What's your biggest "illusion shattering" moments in golf instruction "aha" moments that you wish you knew earlier?

[Long_Left]

I played this game for over 20 years never knowing how to "keep the club in front of me." I'm still not sure I could explain it to someone else with any reliable results but there have been a dozen "light bulb" moments over the last 4 years since I started down the rabbit hole of understanding my swing. I spent those 20 years hitting a cut (on good shots, huge push slice on bad ones) and thinking that a draw was black magic. 

 

Getting my trail thumb off the center line of the club and not allowing the weight of the club to be supported there at transition was a sea change for me. I was always rushed thru transition, not allowing my trail hand to be able to push hard at the top and stand the club up has improved my ball striking by several orders of magnitude. 

 

Keeping the club head "above" my hands was another, and the "one piece" takeaway, and the ability to get my weight to the lead leg without having the lead hip move laterally. 

 

 

[texcellence86]

when I finally realized to "swing the club" and not think about "hitting the ball". Not for everyone, but it changed my game for sure.

[third-times-a-charm]

Biggest revelation was that nothing anyone ever says to you will ever make sense until you make it make sense to yourself. Every person and instructor has a way of explaining things and it simply isnt understandable by all people they try to teach it to.

[nikos74]

1 hour ago, RacineBoxer said:

 

Seems overly simplistic to say they are all the same when you factor in things like standing closer or farther, shaft more vertical or dropping your hands lower, shallow vs steep, low flighted spinny vs high and soft, etc. Maybe this logic isn't meant to be applied to hitting a variety of <100 yard shots? I mean... would anyone argue a bunker shot is the same swing as a 9 iron chip? 

Each club has a different lie angle/length/bounce/offset that dictate proper setup in relation to player bend and distance from the ball.  And that is for clubs off the ground.

 

When the ball is teed up the body needs to adjust for that change as well.  Or for a bunker shot, draw, fade, etc.

 

The swing mechanics remain the same, but a direct change in the setup causes an indirect change in the swing as well.

Edited April 29 by nikos74

[cav5]

That finding it is a real thing

[cav5]

44 minutes ago, Long_Left said:

I played this game for over 20 years never knowing how to "keep the club in front of me." I'm still not sure I could explain it to someone else with any reliable results but there have been a dozen "light bulb" moments over the last 4 years since I started down the rabbit hole of understanding my swing. I spent those 20 years hitting a cut (on good shots, huge push slice on bad ones) and thinking that a draw was black magic. 

 

Getting my trail thumb off the center line of the club and not allowing the weight of the club to be supported there at transition was a sea change for me. I was always rushed thru transition, not allowing my trail hand to be able to push hard at the top and stand the club up has improved my ball striking by several orders of magnitude. 

 

Keeping the club head "above" my hands was another, and the "one piece" takeaway, and the ability to get my weight to the lead leg without having the lead hip move laterally. 

 

 

I have a buddy that plays close to scratch with thumb on top. Blows my mind lol.

[TheDeanAbides]

1 hour ago, RacineBoxer said:

 

Seems overly simplistic to say they are all the same when you factor in things like standing closer or farther, shaft more vertical or dropping your hands lower, shallow vs steep, low flighted spinny vs high and soft, etc. Maybe this logic isn't meant to be applied to hitting a variety of <100 yard shots? I mean... would anyone argue a bunker shot is the same swing as a 9 iron chip? 

Don't get into this with him. Just do what I did!

[FormerBigDaddy]

You don't just turn your shoulders in the backswing, you must also increase lead side bend/tilt.  If you don't tilt as your turn the one piece takeaway will never work for you.  If you do, it takes care of everything else.

[jholz]

The individual moments of clarity are way too many to mention, but a few stand out. 

 

Reading Ben Hogan's "Five Lessons" and Dr. Joseph Parent's "Zen Putting."

 

Jim Waldron's "Arm Swing Illusion"

 

@MonteScheinblum's "goat humping" and like others, earlier lead side weight shift. 

 

Along the way, I find my own and work them into my philosophy. Two that I continually work on...

 

1. Hitting the ball well solves 95% of problems in golf. 

2. Correct speed in the short game makes the hole much more forgiving. 

 

And finally, of course, the overall realization that the golf swing is perhaps the most "unnatural" athletic move a human being can make. It is not intuitive.

[Maine Golfer]

Face and club path is something that would have helped me as a young / HS golfer. Didn't get it until my return as an adult. Also compression on irons 

[mshills]

These stand out as revelations in playing golf. 
 

I learned starting around ‘89-‘90, so I was surrounded with strong grip, one piece takeaway, and a big turn. What nonsense that was!

 

Learning and understanding the ball flight laws. 
 

Taking to heart ‘make an aggressive swing at a conservative target.’

[TheDeanAbides]

43 minutes ago, mshills said:

These stand out as revelations in playing golf. 
 

I learned starting around ‘89-‘90, so I was surrounded with strong grip, one piece takeaway, and a big turn. What nonsense that was!

 

Learning and understanding the ball flight laws. 
 

Taking to heart ‘make an aggressive swing at a conservative target.’

Love that last line. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

1 hour ago, mshills said:

Learning and understanding the ball flight laws. 
 

 

This is the one that floored me when I got onto WRX. 

 

When I came up in the world of golf (basically my teen years, the '90s), I intuitively as a future engineer understood that face angle would determine start line and face-to-path relationship would determine curvature. Even at my earliest time in golf I'd make exaggerated in->out or out->in swings on the range for fun to hit big hooks or slices. It was before I ever picked up a copy of Golf Digest or Golf Magazine to learn that what I understood wasn't common knowledge. 

 

So I was shocked to learn that these ball flight laws were somehow "new", or that anyone ever thought it was the opposite. 

 

So it wasn't the actual ball flight laws that floored me, it was that what I'd always understood to be the case were somehow "new" ball flight laws. 

 

[MonteScheinblum]

4 hours ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

This is the one that floored me when I got onto WRX. 

 

When I came up in the world of golf (basically my teen years, the '90s), I intuitively as a future engineer understood that face angle would determine start line and face-to-path relationship would determine curvature. Even at my earliest time in golf I'd make exaggerated in->out or out->in swings on the range for fun to hit big hooks or slices. It was before I ever picked up a copy of Golf Digest or Golf Magazine to learn that what I understood wasn't common knowledge. 

 

So I was shocked to learn that these ball flight laws were somehow "new", or that anyone ever thought it was the opposite. 

 

So it wasn't the actual ball flight laws that floored me, it was that what I'd always understood to be the case were somehow "new" ball flight laws. 

 

There are still people that argue all call people stupid that say that.  Many more who say who cares.

[Soloman1]

i had some time with peter kostis and davis love jr. together once about 40 years ago. one said this and the other said that.

 

aha. either they were both right or both wrong. either way, they were different. so goes golf to this day. aha moments are as different as people are, just like making bbq.

 

this is how you make it. no, this is how you make it, no, this is how you make it. no, this…

 

 

[Chunkitgood]

When by remarkable synchronicity on the same day I saw Bill Harmon, Steven Seagall, and Richard Feynman all say “you figure it out by yourself, you own it.”

 

 

[hafnia]

the ultimate in "illusion" is this guy - I'm open minded enough to try any new feels or intentions but I'm cautious enough to go down rabbit holes that add in to the "my swings gone - lets go into the catalogue of swing thoughts on my iphone notes that will have me quitting the game"

 

@MonteScheinblum  @iteachgolf @Valtiel - what's your thoughts on this?

 

[baudi]

Shattering illusions are all about egos; aha moments are about connecting the dots.

These are different psychological effects and do not work on the same scales. 

 

If I test my off the green putting stroke against a method offered by a high end teaching pro; my heuristics will not prove he is wrong and vice versa. 

If we double blind test our methods among a group; the outcomes probably will be ambiguous.

If I find out that and how his method works well (aha...); it will not shatter my illusion. I simply learned a new variation of a shot. Next to mine because I know that  also works. In stead of one there will be two solutions.      

 

 

Edited April 30 by baudi

[KD1]

22 hours ago, FormerBigDaddy said:

You don't just turn your shoulders in the backswing, you must also increase lead side bend/tilt.  If you don't tilt as your turn the one piece takeaway will never work for you.  If you do, it takes care of everything else.

 

Interesting. I've been moving in the opposite direction -> less tilt/side bend. I've found that if I turn my shoulders *a bit* more level it's easier to stay in balance, get depth in the back swing, and maintain hip depth in the downswing. AMG put out a video on "shoulder plane" last year and they talked about it in yesterdays video on the takeaway. Basically, for me, starting from a good posture at address bring the left shoulder straight over to where my right shoulder is instead of sweeping it down and around. I think it just matches up better with how I'm trying to use my arms/wrists. "Just turning" the shoulders flat relative to my spine from a bent over address position takes care of the needed side bend with no need to add even more.

Edited April 30 by KD1

[Valtiel]

7 hours ago, hafnia said:

the ultimate in "illusion" is this guy - I'm open minded enough to try any new feels or intentions but I'm cautious enough to go down rabbit holes that add in to the "my swings gone - lets go into the catalogue of swing thoughts on my iphone notes that will have me quitting the game"

 

@MonteScheinblum  @iteachgolf @Valtiel - what's your thoughts on this?

 

My personal opinion, it's an esoteric way of illustrating a couple concepts, specifically the idea that the arms generally stay in "front" of the body throughout the swing and the wrists needs to work in certain directions to help facilitate shaft shallowing. Most average players have both of these elements flipped in that the arms will often end up working behind and/or disconnected from the upper body, and the hands/wrists will try to work on the opposite direction as this:



Which ends up steepening the shaft, not shallowing it. 

Personally though I find ideas like this suffer from a bit of "golf instructor brain" which is the same as any sort of academic brain issue in that coming up with these increasingly clever/esoteric ways of illustrating concepts can quickly confuse and lose the player it's meant to help. If you struggle with the sorts of concepts this is meant to address (the role of the arms and wrists) then IMO giving someone a goofy twizzler swing to basically "trick" them into doing these things correctly is a bit of a coin flip, especially since he makes it clear that all these weird looking positions should just disappear once speed and momentum are applied. Will they though? For him yes, but this is his quirky concept that IMO very likely relies on a core fundamental understanding of the golf swing, and if you have that then you don't need this, and if you need that then IMO this stands to confuse just as much as it potentially helps. 

Edited April 30 by Valtiel

[hafnia]

18 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

My personal opinion, it's an esoteric way of illustrating a couple concepts, specifically the idea that the arms generally stay in "front" of the body throughout the swing and the wrists needs to work in certain directions to help facilitate shaft shallowing. Most average players have both of these elements flipped in that the arms will often end up working behind and/or disconnected from the upper body, and the hands/wrists will try to work on the opposite direction as this:



Which ends up steepening the shaft, not shallowing it. 

Personally though I find ideas like this suffer from a bit of "golf instructor brain" which is the same as any sort of academic brain issue in that coming up with these increasingly clever/esoteric ways of illustrating concepts can quickly confuse and lose the player it's meant to help. If you struggle with the sorts of concepts this is meant to address (the role of the arms and wrists) then IMO giving someone a goofy twizzler swing to basically "trick" them into doing these things correctly is a bit of a coin flip, especially since he makes it clear that all these weird looking positions should just disappear once speed and momentum are applied. Will they though? For him yes, but this is his quirky concept that IMO very likely relies on a core fundamental understanding of the golf swing, and if you have that then you don't need this, and if you need that then IMO this stands to confuse just as much as it potentially helps. 

 

 

thanks for the reply - what I found was I needed to watch it a few times then I recalled a lesson that I had a few years back where the instructor with a good rep locally noticed that I have a huge tendency to roll the club inside with left arm coming away.  Now I believe this is a very strong habit of mine as I have suffered with shanks and a steep downswing even when hitting well......which may suggest I have really had it a long time and rely on timing

 

anyway this instructor told me to feel like In take my hands in on takeaway whilst leaving the club head out and lagging.  If I looked down it made a > shape where the top line was the club shaft and the bottom line was my lead arm with my hands at the point they meet.  He likened it to the A swing backswing.  I came away from it as I forgot the exact mechanics but will try it as I think it may be the extreme feeling I need. 

 

Funny how its easy to get away from the fundamentals - Last night I was struggling with shanks in the net...... all of a sudden I realised I wasn't getting secondary tilt and my shoulders were open with right forearm above left arm..............  correcting it didn't make me great it stopped me being so awful.  Golf is like whack a mole - focus on one thing and a previous issue rears its head.....  grrrrr

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 30 by hafnia

[Chainlinks]

On 4/27/2024 at 2:37 AM, RichieHunt said:

Drew Cooper explaining the pressure shift and what he calls the 'end of his backswing' which is more like p2 instead of p4.  It essentially explained what instruction had a conflict with for the past 20 years with regards to being centered/stacked vs. 'moving off the ball.'  I don't like the terminology that the pressure shift maxing to your trail side is 'the end of the backswing' because the backswing terminology is such that the backswing stops when you are no longer swinging the club with you arms backwards.  It's not a pressure shift concept.  But the idea that you should reach max pressure shif tot your trail side around p2 to p3 and then the pressure starts to ease off your trail side and moves toward your lead side is very beneficial for a variety of different reasons.

 

 

 

RH

Nice post, exactly what Hogan did 

[Valtiel]

12 minutes ago, hafnia said:

Golf is like whack a mole - focus on one thing and a previous issue rears its head.....  grrrrr

 

 

 

 

 

This is exactly why I have issues with these odd sorts of drills, because SO often the core issue (in your case the rolling of the club inside) ends up getting bandaged by doing some exaggerated drill. All this ends up teaching most people is how to do a weird drill, not how to actually consciously learn to move differently. Some will figure that out on their own, but most will suffer from exactly that whack-a-mole issue. Everyone has what feel like automatic tendencies which are inherently unconscious, and the only way to truly fix them when deemed damaging to the swing is to make them conscious, learn to recognize them, and then consciously create a new movement pattern targeted at directly supplanting the old one. An exaggerated drill that is the opposite of your ingrained tendency can be a *tool* to facilitate this, but it's almost never the fix as it alone does nothing to ingrain a new pattern, or even worse it actually *does* create a new pattern which is where you get those Charles Barkley-esque swings out there where people have actual exaggerated drills in place of "normal" swings. Ideally though it just helps bring the unconscious tendency out in the open so you can address it directly by becoming aware of it. If you skip that part though, whack-a-mole happens down the line. 

Edited April 30 by Valtiel

[FormerBigDaddy]

1 hour ago, KD1 said:

 

Interesting. I've been moving in the opposite direction -> less tilt/side bend. I've found that if I turn my shoulders *a bit* more level it's easier to stay in balance, get depth in the back swing, and maintain hip depth in the downswing. AMG put out a video on "shoulder plane" last year and they talked about it in yesterdays video on the takeaway. Basically, for me, starting from a good posture at address bring the left shoulder straight over to where my right shoulder is instead of sweeping it down and around. I think it just matches up better with how I'm trying to use my arms/wrists. "Just turning" the shoulders flat relative to my spine from a bent over address position takes care of the needed side bend with no need to add even more.

At address you should be in a slight right side bend (tilted away from target). If you don’t tilt left as you turn you’ll have to do some serious upward wrist hinging or arm lifting early to be able to keep the club outside the hands in the takeaway. You're more than likely adding left side bend correctly as you turn without really feeling it. Some people, like myself previously, take “turn everything together in one piece” too literally and suck the club inside and low. It took years for me to discover that the left should has to work sightly down and around and not just across. Easiest way to get the club working more up in the takeaway using big muscles. 

Edited April 30 by FormerBigDaddy

[nikos74]

2 hours ago, FormerBigDaddy said:

At address you should be in a slight right side bend (tilted away from target). If you don’t tilt left as you turn you’ll have to do some serious upward wrist hinging or arm lifting early to be able to keep the club outside the hands in the takeaway. You're more than likely adding left side bend correctly as you turn without really feeling it. Some people, like myself previously, take “turn everything together in one piece” too literally and suck the club inside and low. It took years for me to discover that the left should has to work sightly down and around and not just across. Easiest way to get the club working more up in the takeaway using big muscles. 

The shoulders tilt naturally as they turn around the body since you are bent over the ball at address.  And ideally they should turn 90 degrees.  The hips should turn 45 degrees.  Make the stance narrower and flare the lead foot out 30 to 45 degrees if trouble pivoting.

 

If the shoulders or hips move laterally then there is swaying or sliding going on.  That will affect the low point and cause consistency issues.

 

Arms, hands and wrists should be neutral.  Yes they move, but not independently from the rest of the body.

 

The additional tilt instructors mention I find useful only with a ball teed up, especially using the driver.  With ground shots it makes sense to match the body with the terrain.

[Double Mocha Man]

It sounds to me that most of you guys are sharing the swing key you came up with yesterday.  All very detailed.  I think what the OP is after is your 'aha' moment/swing key from a few years ago that is simple and still holding steady.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, nikos74 said:

The shoulders tilt naturally as they turn around the body since you are bent over the ball at address.

 

They definitely don't for everyone. 😄 

 

If you try to submit a post with the word "naturally" in it, the forum software should pop up a warning and ask you to re-think what you wrote. (Not "you" specifically @nikos74, the general "you" here.)

 

People move their shoulders, tilt their shoulders, spin and retract/protract their shoulders… in all sorts of ways in their golf swings.

[nikos74]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

They definitely don't for everyone. 😄 

 

If you try to submit a post with the word "naturally" in it, the forum software should pop up a warning and ask you to re-think what you wrote. (Not "you" specifically @nikos74, the general "you" here.)

 

People move their shoulders, tilt their shoulders, spin and retract/protract their shoulders… in all sorts of ways in their golf swings.

Perhaps an over-simplification to call the tilt "natural", but as long as one does not sway, has a decent amount of flexibility in the shoulders and hips and understands the basic motion of the golf swing, a diagonal arc around the body, with practice it becomes achievable.

 

Matt Fryer does a good job explaining it.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, nikos74 said:

Perhaps an over-simplification to call the tilt "natural", but as long as one does not sway, has a decent amount of flexibility in the shoulders and hips and understands the basic motion of the golf swing, a diagonal arc around the body, with practice it becomes achievable.

 

"Achievable" and "natural" are not synonyms.

 

I've almost never worried about or adjusted my shoulder tilt, but I change it in a lot of golfers. It's not "natural." That's all I'm trying to say here.

[betarhoalphadelta]

10 hours ago, iacas said:

 

"Achievable" and "natural" are not synonyms.

 

I've almost never worried about or adjusted my shoulder tilt, but I change it in a lot of golfers. It's not "natural." That's all I'm trying to say here.

 

Agreed. For whatever reason I've never had to worry about mine either, but with the high-cap golfers I see at my local course, standing up and turning flat is a HUGE problem for a lot of players. (Not saying I'm not included in that high-cap category; I just have other issues.)

 

When my son picked up the game, it was one of the first things I taught him on the range, because his natural instinct was to stand up and turn flat. He quickly outgrew my instruction and now goes to Monte, but at least I can say that getting him to tilt / swing around an inclined spine was NOT something Monte had to fix.