Jim Furyk’s loop, Lee Trevino’s reroute, Ricky Fowler’s ultra flat hand set and the infamous Jack Nicklaus flying right elbow.
These would all be looked at as swing faults, but they are dynamic parts of great player’s golf swings.
I know it’s hard, but try and discern what is an actual swing fault that creates a problem for you and what is an integral part of your swing that makes it athletic and dynamic.
Decide if it really prevents you from hitting good shots…or if it is just something that CCPGM (Cookie Cutter Perfect Golf Mechanics) says is bad.
The Monte Scheinblum lateral move would today be something that golf instructors around the world would be teaching people to copy, in order to get them more power…only I got rid of it, never made the Tour and never became famous, only infamous.
For clarification. There is no question in my mind the entire last paragraph is true. Not trying to be cocky or say that my swing is anything to be copied…you know where I stand on copying other people’s swings. Just stating an opinion that “IF” I had made the Tour, I would most assuredly have led in driving distance. We all know that gurus and the golf media find the anomaly that exists and preach it to the masses as gold. I am saying I disapprove of what would have happened had I succeeded in making the PGA Tour. I am sure some people are going to somehow find arrogance in this point…LOL.
Therein lies the irony. When you are trying to get there, anything
individual to you is a flaw…once you get there, anything individual to you is WHY you got there, so everyone else should do it too.
Now that I know more, I realize the swing fault was not the lateral move itself. The swing fault was when the lateral move became too pronounced and/or if I rolled on the outside of my right foot, which hurt my balance.
I let a few putzes convince me to take the lateral move out of my swing because it was “wrong”…a swing fault. I now realize getting rid of it ruined my rhythm, my feel, my touch from 50 yards and in and especially my ability to generate ridiculous club speed. Know how I know this?
I can still bust it past most anyone, but after I dumped the lateral move, I steadily lost the ability to be stupid long.
Last week I was hitting it fine, but felt terrible (as I have for 10 years or more even when shooting 65). Stiff, nonathletic and I felt like I was hitting it nowhere. A few minutes before the epiphany, I had shown someone my swing from the Long Drive on my ipod and I got mad and put a big lateral move on a 7 iron.
I didn’t hit it particularly perfect, but it felt great and natural, my balance felt perfect, I released it beautifully…and it felt…DYNAMIC.
For the last week I have done it and it has helped my feel more than I can describe…especially around the greens and I have been able to crank it up for an extra 20 yards when I want, which I haven’t been able to do for a while.
Look at the videos below and give me a good reason I needed to get rid of the lateral move…also take into account when I played tournament golf, the lateral move was smaller as I wasn’t trying to hit it as hard. It also got smaller the shorter the shot got, down to negligible around the green. When I do it right, my head hardly moves…if at all.
Look at that speed, balance, lag (LOL 😀 ), hip clearance, swing in sync. False modesty aside, that is an awesome display of power and athleticism. OK, now you can call me cocky. 😀
I want to kill somebody…and myself for listening.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiDStMAhYk]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT_p3KPE8ew]
Streaming Video Series
That lateral move is beautiful. It’s similar to someone’s forward press on a putt. Looks like a simple reset of stance just before you start the backswing. More importantly, it looks like you get more inertia for your powerful swing that way.
Also lessened the need for a narrow move on the downswing that gets you stuck as the move back cleared the way for a wider downswing.
Kelvin has a pretty good article with some comments & video about some having this lateral move vs some that don’t. Good read if anyone cares to check it out.
http://www.aroundhawaii.com/lifestyle/health_and_fitness/2011-01-what.html
“Stiff, nonathletic and I felt like I was hitting it nowhere.”
Yup. Conventional instruction is full of restrictions. Keep your head down. Keep your head still. Keep a straight left arm. Maintain the spine angle. Swing on a plane. Downswing traces the backswing. Hold the lag. Now, make a DYNAMIC move!
Every time you add a restriction, you give mixed-messages to your body. Instead of trying to drive a ball with a stick, you overwhelm the system with instruction (a lot of it mistaken).
Convention instruction should be: Form follows Function. But, instead, Function takes a back seat to Form.
Monte
I have said this many times before, the key to that magnificent championship swing of yours was your HIGH HANDS, it got GRAVITY working on your side. Whether you knew it or not, your your hands were getting a free ride until they were waist high. You should watch videos of yourself and COPY your old swing, no thoughts just COPY it. You have the tools, use them. The experts talk about how Hogan did this and how he did that, rather than WHAT he did he would focus on very small areas where he wanted his ball to land. Monte you have all the tools to win. become a sharpshooter. Going out for my morning run don’t do it as fast as I used to but so what I am 66 years old
“High hands”?
I remember going to a driving range one day. And I thought to myself, Davis Love has high hands. I should try having high hands. That day, I hit it absolutely pure. The ball flew off the club face. And it never worked again. That day, the “high hands” Feel worked great. Then, when I started thinking about HOW to do it, it didn’t.
That’s why virtually any swing change will work for a while. It takes you out of your old mistakes, and it gives your body a chance to OPERATE without dealing with micromanaging. Then, you groove a new set of mistakes to go with your new swing, and it’s worse than before.
If the “high hands” Feel works, use it. If it doesn’t feel natural, don’t try to manufacture it.
It’s not the positions–it’s how you get to them.
That’s why copying video isn’t the complete answer. Video is 2-dimensional, and often you aren’t seeing what you think you see. And, there’s a lot that you aren’t seeing.
S. Exactly Montes’ natural swing WAS HIGH HANDS why he ever changed it I will never know
“why he ever changed it I will never know”
Because Experts are supposed to know what they’re talking about.
Unfortunately, the function of an expert is not to be more correct than a layman, it’s to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons–especially in golf!!
I started golf with two books written by experts. It took me…um…a long time to realize that they didn’t know as much as they thought they did.
And, all golf books are written by John Andrisani. I don’t care if it says Tiger was the author, or John Daly, or Fred Couples…it was written by John Andrisani.
“Author John Andrisani the former senior editor of instruction at Golf Magazine. A former golf instructor, Andrisani is the author of over twenty-five books, including the bestselling The Tiger Woods Way. He has also written books with golf’s top tour players, such as John Daly and Fred Couples, as well as top-ranked teachers, most notably two of Tiger Woods’s former instructors, John Anselmo and Butch Harmon.”
–http://us.macmillan.com/author/johnandrisani
Like S. said, I listened to people who were supposed to know what they were talking about.
Wait till Peter Kostis hears about this.:)
Peter Kostis. I don’t understand him at all. I will definitely conceed that he has studied the golf swing for longer than I have and has some understanding. That being said, his comments make no sense at all much of the time.
His suggestions and explanations are beyond the understanding and ability of a great majority of the viewers.
I guess he can’t say balance every time.
Re: Kostis…I got a big kick out of that Wayne DeFrancesco (sp) video that someone (maybe S.) posted the other day…his critique of Kostis’ comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iJK-YIJhcw
I have seen that before—CLASSIC…WayneD is fun to listen to…
I had the sway in my swing until recently when it simple became too difficult to time so I went to steady position and rotated around my spine. That worked great for a while because I still had the residual feeling of weight shift from the sway. More recently I find myself coming out of the swing and hitting it left making me think of going back to the sway to help me keep my level.
Maddening game…
I think this is where Monte comes in with the online lessons when we can’t figure it out for ourselves. If any body should be able to pick out what’s a swing flaw vs part of your personal swing dynamics, it should be him. He did it for me awhile back. If I had just paid 100% attention to the one thing Monte wanted me to improve upon, I’d be much further ahead but I subsequently picked things out that I didn’t like about my swing just because they didn’t look right according to past teaching. Big mistake on my part but lesson learned…
-Bob
To me its only wrong if it doesn’t work.
Swing looked sharp Monte, looked got at the top to me, even with a little slide.
A golfswing is like a fingerprint, everyones is slightly different.