We really had a great day. Temperature was about 80 degrees, sunny, balmy breeze blowing all day. We started the day off with working on the long game. The first thing we focused on was alignment, the Big A. As I stated yesterday, all our students were aiming way right.
So we worked again on making the H, standing behind the ball, finding your spot, walking into the ball and making sure that when you set up, the clubface square to the target, they were able to make the H, the line in from the clubface, and cross that with another line parallel to it to get their toes on.
No matter how hard they worked at it, they all still seemed to have a problem of, when they put their feet down, they were aiming right. They'd set up, I'd put a club down by their toes and it was unbelievable. They felt they were parallel left. Not only were they not parallel left, but the toes were at or still a little right of the target.
So what I had them start to focus on their toe line. When you walk in, also have a good idea of where their toe line is, had to be parallel left. When they walked in and set up, they kind of looked down and ran their toe line out to the target and see where it was aiming. Believe it or not, that really started to help them. A couple of them started to see that it looked to close to the aiming line. So I had them put their club down by their toes, walk back and check it out.
The more we did that, where we started focusing on their toe line, that really started making a difference of not getting too far right. Focusing on the toe line helped them get their tows lined up and into alignment. Once they were in pretty good alignment, it was easier to swing you arms straight in front of the body at the target. Aiming right, your body's in the way and you've got to pull your body away and collapse your arms around it. That's how we get so many reverse weight shifts and the club is breaking down.
That was the key. We started focusing on the feet left and that really made a difference. The next thing I focused on was the T-Finish. Because their arms were folding around their body, they didn't have one. We started swinging up and over their forward shoulder to have their low hand on the club, their right hand, really close to their ear. The closer we got the hand closer to the ear, the finishes started getting good. And it really started getting good when we started talking about that it had to be a controlled fold. They had come in, with their hands coming kind of up and over the head in the air, not into their chest.
They got that higher finish, they were up, then the recoil and relax, was the big final thing that really helped them. A couple of them were getting up there and were letting go of the grip at the top before they recoiled. You can't make a good recoil if you're letting go of your grip pressure at the top of your swing. So as soon as they understood that the recoil and relax, with the hands coming down near the belt buckle, and that was the end of the swing, they could not change their grip pressure until then, all of a sudden they're swinging up, coming down and bang, the club is pointing straight at the target. They are hitting good shots, the balls are landing almost in line with their club and they are square to the target. That made the biggest difference on having a good T-Finish, square to the target.
In the afternoon we did putting. We did the tests and checked out their putters, put impact tape on the heads to hit putts and see where they impacted the putter. Most were pretty god but they were scattered a little bit forward and behind what would be the sweet spot on the putter. The tape showed them there was movement in the putter and they weren't coming through dead square. We worked and that and tightened it up.
The biggest thing we did was adjusted the set up. A couple of them actually had themselves bent over so much that their eyes were actually outside the ball rather than inside. We all know your eyes are suppose to be dead over the ball but in many studies that have been done with PGA Tour players, they found the zero players had their eyes directly over the ball. It showed they were actually inside.
In two cases we had the student stand up a little more because if you bend over too much you're in bad posture and your tendency is to fall forward. When you're like that the putter can do all kinds of loops and figure eights and everything else. We stood them up, kept the arms hanging down a little bit straighter and we had a much better stroke going.
From there we went to chipping. Chipping wasn't too bad. All had a tendency to release the club a little too soon and chunk them a little bit. So we put the tee into the end of the grip. That tee and shaft should be in line with the left arm and that tee is up underneath the left arm and the club never passes the forward arm and that tee stays under the arm as a gas gauge. If you break your wrist, the tee starts point towards your back arm — you went from full to empty.
The idea is to keep the tee at full. They noted that the tee was a great visualization. Keep the tee on “full” in your forward arm and that really helps. When you go back to pitching, guess what? It's the same concept. You're hitting 20 yard pitches and runs. You hit the same thing. The club stays behind the hands. The hands are leading and the tee stays in the full position under the left arm.
Like in most schools, the big issue was getting out of sand traps. That has people pulling their hair out: bunkers. The basic problem is that most golfers are swinging too hard, they're hitting a bunker shot like they're mad at the sand. Bunker shots are still finesse shots. They're touch shots, they're not power shots. Sure, you hit the sand, the sand throws the ball up, but it's still a finesse shot. Most are swinging way to hard and way too fast. They're lifting their arms to far in the backswing and swinging way to far in the forward swing. So you get anything from a decent bunker shot to sculls into the lip of the front to chilly dips. It just a nice, smooth shot.
Again, if you have that tee in the grip, pointing up your lead arm, and you keep the tee there, the club gets through and your forward upswing is your hands coming up quickly so you swinging in that water glass. We don't vcock the wrists up. If anything, we just let the elbows fold a little bit and snap it underneath the ball. The key is the hands are leading and the club doesn't pass the hands. Slap the club into the sand and it throws the ball out.
That the toughest shot I've seen in all the golf schools. The weakest part of everybody's game is bunker shots. All you folks out there, the number one you can do to help yourself get better is to get some shot game lessons and start working on your short game. That's where you save strokes. In the end, nobody hits all 18 greens every day, even on the PGA Tour. So you know you're going to miss greens and the place to save shots is to get the ball up and down and in the hole.
I can give you technique, but I can't give you touch. You can go out and learn technique but you have to teach yourself the touch. That's the greatest advice I can give anybody, no matter what you skill level is. We're coming out with the putting and chipping video in the very near future, but if you have to, in the mean time, get out there work on your short game because that's the greatest place to save strokes.
(Golf School Note: Look for details soon on our California PPGS schools at Talega Golf Club in beautiful San Clemente, May 17 – 19 and 20 – 22. It's going to be one heck of an experience. Call: 1-888-84SWING[79464] or 1-864-525-7336.)
The Surge!