Post by Richie3Jack on Aug 4, 2015 14:25:29 GMT -5
Here’s the swing of John Oda. He plays at UNLV and recently shot 68-62 to qualify for the US Amateur, medalist by 11 strokes!
People that have never really studied Kelvin’s work or haven’t tried it for themselves usually make the complaint that the teaching is ‘built for speed, but not for accuracy.’ And then they’ll claim ‘hey, I can add 12 mph on my swing if I wanted to by swing longer, harder and with a longer club.”
I talked to this with one instructor who is a fan of Kelvin’s work, but doesn’t use the methodology and has a Trackman and I remember him saying that is load of crap. I can tell you that I’ve done everything I could in the past to swing as fast as possible on Trackman and you might gain 3 or 4 mph, but that’s it. You’re not going to make significant changes to club speed unless you make significant changes to mechanics.
The other part is that according to Kelvin, John only generates about 107 mph club speed. So, how does he shoot the great scores? He hits it dead straight and can do it time after time. I’m sure they would love to get John at say 115 mph, but if you can’t hit it long, hitting it dead straight will do.
Most of the misconceptions have to do with the length of the swing and the upright nature. As far as the length of the swing, here’s a look at John’s swing versus Hogan at the top.
Hogan surely was accurate off the tee and had a longer backswing than John does.
Nicklaus is probably the best example of supreme accuracy because he hit it so far and was usually in the upper 80th percentile for the Tour in hit fairways. He had a smaller margin for error than the other golfers, yet found the fairways most of the time.
![http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7Sciy5Kn_Gg/VcEQi-6mlcI/AAAAAAAACJQ/Hy130Q2KmeU/s1600/john2.png]()
John’s swing is shorter and his lead arm is a smidge more upright, but by the logic of so many golfers Nicklaus should have been wild off the tee. Instead he was deadly accurate and hit the ball a mile.
Another thing the golfing public doesn’t like is John’s closed clubface at the top of the swing (this is not p4, but we can’t see the clubface p4). I personally like the clubface closed at the top because you will figure out that you have to rotate the pelvis and sustain the right shoulder external rotation or that ball is going to go left. But, if you can do those things, you will not miss left and therefore create a 1-way miss. And you can just sense that you can really rotate as hard as you *want to* and that ball will never miss left.
Kelvin says that John lacks overdrive. I’m not the expert on this, but I prefer different lower body action in the backswing. This looks a little bit like a sway and might be influenced by his square back foot. I prefer the action that Lucas Wald has.
Lucas’ hips are more rotated and the left knee is kicked more inward. However, he does this by lifting the lead heel off the ground. Another misnomer by the modern golfing public despite players like Hogan and Nicklaus doing the same thing. KM has encourages lifting the lead heel, but it’s not so easy to do if you haven’t been doing it. It requires a ton of practice.
As we hit the downswing, John uses that Patrick Reed/Scott Stallings type of leg action of slipping the left leg back. This is done in concert with the pelvic rotation.
But, he does it by getting lateral bend, not right pelvic tilting and getting left leg extension before impact. Here’s a great pic of that left leg extension.
That leads to a beautiful drive-hold release. Which means the club head is stable and not rapidly closing.
This works right in conjunction with the Trackman enthusiasts who are always worried about spin loft with the driver (and for good reason). The lateral bend helps shallow out the AoA and you can produce upward attack angles easily (my AoA was at +1.8 on average with a max of +5.4*) while keeping the dynamic loft lower to reduce the spin loft.
As far as John’s club head speed goes, he’s not a big guy. You don’t have to be big to generate good club head speed, but it certainly helps. Also, he’s only 18 years old. Spieth was generating 108 mph at 18 and is now up to 113 mph. I don’t expect Spieth to get much faster without ruining his swing, but it shows that with the body maturing and working at it, there’s no reason why John cannot increase his club speed without making a single change in his swing.
Plus, I’ve worked with a few different major D-1 golf programs and I can tell you that the average club speed is about 109 mph with the programs I’ve worked with. For every Brooks Koepka out there, there are 5 guys that can’t get over 105 mph.
I don’t know if the change in lower body action in the backswing would help John increase club speed. I’m not really into making wholesale changes when you’re hitting it that well like he is. But, I do feel that the changes there would be more slightly nuances that with correct practice could be implemented. That will be his cross to bear as he gets older.
3JACK
People that have never really studied Kelvin’s work or haven’t tried it for themselves usually make the complaint that the teaching is ‘built for speed, but not for accuracy.’ And then they’ll claim ‘hey, I can add 12 mph on my swing if I wanted to by swing longer, harder and with a longer club.”
I talked to this with one instructor who is a fan of Kelvin’s work, but doesn’t use the methodology and has a Trackman and I remember him saying that is load of crap. I can tell you that I’ve done everything I could in the past to swing as fast as possible on Trackman and you might gain 3 or 4 mph, but that’s it. You’re not going to make significant changes to club speed unless you make significant changes to mechanics.
The other part is that according to Kelvin, John only generates about 107 mph club speed. So, how does he shoot the great scores? He hits it dead straight and can do it time after time. I’m sure they would love to get John at say 115 mph, but if you can’t hit it long, hitting it dead straight will do.
Most of the misconceptions have to do with the length of the swing and the upright nature. As far as the length of the swing, here’s a look at John’s swing versus Hogan at the top.
Hogan surely was accurate off the tee and had a longer backswing than John does.
Nicklaus is probably the best example of supreme accuracy because he hit it so far and was usually in the upper 80th percentile for the Tour in hit fairways. He had a smaller margin for error than the other golfers, yet found the fairways most of the time.
John’s swing is shorter and his lead arm is a smidge more upright, but by the logic of so many golfers Nicklaus should have been wild off the tee. Instead he was deadly accurate and hit the ball a mile.
Another thing the golfing public doesn’t like is John’s closed clubface at the top of the swing (this is not p4, but we can’t see the clubface p4). I personally like the clubface closed at the top because you will figure out that you have to rotate the pelvis and sustain the right shoulder external rotation or that ball is going to go left. But, if you can do those things, you will not miss left and therefore create a 1-way miss. And you can just sense that you can really rotate as hard as you *want to* and that ball will never miss left.
Kelvin says that John lacks overdrive. I’m not the expert on this, but I prefer different lower body action in the backswing. This looks a little bit like a sway and might be influenced by his square back foot. I prefer the action that Lucas Wald has.
Lucas’ hips are more rotated and the left knee is kicked more inward. However, he does this by lifting the lead heel off the ground. Another misnomer by the modern golfing public despite players like Hogan and Nicklaus doing the same thing. KM has encourages lifting the lead heel, but it’s not so easy to do if you haven’t been doing it. It requires a ton of practice.
As we hit the downswing, John uses that Patrick Reed/Scott Stallings type of leg action of slipping the left leg back. This is done in concert with the pelvic rotation.
But, he does it by getting lateral bend, not right pelvic tilting and getting left leg extension before impact. Here’s a great pic of that left leg extension.
That leads to a beautiful drive-hold release. Which means the club head is stable and not rapidly closing.
This works right in conjunction with the Trackman enthusiasts who are always worried about spin loft with the driver (and for good reason). The lateral bend helps shallow out the AoA and you can produce upward attack angles easily (my AoA was at +1.8 on average with a max of +5.4*) while keeping the dynamic loft lower to reduce the spin loft.
As far as John’s club head speed goes, he’s not a big guy. You don’t have to be big to generate good club head speed, but it certainly helps. Also, he’s only 18 years old. Spieth was generating 108 mph at 18 and is now up to 113 mph. I don’t expect Spieth to get much faster without ruining his swing, but it shows that with the body maturing and working at it, there’s no reason why John cannot increase his club speed without making a single change in his swing.
Plus, I’ve worked with a few different major D-1 golf programs and I can tell you that the average club speed is about 109 mph with the programs I’ve worked with. For every Brooks Koepka out there, there are 5 guys that can’t get over 105 mph.
I don’t know if the change in lower body action in the backswing would help John increase club speed. I’m not really into making wholesale changes when you’re hitting it that well like he is. But, I do feel that the changes there would be more slightly nuances that with correct practice could be implemented. That will be his cross to bear as he gets older.
3JACK