i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

[keith_mufc]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Great stuff, but the 1st skill does apply to driving. Instead of hitting down 20 degrees on the ball you hit it parallel to the ground but still with that hammer action in your mind. (photos on page 20)
Although I think your driving benefits more when you apply all 3 skills together
Back getting better (lots massage and heat therapy) might get to the range this week, as I have a comp Fri. Mind if i feel any pain or even a twinge then I stop and give it another week or two rest.

I hope at last i can get to using the 3 skills drills.
Let you all know how it goes.
Keith

[slater170]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Update:

Last night I worked on Skill #1 for about 20 minutes--the "hitting down" drill.

This morning I set a new PB by one stroke. A 94.

Let me say that the Skill #1 is very consistent with what I've been working on anyway, i.e., cmays advice about weight distribution with irons and woods. So even though the Three Skills books advises against "polluting" its teaching with swing theory, in this case the two have converged very nicely. And I have to say that I have never, ever, hit my irons (and hybrids) as well as I did today. The best thing was that I felt completely confident setting up these shots.

My drives were a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly, as usual. I shanked three drives, and hit nasty pull-hooks on three. The rest were mostly okay; a few were terrific. But Skill #1 doesn't apply to drives, so none of that has anything to do with the book. So despite having six pretty awful drives, I still got a PB, by a whisker.

My ball striking, especially iron play, has been improving anyway recently, because of cmays' advice, so I want to give credit where credit is due. But I think the convergence of that and Skill #1 has given me more clarity about what I'm doing, and therefore more confidence.

good to hear todd

[ubizmo]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Update:

Last night I worked on Skill #1 for about 20 minutes--the "hitting down" drill.

This morning I set a new PB by one stroke. A 94.

Let me say that the Skill #1 is very consistent with what I've been working on anyway, i.e., cmays advice about weight distribution with irons and woods. So even though the Three Skills books advises against "polluting" its teaching with swing theory, in this case the two have converged very nicely. And I have to say that I have never, ever, hit my irons (and hybrids) as well as I did today. The best thing was that I felt completely confident setting up these shots.

My drives were a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly, as usual. I shanked three drives, and hit nasty pull-hooks on three. The rest were mostly okay; a few were terrific. But Skill #1 doesn't apply to drives, so none of that has anything to do with the book. So despite having six pretty awful drives, I still got a PB, by a whisker.

My ball striking, especially iron play, has been improving anyway recently, because of cmays' advice, so I want to give credit where credit is due. But I think the convergence of that and Skill #1 has given me more clarity about what I'm doing, and therefore more confidence.

[chessbum]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Todd,

A very nice review. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

Very nice...

Chessbum...

[slater170]

Re: i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

Revolutionary or just another golf book?.... I'd say neither. There is nothing in the book that you haven't seen or read before. There are no "secrets" in it. What sets it apart from other golf books or ebooks that I've read (and I haven't read that many) is the way in which the material is presented, which is very, very focused. The book aims, first and foremost, to correct the way we think about ball striking. The "thesis" of the book, if I can call it that, is that most of us think about ball striking in a way that is faulty. The faulty thinking leads us to do things that result in poor golf shots, which we then try to fix by manipulating body parts, counting knuckles--or buying new equipment, I suppose. The fixes are temporary because our thinking is still faulty. So this book is a kind of "cognitive therapy" for ball striking. In that respect, I think it's quite different from other books I've seen. It's not about the "mental" game, but more about the mind-body interface.

As I say, it's very focused. Different kinds of ball striking are all viewed through the lens of the three skills.

Does it help? It's too soon for me to have an opinion. I haven't even done any of the drills yet; and some of them are not really what you might think of as "golf drills."

Every other golf book or ebook or web site I've seen has emphasized various "moves" and "checkpoints." Joe Dante emphasizes the early cupping of the right wrist. The "simple swing" system emphasizes not cocking the wrist. The The basic steps to perfect golf. site emphasizes keeping the elbows close together, and a bunch of other things. This book doesn't do any of that. This book is all about how the club meets the ball. The idea is that for that event to result in satisfactory ball flight, three conditions must be satisfied. In fact, "three conditions" would almost be more accurate than "three skills," but it sounds to academic. How to satisfy them can vary a lot. This alone can have a liberating effect, I think.

Just to take one example, how far do the shoulders have to turn when we take the club back? We often hear that it should be 90 degrees. But in this book we get the completely logical answer that the amount of shoulder turn is meaningless, except insofar as we are able to get the club face to the ball in a way that employs the "three skills" (or satisfies the "three conditions." Apart from that, it just doesn't matter, and there is no "industry standard," to quote the author.

Again, time will tell whether this approach is helpful for me. But I can at least say that it's not just another golf book.

nicely put todd
i think that is a fair review of the book.
as ive said before "the proof of the pudding is in the eating"