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Shawn Clement, one of the top 20 youtube teachers and the only one recognized for teaching without body part or positions, drives the ball over 300 yards both right-handed and left-handed and breaks par from either side, and is also the only one who ever qualified and played world-ranked events with 1/2 left and 1/2 right-handed clubs in the same bag! He is the ultimate expert on golf instruction!
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Hi Shawn, thank you for your clear concepts, target oriented focus, and body logic. It has given me much back that accident and age had started to take away, as well as clearing out alot of mental garbage/baggage that had accumulated and was in my way as well. This Focus series is Gold!
My question is this, do you still see the blur of the club when you hit the shot? Do you actually see the club blur pass through the ball on the way to the target? i ask because i have gotten such great results so far with your concepts, but, i don’t really think that happens with me. The target seems to take over when i actually hit the ball. Just wondering if i am missing something basic i hadn’t considered before. Thanks again, the money spent for Premium is SO worth it. Will be upgrading before end of year! Can’t wait for March! Joel
Hey Joel!
Great stuff! And no, you could not see the blur when performing the task because the brain is too busy staying with the anticipation of that impact. HOWEVER, I always see this blur just before I deliver the shot and have a solid preview of it and see the stem of the dandelion stem getting cut as well as the sound and feel of the compression and fizz headed out to the target as a prediction to the task.
Shawn, After watching hundreds of your videos many times, something new hit me (Maybe,I think ; – )). I have always assumed (if not assumed subconsciously) that there is increased sense of tension that develops into the back swing due to the windup up/coiling of the muscles against the resistance of the spine at set up. However, the more reps I watch of your motion into the back swing, I get the sense that you LOOK like that you do NOT resist against anything as you release into the back swing ??? Though you say that you stretch into the back swing as you gather “out of the way”, you do not look that you are resisting against any body part or position that you started with at address?? Should I interpret your “getting out of the way” as not only making room for you arms to swing BUT ALSO as not feeling as you are coiling/resisting against anything?? If so, I would imagine that you would not feel that much tension or resistance near the top of the back swing? Great vids! Thanks, Otto.
Hi Otto; I have been ANTI-RESISTANCE IN THE BACKSWING SINCE THE BEGINNING! 😀
This feedback is important because it tells me there is still way too many golfers out there that are suffering needlessly with statements like “coil against stable lower body in the backswing” which is the MAJOR CULPRIT for so many spine surgeries on tour and in the amateur ranks. I have dozens of videos to help drive the point home here: here is 12 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8RJ-_gyK1Y
Then see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D4_tDZjX1w and see lately https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbxfCjL95XU
Just a Possible suggestion as a key word or phrase that connects with golfers (hearing it resembles a slap in the face or an ahha moment) especially during this flow series… turn the entire upper body including the spine back and away into the backswing. Done properly, it relieves any sense of tension or resistance or feel of coiling again at the spine and/or lower body. Getting this point across is worth repeating (which I’m sure you already have) but in the context of asking golfers first if they usually feel like they feel they have previously falsely assumed that resistance into the backswing Is a basic tenet. Aka “getting out of the way” without tension or resistance . You should be able to pause near the top and feel fairly comfortable. I would suggest most golfers that resist would not feel comfortable near the top?
Exactly; great feedback because even if I have repeated this at nauseum in the past, I should keep it up front and center until this silliness goes away; which should be in a decade I guess 😝😝😝
And at the top, if you are fully bound up with all that resistance, you would be in a very precarious position to rip something apart as soon as you initiate the kinetic chain with the squatting to the ground in preparation for the delivery out to the target! Just insane the pile up of unnecessary injury and strain that has been caused by this way of thinking!
Just doing some re-watching, spring is upon us here and we got our first round in this weekend. I always correlated the club getting parallel in the back swing with a bigger turn, trying to turn more and more and feeling uncomfortable. Watching this, just turn out of the way and let the arms levitate or rise straight up and club gets parallel, no need to over turn or coil. Seems been trying to turn the shoulders more, no need to.
Exactly! The shoulders are just sitting on top of the ribcage! See “arm swing vs body turn” video
Shawn could you please do some slow motions you say watch the blur and that is what we see. A slow motion would give us more insight to your position at different parts of the swing.
Great stuff
Graham
Thank you for that suggestion, it is definitely in the works! 😀👍
Shawn, a question about “compression”. It seems to me hitting off the mat and hitting off grass changes things a bit. Doesn’t the mat force the club “up” occasionally? Thanks for the video! Looking forward to next week.
Hi Joe! Every surface has a certain give and you want to use the prediction process to determine the exact amount of turf penetration to use for your shots; see “predict contact” and “the goldie locks series”
And if your mat or the mats your practice on are too hard, or have too little give, then use the rubber tees and take “air divots”; which is also a nice practice for contact predictions.
Love the slight forward press to activate your turn back away from the ball. Ever so subtle, but effective in helping you load up on the back swing. I love that you narrate your way through the thin shot to bring on ‘bliss on a stick’ on the next one. What I love about how you go through this lesson is that you’re using data. You’re using the sound, the feel, and the contact as data to inform your next steps. Data has no emotion! You aren’t taking your thin shots, or the glancy, sliding shots off the face personally. You are using them as data to inform your next steps. Removing the emotion from not so good shots is critical to finding the joy and curiosity in our own games. It’s hard to be joyful and curious in the moment when our games fail us, but you are modeling the importance of doing so. As we’ve done a couple lessons together, I’m finding a new energy in my swing and my game. I’m still coming up short applying it on the course, but the contact is there and the distance is coming back into my long game. What is your advice for being patient on the course in order to find joy even if we aren’t striking it well? I’m guessing your answer might be ‘let go of expectations and enjoy the ride’. Do you encourage tinkering on the course or just getting on with it and playing? Talk to me Coach!
Great post Andy, nice going!
For on course, there are days you want it to be a tinkering practice session and there are days you want yo work on scoring ugly. You want to do both for sure and let the moment dictate that for you. Use the range time to solidify the focus sequence, the feel of the delivery, the gathering and releasing and then if you feel it, take it to the course and grind it out or use the course to continue the practice.
Shawn
Andy, I just wrote an article about this subject. Last year, I was playing golf and we saw former Masters Champion, Bob Goalby hitting balls on the range. He’s 91 or so at this point. He saw us watching him and when we came back to the clubhouse. He asked how we were hitting them.
“We weren’t hitting them nearly as well as you Bob.”
“Well, you know I used to be a pretty good player, but this is a game, if you aren’t playing and practicing all the time you need to play the game without expectations,” He said.
After that it made me realize, if a former Masters champion and multiple time PGA tour winner says that…why do amateur golfers have expectations ever? Wouldn’t the game be more fun if we just play stress free golf without expectations? By doing that we can enjoy the small things on the course. Maybe it’s the crazy hard shot that you get a chance to pull off. Maybe it’s the one draw around a tree. How about the low cut shot under a branch?
Stress free, expectation free golf and I bet all of us amateur golfers would be better and we would score better. My $.02. 🙂
Nice post Russ! 😀👍