i used the 3 skills and nailed it!

well i ve been at the 3skills 6 weeks now and last nights session was the best ever.
i dont honestly think i could have hit the ball any better.
wedges and short irons were great on distance and accuracy, long and mid irons had a penetrating draw flight and driver was so effortlessly easy.
all i "felt" was that i was swinging a golf club round my body, just freewheeling round
nothing more nothing less!

In the first instance, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I realized one old swing fault was coming back because my partner observed it and told me. If he hadn't, I wouldn't have known. The other important thing was, my ball-striking was getting worse, the more time I spent with the 3SKs. I suppose it's possible that the new method was introducing new swing faults, but I'm inclined to doubt that.

Well, until two days ago I was practicing nothing but the 3SK drills, focusing only on contact, and paying no attention to swing mechanics. As far as I can tell, that's giving it a chance if anything is. I did that for several weeks. The result: my ball-striking got worse and worse. When you do an experiment and get a result, you have to try to learn something. I learned that the 3SK approach doesn't work for me. That's not to say it won't work for most others, or even all others. To say I'm "not ready" for the 3SKs is to suggest that at some future point it will work for me. That's possible, but I have no way of knowing that now. What I know now, and what has been confirmed by my experiment with the 3SKs, is that forgetting about swing mechanics makes my ball striking worse.

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

Todd,

Tell me what does work for you?

What do you usually score when you play?

What ball flight do you have?

Would you say you have a good golf swing?

Do you have a good set-up?

Have you a clip of your swing?

I must be missing something here.........

Ian.

Good question. The answer is a moving target. Let me put it this way: For me, striking a golf ball well is a very difficult act, and it's one that I can't consistently repeat. But lately I've had the best results by paying strict attention to the tempo of my backswing, especially stalling the club at the top; also paying close attention to the position of my right knee, making sure it doesn't unbend or shoot forward; and starting with my weight slightly shifted onto my left (lead) foot. If I do these things, I strike the ball very well, with an iron. With the driver or 3w, not so good.

But as you've already noticed, this is a lot of detail to keep in my head while trying to play golf. That's what makes it difficult. If I get tired or distracted, I'm likely to forget some of these things and get a bad result.

This is why I was keen to buy the 3SKs book and try it. I hoped that I'd be able to strike the ball without having to go through this complicated checklist of swing mechanics.

Before getting into the three skills, I was playing in the high 90s consistently. After working with the book, about 10 strokes higher.

I'm not sure what this means. It varies from one shot to the next.

I'd say I have a lot of golf swings, and some are good; some are not so good. To say that I have A golf swing is to suggest a level of consistency that I don't think I have.

Hmmm....I don't know.

Yep. This is from early in the summer, and some things have changed since then, especially my posture. My spine would look straighter now, and my knees not quite so bent (although I find that I have to bend my knees more than other people to have any chance of hitting the ball at all).
http://media.putfile.com/Two-Okay-Swings


Why? Is it that perplexing that a particular golf instruction method could fail to help someone?

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

hi Todd
if you don't take a full back-swing do you strike the ball better.
bill

My backswing is short to begin with. What I find more helpful than shortening it is to "stall" it before coming back down. I've talked about it before...It's not a true "pause" in the swing, but it's a feeling of letting the club slow down and stop, as opposed to doing something to bring it back down. If I do that, then I strike the ball better, pretty much regardless of the length of my backswing. It's easy to overlook it, however.

hi Todd
yes that sounds ok, thought you might of been overswinging with the woods but its not that. maybe you should try and take a video clip and send it in and see if the others on here can spot anything. you don't sound as if your far away from a good swing.
bill

Hi Todd.

This sense of "pausing to complete" the transition is something I do as well, as per Tommy Armour and as long as I don't overdo it, it works for me too , but beware introducing too much of a stall as I find it can make the swing a bit staccato and jerky - with the results you'd expect.

I don't know if you've seen the posts on your "synthesis" thread but I think it would be useful if you told us what happens with your woods - i.e what is the ball flight - rather than what you "think" you are doing. Also check out Brian's response on the thread; my problems were 90% with swing plane and angle of descent maybe yours are too.

For the driver I now think "plane landing" - a long shallow descent along the runway - and to achieve it I try and make sure I'm in the right position
at the top of the back swing.

"Right position at the top of the back swing" might seem an odd thought in the context of 3SKs but I rationalise it by saying thats how I hit on the right angle of descent to nail it. Ignoring the fact that my rotation is more luck than judgement - so god alone knows where the ball will go at the moment - I have been striking the ball a lot better this week.

Just some thoughts mate in the hope that some strike a chord.

__________________
I firmly believe that we should try to experience all that life affords, except, perhaps, bestiality and of course Morris Dancing.

[quote=ubizmo;

Yep. This is from early in the summer, and some things have changed since then, especially my posture. My spine would look straighter now, and my knees not quite so bent (although I find that I have to bend my knees more than other people to have any chance of hitting the ball at all).
[url=http://media.putfile.com/Two-Okay-Swings]Two Okay Swings - Putfile[/url]

QUOTE]

Todd,

I am presently suprised, you swing look pretty good and some solid fundimentals, you seem to have lead me into thinking you were extreamly poor for some reason.

From a basic swing analysis I see a couple thing that you should iron out before working on the 3SKs.

1) You need to move a touch further from the ball to give your self more room to swing your arms past your chin before turning................
2) your right hand grip is way to strong, you take the club back shut, again the the 3SKs book there is a section on a good grip.


You dark horse you.................Watch the iron shot and pause it on the downswing just before impact...................then look in your 3SKs book you will note you have Sk2 nailed, you attach from the inside perfect, this is one of the most difficult moves to master of any golfer.

What you don't do is let the clubface close again because your body has started to follow the ball and ruins this perfect attack. Without drifting into swing thoughts as mentioned above just keep your weight on the right side until your arms pass your chin (rotating) of course.

Summary:

Sort your grip out first, it stops you opening and closing the clubface..

Then just let your arms do a bit more work on the 3SKs before firing the body through, which should happen naturally once you hit a few good ones.

You should have this nailed in a couple of weeks.

Hope this helps

Ian.

__________________
Once you learn the swing, your next step is mastering golf psychology................

I really need to get a more recent video, to see for myself what's happening. I think there would be a number of visible differences from that June video. As far as grip is concerned, I've always set my grip up the same way: back of left hand toward target; crease in palm of right hand sits on top of left thumb.

Meant to post this here but in my confusion put in the wrong area. here goes again:

Did a bit more range practice last night and my ball striking gets better and better at the moment. I was hitting my seven iron to a range target placed at around 150/160 yards and managed to drop the ball onto it. My 4 rescue club was also singing.

I am getting a bit of a reputation as having a driver fetish as I have purchased yet another this week A mate of mine had a driver fitting session at the Belfry recently and although he went there to get a Ping G5 he returned with a Taylormade Burner. I have hit a few balls with his Burner at the range and was very impressed on the distance and ball flight I had with it. I saw a new one on Ebay, bid for it and picked it up for £92, around half what my mate paid for his . Coupled with my improved ball contact I hit some really impressive drives last night, cant wait to get out on the course the weekend.

So! I guess the question is my game improving? Well, my ball striking has moved up a gear but I have not had much chance to test it in anger to measure any overall match performance. I played in a team mixed doubles away match with my wife last weekend at a new course for us, this comp was Greensomes so it was not really possible to measure improvement other than hitting some great shots.

3SKs will not do much for my putting or course management so any improvement I find will have to be measured against improvements in ball striking. One immediate benefit has been a real feel-good factor when stood over the ball. The golfing season has almost come to an end in the UK, we have a few club internal comps to play, I do play all year round and hope to work hard over the winter in knocking some shots off my average.

__________________
Best Regards
Brian

________________________________
Funny o'l game!

hi Brian
sounds like your hitting that 7 iron about 15 yards longer than you use to do, it that down to the cleaner striking.
bill

Absolutely Bill. I have to be a little careful with club selection at the moment, especially if there is a hazard behind a green.

My shots feel great now but I could kick myself that it had to take this book for me to realise what to do, I must have been putting too much loft on most of my shots and catching the ball low of the clubface, in fact I can see the wear marks to prove it..

hi Brian
well done mate, sounds your well on the way to a better all round game.
bill

Thanks Bill. Still have my eyes focused on that elusive scratch game, who knows?