Despite the reports you may have heard to the contrary, the 2010 PGA Merchandise Show was awesome. It appears that the central message about the show is that it was "smaller".  At least three people have said that to me today. Smaller than what, I wonder?

Smaller than five years ago? Yes, but wasn't the message pretty clear even back then? Golf was "overbuilt".

The cycle, while seemingly cruel, is also unpredictable, and each low teaches us that in order to survive and flourish, we have to get better at what we do.

The show was fun and hectic. It was busy, and that's a good sign. We were working, searching, listening and learning.


Snapper drill w. pro Mike Sutkowski        Interviewed by new online golf channel       

           Creating the perfect storm

I worked with some of my players from the Orlando area. One is a neat story within itself, as I worked with a guy for the first time, whom I had worked with online for almost two years. He's a professional from Illinois, now in the Orlando area playing mini-tours and Monday qualifiers.
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           Student Bob Weaver                   Longtime student turned pro, Kevin Riley         


Winn 's new Lite grips - big step forward 

We spent a lot of time studying clubs - grips, heads, and shafts -  particularly shafts. What a great time to be improving in golf. We are no longer slaves to the equipment. That is, you can load the shaft and release the clubhead as fast as possible, assuming that the club fits the player.

Taking it farther, we are now able to put the onus on the club shaft to deliver the energy we are able to generate. That wasn't even possible two years ago. Even that recently we had to conform to what the club allowed. Now we can take advantage of the gear.


Searching for light, fast and stable:   Nippon Shafts and Adila                                                 


                             Mizuno's Optimizer

Thanks to the Facebook friends who dropped by to say hello, and others who followed us online. What's really cool is that a number
of my players came by who are now in golf professionally. One man I worked with 18 years ago! That's really gratifying - we're out there in the trenches changing the golfing landscape.
 
      Sean Fister, student and LD Champion                          



    As a group - the best ever                                              Callaway FTiz - pushing the limit                                                                            
        
Another thing that's really nifty is that we worked hands-on with video/computer technology that verifies what we have known for years, but haven't been able to quantify until now. The best player is the one who uses her or her mind-body system most efficiently in swinging a golf club, transferring energy to the ball. Yes, we can quantify efficiency.  
                                                      

                        The new frontier: SwingCatalyst


I'm closing for today with a segue into a future blog: The kingdom of golf needs a wake-up call. No, more like it needs a shot across the bow. Sports is driven by participation. In golf that means players racking up rounds, buying shirts and shoes, paying fees and buying memberships, taking trips and vacations and buying hot dogs and a beer at the 19th hole.

I know how to grow the game...stop losing the players we already have. We lost about four million in 2008 and brought in only two million. That's not good math.

I know how to keep the players we have. It's simple, too. Stop ignoring the fact that players in general are not shooting lower scores, and start teaching them better skills that will result in lower scores.

When Joe and Jane average are improving, you can't chase them away from the sport with a stick!

Let's Get Good!

Sorry folks, I have to laugh sometimes.

This is one of those times. Kevin Smeltz, director of David Leadbetter's place in Orlando, now declares that tour level players swing in a consistent rhythm of 3 to 1, backswing to forward swing.

Hello! Not exactly a newsflash there, my friend. We discovered that in 1997!

That's when we (John Novosel Sr and I) began our research that lead to John's book, Tour Tempo, published in 2004.

He's not just late, he's incomplete in his explanation, too. He's talking about rhythm, calling it tempo. Rhythm isn't tempo, it's one of the two aspects of timing.

Tempo is elapsed time. In our case, it's elapsed time from moveaway through impact.

A given tempo has two parts, backswing and forward swing. That's where rhythm comes in. It's the ratio of time used in the backswing compared to time used in making the forward swing.

That ratio of 3 to 1 applies to elite players past and present - the backswing takes three times longer than the forward swing
 
That, of course, doesn't mean that the backswing is slow, either. It's only slow in relation to the forward swing - which is like lightning.

Great tempo doesn't mean a slow swing. Great tempo is a well-timed swing. We haven't been sitting on our hands since 2004.

Neither have elite players and all those striving for excellence. Like athletes in other sports, golf athletes are trending faster than ever.

Funny, too. I predicted that back in 1997!  A visionary? But more like using common sense.

Using history as a guide, maybe they'll pick up on that in about five more years.

WHY DOES SPEED TAKE BACKSEAT IN GOLF?

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The greatest stumbling block to improvement in this sport is also the biggest myth ever perpetrated on any group of aspiring athletes.   

 

I’m referring, of course, to the old distance/accuracy tradeoff theory—if I gain distance then I will lose accuracy.

 

There is no tradeoff.   I hate to think of the damage being done to the millions of potentially great playing careers of perfectly capable players. 

 

That myth permeates every aspect of learning, instruction, and performing.  Unfortunately it’s dug in up to its eyeballs, yet there’s not one shred of evidence to support it.

 

Common sense doesn’t.  How, for instance, is a struggling Joe Average, who can’t shoot 95, supposed to reach a par four of decent length in two strokes?

 

Yet, he’s been allowed to live in an environment of illogic including the following bits of ill advice:

 

"Now, nice and slow...slow it down... take it easy... swing easy and let the club do the work."

 

If you will simply think about it, doesn’t that fly in the face of sport itself?  Is a football coach going to tell a running back not to run fast?  You think that a homerun hitter is allowing the bat to swing itself?

 

It flies in the face of physics, too.  Isaac Newton told us that the ball will not move itself, and that the faster the clubhead is traveling the farther the ball will go.  The speed of the clubhead has nothing to do with a ball flying off line!

 

In fact, provided two conditions are met, a clubhead traveling at 120 mph is more likely to result in greater accuracy than one traveling at 95 mph.  The two requirements are obvious:  the club fits the player, and the player allows the toe of the club (clubface) to release through impact.

 

The resulting ball response is going to be longer and more accurate because the ball is compressed on the clubface longer through the impact interval.

 

That is a guarantee made by Isaac Newton’s basic laws!

 

Mythology breeds misinformation and underachievement is the only possible result.

 

When players under perform (two-thirds of the core golfers in this country can’t shoot 90), secondary things become elevated, replacing primary things.  Swing details replace principle.  

 

Here’s an example.  Clubhead lag is presented as a foundation of success.  That’s certainly true.  But, convention continues to present clubhead lag as an entity all it’s own.  Legions of players are being asked to delay the release of the potential energy stored in the golf club, to the point that most never release that energy!

 

The “late hit” has become the “no hit”.  A player is already swinging far too slow and now he or she is supposed to hold on to achieve a late hit!  Late?  He or she is already late!

 

I’ll tell you how to force the clubhead to lag—increase hand speed in the forward swing!  With hand speed, the clubhead—which is the distal end of the swinging element—is put into a condition in which it is forced to catch up. 

 

Like a homerun hitter swinging a bat, the barrel lags behind the handle.  The faster the hands, the greater the catch-up speed required—BAM!  The clubhead is forced to catch up (assuming that the club fits the player).

 

That’s a matter of physics.

Let's get Good!

I live in New England, where we have four distinct seasons.   Being a Texan the most distinctive feature during my 16 years here is the annual changing of the foliage colors in the fall.

 

All of the sudden, driving to our performance center last week, bang—green to yellow, to orange, to red—in the space of 24 hours!

 

It’s like taking the blinders off, like ditching the shades.  Wow! 

 

I see with new eyes. 

 

Genius is the ability to change your mind after gaining new information, or to see with new eyes.

 

There is genius within each of us.  However, too often in golf it’s buried beneath layers of old ideas and myths that were never relevant anyhow.  Many of the old teaching ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong go back to Bobby Jones heyday. 

 

The sport’s light years different today.

 

I’m suggesting that you ditch the shades.

 

We’re presenting new information.  No, not hypothesis, not theory, but principle!

"Let's get good!"

Beware of the sudden change...

That's a principle given from coaches to athletes that's probably as old as sport itself, and will also be essential in high performance.

Bethpage Black was certainly not the course players were prepared to play. But, how quickly that changed, and how quickly players must adapt to adversity.

Know what you can control and what you can't...

There's certainly nothing we can control about the weather nor course conditions, nor what an opponent does or doesn't do, nor what somebody says, nor what you did on this hole yesterday, and that list goes on and on.

The one thing one can control? His or her attitude!

Golf has its own version of Murphy's Law...

If one has a weakness in his game, tough competition will find it. Eventually, it always will, and it will always be exposed at the worst time possible.

Sport has no favorites...

Golf (sport, and life) isn't fair. Bethpage Black didn't  honor nor show mercy to anyone. The hole cut on 18 didn't care who you are. There's no place on the card for listing of pedigrees.

Go play.

Want the ball when the game's on the line...

If one wants to excel in this sport, he or she had better learn to relish the opportunity to perform when the shot really means something, when there's no place to hide.

Isn't that the reason we play?

The only reason to keep score is to see how one measures up...

We have to have feedback - immediate feedback - or why even bother?

One will never discover the Wow Factor without the immediate feedback from performance.

Motivation comes from within, usually from acknowledging a result from without.

Golf is not an 18-hole round...

No, it's a round of 18 holes, each separate. Play it hole by hole. Play this one. Win this one. Go on. The only thing cumulative is the score, and that's determined after the final, one-hole contest.

Play this one. Win this one!

Let's get good!

People are people, players are players, and so what separates the elite from the others?

It's not talent - that's overrated. If it can't be predicted, and can't be accurately measured, then talent is way overrated.

It's not size - look at Dustin Pedroia, Boston Red Sox and American League MVP and  Rookie of the Year.

I believe that there's a recurring trait that true achievers have in golf that others lack, and I see it over and over again.

Please keep in mind, too, that I have the pleasure of working with players of all levels of experience.

Of course, there are exceptions, and too, I can't substantiate with scientific results, but here's what I know:

• Elite players are more open to ideas and concepts that are different than those that got them to that level. It's like they are not afraid to hear and experience a program that's different. Tiger Woods, who was already the greatest player in the world, has rebuilt his swing at least three times.
• They're more diligent in implementing and continuing in a program of training than others.
• They are more committed to excellence.
• They're fierce competitors.

The differences go beyond physical dimensions, beyond IQ, and beyond so-called innate abilities. The very qualities that most of us believe make the difference, are not those at all. The differences go beyond that, and maybe because we tend to believe that size and innate abilities make the difference, these notions keep us from making significant progress.

I recently worked with 3-time world long-drive champion Sean Fister, so let me use him as an example.

He's more open to changes, more diligent, more committed to success, and competes with the heart of a lion, even in training sessions against himself.

He, like most of the other long-drivers that I know, is not just a giant guy with a funky swing using gigantic drivers, either. He's a good player.

What is it with the average guy who believes that because one can fly a golf ball a long way, that he can't also putt and chip? Is a 7-footer in the NBA not supposed to be a good free-throw shooter?

Sean (The Beast) wants to improve. He's not "hedging his bets" like so many other players do. He's not clinging to yesterday's "rules and regulations" of what's right and what's wrong. Many, many others are afraid to learn and implement what they don't know, and that's a huge stumbling block on the path to lower scores.

Sean is not reluctant to make a solid commitment.

I realize that in this discussion we are dealing with human intangibles, and maybe that's what makes it exciting and interesting. Maybe this discussion will provoke personal examination. That's not a bad thing, is it?

I truly believe that all golfers are serious about improvement. Let me put the ball in your court. Why is it that a 3-time world champion athlete is so open to change when so many other serious golfers are not? 

Let's get good...Ben

THIBAULT'S JOURNEY TO GREATNESS...

Thibault De Torrente is a playing golf professional, but there are lots of those. He's determined to make it big playing golf, and that's very common, too.

But, Thibaut is different, and because he's different, he might just do it. He's not lacking in skills, and he's huge in the intangibles.

He's smart, yet he's willing to admit he doesn't know all that he needs to know.

We had the goof fortune to have Thibault here for several days recently. He started training in our online program last fall. "Work" is no idle word, either. He put in 14-hour days in his family-owned restaurant, Vieux Verbier, in the Swiss resort town of Verbier, which is a couple of hours from Geneva.

And he found time to workout in our FastFirst program, too. "Dedication" is no idle word, either. Even finding space to workout indoors was a problem. Problems seems to be opportunities, however.  

Then, as per his plan, he came here to work with us face-to-face.

I got an education myself as to why foreign players are emerging big time on the U.S tours, and also, why golf is growing on the global scale yet shrinking in our country.

Maybe they work harder and smarter. Maybe they're not afraid of what they don't know. Maybe they're not afraid of what they don't know. Maybe, too, they go about with a better attitude. Thibault surely does.

The European Tour is good, and it's growing. They have a developmental tour, too,akin to the Nationwide Tour in this country. Yes, they have a Q-School, too, many hopefuls, few openings. Lots of travel is a given and not many do it in private jets.

Few endorsement deals are available. Thibault is used to paying his own way, buying his own gear, making his own arrangements. Unspoiled, self-reliant, diligent and all of that with a sense of humor. No prima donna, this guy.

All of that, and I haven't even mentioned the best part, which exemplifies what I believe, too. He knows that he has to become his own "coach", because I won't be there to hold his hand, wipe his brow, give him advice, and lead cheers for him. He's got to play the shots himself.

We will visit from time to time via the Internet. He will make another visit later in the year. Yes, there's more to learn, and he knows that.

But, he doesn't want to be dependent on me every time he flares a drive or misreads a green. In a sentence, he wants to take what he's learning and training to do and put it to work on the golf course. He wants to take ownership of it.

These courses, however, happen to be in Europe, and that play is for his living. Nike's not paying him, nor is Callaway and Titleist.

Maybe he's the unspoiled journeyman pro with big dreams. Yes, he's a dreamer, but one with belief in himself.

I'll bet on the dreamer, especially the one who knows he can do it.

   Let's Get Good!   Ben

Maybe now I've heard it all.

Today I heard golf described as a ruthless game. And the term was used seriously.

Ruthless? Come on now, that's far off base, isn't it? Maybe fighting a duel with pistols at 10 paces is ruthless, but not golf.

Golf's not ruthless. In perspective, it's not even hard. Compared to other sports, human relationships, and life in general, it's not even close to ruthless.

Maybe adjectives like ruthless, hard, impossible, humbling, cruel, and merciless are fit for many of life's situations, but not the sport of golf.

I often wonder just how the negative attitudes about golf came about and how different the game would be without them.

What if you believed that golf was fair?

What if you believed that you could shoot par?

What if you realized that you were created a perfect learner?

What if you realized that golf was a sport and you were an athlete?

What if you believed that the principles of hitting a home run and striking a golf ball are the same?

What if you know that we adapt to training, even if not training.

What if you realized that your attitude and your expectations about success in golf become self-fulfilling prophecies?

And, what if you believed that it's far simpler than you ever imagined?

What if you realized that we have the freedom to choose our own beliefs, that often those choices are going to separate you from the flock of underachievers?

Ruthless? I believe otherwise!

Let's get good!

It's both exciting and amazing how well we adapt to training. (We also adapt to no training and/or inappropriate training.)

One of our guys not only had a personal best with driver clubhead speed, a record 120 mph, but also reached it four times in a set of seven swings. 

The following is the series, tempo/clubhead speed:

.88/120
.87/119
.84/120
.85/117
.86/117
.89/120
.89/120

Below is his own comment:

"119 mph avg. Wow, this workout was amazing. I went from average to a PR (personal record) set of driver swings (in one workout). Add in a 90 mph 7-iron and a 100 mph 5-iron, and you'll understand why I'm thrilled.

The target down drills are money. And, thanks so much for your help."

Let's Get Good!

The moment seemed pre-ordained. Tiger's moments often do.

Yes, he's ba-a-a-a-ck. Well, sort of. At least part of him is back.

It's his mind. It's back. But, it was never damaged; it was just missing g from the tour.

His physical game is better, but it's not back yet. Maybe this coming Masters week, but we'll see.

Yes, he's changing his motion, too, as we predicted he would. He had to change because in sports it's self-preservation, like Mr. Hogan did after his near fatal car crash. And, that's when Mr. Hogan became the nearest thing to a machine-like player ever in golf. Maybe that's what Tiger will do - become even more dominant.

Back to his mind, though, 'cause that's what did it at Bay Hill.

That's what Phil, Ernie, O'Hair, Scott, Sergio, and AK are all missing, and I'm not saying they're void in that vital athletic department, but they're not Tiger. The list goes on, much longer than those I just listed, too.

We thought that just maybe someone would step up in his absence from the tour, but it didn't happen. How about Harrington...he's the one with the major streak going? Maybe he's just laying low - we'll see.

I can't figure out why people are surprised about his putt on 18. This is still the same guy who beat the field in the Open last year playing virtually on a broken leg. He wasn't full tilt physically then, either.

Want to learn something? Watch him closely when he's not swinging. You may never be able to copy his stinger, but you can surely learn from his on-course behavior. Yes, even from the outbursts. They're part of it.

I've heard that only three percent of our communication is done verbally. The other 97 percent is primarily from our attitude and body language. Wow, that's cause for thought.