Good Morning Joe

Good Morning

Over the past week you viewed your swing in slo-mo video and by your own account you have are disappointed. As you work to change the shape of your swing you must make sure you keep a couple things in the forefront of your mind:

 1.       You play golf not golf swings - Your swing happens in real time not slow motion and you have the ability to make contact and even better shoot in the 70’s

2.       Who is your swing role model, pick one and chase their action, I would suggest Brant Snedeker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i35rTzsaXfA  or classic Jack Nicklaus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBhlkNKjO6s (you have some Jack in your swing already, right elbow)

When you get to the course and/or the range this is the time to work on tempo and routine not the time to make changes.  It’s called a practice range not a “diagnostic hitting field”; all of your mechanics can be fixed in the comfort of your man cave and you will see quicker results there as well.

It is important to head to the range with a plan there are 3 types of effective range time

 Discovery - When you don’t know why you are missing shots the goal is only to find the why not the fix, fixes are to be done at home far away from the flight of the ball. Most people confuse the fix with the why; think about it, you may have said something like “…I was hitting it thin but I just need to extend more at the ball”. Maybe you’re right and the fix matches the flaw or maybe you changed the timing with your “fix” and the flaw is still there but now you have an additional compensation ala Bank.

Practice - When you focus on tempo and routine; place your psyche in on course situations; expect the mechanics you have been working on at home to be ingrained and try to rip the flags down on the range. If practice isn’t going so well stop, do something else, move to short game, or grab a drink and start over but never shift back to discovery. It is ok for mechanics to be a part of your pre-shot routine but once you take the address position you must let go. I guarantee if you think “don’t role my wrists at takeaway” you will find it hard to be consistent and will continually blame the fixes for poor golf shots not the flaws.

Fun time - It is important to head to the range with a plan, fun time is just that (I am going to the practice for an hour of fun I will not think of mechanics no matter what happens Ill just move on to something more fun if contact isn’t right). When was the last time you did this????

What I see:

Here is a pic of my take away I am sure you have better examples with Tiger or Ernie or some other pro but observe how my shoulder-turn has move the club back, the head of the club has barely move from its starting position in relation to my chest; also look at the logo of my glove and copy this.  From where I am in this picture I need to focus on hinging my right arm so the club goes completely vertical my shoulders will continue to turn to maintain the plane of my swing. (Discussed further below)

Odds are you have read this and are saying to yourself “Evan talks a good game but he doesn’t do this”, well funny you should say that. The truth is I used to practice like this for years and then I shot that 71 and started pressing my swing. I wanted to break 70 so bad I ended breaking my swing. Consecutive “Discovery” sessions turned my swing into a Frankenstein of compensations. In 2003-4 at the TPC I would argue I was a better ball striker than I am today (a much worse player though) back then I had far more”Fun time” sessions than anything else. I would sit on the range with Galasso and we would see who could hit slices to a green 150 yards out or who could it a tree stomp first and even how low can we hit it, this gave me a much better awareness of contact creating a target focused swing not shape focused swing. Below are my struggles today.

The 3/15  pic is from my first full outdoor “practice” session, from this video I determined that my right elbow was pulling behind my body which made it impossible for me to create any width in my swing making it appear short, my right arm was moving out from under the shaft releasing its supporting role and resulting in a flip at the bottom of the swing arc. A month later after living room focused mechanics you can see how I my right elbow is staying much more in front of my body evidenced by the more vertical angle of my right forearm. The right elbow is now down and in, I am very happy with this position.

How much more powerful and load does the 4/8 photo look to you?

It is almost hard to tell if I am going up for the backswing or down for the downswing, which is what I am searching forJ!!

The reason I included myself is for A) Glory & B) to show you that it took a month to move my elbow 1 inch. By focusing on my elbow my plane improved (the relationship between the shaft and my left forearm) the width improve (my hands are closer to my right ear and higher at the completion of the backswing) and without thinking of it look how my lower body instinctively anchored to the ground specifically into my right heel a much more powerful position.

If you focus on small changes your body will make big changes instinctively.

Good Luck

Evan