Two words:

F*#@ng J#sus

Sorry moderator, give me a warning, but I’m excited and no other words seemed to work.

I hit the course this afternoon after Guru sent me the yellow book last week. I know I shouldn’t have gone this early, but I couldn’t resist. I’ve only read half but picked up some key things I was dying to try out.

Well I thought I used to hit the irons pretty crisply when my swing was on.

No-way!

I have never heard sounds like I heard this afternoon.

I’m in love.

I played about 6-7 holes, with two balls. Twice I put drives within a kiddie’s splash pool of each other. The others weren’t that much further apart either.

That is not normal for me.

I’m hitting into an uphill green, 5 iron. Sun right in my eyes, no chance to see the flight. So I shield the sun and just look at the green hoping to see the ball. Plop – down it drops – a couple of meters to the side of the flag. I drop another ball and plop, the same, even closer. I’m so addicted I do it 4 more times until my head gets too big and I miss the green and go collect.

That is not normal for me.

And so it went on and on and on. I even had to wish a 7 iron away from the hole on a par 3 – I really thought I’d popped it in for a second.

The accuracy of this stuff is amazing.

I’ve been struggling with pitching lately, so I thought for fun I’d just try this vertical hinge motion. Lipped it. Tried it again, nearly as good. Tried it about 20 more times and peppered that pin and 2 went down. No duffs.

That is not normal for me.

It’s simply deadly accurate.

Distance on iron shots – well my general feeling is my distance is down, but I didn’t go to the course with any clear thoughts on power packages, accumulators etc…

However I did give a nearby guy on the course a nasty look after not finding a drive that should of been middle of the fairway. I found it sitting on the edge of the water hazard guarding the green. That hazard has only ever been in play on the second shot.

Swing speed was up 3-5mph (as per radar) but I feel possibly I powered it more through impact before. In fact, I would have sworn I was a Hitter, but today I was Swinging.

I was also surprised at the quantity of on-center hits with both Driver and irons. My irons give nothing for off-center hits, and I love that about them because of the feedback and hitting that sweet spot is pure honey. Today the bears were swarming.

Distance control on pitches was amazing I must say, probably because of consistent striking. I think I looked a bit dorky though as I really was trying to extend impact. Got a lot more height on the shots, crucial at my course. Stopping power about the same as a Stan Utley type pitch (pivot around left leg, minimal arm movement, large wrist cock), but I never hooded any with this vertical hinge motion.

Anyway, really excited about this. I’ve made some pretty major changes in my swing before and had immediate results but nothing as revolutionary as this. Strangely, the changes I made today feel so natural and ironically non-technical. Much easier than this position golf I’ve concerned myself with before. And completely opposite to the Leadbetter wag-the-tail stuff that I’m now convinced is stuffing everybody up, like it did to me.

So anyway, the message is you gotta try this TGM stuff if you’ve been avoiding it because of opinions of how complex it is. It is a tough read no question about it, but at least it seems complete and the answers are there, or here if hidden. I think David Leadbetter’s a nice guy and all that, but boy did I waste years with that stuff.

If anyone’s interested, these are the changes I made to my game this afternoon:

a. the 4 pressure points. #2 was the only one I used to have, #4 sort of but I had pressure in the right side as well. I’ve always thought I had a problem with my right hand being a little too strong and I would often pull-hook because of it. I could feel the pull-hook even before takeaway. I’ve kept my grip looking the same after seeing the the strong single action grip pictured but added pressure points #1 and #3. The grip felt great, flexible but secure, and impervious to those pull-hooks.

b. Horizontal hinging. I really focused on rolling the left wrist and bending the right wrist on takeaway and the swing just fell on plane – I could feel the club so well balanced. Depth control was amazing, beautiful shallow divots if anything, but it really felt like I could clip it off hard-pan if needed. The great thing about it was it made me forget all the ‘position golf’ I had floating around.

c. Hands a bit higher at address, leaving the left wrist now slightly uncocked and not as bent.

d. Right-arm extensor action on the backstroke. A completely new concept for me. Tight delts and and shoulder injury have always made me use extensor action on the left arm to prevent it bending excessively. Now it’s straighter without the tension.

e. Purposely dropping right elbow down before letting go. This would happen before as a result of my hips firing, but those hips would be nearly facing the target before the hands came through. I used to hate seeing it on camera. Sometimes I’d block it, more often I’d subconsciously counter the block by band-aided hand action and hook it.

f. Swinging outwards at inside-rear quadrant of the ball. I’ve tried that thought before but would block it. No-more! I could feel the effortlessness of the flail, just no manipulation required – perfect alignment everytime.

And that’s it. I know there’s lots and lots of understanding and work yet to do (I haven’t even touched the power side yet) but I’m a convert, even though I can’t believe I’ll hear those sounds of impact again next time out. But I hope!

Hallelujah! Another sees the light. :-)

And then he woke up and it was all a dream:)

Most people get the book and fall asleep trying to read it disappearing into the reference abyss. Sometimes someone who was close the grail anyway gets hold of the book and it clears the fog. Rare but so uplifting to hear these cases.

Stebboko
Outstanding post mate and well done – isn’t it just the best!!

Can’t wait until the boys hit Queensland for the day instruction course…

Stebboko,

Wonderful read, and very inspiring!

I have to agree that most instructors teach golf with a “smoke and mirrors” approach.

TGM show us the law and it’s viable application, and as Homer said so eloquently….

“complexity is far more simple and workable than mystery”

I had a read of this again with a coffee and it struck me how much of the lightbulb moments were connected to ‘educated hands’ doing the right things and feelings within them.

Pressure points, hinge actions, on plane action using the geometry we all have seen from the first article in the Golf School released.

If we all learned just one part of the puzzle a month our golf will have improved from green to tee. It is only the level of precision as opposed to the ideas being right or wrong that makes us all different.
At least with this info, we can work towards the goal at our own pace as opposed to the “mystery” of downswing black out.

Curiously guru how much..?

And wondering which article you were talking about Guru, I’ve just discovered a link called “See more Golf Instruction” that has revealed a ton of articles. I was always thinking I wish you wrote more.

Must get back to work, back to work… read later, read later…. will power…

Kiwi: e-mail me on golfguruATiseekgolf.com

$1million bucks.

Well it seems half the guys here have had orgasms w/o sex because of this “little yellow book” so a mil seems more than reasonable :]

Book certainly does not bust the bank and if you are into retro ladies clothes this is the book for you :)

Email sent :]

its a long read but well worth the read!

congrats, hope it keeps getting better

and if you are into retro ladies clothes this is the book for you :)

LOL!

If I promise to put a $1 million cheque in the post can I get a copy? I need all the help I can get!

Day 2: I’m very glad to report TGM still works :-), and even saw more power today. Not doing anything different than yesterday, just feeling more confident to really swing through hard.

Today’s memorable moment was my two drives on one hole finishing 2 feet from each other, 20m further than my best ever on this hole to boot. I’d usually be the first to say it’s just a fluke with different wind and fairway bounce, but this is the third time balls have landed so close together in two days of TGM.

Tomorrow’s the real test. Comp. How long will this dream last?

Stebboko,

It is wonderful that you are reaping the benefits so fast. You must be the most perceptive and receptive pupil on earth.

It is true. If you have the little yellow book, you will not need little yellow pills.

Before you play read 3-B, becoming target conscious – no practicing on the course. Bloody hard to do. I think it is the main skill to learn.

Thanks for the kind comments, but I’ve just spent many years trying to make things that don’t feel right feel right, thinking I’ll eventually get used to it. That primed me for TGM.

I’m an engineer. If some teaching tells me to do something that I don’t ‘academically’ agree with, an underlying skepticism will kill me after the ‘new technique’ honeymoon is over. Homer satisfies that academic side.

3-B… Guilty. I gave that section a good hard thought when I read it and still haven’t worked out a way to mix learning with exuberance. I would go even as far to say that I have been letting results confirm correct understanding and execution which I deep down know is danger, more so when the results have been good.

Thanks for stressing its importance.

stebboko,

try and stay out of your own way in the comp tomorrow mate.

I’ve had the “Eureka” moment you are describing and then got pissed when I didn’t go shoot a course record in the next comp.

Let your score happen, don’t force it to happen. Try to retain the feelings you have at the moment out chasing the pill for fun. Don’t get over analytical once you’re in game mode.

You’ll be ok,

If I shot a course record I’d be on the news for sandbagging. Thanks for the advice but I only read it after the round – I’ll remember it for the next round.

But I did have a very different comp today.

The driver was blisteringly long and reasonably straight. A few hooks when those brainwashed hips tried to control, but the majority were just music.

I just felt like I could swing as hard as wanted to. It was during the round I realised more brilliance of the hands controlling the pivot – you simply can’t lose balance. Impact is precise.

So I found myself with lots of awkward wedge approach shots and a lot of punching or chipping out of the woods. I wasn’t too unhappy with driver direction though – it was more running through fairways from not knowing the course well and forgetting contact lenses.

Iron shots I really don’t know. 8-PW was sweet (although often flew the green). I didn’t get to full-swing anything longer than an 8 until the 16th.

Strange round, shot 2-3 shots better than the last few comps but did it with lots of chip outs, poor half-wedges and awful sanded greens. Length off the tee did it.

Very promising.

thats good mate, if you can produce a half decent score in competition this early you are going well.

How the hell do you forget contact lens though!

Would you believe I was cutting my hair, two mormons or whatever knocked on the door, one was pretty cute, she thought my half-finished hair cut was cute, I was thinking golf/mormon chick/golf/mormon chick, I lost track of time and had to rush the rest of the haircut to tee off in time.

True story.

what a strange world you live in!

Stebboko -

Had a similar experience to that with a sudden TGM induced improvement.

Monster drives – sweet but over-long irons and a short game that couldn’t live up the standards being set elsewhere!

Drove like a demon and reached a par 5 in two for the first time in my life in that round though (driver/3 wood), so it was a pretty sweet day!

Much improved long game only took maybe four shots off the average but, as with your round, that was with a bad day round the greens.

Next step: putting it all together. I’ll let you know how it goes.

How the hell do you forget contact lens though!

Its better to stay silent and look a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt

– Mark Twain

“Eons of manhours are lost trying to substitute effort for technique and trying to eliminate effect instead of cause.”

– Homer Kelley

If he ‘aint got ‘em in; how is he going to find ‘em? LoL