3Jack Swing Progress Journal

[Richie3Jack]

I finally got to take some video of my golf swing last night. I have been trying to take video once a week, usually on Sunday. But I missed Sunday due to going to Bay Hill and I wanted 1 more day to get back into the groove and then on Tuesday I arrived to the course when the sun went down.

The good news is that the work I've done with the Ikkos System and working on the stop sign move and right elbow move has worked. The swing mechanics have clearly changed in that regard. So now I want to continue to sustain those moves, but now work on the Marching Move and the Left Pelvic Tilt.

I downloaded and trimmed 2 videos. One is of Tiger in 1997 that shows this swing:



What I like about this swing is the view shows how quickly Tiger got into the Marching Move as his right heel comes well up off the ground early in the downswing. You can also see the Left Pelvic Tilt and then that great rotation thru the swing.

The other swing I downloaded was this one:



I only downloaded from the 25 second to 35 second mark.

There's many things to like about this particular sequence, but the best is the left pelvic tilt is very obvious to see.  I can also see the right elbow move in action (albeit from the face on view).  However, it's hard to see his right heel come up off the ground and I like the Tiger sequence better in terms of seeing the pelvic rotation thru the ball. 

[Richie3Jack]

I didn't get to the range last night as we had The Storm of the Century of the Week. I did get on the Ikkos system and practiced the slow motion practice afterwards with the goggles (they finally shipped me the actual goggles yesterday).

I wanted to do some research and look at the actual move I was trying to make and figure out what I should be looking for. After much deliberation, I decided to go with this video of Sadlowski:



There was a few big differences I see in my current swing versus Sadlowski's and this view shows it more.



1. I was not abducting the right leg enough.  I saw a video with Victor Rodriguez where he says in the downswing he feels like the right leg is almost staying in the same position (not moving laterally towards the target) while the left leg moves laterally and separates from the right leg.  I drew a box where the bucket of range balls is behind Sadlowski.  You can barely see the range bucket at p4, but in the second frame his right leg abducts to show the entire bucket.

2.  Try to sustain he right knee being higher than the left knee.  It's going to be higher at P4 and you see Sadlowski sustain it until about P4.7 or so.

3.  The move should look as such where the quads are almost at the same angle to the ground (yellow lines).  If one quad is more vertical than the other (particularly the right quad), then I'm getting into Right Pelvic Tilt. 

So essentially, I'm focusing on Sadlowski not laterally moving the right leg in the startdown and keeping the right knee higher than the left as I make the stop sign move and right elbow move.

[Richie3Jack]

I got to play on Saturday at Candler Hills. I shot a 74 (+2 on a 74.0 index) with a double bogey (dumb decision) and a 3-putt. I also forgot my golf shoes, so I was playing in sneakers. Overall, it wasn’t bad. Working on the latest mechanics (abducting the right femur and keeping the right knee higher than the left knee for longer in the downswing) resulted in some well struck shots, but some pushes. I found that when I forget to do that Stop Sign Move, problems occur. For instance, I will tend to hit those pushes (which are only slightly off enough to be a problem, but not terrible). I also started to get into Right Pelvic Tilt when I didn’t do the Stop Sign Move which I found interesting.

Here’s my latest swing on Sunday:



Here’s a swing I made 2 weeks ago (in the blue shirt) when I was working solely on the Stop Sign Move and Right Elbow Move. I didn’t hit it well that day, but I hit some super long drives. (331 yard drive on #1 and a 325 yard drive on #2 measured on Google Earth). The bottom pictures (white shirt) is my swing on Sunday:



I filmed myself a few times after this swing on Sunday and I couldn’t always duplicate it. However, this was only my 2nd day using the Ikkos system on working on this particular move, so I don’t expect to have it down pat so quickly. But, here’s some big differences.

In the before photo, the right knee is already pretty close to being below the left knee which means RPT.



Then we see a lot more of a ‘squat move’ in the after swing in this frame. You can see in the before picture the pelvis is tilted slightly up. In the after frame it looks more level, if not a little downward.



Then look at the upper body at P6. More stacked in the after photo while ‘hanging back’ in the before photo:



At impact, the shaft lean is roughly the same, but the hands are more forward in the after photo. Also the right heel is not leading the toes in the right foot as much.



The big thing is that this move produced a better ball flight and better iron play on Saturday. I was not hitting those gargantuan drives, but still hitting it pretty long and you could probably chalk it up to not having golf shoes on Saturday for not providing me with as much power (still good though).

[pavaveda]

Nice work, Rich! Can definitely see an improvement.

[Richie3Jack]

Mar 28, 2016 12:37:06 GMT -5 pavaveda said:

Nice work, Rich! Can definitely see an improvement.

Thanks!

When I took my vacation last September, I was over in Tampa and I went to meet up with golf instructor (and fellow CCU alum) Steve Lippincott.

He showed me some of the 3D stuff that GolfTEC uses which I found interesting. I believe this 3D was prompted by Nick Clearwater (he is basically the head honcho of instruction at GolfTEC worldwide). I'm guessing Nick has read Kelvin's stuff. I know that Andy Plummer has read Dr. Gracovetsky's work on the spine engine and has had lengthy discussions about the spine engine and the golf swing and really liked it. And I know Andy is sort of a mentor to Nick.

Anyway, one of the readings that Steve showed me was how they measure the shoulder tilt and the pelvic rotation at impact.

The numbers should roughly match according to Steve. So, if your pelvis is 20 degrees open at impact, your shoulders should be tilted 20 degrees as well.

This goes along with Kelvin's basic premise. If your getting lateral bend (which tilts the shoulders) the coupling action will occur as long as you don't have RPT.

Dr. Bob Olivieri (along with Andy Plummer) discusses it in this video. Although they are discussing it from the perspective of the backswing.



GolfTEC's 3D numbers make sense to me. The more lateral bend means more tilting of the shoulders and the coupling action will mean more pelvic rotation. Less lateral bend means less shoulder tilt and less pelvic rotation. Dr. Cheetham discusses lateral bend and its effect on pelvic rotation in his dissertation as well.

But the main issue is that golfers tend to not match the numbers.

For instance, I had something like a 40-45 degree shoulder tilt to a 30-35 degree pelvic tilt. You can see it in the before photo:

In a case like mine where the shoulder tilt number is much higher than the pelvic rotation, that to me is a case of getting into Right Pelvic Tilt.  As Kelvin has described many times, the lateral bend is all for not if there is RPT.  You're not going to get that coupling action going if you're in RPT.

In the after photo you see less shoulder tilt  I might be at say 38 degrees of shoulder tilt, but now my pelvic may be 38 degrees open as well (instead of 30 degrees open).  Which means more rotational ground force.  It also makes it easier to control the clubface.

I didn't speak to Steve about the opposite scenario....a higher pelvic rotation number than shoulder tilt number.  I would guess that would be a case of 'spinning out' and the player hitting wipes..

Either way, I'm very excited about the progress that I've made with the Ikkos system.

3JACK

[Richie3Jack]

I had a reader ask me what I plan to continue to work on and I thought it was a good idea to post that up here. First of all, I am not counting my chickens before the eggs hatch with the Ikkos system. I’ve been pleased with the progress, but I still don’t know how permanent this progress will be. Furthermore, altering certain mechanics may cause me to have to change other mechanics that I have not considered.

Right now I am working on abducting the right femur more to produce a better squat move and try to keep the right knee higher than the left knee for as long as I can in the downswing. This will help promote Left Pelvic Tilt instead of going into Right Pelvic Tilt.

I thought this picture showed some considerable differences in the changes I’ve been working on.



I’m into RPT in the before (blue shirt) swing and not in the after (white shirt) swing. Also, look at the right foot in both swings. You can see a similar look of the right foot in Sadlowski’s swing.



Years of ‘banking the right foot’ and ‘having the heel lead the toes’ played a role in the right foot action in the before swing.

***

I’m thinking that the next steps are like to be working on the left foot. As you can see, Sadlowski’s left foot is square and mine is flared open. I had discussed this with Lucas Wald months ago, but I had bigger fish to fry with my golf swing at that time. So I will probably have to re-learn how to make that action. Anyway, here’s me vs. Sadlowski’s foot action at P1, P4, P5, P6 and P7.



Jamie has less foot flare than I do at P1 (address). My left heel is off the ground at P4 (hard to see, but it is). However, I basically have it off the ground while sustaining the foot flare. Jamie’s left heel is off the ground, but his left foot is in eversion.

By P5, Jamie’s feet lose their foot flare from address. They are basically both square. My right foot loses a little flare, but my left foot sustains the flare as my left heel returns to the ground (after being lifted off the ground in the backswing).

Then Sadlowski starts to have the left foot go to inversion.

So essentially for Sadlowski, it’s like this:

P1 = neutral left foot with about 5-10 degrees of flare.

P4 = left foot eversion with same amount of flare

P5 = neutral left foot with 0 degrees flare (square)

P7 = 10-20 degrees left foot flare as foot is going to inversion.

So, neutral then inversion and then eversion.

***

I think the next part to work on would then be the lateral bend.

Kelvin showed it in these pics:




Notice how the right shoulder drops. It’s almost like an oblique crunching move as part of the start of the downswing. The lateral bend will help shaft out the shaft plane angle, but more importantly aid in pelvic rotation due to the coupling action of the spine and the pelvis.

The reason why I will likely work on the lower body first and then the lateral bend is that in the past I’ve had little issue with getting the lateral bend. But, I end up going into RPT when I do so it hurts the effect of that lateral bend. I’ve had times where I’ve done a decent job of not getting into RPT, but then I can’t get any lateral bend. So my objective is to figure out the lower body action and ingrain it….then move onto the lateral bend move.

***

The next move in the process would either be the adduction of the femurs in the downswing (squeezing the legs together) or keeping the left shoulder internally rotated into impact (left elbow pointing at the target). To me, this is a bit tricky to figure out what would hypothetically need to be worked on next. The adduction of the femurs is a power move and the internal rotation of the left shoulder is more of an accuracy move. So it would depend on what needs to be worked on next.

We both hit the ‘maximum squat move’ at about the same time (P5), but looking at the gap between our thighs we see that Jamie is ‘squeezing the legs’ while I haven’t quite done that. We also see that Jamie’s left arm is bent and the left shoulder is internally rotated while my left arm is practically straight and there’s less left shoulder internal rotation.

Obviously, so much of this stuff is intertwined.  I really don't think you can hit the ball as well as you want with left shoulder IR (and all that lag) if  you don't have the pelvic rotation to go along with it.  Otherwise you're going to have a steeper attack angle.  And I think by getting the pelvic rotation, that will help 'fly the left arm off the body' more than actually consciously trying to fly the left arm off the body.  However, if you get the lateral bend and have the left pelvic tilt, that will help in the pelvic rotation. 

[Richie3Jack]

Played golf on Saturday in drizzle and wind and then didn't play on Sunday as I just practiced.

I shot 73 (+1) at SkyView at Terra Vista which was much better than about a month ago when I shot 76. I didn't score better because it was windy and the greens were going at about a 6 on the stimp. Windy and ungodly slow greens doesn't make for many birdies.

I have been working on the same move where I 'hold the position' of the right leg from p4 to the downswing. Basically, abducting the right femur instead of allowing it to adduct. And trying to get the right knee higher.

One of the things I like about the Ikkos system is you can start to see things in the model you're looking at that you probably didn't notice before. What I noticed with Sadlowski is that he essentially does that move where he abducts the right femur and keeps the right knee higher than the left...but, the movement of his left leg kicking out towards the target and separating from the right leg in the downswing is all from his pelvic rotation.

I started to see this in this particular video:



I put together some stills to further illustrate my point.



The top red line that by his buttocks is where the tailbone is in the swing. We've seen this many times before with Kelvin's work...proper rotation will have the tailbone moving back and away from the target in the dowswing. Sadlowski does it better than anybody.

We can also see that the right knee is higher than the left and the right femur 'stays back' instead of adducting forward. I drew the red line under his legs to show the gap between his legs that he creates when he abducts the right femur and the right leg 'stays back.'

In the 3rd frame, he keeps the space between his legs, it's just that with the rotation, it tilts the view a little. But, there's still the gap and the tailbone keeps moving back and away from the target with the rotation. It's almost like he keeps the right leg back (while getting the right knee higher than the left) and rotates the pelvis so the tailbone goes into the leg. It's sort of like the theory of 'posting up on your left leg' except it's the exact opposite.

Eventually, as the pelvis keeps rotating, the right leg has little choice but to finally start abducting.

So, I started using this video because it made things easier to see.  Furthermore, I plan on working on the left foot/ankle soon in the downswing.  I sent a video of my swing to Lucas Wald so he could further illustrate and explain to me the left foot/ankle movement.  I was toying around with foot flare and no foot flare and it was easy to see how important the left foot/ankle was.  If it's flared out like mine, it's easier to slide and get into RPT than if it's square.

Here's a picture of my impact from yesterday:

I started to actually swing better later on, but the sun was going down and I couldn't tape it. 

I also started to get the hang of it at Skyview on Saturday in the latter holes.  I hit a 330 yard drive on #14, a 315 yard drive off the toe on #15, hit a 180 yard 6-iron into the wind on #16, then a 320 yard drive on #17 and followed it with a 285 yard drive on #18 which is straight uphill. 

[Richie3Jack]

I sent a video over to Lucas for him to look at and he liked the progress I've made with my backswing. He agreed with me on the move with the left ankle/foot in the downswing and showed me what needs to be done.

For starters, I'm trying to have no or little foot flare at address. Before, I could feel my left hip a little externally rotated at address. Now I try to feel like my left hip is 'neutral' (not externally or internally rotated) at address.

The idea in M.O.R.A.D. and S&T was that with a flared left foot, if you move your pressure to your left side on the downswing and then push off the ground, the pelvis will rotate automatically (which it will). The issue I see is that with the flared left foot it is increasingly difficult to get enough of the CoP to the left side because the movement is likely to put you into Right Pelvic Tilt.

I started to notice that when I was working on the left foot/ankle, it was much easier to get into Left Pelvic Tilt. The tough part is to rotate the pelvis in transition in order to force the left femur to abduct, but not allow the right femur to adduct as well. You want dual abduction and when I change the left foot/ankle move, the right femur tends to want to come along for the ride. I've pretty much determined that you can't 'spin out' if your right femur is in abduction. That's what separates the Dustin Johnson's pelvic rotations of the world versus the amateur that spins outs and hits wipes....the right femur abduction.

The other part I'm working on is getting my chin up at address a little more.

My friend Victor has it down:

I'm sure some will say I learned this from M.O.R.A.D., but even George was telling me that my chin needed to be up a little more.  I was just lazy and it felt comfortable.  The key is still to not get the chin too far up or you'll have to use too much peripheral vision to see the ball properly.  But, I have found that the chin up a bit more helps with the downswing transition.  It seems easier to ship the CoP early in the downswing like Victor does:

You can see the difference in the pressure shift between me and Victor here:

His head and chest moves more forward.  Mine stays back.

Another thing I notice is that his head lowers far more than mine does.  This makes me think that one of my major issues could be finally resolved....

The lowering of the chin into the chest in transition.

You can really see it here, especially when you look at the brim of my visor and how that becomes more upright, particularly in the 3rd frame.

To me, I think this is likely my way of lowering my head since I lower it too late in the downswing.  Something has to give.  I eventually lower the head quite a bit as we near impact, but that lowering really needs to happen more by p5 instead of p6.  I think this contributes to the over the top move that I tend to struggle with because I think that lowering of the chin makes it hard for the left arm to pronate and the right shoulder to externally rotate, both of which helps shallow out the shaft angle

So that means other key pieces of the swing as well.  If you're making it more difficult to get ER with the right shoulder, that means that it's more difficult to execute the right elbow move properly.  And if you're too steep with the shaft angle, you're likely to get more early extension as well.

I think the key here is it's not just raising the chin, it's being able to transfer that CoP from the right side to the left side.  Along with the chin more up, then I think I am in the position to ship the CoP (something I would still have to work on).  But first, I still want to work on the left foot/ankle with the chin up and see how that goes.  After that I can focus on the CoP transition.

Attachments:

[Richie3Jack]

I played Metrowest on Saturday and then Celebration on Sunday. Shot 72 (E) at Metrowest. I only hit 11 greens. Not that GIR is really important to me, but I just didn't quite have the timing down as I'm still working on some of the new stuff. I thought I drove the ball fairly well, although I didn't really hit any long bombs outside of the drive on #18 (we played the back nine first) which was about 315 yards and I really didn't catch it all. Then I shot 75 (+3) at Celebration and only hit 8 GIR. Celebration always gives me fits because the landing areas are not that big and actually smaller than they appear. They have a lot holes where the fairways run diagonal and you can hit a well struck tee shot that if it takes off slightly offline, you can be screwed because you can hit it too far or get too close to the hazard on the other side.

I also played at Celebration at 7:08 AM as I wanted to go to the PGA Tour Superstore to get a club worked on and then hit some balls before I went to watch The Masters. I only hit 1 big bomb at Celebration, a 330 yard drive on #12 and then I hit a perfect 3-wood that found the green in 2, my first time ever on that hole. By the end of the round, my swing was shaky at best.

I went to the range afterward and filmed my swing and there's progress being make. I've only been working on the new stuff since Wednesday, so that's only 4 days (I didn't work on it on Saturday). So, I shouldn't expect much. I still had a problem with flaring the left foot out in transition, but it's less so. What is interesting is that since I worked on getting my chin up at address and the left ankle/foot in transition, the shaft angle has flattened out. Go figure.

I was also getting a little more shaft lean at impact. Hopefully, another week or so and I'll stop flaring the left foot out and I can move to transferring the CoP early in the downswing and hopefully start to lower the CoG of the body earlier.

[Richie3Jack]

Swing has been coming along nicely as I've figured out a few things. Then I saw this video and some of the pieces I've been working on made a little more sense.



One of the things I had discussed that is in the video is how you really can't 'spin out' if you have abducted the right femur and externally rotated the right hip.

As described in the video, if you get the lower body moving too fast, it will make it more difficult to get the left arm off the body and you won't get as much shaft lean.

That's why I started to see more shaft lean and the hands more forward at impact (closer to the target) a couple of weeks ago when I started working on the abduction of the right femur.

So it's not about flying the left arm off the body as it is getting the pelvis to rotate, but to rotate correctly.  Essentially, I think you want to rotate the pelvis hard, but avoid adducting the right femur and internally rotating the right hip too early.

That was one of the things I didn't quite like about the video.  It's not so much the sequence as it is the proper lower body mechanics and you still want a hard rotation of the pelvis, you just have to have the proper lower body mechanics otherwise that will cause you to get out of sequence.

The other part for me is that I was externally rotating the left hip too soon.  That is also a part of the 'lower body moving too fast.'  I've been working on it and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

What I have visualized is the top of the shin bone or where the crease in the pants would be where the shin is located.  In order to not get into left hip ER too early, that crease in the pants is more perpendicular to the target line or facing just in front of the ball.  Sadlowski does it so well:

For me, I would turn that top of the shin bone outward and it would be facing well down the line:

For whatever reason, the idea of keeping the left foot square on the downswing when I land the heel back on the ground really didn't work.  When I focused more on where the shin bone pointing, things started to take off.

With that left hip not going into ER so early, I can now start to feel that left hip and leg really start to 'pull back.'  John Oda is an exaggeration, but this is what it feels like (pay attention to the left hip and leg).

You can see how the left leg and hip pull back and away from the alignment stick.

Of course, this is all done thru the pelvis rotation as the tailbone rotates back and away from the target in the downswing.

The red line is where the tailbone is at P4, the yellow line shows the tailbone at the 2nd frame and the orange shows the tailbone at the 3rd frame.

As they like to say 'move the middle.'  That's another thing I didn't care for in the video, it's providing a look at a 'start from the feet up' sequence instead of a 'start from the pelvis' sequence to allow for more rotation ground force.

But again, I have found that you have to make sure to abduct the right femur and get right hip ER in this move.  When I first started working on that, I neglected that move and could hit the ball fairly well.  But once I added the right femur abduction and right hip ER, the shots had far more pop to them and a more penetrating ball flight.

I'll be playing CC of Mount Dora on Saturday, so I can't wait to see how this turns out.

[Richie3Jack]

Played CC of Mount Dora on Saturday and then Rio Pinar on Sunday. Both days were windy, although we had stronger winds on Saturday and I shot 78 (+6). CC of Mount Dora is only 6,600 yards long, but it's really not designed for the wind to blow that hard, especially in that direction. The 9th hole had a nice concept for a design...short par-5 that was reachable but water everywhere. But the wind was blowing about 25 mph into our face and it likely wasn't reachable. They had another par-5 on the back that was only 450 yards. But, that was due to the dogleg and you had to hit it about 275 yards to get around this dogleg. I couldn't do that despite a well struck drive and I was left with a good 2nd shot.

The winds were blowing hard at Rio Pinar around the 6th hole (8:00 tee time). I shot 74 (+2) although I felt like I struck the ball pretty well. They must have had a tournament there as the pin locations were ridiculous. Put it this way, they were far more difficult pin locations than what I saw at Bay Hill on Sunday. The greens were a little slow, likely due to the windy conditions lately. Between the pin locations, the wind and slow greens I only came away with one birdie.

After Rio Pinar, I practiced some. I think I may have come up with a new technique to help me on the greens a little. It was working well. I struggled badly at right-to-left putts at Mt. Dora, but this seemed to help tremendously when I was on the practice green. I'll have to show a new pic of my impact position. I taped 1 swing on Sunday (too windy) and the swing looks better and better. I'm not a drive-hold release, yet. But, I wasn't under-flipping and now I just have a little roll.

I will also be updating my WITB on my blog, soon.

[Richie3Jack]

I have been working diligently on 3 parts of my game:

• Ballstriking
  
• Putting
  
• Short Game Pitch Shots

Ballstriking - I have not missed a range session without working with Ikkos system.  I'm still working on the not externally rotating the left hip too soon.  I've gotten to the point where I don't go into left hip ER as much, but still get into a little too soon.  Kind of hit and miss right now.  Need to get more reps.  But overall I'm striking the ball fairly decent.  I've found that if I abduct the right femur and get right hip ER, you can't hit a spin out wipe.  And if I got into RPT too early, I can feel it and it's usually either getting left hip ER too early or letting the right femur adduct instead of abduct.

I have had a steady regimen of hitting a lot of 3-irons, mixing some short irons in and getting some punch shot practice in.  I've also worked on aiming at leftward targets, particularly with the driver and have found that I have a tendency to have the ball too far back in my stance, my stance too closed and getting into right femur adduction on those shots that can cause me some problems.

Putting - I've been getting in clock drills along with some putting on left-to-right versus right-to-left breaking putts.  I've found that my stance alignment is pretty crucial because on a straight or left-to-right putt, if my hips are too open at address, I'll leave the blade open.  And I have found that on right-to-left putts I have a tendency to have the hips open and that causes a pull.  I'm also using my grip to help with alignment and have putted well on the Pelz Putting Tutor.

Short Game Pitch Shots - I think I am starting to get the technique to this shot more consistently than I have ever done before. 

What I have found is that you have to use the pads of both hands to help get the wrist motions you want on the backswing and the downswing.

In the backswing, you have to push down on the butt of the club with the pad of the left hand where the left pinky finger is (or the base of the pinky finger). 

You push down on the butt of the club and you will get the wrist-cock you need so you won't float load the club in the downswing.  Float loading is harmful here because you're trying to shallow out the attack angle so you can get forward shaft lean at impact, but hitting the ground with the sole/bounce of the club instead of the leading edge of the club.

The 2nd part is now you use the pad of the right hand where the right thumb is (or the base of the right thumb) and you push the butt of the club outward (away from the target, like you're purposely trying to cast the club).

This will prevent any float loading and will allow you to shallow out the AoA and help deliver the club more with the sole/bounce than with the leading edge.

You now just have to do 2 other things:

1.  Keep the arms/hands moving towards the target while you 'cast' the club.

This prevents you from actually casting the club and will provide you with some forward shaft lean instead of flipping the shot.

2.  Keep your knees flexed and low to the ground and keep them rotating.

This helps keep the AoA shallow and will help with the forward shaft lean.

I've found that if I catch too much ground it is usually a case of my body rotation out-racing my arms.  And if I catch it more thin, I didn't get enough body rotation and the arms out-raced the body rotation

[Richie3Jack]

As some of you may know, I shot 73 (+1) at Victoria Hills for a tournament and finished 2nd place. I thought I hit the driver pretty well, but my bad drives were on the par-5's. I thought my iron play stunk as I only hit one iron shot well and that shot flew the green. My hybrids were excellent and my wedge shots from 70-110 yards were decent. I made a 40-footer for birdie on the first hole, after that I couldn't make anything. However, I didn't miss any short putts outside of a 3-1/2 footer on 18 where a leaf blew in between my putter head and the ball right as I was going to hit the ball.

I was routinely 40-yards longer off the tee than my playing partners. In fact, I hit one 60-yards longer than them on #2, 80-yards longer than then on #18 and probably would have been well past them on #8 if the drive wasn't pushed and hit the hill.

Mentally I was happy with my outlook. It was still a bit from where I wanted to be. I didn't feel comfortable with the irons, but for the most part I was unafraid to go after the great shot and trying to accumulate great shots. I was -1 under thru 3. The first 4 holes at Victoria Hills are tough, so being -1 under thru 3 is good. Typically, I would lay off the pedal and think about not screwing up, but instead I kept going for the great shot. I bogeyed #4 as I hit a good drive, a mediocre iron to the back fringe and made the wrong choice in chipping with a L-Wedge when I should have putted it. But, I had the mentality of trying to hit the shot close because that shot was there and didn't require anything out of the ordinary. So, that's a good thing. I need to get more comfortable with the mid-to-short irons and if I don't feel comfortable, I need to back away and reset myself.

I then went out and played Grand Cypress and their North and South courses on Sunday. I shot 76 (+4), but it was mostly a putting issue. That's because their greens are shaped like potato chips and the superintendent must have been in a foul mood with those pin locations. The South Course is ridiculous. I hit the ball fairly well and hit the irons better, but I could tell my swing was a little off. Afterward I went to the range and videotaped myself and saw that the lower body movement was improving, but I had lost the stop-sign move. However, that didn't bother me because I figured that something would be lost after playing the tournament on Saturday. Tournament pressure is a new element added into the environment which means you're just more likely to revert back to old mechanics.

I like the progress I'm making on the lower body as far as not going into left hip ER too soon and making sure to abduct the right femur and ER the right hip.

So now I'm working on 2 other pieces.

The Stop Sign Move

Landing the left foot in transition.

I've gone over the Stop Sign Move. I started working on the Stop Sign Move on the range and almost instantly started to execute it. That may be one of the brilliant parts of the Ikkos System...once you get certain mechanics, you may lose them, but it's easier to get them back.

As far as 'landing the left foot in transition', Victor Rodriguez does it so well:





Take a look at the range bucket behind Victor and how far he moves away from it. But, he moves further away from the bucket while going from right femur adduction/right hip IR to right femur abduction/right hip ER.

As this video shows, he is really moving the CoP forward which in Dr. Kwon's analysis, increases the length of the moment arm (quality of torque improves).



For now, I'm focusing on allowing the pelvic rotation (tailbone moving back and away from the target) to do the work for me. As the pelvis rotates in transition, that forces the left femur to abduct. Now, I'm focusing on when that left femur abducts that I'm getting that lifted left heel (at the top of the swing) to plant on the ground and the left foot to be nearly perpendicular to the target line. On the right side, I'll have right femur abduction/right hip ER and as the pelvis keeps rotating I'll eventually go into left hip ER/left femur adduction with right hip IR/right femur adduction.

All the meanwhile I'm getting the stop-sign move down.

I figure I will run with that for another 2 weeks and see where I stand and then send another video in to see where we want to move onto next or if I still need some more insight on the moves I'm currently making.

[Richie3Jack]

Got out to play two difficult courses on the weekend. On Saturday it was Ocala National which is a legit 7,400 yards off the back tees with a 75.9 index. Then I went to LPGA International to play the Hills Course which is a 75.0 index at 7,000 yards.

Ocala National was a struggle. I had the 2-way miss going and struggled with my speed on the greens. I actually started -1 thru 5 holes which is pretty good there, then I ended up shooting 77 (+5). The rightward miss is easy to spot, the right femur adducts too early and the spin out move happens. The left miss was more difficult to diagnose and my guess is that I wasn't getting the stop sign move working so the path was moving a little more leftward than I wanted.

Sunday was much better. I brought out the Srixon Z945's for the first time. I didn't hit them that well for the most part, but I was consistently gaining 1-more club and they were entirely better into the wind. I did hit the driver great. I only missed 1 fairway and that was on #1 where I smoked a driver and it found the fairway bunker on a hole that requires you to hit a draw. Other than that, I only hit a couple of weak drives on #10 and #11, but they still went 265 yards into the wind and I was more worried about positioning and they still found the fairway (I played the holes -1).

I found 7 out of 8 fairways on the Par-5's for both days and played the par-5's -2 under.  I'm still working out the kinks with the Cobra King F6 3-wood.  I hit some tremendous shots with it, but still don't always control it. 

I plan on working on things for another week and then look to send another tape in and possibly get some clean up with AimPoint the following week.

[Richie3Jack]

It was a pretty hectic weekend. I felt something that was either a bug bite, ingrown hair from my beard or an ear ache on Friday. Wasn't too bad at the time. Then I got up on Saturday and it was one of those get up at 10:30 when you usually get up at 8:30 and just feeling very stiff and sore. Then I went to ChampionsGate to play the National course (which I forgot how hard it was) and on the first tee I felt like I had been ran over by a truck. I finished the round and then had dinner with my parents. Afterward, I headed home and went right to bed at about 8:30 at night and just took Tylenol and put some Benadryl on my part of my face that was swollen and red. I had pretty much determined that I had a bug bite of some sort.

On Sunday, I was to play at Golden Bear Club at 1pm. I had never played there and wanted to see what it was like. But on Saturday I thought I had little chance of that happening. But, I woke up fresh as a daisy on Sunday and decided to make it out there. I shot 72 and hit the driver great. Then I decided to play in a 1-day tournament at Golden Bear Club and played lousy and shot 77 (had to go -3 under on the last 10 holes to do so). But that in part was the idea of playing in these tournaments; to increase my comfort levels of playing tournament golf and to learn from mistakes.

WHAT I DID WELL

• Putting from inside 12-feet
  
• Short Game Play (particularly bunker play)
  
• Mindset of Continuing to Try and accumulate great shots

WHAT I DIDN'T DO WELL

• Ill Prepared
• Iron Play
• Lack of Focus/Confidence

STEPS TO IMPROVE THOSE THINGS I DID POORLY 

Being ill-prepared was in part due to the hectic weekend with the bug bite and then playing in a shotgun start.  I think you need to get to the course earlier with shotgun starts because everybody is on the range and putting green at the same time and you're going to have to wait to get on the range and use the putting green.  I actually showed up a little later than I wanted to (40 minutes ahead of the shotgun start) and ended up being rushed.  I think that played into my lack of focus and therefore the lack of confidence.

I was using the Srixon irons, but didn't hit them that well.  I was striking them well, but was pulling everything.  And my driving which was not good (I did have some really good drives, but too many poor ones) and I was missing my drives right so I had a rightward miss off the tee and a leftward miss with the irons.

I'll videotape my swing sometime this week and see what is going on and probably send a tape into Lucas to see what he thinks.

I probably won't get into a shotgun start until the FSGA Mid-Am (if I make the qualifier).  So I will have a better idea how to handle that.  I probably won't play in another tournament for another 2 months or so.  I'll have a better plan to prep for that tournament and hopefully the iron play will start to work out and I can continue my good putting.

3JACK