Monte's new No Turn - Cast

[mrjrogolfer]

If you haven't already, I highly recommend getting Monte's Efficient Swing series and pay particular attention to segment 4 and the drills and teaching there, where he takes the viewer and students through a series of ways to feel Cast A as well as some alternative thoughts and feels to achieve the same thing (bend the right wrist, loop the shoulders, etc.). It's really an elaboration on the Cast A teaching in NTC.

 

Here's a Larry Cheung video where he essentially demonstrates the same thing and talks about some alternatives to shallowing. His "unhinge" method is basically Cast A and his "loop the arm structure" is one of the alternatives Monte discusses.

 

Sometimes seeing the same thing demonstrated by another instructer helps. Jake Hutt has a bunch of shallowing videos that also essentially teach Cast A.

[Acooke2434]

I'm sure the Efficient Swing videos are right on the money, although I haven't bought that series. In my opinion you gotta check out the "Shallowing" video from Athletic Motion Golf on YouTube. Introduces shallowing from a lowering arms/unfolding trail elbow concept that really solidified the downswing for me. If you do it correctly, the wrist throwing kind of just comes along for the ride.

[mrjrogolfer]

Steve Pratt also has some videos where he talks about "throwing" the club out and away from you as the first downswing move (it's the Mike Austin swing). Again, it is a way to achieve the same effect as Cast A, just a different way of thinking about/feeling it.

The fact that all these guys (AMG, Cheung, Hutt, Pratt) are preaching essentially the same thing provides validation that NTC is correct.

[mrjrogolfer]

There are some Pratt and Hutt videos and discussion on p. 82 of this thread.

[scopek]

4 hours ago, Hilts1969 said:

I feel your pain I'm still trying to find a way to do cast A at full tilt. It seems so ridiculously hard. I gave up for a while but am back trying it.  

 

On your practice/drill swing try not pausing after the cast A just continue slowly in that direction all the way to the ball.

 

I have a feeling if you or I swing without pausing panic to hit the ball in the easiest manner ie a straight line approach takes over.

 

I think the secret is cast A and keep going. The club would touch the ground somewhere around your right foot. Mentally you have to trust that's its the bodies responsibility to bring it round.

 

BTW the first swing is much better than the normal one. It must be very frustrating knowing that. It annoys the hell out of me I can't do it at speed. 

That's what I'm working on now--going slow but taking out the pause. For me, it takes a lot of concentration to not want to go straight at the ball. Doing the drills with a pause isn't the hard part for me. The hard part is integrating it into a fluid movement without pausing. I'm just going slow and will slowly build up the swing to a more dynamic motion, I hope, at least. 

[Hilts1969]

35 minutes ago, scopek said:

That's what I'm working on now--going slow but taking out the pause. For me, it takes a lot of concentration to not want to go straight at the ball. Doing the drills with a pause isn't the hard part for me. The hard part is integrating it into a fluid movement without pausing. I'm just going slow and will slowly build up the swing to a more dynamic motion, I hope, at least. 

 

One thing I have learnt is tension in the hands makes life very difficult. Speed needs effort, effort leads to tension.

 

I'm up to about 70% of speed from wedge to 8 iron. It deteriorates more as the club gets longer.

[TheDeanAbides]

1 hour ago, Hilts1969 said:

 

One thing I have learnt is tension in the hands makes life very difficult. Speed needs effort, effort leads to tension.

 

I'm up to about 70% of speed from wedge to 8 iron. It deteriorates more as the club gets longer.

Tension in the hands is necessary - we need to hold that club fairly tight to have control. It's tension in the arms that's the killer. 

[Ztl]

The pause is so annoying, but it's still the only way I can consistently cast. I know it's holding me back, but the mental block I've built up over the decades of swinging this way is going to take a lot of practice to overcome. Everytime I try a swing, no matter how slow, I'm holding on and not casting. 

 

Right now I'm just swinging 5x with a slight pause, then 1x swing as slow as I can videoing to see if I'm casting. Hopefully I'll break through soon and it will just start clicking. 

15 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Tension in the hands is necessary - we need to hold that club fairly tight to have control. It's tension in the arms that's the killer

 

How do you have tension in the hands but no the arms? 

[scopek]

6 minutes ago, Ztl said:

The pause is so annoying, but it's still the only way I can consistently cast. I know it's holding me back, but the mental block I've built up over the decades of swinging this way is going to take a lot of practice to overcome. Everytime I try a swing, no matter how slow, I'm holding on and not casting. 

 

Right now I'm just swinging 5x with a slight pause, then 1x swing as slow as I can videoing to see if I'm casting. Hopefully I'll break through soon and it will just start clicking. 

 

How do you have tension in the hands but no the arms? 

Have you sent video to Monte? 

[Hilts1969]

41 minutes ago, TheDeanAbides said:

Tension in the hands is necessary - we need to hold that club fairly tight to have control. It's tension in the arms that's the killer. 

 

Personally they go hand in hand. Or should I say hand in forearm:-) I'm a huge yanker of the club. Think less holding a flapping bird more choking the life out of a chicken.

[Hilts1969]

28 minutes ago, Ztl said:

The pause is so annoying, but it's still the only way I can consistently cast. I know it's holding me back, but the mental block I've built up over the decades of swinging this way is going to take a lot of practice to overcome. Everytime I try a swing, no matter how slow, I'm holding on and not casting. 

 

Right now I'm just swinging 5x with a slight pause, then 1x swing as slow as I can videoing to see if I'm casting. Hopefully I'll break through soon and it will just start clicking. 

 

How do you have tension in the hands but no the arms? 

 

With great difficulty I would have thought

[TheDeanAbides]

17 hours ago, Ztl said:

The pause is so annoying, but it's still the only way I can consistently cast. I know it's holding me back, but the mental block I've built up over the decades of swinging this way is going to take a lot of practice to overcome. Everytime I try a swing, no matter how slow, I'm holding on and not casting. 

 

Right now I'm just swinging 5x with a slight pause, then 1x swing as slow as I can videoing to see if I'm casting. Hopefully I'll break through soon and it will just start clicking. 

 

How do you have tension in the hands but no the arms? 

Perhaps tension isn't the correct word. The grip should be firm, but the arms should be tension free - or at least as much as possible. The how is really a case of practice and working out the sweet spot. 

 

Remember that during the swing your grip pressure increases anyway, but a loose grip allows for too much potential for regripping later in the swing. It's easy to see if this happens by checking your grip post swing. 

 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

16 hours ago, Hilts1969 said:

 

Personally they go hand in hand. Or should I say hand in forearm:-) I'm a huge yanker of the club. Think less holding a flapping bird more choking the life out of a chicken.

That created a euphemistic mental image I can't get out of my head! 

[Hilts1969]

1 hour ago, TheDeanAbides said:

That created a euphemistic mental image I can't get out of my head! 

 

I put in more innuendos than a Carry on film(that will confuse most of the board)

[Djmc25]

I love NTC, when I’m not careful I over turn in the backswing, arms get behind me, I toss my head in front of the ball and get a wipey either pull or fade. Not good. 
 

Has anyone else struggled with adding the left knee flex in transition? It seems to be my biggest conscious sticking point. Is there another concept for this that made it stick for you?

 

I know the answer is take a lesson with Monte, I’m planning on doing just that once the ranges I can get DTL and face on near me open up. 
 

Also is Cast A basically knuckles down / throw the club head out? I feel those two as the same thing (I know they’re not, but golf)

 

im committing to one swing concept this year, and NTC has always been the one I’ve come back to. I’m definitely a tinkerer, but this is the year of commitment. 

[mrjrogolfer]

Knockles down/throw the club out does seem an apt feel for Cast A, to me.

As for transition, I like left shoulder off the chin, whic Monte talks about a lot. Check out the transition segment of his Efficient Swing series for other ideas/feels/drills.

[Djmc25]

1 minute ago, mrjrogolfer said:

Knockles down/throw the club out does seem an apt feel for Cast A, to me.

As for transition, I like left shoulder off the chin, whic Monte talks about a lot. Check out the transition segment of his Efficient Swing series for other ideas/feels/drills.

That’s good to hear, when I think cast I tend to add a lot of arm tension and really try and do it super quick from the top. When the concept is knuckles down I tend to do it more gradually through transition and the results are better. 
 

thanks for the reply. 

[Golf_Goof]

 

Well, finally got the video series after trying to understand the concept from viewing this thread and seeing references to NTC in many other threads. Glad I did and my understanding is much better now after two viewings and practice in between segments. I also reviewed the whole thread and likely will only repeat what others have already said.
 

As many others have posted here, the cast to 8 feels so unnatural; it’s as if the source of my power/speed has been handcuffed. I’ve been pulling along the shaft to get lag for as long as I’ve known what lag means in the context of a golf swing. 
 

Working through the drills now and mindful not to expect too much too soon. That it feels so foreign only reinforces the notion that it will be a long process. Hopefully not 11 years like Rosie apparently took to make changes 😀

One thing that’s been eye opening for me, was the transition segment and in particular loading the lead leg before/during casting. I’ve worked so hard on backing my lead hip away from the ball to avoid EE, that loading up and pushing towards 11 o’clock (lefty here) is hard to resolve in my mind. 
 

Anyways, initial results are feelings at impact that I may have never really experienced before, like zero loss of compression. After years of looping, driving the elbow, etc, to shallow out, this appears to be much easier and repeatable, so far at least. 
 

An excellent product and great value for money. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 16 by Golf_Goof

[medv]

On 3/14/2024 at 3:10 PM, mrjrogolfer said:

If you haven't already, I highly recommend getting Monte's Efficient Swing series and pay particular attention to segment 4 and the drills and teaching there, where he takes the viewer and students through a series of ways to feel Cast A as well as some alternative thoughts and feels to achieve the same thing (bend the right wrist, loop the shoulders, etc.). It's really an elaboration on the Cast A teaching in NTC.

 

Here's a Larry Cheung video where he essentially demonstrates the same thing and talks about some alternatives to shallowing. His "unhinge" method is basically Cast A and his "loop the arm structure" is one of the alternatives Monte discusses.

 

Sometimes seeing the same thing demonstrated by another instructer helps. Jake Hutt has a bunch of shallowing videos that also essentially teach Cast A.

 

@MonteScheinblum can you comment on this? Is shallowing the club by letting the club "tip over" the same as ulnar deviation? (Around the 1:20 mark in the video quoted above). I tried just letting the club drop behind me (8 o'clock), flex my lead wrist, and rotate –  the club then gets in perfect position. However, I don't feel any ulnar deviation, or a casting sensation. I feel a combination of pronation + flexion in my lead wrist, but no ulnar deviation. 

Edited March 18 by medv

[mrjrogolfer]

Monte can confirm, but I think what Cheung demontrates does involve some ulnar. It's very subtle, and as Monte teaches, the left wrist ulnar/flex motion in Cast A doesn't have to be much--it mainly just involves not moving in the other direction (to radial or extension).

[berndgeurts]

On 3/18/2024 at 9:12 AM, medv said:

 

@MonteScheinblum can you comment on this? Is shallowing the club by letting the club "tip over" the same as ulnar deviation? (Around the 1:20 mark in the video quoted above). I tried just letting the club drop behind me (8 o'clock), flex my lead wrist, and rotate –  the club then gets in perfect position. However, I don't feel any ulnar deviation, or a casting sensation. I feel a combination of pronation + flexion in my lead wrist, but no ulnar deviation. 

I think his answer would be 'some'

[Frankensteins Monster]

Relevant.

 

 

[absoludicrous]

Stan Utley telling Charles Barkley to do Cast A at the 13 minute mark.

 

[Golf_Goof]

Question for the NTC crew: I’ve been working on the drills daily and still feel somewhat above plane on the downswing and coming in open. Video confirmed just that. 
 

I noticed that my trail elbow tends to flare too much compared with what I know good looks like. 
 

Back to the casting drill; I noticed that I can ulnar and flex sort of independent of how my trail elbow is positioned and wonder if that’s something I need to be more mindful of as well. That is, keeping the elbow more vertical or tucked in.

Edited March 27 by Golf_Goof

[SlyFrog]

So I got the video (along with Broomforce and the Efficient Swing), and I want to be sure I've just mentally got the sequencing of this correct. I've been playing around with it, and it really feels like there is something there for me - I think I'm making better contract after doing the drills, and I have hope that it is helping to break my bad habit of trying to fire my shoulders laterally as the first move.

 

Am I correct that effectively, from address on, it should basically be:

 

• Shaft parallel (basically vertical wrist hinge along with some flattening of the left wrist)

 

• Left arm parallel (additional wrist hinge plus a small amount of left forearm rotation so that the shaft is 90 degrees to the left arm when the left arm is parallel)

 

• Additional body rotation/push back of the left arm so that you end up at 8 o'clock - this also effectively becomes kind of the end of the backswing in terms of rotating torso/hips/moving your arms to the right)

 

• Then (this is where I got a little confused about order, which is part of why I'm doing this) transition into left leg/side (kind of the squatting/shifting into your left leg while keeping your back to the target)

 

• Then Cast A, where you ulnar deviate/motorcycle throttle/cast to 8 o'clock

 

• Then Cast B (sort of when you're kind of back toward downswing shaft parallel) to effectively sweep the club to 12 o'clock through the impact zone, which should also effectively trigger your rotation to come through)

 

Is that fairly accurate? I was momentarily getting confused as to the order of transition to left leg versus Cast A. While I get that things can blend into one another to a degree, after rewatching the videos I think the idea is that you are first shifting to the left/falling into that left leg (while keeping back to the target) and then doing Cast A, right? (Again, they can somewhat happen together, but the big point is you're not firing off Cast A and then transitioning - the transition happens first or at worst at the same time as Cast A.)

 

Also, regarding Cast A - the cast to 8 o'clock is more with your wrists/right elbow/forearm, right? The arms themselves tend to drop as you are doing this? I'm just having a hard time imagining actually throwing my left upper arm to 8'oclock behind me, and sense that it is more the wrist and forearms that are casting to 8 o'clock, although maybe this isn't something to worry about as it kind of fixes itself as long as you ulnar deviate to 8 o'clock?

Edited March 27 by SlyFrog

[mrjrogolfer]

I think you’ve basically got it,@lthough you may be trying to slice it a bit too thinly with the sharp distinctions in timing. The “fall into the left side” move you describe is what’s called re-centering and actually takes place before the backswing ends (somewhere around P3 or so) and before the technical downswing transition, which is between P4 and P5. It’s then an individual choice whether to start the transition with Cast A or one of the other transition moves Monte describes. Monte himself says he feels Cast A as the “leader” followed by left shoulder down and off the chin, but some people may feel the reverse order, or maybe feel a different transition move first (belt buckle down, sit on stool, etc). Personally I have to do Cast A first or else I don’t do it, and that may be true for most. But if you feel something else first—and most importantly, if it works—then do it.

[mrjrogolfer]

Take a look at Monte’s “Combining transition Concepts” near the end of Efficient Swing. He discusses how the order is an individual thing.

[SlyFrog]

Deleted - too wordy. 

Edited March 27 by SlyFrog
Too wordy

[SlyFrog]

35 minutes ago, mrjrogolfer said:

Take a look at Monte’s “Combining transition Concepts” near the end of Efficient Swing. He discusses how the order is an individual thing.

 

Thanks for the feed back, I will take a look. I have been watching the different series in stages and segments, and so I just wanted to kind of make sure I had them mentally put together right. 

 

Watching the different series I think helped, since I think the concepts overlap and are really about teaching the fundamentals in different ways (presumably because different ways of explaining things click differently for different people). 

 

Like watching Broomforce, it feels like the countertop drill, getting to the countertop is basically Cast A, while sweeping the ball/jug/making the slap shot follow through from the countertop is effectively Cast B.

 

My mind works better when I feel like I can see things in different ways and then put together something cohesive amalgamating the things together, so it has all been very helpful. 

Edited March 27 by SlyFrog

[mrjrogolfer]

Monte has also done a couple webinars that are very helpful on NTC, Efficient Swing, etc. They're on his instagram.