I suspect most of you have seen my thread “In Search of the Great Ballstrikers” on Secret in the Dirt. If so, you are also aware that site has deteriorated into a mess. So I will be posting much more regularly here on ABS. I have noticed the site is getting more active, so I hope we can generate some good dialogue here.
My initial post is going to be a question-how have you incorporated your mod work into your golf swing? I ask this because, while I do think it seeps in over time, I sense some of us get frustrated. I would offer one thing that really helped me- hitting shots with each hand alone. I will tell you I never could do this before ABS, but doing one hand drills gives us the capacity to do this. I will also say that, once you have made solid contact with five shots with each hand, I can almost guaranty you will flush the first shot you hit with both hands on the club.
Here is a video of me doing this last year. As you can see I am not expert at it at all, but hopefully you can see all of the first four mods in the effort.
Good to see this thread move to a location that won’t be dominated by all of the whack jobs over on SITD. What I have been trying to do lately is make sure I pressure down in to my left leg in my transition (lefty here). I think this is one of the reasons I have been having trouble shallowing out the shaft in transition is that I struggle with my upper body dominating the swing. As I have mentioned to you before Grady, even though I swing lefty, I am right handed. My first move from the top is a hard pull with my right hand and I am still trying to get a feel for allowing the club to fall behind me. More Mod 2 work is needed to get comfortable with pressuring down through the trail leg, but I still haven’t found a feel or thought to keep me from rushing my transition move. I saw you mention on SITD that you felt as if you had all the time in the world… I ain’t there yet lol.
I am still working on that as well. One thing that I find important, given that I am lead side eye dominate, is not to let my eyeline drift targetward as I load into the rear leg. But yes loading into the rear leg gives you more time. There is a different rhythm that must be learned, however, and that is part of what makes it challenging. I was always a 1 and 2 guy, but this is 1 and 2,3.
I was a TGM disciple about 3 years ago as a swinger I would hit really high shots and my miss were a block right. I found ABS and as I work thru the modules I’ve been relearning my golf as a Hitter now my shot are low penetrating shots. I’m ambidextrous, However I feel I have more power from the left side and my left hand is stronger. I also do the left and right handed drills and I have more control over the club with my left hand cause it is stronger. I 'm constantly working on my right side of my brain and focusing on my right side of my body.
I think the more drilling I do with my right side it will only get stronger. I’ve also thought about getting a left handed two Iron and do drills as a lefty. With that said I really appreciate your comments and all the Videos I see you posting. I also would like to thank everyone here and enjoy reading all the post, A shout out to Two and Lag for all the great post and the VAULT
Been a follower of your thread on SITD and a long time lurker here at ABS. Just signed up today and will be taking the plunge! Your improvements have been an inspiration for me. So thank you.
Look forward to your posts here and learning from both you, John and Bradley.
I just signed up for the whole enchilada yesterday.
Got my bag together and have been viewing all the wonderful material in the module 1 area.
Lag says our grip will develop into our own attachment to the club. My question is this:
Is there a preferred kind of grip that seems to work best based on experience or should I just let my hands
find their way onto the club by what comes naturally?
I have used different kinds of grips over the years, interlock, overlap, even baseball. I tried the Hogan grip but
that felt too uncomfortable with the right hand. It also seems Hogan’s grip changed over his career.
Welcome aboard. My own personal opinion is the Vardon, Hogan version of the Vardon, or the ten finger work the best because we use our right hand actively. However, I don’t see why an interlocking grip would be incompatible with ABS. I do think the relative strength of your grip (where the knuckles point) will change as you work in mod 1.
I’m definitely a lot weaker with my left hand than my right hand. It helps me at this point to strengthen my left hand grip or rotate my left hand clockwise. But this makes it more difficult to get the clubface open enough.
Do you think it’s better to use the weaker grip and just muscle through it or use the stronger grip that gives me better control of the club in the short term?
It’s amazing how simple it looks and how difficult it is to do. I don’t think I’m ready to send in a video yet. I can tell my arms are overly active, the face is too shut and I have poor spine tilt.
I agree with the SITD being a mess. It needs a complete make over.
The info you are putting out is awesome. I guess I need to work on TGM verbage. Any thoughts on where you can get the info.
Thanks
Jim
I agree with the SITD being a mess. It needs a complete make over.
The info you are putting out is awesome. I guess I need to work on TGM verbage. Any thoughts on where you can get the info.
Thanks
Golf7272
However, I don’t see why an interlocking grip would be incompatible with ABS.
I use interlock now, almost for everything. Prior to stealing Lag’s luggage I used an overlap, which now I use for swinging only, and Interlochen for hitting. I like the way the interlock feels for some reason with increased hand pressures, not sure why but I do. But you’re right, the grip finds you eventually.
I’ve been reading this forum for a couple of months now and I have recently started drilling with Twomasters.
It is great that there are experienced ABS students in here sharing their experience and knowledge. I finally decided to sign up to the forum because of this thread.
As a student just on drill 1 I hope to get as much insight as possible as I progress. Taking the drill work to the full swing and the golf course seems like it might be easier said than done but getting tips like doing one hand drills will hopefully let it seep in quicker to my swing DNA. Also good to know that those of you with experience are still working on early mods as you progress.
How long did it take for you to see improvements in your ball striking after starting the mods? Did you see some improvements and then setbacks along the way - a two steps forward one step back experience?
I know everyone is different and I’m not looking for a time frame to follow. Just curious.
I can’t comment on modules but I have some general observations regarding swing changes and how long it takes to see transfer into scoring.
In my experience, it takes a month or two to see consistent performance under pressure if I practice 3 or more times a week. From 2 months to 6 months, the change becomes a part of my “swing DNA”. The problem is that I am always fighting my body’s willingness to take over and do the old familiar motion. Doing a combination of the old move and new move winds up hitting worse than if i just going back to the old way of swinging.
I feel I cut down on the time it takes to be able to do the correct move from 2 to around 8 times out of 10 if I drill more than I hit golf balls. When I am on the course and have a bucket of golf balls, I always take 3-5 exaggerated practice swings between each and every shot. I usually do these practice swings with two golf clubs so I can really feel the weight on my muscles. This can get very tiring and it will be easy to give up and cut down on the practice swings, but it is good exercise for conditioning your golf swing. I think I get more out of a small bucket practicing like this than if I were to hit a large bucket without as much care for each shot. I feel like this keeps the emphasis on the new movement pattern instead of the natural compensations that come in to play when we are distracted by the golf ball. I also do many swings at home with exaggerated motions.
I think you will find if you try some of these things they can help solidify your new swing in a shorter amount of time.
I don’t think you will see improvement hitting balls until you get to mod 3. That is the mod that really blends it all together, and mod 4 refines that.
One of the challenges many of us face is uncocking our wrists and hitting it fat. I will still do that when I go to the range with my initial warm up shots. Holding wrist cock through impact is not yet automatic with me, having been a sweet swinger for 40 years before coming to ABS. One thing I do to drill this is to setup normally and take a swing with the intention in transition of adding lots of knee flex and feeling like I am sticking my nose in the dirt yet coming through the strike above and missing the ball. I have found it a pretty effective drill.
Thanks guys for the replies! I really don’t expect to see changes quickly. I’ve watched a lot of Nfbandon’s video on SITD and youtube and it is inspiring to see someone sticking to the process over a long period of time.
The suggestions you’ve made are great. I really agree with using heav(ier) equipment like Lag and Two recommend. So swinging with two clubs to really feel where the body needs to work makes a lot of sense.
I also struggle with throwing the club from top and losing wrist cock by impact. It also leads to a bit of a stand up move at impact. I got my blades flattened and hopefully that will have some effect. When you increase knee flex and put your nose in the dirt do you actually swing over the ball or make contact?
I don’t know what mod 3 has in store but I’m going to work on each drill as long as it takes to ingrain. The flashes of brilliance are what keep us going.
I’ve been working on drills 1 and 2 for a couple of months now and am slowly seeing it seep into my swing. My mod 1 work is beginning to show some promise but I can still get lazy and fade/slice the ball on occasion or go the complete opposite and hook the crap out of the ball. The mod 2 footwork seems to be easier for me to work in as I started to apply the squeeze right away. But I am finding, as mentioned earlier, that I hit the ball fat a lot.
I was at the range a couple weeks ago filming my swing and I could see mod 1 and 2 in my swing, then upon impact everything reverts back to my old swing. I think mod 3 will help with that part. Like John says, we rebuild starting at impact and work our way from there.
