Have you ever had a student come to you for a lesson, watch them warm up and realize that you cannot make them better because they are already "there" from a skill stand point?
So, dude rips one shot after another perfect and you said "You need to just enter tour school" or " just go play".
Or did you go ahead and fiddle with a Ferrari when all you've ever worked on we're Yugo's?
Dear Lindsey,
I would like to keep this thread going by appealing to all the teachers that responded, AND ALL THAT READ IT AND THOUGHT ABOUT RESPONDING.
As you all know, I am the nuisance that responds to ALL questions with ALMOST THE SAME ANSWER, its lower body dynamic UNBALANCE, or 'Bumpy Back, keep it back', or keep your back to the target longer, etc., etc.
It would be easy to get bored with this repetition, so I promise to 'break out' into new territory, and hopefully pass on some meaningful golf statistics AND ways to work with those students who because of their accomplishments, you don't think you can help.
First, a few additional facts about 'increased lower body dynamics and stability margin test results. My recollection in guiding and encouraging elite golfers to ADD this stability margin last year, included Brian Manzella, Jon Hardesty, Billy Mc Kinney and Chris Como. With these accomplished golfers I thought, and you probably would expect there would be little change in distance and dispersion, but the case was MUCH MORE DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE.
ALL of them increased their distance with both a driver and a 6-7 iron nearly 10% in a period of certainly less than an hour. The decrease in one sigma dispersion was in the order of 30-40%, but unfortunately, ONLY Brian and Billy were tested on Trackman, while Jon and Chris did their own estimating visually while I was there, but may have some updates on a launch monitor.
What these results did however was move my scientific curiosity towards testing additional 'elite' golfers thinking they would be the most difficult group to post high improvement numbers as they were already accomplished golfers.
WOW, WAS I WRONG, and that is why I decided to 'enter’ this string, but with a request that you help add to this data base but making sure any testing you decide to do involves either Trackman or FlightScope.
From my experience, I suggest, as a standard, we all employ some simple but revealing statistics from the data, and apply them to your selected students when appropriate. Maybe you already have it for a mid iron and the driver, and if so, just run a second series of tests after teaching your student your own lower body dynamic stability margin enhancement tests with Bumpy back, etc.
I suggest you take the 'calculated average carry distance, and subtract the one sigma value from it, something like 240 minus 15 for a total of 225 yards. This represents this golfers 'expected distance’, at least five out of six times., Similarly, if we add the one sigma value, we have 240 plus 15 or 255 yards, expected 1/6 of the time.
It is not important whether you select 225 (5 out of six times), 240 (3 out of 6 times), or 255 1 out of 6 times, as long as you are consistent. Now here is the revealing part as to the ‘consistency’ of this golfer.
Next, take the ‘lateral’ one sigma dispersion, (usually about the same as the distance dispersion), say 15 yards, and divide it by the distance you selected above, ie. 225, 240 or 255 to get 0.067, or 0.063, or 0.059. These statistics also represent and can be used to measure the growth/improvement of the student, and effectiveness of the teaching methodology.
For comparison and enlightenment, the PGA keeps statistics like this, usually just for averages though, BUT in the teaching and improvement world I feel keeping track of the distance AND dispersions is much more important and revealing, as the TEMPO, and lower and upper body dynamic stability enhancements will significantly LOWER these statistics towards the appropriate PGA values.
So in summary, for the student that you think is at the top of his/her game as far as your teaching is concerned, do them and yourself a favor; on a launch monitor have they hit 10 balls for each club to determine their baseline. Then repeat the 10 ball test after ‘instructing them your way’ to increase their lower body dynamic stability margin.
You and the student will be amazed at the improvements in both distance and dispersion, and most importantly, in reducing the lower back injury potential by a value that is just now entering the research stage, but for sure it is a reduction in the lower body/pelvis angular velocity, one of the parameters of the ‘Crunch Factor’.
Regards, and thanks for the important question,
art
