Short Game Wizard

Thanks Mike, and Terry and Steve. Great ideas to look at. I'm probably going to grab a cheap one at the store to try out, first, and will look at getting one more like what you're using, if it works okay but not securely.

Yep, I intend to shoot my age some time, but I 'll probably have to live to about 110 !!!!!!!!!
Ritchie1

Steve and CF:  Your conversation about "thumb pressure" got me thinking about something in the Foundations Manual (page 30):
 
 Quote:  "The last and critical point of grip pressure: squeeze the fingers upward to create the grip. Many golfers conversely squeeze or push downward on the grip with the thumbs, which is counter productive and wrong for a number of reasons. First, it deactivates the lower (lifter) arm muscles and activates the upper (puller) muscles. And secondly, it turns the left hand to the right making it stronger, and turns the right hand to the left making it weaker. That will have them working against each other, causing a host of problems, the most important: having trouble squaring the club at impact."

Just thought you'd like this - as usual, the Surge really knows his stuff!  Have a great day!    R2

Agree 100% on the geezer golf--short game and putting. Liked the story about Don A.--the 80 yo golfer.
On Sundays I play 9 holes with a 91 yo golfer at Denton CC--Denton, Tx. Lee Vestal recently shot an 85. And, he still WALKS--pushing a hand cart. In fact we have to badger him to ride when the temp. is near 100.
He is a great chipper, and a deadly putter. He uses a long mallet head putter, open stance, based in visualization and feel. He is also known as the club 'hugger'--gets a hug from all the young servers, and  most of the female members. Years ago he played to a 5.  

Thanks, Just checked my Email and had the same reply. I'll have to inquire about having my email address posted on the blog yesterday when I replied to a couple of replies to me, through the email notification and regular email. I'm not sure what that was all about, but hopefully it will be corrected.

Toe line with butt of club on the way back and up or on the way down?

Steve and Lynn,  Same for me. I think I'll inquire through their support link. I'll post their reply if any.

The CBS coverage showed DJ, pretty much every time something went wrong. They spent a lot of time on his troubles around the 14th green, and three times showed the beautiful putt on 12 that did a 360 around the hole to pop back out on the side it went in on. After 14, they only showed him when he happened to be in the background of a Bryce Molder shot.

For DJ, though I doubt he's checking in on the boards, but I'll put it in the universe, like your dad says, don't think what went wrong on the one bad hole. Think about what all you're going to do right tomorrow and tear them up.

Calvin,  Oh ye of little knowledge, how long must we bear your foolishness. Would that it be tomorrow, and that your knowledge might abound.
Must ye also be in a Church, Temple, or Synagogue to study the word of God. Know ye not that it is thine own mind which is the center of learning and not the location of the bodies. Thou can learn on a mountain top as did Moses, or in the valley of despair as did Job. Focus not on bodily locations, rather open your mind that the knowledge might enter and dwell with thee.

Steve I have seen some pin placements like that. One of the Muni's we play all the greens lean bag at the tee boxes they always put the pins in tuff places even the middle of the green placements are tough. The greens are always fast if you get behind the pins you will roll off the front of the greens if you do not watch it.  

Weekend Tourney updated 

Shot 86 won my division on Saturday.  

Sunday we had to start play in the rain shot gun start we started on 11 par 4 ripped driver down the middle on in 2 lipped out a 10 foot birdie putt and made 4 I thought alright great start this should be a good day. The next 12 par 5 is a very tough hole hit driver off the left edge of the fairway and laid up left myself 140 in. The green on this hole is small the front has a run up area but from there all the way around the green is all mown run off areas that are 10 feet below the green to the bottom. I push my shot in a little right pin high but down in the runoff area. I took my 56 sw and my putter over to where I was the green is only about 15 feet wide were the pin was placed. I hit my 4th up just on the top 2 feet short of the green right at the pin figured it would be close to the pin until one of the others told me not walk up but around the green to play my 5th shot it ran across and down the run off and I had the same shot again I hit my 5th same thing happened by now I was pissed the 6th I plaid about 3/4 the way up the runoff it bounced forward towards the green but did not make and rolled back to me about 2 feet and stopped chipped the 7 th shot on and 3 putted for a whapping 10 shot 49 on the back settled down after the rain quit and shot 41 on the front and lost my flight by 5 strokes. 

I pared that par 5 Saturday from the same place the difference was Saturday it was dry no rain I hit lob wedge from down below. I was surprised at how fast that green was with the rain  it was faster Sunday than Saturday I was afraid of hitting lob wedge Sunday because it was wet we were basically in casual water  every shot we hit until it quit raining.  
I also secured a spot in the East West cup with the win on Saturday for the East team it is like the Ryder cup. We are paired with a partner the first 18 and play 6,6,6 the second 18 individual match play should be fun.

Roger

Really proud of DJ. Gosh he looked good and was just missing putts by fractions. Played well again Saturday until he got stung by a double on 14. Still, a 68 and 11 under and tied for 10th. Hope he gets off to a hot start on the front nine Sunday where he shot a 29 on Friday.
His over all game is really shaping up. #1 in GIR and #3 in fairways hit this week. Let's get te putts to fall!

I hope you will keep intruding, Doc, because you're the professional and we're the guys trying to work all this out. As I have mentioned a few times on here, though you may not have seen it, I think of the arm motion of the swing as swinging my hands/arms around the base of my neck, ignoring the club as much as possible. The base of the neck shouldn't move very much at all in the swing up until impact, correct? The shoulders move around it.

In the Swing Clock Defined blog (http://www.swingsurgeon.com/Ho... ), it shows 12 as being directly over the point at the base of Surge's neck, with his head pointed at 2. I think that's pretty much where I'm at, but I'm thinking that if that top image were expanded to full body as the face-on image is, 6 o'clock would be approximately on the toes (maybe the balls of the feet).

I definitely was NOT thinking like Mr. Longdrive the other day that 12 o'clock was out over the top of my head. I think getting some video of this will help us all better understand and evaluate the usefulness of the drill and improve our understanding of the Surge Swing.

As I said earlier, part of my problem has been that I can clearly feel the club moving behind me as I'm lifting, so my hands are trying to manipulate it back toward vertical. In so doing, it imparts a weird, forward looping motion that gets me fighting the club going out across the line and yanking it back on the way into impact. I know if I can get the club up more smoothly, it will drop more smoothly into the slot for the proper FUS. At least that's my hope. :)

Or you go to a golf outing and the pins are set up for US Open!!.....Outings can be slow enough...  let's help speed up play!!!....

I'm sure the Surge knows something  about the TGC / networks airtime game. My favorite guys to watch are DJ and Stricker. You always have to wait and wait to grab a look at them even when they are at the top of the leaderboard. It's just not my imagination. I play golf with a couple Stricker fans and we laugh about it. Some players, Kevin Na and Brandt Snedeker comes to mind, they never seem to miss. I FF'd the DVR yesterday to get a glimpse of DJ and a couple other guys I like. I'll do the same today. Once I get DJ's shirt/ pants color combo, I can pick him out fairly easily.  62....wow...

All the way from the gound up the hosel of the club all the way to the butt end of the club.  That's the entire length of the club.

The groundskeeper at our municipal course loves pins ON the slope between tiers of the green. Combine that with it BEING A MUNICIPAL COURSE and it can take over four hours to play 9 holes on a weekend afternoon (well, not at this time of year so much, but when the weather is better).

Robert, we would have to assume when he makes his charge tomorrow even the moronic director in the cbs van would have to cue in on him, right?

Mike

When you sy fairways and greens all I can think of is DJ tied #1.  Surge sure has it right when he says that's the last thing he tells DJ is...Fairways and Greens.  Hoping he kicks butt tomorrow

Lynn42

Howdy gang, just wanted you to all know. We are back home, I'm fixing to go unwind with a wee bit of a nap.seeya all later.

The description of 12 and 6 is pretty close.  The 6 would be roughly half but not quite the distance back of the toes to the heel.  It is kind of centered.  As to where the soft part of the shoulder is in the person's setup also has a lot to do with the spine tilt.  Go past 30* and you move it considerably.

From watching Steve's video, I get it from what you were talking about having the laser "point" towards the toe line.  I was perceiving that you were having the laser run a straight line with the toe line as if it were a "wall" on the toe line rather than aimed at the toe line.  David Leadbetter marketed a similiar device years ago and the object was to keep the lite on the target line coming down.

Steve, I most certainly did stop the video at the top of the swing and that is what helped me understand just what Robert was talking about.  I think there is a matter of semantics and the confusion that I had from the previous post was nothing to do with the laser but about people getting to the toe line.  I agree that most get too inside and laid off and don't know it.  But, I see that as going past the toe line and you call it not getting to the toe line.  It's justs words and we agree but just say it differently.

It also most certainly not my blog anymore that it is anyone else's blog.  This blog is here for you guys.  I try to contribute when I can.  I also will ask when I don't understand something.  I had a problem understanding what Robert was saying.  I'm not perfect by a long shot and I'm sorry that I apparently irritated you by inquiring.  I also understand the frustration that comes from trying to help folks.  It just happened to me.  I just saw Robert's post and didn't read enough of what was around it to realize that you and he were in a discussion.   I won't jump in again.  You presence here is too valuable to the blog so I request that you continue helping the others.  You have a lot of individuals that rely on your advice and knowledge and it wouldn't be prudent to remove that source.  I would request that if you have a problem with me for some reason that you contact me privately going forth since you have my contact information.  And if you have a problem with me for something, I certainly apologize and can assure you that whatever I did it wasn't intentional.

I see DJ is scheduled for a 1.25pm tee time, and is partnered withAlexandre Rocha and Bryce Molder.

AND, they are showing a camera against A R so we should see some shots of DJ.

Fingers crossed.

Cheers

Brian

There is a Scottish bloke from work that I reluctantly play with who has the worst course etiquette, He refuses to carry a sand bucket and never replaces his divot, including the ones he takes with his practice swing!!???!!! If I bring it up its like water off a ducks back, so I very rarely play with him now.
The thing that does my head in the most is that guys like this seem to be the first to complain about the "crappy" course or "crappy" greens, when its play like theirs that contributes to it!
Like Dan below I always try to fix a few ball marks while Im on the green. hopefully it will add to my golf kama lol
 

Thanks, Robert, it is good to be home. I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude to the fine people of the of The Palmetto State for their hospitality during our visit.Should the beach erosion level become dangerously low for Edisto Beach, you can find replenishment in the vacuum canister at the Raceway on Bush River Road where I deposited
it this morning.As for the travelers & or the fine citizens of the Peach State...that is the passing lane, not the "I'm gonna hang here while I talk to Granny on the cell phone lane."
 Now back to you, Robert, I am pumped to know that hitting your new sticks was sweet, I hope to have that same feeling sometime week after next. Let me (us) know how they continue to do with after action reports, and how is that swingrite helping the early release?
Now that I have some serious down time, I will work out with mine a couple of times a day to get my release down. I am a tad late with mine but hope to have that remedied in short order. Doc has me working with a stronger right hand grip as well as ball position corrections.

I hear ya Robert!....He'll be fine....I know we all wish him the best tomorrow!!!....Really cool to see him on TV!!!...GO DJ!!!!!

Steve, I've got the course for you.  My par 58 course.  No par 5s, 4 par 4s and 14 par 3s.  It's not an easy course.  The greens are the great equalizer, a lot of 2 tiered greens and vey few straight putts.  My best is 61 the day I made every putt in sight and the golf gods took pity on me...lol.  With your putter I'm thinking 50 is a reasonable goal.  ;0)

Lynn42

I don't know, Doc. Maybe it's an individual physique issue, but when I'm at address with my weight centered over my feet, the toe line is essentially directly under the point where my neck meets my shoulders. Of course, I have a thick, short Bavarian neck, so for other people it may be different. It sounds like you're thinking of the toe line as straight down from your nose. I need to get video of this drill from all sides so I can show you and also so I can see for myself if the positions are better or worse.

I can say that it had an interesting effect on my range practice today. I'd been having some problems, particularly with the longer clubs, of hitting a lot more fades (and on occasional RBS - really big slice). I think I'd started to make some compensatory adjustments with my hands through impact, because today when I teed up the driver and took my first swing, I snap hooked the ball across the range and over the left field fence. I set up again and just thought about a nice follow through to the T-Finish and started nailing drive after drive over the flag I was aimed at. Given the position of the teeing area today, the far flag was about 230, and my ball kept beautifully sailing well clear of it with just a little leftward movement from a cross wind.

Steve....

Please clarify "backslid"......

Phillip

Thanks for the heads up, Terry, I typically just hit the comment link and reply but will remember this tip. Never what I do when I get hit with a case of the lazies.

So I was trying the laser drill last night. WOW it's tough to run the toe line with that sucker. You really need to start back with the right shoulder to get the club to the right place to go up the tree with a vertical shaft. This is going to require a couple weeks to groove well, I think, but the feel of the shaft going vertical is great. I have the laser in the butt of my weighted 7 iron (wrapped most of a roll of 1" wide lead tape around the head and hozel), and it really does become almost weightless as it goes up.

thanks for that robert although i have to admit  i had to read it a few times lol

Okay, I was outside practicing this drill this morning. Unfortunately, I'll have to do it at night in order to get any usable video with the laser I have, as it's not bright enough for the camera to pick it up well even in the dim morning glow. What I have discovered: we're all right, just thinking everyone else is wrong because we're using different words for the same thing.

Doc, in terms of Steve's point about "people not getting to the toe line," this goes back to the crossed understandings of one-piece takeaway. Too many people learning this swing still have the old "low-and-slow" advice and don't allow the arms to rotate as they turn their bodies. This keeps the club HEAD well outside the toe line for too long, causing them to flip it back into the SBG (as Surge loves to demonstrate) when they can't get the club any higher without turning the arms. What Steve saw originally that lead him to the laser drill and his ability to now hit a 7 iron 185 yards was my arm movement, which was similar to Surge's but exaggerated. When I was a rotational swinger, I had a very fast move back and around. I'd never followed the "low and slow" approach, so Surge's toe-up in the mitt was easier for me as my arms don't fight the natural rotation when I take the club back. My problem has been that I often over-rotate them. However, seeing that in my swing and in Surge's, he realized that he wasn't letting his arms rotate as he turned and lifted, and once he did, the entire club was on top of the toe line much faster, allowing a smooth lift from that point into a good vertical position.

Now, what I discovered this morning in trying out the laser, and what Steve was talking about with it getting on or inside the toe line, is exactly what you were saying about the last bit of turn and lift. In reality, the line that the laser traces in a good takeaway is a slight arc that starts somewhere target side in line with the ankles, moves in across the tips of the toes, and at the very top of the swing is pointing again at a spot in line with the ankles on the far side from the target. It's similar to what Surge discusses in the putting videos that with a putt, straight back and straight through is actually a very shallow arc because our shoulders are some distance from the swing center at the base of our neck. Anyone who remembers back to their geometry classes knows that you trace an ellipse as an arc where the sum of the distances between two fixed points is always the same.

Finally, the really good part about you jumping in, Doc, is that Steve and I have been having this conversation for months across many videos and comments sections. Like you, MOST of the people reading here haven't been avidly following the discussion and many weren't even reading the site when it started (in fact, as I recall it goes all the way back to the old site). So Steve and I are saying things that we both understand, because we know all of the context, but other people jumping in the middle must be reading it and saying, "WTF are these two idiots babbling about?" In part, this is why I think a threaded board, like we have in the IC, would be better for this sort of discussion as it allows a person to read the entire thread from the beginning to figure out the context. I really wish there were more activity on those IC boards, and that there was an easy way to connect these conversations with those so we could continue exploring these ideas without having my 20 page discourses taking up space here. ;-)

Amen to that. The same thing on league play and especially open weekends when the (NO OFFENSE INTENDED) But, when the wife and kids and all beginners are out learning to play and backing everyone up with US-Open pin placements.

Yeah, I assumed twosomes, not threesomes. Not sure why they'd have DJ in the first threesome of the 9 unders, though. He had the best round among them, and the second best round 2 of the tournament.

The little camera next to Rocha is the video of them interviewing him after his second round, I think.