SchneeWRX- A Tradition Unlike Any Other

[Golfbeat]

I’m working with Dan on some of the same things you mentioned, nice to know it’s not just a me problem! Looking forward to seeing your write up from the second lesson.

 

Same here!

 

Great write up Schnee. Also very interested in the results of your second lesson with Dan.

[Jacob Mac]

Golf is fine, but let’s talk about Caps. Still just as good? I’m heading down to Jacksonville this summer and am mapping out restaurants. Go to any other good restaurants?

[Schnee]

Golf is fine, but let’s talk about Caps. Still just as good? I’m heading down to Jacksonville this summer and am mapping out restaurants. Go to any other good restaurants?

 

Sorry for the delay in responding, I was driving back to Orlando. Man the traffic here is a nightmare!

 

 

Just as good as I remembered. Last time I went was back in 2015 and it's been renovated QUITE a bit since I was last here. Like Dan told me, they've been hit with two hurricanes since my last visit. The atmosphere was much nicer than I remember and it's been upgraded well with that insurance money ;)

 

I was tempted to go for the Mahi Mahi or one of the other local catches, but I opted for Jambalaya for a different flair. It didn't disappoint. Huge portion, great taste, and it came to the table in about 5 minutes. Seriously, it was that fast.

[Schnee]

Woke up this morning and headed straight to South Hampton for another session with Dan at 8AM. It was a bit chilly to start, but still a welcome break from Northern weather. We continued working on many of the same things as yesterday, backswing and transition. My swing right now boils down to two things:

 

1. Don't get the shaft too laid off in the backswing

2. Don't overtilt in the downswing, aka left shoulder down.

 

When I do those two things well, I'm going to be set up for success.

 

 

 

Basically, my swing is too shallow. My misses tend to be low on the face and/or off the toe. I add way too much secondary tilt in transition, so I don't get into my left heel well, then I'm forced to either dump my wrist angles and flip at it to make contact, or stand up out of it. The more vertical shaft in the backswing gives me some minor cup in my left wrist, which then gives me the ROM to flex it in transition. The left shoulder down move is a steepening move with my pivot to offset the shallowing of the club with my wrists.

 

Dan equated it to a boat pulling a water skier or a tube. The boat (your body and pivot) go left, while the skier gets flung out hard to the right. After shallowing the shaft in transition, I can get more left with the shaft and my body while the clubhead kicks out to the ball. I've feared hooks and the lefts for so long, that I've developed anti-left moves. When I do it right, it's nearly impossible to hit a hook. Like Dan said, I'll get some over draws, but that's only while my body figures out that I don't have to save the shot from a massively open face and too much secondary tilt.

 

Some other feels to make it work for me (these are all the same idea, just different ways to word it or think about it):

 

Right shoulder gets over front foot in the backswing, then right shoulder stays high through transition.

Left shoulder down in the backswing, left shoulder down in the downswing.

Across the line with shaft in backswing, arms go right and left knee retains flex in downswing

 

 

If I regain flexion well enough in the downswing, I have a massive amount of room to swing my arms through. Dan had me pause in that P6-ish position for 30 seconds to feel how hard it is to maintain it. I don't have to worry about the kick up or the extension of my spine. If I put enough pressure and force into the lead heel, the rest will take care of itself. Ergo, ground REACTION forces.

 

With driver, I can put the ball further up in my stance and tee it way lower (Monte has been harping on me about this for months or maybe even years). With the ball teed too high, I want to tilt more and hit more up on it. I hit too far up on it already and catch it low off the face and off the toe. I need to hit driver off a lower tee and hit more down on it. That'll make contact higher on the face, and I'll launch it plenty high. Every good player and tour player I've seen tees it way lower than I do. I need to commit to it even though it's terrifying looking down at a ball teed that low. Dan said driver off the deck wouldn't be a bad practice tool either.

 

After being steep for so long, it's very strange to have to add steepening moves to my swing.

 

An external though would be to feel like I'm hitting a very low push or a low draw

I need to feel steeper. I can't be afraid to really stay down and take a good divot.

 

Practice plan:

 

As many of you know, Dan believes in slow, steady improvement, 1% better every day. The progress will rack up with compound interest. Dan described it as a hard drive: You're deleting the old memory, but it's not gone until you overwrite it with the new information; until then, you're just setting it aside. It's important to only go as fast as you can while maintain form. If you can't do it right at 75% speed, you need to back it down until you get it as close to perfect as possible. At this point for me, I can do it perfectly up to about 50%. That's up from hitting 30 yard shots doing it right. It's going to take dedicated time and effort to engrain the change. Now is the perfect time to do it since I've got a few cold months left ahead of me.

 

This is in the same vein as what Monte has taught me. You make changes with partial swings, not banging full swings and drivers for an hour. The process that we used the past two days was 3 slow swings, one full swing. That's a set that you then repeat until you're finished. As for videoing practice, Dan had some good ideas. He said to film the first set of the practice session, 3 slow and one fast as a baseline. Then practice, and right before you're done, film the last set of 4 swings. A good goal is to fail 30% of the time during the practice session. Finish the session, don't look at the video, go home, shower, etc, then look at the video. Otherwise you're chasing a look and not affecting a change to your mechanics.

 

Finally, I need to practice hitting balls off a downhill lie. Dan does this with Julian Suri, and it encourages getting the left shoulder lower in transition. If you don't, and you tilt too much, you're either going to whiff/top the ball or chunk it two feet behind it. The goal is to hit it high off the downhill lie. This will both be a practice drill, and a useful shot on hilly courses. My range has plenty of these, so I'm good to go.

 

In the end, it was a very useful experience going to see Dan. He addressed the same concepts that Monte and Chase have been working on with me, but he explained it in a way that clicked. A change of perspective can be very useful.

 

Here's some videos midway through today. It continues to get better and better.

 

http://youtu.be/GXijAuL35KA

http://youtu.be/vW-MkK8RQ7E

[Schnee]

After the lesson with dan, I stayed and hit balls, practiced short game, and putted for another 3 hours. I was going to stay in St. Augustine another night, but with the bad weather rolling in tomorrow, I decided to head back toward Orlando. Before hitting the road, I had to go to grab lunch at 4 Rivers Smokehouse. We had dinner there back in 2015 and it's killer. I ordered the 2x2 Smokehouse with burnt ends, pulled chicken, mac n' cheese, fried pickles, and texas style cornbread. Had to top it off with an ice cold Cheerwine. It was delicious. Well worth the detour.

 

[PepsiDuck]

Good stuff, Chris. Definitely a trip to be envious of! Watching Dan's students on the Instant Grams has me pretty intrigued... Glad to hear that it jives with Monte's stuff.

 

Need to make my way up there this spring/summer.

[Krt22]

Crazy game we play. Over the past few years I have had the same exact yo-yo. First too steep, then too shallow (incorrectly, same was as you, too much right side bend which was from too much hip sway), then got steep, now back somewhere in the middle but still sometimes fall back to too much right side bend for the same fear of getting too steep. Monte/Dan/AMG and Tyler Ferrell's book have done a ton in terms of understanding the steeps and shallows, but still a different story to get it all to work on the course consistently!

[Golfbeat]

^^^ This. It also seems that every good instructor is now teaching more or less the same thing: steep back swing, shallow the arms in transition, keep the right wrist bend, keep the left shoulder low and swing the extended arms to the left. It is pretty awesome actually that technology and science is lining everybody up to a similar model. Less confusion.

[PepsiDuck]

^^^ This. It also seems that every good instructor is now teaching more or less the same thing: steep back swing, shallow the arms in transition, keep the right wrist bend, keep the left shoulder low and swing the extended arms to the left. It is pretty awesome actually that technology and science is lining everybody up to a similar model. Less confusion.

 

Do you think there is a concensus among the prominent instructors as to the “right” way to shallow the arms in transition?

[Krt22]

^^^ This. It also seems that every good instructor is now teaching more or less the same thing: steep back swing, shallow the arms in transition, keep the right wrist bend, keep the left shoulder low and swing the extended arms to the left. It is pretty awesome actually that technology and science is lining everybody up to a similar model. Less confusion.

 

Yep. So easy a cave-man could do it!

[Fort Worth Pro]

^^^ This. It also seems that every good instructor is now teaching more or less the same thing: steep back swing, shallow the arms in transition, keep the right wrist bend, keep the left shoulder low and swing the extended arms to the left. It is pretty awesome actually that technology and science is lining everybody up to a similar model. Less confusion.

 

Do you think there is a concensus among the prominent instructors as to the “right” way to shallow the arms in transition?

 

No chance of that

[mukster]

Wow. That jambalaya looks incredible!

[Krt22]

^^^ This. It also seems that every good instructor is now teaching more or less the same thing: steep back swing, shallow the arms in transition, keep the right wrist bend, keep the left shoulder low and swing the extended arms to the left. It is pretty awesome actually that technology and science is lining everybody up to a similar model. Less confusion.

 

Do you think there is a concensus among the prominent instructors as to the "right" way to shallow the arms in transition?

 

From my understanding, all of the data sort of points to the same thing, physically its largely left wrist flexing/right wrist extending/right shoulder rotating to drive right elbow in front of right hip. I think the bigger question is when and how to actually accomplish that, since some do it earlier, some do it later. Figuring out what feel/thought works best for each student is what separates the great instructors from the good ones. The caveat is it's true impact only comes to fruition if you extend/regain flexion/extend properly such that your pivot and arms are properly synced :taunt:

[carrera]

So easy a cave-man could do it!

 

We need someone with video editing skills to swap some faces on the caveman. :)

 

[Schnee]

So easy a cave-man could do it!

 

We need someone with video editing skills to swap some faces on the caveman. :)

 

 

I didnt know Monte did television work....

[Schnee]

Met up with my friend BCULaw from the Taylormade Kingdom trip. One of us has to be cursed, because we had almost identical weather to that trip. We made an attempt to play Eagle Creek. We got through one hole before calling it quits. The rain, wind, and cold made the scene from Caddyshack look like a light drizzle. Oh, and neither of us had rain gear.

 

Instead, we had some lunch and spent the day perusing the golf shops around Orlando. We hit some different clubs, rolled some putters, and generally just geeked out. I have to say, the PGA Superstore has some beautiful Bettinardi Hive putters. Needless to say I was tempted, but well out of my price range (thank goodness).

 

 

Went back to the hotel, changed out of my soaked clothes and hit the Cheesecake Factory for a nice dinner and slice of birthday cake. Perfect way to spend the day. I head Home tomorrow but am hoping to get a round in before I leave. This has been a great trip but unfortunately it’s time to head home to the tundra.

 

Big thanks to BCULaw for having a great backup plan to handle the weather. Sorry about bringing the cold down from the North.

 

[ALIF]

I’m just so jealous! Nice trip Chris. Awesome to see that you had such a nice time. Your swing looks really good.

 

Rob

[dwboston]

That's a heck of a trip. Coincidentally, I have something in process with the Hive....

[pinhigh27]

traveling without rain gear?! unforgivable offense

[Schnee]

traveling without rain gear?! unforgivable offense

 

Agreed big oversight. I had Some Under Armour rain gear but had to return it on a warranty claim, it leaked like a sieve. Haven’t bought new stuff yet. Now it’s gonna be a priority.

[powerpushfade]

So easy a cave-man could do it!

 

We need someone with video editing skills to swap some faces on the caveman. :)

 

 

I didnt know Monte did television work....

That wasn't funny.

[Jacob Mac]

Man, you are easily offended.

[powerpushfade]

Man, you are easily offended.

I guess sarcasm goes over some peoples head.

[Schnee]

 

 

 

I didnt know Monte did television work....

That wasn't funny.

 

[johnrobison]

Great stuff, Chris! Dan's new facility looks pretty cool, too. Hope to see you out this way again soon.

[Schnee]

Can anyone recommend a decent driving range/practice area in Orlando? The plan was to play the magnolia course at Disney, but there’s standing water and about a 6 1/2 hour pace. Looking like I won’t have time to play, only practice.

[Golfbeat]

You are an Instagram star now!

 

[moehogan]

Can anyone recommend a decent driving range/practice area in Orlando? The plan was to play the magnolia course at Disney, but there’s standing water and about a 6 1/2 hour pace. Looking like I won’t have time to play, only practice.

Rosen Shingle Creek

[swizbeatz]

traveling without rain gear?! unforgivable offense

 

Agreed big oversight. I had Some Under Armour rain gear but had to return it on a warranty claim, it leaked like a sieve. Haven’t bought new stuff yet. Now it’s gonna be a priority.

 

 

Proquip

[Schnee]

Can anyone recommend a decent driving range/practice area in Orlando? The plan was to play the magnolia course at Disney, but there’s standing water and about a 6 1/2 hour pace. Looking like I won’t have time to play, only practice.

Rosen Shingle Creek

 

Thank you!