We can hold more than one thought when working on our golf swings. However, almost ALL instructors believe we can only handle one at a time. Well, they’re wrong, and I can prove it. Hence, my suggestion is to separate your swing thoughts into two thought boxes.

We may only be able to convert one thought into motion at a time, but motion is not the sum total of our golf swing. In fact, MOST of our golf swing is due entirely to athletic adaptive response to stimulus. Stimulus is communication from our brain to our body about our situation and our intention.

We create our own stimulus by setting-up to our ball. If we set up intentionally, we develop mitigating or optimizing movement – however you like to think of it – to reach our objectives. Of course, creating our own stimulus means that the movement in our golf swing is quite incidental.

Our ability to click all of our intentional, set-up tumblers into place before we ready our movement speaks to human genius. We can easily think about setting our feet, hips, shoulders, ball position, grip before we ever physically move. Well, that’s five swing thoughts right there! I know a few people who have ten items on their set-up checklist. Conveniently, however, all set-up tumblers occupy only one intellectual space. Set-up, therefore, is one of our golf swing, thought boxes.

Movement has its own box, too. But, movement is where instructors live. I do not live there, so I feel no need to rehash it – except to make fun of it. “Do what I tell you to do, and practice it with much conviction. If you don’t practice and get better, I won’t tell you what to do anymore.”

Oh, jeez… call the cops! They’re gonna stop giving me worthless drills and clever analogies instead of knowledge! What am I gonna doooo!?

Here’s what you do…

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

“The Ancestor of Every Action Is a Thought”

Billy Ho Is Setting Up Open, But Nobody Will Say The Word!

Our Pretending Is Ending

Commentators this week explained the work Billy Horschel did this week with his coach, Todd Anderson, during their second-round broadcast of the Phoenix Open. Talking heads said Billy is “Aiming more to the left”. So, I thought, “Billy Ho is setting up OPEN, but nobody can say the word!” What is going on here?!

The Open Stance has essentially become synonymous with low scores on tour. For example, Brooks Koepka hit fairway after fairway in shooting 63-65 in the first two rounds of the 2019 PGA. Then, he squared-up, missed over half his fairways and shot 70, 73 in the final two rounds. He still won. However, Brooksie inadvertently opened himself up to my analysis.

Patrick Reed closed his stance after his Open Stance Masters victory. Then, Pat disappeared for a year and a half until his recent hot putting streak. And, lastly, Ricky Fowler closed up from open, to square, to closed this week. Rick hit his driver everywhere in the desert and missed the cut in Phoenix, where he ususally thrives.

I’ve got to give Anderson credit. At least he is smart enough to recognize that great ball-strikers all set up Open. As a result, he got Billy back in a groove – at a minimum. Ultimately, Billy Horschel HAS started setting up Open… and with his putting, too! Therefore, what’s the problem with saying Open or Open Stance?

Is an Open Stance a mystery? Is setting up Open taboo? Or, is just saying the words Open, Open Stance, or Open Stance set-up taboo? Does my ownership of the space keep them from using the term? I hope not. In fact, I’ll issue the following disclaimer.

Ladies and Gentlemen of PGA, LPGA, and PGA of America and affiliates, I promise I will not litigate for using the word Open, Open Stance, or Open Stance Set-Up, provided you mention the world’s foremost expert in its application, John Wright. Go for it! – J. Wright

Furthermore, You can reach me in Virginia for interviews, public debates, or roundtables. Best Wishes.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/percentage-golf-with-an-open-stance/

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/the-open-stance-and-snowflake-swings/

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/open-stance-creates-great-ball-strikers/

If you’ve never considered how club-fitting can adversely affect your golf swing, you need to pay close attention here. You need to be fit by Gurbaaz Mann, Mr. Miura, or a couple others I cannot recall. Why? Because clubs too upright are your swing’s dynamite. That’s why. Nothing will blow up your game like mis-fit clubs.

I had a session yesterday to one of our amazing, handicapped military veterans from Oregon, named William. William and I discussed his swing from beginning to current, talked about his clubs, and his dedication to improving from his 9.5 handicap index… pretty impressive considering he lost both his legs in battle.

William has utilized an Open Stance for years, and was missing in a direction we cannot miss if we seek lower scores. His miss is a viscious pull-hook with his current club set-up. Therefore, we agreed to consider flattening his lie-angle at least a degree – for starters. My suggestion was for more than that.

His clubs were fit to him 1.5 inches long, so his 2 degrees upright was even more drastic. The club-fitter put him in 60g, steel fiber graphite. which makes sense considering toe droop. However, it makes absolutely NO sense when considering his golf swing. His club set-up, as William suspected, needs tweaking.

My man swings his driver over 100 MPH! WIlliam was already considering 110g steel. I agreed that would be more stable at impact, and he can certainly handle the weight. However, my concern is almost always lie angle.

When we swing an upright club, our subconscious mind goes to work to make it go straight. That’s the problem. The swing needed to accomplish that task is not conducive to either control or consistency… maybe that’s the same for most people, but not me.

We can create our golf swing without having control over it. For example, to me control means musculo-skeletal coordination and cooperation of power-generating body parts. Therefore, my view is that we can, consistently, lack control.

Consistency is different because we must create efficient structures within our swing to repeat motion. Therefore, I suggest “consistency” delivering the clubhead into the ball exactly every time. Solid contact is incidental to consistency, in my book. I can always move the ball around to meet an efficient golf swing.

Efficient golf swings always include the trailing elbow structure inside the trailing hip – ALWAYS. If you’ve read my book, The Open Stance and Three Short Game Lessons, you know why. William has crafted his swing like the rest of us. He adapted to his clubs. However, now that his good swings are hitting pull-hooks, we need to change his club set-up before his good swings are replaced by others.

William,

It was a great honor to meet you. I can’t tell you how much selfless patriots like you mean to me and many other grateful Americans, but I, personally, am permanently in your debt. Call anytime. My time is yours.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

This Is Why Gurbaaz Mann Is The World’s Best Club-Fitter

“Top 100 Clubfitters” List Left The Best One Out

Winter Is What Separates Achievers From Under-Achievers

I just had a conversation about, in base terms, how our ego affects our learning. Discussing recent Australian wildfires with colleagues led to how we humans believe we control the Earth. In our discussioon, we concluded the Earth, left alone, would always heal itself. But, I was left questioning how our Ego affects our thinking and learning.

I looked up Ego quotes, and found a good one. I have never heard of Terence McKenna. However, he is quoted as having said,

“Chaos is what we’ve lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant archetype of our world, which is Ego, which clenches because its existence is defined in terms of control.”

Terence’s insight drew in what happens whether we are engaged or not. I think our ego just wants credit for nature’s ways of healing our planet. Hence, we get to feel like we have control over our lives. Feeling in-control makes separating ourselves from others easier. Consequently, we more easily eschew all kinds of insights from others, thereby summarily destroying our planetary community.

Furthermore, we shut down discussion of anything not centered on our own opinions and beliefs. Therefore, arriving at objective truths about anything is impossible. As a result, we retard our learning by allowing our Ego to reframe our situation so we feel insulated against chaos. People then revert to base instinct where only subjectivity rules. Moreover, our Egos tell us we are the exception to the rule. That way, necessary change is less scary.

Wildfires in Australia have occurred forever. They start, they burn everything they touch, and they burn out. Only humans irrationally think that we are integral to that process and chaos should not happen. The driest climate in the civilized world and fires should not occur there? Is that right? Hmm.

The Earth (Truth) is the only self-regulating system ever conceived, and only our Ego says differently. Fires create smoke that provide material for thunderstorms. Thunderstorms cool the Earth, etc. Likewise, the Open Stance is the only self-regulating set-up philosophy ever conceived, and only our Ego says differently.

In summation, when you think about changing, realize the changed you is ALWAYS an improved you. Allow time for change to change you, and success will follow. Be open … to your swing change. Open your mind and heart.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

A Lie Can Travel Half Way Around The World While The Truth Is Still Putting On Its Shoes.

Attitude is a Conditioned Response

The Biggest Problem With The Open Stance Message?

Sponges are indiscriminate. They soak up any manner of liquid – clean or dirty. We throw away the dirty sponges and keep the cleanest ones, because we are logical. Therefore, would it not be equally logical to inspect the informational pooling beforehand?

People act like sponges. We hear this or see that, and immediately file our new informational liquid away in our ultra-absorbent brains. We always believe the liquid is valuable… because we decided to remember it! Otherwise, we would be foolish, yes?

The difference between sponges and people is in our ability to wring out the liquid in one and not the other. We can clean sponges, too. However, once our accepted “liquid gold” is taken up, we never really expunge the slag. We just slurp up new spills to mask subscription to former spills and hope the new is clean.

Can you imagine being a sponge in a strip club or gas station men’s room!? Well, if you listen to some popular instructors, you might as well go lick the floor in one of those spots. Because, their informational juice will do you NO GOOD – #BIGLY. Furthermore, once absorbed, you own it – for better or worse, for richer or poorer… until death do you part. Get it?

Now, do you know how to inspect the fluid BEFORE you constrict your sponge for the big suck-up? Its like inspecting any other liquid you touch – you gotta’ see it and smell it to make sure its not rotten. Most golf instruction is two-month-old milk mixed with bacon fat. However, we cannot tell the difference because we can’t see or smell literary or empirical work. Words rarely come with an aroma.

I know instructors who pride themselves on being “Sponges”. They think that a little from here, and a little from there makes them better instructors. INDISCRIMINATE! If you’re only as good as your intake, and you’re a bathroom sponge at a New Orleans strip club during Mardi Gras, then you are holding onto some bad juju. Therefore, don’t be ANY-kind-of-information sponge – Be a objective-truth sponge. Oh, and one more thing….

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

The Open Stance Creates Great Ball-Strikers

Our Stance, Ball Position, and Adaptation Form Our Practice

The Open Stance and The Ball-Flight Tree for Me

Merry Christmas from The Open Stance Academy!

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

“Always Try New Ideas” – Butch” (Harmon). (Golf Digest, Dec. ’19)

Firstly,
Always – : at all Times, :FOREVER
Secondly,
Try – : to subject to something (such as undue strain or excessive hardship or provocation) that tests the powers of endurance
Thirdly,
New – : beginning as the resumption or repetition of a previous act or thing, : different from one of the same category that has existed previously
Fourthly,
Ideas – : an indefinite or unformed conception, : obsolete : an image recalled by memory

Always means unceasing. My interpretation is that Butch believes we should never settle on one course of action or underlying structure because there are only three structures, Open, square, or closed. So few do not lend themselves to clever manipulation. Only numerous, unending, myriad, et.al. movements provide fodder for golf instruction chicanery.

Try means attempt. Again, my interpretation is that Butch wants us to try one idea after another without looking for one, base, structural or philosophical truth. The parable, “Castles built on sand” comes to mind. If golfers have no foundational connection, instruction’s contractors are guaranteed constant work.

New means not remembered. “There is nothing new under the sun” does not apply to our instruction industry. Because, if the words used to explain are different, the explanation is deemed to be different. Hence, selling the same information in a forgotten collection of words is clever. However, brainpower spent on wordplay is wasted for research. I posit that fear is the greater constituent of clever, because stepping away from the word herd has consequences. I have an metaphallegory… maybe, an allegetophor. You decide.

The Open Stance is the Lion King of our golf swing on our instructional Serengeti. No matter how many clever ideas go prancing by, you can rest assured, if one or two stop for a debate, the Open Stance Lion is ready to devour them both. Consider our discussion equivalent to “The survival of the fittest”. Truth is not negotiable… it hurts. Now, on to “ideas”.

Ideas means multiple, unnamed and unqualified suggestions. However, instead of allowing our own mind to create our own ideas, instructors want to spoon feed us theirs’. We spent the better part of fifty years ingesting medicine from those invested in maintaining your illness… abominable, at best. Consequently, golf remains an undersubscribed sport. Golf is too hard because its purveyors make it so.

Is there anything sadder or more hopeless than to swing in the Sargasso Sea of relativism and torment? Those eels are creepy. Regardless, the next time you watch a famous instructor on T.V., think, “This (insert clever name) is trying to break my swing with this excrement!” Each of them WILL ONLY TALK ABOUT MOTION – NEVER set-up philosophy.

I cannot actually believe how beautifully Butch’s quote from the recent Golf digest fits into my post yesterday. Moreover, Harmon and GD feed my ongoing narrative regarding golf instructors and golf instruction. I could not ask for a finer point on my letter. Hopefully, you all will learn to spot their subterfuge, and help others with your Open Stance stories and better ball-striking. In the mean time….

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Is GolfTec Talking Out Of Both Sides Of Their Mouth?

Human Existence Is All About Converting Energy Into Value

In a World of Motion Sensors, One Idea Stands Out 

In a world of motion sensors, one idea stands out – The Open Stance. While golf instructors, great and small, hypnotize starry-eyed with talk of one motion that will cure their illness, the Open Stance promises nothing and delivers everything. There is a problem, though. The Open Stance gets lots of use, but no coverage… no press… no love by commentators or other media.

Perhaps the lack of coverage is due to the Open Stance’s curative nature. In other words, there’s no money in it. The Open Stance cannot be spun into golf instruction’s circular logic loop. Media and instructors don’t want cures! They want a lifestyle for themselves. It’s the same reason politicians don’t want solutions. Problems keep them in business.

Problems create opposing viewpoints that allow famous intermediaries to separate constituents into opposing camps, present their solution as if there is NO solution, and get away with it. Hence, our problems never get resolved. We love to celebrate clever ideas over profound ideas and clever people over problem solvers. That’s just the way it is.

However, those of you who take my advice, and commit to setting up open, will heal yourselves. Congratulate yourself… you’re the genius. Celebrate the wisdom in set-up structure, not the irrationality motion sensors use to market their wares. I am asking you to break with traditional golf instruction, which is based on motion “fixes”. Motion is inevitable.

Motion is the one guarantee in playing golf. Don’t believe instructors who tell you to move this way or that, hit this position or that, imagine this word-picture or that. You really don’t need any of it. All you need is The Open Stance and goals of solid contact and shots that fly straight at your target. Everything else, without focus on set-up, is truly designed to delay your improvement – not accelerate it. Stop suffering needlessly.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

“The Ancestor of Every Action Is a Thought”

The Physics of A Flat Downswing

Manuel del la Torre Nailed It Thirty Years Ago

The Open Stance Allows Snowflake Swings

We know there are many ways for many golfers to adapt to any given set-up. We also know our athletic adaptive response uses time to create efficiency. And, finally, we know golfers take every shape and size. Therefore, contrary to the innumerable combinations and permutations of improving our golf swing, we know one comprehensive truth…. the open stance allows snowflake swings

I feel like I’m recovering an old and exhausted, though relevant, topic. So, I’ll try to dress it up in seasonal language. Here we go.

Every snowflake that falls has a different appearance. Likewise, every Open Stance swing that crystallizes into final form looks different than all others. But, the same process forms each iteration.

Snowflakes result from a combination water, temperature, airflow, gravity, and size. And, each is a perfect representation of conditional, combinational, quantities and qualities. Snowflakes all originate in the same way, are made of the same stuff, go through the same process on their way to becoming a unique expression of the same perfection. But, we get caught up in what makes each snowflake unique instead of what makes them all the same. Consequently, we only see the differences.

Conversely, every golfer on Earth could set up open and we would only see the varied solutions to our underlying sameness. Which, by the way, is why people can get away with the “there is no one way to swing a golf club” idea. In their zeal to distract themselves with some undefinable, subjective measurement of movement, they focus on the form. Hence, movement zealots interpret facts to support their own conclusions.

Never mind that every human definition emerges from universality, objectivity, predictability, and sameness… common threads. For instance, snowflakes express their adaptive journey, from known origins, predictably and differently than every other. Similarly, Open Stance swings express an adaptive journey, predictably and differently than every other.

We must eventually agree that golf swing movement is almost unimportant. In order to play golf, motion must occur. It’s incidental. We need to focus on the primary that feeds adaptation, which feeds motion. Our set-up is primary. Every other discussion is emotional distraction, or gas-lighting. So, the next time you hear someone say, “There is no, ‘one way’ to swing a club”, think to yourself, “What is their definition of “way”?

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Winter is for building technique into our golf games. Some of golf’s most effective drills require no ball at all. Furthermore, swing fundamentals do not include ball-flight feedback. Developing a proper grip, setting our club on plane, releasing our putter properly, making good contact, and keeping our balance need no ball flight information, whatsoever.

Winter golf also gives our mind an evaluative hiatus. Suddenly, instead of beating ourselves up for missing our ball or hitting an offline shot, our brainpower focuses on causes rather than effects (Contact rather than speed, grip rather than rip, etc). Beginning golfers who find their golf ball hard to control might otherwise resign themselves to video games or fishing, where they feel less intimidated. We don’t want to discourage golfers, do we?

Ultimately, mirrors, video, expert teaching, and reps. are all golfers really need to move forward developmentally, throughout Winter. Absent flight feedback, we default to evaluating our contact, balance, finish, and speed elements of our process. Well used, time spent working on our open stance set-up and our aforementioned tools creates every bit as much improvement as mindlessly whacking range balls.

For example, consider the following picture of my two-dollar, putter-release drill. I’ve placed one, folded dollar on either side of my golf ball. Our golf ball’s forward bulge is set at our point connecting the tip of each buck. Then, our goal is to roll our golf ball as far as possible without touching our dollars with our putter.

I gave a demo recently, and a couple bystanders said their buddy’s motion looks “Jabby”. And, although I explained our physiological changes needed, I was dismissed with another “Jab” comment. You see how we stunt our learning process when we use our eyes to judge rather than our mind to understand? Consequently, after three tries, three of four golfers walked out without edification.

I find it kind of funny to get caught up in how buddies look over three putts. Golfers should, instead, understand the science behind putting-technique development and wide professional employment. For example, every pro on tour can execute this drill to the tune of a 25 footer.

Unfortunately, not every putter wants to release their feeling of “Control” to control their feeling of release. Hence, their advantage is now yours! Do as the best do. Use your Winter wisely. Practice full-swing fundamentals, and release your putting potential with my Two Dollar Bill Drill.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/short-game-technique/

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/putting-wins/

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/open-stance-creates-great-ball-strikers/