The Open Stance Academy at Stoneleigh is my new address heading. When I gave one of my students a lesson here in June, I thought I had been transported to some fairy-tale village in a Walt Disney story. I was immediately in love with the place. Even now, I look out my window and feel a sense of peace here.

In graduate school, I took some architecture classes that emphasized a “Sense of Place”. They meant a place that melded perfectly with its surroundings. That is Stoneleigh.

The golf course cooperates perfectly with the surrounding property. Moreover, it demands that we obey its dictates or pay the consequences. At 6,750 yards, it seems gettable. However, it punishes doubt with impunity.

Each hole is unique and memorable. A month after playing that first round, I could easily remember every hole. Memorability is one criteria used to judge the greatest golf courses in the world. Stoneleigh is fantastic by that standard.

I’m partial, perhaps. But I won’t tell anyone I’ve written about her. Only those pursuing an Open Stance will know for now. However, in years to come, Stoneleigh will gain in reputation and prominence in Northern Virginia and the world for what it is… a special place.

The Open Stance Academy at Stoneleigh will conduct golf schools for Juniors and adults alike throughout the year. Our indoor, technology-centered, improvement lab will carry the hardy golfer through the Winter. We are currently conducting and competing in our first, annual, junior team championship. After only a month with a teaching academy, Stoneleigh’s eighteen junior golfers are competing against neighboring junior elite teams in “The Battle at Stoneleigh Farm”.

Join the crucible of golf at Stoneleigh, and you’ll be better for it.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Percentage Golf With An Open Stance

Once we choose and adapt to a swing-saving, Open Stance, we should concern ourselves with the mental side of the game. I’m not talking about esoteric themes, you understand. I am making the assumption of consistent ball-striking and directional control. Therefore, all that is left is to plan your walk around the golf course. We don’t have to chisel our plan into stone ahead of time if we are present in our round. Playing percentage golf is a better way to choose your appropriate shot. 

Phil and Dave, six hour rounds, and any number of niggling excesses of modern-day golfers have us up the night before a round of golf planning as if our ball has a remote control mechanism, wirelessly linked to our brain – responding independently of history and logic. Golf might not work that way… just saying. However, knowing how many out of ten good shots (percentage) we hit with any given club can clear the runway for lower scores.

Once a golfer establishes their philosophy in action and practiced repetition, we take it to the golf course to test it. Over time, we get a sense of the frequency of solid strikes and directional stability with our golf ball. Consequently, and if we are paying attention, we learn how and when to rely on our probabilities. Even now, I find myself using ideal swings to navigate a golf course. Hence, in the absence of practice and play, our decision-making, at some point, will disappoint us. Why do we make golf harder than it needs to be? We should not.

Therefore, take the advice of every great golfer of all time, and work on your short game. That way, you don’t have to be perfect from the fairway in order to score. I’ll tell you the story of Ariel Canete later on as my “paradigm of hope”. Until you get to the point of predictability, do one thing, won’t you?

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

A flat swing and a neutral grip go together like a steep swing and a strong grip. Last time, I laid out the dynamic of the strong grip offsets. This time, however, I want to cover the Open Stance set-up from the perspective of component cooperation with a neutral grip. Each different styling from each different golfer leads to the same dynamic expression of their chosen philosophy.

First, a neutral grip requires face-squaring offsets that a strong grip does not need. Neutral grippers tend to have significantly flatter swings, for one. NGs hit the ball higher due to earlier release-point characteristics of flat swings. In releasing their club to reach the ball, their arms and hands tend to work less while creating more loft. Isn’t it amazing how many things we do naturally to offset one set-up philosophy?

Of course, when I say naturally, I mean instinctively… athletically. Every one of my students chooses the best remediation for their own purpose and degree. However, each of them always choose the most efficient solution without my prompting. It is amazing to witness.

Furthermore, Neutral Grippers stand further from their golf balls to facilitate both the flat pass and the fuller release, which keeps their shoulders from opening to steepen – a strong gripper’s must. And, finally, neutral grippers carry their hands lower at address to create a more-comfortable arm hang and shoulder alignment that follows the target line.

As I go, please understand the assumptions made do not cover every type. These are the generalities sans outliers. My assumptions is that our grip can cause or enable a good set-up or a bad set-up. The choice is ultimately up to each of us. However, for those that set up open, your body will thank your brain for choosing wisely.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

A Stronger Grip and a Steeper Swing Go Together

Questions You Should Ask Before Judging A Golf Swing

When they Say, Shank “Solution”, Do They Mean ‘Enabling’?

A stronger grip and a steeper swing go together. When we place our lead hand on our club in a strong position, our brain makes some athletic adjustments to inhibit clubface-closing movement like releasing the club.  Unfortunately, strong grippers are blockers of necessity. In spite of our double or triple-jointed brothers and sisters leading us to believe a falsehoood, we cannot escape the grim reality of Physics.

Golfers’ strong grips may influence their set-up orientation, or their set-up orientation, if intentional, may influence their grip. Without dissecting the psychological aspect of the dynamic, we at least know the connection between grip and set-up IS causal. An open stance and square shoulders needs a neutral grip. Just as a closed stance and open shoulders needs a stronger grip.

Golfers with strong grips are inevitably low-ball hitters who can strike it pretty solidly with a blocking motion, though generally not long off the tee. Club head path tends to be outside-in, reflecting their open shoulder position, which helps them collect their ball before the club naturally releases. Its no coincidence blockers have shorter swings and an earlier post on their front leg to create offsetting positions and movement. Also, divots are DEEP with the extremes in this camp.

However, sometimes other physical characteristics contributing to power dominate their swing – like raw size, strength, or rotational speed.  I see these characteristics as anomalies. My position is that if all other things are equal, strong grippers are too steep to be long off the tee. Lee Trevino, Paul Azinger, Orville Moody, Jerry Kelly, Ed Fiori, and Bubba are all examples of strong grippers. I think we can agree that Bubba is the anomaly among this group.

Conversely, therefore, we know that a weaker grip is offset by a shallower approach at impact. In fact, we can basically reverse everything just said about strong-grippers to describe weaker-grippers. But, for completeness sake, let’s go through it again….

Golfers with weak grips produce shallower impact. A shallower impact allows time, along the horizontal plane, for our clubface to close with a natural release point. The more horizontal our swing (Flatter) the more efficiently the club closes without sacrificing trajectory, contact, and distance. The club head path for average, weak-grip golfers is inside-out to cooperate with our face-squaring needs.

Finally, for my counter-argument, weaker grips produce longer golf swings, which are flatter by virtue of their length. Flatter swings produce shallow impact. Shallow impact produces higher trajectories. Nicklaus, Ballesteros, Watson, Stewart, Hogan, Weiskopf, Miller, Fowler, Dechambeau, and Pavin all have their leading hand on their club in a neutral to weak position. However, I think we can all agree, that Pavin is the anomaly among this group.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Paul Azinger Won With an Open Stance, Too

Has Ricky Fowler Revealed The Secret of Famous Instructors?

The Key To Great Wedge Play Is Eye-solation

Is GolfTec talking out of both sides of their mouth. Their VP of instruction, Nick Clearwater, did a spot for Golf Digest’s September ’19 issue that exposed the truth they ignore. GolfTec has all the tech. a golfer would ever need, and yet they still missed the mark.

You see, knowledge of technology is only effective in their instruction if swing knowledge is also present. That’s the problem here. They read data and drew a conclusion. Essentially, they interpreted facts to support their own conclusions… not exactly the height of intellectual thought.

Their data shows “About” 60 degrees of turn into the backswing for professional golfers based on their pre-swing, shoulder alignment. So, if Jessica Korda has open shoulders at address, that number is subtracted from 60 degrees to justify the 60. Their rationale must be that the body line is the measuring device for the swing. If you and I are on the same page, then you know the target line measures our movement.

Then, Clearwater cites an exception to give the reader the idea that he is fairly interpreting the data. Brooks Koepka, for instance, turns less than their standard. However, they justify the Koepka exception by citing his strength and clubhead speed – a blatant qualitative measure to explain a quant. Its Apples and Oranges logic … terrible.

Specious is the word that jumps to mind when I read the article. Unsubstantiated claims on a relative measure are not facts. They are opinions. And, moreover, they are movement-based. So, if you read the article, treat it as a novice instructor’s opinion, and then ignore it.

Every golf swing is subject to The Laws of Physics, no matter if it is “Your swing”, or “My Swing.” By subdividing a golf swing based on segments, GolfTec and instructors worldwide distract unsuspecting students from the cure in order to sell them as many “treatments” as possible. You don’t need that treatment. You only need to do one thing.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Apparently, Brooks Koepka Does Change Some Things
Did Jordan Spieth Lose The Open With His Driver?
The Open Stance Creates Great Ball-Strikers

The Key To Great Wedge Play Is Eye-Solation

I’ve seen thousands of golfers try to chip, pitch, and wedge shots many different ways. However, one factor separates the good and the great wedge players from the bad and the ugly. The ball doesn’t move when a great player moves. Which means, their eyes don’t move when they move.

Major league players keep their eyes steady to pick up fly balls, ground balls, the first baseman, and the catcher. They look graceful while throwing, catching, and hitting because they eliminate inefficient motion. We observe one common theme in great athletes – their eyes don’t move more than absolutely necessary.

Without practice, our wedge game may get a little off. If our contact suffers, our swing gets longer to build a “Slop-factor” into our process. We know our set up is off, and we know it because our ball position looks a bit unsteady while we swing. Ball position is a set-up variable, so we can figure out, pretty quickly, how to diagnose our wedge malady.

Concentrating on eye-solation while practicing forces us to observe our movement, which helps accelerate our progress. Golfers don’t have to set up open to keep their eyes still, mind you. However, they DO have to set up open to keep their eyes still, produce shaft lean, and steepen impact for ball compression in the event we have adverse lies or have to produce backspin.

The one, best way I’ve found to accomplish everything needed for great wedge play and short-game mastery is eye-solating our weight on our forward foot while we swing. The longer our shot, of course, the longer our swing, which means we need less eye-solation in our swing set-up. Learning to move your wedge swings around this one necessity will create better contact, which will take the “Slop” out of your swing-length, and make you “sticky” into and around the greens.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Patrick Cantlay Won The Memorial From an Open Stance
The Open Stance…The Eyes Have It
“Real Eyes Realize Real Lies”

Yesterday, I was teaching a gentleman how our feet can change our ball position. The dynamic is simple enough to understand. However, expanding our knowledge is the point of coming to OSA, so you get the full monty.

The first assumption is that all fundamentals are in tow. Otherwise, open, closed, or square are all included. Also, we are assuming motion is a consequence of set-up orientation, and not a predetermined method – like Stack-and-Tilt. Ouch!

Assumptions eliminate circular logic, which is most of what I deal with from doubters. Setting assumptions ahead of time squashes the jumping around normally accompanying their “game”. In fairness, I’m sure my own, logical style is equally frustrating to them. Nevertheless – our feet….

Our feet are attached to our leg at our ankle, from which our feet extend anteriorly to assist our perambulation. If we notice, we are able to move our toes left and right while keeping our heel in the same spot on the ground. In doing so, we utilize muscles and joints differently to relieve the pressure it creates. Our upper body movement adjusts to accommodate different foot orientation, too.

Swinging our golf club with our forward foot perpendicular to the target causes our adaptive response to react differently than if our forward foot is pigeon-toed backward or splayed toward our target. I am tempted to talk motion here, but I won’t. Let’s get into ball position with three, leading-foot positions.

Assuming the trailing foot is square to our body-line, the leading foot can move our ball position forward or backward, depending on degree. When our leading foot splays open toward our target, the natural bottom of our swing moves forward or, toward our target with the change. Consequently, our ball position moves, physiologically – backward in our stance. By contrast, when our leading foot pigeon-toes backward (With our same set of assumptions), the natural bottom of our swing moves away from the target.

Small changes in our foot orientation can have beneficial or disastrous effects on our golf swing. Motion consequence is for next time. However, if we place our feet intentionally, and with knowledge of our choice, our ball position becomes an intentional choice, by default. Then, our results are more measurable. But, just to reemphasize our theme – Our set-up HAS TO BE purposeful.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Our Stance, Ball Position, and Adaptation Form Our Practice

Your Set-Up Can Feed Your Brain or Starve Your Brain

Patrick Cantlay Won The Memorial From an Open Stance

This morning, on the lesson tee, I found myself explaining the value of an Open Stance from an economic point of view. However, before you start to think in terms of economies of scale or the Phillips and Laffer Curve, this economic discussion has to do with minimizing waste within a system. Economy, in this sense, implies building efficiencies into our golf swing.

When we set up open, we create a kenisiological formula to solve. Our brains tend to confuse, at first. Then, we start considering movement options, as well as understanding kinetic, adpative differences. Of course, no changes occur without committing ourselves to a specific intention with our golf ball.

Once we push off the shore into the open ocean of stroke possibilities, we don’t change our craft. We just teach ourselves to row with the tides and wind to conserve energy. The conservation which forestalls Entropy, which is the energetic inverse of systemic efficiency. The higher the entropy, the lower the economy and unavailable energy.

Well, it just so happens, that the Open Stance lowers the amount of unavailable energy due to athletic, adaptive necessity. When our movement becomes more economical, the energy requirements go down, and we conserve energy. When unavailable energy goes up, entropy goes down. Therefore, we believe that an Open Stance helps fight “Climate Change”… Just kidding.

Notwithstanding the science talk, the Open Stance forces the trailing elbow into correct, repeatable striking position to keep the club on the target plane. That position alone eliminates excesses in arm swing and rotation – bringing them into balance. Moreover, our Open Stance economies affect our lower body, as well.

Due to our need to keep our club open to our foot line, we have to keep our elbow inside our trailing hip. IF we hit this position, then we have replaced a lower-body inefficiency and further lowered our entropic state. We no longer snap our lead leg into a posting dynamic consequent with a rotational strike. Instead, we transfer our weight onto a flexed lead leg – saving the damage caused by rotational swings.

Our new “Leg drive” keeps our club from closing, flattens our downswing, and with the assist of our trailing elbow, creates lag. Lag creates power without the effort of rotational swings. When we lower our effort to get the same result, we LOWER?… ENTROPY! That’s right! Conservation of energy, economy, and building unavailable energy are all the same thing. However, they all mean just one thing – Improvement.

Once we improve our strike structures, we can tap into that reserve of unavailable energy to generate more speed. However, trying to build speed without structural controls is like slapping a new 650 horsepower, Corvette LT-1 engine into a Model T Ford chassis. That frame could never control that power. Therefore, we need to build your swing frame into one that supports all the power you can muster. We do that with one intention and one philosophy – an Open Stance.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

String Theory and Our Golf Swing
Set-Up Philosophy Can Create or Destroy Golf Swing Efficiencies
Patrick Cantlay Won The Memorial From an Open Stance

Blurry is a blessing sometimes. This guy is working on a move to take his hands out of his swing by changing his grip. Although our mission is not to funnel everyone into the same solution, the solution is the same in time. Homie here, is experienced at adapting to his Open Stance. Therefore, he can work on more than a grip change while adapting.

Part of our challenge is to focus through the imperfect shots we create. Dubber doesn’t get bogged down with a poor strike. He simply reloads with the same intention and set up philosophy. Listen to him recognize his tendencies and solutions. Two weeks later, he realizes he still needs the help of alignment sticks. However, he needs them to measure his distance from the ball rather than for ball position or openness.

Most new Open Stancers need the sticks to work out the most precise expression of their intention. By the way… golf clubs work just as well. At any rate, when you observe the blurry narrated video, you’ll see everything you need to measure his resulting movement against his intended movement. Did you notice I didn’t say – RESULT?

Blurry is not in a hurry to fix the last shot. His is an execution of a plan. Your’s should be, too. If you can keep your focus on moving within an intended structure, your movement adapts automatically. When we chase, or change our set up, we lose ground on those, more-focused Open Stancers.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/articles/

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/the-ancestor-of-every-action-is-a-thought/

https://www.openstanceacademy.com/golf/our-stance-ball-position-and-adaptation/

Did Jordan Spieth lose the Open with his driver? To listen to the commentators rip his driving accuracy (36%), you might think as much. Certainly, his driving woes are no surprise to this guy. However, woes are totally curable.

Did you see Stenson shank it on 17, and then break his club. He did the same thing at the 2015 BMW in Chicago – with his driver .

Oof. Anyway, he was set up open at the Open’s seventeenth. I assume he was trying to hit a knock-down shot, but he laid it off and couldn’t recover.

Spieth has recovered his putting touch/stroke, at least. Furthermore, his iron game is solid. So, what’s up with his driver swing? How is someone capable of sharpening the rest of his game consistently incapable of addressing only one part?

Without stating the obvious set-up deficiency, I’ll address movement. He does the same thing Stenson does to start his downswing… he drops the hands from an upright position. Consequently, both start their downswing with rotation and arm swing instead of leg drive and arm swing.

The difference between these two movement dynamics is creating room to set the trailing elbow early in the downswing. Jordan and Henrik don’t have driver leg drive because they set up square to closed. I’ve explained the sequence of swing choices we make to adapt to any set-up. Furthermore, I’ve explained the necessities created by an Open Stance. If you’ve read my stuff, you know the must-haves.

I obviously don’t know what Spieth and McCormick and Stenson and Cowan are working on. However, I do know that whatever topics they discuss are incidental in nature, which means movement-based. It’s a shame such sensational athletes become tied to the sweaty, flabby-armed, slapping machine of “modern” instruction… poor guys. Boys, don’t worry… I’ll pick up when you call.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Should Jordan Speith Give Advice on Hitting It Straight and Far?

Lee Trevino Recommends a Flatter Swing

Why The Open Stance Controls Your Trailing Elbow