3Jack Swing Progress Journal

[blazer]

Have you received the Ikkos headgear. I tried to buy it, but they are having a PayPal issue which isn't a good sign.

[Richie3Jack]

Have not received mine, yet.






3JACK

[Richie3Jack]

The golf swing practice has been quite good lately. Still some things to learn, but as Tiger has recently said I'm 'progressing nicely.'

I shot 75 (+3) at Rio Pinar and 74 (+2) at Victoria Hills. Rio Pinar was a bigger struggle, but again it was another round that felt like an 85 and I ended up shooting 75 which I think is a good sign of where my game is going at. Of course, I would like to be like Matsuyama and one-arm 5-irons that are hit to 20-feet instead of 10-feet, but I have a long ways to go in that regard.

I did figure out one of the issues that plagues my Marching Move. I tend to get the right ankle into inversion



The diagram is a bit of an exaggeration compared to what I actually do. But, it's just enough inversion that it will cause me to get into right pelvic tilt. In fact, if you try to get into left pelvic tilt by yourself while inverting the right ankle, it's very hard to do.

I'm starting to get the main things I've been working on down well:

1. Creating the lumbar lordorsis in the backswing.

2. 'Freezing' the lumbar lordorsis and the left arm in transition

3. Using the ball of the right foot to create the marching move and avoiding right ankle inversion.

The shorter irons are still a bit of a problem, but they certainly improved this weekend. It's just that I will get a few shots with say a 9-iron and then start thinking too much instead of sensing what I need to do and that results in a bad shot. But, I did hit some fine shots with the shorter irons this past weekend.

The only thing I'm starting to add to my practice is trying to keep the left elbow pointed more towards the target at impact.

Of course, Mr. Spieth does it best:



I could focus more on the right shoulder internal rotation, but for now I'm going to just add the left elbow. That requires left shoulder internal rotation which aids with getting the right shoulder in external rotation.

I think it's easier to get right shoulder external rotation and then lose it because the left shoulder will start to go from internal rotation to external. So, that's why I want to focus more on the left shoulder/elbow than the right shoulder for now.

The plan is to then start focusing on the lateral bend and the right elbow move.  My friends Gordon Jarvis and Victor Rodriguez (www.golfgainz.com) show a good video of a lesson they gave explaining it the lateral bend and right elbow move. 

I think everybody has seen the improvements in Victor's swing and his incredible power, but Gordon's swing has improved by leaps and bounds and if he were on the range hitting balls at PGA National right now, you would think he belonged.

***

My putting was the best it has been in a while.  I actually started to putt fairly well inside 10-feet.  I missed 3 putts from 4-6 feet on both days (combined).  However, they were good putts.  One was an under-read (not used to putting on greens that fast) and the other I guess I hit too hard. 

I took off yesterday to go to PGA National.  I like to go to PGA National because it's a friendly course to walk.  However, they do not have bleachers for the range and the putting green is on a hill.  I got to see a couple of my clients which is always good.

I got to see Ollie Schneiderjans hit balls about 5-feet away from me as he went to the back of the range with another one of my clients.  He can really move it.  But, I would look out for Luke List.  He hits a really impressive ball.  I watched him, Will Wilcox, Andrew Loupe and Zach Johnson play together and he was the most impressive of the bunch.  Wilcox's ballstriking has been off statistically recently and it showed here. 

Anyway, it was a fun time.  Probably won't get practice in today with the weather and my schedule, but should get back to the routine on Thursday.

[Richie3Jack]

I got in a couple more days of practice in with some promising results. Last night I decided to starting working on the right elbow move although I did not work on the scapula dig at this time.



There was a book that I recently read called The Heart of the Team by Bill Resler



I really liked this book although it was more about teaching team sports and in particular, children and teenagers. Resler was a focal point around the excellent documentary The Heart of the Game. He was always a fan of basketball and started to become a fan of girl's basketball when his three daughters played at the local Seattle high school. His daughters had long graduated but after helping out the high school as a JV and elementary coach, he was offered the job as the head coach of the varsity team. And he immediately took an average girls high school program into a powerhouse that was winning by 60+ points a game thru unorthodox practice methodologies and playing philosophies. As Roger Ebert wrote about Resler 'he coaches like a saint' and I think so many coaches and parents could learn from him.

The book delves more into his upbringing and personal philosophies and I find it usable for the golfer (or any person for that matter).

One of the things Resler preaches is the mantra 'Inch by inch, life's a cinch. Yard by Yard, life's hard'

Meaning that if you try to focus on things in small portions and are successful at each of those, you will accomplish your goals rather than if you try to take on large portions all at once. I think that is particularly important in learning the golf swing. I like to test out how much I can possibly learn at once, but I have to be careful that I'm not taking on too much.

So far, I think I've done a good job with learning the lumbar lordorsis in the backswing and 'freezing it' with the left arm in transition while I do the marching move by not inverting my right ankle and using more of the ball of the right foot to create the marching move rather than the toes.

But, when I tried to work on the right elbow move, I started to 'un-freeze' the lumbar lordorsis and invert the right ankle...causing me to get into Right Pelvic Tilt.

So trying to add the scapula dig to the equation would be a bad idea for right now. I would be working on the swing 'yard by yard' instead of 'inch by inch.'

One of the things I see a lot of the teachers teaching today is what Andrew Rice describes in this video:



This comes from Dr. Sasho MacKenzie and his work. I've heard some complaints that they are basically describing the TGM version of 'swing down and out' or the old adage of 'swinging out to right field'. I do think that what Rice is teaching is a bit different from those pieces of advice. The TGM 'swing down and out' is more thru the impact zone whereas Rice's advice is more about P4 to about P5.5 to help shallow out the shaft. And the swinging out to right field is also a bit more about the hitting area as well.

The only issue I have with getting the hand path down and out in transition is that if you're looking to slow the rate of closure like I am, then the elbow is likely out of position to help do that.

So what I focused on last night was using the elbow move, but getting the *elbow* to go down and out.

Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I will start to get that elbow move down well and sustain the work I've done on the lumbar lordorsis in the backswing and getting into left pelvic tilt. Then I can move onto the scapula dig to provide a better move in the downswing.

[Richie3Jack]

On Friday afternoon, I finally received my Ikkos headgear. I fooled around with it briefly on Saturday AM, using this Dustin Johnson video (going from :44 to :59)



The big focus for me was how DJ gets that right elbow working underneath and driving forward. When I watched it in the headgear and started doing it in slow motion with a club, it was a weird sensation of my elbow almost having a mind of its own and it was moving in a different position than I have ever done. So, this is a promising sign.

We played Harbor Hills on Saturday and then I just practiced on Sunday. Harbor Hills is a course that really doesn't fit my eye and I think is more difficult than most people imagine. The greens were also in bad shape, although I don't think I putted too badly. I shot 76 (+4) with two birdies. Mentally I was off. The round took 5 hours as we waited every shot. I judge swing changes by the results of the good swings, not the results of bad swings because you're going to make bad swings in swing changes. I did hit some excellent shots out there, the two that stand out are the drive on the 10th hole that went a legitimate 323 yards with an old Titleist Pro V1 (I usually play the Pro V1x to take some of the spin off). And I then scalded this well struck drive that went very low on the last hole and I hit that about 295 yards long. If I had a higher trajectory, this likely goes 310 yards.

***

Sunday I decided to get some practice in.  I was a little tired with playing golf after a 5 hour round.  Normally I start chomping at the bit for summer Mid-March.  I've been chomping at the bit for this summer since the end of January.  Tired of long rounds of golf and chilly weather.  However, most of the greens I've been playing are in excellent shape.

I worked with the Perfect Putter for a while:

I'm glad to say that this has helped my putting.  I've found that my AimPoint reads are quite good and my aim isn't all that bad.  Where I 'get into trouble' is when I start shifting my body subconsciously to the left and that starts to confuse things.  Or I get the weight at address more towards my toes which is likely to cause me to open the blade at impact.  I also see that many golf balls are out of balance as well. 

Afterward, I went to the range and I was mostly on the range to take video of my swing.  I wanted to take video now and then I plan on working on the Ikkos headgear every day for 20-30 minutes a day and not video my swing until next Sunday and see if there is change in my swing.

There were some decent positives in the swing that I video taped.  But, I'm far from utilizing a drive hold release. 

Lastly, I worked on low pitch shots with my LW.  They gave me some trouble at Harbor Hills.  I wasn't hitting them bad, but I struggled with the distance control.

My pitch shot performance has been much improved lately which is saying something because generally my Short Game play is the strongest part of my game and I consider myself pretty darn good regardless of handicap.

I had found these keys to helpful in hitting these pitch shots:

Main Goal - Trying to get forward shaft lean and use the bounce of the wedge which requires a shallower attack angle.  Too many golfers use the leading edge of the club head by getting forward shaft lean, but with a steep attack angle

1.  Immediately get wrist-cock in the backswing.  Feel like you are pulling the butt of the club down with the left pinky in the takeaway.  Very critical to get the wrists set quickly otherwise you'll float-load and steepen the attack angle too much.

2.  Try and un-cock the wrists, in a casting motion, as soon as you can.

3.  However, as you are un-cocking the wrists...get the hands moving forward (the Carraher/Scheinblum 'speeding up what's slow instead of slowing down what's fast method)

4.  As you're doing that, the knees should be flexed at address and you're trying to rotate knees hard left while keeping the knees flexed and low.  Brett Rumford shows it well, here:

It's easy to straighten the knees instead of keeping them 'low and flexed' while rotating them.  When I straighten the knees and 'push off the ground', it's going to result in a fat shot.

5.  Remember that you're trying to strike the ground more with the sole and bounce of the club than the leading edge.

[Richie3Jack]

I actually decided to work on a different video with the Ikkos headgear than the Dustin Johnson video. This is a video of me at the top of the swing doing the 'stop sign' move and driving the right elbow downward and outward.

I have been using the Ikkos headgear each day and then practicing as prescribed. When I start to use it to hit the ball, usually the process takes a little while to hit the ball well. I think/hope that what is going on is that the mechanics are actually changing and then I need to get used to those changes in mechanics.

I will say that I can clearly feel more club speed and the ball really taking off. I'm not sure if that is a function of the headgear or a true change in mechanics or the placebo effect coming into play.

What I started to notice last night, particularly with the driver, is that it was forcing me to clear out and open up the lower body instead of hip slide on the downswing. That's a sensation I haven't really felt since the summer when I was playing extremely well. The video I'm working on really isn't focusing on pelvic rotation. It's working on the right elbow move. So I wonder if the right elbow move is really kicking in and that is allowing me to rotate the lower body better.

[Richie3Jack]

I wrote about my experience with the Ikkos Advanced Motor Learning system on my blog:

www.3jack.blogspot.com/2016/03/ikkos-advanced-motor-learning-review.html

If you just look at the shaft angle, you start to notice some differences:



And on this pic you can see the club head in different positions at P6.



Here's impact of the latest swing:

I went out and played The Great Outdoors Golf Course with my dad.  I had never played there before.  It's a Ron Garl design and it's part of an RV Resort.  But, it's like no RV Resort you have ever witnessed as it is a giant population with houses worth $750K+ in the area.  I shot 70 (-1) with a double bogey (off a decent drive, too) and was still getting used to the swing changes and putted okay.  They had super quick greens which surprised me, but the greens were also tiny.

What I was happy about was the great shots I hit.  Overall I thought I drove the ball well, but I had some impressive drives like a few 310+ yard drives and a 285 yard drive into the teeth of a 2-club wind.  Just couldn't do that before.

One of the things I noticed was later that night I was looking at the right elbow move while doing it in the mirror and noticed something about players with good right elbow moves and those players with less than good right elbow moves.  Case in point, Dustin Johnson (great) and Phil Mickelson (poor).

When the golfer hits P5, the forearm/ulna bone area will cover the bicep.  In Phil's case, he has formed a 'V' at P5 and his forearm/ulna bone is closer to the ball.

Ben Hogan did it as well:

It also appears that this should be judged with a driver in your hand.  With an iron, the 'V' will form almost regardless of who you are.  Likely due to the length and lie angle of the club.  Here's Sadlowski at P5:

The guy that is the exception to the rule is Bubba:

However, I don't think Bubba has a great elbow move to begin with and he is playing a big cut off the tee, so the camera angle is off. 

And yes, I understand the potential parallax issues, it's really more about a visual checkpoint than anything else. 

And what I started to see when I practiced in the mirror is that sensation of 'pulling the right forearm back' towards the bicep and trying to sustain that for as long as possible in the downswing.

Anyway, I plan on working on that with the Ikkos system all this week and hopefully I can feel confident enough to move onto something new with the Ikkos system.

[Richie3Jack]

Here's a swing sequence of my swing.

Here's a video I filmed before I started working with Kelvin a year ago:

Some major discrepancies between the old and the new (although the old was filmed with a 5-iron and the new was filmed with a 3-iron):

Obviously, the after swing is much long and far more upright.  There's also less left pelvic tilt and the left heel is now lifting off the ground.  What you can't see is the hips in the after swing have also gone into dual internal rotation.

Here at P6 the before swing the pelvis isn't rotating as the hips are about square to the target.  In the after swing the hips are open and you can see a little of the calf of my left leg (which indicates rotation).  And if you were to draw a 'tush line' the after swing is closer to the tush line (just a hair off).  In the before picture I'm getting more in early extension.

Far more body rotation.  Not only does this utilize more rotational ground forces, but it helps square up the path more.  You can see the left glute and back of the left leg in the after picture.  I also have a teeny bit of lateral bend.  Not much, but just a little

In the before picture I was hitting the ball well and I can see that I was able to keep the right hip up instead of letting the right hip sag and go into Right Pelvic Tilt.  That's a good indication of how important not getting into Right Pelvic Tilt is for my ballstriking performance.  I have a little bit of RPT in the after pic which has been happening when I work on the right elbow move and/or the lateral bend.  I have a plan to work on eliminating the RPT with the Ikkos system after I get done working on the elbow move some more.

[Richie3Jack]

I really don't like swing visuals because they are mostly overused and it's just another swing thought that is likely to go away in the end. I think that where golfers start to make actual changes in their swing is when they can start executing the movement they are looking to making over and over again, even if it is just in slow motion. Nothing beats actual repetition of the movement you're looking for. Not drills, not swing thoughts disguised as 'feels' and not swing visuals (which are also often mis-categorized as a 'swing feel').

That doesn't mean that all visuals or swing thoughts are worthless, but they are vastly overrated and need to be used at the right time and in the right place. I didn't always feel that way as I thought one of Homer Kelly's brilliant missives was how you should 'learn freel from mechanics instead of mechanics from feel.' I still think Mr. Kelly was pretty smart in that regard and you're still better off learning feel from mechanics instead of the other way around. But, he also needed to take it a step further in terms of repetition. And unfortunately, all Mr. Kelly had was the basic, acquired and total motion protocol for practice and he never focused on altering the speed of the swing to help ingrain new mechanics.

I was discussing this with a friend that I had not seen in a while who hits balls at Duran. I was showing him the Ikkos system and he said 'yeah, that was kind of like what you were doing before, except you didn't have the visual element and the binaural beats to calm your brain down.'

Last year, I played my best golf since my junior golf days in terms of consistency and shot two 65's on 74+ index courses. Shot the course record, albeit a 67 at a course in The Villages. And I basically did it with weak putting and using slow-motion practice without the visual element or binaural beats. So, it gives me hope for this year.

What I will say about the Ikkos system is that we are in the infancy stage in terms of golf development. I think the issues that are a bit more unique to golf are:

1) The golf swing mechanics are likely far more complex than swimming stroke mechanics

2) You have a golf club attached to your hands that has to be taken into account.

3) There is a sort of 'chain link' structure to the golf swing in the sense that what you change at say P4 can greatly affect what happens at P5 which can affect what happens at P6, etc.

4) What you think you see on video can appear to be very different from what the golfer is actually doing.


That's why I think it's very helpful to have a good outline of swing mechanics you're looking to make and I think this has benefited me with using the Ikkos systems thus far.

While I don't really care for visuals, the Ikkos system is visually based. However, it is 'tricking your brain' into thinking you're making the movement instead of whomever is on the video. The average golfer with their swing visuals don't have that going for them.

Even still, I think if you're going to use swing thoughts or visuals, it's good to use them on the driving range and to keep them there. Then rep the shit out of it and now you start to sense and feel the visual without actually thinking about the visual.

One visual that has helped me is this one of Gordon Jarvis' swing:

He's created that 'V' with his right arm and the 'V' is pointing at the ball quite early in the downswing.  Combine that with the forearm matching up with the humerus from the DTL view, it helps me understand better how to make the right elbow move with the scapula dig:

Last night was a bit of a rough night hitting balls to start with and it shows how the Ikkos system isn't fool proof.  However, the beauty I think behind it is that your brain can adapt and figure out what you need to do, almost subconsciously, if you let it do that.

I started off working on the Ikkos by concentrating on 'pulling the forearm back' so it gets in line with the humerus bone as pictured in Sadlowski's swing.  And then trying to sustain that.  I was hitting some toe shots, but mostly struggling with the low point.  I then focused on Jarvis' 'V' move and things started to work a little better.

But, it wasn't until I started to figure out that I need to start rotating the lower body immediately as I do the 'V' Move along with getting the forearm to cover the humerus bone that things started to click.  And they clicked big time.

That's really one of the main tenets of Kelvin's work....pelvic rotation in the downswing while minimizing slide.  And I have seen when I get the right elbow move correctly and slide too much that it tends to cause over-draws or blocked shots.  So, my brain would start to tell my lower body to rotate more.

With the V move and the forearm covering the humerus, I now have to start rotating earlier in the downswing. 

But, it all makes sense because what the V move and the forearm covering the humerus bone does is it delays your hands getting to the ball. 

George Gankas (not a KM instructor) does a pretty good job of explaining it:

Homer Kelley discussed this with Extensor Action.  How the right arm is bent, but seeks to straighten in the golf swing.  I think what Gankas shows is that it's okay to straighten the right arm, we just don't want to do it too soon so we get that rotational ground forces to kick in.

And that's how KM and Lucas Wald's students get that lag and drive hold release.  Their upper body and arm motion is such where it gives the golfer enough time to rotate the lower body

[Richie3Jack]

Tuesday's range session was great, Wednesday's was a disappointment and I rebounded nicely on Thursday. Unfortunately, my shoulder was sore from sleeping on it Wednesday night, so I couldn't quite go full out in practice.

I do think Ikkos is onto something as they told me at the PGA Show that if it's not making changes to your swing, you're likely going at too fast of a speed either when you have the blindfold on and are doing repetitions or when you get to the range hitting balls. I think I was going too fast in both on Wednesday and I didn't hit the ball bad, but nowhere near as well as I did on Tuesday. Thursday I was forced to slow down due to the shoulder and I was consciously slowing down anyway and the progress was nice. It wasn't as good as Tuesday, but still quite good and acceptable.

I think I would add an addendum to my theory of examining swing changes by 'looking at the results of my good swings' in that it's important to start looking at those 'near misses.' Those swings where you feel you almost did everything you wanted, but were just a hair off. For me, it's been pretty good lately and usually results in a slight push that I wouldn't even call a 'flare.'

***

I'll be playing Skyview at Terra Vista with my dad on Saturday. I like this course because from holes 6 thru 15 you're looking at about 7 picturesque golf holes. It's also deceptive because it is so wide open on the front that on the back nine it narrows just a little and now it's a shock to your system a bit and makes the course look narrower than it really is. It's not a course that should beat me up by any stretch, but if I want to shoot a good score, I will likely have to hit the ball very well. I also believe the latest swing changes have added quite a bit of power. I've only played once since then (Great Outdoors) and so I don't quite know how to measure up those tee shots. Furthermore, it was very windy and I was playing a Pro V1 ball instead of the Pro V1x which I hit much further.

[Richie3Jack]

The old saying is that you learn more from failure than success. I'm not sure I like that as you're not succeeding, but it is true. And this past weekend I think I learned a whole lot of important stuff. I played Skyview at Terra Vista on Saturday and then in an attempt to beat out the afternoon storms (it never rained), I played early morning on Sunday at Rio Pinar (I never play early morning tee times).

I was looking forward to the rounds because this weekend they had the Space Coast Amateur at Duran Golf Club which I would have played in if I had known about it. Since I missed the event, I decided to mentally prepare myself for these rounds like I was playing the event and putted out every putt. Unfortunately, I ended up posting a couple of 76's (+4 over par per round) and that certainly would not have been good enough to contend at the Space Coast Amateur.

Saturday was awful. A 76 that felt like a 96. Sunday was getting even worse, although I felt I hit the ball better. But, I had to make 4 birdies, including 3 of them on the last 7 holes in order to shoot 76. The driver was awful, particularly on Saturday. The iron play wasn't very good and my short game play was off. My putting was fairly solid although it started to falter a little towards the end.

I did hit some big drives at Rio Pinar. In fact, I hit by far the longest drive on the 1st hole (the old #10 hole) that I've ever hit and I was a member at Rio Pinar 4 years ago. I checked it on Google Earth and it went about 320-325 yards and that was a little off the toe. I then hit another 325 yard drive on #2 (the old #11). After that my drives were not that great, but not as bad as Sunday. Finally, I hit one on 317 yards on the 18th hole right down the middle. I also started to see some more distance from my irons, particularly my wedges. I hit a 92 yard LW at Skyview. So, the good news is the changes I've been making have positively impacted my club speed by quite a bit.


There's a few other things I learned that I need to work on, particularly come tournament time:


1) I need to work on my 15-30 yard pitch shots. I was working on these almost every driving range session towards the end of the session for a few months and became really good at them. But since working on the Ikkos, I stopped working on those shots and they regressed this weekend. I don't think I need to work on them heavily, but just enough to keep things in good order. If my short game and putting is at worst, average, then I can make up for some poor shots every round.


2) I need to work on punch shots every time on the range. That's a bit hard to do because my punch shot swing is different from my full swing. But when those shots are going well, it's very beneficial because it helps with the wind and times I'm in between clubs.


3) I need to work more on changing where I'm aiming on the range. The big issue for me this weekend is that any time I had to aim left, be it the design of the hole or trying to hit a fade or playing for a left-to-right wind...it was ugly. And I had a ton of those shots to play off the tee this weekend and that's why I struggled with the driver.


4) I need to get rid of the Modus 130 shafts. They are just too cumbersome into the wind. A 1-club wind becomes a 3-club wind with these clubs and it was windy this weekend and really exposed a weakness in my game.


One of the reasons why I got up so early to play today was I wanted to beat the rain. I felt like I was practicing too much and not getting enough golf in. So, I wanted to play and get some time on the range with the video camera. After the round at Rio Pinar, I got a small bucket of balls and the Casio and my swing was more back to my old swing.

However, I got it back to the changes I had made and rather quickly.

I found that focusing on the 'V' was a bad idea:



Instead, I just need to focus on the stop sign move (pulling the forearm back) and then sustaining that stop sign move by moving the right elbow downward and outward. Once I did that, the swing started to look like the improvements I had made.

However, I did find that the lower body movement that I had been working on with Ikkos is on the right track.  I was getting more rotation, less pelvic slide and more forward shaft lean at impact.  This would help explain the increase in power.

So, it's back to focusing on the stop sign move and moving the right elbow down and out while rotating the lower body, again.

I think that the Ikkos system is really good, but you better understand the complexities of the motion you're trying to create because it's easy to get fooled into thinking what you are seeing on video is 100% real.  It's also easy to have the right mechanics incorporated thru Ikkos, but to struggle with your ballstriking because your timing isn't used to those new mechanics.  And it's easy to try and adjust those mechanics based on those initially bad results.  So, I think the idea for me is to work on the Ikkos system and video tape my swing in the process 1-2 times a week to see if those mechanics are coming into fruition.  If so, then keep at it until my timing starts to come around.

[jnaturally]

What shafts are you considering as replacements for the Modus 130s?

[Richie3Jack]

I wrote a post about it here:

richie3jack.proboards.com/post/43581

To me, it's more of a launch issue than a spin rate issue. But, there's certainly a blend of launch and spin that I have to consider.

So, I'm trying the S400's for now. If those don't satisfy, I may go to the X100's which should launch a little lower, but spin more. If those don't work, I may try the Modus 125 Tours. They are supposed to launch lower.






3JACK

[Richie3Jack]

I went to Bay Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday. I went Tuesday with my dad and a friend of his. Then I went Wednesday with another friend of mine. Daniel Summerhays and Nick Jones (his caddie) gave me a bunch of tickets, so I will be passing them along to Justin Blazer and some of his junior golfers. I plan on going Sunday and my dad wants to come along as well. He knows as much about the PGA Tour as I do about nuclear physics, but he was so impressed with the experience at Bay Hill that he wants to go again.

I saw that Geoff Shackelford wrote about it being an insult to Arnold Palmer that not many of the top American players showed up to the event. However, the schedule is really screwy on Tour this year and I think many of them didn't know of Mr. Palmer's failing health until it was too late. Peter Jacobson talked about players not liking the course, but I find that hard to believe. Some of the shorter hitters don't like it, but only because of the tendency for the course to get too wet (a bunch of holes sit in a bowl, kinda like the city of New Orleans). They also had major issues with the greens over the past few years, but installed new greens and they looked great. Maybe a little slow, but smooth and held nicely.

Anybody that thinks Bay Hill isn't a good course, just doesn't know what they are talking about or grew up playing ANGC, Pine Valley, Bel-Air CC, or whatever incredible course. There are only two non-descript holes on the course (#7 and #14, both par-3's) and the course overall has great character and a nice ebb and flow to the design. It's not played more because more Tour players no longer live in Orlando (more confined to Jupiter, FL, Texas or Sea Island) and the purse is 'only' $6.3 million.

We got to see a lot of good golf/ Got to see Chris Wood (who is not rail thin anymore. I've seen Peyton Manning in street clothes in person before and he's bigger now than Peyton Manning). Saw Jhonattan Vegas, Jamie Lovemark, Andrew Loupe, Lucas Glover, Tony Finau, Rory McIlroy, Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley, Brett Stegmaier, Daniel Summerhays, Ryan Moore, etc. Always an eye opening experience to watch these guys up close and personal. Obviously, I can't hit it like they can, but I can hit some shots from time-to-time like they can. The problem is that I can do it about 50% of the time and they can do it about 80% of the time. And they are rock solid when it's windy. I start to see my swing falter when the wind is going. One player that I really liked even though he doesn't exactly hit it long was Mark Hubbard. Very consistent ball flight and contact. I also like Stegmaier's game. He doesn't hit it long, but is getting more and more effective off the tee and has better than average distance and hits it high. Low bullets are hard to win with.

***

The good news is that I've been to enough events, particularly Bay Hill, that my feet are no longer killing me after going to an event. I know to try and walk on the cart paths whenever I can (walking on the grass is tougher and will kill your legs after a while). I know to take breaks, hydrate and not to stay for too long. So with that, I was able to go to the range and practice on Tuesday and Wednesday as well.

I haven't seen the swing (probably take a view on Sunday before heading to Bay Hill), but the ballstriking has been pretty good. The 8-iron with the S400 shaft still seems to fly a bit too high. But, that may be the range balls causing that.

However, the stop sign move and the movement of the right elbow going downward, outward and forward (old TGM phrase) seems to be working. I've noticed that it's easy for my brain to still think that I need to turn the clubface over (by going into right shoulder IR) to prevent a fade instead of just sustaining the right shoulder ER and continuing to move the right elbow downward and outward.

I have also started to notice that my finish is slowly, but surely starting to change. It's starting to develop more into Matsuyama (humerus bone is more level) instead of Kevin Chappell (humerus bone pointing downward).



Nothing against Chappell as he's an incredible ballstriker, especially with his irons. The humerus bone position at P10 is largely a function of the path and I'm trying to prevent getting the path too leftward (humerus pointing down ala Chappell) and getting the path a little more square (level humerus ala Matsuyama).

With the stop sign move and right elbow move, I've seen the finish position start to automatically change just because the path is different.

Hopefully, the changes will show up on video on Sunday. If they do, then I'm comfortable with the progress and the Ikkos system and then I'll have to move to a new part of the swing. I'm thinking of doing a marching move video or perhaps take this video of Tiger at the '97 Masters:



To me, this video shows some things that I'm looking for.

1. The right heel pushed off the ground creating a brilliant 'Marching Move.'

2. You can't have the lower body in a better position in the 2nd frame. Anterior Pelvic Tilt, getting dual ER of the hips, still having LPT.

3. The pelvic rotation as the left hip in particularly can now easily 'pull back' due to the APT, dual ER of the hips and the LPT.

I can't imagine that I have the range of motion of a 22 year old Tiger, but getting the principles down should help tremendously. I have to figure that my club speed with the driver is probably close to 114 mph on good swings and if I can get the Stop Sign Move, the right elbow move and the principles of the lower body in the Tiger video, now we can get to may 117+ mph with much better dynamic loft and slowing the rate of closure (basically, creating a better looking version of a drive-hold release).

Other than that, I haven't been practicing the putter that much. I need to get back to that. I've been working on hitting punch shots, but I do it with my 6-iron since that is likely the longest club in the bag I will need to hit a punch shot with. And I'm starting to get my pitch shot technique back to where it was.

[Richie3Jack]

Unfortunately, I didn't get to play this weekend. It was raining on Saturday and then I went to Bay Hill on Sunday. I was looking to get some early morning practice on Sunday, but it was raining at that time as well.

It's too bad because my best practice session of the week was on Saturday night when the rain died down. I struggled a little with the driver at first in that session, but other than that everything was really clicking.

I plan on getting at least 1 more practice session in before I tape my swing and see how far I've progressed with the stop sign & right elbow move. If I like the progress, I will move onto something else with the Ikkos system.