Useful bits and pieces
1. Remember the ‘chip’ question of last week? See the answers in the short game section.
2. One student who’d already being trying MGS through internet resources alone wanted the total MGS ‘package’ – full swing, pitch/bunker, chip and putt, all personalized for him, and he was one of the fastest learners I ever met in my 23 years of teaching. He showed instant success in all 4 departments. The reasons – his body type is very flexible; he has had lessons from so many teachers he is a good lesson-taker and used to making changes quickly; he was already open to the idea of making a non-traditional yet scientific swing, and had been using it with some success.
3. Watch out for his ‘before’ and ‘after’ videos to be posted on youtube over the next few days. Useful for those already following MGS, on how exactly to ‘get it’. Basically, ‘before’, at the time of starting his backswing, John had no twist at all. So, whatever MGS-like moves he was trying to make during the backswing did not succeed as well as they could have. Even after being shown the salient features of MGS for him, he got his best shots when he had enough twist. For him (some golfers have the opposite problem), keeping his right side down and lifting his left arm steeply up were easy, he just did not always make enough MGS ‘twist’. So, even when he kept his right side down and the meaty upper part of his left arm rising steeply and softly up his chest wall, he would revert to a laid off position. However, he still had fantastic ball-flight because of MGS’s ‘magic move’ for the full swing – keeping the right side down and the body quiet during the backswing.
NO TWIST/BARELY ANY TWIST (‘BEFORE’, even though trying to get MGS):
GREAT TWIST (‘AFTER’)
One thing to be mindful of, actually two things, are keeping a twist with in the width of your stance, and not laying your head back too far to the right. The MGS twist works so well that many students “overcook it”. Try to make your twist, so that when you are done your nose is lined up over a your right knee/trail knee and the outside edge of your trail shoulder is not beyond the edge of your trail foot. Your nose should stay in line with your sternum.
[IMG]http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k215/NotAGeek_2006/Twistoutsidefeetwidth.gif[/IMG]
You you can see this golfer has not met these two benchmarks and this will cause him trouble in getting back to the ball. One of the most common faults or complaints from people trying MGS is pushes to the right and the above exaggerated positions of a twist outside the width of your stance, and your head laid back too far to the right are the culprits. Have this student fix this and his misses to the right wil be less so, and he will generate even more efficient MGS power.
Here you can see me making the same mistake from a year ago andt he improved position this year:
[IMG]http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k215/NotAGeek_2006/OldMGSsetvsNew.gif[/IMG]
Kevin,
I’m the person in the pictures. I never hit a single push from these positions and the ball was hit off of the center of the club face nearly every time in this practice session. Perhaps the amount of “correct” twist needed does vary with the student? Kiran set me up this in position because with my flexibility I was able to handle it;i.e. she customized a solution for me. Again, I had no trouble whatsoever getting back to the ball and struck it very solidly with all clubs in the bag. Sometimes “benchmarks” are useful because they do attempt to give everyone “parameters” from which to start their improvement but they cannot take the place of one-on-one (in person instruction) with a master instructor (such as Kiran…).
Hi John. Glad you’re hitting it so well from the position shown in the pictures – don’t fix what ain’t broke right? I just mentioned this because I see it so much and shots pushed to the right is the number one miss people mention to me when trying MGS. The suggestions above have worked for a good many golfers, including yours truly! Though I still get pushes, you they are not as severe.
I would love to see Kiran write an article on common faults and fixes.