When determining ball position for a draw you say center of the sternum slightly in front of the ball . . . Is that established before or after you get into your side bend? When I get into side bend axis tilt it seems my center moves back behind the ball. Thanks!
Definitely after the side bend! The way to do it is to feel that the low point is in front of the ball when you deliver your action in the direction you want to start the ball; draw or fade!
Hi Shawn, new member here, great stuff! You mention the intermediate point in many videos but haven’t heard a detailed explanation of what that is exactly?
Great video. Perfect illustration how I want to swing the club. What adjustment required in setup for a ball slightly below feet, rock hard dirt lie? 100 yard shot so using a wedge.
Also, staying with the shot is a real challenge for me, at times, with this shot. Task adjustment when getting ready to play this shot?
Thanks in advance!
Definitely see our “ball below feet” video which is huge and see all other 3 videos as well for ball above, uphill and downhill shots. This part of the game has been ridiculously taught and these will take all the mystery out of it and actually help your overall swing’s centre stability!
The old dandelion stem. One of the roots of the Wisdom in Golf tree. All those years of mowing them, if I’d only realized their impending impact on my better golf swing. Great vid Shawn. Love how we always go back and touch on the core principles and put a fresh “spin” on it.
It is so clear in the body language when a student is living in the rask and when they are not; and in the exchanges with my students when I ask them: “what was the last thing going through your mind before you swung?”
then we get deeper into “yes, I was there but could not stay with it” until this. And then the importance of this hit me when everyone went their next level with it! 😀👍
This is the importance of this channel! We all get to go next level and beyond through these experiences! No algorithms to dictate what we do either! 💪👌
My chipping and pitching has been horrendous. I can never hit the center of the club face and my club path is extremely left (like -10°!!) no matter what I do. I occasionally shank so badly that the ball hits the shaft! My short game used to be my biggest strength, now I’m terrified to miss a green. I can’t figure out what changed.
I’m going to try this, I have those kind of tees. How do you engage the kinetic chain on these shots? Are you still using your legs? Maybe that’s what I’m doing wrong.
You bet this is full kinetic chain! We are using the weight of the arms and club to simply cut through the stem of dandelion IN THE DIRECTION OF THE INTERMEDIATE POINT!! Blur of club here rules!!!! See “blur of club” and then see “kinetic chain series” with chipping and pitching having their own episodes within the series. Do the chip swing with a kettle bell too for completely free on interference swinging.
No; ball position is exactly in the same place you would normally have it for fade or draw; since we are following the slope with the swing (never body parts)
Another great video Shawn! I was finally able to get to a golf simulator & I was hitting a lot of shots left/pulling. I know I was swinging left, but I tried to tell my brain to swing right more. I would hit some great shots doing that, but most were still going left. Do you have any ideas on what I should do? Thanks again!!
Get all your predictions in a row; see “the goldie locks series” and you will realize that ball position and distance to ball greatly affect direction as well as making sure you have an intermediate point such as in the “alignment reload” video which uses that same intermediate point to deliver the “arc-blur” which is another set of videos critical for your brain finding the right references to deliver accurately!
Great video as always. I have been struggling create solid contact without presenting too much loft with my irons. I have been focusing on my picture and using an intermediate point and contact is solid, but my launch angle is way too high and zapping my distance. When I really focus on the throw or in this case the battering ram I occasionally shift my upper body too far forward and contact is awful. I know if I can manage to deliver the club without adding extra loft I will be golden, any suggestions of videos to check out?
The key in this drill is the delivery of the release. When you see the “lead hand release” and trail hand release” videos, you get the feel of that snap at the end of the release when the club catches up with the hands; the jackknife-battering ram drill gets the body to clear while staying in posture and the key to not getting ahead of it IS THE DIRECTION OF THE MOMENTUM of this drill which of course represents the same direction of the swing.
Staying with the arc-blur of this action (review blur of club and arc-blur series) in the direction that is through ball and intermediate point prevents any forward movement of the centre of the swing and the lag that results, increases the angle of attack for penetrating shots! 👌👍😀
I’ve been watching the videos you recommended but struggle to avoid my personal death move, which is the right shoulder moving in a flat rotation towards the target. This results in a shank or very poor contact. I am okay if I don’t try to apply any additional speed in my motion towards the target, but once I do that many days it spells disaster. If I consciously keep my shoulder back or try to force it down and around I can avoid major problems, but it isn’t a healthy swing. I’ve been on and off for years bouncing between very solid golf and downright ugly golf so regardless of the progress I have made thus far using the site I feel very good that I have finally identified a major culprit of my swing problems through the work being put in and referencing your videos.
Ok, very important that when you feel this move happen, you go back to what was the last thing going through your mind before you swung was; and if it was your task, then did you stay with your task into your finish and stick the finish?
-the target confirmation series
-the pre-motor cortex series
-the latest stick the finish series
With the door frame analogy, are you referring to the open part of the door frame, or one of the beams? I like this task because it really improves my width, but I struggle staying with the task because it’s hard to see a ball or nail that stops once it’s into the wood.
Simply imagine Through the wood and out towards the direction you want to start the ball. As long as you are using a 90 degree angle visual; which could be the door or the beam.
Hey Shawn – my son got me your premium video series as a gift (Thank you, Russell!!), and I’ve already made great progress. Finally, at 65 years old, I now know ‘what’ I’m supposed to do; the challenge is to actually ‘do’ it. Consistently.
One problem I keep having is hitting the ground well behind the ball even though my practice swing ‘blur’ with perpetual motion is just in front of the ball at the low point.
I’m thinking that I’m failing in the ‘go to ground’ phase (getting too low?), and I’ve also noticed that if I hold my head tilted down and sideways like you do I rarely make a good swing through to my finish. I ultimately end up fatting the swing attempt.
Hey Steve! Good! Glad you are making use of the comment section! What you need to do is let go of the positions and stay with the task. The last couple series on premium are all about delivering the tasks into the direction you want to start the ball INTO THE FINISH.
We want to INCLUDE THE BALL in the task and not let the ball become the task. So see all the task videos and then those couple of series and we will go from there!
I actually re-watched this video, because I was feeling like my backswing had no real purpose or connection to what I’m trying to accomplish at impact. Well, I was just back-swinging without really thinking about the 2 key points in this video:
1) Get your body turned away from the target to make room for throwing; and 2) THROW!
So at today’s range session, I was working on getting that turn to happen (I really wasn’t turning much previously, it was mostly just my arms moving on the backswing) and also thinking about throwing the club as opposed to just swinging it downwards.
Instant improvement!
Setting up to ‘throw’ is a huge thing I now realize. Instead of an aimless backswing, and then transitioning to the downswing as if it was a part of perpetual motion, I tried to mimic how you momentarily stop at the top while turned away from the target, and then on the downswing I was focusing on ‘throwing’ the arm-club unit down and through the dandelion.
I immediately got better distance due to the turn uncoiling at impact, and I also had far better contact at the bottom with the release.
I still need to get more comfortable with the torso turn at the top in one smooth motion (I found I was kind of 2-stepping it on the backswing, hard to explain, but club back, then final body turn, then begin the throw), but I am seeing such improvement since the magic moment when I finally ‘got’ what’s supposed to happen at impact with the release!
So even though I’ve always told people that I’ve been golfing for 60 years and never get any better, that magic moment when I understood the release (Monday, February 28, 2022!) has been a huge game-changer. I won’t have to tell people that old line any more, because I’ve seen incredible improvement in the past 36 days!! And I’m super confident that I will only continue to get more consistent and find ‘my swing’ that incorporates all of the key concepts that you’ve shared.
Right on Steve! See “lead hand release in the backswing” video for re-enforcements for your backswing and then continue with the “throwing series” and then the “target confirmation series”
Hey Shawn – I’ve been watching the Lead Hand Release over and over again, and I’ve been trying to mimic your movements. The rotation you get on your backswing; the smoothness of your arm movements up to the top; and the turn and release you get at impact.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t do what you can do. I mean, come on – you’re ridiculously flexible. My bad left knee doesn’t let me get close to the turn you get on the backswing, and when I try to get my hands and arms up where you get them before your downswing, I lose all control and mostly fail to get the club head cleanly through the dandelion.
As I said in my previous post, I have been hopeful to generate more club speed by emphasizing (if not exaggerating) my turn, but right now at my age and flexibility I don’t seem to be capable of that.
So I guess I’m feeling stuck right now.
I was able to correct a very poor takeaway as far as my arms were going, so that’s an improvement – but my consistency (what little I had) has vanished and I’m back to having no clue where the ball is going…
Dandelions. But in looking at video of my ‘swing’, it wasn’t pretty or correct.
The throwing was kinda working, yes.
Maybe I’m getting too far ahead of myself in terms of progress vs expectations. But I was hoping I’d be able to go out and play some golf before visiting my son next weekend. But my home courses here are so ridiculously narrow that if you can’t hit it straight and control your distance, it becomes an exercise in sacrificing golf balls to the ponds, lakes, and marshes.
And right now, on the driving range, my shots are going all over the map – I can predict or rely on any given shot. Ugh.
Ok, there we go! We are going to throw the club in the direction that is through the intermediate point into the finish and stick the finish. We are going to predict that the stem of the dandelion is in the way of this. See the “throwing series”, the “blur of club” and the “alignment reload” videos and the “goldie locks series”
Thank you Shawn. It seems to me like you open the face a bit at set up when you place the ball back in the stance. I feel the same. Next question. The intermediate point has nothing to do with where the face of the club is pointing at set up?? Merely an eye fixation to not forget where the target is?? When you say swing in the direction you want the ball to start. i.e for a draw a bit right of the intermediate point. Where should the blade of the club be pointing at that time?
At address, the face of the club means nothing; it is when you deliver in the direction you want to start the ball and see how the ball flies that matters; IN DYNAMIC MOTION!! See the “blur of club” and “arc Blur unstoppable momentum” videos as well as the “alignment reload” video which are SUPER KEY!!
Thanks Shawn – I tried this out at a range session because I really wanted to feel the weight of the club and start using that weight properly. I did this with the intention of using it as a pre-round warmup. Was definitely low on the strain gauge but velocity suffered. Started out with my 50 deg. chips then pitches then 3/4 then full. However, the lower strain/feel the weight translated to shorter distance. typically I get 115-125yds carry. I was getting closer to 90/95. I then focused on throwing with the legs. Made them engage more and had to turn the pelvis more to engage them and now it was up to 100/105 range. I pushed on and hit the rest of my clubs like in the video. I consistently lost yards. When I kept my focus on the target and throwing with the legs, it got better but I am losing like 20-30% of my distance. I can confirm I was much less ‘tired’ then my usual practice session so that is good however I never really feel that snap you talk about. Somewhere I’m losing velocity and I can’t get past lower strain means lower velocity…..Thoughts/Suggestions? Tom
Sounds like you got your kinetic chain to engage there Tom! See #6 in the “kinetic chain facilitation series” as this sounds like what I am doing in that video! Also the “off season training series” (#7-8 or 9) where we do the walking drill and pretend to throw clubs at every step through with the lead leg!
Can’t wait to try that…. what was strange to me was that the move to ‘getting the ground’ happened way earlier than I’d ever felt or realized. Good stuff…
This is great feedback Tom, awesome! Now let’s say you applied this to the 2 ball drill and had 2 golf balls in the way; would you not need to “tone up” the anatomy to compress through those? What about if you practiced through thick rough and then came back to flyer lie on the first cut? Understand what I mean? Sure it would be more “effort” but you could still perform it “easily”; Make sense?
I gave the rough/first cut analogy a try on a small bucket (about 30 balls) I must have been doing something wrong as I ended up pulling a number of shots left. I still worked my way through the bag but tried something different on the last few. I did a practice swing where on the downswing I took a step toward the target to throw the driver in that direction, kind of like the catapult drill but without hitting a ball. I kept that feeling of stepping toward the target as I hit the driver and I felt like I released way better. Ball had a tiny draw ( my typical shot with driver is a fade) but it felt like it took off so I did it 3 more times. Two of them took off and the 3rd I hit too low on the face. End of bucket and I had to leave. So my question is would that catapult drill work as a substitute for the first cut/thick rough idea to give that toned up feel? I want to try that feel on the rest of my clubs but will have to wait so I thought I’d also check to get your thoughts. Thank you. Tom
Shawn, new member. Trying to wrap my head around your site. But I have to say that I would like to understand why you are not holding your finish in a number of swings. Should we not be able to be in balance at the end of the swing?
You bet Marcus! That is my focus point right now and the latest series on sticking the finish are HUGE FOR ME and are taking my consistency to the next level! In my case, because I find my swing every day and have not had a slump for several decades, I got complaisant and have had a lesson with a student revive that in me and had my light bulb moment! You will see much better from me going forward!👍👌💪😀
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