9 (hard) hours at the range with MIDNIGHT

[JustOne]

This thread is for MIDNIGHT so he can bookmark this page (for keeps) and to see his improvement..... and it was HUGE, still a long way to go but the man never stopped hitting balls! I tried (honest) to make him stop but he wasn't having it!!!

Before(s) and after(s)...


Set-up:

Before: head in front of ball, hands behind ball, club across palm of grip, massive wrist cupping, no spine tilt, square feet, straight back leg (lead to small reverse pivot)

After: Head behind ball, hands in front of ball, club in fingers of grip (for better hinge) tilted hips, trail leg more braced, spine tilt away from target to shallow Angle of attack, flared left foot for support, flat left wrist :thup:

P2:

Club was swung hugely away from the body instead of down the toe line, this caused a mahoooooosive OTT move on the downswing which you'll see later, here's the P2 from the first swing of the day to the last of the night...

Hinge

.... HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY... we got SOME.
It's going to be work in progress as we changed his grip completely and it must've felt completely alien to him, (very good result mate). Self explanatory pics... A was the first swing B was late in the day... (note the spectator)

Exit:

This is where that 'outside takeaway comes into play.... this is so over the top he nearly took his left ankle off, can't remember seeing anyone quite this 'across' the ball (LOL)

Left is the first swing of the day, right is the last....

Awesome day at the range mate, really, really enjoyed it, you did amazing..... you're a goddam machine!!!!

Great job, the improvement was massive!... more to do though :thup:

things to do....

Shorten backswing more, left arm straight(er), more hinge, hands more forwards, bolt straight arms thru impact, clear left side better..... you get the idea! :thup:

 

[Beezerk]

Great read, well done that man.

 

[Midnight]

Thanks for a cracking day James, woke up this morning and don't feel to bad . Look forward to practising what you have shown me and also to another session .
I have no doubt that my game or lack of it will fall apart before it gets better , but I also believe that if I practice what I have been shown and stick at it I will benefit greatly. I am now looking forward to the Winter, so I can practice what he has shown me.

Ref James and his teaching , I consider myself a crap student and extremely stubborn, he overcame this and I found his teaching style really appealed and worked for me. He explained things to me without going over the top and to technical. He did not use to many long words and also showed me that he could hit the shots as well.
He is someone without doubt who I think would make a very good coach as his enthusiasm is endless.

Thanks again mate.

 

[el marko]

Whats wrong with his setup in the before pic, Pretty much identical to mine??

 

[Foxholer]

Does indeed look considerably better.

To be blunt, Midnight must have some talent to have got to 19/20 with that swing!

Obviously a 'work-in-progress' but a couple of queries anyway.

The new setup position now looks much more like an impact position than the classic one as per this link. Is that deliberate?

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgu...=lTFRUqi0CKio0AXw44HICA&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQ9QEwBA

The club-face at new address seems open compared to toe-line. Is that deliberate?

At P2, the toe of a 'square' club shouldn't be vertical, but a smidgeon (that's a tad more than tiny!) away from the golfer.

There's some obvious lower body stiffness/tension in both sets of pics (the after being quite reasonably a result of the changes not having been bedded-in), so both look distinctly like an upper body/armsy action, though not a heave. It seems to me that there needs to be a lot more lower body (hips and legs) action. How that's achieved is up to you/James, but an old coach suggested a thought of getting my right knee to hit my left one (my hips worked Ok apparently).

Now the hard work of imbedding those changes comes!

And where the next session will take place!

 

[Foxholer]

Whats wrong with his setup in the before pic, Pretty much identical to mine??

There's not a lot wrong looking with the posture from face -on (hard to tell from FOV), but the arms/hands look decidedly wrong.

Classic approach to getting them better is to take up a 'natural' set-up position, lift the arms up to horizontal away from chest and then stretch/push the club as far away from the chest as you can. Then drop the club back to the ground keeping the arms/hands/club relationship the same. That creates the proper V (or Y) that you can see in the link I posted above.

And I always suggest the left toe is flared, not so much for stability but to encourage the left hip to turn properly.

 

[JustOne]

To be blunt, Midnight must have some talent to have got to 19/20 with that swing!

I said that to him

He didn't notice (I was discrete) but after his first swing I actually tried to gouge my eyes out with a tee peg!! :rofl:


Seriously though, he had built a swing around some very bad positions and he's engrained those for 5yrs, it was never going to be a Tour pro's swing in one day, these things have to be on-going, especially if there are going to be lots of changes, a 4 h/cap golfer may only need a few tweaks or a couple of drills. Poor grip had lead to a lack of hinge so the swing was all shouders and (very powerful) arms, very over the top, very steep and very 'flippy'. We made some small steps but he at least has a better idea... it's up to him to implement what we talked about PROPERLY and not just 'think' he's doing them.

All the points you raised above (and about 200 more) were things we had talked about Foxy but (for example) I wasn't worried about exactly where the toe was at P2, I just didn't want the club 2ft outside the line, we were making baby steps, this wasn't tour school :thup: Just getting the club to hit the ball with a new grip is sometimes impossible, he did really well.

I reckon he'll get a solid 11pts at West Hill tomorrow

Anyone expecting a tour pro called Midnight to turn up tomorrow and shoot level par is living the dream! :clap:

This is what he said when we discussed his game.. "I can't hit a driver, I use my 3-wood every now and then but just slice it, I can hit my irons very well, or very far, I can't chip and normally bunt the ball with a 9-wood, I can't play out of bunkers - but my putting is OK" :clap:

 

[JustOne]

This is what he said when we discussed his game.. "I can't hit a driver, I use my 3-wood every now and then but just slice it, I can't hit my irons very well, or very far, I can't chip and normally bunt the ball forwards with a 9-wood, I can't play out of bunkers - but my putting is OK" :clap:

Whoops, that was supposed to say CAN'T.

 

[JustOne]

Here's the REAL TEST Midnight...

This guy in the USA went from the pic on the left to the pic on the right in 2 days apparently.... from having the hands waaay behind the club head at impact to having them in front of it at impact (with a little bit of forward shaft lean)

This was you....... on the left (mega flip!!) and you need to get to the pic on the right....

hands more forwards, shaft lean, right arm has to get forwards and past the chin (as we discussed - the straw needs to bend), you have to reverse the direction of that clubshaft!!! :thup:







You have 19hrs left until you tee off at West Hill

 

[Foxholer]

Poor grip had lead to a lack of hinge so the swing was all shouders and (very powerful) arms

I wasn't worried about exactly where the toe was at P2,

Anyone expecting a tour pro called Midnight to turn up tomorrow and shoot level par is living the dream! :clap:

Yeah, my comment re the toe position is just because it's something I hear/see so often as the 'proper' way when it's not really. Given the open face at setup (if it was as it looked) then that position hasn't changed, so the arms have worked well in the takeaway/pushaway.

It does show how getting GASP right initially and reviewing frequently is the way to go. An ad for basic lessons and the value of the basics being stressed by the teacher early imo.

Bunker lesson next?

You didn't answer my query re the Address position having distinct elements of the Impact one. That's something I've been mulling over/experimenting with myself - at least for the early stage of a change - so I'm quite interested to see it here. Do you envisage it changing to a 'standard' setup stance in the future?

Also meant to query the ball position - which seems quite back in the stance. Is that just to encourage the better impact position during the change, or do you see that as the way it should be? What was the iron being used? 7?

 

[JustOne]

I don't really envisage anything Foxy, it's up to Midnight as to what he wants to do with his game from here, if he wants to meet up again and continue to work on parts then that's fine by me, if not then that's entirely up to him.

The set up is just more 'reverse k' than anything else. It needed to be a bit more 'dynamic' IMO with some spine tilt away from the target as he was very much 'over' the ball, a bit of a reverse pivot, and steep/flippy as hell.

To be honest I'd have loved to do more, but he did enough for one day. He understood what I was saying, he just wasn't physically capable of making such dramatic changes in one day, his body (and old swing) was fighting it all the way! I was surprised he could hit the ball at all during the day given how he was when we started and the grip change we did. Like I said, he's probably going to have a nightmare tomorrow and swing like a numpty, he's not suddenly turned into a tour pro or anything like that... he's a 20 h/capper that has started to think about his swing in a different way, that's all. 290yrd drives and bullet straight 4-irons are a LONG way off, chipping nicely is a long way off... getting out of bunkers nicely is a long way off..... baby steps mate :thup:

I would also move the ball more forwards if/when he improves but as a flipper he wouldn't have been able to hit the ball if I'd have moved it. I did point out that I'd like the ball one more ball width forwards at least :thup:


At the start of the day he said he hits his 8-iron about 130yds with a big slice, at the end of the day he hit 6 shots in a row with an 8-iron to the 150yrs marker, all with exceptional contact, all with good ball flight, all ending within 1-6yds left of the marker. Tomorrow I don't expect him to be able to hit a cows arse with a shovel

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I can see the changes and having known Midnight for a few years I know hell go away and work his socks off to implement the changes. Whats more I reckon he'll move heaven and earth to grind a score tomorrow. I'm not entirely convinced by the address position and it does seem a bit exaggerated towards creating the impact position at the very outset. Aside from that breaking the ingrained habits and that interesting impact position is hard and hats off to both of you