Ball Position: Seeing Is Not Always Believing

Hi everyone,

Don is already working on the draft of his application. The way I read the nominating rules, there are two main ways someone gets nominated. Either you are nominated  by a current Top 100 Teacher and seconded by two more (that's not likely, is it?) or, if you are a PGA Professional you can submit your own application via a hard copy or online application form. The form, while lengthy, doesn't allow the pro to attach any supporting documentation (like thousands of testimonials from people who are passionate about PPGS). If he makes the first cut he will be invited to submit that kind of material.

We are going to make a strong run at this designation this year because all of us feel he is deserving of it and it will give him an opportunity to write stories for the magazine once again. In truth, this will come down to whether or not the editors of the magazine want to invite The Fox into the hen house.

Tom Jans

PS. It might help our cause if we got a letter writing campaign going to the editors that begged them to give coverage to other types of swings than the modern rotational swing. We shouldn't mention PPGS or Don by name as that will look like a put up job, but we could say something along the lines of "we need to learn to swing in a way that won't keep killing our backs". Just a thought!

I really wish that great video Greg MacDonnell did a couple years ago about hand and ball position wasn't lost in the move. Maybe he can do an updated one?
The simple answer to your question is yes, the hands should almost always start slightly ahead of center with every club.

 Didn't bust a gut at all. Memories of the first time I saw my swing on video. Thought it was pretty good, but that was just the feed back of having good tempo.

I have a couple of observations that might help to think about.

1. Your right knee bends out too much causing EBRT and a big dip with the head.

2. The club head goes into the SBG and pulls the hands behind the shoulders in a 1 plane position at the top. It actually looks a lot like what Sean Foley teaches.

3. Your downswing starts off really well, but the head drop means you have to compensate for it with raising up and back from the ball.

Again comments on areas to work on. I would start by working hard on the knees so they rotate slightly on the BUS and level. Outward pressure the key.

Good luck. I am inspired to go film my swing and let everyone have fun with comments about it. No holding back now.

 Thanks, Steve.  I had been using RealPlayer to download and it stopped working right a while back.  I used the Firefox download helper a few minutes ago and it is great - simple to use and very fast (at least on my laptop). I downloaded the last 7 videos in about 12 minutes.

Speaking of videos, I emailed the atrocious one from my iphone and loaded into V1 but it's sideways & I can't figure out how to rotate it.
Its even uglier with my head cocked sideways.

Are you saying that the hands always stay in the same position?

 To be such a bad looking swing, it uploaded on the tube in the upright position.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Don't hurt yourself, busting a gut!

I enjoy your daily videos,which I try and replicate on the practice ground.As a
result I have now given up going on the course(Lytham is just too hard for me these days0
Half an hour sees me hitting quite a few good shots and a blessed peace descends upon me..
I leave the range and head for the club room and a modest lunch with my fellow golf bigots.
Now that I have almost perfected The Surge swing I d not intend to shatter my
illusions  by going on the course.!
Thanks Surge for giving me peace of mind.and the courage to recognise that at 80
I can still hit some great shots.without the need to go out and half kill myself  trying
to take on Lytham's formidable links.
All the very best,
Gordon Garment.

The only thing I can add to this excellent point is the more the front foot is flared, the farther back the ball will appear to non PPGS students.

I believe it is the same person, though not positive.

 Hi Gordon, if you think Lytham is difficult then try Royal Birkdale! I can play any other course but this at the moment. W'eve played together many times with Peter H. I use the Surge's technique & it has saved my game. Ken W

The same according to Greg McDonald. Check this out.

Is this the one you mean. Where he shows the hands in the same spot for every club.

http://www.swingsurgeon.com/Da...

Boog,

I've seen worse - on my own videos.  As I commented on your YouTube site, it looks like mine when I snatch the club on the takeaway instead of starting smoothly.  The rest of the swing then goes out of control and I usually overswing.

I think the two big things to look at are your alignment (you were aimed a good 20 yards right), and too much movement of the forward knee that's allowing you to get so far back around yourself. But I've certainly seen much worse swings. That's playable.

 Camera angles are a problem. One eye instead of two. A bit of the fish eye lenses on some cameras.

Not only the angle distortion by being a little off the toe line is the height of the camera. One both the videos shot down the line and face on of Don and DJ the down the line is very low and shows the club head going deeper into the SBG than it really is.

My personal height to set a camera up is at the level of the head. specifically the base of the neck which is the center of rotation. It is also a lot easier to relate to as when we are on the range or the course we view most others' swings when standing.

A camera view I really enjoy is directly above the base of the neck. This helps the student to better relate to where the club head is arcing to from the address position.

The first time I can remember seeing this was from an overhead camera at the PGA Championship of the swing of Larry Nelson. It totally altered some of the ideas of the swing that I had gleaned from the literature of the time.

I do not think it was lost. This one is from 2011.

Is this the one you mean. Where he shows the hands in the same spot for every club.

http://www.swingsurgeon.com/Da...

 Thanks for all the insights and help, my friends. It's much appreciated. I hope to get out Friday or Saturday and work on the swing some more.
 Pretty much have to quiet those knees more, caught myself slipping out back at the hall this afternoon and  ghost swinging some.I'm playing 2nd fiddle this week,which is way better than not playing at all.

When you say the ball should be on the centline of your stance does it mean that the center line of the ball should be on the stance centerline or that the back of the ball should be on the stance centerline?

My bad, Didn't even see you posted the link until after I did.

One in the same,T.

 This is off topic but I just noticed in Golf Mag a nominating process for the top 100 Teachers in America.  I think Don should definitely be nominated and much deserves to be on the final list, but I can't figure out how a reader nominates a teacher.  Any of you have an answer?  I looked at the nominating form but it is for those wishing to nominate themselves, or so it appears. Surge is deserving.  Anyone out there in Surge Land know how we can do this?

 Good luck with your journey. Rooting for you.

 Thanks, Tom.  The Golf Mag article in effect said that readers of the mag who know of worthy teachers are encouraged to communicate with the mag.  But the web site as far as I can tell provides no means for mere readers to take part in the nominating process.  I'm pulling for Don and hope he makes it, but I'm sure politics of one kind or another will be involved.  Whatever the outcome, Don will remain in my mind as an absolutely committed and passionate and talented teacher.  Having recently retired from 45 years of university teaching, I know a little about what it takes to keep the best interests of students in mind. Don is on my list, and I'm sure on that of many others, regardless of the official results.

That's the one. Why did I think it was lost? Maybe I'm just lost.

I can't seem to get Real Player downloads working properly, so I took your advice and downloaded the Fire Fox down loader helper. Seems to work well so far. It still downloads into Real Player formate so I'm trying to figure out how to add them into my actual Real Player Library. So far no luck there, but there should be some way to do it. I have all the past ones saved into this library, so it would be nice to continue adding the new ones into the same. At any rate, thanks for the tip on Fire Fox down loader, it solved 75% of my problem. If need be, I can live with the other 25% short coming.

Here's a good article on the process.
http://www.waynedefrancesco.co... 

Like this very much.  This will really help me.  Would like to see one on squaring up the driver and fairway woods and irons.  I have not been doing this.  One of my fellow golfers got me to do this two rounds ago and I have added 20 to 30 more yards and hitting them straight.  Tell me why turning the club face in is not good.  Lenny

 I watched his video on YouTube this morning and it cracked me up.

A few too many snide comments that didn't need to be there.

Over all I found a lot of the pertinent observations on target, that is for the rotational world. The funniest was over extending the on-on-on into to a linear direction far beyond what it was intended to be.

Also the wrist break problem still suffers from a need for a better term to describe what no wrist break really is, a move from the downward droop at address to a position of dynamic strength. Currently wrist break in the rest of the golf world means cupping to achieve the angle at the top.

In Wayne's defense he does say that both Don and DJ are great players who manage to produce winning shot making. What he misses is comparing and individual's personal adaptation of the PPGS fundamentals to what he thinks is are perfect representations of what it should look like.

Another off topic question:

Does anyone know if changes were made to Utube to prohibit downloads. I have RealPlayer set as my default video/music player. When any video's play I get a small prompt window open at the top right corner saying "Download to Real Player" The prompt gets acknowledged, but the download will not start. Doesn't matter if I'm logged in or not, and the same video downloads fine from the PPGS site.  It sucks because I used Utube as my primary music downloader. I like the variety of several video choices with each song. This just started a couple or so weeks ago.

Any thoughts/ideas appreciated.

Surge, why not place a white aiming stick on the mat perpendicular to your aiming line to help us visualize your feet position during the setup. It would also assist you in camera placement prior to videotaping your daily.

Tim Carter

 Thanks for the reference.  I read the article and found it both interesting and depressing. This List business is clearly filled with all kinds of problems.

And one quick question: Am I correct in thinking that Wayne Defrancesca was doing a fair bit of criticizing Don's swing approach? Or do I have him confused with someone else?

Thanks again.

RF

just al alignments lines to the golf mat.

Is hand position the same with all clubs? Do they move forward with the ball?

No problem Robert. Just think, that feeling of being lost will happen more often as you crawl your way toward the end. Fun!? Anyhow it's nice to find out that the time you are wrong is when you think you might be and find out you're not after all:0

Yes, that is how I originally save them to a separate created folder, however, since Real Player is my default player for all Flash Videos and they play in that format, I would like to add them directly into the created playlist's within my personal Real Player Library. That was a mouthful, wasn't it. At any rate I figured it out. JIC, anyone else has a similar question. At the bottom of the real player screen is a playlist tab, click on it select save, Save into a new playlist any name will do, Then it's in the Library and can be moved about freely from one playlist to another.

All of this has solved my problem and allows me to continue saving all dailies into the same old cache, so thanks for the tip again on Fire Fox down loader.