I had a two-day lesson session with Bob F. who flew in from New Mexico to get some instruction straight from the source. He had the DVD's and swing manual but felt he needed a hands on experience (see below) to be sure all he was doing was, in fact, correct. Naturally he was hoping to get things much more fine tuned.
Bob is a returning golfer, presently playing to a 17 handicap. He played golf from childhood to getting married, then put his clubs in storage for over 20 years to attend to family and business. He returned to the game around a year and a half ago and is having some trouble adapting his swing, as he was sure something was not right, despite his working hard to apply all the PPGS setup and swing principles.
He did the right thing in getting lessons and buying top brand clubs, but neither was really helping. When we went to the tee, I questioned him about his swing, his strengths and weaknesses and his physical aptitude. I especially wanted to know if he had any physical problems that could affect his setup or swing. He had no major health or physical issues and his major concern was that he was equally likely to chunk one badly or top or thin the next one. Those are two extremes that lend to hitting just about no good shots. His last big concern was that he was hitting everything out on the toe, weak and to the right and almost never got an impact that felt solid.
After stretching out, I had Bob start hitting wedges to loosen up. Then he went to the 7 iron as I filled out my diagnosis evaluation sheet. I then had him hit his hybrid and I finished up the diagnosis with him hitting his driver. His setup I would grade overall as a B to B+ which is good for a 17 handicap. His posture was compromised by his feet being a little too under him so his weight was on his heels. This caused him to be standing a little too close the ball so his arms were having trouble fully extending at impact. They were being pulled across the ball. This added to the problem of the toe impacts and weak right ball flight.
His biggest setup issue was that he was setup with his weight heavy on his left side (PPGS is pre-loaded heavy right), his shoulders were level and his right leg way too straight. The next big problem was that his head was cocked or tilted to the right and his nose was NBB (nose behind ball) pointing, on average, 4 to 6 inches behind the ball, right about the point where his club hit the ground in all his chunky shots.
When I started my evaluation of his setup issues of the heavy left and the cocked head position and how I would correct them, Bob stated that his teacher liked the more left sided setup and level shoulders and he was, in fact, working on that. When I addressed the NBB (nose behind ball) and it needed to be NOB (Nose on Ball) he was immensely interested, especially when I gave him the pointer test to demonstrate why NOB is so important.
The pointer test is simple. I had Bob stand facing me as if we were talking face to face around hand shaking distance between us. I then asked him to speedily lift up his right arm and hand and gently touch my nose with his right hand pointer finger. He did it easily and accurately three times. I then reached up to his chin and turned his head to where his nose was pointing, around 4 inches right, so his nose was now pointing right of my face. I asked him to lift and touch my nose. He missed it touching the side of my left cheek. He missed it all three times. I turned his face back to his nose on mine and he touched my nose 3 times spot on. You can do this yourself standing alone and looking into a mirror.
The point if this exercise is it is difficult to near impossible to touch (and in the case of swinging to hit a golf ball actually hit the ball) if we are not looking at that which we want to touch or hit. And looking at something means your nose is pointing straight at it, like the needle on a compass points north.
Bob explained that he interpreted (NOB) nose 'ON' to be more of Nose 'OVER' which added even more to his heavy left setup position. But the big issue was that his head and nose were over the ball but the head was rotated right, as the nose was pointing behind the ball.
When I got him setup up Pre-Loaded Heavy Right, which then has his head 'behind' the ball, I had to show him how to turn his head to get his nose pointing at the ball and thus be 'NOB,' nose 'ON' the ball.
Bob, an ardent reader of my daily articles, implored me to write an article and explain and clarify the NOB position in more detail, as he was sure others may have misunderstood the 'ON' and setup more 'OVER' and on top of the ball as he had.
I promised you I would write the NOB explanation, Bob. And as the old TV show by line says, here it is because, 'You Asked For It.'
The Surge!