There’s madness in methods, There’s madness in methods, etc. ad infinitum.

Ever feel like you need proof or genuine reverse engineering of your favorite subject – your golf swing? Then, why is it we have not entered that discussion in the last century or more? More specifically, why have we lionized golf swing personalities without questioning their knowledge? Relax, you’re not to blame.

Furthermore, have you noticed the number of catchy methods proliferating the golf scene over the last thirty years? A method is ‘Orderly arrangement of parts or steps to accomplish an end.” Natural Golf, One-Plane, Stack-and-tilt, and A-Frame come to mind. Methods even exist in other disciplines. For example, Keto, Adkins, Transcedentalism, Jungian, Freudian, Vedic, Western, Scientific, and on are methods within disciplines.

Methods are a way for lazy but ambitious people to short-circuit the learning experience in favor of gaining income from quick novelty or fleeting notoriety. They invent a way to talk about movement that seeks to encompass everything in what is commonly referred to as an “Elevator Version”.

Elevator versions are usually rife with name-dropping, scientific terminology, statistics, insults, circular logic, and bait-and-switches. And you cannot disagree with them. No no, my friend. Then you become one of those golf swing ‘insert derogatory term here-ists’.

Consequently, the method gurus main goal, in the absence of research or knowledge, is to assume original, unassailable ‘knowledge’. And, since that knowledge cannot be about the golf swing, they focus on marketing a visceral phrase or term to distract people from asking questions about the real foundation of their wisdom.

Methods are created by clever people. Don’t get me wrong. But, they are lazy people. Unfortunately for the popularity-minded method mavens, they inevitably become a cautionary tale or butt of a joke. I cite Hank Haney and his “Hit the outside half of the ball” method. Manuel de la Torre pretty much dismantled that junk single-handedly in one minute. Now, Hank is mass mailing golf gadgets online.

Due to the laziness inherent in these ambitious, meat-headed line-cutters, they introduce madness into the discourse of the golf swing. Their expanations become more like word salad. ‘Much ado about nothing’ or, even better, “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” – Macbeth.

Take your pick of ANY GOLF INSTRUCTOR ON EARTH, AND LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE GOLF SWING. Then ask why ‘that statement’ is important; why that position or movement is necessary. They will NEVER go that far. If they ever do, its because they’ve read and memorized my work.

I recently took part in a PGA teaching seminar where the concept of ‘intent‘ was finally discussed by the presenters. What a novel idea! I’ve only been talking about it since 2010. They didn’t combine it with any other adjacent discipline though. Seemingly, our golf world controllers seek to compartmentalize knowledge to shorten their learning curve and maintain, as George Costanza said, their “delicate genius”. It won’t work. I and my students are too far ahead for their relevance to last.

Golf Methodologists will stop others’ digging by stating how their expert statement applies to ‘their players’. What they really mean is, “according to my (imaginary) sources. Let’s stop talking about it now”. What better way to insulate their delicate genius than with the ‘higher power’ gambit.

I am BEGGING you all to test your instructors and coaches knowledge. Why are you trading your hard-earned money for celebrity instead of knowledge? I suppose its easy for someone like me, who is unaffected by celebrity, to say ‘That’s crazy’.

Most celebrities have no idea how they even became famous. Celebrities are unwitting by-products of “Western Culture” or, as Living Colour sang, “Cult of Personality”. Fame is born of ambition. But, ultimately, ambition cannot exist in the presence of knowledge, and vice versa. Therefore, the more you learn about the golf swing here, the less able the lazy are to get your lesson payments.

For example, ambitious people (Go-Getters) invented the phrase “I can learn the job after I get it”, and “I can fake it ’til I make it”, etc. Golf Methodologists are among this group. Unfortunately, ambition blinds people to the affect they have on others, who either become assets or liabilities, keepers or disposables. And I don’t see people that way.

Our golf method ambitioneers, like celebrities anywhere, push their ‘buyers’ to the microphone and deride their sellers – both without ever discussing how their method betters the human condition. Suffice it to say, their ascent comes without grounding in real, studied knowledge. It’s madness. And we all know it.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Constantly Asking “Why” Identifies Knowledge

Knowledge Is Not In The Illustration, But The Explanation

How Our Feet Can Change Our Ball Position

Subjective explanations are not proof. They are wishes. Therefore, my question is, why are people emptying their brains and resumes on me all the time? People find out I am opening my Open Stance Academy at beautiful Mission Inn, and they want me to know all about their technical, scientific, athletic work as if they secretly hold the key to my success. It happened again today.

‘I wrote the program for the Olympic bowling team (Don’t laugh. I think it exists). I’ve spoken in sixty countries about friction and spin relationships.’ What this eager gentleman was probably saying was that he now, without his intellectual necessity, has time to establish his legacy. Hence, as if associating with academy directors means educating them, he gets one step closer to writing his memoirs.

I’m sorry if I sound snarkey, but he never even mentioned why his work mattered to the achievement of goals. Ambitious people never do. And, why is it important? Data and scientific words for anatomy, movement, spin, and friction constitute definitions without a difference.

Data and definitions measure and describe what happens during the achievement of goals. Further, it’s not as if our collection of information ceases to be informative and morphs into performance programming. For example, can we put a co-ax cabled spike in the back of our heads to learn to fly a helicopter yet!?

Ultimately, pushing data as adaptative learning simply creates an industry. Bobby, Ben, Sam, Arnie, Jack, and Lee relied on impact feel and ball flight feedback to sharpen their skills.

Ambitious coaches and instructors love to use smart-speak when none of it changes our adaptive performance instincts. IT. IS. INCIDENTAL. KNOWLEDGE. In other words, it’s a distraction – just like ‘keep your head down’ or ‘fire your hips’. They represent useless junk-think feeding distracting ‘Expert’ smart-speak. So, enough with the smart-speak, people.

Just concentrate on why we do anything. Why are our ideas important to our human condition? Why did we study the data and measure the coefficient of friction in the first place? And, oh, by the way – why did that last 4-iron shot not please me as much as the prior?

Sorry. Had to vent. In conclusion, allow me to make a suggestion. If the ‘expert’ you’re listening to doesn’t at least touch on ‘why’ their subjective explanation is actively, foundationally important to goal achievement or adapting to circumstance, turn them off. Walk out. …I’d hate for anyone to get dumber for listening to them.

For another example, we know what we put in our bodies determines our health. That also includes information fed to our brains. If we take in junk, we weaken our body. Diet in food and information is proof of disease or health. Consequently, the days of discussing literal and metaphorical ‘treatments’ as ‘cures’ are over. Proof requires objectivity and success without exception.

I’m going to write another piece real quick about Method Golf Instruction. See you in a bit.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

How Our Ego Affects Our Thinking and Learning

Weakness Gives Birth To Ambition

No Amount of Ambition Can Make Up For a Lack of Knowledge

The following video is my Open Stance Session on February 19, 2022. Remember, please, this is just meant to show you all the improvement process. And, it’s more convenient than to travel to film one of my students doing it. Anyway, this was a big step forward for my ball-striking. Although my set-up still feels awkward, my movement matches up pretty well already.

This is a private session on the tour end of Mission Inn’s ample practice facility. No one is around, therefore I could narrate free of distraction and the discomfort of self-consciousness. With only a two week hiatus in January, my practice is roughly 30 days old. I’ve been hitting 300-400 balls per session – five days a week. However, only in the past week have I changed my ball position to affect my mechanical compensation seen here.

I describe my extreme motion as a “Ball Forward Chop Move”. It pretty much still looks like a golf swing, though, doesn’t it? What our swing feels like versus what it looks like are infrequently similar. Students are always surprised to see how small the visual difference is with a very strange move. That’s just how it goes. However, if your set up is intentional, your movement will comply. I have the advantage of knowing what set and swing cooperates with my set-up.

You may see Tour players rehearsing some very strange movement before they hit a golf ball. You should know they are triggering a feeling they want ‘in-swing’ without worrying about achieving mechanical exactitude. I cannot help but wonder how many younger players, in the absence of explanation, are copying these movements and posings without knowing why they are doing them. Nevertheless, this was fun. I’ll get my FlightScope going for my next Mission Inn session. I want to see what my numbers look like.

If you want to book a spot with The Open Stance Academy at Mission Inn Golf School, I should be receiving my contract soon after much delay. Stand by for updates. In the meantime, my Open Stance Session on February 19, 2022 will provide information you can use to help yourself.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Add Intention To Your Practice

Bruce and Specific Intention

Everyone Improves With An Open Stance!

Retrain your backswing for downswing success by employing my Ball Forward Chop Move. That is what golf swing/set-up adaptation is all about anyway. Moreover, we consciously separate our motion from our set-up to find where we want our process to settle.

For example, I’ve included two Open Stance Academy on Bitchute.com videos of my own process to help you create expectations for yourselves. Change is not a one-and-done session proposition. Constant, dedicated, execution of the idea is the only way to master your swing. Blue is before Red.

I have to tell you all, my set feels like it points directly behind me at the top. Obviously, it is only a little left. However, the sensational and mechanical expression of my idea has me hitting such strong and long shots with such beautiful ground interaction. Currently, my objective is making this backswing set feel repeated. Then, my objective becomes to rip solidly through impact with a well-timed turn.

The Hale Irwin move is gone. His was my attempt to steepen impact with my existing backswing. However, all I got was a shallow Hale due to my “Too flat” club set. Lee Trevino’s swing is more like my current idea. Steepen the backswing which allows using the legs and body to shallow a desired amount. Lee was the best, after all. … Hogan was second. Moe was third.

A man hitting behind me paid me a nice compliment (which actually wasn’t). He told me I swing like Hogan. (I don’t, as you can see). But, his heart was in the right place. I appreciated it. Then, I thought, “You know, I wouldn’t want any of my students to swing like Hogan as their prototype.”

I’ve had a couple people tell me my swing is no good. And, although they never offer elaboration, my ego can facilitate an expert game without trying to conform to an unspoken ideal. We should concentrate less on moving like this pro or that. We should employ a good idea, like our Open Stance, and move like ourselves.

However, I would love all my students to work as hard as Hogan. You see, his move was only “Great” because he hit millions of balls to make his flippy move work for him. Theoretically, anyone with self-direction and tireless work ethic can gain absolute control of their golf ball. No number of coaches or therapists can do as much as good, old-fashioned, intentional practice.

As for myself, at 300-400 balls per session, I should have my ball-striking back at a high level in two months. However, I hope to increase my output to 500 by March. By June, I should be ready to play competitively again. Join me.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Wrist Position In The Backswing

Controlling Spine Angle With Arm Swing

We Believe Golfers Should Have Total Control Of Their Improvement

When you get too shallow, do what I do – try the ball forward chop move. My invention is a movement pattern I used successfully in 2001 to undo a severely over-the-top backswing set and a big draw/hook pattern. I had difficulty playing a tree-lined golf course. After a spate of thin and heeled shots yesterday, I had to make a frustration change. After hitting one ball with my FBCM, I started kicking myself for forgetting the simplicity of the change.

First, keep your stance open. The visual you need at the end of the process doesn’t change during the process. You can easily enough direct your ball to land near your target. I played nine holes yesterday on Las Colinas, and struck the ball beautifully, after only a day into the change.

Second, Move your ball position to or ahead of your lead foot along your target line. The bottom of our chop swing is well-forward of “standard”. You may strike your ball thin until your position is forward enough. Conversely, if your ball position is forward enough, you will get an indication of how much more to adapt your change to your ball position.

Third, Keep your shoulders square to the target. FBCM move is about steepening your arm-swing and shaft set. Open shoulders necessitate a shallower arm-swing – negating our FBCM efficacy. Once your impact is optimized your desired shot curvature, or lack thereof, is a more standard combination of ball position and club set at the top.

Here is where I tell you what you can anticipate, if you choose to accept it. Your impact interacts with the ground beautifully in sound and sight. The pleasure you get will sustain your adaptation. You will take your changes to your golf course and see you can actually play effective golf during your process. I enjoy the challenge. After my FBCM practice, I teed it up and was even after seven holes before running into a foursome that spoiled things.

However, on the eighth tee, which is our #1 handicap hole, I mashed a fade uphill and into a breeze that measured 295. I was obviously alerted that I am on the right track. When I square my path (Down the road), the direct force on my ball will be even greater.

Notice in the following video that my backswing length remains, so don’t worry about your ability to create power. Additionally, notice my trailing elbow position and posture at impact. Nothing has been sacrificed to make my FBCM move. Just be ready to apply your force on an oblique angle to your ball, WHICH WILL CURVE. Allow it.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Ball Position With an Open Stance

Our Stance, Ball Position, and AdaptatIon Form Our Practice

How Our Feet Can Change Our Ball Position

Welcome to my practice session. After two and a half years away, I’ve been back at it for a month. In these spots, I’ll go over my ideas, changes, errors, and successes in creating the game I want to have. Many times, instructors ask you to do a drill to get better knowing they are backed up by an industry and history of word pictures and drills that indemnify them.

The Open Stance Academy knows there is a process, with no shortcuts, that leads to efficiency. My new segment is me putting my money where my mouth is. I subject myself to the better or worse of my process so you have a guide when your process gets frustrating. In other words, I’m in it with you.

Here is the first installment with camera malfunction, and bad shots included. I had a “behind the shot” view for the eighty-yard wedge and a fifty-yard wedge swing grouping that are missing (never recorded, as previously thought). Those camera malfunctions aside, if I could guide you to the reps. up through my bag….

I was surprised to see that my stance was barely open with my long clubs and that my shoulders were open with nearly all. My mistakes WILL. BE. REMEDIED. in my next session. Working with video is absolutely invaluable, as if I needed to say it. However, I do need to get an iPad stand and shade. That sucker gets HOT after three hours in the sun.

Practice along with me.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Add Intention To Your Practice

Bunker Session Broad Stroke

Welcome To The Open Stance Academy’s New Home – MISSION INN RESORT

The following video covers practice ideas for flop shots around the greens. Make this video the foundation of your practice when you want to flop drop and roll. What I left unsaid in the video is the importance of keeping your hips FROM OPENING in the flop shot techniques.

Practice Regimen – 100 reps. per situation
Shot Goal – Get every ball inside 4 feet
Shot Objective – Strike every ball in the sweet spot
Movement goal – Measure out swing length
Movement objective – Keep hips from opening until after impact

Lee Trevino Recommends a Flatter Swing

How To Manage Your Short Game in Bermuda Grass

Bermuda Grass Short Game Techniques: Part 1 (bitchute.com)

Bunker Session Broad Stroke

Controlling spine angle with arm swing is one example of how ideas, positions, and compensations meet to form a golf swing around the concept of impact. Perfect impact requires a perfect idea around which to form motion. That’s why I founded The Open Stance Academy.

The following video is nothing explanatory in and of itself. I use my own swing, within my own rediscovery process, to give my students an idea of how the process of perfecting impact works. For example, after three weeks, I am hitting 400 balls per session.

I’m working on first things. Before I can make lasting swing changes, my body has to be ready first. I stretch for fifteen minutes before each session. Even when I was at 100 reps in week one, my stretch routine was the same.

I notice my hands are getting much stronger. I know it because now my clubs feel like toothpicks. Hence, I loaded them up with lead tape until I could feel the heads again. Hand strength comes before perfect impact. Of course, when I say perfect impact, I mean every time.

Here is my current move.

If I were correcting in the opposite direction, I’d be swinging my arm more upright to offset with more spine tilt behind the ball/neutral/less inverted at impact. What a great sport we chose! Be gentle.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Why The Open Stance Controls Your Trailing Elbow

We Believe Golfers Should Have Total Control Of Their Improvement

Show Them Your Sole at Impact

Controlling spine angle with arm swing is pretty simple, in theory. And, of course, all the following are independent of set-up orientation.

I was swiping some bullets the other day trying to fight off the retrograde and initiate a new topic for your reading pleasure, and I thought I’d circumvent the Open Stance and get to more mechanical offsets for steepening and shallowing your impact. The following Open Stance Academy video on Bitchute.com is a moment in a process… nothing profound yet. Before – DTL and after – FO.

Our golf swing is nothing but a series of offsets for optimizing impact and our intention with our golf ball. For example, if move your arms flatter or steeper, we will automatically and athletically compensate with a corresponding action. Sometimes, we get into a Funk where we are using one action subconsciously without the benefit of its offset. That’s when we struggle.

If you are topping your 3-wood, for example, that implies, sight unseen, that your shoulders are open before and during impact. Why are shoulders found in an open position? Invariably, our arm swing is too shallow (Flat). If we are standing tall, we get heel hits and shanks. Arm swings don’t generally get too flat if we have sufficient bend at the waist, because swings are measured by the target plane..

So, the next logical question is, why do arm swings get too shallow or flat? Well, follow the logic. A flat arm swing is a subconscious shallowing mechanism for impact, and we are standing tall. What is left to steepen impact that pre-dates entry into our subconscious? Our answer would have to be something physiological, something unique to us. In case of the swing I’m describing, Plane was determined by where our club shaft points at the top of our swing is most often an unconscious pre-condition.

In my next book (Whenever I force myself to sit down and write it), I’ll discuss human idiosyncratic swing traits per year of birth. Grip, posture, set-up orientation, rhythm, etc. are all on the table. Did you know you move in a very predictable way because of the year of your birth? We all do.

Getting back to the topic… A flat arm swing develops in an attempt to gain “A longer backswing”, which is a conscious, quicksand idea. We think because one accomplished golfer recommended it or has a long backswing that its is a necessary for everyone to get to our goal. NO! Backswing length obsession will ruin every swing it touches.

So, we have a objective ruining our goal. We have an underlying club-set predisposition, from which we are trying to get back to the ball with offsets. Layed-off is the start in the unconscious. Upright posture is subconscious. The ultimate, open-shouldered position (Inversion) is the subconscious fix. However, the poison pill is the conscious, flat arm swing based on a fallacy. Anyway, controlling spine angle with arm swing is not plane dependent. Spine angle is a relative measure.

In conclusion, if your arm swing is more upright, your spine angle behind your ball, at impact, will increase to move your ball back into strikable position (Forward). If your arm swing is flat, your spine angle will be less neutral and more inverted, depending on arm-swing severity, to move your ball back into strikable position (Backward).

My layed-off, upright-posture student had heel strikes and topped 3 woods because he instinctively inverted to control his ball position and shot direction. He did so because his arm swing was flat due to a distance goal. I asked him to swing his leading arm upright, and he immediately pounded two dead straight and long. #OSAHappiness

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Why The Open Stance Controls Your Trailing Elbow

It Is Not The Fade That Creates Control

A “Flat” Golf Swing Is A Relative Term

The following video was a one-take symposium on how to manage your short game in Bermuda Grass. All my videos are one take, in fact. That original Open Stance Explanation was one take. Too bad I don’t have the one-minute spot for the video. It was a perfect sixty second promotion in one take – no shot clock.

In the wake of that spot, the Open Stance has silently taken over the golf world. In the short game video to follow, my goal is to provide the general options for clubbing and approaching these shots. I suppose the philosophy to which I subscribe is completely Ballesteros/Mickelson. Maybe it’s my age, or maybe it’s the expression of freedom found in changing my technique at-will and on-call per situation.

Perhaps you are a guy who likes a wedge library in his garage bag. There have been some very good players who opted for this approach. They are unafflicted with the variability inherent in short game creativity. Thus, they buy a wedge for any possible playing condition. It’s valid. I think of it as sad. But that’s my opinion. I’m no more right than wrong.

But let’s focus on the positive…. Every golfer has a palette of colors and mixtures based on their particular short game philosophy. Seve had more than Phil. Phil has more than anyone else. I say that because Seve used a greater variety of clubs around the green. He tailored his club choice for the shot required. Phil, who is immensely genius also, shoehorns every shot into fewer club choices. If there was a contest with a 56-degree sand wedge, I’d have to take Seve.

As someone who has been and intends to be again – sticky around the greens, I use a variety of clubs and develop multiple shots with each. For instance, I hit flop shots with my eight iron – not because I’ll ever use it in actual play, but because it makes me focus on set-up. Anything that encourages attention to set-up is productive because intention is ever-present in set-up deliberations.

When I say Digging Into Bermuda: Short Game Death, It’s pejorative, sure. However, it encompasses a common philosophical necessity per the turf and ground condition. Get to the result any way you like. But the broad-stroke message for everyone is a shallow angle of attack.

Have Fun. Enjoy the Sun.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Short Game Technique is Everything

The Key To Great Wedge Play Is Eye-solation

The Physics of A Flat Downswing