It’s easier to control the above the Plane than the below the Plane. People who set up closed may have rounds or periods when they can succeed. Shots below the Plane are easier to hit. And, I’ve never claimed that setting up closed means a golfer cannot hit it straight or that they cannot go low. What I did say is that a closed stance can lead to injury and overall, erratic results. I said the compensations are not worth the violations of Physics.

Below-the-Plane shots are hooks and draws measured by the line of your feet. You may hit your ball at the target for a while, but it never lasts. It only lasts long enough to allow you to think your swing is special and outside the laws of Physics. Building a swing on fantasy is not recommended here. Instead, we recommend you choose a set-up that does not compromise power while engendering control.

The Open Stance set-up allows every shot with your ball to finish above the plane along your feet AND land on the target line. The structures necessary to keep the club from closing are also structures necessary to create repeatable, powerful movement. Only by opening your stance do you set in motion this kenisiological certainty. Therefore, why would a sane person set up closed?

Why players are able to occasionally win with a closed stance may as well be the subject of astrology as physics. However, the best ball-strikers of all time all employed and open stance. Therefore, I will endeavor to explain, in many different golf dialects and accents, why that is the case. Read my other articles for background.

Releasing the club is fraught with danger if too late along the line of your feet. Steep impact with a slice and shallow, quick hooks are common errors. Late releases dominate the swings from closed stances. It’s a perfectly athletic reaction to a catastrophic foundation. It’s like building a house in a floodplain without insurance. You may live there for years without incident. However, sooner or later, the water will overflow it’s banks.

Open your stance, and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

Share this:

• Telegram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Email
• More

• Pinterest

Your set-up can feed your brain or starve your brain. Your brain is fed when its asked to cooperate, and starved when asked to fight. Cooperation is harmonious. Fighting is dissonant. Therefore, choosing to set-up any way we like can unconsciously determine our success or failure of efficiency and consistency.

One precept of my research has been that an Open Stance creates swing efficiency. Swing efficiency comes from eliminating extra motion. The degree to which a person wastes motion decreases with practice from any set up. However, an Open Stance set-up saves motion while diminishing athletic dissonance. In short, you don’t have to compensate for unconscious errors, because your Open Stance is a deliberate choice.

Deliberation is planning. Planning is repeatable. Repetition is conscious. Repeated, conscious action becomes subconscious with practice. Practice implies pursuit. Pursuit reveals purpose, or Intention. And, intention is the truest expression of Need. Hence, only when we make a CHOICE about our set-up, do we improve our golf swing. Furthermore, only when we set up open do we generate cooperation with our athletic selves.

Early on in my teaching career, I heard older instructors reference set up. However, while conducting Open Stance research, I remembered zero discussion of foot orientation to target line. All I ever heard was, “Set-up is all that matters.” Set-up had become a discussion of posture, grip, and alignment – without describing cause and effect. All I did was fill gaps in the discussion. In the process, the Open Stance emerged as something more than a fad or an option for efficient ball-striking.

This is our Red Pill moment…. The Golfing Machine and Fifty Years of Bad Advice have drugged the golfing world. Under the auspices of ‘freedom of movement’, we were taught motion is all that matters. And, in the wake of that advice, the instruction industry has grown by leaps and bounds. However, our national handicap has not improved over that time. I can only conclude that the truth must have been omitted from the narrative we came to know and recite. Therefore, golfer health must have been sacrificed for industry health.

I promote the cooperative set-up philosophy which, at the same time, is improving ball-striking and handicap ‘health’ around the world. People don’t need to think about how to put food into their mouths. Brains are wired to cooperate with intention which, nutritionally, involves the cooperative link between health and longevity. Therefore, I’ve made it my mission to provide the most healthy and satisfying “food” for aspiring golfers. All you have to do is sit down, and eat.

You don’t have to see my face to hear my voice. Therefore, open your stance, and play golf. To golfers predisposed toward self-guidance, with a golf-swing diet consisting of jelly doughnut and potato chip fixes, I say, “Pride go’eth before the fall.”

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

You don’t need to see my face to hear my voice. Thousands of golfers initiated their Open Stance pursuit having only read my posts. Hundreds have written to me about their successes. Also, my research has provided the only information, in the WORLD, that allows you to improve your golf swing without a lesson.

Think of the power in that statement… I don’t have to see you to help you. There is no other instructor, teacher, guru, or sherpa on Earth who can make that claim. Please understand, I don’t claim to have invented the Open Stance. My only claim is to have mastered its explanation from beginning to end.

Teaching industry awards have historically been distributed based on peer recognition. Good for the recipients. However, none… NONE achieved improvement in their followers – in absentia. Therefore, I wonder – perhaps my followers will distribute my research and message to those willing to help themselves. I’m sure the accolades will rain upon you as a most-favored voice.

Golfers will, no doubt, continue to pursue endless new and personalized fixes in seeking their own golfing nirvana. Old habits are hard to break, and all. However, by connecting what has been, what is, and what will be, the Open Stance remains the supreme golf swing set-up.

Meanwhile, my faceless blog about freedom will remain – to cast doubt upon all we have been told about the golf swing. Additionally, a better way is emerging through a conversation I am uniquely qualified to moderate. Therefore, if you have a contrary voice… bring the noise.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

I just read, Afternoons With Mr. Hogan…, by Jody Vasquez. I was impressed by his story-telling and sense of humor. The book was filled with eye-witness accounts of Ben Hogan in different “compartmentalized” areas of his life from 1964 until his passing. J.V. Got to see Mr. Hogan from a unique perspective, to say the least. The stories he shares are fun and describe the pioneer of modern golf. Leave it to a Texan.

The stories that end with a short answer were my favorites. “You’re a golf professional aren’t you?” Yes. “Then, you should know why.” Ha! I laughed out loud. However, one line stood out. Jody’s had an interesting observation regarding the sound of a Hogan impact. He said, “I believe his flat swing plane enabled him to keep the clubhead traveling along the target line longer, and thus kept the ball on the clubface an instant longer. Hence, a deliciously unique sound.”

Then, the best line of all came after hours of work with Jay Hebert. I’m laughing as I write. “That son of a bitch better play good tomorrow, with all the work we put into him.” Oh, my God, that’s priceless. I’d always heard Hogan was efficient with words. However, it turns out he was funny, too. Hogan’s spirit reminds me of my college coach, Katman.

We were eating at a Pizza Hut during a competitive trip. We were hungry and, of course, irritable. One of the guys asked when we could expect the pizza. The waitress said, it’s coming. Katman said, “So is Christmas”. That story always makes me smile, and that is the feeling I got reading about Jody Vasquez’s Hogan experience. Well done, sir.

The Open Stance Academy

K: Johnny, I only have one question about an open stance, and here’s it is. What is the pot of gold at the end of the Open Stance progression?

JW: I like the imagery. Did you compose it that way because the Golf world is focused on the UK for the next two weeks?

K: Actually, it’s an old question a friend asked me a while back, which is now clever and topical.

JW: haha! Okay… let me take this from one perspective at a time. First, health… the open stance requires a flattened plane along the body line, which minimizes shoulder impingements and rotation on your forward knee and hip.
Second, power… the open stance causes the brain to create efficient solutions for impact. One of those immutably logical and athletic adaptations is lag – facilitated by placing your trailing elbow prior to impact.
Third, repeatability… placing the trailing elbow inside the trailing hip before impact creates a necessary structure. The club head cannot get closer to or further from the ball with this controllable structure in place. Therefore, measuring your distance from the ball will cement further progress.

K: Okay, I lied. I have follow up questions. Is it for everyone? Does it work for everyone?

JW: No, I think it’s safe to say an open stance is not for everyone. However, the open stance does work for everyone who sticks with it.

The Open Stance Academy

I was speaking to a friend and student about his improvement when I heard myself say, “Practice making the right sound at impact.” If anyone else can close their eyes, hear a shot come off a club, and make suggestions, let me know. I suspect there are a few of us who can do it. Anyway, since I began teaching sound, my students have turned corners of progress they never knew existed.

The next time you notice yourself not listening to your golf club interact with the ground and your ball, redirect your attention to sound and recompute your feedback. You will discover a whole new self-evaluation level that does not involve beating yourself up over less optimal impacts. Practice is easier when our criteria for progress puts solid contact first.

Likewise, playing from bunkers is also easier with a thumping confirmation as our club and the sand meet in a drawn-out chorus of bass drum notes and cymbal rides. Avoid the snare drum sound. Visual evidence is always helpful, but audible evidence adds a layer of refinement to the complete practice experience. When we practice using more senses to judge our results, we involve the creative side of our brain.

Chipping and pitching requires our ears, too. I liken it to ripping a three-pointer from deep. “Tchoo” is the sound I like. Wearing earphones or depriving your brain of all available feedback is, I believe, harmful.

For example, while living in South Florida, I watched Kelly K. hit golf balls from a closed stance while listening to music via iPhone ear plugs. She was clanking every shot she hit. I was horrified, because I knew her tour school was next week. Therefore, I got her attention and asked her (Dropped a hint), “Don’t you need to hear impact, too?” She responded shortly, “Why do I need to hear it? I can feel it.”

Not wanting to intrude or dent whatever confidence she had, I waved the high sign and turned away knowing she was in trouble. Well, she wound up finishing last in the qualifier. From that moment on, my advice in practicing has included clicking the hearing tumbler into place.

You may have noticed I mentioned that she set up closed. It’s no surprise one inefficiency accompanies the other. From my point of view, she needed an overhaul that time would not allow. Then again, maybe she knew what I knew – and wore the headphones to avoid hearing what I heard. Poor girl.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

p.s. This will probably appear in a golf magazine by the Fall.

Bubba Watson was asked about his setup. Listen to his answer.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

One of my former Florida students, CK, who lives in Baasten (Boston), called me. She had just returned from the golf course to tell me she remembered something I told her years ago, and she hit the ball beautifully. She flattened her downswing, because she remembered me suggesting the open stance requires a wide swing.

CK asked again why “wide” works so well. I explained flattening requires placing the trailing elbow earlier to guide clubhead delivery. Additionally, release point determines impact consistency. Furthermore, rotation away from address determines release point. So, simply by setting up open, the mechanisms for solid impact fall in line.

Remember, “wide” for you is not “wide” for someone else, and vice versa. Homogeneity is not recommended. In my opinion, video is the best way to determine ‘flat enough’. Then, centeredness of contact, divot depth, length, and direction take over as the guiding force of improvement throughout your bag.

The one common gauge for flattening may be keeping your leading arm at or below the trailing shoulder. Video shot from a down-the-line view reveals positions. However, Video is not needed if your intent with your ball is specific enough. Hitting it perfectly solid, demanding no curvature, and flying your ball straight at your target are specific intentions. More advanced specificity includes trajectory and spin control. But, start with contact.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

More than twelve years ago, I had the opportunity to meet my golfing hero, Jack Nicklaus. He was opening his new renovation at Ohio State University’s Scarlet Course, in Columbus, Ohio. His reworking of this Mackenzie masterpiece was on full display as he, his son Gary, OSU Football great Archie Griffin, and a fourth I can’t remember – tees off. Needless to say, I was there to see Jack, so remembering the choppers wasn’t a priority.

After nine holes, Griffin and fourth had to go. Jack and Gary put on a nice display of golf from the tips. At sixty-five years old, J.W. Nicklaus was movin’ it out there with his son off the tee. On number twelve, Jack called for a long drive contest. Gary hit a frozen rope right down the middle. Jack set-up open and seemed to take forever to hit his. Then he moved, and his ball was gone in a hurry. Both men piped it down the middle. However, Jack won by two feet.

The spectators were allowed to walk along with a mic’d up Nicklaus. He used the mic except when he was walking. During that time people would ask him questions and he would give engaged, earnest answers like the class act he has always been. So, I gathered up the courage to talk to him about my college golf coach and his former teammate, The Katman.

When I mentioned the Katman, Mr. Nicklaus lit up. He started asking ME questions. I was walking with Mr. Nicklaus and remembering Katman’s stories. And, as of that stroll down the fairways with the greatest of all time, I had seen the mutual respect they had for each other. Mr. Nicklaus was even a guest speaker, in absentia, at Katman’s DePauw Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. As I remember our walk, Mr. Nicklaus was wonderfully animated as his memories seemed to wash away reality, for a moment.

I guess I writing this because, although we don’t get any younger, our memories never age. Whether famous or common, people remember the connections they make with others, famous or common. Therefore, let me suggest you pursue and enjoy life and golf in the company of fine, honorable individuals who exhibit sportsmanship – win or lose.

All the best people I know are golfers – all competitors… all Americans. They remain calm under pressure, show character in the face of adversity, and happily walk down the fairway knowing it isn’t always fair. In conclusion, open your eyes and play golf.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy

This is the world’s first video on The Open Stance setup. Take a look at the 2014 video I made in South Florida with interviewer – Charles Beren.

John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy