Well the golf season is slowing working its way to an end for me. I live in the southern VA area and we are getting the occasional 60* day still but the season is basically over. Normally the onset of cold weather has me feeling a little down and restless because I can’t play golf nearly as often as I would like and although this is the first season that I have dedicated to really trying to improve and become a steward of the game I am really looking forward to the winter months. Because of the Rotary Swing site I have learned more about golf, and not just the swing, in the last 8 months than I have in the last 20 years, especially the importance of being in good “golf shape”.
This winter is going to be one of the most exciting for me because I am really dedicating a lot of time, energy, and resources to improving my overall game and to make a run at playing in the state of Virginia’s qualifying for local and US amateur events next year. To accomplish this I have to get my handicap down another 4 points by May of next year and I am confident that I can do it…especially if Chuck ever gets in gear with this 2.0 stuff
So to start things off I have signed on with a Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) certified trainer to get an evaluation and a golf specific workout. Because of the RS site I have come to realize how important it is to not just be in good physical shape but you have to be in good “golf shape” and although I feel like I am in awesome shape I have come to find out that I am in HORRIBLE golf shape. I have extremely limited range of motion in my upper core area and my shoulders and really tight leg muscles (calf and hamstrings). This comes from years of pumping iron and not stretching!
So for the first time ever I am not down about the arrival of the cold weather or lost about what to do with my new found time, for me this will not be a winter of discontent. It will be an exciting winter as I challenge and push myself to take this next step in this wonderful journey of mine.
Well, time to check my inbox…my TPI workout should be ready any moment now and I cannot wait to start! God I love this game!
MATHEW 17:20 “…if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, andnothing will be impossible for you.”
So, I’ve been working on the Rotary Swing 2.0 concepts into my lessons and wanted to share with you some video of the first official “Rotary Swing 2.0″ lesson that I gave. He is a high handicapper, as evident by the first two baseline swings you can see in the video. His posture at address had him way out on the balls of his feet with a very rounded spine making it impossible for him to swing in balance and make decent contact. After 15 minutes of work, I think you’ll be impressed by the change in his posture, swing and balance.
I’ve been working hard on the changes and been busy teaching, so it was nice today to get out and actually play golf. Yesterday, I was doing the first day of a mini 2 day clinic for a couple of students and in the afternoon we went out and played 9 holes. This was the first time that I’ve played with someone since embarking on all these changes, previously I’ve just played on my own and practiced, so there’s a bit more pressure (if you let there be!) than when nobody’s watching. What would happen in the real world?
To say the least, I was very pleased! I hit the ball as well as I ever have, in all honesty. The first 6 holes I hit every fairway and every green and did so authoritatively. Right down the middle with all my tee shots, perfect control over my ball flight, unbelievably flat trajectory with the longer clubs and I hit the irons relatively close. I almost made a hole in one on the 5th hole par three from 160 with an 8 iron that stopped a foot from the hole. I had two loose tee balls that found the rough, but that was it and I still hit the green from there anyway. In fact, I didn’t miss a green and only missed two fairways. It was only 9 holes of focused play, but it was a VERY solid 9 holes and gave me a lot of reinforcement in the changes I’m making.
It’s far from where I want to be, but, it’s progress. These swings were taken about an hour a part. The photos on the left are the baseline swing (embarrassingly horrible) are the baseline swings and the swings on the right are after some video work. I post the baseline swing because it is SOOO bad that it should offer some encouragement that quick progress can be made by ANYONE when you’re working on the right things. Let’s take a look.
At address, I’ve been really setting up behind the ball too much in an effort to get a solid positive angle of attack. But it got a little sloppy and I started hitting the ball too high and slipped into having too much weight on my back foot at address. I now feel that my left leg is slightly more vertical and the ball is slightly back in my stance (ignore the tee height, I was tired of breaking plastic tees so I just left it on the little rubber peg). There is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to how high to launch the ball with the driver. As a rule of thumb, the faster the clubhead speed, the lower launch angle necessary to achieve maximium distance.
At the top of my backswing, I’ve turned into John Daly. This swing on the right is a slower swing and I’m thinking about coiling going back and am clearly overdoing it. This is super common when working on your swing, certain other things that may have been good before get a little loose because your swing is slower and your transition later, etc. I’m not worried about this and I’ve actually still managed to get into a much better position on the right as I’m not nearly as far on my right leg. This was, again, a result of really trying to launch the ball high – Mission Accomplished! I can now back it down and be more coiled at the top as I am here on the right and now really use my left glute to get set onto my left foot.
This is just flat out embarrassing. I’ve started the downswing with my arms (maybe I should read that golf instruction book, “The Rotary Swing”) and I’ve completely failed to set my weight onto my left side. Because of this, I’m just “spinning out”, more or less, right from the top and throwing the club away. You can clearly see that I have less lag on the left compared to the swing on the right. On the better swing, I’m more set onto my left side and my arms and wrists are very relaxed. My swing thought here was to “squat” onto my left side and feel my left glute rather than just spin out from the top. The “bump” onto the left side I describe in the book is the same thing.
The swing on the left is ugly, but after an hour of work, I got it more straightened out, so I consider this good progress. I post this to show that:
a) everyone slips into bad and even terrible habits without realizing it
b) progress can be made quickly when you work on the correct things
c) progress still took an hour working exclusively on this one thing! (Keep this mind you are trying to change something in your swing next time!)
Wow, is that really me on the left? Just awful, I’ve lost a ton of lag and my left leg looks like it’s broken. Good on the right though, much better use of my hips to bring the club down and set on to my left side and I’m maintaining lag here still. The shaft is still stressed, more evidence that I’m not “throwing the club away” as the grip of the club is pointing vertical is still.
That guy on the left is a total hack.
More posted up at impact, it’s obviously creating a much lower launch.
In the last sequence, I have a much better release, more of a crossover release that I’m working towards. Below is a video of the swing on the right from today. As I’m working on things, these swings are a bit slow, this was 111 mph.
My “300 Workouts” have left me with a lot of confidence that while making a controlled swing I can get into many of the positions I want, but the problem is that it’s a controlled swing. By controlled, I mean that when I practice and film I’m often swinging between 60% and 70% of full speed so that I can focus on what I’m trying to accomplish. When doing this, it’s easy to get caught up in a rut of being too mechanical and lose a ton of clubhead speed in the process. That’s why it’s important to balance out slow, controlled training for building muscle memory with full on, all out, speed training.
I’ve done about 1,000 slow motion reps and that’s enough to start to slow things down in a hurry, so today I decided to balance it out with some 100% swings to remind my muscles and my brain how to move fast. It’s also interesting to check your progress with your changes to see if they are adding clubhead speed and if you’re making the right changes, they should add speed or atleast maintain what you have. I decided to test my speed with an 8 iron since that was the club I was working with all day and I don’t like swinging the driver in doors. My average “full speed” on the course swing with an 8 iron is around 95 mph, and I average more around 90 on a stock shot. I’ve never really tried to go up to 100% until today, so I don’t have a great baseline for this, but I do know that 3 weeks ago I was swinging my DRIVER the same speed I was with my 8 iron today!
The first swing I took was 105 mph. I thought that seemed high and sometimes the Swing Speed Radar can catch the ball as well, so I tried again, but moved the ball a little further forward to ensure an accurate reading and went all out. When it said 112 mph, I was shocked! As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’m really working on powering my golf swing with the correct big muscles of my backside and in the perfect sequence. It’s obviously working because I’ve never swung such a short club that fast. I’m posting the video of the swing below.
My swing is a bit all over the place here, but that’s fine, mechanics are going to break down when going all out and working on swing changes, but I wanted to see progress and to make sure I still had speed! I’ll give you a little tip here, what I was specifically working on in this swing was speeding up my backswing to go as fast as I could, not actually trying to make my downswing as fast as I could. The downswing speed was instinctive and not me actually trying to swing that fast through impact. Lastly, my finish is completely relaxed and balanced, something I could never have done before the RS2.0 changes while swinging this fast.
Today, I’m working on another view after Alison requested a swing of mine from this angle. This is a great angle to see just how the key muscles of the backside to the Rotary Swing 2.0 are working. I have some really bad habits in my golf swing that I’m learning to break with Alison’s Motion Memory training and am still making my 300 hundred swings per day. But, I’ve started adding some speed to what I’m doing and I’m looking at my swing from more than just face on now.
In the swing below taken from the rear, you can clearly see how my lower body is not only braced going back, but also I’m using my left side more actively to clear out. My bad habit is to “push” as Alison calls it with the right side and over power my left. This causes numerous problems, one in particular is to get your head and body too far out in front of the ball and come too far from the inside. Here, I’m staying back better and using my left side better.
I’m most pleased with my transition here as I’m working to get it to happen earlier in my backswing and that work is beginning to show. If you step through frame by frame by dragging the slider (hit play first and then pause it) you can see that I’m actively setting my weight to my left side and beginning to use my glutes and core muscles to unwind me from my backswing. This is a powerful and dynamic move that is the secret to power, and as you’ll see in my next post, I’m already starting to experience some stupid power with no effort.
Well, I went trick or treating on the course, and pulled a trick and it worked out a treat!
I belong to a little 9 hole club. The weather was gorgeous for the end of October (60°F and sunny) and so I headed out for what is very likely the last 18 of the year.
I made a few setup changes after reading about RS2.0, but it didn’t really ‘take’ until I stuck my ‘counterbalance’ out more (allowing the weight to set – and stay – ankle side) and suddenly shots were effortless. The only downside to this was trying to ‘squeeze a little more’ out, I’d slide my hips as opposed to pivot an cold-top the ball, but it could be argued that this would be the result with or without the setup change.
As the mercury rose, more people came to the same conclusion that I had – that it was a great day to be golfing. So after playing 9 I decided to play 9 more ‘Tin Cup Style’ – bringing only my 7 iron along. Interestingly enough, my score didn’t really change one 9 to the next, which leads me to really believe that the ‘answer’ to scoring is short game (putting with a 7 iron is kind of sketchy!)
For a guy who spent the majority of his golfing life mechanics-bound, it was very revealing and exciting to play 9 holes where touch, feel, and playing ‘by eye’ became the order of the day (grounds had pulled the tee chocks, yardage sticks and flagsticks earlier this week). Obviously I tried to leave myself a full 7 iron into greens, but more often than not it didn’t quite work out. How exhilirating to move the ball back a bit to add some yards and to move it up and sweep it to hit it higher and shorter. Sure, some of you are thinking ‘huh?’ but please keep in mind that while my clubs are well fit, my game is, um, lets say ‘developing’ as I just broke the 20 handicap barrier this year. I think it was mostly exciting doing it ‘on purpose’ as opposed to having it happen ‘by accident’ – including a sweet punch kept under low branches that hit the green and rolled just off, or opening up the face of the 7 iron to hit a small cut lob from a shortsided position near the green. Shots that I’ve never practiced but seemed to be able to relatively pull off, once again showing the power of visualisation combined with an ounce or two of athletic ability (and paying attention to where the divots show up in the practice swings) go a long way on the course.
Needless to say I think a couple video lessons over the winter are in order – to make sure I’m drilling the right things into my swing. I’d hate to drill the wrong move in, then have to spend all next summer compensating for it!
Played in my club’s weekly tournament and had another step forward in my journey. Now my score doesn’t reflect how well I feel I played (82) but it was 44* degrees when I teed off and I didn’t get into the sun until about the 7th hole. I got on the bogey train for those first 7 but played the last 11 at 3 over. But today I hit 10 of 14 fairways which is awesome b/c my driver has been my nemisis before seeing Chuck. I really did hit my irons well but on the front the short game eluded me. Bottom line though scores are coming down, what was normally a 90 is now an 82!
The biggest take away from today was my mental game. In a previous post I discussed how I allowed myself to be taken out of my game by a situation I found myself in on the course well today I did not let that happen. I found myself playing with an older gentleman who’s TREX was huge (ego) and he was cussing and throwing clubs which I absolute cannot stand (cussing not too bad but I hate when people throw clubs). Anyway I was really able to keep focus on the task at hand and my own shots and did not allow this idiot to bother me especially when I was on that early bogey train. So even though I shot 82 I still feel that today was a HUGE success and I don’t think I could have done it without all of the info on the mental game in the Rotary Swing site…it definitely save me a bunch of strokes today!
Well I have gone on and on about my lesson with Chuck and how awesome it went and that the key point was that I had ZERO shoulder turn (believe it the one on the right is at the top of my old backswing) and since I started doing the 185 slow motion swings working on sliding the right scapula back I wanted to take a quick video in the backyard just to see if there is any actual progress. Now I am sure there are other things to work (left leg) but when I do the 185 swings I have only been working on shoulder turn. So here it is the before Chuck lesson and after. Remember this is just a quick swing in the back with no warm up. I am very excited with what I see here and can’t wait for the next step. I think tomorrow I will concentrate more on the left leg…
Todays swing is on the left and before is on the right
I just completed an article on Tiger Woods’ Biomechanics and how it pertains to the Rotary swing 2.0 fundamentals that you guys will be learning this winter. Here is the link to the article:
Long day, I’m beat, but feel like I made great progess. After working on my swing with the camera for hours, I went to go hit some golf balls outside to see what was going on there. I hit it very straight, but not on the trajectory I’d like. It was a little floaty and not struck as solid, but you can’t expect anything different after such invasive surgery on a golf swing. I’d realistically expect to have ups and downs for the next month or so, but I’ll keep my playing light and just stay the course. It will be easier to stick with the changes when I’m not hung up on watching the ball flight, which makes this work perfect for you guys stuck up north in the cold. I promise we’ll have drills and videos coming up soon.
On a total positive note, I hit 126 mph twice today near the end of my range session. Again, I’m tired from a long day and my brain is pretty much “mush” right now, so I consider this great progress. My high on Monday was 123 mph I think and I only did that once, so this is a nice boost. My average was up a bit, right around 123, so that’s getting closer to my goal of 125 mph. This goal might be tough given how extensive the changes are, but I’ll keep trying. Overall, I consider today a great success and I learned a lot of new “feelings” in my swing that are heading me in the right direction.
Still working here guys. I gave Alison a call for a little guidance on something and she has helped jog my memory on some things. First of all, a good backswing is so torque’d up that it would be impossible to hold that position at the top, or even get there in slow motion. I had lost some of that torque and she gave me something to work on during my takeaway that, along with some extension going back that I felt I was lacking, created a much better position at the top.
The capture from the left is from today and the middle pic is from yesterday. Of course, on the far right that’s “Big Daddy”, or Tiger Woods. You might notice some similarities that were absent yesterday. I looked like a goober at the top of my swing yesterday, but knew I could fix it with some more time. Today’s position is much more torque’d up, in fact, I couldn’t even get to this position in slow motion, I am forced to “swing” to this position with momentum and couldn’t hold it if I wanted to. The more I alter my biomechanics, the more it seems that Tiger is the only person using his body to maximum efficiency. Is that really a surprise?
I’ve made some more progress from yesterday where I was actually pretty happy with the changes that showed up on film in such a short time. Today, I got even better results after my workout this morning. I notice that at certain levels of time, say after maybe every 60-80 swings I really catch on to something new and give it some focus as I continue. Here’s a screen capture from today on the left vs. yesterday on the right:
In this image, you can see I’ve gotten my wrist into a much better position. Doing the drill yesterday helped me get comfortable with a lot of things so that I could catch some more detailed things like this, but it came at a slight cost because I didn’t post on the left leg as well. That’s why it’s important for me to stick with the core drills for 3,000 reps without getting off on too far of a tangent because my body hasn’t “memorized” the work from the day before, it needs more repetition. So, after I stopped and looked at this for a minute I realized that I needed to keep focusing on rotation as well, but am still much happier with this position coming down into impact, it’s much more powerful with less effort.
It is nice when hard work on your golf swing produces visible results!
Well I tried it. I strutted into Gold’s gym at 0530 this morning with my 7 iron in hand and went up to the yoga room, which is has wall to wall mirrors, and proceeded at my attempt to make it through Chuck’s 300 slow motion golf swings. I was only able to make it through 185 swings but man it was a great “golf swing” workout.
Since my lesson with Chuck I have one goal and that is to properly learn to rotate my shoulders and core on the backswing by sliding my right scapula back to flatten out my back at the top. It took more than the ten minutes it took Chuck before my brain started to realize what my body was trying to do. It was about the 75th swing before I was able to finally “feel” the move that I was trying to achieve but once I did it was awesome.
Around the 100th swing I was so loose and comfortable with the move that I integrated the training into slow motion full swings. I was tucked in the corner of the room so that I was in front of a mirror face on and down the line…it was perfect. By the time I reached my last swing I was free flowing and my body movements felt very natural and like Chuck and Hayes I couldn’t even feel my arms as they were whipping through to the finish. However when I was finished my lower back muscle, not sure if it is the lower lat or external oblique, along with my left glute were on fire…not in pain but burning…the kind of burn you feel when you lift weights. I had never felt these muscles really in my swing before.
I was only able to get through 185 swings because with the mirrors I was really able to focus on my setup and at first I had to REALLY concentrate on it. Having the mirrors face on and down the line allowed me to really set up correctly. Right off the bat I noticed I was too close to the ball and I was not letting my arms hang straight down and I was able to fix this and a few other smaller things but it chewed up some time.
Overall I thought this was a great workout and I think that I found a way to cure the winter blues when it is too cold to play. In doing this I honestly walked out feeling like I just went to the range!!!
I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the movie “300″ but those guys were put through a grueling workout to get themselves into the phenomenal physical conditioning they were in to play the part of the Spartans. A couple men’s health magazines put together some workouts called the “300 Challenge”. I’ve kind of done the same thing, but for a very different purpose. Everyone has likely heard that it takes 3,000-5,000 repetitions to develop a habit. That’s a LOT of repetitions, and especially when it comes to learning movements in the golf swing. But, I’ve committed myself to making changes in my golf swing for longevity purposes and to enjoy pain free golf for years to come.
Many of you have watched Alison Thietje’s presentation videos on her website and there is a ton of great information on there, some of which is what I’m working on with my “300 Workout” I started today. In an effort to engrain some changes in to the biomechanics of my golf swing, I decided to do 300 slow motion golf swings in front of a mirror focusing on the changes that I’m making in my swing and this morning was the first “workout”. It was more challenging than I originally thought but incredibly insightful in the end and probably the most productive time I’ve ever spent working on my golf swing. Below I’ve chronicled this first workout so you can see what it was like.
9:30 am – Takes about 5 minutes to do 20 swings, the first 40 were sort of just feeling things out
9:47 am – By rep 60, I started feeling like my brain new what I what I was trying to do, things started clicking
9:54 am – By rep 80, I felt like I could really start to add speed to what I was doing
10:00 am – Rep 100 – Feeling very confident as my swing is looking and feeling like what I want it to
10:06 am – Rep 120 – Takeaway move really feeling good here, starting to focus on left side as well on downswing now.
10:13 am – Rep 140 – Noticing fatigue, arms and shoulders have never felt this soft and relaxed, really feeling left side pulling motion, starting to sweat, it’s a workout now, taking a 5 minute break to stretch and relax my brain.
10:21 am – Rep 160 – Do I even have arms and shoulders now? Club coming through effortlessly, completely core driven and club is ripping through w/ serious speed and zero effort as I’ve started to add a little more speed to my drills.
10:26 am – Rep 180 – Mixing fast and slow now, started getting a little sloppy and losing the feeling of using my core properly.
10:31 am – Rep 200 – Really feeling core now, shoulders super relaxed.
10:36 am – Rep 220 – Back to going super slow again, focusing on takeaway and left side on downswing. My setp feels very comfortable now.
10:41 am – Rep 240 – Tired, sweaty, taking a break. Wondering to myself how many people are actually going to do this? Hayes maybe….
10:47 am – Rep 260 – Starting to totally feel different muscles powering my downswing and complete separation from my shoulders and core.
10:53 am – Rep 280 – My golf swing feels like it’s from another planet. Completely controlled by the right and left side of my core, I don’t have arms, checking in the mirror to ensure they are still there.
11:00 am – Rep 300 – Don’t have arms but they sure are moving fast. Whew, I’m done!
It took an hour and a half to complete 300 swings like this, about the same time it takes to hit a large bucket of balls on the range, but this was way more productive in the long run. It’s certainly not a short term, quick fix, but in the end my joints are going to thank me – in fact, they already are!
I once watched Tiger Woods practicing at Isleworth here in Windermere where he lives and I saw him do the same takeaway drill for 45 minutes, non-stop, without ever hitting a ball. If you think about that, it’s amazing. He was intensely focused on a drill while a hole pile of brand new Nike One Platinum’s lay at his feet just begging to be hit. I never thought I could do just a drill for an hour and a half, but I just did and I learned a ton about the muscles that I want to actually fire in my downswing. I’m 10% of the way there!
To check my progress, I went downstairs immediately afterward and hit a few balls on film to see if anything stuck, here’s the sequence:
I’m very happy with a few things that I can already see as a result of my work this morning. One, I’m much happier with the coil and position of my left knee going back. I have a tedency to let it go back a bit far and get loose and sloppy. I’m extremely happy with my downswing progress, not perfect, but definite progress. My left leg is completely posted up on, not by using leg, using my core in the downswing! Because of this impact position, I’m getting a great release where the club is ripping through due to centrifugal force and nothing else.
Filming my swing helped me see what I need to focus on again tomorrow when I do another “300 Workout”, but I’m very pleased that swing has progressed already and can’t wait to see what happens when I hit 3,000 reps!