Sorry, I was away for a week. Did anything happen in the golf world since then? I just saw Patrick Cantlay used his Open Stance to win the Tour Championship. HMM, WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED!!!!!
Also remarkable that his closest chaser, Jon Rahm, ALSO EMPLOYS AN OPEN STANCE SET-UP!!! Hellooooo! Open Stance Wins… again. Please tip your waiters and waitresses. I’ll be here all week. Thank you and good night.
Be open to change. Without change, there is no life.
So, Patrick Cantlay and Bryson Dechambeau finished 1-2? Did anyone notice their set-up?
Hmm. Seems like their is a similarity. But, what could it be? Rocco, can you guess. John D, Jay W maybe you can see it. Garland? Baaz? Anyone? Let me watch it again, and I’ll get back to you.
This article is about great wedge play and passive acceleration. In the next few months, you will hear “Passive Acceleration” used for the first time on network golf channels and in your lessons with instructors galore. Wait and see. And just as an FYI, “active” acceleration is moving the club as fast as possible with stretched muscle groups to create maximum clubhead speed, which requires effort. “Passive” acceleration is moving the minimum number of muscle groups just fast enough to stay out of the way of gravity while hitting a feel shot – like a wedge. Great wedge play requires passive acceleration.
By the time I hit wedges with Bruce Fleischer, I had taught myself to allow gravity to drive my downswing. Coincidentally, I recognized once my club was prepared, I had little else to do than stay out of the way into impact. I became VERY accurate with my wedges. Hitting the post as many as three times in a row from 60 yards – four out of five recently.
My realization was that as long as I allow gravity to create my speed, all I have to do is stay out of the way. The force of gravity accelerates an object from zero to 123mph at 9.6 meters per second squared. My acceleration stays ahead of gravity’s. Therefore, I accelerate ‘Passively’ into impact.
Often, golfers try to shorten their movement under the auspices of ‘efficiency’. Some professionals even tense their core or quads or glutes at this moment or that under the watchful eye of their guru – never realizing their drills are the reason their feel suffers. Hence, without realizing the force of gravity is a constant, passive, and therefore – most efficient, we create more work than necessary to hit short shots. In the process, we lose feel.
The key is to set up open to steepen and lean the shaft while gravity delivers on a promise made hundreds of years ago. Listening to “Experts” tell you how to move obfuscates the truth, as usual. Set up Open. Swing your leading arm along the target line, and get ready for gravity to fill in the speed variable. Next time, I’ll describe the leading arm in wedge play, unless another, more prescient topic, occurs to me.
The Open just won the Open. Add it to the list. One more great ball-striker won one more great US Open while employing an Open Stance – the great facilitator of great ball-striking. Greatness has a common thread in the international golf scene. Shhh. I’ll give you a hint…. It’s the Open Stance.
You see, I’ve never claimed to have invented the Open Stance Philosophy or its application. I only claim to know more about the Open Stance than anyone on planet Earth. The fact that hundreds of professional golfers have turned toward my teaching is coincidental, I’m sure. They were probably just following examples set by Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Fred Couples, Paul Azinger, Sergio Garcia, Bubba Watson, Patrick Cantlay, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, and all our greatest ball-strikers and champions…. Probably.
How is it that major champions on the PGA and LPGA tours employ a set-up philosophy without ever speaking to the world’s foremost expert on said philosophy, you ask? Because they don’t need the fine points. Their intention with their golf ball is enough to consider with a set-up change. Some of you may have read me saying, “Set up Open and hit your ball straight at your target.” That intention is as complicated as my explanation need be to improve your own golf swing to the point of pleasure and success.
However, certain people like to think in order to know. I have talked a blue streak to them on the lesson tee because I’m one of them. They are fluent, in some cases, on the mechanics of a golf swing now. For instance, I have juniors as young as ten who can answer all the mechanical connections to ball position, swing path, and ball position with regard to set-up and movement throughout our swing. These kids are learning to self-diagnose trust own their human adaptive instinct.
I tell my students they should be able to move their ball position anywhere and hit it solid because they know the required swing adjustments. We make changes, and I tell them what to expect with their short-term results, and those results appear. I tell them to miss in the appropriate direction from the appropriate set-up until their brains send the appropriate signals to move their bodies efficiently to correct their miss. The more I teach this way, the faster and more satisfied my students are with their control over their process.
Consider your own swing knowledge. Do you know “What works for me is…” or do you know why being on plane as soon as possible in your swing is important. Do you know the difference between your swing plane and the target plane? Are you aware of personal assumptions not articulated when you talk about your golf swing? Do you have fallback voices to consult when you want to be great but also want to be original? Do you know why the Open just won the Open?
Look bud… the golf swing is a work of physical manipulation that has a empirical history. It’s been measured from Mathematics and Physics to Need and Intention and with every discipline in between for a hundred years, thanks to my research. The golf swing is a wheel, which no one will reinvent. Therefore, when you submit to the objectivity of it all, the only thing left is to understand ‘why slicks are better for Indy 500 cars than treaded tires that have more ‘character’.’ That is my milieu. See you on the other side.
One of my students – Jay, from San Diego, okayed my posting of how he is cultivating commitment.
“Hey John, I was reading from the book I love ‘Comfortable with Uncertainty’ by Pema Chodron. Meditation Number 87 is entitled Commitment. These passages had me reflecting on my experience with OSG. ” You can hear the dharma from many different places, but you are uncommitted until you encounter a particularway that rings true in your heart and you decide to follow it.In order to go deeper, there has to be a wholehearted commitment.You begin the warrior’s journey when you choose one path and stick to it.” These words are so true when I think about all the differentswing temptations that confront all golfers. I am committed to the OSG warrior’s journey. Jay”
Golfers around the world,
These are the connections I want to make to the larger world of potentiality. Jay hit on exactly that which is required of us to achieve our goals. We have to see a path (Need), choose (Intention), walk it (Religion), evaluate (Anthropology), test our path (Psychology), and tweak it in the ether (Astrology to Mathematics). We have to find our own way to cultivate commitment to our unique goals.
Our goal doesn’t change. We change. Inspiration, discipline, focused work, and experimentation on a theme yield marvelous results in all areas of a life pursuing a goal. The added benefit of it all is engagement, which I leads to achievement. And, finally – happiness.
The Open Stance is not my invention. My websites and writings about what really makes it better is. It just so happens that I’m the only golf professional on Earth who knows why. Soon, you’ll hear of others. Word is getting out. Pay close attention to prominent players on the PGA Tour who struggle. You’ll notice a common solution.
1,500 hours of lessons in 2020, and the verdict is in. Golfers who employ an Open Stance improve without help. I can’t say it any plainer than that. My members and online students use me as a reference rather than a Sherpa. I carry the information they are using, but they always choose the correct path.
Teaching, as an industry, will now turn away from clever word-play of charlatan-Rex to ‘the profound’ going forward. Fortunately, I have that market cornered. Freedom is what my teaching is all about. Freedom from other voices, freedom from fixes, freedom from failure are all part of Open Stance golf.
In fifty years, golfers will look back at the past 100, and be glad they no longer chase a revolving description of what ails them and be salved by a slick salesman dressed as a golf instructor. Freedom. We have had the truth withheld from us in every discipline, on every level, and in every arena of life for longer than most have lived. Granted, golf is not the most pressing of life’s issues. But, how much longer could the ruse continue?
NO MORE! Truth will always find the light of day. Our struggles and suffering in life and golf WILL come to an end with others like myself pulling back the curtain on our heralded “Experts” and show their clothing is missing.
Now, it’s true I have broken my multi-month streak with a few days of minimal Lagavulin intake, but it gives ferocity to my veracity… or vice- versasity. By the way, I believe the Scots invented every good thing.
However, you need not trust me to do anything but speak absolute truth with regard to our golf swing. As an idealist, I could not speak of any other and live with myself. Therefore, when you Open your stance, don’t think of me. Think of Lee and Freddie C.
Trust yourself with your swing, your game, your decisions, and your process. From an Open Stance, you CANNOT FAIL to improve. Time will tell your story, so allow your improvement to begin with a trickle. Let it puddle into a silent cove of thought and response. Soon, your swing gathers into a stream of purpose and confidence, accelerating into the inevitable rapids of trial and error and, finally, settles into lipid pools of expanded shot-making skill, goal achievement, and happiness.
The longer you stay on the plane, the further it will take you. Whether we speak of Air travel or golf ball air travel, the premise is constant. However, this is a golf blog, so you will have to choose how to read me.
Any deviation higher or lower than the plane will leave you searching for your seat on the plane. The sooner you set your clubs on the plane, the more secure they are moving at your highest speed. Any delay in getting your clubs on board leaves the possibility they may arrive more slowly or at the last moment… and maybe arrive by a strange crafting of transport. Essentially, your clubs have to move more slowly because you didn’t prepare your clubs ahead of time, which saps our power potential.
Too often, we don’t even realize anything has been lost. Our habits and momentary side-tracks keep us from focusing on our end goal. People scrambling for their mental luggage never realize how they appear to others. Though, they may feel they are maximizing their relative efficiency in their own eyes. But, an expert like myself sees the wasted motion and distraction inherent in pre-plane confusion.
We who focus on setting up ourselves for success must, at some point, review our agenda before the next junket. Our plane will take us anywhere we want to go faster than we could possibly get there by any other means. All that is required of us is that we remain Open to change our delivery options.
250 balls a day getting used to set-up. Create your unique Open Stance set-up routine and get used to the visual (Target) as you intend to hit your ball straight at your target with perfect contact.
Phase Two: 5-8 weeks
250 balls a day making set-up adjustments to optimize impact precision and directional control. Grip, foot orientation, hips and shoulder orientation, and ball position are in the frame. No one chooses the wrong path. Create patterns before adopting or discarding any idea.
Phase Three: 5-8 weeks
250 balls a day demanding your set-up elements are exactly repeated, and that your contact, start line, intended shot, and their necessary motion are physiologically precise.
My own progression with only a video camera and 1,500 balls a day (Five Teaching Baskets) came in one month once my club was on plane. I had a wicked across-the-line set to expel first, which alone took a month. However, after two months, I was on my way to creating any shot I wanted, so my goal became counting the number of mishits I had each day. Then how many shots fell outside of my tolerances.
At first it was too many to keep count. When I walked away from playing four months later, in August 2002 to take a club pro job, I was down to five or less of both. Don’t ask why I chose not to play. I’m just an idiot.
My target area was either AT a post on the range, or one degree to either side of it. That is three feet at 100 yards and six feet at two hundred. I never enjoyed anything as much as hitting practice balls for those Spring and Summer months.
What I learned about swinging my golf club allows me to practice less and maintain perfect impact and shot-shaping ability to this day. With practice to regain balance, I can reclaim precision very quickly. You can, too.
Everyone improves with an Open Stance! Over the years, I’ve noticed the direct correlation between choice of set up and success. Furthermore, I am witness with my students that choosing an Open Stance results in, without exception, improved ball-striking.
I used 2020 to show my students how set-up triggers our adaptive instincts and athleticism. Of course, only from an Open Stance are our most efficient solutions created. We have, nonetheless, seen many people dabble without doing any intentional thing with their set-up.
We don’t concern ourselves with doubters and stealers who like to use ephemeral facts to support their own conclusions. Let ‘em struggle, I say. My dedicated students are discovering truth about athleticism.
We know everyone is wired perfectly to adapt most efficiently to set-up. It’s just that closed set-ups don’t allow the variety of shots an Open Stance allows. Additionally, our Open Stance allows distance AND precision, which a closed stance precludes.
2020 has been a fine, fun, and fortress-building endeavor for myself and the Open Stance Academy. On top of the tremendous improvement each of my applicants has achieved, they have discovered that achievement is the foundation of happiness. Listen to Moe Norman talk about golf beside the fire – 17:00.
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