Johnny Miller on Iron Play .... Johnny Knows!

[aldear]

Don’t know if any of you guys have seen this or not, but I thought it had some interesting info. in it.

golfdigest.com/magazine/2009-01/millerrules

Andy

[lagpressure]

Johnny Miller talks golf:

01 Play more than you practice.
Shortly after I turned 14, in 1961, I became the first junior member (whose father was not a member) at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. Playing Olympic day in and day out made me the good iron player I turned out to be. You never seem to get a level lie at Olympic. You’re required to hit a lot of awkward shots, such as playing a fade with the ball above your feet. You can’t work on shots like that on the practice tee, which is why I always played more than I practiced. A lot of things I learned on Olympic defied conventional teaching. For example, from a sidehill lie with the ball below you, the tendency is to pull it dead left—not slice it, as most instructors say—because you straighten your right arm to reach the ball, and you swing over the top. Don’t be one of those driving-range superstars: players who can make their irons sing on the practice tee but are only so-so on the course. Get out and play.

I could not agree more. There is so much to be learned from playing off sloping lies, and I feel a lot of the modern golf courses are trying to make the golf course like the driving range, and I find that completely boring. This is the main reason I don’t hit range balls… this way, every time I am hitting a ball, it really means something. I’d throw in that driving range mats are too forgiving and won’t give you the proper turf feedback that will be your golf course reality.

[lagpressure]

02 Don’t fall in love on demo day.
In 1974, I got a set of old Tommy Armour irons with no chrome on them. These dull-gray clubs had a soft feel to them that was just exquisite. The irons were 25 years old, but after I sawed down the hosels and added some lead tape here and there, they were like magic. I got on the hottest streak of my career. I won eight times on the PGA Tour in 1974, knocking down flags every week. The following year I signed an equipment contract and had to put the Tommy Armours in the garage. Big mistake. No matter what I did, I couldn’t make the new clubs perform like the old ones.

I have a set of these and I can attest, this is absolute truth. A soft feel that is fantastic. They are a great set and will play as well as any modern irons. I’d love to know why he sawed down the hosels! When you find a great set… keep them.

[lagpressure]

03 Listen to your shots.
In the winters when I was a kid, my dad had me practice in the basement of our house. I’d hit balls for hours into a canvas tarp tacked to the ceiling. Because I couldn’t see the ball flight, I relied on two kinds of feedback: how the shots felt and how they sounded. Thin shots, balls struck on the toe, and shots hit a shade fat have distinctive sounds. You’re always looking for that crisp thwack at impact. Even from the TV booth, I can usually tell immediately if an iron shot is mis-hit and if it will come up short or not have enough spin to hold. Sound can definitely give you clues as to how well you hit the shot.

The audio feedback is so important, and very overlooked. It’s great from a players perspective to read this. And I would add that this is the main reason I still prefer persimmon. The sound, the feel of miss hits is identifiable, much more than the high pitch squeal of titanium, and of course the general aethetic beauty of a nice block of oil hardened wood.

[lagpressure]

Distance Control Trumps Direction

If you’ve ever wondered what magic threshold you must cross to become a first-rate player, it’s simple: You must control distance with your irons. I’ve always been obsessed with distance control. When I felt my iron game was at its peak, I’d sometimes ask my caddie for the distance to half a yard. You control distance by hitting the ball solidly and varying the length and speed of your swing. If you do that well, you become more precise, which rubs off on your direction, too. The week I won the 1974 Tucson Open, I hit hole or the flagstick 10 times.

Miller later in this article mentions how he would swing at about 75% of capacity with his irons… which really gives a nod to his intuition for feel of distances. Knowing the exact yardage is great information, but I would guess that he was feeling the shot more than just knowing the yardage to the inch.

[lagpressure]

05 Get down on it at impact.
I’m a swing-sequence junkie. I love poring over sequence photos of the best players. The feature all great iron players have in common is that their heads are lower at impact than when they were standing tall at address. They really go down after the ball, not by bending at the hips or dropping their head but by increasing the flex in their knees. They sag their knees down and toward the target at the same time, moving on a downward diagonal line. Now, you’d think this would make you hit the ball fat. But if you lean the club forward, toward the target, so that the shaft is angled ahead of the left arm, you’ll absolutely pure it. Which leads to the next rule.

Throwing an ABS filter over this… I could not agree more. The knee bend allows for proper transition, and also flattens the shaft into entry if done properly. Deeper knee bend through impact stabilizes lowpoint, aids in maintaining ground pressures in the right foot, and encourages the shoulders and torso to rotate more level for both power, acceleration and accuracy.
It’s something I have been working on in my own golf swing lately.

[lagpressure]

06 Keep the angle in your right wrist.
Through impact, the hands lead a trailing clubhead. That delofts the clubface and makes it possible to hit down on the ball and squash it against the face. If you’ve ever wondered how good iron players make their shots bore through the air, this is it. Every effective iron player maintains the semi-cocked position in the right wrist through impact, the right palm facing down. Every bad ball-striker has the palm up. As I said only half-jokingly on a telecast last summer, if you want to be a terrible iron player and avoid getting to single digits, just flip that right wrist so the clubhead scoops and passes your hands.

I really agree here also, but feel this is a bit of a vapor trail view of the product of proper dynamic motion. The right hand flips if you pivot stall… it has to really. If the pivot is accelerating post impact as Miller did (does) so well, the hand collapse simply can’t happen.

[lagpressure]

07 Don’t sweat every detail.
Because iron play is all about precision, there’s a tendency to focus on details that are irrelevant or uncontrollable. For instance, a slightly wet clubface won’t affect distance. And you can’t predict how a small glob of mud on your ball will influence ball flight, so don’t stress about it. A light breeze won’t affect distance much if you hit the ball solidly. Concentrate on things that matter: alignment, rhythm and solid contact. Perform those well, and the small things won’t really come into play.

[lagpressure]

08 “Photograph” impact.
During one of my nice streaks in the mid- 1970s, Jack Nicklaus stopped me on the range one day and asked what I was working on. I told him I was concentrating on impact, trying to “freeze frame” that fraction of a second. “You can actually see that?” asked Jack. When I told him I could after months of training my eyes to take a “photograph” of impact, Jack said, “You’re crazy; the club is moving too fast.” But, as I said to him, it’s not only possible, it’s one of my secrets for hitting great iron shots. When I took the picture, so to speak, I checked that the clubface was square and delofted slightly, and that I was making crisp contact. Satisfy those impact conditions, and you’ll start chasing flags.

I really love reading stuff like this. I always keep an open mind to great players having special gifts, and this is a great insight into Miller’s, and it’s great that he shares this in this article.

[lagpressure]

09 Identify the sweet spot on your irons.
I’ll bet that if you asked the typical 15-handicapper to point to the sweet spot, he’d point to a spot too high on the face. Remember, all perimeter-weighted irons have the majority of their mass around the sole of the club, to help you get the ball in the air. That means the sweet spot is below the center of the face. This really comes into play on par 3s, where you’re allowed to tee up. Your objective should be to tee the ball so your “lie” is slightly better than a perfect fairway lie. And even with perimeter weighting, because of the design of the clubhead, the sweet spot is going to be slightly closer to the hosel than the toe.

This was my 7 iron from 7 years on tour. 3rd groove, slightly toward the heel.

[lagpressure]

10 Speed kills.
I can see wanting 10 more yards with the driver, but squeezing extra distance out of your irons is the kiss of death. In my prime, my standard distance for the 9-iron was 125 yards. I hit my 6-iron 160, and my 4-iron 185. I didn’t want to be long with my irons, only smooth. Reining in my swing speed was key to distance control and accuracy. If you can resist the tendency to swing more than 75 percent, you’ll have better balance and rhythm. Your mechanics will be better, and you’ll find the sweet spot more often. You don’t need a crazy swing speed to spin the ball, either: Pure backspin comes from good contact more than anything else.

I’ll add also, that a lower trajectory shot takes less energy on your part, and the ball does not have to fly as far in it’s arc, so you are actually taking the short cut to the hole compared to the guy trying to hit a wedge sky high from 150. It’s not that often that you have to fly a ball in super high to stop it over a tight pin placement. If you have to… you might want to re think that anyway and play a safer shot to the center of the green. You’re not going to birdie every hole, and sometimes these kind of pin placements are really just sucker pins. Play smart.

This is just some great stuff from Miller. Johnny Knows.

[kafka01]

Very good article and commenting - you probably could read this one, take it to your heart and never read another article/tip… for iron play and be a very happy golfer for a long time to come. But i guess if they print this article in their magazine, on the next page they are trying to sell you the newest and hottest irons on the market, on another page the give you a tip how to hit your irons longer, and therefor giving contradicting information to their readers within one issue of their magazine. For people with knowledge, its not so hard to identifiy bad from good, but for most of the golfing population that kind of “golf writing” is just very destructive.

[robbo]

@lagpressure

03 Listen to your shots.
In the winters when I was a kid, my dad had me practice in the basement of our house. I’d hit balls for hours into a canvas tarp tacked to the ceiling. Because I couldn’t see the ball flight, I relied on two kinds of feedback: how the shots felt and how they sounded. Thin shots, balls struck on the toe, and shots hit a shade fat have distinctive sounds. You’re always looking for that crisp thwack at impact. Even from the TV booth, I can usually tell immediately if an iron shot is mis-hit and if it will come up short or not have enough spin to hold. Sound can definitely give you clues as to how well you hit the shot.

The audio feedback is so important, and very overlooked. It’s great from a players perspective to read this. And I would add that this is the main reason I still prefer persimmon. The sound, the feel of miss hits is identifiable, much more than the high pitch squeal of titanium, and of course the general aethetic beauty of a nice block of oil hardened wood.

I think this explains why I don’t like to play with any covering over my ears (earmuffs, stocking caps, etc) in cold weather. I’d rather have cold ears than lose the audio aspect of impact.

Great article!

[aldear]

I told 1teebox this story yesterday…y’all may find it amusing.

 When I was a young man...say 9 or ten years old (this would have been in about 1980), my dad used to take me to the Texas Open every year. I used to have a heyday getting autographs from the pros....even have a nice collection of golf balls given to me by the likes of Bobby Clampett, Lanny Wadkins, Craig Stadler, and a bunch more. One year Johnny Miller, Ray Floyd and Jerry Pate came to the open ('80 I think?). Anyway, I ditched school early on a wednesday with my old man to catch a practice round at the Open, which just by chance all three of them were playing together. So, off of the 18th green they come, and I catch them for autographs. Ray and Jerry were really very cordial to the kids, joked with them and all. I walk over to Johnny, and ask 'Mr. Miller can I have your autograph?" I swear he looks down at me and says real arrogantly, "Do you think you deserve it?" I looked right back at him not knowing any better and said "Yes, I think I do". He just eyed me with a slight grin as if to say "touche' young man". People think he's an arrogant jerk, but he just has a really sharp sense of humor coupled with absolutely NO filter for what he says, which I love because it cuts right to the core of his thoughts....no BS. 

I mean who else has the stones to say on national television that Craig Perry’s swing would make Ben Hogan puke…Glad y’all emjoyed the article!

Andy

[kafka01]

How would you categorize Johnny Miller in regards to swinging and hitting? If you read / watch his videos he seems to apply both in his swing. He even talks about the right index finger, how it helps him to get feedback and apply pressure yet he uses a typical swingers release.

There is an article in the Vault where he talks about club speed, and how it is important to move the whole club instead of just the club head speed. He says : “The really long straight hitters get the speed right in the middle of the shaft”.
He mentions you still could achieve a fair amount of club head speed with the top of the club bearly moving but this would get you into trouble accuracy wise.

Does anybody have examples for this statement (good vs bad) of current tour players or this a phenomenon that doesnt exist at this level?

[lagpressure]

This is classic hitter’s stuff… no dump and roll here… cutting it left, keeping the clubface square to his shoulder rotation post impact. Great stuff going on with this action.

[CaptainChaos]

@aldear

I mean who else has the stones to say on national television that Craig Perry’s swing would make Ben Hogan puke…Glad y’all emjoyed the article!

I couldn’t agree more, Andy - and don’t understand why people give Miller such a hard time. I think it’s refreshing to hear a commentator with his experience give his views…candidly. No PC crap. Yeah, he may make some people spit out their sweet-tea while watching, but that’s a good thing IMHO. Just don’t wear a white polo when watching NBC!

What’s not to like? You have a winning/major champion golfer, student of the game, author, self-depreciating of his weeknesses, unabashadly confident in his strengths, and god-fearing family man. I’d much rather hear from Miller than some commentator that fawns all over the pros and doesn’t ask the tough questions. If you get praise from Miller you are probably doing something right.

Cheers,
Captain Chaos

[kafka01]

Sorry guys, i dont get it, why would Ben Hogan puke over Perry´s swing?

[CaptainChaos]

@kafka01

Sorry guys, i dont get it, why would Ben Hogan puke over Perry´s swing?

Because Craig Perry coats his club faces with Ipecac Syrup to impart less side-spin!

I wasn’t focusing on that comment, kafka…just Johnny Miller’s style, knowledge and delivery.

Captain Chaos

[PAUL_IOZ]

@kafka01

Sorry guys, i dont get it, why would Ben Hogan puke over Perry´s swing?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQkz9WuXNbE[/youtube]

That’s why