dana rader golf school – Page 4

Who Is Charl Schwartzel? Masters Champion

April 15, 2011

One year ago, I posted a Masters blog with my picks to win. As I got back from Augusta last year, one players caught my eye……..Charl. So I am just one year late with my pick, sorry. As the tournament unfolded last Sunday, twitter was blowing up with predictions and observations. Someone tweeted me and asked who I thought would make a move and I said (If Rory stumbles….which I didn’t think he would) Keep an eye on Charl Schwartzel. Who is this guy you might ask? He has won 6 times on the European tour and has contended in a few PGA tournaments but is a relatively unknown. Just like King Louis (his best friend) from the same country. So what can we learn from Mr. Schwartzel game. One after having lunch with a few past champions like Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus (we know that he is very smart)…..he prepared differently by finding the fastest putts and working backwards. (veteran move). The Masters Champion is usually at the top of the putting stats which he was. He was also was the second player to play the final four holes at 4 under par (since Nicklaus in 86′)

His swing is a picture of efficiency. There is no wasted motion for sure. His posture is one of the straightest on tour (it helps that he is only 140 pounds) but he maintains his spine angle throughout beautifully. I like the fact that he pivots around a fixed center with not a lot of plane shift from backswing to downswing. Which with superior club face control allows him to control his golf ball. With an expert short game that included a nifty bump and run hole out on the 1st which got him going. This is a definite swing for you to copy and I don’t think you have heard the last of Mr. Schwartzel. What do you like about his game? Special thanks to my friend John Dochety for this wonderful shot of his swing. Leave your comments below or share with a friend.

See you on the lesson tee 704-542-7635 ,

Jason

My Day With a Short Game Master

April 14, 2011

Every year as I compose my goals for my life and career, I also update a list that I started about 15 years ago called my life list. A bucket list of sorts that included things that I wanted to do in my career. Several of them involve working with other top coaches. If you want to be at the top of your profession or field like I want to someday be, you must get around people who you admire or that have accomplished similar things that you aspire to do. Tony Robbins calls this modeling. I call this building relationships that will make you better with like-minded people. Today I am glad to say that I can mark one of those items off of my list as I got to spend the day coaching with one of the best short game coaches in the world. Mr. Todd Sones (@toddsones). I have been fortunate in the last few years to build a relationship with Mr. Sones as he has kind of taken me under his wing and mentored me in many areas of the teaching business and life. So when he emailed my boss and asked if he could come to our golf school and partner with me and do a scoring game school I was very excited. An opportunity like this does not come along very often for me to work alongside a top 50 teacher and observe how he works with average players. I assembled 8 of my students to experience working with myself and Mr. Sones for a great day of learning about putting and the short game. We started off with a presentation about Todd’s philosophy and what the students should expect for the day which I recorded for your viewing pleasure (pending). I wish I would have had someone video the whole thing because I couldn’t process everything that I was witnessing as I was trying to teach and also follow behind my mentor as we went through each student.

We started with putting for the majority of the morning which included a set of stations for the students to work (drills and practice) as I filtered each student to Todd to assess and also fit for a coutour putter which is Mr. Sones putter company where he can build high quality putters that fit the student properly. Getting students into proper posture and then fitting them is the only way to go. Out of 8 students, only 2 of them had putters that were even close to what would allow them to putt to their potential and one had been fit by me. Needless to say, once we put putters into their hands and they could see the results immediately…..they all bought new putters. The great thing about Todd is that he has that ability to help the students and also educate other teachers as well. Myself along with some other staff members and one PGA pro who drove in from Virginia, were privy to observe and pick the brain of one of the best as he did his work. I had seen Todd present his philosophy many times and had many conversations with him about teaching putting but until you see a guy work one on one with a student, you just don’t get the full effect. To see how he could make simple adjustments to their setup, explain it to the student and have them understand it and implement it quickly was great to see. After 3 hours of putting instruction, the students were all able to tell us what we had worked on and how they will practice their changes which I feel is the true sign that the student really gets it.

We ended the last couple of hours by working on shots from the edge of the green and back to about 40 yards which is so crucial in the scoring zone. Mr. Sones believes, as do I, that the terms “pitch” and “chip” are terms that don’t fully describe short game shots. These terms are often misused and confuse the average golfer. So the cool thing about what he teaches is the different language that he uses for each shot. We taught the students these shots:

1. bump and run – short shot played with a putting grip and stance (pw, 8iron)

2. bump and spin – same shot only played with a sand wedge to spin it

3. hinge and hold – played from the rough using an early hinge action to create a steeper angle of approach

4. low toss shot – 25 yards off the green

5. high toss shot – same shot with a higher trajectory

He uses a different way of getting into setup which start by setting the club for the shot at hand and then “standing to the handle” which positions the butt of the club in the middle of your body. This sets the proper ball position without even mentioning it which is one less thing for the student to think about.

Mr. Sones says” A good short game can be summed up in one word, “descend!” and a poor short game can be described as “ASCEND.”

There were plenty more nuggets that I picked up as we talked in between and after the session that I will have to share later or you will just have to hit me up on twitter or come and take a short game lesson. Better yet, come out and get fit for a Coutour putter that will help me teach you better.

Because today I am a better coach than I was yesterday and that is what it is all about…..Am I Right? I can’t believe that I get paid to do this. Thanks for reading my blog and share this with someone who needs help with their short game. You can find me at the Dana Rader Golf School on the both sides of the building….not just the range. or on twitter @twitter.com/golfgurutv

This year, make your lesson plan include at least 50 percent short game and putting and you will thank me later.

*****Special thanks to my friend Todd Sones for a great day and sharing his knowledge with me and my students.

See you on the lesson tee,

Jason

GURU TV – PUTTING BASICS: The key to winning “The Masters”

April 9, 2011

Great putting wins major championships. It couldn’t be more important to the players trying to win at Augusta National this week. Very tricky undulating greens require expert speed control and green reading to boot. Here are some keys to being a great putter and a video that explains the basics of the setup and stroke.

List of keys in order of importance

1. club face control – great putters have very little face rotation in their stroke. Grip in the palm helps with this.

2. posture – straight legs with shoulders tilted over the ball with the back of the neck parallel to the ground to allow hands to hang under the shoulder line.

3. connection – upper arms connected to the shoulders with elbows in for a shoulder controlled stroke is essential to path control

4. eyes over or just inside the ball – allow you to see the line and aim the putter face

The winner of this years Masters will be the best putter and will have to hole some key putts coming down the stretch. Enjoy the tournament and get out and work on your putting stroke.

See you on the lesson tee,

Jason

This Is A Football (I mean golf ball): Back To Basics

April 5, 2011

For many of you, the week of the Masters constitutes the start of your golfing season. Even if the weather isn’t great where you live, after you watch the tournament it makes you want to go play. As this is the 25 years after the greatest Masters Tournament, the 1986 Masters, it brings me back to a philosophy that many legendary coaches bring into the start of any season. Revisiting the basics. Every year, Jack Nicklaus would go to his coach, the legendary Jack Grout and say,”Let’s start over and review the basics.” Grip, Posture, Ball Location and alignment. The great UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden would start every season by showing his players how to properly put on their socks as to not create blisters early in the season and jeopardize valuable practice time. Coach Halas, the Green Bay Packers coach started every training camp by introducing his players to,”Guys, this is a football.” No one is too good for a spring brush up. My mini-tour players and advanced tournament players always start the season by asking me to check their grip and posture because they understand that without these things being in place, the rest of the swing is working on a faulty foundation. So this is a call to action for all of you golfers out there getting ready to start your season. Before you start to practice and in grain some bad habits, go to your coach and ask them to begin with the basics and work from there. You will be glad that you did. Here is a video that I did last year that will give you a head start to checking your grip and posture. Two of the most important basics that will help you put the ground floor on the house of your 2011 golf swing.

To schedule your lesson with the Guru and get your season started off right call 704-542-7635.

See you on the lesson tee,

Coach Guru

Guru TV – How To Change Your Swing On the Golf Course

April 3, 2011

One of the most frequent questions that I get as an instructor is,”Guru, How do I get my swing back on track when things go wrong on the golf course.” If I could market that answer I would be a rich man. After studying the best players in the world and watching how they manage their swings while playing, this is the best answer that I could come up with. As you watch the Masters Tournament this week, look out for these Strange looking rehearsal swings and check back with me next week. Leave your Masters pick or any comments below.

Please share this vidoe post with someone if you feel it was helpful

Follow me on twitter @twitter.com/golfgurutv

See you on the lesson tee,

Jason

Guru TV – P.G.A. Area vi presentation: Teaching and Social Media

March 25, 2011

This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to speak at the Area vi spring meeting of the Carolinas P.G.A. A big thank you to Woody Allen our area director for asking me to present to the group. I was very excited to share with my fellow professionals some of the things that I have learned in the past few years in the realm of instruction and also how to use social media and marketing to help their business and themselves grow. I have to thank a few important people who helped me construct my presentation and gave me outstanding feedback and ideas on how to deliver this important message. First to my lovely wife, Tiffanie who helped me with my Powerpoint and made sure that I had the presentation that I wanted and also for putting up with my long hours on the computer and on the phone with my mastermind crew. I don’t deserve her but without her support I would not be where I am today. To my mastermind crew who allowed me to bounce ideas and gave me great insight on the information that I was presenting: John Graham (johngrahamgolf), Rob McGill (golfprorob), Jason Helman (jasonhelmangolf) Jay Reid (jayreidgolf) and Scott Fossum (scottfossumgolf). Special thanks to my student and friend, Gene Casiola for helping me with my opening. I have a lot to work on with my public speaking but I wanted to share the video and allow my peeps to give feedback on how I can improve. I really enjoyed my time and I appreciate everyone who came up after the talk to thank me or ask for advice. If you ever need to ask a question or if I can help any of you in any way feel free to email me @jasonsuttn@aol.com or hit me up on twitter.com/onplanegolf. I broke the presentation into 5 parts because it was about an hour and 15 minutes so if you don’t get to all of it I will house it on my corporate speaking page. Let me know if I can be a speaker at your function or group. Enjoy the video and please leave a comment below or share with someone. I appreciate your support and your feedback:

See you on the lesson tee. To schedule a lesson please call 704-542-7635

Guru

A Guest Post From “The Golf Geek”: How Rat Poison Can Get You Target Focused

March 12, 2011

Here is a guest post from my good friend Allan from the U.K. He has a passion for the game and some great insight. I always enjoy a view from a passionate golfer and I hope you enjoy this insightful and creative post. Please leave a comment below.

About the Author

Dr Geek is a golf-obsessed physician who uses his medical knowledge to suggest how you can��improve at golf. If you sign up for his newsletter, you’ll get a copy of his eBook (worth $9.95) absolutely free. He’d love to welcome you to DrGolfGeek.com, so please swing by his site.

If I were to tell you my knowledge of pesticides helped lower my scores, you’d think I was mad, wouldn’t you?

“Poor old boy” you’d say, “the strain of producing thought-provoking content just proved too much for him.”

You’d bring me cups of�chamomile tea and speak in a soothing voice until the doctors in sandals and socks could take me off to their hospital with lockable wards.

And yet that’s exactly what’s happened.

(Rat poison lowering my scores, that is. Not the enforced move to the wrong side of a locked ward)

I can see this might take some explaining.

Pull up a chair, and I’ll be as entertaining and as swift as I can.

When it comes to long putts, there are 2 schools of thought.

The first suggests that the hole shouldn’t be the target, as it puts too much pressure on the golfer, and the chances of holing out from 30 feet are slim. Aiming for a three foot �dustbin lid� area around the hole is instead suggested.

Advocates of this school argue this leaves more margin for error and increases the possibility of holing out in no more than 2 strokes. This seems to be the prevailing view of the traditional paradigm of golf instruction.

However, other coaches argue we should choose a very small and precise target, as this suits the way our brains work and means the ball is more likely to finish nearer the hole.

This means the hole is always the target for long putts. For short putts the hole is too large a target, and a smaller target, e.g. an individual blade of grass or a speck of dirt inside the cup, should be your goal. These coaches advocate choosing �the smallest target you can see without squinting� for any given shot.

Golf is too civilised for this disagreement to turn nasty, but these views appear to be as firmly held as they are divergent.

I don’t just know the answer…I can prove it .

And I’m going to tell you too.

A big claim, I know. And you could be forgiven for wondering if I’ve duped you into reading this with a juicy headline that bears no resemblance to the ensuing post.

After all, there’s no way rat poison could hold the key to this. No chance at all.

But you’d be wrong.

Incredible as it may seem, my experience of the use of rat poison in a very specific setting really has told me all I need to know about target focus.

This will need a little background information to make sense; please bear with me and all will be revealed…

Warfarin is an anticoagulant � a medicine given to prevent blood forming clots. It was originally developed as a pesticide; it was discovered after cattle started bleeding to death after eating mouldy silage made from sweet clover.

It was initially marketed as rodent poison � rats would eat it as it was both colourless and odourless. It�s still used for this purpose today, although most people use newer poisons.

From the mid-1950s it�s been used (in much smaller doses) in humans for the wide variety of medical conditions caused by, or complicated by, blood clots. It’s now the drug most widely prescribed for this purpose in the UK and USA.

Although it’s very effective, there are a number of difficulties with its use. Response to it varies from individual to individual and a great number of other medications can interact with it.

Careful monitoring is therefore essential as there’s risk to the patient if the level goes too high or if it drops below the effective level (known as the INR). A blood sample is taken, and there’s a range of acceptable levels (in most cases this is 2-3, in some cases it can be 3-4).

When I first started work we aimed for levels within these ranges, knowing the drug would be effective.

This is similar to aiming for the three foot �dustbin lid� around the hole.

Difficulties arouse, however, with scores that were just outwith the recommended range. There’s no evidence warfarin with a level any lower than 2, and yet it was quite common to see patients with an INR of 1.9 without any change proposed to their usual dose. The same happened at the upper end, for example 3.2 being seen as acceptable, despite no evidence of greater benefit to offset the (albeit slightly) higher risk of bleeding.

I’m pleased to say this isn’t the case any longer.

So what changed?

Our target focus.

Instead of aiming for a wide range, we now aim for a precise target in the middle of the range (2.5 or 3.5). This has led to more scores falling within the target area, and far fewer falling outside it.

If you go for a broad target you increase the �scatter� of shots around your target. This is because your margin for error is happening at both ends of the range, rather than around one point in the centre.

When your target is in the centre of your acceptable range, more shots fall within that range. When your target is less well-defined, so too are your results.

This isn’t just for putting; it applies to all clubs – from putter to driver and everything in between.

Decrease the scatter and improve your accuracy.

Aim for the precise target, then accept results which fall within the range.

And let rat poison guide you to lower scores.

Thanks for your outstanding blog post, Dr. Geek. It proves the point that your commitment to the target has a great effect on your overall accuracy. I am in this camp that you mention for sure. This is a great prelude to an upcoming post that I am going to do on “The Talent Code”.

If you find this post helpful, please feel free to use one of the share buttons to spread it around.
follow me on twitter @twitter.com/onplanegolf and follow the geek @twitter.com/the_golf_geek

See you on the lesson tee,

Jason (call 704-542-7635 to schedule a lesson with The Guru

A Great Blog Post From James Donnelly: Body Language

March 7, 2011

I think we can apply this to our golf games and our jobs, whatever you may do. Thanks for the gret post and for the kind shout-out. I know I will be thinking of these swing thoughts as I prepare for some upcoming speeches. Thanks JD.

swing thought”

You’ve probably heard that body language is important when communicating.

How important? UCLA Professor Emeritus of Psychology Albert Mehrabian believes that non-verbal communication accounts for more than 50% of the success of getting your message across. (To be exact, Mehrabian believes that words account for 7%, tone of voice 38%, and body language accounts for 55% of a listener’s ability to warm up to you or your message.)

There are nearly twenty non-verbal cues that make the difference between bad and great body language for communicators. However, when I conduct communications training/coaching sessions, I typically don’t share that list at the beginning of a session.

Why? I’m a golfer.

What if a golf coach told you: “Feet still…shoulders start the swing back…hands over your back foot…hinge at your waist…swivel your back to the target…pause at the top…start the downswing with the hips…drop the arms to the inside…strike the ball with a descending blow…rotate the forearms…finish high with all of your weight on the front foot.” How well do you think you’d swing?

Instead, a good golf coach would give you a swing-thought – a simple key that would enable all the other things to happen. It might be: “Swing around your sternum and drop your arms inside.” (I’m currently working on this one now with the terrific Jason Sutton of the Dana Rader Golf School.)

So, here’s my one body-language swing-thought for anyone addressing a large group of people or conducting a media interview:

“Be a more confident version of yourself, even if you have to fake it.”

With this one tip, I typically find that people begin to naturally address most of the items on the body language checklist. This list includes:

Adopting a more athletic and engaging posture
Speaking more deliberately and impactfully
Taking time to breathe and think
Using your hands to punctuate and illustrate key points
Making better eye-contact with the reporter/audience
Moderating your vocal speed and volume

The tip isn’t a magic bullet, but I’d say it has a success rate of about 4 out of 5. When it doesn’t work, then I’ll begin to address a few of the finer points, or I’ll try to introduce a new swing thought, customized to address a person’s body-language faults.

I hope this tip helps you…almost as much as I hope to begin hitting a consistent draw.

You will JD, I promise…….if it kills me first.

Please share this is you find it useful. Follow me on twitter.com/onplanegolf and twitter.com/jamesjdonnelly

To schedule a lesson please call 704-542-7635 and I will see you on the lesson tee,

Jason

Join the Guru and Top 50 Instructor Todd Sones for a Scoring Game School on April 13th

March 3, 2011

On Wednesday April 13th, I will be teaming up with Golf Digest Top 50 Instructor and Golf Magazine Top 100 instructor, Todd Sones, for a full day scoring game school. The school will run from 9:00 until 3:00 and include lunch and impact golf school manual. You will learn all the shots from 30 yards and in including how putter fitting can help your stroke. This is a rare opportunity to work with one of the best short game instructors in the game today. The school will be held at The Dana Rader Golf School and the cost is $495.00 per person. Space is limited so call the school @ 704-542-7635 to sign up today. Here is a video of the types of shots that you will learn with Todd and Jason.