I was hitting balls today at the range when I made a little stance adjustment with my irons at address, and I believe I had a little “Eureka” moment that brought me even closer to my ultimate swing theory goal – the perfect athletic address position.
Of course, the MCS position has very little about which to complain. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with it. However, this whole swing theory business is not like mathematics, where something is either right or wrong. Something may fine, but another thing may be better.
In fact, dare I say that you may find perfection in something if you try long and hard enough. My opinion, as I’m sure many others would disagree.
Anyways, before I continue, this is what C.B. had to say in an email to me about when he went in for a club fitting last week. He’s hitting the ball so well that he is having to get new equipment to match his added power and swing speed;
As a side note the fitter was amazed at the accuracy of my shots, I grouped the balls right around each other, so definitely a repeatable swing. He checked my alignment stance posture grip and said also he was amazed I got it right. Most amateurs have parts of it wrong. That’s a compliment to your trifecta in MCS 2.0.
So once again, the Fundamentals Trifecta laid out in the MCS original and 2.0 is bang-on, that isn’t something I’m going to change. What I’m talking about is basically adjustments to my own body position inside the proper Address Stance that I’m fiddling with.
I didn’t get any video, as I was working on something that I hadn’t yet figured out completely in the way I like to break things down later at home and make sure I understand fully the change I’m making and why it’s better.
But I was definitely noticing something in my ball-striking after making the adjustment with my irons and wedges. I’m going to think a little more about things tonight and move up to the Driver on my next range session, and if things go well, I should have some video or address stance photos to share.
Too many times in the past, I have been uncomfortable at address. When that happens, it’s almost a guessing game. Nailing the address position (a mechanically correct position) and doing it freely, makes everything else work off of that. It’s very very difficult to swing without impedence when your address position is all over the place.
I know you’re going to like this when I have it formulated, BT… I believe it’s what our friend talks about when he discusses how MA set up in the impact position… if so, it’ll be something. Stay tuned!!
P.S. One of my in-laws is in town, visiting from Diamond Bar… that’s close to you, isn’t it?
HEY!! Diamond Bar is 30min from me. Tell your in-laws I want to meet them!! If they play golf, I will set them up at my course!! Make it happen Deej. Can’t wait to see the address position in complete formualtion. I want it….I need it!! Otherwise, my swing doesn’t come off efficiently.
Uh, I don’t think my in-law plays golf, BT – she’s in her 70′s!!
Being in your 70′s does not mean you can’t play golf……This is a Mike Austin site, ya know?!?!?! LOL
“Being in your 70′s does not mean you can’t play golf…”
It does when it would be for the first time, my friend!
RJ, if you grip the club with your hands too far round to the right, bend at the waist and stand really close to the ball at address how well would you hit the ball without making any compensations? The Grip and Address are the two most important things, with them nailed as BT says makes everything work off it, and once properly setup you can simply swing without too much thought about what you are doing,
I’m looking forward to MCS 3, will it have any matches between Junk Yard and Kane? :-p lol
I’m looking forward to MCS 3.0 as well, Seb, and it’s because of the extra work I’m doing to simplify it even more from the 2.0 version. I would feel a little badly that I haven’t yet gotten it done, but as I promised, everyone with the 2.0 will get it for nothing extra if they want it, so I am not rushing to get it done. What started out as an intention to re-shoot the 2.0 in Hd is turning out to be an improvement on the 2.0 video itself, when all is said and done.
And no, there won’t be any grudge matches in the 3.0 video Seb, unless by chance I manage to find myself in So-Cal before it’s done. But then that would open up a whole new avenue of video if you got BT and me together, Skeleton Suit vs the Junkster
If you are going to do something, then it’s always best to do it properly. Something my old man used to say to me, Bobby Jones said something similar about learning the golf swing. I’d rather wait a whole year and have something that you felt was finished than you rush it.
But if there is going to be a skeleton suit “no-holds barred” I’d be happy to wait even longer lol.
SEBBER!!! LMAO!! Maybe MCS 3 will have a special Directors Cut with JYD (DJ) and Kane (me) at the end in a cage match……Oh my goodness we are so off topic…….
P.S. CB isn’t the only one that impressed the fitter, when I had the swing DNA, hitting with a proper shaft I had the same grouping. Once you have the motion down getting correctly fit for clubs is a MUST, because the swing speed increases quite a bit anything less than a stiff (sometimes that is even too soft) is no good and will cause loads of backspin and a very high unmanageable ball flight, not to mention poor shot dispersion. Not just the shaft, but increasing the weight of the clubs also as I said aids in allowing your wrists to release so you don’t have to concentrate on relaxing the wrists, it just happens.
I know what my Christmas gift will be, if I have anything to do with it – a TaylorMade R11 TP driver at 8 degrees with an Aldila shaft, flex to be determined.
The reason I want this club is because of the adjustable options- I will be able to have a driver that is 8 degrees and 6.5 in loft, and with the detachable shaft, I will be able to more easily change the shaft depending on what type of flight I want. I could go with two shaft types, probably a Stiff and XS, and play with the loft and flex.
I fell in love with the R11 after hitting one a couple of weeks ago set to 7.5 degrees. It was a 9 degree standard adjusted down, but I saw today that they even make an 8 degree standard, which would allow me to adjust it down to 6.5! And the kicker was that the fellow I know who let me hit his, told me about how great an option it is to have the detachable shafts- he has half a dozen different shafts that he can pop off and on it at will in seconds.
Hogan, Jones and others must be spinning in their graves at this type of stuff…
Jones spent a long time mucking around with different driver shafts and head types, he had some very heavy very deep driver heads made and he couldn’t hit those at all. Make sure that you get something that is heavy enough for you though, static and swing weights.
. The shafts that come with it I think are half an inch longer than the R9, but they are also very light, I think the Aldila is somewhat heavier.
I actually picked up an R11 and the head weight felt great, plus you can add heavier moveable weights. I think it’s 202gm with the standard weights in it.
Now shafts
Here are 3 keys to driving longer according to Tom Wishon:
http://wishongolf.com/3-critical-keys-to-increasing-driver-distance/
And check out this interesting article about clubs being too upright and too light:
http://www.andrewricegolf.com/2011/03/clubs-too-upright-too-light/
Just some general reading for ya
And Hogan bent his clubs 6 degrees flat or something like that, Nicklaus used counter weights under his grips, just goes to show that getting the correct equipment for your swing is almost as important as learning the correct swing in the first place, if the greats mucked about with their equipment as far back as the 1920s then I’m sure it’s the best thing to do these days.
Mike Austin probably did the same, his 1 iron had a tungsten weight behind the sweet spot didn’t it? More mucking about
DJ .. sorry to say that Taylor Made does not make any loft lower than 9 in the R11 series. At least the new tip of the 11s can move the loft 1.5 degrees instead of the original 1 degree. With so many of the players swinging down and to the left on tour, low lofted driver that MA swingers need are only available in the long drive arena. I am in the Phoenix area and would not be surprised if Cool Club or Hot Stix could alter the loft a bit. Remembe VJ using that 9 wood bent to a 5 wood. That might be our answer to these mass produced clubs for the average player. The shafts do enable you to alter flight and spin as well. I have a Fubuki TP Stiff and a Great White by HOF that I go back and forth. thanks again for all the hard work you putt in .. David
David, thanks for the info. I guess the 8 degree TM R11 must have been a mis-print and was actually a 9. Would have been nice though!
I guess I’ll have to see about a Krank then, or something similar.
As an aside, the elder gentleman who I helped gain some mph on his driver swing asked me for a little help with his swing again yesterday. He was getting inconsistent impact grouping on his driver head and hooking on his misses, so I took a look at him swinging down the line for a couple of drives. One little adjustment to his Address Position (there’s that theme again), and he was hitting baby draw after baby draw at the far green on the range (probably about 260y from where we were hitting).
He had some impact tape that he put on his driver face, and went from a dispersed impact spotting before the adjustment to ball after ball on the same place almost dead centre on the sweet spot.
Point: I didn’t do anything to change his swing. What I did was change his address position just slightly, and it eliminated his ability to turn his hands over at impact, so that he couldn’t hook the ball, and was able to more aggressively shift through the down swing, and Bingo! he was off to the races.
It is and will always be my position that the swing is 75% complete at the correct address position. When you get that down, it is difficult to hit very bad shots.
I simply cannot see myself ever taking a new student, going out to the range with a bucket of range balls and saying, “Ok pick out a club and just start swinging.” I can hear the student now….”Ummmm, how do I hold it? How do I stand?” You know what, they may even hurt themsleves!! Grip, posture, stance, alignment…there’s 4 things right there. Backswing, downswing (2 things). If you look at it that way, everything you do before you even put the club in motion is 67% of the swing. If you set up correctly (and have NEVER hit a golf ball), I am willing to bet you can hit a golf ball ALOT better than in you set up some totally incorrect way. Boy oh boy this is fun!! What a great site!!
Grip, first and foremost, for me, BT. Like I laid out in 2.0, I would explain how the grip works like any other athletic grip, with the difference of the interlocking/overlapping fingers and the thumb down the shaft instead opposite to the fingers.
I’d perhaps explain with some chips and pitches that the ball will go where the face is aimed at impact, and why the grip is crucial for this… then on to the alignment, ball position for club, and stance… by then, you have taught the student 80% of the golf swing without having hit a ball!
You know, now that you have me talking and thinking about it… I think 3.0 would be better started with some chips and pitches, then move on to the full swing. Blimey, there it is…
By the way, BT – I know you’re not a fan of Tiger Woods, but I was just watching him on TGC hitting balls at the range getting ready for this week’s tournament, and it’s no wonder he’s starting to win again.
His swing now is solid, bears no resemblance to the one I was gagging over last winter. I wish I had my video capture equipment in my office again, but it has bitten the dust… I would have posted some of his swing to compare with six months ago… he’s definitely swinging solidly now… and Sean Foley is nowhere to be seen. Apparently he’s still with him, but at least he’s practicing alone now.
Oh, and Phil Mickelson – he swings his driver like a Mike Austin student. Saw him today as well, can’t figure out why he’s so wild, the swing looks so good in all positions… mystery.
I was watching some of Tiger on his recent win and was surprised at how solidly he was hitting it, if you say he’s practising on his own then that must be it.
I had a look at Phils swings, there are some swing vision shots on youtube, during the transition he shifts his swing center towards the target by about an inch or 2, and you know what I think about what that can do to you’re consistency
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If that’s what you saw, then that would explain his consistency. I’ll admit that I haven’t watched much of Phil’s swing on Swing Vision, but if he’s swaying his swing center, then that would indeed explain the very loose shots he hits at times.
yep, here you go, check out this video. It’s only a small amount as I mentioned but you can see he’s shifting his upper body towards the target on the downswing:
Ball position is an issue
I don’t think the camera is directly face on in that video, the ball looks to be off his leading heel. There are very directly face on shots of Phil, i did find another one which was an iron, in that one the upper body shift was even more exaggerated, but as it was a much older video i chose the one above.
The camera is inline with the tee marker and his stance is closed. He is trying to draw it off of the left side of the fairway and it looked like he hit with a descending blow. If I am not mistaken he gets 3300+ RPMs with driver which is because of a descending blow. Dustin Johnson’s spin averages 2500-2900 because he hits in the flat spot. You can hit a high spin golf ball with less than 2500 RPMs if you catch it on the upswing. I could be wrong though.
This is my problem. I get way too much spin with the Driver using the softer balls like the Pro-V1′s, but I love the feel of them with my iron and wedge shots and the putter. Plus, the spin is great around the greens.
But when I pull out the Driver, it’s not good. The only option for me is to go with a very low lofted driver, because I don’t have a problem with the height on my iron shots. I love high, arcing faders with all my irons, and the soft balls are right up my alley on that.
Loft and shaft stiffness can bring your spin way down. It helped me. Shaft profiling is definitely important because one stiff isn’t as stiff as another and one flexes differently from another. Tip soft, stiff butt will give more spin than butt soft, stiff tip.
That’s right, the camera is directly in front of the tee marker, not directly in front of him. He did hit with a descending blow because his swing centre moved towards the target, here is a better one of him (a little dark, not sure why), put your mouse cursor over his swing centre and watch him drift towards the target on the down swing, if you move your low point in front of the ball you have no option but to contact with a descending blow (unless you make some major compensations), descending blows cause backspin, which is why you point out that his backspin comes out at 3300+ RPM.
This is what I was trying to explain to you before about the low point of the swing, and moving it around causes different ball flights (and if you don’t realise you have moved it you’ll be compensating). Take the flop shot for instance, on a tight lie you MUST attack it with a very descending impact, otherwise the bounce of the club will cause the leading edge to impact the ball and blade it, this is achieved by positioning your weight over your leading leg (i.e. your swing centre is positioned over the ball). Conversely if you need to flop from a fluffy lie if you tried the above you would slide the club under the ball and it would go nowhere, you instead should have your weight a bit further back which means the swing centre is further back and consequently the angle of attack is different, the clubhead will be coming up to meet the ball.
Anyway here is the video which shows his swing centre moving about on the downswing:
Also I totally agree with Brandon about getting the shafts profiled, IMO shafts are the main cause for ball flight issues if you have a fairly sound swing, assuming you aren’t shifting your swing centre about
. Mizuno’s Swing DNA was brilliant, I don’t know if other manufacturers have a similar thing, but it really shows how every part of the shaft reacts to your swing.
Also there are some really good softer feeling 100 compression balls out there now, you should try the Pro V1x or the Callaway Tour i(z) (oh, there’s a new one out now I don’t know what its called), they are like rocks on the long shots and bring spin down, but they feel good on the short game.
HET DEEJ!!! I said on this blog a few weeks ago that El Tigre is back because he is smoothing out the Foley swing. I believe I said something to the effect that Tiger is molding more of what he used to do with some of Foley’s thoughts. I think Tiger had to do somke overcorrecting to find something that took pressure off his left leg. It seems he has, and now he is seeing what he can add from what he used to do that will still work with this new swing thought.
BT, yes you did as a matter of fact. That’s why I thought of you when I saw his swing. It’s looking solid, much more like the days of Harmon, at least from down the line…