My tenacity is exponentially more disagreeable when I am wrong!
This has been part of my TGM journey. My initial reaction to discovering TGM was "YESSS...finally golfing perfection will be mine. Muhahaha!" I have always had the tendecy even in the middle of competitive play to become swing-oriented...er obsessed. Sean O'Hair reminds me of me back in the day with...less compression...less hair...less height! Always fidgeting...always tinkering. Ironically, it took the most exhaustive book on golf stroke mechanics ever compiled to put me on a better path! HK My "mob" as Homer termed it is less unruly these days. If I have a particulary bad day I know that my alignments are off so I have to go back to the net, the mirror etc. Start with 12-5-1...graduate to 12-5-2...I have a rule: if I start thinking about sequenced releases, snap loading etc. on the range I make it a mechanics session by hitting nothing but basic motion shots (not my favorite way to hit a bucket of perfectly good range balls) On the course I try to approach it from a NO, or GO mind set (learned this from Tomasi's book The 30 Second Swing.) Essentially this is shot selection based on the situation at hand factoring layout difficulty, weather, personal feel etc. I focus on the straight plane line, clubface alignment and "catching" the lag with my #3PP.
Well Okie, You’re on a roll. Two for two.
I don’t want to bust anyone's bubble, but……, for those that understand TGM, the difference between a good day and a bad day, is only a few yards. Of course the score card may be very different.
For the rest of Golfdom, it’s “wow, man, did anyone see where that one went?”. "I didn't flip my thing at the whatyacallit position".
Basic and Acquired are fine exercises and lead to extraordinary short games.
But when it gets to Total Motion and the pivot components get in there, that's when the trouble begins.
Train the pivot first. Not hitting it well? Look to pivot. Without a club.
Basic and Acquired are fine exercises and lead to extraordinary short games.
But when it gets to Total Motion and the pivot components get in there, that's when the trouble begins.
Train the pivot first. Not hitting it well? Look to pivot. Without a club.
Loren,
I am finding the same thing, work on impact alignments using basic and acquired motion. Those alignments must become ingrained so they happen automatically in total motion. In total motion, work on pivot and think about the three stations, Address, top, finish. It's too difficult to see and feel impact alignments during total motion, and working on them may encourage quitting/steering, and makes it next to impossible to execute a proper finish swivel.
THE STAR SYSTEM TRIAD
1) The Three Imperatives (2-0)
2) Controlling the Three Functions (1-L-A/B/C)
3) Through the Three Stations (12-3)
I am really enjoying the simplicity of the MacDonald drills in training my pivot.
Kevin
__________________
I could be wrong. I have been before, and will be again.
I look at it like a lot of other things in life. For example, say I have never learned mathematics before and want to learn advanced calculus. The steps for that are to learn counting, addition and subtraction. Then you move onto multiplication and division, then long division, whole numbers, basic calculus, etc.
What most golfers do is go right to 'advanced calculus' (total motion). They may have a decent understanding of addition and subtraction (basic motion) but they are prone to make too many mistakes and don't have it down pat. And a lot of golfers I know that get into TGM tend to think that since they got addition and subtraction down (basic motion) they can move right onto advanced calculus (Total Motion) without an issue.
IMO, consistency comes from learning feel from mechanics. My feel is mostly based around lag pressure and when I'm not hitting the ball that well for me, usually it's because my feel is just a bit off. But it took me 20 years to understand what feel really is and how to grasp feel and I did it by finally understanding what feel from mechanics really was.
The curriculum of basic, acquired and total motions allow the golfer to learn feel from mechanics and it allows the golfer to really find out a lot about themselves and what happens when things don't go as well as they normally should. And you can train the pivot quite well using the curriculum of basic, acquired and total motions. I know I did.
One of the big reasons I believe why the golfer who learns feel from mechanics can improve their precision is I believe quite often 'swing feels' can 'expire.' So if the golfer has a feel that was working for them that expires, they can just go back to the curriculum of basic, acquired and total motion and learning feel from mechanics and perhaps feel something new or 're-feel' their old swing feel and get back to repeating good mechanics and alignments again.
"I didn't flip my thing at the whatyacallit position". 
Linear Mode
