3Jack Swing Progress Journal

[Richie3Jack]

Over Labor Day weekend we played Waldorf Astoria, Harbor Hills and Metrowest.

I've come to dread August and September in Orlando because the humidity is at its worse. Not only is more unbearable, but it softens up the ground and it makes for very wet golf courses. And the courses are too afraid to mow, so you get bumpy greens and super thick rough. If you can play the courses I play in Florida well during August and September, you're really golfing your ball.

I was mediocre at Waldorf and was +3 with 4 holes left until the storm rolled in. I shot 74 (+2) at Harbor Hills which was better than you think since the greens were aerated early that week and hadn't been mowed in days. Then I shot 74 (+2) at Metrowest and couldn't get used to normal greens. The good thing is I had another lightbulb go on over the weekend. And a lot of it had to do with watching 15+ handicappers play.

The big thing for me that I think has been hurting me is the lack of 2nd fire in the downswing. I think I became so conscious of not sliding the sacrum forward and having the sacrum go 'straight back' with Anterior Pelvic Tilt, that I was neglecting that I need to utilize the second fire in order to rotate the pelvis.

I started to think of it this way:

Swing as hard as you possibly can on every swing.

But, you're swing as hard as you can with your lower body...not your upper body.

I was starting to notice the lower body action of the 15+ handicappers. The best player was actually an 11 handicapper who shot 79 at Metrowest in not easy conditions (all carry) and was doing it with a 3-wood off the tee since he doesn't hit his driver that well. He had by far the most active lower body of the bunch. He kicked in his left knee in the backswing the most and rotated the most.

You really have to work those legs, hips, knees and of course the pelvis in the golf swing.

I don't think anybody was a better personification of trying to hit it as hard as they can with their lower body than Johnny Miller:

He was very violent with his lower body action. 

I started to summarize it as follows:

The lower body provides the power to your swing, the upper body should provide the control.

Of course, that's not necessarily true, especially when you consider the spine's roll in the golf swing and how golfers like Lucas Wald, Sadlowski, etc. activate the spine engine to provide power.  But, I don't see the lateral bend as a violent movement.  I see it as a poetic movement of sorts.  OTOH, lifting the left heel in the backswing, kicking in the left knee behind the ball in the backswing, then getting as much Anterior Pelvic Tilt as you can followed by going from dual hip external rotation to getting as much dual hip internal rotation while keeping the left hip behind the left ankle is a violent looking movement.

Keeping the right shoulder external rotation and giving into the impulse to throw your hands at the ball is where the upper body helps control the clubface.

In the end, I hit the ball pretty well at Metrowest and was getting back to my old self more and more.  I still had some mental collapses, but the swing seemed to be there for the most part.

***

I started off at Waldorf making my first putt for birdie.  After that I didn't putt very well.  Harbor Hills was a wash because the greens may have been reading a 5 on the stimpmeter.  I think they were slower than the fringes at Metrowest.  Then I putted lousy at Metrowest which is going to happen when you make such big changes to the stimp.

From what I've read on motor skill learning and skill acquisition, it's very important to keep the student's confidence.  Not only does it keep the student around for more learning, but it actually plays a role in a student being able to learn new movement patterns more quickly.

I think with Florida golf there's an issue with bumpy greens and vastly changing green stimps.  I can play 3 courses on the same day that have the same overall quality and get stimps of 6, 10 and 13.  Harbor Hills was reading about a 5 (if I'm being generous, Waldorf was about an 8 and Metrowest was about a 10.  Between that and the bumpiness, not a lot of putts are going to go in, confidence sinks and it retards the learning process.

One of the things I started to work on was getting my eyes over the ball more.  I'm not really a big fan of the eyes over the ball concept, but it was working when I was using the Pelz Putting Tutor.  I would simply take my normal stance and lean my torso more over the ball.  Problem was that I couldn't take it to the course. 

After my round at Metrowest, I tried taking my Ping B61 to the PGA Tour Superstore to get the head removed.  They couldn't get the head removed either and they told me that they believe there is a ball bearing in place to help keep the shaft in the head as I guess that is something Ping used to do with old putters.  I started to putt around and I was fooling around with the Edel Torque Balanced E-3 putter

I had tried out the Torque Balanced putter before, but I had only tried the E-1 model thinking that would be a better fit and wasn't that impressed with it. 

But, with the E-3...and I know this is on a flat, smooth surface and all that...I was making everything.  Short putts, long putts, intermediate putts, putts that broke left-to-right and right-to-left.  I honestly harkened backed to the time I went to the practice green with the Wilson 8802 when I was 16-years old and was just making everything with that putter and had to buy it because that was too incredible to put down. 

I took the E-3 home and got on the Pelz Putting Tutor and was hitting it thru the gate repeatedly, time-after-time.  That would make sense as to why I was making everything with it.

I'll write about it more in my next post on The Search for Flatstick Nirvana on the blog.

[Richie3Jack]

Yesterday it rained hard at Duran around 5pm, so they closed the range. With the crazy Florida weather, it had not rained a drop where I was and I didn't even notice the rainfall at Duran until I got about 2 miles away from the course.

With that, I decided to head out to the putting green which was slow, but somewhat smooth. Probably reading a 7 on the stimp and it was way faster than Harbor Hills.

One thing I saw over the week was that my eyes were not directly over the ball. I'm not a fan of subscribing to that, but for my stroke it was causing problems and causing me to turn the putter face over at impact and hit the left marble on the putting tutor. Or I would yank the putter head inside. Or I would both.

Leaning the torso over more with the TaylorMade Ghost putter helped with that, but I couldn't translate it over to the course.

What I've found with the Edel Torque Balanced putter is that is not an issue. In fact, when I miss the gate on the Putting Tutor (which is far less often), I tend to hit the right marble now instead of the left marble.

And I have to say that if you putt with the Torque Balanced putter and make a pretty good stroke, the putt feels as pure as your can putt one.

I have noticed that you don't want to miss this putter off the heel. I also noticed that my follow thru is much shorter in length which indicates that the putter allows the gravity to do the work.

This weekend I will get out to Southern Dunes and then next week I'm on vacation and hope to get on some other good greens and see what this putter can do.

[Richie3Jack]

Another day of no practice because of the rain. The good news is that I have little worry over it because I'm so confident in my movement pattern training regimen that I should pick up where I left off in short time.

It's a lot like the backwards bike video where the author tries to ride a regular bike after training on the backwards bike.



At first, he can't do it, but after 20 minutes of trying he gets the hang of it and is riding it no problem. The movement patterns are in there, so some time off on the range isn't a problem, I just have to dig it out again.

Instead, I continued to work on my putting. I hope to get into the habit of working on my putting every day. Yesterday was a bit of a regression, but still a good learning process and in the end I started to putt better again.

One of the big issues I had was with speed control. With the new stroke and the Edel torque balanced putter, there is a far greater transfer of energy so I tend to hit putts way too hard. The other part is that I started to develop my ability to see the line when I putt.

Elk talks about it in this video where players become 'line blind.'



I think that being 'line blind' has been a major issue for me and would explain why my putter head alignment has been so poor. Lately, I've been starting to see how you need to see the line more from the cup to the ball and then aim yourself accordingly instead of just laying the putter head down and trying to align the face.

I think it's more about getting a feel of what naturally will happen in order to get the ball to the cup. Much like shooting a free throw. The difference is in golf the ball will curve on the putting green. So it would probably be more likely shooting a free throw outdoors on a windy day. You don't really think about the stroke as much as you react to shot and sense what you have to do in order to make the shot.

Anyway, my putting is much better and I'm just waiting on the Mi Putting Template which just shipped. Should be in next week.

[thedixieflatline]

Jun 30, 2015 10:46:11 GMT -5 Richie3Jack said:

I don't drive hold with my S-Wedge or L-Wedge. I will with the P-Wedge and 9-iron. Although it depends on what the shot calls for. If I'm in between clubs or into the wind, I will hit more punch shots to keep things more under control. But, if I have the club and there's no wind, drive-hold away.





3JACK

If you don't mind me asking, what modifications do you make to your swing to hit full or fullish sand and lob wedges?

[Richie3Jack]

I basically use my old M.O.R.A.D. swing.

Back in 2011, myself and instructor David Graham put me on the Trackman combine. I had no idea what the number scores meant. After finding the 60-yard shot,I was getting scores of 100 and 99 (averaging out all 3 shots) from 70, 80, 90, 100 and 110 yards. I then hit 95 from 120 yards. David was shitting his pants, but I didn't know how good it was. Unfortunately, we never saved the data. But needless to say, I didn't need to change much with the wedge swing.





3JACK

[Richie3Jack]

Some interesting things happened over the past few days as I have been on stay-cation. First, I played Streamsong and got on the Blue course. Streamsong isn't cheap. I paid $110 for the greens fee and the cart. You have to take a forecaddie which is at least $50 and it's an unwritten rule to tip them. I didn't know what to tip...so I gave him $140 in total. Not bad for about 3 hours work in a cart just watching me play golf. I never like to say if an expensive round of golf is 'worth it.' But, if you want to play a fun course with a beautiful design and in immaculate shape and they really roll out the red carpet for you...Streamsong is the place to be. I didn't play well, but managed to shoot 76 mostly because I played the long par-4's, the toughest holes on the course, very well.

Then I met up with my friend Donte in Tampa and we played the Belleview at Biltmore course. This is a Donald Ross design built in 1925 with some redesign back in 2001. I grew up in an area where the top courses were Donald Ross or RTJ designs and therefore many of the local designers followed Ross' design philosophies. I didn't think the course was that hard as I shot 70 (-1), but the course was wet and it's a pretty tight course so I can see if the course was firmer that it would be much harder.

Afterwards, I met up with Steve Lippincott at his GolfTec location in Lutz. He hooked me up to a 3D machine. I've been on the MyGolf 3D machine, but that was more for demo purposes. This is the first time I've seen a video of my swing since April. It doesn't look very good, but for starters I wasn't using my irons and I hate hitting into nets. My swing is very different hitting into the net. The good news was that my pelvic rotation was much improved....getting in the 30-35 degrees open at impact range.

GolfTec is now being headed up in large part by Nick Clearwater and he had a good article a while ago about shoulder tilt and pelvic rotation that jives with what Kelvin and Co. believe. One of the interesting things is that the want the shoulder TILT to match the pelvic rotation at impact.

So, if your pelvis only rotates 10 degrees, then your shoulder tilt should be about 10 degrees. If you go with say 30 degrees of shoulder tilt to 10 degrees of pelvic rotation, you are getting right pelvic tilt...which we don't want.

Conversely, if you're getting 30 degrees of pelvic rotation and only 10 degrees of shoulder tilt, you're not getting enough lateral bend.

I was getting around 42-45 degrees of shoulder tilt to about 30-35 degrees of pelvic rotation. That means that I was getting right pelvic tilt and way too much slide.

One way Steve discussed to work on it was to work on my neck tilts because I was 'hanging back' with my head and that makes it so I get RPT and don't get more pelvic rotation.

I tried that for a bit and we started to get the shoulder tilt to pelvic rotation closer to matching.

Steve also showed that I was still having a problem with 'releasing #4 Power Accumulator' meaning that the left arm was pressed against my sternum at impact instead of 'flying off.' I was very much like Dean Wilson in the picture below:



Instead, I want to be more like Jordan Spieth.



To me, it's more about the forearm area and if that is more against the sternum or if it is flying off the sternum.

Steve and I discussed that and other things.

I had thought about what Steve and I discussed and I did practice in a mirror my neck tilts.

But, I came to the conclusion that I should work on the Right Pelvic Tilt instead since I was playing the next day at the GC of Eaglebrooke (awesome design). Working on neck tilts is an unfamiliar move for me and would take some diligent practice and could really screw up my round. Working on getting rid of RPT was more familiar and I should be able to get thru the round okay.

However, my thinking went beyond that. What I noticed is when I worked on the neck tilts with Steve, the RPT went away. It's kind of a chicken and the egg in terms of figuring out what is going on.

Steve described that what I may have to feel or visualize is my left ear being lower than my right ear in the downswing. That's exaggerating the feel as the ears will be more level. And then of course when I get into impact, I can get all of the shoulder tilt I want.

I decided to look at Victor Rodriguez's and Lucas Wald's swings and then neck tilts.





Sure enough, they are well into their downswing and their ears are level. However, they also have some left pelvic tilt and certainly no right pelvic tilt.

It's something that golf instructor Michael Martin and I discussed a few weeks ago. How they measured Sadlowski in 3D and found that he didn't have a ton of lateral bend. However, what he didn't understand is that Jamie has a good amount of left pelvic tilt. I can get more lateral bend than Sadlowski, but that's because I have my hips tilted in the same direction. Sadlowski has the hips tilted in the opposite direction of his shoulder tilt. That is where the coupling motion is and aids in the pelvic rotation. Dr. Bob Olivieri describes this coupling motion.



Dr. Olivieri is more describing it with regards to the backswing, but it obviously applies to the downswing as well.

Steve asked me questions about my game and it was good timing because over the week I had been thinking about writing down every little thing that happens when I play well. Here are a few things I noticed.

- I'm not hitting many drives below the CoG of the clubface

- I can aim well left and never miss left.

- I'm hitting my punch/knockdown shots, particularly with my short irons (9-iron thru LW)...very well

- I can still hit draws without missing left.

Steve noted that because of the excessive shoulder tilt to pelvic rotation (aka RPT), I would hit too far upward on the ball with the driver which would cause the hits below the CoG on the face. And that with my short irons, I may have distance issues because the AoA is too shallow. That's why when I'm hitting knockdowns/punches well it works good for me because all I'm really doing is getting the AoA steeper where it needs to be with those shorter irons.

Anyway, I played Eaglebrooke and focused on not getting into RPT by using the marching move. The sensation was in transition was to still get as much APT as I could while also getting that right hip hiked up as high as I could. And it worked brilliantly as I hit 14 GIR on a soggy course and shot 69 (-3). The ball was going further, particularly with the shorter irons which I didn't need to knockdown/punch anymore.

***

My putting got increasingly better as the week went along. I brought my Putting Tutor with me and I have become obsessed with getting some practice on the Putting Tutor every single day. Since we had hotel rooms, I could practice some longer distances which really helped compared to practicing it from 8-feet.

I've been working on 3 main things:

1. Keeping my pressure in my feet stable. No swaying of the pressure. I tend to sway it back towards my right foot or sway it back towards my heels.

2. Focus on making great contact. You can hit it thru the gate on the Putting Tutor and mis-hit it. I've done it quite a few times. But your odds of getting the ball thru the gate increase dramatically on a well struck putt.

3. I saw an interview with Geoff Mangum where the question was posed "what's the biggest misconception golfers have about putting?"

Geoff's reply was (paraphrasing) "It takes far less effort and force to putt a ball where they want to putt it than they think it does."

This all goes back to 'letting gravity do the work for you', but his statement seemed to strike a chord with me as I have been using the Putting Tutor. The longest putts that made it thru the Putting Tutor untouched have all been ones where it felt very effortless in the thru-stroke. But I started to think about it and I realize that the most effort and force in the putting stroke takes place in the backstroke, particularly when you initiate the putter head going back. If I can keep that in mind instead of trying to control the stroke and do #1 and #2 at the same time as well, I start putting really well.

[Richie3Jack]

My dad and I played SkyView at Terra Vista on Saturday. I shot 75 (+3), but was even par after 10 holes with hitting 9 out of 10 greens. My 15/5 score was +10 after 10 holes which was real promising. And then things started to fall part. A chunked 6-iron (which I almost never do) on the par-4 11th led to bogey. A horrible 3-wood on the par-5 13th led to par. Then a flared driver on #15 with a flared approach on 16 and pumping one into the stew on 17 with a 4-iron.

It's good to see that I'm now coming away very disgusted with shooting 75's now. But, my stamina throughout a round seems to be poor.

I think I'm at the point now where if I can do the following:

- get rid of Right Pelvic Tilt in the downswing.

- abduct the left arm at impact

- continue to improve my putting

- get into better condition

I could be really tough out there. I think with the elimination of the RPT and the abduction of the left arm, I can gain close to 5 mph of club speed. That may put me into the 115-118 mph range and with better clubface control.

The putting comes and goes. Sometimes it is really great and other times old habits creep in. I'm going to look to get onto a SAM Puttlab again, soon. I want to see how my stroke looks now.






3JACK

[Richie3Jack]

Last night was the first time I had touched a club (other than the putter) in 3 days. And it was the first time I had been on the range in almost 11 days. I wanted to take some time off after playing 8 days straight of golf. When I was ready to get back into the swing of things...the range was closed due to being so wet. I wouldn't be surprised if it is closed again because they had a hard time getting the range picker to move.

Which sucks.

Mainly because I started to make some real nice headway last night as far as the lower body movement.

I had been working on avoiding the right pelvic tilt, but over the past 2 months, I had felt a lack of the second fire.

I had watched this video before and knew about it, but here's Re-Max LD champion Joe Miller with his coach Lee Cox discussing Kelvin's 'Fearsome Foursome'



The big thing I started to concentrate on was the 'squeezing of the legs' together.



I did find this video interesting as Miller is more jumpy and under-flippy than what Kelvin would prescribe, but he and his coach believe in KM's work.

Once I started to squeeze the legs together, I could really feel the rotation and the balance was better and the shots started to rocket off the club face.

***

I just purchased a 1 month membership to David Orr's Flatstick Academy (www.flatstickacademy.com).

The day before I had finally received the Mi Putting Template (15* model) and started to use that. I've been using slow motion training with the Mi Putting Template and started to find that my elbows were aimed open at address and that was making it harder for me to hit the arc on the Mi Putting Template.

From there, I started watching some videos on the Flatstick Academy. It's been a while since I've talked to David. His videos were extremely interesting as he goes far more into setup positions. It's kind of like watching M.O.R.A.D. for putting (which I would not be surprised if that is what David has had in mind) in the sense that it doesn't have a methodology, but more about principles and how different setups, takeaways, etc. affect the putting stroke and trying to make parts of the stroke more compatible.

In the past, you would get people discussing a 'proper setup' to look something like Tiger Woods' putting setup, but that never explained the different putting setups that worked like Nicklaus' very crouched over setup or Don January's very upright setup. I can see a lot of Geoff Mangum's influence on David, but I think David is more into finding a putting stroke that is compatible with the putter face rotation and vice versa. I started gripping the putter differently after watching one of David's videos and he had another video of a lesson with a tall golfer that struggled with putting and had some of the similar issues that I had with my putting.

[Richie3Jack]

I only played on Saturday as I wanted to watch football on Sunday. I went into Metrowest feeling pretty good about the game, but not perfectly confident. I wanted to make sure I did 3 things:

1. Hike the right hip up as I high as I can in the marching move so I don’t go into Right Pelvic Tilt
2. Keep the left elbow pointing at the target on the downswing for as long as possible.
3. Squeeze the legs together thru impact.
In the end, I hit the ball better at Metrowest than I did all week in practice. I hit 15 GIR with a +14 score in the 15/5 score and hit 11 out of 14 fairways. One of the fairways missed was on the goofy 9th hole which I think I was in the fairway, but since I had to punch it under that stupid oak tree, it was effectively not a fairway. I hit 2 cuts (that were hit hard) that found the fairway bunkers on #11 and #12. But, after that I nailed every drive straight and down the middle. I only had one drive where I was a bit too much below the CoG on the face, on #18 where I tried to nuke one. I had one drive that was fairly off the toe, but that was on #2 where I still hit it about 280 yards and found the fairway which is a hole that I struggle to drive it well on. Other than that, everything was well struck and hit straight and I can notice more club speed as the shots had a lot more zip to them.

The problem was that I shot 74. At a score of +14 on the 15/5 methodology, that should result in at least a score of 70 (-2). I had a slightly misread on the first hole with a 15 footer for birdie (I saw a double break which it did, but I played too much initial break). Then I missed a 12 footer on #2 where the putt was hit just a hair too soft. Then a misread on #3 from 5-feet and it really shook my confidence.

I’m probably going to try and get on the SAM Puttlab this weekend and see what is going on.

I’ve been watching David Orr’s Flatstick Academy videos, so I’m using what I perceive is David’s logic when it comes to putting analysis.

I think David’s main idea is that with putting you’re trying to, more or less, match the putter face rotation with the stroke arc. And then you’re trying to get all of the parts of the putting stroke to be compatible to that stroke arc and that face rotation.

Essentially, we can rotate the putter face varying degrees in the stroke. Therefore, we can arc the stroke in varying degrees as well. And that’s part of the difficulty of putting…there’s a lot of degrees of freedom we can arc the stroke and rotate the face and often times they can be very different from each other. Therefore, we need to come up with compatible parts in our putting movement that will create more of a match between stroke arc and putter face rotation.

If we have a large arc, we need a lot of face rotation throughout the stroke. If the chest is further from the ground, that is compatible with a larger arc stroke and therefore we need to be able to have more putter face rotation than if he had the chest closer to the ground like Michelle Wei.



Wei’s chest is closer to the ground, so the stroke should have a smaller arc and she should have less putter face rotation.

My feeling with my stroke (and I have no idea how accurate my assessment is)…is that I have parts to my stroke that create a small arc, but I rotate the face more than my arc should allow.

So, I can either change the arc to fit the face rotation or change the face rotation to fit the arc.

I believe that I need a little of both.

I think my chest is not too close to the ground so I should be able to create an average sized arc. However, I counter that with my shoulders and elbows being closed to the target. That creates for a smaller arc.

As far as face rotation goes, I think I had the putter gripped too much in the fingers and I just had a tendency to rotate at the wrists counterclockwise in the thru stroke for whatever reason.

I also think my putting stroke takes too long and it’s mostly in the backstroke. I think that’s perhaps why I putted well with the Wilson 8802 and Ping B61 putters…they were lighter so it was easier for me to speed up the backstroke.

And that’s why I putted better with the 8802 and the B61 and now with the Edel Torque Balanced. Each of those putters are more difficult to rotate the face closed and are lighter. So what I’ve been working on (thanks to the Mi Putting Template) is getting the elbows more square at address and keeping them square. I almost feel like instead of having a CD laying up against my grip and it ‘sawing thru’, I have an enormous saw that is up against my forearms and I’m ‘sawing thru.’

[Richie3Jack]

I didn't play very well this weekend as I shot 77 (+5) at RedTail and then was even par at Duran, but had to quit due to darkness after the 16th hole.

In simplest terms, I think I advanced the ball well throughout the day, but had difficulty with directional control and usually I'm quite good at that. However, I think I started to figure out some of the issue which is one of the best attributes of working on Kelvin's stuff...diagnosing troubles is easier because there isn't a lot of things to work on.

However, where golf becomes a headache is when a golfer can execute a certain part of the swing like they want and hit the ball brilliantly and then over time start to not execute that part as well and still hit the ball well. But over more time the golfer starts to hit the ball worse and worse and they don't realize that they are no longer executing that part of the swing. So, it takes a lot of awareness of not only the mechanics, but what the corresponding problem shot is with that faulty mechanical piece. And it takes an understanding that just because you hit it well before, doesn't mean that the mechanical issue didn't exist and it probably means that you were just able to compensate for it for a period of time.

For the past 2 weeks, I've been working diligently on hiking the right hip up in the marching move in order to avoid Right Pelvic Tilt. That worked well. But, I started to struggle on Friday on the driving range and it carried over to Saturday and for about half of the holes on Sunday. I started to figure out that I was concentrating so much on hiking the right hip up to avoid RPT that I started to neglect getting enough Anterior Pelvic Tilt.



You really have to get both. I see instructors these days discussing the problems with RPT and how to avoid it (without giving KM credit), but it's all for not if you don't have Anterior Pelvic Tilt. That's where I disagree with the modern 'biomechanics' theory of purposely flexing the knees in transition. I think what is done is that the best ballstrikers and drive-hold release get into APT in the transition and that creates the knee flexion.

This picture collage shows it...not perfectly, but pretty well:



You can clearly see the APT from Hogan, Olazabal (who was a great iron player), Trevino, Nicklaus, Gay Brewer (bottom middle). The ones that don't show a lot of APT are in the upper left corner (not sure who that is), Hale Irwin (upper right corner) and what appears to be Lanny Wadkins. However, those pics are taken almost at p6 when the golfer is going to get out of APT unless you're Hogan who was an oddity unto himself.

I think I was starting to slide the sacrum instead of getting into APT and making sure the sacrum doesn't move forward while hiking the right hip up there.  I'm pretty sure that if I can get 5 more days of consistent practice and I am not putting out some new fire, I'll make a tape and send it to Kelvin to look at.

***

I'm still not happy with my putting, although it is better.  I would like to be a 'good putter' and I have to remind myself that it's going to take time.  And the issue is that we still have a lot of lousy greens.  Especially this year because it rained so much in August and September.  Usually the greens get really good in October, but even RedTail's greens were slow and bumpy.

David Orr's Flatstick Academy is really good.  He creates new videos each week and I'm surprised by how much the videos showing player lessons really help.  Every player is different, but you can see the M.O.R.A.D. and TGM influence in David as he has created simple principles for any golfer to use to figure out what stroke works for them.

It's mostly about compatibility with David.  Your arc and face rotation should come close to matching.  And the biomechanics of the putting stroke should be compatible.  So, if you have a wide arc, you need more face rotation to correspond with that arc.  And then you need the biomechanics (setup, backstroke motion, thru stroke motion, etc) to be compatible with what creates a wide arc, larger amount of face rotation stroke. 

I went on to the SAM Puttlab with instructor Billy Ore because I wanted to see how the changes in my putting stroke were coming along and they actually looked pretty good.  One of the things I learned from the Flatstick Academy is that the speed of the stroke is important and it should be about 1.0 seconds from start to impact.  I had the feeling that my back stroke was too slow and I saw that I was right as the backstroke and I was right as the backstroke was taking 0.83 seconds and from the top of the stroke to impact was 0.42 second.  So I was at 1.25 seconds overall.  However, this was much better than in January when my backstroke took 0.88 seconds and the stroke to impact took 0.41 seconds, a total of 1.29 seconds.  I eventually worked on speeding up the backstroke and got it down to 1.07 seconds long.

However, my acceleration profile on the putter had improved despite still having too slow of a backstroke.  And my aim was pretty darn good 0.6 degrees closed at address.

So, some good things came out of it.

[Richie3Jack]

The ballstriking has been pretty darn good this week as I've reverted back to working on the bucket drill.



Working on that with hiking the right hip up has produced some excellent results and I feel like I have that directional control again. In fact, it may be better this time around as I can now hit a draw on command more often.

With that, I was struggling with missing left with a hook prior to going back to the bucket drill. So I now know that when hooks are happening, there's likely a rotational issue. I'm not sliding so much, but not getting the rotation either. When flare shots happen, it's more of a sliding issue in that I'm getting too much slide and can't get the rotation.

Friday I play Metrowest and then I play Orange County National on Saturday, so it should be a good test to see what happenes.

***

Putting wise I'm still trying to figure out how to get maximum putter head speed and maximum putter head acceleration PRIOR to impact.

Erik Barzeski showed some SAM Puttlab-esque diagrams of what it looks like a while ago:



So we have 'speed' on the y-axis and 'time' on the x-axis. The vertical line drawn in the middle of the chart is impact.

We see in the 'poor' acceleration profile that max speed and acceleration is at impact. The orange line showing speed is going upward. Then the putter head speed naturally slows down due to the collision with the ball. However, after impact the orange line 'humps' which means the golfer is accelerating post impact.

The 'good' acceleration profile has a peak speed at impact, but you could probably argue that it also occurs just prior to impact. The blue line then shows deceleration at impact and then in continues to decelerate.

The 'great' acceleration profile has the green line flatten out for longer, even showing a little deceleration prior to impact. And then the drop off is even more steep post impact.

Here's Tiger's acceleration profile from back in 2007:



Here's Loren Roberts'



And here's Paul Azinger's.



Each player reaches max speed and acceleration prior to impact. Then you see rapid acceleration in Tiger's and Azinger's data. Roberts is unique in that he is decelerating into the ball perfectly, but then has a profile more similar to a 'poor' profile that Erik has draw. I believe the reason why is that his putter stroke is very long and slow. He takes 1.4 seconds to go from address to impact whereas most good putters only take about 1.0 seconds.

But, what I have found looking at SAM Puttlab results of the good putters, it seems to be that the time of their stroke from the top to impact should be about 45% of the time that it takes to complete the backstroke.

Roberts' backstroke takes 977 milliseconds while his stroke from the top to impact takes 425 seconds. Despite being a super-slow stroke he's at 43.5% difference (425 / 977 = 43.5%)

Here's a look at my acceleration profile back in JANUARY.



And that's pretty awful.

Here's my SAM Puttlab acceleration profile from last week:



It's certainly better now. I would probably label it in between the 'good' and the 'poor' now. The profile post impact resembles more 'good' and the profile prior to impact is still more in the 'poor' range.

One of the things I think I've been doing is jabbing at the ball. I was trying to shorten my follow thru because I felt it was too long.

I started to do some drills to create the same length backswing as the same as the follow thru length because if you're using a pendulum motion, those should be about the same length. I've found that I really struggle to get the follow thru long enough, so I'm probably 'jabbing' at the ball to a degree. I've found that you really need to speed up the backstroke, particularly at about 1/2 of the way back to create enough momentum to get the length of the strokes to match without forcing the issue.

[Richie3Jack]

I think I've made a major breakthrough in my putting which of course means that my ballstriking suffered. We played Metrowest on Friday and I shot 75. I only hit 11 GIR, but it was a windy day and the ground was soft. I actually hit the ball very well on the back nine as I hit 7 out of 9 greens and made 3 birdies. The only greens I missed were the par-3's, #15 and #17 which are both long and were into the wind. However, I putted miserably on Friday again. I couldn't get putts to drop early on (started out with 3 lip outs from inside 12-feet) and then I went into a funk and made some putts eventually before I finished the round not making anything.

I had been thinking of making the trip up to see David Orr which would probably cost me about $1,000. But, I started to read some of his articles on Friday night (call me Mr. Sociable) and his articles on stroke types struck a chord with me and caused a major breakthrough.

We then played Orange County National on Saturday and I again...started off with 3 straight lipouts (this time from 10-20 feet). But, I didn't miss any putts that I probably should make, made a few testy putts from 4-8 feet and finished the day with a 12-footer and a 21-footer. Unfortunately, my ballstriking was horrendous and I shot 78 (+6).

I was thinking of getting another lesson anyway, so on Sunday I filmed myself and sent the tape to Lucas. I usually send them into Kelvin, but I think you're better off finding teachers that have the same swing philosophies and alternate between them every once in a while. To me, it would be like being an owner of an NFL team and wondering why your offense is struggling when it used to be very good. You could ask the current coaches, but they will probably have the same response. Or you could find coaches that coach the same offense, but are not part of the organization and they may give a different take like 'throw to the Tight Ends more' or 'use more draw plays' that may be the little thing that is extremely helpful. That beats seeking out a coach that teaches a different scheme because he's going to want to change the scheme even though you were successful with this scheme and you still have the same players.

Anyway, I saw some things I liked. My backswing is better and I saw more pelvic rotation without that big Right Pelvic Tilt. However, I was getting tripped up by a steep shaft plane on the downswing. That has been something that pops up from time to time. Sometimes it looks fine, but like I saw on video on Sunday...sometimes it is awful. And I think that is why I'm seeing the inconsistencies of playing well for 3 rounds in a row, and then having a couple of rounds where I really struggle before playing well again. The shaft plane gets steep and it throws off everything. And when it doesn't get steep, the rest of the body movements are working in a far better motion. I think it's why when my swing is clicking, there is a noticeable difference in the zip on the ball and I start hitting the ball much further.

I'm awaiting to see what Lucas says, but one of my guesses is that my right elbow is moving too slow.

Grant Hooper discusses it a bit in this video:



Unfortunately, Grant really doesn't draw the lines correctly enough to show his point (still one of my favorite golf videos on all of YouTube). So I created my own illustration.



The pic on the left shows Grant in transition. The green line is his right forearm angle. The orange line is what the right forearm angle should resemble as he continues downward. As we can see, the orange line is much more vertical than the green line. This allows the shaft plane to further flatten out so it is not so upright. In order to make that move, you really have to drive the right elbow and 'get the right elbow moving faster than the hands.' That's what I was working on last night and I had some success with it, but it was still a work in progress. I'll be interested in what Lucas has to say.

***

I wrote about my latest SAM Puttlab results and part of my breakthrough on my blog at: 3jack.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-search-for-flatstick-nirvana-part_12.html

Essentially, I thought you always wanted to have symmetry in the arc of your putting stroke and you always want the putter face square to the target at impact (or as close as possible).

When I used to putt well, I used to use my lead side to putt. I had my shoulders open and I took the putter almost straight back and then arced it inside in the follow thru.

When I looked at my latest SAM Puttlab report, I finally got that inside arc on the backswing like I wanted and then my stroke was slightly inside-to-out or arcing inward and then going down the line.

What I didn't know is that I was using a lead side stroke and executing it EXACTLY how great putters like Jimmy Walker do it. That's why I putted so well in college. And I'm confident that my college putting stroke had a great acceleration profile.

But when I cam back to the game after my 8-year layoff, I started listening to too many people about the backswing arc and all of that stuff and I was essentially being taught a trail side powered stroke even though I was a lead side stroke putter.

So, I was incorporating a lead side backstroke with a trail side thru stroke which is...putting death.

As I re-dedicated myself to putting in the past couple of months, I believe I was starting to incorporate more of a full trail side powered stroke. But instead of using my trail side on the backswing, I was using my left hand and wrist.

That was different than before where I would use my left shoulder so it made for a better stroke. But, I couldn't get the acceleration profile where I wanted it because I was still mix-matching techniques.

Now I'm back to lead to the lead side stroke...back and thru...and I know what to look for. The main issue now is that the trail side stroke calls for a quicker backswing so you can allow gravity to do the work better and the lead side calls for a slower backstroke. So, I'm still fighting with that a bit. However, I had my best putting round in months after just practicing the lead side stroke for a night and just had my 2 best practice sessions using the lead side stroke method.

[Richie3Jack]

I got my lesson back from Lucas and as I suspected, there is a lack of a right elbow move. I had to go back and reference all of the mechanics of the right elbow move with the scapula movements and the ‘scapula dig.’ I started to get it last night on the range and I started to see better shots and a lower ball flight as over the past 2 months the ball flight has been higher. I think if I can resolve the steep shaft plane issue that will free a lot of things up and help with the rotation.

Here's a video from Kelvin showing scapula motions in golf and baseball:



The other issue was the left foot and how I need it to invert instead of evert. Over the past few months I felt like I was screwing up my swing with my left foot movement, but I was playing well and didn’t want to change anything until I needed to and I got confirmation from either Kelvin or Lucas.

The left foot feels far weirder than the right elbow move and the scapula dig. My plan for now is to work on the right elbow move and the scapula dig and just keep the left foot square at address instead of flared. Once I get those down, then move on to the lower body moves from that left foot inversion.

***

The putting is still going well since I started to understand the lead side stroke and stop mixing up trail side mechanics with it. I have been practicing a lot of left-to-right and right-to-left putts. I have a tendency to push the left-to-right putts and a tendency to under-read the right-to-left putts.

From my statistical analysis on Tour, the best putters tend to perform well on more undulated greens like Pebble Beach and Riviera. Now, their make % may be lower because those courses are more difficult to putt on, but as far as STROKES GAINED goes, the best putters on Tour usually gain more strokes on more undulated greens.

And I think that my situation points out to why. It’s very easy for a golfer to do what I do….miss low on putts that break a certain direction and read low on putts that break the other direction. And the golfers that can eliminate those issues or compensate properly for those issues will tend to putt the best. Probably no surprise that the best putter in the world since 1990, Brad Faxon, grew up on hilly greens and used to constantly practice trying make 3 putts in a row from the same distance playing 3 different amounts of break.

[Richie3Jack]

I worked more on my swing over the week and purchased a Swing Groover based on the recommendation from Lucas.



The idea behind the Swing Groover is to get more slow motion training in with the ball being there but not having the outcome of the ball flying in the distance as the outcome takes your attention away from the mechanics and the motion.

I've seen these get a bad review as they are not durable on speeds over 80 mph. But I plan on only doing this with slow motion training. Furthermore, it's difficult to bring a mirror outdoors in Florida because it gets windy. So I can practice this indoors with a mirror instead.

In the meantime, I'm going to catch up on the shoulder and scapula movements. On Saturday I played at Candler Hills and shot 78 (+6). It was a long course (7,300 yards) but it didn't feel that long to me. I was hitting some good shots for about the first 12 holes and then things started to fall apart. The good news is that when I got the swing fairly well, I was hitting it quite long. Had a 320 yard drive and a 290 yard drive that was into the wind.

On Sunday I went out and practiced and saw that the transition still was off. Better than before, but still off.

I experimented with some things and got some swings on video tape that looked improved...and some that looked like shit.

My thinking right now is that I'm not moving the scapula correctly on the *backswing* and that is causing problems in transition. I did have 1 swing videotaped where not only did the shaft plane look much better, but there was a noticeable improvement in rotation. So it's pretty obvious to me that these things are intertwined.

***

My putting was terrible on the front nine at Candler Hills and then came around on the back nine. However, there was some silver linings.

For starters, I was on the practice green and struggling to make good contact with the putter. I started to see that my right hand grip was too much in the fingers instead of the lifeline and made note that when the grip is too much in the fingers, I'll struggle with face contact.

The other part was that on the course my struggles were almost solely on my green reading. The greens broke more than I thought and one of the golf balls may have been out-of-whack. I had a putt on one hole that went in and I saw this. I aimed just left of center and it broke left. It barely went in, but I do not see how it is conceivable that the putt broke left at all unless the ball was badly out of balance. I know Bryson DeChambeau uses a method to determine if a golf ball is badly out of balance and he claims that usually about 3-4 balls are unusable out of a box of 12.

Anyway, on Sunday I saw a new video posted by David Orr on his Web site flatstickacademy.com.

I really can't praise his site enough. On this video he discussed putter fitting and went into great detail about fitting for putter length and lie and how length affects your putting stroke.

He had described fitting for length in the most informed fashion and in a completely different fashion then I have ever heard anybody discuss before.

And a little nugget was that fitting for putter length is dependent upon the golfer's physical attributes like the flexibility in the elbow, wrist and thumb joints.

But one of the more interesting insights was how if a putter is too short and causes the golfer to have their arms too straight for their physical makeup, it can provide too much *tension* in their arms, shoulders, neck, etc.

I had only heard that bent arms would cause tension, not straight arms. And it's funny because I always putted better with putters roughly 35" long. But everybody started to go to these shorter putter lengths to 'let the arms hang naturally.' And for years I had felt that there was more tension in my stroke and it was causing me to get a bit yippy.

So, I went to the practice green on Sunday and started hitting a bunch of putts. But, I forgot about what David was talking about in the video.

I started to notice that I tend to get too quick with my lead side stroke pattern and then remembered how David would prescribe fitting a putter and I had to get a little closer to the ball because my Edel Torque Balanced putter is a little short for me at 34" long.

David showed in the video how his putter fit is at 34" and he is much shorter than I am (David is about 5'8" - 5'9" and I'm 6'3" tall). So at 34" for me is probably too short since we have roughly a similar type of arm hang.

And from there I started to really stroke the putter well. Far better than before.

[jnaturally]

Hey Ritchie,

Does Kelvin advocate any methods for changing the trajectory?

Have you noticed how most pro's hit a low, mid, or high shot? Is it all in the setup and swing length?