing the huge effect a few tweaks made to my grip had on my swing accuracy & distance! I didn't really think about the grip once I set it up & made my practice swing, but it kinda felt like I was pointing that green dot at the target & hitting the ball with the dot (at least that was the image that ran across my mind at one point). Again, a HUGE shout-out to TST and Mike for this great thread!

The last 2 times out have seen a big improvement on my pitching, thanks primarily to this thread! I finally holed out from off the green this year for the first time in forever! And even more impressive to me, I had a 25 yard-long pitch to a downhill, slippery green with a pond at the bottom. I threw it up high and soft and let it trickle down to gimme range (12" or so)! Thanks Erik, Mike, and TST gang! Love this thread! i keep going back to it & reviewing & it has helped a lot!

Thanks for all the great video posts, mvmac! I just notice something in your OP: I appears that you take practice swings, then the actual shot, all without changing the position of your feet (i.e., you don't "move back" to practice, then "scoot up" to hit the shot). Is this your normal routine? Would you recommend doing this to other golfers? Or am I seeing things incorrectly?

Okay, got it - Thanks Erik & mvmac! Keep the butt of the club at waist-ish high. Can't wait to work on this! I heard the weather might finally break & we're supposd to get temps approaching (gasp) 60 this weekend! That will keepme out of trouble with the wife - I was trying this in the basement & hit the wall & ceiling a couple of times haha!

Thanks for the post mvmac! Question: does the height of the hands relative to the hips in the follow-though correlate to distance hitting the ball, or is this more of an individual thing/personal preference? It seems when I'm looking at some of the last videos posted, that this is one thing that varies more widely from golfer to golfer.

I thought freedrop (and anyone else going through this thread later) might want to see an actual video or 2 or James Sieckmann & some of the pros he works with (Ben Crane here). Also: interesting discussion by Dr. Greg Rose at 41:30-42:10 about how he feels there are actually 4 different swings (4 different neural pathways): Driver, irons, short game (wedges), & putter. So the iron full swing is different than the pitches discussed here. Also, Sieckmann was on the TPI show recently: Very worthwhile IMO and dovetails beautifully with what's already been discussed. Thanks again to Erik et al for this great thread!

I'm in for $40 and a hardcover copy. Thanks for all the advice over the years - I figure the videos you posted on pitching are worth a couple hundred dollars alone!

If anything, this is better for golf. If your "leading eye" is dominant, you should have less alignment issues, especially in putting. I play right handed (natural lefty) but I'm right eye dominant, and was always a crappy putter, until I started using an alignment line on my ball and using a putter with an alignment line too. Once I had things lined up from behind (I pick an intermediate target on the green about a foot or two in front of the putter), I'd set up to the putt and ignore how it looks from my setup position (it always looks "off"). This helped tremendously. BTW, I read once that (I think) about 10% of the population is "cross-dominant" (e.g., Left handed & right eye domininat, or right-handed & left eye dominant), but in the major league baseball population, it's more like 30%. I always assumed that this is proof that having your "lead" eye be your dominant eye is a big advantage.

Thanks so much to Mike & Erik for setting this up! I did have a great time & would love to do it again, despite my lousy swings. Watching Slice & Jeremie bombing it out there on there good drives was fun - and a little intimidating. This outing convinced me that I need to work a lot harder on my game, so lessons are coming - hopefully sooner than later. I felt bad for the Medicus rep (Gene? nice guy!) who kept asking us for testimonials, especially about the balls (which I'm sure are great)! What could I tell him? "Boy, this ball went farther out of bounds than my usual ball! Usuall I just hit the side of the house, but today I went OVER the house! I really like the spin as it hit the water! I'm getting an extra 20 yards on my topped drives!" Come to think of it, that might be an entertaining infomercial.

Hey, I avoided a house! I hit it over the house. Yeah, despite my lousy performance, I had a good time. My highlights: I did Mike's bunker technique ( http://thesandtrap.com/t/54554/how-to-hit-sand-bunker-shots ) and hit it onto the green to within 5 feet! And I got my first ever birdie on a par 5. The main problems were (in no particular order): 1) I was already sore from putting up drywall. 2) I got a very helpful mini-lesson from Erik & Mike, and then promptly went out & tried to implement what I learned on the course. BIG mistake - and I knew better, just couldn't stop myself from thinking about it. 3) The cart girl never showed up! I strated doing better on the back nine.

Is there a time that's too early? Is the putting green nearby if nothing else is ready?

Erik, I'll bring cash.

Same hear (I mean here). Don't really care what it sounds like as long as it's below hearing loss db threshhold.

That looks interesting! One thing I'd like to pick your brains about is wedge selection. I 've been trying to find higher bounce wedges based on your videos/threads on pitch shots. I picked up a TM ATV wedge since it seemed to be built along these lines. Looking forward to Saturday!

I wouldn't worry - that's what beer is for. Anyway, I'm the one who should be bringing up the rear, shotwise. Been hanging drywall & my right arm feels like it's gonna fall off, so no idea what my swing will be like on Saturday. I should probably rest it, but I couldn't pass up the chance to play with you guys!

Imagine how many wins (including majors) Phil would've had if Tiger hadn't come along. Probably in the 60's or 70's. What's more impressive to me is when you look at the career wins list, other than Tiger, Phil, & Vijay, no current player has more than 20 wins. I'm not sure why, but it looks like ten wins nowadays is a great achievement. I can't see Dustin Johnson or Adam Scott, for example, with 40 wins when their carees are over. So it might not be an apples-to-apples comparison when stacking up tour wins to older generations of golfers. One thing I can say is Phil is entertaining to watch, even when he fails.

Thanks Erik for putting this together! Can't wait for Sat!

Best I can figure is 25.4

Thanks Spyder, Looking forward to it. My golf league is individuals (no teams), and over the years I've lost almost all of my golf-playing friends (to parenthood, kids sports, etc.), so it'll be nice to meet some people who have the same interest in golf!

Yep. I live in Stow, OH. 50-55 minutes from Fox Meadow. Right now, I'm averaging 54 for 9 holes on a very tough league course (Twin Lakes) - used to be a private country club. Greens are severely sloped and well-bunkered. I can shoot mid-nineties when I'm playing well. I really want to improve, and have been thinking for a while about going to Erie for a lesson, so I just can't pass on this opportunity to have some fun & learn at the same time!

I'm up for this. Looking forward to some hands-on teaching of 5SK. Count me in.

I have used a pull cart for years - mainly because I had one (got it from someone else for free) and because I didn't want to spend $ buying a nice carry bag. As I've gotten older, I notice that pulling the cart (always with my right arm) tends to make my shoulder hurt, so I've been thinking about getting a pushcart. Also, the new pushcarts seem to have the same amenities that a riding cart has (Shade - with an umbrella holder; place to hold a drink without spilling; scorecard holder; GPS/phone holder - all within easy reach & without a lot of digging around). So eventually I'll get a clicgear or Sun Mountain microcart. If you were playing in the UK, you'd probably be in the minority if you didn't use a cart (or "trolley") - at least that's my impression.

Monday night in my league I was underneath a tree, with a bunker between my ball and an elevated green (with water behind the green). Rehearsed this technique & hit a pitch to within 1 foot! I am generally hitting my pitches & chips closer to the hole, and taking fewer putts. As with anything, the more I practice, the better I get & the more confident I am hitting "tricky" shots that used to totally psych me out.

Went out after my nine-hole league round & practiced 25 yard pitches. Hit 3 sets of 5. Holed out once, and put 4-5 others within 4 ft! Last 5 balls were within a 10 ft diameter circle. Next I tried to hit the same length shot with the higher launch - wider stance, hands lower, bigger swing. No problems. Balls landed very soft with little rollout. The other great thing about this style of pitch is that my direction is so much better than before. It feels like point & shoot golf. Before, I tended to pull the ball left - even on short pitches. Then I moved to 50 yards and practiced the same technique. Not quite as close, but all on the green and the direction and spacing between shots was much better than before too (from this distance). I am doing this with a 54* Nickent Arc wedge with 10* of bounce, so I can imagine that a wedge with more bounce might be easier to use. Finally, some of these shots were off of tight lies (basically dirt & dead grass). This type of lie always killed me before - virtually garanteed to hit it fat or thin. I just can't believe how much more consistent I am using this technique! Thanks again, Eric! I am having so much fun working on this - I'm sure my scores will start to come down too once I get the distances more dialed in. Now if I could just do this consistently from the sand...

The one thing I worked on was the gravity feeling of letting the arm drop and sliding the club head underneath the ball using the bounce. Also, I was trying to be less mechanical & more feeling/imagining the distance & trajectory. I had three 10 minute sessions every hour (during swim breaks for the kids) at the local swimming pool/par 3 golf course, and pitched one in from 35 yards - I can't recall ever doing this before! Also, the 4 balls pitched at the end of the session were all consistently on the green & within a 15-20 foot diameter circle. I feel more like a golfer now!