Dlow206 does away with double bogeys

[RickyBobby_PR]

Are you going to be sticking with Monte as your instructor? You switched away from him last time because you preferred hands on instruction. 

[dlow206]

17 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Are you going to be sticking with Monte as your instructor? You switched away from him last time because you preferred hands on instruction. 

Yes, i will be sticking with Monte (i know i have made these types of statements in the past). 

After working with multiple different instructors and different systems, I have come to some realizations. I need someone who can point out the root cause(s) of my issues, tell me what is supposed to happen in the swing, and provides some good ideas on what to try (drills, feels, etc.). Then it's on me to figure out which of those drills and feels best resonate with my and how my mind/body work together. 

And now that my son is vaccinated, there will likely be more trips to the LA/OC area, so more opportunities to work with Monte in-person (my in-laws live in So Cal). Monte in-person lessons really help me a lot. Haven't had an in-person lesson with him for 2 years. Right after that lesson, my wife was seriously ill and then the pandemic hit, so haven't made it down to So Cal since. 

[Goober]

This thread seems to focus more on the physical appearance of the swing itself. What kind of scores is it giving you? That should be the main priority 

[dlow206]

Working on speeding up the arms the past few days. The thing with Monte is he doesn't always prescribe one single drill, he refers you to the "type" of drills and then you have to find one that works for you. Tried a few drills and they did speed up the arms, but i started to do some other unintended things. Finally came across a drill, Monte calls it a 9 to 3 swing. I came across the Dan C. version which is what to focus on as the intent of the drill. Backswing to arm parallel, trying to have the intent of keeping both arms straight (he said the trail arm with actually fold) and wrist set. Then try to get your arms through as fast as possible to the 3 o'clock position, arms straight as well in that finish position. 

Sent the following video in to Monte as part of the Improvement Plan. The interesting part is although my intent is left arm parallel, i get to what could be considered a full backswing position. Monte replied to the video with "Nice". Translating that into Monte Improvement Plan speak, that means keep doing that, you didn't introduce any new major issues, don't try to move onto other things. 

 

[stephenmatt]

Getting feedback of "nice" seems a little bit lackluster to me. I would stick with an in person coach who is not going to change things as frequently as they have been changed in this thread. I have seen multiple instructors, multiple swing methods, and multiple things worked on within days of each other. Epiphanies will happen and most of the time they are going to be useless or counterproductive. I know I am in the minority but I went from a 23 handicap to a 5.3 this season after only playing golf since May 2020. You need to stick to a plan and instructor and work with him tirelessly on one thing until it is perfect. That might mean working on your inside takeaway for 3 months until you can do it without thinking about it. If you are training and practicing correctly this should happen relatively quickly within 2-3 weeks and shouldn't take more than 4 weeks. An inside takeaway should not still be a conscious thought after having worked on it for this long. This is one of my favorite threads and you are one of my favorite posters on this website and I am rooting for you I just think some changes need to be made in terms of practice habits and jumping from one thing to the next.

[dlow206]

23 hours ago, Goober said:

This thread seems to focus more on the physical appearance of the swing itself. What kind of scores is it giving you? That should be the main priority 

When I post the swing videos, its not about how aesthetic my swing looks. With that said, looking at the appearance of swings on video is how I and others can identify major flaws or root cause issues. 

3 hours ago, stephenmatt said:

Getting feedback of "nice" seems a little bit lackluster to me. I would stick with an in person coach who is not going to change things as frequently as they have been changed in this thread. I have seen multiple instructors, multiple swing methods, and multiple things worked on within days of each other. Epiphanies will happen and most of the time they are going to be useless or counterproductive. I know I am in the minority but I went from a 23 handicap to a 5.3 this season after only playing golf since May 2020. You need to stick to a plan and instructor and work with him tirelessly on one thing until it is perfect. That might mean working on your inside takeaway for 3 months until you can do it without thinking about it. If you are training and practicing correctly this should happen relatively quickly within 2-3 weeks and shouldn't take more than 4 weeks. An inside takeaway should not still be a conscious thought after having worked on it for this long. This is one of my favorite threads and you are one of my favorite posters on this website and I am rooting for you I just think some changes need to be made in terms of practice habits and jumping from one thing to the next.

I understand that I have jumped around quite a bit, that's purely on me. In working with a lot of different instructors, i have learned many things, both good and bad. I have also learned more about how I learn best. I know i still have a long way to go and my scores have not dropped as much as your, but I am proud that my scores have dropped from 110+ (before keeping a handicap) to mostly 90s. 

[dlow206]

My in-person lesson with Monte yesterday was profound. When I got to No Bogeys, I was hitting some warm up shots on another bay while Monte finished his lesson with another client. Monte had observed a few of my swings. When our lesson started, after a few minutes of conversation, he said he knew exactly what I needed to focus on based on the warm up swings in the other bay. 

Please bear with my explanations, they might not be explained 100 percent technically correct, because these are my wordings of what the issues are. Basically, the main issue is I get on the right side by the top of the backswing, and then during the downswing have a big hip shift/slide/thrust (its some combo of all of those) towards the target (the slide is towards the target, the thrust is diagonal (i.e. early extension). 

Monte said that based on the above, I likely miss big right and then some sort of hook in compensation, which is exactly right. The main thing he had me work on is get into my right side early on in the swing, and then at left arm parallel start to get back to my left side (i.e. recentering). I am aware of this move and have seen it a lot from Monte, AMG, and others, but wasn't something I have focused much in the past because it wasn't something I was prescribed to work on in the past. I was able to get the feel of the move pretty much right away and went through a series of shots where I was executing well. When executed well, everything was mostly dead online. Shots were like 1 foot left, 1 foot right of the target line (yes, 1 foot, not even 1 yard). I started to lose the feel a bit at some points, and reverted somewhat to a mix of old and new move, but the results were still decent (i had some worse regressions during the playing lesson portion, which i will talk about on the next post, but Monte said that was to be expected on course).

Here is a Trackman view of the dispersion. (note, the shorter shots weren't mishits, they were warm-ups and early on shots getting the feel of the new move. these are with a 9 iron)

[Shapotomous]

If that's your dispersion with the Spieth chicken wing in your swing I'd keep it!!!  No need to spend time & effort getting rid of it since it looks like your natural swing personality and it isn't hurting your accuracy at all.     

[dlow206]

The second part of the lesson was a 9 hole playing lesson. I knew i needed a playing lesson because my short game is trash. The variability/consistency of my short game is extremely high some days its sufficient, some days its atrocious. 

One the first hole, had about a 50 yard shot into the green. Took my lob wedge and hit what I felt was a partial shot. Monte saw it and said that I will immediately drop 3 strokes if I fix my technique. He said I was taking a full swing from 50 yards but decelerating to get it to the right distance. Then he saw me putt and said I have a weight shift to the backfoot and then a hip rotation on the forward stroke. Later on, on the next hole, Monte saw me execute a shorter chip shot and he said I am firing my hips on a 15 yard chip shot.

So the large variability in my short game is caused by improper technique, which in my mind is a really good thing. If I had been using proper technique and having this much variability, that means that I was really poor at execution. With improper technique, there are specific changes that I can work on that will improve my short game. Monte was saying that with improvements, that I should quickly see a 3 to 10 shot drop in my scores, but that I have to put in the work. Here are the main specific changes, drills, feels, etc. that will help me:

1. With putting, put an alignment stick through my belt loops when practicing to monitor the hip movement
2. Monte said due to the hip rotation in my putting, I naturally pull the ball, so I am to the right to compensate. During the lesson, when I was able to improve on limiting hip rotation, I started to miss everything right
3. With chipping, pitching, and shorter approach shots (less than 100 yards), my lower body needs to stay more quiet, and I should feel like I am on my left side immediately, almost like a reverse pivot. The key here is feel. Monte is not saying to go out and make a big reverse pivot move on these shots. But what feels like that to me, is actually results in keeping the lower body quiet
4. He also said not to rely on the bump and run shot that I have been using, and that the bump and run should only be used in a few limited circumstances. I had been relying on it so much because of my high variability with any other short game chip/pitch shot. 
5. He said to stop choking down on my short chip/pitch shots. I tend to choke down quite a bit, most likely as a compensation for worrying about blading the ball too far

I was able to execute some of these changes pretty decently on the course during the playing lesson, and they had instantaneous positive impacts. 

[dlow206]

1 minute ago, Shapotomous said:

If that's your dispersion with the Spieth chicken wing in your swing I'd keep it!!!  No need to spend time & effort getting rid of it since it looks like your natural swing personality and it isn't hurting your accuracy at all.     

The Spieth chicken wing went away during the lesson with the proper pressure shift and recentering that Monte had me work on. While that was the focus of the lesson, that change in movement made a lot of other bad things go away. Monte said that pretty much all of the bad things that happen in my swing are related to this in one way or another. 

[Shapotomous]

The issue with the full swing / decelerating for less than 100 yard shots is extremely common.  Ask somebody who struggles with this to take a 1/2 swing and then watch their hands get to their shoulder level... Show them the video and they can't believe it!    

My big $$ idea of the day is to fabricate a right angle training aid stick to push in the ground that will act as a horizontal stop between the waist and shoulder to stop the hands at the desired height.  

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

@dlow206, thanks for sharing. Sounds like it was good. Now remember what he said and dont try to deviate!  

The pressure shift is huge. I remember i period i was striking the ball the best this summer was when i was keeping my back to the target longer and shifting into my left side. Need to rekindle that spark.

Very interesting about your putting stroke. Makes me want to reexamine what is going on with myself.

 

Keep up the great work!

 

[dlow206]

26 minutes ago, Vegan_Golfer_PNW said:

@dlow206, thanks for sharing. Sounds like it was good. Now remember what he said and dont try to deviate!  

The pressure shift is huge. I remember i period i was striking the ball the best this summer was when i was keeping my back to the target longer and shifting into my left side. Need to rekindle that spark.

Very interesting about your putting stroke. Makes me want to reexamine what is going on with myself.

 

Keep up the great work!

 

Thanks. Definitely not going to deviate from this, especially after seeing the immediate impact that the correct movement can have. Normally my dispersion is right, right, right, left. 

Monte had said that everyone in his clinics has too much hip rotation/movement in their putting stroke, but mine was extreme. 

[BMart519]

On 12/21/2021 at 9:44 AM, dlow206 said:

The second part of the lesson was a 9 hole playing lesson. I knew i needed a playing lesson because my short game is trash. The variability/consistency of my short game is extremely high some days its sufficient, some days its atrocious. 

One the first hole, had about a 50 yard shot into the green. Took my lob wedge and hit what I felt was a partial shot. Monte saw it and said that I will immediately drop 3 strokes if I fix my technique. He said I was taking a full swing from 50 yards but decelerating to get it to the right distance. Then he saw me putt and said I have a weight shift to the backfoot and then a hip rotation on the forward stroke. Later on, on the next hole, Monte saw me execute a shorter chip shot and he said I am firing my hips on a 15 yard chip shot.

So the large variability in my short game is caused by improper technique, which in my mind is a really good thing. If I had been using proper technique and having this much variability, that means that I was really poor at execution. With improper technique, there are specific changes that I can work on that will improve my short game. Monte was saying that with improvements, that I should quickly see a 3 to 10 shot drop in my scores, but that I have to put in the work. Here are the main specific changes, drills, feels, etc. that will help me:

1. With putting, put an alignment stick through my belt loops when practicing to monitor the hip movement
2. Monte said due to the hip rotation in my putting, I naturally pull the ball, so I am to the right to compensate. During the lesson, when I was able to improve on limiting hip rotation, I started to miss everything right
3. With chipping, pitching, and shorter approach shots (less than 100 yards), my lower body needs to stay more quiet, and I should feel like I am on my left side immediately, almost like a reverse pivot. The key here is feel. Monte is not saying to go out and make a big reverse pivot move on these shots. But what feels like that to me, is actually results in keeping the lower body quiet
4. He also said not to rely on the bump and run shot that I have been using, and that the bump and run should only be used in a few limited circumstances. I had been relying on it so much because of my high variability with any other short game chip/pitch shot. 
5. He said to stop choking down on my short chip/pitch shots. I tend to choke down quite a bit, most likely as a compensation for worrying about blading the ball too far

I was able to execute some of these changes pretty decently on the course during the playing lesson, and they had instantaneous positive impacts. 

What was the cost of the playing lesson or was it combined with the range time? 

Playing lessons is something I want to do more of in the future. 

[dlow206]

3 hours ago, BMart519 said:

What was the cost of the playing lesson or was it combined with the range time? 

Playing lessons is something I want to do more of in the future. 

The 9 hole playing lesson was $250 including the green fees.

The separate one hour lesson was $175.

The playing lesson was super important for me given my problems with my short game. I've never filmed myself hitting short game shots, so I would have never known that I was firing my hips on a lot of shots, because I don't feel the hip movement that is actually there. 

[stephenmatt]

Nice man, it sounds like both the lesson & playing lesson went really well! Getting to my lead side was one of the hardest things I had to change with my own swing but once I could do it consistently it made such a positive impact.

Edited December 22, 2021 by stephenmatt

[dlow206]

1 hour ago, stephenmatt said:

Nice man, it sounds like both the lesson & playing lesson went really well! Getting to my lead side was one of the hardest things I had to change with my own swing but once I could do it consistently it made such a positive impact.

For me, I was previously getting to the lead side, but way too late. Monte wants me recentered before the end of the backswing, so that movement left needs to start for me by left arm parallel. Once I am in that proper position, the downswing feels like I am actually moving away from the target, which Monte said some will feel. Its because I am so used to thrusting/sliding forward, that proper rotation feels like i am moving backwards. I saw myself on video from a face on view and what I was feeling was way different than what showed up on the video. 

[Kenny B]

5 hours ago, dlow206 said:

For me, I was previously getting to the lead side, but way too late. Monte wants me recentered before the end of the backswing, so that movement left needs to start for me by left arm parallel. Once I am in that proper position, the downswing feels like I am actually moving away from the target, which Monte said some will feel. Its because I am so used to thrusting/sliding forward, that proper rotation feels like i am moving backwards. I saw myself on video from a face on view and what I was feeling was way different than what showed up on the video. 

Nice!!  I'm really glad that you got the chance to see Monte.  My swing has really improved since I visited him last March, and shifting toward lead side before end of backswing is one of the reasons.  Now if I could just make a bigger turn in the backswing like he wants me to...  

When I get back from my Palm Springs trip, I'm signing up for online lessons.

[dlow206]

12 hours ago, Kenny B said:

Nice!!  I'm really glad that you got the chance to see Monte.  My swing has really improved since I visited him last March, and shifting toward lead side before end of backswing is one of the reasons.  Now if I could just make a bigger turn in the backswing like he wants me to...  

When I get back from my Palm Springs trip, I'm signing up for online lessons.

The biggest takeaway from me was the short game. I can see why my attempt to use Monte's Use the Bounce in the past didn't work, because of the extreme amount of hip movement I have. I don't think I would have never known without having Monte see it in-person and call it out, because I definitely don't feel that movement.

Monte said I have the general full swing movements of someone who shoots in the high 70s and low 80s, but that my short game is holding me back and the getting stuck on the right side (not re-centering) is what is holding me back. He said I should see a big drop in scores pretty quickly (i know i have to put in a lot of work). 

[Kenny B]

57 minutes ago, dlow206 said:

The biggest takeaway from me was the short game. I can see why my attempt to use Monte's Use the Bounce in the past didn't work, because of the extreme amount of hip movement I have. I don't think I would have never known without having Monte see it in-person and call it out, because I definitely don't feel that movement.

Monte said I have the general full swing movements of someone who shoots in the high 70s and low 80s, but that my short game is holding me back and the getting stuck on the right side (not re-centering) is what is holding me back. He said I should see a big drop in scores pretty quickly (i know i have to put in a lot of work). 

Get To Work!!

When I came to my current course 6 years ago (has it been that long?), I had a terrible short game.  I had played at a course that had zero bunkers, so I had no technique for getting out.  Greens were extremely small and very slow and fairways were shaggy... yes, a goat track!  I played there for 10 years!!  Never practiced my short game.  I was really awful when I played at a "normal" course.  

My first year at my course I spent hours practicing at the pitching green, practice bunker, and putting green (we are allowed to chip on the putting green).  It really is amazing how much better I got in a short amount of time with focused practice.  While I am definitely a lot better, I found that if I don't dedicate at least some time each week maintaining that short game, I lose the feel needed to get the ball closer to the pin and make putts that I should be making most of the time... scores go up!

Now that you know what you need to change, Get To Work!!