Lesson Case Study

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Kevin Shields

Super Moderator
Thought this might be an interesting topic.

Had a lesson yesterday. 40 year old, good athlete. Single digit, scrambler...less than 9 GIRs a round. Above shoulder plane backswing, little wristcock. Some carry, gets under it late. Shallow undercuts and rolled hooks are the result with the irons.

Great session. We get a little right wrist bend, lays the club down a little earlier, works the handle into the body and gets the club on top of the ball. Undercuts are gone, couple of pulls. Easily a 9.5 out of 10 grade.

Takes out his driver and says, "Now watch this, I feel I can do this all day." Aims right and hits kind of a round house draw with a lot of out hand path. Actually a good looking shot. He says he hits a lot of fairways. Well I say, "if you feel you can do that all day, why change it"? He says great.

10 minutes left, still with the feel of his driver, he starts shanking it as he goes back to the irons. Isn't doing anything like we were working on.

Teachers.....what do you do?
 
Very challenging to build consistency if you're constantly mixing "a lot of out hand path" on one swing and "working the handle into the body" on the next. That's what I'm struggling with at the moment.

But I'm loving the positive results of the vertical left arm/handle toward the body on iron shots. Just gotta transfer that to the driver, too.

Great topic.
 
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Thought this might be an interesting topic.

Had a lesson yesterday. 40 year old, good athlete. Single digit, scrambler...less than 9 GIRs a round. Above shoulder plane backswing, little wristcock. Some carry, gets under it late. Shallow undercuts and rolled hooks are the result with the irons.

Great session. We get a little right wrist bend, lays the club down a little earlier, works the handle into the body and gets the club on top of the ball. Undercuts are gone, couple of pulls. Easily a 9.5 out of 10 grade.

Takes out his driver and says, "Now watch this, I feel I can do this all day." Aims right and hits kind of a round house draw with a lot of out hand path. Actually a good looking shot. He says he hits a lot of fairways. Well I say, "if you feel you can do that all day, why change it"? He says great.

10 minutes left, still with the feel of his driver, he starts shanking it as he goes back to the irons. Isn't doing anything like we were working on.

Teachers.....what do you do?

Charge him. Next question.

Seriously, very frustrating. Golfers are creatures of habit. They want to get better at certain areas of their games, but God forbid we change anything that has an effect on what they consider the "good parts" of their game.

Eventually, they come around. If its truly a flimsy, non-repeatable action that doesn't translate through the bag, then I keep challenging them until they come to the same realization on their own.
 
S

SteveT

Guest
An obvious brain cramp... going from conscious good to unconscious confused. As his brain fatigues, his conscious good degenerates back to his old brain unconscious ingrained patterns. Shanking the irons is just a manifestation of his confused brain struggling to come up with a consistent solution after his lesson(s) and mucking it all up.

Muscle memory comes from brain memory and for brain memory to shift from conscious to unconscious mode means a lot of renovation practice daily.... 90-120 days minimum.
 
Too easy?

Did he try hitting drivers with the new release? Maybe he finds out that, once he learns to aim it, he can execute the new move just as consistently...

Edit: great topic, by the way.
 

Jwat

New
This is the exact situation I have went through for the last 3 years.

1. Never more than 9 GIR's in a round
2. Hit 90% of fairways aiming 10 yd right of fairway with a 300 yd hook
3. get a lesson and fix irons, get them going straightish
4. Then hit the driver like crap till I work my old swing back in
5. Then start shanking irons.

For me, I am a big lateral slider over the ball which i would guess is most guys who swing so far out. Lately, I have put alot of bend in my knees and kept them and my thigh from moving outside of my hips. Swung at a local TM and those 4-6deg out paths were pretty close to zero even with the driver.

So not a teacher, but curing my lateral slide has somewhat cured the same issue as the student who seems to revert back to his old athletic movements.
 

coach

New
I agree with Brian, you probably are going to have to trick him a little, go back to irons and work up to driver, changing a little of the hand path at a time so he doesn't feel like you are changing " his driver swing "
 

Kevin Shields

Super Moderator
This is the exact situation I have went through for the last 3 years.

1. Never more than 9 GIR's in a round
2. Hit 90% of fairways aiming 10 yd right of fairway with a 300 yd hook
3. get a lesson and fix irons, get them going straightish
4. Then hit the driver like crap till I work my old swing back in
5. Then start shanking irons.

For me, I am a big lateral slider over the ball which i would guess is most guys who swing so far out. Lately, I have put alot of bend in my knees and kept them and my thigh from moving outside of my hips. Swung at a local TM and those 4-6deg out paths were pretty close to zero even with the driver.

So not a teacher, but curing my lateral slide has somewhat cured the same issue as the student who seems to revert back to his old athletic movements.

His swing is almost identical to yours
 

Kevin Shields

Super Moderator
I never panic in a lesson so we had a quick talk about why that move works with the driver and not the irons. Remember, once a student starts shanking in front of you, they tune you out and usually try anything to stop shanking. This almost always includes dragging their body more left to turn away from the right side of the range. Of course, this makes the hand path more out and the arms stay across the body and the hosel lead more.
 
Kevin, are there differences in setup and posture between driver and irons that might help this issue without big changes to swingpath?
 
S

SteveT

Guest
Instructor's failure turning into instructor's cynicism ... by blaming the student for his failure ...??!!!!

Failure is no doubt a common situation when instructing .... but how is the failure problem to be rectified?

Psychologically? Remedial lessons? Scientific analysis? Or just good ol' feeel...???

Remember the topic thread on instructor-teacher versus golf coach and Sport Sciences?
 
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ZAP

New
I know Kevin will figure it out. Having watched him explain things to me over and over and over I know he has the patience. The player needs to buy into the ideas. Part of the problem with being athletic is saving shots from bad positions is a way of life. So you do not really appreciate fully the need for sound mechanics.
 
It took me a while to understand that there are, at the simplest, two types of swings that you have to master as a golfer--driver/woods swing and the irons swing. In reality there is a swing that works best for each club, but that probably doesn't relate to this situation. That would be step one of the explanation. The next step is related to SteveT's conscious vs. subconscious topic. For the golfer to learn the new iron swing, he/she needs to get into the conscious mode when swinging the iron. There are also strategies such as using "clear keys" described by Carey Mumford to help with that process.

So basically, I would go back over what he needs to do with his iron swing. Then give some advice as how to integrate, or better yet separate, the iron and driver swings using conscious thought while alternating between the two clubs. Then, time permitting, give a strategy--I like the "clear keys"--on how to get those moves into a subconscious motion.

These are all things that I have really only discovered/understood in the last year or so, so it is a work in progress, but I have had decent success.
 
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