Manual de la Torre Method

[juststeve]

Thanks for that Steve, not sure why that particular swing thought helps but it has certainly made a difference to me..

 

One thing I still struggle with and would appreciate your input is staying centered and swinging around that point. I know when I do this well my ball striking is great.

 

Is there any particular key which helps you stay centered?

 

Thanks....

 

Focus on controlling your weight distribution right and left during the swing. Try to FEEL that your weight is equally balance on your right and left feet at address, and the end of your back swing, and at the moment of impact. Only post impact feel the momentum of the club move your weight until it is over your front leg, When I learned to do that I discovered my own swing center, the point in my body I feel the club swinging around. Get the weight distribution right and you will find your swing center,

 

Steve

[ball game]

Big fan Mr De La Torre. I Just came across this 1986 PGA teacher of the year presentation. https://vimeo.com/164151367

 

It was great to see Mr De La Torre present with such enthusiasm and conviction. I own the book and video and I still got a few light bulb moments.

 

Hope others enjoy this as much as I did.

 

Ballgame

[Moleman]

Continuing to play with the MLTD method and when I get out of my own way and resist the temptation to add a little bit here and there it works beautifully..

 

One major point however which I struggle with is the downswing with the arms, it's just something I can't seem to 'get'. For me the visual which works best is the thought of swinging the entire golf club on an arc, on the downswing I imagine the whole club swinging through the ball with the clubhead being the last piece which collects the ball on the way to the finish..

 

Any other proponents of the MLDT swing have problems with the downswing with the arms concept and if so any tips to help overcome.

 

 

 

 

[juststeve]

What you are visualizing is what should happen. To swing with your arms just make sure that the forearms, wrists and hands just going along for the right while the upper arms swing the club forward. You will know you are doing it right when you feel your right elbow leading your hands into impact. Just like what Monte teaches.

 

Steve

[Bob T]

Just Steve,

 

Thanks for your multitude of posts that have, for me, supplemented Manuel's book and video instruction in a very positive way. One thing that helped me to better understand his concept, and never gets mentioned, was shown in his video where his student is shown swinging a 3 headed driver to depict swinging all parts of the club at the same time. I was so struck by that visual, that I mounted three whiffle balls on a rod and stuck in in the ground and practiced returning the club head, shaft and grip end to all three balls at the same time. I thought that would result in a flip, but lo and behold, when I returned the club simultaneously to all 3 balls, I was in that "hands slightly ahead of the ball" position! Amazing! I use this visual at the range, and will hit the ball well, but, of course when I play, I just try to use the club to move the ball where I want it to go. I hope this helps someone else.

[Bob T]

Big fan Mr De La Torre. I Just came across this 1986 PGA teacher of the year presentation. https://vimeo.com/164151367

 

It was great to see Mr De La Torre present with such enthusiasm and conviction. I own the book and video and I still got a few light bulb moments.

 

Hope others enjoy this as much as I did.

 

Ballgame

 

This video is awesome! Thanks a lot!

[Garp]

Not sure if this was posted before but it's great to see Mr De La Torre at work some 30 years ago. Many thanks to John Hayes for posting a whole MDLT series on his YT-channel. Well worth viewing.

 

[terry678]

Bob Brue passed recently

 

I love his swing thoughts

 

https://www.dropbox....b Brue.mp4?dl=0

 

enjoy

[WayRight]

I spent a couple of months trying to learn this approach last year. I even drove a couple hours away for a lesson with an instructor who only uses this approach.

 

It was a very frustrating time in golf for me. My entire swing went to s***. I completely lost my swing. I was hitting big hooks with one shot, and slicing with the next. This was with my short irons!

 

I ended up just stopping golf altogether. My playing partners had moved away, and other stuff just led me away from golf

 

My 10 year old daughter came to me last month and asked me to teach her how to golf. Long story short, when I saw she was serious, I decided I wanted her to learn this method, because of the simplicity and I believe it's much easier on the lower back.

 

I went back through the book, and lo and behold, everything started making sense to me, and I started to get the swing down. Now, a month later, I'm hitting some of the most beautiful, consistent balls, I've ever hit. My swing feels so incredibly effortless.

 

Why did I struggle with it for 2 months last year?

I had only golfed for a couple of years, but in that short time hit countless balls (probably averaged close to 2 range sessions a day over most of that time). I had ingrained that swing so much I couldn't just switch over.

 

Also another thing I did different this time was to initially start with Ernest Jones approach of swinging with the hands rather than the upper arms. It gave me one less thing to think about. This made it easier to think about the pendulum on the downswing and focusing on allowing my body to respond.

 

At any rate, I think this approach is pure gold. I can finish a long practice session and it doesn't even feel like I've swung a club (talking about my lower back). I don't ever feel like I'm swinging hard at the ball. It's hard to describe, but I feel so graceful when I'm swinging the clubs (not sure if I'd look so graceful though).

 

I tthink it's a wonderful way to learn how to golf for a child. The first week or two working with my daughter, teaching her a conventional swing, I felt so bad for her, because even though I tried to keep it really simple and fun for her, there was still so much to focus on, she was getting really frustrated.

That was when I decided to make the switch to only teaching her the MDLT approach. Way less to think about. It is way more fun for her, and the results are much, much better.

[nlk10010]

I as well like the seeming simplicity of this approach, but the devil is in the details. You can swing up with the hands and down with the (upper) arms, but if your grip and setup isn't right then the face won't meet the ball squarely and you'll get just as lousy a result as you would with other methods. If your swing plane is either too steep or too shallow, or your hands don't travel on the "inner" circle, then you'll get shanks and all kinds of mishits. And it isn't simple to LET your body respond, it takes practice. I, for one, find it difficult to move my body and need to make a conscious effort (often unsuccessful) to react to the swing.

 

But, again, I DO think it is a method that is about as easy on the body as you can get, and every once in a while I'll hit a real nice shot with it (which beats the cr*p out of other methods I've tried). :)

[ricklinens]

One thing that helped me to better understand his concept, and never gets mentioned, was shown in his video where his student is shown swinging a 3 headed driver to depict swinging all parts of the club at the same time.

 

Found a photo which may be associated, but no luck finding the video, and I would like to hear MDLT's thoughts on this. Anyone have the video link?

 

[juststeve]

One thing that helped me to better understand his concept, and never gets mentioned, was shown in his video where his student is shown swinging a 3 headed driver to depict swinging all parts of the club at the same time.

 

Found a photo which may be associated, but no luck finding the video, and I would like to hear MDLT's thoughts on this. Anyone have the video link?

 

 

It's just as Bob T said. To swing a club means that both ends of the club move in the same direction, at the same time, and at the same rate. Manny is simply using the three headed club to illustrate what a SWING is. Were the three heads not moving together it would be evidence of levering the club, not swinging the club.

 

Steve

[BeTheBall_]

For me, the concept has always worked wonderfully on the backswing - using the hands to swing the clubhead over my shoulder gets me in a great position at the top without having to think about a dozen different things (arm rotation, wrist c0ck, elbow bend, shoulder plane, hip rotation etc.)

 

Unfortunately for me - a lifetime upper body lunging, spinny, OTT shank machine - if I simply give in to swinging the club using the arms some bad things can (and invariably do) take over.

 

What I've found to work for me is to also focus on the hands on the downswing (more 'down' and less 'out')

 

If I think about arms my shoulders easily take over, but if I think about hands I don't find I have the same issue (or at least, to a far lesser degree). Perhaps I need to supplement with Ernest Jones' book as I believe he was hands back and hands through.

 

And yes, I know I should really be thinking about the club more than my hands/arms etc. but more often than not I still end up spinning my shoulders out and throwing everything at the ball straight from the top.

[Hilts1969]

I think if you add your own moves to a method you are no longer doing that method, if golf was as easy as hands over right shoulder upper arms swing to the target then everyone would be doing it. Mdlt swing was a thing of beauty though.

[birly-shirly]

I am reading Adam Young's Practice Manual, and first impressions are that his ideas would make a terrific complement to Manuel's teaching, especially if you're an analytical type who's not easily satisfied with simple answers or concepts.

 

As I read Understanding the Golf Swing, Manuel provides both a framework for learning as well as a swinging concept or technique.

 

Adam Young appears to have done a great job in fleshing out the skills development side of this, explaining how you can develop skills independently of your conscious technique. Not everyone will need or be interested in this - but for anyone sceptical of whether a simple swing concept like Manuel's can develop into high level golfing ability, it's a good read.

[nlk10010]

For me, the concept has always worked wonderfully on the backswing - using the hands to swing the clubhead over my shoulder gets me in a great position at the top without having to think about a dozen different things (arm rotation, wrist c0ck, elbow bend, shoulder plane, hip rotation etc.)

 

Unfortunately for me - a lifetime upper body lunging, spinny, OTT shank machine - if I simply give in to swinging the club using the arms some bad things can (and invariably do) take over.

 

What I've found to work for me is to also focus on the hands on the downswing (more 'down' and less 'out')

 

If I think about arms my shoulders easily take over, but if I think about hands I don't find I have the same issue (or at least, to a far lesser degree). Perhaps I need to supplement with Ernest Jones' book as I believe he was hands back and hands through.

 

And yes, I know I should really be thinking about the club more than my hands/arms etc. but more often than not I still end up spinning my shoulders out and throwing everything at the ball straight from the top.

 

Believe me, you have no idea what "upper body lunging, spinny, ......" is, grasshopper. I am the master. :)

 

If I focus on the hands in the DS, though, I lock up my wrists and stiffen the forearms and I have all sorts of problems. My best results come when I indeed focus on swinging only the upper arms (biceps, say) so that the club whips through. Of course most of the time I end up using my body and shoulders and standing up, in part because I've been taught these last several years to use my body to initiate the downswing. If I think instead of beginning the DS with the upper arms and NOT the body then things get better, although of course I risk not moving my body at all.

 

The problem I have with "swing the entire club" is that I then create a picture, in my mind, of my forearms and club being connected in one straight line, almost like trying to swing the club and the forearms together, which is obviously not right. As I say, my best results come when I don't even THINK about the club at all, just swing the upper arms.

 

Frankly, at my age, the thrill is in the journey. I have tried all sorts of methods, from Paul Wilson to Mike Malaska to MDLT to Martin Chuck to Tony Lucjak to..... and by the time I get to the last one, and I fail miserably, I forget I tried the first at all so there's always a "new" method waiting around the corner that I can get excited about and which I'm sure will be an epiphany!

[WayRight]

Not sure if this was posted before but it's great to see Mr De La Torre at work some 30 years ago. Many thanks to John Hayes for posting a whole MDLT series on his YT-channel. Well worth viewing.

 

I'm not sure how I ever missed that video.

That is pure gold!

Thanks for posting that!

[Low Diamond Phillips]

Sorry to bump an old topic. This is my first time posting, but I've lurked around here for years. This thread has really fascinated me, and I wanted to say that the absolute biggest light bulb moment in my golf career came when I tried the drill in which you take a backswing and then try to return the club back to your original start position in slow motion. This made me realize just how crazily out of sync my swing was. I was taught to restrict my hip turn in the backswing, then fire the hips like crazy to start the downswing. If I do this, there is absolutely no way I can return the club back to my address position. I get my hands and body way out in front of the club, the face shuts, I'm stuck, I pull everything, or I hit behind it. Doing the drill made me feel something so different in my golf swing--something I had literally never felt before.

 

I love the simplicity of the MDLT philosophy. The "swing the club over your right shoulder with your hands" backswing works amazingly well for me. However, this habit I've had of firing my hips to start the downswing is something I do subconsciously, without even realizing I'm doing it. If I only try to feel, "swing the club at the target with the arms," I still fire my hips like crazy and get out of sync. So while I understand that this method would work great if you learned how to play golf using it from the beginning, for others (like me) that have developed bad habits, it sometimes becomes necessary to focus on other feels or swing thoughts to counteract those bad habits.

 

I've played golf for about 20 years, and taken maybe a half-dozen lessons or so during that time, each time from different instructors. Not one of them ever even mentioned my hips firing too early as being an issue for me. In fact, one instructor even had me firing my hips harder to start my downswing because he felt this would help shallow the club for me. After doing the drill mentioned above, I'm 100% convinced that this issue has been the main reason for my consistency issues over the years. I think that once I get my hips slowed down and sync up my downswing, I can then focus on swinging at the target with my arms and reap the benefits of the MDLT method.

 

Sorry for the long post. Incidentally, I've tried to send a PM to JustSteve, but got an error message when doing so. Steve, is there any way I can contact you directly? I have wanted to ask you some questions and also say thanks for all the wonderful knowledge you've dropped in this thread and elsewhere on the forums.

[1puttEagle]

It's a circle!! Sorry for yelling, but I just got this after all this time. I was swinging my daughter's field hockey stick, and it really let me focus on making a circle in the forward swing. As close to a perfect circle as I could. Took it to the range with great results (not the FH stick). In NH, so hitting off mats into the snow.

 

But wow! Now I see why you need to have a stable swing center. Otherwise, you can't make a circle. So at the end of the backswing, you better make sure you are where you want to be to start the circle. In other words, as Steve says, stay centered.

 

I found that I can choke way down on the driver (or any club) to get the field hockey stick feeling.

[juststeve]

Low Diamond:

 

You have my sympathy. 20 years of firing your hips and now you want to adopt the MDLT method. It won't be easy but it can be done. To use the method you must banish any thought of leading with your hips and allow them and the rest of your body to be responders, not leaders. That will take a bit of very deliberate effort but it can be done.

 

From reading you post it appears to me that you are concerned with the wrong things and unconcerned with what matters. What matters, the only thing that matters in the motion of the golf club. It is the golf club that moves the ball. The ball doesn't know that your hips are doing, how your weight is shifting, or whether your "synced up". It knows only about what the club is doing. Move the club properly and hit good shots. Do not move the3 club properly and you will hit bad shots no matter how elegantly you move your body.

 

If Manny were here he world tell you that the attempt to move your body in some prescribed is not the way to go. The body will respond to the motion of the club if you simply let it. It can't be responsive and be active at the same time, so just keep it relaxed and let it move as it will in response to the proper motion of the club. For each person the response will be a bit different but for most people it will resemble what is normally thought of as good form, but that isn't the point. The point is to produce the proper swinging motion of the club..

 

Good luck in you quest.

 

Steve

[1puttEagle]

Low Diamond: perhaps the feet together drill will quiet the body. Hit some balls with your feet together. You can't fire your hips when you do that.

[WinKiePie]

He reminds me of Yoda. So wise that he makes everything looks too easy..

[The Pearl]

Yoda at work.

 

[delfam]

So on the forward swing, when the club is horizontal (parallel to the ground or P8), Manuel says to have the back foot perpendicular to the ground.

 

Is this just a feel or is this in reality? I've seen videos of him swing and paused it at that position and his foot is still barely off the ground like most golfers are.

 

I know i'm not supposed to think of positions and just swing, but in practicing small 9 to 3 swings should i be focusing on this position or not? I'm just learning the method and starting with small swings.

[juststeve]

If P8=shaft parallel to the ground past impact, and if that the end of his swing, Manny's weight would be on his left foot and right toe. Back foot perpendicular to the ground. That was Manny. I never got to the back foot perpendicular to the ground position except on full swings. Manny never made an issue of it. I think that answers your question but I'm never sure about all this P6 and P8 stuff.

 

Steve

[delfam]

https://imgur.com/a/fzZiP

 

P8 would basically be #4 in the picture above. Is the back foot supposed to be perpendicular there? I've never really seen anyone in that position before and even in Manny's swings on youtube his foot is not upright.

[juststeve]

https://imgur.com/a/fzZiP

 

P8 would basically be #4 in the picture above. Is the back foot supposed to be perpendicular there? I've never really seen anyone in that position before and even in Manny's swings on youtube his foot is not upright.

 

Each of our bodies are different and they will respond differently to the proper swinging of the club. Manny's was much more responsive than mine. If you were to find footage of Manny hitting a shot where P8 was the intended end of the swing you would find him finishing quite erect, facing the target and with his right foot close to perpendicular to the ground. That was Manny. That is not me and probably not you. Focus on how your move the club and let your body respond the it naturally responds and you will be fine. Focus on particular body positions is not what Manny taught.

 

Steve

[sjcc]

Driver position.

 

How far forward in your stance can you play the driver given that you want to hit up on the ball? Aim a bit to the right and catch the ball just past low point as the club comes back inside your target line?

 

I'm just returning to Mdlt after a two year stint beginning in 2010. This time around, thanks to this thread, my understanding is much clearer. I'll be going all in....

[juststeve]

Driver position.

 

How far forward in your stance can you play the driver given that you want to hit up on the ball? Aim a bit to the right and catch the ball just past low point as the club comes back inside your target line?

 

I'm just returning to Mdlt after a two year stint beginning in 2010. This time around, thanks to this thread, my understanding is much clearer. I'll be going all in....

 

Probably Manny's most controversial teaching is that every full swing, no matter the club, should begin with the club head in the center of the stance. Probably a majority of good teachers disagree, and I have in the past as well.

 

First, why this teaching? In Manny's opinion what thew golfers he taught needed most to play better and enjoy the game more was consistency. He wanted his players to be able to make consistent contact with the ball and send it consistently toward the target. Much of his teaching is directed at that very thing, consistency. In his view having the club in the center of the stance at the beginning of the swing led to a consistent back swing path, forward swing path, and low spot in the swing. He fully understood that the method wasn't optimal for producing maximum distance with the driver, but felt the opportunity to be more consistent outweighed the minor loss in distance.

 

When I was much younger I asked Manny about moving the driver up in my stance. I didn't know then what I know now about how backspin limits distance, but I did know most other golfers were playing the ball much further forward with the driver than I was. Manny somewhat reluctantly endorsed my forward ball position experiment with two notes of caution. 1) It should remain my intention to swing the club on an arc around a fixed swing center even though I was starting the swing with the club head and ball further forward. He felt like my athleticism and arm speed would move the arc sufficiently forward to assure good contact. 2) He cautioned me quite sternly about the effect moving the club head forward at address would have on my shoulder alignment. Moving the club head forward opens the shoulders which, without compensations, produces an outside take away and a forward swing too much to the left. Because of this he had me readjust my shoulder before I began to swing by taking the right shoulder back from the line until the plane of my shoulders seemed parallel to the plane of the target line. This I founds hard to do day in and day out on a consistent basis.

 

As a result of this experiment I concluded that with the ball forward I was hitting the ball a little further but that my direction suffered. I returned to a set up with the club head in the center of my stance and the ball 2 or 3 inches to the left of the club head. From that position I was able to strike the ball squarely in the back with a level angle of attack.

 

Sorry for the long answer but it wasn't a simple question.

 

Steve

[oikos1]

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