stlcardinals08 Asked how I ruined my game chasing aesthetics

[MonteScheinblum]

I didn’t want to hijack the thread where he asked what I did and went through, so here it is, in case other are interested.

 

From 1991-1996 I was the longest hitter in the world and was making cuts, with the occasional chance to win, on the korn ferry tour.  I was winning professional events at the smaller level, almost got in the us open a few times and my swing speed was likely maxing out close to 150 and mid 130’s on course

 

After missing at second stage of q school 4 years in a row and having all the members at pga west fill my head with all sorts of, “You can’t do it that way,” through the bag from driver to putter, I began searching.

 

I was told by amateur, professional and famous professional swing experts.....including but not limited to:

 

Cuped left wrist-Less than Freddie and I redirected it to bowed.

‘My foot work was too wild-lifting the left heel and the same left foot hop thats being taught now.

Too much lateral motion-The shift and re-centering thats being taught now

Forward press and hip trigger is bad-Not unlike what Stenson and Woolfe do.

Putting stance too open and too much face rotation-Not unlike Nicklaus and Crenshaw in the setup and the toe releases that Tiger always talks about.

Pitching and sand motion was too square and too released with too quiet lower body-not unlike exactly what’s taught by the top coaches today

 

I could go on.  I ended up with a contrived mess of a swing and pitching and putting yips

 

Fast forward to 2008 when I had trouble breaking 80 half the time and my club speed was down to 110.  I quit golf in 2009.  Starting in 2010, I hit balls almost every day, copying the swings I saw on the range and adding the cliche fixes and saw they didn’t work, so I trial and error searched for root causes.  I did this for 3-4 hours a day and filmed all of it and started posting theories on YouTube.

 

I am still suffering residual affects of the bad times, both mentally and physically, but I can still play some decent golf at times.  Made it to finals of champions tour Q school and played in us senior open, along with some mini tour wins against the young guys.  I also got ball speed back over 200 in 2015 when training for world long drive championship.  Now I can still get high 180’s with a 45” driver some days and am often over 180 on course.  I need to get more fit, I’m 40 pounds over weight and my body can’t handle those speeds very well.

 

So there’s hope for those that had something and lost it.

 

In hindsight, I needed to learn to move the center of mass out later.....and that’s it.  I had difficulty finding the golf course with the driver on bad days and flighting partial wedges.  I could have made it without number 1, but number 2 was crucial to my failures.  I turned 62’s into 69’s and 69’s into 74’s because of this.  

 

Since then I have searched out data and real info and found many of my original theories were pretty sound and just keep refining them.

Edited December 31, 2020 by MonteScheinblum

[bilbry57]

I had a home made swing and played well enough to walk on and play NAIA GOLF in  college.  Quit playing for 20 years because of work and travel club and college softball girls. Took game up again 2005  played to 3 to 6 handicap for years  In 2016 I played in Wa state champion of Champions seniors finished 7th 74 first day 72 second day with 7 birdies in 2 days.  I never had a fundamentally good swing but I could hit it well and score despite being a below average putter.
 

After that tournament I decided to start looking at ways to improve and spent hours upon hours looking at YouTube videos thinking this idea was the one that will get me down to scratch.  The last 2 years I have seen handicap go as high as a 13 to currently a 10. I used to rarely shoot  above 78 at my home course and now I rarely shot under 81.   I have tried to go back to how I swung before with no luck.  I am spending the winter getting back in shaped and will try to get back to playing golf not swing mechanics.

 

Great Topic thanks Monte

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by bilbry57

[Nels55]

That is a really interesting story and it seems like a bit of an indictment of the teaching establishment at the time?  Possibly golf teaching in general I suppose.  Anyway I think it is pretty cool that you figured out the golf swing for yourself and that you are now teaching what you learned.  At any rate it is really sad that professional instruction made you a worse player to the point of quitting the game for a while.  I have heard stories that seem similar from a number of current instructors, Todd Graves, Larry Rinker, Jim Venetos and Mike Malaska off the top of my head.  I am sure that there are many golfers who got ruined by poor instruction and simply moved on to something else.

[hoselpalooza]

13 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

I didn’t want to hijack the thread where he asked what I did and went through, so here it is, in case other are interested.

 

From 1991-1996 I was the longest hitter in the world and was making cuts, with the occasional chance to win, on the korn ferry tour.  I was winning professional events at the smaller level, almost got in the us open a few times and my swing speed was likely maxing out close to 150 and mid 130’s on course

 

After missing at second stage of q school 4 years in a row and having all the members at pga west fill my head with all sorts of, “You can’t do it that way,” through the bag from driver to putter, I began searching.

 

I was told by amateur, professional and famous professional swing experts.....including but not limited to:

 

Cuped left wrist-Less than Freddie and I redirected it to bowed.

‘My foot work was too wild-lifting the left heel and the same left foot hop thats being taught now.

Too much lateral motion-The shift and re-centering thats being taught now

Forward press and hip trigger is bad-Not unlike what Stenson and Woolfe do.

Putting stance too open and too much face rotation-Not unlike Nicklaus and Crenshaw in the setup and the toe releases that Tiger always talks about.

Pitching and sand motion was too square and too released with too quiet lower body-not unlike exactly what’s taught by the top coaches today

 

I could go on.  I ended up with a contrived mess of a swing and pitching and putting yips

 

Fast forward to 2008 when I had trouble breaking 80 half the time and my club speed was down to 110.  I quit golf in 2009.  Starting in 2010, I hit balls almost every day, copying the swings I saw on the range and adding the cliche fixes and saw they didn’t work, so I trial and error searched for root causes.  I did this for 3-4 hours a day and filmed all of it and started posting theories on YouTube.

 

I am still suffering residual affects of the bad times, both mentally and physically, but I can still play some decent golf at times.  Made it to finals of champions tour Q school and played in us senior open, along with some mini tour wins against the young guys.  I also got ball speed back over 200 in 2015 when training for world long drive championship.  Now I can still get high 180’s with a 45” driver some days and am often over 180 on course.  I need to get more fit, I’m 40 pounds over weight and my body can’t handle those speeds very well.

 

So there’s hope for those that had something and lost it.

 

In hindsight, I needed to learn to move the center of mass out later.....and that’s it.  I had difficulty finding the golf course with the driver on bad days and flighting partial wedges.  I could have made it without number 1, but number 2 was crucial to my failures.  I turned 62’s into 69’s and 69’s into 74’s because of this.  

 

Since then I have searched out data and real info and found many of my original theories were pretty sound and just keep refining them.

 

happy new year, brother. i hope 2021 is the best for you yet. appreciate your contributions here. 

[milesgiles]

I’m sure Monte’s story is more common than not. Happened to an excellent amateur at my club, Peter Townsend.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Townsend_(golfer)

 

The way I’ve been told it, he was always chasing technical improvement in mechanics and never had the professional career he might have done. 

 

Instruction now is moving forward so rapidly, especially with the AMG type stuff.. hopefully less golfers will go down rabbit holes never to emerge again 

[games]

@MonteScheinblum While I mourn the loss of your competitive career, I applaud you for the direction you have taken as an instructor.  The stuff you learned, you dug out of the dirt.  You didn't just read it and it "resonated."  You have learned things for yourself, and communicate them in a way that makes sense, even to knuckleheads like me. 

 

"No Turn Cast" is the least complicated conventional golf framework I've seen.  The revelation that hackers do the right motion, just in the wrong direction should have aging hackers buying this in droves.

 

You may feel your competitive resume is a bit incomplete.  But, contributions you are making to golf instruction are valuable and relevant.  One door closes, and another one opens...

[stlcardinals08]

Monte,

Thank you very much for sharing; this is a great story. The big takeaway for me is that I really need to understand the swing mechanics that I am targeting and focus on improving in that direction. If someone at your level can get poor instruction, a recreational guy like me can certainly get it.

 

I always find these types of stories fascinating. Behind a lot of great players is a great coach. I'm sure there are a lot of guys on tour right now that would tell you they wouldn't be there without the help of a certain coach. It is just one example, but Billy Horschel credits Buddy Alexander as being instrumental in his development into a tour player. The lesser told stories (but the ones that are every bit as interesting to me, and likely even more common) are the ones like Monte's where a promising player was derailed by coaching, or perhaps never provided the right coaching to help them take the next step.

 

I thought I'd share a little of my story below if anyone is interested because I see a lot of parallels (at a much lower skill level) to Monte's story.

 

My Backstory in Baseball

My backstory mirrors Monte's at a much lower skill level (a LOT lower). I played D2 baseball from 2006-2010. I knew that a high velocity fastball was the number one skill that great pitchers possess. Although this is fairly common knowledge now (some coaches and players probably still do not accept it as fact even now, but the number is dwindling), back then, there was way more talk about needing to locate and change speeds, etc. All important skills, but not as important as developing a powerful fastball.

A lot of the coaching I received centered around slowing down to get more accurate. But losing that would have taken away my strongest skill. Or I would get suggestions that seemed like simple aesthetic changes; no one could tell me how the change would help me throw faster, more accurate or more consistent. I subscribed to a pitching website and devoured pitching instructional material. Just like Monte's story, the more athletic, explosive pitching motion that I was using back then is commonplace in instruction now, replacing a lot of the "slow and controlled" movements taught back when I was playing.

 

I might have read/studied pitching more than all of my teammates combined. But, I was not able to put it together before my time in college ran out, so I finished without ever having much success outside of a handful of afternoons where things came together for me.

 

Similar to Monte, the shadow my playing career has not left me. I haven't had a single week go by since I finished college that I haven't dreamt about playing baseball. Now, I'm channeling that energy into getting better at golf; I think I can apply what I learned playing baseball to my golf practice now.

 

How I Applied What I Learned in Baseball to Golf

Aesthetics vs. Real: I have sought out instruction that can explain the "why" of different mechanical moves. I want to be coached by people who can explain the why, so I don't get caught chasing aesthetics.

All -Around Skills/Game: I focused too much on velocity for my fastball and movement for my breaking pitches. I was successful in that regard. The only guys who threw harder than me ended up getting drafted and I had strong breaking pitches. But, I could not throw them for strikes enough to be effective. It is painfully obvious to me now, but I needed to work on throwing all my pitches for strikes and mix them well, instead of continuing to focus on velocity development. The same applies to golf. I was enticed by speed training, but I know I need to work on accuracy, short game and putting as well if I'm going to put up good scores and not just hit good drives.

Strength Training: I played baseball during the height of Tim Lincecum's success. The prevailing notion at the time was that weight room training was a relative waste of time because you just needed mobility and practice to throw like Lincecum, so I spent my time stretching. I now realize that Lincecum was an exception. It sounds odd to say it this way, but weight room training is a short-cut of sorts because developing a baesline level of strength helps athletic performance so much relative to the amount of effort required to develop it. I also want to keep playing golf for a long time, so I view this as an investment to keep me healthy and playing.

Practice: I needed to do a better job of finding ways to practice when I wasn't able to throw off a mound. For golf, this has meant that I've figured out ways to practice at home, indoors, in hotels on business trips even if I'm not able to get to the range. I have found creative ways to make sure I can practice instead of feeling frustrated that my preferred practice method was not available to me.

 

There are a ton of other lessons I learned (sometimes I toy with the idea of writing a book about it, although I realistically have close to 0% chance of writing it.)

 

Love the story Monte. Thank you for sharing!

 

Nick

[cardoustie]

Thanks for sharing your backstory Monte !  Good read

 

can you elaborate more on ..”moving centre of mass out later”?

[MonteScheinblum]

3 hours ago, cardoustie said:

Thanks for sharing your backstory Monte !  Good read

 

can you elaborate more on ..”moving centre of mass out later”?

An issue golfers of all skill levels have.  The center of mass of the club should not work out towards the ball too soon.  Also known as a steep shaft.  Happens when you try and create lag the wrong way.

[MK7Golf21]

Monte, I’m sure this story is more often than not for those trying to make it at top level golf, seems like a very fine line. The issues you wrote are pretty common fixes instructors use even nowadays, in regard to swing do you think would of been better off applying changes based on improving ballflight pattern instead of perfect positions? It seems to be a more safe way to approach changes in your swing instead of chasing ideal positions. 

[Hawkeye77]

The fascinating part of the story for me has always been the amount of time (the above from Monte is just a taste, IMO) Monte spent studying all sorts of golfers in all sorts of places, including the Tour, and actually thinking and learning - it's not something everyone could do even if they tried and I can't imagine the levels of patience and frustration that would have been present through the process (which is still continuing for Monte).  

 

Not that there aren't all sorts of ways to learn how to teach and not that some can be effective learning it different ways, but thank goodness Monte didn't go to a Hank Haney school to have Hank Haney teach him how to teach, lol - literally dug it out of the dirt and I think a lot of us can relate throughout life to learning things "the hard way" (not that we don't pick up anything we can that is useful in easy ways as well).

 

Rambling mess of a post, but maybe "won his spurs" is what I'm trying to say.  Best eye in the game.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Hawkeye77

[stlcardinals08]

20 minutes ago, Redjeep83 said:

Monte, I’m sure this story is more often than not for those trying to make it at top level golf, seems like a very fine line. The issues you wrote are pretty common fixes instructors use even nowadays, in regard to swing do you think would of been better off applying changes based on improving ballflight pattern instead of perfect positions? It seems to be a more safe way to approach changes in your swing instead of chasing ideal positions. 

For me, the issue is not the act of chasing perfect positions, it’s the act of chasing positions that have no impact/detrimental impact in play (but someone believes they are perfect positions). Every player has to work to get better, but they need to work on the right things.

 

 In every sport, the competition is getting better every year. Even if you are a top player now, in a few years that same level of play will leave you on the outside looking in. 
 

To be successful, you need to make changes and improve, but so many of us went down the wrong path and spent our precious practice time on activities that made us worse, not better. In a world where everyone is getting better and you get worse, the gap gets way bigger.

 

A big part of success, in my opinion, is understanding what you need to improve and how to improve it.

 

 Nick

[MK7Golf21]

28 minutes ago, stlcardinals08 said:

 

 

To be successful, you need to make changes and improve, but so many of us went down the wrong path and spent our precious practice time on activities that made us worse, not better. 

Exactly, but figuring that out is the tough part. Those instructors working with Monte I’m sure where smart people and had good intentions. For us amateur golfers it doesn’t matter as much since it’s a hobby. Then you have Tiger who didn’t have any fear of changing his swing 4 times at the highest level but it even bit him.

 

That’s why I’m saying at that level make changes which have a direct correlation to desired ball flight which you can visually see. None of this get worse to get better or looking at camera positions. Looks only at ball, If it doesn’t change for the better then no need to implement. 

[stlcardinals08]

35 minutes ago, Redjeep83 said:

Exactly, but figuring that out is the tough part. Those instructors working with Monte I’m sure where smart people and had good intentions. For us amateur golfers it doesn’t matter as much since it’s a hobby. Then you have Tiger who didn’t have any fear of changing his swing 4 times at the highest level but it even bit him.

 

That’s why I’m saying at that level make changes which have a direct correlation to desired ball flight which you can visually see. None of this get worse to get better or looking at camera positions. Looks only at ball, If it doesn’t change for the better then no need to implement. 

 

Yeah, reading The Big Miss by Haney was pretty illuminating. The book provided good insight into Tiger's desire to always improve, but I couldn't help but think how much better Tiger might have been had he worked on developing his skills differently. In much of the book, it seems like Tiger is working on areas that seemed to me to be largely aesthetics-driven. Imagine if he had worked on increasing the driving distance gap between himself and the field.

For iron play, it seemed to me like he would have benefited from an externally-focused goal instead of an internally-focused on changing mechanics. What if Haney provided random distances and shot shape requirements and tracked how accurate Tiger was so he had that goal to work on.

There is no way of telling if my thoughts would have led Tiger to more success or would have hurt his development; it was just my ideas when reading the book.

[MK7Golf21]

2 hours ago, stlcardinals08 said:

 

Yeah, reading The Big Miss by Haney was pretty illuminating. The book provided good insight into Tiger's desire to always improve, but I couldn't help but think how much better Tiger might have been had he worked on developing his skills differently. In much of the book, it seems like Tiger is working on areas that seemed to me to be largely aesthetics-driven. Imagine if he had worked on increasing the driving distance gap between himself and the field.

For iron play, it seemed to me like he would have benefited from an externally-focused goal instead of an internally-focused on changing mechanics. What if Haney provided random distances and shot shape requirements and tracked how accurate Tiger was so he had that goal to work on.

There is no way of telling if my thoughts would have led Tiger to more success or would have hurt his development; it was just my ideas when reading the book.

Yea, it was pretty ridiculous the change Tiger made when he went to Haney. Obviously, that drastic of a change wasn’t needed in his swing. He pushed his parallel plane swing method on him but Tiger had pretty good success luckily. 

[games]

@Hstead I think Monte refers to that as the Dunning-Kruger effect.  It's like a watching a wreck at a car race, so spectacular it makes you cringe...

[Arn]

2 minutes ago, Redjeep83 said:

Yea, it was pretty ridiculous the change Tiger made when he went to Haney

What part of he did it because of injuries do people not understand?

You all sound like Brandel Chamblee.

Also, his Haney swing was his best swing.

[MonteScheinblum]

Someone needs a popsicle.

[Nels55]

Hank had to get his own popsicles...  I love popsicles and I had a three box a week habit at one time.  I don't eat them anymore though because they are bad for my teeth.  Life is tough.

[ebk]

1 hour ago, Arn said:

What part of he did it because of injuries do people not understand?

You all sound like Brandel Chamblee.

Also, his Haney swing was his best swing.

His John Anselmo swing was his best swing.

 

[freowho]

6 hours ago, stlcardinals08 said:

 

Yeah, reading The Big Miss by Haney was pretty illuminating. The book provided good insight into Tiger's desire to always improve, but I couldn't help but think how much better Tiger might have been had he worked on developing his skills differently. In much of the book, it seems like Tiger is working on areas that seemed to me to be largely aesthetics-driven. Imagine if he had worked on increasing the driving distance gap between himself and the field.

For iron play, it seemed to me like he would have benefited from an externally-focused goal instead of an internally-focused on changing mechanics. What if Haney provided random distances and shot shape requirements and tracked how accurate Tiger was so he had that goal to work on.

There is no way of telling if my thoughts would have led Tiger to more success or would have hurt his development; it was just my ideas when reading the book.

No coach could have helped Tiger. It's a common trait with successful people that they are never good enough. They often drive themselves into the ground. His swing at 20 years old would have won 40 majors. 

[milesgiles]

12 hours ago, freowho said:

No coach could have helped Tiger. It's a common trait with successful people that they are never good enough. They often drive themselves into the ground. His swing at 20 years old would have won 40 majors. 

 

Not when the 460 came in. Levelled the playing field far too much 

[airjammer]

48 minutes ago, milesgiles said:

 

Not when the 460 came in. Levelled the playing field far too much 

Absolutely nothing in the 2000 swing prevented him from hitting a 460 driver. It’s still better than 99% of the top 100 in the world today. The 460 driver allowed everyone to swing much closer to 100% than the smaller drivers and closer to the same percentage that Tiger was swinging at already. If he just got his knee worked on, rehabbed correctly, and kept his swing I’d bet all the money I have that he certainly would have more than he does today. 

[Nard_S]

Yeah, that guy was so washed up after he dropped Butch.

[MK7Golf21]

40 minutes ago, airjammer said:

Absolutely nothing in the 2000 swing prevented him from hitting a 460 driver. It’s still better than 99% of the top 100 in the world today. The 460 driver allowed everyone to swing much closer to 100% than the smaller drivers and closer to the same percentage that Tiger was swinging at already. If he just got his knee worked on, rehabbed correctly, and kept his swing I’d bet all the money I have that he certainly would have more than he does today. 

it’s a good point, I mean he still snapped that knee with Haney so I don’t see how the change was to prevent injury but what do I know. I’m just a guy who works on my own swing. 

[MK7Golf21]

20 hours ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Well that narrows it down! 😀

 

 

That’s everyone on the forum 😂 

 

 

[milesgiles]

8 hours ago, airjammer said:

Absolutely nothing in the 2000 swing prevented him from hitting a 460 driver. It’s still better than 99% of the top 100 in the world today. The 460 driver allowed everyone to swing much closer to 100% than the smaller drivers and closer to the same percentage that Tiger was swinging at already. If he just got his knee worked on, rehabbed correctly, and kept his swing I’d bet all the money I have that he certainly would have more than he does today. 

 

missed my point, the 460 levelled the field around him, to his disadvantage. anyway, Im not diverting from Monte's thread any further

[hoselpalooza]

1 minute ago, milesgiles said:

 

missed my point, the 460 levelled the field around him, to his disadvantage. anyway, Im not diverting from Monte's thread any further

 

no, @airjammer didn't miss your point. read it again:

 

Quote

The 460 driver allowed everyone to swing much closer to 100% than the smaller drivers and closer to the same percentage that Tiger was swinging at already.

 

[milesgiles]

10 hours ago, hoselpalooza said:

 

no, @airjammer didn't miss your point. read it again:

 

 

 

What did the first bit have to do with anything I wrote? What do the two paragraphs have to do with each other? Why are we hijacking Monte’s thread?

[hoselpalooza]

15 hours ago, milesgiles said:

anyway, Im not diverting from Monte's thread any further

 

that lasted long...