John Riegger and Brian Gay are making steady improvement. The consistency of their progress speaks to the instruction they are getting. Input = output. I am interested in how they integrate their swing changes into their game. Does it change as the swing becomes more engrained? Does the focus change as the pressure builds?
I worked a few times for a player last year who was making a swing change. He worked very hard on mechanics early in the week and tapered to more feel as Thursday approached. Prior to the round, he might do a few drills to remind himself of what he was trying to do, but he was looking for a simple feel to take to the course. After the round, he would do some technical work, but he was still less tech and more feel. Then, he would start over the next week.
Overkill and I were talking the other day, and we think that you can get away with thinking more swing with a bigger target like a drive to the fairway. As the target gets smaller (hole), the focus needs to be much more on the target.
I hope we can get some comments from the tour players and instructors.
Swing changes. I've talked to some teachers and read some books about changing technique. The smartest thing I have heard is that you have to understand it. When you get clear in your mind what needs to change and why, the swing improves quickly. Not effortlessly. They use video and drills to correlate actual changes with feels.
I saw an interesting pairing on the range. Two players side by side doing the most opposite drills I could imagine. One player was hitting wedges with a ball on a tee outside the target line and behind his ball to encourage a wide outside takeaway. On his backswing, he would bump the ball off the tee with the back of his club. The other player was hitting a driver with a golfbag inside the target line and close to encourage an inside takeaway with a quick wrist set. I don't think you could have two theories father apart.
Tour players make small changes easily. They are great atheletes. When they make bigger changes, they sometimes get good results quickly, but then have a period when they play golf swing rather than golf. Their short games suffer from neglect as they spend extra time on the range. They can get stuck between old swing and new swing and struggle.
For many players, the promise of greater consistency in the future out weighs the short term frustration of making significant swing changes. Once the changes become engrained they return to a more normal routine.
Hybrid Mode
