Hi Tom and Forum members. Just wanted to share some feedback. I signed UP and began with your instructions about 5 months ago.
HDre’s my story. I’m a golfer in my late 60s, still pretty limber, and have played bogey golf for almost 50 years. I became addicted to YouTube golf videos in a quest to get better. Unfortunately, I found that I would find some tip almost every day. And, I would change what I was doing before almost every round. Since I try to play 4 to 5 times a week, that was a lot of change!
Last February I was about to give up and focus on bowling when I looked into your online training course. I’ve taken lessons from two different pros in the last 3 years, but they treated my swing of that day. Since I was
watching so many YouTube videos, my technique would change the next week. Scary!
So I committed to only follow your training program and ignore the tips on YouTube, Golf Digest, emails, etc. So far, I seem to be on the right track with my GHIN index dropping from 18 to 12.8. However, I seem to have hit a wall and started reverting to bad habits.
So, here is some feedback on the training, much of this you have said on your videos:
-Golf is hard and change takes time.
-Feel vs. real is REALLY important. Until recently I wasn’t filming my swing. OMG! That couldn’t be me swinging on the V1 video! My point being that what I was doing and what I thought I was doing were very different.
-I think Harvey Penick said, “if I tell you to take an aspirin, don’t take the whole bottle.” It is easy to heat a suggestion and overdo it. I am a case study in that problem. Back to the last point, it makes it even more important to use V1 so you can see what you are doing. It’s also important to use your drills with alignment sticks to get feedback.
Thanks Tom, for all you do and thanks for allowing me to give you this feedback!
Bruce B. In GA
Bruce: great post and I know how you feel with the information overload. I generally stay within the Saguto universe but there is a TON of information to absorb (and reabsorb). I just now discovered a whole section of lessons I seem to have missed (Practicing the Swing - Feels and Drills to GET IT RIGHT!). I just came back from the range and it was a definite mixed bag - always disappointed when I watch the video and see that my lead arm is still detaching from my chest right at the beginning.
Anyway, that new section (at least I think it's new) looks great. I plan to spend some time with it this weekend and hope it will yield some dividends. I've been operating on the assumption that my setup was reasonably good but after watching "Posture Flaw #2" I can now see that my hands are too close to my body. Think I'll head out to the garage and try a few more swings tonight.
Looking forward to sending a V1 to Tom soon as I feel - despite my best efforts - I'm worse than last year and presently spinning my gears. Would have sent one earlier but the new android app has been a disaster; it looks to be useable now. I'll try it out this weekend.
Good luck with your game!
James
Hello Bruce! Great to hear from you about your journey to where you are today. I think I’ve taken several bottles of aspirin all at once over the years. I’m loving this feel vs. real mentality. I never thought about the benefit of videoing my Golf swing regularly. Was it like a slap in the face when you actually saw what you were doing? It was an eye opening experience for me!
Welcome to this great forum community, Bruce!!
18 to 12.8 in just 5 months? Yeah - I guess I'd say you're on the right track... 😆
Great kernels of wisdom in your post - thanks for sharing those. As for "hitting a wall", I'd say at this juncture it's probably high time for us to do a V1 Swing Video Analysis Lesson - an extremely valuable service that I highly recommend to everyone in the school. This enables me to put my eyes on your swing and offer some very specific observations and corrective action plans if applicable. I liken it to bringing your swing into the shop for a tune-up or minor repair. Scheduling one on a quarterly basis for preventive maintenance will do wonders for keeping things humming along nicely, and it's also a great tool for pinpointing and resolving any issues that arise. The process involves downloading the free V1 app and then submitting two videos to me through the app - one down-the-line (captured from your stance line, not the target line) and the other face-on. You'll find more information about the V1 Analysis halfway down this page on the Saguto.Golf site.
Thanks for your excellent progress report and keep up the fabulous work!!