Let’s go deep.
This conversation was a fantastic talk going deep into the concepts of the drills and execution of the drills and having excellent results !
Jesse,
Thank you again for having me as a guest. It’s a big honor for me. To all of you on the ABS forum, I’m just a fellow student… I hope/trust that the feedback from this podcast will be positive and helpful to the Podcast and to all of ABS.
Now, back to drilling… !
In the podcast, I give credit to ABS for creating for me a path forward to do things in golf that I’d never been able to do in 50 years of playing the game. In particular, the improved ball striking resulted in me doing something I (as a mid-handicapper) had never done before… which is shoot minus 1 under par for an 18 hole round. See scorecard attached.
Yes, this is a short executive course… but it has tiny tiny elevated greens, lots of slope, and if your iron play and short game is not sharp, expect a lot of short-sided bogeys… Erickson’s quadrant concept of never missing a green in the ‘red zone’ really is in play at this little course… this was a day that never would have happened without ABS. 5 birdies and 4 bogeys. 12 GIR. 28 putts.
Of course… I don’t play this way all the time. But the great thing is, on my worst days, my misses are today far far better than they ever were. My worst misses are still in the “green zone”. To me, that indicates progress in this great game. Thank you to ABS.
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Golf clubs used for that round: 1969 Ben Hogan Bounce Sole +1 blades, leather grips, 3 degrees flat.
Average club for me at 145-150 yards with those clubs: 4 iron (26 degrees). I was 65 yrs old 3 months.
So, I’m not hitting a lot of wedges. Lots of mid-irons and long irons. Another reason ABS is great. You’d never have so much fun with modern clubs!
And I am still (slowly) picking up some speed as I continue to progress in the Modules. So it’s never too late.
Great to hear!
Thanks for posting, and it’s always inspiring to read the success stories many of us are having as we improve our technique.
Also, thanks for taking the time to do the Pod with Jesse. Very well articulated as an ABS practitioner. In many ways it’s most inspiring to know the work put in is transferring into reality, rather than just armchair or theoretical speculation.
It was my pleasure John. Your story is incredibly inspiring and it’s my hope that folks will resonate with your story.
It
Jesse, thank you.
ABS has helped so much! Like I said on the podcast, if not for your Flaghunters podcast, Jesse, I might never have found ABS.
I can’t wait to hear your next episode with John Erickson and ABS student US Senior Amateur champion Louis Brown!
Here’s a playlist of my swing, during the past year Dec 2023, July 2024, Nov 2024.
So much more to do with ABS!
I should add that my swing is far from the ideal ABS swing, yet. I have much further to go. But that’s the point, as we discussed on the podcast - the Journey via ABS is well worth traveling, for all of us.
ABS drilling is yielding further incremental (albeit slow) progress. There’s no magic bullet; the ABS drilling is clearly improving my motion, my post-impact pivot thrust is better and faster for sure; but that said, there’s still so much that needs to be improved that I can see.
I have been diligently drilling all the Modules: Modules 3 and 4 to improve my post impact pivot thrust thru the ball, to “hold the X”, “exit low left and around”; Module 1 to improve my forearm strength and rotation into the ball; Module 2 cohesive body tension to firmly ground my body for the Module 3/4 “orbit pull”; Module 5 to transition; Module 6 to slot the club.
It’s worth noting that while my swing videos show my motion is nowhere near what it ideally could/should be; for example, I’m clearly not holding the right elbow bent enough and exiting low, left, and around the way I’d like; I’m raising up thru impact as my old 40 years of early extension pattern exists and I still has a long way to go to learn to truly rotate fully level thru the ball.
But what’s important is the above key foundational ABS fundamentals are incrementally improving slowly. And this can and will be true for you, too! The golf swing is truly invisible; my external positions above do not and cannot truly portray the internal improvements in my body from now almost 2 years of ABS drilling. It’s getting to the point where I can feel much different and deeper body sensations, and as a result, while it’s not visible, I feel myself really learning and re-learning a new, different way to strike the ball. I trust that I simply need to keep ABS drilling (there’s no time to waste, as I’ll be 66 in Jan 2025!). It’s hard work. It’s difficult (Module 3 is such a workout!) It’s not a magic bullet. But ABS IS making a positive difference.
Learning to do self diagnosis is really important in golf. Once you get the entry and exit from impact protocols down… then Module 9 becomes all you really need to gauge your body each day… from round to round and from hole to hole. The Mod 9 shot shaping protocols are where we want to end up so we can really properly control our ball flight shaping. This is when golf really gets extra fun!
Great chat guys, that was a fun listen
Great playing! Never too old to learn new tricks, more sub par rounds to come.
Enjoyed your podcast with Jesse, you have a great ‘radio’ voice. Your thoughts and message came across very well.