Welcome to another one of our weekly newsletters!
With the playing of the 115th US Open underway it's fair to say, that golf course doesn't look easy! With Tiger and Rory struggling to get into their strides at Chambers Bay it was left to Stenson to shoot a solid 65 (-5) not bad considering that course can play up to 7,600yds! Will Tiger miss the cut or will Friday prove to be the day when he finds some form? Only time will tell! I have plenty to inform you about this week so I'll get to it, enjoy the read!
Game Improvement Champion Update!
Scott turned up for his lesson on Saturday ready for his next stage towards being the game improvement champion. John however wanted to make sure that while having these ongoing lessons Scott did not get cluttered up in his mind with too many thoughts. There was only one new thought and that was to have better posture so that the body could co-ordinate better and move into more correct positions without having to work for them. See pictures one and two.
John made sure that as Scott got into position each time, that he moved into the correct posture in one movement and not, as Scott first wanted to do, getting into the wrong position first and then trying to work his way into the correct position, which is more difficult to do, and Scott would never forget the bad position as he would start with it every time.
When Scott concentrated he started achieving the better posture every time, which made other parts of the swing better automatically. John noticed that his legs were slipping back a little to the old habit of not working so a gentle reminder, not a new thought, got the legs back on track and Scott was swinging well with great authority.
As with last week, because Scott had said at the very beginning that his driving was the poorest part of his game, they focused on using the driver and they could both see a huge improvement from the first lesson.
When Scott filled in the assessment form at the first session he gave himself 2 out of 10 for driving, John asked what he would give himself now and his reply was 5-6 out of 10. John was very pleased with the answer as it's Scott's thoughts and his confidence that will grow with those thoughts and he will be able to take that belief out to the course.
"I found it very easy to work on the one thought and I can't believe how much more consistent my driving is, I can't wait to try it out on the course". Scott
Driver optimizing: Key factors to getting the most out of the driverMany people struggle to get the most out the driver, when hitting a driver we look at two key factors; launch angle and spin rate. If these are optimized then the ball will travel further.
We look to launch the golf ball at 12 degrees with a spin rate of 2500rpm. (to find this information out we use flightscope)
If the golf ball has too much spin then the ball will not travel as far as it could.
As you can see from these two driver swings, the second shot is hit by one of our professionals
Max Brackley. His drive actually carries 43 yards further than Johns, John however has the higher clubhead speed (Max 120.9mph) (John 122.9mph).
Instantly most people would think higher clubhead speed = greater distance. If we take a look at the launch angle. Max launches at 13.0 degrees whereas John launches it at 10.4 degrees, this could mean a few different things. On this occasion John was steeper on the golf ball, which creates more spin meaning the ball doesn't travel as far. Also due to too much backspin, John's shot has hit the ground and only rolled 3 yards whereas Max's (with the better launch angle and spin rate) rolls 15 yards giving him a grand total 55 yards extra with a slower swing. This shows the importance of being properly Custom Fit for your driver to get the best performance that suits your game.
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This picture is of
Martin from Chestfield Golf Club, who had come down for one of his lessons from John. John hadn't seen Martin for a while so asked him how his golf had been going and with a big smile he said,
"I won the first medal of the year and then proceeded to get a hole in one in the Spring Meeting"
So CONGRATULATIONS Martin and obviously a smaller well done to John.
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