This indeed is a great forum with deep insight! I am learning much and Im very grateful for all the information that is flowing through here and in quality truly exceeds my former position golf I used to learn and struggle with. Many thanks to Lag, BPGS1, flop and Gerry.
…Gerry, thank you for your response. you summed up very clearly your views and now I see where you come from. I also agree with your idea of playing golf the way you mentioned in regard to applying ones handicap to the course, especially for high handicappers as myself. It´s the exact same way I decided to approach golf last year when I had immense frustrations reaching some par 4´s and 5´s in regulation and I just decided to change my whole approach to my home course and the game in general. Everything became more enjoyable and I developed the habit of playing much smarter and thoughtful golf altough it took a good few rounds to change my mindset, good stuff.
I would like to add that your response to my question of your profession was a little perplexing to me and I do not know what you mean by pigeonholed. I would like to add that no justification was sought. Im not a student of Lags, yet, and judging from you answer you read my question as more of a challenge than curiosity. I was curious about your general profession ( my credentials : broke student pilot) because your posts seemed full of knowledge and highly technical. But, of course it does not matter in the least, no one needs credentials here ( although by now and reading your posts you seem not only knowledgable but wise) just courtesy, respect and a hunger for knowledge and Im happy to report that I too, am quite happy in my skin. I guess there´s a fat chance anybody will tell me what book he wrote…if it´s good id hate to miss it.
Gerry and Pip’
If I may comment, I have played a fair bit of golf with Pip who has had the classic “paralysis by analysis” due to conflicting and contradicting advice. Your book has changed his whole outlook…great stuff !
Icejay…Sorry if there was an misinterpretation re my background but I do have a reason; I have always had a particular contempt for authoritarian bullshit, in all of it’s formats. I’m not offering myself, or anything that I may have ever achieved or acquired in my lifetime, as testimonial to the accuracy of the simple facts that I offer, I’m only offering the facts and they must stand on their own values.
I’m just a free thinker who chooses to dwell far outside the ‘square’ who had to work very hard disciplining himself to remain objective, no matter what the cost to me, personally, may be. If I had twenty academic and/or scientific letters behind my name I would still be who I am and sign my name as I do now;
Gerry Hogan
Gerry, out of interest, it’s been 17 years since you wrote the book, is there anything you’ve discovered since then that you might change in a new addition? I do have and love your book by the way.
I understand you have not hit a ball for quite some time… I didn’t either for about a decade.
When you where playing, did you embrace a competitive spirit with either an opponent, the course itself, the weather?
or were your trips around the links more on a different level of sensation… something more esoteric maybe?
As I have spent some time lately pondering the questions and ideas floating around Lag’s amazing site, the conscious/subconscious aspects of ball striking and golf in general got my attention. I found myself focusing a lot on fear and trust, and I saw that those two aspects divided themselves into two categories. The first group - those in need of a ball striking skill set and, the second - those who have it (some in great abundance). There are also some here just to help with their ideas. This post is mostly to those working with or, thinking about working with Lag.
Fear for those in my group, the one in need, it breaks down like this. We fear looking bad, incompetent, foolish, out of control, poor of form, the unwitting class clown etc, etc. These all fall under the category - fear of being unskilled and having to show it. If not, the first tee chatter of my back is acting up, I haven’t played much, I’m working on a new swing, my dog ate the last issue of Golf Digestion would cease to exist.
Fear for those having the skill set seems very different in nature. All I can do there is look at it through the eyes of the few skill sets I do posses. As I read my way around this site, I have to believe that from hacker to champion everybody who has found this site and, believes what it is about, must have some proven skill set or, they wouldn’t be here. Actually the only skill set required is the understanding of what a teaching force Lag is. That said, with my set as a guide - fears run like this - not meeting expectations, losing the feel, succumbing to pressure, poor implementation of skills, losing the desire etc, etc.
Golf is a very funny and strange game. A person can be fearless in all other aspects of their life, even those with a high degree of danger but, in the game they care about and love, be piss in your britches afraid. I think, to some degree or other, be they large or small, one reason we are all here is a little or large bit of fear.
For those of us in the golf unskilled set the solution is easy. We need to commit to the bag and the modules and, build a foundation of ball striking trust. Trust is fear’s most potent enemy, and here is a place to grab it. After that we can then gladly go on to the next level. For those at the next level, from solid to truly exceptional, trust is still the quest but, as in any high wire act a lot more complex of a target. Does it just need polishing, re-energizing, or rebuilding? If any of you at the top of Lag’s class would want in any way to elaborate, I’m sure all of us lucky enough to be here would love to listen. Flop
After last nights debate on head movement, over on the “concepts” thread, I thought in might be interesting to discuss the various reasons or options for how we deal with transition in the golf swing. To bend the knees to initiate the transition from backswing to downswing is certainly a time tested method with long list of great examples.
Of course if we bend our knees, we drop the center of gravity, and certainly our head moves down. Some might argue that you could counter this by moving the spine back or more erect in an attempt to keep the head still.
Knudson was adamant that the head is not the center of the golf swing. I certain feel that way.
Some feel a big move left is the way to initiate transition, but this is usually accompanied by a quick opening of the hips and shoulders, which means if you spend your rotation too early, you simply can’t use it later when you really need to.
this is a great study here… in particular, Greg Norman…
66% of his weight is on his right foot at impact,34 left.
Some might argue that there was a slight time delay even on the analog scales, but it wouldn’t think it would be massively significant, which suggests that the rush over to the left side is highly overrated if not completely faulty procedure.
Excuse me if this is an ignorant post but here goes. Surely in an action like the golf swing there will be forces that are exerted that in the use of a weight scale would see us increasing our overall weight? Like if I jump on a scale I can get it to peak out. Why in these measurements would the players weight remain the same? If there was reasonable force on the back foot to feed the forward thrust shouldn’t this weight be reflected in the measurements? Bio talks of sheer forces moving in many directions with the feet on the ground, shouldn’t these be considered more or at least as much as just weight transfer?
I weigh 165 pounds, but after transition and loading into the feet, I can get my effective weight up to 280 pounds.
We can then take these pressures with proper application and utilize these forces to increase our pivot strength.
This is why I advocate a lot of knee bend at transition…
To do this, we see the head moving down, as most great ball strikers do…
I think the thing of interest in the chart is the % or weight rather than the actual pounds…
It’s basic stuff… but the horizontal forces are really important as well. We get into this in a lot of detail in our
module #2 work…
I was lucky enough to be privy to the whole head thing with Daryl and found it somewhat perplexing. Without getting into the ‘TGM’ debate it was rather skillful the way he continually avoided answering a simple question, until he realised you wouldn’t back down. It seemed he couldn’t separate his belief from that of Homers which is a shame as he seemed like a very knowledgeable and intelligent, but maybe not independent, thinker.
I’m sure most weren’t around for the debate online the other night, but basically we had one of the top dogs on LBG come over here for a bit of golf swing intellectual banter, and I happened to be around as well as BPGS1 over on the TGM thread in the “Concepts” forum. I was hoping we could all learn a few things, and maybe unravel a few of what I feel are the unsolved mysteries of Homer Kelley’s epic work “The Golfing Machine”. Our guest “Daryl” was kind enough to share his thoughts and feelings on TGM and claimed that he was simply interested in what we were up to over here at ABS, as someone apparently notified him that there was some discussion about Lynn Blake’s golf swing going on here.
I have never met or worked with Lynn so I am not one to really comment on his teaching methodology, other than a quick glance at one of his videos which didn’t seem to fall to far from the TGM tree I was nurtured on as a youth.
Any method seems to quickly gain steam when someone on the tour takes off and seems to beat the world. Faldo seemed to christen Ledbetter, O’Meara sparked Haney’s career, Tiger and Harmon and so forth.
A bit of background on TGM’s early days…
I was at the birth of TGM’s first big public explosion when a young Bobby Clampett took over the Amateur world and dominated the US Collegiate scene with what many believed might be the golf swing of the future. It was an exciting time because many really believed that this very unusual golf swing de-jour might be the future of the way a golf swing should both look and perform. People including myself were in awe at the way Clampett struck the ball with this extremely late loading wrist snap from a very slowly building tempo that really did look space age. Soon after another figure arose but claimed the other side or TGM… Mac O’Grady who was like the dark prince of the movement, “the hitter” who went right to Homer himself and took sides against the swinging protocol so carefully constructed by Ben Doyle.
Pick your poison, but both Bobby and Mac were stellar strikers at the time. The hitter and the swinger. While Ben quickly developed a cultish following and for good reason… myself included, Mac on the other hand, was more self guided.
There quickly emerged a split faction between methodologies… the hitter and the swinger. Clampett’s game seemed to unravel quickly due to the rigors of the road, more than likely because of the increasing difficulty in dealing with a golf swing that relied so heavily upon very large timing elements. Just about the time Clampett went on a search for a better way officially leaving the Doyle camp, O’Grady started to make waves finally getting his tour card then winning twice on the PGA Tour including the prestigious Tournament of Champions at La Costa. Mac was actually able to win almost purely on ball striking. Not something that happens often. Mac over the years gravitated toward teaching as his short game was not really up to the standard of what was going on with the other guys on tour, and TGM was left without a crowned Prince.
There certainly were other teachers who taught a more watered down version, and you would hear about influences of TGM here or there… with this or that tour player and so forth… but it’s wasn’t like before. Both Mac and Bobby were homespun on this stuff… not already seasoned players who popped in for a few lessons like Elkington, or VJ or Annika. Mike Holder down in Oklahoma was putting out good players but he was not in anyway fundamental TGM, and probably for good reason.
Over time, history shows the bigger picture, and history is still writing it’s conclusion about Homer’s work. My view is that if the work is near perfect as some would like to believe, then we should be seeing some of the games finest strikers emerging from it’s various factions. This not being the case, we are left to conclude, either the work has flaws as Mac and I feel it does, or it is not being taught correctly… or it is simply too difficult to execute properly or a combination of some or all of these reasons.
In hindsight, the most intriguing element about TGM for me is this strange non scientific dogmatic, turn a blind eye thing, that seems to be so pervasive in the various factions of it in today’s game. In an attempt to better understand the work, when I bring up the tough questions in the presence of TGM fanatics, I get elusive behavior, vague responses or as BPGS1 suggested “circular countering arguments” typical of techniques used in cults that pray on illogical use of logic. Quotes from the book seem like bible passages but are often changed in wording or quotes that have no verification within the book, or sometimes reference to secret audio tapes that only a few have access to in the secret underground. It seems if you get close to what might be serious holes in the theory, you are quickly labeled either a trader, heretic, or non conformist who simply doesn’t understand and needs to go back to TGM mecca and get a re-schooling. It doesn’t feel scientific anymore, and that is where I think Homer would not be proud of what has happened.
LAGS…
I am glad that you asked that question. To me, golf is the game of life and it’s so much a parallel to the true realities of life itself. In golf, and in life, you pretty much get out of it what you actually seek and how much you are prepared to put into the journey, whether you know it on not.
A very long time ago I came to realize the differences between NEEDS and WANTS and that understanding has literally governed my life, and the way that I think, ever since. On that one I’ll leave you to chew on your personal ‘bones’ to meet your own needs, I lack missionary impulses or skills.
I progressively got to like amateur golf less and less. I had formed a very close friendship with a proud Scot who had lived in Australia for more than twenty years, when I met him, and he was a fierce competitor and a hell of a player. I formed a concept, a game that he and I could play that was a game within a game where he and I could go at it, head to head, close, hard and personal.
Both of us had completely lost interest in the numbers games and organized club competitions. In ‘our game’ we each had to nominate what shot we would hit, off every tee and then into the green. We took it in turns. We didn’t count scores, we agreed on the day’s winner in other ways.
“Ok, I’m hitting this tee shot at that tree in the left rough and I’m going to work it back onto the right side of the fairway. I’m going to hit 8 iron into the green from there with a slight draw”. Then it was his turn to nominate EXACTLY what shape he would hit for drive and second shot.
After each shot we each had to be our own critics, first up, on a rating of 1 to 10 on how we assessed our own performance on each task that we had set ourselves. Then we assessed each other, first on the honesty of our assessments of self and then on what the other had actually rated in our opinion.
To top this off we got to playing late on weekdays when very few, if any, other players were left on the course. We would make up our own composite ‘golf course’. And that was scary! Tee off on a par three, hit sideways, backwards (whatever took out fancy) across adjacent fairways to some preselected spot, from there anywhere that took our fancy to a green that was within reach, even with a three wood or 2 iron and we would call that a par four.
Hell, tee off on a long par five with a wedge and work it out from there! The variety was endless. A short par three where the winner was the one who could finish closest to the pin with the longest club. Hitting a driver to a tricked up, elevated green 130 yards away, that will get your attention!
Then my old mate got very sick and eventually died and that left a hole in my life that was never filled. Golf never meant the same to me again.
I devoted my book to three people, Alexander (Alec) Campbell Cook was one of them. He was the only man I ever knew who would kick the ball off the fairway into the rough…I knew too many who would kick, nudge or carry it from a bad place to a far better place elsewhere.
It was the ultimate challenge, ask no quarter, offer no quarter. Accept everything that the golf course, the weather, the opponent, luck, personal ‘infirmities’ could throw at you, and look for more. I’ve done some hairy ‘stuff’ in my life but nothing ever made the adrenalin pump like a head to head with my Old Mate, Cookie!
Thanks for asking and bringing back the fondest memories.
Gerry
I have a question for the forum and in particular to lag.
TGM-part-heretic Manzella believes in the kinetic chain and also that the pivot stops and it is the momentum of the arms that bring the body up. Recently one of his teachers explained that when the shaft snapped on his driver, there was no longer any momentum and so his follow through stopped, proving this point that it is the momentum of the arms and club that bring up the body. To me, this concept seems to be linked to the kinetic chain, and what Bio talks about. The pivot accelerates to a certain point and then slows to allow the rest of the power package to accelerate through - I imagine like cracking a whip.
Lag - this seems a bit different from what you hold as imperative in the follow through. You seem to advocate actively accelerating beyond impact, at least with intention if nothing else. Our M3 work confirms this, and your discussion on the 5th accumulator too.
Is this another example of a difference between swinging and your hitter protocol?
stinkler
“Gerry, out of interest, it’s been 17 years since you wrote the book, is there anything you’ve discovered since then that you might change in a new addition? I do have and love your book by the way.”
Thanks for asking.
Yes, there is much that I would change but little about the line of content.
Obviously I have learned much in the last seventeen years but it’s invariably been about continuing to eliminate the worthless and the trivial, to be able to simplify, simplify.
The changes I would make would be to strive even harder than I did in the first book for absolute simplicity.
I believe that the gravest mistake that people make when they attempt to communicate, via the written word, is to serve their own egos and not the needs of those who will be trying to comprehend what they have written. This is especially valid when writing to convey instructional material and intent. The more simple the message, the easier it is to understand and follow.
The writer needs to be aware of his or her intended audience and how to garb their attention and hold it. No person likes to be made to either look or feel like a fool, an uneducated, incompetent moron.
It has been my experience that, the more that I encourage people to think for themselves, and gently guide them in how to do that, the more they find that they can think and have the right and the confidence to ask questions. Invariably it changes their own lives, in countless ways.
The more complex instructional writers make their material, the greater the number of people who will avoid it and the less will be the value for those who do read it! What the instructional writer should be aiming for is quite the opposite. If it’s almost childishly simple in expression but reaps improvement for the reader with exceedingly little effort/ input on their part, two beautiful things will happen for the writer; (1)…every player in Charlie’s entire playing environment knows his swing, his handicap, his capabilities and his potentials better that he does. If a new and quite different Charlie emerges, every one of them is going to be driven to find out why. (2)…and Charlie will not be able to keep his mouth shut, he will shout it from the bloody rooftops, he will tell everybody because that is what golf does to golfers.
Sincere regards and best wishes
Gerry
G’day everyone. This is my first post. I’ve been enjoying just reading the posts, especially the insights from Gerry.
I’ve always enjoyed playing golf when the comps have completed and the course is empty. This allows me to ‘invent’ my own holes, teeing off on one hole, with a different green in mind for the approach. That’s why I really enjoyed Gerry’s earlier post. Can’t say I’ve thought of teeing off with a wedge, though, or played driver on a very short par 3. I’ll give that a go next time.
Gerry, when someone plays for the first time with clubs designed by you, what are main differences poeple have experienced compared to their own clubs?
Love your book, it’s full of little gems. After years, I’m still picking up on little things that escaped my attention before.
Regards, Smoothy.
…
Seems that I may have to defend my own professional position here. In your assessments on what I now write kindly remember that I didn’t bring this to where it is, you did that.
Initially I merely stated that the belief that the player, any player, can commence the downswing and then, at some magical point, quite literally reverse the entire processes already triggered and unwinding in strict accordance with a deep subconscious pre-programmed intention is incorrect, and can be proven to be so.
You reject that, in total, but the only proof or evidence that you have, so far, been able to offer is what you have perceived from your own ‘feel’ and experimental tricks and the unsupported offerings of others, no matter what their positions in golf may be. Because they ‘say it’ certainly doesn’t mean that they can prove it, or even do it!
Firstly, what I perceive your own beliefs to be. I needed to know where you, lags and others were coming from relative to this TGM thingie and nobody was wearing badges or had caps with TGM on them. You also quite clearly saw the needs to object to, quantify and qualify my statement that the downswing, once underway and pre-programmed to continue on to is normal finish, cannot be changed. I stand by that. My position there is crystal clear, yours wasn’t. I sought more definition from you.
Reverting to my old career I tossed a couple of rocks into the bushes and waited to see what might come scurrying out! Now I know you better than If had read all of your posts.
I will keep this objective and non personal, merely responding to what you have offered. You can feel free to continue to go at it anyway that you wish. I would like to consider this just one point at a time.
1)…(quote)“I can hit a low, medium or high trajectory shot - sometimes! - in response to a verbal cue given by one of my assistants as I reach the top of my backswing”
Here you have specifically stated that you can do this… “as you reach the top of your backswing”…I see no mention there of doing so, at any stage, once your downswing has commenced.
You have also gone to additional lengths to stress the qualification…“-sometimes-”…So what is your success/ failure rate in this experiment? “Sometimes” doesn’t seem to indicate a high rate of success, or even a moderate rate, so let’s say it’s one of out three (I suspect it may be less that that). You state that you can hit it low, medium or high doing this. Your success rate in doing this is certainly not better than one out of three. You have a 33 1/3% chance of being right, whatever happens, and that’s no better than the age old shell and pea game.
You can “hit a push, pull or straight ball using the same drill”. I know of no other alternative than to start it right, start it straight or start it left. Again, only three options on offer. We can presume that you can only do this …-sometimes-… also!
That too is neither science nor evidence, it has no value whatever as proof of your claims or dismissal of mine.
…“So on that count, you are simply incorrect.”…
That’s all that you can offer to support your claim that my research is flawed, invalid?
Let’s also consider the playing field that you have established here and the critical differences between it and the reality.
In the reality; a player is playing a golf shot strictly and totally in accordance with the demands and the needs of his/ her golfing situation at the time. They harbour no suggestion, of any kind, that this downswing, or any other, will be flawed, after it commences. Here there is no suggestion whatever that there will be a need for mental evaluations, reassessment and subsequent need for the physical rerouting and re-programming of what is already happening.
That is a very different playing field to the one that you have described herein. You clearly state that, in your specified experiment as described above, there is most certainly an already triggered ‘awareness’ and a very active ‘anticipation’ that change will be required on cue, received as an auditory signal. It then comes down to what your real intent is; to swing the golf club, as normal, with full values of acceleration or to await your auditrory cue somewhere prior to reaching the top and then commence your downswing.
Offered as proof conclusive that I am in gross professional error in my original submission this is clearly invalid.
To take this a little further, let us consider auditory cues;
The cue that you are suggesting issues from the mouth of the assistant involved, does it not? This assistant must determine, with extreme accuracy, precisely where you are in your backswing in deciding when to formulate and execute that verbal instruction. What happens then isn’t mystical or magical, it is quite mechanical and can be identified, qualified, and quantified. Having completed the first step of the task, making the decision to send the vocal cue at that given point, the assistant then subconsciously executes various highly complex physical maneuvers, powered by muscular contractions that expel air and a sound wave from his/ her mouth that travels to your auditory apparatus which, upon receipt, will interpret the meaning of that message. All of this takes TIME and you had precious little of that, to start with.
From thenewscientist.com “It can take 150 milliseconds longer for sound to travel from the starter’s gun to runners in the outside lanes in races such as the 4 x 100 metre relay, where the runners’ starting positions are staggered” Be careful there, that’s not how long it takes to get to the athlete, that’s how much longer it takes to get to the athletes in the outsides lanes than it takes to get to those on the insides. It’s a very hot potato at Olympic and elite levels, Google it and read up on it. Also, does the vocal cue from your assistant have the same impact as the starter’s gun in a silent stadium?
It may serve you well to Google up some actual scientific data on the advantages that one athlete (swimmer, whatever) can have over the others in their inherent abilities to react to the starters gun. The world’s most elite 100 metre sprinters on extreme awareness/ anticipation competing for the once in four year opportunity to win the ultimate prize in athletics, the Olympic100 meter gold medal, and you swinging your golf club! Are these super athletes not the equals of the very top in golf?
You may also find interesting the massive research work that is ongoing relating to road accidents and driver reaction times in recognition of the threat and then getting from accelerator to brake!
“I referred to Tigers amazing ability to come to a complete stop in the P3 or Halfway down position - admittedly a very difficult thing to do, but he does it.”
No one could have a higher or more genuine respect for what Tiger Woods has done, and how he has gone about doing it, despite attitudes that he had to overcome very early in his career. To me, he is indeed an especially gifted performer but that changes nothing, he is not exempt from the laws and rules that govern his mechanical performance.
Some things to consider;
Tiger has an identified clubhead speed of 120mph (Yep, I know, one published measurement was 119mph). He has a large upper body and heavily developed arms that would weigh more than the standard of around 13-14 pounds each. To generate this speed, with these masses in motion, must create far more cf pull than is normal. I would think that (perhaps) it takes him less time from top to impact than the norm so let’s put him at a max. of 0.20secs. What Tiger has started in his downswing he cannot change, even if he is Tiger Woods. It may be that Tiger has sensed something on the way up or at the top and, in the initial processes of triggering his downward movement, slams on the brakes and drags to a halt halfway down. However he cannot sense that something is ‘wrong’ halfway down and then come to a shuddering halt, frozen in that place in time and space, without any time loss. Such a concept is far too absurd to even consider.
I feel that part of the problem here is that you really have very little or no concept of just how short a period on time 0.20 to 0.25 secs actually is when considered in this environment.
I have offered response to your dismissal of my work only. No offense offered or intended.
Gerry Hogan
In that particular incident with Tiger it is easily arguable that he saw the shadow of the bird before he reached the top of his back swing so the thought to stop happened before he had started the down swing. Of course he only just had time to then stop by the time he hit the ball. It can be viewed on youtube youtube.com/watch?v=wKANS5rnrqI
