Hi everyone, I am now 2-3 months into my journey of transitioning towards a S&T/Saguto Golf swing.
I want to share with you my progress so far:
1) It has taken me some time to get myself to "commit" more whole-heartedly especially to staying on the front leg and not trying to do to much with the arms, other than swinging around on an arch. It seems, that I start out really well when I practice, and when I experience some success I very easily get "sucked" into trying to do more, which results in worse shots. But when I stay true to the principles of keeping my weight on the front leg, and moving my arms around my body on 1 plane, then I am now starting to become more consistent with my ball striking and enjoying more and more shots that have some of that "crispy" feeling off the club-face.
2) Since I live in Denmark, Scandinavia, I have played very little real golf since mid October. I have been practicing in an indoor golf-center with Trackman. It is very helpful, but also quite different from getting out on the course. 2 weeks ago, I visited an old friend in South Africa, and we played 5 rounds of golf, which were the first rounds of golf for me in almost 6 months. And here I experienced, that although I havent played in a long time, the S&T swing really helped me in playing some decent golf. It was easy for me to hit lots of good, decent and acceptable shots, and very few bad ones. This gave me a lot of confidence in the fact, that I am on the right path with my golf game towards enjoying it even more and hopefully also scoring better in the months to come.
3) My latest "revelation" came just last week, when I experienced the feeling of a "delayed" hit. This was a new feeling to me, but it helps me with better contact and keeping my distance with what feels like less effort. So, this is something I look forward to exploring more in the coming weeks and months. Hopefully, at some point, it will also translate into a bit more distance on my shots.
The transition to the S&T swing has not been one smooth ride for me. Mostly because of my old habits, that find their way back into my swing, if I am not consciously using the principles from S&T. This I hope will change over time and with more practice. When that is said, I believe that I am starting to see more consistency and better ball-striking, which of course is very motivating in terms of continuing to work on it. So excited about the coming golf season.
Hope you all enjoy golf and life.
I first started watching and following Tom when I moved to Hawaii. I also had habits to break, and when things were working, and I got a taste of that crispy goodness, I wanted more. I practiced all the time and sometimes I hit many balls with that crispy feeling and started to move into the extra crispy drive through lane and felt I was on the way to the land of crispy delight and then, I lost it. I found myself only having a good hit here and there and in my last round of golf in Hawaii before coming back to the mainland I sliced 95% of my drives. I hardly ever sliced my whole life. I am 66. I had no idea what I had stopped doing.
I let my subscription to this site expire while I got settled and when I was ready I started to practice again, I was the king of the slice and crispy was nowhere to be found. I rejoined Saguto and started over. I took a more serious approach and one day I had that moment of eureka and I have not looked back on my serious approach. I got a lot of help from others in this forum too. They tend to be persuasive in their own ways.
Set up, (Still kind of screwing around with the grip) weight forward, head steady, look at the ball, slow takeaway, shoulder down, tempo on the downswing. And all the other things that go into what Tom teaches. Hogan arms, tuck that elbow in. AHHHHHHHHHH. Too much to remember at one time so everything has become a new habit. I don't think about some things now because it is automatic. I'm hitting the ball better than ever. I do some of the drills. The 2.8 is now always a part of my routine. I use an alignment stick on my lead side to form that wall and I use one for my backswing and swing under the stick on the backswing and downswing. 10,000 volts. And of course, if you don't do all these things, Tom says he's "coming to get you". he's a Sicilian so........ I am sure that success for each of us will be different, but it sure looks like we are all having
it in one form or another. That makes it good.
This is an excellent critique of your swing and will create a new sense of import for the documenting my progress in Toms S/T technique. Please tell more about the 'delayed' hit you speak of. Have you videoed yourself before and after showing the progression of this? I await your forthcoming progress reports. Best of Luck.
What a fantastic progress report, @anders.speakv!! It appears that you are on a very good path towards ingraining and taking ownership of your swing. The bumps in the road that you referenced are to be expected. Those "ghosts of swings past" are stubborn and they are always looking for a way to creep back in and haunt us. Continued time spent at proper practice will ultimately commit your "new" swing to autopilot, and at that point you will be able to execute it on the course without the need for mechanical thoughts or contrived actions. At that point you will be noticing significant improvement in your consistency, your game, your scores, and your enjoyment!
Thanks for an awesome post and keep up the great work!!