Take a look at and let me know what you think.  I previously reviewed the Taly Mind Set here.

Oh, and I love the gigantic iron head.  Does anyone know where to get one of those?

Enjoy and of course let me know if you have any questions about this.

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Hunter Mahan has a wonderful swing that we can learn from.

Hunter’s swing is uncomplicated and allows him to be very consistent.  Watch how he gets on plane, and stays on the same plane coming down.  There is no wasted movement, no extra effort added.  It is a swing that conserves as much energy as possible to be transferred into the ball instead of into compensations.

Doesn’t it just look like a simple, repeatable motion?

One the downswing watch how everything comes down and through the ball together, very nicely synchronized.

Through the ball watch the hip rotation.  He does not overly rotate the hips, everything just remains together and through the ball.  The follow through happens naturally as a result of the swing.

This is an excellent example of a rotary swing.  A simple and effective swing that can serve as a great model for anyone who wants to learn a great rotary swing.

Actually winter golf practice can be extremely productive.  Imagine that spring time comes around and not only are you not rusty but you feel like you’re ready to play the best golf of your life.  Here are the essentials you need to make this your best winter practice session.

1. A quality golf mat

Nothing is more frustrating than hitting golf balls off rock hard mats at the driving range.  They don’t provide realistic feedback.  They don’t allow you to hit down and through the ball.  The tees may not be adjustable or they are those rubber tubes.  Yech!,

Getting a quality golf mat for your house will offer you some great practice time.  You can hit down and through, you won’t injure your self and you won’t wear holes in the carpet.  Look for a mat that is thick enough to hold normal tees, and allow you to hit down and through the ball.  I recommend the Country Club Elite Golf Mats.  You can find a review of them on my reviews page.  Make sure that you pick a stance mat so that your feet are at the same level as the golf mat.

If it can hold tees than you can create a gate practice hitting through it and do other drills involving tees.  Plus it’ll give you real feedback.  You know when you would have hit it fat and you can practice getting the right amount of turf.  You can also put a sock or a piece of cloth an inch behind where you would put a golf ball and practice hitting the turf, but not hitting the sock.  This will ingrain the right feeling of taking a divot after the ball.

Get a Video Camera

A video camera will really allow you to see what you’re swing is doing.  I recommend one of the newer cameras that record on to memory cards.  The reason is that on the card, each video is an individual file.  There’s no rewinding or fast forwarding through video tape, and you can copy selected (or all) clips onto your computer for further analysis.  The newer cameras also feature slow motion mode.  My camera can do 240 frames per second.  The beauty of it is that I can really see exactly where the club is throughout the entire swing.

Once you have your camera, you can do a few things.  You can take video from behind you.  This is called a down the line shot (or DTL).  You can also take a Face On (FO) video. Both angles are very useful for swing analysis and seeing faults.  It is very rewarding to see your faults, work on them, and watch as they disappear. Also, get a tripod.  You will need it.  It makes things so much easier.

A Net

If you have the mat and you have the camera, your next best swing analysis tool is a net.  A net allows you to hit actual balls without fear of breaking valuable objects, or putting holes through walls.  Get the sturdiest net you can get if you are going to hit actual golf balls.  Cheap nets have been known to break and allow the golf ball to actually break through the netting.  You don’t want that to happen.  You want a net that can handle golf balls.  If you’re not hitting actual golf balls, you can hit something like the almost golf ball or birdie balls into the net (see the review of BirdieBalls from the reviews page).  These should puts less strain on the net.

The benefit of the net is that you are hitting something.  It’s not just a practice swing and for most people there is a difference.  Hitting something forces your body to react the way it would on the golf course.  This is will make the videos that you analyze more meaningful.

A putting cup or a home putting green

With a putting cup you can practice putting off carpet.  The benefit of doing that is that you can practice a solid stroke on level ground.  You want to know that you’re putting stroke will put the ball on the right line. The downside of putting on carpet is that you don’t know how fast it is.  Without a stimp meter you don’t know what speed you are grooving your putts for.  Odds are that the greens you play on will be significantly faster or slower depending on the type of carpet.  I would recommend that most amateurs practice on a putting surface that closely resembles the courses they play the most.  If you play on public or municipal courses anything around 10 on the stimp meter would be excellent.  If you play at private clubs that have faster greens, putting on a surface with 11 or 12 on the stimp meter would be better for you.

Home putting surfaces do not have to be expensive.  On the birdieball.com website, they have putting surfaces starting at under $100 that can be either 10 or 12 on the stimp meter depending on the options you choose.

The other thing to look for is that the ball drops into a cup.  It doesn’t have to be a big drop but it should drop in.  Putting cups with a steep slope are unrealistic for this reason.

A home putting surface also allows you to create breaks.  This is ideal.  You can practice flat putts and breaking putts on the same surface, and at speeds that are similar to the courses you play on.  What could be better than that?

Take out your video camera and record your putting strokes too.  You’d be amazed at how much you can learn from watching your putting stroke.

A Simulator

Finally, if you have some extra cash lying around, a simulator greatly complements all of the above.  I recommend the Dancin’ Dogg Optishot.  There are several different manufacturers that make simulators.  P3SwingPro is another.  These are fun, allow you to play full rounds with friends, or even have driving or closest to the pin contests.  Plus they tell you important information about your swing.  They tell you things like club head speed, path angle, club face angle and more.  These are great fun and can definitely help you improve.

I love this video.  Ben Hogan’s swing is so classic and there is so much to learn from it.  Even on his short swings watch how he generates lag and delivers the club to the ball.  Just beautiful.   Hogan’s swing is the best example of what I talk about in my book.  He is efficient and was known for amazing accuracy and shot making.

He never looks like he swings hard but he always hits it solid.  Very inspirational.

Today I had an amazing driving range session.  Let me set the stage.  It’s 39 degrees here in CT and a bit windy.  I wanted to see how my ball striking had become based on the practice I’ve been doing from my book, “8 Keys to Effortless Distance”.

I started out hitting it well, but right.  I realized I wasn’t allowing the finish to happen, I was kind of tightening up through impact.  So I did some half swings focusing only letting the finish happen.  When I felt that I had it, I started hitting balls again.

What a difference that made.  I hit my seven iron and I couldn’t even see it land.  It was landing on the downslope behind and to the right of 173 yd practice green.  I thought this can’t be right…

So I took out my 8 iron thinking I could land it short of the green and at least see the landing spot.

I to hit solid baby draws to the middle of the 173 pin and beyond.  Some shots were landing at the back of that green, some just over it.  8 Iron.  Wow.  The contact was so solid.  And the ball flight was beautiful.  These high baby draws that carried forever and landed softly.

My 9 iron was going about 165 and my pw 150. With the driver I hit some line drives to the fence at 250 that hit about halfway up the fence.

The amazing thing about it was that even with these distances, my accuracy was dead on. The ball pierced through the wind. It was amazing.

I wish I had my camera on the range, but I didn’t bring it with me.  However when I got home, I decided to record these swings.  So here they are, you can see how my swing looks now based on the thoughts from my ebook. If you want to see how my swing looked a couple of months ago take a look at this link.

Anthony Kim

Vijay Singh

Zach Johnson

Bubba Watson

Danny Lee

Rickie Fowler: See a more detailed analysis of Rickie Fowler’s swing.

The Psychological Effect of the Ball on GolfWRX

I always thought that the reason I came over the top was because I was trying to hit the ball hard.  Which, intellectually, makes sense.  Practice swings feel loose and easy, the goal being to feel what you want to do.  Put the ball in front of me and I want to hit it as hard as I can.  Right?  So an OTT move is caused by overswinging.

I don’t believe that is the cause for me.  I believe the cause is somewhat more elusive.

I did an experiment and recorded three practice swings with the driver, a slow one, a medium speed one, and a 100%, pedal to the metal swing.  The results shocked me.

Before watching the video I  imagined that the first swing would have none to maybe a slight over the top move, the middle one might have a noticable move, and the fast one, with the highest clubhead speed would have a very visible over the top move.

May I have the envelop please?…

There was no noticeable over the top move in those swings at all.  No matter how hard I swung, if I wasn’t hitting a ball, I had no over the top move.

Let this sink in for a second.  No matter how hard I swung my practice swing (i.e. trying to get the club moving as fast as possible) there was no over the top move.

I did another little experiment.  This time I would take a very short and slow practice swing, and then tried to do the exact same slow practice swing but actually hit a ball.  Time after time, the practice swing was beautiful, but as soon as the ball was there, there would be an over the top move.

It’s the ball.

Well, actually, it is my reaction to the ball.  When I’m hitting an actual ball, the feeling in my body is different (although it shouldn’t be), and the swing is different (although it shouldn’t be).  I think the change happens even before I hit the ball.  As I steup up to the ball, and set my club behind it, there’s a different sensation.  I’m not sure how to describe it, but I’m not feeling as loose.  I’m a little more deliberate in my movements.  I’m not trying to do that but it happens, and I noticed it.

I know that I shouldn’t be hitting at the ball, but that the ball should just get in the way of my swing.  But it doesn’t feel that way.  Whenever I see my swing on video hitting a ball, I am just shocked and amazed that I can hit as well as I can, because the swing on video looks so flawed to me.

So, I have discovered I have two completely different swings.  A practice swing, and a hit the ball swing.  They feel different, they have different goals, and this could be part of the problem.  My practice swing does not end up being a rehearsal of my actual swing, it just ends up being a repetition of my practice swing.  Are practice swings unnecessary?

Dr. Joseph parent in Zen Golf talks about getting ready for a shot.  He says that you should do a programming swing.  This is not a full  swing, it is done slowly, and allows you to program in a specific movement that you want to have happen.  He says it should be done slowly so that you feel your muscles do the movement that you want to happen in your full swing.  Then you trust that you’re programming move will be incorporated in you swing, and you swing.  I think this is worth practicing with.

I would love to hear opinions on what you think is causing this, and of course I am very open to suggestions on how to fix it.

Practice Swing

Actual Swing

I had an awesome practice session today.  Recorded a lot of 9-iron swings and driver swings.  The same thing that I’ve written about kept happening over and over.  I would have a beautiful practice swing, and I would follow it with an over the top swing.  There were several times when I could have sworn that my actual swing matched the practice swing, until I looked at the video.  On those shots were I thought I nailed it, I hit some really solid iron shots.  But when I checked the video, still an over the top swing.  Ugh!

When it came time to hit driver, I knew I was going to be over the top, the only question was how much over the top.  I still managed to hit some bombs.  Long, straight and with the right trajectory, from an “ugly” OTT move.

Tim said that it takes 10,000 swings to ingrain a golf move.  I’ve heard other theories.  60 reps a day for 21 days.  Don’t know which is true.  What I do know is that a practice swing is easy and a thing of beauty, and then you put a ball in front of me and I have this urge to HIT IT.

What shocks me is that even with an OTT move I hit the ball as solidly as I do.  I wonder if it is going to take me months or years to change this.  I know this is a key to great golf.

He wrote the following message to Michael Breed:

Michael,

Here’s a video of my golf swing in slow-motion. I am very consistent with my driver…and I hit a nice draw – but my iron shots are mediocre at times. My consistent flaw is that I either pull or top my irons. PLEASE HELP!

Thanks, love the show,

Tim from Irvington, NY

During the show, Michale viewed the video from the top of the back swing and said that the shaft was too steep on the way down.  He suggested that Tim hit balls off a tee with the driver taking slow, half-swings, to get the feeling of a shallower plane.

I think Michael Breed was right on.  It is important to get on a shallower plane.  Most amateurs (myself included come into the ball way too steep).  If you watch the pros, many of them have a steep back backswing and transition into a flat downswing.  Below is the swing of Rickie Fowler.  What you’ll notice is how flat both his backswing and his downswing are.  Now, this is an extreme example.  I have never seen anyone with a swing this flat.  But it works for Rickie and allows him to really power through the ball.