I DON’T personally. I just do with how you come across as all-knowing in your posts and videos that “THIS IS how the great ball-strikers swung a club”. NO IT IS NOT because you leave out examples (such as 2000 Tiger and Jack) that don’t fit what you portray as the end-all of theory. And then knock pro tour players as they suck if not flat.
Like I said their may be some merit to HEAVIER. This we can’t see on video who is using D1 or who may actually be E4 on tour so we don’t know if in fact that you say modern LIGHTER is hurting players is true, it MAY BE. BUT we can see that the deep shallow plane/entry is NOT universal to many world class strikers, ones that are purposely left out because they don’t fit what you are selling.
NO it does NOT make things universally objective to apply to all golfers. Did you not see my post as to why they used flat? Again, 5’7", 5’7" AND yep, 5’7" for moe as well.
Ohh and speaking of Moe, he may have used flat lies {because of him being so short} BUT lets see how flat his swing was:
We always hear about Moe using flat lie angles here at ABS but weird how we never saw anyone drawing a shaft line on him as well.
I find it interesting to read about ABS and actually really appreciate you and Lag in your principles and how you worked tirelessly to flatten your swings, lie angles and made gear heavier as previous Australian tour players AND it has worked for YOU. Congrats. But contrary to what you constantly state and pound into our heads (why I singled you out Two rather than Lag is because you are out there more with vids and such with this universal “My way is only way” speak) there have also been ultra WORLD CLASS upright strikers.
Budman, …read your first line…“I don’t personally…I just do with how you come across”…you don’t but you do?
Sorry for you if it comes across that way…nobody else seems to feel that way…maybe it’s your interpretation of things…if you read my posts (which you obviously don’t)…then you will see I am offering the BEST way I see from my experiences…not that it is “my way the only way”… what do you want me to do…make a 400 hour video and categorize every swing known to man and explain why each of them can/could work?
Your upright swing golfers that you mentioned…Do you ever hear Nicklaus as being up high in the stakes as a ballstriker?..was Tiger the best ballstriker in 2000?.. Not really, but they were great solid golfers with unbelievable mental skills and two of the best putters ever who knew how to win and step on people’s throats when the opportunity arose…
I made some youtube videos that people (except you) really enjoy. Those videos may give me xtra opportunities to help people with their golf and yes possibly make some money. Ever heard of anyone giving their life’s work and experiences away for free? Do you not see on the youtube videos I mention Advanced Ball Striking Forum - Discussions about properly striking a golf ball …yet don’t receive anything financially for me being on the forum. That’s not about me…those videos are about allowing people access to hopefully or what I believe is better information about the golf swing and how these people may be able to get their games to the desired level they are after. Lag and myself are a team as we are both on the same page as far as what we believe in. I am sure he could probably make better videos than I do, however he has the forum here and his students. I have to spread my word somewhere else to try and provide for my family and have a lifestyle. I do that out there in youtube land with a thousand other people all trying to peddle something as the next best thing.
That’s the internet for you…Watch, Listen, Learn, laugh or Loathe…whatever the individual wants to do with the information provided. I honestly believed from watching other youtube videos that other instructors believed their way was also the best way…amazingly i am the only one in your eyes who comes across that way and I MUST BE OBEYED.
I talk and I give examples to highlight my thoughts…That’s a crime? I am supposed to feel bad because you think I want to make money off my golf instruction and teaching…as I am in your eyes…“trying to sell something”… a shoe salesman sells something, a curtain rod man sells something, a food vendor sells something…ever seen an infomercial?..you make yourself sound childish with those comments as if I am the only person to ever to attempt to do it via the internet.
I just told you the 3 most revered ball strikers ALL used flat clubs…and it wasn’t enough because none of them were over 5 feet 8 inches tall…If you want tall players here goes…
a tall player has knees and can use them, he doesn’t necessarily have to stay rigid and swing steep… I have no idea what all their lie angles are but they certainly aren’t 4 or 5 upright like everyone uses today…hence the word FLATTER when I mention it in my videos and when we talk here…I never tell anyone to be 6 flat or 8 flat or 2 flat…Flatter can be different for everyone based on shoulder turn, transition drop, spine tilt, forearm rotation, foot pressures, pivot thrust, knee flex…the word I use if FLAT or FLATTER…it has a fairly broad spectrum of numeric possibilities
Did I beat you in pennant golf one day or something?..you certainly have a chip on your shoulder about me…Lag says the exact same stuff and he’s golden, I say it and I’m a dickweed…c’mon Budman what you are writing makes little sense
Maybe we should try a Moe pic or two when he has actually started his transition move down and applied some knee flexion …certainly lloks flatter than the pic you posted where his knees were taut
Tiger in 2000…not as upright as B’man’s pic tried to show
If you don’t like my videos and don’t think they are beneficial then don’t watch them. Just like when the telemarketer calls…hang the phone up. it’s no skin off anyone’s back then. There is no need however to come onto this forum and try make me sound like a know it all when I am offering my services and assistance to people here at ABS for the betterment of their game and not for the betterment of my pocket.
Are you EFF’N serious? This is exactly what I am talking about with you. That is just an obscene statement. So 71% fairways hit at 300y average plus 75% GIR in 2000 is NOT the BEST ball striking? On modern fast greens.
So He ONLY won because of his putter and mental skills? Lol. Proof? Do you have statistical proof of this or is this just more of your hearsay that you portray as fact. 71%/75% and destroying the tour was ALL putting and a deep will to win. His striking sucked and you have the answer to why…
Bottom line is Tiger circa 2000 and Jack Nicklaus were Upright (Tiger even used upright irons). Moe norman also came down steeper mid-body plane. You going to throw in more requisites for what phase of downswing now to when to draw the shaft line or am I allowed to do it at the same time you do your drawings with Hogan/Trevino?
This is the last I will post and clog this forum with this. I gave my opinion, you rebuttled, I countered. It need not go any further and needlessly clog this great forum with bickering. I surrender what I see with my own unbiased eyes to your years on the Australian tour and watching videos of 5’7" Hogan/Trevino/knudson (and since when do Floyd and Phillips {Who?} be lumped in as better strikers than Jack/Tiger? Ohh of course, they fit your model, how dumb of me)
I have never said that you absolutely have to swing flat to strike the ball well. There have been some fine strikers with upright action. Nicklaus, Hale Irwin quickly come to mind. However, I can speak on this topic with direct and personal knowledge that it is a significant advantage to strike the ball from a flatter swing plane for all the reasons mentioned on this site.
Most people simply don’t because they either were not taught that way when they started or simply didn’t have gear that would allow them to entertain such an approach toward striking a golf ball. I don’t think it is any coincidence that some of the greatest strikers of all time played off very flat gear and swing planes. In my studies, the more I interrogated flat lie angles and flat entries, and learned about the hidden or often forgotten concept of a golf swing harnessing much greater use of forearm rotation potential… the more I have learned how much most of us have been leaving on the table.
You can argue flat lie geometry all you want, but I think if you really get into it… and both study it from a clinical standpoint, and practical application, you will come to a similar conclusion eventually. Flat lie angles make striking a golf ball much easier once you are able to learn the basic protocols and apply them.
Of the old school players I know that personally saw Nicklaus play week in and week out, I don’t know of any who would consider him the purest striker of a golf ball. Barkow covered him through 3 decades and agrees also. But as we know, there is more to playing golf and winning events or majors than just striking it pure. Ask Mac O Grady. Mac could do things
with a golf ball no one on the planet could do… but if you can’t chip and putt… golf is a tough game. No one hits every green.
I would also say here that my most advanced students who have gone into flatter lie angles are doing well. I don’t get many emails from top students here that tell me they are going back to irons 3 or 4 degrees upright. I think once you understand that missing greens long and left is not the place to be… just that concept alone keeps us into flatter gear and flatter swing planes.
What might seem extreme now certainly was not back in the golden age of the greats. All you have to do is examine a lot of the stock gear from 50 or 60 years ago and you will learn that the standard accepted today is a newer concept than what has been collectively presented to the game historically.
Thank the Christ! You are a complete boor with your contradictions, personal attacks, and hyperbole. I’d suggest you pull a Progressive movement tactic and “reinvent” yourself. Create another member name…how 'bout say, Millerman! Yeah, that makes sense…still American, but has better taste.
In the several weeks that I’ve been involved in ABS, I’ve scoured The Vault - an amazing resource and a considerable body of evidence. Although only on Module 1, I’ve also sneaked peeps at some youtube vids of guys drilling Mod 2 and Mod 3. Yesterday, I saw some video footage of Byron Nelson and it was all there - Mods 1, 2 and 3 - to my inexperienced eye. Indeed, there are so many commonalities between the great strikers of yesteryear that are quite different from the accepted norm in modern instruction. I find this very interesting - compelling, in fact. There’s an hypothesis that modern players swing upright clubs in the only way they can to effect a good strike because they grew up with them and learned a swing that would do the job - no alternative really because manufacturers make clubs that way - the people they sell them to usually swing over the top and slice. It’s a fact that over time clubs have become a lot more upright.
I started playing at 49 years of age and have played for 13 years. I always had a problem with a hook and struggled to hit fairway woods and hybrids off the deck.
Will the way the greats of the past swung the club help me? Now, the only way to test an idea is to employ the empirical method - suck it and see - actually do an experiment. I’m very happy to be a datum in the experiment - having lots of fun and learning so much. I can’t say any more here but those working on the module drills understand. It’s not just accepting some concepts - it’s about experiencing through drilling.
When I see the vid of 2M winning the Aussie Masters, the swing and the quality of the shots is as good as anything I’ve seen. Should I listen to this person and respect his views? Silly question, I think.
The word “cult” is usually applied to a group of people sharing a belief system. Beliefs can be challenged but as the great decathlete Daley Thomson once said “The stop watch or measuring tape don’t lie” - in our case it’s the golf ball. No brain-washing here. Just a bunch of people doing what they love.
Budman
when we talk 5 flat, the question is from what “Standard”. there are still some irons on the market where the 5 iron is 58’ (most are 60’). I have two unhit sets, one a wilson from the 50s (Carey Middlecoff) and the other a women set from the seventies (Northwestern). Both of them set very flat but may be this weekend I will check the lies.
On these forums we have mathematically demonstrated more than once why flat means straighter. I will repeat this for the umpteenth time, it does not mean to bend ur clubs 5/6 degrees flatter and you are good to go. It requires some serious work to be able to swing on that plane. It has taken me since March 2009 and only inthe last couple of months have I been able to really control the ball. When I got my first set of Hogan Bounce soles in Dec 2009 and played in Vegas, I was literally crying from anger and thought this guy Lag must be crazy expecting a new golfer in his mid forties swing these things. But since then I have gone to the heaviest clubs ever known and love them. I am playing off a 10 right now but the few scratch golfers in my club are amzed by my ball control. You see established golfers pull a big hook and then for the next few holes chicken out and miss them right.
But its hard to get around that idea. Everybody still make fun of my clubs saying things like wait till he gets “better” clubs. to the extent that I had to put a $300 putter in my bag just to show, I am not a junkie.
PS: does anyone have unhit irons heads (shiny) that are heavy that they can part with.
Any idea what lie angles and swing weights Peter Senior played back in the day? I see the amount of shaft flex he creates in transition and it certainly looks like his clubs were seriously heavy…
Bradley would know better than I, but I think I remember Bradley telling me Peter had his irons 3 degrees flat. I remember watching him play in person and noting that he had flat gear compared to most everyone else.
I played a lot of golf with Jim Benepe who beat Norman in the Western Open at Butler National, which was one of the toughest tracks on the PGA rotation back then. Jim’s irons were 8 degrees flat… and I held them and even hit some shots with them. Benepe was a top tier ball striker in his prime.
John Morse who won the Australian Open was a friend of mine, and was using irons swing weighted at E6 when most other guys were playing off D-0 to D3. Flat heavy and stiff, and he controlled the ball a lot better than most guys back then.
Thought I would put this up here as it is somewhat related.
A range customer had this bag filled with the oddest set of stuff I’ve ever seen. He’s probably close to 70 years old and doesn’t hit them like he once claimed, but he still likes to give these oddities a ride. They can be spotted in the bag from a good distance too…so I scurried over to have a peek and he let me give them a go.
First up: a 48" stiff, steel shaft, Controller Driving Iron. The damn club is almost as long as me
Not certain of the dynamics, but they feel way heavy for my weakling status simply given the length…and…the toe was set up a bit at address since the lie angle was very flat after setting it down at address with wrists cocked upward to handle the length. If I didn’t set it up that way the shaft angle would have been on forehead plane on me.
Even being a stiff shaft, with the toe up, there must have been some toe flex because of the length resulting in some easing up there…so it squared up pretty good on the strike.
Took what little entire body muscles I have to move that puppy…but there was no possible way to either quickly accelerate from the top, or jam the club through as there is simply no room to do so. My entire body had to move it. I thought the feelings and sensations were great for being underplane and turning it through with such a long instrument.
Hit that for a while with so-so results and then for the fun part. He had an identical one set at 44" and when I grabbed it, it felt like a pitching wedge in comparison and I did pretty good with it. He also has a 42" that I didn’t have time to get to…but…he left the 48" club with me and said " I’ve been looking for someone to will this club to, and I think I just found a home for it"
I had a blast with it…and going to work with it for a while.
So this is an interesting thread. As I signed up for 1-3 mods, partially into mod 1 and reading, reading and reading…
The question that keeps coming up for me is this: Is there middle ground here? Where does a swing become upright vs. flat? Can assume by using the 1 plane vs 2 plane idea, (even though we all know there is more to it than that) that there is a compromise somwhere that may fit a particular player? I understand the dif between hitter and swinger. Can a player have both?
I know one thing. Ever since I learned about hitter instict that we all have, it seems we are better off yielding to that instinct to some degree vs trying to fight it. On the other hand, I am getting a little older (59) and although in good physical condition, my experience so far is that a more upright swing is easier on my lower hips and knees. If the tradeoff is that I can practice less and play more consistently, then maybe there is my answer.
So I keep trying to find that common ground where I can rotate through the ball, more than the typical swinger but not the all or nothing methodolgy.
Your professional thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
I’m 51…like you i preferred upright for the short 3 years i was playing…granted I stunk. Never thought i could go flat. I’m only in Mod 3 but what i see now…flat the way John teaches is the way to go for me! I have alot to learn but the crisp feeling of the strike is something i never had and now i see flashes.
The guys on the forum are a remarkable source for “lightbulbs” and suggestions. The Captain and the bunch do not lie. John’s way is the way I go for now on!
One must remember that upright CAN turn into something flat on the downswing. Furyk is a prime example.
Big plane shifts are more complex… but if that complexity feels simple and repeats… then you should be in good shape.
I remember seeing an interview with Furyk and he was asked… “Why don’t you use a more traditional backswing like Faldo?”
he replied… 'to me it feels like Faldo"
Not sure it was Faldo in the interview, but it was a great player with a more traditional backswing.
Upright often leads to steep. There are no advantages to steep… not in the accuracy or power department. But if you go flat… you do have to increase forearm rotation or you will lose power in the golf swing.
[quote] But if you go flat… you do have to increase forearm rotation or you will lose power in the golf swing.
I was wondering about this. My backswing has always ended up flat, my hands rarely getting above shoulder plane. for years i tried to raise it…
now since abs, i’m even more flat which does not feel bad but i’m wondering is there such thing as “too flat?” i’m about as flat as doug sanders right now.
I’ve been trying to let the left heel pickup on the backswing just to give myself a little more range. i’ve played for many years with my left foot flat
throughout the swing.
[quote] But if you go flat… you do have to increase forearm rotation or you will lose power in the golf swing.
I’m new here, been following twomasters on another site and like what he and lagpressure are teaching, I believe it is a great way to build and have a reliable powerful swing. And since employing some of the swing thoughts they prescribe I do have more directional control over my shots. I am more accurate, no wild hooking left, can even hit a persimmon wood straight and somewhat long, never been able to do that before! Now I’m not doing the drills, will purchase them when I can, just can’t afford them at this time.
I’ve Always had too steep a swing and until I found out about lagpressure and twomasters no one ever actually tried to teach me a flatter swing. Thats why I find what lagpressure and towmasters teach is significant to me and how I want to swing the club.
I found the quote above interesting as I am seeing a significant loss of distance as I transition into a flatter swing and the hitting procedure (based on what I am trying to learn from lagpressure and twomasters) that I am trying to employ. My 9 iron now goes the distance my PW used to, 8 iron, not even 140 yards unless I get on it hard, 7 iron not much further than 8.
I don’t want any drill information, and will admit I may not be doing everything correctly, but I am trying to learn as best I can. twomasters is great and has provided much information, wish I had heard about him when he was located in the States.
What I am interested in is where should I increase forearm rotation, from p3 and on through impact to PV5? Which is what I understand, again I may not be right.
Also I had my gamers bent flat , but have not added any weight yet - I have to guess that this is an issue as well as my clubs don’t have the mass necessary to makeup for my slower, yet albeit more controlled swing.
I agree that this is tough to do without drills. Its not that I don’t do drills to develop a feeling, I just know I am probably not doing what twomasters and lagpressure teach anywhere near correct 99% of the time.
I am working on it though and I am happy with how my swing is changing and developing and am quite thankful to twomasters and lagpressure for all they do.
My goal at this time is simple, develop a more reliable swing and much better accuracy. I believe ABS is the correct way to achieve my goals.
Somehow, someway I am going to have to find a way to be able to afford the drills. As for now, I just have to try to implement them as best I can, and thats okay.
Would you also think a lack of club head mass, or weight, may contribute to some of the lack of distance I am experiencing? I do know both lagpressure and twomasters advocate a heavier club head to better feel it in the hands(may not be proper description) and it seems to provide more power and mass into the ball.
