i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

[james.welsh]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

The proof is in how the ball flies. If the ball pushes to the right, you're "natural" closing action is not enough. IF you're drawing the ball back the the left you are closing the face enough through your natural movements of your arm. My point is some people's amrs don't do it enough and you have to conciusly add to that turning over of the wrist. Some do it by strengthening the grip to cause the club to come to a more closed positin at impact than it was at address. Some do this wrist action thing.

[ubizmo]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

The book suggests a drill where you hold the club out in front of you and swing it around your body while noticing the natural opening and closing of the clubface. It's a good drill just before taking address of the ball.

Yes. Maybe I'm just confused. To me, this natural opening and closing is...the whole story. Take the club back; it opens. Swing through; it closes. I don't have to do anything. I don't need a drill for this. But the impression I have is that there's more to it than this natural opening and closing; there's some added torque or something, else why elevate it to a separate "skill"?

Anyway, I'm just going to ignore the 3rd skill and assume that it takes care of itself if the first two are in order.

[BrianW]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

The opening and closing continues to elude me. But I wonder if it's really all that important. I might make progress just focusing on the other two skills. I'm thinking the third skill may simply be over my head at this point, but I could return to it at some point in the future.

Tod,

The book suggests a drill where you hold the club out in front of you and swing it around your body while noticing the natural opening and closing of the clubface. It's a good drill just before taking address of the ball.

The other drill that uses the hand clapping exercise also shows you how it's done and the additional power it creates.

[ubizmo]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

The opening and closing continues to elude me. But I wonder if it's really all that important. I might make progress just focusing on the other two skills. I'm thinking the third skill may simply be over my head at this point, but I could return to it at some point in the future.

[james.welsh]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

As far as consciously or unconsciously trying to close the club at impact, I agree that there is a strong element of timing to this. Of course timing and tempo are very important to the entire swing mechanics.

To get a nice feel for rhythm of the closing action, this is what I do. I use an image in my mind of holding a tennis racquet or table tennis racquet and as I'm walking along on the golf course I swing my arm to the right across my chest emulating a partial back swing with my palm facing down. Then as I swing my arm back I sort of flip my wrist so my palm is face up. I imagine this happening just through impact not too quickly but certainly not gradually. I think of a "flip". Then when I step up to address the ball I'm prepared with the motion and rhythm I want to perform in my actual swing.

My problem was always pushing out to the right. If I execute the "flip" correctly I get a really nice draw and a bit of a noticable power boost. The ball has a nice "crack" sound at impact, the kind you get when you know you've hit the ball well.

Of course if you over-do it or miss-time it you'll get a wild hook or pull it left! But this is worth practising because when you get it right, this motion gets the club face facing more or less in the right direction at impact.

I think there's a bit of a misconception of how the face must be exactly square at impact. It is ideal to get the face square, but surely there's room for a slight margin of error. Consciously trying to maintain a square face at impact might even do more harm than good. Your natural arm rotation should close the club. But if you're like me and you tend to play a push, you can try to fool around with a stronger grip or try to learn the flip.

I also think there is an element of forearm strength and flexibility involved in the swing motion as well. Some people have a naturally strong forearm that tends t close the face better, some of us don't. You might even try some strengthening exercises concentrating on your forearms.

[BrianW]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

It is easy to come through impact with the clubface open or closed without thinking about it, these will produce poor shots. Coming into impact with an open face that squares then closes will produce effortless power as opposed to powerless effort. All you need to do is rotate your forearms as suggested previously.

[qassim]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Eventually got round to ordering my copy yesterday.

I'm reasonably happy with the way I'm striking the ball at the moment but I think having more knowledge about what you are trying to achieve at impact and also having some visual images to focus on will only help my game.

Will report back on the results.

[dant]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Hi Dant, Kevin McDonald PGA here. I hope you are doing well. The shaft will lean more forward for clubs from wedges to 7 irons at address. The shaft will lean less forward for all your longer irons and utility/ rescue woods. The shaft should not be leant forward for 3 woods and drivers. The main reason for leaning the shaft forward the most with the shorter clubs is we are trying to apply more downward pressure to the ball in order to find the sweetspot. Leaning the shaft forward at address will give you a better feeling that you can acheive that. I wouldn't lean it too far forward as then you will start to shut the face of the club and this will only help you to hit the ball low. (can be used in certain circumstances on the course or if you have a strong wind into you and wish to do this anyway : ) ) With the longer irons we dont need to apply as much downward pressure to the ball to find the sweetspot so you dont need to lean the shaft forward as much. For rescue/ utility woods you want to apply a little downward pressure so you may want the shaft leaning forward just a little bit. For 3 woods and driver you dont want to apply any kind of downward pressure so you may want to have the shaft level. I hope this is of some use to you. Have a nice day. Kevin McDonald PGA

Thanks Kevin

[golfseeker]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

From my perspective, opening and closing the club face is something that happens too fast to be subject to conscious control, so I don't even try. In fact, of the three skills, I have a little trouble thinking of this one as a skill, because I tend to think of skills as things that are subject to direct conscious control. When I try to do something about closing the club face through impact, the result is inevitably a disaster. But it is apparently subject to unconscious control, so it can be trained, and that control can be directed by things such as visualization. So that slow-mo of Els could be a very powerful tool.

To some extent I agree with you about the difficulty of concious control of the golf club. But you can learn the proper use of the instrument that controls the opening and closing the club face. That instrument is the left and right forearms rotating in a counterclockwise direction. This counterclockwise movement is learned conciously as in Tennis, baseball or even ping-pong. Once learned in can be performed subconciously. In my avatar above I am hitting a bag full of rags....in effect "nailing" the bag. I do this daily when I can't make it to the course. It gives me the "feel" of rotating of the left and right forearms, the "feel" of the impact position and the "feel" of where the back of the left hand should be at impact. This is my take on conciously learned and subconciously performed.
Golfseeker

[kevinhendrix]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

With your more lofted clubs are you exspected (6-Wedges) lean the club forward in order to get the leading edge of the club square to the ball. And less forward with the longer clubs.
Thanks
Dant

Hi Dant, Kevin McDonald PGA here. I hope you are doing well. The shaft will lean more forward for clubs from wedges to 7 irons at address. The shaft will lean less forward for all your longer irons and utility/ rescue woods. The shaft should not be leant forward for 3 woods and drivers. The main reason for leaning the shaft forward the most with the shorter clubs is we are trying to apply more downward pressure to the ball in order to find the sweetspot. Leaning the shaft forward at address will give you a better feeling that you can acheive that. I wouldn't lean it too far forward as then you will start to shut the face of the club and this will only help you to hit the ball low. (can be used in certain circumstances on the course or if you have a strong wind into you and wish to do this anyway : ) ) With the longer irons we dont need to apply as much downward pressure to the ball to find the sweetspot so you dont need to lean the shaft forward as much. For rescue/ utility woods you want to apply a little downward pressure so you may want the shaft leaning forward just a little bit. For 3 woods and driver you dont want to apply any kind of downward pressure so you may want to have the shaft level. I hope this is of some use to you. Have a nice day. Kevin McDonald PGA

[ubizmo]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

From my perspective, opening and closing the club face is something that happens too fast to be subject to conscious control, so I don't even try. In fact, of the three skills, I have a little trouble thinking of this one as a skill, because I tend to think of skills as things that are subject to direct conscious control. When I try to do something about closing the club face through impact, the result is inevitably a disaster. But it is apparently subject to unconscious control, so it can be trained, and that control can be directed by things such as visualization. So that slow-mo of Els could be a very powerful tool.

[golfseeker]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

I've been away from this blog for a few weeks and find this thread on the 3skills very interesting. About a year or two back I was watching a pro tournament on TV and they had an extremely slow motion of Ernie Els swing as it was coming into impact and slightly beyond. The iron he was using was coming into the impact zone wide open (about 1 foot from the ball) and was square at impact. It continued square for several inches beyond impact to completely closed about 1 foot past impact. The whole senario implies that the club head rotated 180 degrees from open to closed within just a couple of feet. The comments that were made by the TV host was that he felt that this is where Ernie generated most of his power and acceleration. And most people would admit that Ernie's swing seems to be effortless but they cannot see that impact of his golf club in the hitting zone. So to make a long story short I took that visual to the range (this was a few years ago) and attempted to replicate Ernies swing at impact. I had dramatic results just like others have mentioned on this thread. I dropped 10 strokes off my game within a few weeks. The end result was very incouraging. One thing I found was that timing is a big issue and it takes a lot of trials to get it working correct.
Golfseeker

[dant]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Well... another week of great feedback on the 3skills. I myself managed to get up to Wales at the weekend and squeeze in a few holes of golf. I can truly say that I am starting to strike the ball the best I ever have thanks to reading NAIL IT and through speaking to Joe Hagan.

I can vouch that the 3skillsgolf philosophy can be as helpful not only to the beginner but for the pro as well. So many times I have been walking onto the golf course with many teachnical swing thoughts in the back of my mind. Not anymore, and it is all thanks to Joe. Cheers buddy, and keep up the great work.

With your more lofted clubs are you exspected (6-Wedges) lean the club forward in order to get the leading edge of the club square to the ball. And less forward with the longer clubs.
Thanks
Dant

[slater170]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

hi greg
good to hear its working for better players like yourself and not just the duffers!
got my works society comp this weekend so hoping my recent purple patch continues.
played in a works 3 ball last friday night and shot a gross 63 for 14 holes
got in work on monday and all of a sudden im a bandit that has been having lessons (which i havent) and calling for my official handicap of 22 to be reduced to 12
thats the power of 3skills for you!

funny that the sh*t stirrer is the guy who regularly shaves shots off his score but still wants his 24 hcap in the comps

[greghutton]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Well... another week of great feedback on the 3skills. I myself managed to get up to Wales at the weekend and squeeze in a few holes of golf. I can truly say that I am starting to strike the ball the best I ever have thanks to reading NAIL IT and through speaking to Joe Hagan.

I can vouch that the 3skillsgolf philosophy can be as helpful not only to the beginner but for the pro as well. So many times I have been walking onto the golf course with many teachnical swing thoughts in the back of my mind. Not anymore, and it is all thanks to Joe. Cheers buddy, and keep up the great work.