A Scottish view of the Swamp
 

Hey all,

As you all know I have just got back from 3 days at the Swamp (1 afternoon with Ted and 2 'half' days with Lynn) and I can tell you these guys know their stuff!!
Both Lynn and Ted are great guys and can pure flat out teach from the little yellow book, they both know the book inside out and can apply it to the student in question without bamboozling them or confusing them. All questions are welcomed and no question is stupid.
For those who are debating whether to make the 8 hour flight (9 hours for me as I had to fly down from Glasgow first) do it, you will not regret it, at first it does seem to be a lot of information to digest but once you have the concepts clear in your mind and can apply it, its bye bye to all the bad things that you have in your swing. Fix one thing and then suddenly one or two (or even more) bad habits disappear and you will end up with a beautiful golfing machine that produces 'Tour' like results time and time again.
I will write more about what we worked on later and put it elsewhere in the forum but for now I just like to say a big thanks to Lynn and Ted first of all for the kindness and friendship as well as the time and effort on the range.
Its a great feeling to be able to hit a shot when called for (see Lynn's post about me doing a quick demo for his private clinic on the Saturday) and even better to see Lynn getting excited as much as you with the improvement that you have made (I can still see Lynn's face when I pured those two shots and hear Ted saying 'that's right man...' :D)
Even better was the little demo that Lynn and Ted did with Lynn's Private Clinic on the Saturday evening. If you thought Ted's water bottle trick was impressive on video, you haven't really seen it until you witness it live and also seeing the two of them bounce off each other teaching the concepts of TGM is just great (have you thought about taking it on the road ;)) Lynn's party and I were suitably impressed with the enthusiasm and the ease that Lynn taught the concepts to us.
Its just a pity the Swamp is not closer otherwise I would of loved to work with Lynn and Ted even more but this is a start and for once I am very much looking forward to the winter months to work on the things that I have learned and apply them even better to my golfing machine.
Thanks!!
Alex

Good on you Alex, seems like you had a blast.

Now get down to the real stuff. Gimme more, gimme more NOW!

Patience my young padiwan learner....patience :D
Just need to sit down and spend some time writing it all out.
Alex

Swamp, here I come...
 

I am looking forward to my trip to the Swamp in January 2007!

Swamp Rats
 

Me, too, Slinger! :salut:

A Scottish view of the Swamp (Part 2)
 

Visit to the Swamp Part 2 (Wednesday 15th November 2006)

This was one of those days that worked out a lot better than what was originally planned. The plan for my first full day in Georgia was to play a round of golf with a few friends (Martee included) but due to the weather front that came into Georgia on Tuesday evening it was a complete washout (Tornado warnings and solid rain for about 10 hours! Just like home then!)

So with the golf cancelled we placed a quick phone call to Yodasluke aka Ted to see what he was up to during the day and to see if was free. Luckily he was!!

But before heading down to the Swamp for the first time (for me anyways) Martee and I paid a visit to the PGA Tour Store that is in Kennesaw as well as the Golfsmiths. I just wished that we had that kind of ‘superstore’ available to us here in the UK where you can get clubmaking equipment as well as OEM equipment all under one roof. Before you ask I walked out of both stores having only bought a dozen balls, a glove and 200 tees. Martee had his eye on a Ping stand bag.

So after the retail therapy we headed down to the Swamp! We took a bit of a scenic route but then again I was never known for my map reading abilities!!!

Once we were at the Swamp, we quickly introduced ourselves to Ted and cornered him before he could run away from us :laughing9
We had a quick chat about life, golf and the golf swing before heading out for some lunch where we talked more about golf and so on (thanks to Ted’s friend for picking up the tab)

After lunch we ventured back to the range and starting chatting about what I was looking for in my visit to the Swamp. Martee asked some questions that had been puzzling him for a while about his swing and the Golfing Machine in general. This carried on for about an hour by which point all of Ted’s students for that day had cancelled (all a bunch of sisses I tell ya…its only a wee bit of rain!! :))

Before I even hit a golf ball, Ted explained a few concepts to Martee and I. The visual with the hula hoop and the dowel was pretty eye opening and light up a light bulb in my head. The concepts of the golf swing and The Golfing Machine was explained in a clear and concise manner that it was easy for a newbie like myself to understand. There is a reason why this man is the Georgia PGA Section Teacher of the year, he can teach!

After a couple of swings, Ted could tell straight away that I was a swinger of the golf club rather than a hitter. He did not do anything to change it and said that there was no point in doing so if that is your natural inclination with the golf swing.

The first thing that he changed were my set up. My old set up had my right shoulder too high which caused the right forearm to be off plane. Too many years of ‘conventional’ teaching caused my set up to be wrong and as everyone knows once you go wrong with the set up, you have a job of a time to get things right at impact.

We spent a while working on Impact Fix, trying to get right shoulder lower, the right forearm more on plane and to get my head into more of an impact position. Ted and Martee both noticed that face on when I took my Impact Fix position, I was just moving my hands forward and that there was not any movement in my hips or my legs. So worked on it more with my hips clearing and moving my weight forward (this in turned moved my head forward, but Ted let this slide as previously my weight and head moved backwards so it was the lesser of the two evils)
It was pretty amazing how by working on Impact Fix the swing suddenly moves up a notch, I was beginning to hit the ball a bit better, more cleaner contact but I was still getting my ‘dying quail’ high fades. Ted said that the Impact Alignments in the swing happen naturally if you let it happen and the by product of getting a flat left wrist/bent right wrist at impact is that your right forearm is on plane and your right shoulder will goes downplane and is on plane.

The next thing that Ted’s expert eye noticed was that I was ‘Roundhousing’ on my downswing. So this is where the Downstroke Waggle comes to the fore. Ted had me doing a few dry swings to make sure that I was going it correctly. Again, I was just doing the waggle with the arms and had left the hips stationary. He showed me that it was a more dynamic movement that involved the whole pivot as well as the hands.

By doing the downstroke waggle, we could work on a whole multitude of things, we could see that I need to slide my hips first before turning them in the downswing (delayed hip turn) and when it was executed properly I could see the right shoulder go down plane and it felt that my right shoulder was going down a lot more than I was used to. I had never felt my swing like that before. Also by doing this, my swing path was changed and I was hitting the ball from a more inside path as opposed to hitting it with an OTT movement. ‘Down and out man..’ Ted would say and I can still hear him when I execute a good swing ‘That’s right man…’ :)

At this point a lot of bells were going off in my head, suddenly things that I did not understand were suddenly becoming more clearer, I understood things more and could finally see in the flesh how the Golfing Machine could be applied to me.

From then on it was just hitting balls and making sure that I could do what Ted wanted me to do. We did talk about hinge action but we did not concentrate much on that as Ted felt that once I got everything else right that the hinge action would take care of itself as I was not fighting it.

One of the phrases that I learned or kept hearing all day was put your ‘head in your hands’ as once I thought about something else I would inevitably hit a poor shot. So put you ‘head in your hands’ and monitor what they are doing.

So in Summary the afternoon with Ted, we worked on the following:

1) Impact Fix
2) Proper Alignments
3) Downstroke Waggle

This was a good start to the week and I could see things starting to improve. Again, thanks to Ted for spending the time with me, helping me go further along this journey with the Golfing Machine.

My first day with Yoda (Part 3) will be posted up later on in the week.
Alex

Thanks Alex. Part 3 eagerly awaited.

Yours in jealousy. :mrgreen:

yah, you and me both pops!!! too cool al.

too cool!!!!

A Scottish view of the Swamp (Part 3)
 

Visit to the Swamp Part 3a (Thursday 16th November 2006)

Today was the day that I was due to meet the one and only Yoda himself. Lynn had spent the previous 3 days in Orlando doing a private clinic with Brian Gay and Verizon. But all credit to Lynn he said that he would be back in the Swamp by the Thursday (he had drove back to Marietta from Orlando during the Wednesday evening and Thursday morning)
Martee and I had gone down earlier to the Swamp to warm up as I was not due to meet up with Lynn till about midday. That warm up session was interesting as I was still processing the information from the previous afternoon with Ted (Martee and I discussed what Ted and I had worked on the previous evening just to make sure that my thick noodle received and processed it correctly!) Some bad shots here and there but had some good ones too but the main reason was to get ready and warmed up for when Lynn turned up.

When Lynn arrived back in the Swamp, we had a chat in the range’s clubhouse about what I was looking for from the 2 days of work and what my goals were with regards to my game. I was a bit surprised when Lynn asked if I had any professional aspirations but sadly being 29, my dreams of taking the Tour by storm are long gone.. (Champions Tour maybe…….21 years should be enough to get my game ready right?? ;-)) I told Lynn that all I wanted was to improve my game and to be the best player that I can be. I did however tell Lynn that I was there with an open mind and that my golfing brain was going to be a sponge, I was ready to soak in all the information that Lynn was willing to share with me with regards to the Golfing Machine.

So after that quick chat, we headed off to the short game area to work on the fundamentals and the basics.

Even before a ball was hit, Yoda began the session with him describing as well as demonstrating the flying wedges, extensor action, plane angle and much much more!!
I would recommend that if you do go down to the Swamp that you take your camcorder with you (along with plenty of tapes and back up batteries….between the 3 of us, we managed to get just about everything on tape. Hopefully, with the help of Martee, I will be able to get them all onto CD in a format that I can view) in that one afternoon there were plenty of little nuggets of information that will lead to many 'a-ha' moments down the line.

Lynn is one of the best teachers that I have the privilege to work with; he is a wonderful communicator and motivator. One of the best things about Lynn’s teaching is that he demonstrates everything that he explains to the student. The Golfing Machine focuses on precision, as does Lynn, so when you do something right he will say so and you really have.

So we worked on Basic Motion for the afternoon, made sure that I could execute the Basic Motion properly and that I could do it with all three hinge actions (Horizontal, Angled and Vertical) Since I am a Swinger of the golf club, the Horizontal Hinging felt more natural to me but since we were there to learn, Yoda got me to do all three. Vertical Hinging still gives me the fits, but after a few tries I managed to get it right J
By working on Basic Motion, we could see what needed to be worked on in my game. It was amazing to see that all the faults that I had in my Basic Motion (additional right wrist bend, flipping, lack of extensor action, dragging the club back too far inside and lack of proper execution of the Horizontal Hinge) would be the common flaws all the way through my game. I admit my short game is not the best in the world, but with all this new information, I feel that come next summer, I can improve a lot.

A drill that Yoda had me doing was to set up normally with the ball but then turn my body to face the target and then I had to hit balls using this stance, this taught me more about the Horizontal Hinge and also forced me to hit down on the ball instead of helping it up into the air. Looks strange but it does work!! He also got me tracing the plane line with my right forearm, this fixed my age old habit of dragging the club too far back inside.

After the session on the practice area, we had a quick break before heading out to the mats to work on some Acquired Motion shots (the grass range was closed due to the 10 hours worth of rain the previous day)
Again with Acquired Motion, you could see the common theme that ran through my game with the flipping, addition wrist bend and so on.

The first thing that Yoda changed was my set up (see previous post) whilst Ted got me to go into Impact Fix to get my ideal set up, Yoda had another idea. He got me to set up with a little more weight on my left foot, flared out my toes (left about 30* and the right about 20*) to aid my turn on the way back and through the swing. It was almost like setting up in Impact Fix (I think its Special Address or Fix)
Also by lowering my right shoulder my right forearm was immediately softened and moved more inline with the shaft. Now I looked more like a golfer at address and as Yoda says 'I don’t think you can miss a shot from there…'

One thing that was noticed with my Acquired Motion was that I was not letting my head 'swivel' through the shot, I had become a bit too 'ball bound' so we worked to get rid of that so that I could let the body do its job and let the motion of the swing flow more freely.

Like the Basic Motion a lot of time was spent on making sure that I was not adding anymore wrist bend to the right wrist as I took the club back and on tracing the club back on a straight line as I had a habit (in both my Basic Motion and Acquired Motions) of dragging the club back behind me. Add a bit of extensor action and whola! I finally had some structure to my swing and my Acquired Motion swing was getting better and better.

Once Yoda was sufficiently happy that I was grasping the concepts involved with the Basic and Acquired Motions, we moved onto the Total Motion……….(more in Part 3b)

Alex