Tag: golf

GURU TV – “The J and J Show: Biomechanics and Body Motion with Special Guest: Jason Helman

November 10, 2010

I was very flattered that Jason Helman, 2010 Ontario Section Teacher of the Year, contacted me and wanted to come on the “Guru TV” show. We had a great time talking about golf and teaching as we spent the afternoon together as he passed through on his way back to Canada. We shot 2 impromptu videos with very little planning. We just fired up the camera and let it rip. I hope you enjoy.

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See you on the lesson tee,

Guru

GURU TV – Inside a lesson with the Guru: Brandon Case swing analysis

November 3, 2010

Leave you comments below and you might be the next lesson vlog candidate.

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See you on the lesson tee,

Guru

I Have “The Kure” In my hands. Who Needs A Putting Lesson?

October 26, 2010

If you read the previous post and and watched the video, you already know that I have purchased a new training aid called “The Kure”. I have taken it out of the box and started to mess with it in my house on the carpet and I am very excited to share it with my students starting tomorrow. So who needs a putting lesson? I am accepting guinea pigs this week for those who want to try it. We have talked extensively about the importance of set up and posture in putting but it is all for not if you can’t aim the putter face and square it at impact. This is what The Kure helps you create. Muscle memory and visual feedback of face alignment. I think I will couple this with the Putting Arc and see what happens. If you like it, I will help you purchase one for your own personal use as I am now a certified dealer. Details will follow as how to do this. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you all on the putting green.

Guru

GOLF AND RUNNING: HOPE VS. DOUBT…..THE BATTLE PART 2

October 9, 2010

As I sit in my hotel room in Chicago, mentally preparing for the weekend ahead, I felt the need to share a little more about the importance of this upcoming race. As I write this my family (wife, 2 kids) and I  just finished a wonderful meal in the hotel in which we got to spend some time with my mother in law, Judy, my sister-in-law, Tammy and the guest of honor, my father in law Butch. For those of you who haven’t followed my blog, I am running the Chicago marathon in his honor. Butch was diagnosed with Leukemia this past April. This led me to compete in another marathon and raise money for LLS with team in training(which I raised over 20000.00) *. So my first priority is to make sure that everyone has an enjoyable time and secondly, finish the race in one piece. This might seem like a given but sometimes things don’t always go as planned. Some of you that know me already know this story so I will give you the cliff notes which will help you understand my mindset as I stand at the starting line, both physically and metaphorically. I am no stranger to running as I have been doing it regularly since about 2005. For those who don’t know, I don’t do anything half way (my wife says I have OCD). I did my first race in 2005 (a 10k) and I was hooked on the whole man vs. race course thing and it is so much more but I don’t have time. It made me feel like an athlete. So I figured if I can do 6.2, whats another 20? Right? So with the help of my coach and now my best friend, Steve, we did the Chicago marathon in 2006. Everything went well for my first time but I needed more. I did a half mary in 07 after recovering from an Achilles rupture. So I was ready for another full. I didn’t get into New York I signed up for the Kiawah Marathon. Training was going fine until I got mononucleosis that summer, I promise I wasn’t kissing anyone but my wife. I ran into one of my students shortly after that was in the shoe business and offered me a free entry into the Marine Corp Marathon which was a couple of months earlier than Kiawah.  I thought this would be a great opportunity to take the family to D.C., do some sightseeing and do a very slow marathon and treat it like a training run for KI. Skipping ahead……….At about mile 12, I started to feel really bad as if my body was shutting down for some reason. I was fully trained so I knew that it wasn’t that I wasn’t prepared. By mile 18 (which I don’t remember running), I was spotted bobbing and weaving. I woke up in the back of an ambulance, severely dehydrated and catatonic. I didn’t know it at the time but my heart rate was about 255 (nearly heart attack rate). After a day in the hospital, getting hydrated and back to normal, I saw a heart doc and they found nothing wrong. Several tests and more checkups including a couple of months ago, NOTHING. We think it was the mono, but don’t know for sure. Needless to say, it took my wife and kids a long time to get comfortable with me running another race. Shortly thereafter I started a running streak of 300 days in a row (OCD, nahhh). I set a personal record in the half marathon last December, just to prove that I was alright. It was a very scary deal as I thought I was going to see Jesus a little sooner than I imagined. This is why this is a very important race for me. Obviously I am aware of the symptoms and will have no problem stopping and walking if necessary (which I didn’t do last time, high pain tolerance as well).

This is no different than what Dustin Johnson experienced at the P.G.A. , (with the exception of the life threatening part). We all have bad rounds and make mistakes that we regret. You have to be mentally tough and hang in there. Not to encourage stupidity but sometimes we need to stop running and catch our breath or take a few weeks off and just relax. But I encourage you today, if you believe something and you believe in yourself…. Push yourself past your doubt and fear which is the number one reason Jack Nicklaus says people fail….FEAR! I have always prided myself on being mentally tough and I try to instill this in my students. No excuses and no doubts. What do I do? I sell HOPE EVERYDAY. Hope will win in the end if we stay positive and live everyday as if it our last. Lastly I am such a mindset of thankfulness tonight and I want to send out my list of thank you’s:

1. my wonderful wife, Tiffanie, who puts up with my disorders and drive, thank you for being my rock, my life and soul mate and the reason I push so hard everyday.

2. my kids, Brittanie and Nicklaus….the loves of my life and my biggest fans and supporters.

3. My parents that raised me and taught me work ethic and the willingness to be scared and face my fears

4. My father in law Butch, for never giving up and staying positive while battling this awful disease.

5. My running buddy and friend, Steve Hightower for providing wisdom and clarity through injuries and pain. All the great talks we have on our long runs are priceless. Someone needs to make another “spirit of the marathon and follow our group” It would kill. Golf and Life lessons on the run.

6. To my trainer, Mark Kane and my massage therapist Summer who keeps me healthy and strong. Mark, you are truly the best in the business. kanetraining.com

7. My “shoe pimp” and friend, Steve Sheridan who keeps in great shoes and gu. Awesome.

8. To my marathon and ultra running friends and students, Hal “Dean Kanazes jr.” Hawisher and Darryl Dewberry….spending time with you guys makes me a better person. I have learned more from you than I can ever teach you.

9. To all my students that are so faithful and make my job the best in the world. I am so lucky to have met all of you.

10. And lastly but not least important, All of you that donated your hard-earned dollars in the likes of this down economy….Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are so giving and generous.

Thank you for letting me dump and vent but I wanted you all to know what I was taking to the starting line this Sunday. I will be running with all of you on my mind as I guarantee that (Just like Dustin Johnson winning the BMW Championship) the HOPE WILL PREVAIL and I will give GOD All The Glory.

See you on the lesson tee,

Jason

 

Golf Channel Instructor Search: I Need Your Help

September 8, 2010

The Golf Channel is holding a contest in attempt to find “The Next Golf Channel Instructor.” I am going to submit a video and see if I can make the top 4 in which we would host our own 30 minute show. The show will be voted on by the general public to see who is the next Golf Channel Instructor. I need your help in choosing a topic that would appeal to the golfing public and also be a good representation of my instructional skills. I am filming the real video on Monday with some help from a good friend and student with better equipment than I can afford so I will have no excuses if I am not chosen. Here is what I need from you all in the meantime. I have shot two trial videos of two different topics that I would like for you to watch. Leave a comment and let me know which one that you think I should reshoot. I have been shooting videos for that past year so I am hopefully prepared to stand out from the crowd. I will do my best to represent Guru Nation.  Thank you for your help and let’s see what happens. Check out my two videos below and vote on which one I should use.

VIDEO #1     ” The 3 Absolutes”

VIDEO #2    “Fixing The Over The Top”

Remember: This is not the actual video that I will submit, this was just a trial run

Thanks for Your Help,

Guru

Guruism’s and The lighter side of Jason

September 3, 2010

I had a few minutes in between lessons today, which is unusual, so I thought I would write about whatever was on my mind. As I spend another year on the lesson tee, loaded down with sunscreen,, zinc on my nose and a huge hat on my head, fatigue often sets in. I know, I know what you are thinking. Guru, you are in phenomenal shape and you only teach 3000 lesson per year, how can you ever get tired? But after doing this job, which I love with a passion, for 18 years……..Sometimes I get irritable or as we call it at the 5 o’clock hour on a long hot day at the golf school……PUNCHY. For those of you out there that have worked with me and know me, I don’t pull any punches…..I try to call it as I see it! Honesty is what I call it. Sometimes it may be brutal but I feel I owe my students the truth. If your club face is wide open and you are swing over the top and scooping it, It is not going to do any good if I give you fluffy advice or tell you that your swing looks great and that I wouldn’t change anything. I am going to kindly explain that we have some work to do. Just after the initial interview and watching some students warm up, One of the most common questions that I get as we approach the video room is, “GURU, IS THERE ANY HOPE”. My response is always the same, “YES SIR, I SELL HOPE” (At 125.00 hour mind you). So I thought I would give you some of the sayings that I use on the lesson tee to help lighten the mood or relax the student or just plain get my point across. Feel Free to use or repeat when appropriate as I may have stolen it from you or someone you know.You

1.  There are plenty of seats on the plane – if you are working on swing plane.

2. Where is the only place to get off of the plane? The Airport

3.  You couldn’t draw a ball with a pencil – for all you slicers out there (And a pull is not a draw)

4.   Hands and Arms University, enrollment is free.

5.  Student says after making a plane change,”I feel like I am making a loop,”…response: you were already making a loop, just the wrong direction.

6.  It feels unnatural (student making a change), response: I am not in the comfort business….but I promise it will make you better.

7.  You have to feel as if you change it 2 miles to change it 2 inches

8.  Feel is not always real. Do you know what is between the two? A looooooong bridge. My job is to make it shorter

9.  My favorite training aid:”The orange whip” is “The Answer To Cancer”

10.  We must not mistake MOVEMENT for ACHIEVEMENT…..Practice with a purpose

That is enough for now. Throughout the day, myself and the other instructors use a lot of movie quotes………that is for another post. I am late for my next lesson. Talk to you later.

See you on the lesson tee and don’t forget to breathe in a 4 count rhythm,

Guru

Matt “The Kuch” Kuchar wins first FedEx playoff: What can we learn from his one plane/reverse slot swing?

August 30, 2010

Matt Kuchar wins the Barclays Championship in a playoff over Scotland’s Martin Laird. Kuchar makes birdie on the first playoff hole to win and continue outstanding play as he enjoys his best season on tour. Matt has one of the P.G.A. tours most unusual swings and once again I have cued up a slow motion video of Matt’s move in order to educate Guru Nation on how these unusual golf swings work and further highlighting the fact that there is a lot of ways to get it done out there and play great golf. Matt has what we would call a Reverse Slot/One Plane Swing. Let me clarify what I mean by both of these labels and see if I can help you understand some of the terminology behind the two.

One Plane Swing – Top teacher Jim Hardy coined this phrase as a certain style of swing. First off, one-plane has nothing to do with the golf club swinging on a particular plane throughout the swing as a lot of golfers (and some teachers) think. The golf swing has many planes. Shaft, hands, arms, shoulders etc. One plane is a reference between the shoulder plane and the left arm plane. When the left arm and the shoulder plane match at the top of the swing it is considered One-Plane, that’s it. When the arm plane is higher than the shoulder plane it is considered Two-Plane (see past post on Carl Pettersen). So as you can easily see, Kuch is a big time one-planer. When the left arm is below the shoulders, I call that a ZERO PLANE (I made that up). Other pros that use this style are former president of one-plane nation, Chad Campbell, and current president : Zack Johnson (because he has won a major). I think this is a great way to swing if you are a chronic over the topper. But I still have one criteria. I don’t like the shaft of the club to get below the right forearm or behind the hands in the takeaway. This can and usually makes the downswing too steep. But there is always the exception to any rule……which leads me to my second point.

THE REVERSE SLOT SWING PATTERN

“The slot is an area of the downswing about half way down where the club shaft is parallel and slightly on top of the original shaft plane”. (depending what camera view you use……post for another time. Every golfer wants to find the slot and the majority of touring pros are there in the downswing. The largest portion of PGA players have a swing pattern where the backswing is outside of the downswing. In Kuchars case, it is reversed…..We call this the REVERSE SLOT SWING PATTERN. He breaks the guru rule and lets his club shaft get lower than his right forearm and couples that with a very low arm plane. So how does he make this work? ALL OF YOU OVER THE TOPPERS (EARMUFFS). Key Move: In order to get the club back in front of him and back into the slot, he must rotate his entire torso (shoulders, chest and hips), very aggressively to the left. If he was too slow with his body, the club would come in too shallow or swing too much inside/out. Kuchar makes this work beautifully as you wouldn’t think this style would work out of the deep rough as he demonstrated in the playoff. Other players that use this style are, J.B. Holmes, Joe Oglvie, Bobby Jones, Sam Snead (going old school on you).  As this post is getting a bit lengthy, I will cut it off and accept any comments. So the moral of the story  is………If you are consistently finding the slot on your downswing, don’t let anyone change your backswing!!!!!

See you on the lesson tee,

Guru

A Guest Blog Post From The Golf Geek: Conviction

July 29, 2010

Not the type that follows a “guilty” verdict, but instead the virtue. Having the courage of one’s convictions is indeed laudable, but perhaps not something a casual observer would identify as a core requirement for a golfer who intends to improve.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as I’m starting to discover. It manifests in so many ways, and even if you’re a confident, determined and positive person, you have to be on guard at all times as the fear and negativity of others can be both pervasive and persuasive.

I recently completed a round with a new playing partner, there had been a space on the board, and we both took advantage. I admire this player- he plays off 13, despite being of senior age, and despite a swing that could be charitably described as idiosyncratic, and a resultant ball flight that, remaining in charitable vein, was a bit of a slice. He golfed his ball in excellent fashion around the course, and had at least 7 up & downs throughout the round. I learned a lot, not least that whatever I think about my swing, it’s not what is currently limiting my scoring. Short game, putting and strategy (I’ve been working on my putting, so this is the correct order of descending importance at time of writing), and forgetting about trying to think technically on the course. I’ve also realised that, while a good looking golf swing would be nice, an effective, repeating and above all predictable swing would be nicer.

The last few sentences are all very well, but what do they have to do with conviction? Not a lot, in themselves. But this player, who sets up with all clubs like he’s about to play a forward defensive stroke to an in-swinging yorker and before starting his swing rotates his left hand through 70 degrees to a much “stronger” position, saw fit to critique my swing all of the way around the course. I must admit it amused rather than irked me, as although I started a bit disappointingly I settled into my rhythm and felt happy with my swing. It’s a funny situation after all- one might think that a player with such an individual style might have enough experience of unsolicited swing critique by “Expertise-less Experts”- but no. And he’s by no means the only one, the most voluble or the highest handicapper doing this. Marc Solomon, the uncompromising New Jersey pro behind Golf Made Simple, frequently disparages this, and divides golfers into “players” & “monkeys” ( the former reserved those who have a plan, the others following latest fad or magazine craze like the “Tilt into the Xfactor Stack Square to Toe up”) An amusingly vitriolic rant of his can be found here , with many more here. It takes a strong person to withstand this constant barrage of well intentioned mostly unhelpful advice, and even if we were to stumble across that which we need to improve consistency, we wouldn’t have the requisite faith or conviction and we would be likely to discard it when we’re offered still more advice at the first signs of struggling.

It’s also difficult to maintain the requisite conviction in one’s long-term plan. Golf clubs are full of those who have been at the same level for years, and they don’t want to acknowledge that improvement is possible, as this then reflects poorly on them for not having managed to do it themselves. This is their own judgement; I’m well aware that my interest in golf borders on obsession, and others may not be so driven, or have so many commitments that their weekly round and beer afterward is all the time they can spare. The idea of players they can beat comfortably beating them interferes with their sense of self, and they react with negativity to try to dissuade you from your lofty ambitions.

Conviction is also necessary in practice and preparation. I’ve read a lot about golf, and particularly on how to practice (the answer to this is to practice deep and deliberate practice- see The Game Before the Game and Neil Plimmer’s Open Mind Golf blog and in particular his ideas on driving range practice for long game), but it’s very difficult to do this when everyone around you is doing very different things, and when you’re unconvinced, it affects your motivation & you’re therefore much less likelyto practice. This happened to me when I first started stretching, I wasn’t convinced it was helping until I saw Karen Young. As soon as I had faith, I regained my motivation.

Conviction is therefore necessary, and can be difficult to come by and easy to misplace. I’m countering this by making sure my coaches and mentors are people I hold in high regard who are happy to be consulted, and by resolving never to follow blindly unsolicited advice. In fact, I’m going to pretend Mrs Geek is talking about wall coverings & soft furnishings, which ought to ensure absolutely none of this information will make it into my brain.

I’m hopefully playing again on Saturday, so normal service should be resumed! Let me know if you enjoyed this, and whether more like this to supplemnent my round reports would interest you.

Posted by The Golf Geek at 15:27
 
Thank you for your outstanding blog post “Golf Geek”. He is one of my good friends from the UK and can be found on twitter @The_Golf_Geek@twitter.com.  To read more from the Geeks blog go to http://thegolfgeek.blogspot.com
 
Let me know if you want to see more of these guest posts or if you want to be a guest blogger…..contact me at jasonsuttn@aol.com
 
See you on the lesson tee,
 
Guru