i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

[bill reed]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi Todd
yes that sounds ok, thought you might of been overswinging with the woods but its not that. maybe you should try and take a video clip and send it in and see if the others on here can spot anything. you don't sound as if your far away from a good swing.
bill

[ubizmo]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi Todd
if you don't take a full back-swing do you strike the ball better.
bill

My backswing is short to begin with. What I find more helpful than shortening it is to "stall" it before coming back down. I've talked about it before...It's not a true "pause" in the swing, but it's a feeling of letting the club slow down and stop, as opposed to doing something to bring it back down. If I do that, then I strike the ball better, pretty much regardless of the length of my backswing. It's easy to overlook it, however.

[bill reed]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi Todd
if you don't take a full back-swing do you strike the ball better.
bill

[ubizmo]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Todd,

Tell me what does work for you?

Good question. The answer is a moving target. Let me put it this way: For me, striking a golf ball well is a very difficult act, and it's one that I can't consistently repeat. But lately I've had the best results by paying strict attention to the tempo of my backswing, especially stalling the club at the top; also paying close attention to the position of my right knee, making sure it doesn't unbend or shoot forward; and starting with my weight slightly shifted onto my left (lead) foot. If I do these things, I strike the ball very well, with an iron. With the driver or 3w, not so good.

But as you've already noticed, this is a lot of detail to keep in my head while trying to play golf. That's what makes it difficult. If I get tired or distracted, I'm likely to forget some of these things and get a bad result.

This is why I was keen to buy the 3SKs book and try it. I hoped that I'd be able to strike the ball without having to go through this complicated checklist of swing mechanics.

What do you usually score when you play?

Before getting into the three skills, I was playing in the high 90s consistently. After working with the book, about 10 strokes higher.

What ball flight do you have?

I'm not sure what this means. It varies from one shot to the next.

Would you say you have a good golf swing?

I'd say I have a lot of golf swings, and some are good; some are not so good. To say that I have A golf swing is to suggest a level of consistency that I don't think I have.

Do you have a good set-up?

Hmmm....I don't know.

Have you a clip of your swing?

Yep. This is from early in the summer, and some things have changed since then, especially my posture. My spine would look straighter now, and my knees not quite so bent (although I find that I have to bend my knees more than other people to have any chance of hitting the ball at all).
http://media.putfile.com/Two-Okay-Swings

I must be missing something here.........

Why? Is it that perplexing that a particular golf instruction method could fail to help someone?

[Ian Hancock]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Todd,

Tell me what does work for you?

What do you usually score when you play?

What ball flight do you have?

Would you say you have a good golf swing?

Do you have a good set-up?

Have you a clip of your swing?

I must be missing something here.........

Ian.

[ubizmo]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Todd,

I suspect this is your problem, clearly here you are still concerned with your swing and not simply following the 3SKs instruction, how else would you know old swing faults are coming back.

You know if your doing it properly by ball flight alone so you are not practicing the wrong thing.

In the first instance, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I realized one old swing fault was coming back because my partner observed it and told me. If he hadn't, I wouldn't have known. The other important thing was, my ball-striking was getting worse, the more time I spent with the 3SKs. I suppose it's possible that the new method was introducing new swing faults, but I'm inclined to doubt that.

You must let go and give it a chance...................If it doesn't work then try going back to basics, maybe, just maybe you are no ready for the 3SKs.

Well, until two days ago I was practicing nothing but the 3SK drills, focusing only on contact, and paying no attention to swing mechanics. As far as I can tell, that's giving it a chance if anything is. I did that for several weeks. The result: my ball-striking got worse and worse. When you do an experiment and get a result, you have to try to learn something. I learned that the 3SK approach doesn't work for me. That's not to say it won't work for most others, or even all others. To say I'm "not ready" for the 3SKs is to suggest that at some future point it will work for me. That's possible, but I have no way of knowing that now. What I know now, and what has been confirmed by my experiment with the 3SKs, is that forgetting about swing mechanics makes my ball striking worse.

[slater170]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

well i ve been at the 3skills 6 weeks now and last nights session was the best ever.
i dont honestly think i could have hit the ball any better.
wedges and short irons were great on distance and accuracy, long and mid irons had a penetrating draw flight and driver was so effortlessly easy.
all i "felt" was that i was swinging a golf club round my body, just freewheeling round
nothing more nothing less!

[Ian Hancock]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

I've learned that if I relax my vigilance, old faults come right back.

Todd,

I suspect this is your problem, clearly here you are still concerned with your swing and not simply following the 3SKs instruction, how else would you know old swing faults are coming back.

You know if your doing it properly by ball flight alone so you are not practicing the wrong thing.

You must let go and give it a chance...................If it doesn't work then try going back to basics, maybe, just maybe you are no ready for the 3SKs.

Ian.

[Ian Hancock]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi Brian
i have a question but you might not know or be able to help me understand? Lee Trevino hits the ball with an in-to-out swing and then pushed his hands away from the body to keep the clubface open or at least pointing down the line he wants the ball to start out. he keeps the club face looking in line longer than any other pro that i know off and as a result he is still one of the best ball strikes ever to play. can you use 3 skills with this type of swing. i mean not letting the club face close till long after impact. why i ask is thats how i play and it works really well. i had Bonnar's dvd but his (home run) would not work with my type of swing as it resulted in me hitting the ball in the same direction as my stance, ie my wide open stance and the ball would fly way to the left.
any help on any of this i would be great.
thanks again
bill

Hi Bill,

I hope this is an open question now, and I think I have the answer:

Trevino, Monty and Singh hit a power fade, there are many tour player who hit this and it is a result of the 3SKs, the only difference being they approach the ball ever so slightly down the line as appose to coming from the inside..........this is exactly why there are so many different swings on tour, I have mentioned before, Furyk, Sabatini, Monty, Jimenez, Pampling, Couples all have many variations of backswing, set-up and strange manorisims..........they all get into the same position on the downswing then apply the 3SKs.

They still rotate the clubface for effortless power, it is the initial contact with ball and clubface that dictate the direction, with the above it just happens to be slightly down the line.........................thats all any pro does when he wants to hit a fade into a green or down a fairway.

Hope this helps,


Ian.

[ubizmo]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi
golf is a easy game made more complicated by to many instruction and swing thought. all other sports you don't think about any of it like the way we are told to do in golf, the way you say 3 skills frees the mind of the many thoughts has to be a good thing and can only help you gain confidence in what your doing without having to think about it.
bill

I agree that if you can get rid of many thoughts, it's a good thing. But it's a definite "if". I can't agree that it's easy. If it were easy, we wouldn't need all the instruction and swing thoughts to begin with. If it were easy, we'd all just pick up clubs and start striking the ball cleanly and accurately from the gitgo. But we don't. I think there are a few "naturals" who strike the ball well from the time they first pick up a club, but I don't think there are many.

I'm also not sure that there are no parallels in other sports. I never played any team sports, but I did some recreational downhill skiing when I was a teenager. There too, there are some "naturals" who just get on skis and go flying down the mountain. The rest of us have to learn skiing "mechanics", i.e., how to use our legs, how not to "throw an edge," how to shift our weight in turns, and so on.

I learned some very important things from Joe Hagen's book. First and foremost, I learned what really matters in ball-striking: the three skills, especially the first two. I learned that it's important to have a clear and accurate understanding of what has to happen when the club strikes the ball, including the often overlooked truth that there are no straight lines in the golf swing. And I learned that swing mechanics only matter to the extent that they promote or interfere with the three skills, and there is so single or "right" way to implement the three skills.

However, I've also learned some things that are not stressed in the book. First, if I'm not making progress with one of the skills, merely repeating a drill badly executed will not fix it. I've learned that visualizing the correct "nail it" impact may be necessary for good ball striking, but it isn't sufficient. And I've learned that if I relax my vigilance, old faults come right back.

[bill reed]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi
golf is a easy game made more complicated by to many instruction and swing thought. all other sports you don't think about any of it like the way we are told to do in golf, the way you say 3 skills frees the mind of the many thoughts has to be a good thing and can only help you gain confidence in what your doing without having to think about it.
bill

[bill reed]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

thanks old wease
i understand now its a bit like ag boners home run where you get the extra distance and power from the opening to closing of the face at impact.
thanks again
bil

[oldwease]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi oldwease
when you say, (sk2 squaring the face to target at the farthest point of the swing.) do you mean just as the club head comes in behind the ball its square and then it starts to close, sorry i don't know the difference from sk2 and sk3.
but i think i understand in that you are saying my system would not work with this system as i try and keep my club face on line after impact and not let the club head close.
do i have that right.
thanks oldwease.
bill

Yes, that's it Bill.

If you think of SK2 as looking down from above the swing arc, on the downswing, the clubhead traces it's arc and is inside the target line (on which the ball is sitting) - so, the classic in to out path. The target line basically forms a tangent with the swing arc so the clubhead meets the ball whilst tracing out its natural arc (at the farthest point on the arc, if you will). The clubface would naturally start to square up at that point. Since the club head stays on the arc, after impact, it starts to move inside the target line once again.

SK3 adds clubface rotation to the natural arc of the swing, going from open to closed.

I must say, this is something which I've always thought adds a lot of power to the shot, probably because there's a lot of built-in lag in there. If you want to try that, think of rotating the wrists rather than the arms. I know the wrist is fixed in terms of rotation to the arms but it's really the lower arm you want to rotate, not to get a trigger by flipping the right elbow or something like that.

[bill reed]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

thanks Brian
yes it does help, you have explained what i did think about it but was not to sure if i was right. with my (Trevino's) system, the point of off doing it is to keep the face looking at the target longer and that way giving you more chance to hit the ball with the sweet spot.
thanks for taking the time to help me understand more about 3 skills and like Ian says most pros do swing in the manner you describe. look forward to hearing how well you all are doing with this system.
cheers
bill

[BrianW]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi Brian
i have a question but you might not know or be able to help me understand? Lee Trevino hits the ball with an in-to-out swing and then pushed his hands away from the body to keep the clubface open or at least pointing down the line he wants the ball to start out. he keeps the club face looking in line longer than any other pro that i know off and as a result he is still one of the best ball strikes ever to play. can you use 3 skills with this type of swing. i mean not letting the club face close till long after impact. why i ask is thats how i play and it works really well. i had Bonnar's dvd but his (home run) would not work with my type of swing as it resulted in me hitting the ball in the same direction as my stance, ie my wide open stance and the ball would fly way to the left.
any help on any of this i would be great.
thanks again
bill

Bill,

Something that is pressed home very loud and clear in 3SKs is that there are no straight lines in the golf swing, the clubface should approach from the inside then pass to the inside, squaring only at impact. This is Skill 2. think of a nail in a piece of wood, the hammer would take a path that rotates from the inside towards the nail then squares only at the point of impact.

The system does teach to hit a draw so that the ball should be hit out to the right by varying degrees as the club gets longer. Skill 3 allows the clubface to approach with an open face and follow with a closing face, this will create effortless power to the shot and generate the draw.

I hope this helps you.