3Jack Swing Progress Journal

[vecino]

Thanks...helpful. On the MTI forum someone mentioned right hip briefly in flexion (APT?)This made sense to me; but the responses emphasized right hip extension along with left hip flexion, so I just forgot about it. APT has both hips in flexion...thanks.

[Richie3Jack]

Yeah. It also depends if you are doing the marching move or not.

I know Kelvin did not have Gabe Writer do the marching move and from what I could see it was because Gabe was getting LPT without it.

But for me, RPT has always been a problem, so I use the marching move to help with that issue as it hikes up the right hip and that creates right hip flexion. But you have to have APT. Very key component to all of this.





3JACK

[Richie3Jack]

Last night I felt like I started to really get it. I think the breakthrough was already there with the left leg extension, but figuring out how to do it somewhat consistently was still lacking.

The main breakthrough was the entire left leg extension as shown in Ryland's swing:



Simply put, I feel like I need to get into Anterior Pelvic Tilt and move the tailbone back at the same time to the point where it gets the left leg into extension and the left hip is being pulled backwards.

In the meantime, I need to get the lumbar lordosis and scapula dig to create the elbow move and more importantly, drive the right elbow forward.

Kelvin has discussed this many times, particularly the pelvic movements of how the pelvis has to get into apt, it has to rotate and it has to move the tailbone backwards all at the same time. I never really got it until I started working on the lordosis and scapula dig along with the right elbow move that it creates. I think you *have to* have all of those pieces or none of them will work.

If you don't have the lordosis and scapula dig, then you'll start sliding the pelvis. If you don't have the pelvic movements, you can't drive the right elbow forward.

Last night I was practicing in slow motion. I don't have a mirror on the course, but the good thing about practicing under the lights is I can use my shadow instead. And I found that there is a sequence. I have to move the pelvis first and then come in with the lordosis/scapula dig/right elbow move. I can see where KM can describe it as 'holding the lag.' I never liked the term 'holding the lag' because I think too many golfers think it is about holding wrist angles. But, with KM's work, it's more about getting the sequence right of allowing the pelvis to start first, then then moving the lower body at about the same time the upper body and the arms move.

I have a tendency to move the upper body too soon and I think that causes a slide and then I have to get my right shoulder out of external rotation in order to counter the slide motion

It's not easy to see unless you feel the correct sequence of:

A) Pelvic Tilts

B) Lower body movement and lordosis/scap dig/right elbow move

But, I do think Victor Rodriquez shows it in this video.

The 1st frame is the end of the backswing.  As Victor transitions, he gets into APT.  The angle between his thighs and left oblique gets more acute and the tushline moves a little further back.  We don't really see the scapula dig until the 3rd frame as there are some ruffles forming in his shirt at that point which is what the scapula dig does.

It's very 'bang-bang' in terms of sequence, but it's there and it's 'holding the lag.'

This view shows a different part of the action.  Victor's right arm appears to increase flexion.  However, that may just be an illusion from his right shoulder getting into ER and becoming more upright.  Much like the illusion of lag caused by shallowing out the shaft plane:

So getting out of the sequence of: 1) pelvic tilting 2) lordosis/right elbow move

Can cause somebody to 'lose the lag.' 

***

On the putting front, one thing I plan on doing after vacation is getting me a Wishon S2R Model 5 putter. 

I have wanted to experiment with a putter and try different things with it instead of experimenting with the gamer.  I tend to think I need a mallet design with zero offset on it.  So, I will probably put a single bend shaft in this putter and see how it goes.  I've never assembled a putter together.

I have also been thinking about getting a modern Ping B60 putter and having somebody weld a flow neck or a pipe neck onto it instead. 

[vecino]

April 2010...Spine Engine Swing Lateral Bend. Great pics of AK moving pelvis etc...

[Richie3Jack]

I have only practiced once and played once since the 23rd. I got sick with a stomach virus and I'm still not quite 100%.

It sucks in the sense that right before Xmas, I was really starting to get the swing down as well was I ever have. Now, I'm certain that I will get back to that point, it's just going to take some more time to do it.

When we played on Saturday, my ballstriking started out rough, but then was pretty good down the stretch. I did lose some zip on my ball speed, but I think that was some timing and loss of strength issues (was sleeping most of the time I was sick). And my putting started out well, but struggled down the stretch. I need to get some time in with the string practice as the ball launch illusion was kicking in really bad.

[Richie3Jack]

I finally got to play this week as I had the privilege of playing The Dye Preserve on Friday and then played Metrowest on Saturday.

The Dye Preserve is a very private club with the course designed by Pete and Alice Dye. I guess it used to be a muni course, but they bought out the land, redesigned it and made it very private. Rory McIlroy is a member there. The parking lot was filled with Mercedes S550's, Maserati's and BMW 7 Series. The locker room was immaculate with about 5 full time staffers in the men's locker room alone and they had their own full bar and grille in the men's locker room.

In my time there I saw Daniel Berger, Tim Rosaforte (very nice guy), Russ Cochran, Austin Ernst and another LPGA player that I didn't recognize...she just got her LPGA card. The course was not 'Dye-abolical' by any means. It was just straight up golf. I thought the greens were reading close to 11.5 and they were still complaining that they were slow. Different world of golf, I tell ya.

I didn't play well at the Dye Preserve and shot 77 (+5). I was fairly competent with my ballstriking as I had not played in a while and my right elbow was stiffening up and my neck was hurting. That's one of the goal for 2016, to get healthier from a flexibility, strength and stamina standpoint. Once I finish 2015 Pro Golf Synopsis, I'll be doing that.

My putting was horrendous however.


On Saturday I played Metrowest with my dad and shot 71 (-1) despite hitting 15 greens and having a 15/5 score of +19. If I putt decent, I should have shot at least 68. And if I putt well, I can get into the 65 or lower neighborhood.

I haven't practice as much since I had the stomach virus, but I think what has hurt me a bit is not getting on the practice green since it gets dark out earlier now. I really need to get some time with the string drill because I think the 'illusion' of my ball being pushed due to the putter head orbiting leftward really screws with my mind.

I also junked the GripMaster stitchback grip. I think with the pistol designs like that one, I don't nee a midsize. I put on a PURE Grips midsize which is more paddle shaped. I'll see how that works out.

But, I did strike the ball pretty well at Metrowest. I've been struggling mostly with my irons and there I could just get away with hitting a lot of punch shots. I only recall one full swing with the irons (5-iron on #15) and I flushed it.

Hopefully, this week I can get in some good practice, finish up 2015 PGS and be ready to start the 2016 season.

[Richie3Jack]

I found that I have been suffering from Golfer's Elbow. At first I thought it was a possible carpal tunnel issue (which I do have to a degree). This was mainly due to thinking that golfer's elbow and tennis elbow were the same thing. They are to an extent, but come to find out they are in different locations.



It was getting to the point where my right elbow would stiffen right up and it was actually more difficult to swing a 3/4 wedge than a full swing driver. The heavier weight of the wedge and the slower backswing really put pressure on the elbow. I had been struggling with this for a while, even back to the M.O.R.A.D. days.

I started using this video and it has helped quite a bit:

With that, I was able to hit balls yesterday (the weather has been cold).  I plan on hitting balls tonight, but it appears that the weather is going to be too cold for the next few days.  Then the PGA Merchandise Show comes into town and that will take away some time from practice.

For the most part since I started the blog I have come up with 'themes' each year to focus on.  In the past I have focused on things like the backswing, the mental game, iron play, statistics and the game, course strategy, etc.  This past year I focused more on Kelvin's work and later on putting.

This year, the theme is going to be to work on physical conditioning, tournament play and finishing up on the putting work that I've been doing.

Since I am still trying to qualify for the US Amateur match play portion, that means a lot of golf and a lot of walking and trying to keep up with the young kids.  I also want to increase the flexibility in some areas as I feel that flexibility is the key to longevity.  I have some ideas of how I want to approach this, but I will keep it to myself for now.

This year I hope to play in more tournaments than before.  I took tournaments off in 2015 because my vacation time was consisting of tournament play or going to PGA Tour events and working with my Tour clients.  After a while, that was starting to wear thin.  This year I plan to play some Orlando Amateur Golf Tour events.  They usually have about a dozen or so players in the Championship Flight and play some good courses.  Usually they are 1-day events on Saturday, so I want to give them a try.  And I want to get to pay the FSGA Mid-Am match play event since they are having it at Black Diamond Ranch which is supposed to be awesome.

I think my game is getting quite good, but I have to question my endurance at this point

[Richie3Jack]

I have not practiced at all lately due to the bad weather and the PGA Show coming into town. Right now I have a small cold, so I will wait until that clears up before I really start grinding, again.

There's a few key goals for me this season:

1. Physical Conditioning - It's not only important for me to lose weight and increase flexibility, but to stay injury free and to increase stamina. I want to have a year where I am free of neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist and back pain.


2. Playing in more events - in the past I would usually play in the FSGA Mid-Am and that was it. Due to work, I plan on getting into the Saturday Orlando Amateur Golf Tour events. However, I really want to qualify for the FSGA Mid-Am match play this year since it's being held at the Black Diamond Ranch.


3. Improving my Putting


4. Getting to 115+ mph club speed


I finally purchased The Perfect Putter:

My hope is that this will make my practice a little less time consuming and more accurate.  I like the idea of setting up The Perfect Putter to not only see the line, but also help with the aim and to better visualize putting with their ball gates. 

I am also excited to get my Ikkos Copy Me Golf System:

I should be getting it this week.  Now, I am trying to collect golf videos to help me work what I want to work on.

I did get to play Saturday.  I had not practiced in a long time and I wasn't feeling well and shot 77 (+5) at Victoria Hills.  However, I shot -1 on the back nine and really didn't hit a good drive the entire day.  I think my mental game is coming along nicely and my mindset is quite good because that 77 felt like an 87 to me and even going -1 on the back nine felt like I was playing at +3. 

So I think I have some good things in place, I just need to go out and practice it and be in a better physical state to get the job done.

[Richie3Jack]

I got my first back-to-back nights of practice in as I'm almost finished with my cold. However, it's chilly this morning so I doubt I will want to go to the range tonight if I want to get over this cold once and for all.

I have actually been hitting the ball reasonably well. Nothing great, but not bad. I have been mainly working on 'stretching the right rib cage' in the backswing as Kelvin has noted. I am not only trying to get my hands higher at the top of the swing and allow for more distance for the club to travel to the ball at impact and create more power that way, I'm trying to speed up the lower body and allow that time to get it to do what it needs to do.

I was hitting it well on Wednesday, but discovered that I didn't have enough wrist-cock. And then I remembers what Lucas and Jeffy taught me with a 'double wrist cock' of sorts at the top of the swing. With the other method, I wasn't getting enough wrist cock at the top of the swing and I then had to rely on float loading the club too much instead of 'holding the lag' as KM and LW describe. This will also help allow my lower body get more time to make the moves it needs to make. In the end, I started to lower the ball flight a little and hit some powerful shots. I just had to get the timing down.

[Richie3Jack]

Still waiting for the Ikkos headgear. I downloaded the app. If you have a video in regular speed, it has a function that will move it into slow motion. But, if you already have the video in slow motion, it can be no longer than 15 seconds. And the problem I have found with YouTube videos is most of the good PGA Tour slow motion videos last longer than 15 seconds.

I have chosen this Dustin Johnson video:



I trimmed the video from 0:44 to 0:59

That was best because I really don't care for his takeaway or finish position. But, he has excellent lumbar lordosis and gets the right shoulder closer to the target than the left shoulder at P4.

What's interesting as well is I see a visual if Dustin almost freezing his left arm in most of the downswing. He just rotates the body and the right elbow works under and drives forward until it can't drive forward anymore.

Pic 1 = Big, full turn, right shoulder closer to target than left shoulder. Lumbar lordosis in effect:



Pic 2 = Angle of left arm to chest almost in tact, hence 'freezing' the left arm. Right elbow is working under

PIC 3 = Right Elbow is driving forward as much as it can

PIC 4 = Right elbow cannot go forward anymore, DJ gets the club to the ball thru lower and upper body rotation.  Look at how the left leg and left hip have 'pulled back.'

I was trying to visualize this move and I was hitting a lot of shots off the toe.  But the ones I did strike well were fairly good.  I think I need a little more wrist action to help power the move better.  I did find that you could get this move down by focusing on the Anterior Pelvic Tilt and just moving that tail bone backwards while 'freezing' the left arm.

[Richie3Jack]

A bit of a busy weekend for me considering the lack of practice and playing lately.

On Saturday, we played Juliette Falls and I shot 73 (+1) with 3 putts from 4-6 feet that I missed. I had started working more on my putting again, mostly thru the Pelz Putting Tutor and I'm convinced that I'm a very good putter, if not great, outside 10-feet. But, I'm the drizzling shits inside 10-feet. I made 6 putts outside of 10-feet at Juliette Falls and had several more that just missed, but any putt that's a test inside 10-feet I can't make and I miss by a larger margin.

So, I started working with the Perfect Putter yesterday and saw that my aim is pretty good and my reads were pretty good, but I had some issues with the stroke on those short putts that doesn't show up on the longer putts. I also think that the open stance doesn't work that well for me on the shorter putts. I started to try and focus on getting my stance line more parallel to the line of the putt simply by pulling back my right foot until the hips became more parallel to the line of the putt.

***

My ballstriking wasn't that great at Juliette Falls. I have been working on 'freezing the left arm and the lumbar lordosis.' I was hitting a lot of shots off-center, but they were still going straight which is a good thing and I still managed to hit 11 GIR. Not that GIR really mean much to me anyway.

On Sunday, I went to the range and filmed myself for the first time in a long time. The backswing looks good, now I just have to keep working on it to ingrain it and start working more on transition.

For now, I'm really working avoiding that right pelvic tilt in transition. I've found that it's more of a footwork issue than anything else.

When doing the marching move, I tend to hike the right hip up but get the pressure more towards the pinky toe instead of the ball of the right foot. When I get it more towards the pinky toe, the right hip sags or gets 'left behind.'

I still need to work on shallowing out the shaft angle in transition, but for now I feel I should work on the marching move with the footwork. I can still play good golf with a steeper shaft angle, but it's impossible for me to strike it well with RPT.

[Richie3Jack]

Finally get back to the routine of getting practice time in on a daily basis.

I have been working on the following things:

1. Torso rotation so the right shoulder is closer to the target at P4 than the left shoulder. This should also create a good looking lumbar lordosis.


2. Being able to 'freeze' the lumber lordosis and the left arm as the lower body goes into action.


3. Create left pelvic tilt by using the marching move which means pushing off of the ball of the right foot instead of the toes of the right foot.


My problem shots at the moment are hitting them fat and off the toe. The toe shots are more frequent than the fat shots. But, I believe that 80% of the time those shots are due to some lumbar lordosis or using the toes of my right foot (and getting into Right Pelvic Tilt) than the ball of the right foot.

The other 20% of those shots are caused by the steep shaft angle. But, I've figured out that I can still play very, very good golf with a steep shaft angle. I can't play good golf with right pelvic tilt.

I also have a problem with getting the right elbow move and scapula dig to work and not get into RPT. So, for the first time I am really concentrating on using the ball of the right foot to get into the marching move properly. And I'm going to continue to work on it until I feel it is second nature. Then...I feel I can start working on the right elbow move. And I think I will be most of the way there.


**

*

My performance on the Pelz Putting Tutor has been exceptional lately. I'm hitting 15-20 foot putts on carpet and getting them thru the gate cleanly about about 75% of the time. What I found with my putting about a week ago is that I had to tilt the left shoulder down instead of just lowering the left shoulder. Tilting the left shoulder down allows me to minimize the face rotation going back.

What's interesting for me is that this taught me the issues with anybody using feels or visuals to help learn the golf swing. Sure, they may work and help you repeat the mechanics you desire. But, chances are that eventually they will fade away and you can still have the same feel, but it's not creating the mechanics it once was. That's why it's better to use slow motion practicing and movement pattern training. It's actually incorporating those mechanics instead of relying on a feel or visual.

I am going to see a Dietitian on Monday. I have a workout plan all set up and I understand the nutritional guidelines, but coming up with more reasonable ideas of food to prepare is a problem since I'm not a great cook.

[vecino]

Hi, can you elaborate a little on the difference in the feel of tilting and just lowering the left shoulder in your putting. I was experimenting with something like this yesterday I think, but I would like to hear your physical description. Thanks...also your marching move description is helpful...best wishes for a great season...

[Richie3Jack]

Feb 18, 2016 15:56:11 GMT -5 vecino said:

Hi, can you elaborate a little on the difference in the feel of tilting and just lowering the left shoulder in your putting. I was experimenting with something like this yesterday I think, but I would like to hear your physical description. Thanks...also your marching move description is helpful...best wishes for a great season...

It's more of a tilting of the upper thoracic spine towards the target that lowers the left shoulder. It helps the shoulder and the hands get in sync with each other.








3JACK

[Richie3Jack]

I've gotten in some more practice. Yesterday was a bit cool because of the heavy wind, but I always remind myself that I have never regretted going to the range at Duran. So while I may be dragging my feet a bit, in the end I know I'll be glad that I did go to the range.

I think I figured out some issues with the putter. I think I was standing a little too far away from the ball and that was causing me to get more of the pressure on my toes at address and that caused me to open the blade. For some reason, that occurs on the putts inside 10-feet. Once I adjusted that, I putted far better in the clock drills.

The ballstriking has been improved. Last night was a mixed bag, but I started to hit some shots that I could not hit before. I also started to feel the right hip joint in a different position. It was more forward in transition without sliding. I think the Right Pelvic Tilt is what really causes the slide. But, if you can keep the right hip high, it will be more forward (towards the target), but the pelvis is not sliding.

I have been switching up my practice more. In the past, I would basically hit my Yonex 3-iron and then my driver and finish with some 30-50 yard pitch shots. Now I'm primarily using the 3-iron, but getting some practice with the 6-iron thru PW before I go to the driver and then some 30-50 yard pitch shots.

We're playing Rio Pinar on Saturday which is always a good ballstriking test and if the greens are in decent shape, it can help me test my putting.