To get better at golf, you have to put your current biases aside.

[MonteScheinblum]

Golfers at every skill level have biases that have them in their current station.  

 

Mine was I can perform any swing I want, I have a great knowledge of the swing, it doesn’t matter that I’m 40+ pounds over weight.  I teach over weight people to swing better and faster every day.

 

Because of my poor fitness, I cannot manage my 120 mph swing and I fatigue quickly and my great swing on the range deteriorates.

 

Because of this bias, I stagnated this year.  I’m already in the process of getting in better shape.  I can still hit it far, and my short game got much better this year, but my scores didn’t.  My ability to strike a ball has not deteriorated, but my consistency has.  I cannot get younger, but getting more fit can turn back the clock a bit.

 

Here’s a story of how bias got in the way and when I read the forum and give lessons, I see a lot of this.

 

A guy comes to me and says he’s a good iron player and has a good short game, but lack of distance is holding him back and he wanted me to help him hit it farther.  I’m sure you can guess many people come to me for that.

 

He shows up and says, “Monte, you need to help me get more lag so I can hit the ball farther.”  
 

I didn’t give him the speech about lag, I just asked him to hit some.  His club head speed with driver was under 100 and his backswing was near John Daly length.

 

I told him he was losing speed because his swing was too long.

 

He shot back, quite aggressively that the longer the swing, the farther you hit it.  If he shortened his swing, he’d hit it shorter, just show him how to get more lag.

 

I explained that length of swing was a parabolic curve for distance and he’s losing lag because he can’t create enough speed to sustain it from that long swing.  He’d need the ability to swing over 130 to not lose lag from a swing that long.

 

He again aggressively shot back that if I help him lag the club, club head speed would go up and didn’t want to hear the relationship was more the other way around.

 

I was teaching on a range then and we could see where the balls went.  I asked him to humor me and take what he thought was a left arm parallel swing.  He executed an almost perfectly symmetrical parallel swing, he had more lag and the ball jumped off his club and went another 20 yards…maybe more.

 

I said, “There you go.”

 

”That was so powerless, that ball went no where.  Just help me get more lag. I need to hit it farther, not hit it shorter just so my swing looks better.”

 

I said I would turn on the flightscope so he could see the difference.

 

”That over priced cigarette lighter isn’t going to tell me what I don’t know already, I need more lag.”

 

He stormed off to the bath room.

 

I turned on the flightscope, but didn’t tell him.
 

He comes back and I ask if he would just humor me once more and if it didn’t turn out, I’d teach him to get more lag.

 

He hit one his way and I said watch where it finishes.  Then when he hit one my way he turned away in disgust and said, “I don’t have to watch that, it’s probably not going over 200 yards, that’s a powerless swing.

 

I showed him the iPad.  His way 96, my way 108.  Almost a 40 yard increase if I remember, as it was a bit ago.

 

He NON aggressively asked if I was playing a trick on him.  I put the iPad on a chair right in front of him and said for him to try both swings again and look at the readout as soon as he hit it.

 

Similar results.  
 

He looked at me and said, “At what point did you want to punch me in the face.”

 

We had a good laugh and he came back a few times and we got him over 110 at one point and his handicap went form like an 8 to a 2.

 

He did in fact have a good iron and short game.  His iron game got even better with a a shorter swing and his distance gain greatly reduced his scores.

 

The hardest part of my job, but the one that creates the greatest success, is not really changing the swing per se, as much as removing the misconceptions being applied.

 

The biggest distance gains on my lesson tee don’t come from swing over hauls, or even active swing changes.  Most come from no longer adhering to hold it like a bird, slow smooth tempo, shift weight, hold lag and spin the body as fast as you can for club speed.  
 

None of us like hearing our beliefs are getting in our way, but in most situations in life, that’s exactly what’s in our way,
 

 

Edited January 29 by MonteScheinblum

[bortass]

Realizing we may not be an expert on a subject and understanding that maybe we don't really know what we think we know can lead to enlightenment but you gotta be open to it.

[MonteScheinblum]

4 minutes ago, bortass said:

Realizing we may not be an expert on a subject and understanding that maybe we don't really know what we think we know can lead to enlightenment but you gotta be open to it.

Understanding the science and data doesn’t supersede the practical understanding of 2000+ lessons a year for a decade (s).  2000+ lessons a year for decades doesn’t supersede science and data.  Playing golf at the highest levels doesn’t supersede either of those, but helps you with both.
 

Having learned from all 3 of those of those makes you an expert not an “expert” and that doesn’t preclude you from continuing to move past biases.

[lookylookitzadam]

@MonteScheinblum - but how do we get more lag? 🙃

 

After having taken my fair share of lessons from you over the years...and going from occasionally breaking 90 to a plus-cap during that time, this is the one common thread.  Seriously, the fastest way to my derail progress is to stick to my biases and work on what I felt needed changing and not just grinding away on the goals from our lessons.  These latest changes are going on a year in the making and it has been hard to not explore other "tweaks" but the progress is evident in the long-term look-back.

 

Full disclosure - I was worried reading this at first because I kept asking you how I can get my distance back and thinking it was going to be my story being recapped at first.  In the end, working on changes which I didn't feel were getting me more distance, ended up getting me the distance back and more, plus gained accuracy.  Funny thing, this golf game...

 

 

[glk]

Golfer's allow what they already know to influence what they are being taught - the Saw with Mr Orr

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CovVd4UDmyA/

[MonteScheinblum]

4 minutes ago, lookylookitzadam said:

@MonteScheinblum - but how do we get more lag? 🙃

 

After having taken my fair share of lessons from you over the years...and going from occasionally breaking 90 to a plus-cap during that time, this is the one common thread.  Seriously, the fastest way to my derail progress is to stick to my biases and work on what I felt needed changing and not just grinding away on the goals from our lessons.  These latest changes are going on a year in the making and it has been hard to not explore other "tweaks" but the progress is evident in the long-term look-back.

 

Full disclosure - I was worried reading this at first because I kept asking you how I can get my distance back and thinking it was going to be my story being recapped at first.  In the end, working on changes which I didn't feel were getting me more distance, ended up getting me the distance back and more, plus gained accuracy.  Funny thing, this golf game...

 

 

There’s the rub.  There are no good swing changes that just improve accuracy or distance, they should improve both.

 

Aside from purposely hitting your wedges lower and shorter.

[lookylookitzadam]

4 minutes ago, MonteScheinblum said:

There’s the rub.  There are no good swing changes that just improve accuracy or distance, they should improve both.

 

Aside from purposely hitting your wedges lower and shorter.

 

"I hit my PW 140 yards!"

 

Yea...but can you hit it 90 yards to a back pin? 

 

When I get paired up with people, the easiest way to tell a good golfer is watching wedge flight.

[cgasucks]

10 years ago I was ready to quit the game and was going to put my clubs on Craigslist until I came across Monte's teachings.  I had to totally format my brain about the golf swing and look at it from a clean slate.

 

10 years later I can shoot in the 70s using 20+ year old clubs.

 

Thank you Monte.  You are a treasure to this sport.

[Ty_Webb]

This is another good example of feel vs real. A longer swing *feels* more powerful. Doesn't mean it is more powerful. Then people who hit it far have at least the appearance of lag, so it's natural to assume that's the key. 

 

The one that I'm having issues with is that it feels powerful to me to slide towards the target on the downswing. In reality, I need my left leg to drive up, back (away from the ball) and back (away from the target), but subconsciously I still don't get that. It feels wrong so it's really hard to do. I've been doing it the other way for over 30 years, so not exactly surprising, but it's frustrating. I can do it without a club just with my arms crossed across my chest. I can't do it well with a club in my hand and I certainly can't with a ball in the way. Gonna keep working at it though.

[Pepperturbo]

3 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

Understanding the science and data doesn’t supersede the practical understanding of 2000+ lessons a year for a decade (s).  2000+ lessons a year for decades doesn’t supersede science and data.  Playing golf at the highest levels doesn’t supersede either of those, but helps you with both.
 

Having learned from all 3 of those of those makes you an expert not an “expert” and that doesn’t preclude you from continuing to move past biases.

Back in the 80s, writing a 400 pg professional training book, I applied three different yet converging principles that said much the same.  🙂

 

Sound advice, Monte.

[jobin]

"Most (distance gains) come from no longer adhering to hold it like a bird, slow smooth tempo, shift weight, hold lag and spin the body as fast as you can for club speed.  "

So Monte, you suggest:  do not hold the club like you would a bird; do not employ a slow smooth tempo; do not shift your weight; do not attempt to hold lag; and do not attempt to spin you  body as fast as you can (to gain club head speed).

 

Have I understood correctly your 'do nots'?

 

[MonteScheinblum]

12 minutes ago, jobin said:

"Most (distance gains) come from no longer adhering to hold it like a bird, slow smooth tempo, shift weight, hold lag and spin the body as fast as you can for club speed.  "

So Monte, you suggest:  do not hold the club like you would a bird; do not employ a slow smooth tempo; do not shift your weight; do not attempt to hold lag; and do not attempt to spin you  body as fast as you can (to gain club head speed).

 

Have I understood correctly your 'do nots'?

 

Correct.

 

You want a fairly firm grip without added tension in neck and shoulders.  

 

 You want smooth rhythm, which is almost always wrecked by what ams perceive as smooth (slow) tempo.

 

You want pressure shifts which entails early backswing  trail side and late lead side from proper sequencing and rotation versus mass shift in the backswing trail side and mass shift lead side downswing.

 

Holding lag has proven to be be nearly impossible due to other issues in the swing and very detrimental to club speed.

 

Faster body rotation doesn’t lead to more speed.  LPGA Tour players move their hips and thorax faster on average than PGA tour players.  Better sequencing and getting the center of mass of the club moving in the proper 3D arc is where club speed comes from.

[getitdaily]

Understanding what they are is as big a step as letting them go...

[MonteScheinblum]

3 minutes ago, getitdaily said:

Understanding what they are is as big a step as letting them go...

💯
 

When I was a full time player I thought holding lag, drop my right shoulder and swing to right field was good.

 

I also thought the ball below your feet would go left because the heel grabbed in the hill and shut the face.

 

If you hooked, shaft was too weak and sliced shaft was too stiff.

 

Layup to stock wedge.

 

I could go on, but I’d look even stupider than I was.

Edited January 30 by MonteScheinblum

[Jtgavigan]

12 minutes ago, MonteScheinblum said:

💯
 

When I was a full time player I thought holding lag, drop my right shoulder and swing to right field was good.

 

I also thought the ball below your feet would go left because the heel grabbed in the hill and shut the face.

 

If you hooked, shaft was too weak and sliced shaft was too stiff.

 

Layup to stock wedge.

 

I could go on, but I’d look even stupider than I was.

Been there on all of those...

[Ty_Webb]

2 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

💯
 

When I was a full time player I thought holding lag, drop my right shoulder and swing to right field was good.

 

I also thought the ball below your feet would go left because the heel grabbed in the hill and shut the face.

 

If you hooked, shaft was too weak and sliced shaft was too stiff.

 

Layup to stock wedge.

 

I could go on, but I’d look even stupider than I was.

 

All of these I suspect have been "common knowledge" at one point or another. Hardly stupid to have believed it. To continue to believe it once it's been conclusively proven the other way is another story though.

[MonteScheinblum]

21 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

All of these I suspect have been "common knowledge" at one point or another. Hardly stupid to have believed it. To continue to believe it once it's been conclusively proven the other way is another story though.

Agreed and an all too common problem 

[plindner99]

So, I’ve always thought this…I think. Assuming you mean, thinking you can show ANY player how to fix something in their swing. I guess you can say I’m a natural at this game idk but I quit the game for about 20 years, I’ve played 4 maybe 5 rounds of golf since 2001. My uncle recently got a pro job at the local private club where I caddied at back in the 90s and he started as a caddie and made it all the way to AP until he moved out of the area. Anyway, he asked me to come help him get the place back to what it use to be. One day me and a co worker were cleaning the range by hand because the range cart was being worked on. He talked me into hitting some balls. The club was a 7i. The mission…get the ball off the ground. I completed the mission. A beautiful high draw, 200 yards. First swing in probably 7 years. My body shook with excitement and enthusiasm. I was hooked. The prodigy was back. At 42 and 30 pounds overweight. Couldn’t walk a flight of stairs without getting hurt. I played basketball growing up and and two knee surgeries. I’m 6’7” 265 pounds. But I’ve been actually working on my game and getting better. I’m down to a 10 handicap in 4 months. From August until now, I’ve only shot over 90 one time. So I think I can fix pretty much anyone’s swing. I’ve kinda hit a roadblock in my game and I believe this is the reason. Sorry for the life story but I think you’ve given me the keys to the kingdom. Scratch is in sight now! Thank you. 😂😂😂😂😂

[GolfTurkey]

The two myths that hurt my game were swing to right field and the old ball flight laws.

 

The two that make me want to go postal when I hear them from people still clinging onto them are "keep your head down" and "drive for show, putt for dough".

[rainkingjr]

I'd just like to point out that I absolutely hate the term lag and the concept of trying to create lag. I hate when I see people trying to demonstrate what lag looks like in static positions.  For me, focusing on lag is the fastest road to being stuck.

[bortass]

10 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

All of these I suspect have been "common knowledge" at one point or another. Hardly stupid to have believed it. To continue to believe it once it's been conclusively proven the other way is another story though.

Not hard to believe at all. Being an old fart, Pluto was a planet when I graduated from college. Now if I never heard some random thing in passing that Pluto was redefined and no longer considered a planet, I would still think it's a planet. I have never looked at any of the research regarding Pluto, so it was a planet because a teacher and textbook said so in elementary school and maybe it's not based on something else I heard years ago.

 

Everyone has a belief system by which I mean things they think are true/false. Some people are more rigid then others when it comes to opposing ideas/something new. Who is conveying the 'new' information matters. Random range dude tells me my backswing is too short, whatever. Monte tells me my backswing is too short, it's too short. Random range dude may have been right but I don't listen because he's random range dude. I consider Monte to be an expert based on my personal experience with what he's written and shared in his various videos.

 

Monte sees enough golfers in his lessons to get a pretty good sampling of human behavior, ranging from those that take every tip they get as gospel to those that are extremely stubborn/borderline fanatical.  Pretty sure we see this behavior in this forum over the years as well. Open minds are not super common, lol. It behooves us to do our best to have an open mind when we go to a lesson because we are trying to learn which by definition means it's something new. It doesn't mean you need to take what's being told to you as gospel because there are bad teachers out there but if you go in set on 'I need more lag' and defend said lag like it was an immutable fact, you're likely not gonna get the most from a lesson.

 

TLDR; Have an open mind if you want to get better at golf.

[ChaosTheory]

14 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

Faster body rotation doesn’t lead to more speed.  LPGA Tour players move their hips and thorax faster on average than PGA tour players.  Better sequencing and getting the center of mass of the club moving in the proper 3D arc is where club speed comes from.

 

That's very interesting.  Shouldn't the LPGA players be just as able to properly move the club, though?  It seems like strength is the missing variable here. 

 

edit to add:  Also, maybe faster rotation does lead to more speed, for LPGA players and other weaker souls?  The LPGA players can't all be on the wrong track, can they?

Edited January 30 by ChaosTheory

[Ty_Webb]

26 minutes ago, ChaosTheory said:

 

That's very interesting.  Shouldn't the LPGA players be just as able to properly move the club, though?  It seems like strength is the missing variable here. 

 

edit to add:  Also, maybe faster rotation does lead to more speed, for LPGA players and other weaker souls?  The LPGA players can't all be on the wrong track, can they?

 

As I understand it, women tend to have stronger lower halves and weaker upper halves relative to men (not saying women's lower halves are stronger than men's lower halves - just that the balance leans that way). Since rotational speed has to come from the legs, it makes sense that they might be able to get faster rotation, but lack the upper body strength to make full use of it.

 

I think if everything else moves in tandem, then faster rotation has to create more clubhead speed, but everything else doesn't move in tandem.

[betarhoalphadelta]

17 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

This is another good example of feel vs real. A longer swing *feels* more powerful. Doesn't mean it is more powerful. Then people who hit it far have at least the appearance of lag, so it's natural to assume that's the key. 

 

The one that I'm having issues with is that it feels powerful to me to slide towards the target on the downswing. In reality, I need my left leg to drive up, back (away from the ball) and back (away from the target), but subconsciously I still don't get that. It feels wrong so it's really hard to do. I've been doing it the other way for over 30 years, so not exactly surprising, but it's frustrating. I can do it without a club just with my arms crossed across my chest. I can't do it well with a club in my hand and I certainly can't with a ball in the way. Gonna keep working at it though.

 

@MonteScheinblum can chime in here b/c I'm probably wrong, but I have a similar / possibly the same swing pattern (sway right in the backswing, slide left in the downswing), but I'm not sure it's a "feels more powerful" thing... I think if you sway to the trail side on the backswing and don't get pressure back to the lead side, there's ABSOLUTELY no way you're going to be able to have enough time to get to the left and get your lead leg driving up and back. You end up pushing off that right foot and slide. 

 

Whereas if you get your pressure shifted earlier and better, then it's probably hard as hell to slide because you have no ability to push off the trail foot and start a slide because your pressure is already on the lead foot. 

[Nard_S]

Everybody lives with a bias, with a prism that they see things. it might evolve or devolve even but it's always there.

 

 Martial arts has centuries of honing their teachings. Music does too. Golf has decades. Might be only the last 5 to 10 years that sound methodology has been applied for the right reason. Being open to that is good but setting the mind correct should be the higher goal. Then you still have to do the hard work to transpose it to machine code of muscular technique. Golf is a martial art, more so than any other sport, it also resembles musical development, repeatably doing fundamental rudiments, all to let go of it and just perform. 

 

Not surprising the best swings I've seen on a weekend were martial art master's and a 13-year-old kid with a family membership at an elite CC.  One fell back on centuries of teaching that tuned their body control, the other relied on a teacher who taught the kid the right things.

 

I started 35 years ago watching "Golf My Way" and taking the wrong interpretation from it and going into the desert. Absorbed Hogan's "Five Lessons", awesome but who swings like Hogan? No one. I'm still wandering and much of that is do to faddish and wrong bias in teaching and herd wisdom over that time. So my goal is not less bias, it's proper bias. 

[MonteScheinblum]

1 hour ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

As I understand it, women tend to have stronger lower halves and weaker upper halves relative to men (not saying women's lower halves are stronger than men's lower halves - just that the balance leans that way). Since rotational speed has to come from the legs, it makes sense that they might be able to get faster rotation, but lack the upper body strength to make full use of it.

 

I think if everything else moves in tandem, then faster rotation has to create more clubhead speed, but everything else doesn't move in tandem.

Yes 

[TonyRo]

I hope that when I grow up I'm half as cool and knowledgeable about anything as Monte is about golf. Always happy to see his responses in this forum, as I know I'm going to learn something. Gonna have to make a lesson happen soon before the season starts! 

[KMeloney]

There's a story/adage out there about a guy who goes to a hardware store, and when the assistant asks him what he can help him with, the guy tells him he needs a hammer. When the assistant asks him what he needs the hammer for, the guy says he needs to hang a picture. Long story short, once the assistant understands what the guy was looking to accomplish, he directed him to a more appropriate set of tools/materials for the task at hand. (There's a pertinent moral in there somewhere.)

 

With so much of the golf swing seeming to have two extremes that are considered both opposite of one another and equally "bad," it's sometimes very hard to wrap your head around the idea that there's usually a huge section of "good" in there between the extremes. It's also tough to recognize that moving away from one extreme means moving in the direction of the other extreme -- and that that's ok (and often advised, as long as you don't go all the way to that other extreme). The more aware I've been of where I am on some of these "spectrums," and the more I've recognize that I need to employ more of the "bad, opposite" of what I'm currently doing, the more improvements I've made.

[teddyironboy]

Something I've been thinking about is people often have an ego about their ideas right? It makes a lot of sense why, we like to feel smart, and often times there was some investment to come up with that idea, and changing will mean having to hit the reset button. However that person usually ends up in pointless debates, and never ends up learning anything. Also not going to make too many friends with this attitude. Since we're all ego-driven, I think a better mentality is have one about being the kind of person that is willing to listen, changes their mind if they come across better info, open to anything.

[Valtiel]

Real talk though, the biggest reason to set your current biases aside is to make room for your next ones. 😆

Edited January 31 by Valtiel