New Post #41 Technique Tuesday

Hi Friends

As those cheeky chaps Blur said “Modern life is Rubbish”

Does anyone else long for those times that if you were on holiday, or went on a long walk (like a round of golf) then you simply couldn’t be contacted,

You had actual peace and quiet.

Talking of peace and quiet, Why are modern trains now so noisy, every 5 seconds you get an announcement - “the next stop is………” and “mind the step” and “the next platform is short so make sure your in the right carriage” and “report any suspicious packages”, its never ending and drives me crazy. I cannot be the only one

So with that said, what about Golf?

Now I wholeheartedly agree with the below.

This is a truism in golf. Ball flight is king.

All the great old school ginstructors would agree,

Be it John Jacobs, Bob Torrance or Butch Harmon. They all taught or starting teaching before launch monitors existed, so for them ball flight was the best way to understand what the swing was doing.

Now, who am I to argue with these teaching legends?

Well I’m not the only one arguing, and times do change.

These days every tour pro has a launch monitor.

Go to the range at any tour event and you’ll see a line of orange Trackman’s and Foresight GCs behind or next to the player. Then after every shot they be looking at the numbers.

Measure don’t guess seems to be the mantra of modern golf.

My first experience of using a Trackman wasn’t the best.

I went with a some golf friends (readers of this fine newsletter) and we played some simulator golf but ultimately what it turned into was just who could have the fastest club head speed with driver. It wasn’t me.

So there we were, just thrashing driver as hard as we could, balls going left and right like the red arrows.

What did we achieve?

On the surface very little.

But, here’s the thing. 

In actual fact, I did learn some really important lessons, I just didn’t realise it at the time and if I had I could have improved my golf significantly years ago.

One, I learnt I had a decent smash factor with driver. My club head speed was a good few mph lower then one of the others but my carry distance was longer. I was efficient in delivering the club, if a little slow, and this was maximising distance for that club head speed. So with driver I should work on speeding up my club head speed rather then strike)

The other learn (which I’ve talked about on here before and when using irons) was my low point. I was bottoming out the swing too early and this was causing me to thin the ball. This was shown by a simple number on a launch monitor. I had always had a tendency to thin the ball and didn’t know why. The machine told me within a couple of shots.

Fast forward a couple of years and I was lucky enough to be attend some Surrey County training at an indoor Trackman venue.

The difference to my first experience cannot be understated.

The County coaches who were running the sessions had devised proper tests, using Trackman’s excellent performance studio software.

This was a considered approach. With clear aims and outcomes.

The performance studio software allows you to set up a multitude of tests that will help your game.

We did tests like hit 10 balls exactly 100 yards, then 10 shots to random yardages between 75 and 125 yards then random distances between 125 and 176 yards - The system gives you a score at the end so you can see if your improving over time or just if you beat your mates.

The 2nd time we were doing a ladder drill, we had to hit the number required within 5%, If we did this we were allowed to move onto the next yardage, if you went up the ladder by say hitting your target number but at the 4th yardage you were out by more than 5% then you had to return to the first yardage (80 yards in this case and I seemed to have to do this alot)

Funny thing is once you start to get a real feel for a certain yardage, like the 80 yards I had to hit again and again and again. Then you come to a 80 yard shot on the course and you know exactly how hard to hit it.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Dr Mark Brodie and his strokes gained metric?

“Strokes gained is a golf statistic that measures a player's performance by comparing each shot to a baseline, typically the average performance of other players. It helps golfers identify their strengths and weaknesses by showing how many strokes they gained or lost compared to a benchmark, such as PGA Tour players.”

This has been fully adopted on tour, look at the PGA Tour or DP World Tour websites and you’ll readily be able to view strokes gained for long game, short game, driving and putting for each player and also the Tour averages.

Another performance test we did on the Trackman was a a strokes gained test versus PGA Tour average.

A test was set up of 10 approach shots to tucked pins at the Old course St Andrews, the Trackman software can be set up to do this for you easily. After each shot the Trackman showed if you gained or lost strokes versus the PGA Tour. This was giving us a very clear metric on how good our approach play was on the day.

From that you can see where you need to spend time on your game. Then you can regularly do the that test and you have real time data of how your game is changing in every dept.

Tests like this can be set up for each part of the game. It’s very clever system.

Talking of Low point, this is a nice graphic I found on instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mb_swingworks/) explaining the differences in low point by handicap.

The fact that each number has an A after it (0.9A, 1.2A etc) means the low point is after the ball. If you have a B then the low point is before the ball - When I first used Trackman my low point was a B!!!

I have no doubt that regular use of a launch monitor will improve your golf. And pretty much every professional would agree.

These days the technology is so impressive and extremely accurate.

For me it has 3 real benefits - You can play golf, work on your swing and/or test your game.

You do this by choosing to either play very realistic golf at courses Including places like Augusta National or work on your swing (using things like low point data point as I did to improve a fatal flaw I had in my swing) or test yourself in the performance centre as I have described.

Effectively you are getting a 3 in 1 solution to help you improve and most importantly have fun and enjoy your golf more.

Yes, hands up. I can help you with this - purchasing, installing whatever you want so I am well and truly biased.

But ultimately what I’ve tried to do is just tell you my experience and journey with launch monitors and why I believe in them (Tiger believes in them so much he built his own brand - The Full Swing launch Monitor)

Plus we live in England and Simulator golf is never rained off!! Or indeed sunned (is that a word?) off when it’s 35 degrees!

Cheers

JT/Jerry