Peter’s flushing it again this weekend, 7 under par after two rounds at the Senior PGA in New York…
As he should…golf just isn’t a day to day proposition for someone who swings it like he does…it’s just a matter of holing 1 or 2 more putts per day and he will run away with some Champion Tour events sooner rather than later
I watched final round today and got my first ever good look of the ABS legend Mr Senior in competition.
While he is 52 years old, he can seriously still bust a grape with his irons as his contact sounded as good as some younger guys on regular tour. He was paired with Freddy today though and he made Peter look REAL short on every tee (Freddy will do that to anyone on the senior tour…) but it was fun to watch Peter flushing most approach shots (Peters iron swings ironically sounded even better than Freddy’s even though).
While it is debatable how much his current coach has changed his pattern and is more “swinging” now (arms coming more off body today than old clips I have seen) how much of that is also of age. His rhythm is nice and quick, sort of a slowish Hogan tempo. He has a more pronounced loopy transition to a flat impact than I expected and his standup at impact to finish honestly looks like a high handicapper (obviously NOT, just looks) but overall I was seriously impressed and wished we had much more footage of this guy from when he was younger!
Peter WAS playing cavity backs though. Pretty certain judging from his sponsor and slo-mo rewinding that they were Titleist AP2’s. Lag, do you remember what irons he played in his younger days? Titleist has plenty good blades in their lineup so him choosing a “players cavity” is interesting. I wonder what his lie specs are…
He used a set of Prosimmon blade irons for a LONG time…just a regular looking old blade club (like a Macgregor Nicklaus Muirfield…would be the best description)… they were an Australian company
The problem with a lot of these great players is that they get to such a high level of ballstriking and of course want to get better… but who are they going to go and see if they can’t figure it out for themselves? Someone they are playing against every week? Not likely. Someone that hits it better than they do? Not likely. So they hear about someone that improved a lot with this or that instructor… and then they go to that person for help. But most teachers in my opinion have no business teaching a player who hits it ten times better than they do. It becomes a lot of speculation, guessing and so on. Most instructors have some kind of ideal in mind… and if Nick Faldo is the swing of the month, and you try to get Peter Senior to look more “conventional” there is a good chance you are going to lose some of the quality that made him such a good striker in the first place.
Senior’s odd looking lurch through impact is founded in very good rotation and very proper intentions. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with what he did in the past. He could swing like that again if he knew how to get back to it.
So true… Why would you learn from someone who isnt better than you? I like the analogy of martial arts teachers. There are lots of good teachers and bad teachers. One cheezey example most people can relate to is the movie the Karate Kid. You just have to learn how to filter the junk from good. Usually the better ones are much wiser and dont feed you garbage.
Any teacher can talk the talk, but can they walk the talk.
This also goes for students as well… A lot of players especially playing for a while and trying to improve will often go to a well respected teacher (who knows what their doing). A lot of times the player will try to question and implement their own views and theories against the instructor that is trying to teach them. This interest of conflict will not only slow down your improvement or progress, but your instructor may grow tired of you and may even refuse to further teach you.
How can you learn if your cup is already full? You must always start out with an empty cup.