Secret In The Dirt - Golf's Greatest Social Network

Doug, I really appreciate and acknowledge as correct everything you said to me there. My frustration doesn't come from not having a willingness to work, but from having such a timing dependant action that can hit 14 greens two weeks ago and then go to this kind of striking.

Doug Burke Response: Glad you took that well...means you are not a meow and you will need some manliness to improve at Golf. Tour Pros have variations from day-to-day so it is part of the game to be able to play through variations and not spit the bit...I need to fix something right now...no, you do not. First off, you will likely not be able to know what to fix until you know your swing very well. Secondly, you need to focus on what you are doing right on the course and not get into what you are doing wrong that is the first step in your game spiraling down the toilet like the crap you take every day. I don't want any toilet jobs out on the golf course. Thirdly, you are not a scratch golfer so consider your self fortunate to know what it feels like to his 14 greens instead of how unfortunate you are to hit it like crapola.

Yes, my practice sessions are completely pointless and unstructured. I was worried about the area I chose to work in today because it was very uneven. Instead of moving I moved my tee around a lot. Very undisciplined. I've become undisciplined with my set-up routine in play and practice when it used to be one of my keys.

Doug Burke reponse: Good. Telling your self what actions to take is the first step to improve. Please go out and do this every practice session. You will be amazed how in tune you actions will become with the target when you really focus. You will get very relaxed after awhile and then you will be able to understand better the relationship.

I'll go grab some sticks and get things better structured and work on that first move. How do you feel about making the right shoulder straight back the initiator?

Doug Burke Response: Yes, get some sticks and a tape measure. I want those hands in close to the body at address...hanging under your shoulder sockets. I want you to measure how far you are putting the stick parallel to the target line for every club. I want you to experiment with this a little and feel like you are crowding your self big time and then back off a little. I want your left heel on the stick that is perpendicular to the target line pointing at the ball...you can see my setup in the last video as well as the sticks. As far as the initiator, I want you to use something lower than your belly button. Dariusz said right knee for me. You could use left knee going straight out. You could use your crown jewels against left wall as the trigger and then back to the right wall on the back swing. Go for a 60/40% weight balance on your setup and keep the weight on the left as shown by VJ. I want you to feel what it is like to use your left side in the golf swing since you said you are a lefty. This will be a very simple move for you so you can use your body to power the swing. The main thing is keep your hands out of the equation as you change from a hand job to a body leading hand job. In this video, you can see John working with me to keep my hands soft...dragging the club along the ground using the body to drag it is very good for getting you to feel the mass of the club and your arms instead of snatching it away with your hands so you can not feel the mass.

Rock and Optimal Land,

Got some serious changes accomplished today. My feels and sounds went from hacker to amateur tournament player today.

I will hit driver alongside Rock and look him dead in the face and ask him how he likes them apples. I might not outdrive him every time but I will outdrive him sometimes.

I have found a lot of easy power and control and that makes me happy.

Dean Mitchell wrote:


Thanks,
Doug

Okay, I'm back from my range session this morning and can honestly say it was the most productive and focused I've been in a few years.

Doug Burke Response: Excellent work. Now we are talking. I liked your setup and it looked like you were focused on the fundamentals of your setup and the target. This is an absolute requirement to improve.

I worked hard on my set-up and takeaway first of all working on lagging the clubhead back a little. This felt comfortable straight away as I've been using this move prior to my recent poor play. I did as you said, Doug, and had my hands closer to me. To do this I had to bend over some more to create some space for the arms to hang. I struck the ball better, but with a pull hook flight with absolute consistency, which is a shot pattern I used to suffer with A LOT.

Doug Burke Response: I liked how you were doing the lagging clubhead takeaway and your address position looked solid. I like when you are hitting it solid…even if it is right or left…keep hitting it solid and you will slowly start to straighten it out. I wouldn’t make too many changes until after you hit ten in a row and allow your natural instincts to work things out.

I then moved on to working on my pivot as prescribed. I worked on feeling as if my left butt cheek was shifting towards the target as I approached the top of my swing and then initiating my downswing with a shift to the left with my left knee. I really liked this move and started to hit the ball reasonably and the path improved.

Doug Burke Response: Yes, your pivot is much improved. I really like that idea of the left butt cheek shifting toward the target or sitting down in the backswing so that way you can simply turn with the lower body and thorax through the ball. The one thing I see in your practice swings that I would like to see you modify. It looks like you are trying to load your upper body in transition. What this does is creates a situation where it will unload in an improper sequence. I want you to let these forces naturally happen and not force something to happen. Please relax the upper body until you can feel your lower body start to lead the upper body. This is important especially in transition so the hands can float down to flatten your clubhead path through the ball. The hand swaparoo will help you get that feeling of the hands lagging the thorax lagging the lower body lead side that you are learning to create with your pivot.

The other thing I really did today was to put the club slightly higher in my left palm than my previous teacher prescribed. This felt much more solid and secure (I have been wearing holes in my golf glove on my thumb and hand pad).

Doug Burke Response: I have it a lot in my left palm and am using a reverse overlap grip which has been great for me. The grip is an individual preference. I would try a lot of different grips and find out which one works best for you. This is a very important process to continue to optimize as your swing continues to improve. You will start making adjustments as you continue to get more float in transition and get your sequence fine tuned.

anyway, here are the videos, Doug. I hope you can see some improvement. I will admit that I forgot to take a tape measure and the 6 irons are teed to the ground as I wanted to keep them in the same place, but the bare lie wasn't helping my confidence.

Doug Burke Response: I studied the 6 irons. Above is a comparison of the second swing that you gave a thumbs up. You have a high quality swing...continue to work on that and you will be helping me with my swing. You have a very good flow and I like how you complete your finish and point the club at the target which shows an advanced skillset. You improved the lifting in your backswing with your upper body. The difference I see now is look at the difference in the upper body between you and VJ... see how he has more of an upward and stretch to the right with his left throax off his left butt cheek....where you are more vertical. Again, I believe the root cause of what you are doing is that preshot drill I see you constantly doing with loading of the upper body via rotation instead of UPWARD stretch and rotation. This should be very dynamic and not a huge muscular stretch like you are trying to lift weight above your right shoulder and a stretch that you can maintain through impact...you are getting rid of slack and you must keep a sequence that allows that to continue through impact. On the last one that you hit fat. Look at the subtle changes you made in your setup...you got the ball further back in your stance which is the exact opposite thing you want to do to NOT hit it fat. This you extra lateral movement and you got steeper than the one before. You have to become convinced that a shallower attack angle through the ball is what you need and that is all dictated in transition with the float down and how you sequence the lower body with the thorax with the hands. Pay close attention to your divots which should be shallow and starting 1 to 2" in front of the ball. Reread what Phily said with his stick man and where the release is. You must focus on every detail to truly own this. The sound that your ball makes will tell you how well you are sequencing as well as the sound of your divot and the ball flight. Watch and listen carefully. Start tying your actions to these results. All of the data is there for you if you are aware like a CAT.
Thanks,
Doug

Driver FO


6 iron FO

Got a question for you Doug,at setup how should the left arm,be rotated or not,reason,ive always had the elbows,pointed at the hip bones,,,ala 5-L.....im beginnining to believe having that lead arm in this position leads to mehaving to much forearm rotation or to soon forearm rotation in the DS

Thanks for the kind words of encouragement, Doug, and if my swing truly can help yours along the way I'll be honoured.

Dough said "The difference I see now is look at the difference in the upper body between you and VJ... see how he has more of an upward and stretch to the right with his left throax off his left butt cheek....where you are more vertical. Again, I believe the root cause of what you are doing is that preshot drill I see you constantly doing with loading of the upper body via rotation instead of UPWARD stretch and rotation. This should be very dynamic and not a huge muscular stretch like you are trying to lift weight above your right shoulder and a stretch that you can maintain through impact...you are getting rid of slack and you must keep a sequence that allows that to continue through impact."

The preshot practice I was doing was to try and feel that left butt cheek move. I wasn't consciously thinking about the upper body at all. I'm having a tough time understanding what you mean by the upward stretch and rotation, mate. Any chance of a short video?

Dean Mitchell wrote:


Doug Burke Response: Dean, I am glad to hear that you were leading with the left butt cheek...looked to me like you were focused on the upper body so now I understand better what you were doing. It would be good if you would speak to what you are working on so I understand better. The upward movement that I am wanting you to understand is basically the seperation of the upper body from the left butt cheek so you can get your left shoulder joint away from your left butt cheek at the top of the backswing more like VJ has it. For example, if you are sitting in your chair, you can rotate your upper body CW until your left shoulder has moved toward the center of your body. You can also activate your obliques to stretch slightly upwards from there. This is what I am wanting to make sure you are doing fully at the top of your backswing as this remove all of the slack in your upper body so can use that in your downswing. A lot of guys get pinched up on the rear side between the lower and upper body without this upward stretch and understanding how to stretch away from the rear side by falling left into the left butt cheek in the downswing. With you, I initially saw no seperation between the lower and upper body and a complete hand job. In this latest video, I see a huge improvement in the use of your body. I am making sure you are aware of these details so you can improve further...swing more like VJ.
Thanks,
Doug

Thanks Doug,going to take me a little to digest and integrate yr words,but the pics are worth a thousand words,i can see the difference in what im doing and what yr doing,,,,,,in my swing during the transition,on bad shot,which would be pulls for me,,,,,,,,the pocket of my lead elbow would be facing the camera,,half way down,,,,,i played around yesterday with at address with pointing the lead elbow targetward,and also i tried rotating the shoulder joint wich rotates the whole arm for me except wrist as my swing trigger,,,,in other words i believe my lead arm was folding to soon,,,,,,yr thoughts

Thanks Doug,yes yr body absolutely changes as we get older,my lower body,legs butt,not near as strong as they once were,this has been ajourney for me,ive lways been able to play decent golf,just with sheer athletic ability,knew some things were wrong because of inconsistency,,i cant tell you the times,my rounds usually consist of under par on one side over par on the other,things begin to breakdown,you know,one of the things that has helped me is adjusting lie angle on my irons,have always veiwed and swung around my body,never realized how i had been adjusting to upright lie angles until i video my swing to upload here,there is probably still some standing up going on,which i had to do to keep the heel from digging in,did it for so many yrs,going to take time.,,,,what i learned from yr pics is ive always worked at connection,ive overdone a bit,i would start with lead arm ,shoulder rotated targetward,and in trying to stay /feel connected would leave it on my body,wouldnt rotate until near the top, which would in the DS make it get stuck on my chest which im forced to fold it early,,,,,or not turn through.....anyway i think you have cleared up a misunderstanding of things on my part,as i sit here and think about no wonder i feared left so much

Dean,
I captured an image in the backswing before the transition to highlight the difference I see. Your upper body is moving nicely with a strong move now...you can see your stretch in your shirt. With the lower body, VJ is making a much more aggressive move with the left knee in addition to that. You are loading the right leg in a different way than he is. You are honing in on it, but that lower body move that he makes is key so you will be able to turn through the ball and reduce the lateral movement. This is important because a lot of lateral movement means that you will get a huge increase in tension somewhere and we want a natural flow throughout the swing with the body leading and the hands following.

Very excited for you that you started to run. Yes, take it easy and enjoy it. I run frequently. Ran in my first race of the year last weekend...8K, 5 miles in 44:12....about 6 minutes slower than my best in this race, but I enjoyed it this time and decided to encourage others who were walking during my run so I focused on that instead of lasering in on running my fastest. Got to know a lot of people that way. The winner of the race ran 25 minutes so he kicked my butt on the board, but I am not sure who had the better experience.
Thanks,
Doug
Dean Mitchell wrote:

Thank you very much Doug,ive read you and others talking about the hand swapperoo,not clear what it is,is it,,,going back with the lead,coming down with th e trail