Month: May 2016

Golf Lessons Things You Should Know

Things To Know About Taking A Golf Lesson

Posted on May 26, 2015

Golf-Stay In The Game!

Golf Lessons Primer

When a new or existing student comes to me for lessons, I know I have done something correct in my teaching approach somewhere along the line. Being a golf instructor and teacher, someone skilled in ball striking and teaching, I have a good feeling as to how to approach each lesson. From the initial contact to about 5 minutes into the lesson, I know how to go about relating the important golf information to each student on an individual basis. Feel, intuition, and experience all figure into the equation.

If you are thinking of taking golf lesson, realize first as I am sure you do, that this can be a major investment. Even one lesson at a $60 to $80 price range can cut into your golfing and living budget. In my experience, I realize how hard it is to get by these days on what we have, so if you take a lesson from me, and I can only speak for myself, I can guarantee that you will get the most for your money.

I recently attended a seminar presented by Michael Breed of The Golf Channel. At one point in tthe presentation, Breed asked for 2 key words from the audience. He had a list of words that he had collected from all his previous seminars, and wanted to add 2 words from this audience, made up primarily of PGA professionals. Breed read us his list and got 2 more words from this group. No place on his list were the words I have previously mention, feel and intuition. Most in attendance agreed that it took about one-third to one-quarter of each lesson to figure out how to approach the student. I thought to myself that they are wasting a great deal of time on a part of teaching that they should have figured out in the lesson booking and in the first five minutes of the lesson: how to approach the relaying and relating of information.

My artistic background has given me a great foundation on which to base my teaching method. In the first place, I have learned over the last 40 years how to reduce information to its lowest common denominator, and how to get to the root of most problems quickly. In the second place, I have learned how to relay this information in a timely, simple to understand, common sense, coherent way. I have learned to operate on many levels at once, to get to the heart of the matter and get that information to the student precisely and quickly. No one wants to waste time and money; your golf lesson is no different that anything else.

I could tell you many reasons to take a lesson, from learning fundamentals to the ultimate goal of lowering your scores by hitting consistently better golf shots. This leads to increased satisfaction in your golf game simply from being a better player.

It is my goal as a teacher to first and foremost connect with you as a student, on some level. Then we can go about our business of making you a more consistent and competent golfers.

If you are looking for lessons, find a teacher who will meet your needs. Use email and the telephone to interview your prospective teachers and find someone who first of all cares about what he or she is doing, and second of all who can relate to you honestly as an individual golfer.

Stay away from system or method teachers. What works for one golfer may not work for another. It is more important to relate swing fundamentals, both pre-swing and in-swing, to you particular situation, to getting you on the road to being a better player. Remember the words feel and intuition, and use them to your advantage on your search for a golf teacher or instructor.

Remember once you get on the road, it takes a little work on your part to maintain your knowledge, put it into practice, and keep on moving to new horizons.

The Moment Of Swing Synapse

The Moment Of Swing Synapse – IT’S ALL IN THE TIMING!

TIMING, RHYTHM, SWING SYNAPSE, START YOUR SWING, TIMING BETWEEN SETUP AND BEGINNING YOUR SWING MOTION, MOMENT OF AWARENESS

We spend so much time thinking about golf swing technique, actual swing mechanics, that we overlook the timing aspect of our total swing experience.

If you think about the times you were hitting your shots really well consistently, you will undoubtedly become aware of the sequence that you followed to get to those good golf swings.

Not the actual mechanical sequence, as in grip aim stance etc., but the timing sequence as in the muscular synapse, or when you started your swing after you set up to the ball. How much time did it take you to start your motion once you felt comfortable over the ball.

When did you feel in your muscles that you could let your swing happen? Your swing awareness at the time lead you to the exact moment that your swing was supposed to happen, and then you let it go. More often than not a bad shot creeps in here and there, and if you think about it, your timing mechanism was a little off meaning you got a little anxious or waited just a little too long, maybe because of doubt or indecision, to let you sequence begin, to begin your swing.

As a result, your muscle synapse, within your consciousness of that particular moment as it related to that particular shot was not in the same reality that surrounded the good sequence of shots. You changed your golf swing synapse, if only slightly, and altered the experience of that particular shot. It is a matter of a millisecond a small moment in time that can make a gigantic difference between high success, moderate success or failure of anything in between.

Let’s face it we all want to hit good golf shots or we probably would not be playing the game. Your golf swing synapse, when you allow your muscles to fire, means as much or more than your actual physical mechanics. I guess it relates to “being in the zone” or in the flow of the moment that it takes to let your swing happen.

It is not even something that you can think about afterwards it is more of a “consciousness of the moment” sort of thing, where it happens on one shot, then when you are ready to hit the next shot, you feel your moment, the moment to start your swing, then you trust it, then you let it go. Doubt or indecision will sometimes enter the equation and we all do the best we can do. But if you think about this “moment of golf swing synapse moment of being ready to swing”, maybe your best will start to get a little better.

Trust your decisions, trust your judgment, trust your mechanics, then get in there and get in there and let your swing happen. Wait for your swing moment to arrive, then just let it go.

The Moment Of Swing Synapse
The Moment Of Swing Synapse

Multiple Swing Synthesis

 

MULTIPLE SWING SYNTHESIS, GOLF SWING, MULTIPLE SWINGS, SYNTHESIS OF MANY DIFFERENT WAYS, BETTER SWINGS FOR BETTER SHOTS, KNOW HOW TO SWING YOUR GOLF CLUB

I was outside this afternoon hitting wedges across my lots. The measure is about 40 yards on a diagonal so I can get a gauge on the swing for these different distances. I have been swinging pretty well making solid contact leading with my hands through the impact area and gripping the golf club lightly so the club head releases through impact.

This works fine repetitively but once in a while when my setup is a little off or the ball position is off, I will use a slightly different swing, BY REFLEX (INTUITIVELY) to get the same good result.

I have learned to use many different muscles, setups, and ways to swing the golf club to get quality shots. It is funny how I am now realizing the fruits of my labor. The feel or reflex action that takes over to strike a golf ball is amazing.

Like I said, if something is a little off, my body reacts to the swing and lets itself do what it has to do to pull off the shot. Not every shot is perfect, but few golf shots are perfect; and every swing is different because every shot is different. It is quite an advantage to be able to get a quality result from an unexpected circumstance.

Sometimes we think we are in good position to pull the trigger, when the opposite is true. If we try to force the result bad shots happen. If we just go ahead and start the swing and let our muscles react, we always have half a chance and hitting a decent shot.

It is my approach and golf is a lifetime learning experience. I react almost instantaneously to each and every situation, even within the confines of each and every individual swing right up to the moment of impact, with an awareness of what I am doing on a micro second time level.

I played really well this fall because of my pre-shot routine and because I am learning to become immersed in the moment of each individual shot. It helps that I know many, many ways to get the job done, and it is apparent that these approaches or methods are ingrained into my golfing consciousness.

Fluid Mechanics Of The Golf Swing

Golf-Stay In The Game!

While there are as many approaches to teaching the golf swing as there are teachers, the fundamentals laws of physics, quantum physics, and fluid mechanics still apply.

This stuff about pushing the golf club away from your body to start your golf swing is a lot of malarkey. The back swing is basically where you store energy to initiate and execute the downswing, impact, and follow through. If you think you have to push the club away from your body and extend your arms to get a good back swing, you are disconnecting the club and your arms from your most powerful golf muscles, your back shoulders and core. You are wasting time and energy in your effort to get the club head back to the golf ball at impact.

There is a fine balance in discovering the correct method of taking the club away from the ball and completing your back swing. Strength oriented swings are great if you are able to maintain and use this quality, but flexibility and timing are even more important and more readily available to the regular golfer.

Storing power and executing a proper back swing as it relates to your particular golf swing is a result of understanding the mechanics of how your unique muscular system works. It is nothing more than finding the path of least resistance, the path of no tension, getting the club to the top of your back swing with the greatest amount of stored energy to initiate and complete your swing through the ball.

This eliminates the fighting between your mind and body, and helps your to use, what I am going to call “the fluid mechanics of your muscle system.”

To go backwards a little, any move of any part of your upper body away from the ball results in putting too much weight on your right foot. Then, in order to get the club back to the golf ball properly, you have to compensate by moving stronger and faster back toward the target. Not an easy thing to do for most people.

If you think more in terms of levers, all you have to do is keep your balance (50-50 on either leg and foot) and turn your shoulders to start the back swing. In other words, initiate your back swing with a shoulder turn instead of a hip and arms push away from the ball. Do not push on to your back foot and leg on the back swing.

Instead, stay evenly balanced on both feet.

The fluid mechanics of your muscles will then take over and create the correct lever system and power storage to get the club back to and through the golf ball in a consistently efficient manner.

Once you understand this move in practice and actually feel what it feels like a few times, the awareness of where the golf club is in your back swing filters in, and you start to know instinctively when to start the club down toward the ball.

The fluid mechanics of your own muscle system will tell you when it is time to let it fly in a more natural, relaxed, and fluid manner consistent with the way you are meant to swing the golf club.

In my own swing in starting the 2016 season, I played 18 holes with no warm up, then a few days later went to the range to hit some balls. I noticed in both instances that my left hip would not get out off the way, and I kept getting stuck against my left side and had to consistently make a great effort to get my left side out of the way. This left side stiffness is a result of many back injuries that I have suffered along my life’s path.

So I finally said to myself, “self, why don’t you just get your left side out of the way at the beginning of the swing, then you won’t have to worry about it anymore  as you attempt to hit a golf shot.”

This resulted in what I would describe as a really open stance with the left foot and hip open to the target. I then placed the instep of my right foot at a right angle to the target line then lined the sole of the club parallel to my right instep. My alignment was complete.

I then found that I was able to just rotate or turn my shoulders to get the back swing going, that my weight stayed evenly distributed on both feet, and that I was no longer pushing on to my right side. I felt lighter on my feet and much more able to move down and through the ball. My shots started to fly higher, longer, and straighter with much less conscious effort, and the club continued to release and fly through impact.

The fluid mechanics of my muscles were taking over my swing. I was taking my conscious mind out of my golf swing and understanding the motion, mechanics, and movement at a much more cellular level.

I played 18 holes the next day, shot 76, and only counted 2 swings where I lapsed and let my old muscle patterns creep in and ended up with two lousy shots.

What was really exciting was that I started to get a real feel for when it was time to let the club start down into the ball and get through impact. My swing started to take on a life  of its own. I felt confident that I was at least going to get the club face on the ball and that it was going to be a pretty good shot.

 

Game Of Golf

A Few Words About The Game Of Golf

This is Murphy. He loved golf more than anyone I ever knew!

There is nothing sacred or mystical about the game of golf. It is just a dirty old game that drives once sane men to the brink of madness.

Trying to figure out the game is next to impossible. You might be able to figure out some things fundamental to the golf swing itself, but when it comes to the game, to playing and scoring and luck and breaks and fairness and all those semi-abstract or purely abstract entities, there is no sense in trying to make sense of any of it. One day the ball goes into the hole quite easily, and the next day you couldn’t putt the ball into a bushel basket.

I love the game, I love playing the game, I love the irony and the unfairness of it all. I have hit a zillion golf balls with major physical injuries, overcome a paralyzed left arm and left shoulder ( I golf from the right side), played the last three and a half months of the 2008 season on my left leg because I blew out my right knee and couldn’t put any pressure on it so I had to swing on and around my left leg. I hit the ball better and felt like my game was more under control as strange as that seems. Funny thing is that I could not putt anymore. I missed hundreds of putts to the same side of the hole except for those few days when I could not miss a putt even if I tried and everything I stroked went into the hole. Same great stroke on those other days, but just had weight in a different place at address because of the injury and didn’t take the time to figure it out.

There is not much free time to do anything as a club pro in this world and this economy. On the good days I was under par. I was hitting between 12 to 16 greens in regulation on a normal basis, but shot high scores when I was not putting well. Playing golf on one leg is an interesting experience. Almost as interesting as playing with a paralyzed left shoulder and left arm that I incurred in a bizarre factory accident that should have rendered me dead or at least dismembered, but left me paralyzed instead. I started playing golf as rehabilitation, and found I liked the whole idea, it suited my mentality and fed and nurtured my health and well-being. I started by taping my left hand to the grip of a club then after I put the left hand on the grip, I would swing the entire swing by using my right arm and right side, since my left arm was not working very well.

After  while, the muscles on my left side began to respond and regenerate, and I was able to swing a little using both arms. It happened almost imperceptibly, I hardly noticed, but one day I was using both hands and both arms, despite what I was told by a dozen neurosurgeons and neurologists.

Then I broke my left wrist in five places while I was changing a hole placement on the golf course. The cutter caught a rock and I bent back my wrist and snapped it. I still haven’t fully recovered from that one almost twenty years ago. I learned to swing the golf club a  hundred different ways and I also learned that the same fundamentals are common to all those ways of swinging. Most of the strength and flexibility exercises I developed and try to show on this web site were born from my injuries. I push myself to the brink then try to recover and strengthen the injury. I love the metaphysics of it all, the uncertainty principle, like the bounce Tiger Woods got the other day when his ball hit a cart path and bounced over a boundary fence ending up out of bounds.

In years past the ball would have hit a cart path gone out of bounds, then hit a rock and bounced back into the fairway from where he would make a birdie or eagle. This time Tim Clark sent him home early. Time and tides change, the ebbs and flows of reality lead us down many different pathways, especially where golf is concerned. The more you think you know about the game, the less you actually understand. There is no rhyme or reason as to why things happen, except maybe that luck and good breaks run in cycles too.

It does not matter how good your are, sometimes you need a little comfort from the unknown and by the unknown, sometimes you just need a good break, a good thing to happen to you. I remember hitting the most perfect lob shot I ever hit in my life that was so soft it stuck in the very top branch of a pine tree, a fraction of an inch more and I was stiff to the hole. I could not accept it.

After I related the story, I asked a friend how long my bad luck would continue. Without even breaking a sweat, he answered with a sweet smile on his face, “It could go on for years, or even lifetimes.” Oh well so be it. I am still here and still playing despite all the odds and because of an iron will and the strength and constitution of an elephant. Life goes on, and so will I, at least until I cannot go on any longer. But I will still be playing golf !

Secretariat & The Golf Swing

Secretariat and The Golf Swing

By: John Lombardo PGA of America

Secretariat and The Golf Swing
My fascination with Secretariat has crept into my quest for a functional golf swing. Ever since I saw the movie I have had this feeling that this horse is a key in golf swing evolution. I have watched over and over again the video of the Belmont Stakes world record performance from 1972, and watched in awe a once in a lifetime athletic performance.

I have always been fascinated with world class athletes, particularly the athletes that seem to function on a level or plane above and beyond their peers, those athletes that have an extra level of awareness, physical ability, or just plain athletic ability. I have downleaded pictures of Secretariat. Stop action photos of the horse in action dirt flying all four hooves off the ground seemingly flying through the air having more fun than any living being ever deserved to have. Secretariat was a genius a running freight train at runaway speed. There was no laboring, no weight, just pure speed, pure effort, pure peerformance, pure totality of effort.

If you measure that performance against the other horses, it is hard to understand how Secretariat could have opened such a lead and maintained and increased it over that length of race. What is more the jockey said Secretariat was actually accelerating past the finish line for another quarter of a mile before he was able to slow him down. What un-encumbeered exhiliration! Strength of body and spirit.

It became part of my journey to learn the path of least resistance in my golf swing. It took a while, but one day I discovered a simple move in my takeaway that enabled me to swing in a more fluid unencumbered way with a total accelerating release of the club head at and through impact. It actually occured to me during a quick punch out shot from behind my golf cart.

My goal is to swing the club the way Secretariat ran. I used it for an 18 hole round without even practicing and the results were astounding. Iron shots flying 20 yards further than at any time this year. Driver shots longer and straighter. Approach shots flying high and at the flagstick. It was a revelation and a great feeling.

I say now that if I can maintain this awareness I will start playing in tournaments again and I will win money. I still get goose bumps watching Secretariat run, or just looking at the pictures. What a role model.

Golf Feel The Rush!

Feel The Rush !

 

“Get Your Adrenaline Pumping!”

By: John Lombardo Golf Teacher

This is a simple one for you. If you are new to golf or even if you are an experienced player, here is a great reason to play.

Feel The Rush!!!!!!

When you hit that great shot, did you FEEL THE RUSH?! Did your feel your blood pumping through your veins? Did you feel alive?

You did something well, you worked as you. You were alive, truly alive, your heart was pumping, and what is even better you for an instant knew that you were alive.

There is nothing more exhilirating or powerful than a rush of adrenaline. All athletes feel it when they are performing well, doing what they want to do with their sport.

I am talking about positive adrenaline. Not the adrenaline of fear or flight, but the powerful adrenaline of positive accomplishment and true performance.

While most of us will never be race car drivers, professional football players, boxers or NBA Stars, all of us can certainly play golf.

Golf is the sport of accomplishments. You play a little work a little pay attention to what you are doing then the gears begin to mesh, the pieces begin to fall into place and your golf swing begins to click.

Even if you are just out there in nature playing golf you are bound to hit a great shot sooner or later. It just happens, the more swings you take, your chances of hitting that great shot are better and better. You will never hit a great shot if you are not out there playing.

When you hit that great shot, did you FEEL THE RUSH?!

Did your adrenaline get to pumping?

From my viewpoint there is no better feeling while engaged in golf as an athletic endeavor.

Good shots lead to better shots. It just works that way. There is nothing boring about an adrenaline rush. It is you at your best doing something and feeling good about it. It hapens in golf, even to a greater extent than with other team sports.

Because in golf, it is you and you alone doing the deed. You are the master of your fate. You did something well, you worked as you. You were alive, truly alive, your heart was pumping, and what is even better you for an instant knew that you were alive.

How about that feeling over and over again, or even once in a while over a round of golf. Breathing fresh air, your heart pumping, watching that great golf shot, and knowing that you are indeed alive!

All Golfers Read This Letter

 

Ladies Golf Academy Week 2016

Thanks for participating in our annual Ladies Golf Academy Version 2016. We hope you will gain some knowledge of the golf swing in general, and how to get the ball moving toward the green and into the hole.

Remember that proper swing fundamentals can never be replaced. However, since everyone has a different approach to the golf swing, these fundamentals must fit into the framework of each individual swing.

How you hold the golf club (the grip), how you stand and set up to the ball, and how your body moves in relation to the “circular” motion of the golf swing itself all have a profound effect on the quality of your golf shots.

We encourage you to play as often as you can, and remember that even a little practice of some of the things you have learned in this Academy can go a long way toward making you a better golfer.

Just repeating your grip or club takeaway using slow motion swings in the backyard can help you become a better golfer.

The old saying was that “golf is the game of a lifetime.” Like all fundamentals, this statement is still very true. Golf is probably the only game you can play as long as you are able to swing a golf club.

Please make every effort to enjoy and “stay in the game!”

“Get Golf Ready” is the new standard for bringing new golfers and keeping golfers in the game. The foundation for this program is one simple word: “FUN!”

When you play golf enjoy it, relax, take satisfaction in your good shots and keep trying to improve on the not so good shots. The important thing is to keep playing.

There is no better “total well-being exercise” than the game of golf. It is played outdoors in the fresh air. It is total mental and physical relaxation and exercise. But the bottom line is that golf is just plain good for you.

Thanks for your help in making us better teachers, and for your participation in our program Dutch Hollow Country Club. We hope to see you on Wednesday evenings once the Academy is finished playing in the Ladies Scramble League.

Keep Swinging!