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Manual de la Torre Method


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John Hayes was also excellent. I enjoy listening to his stories and experiences with Manuel. You can tell he truly admired him. I have nothing but great things to say about Manuel’s teachings and concepts. I so wish I could have met him in person.

I continue to study his concept, watch his videos, re read his books... and I can tell you one thing, now I get what he says about “I can tell you WHAT to do but I cant tell you HOW to do it” (or something along those lines...)

Yeah, the whole TAke it back with your hands, let body follows... for almost a year I thought that was what i was doing, until the other day in my bathroom I’m looking at myself in the mirror after shaving and I grabbed the towel from the sink in front of me, then took it around me with both hands for some reason, to hang it from a hook directly behind me. Then I felt it, i just used JUST my hands and my shoulders followed, then hips... madness. So simple. I ran, grabbed a club and repeated the move. Holy Crap! My back swing all this time was wrong, now I let loose and “just take it back, over the shoulder” and the body follows!

So yeah, 12 freaking months to finally understand it. But hey Im there. And It feels great! I know there will be more Aha moments in the future so I just relax and play, and enjoy the walk!

Long post but I also wanted to say YES to this method for juniors/kids... my daughter has only taken one lesson from John and was awesome, focused on understanding parts of club and swinging brushing the grass with irons and brushing the tee with Driver... forward TO the target. Simple. I want her to have fun and not get overwhelmed with practice and lessons.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have only recently delved into the teachings of MDLT.

It started for me earlier in the year when my 11 year old daughter decided she wanted to start playing golf. Obviously this thrilled me however trying to describe to her what to do was not easy. I didn't want to "teach" her as I was concerned that would take the fun out of it however she wanted to learn how to play and not just aimlessly swing at it. After much discussion (over hot chocolate and marshmallows) about how best we both approach this, she informed me that I needed to make what I know about how to play golf child friendly. At this point I remembered how she learnt to ride her bike, there was no mechanical or technical talk about how to apply pressure to the pedals to move forward, no instruction of bending and straightening arms to turn. It was simple, child friendly, push the pedals to move and turn the handlebars to turn change direction. With this in mind I remembered a lecture I had seen years before by Fred Shoemaker, his instruction I believe closely resembles MDLT. After purchasing the book and reading it together, my daughter (and I) have discovered (rediscovered) the wonders of a simplistic approach to swinging a golf club and the joy that can be found playing this game.

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  • 3 months later...

Hi All,

Just wanted to add my thanks to all the great contributions on here that have helped show the MDLT 'method'

Like many others, I only came across MDLT by chance when I saw his book around a year or so ago, new nothing about him at that stage

Loved the way he explained everything and committed to follow his ideas from the outset

My general ball striking has really improved, and for me the idea of picturing the ball rolling along the ground (or into the face of the bunker) after impact has been the greatest help to clean striking and lowering the chance of topping it. I had never heard anything like that before and it has had an almost instant impact with all my iron shots. Focussing on that has really helped tie it all together for me after many hours of practice swings in the backyard every night!

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  • 3 months later...

Jim flick once said "a turn will not create a swing". But "a swing will create a turn".

I think most of us growing up with modern instruction turn too much/too fast, that we leave the club behind and are out of sequence from the start.

Mdlt works, but it's a journey for most of us that's us against ourselves. Steve is the perfect example of what happens when you work with Manuel from the start. Most of us battle and try to unwire all the unnatural swing thoughts we've jumped around throughout the years.

"Club focused instruction" is thee friendliest golf instruction out there. Its really all our minds can handle unless you can hit balls every day like the pros.

Im not on these forums much anymore, but I hope you all are doing well and staying safe. Good luck to everyone and keep swinging

"Patience without understanding"

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I think the best way to get from where you are to where you want to be is through the feet together drill. 1) It's hard to try to power the swing with your body when your feet are together, and 2) you will feel what it is like to swing the club around your body and not with the body.

Give it a try and see if you don't make progress.

Steve

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I also like to use the "flamingo" drill. For RH, pull the right (trail) foot way back so you're basically swinging only on your front foot.

So I use both.

Feet together drill to get a sense of swing the club with the arms around the body while staying in balance.

Flamingo drill to get a sense of coming from the inside, and with with some power, while remaining in balance.

I almost hit the ball better with the flamingo drill than with my regular swing!

Both are excellent and have really helped me with my MDLT swing.

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That is a great drill and your recommending it to me has helped decrease the incidence of my push/slice.

As slantsflood says about us going against ourselves and trying to redo the wiring, there is the feet together drill and there is the feet together drill. Meaning, I thought that it was a pretty straightforward drill until I made the mistake of watching a Shawn Clement YouTube video in which he demonstrates how one should "piston" or "pump" down and up with the knees when doing the drill. Now I have trouble keeping that image out of my mind.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm trying to unlearn everything and do it this way because I find it completely beautiful. I walked nine here in the 95 degree heat of Wilmington, NC yesterday and it nearly killed me. It was the first time I've played golf in probably three years and I got up and down for par on the eighth hole and made par on the ninth just as they drew it up and the rest were bogeys. I was really happy with the round.

My problem is everything was going out to the right and the longer the club the more apparent the problem was. The driver is slicing on me to the point where I can't use it on the course.

I'm loving keeping my weight 50/50, because I was plagued with disastrous fat chunks before that came from me trying to shift my weight around thinking that would make me hit it further.

I think maybe I'm struggling to keep the club face square? I know you can't tell without seeing the swing. Just thought I would give the report of another convert trying to piece together a round.

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Eric:

I'ne never seen you swing but I can odder a couple of ideas Manny recommended to others.

Get the tension out of your left arm,. Tension there will often result in an open club face at impact and shots that go right, either straight right or curving right. Try that first and see what the result is.

A second suggestion that will take a bit more work is to groove your downswing pattern. When the club is horizontal, both before and after impact, . the toe of the club should be pointing up and the club should be parallel to your target line. Try to groove that pattern starting without a ball, then gradually small shots with a ball. One you get the club moving in that manner you will probaly find the club square or close to square at impact.

Steve

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Eric:

I'm not a teacher either but to my eye it looks like you are trying to produce speed with your hips and shoulders instead of simply allowing them to respond to the swinging of the club with your arms. That accounts for your lack of balance at the finish of your swing. Speed comes from the swinging of the club with the hands and arms past a passive/reactive body. Too much motion in the body can actually slow the arms and club down.

Just a thought.

 

Steve

 

 

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We all have a limit to our ability to produce speed. You might get toward yor limit by hitting balls with you heels together and you toes angled out slightly.. This position will lead to you body being passive/reactive and will allow you to feel the speed generated by swinging the club not with your body but past your body on the forward swing.
Steve

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  • 4 months later...
  • 1 month later...
On 1/28/2021 at 4:36 PM, Sean2 said:

Been working on MDLT. Overall I find his concepts the least complex as it relates to the golf swing. However, I do find myself hitting too many left to right shots. Not sure why though. Ball is in middle of stance, and in the transition my upper arms advance the club towards the target. 

While overall I believe I have had the best ball striking of my life by focusing on the MDLT system, "too many left to right shots" has also come with it for me and those drives OB right are big score killers.  Juststeve recommended the feet together drill to combat this and it helped for a while so you might want to give it a try.

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56 minutes ago, tm3 said:

While overall I believe I have had the best ball striking of my life by focusing on the MDLT system, "too many left to right shots" has also come with it for me and those drives OB right are big score killers.  Juststeve recommended the feet together drill to combat this and it helped for a while so you might want to give it a try.

Thanks!

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50 minutes ago, wlitwa said:

Perhaps reviewing Manuel's 19 causes of Slicing described in his book p. 71 and Corrections  for Incorrect Ball Flight p. 116 would be helpful. Give it a go, and please post your progress.

I have the book, and looked over what he has to say about that kind of ball flight, but I am still struggling with it. 

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I have a question about Manuel’s thoughts on grip. I have his book and he advocates for the left hand more of the palm on the shaft because if you have it more in the fingers then at impact the face will be distorted. He goes on to say that compensations will be required for a grip (lead hand more in the fingers). 
 

this is completely contradictory to what you see current pros doing and instructors like Malaska advocate for. So what’s correct?

 

im currently in the process of weakening my grip. I believe I’ve always had a relatively strong grip but it’s only gotten stronger and with that I’ve made some damaging compensations. I’ve always had a pretty menacing pull hook.. 

 

I really like MDLT’s methods, but instructors today have gone the opposite direction in terms of grip.. was he just wrong on this? 

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