It’s getting a little monotonous, but I’ll point out another winner open to a better idea. Patrick Cantlay won The Memorial from an Open Stance. Of course, Patrick’s success doesn’t surprise me. Because I want help all golfers, I want to remind you all that the Open Stance is the best way to guarantee your ball-striking success.

Patrick strikes his ball well every week. His accuracy and distance statistics reflect not only power but precision. Combine his full swing with a deft touch around the greens, and you get a winner. And, Cantlay is going to win more and more tournaments, because his intention is rooted in set-up and not movement.

I want to remind you again how an Open Stance reflects Patrick’s specific intention with his ball, which leads him to efficiency and better results. Remember to choose a set-up philosophy rather than react with one, because advanced choices provide context for results.

I’m still amazed at how effortless an Open Stance Swing looks, in spite of knowing Why. In recent weeks, Koepka, Spieth, and others are tinkering with the idea. Video proves their questioning of old instruction. For now I’ll offer my respect and congratulations to Patrick Cantlay – an Open Stance Master.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

A “Flat” Golf Swing Is A Relative Term

Golf Digest Takes Yet Another Step Closer to John Wright’s Truth

Set-Up Philosophy Can Create or Destroy Golf Swing Efficiencies

All the greatest ball-strikers asked questions of themselves that improved their performance, including Moe Norman. If you have never heard of or listened to him, you owe it to yourself to see what a complete golf obsession looks and sounds like. Personally, I have never seen someone so strange completely dissect the physical and spiritual aspects of golf. I believe his insights bubbled to the surface because Moe Norman quietly pursued the answers to the right questions.

At The Open Stance Academy, we want golfers to take control of their improvement by employing a proven set-up philosophy. Through parable in paragraph, we guide willing golfers to their most-efficient golf swings. Furthermore, we want students to ask better questions to get better feedback or… answers.

The difference between a good question and a bad question is in the first word. You may remember I quoted Socrates, who said, “Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas.” The first word of a question focuses our attention on either our next step or our solution. Of the words, who, what, when, where, why, and how, only one bypasses incrementals and incidentals. Why?

I find it difficult to understand how someone so gifted was largely ignored for the majority of his life. Moe wistfully asked why it took sixty-five years for the World to see his genius. He would have liked to have competed with the notoriety at his back.

In this segment, we can see a hint of regret in Moe’s demeanor. He knew too late what some learn early in life. However, Moe still didn’t talk about people, and only talked about events in his own life. We know he was focused on solutions by the word beginning his interview queries. Tortured souls always ask deeper, more fundamental questions.

Any time I feel unappreciated or down, I watch Moe Norman videos. Listening to him chatter away so fluently about golf’s bigger questions gives me hope that his colorful personality will eventually serve to move us toward golf’s underlying truth. In any event, he always makes me smile and feel hopeful.

“They say it’s a boy’s pastime, yet it builds men.”
Murray Moe Norman

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Questions You Should Ask Before Judging A Golf Swing
Why The Open Stance Controls Your Trailing Elbow
The Open Stance Creates Great Ball-Strikers

Manuel de la Torre nailed it thirty years ago. As the first PGA teacher of the year, he gave an address. He had to talk about his beginnings, so I clipped three minutes from the video that gets at our Open Stance “concept”. He perfectly summarizes why we go around in circles with our golf swing.

Mr. de la Torre is a very direct person, not unlike myself. In fact, he is a Rooster, not unlike myself. His style is not always friendly. However, if you can get past his acerbicism and listen to him like he is an angel, the truth is all he cares about with the knowledge he has.

If that sounds like a qualifier, it is. We “do the best with what we’ve got”. Therefore, I recommend his videos without agreeing philosophically, because he is not crass. He doesn’t try to sell you a fad or anything not rooted in fundamental motion.

Yes, motion is his milieu. But, regardless of philosophy, if we each recognize the truth beneath the surface, we remain individually correct. We simply differ on depth.

Any natural spring begins in the Earth and is express upon the Earth. Finding buried treasure requires digging, diving, or displacing superficial layers of disguise. Mr. de la Torre did exactly that, in his wheelhouse of motion.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/string-theory/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/couples-therapy/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/we-believe-golfers-should/

FINALLY! Look at what Jordan Spieth is doing with his set-up! The former number one looks to be on board with the Open Stance, at last. He has some adjusting to do, but he will be back in the winner’s circle now that his set-up has improved.

I don’t know who told him to do it, but kudos to them for listening and acting. Jordan is too talented to languish with a faulty platform. Personally, I hope he uses his new-found philosophy to make up for lost time. Spieth is already the best putter on tour. How much more dangerous would he be hitting fairways?

Had he not shot a 65 in his first round of Colonial, I wouldn’t have suspected a change. And, to be fair, he putted lights out. However, one comment by the announcer at the beginning of the following video is an unmistakable alarm bell. Then, at eighteen, we once again notice his feet and where his shot travels. He’s in.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/jordan-speith-advice/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/jordan-peterson-open-stance-corollary/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/are-butch-harmon-and-sean-foley-reading-my-website/

In an earlier post, I quoted Brooksie as having said, “I won’t be changing anything” with regard to his game. If you watched the PGA last week, you heard something completely different. Apparently, Brooks Koepka does change some things. Considering our theme here, you’ll notice his change pretty quickly.

He shot 63, 65, and 70, with a 74 on Sunday. Here are four videos – one from each day of the PGA at Bethpage. I’m sure you will notice the change he made from round to round. His change makes me think, maybe he meant ‘unconscious’. Here’s a hint… watch his feet.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

The Open Stance Creates Great Ball-Strikers
Did Anyone Write About An Open Stance Cure Before John Wright?
Why The Open Stance Controls Your Trailing Elbow

Did you know golfers and humanity, in general, share evolutionary attributes with water? It’s true. The way we move to grow is the attribute. We fall, we refresh, we pool, we rise, we flow. Bruce Lee once recommended we “become water” to perfectly adapt to our situation. I wonder if he didn’t know water’s natural movement is upward. In his wisdom, maybe Bruce was telling us to evolve or become most efficient in our chosen philosophy.

The first thing we do is fall down. We make mistakes and become frustrated at our decision to improve our situation. Then, we respond by quitting (no more rain fall) or we accept inevitable setbacks to move toward our goal rooted in our philosophy.

Second, we choose to stay down or collect ourselves. We’ll assume resilience, because we don’t celebrate people who stay down. Therefore, to reinvigorate our process, we enter a community of like-minded individuals, pool experiences, gain strength through association, and try again.

As our movement gets more powerful, our progress enthusiasm overflows our now confined space. We move up a flight, a league, a format, or a handicap threshold… maybe all for the top percentage of motivated players. When we rise above our previous expectation, we start find new motivation.

We look for new solutions, new tests of our philosophy and associated skill set. New possibilities become new goals. A boundless quality to our potential brings both exultation and confusing detours until we, once again, gather with others at the same level and move in the most efficient direction to enjoy our life’s journey.

Water rises because it must. However, as it moves, it both feeds and displaces the weak and the strong alike. If you have read my opinions of instruction versus teaching, you know which displaces and which feeds. Water evolves and causes evolution in other systems. Water is perfect in any state. Artificially redirecting or manipulating water always creates problems – not for the water, but for the manipulator.

Nevertheless, when we become like water, we take on certain assumptions of that simile. Bruce Lee was certainly ahead of his time, but maybe for hidden messages as much as revealed lessons. If we think in the broadest metaphorical terms, we may see every axiom or aphorism as only a directional quality to our human and golfing flow.

The strength in the flow is in efficient, unfettered freedom to seek the highest possible level, which is why plants grow upward. They are a proxy for water that cannot pool and flow – an expression of an underlying condition. In any case, water is never wasted because water finds it’s own most efficient expression. We call that state equilibrium.

People spend too much time resisting the inevitable instead of cooperating with it. We choose subjectivity over objectivity so we feel control over mortality, let’s say. In swimming against the current, we deny ourselves the ability to go with the flow, which is the force that displaces and rebuilds. At which point, we become watchers of goals being achieved by others who submitted to the truth binding them to efficient use.

Freedom of movement is freedom of expression to golfers. The truth is that all water droplets are different until they meet the ground. Then, they are uniquely and naturally repurposed. The Open Stance is the fall to the ground. It is a biodynamic certainty. However each droplet reacts with the ground is up to chance. But, we can choose our path and cooperate with the flow of any path.

We will fail on our way to efficiency. But, will we lay the groundwork to later succeed? Depending on our mentality and submission to the truth before us, we have potential. We have to choose efficiency and, in doing so, recognize the Open Stance represents the drop of falling water.

With an Open Stance, ball-striking efficiency is guaranteed. So, what keeps us from our OS philosophical flow? Fear, of course, inhibits even the best-laid plans. You can stay down if you want, but the ground won’t get any lower to raise you up. In the end, the definition of our movement is not when we fall or pool in the ground, but when we rise.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/our-stance-ball-position-and-adaptation/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/specific-intention/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/watch-out-for-rabbits-this-year/

https://youtu.be/TitF9hNHiLY

Mike Breed got attribution for another whack article in GD! June 19, which suggested a “Shank Solution”. Naturally, I read it to look for falsehoods and their standard, crippling advice. I am now wondering, when they say shank ‘Solution’, do they mean ‘Enabling’?

I can’t figure out how so much bad information comes from golf instruction personalities, but I have a theory. I don’t actually think Breed wrote the article. No reputable instructor would write or even sign off on this many misleading pieces.

Let’s begin with their Shank cause. “Typically, the clubface is wide open at impact, and the swing is out to in, with the clubhead coming from the far side of the strike line and cutting to the inside. Those two conditions expose the hosel, which hits the ball, shooting it right.”

I want to fit as much as I can into this one post, so I have to gloss over some other, equally-important corrections. For people familiar with my philosophy and basic disposition toward this kind of publication are probably laughing by now. I’ll try to be gentle.

First, how can an impact position contribute to impact position? Is it just me? Our answer, of course, is that it can’t. The assertion is maddeningly preposterous. Causality has nothing to do with recency. Also notice the writer left all their assumptions, which provide context, conveniently out of their explanation.

Second, our swings don’t have one vector at impact unless everyone’s ball position is the same, bodies are the same size and shape, and response instinct is the same. Moreover, NO ONE who plays their ball back in their (neutral) stance and maintains balance approaches their ball from outside the target line. If it’s not true for all, it’s not true.

They can’t even allow the writer to say “Target Line”. They use the term, “Strike Line” which, by the way, IS the target line. I don’t know where to begin with that one, because I’ve never heard it before. I suspect that phrase allows them a back door when eventually called into question. Archive it.

Furthermore, the phrase, “Shooting it right” doesn’t seem like the words a golf swing expert uses to describe anything golf-related. It sounds like something I’d read in Field and Stream, which is another reason I think a novice penned the article. Now, we get to the “Fix” portion of the palaver.

“Fix the face”. Apparently, a stronger grip fix is the answer to curing the shanks. So, the problem is movement, and the answer is a grip change. Got it. I cannot square the club without a strong grip… Check. Just one question, how did Jack Nicklaus manage to do it? Ben Hogan? Never mind… just checking.

“Fix the path”. Initiating a full shoulder turn is actually correct, which surprised me. However, they ruined it by encouraging an active, swinging ‘out to the ball’ movement without ever applying an intentional or set-up context. Their omissions make their explanation incomplete and, therefore, wrong again.

They’re getting sloppy, and it shows. But, like I said, I don’t think a reputable golf professional even wrote it. Breed should sue them for defamation of character. Be that as it may, take note of how fast and loose GD articles appear going forward. We should see quite a show.

With each, aberrant instruction article we receive, we bear witness to the last throes of the instructional leviathan. Multitudes of Open Stance golfers throughout the World, who no longer give its fire-breathing, forked-tongued minions any time and monetary fuel are dealing the final, fatal blow. The giant, ugly, misleading, and destructive beast is now writhing in pain. It’s hosel was “exposed”, apparently.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/here-we-go-again/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/we-believe-golfers-should/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/real-eyes-realize-real-lies/

In a lesson today, I remembered something… the less grip we use, the more power we can make. The main reason is that our swing requires more efficiency to move our club with speed. That may sound obvious, but consider the dynamic.

The first thing we notice is how much heavier the club feels in our hands. In order to maintain control over the “Heavier” club, a we have to make it feel lighter with movement. Our ability to compensate for suboptimal swing habits lessen, so our efficiency necessarily increases over time.

Secondly, our hands cooperate better with closer proximity of the hands and wrists to one another. Furthermore, you will find it very difficult to grip the club in your palms while minimizing grip space. Which, consequently, sets the handle in your lead hand in your fingers, which is then bolstered by the strong digiti minimi of your leading hand.

Both eventualities are adaptive and cooperate with our feet orientation to our target – regardless of bias. However, as I have repeated often, all adaptation is most efficient with an open stance philosophy. I’ll point you to Jack Nicklaus as the most obvious example of both points.

Finally, we move in smoother order without the controls of a dominating grip on the club. Players try to cooperate with their club. Choppers try to control their club. The difference between players and choppers is fear. Players engaged in their process of improvement submit to their process in a way choppers cannot.

Perhaps time demands keeps fearful golfers from letting go of the control they feel they need. These folks (Men) can become players, don’t get me wrong! However, they must choose to begin their process. In the mean time, a good way to begin swinging more efficiently is to use less of their grips. The primary way is to –

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/the-grip/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/ lead-with-your-hands-using-set-up-alone/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/initiating-versus-accommodating-movements/

An Open Stance moves us further from our ball at impact. First, I want to go over the “How?” Then, I’ll cover “Why” moving further from your ball with motion is important. Answering both questions is the only valid way to substantiate a philosophy.

By opening our stance, we are moving our lead foot further and our trailing foot closer to our ball. When we do, our toes create an oblique, diverging line from our target line. Without getting into foot orientation to any line, I’ll ask you to concentrate, for today, on the line itself. Furthermore, keep in mind when I say “move toward the target” I mean onto our front foot, and not literally toward the target.

When two lines diverge toward the target, any movement away from our target means we get closer to the ball. Any movement toward our target means we get further from the ball. However, momentum dictates we move forward for power, so we can eliminate backward as an option.

As an aside, if we set up closed, we move closer to the ball at impact. It’s no wonder this is the set-up choice of shankers worldwide. Physics is neither negotiable, nor merciful.

Therefore, as we move toward the target, we move our body and golf club to adapt to increasing distance between we and our ball. As a result, some very specific and exciting incidentals occur during our golf swing. Here is where I answer “Why” it works for us.

Transferring our weight onto our front foot, in balance, means we have to release our club to reach the ball. Releasing our club requires a full turn. A full turn makes the necessary flattening of our swing along our foot line – easier.

For repeatability’s sake, we also have to position our trailing elbow inside our trailing hip. Therefore, we have to create room for the elbow to travel, so we instinctively keep our hips and shoulders closed longer before opening into impact. Our flatter plane means downforce needs help, which means we have to move our torso down through impact to assist.

Moving “down” through impact necessarily means we swing our torso toward our target. This motion is how we get our shoulders into hitting position as well as keep the club lower, longer post-impact. NO ONE keeps the club lower longer if the clubhead moves toward the target after impact.

Our clubhead MUST move back inside our target line to remain close to the ground. Our clubhead swings on an arc, after all. By virtue of our Intention, Open Stance, balance, and necessary mechanisms, we achieve a “lower-longer” ideal without even trying.

Strange how we we’ve been told what to do without being told that we are allowed to obey the arc around our body while doing it. It’s almost as if Magazine contributors and instructors were trying to break us. But, of course, that’s a silly proposition. They probably just didn’t know the truth.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/asking-why/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/why-open-stance-controls-trailing-elbow/
https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/open-stance-creates-great-ball-strikers/