Tag: jason sutton

The Right Knee and my Upcoming Article

January 2, 2010

I have an article that comes out in the next couple of weeks in Golf Illustrated. The title of the article is “Post and Rotate.” The main focus of the article is the role of the lower body and the importance of clearing the hips and maintaining your spine angle. One of the most frequent errors that I see is called early extension. This occurs when the hips move towards the ball in your downswing and creates a change in spine angle through impact (see past episode of guru tv on fitness). I work on this move frequently with my students when they have too much hip and leg slide in their downswing which tends to crowd the arms into impact. We often call this getting trapped.  Recently, I was working with a student (we will call him Allen) on this very move and I noticed that his rear leg was straightening in his backswing. I have seen this before in golfers and this error can cause a number of swing errors like reverse pivoting, or can cause you to top the ball or hit it thin. Often I will try to create a swing error with my own body to help me to feel what the student is feeling which allows me to explain why a particular problem is occurring.  As I made a backswing and straightened my right leg, as my student did, I noticed that I had no way of pushing off my back side to move my hips through. Allen had no way of rotating his left hip backwards because he couldn’t push-off his right side. I hope you are in your living room or den recreating the top of swing with a straight right leg and you clearly understand what I mean. As soon as I got the student to maintain the flex in the right leg, he made a huge change in the amount of hip turn that we were able to create in his downswing. This improved his impact position dramatically. The shaft of the club leaned forward about 15 degrees more than when we started.  I need to do a video on this subject but I wanted to go ahead and share this with you while it was fresh. Here are the two things that I did to help Allen to feel this change. One is a  feel and the other a drill.

1. Remember when making a change that you need to feel as if you do the opposite. When you make your backswing, feel as if you flex or squat a little in order to keep your knee bent to the top of your swing.

2. Baseball Pitcher Drill – Take the club to the top of your swing. As you finish your backswing, lift your front leg off the ground as a baseball pitcher would and swing your leg across your back leg and balance your weight entirely on your back leg (this makes you keep your leg flexed). As you move forward, plant your left leg and then swing your arms down and through to your finish. This drill will also help you with your timing and transition. If you swing your arms down before you plant your left foot, your timing will suffer. 

To reiterate. Keeping the right leg stable and flexed at the top of your backswing, gives you the power to push and drive your right knee and hip toward the target which in turn will clear the left hip as you will see in my article. So go out and get the upcoming edition of “Golf Illustrated Jan/Feb.”

I look forward to your comments as you work on your right knee at the top of your golf swing.

Guru

A Time to Reflect and a Time to Look Ahead

December 30, 2009

As we come to the end of another year, I think it is beneficial to do two things. 1)reflect on the past year (what you did well and what mistakes can we learn from) 2. Set goals and look ahead to 2010 (what do you want to accomplish and more importantly do different and improve on). I enjoy looking at my goals that I had set to see which ones I accomplished and which ones that I didn’t and may want to carry over to next year. I encourage you all to do these things as well. Break them down into different categories (golf, spiritual, career, fitness etc.). I am not going to bore you with all my goals and aspirations but I will share with you a few things that I think might spark some interest in your growth as a golfer and as a person. One of the traits that we live by at the Dana Rader Golf School is being a continuous learner in all aspects of life. I work with a group of go getters that will not let you rest on your success and that keeps me on my toes when it comes to growth as a teacher/coach and as an individual which I like. We all enjoy sharing our knowledge gained from the books we read in our book club sessions or on our own and our best practice trips from other golf schools or facilities. I am a veracious reader and always have 3 to 4 books going at one time. If someone recommends a book I usually find a way to get it and read it. I often get the question from students or people that I meet. “What are you reading?” or “what are your favorite golf books”.  I would guess that I have read hundreds of golf books and you might be surprised that I do read about other things that I find interesting and might help me in life or my career.  So I made a list of the books that I read in 2009 (the ones that I could remember) and also a short list of my favorite golf books that I would recommend having in your library. Although I do think it is difficult to learn everything about golf from a book, it is a great place to start.  One of my idols, Mr. Jim Rohn said,”There is no coincidence why there is always a library in houses of $250,000 or more.” So here is some food for thought or bread for the head. I encourage you all to take some time to write down your goals for the upcoming year and reflect (good or bad) on the past year.  I hope you enjoy my list and would love to hear about some books that inspired you in your life.

Guru’s 2009 Book List :

1.The Power of Nice by Kaplan, Koval

2.Your 15th Club The Inner Secret to Golf by Rotella

3. The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

4. The Power of Who by Bob Beudine

5. Take your performance to the next level, 50/50, secrets I learned from running 50 marathons in 50 days  by Dean Karnazes

6.Going  The Extra Mile by Pam Reed

7. Mind Over Golf by Dick Coop

8. Instinct Putting by Alpenfels

9. The Seven Principles of Golf  by Darrin Gee

10. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

11. Influencer- the power to change anything by Patterson

12. The impact Zone by Bobby Clampett

13. 25 ways to win with people by John Maxwell

14. Breaking the Slump by Jimmy Roberts

15. What happy people know by Dan Baker

Some of my favorite golf books:

1. Rock Solid Golf by Dana Rader

2. Swing Secrets and Lies by Mike Hebron

3. Perfectly Balanced Golf by Chuck Cook

4. Ben Hogan’s 5 lessons

5. the 30 second golf swing by T.J. Tomassi

6. Golf My Way by Jack Nicklaus

7 Flick on Golf by Jim Flick

8. On learning Golf by Percy Boomer

9. The Golfing Machine by Homer Kelly

10.Golfs Sacred Journey- seven days at  the links of utopia by David L. Cook

 

What I am currently reading:

Homer Kelleys Golfing Machine, the curious quest that solved golf by Scott Gummer

Sole Purpose- shoes of hope from the feet of a samariatan by Manny Ohonme.

Let me know of  some of your goals and I hope it includes the help from the GURU and the Dana Rader Golf School.

Happy New Year  and God Bless,

Guru

Golf and Running and Our Brain on Doubt (the athletes drug)

December 13, 2009

There are so many similarities between running and golf. This morning I  ran the Thunder Road half marathon  in Charlotte. Just like a round of golf, every race or long run is always different. Some days your swing feels so smooth and you can’t miss a shot or your body feels great and your legs seem to glide with ease. Other days you can’t find the club face and your legs feel like two ton weights that don’t want to move. Today was a pretty good day in the fact that I ran my fastest time in the half although I hadn’t trained to the fullest due to an injury that I had.  I had very low expectations, which is why I probably ran so well. How many times have you had a terrible range session or warmup before the round, expecting to play poorly, only to go out and shoot a career low.  We have all done it. The opposite tends to happen more often. You are striping it on the range only to get out on the course and can’t find your swing. Which leads me to what I think is the missing link, “The Brain.” In both running and in golf our minds get in the way of what our body already knows how to do.  When I was running this morning, I was constantly assessing how my legs and my body felt as my brain was trying to sabotage it all by telling me to  slow down or walk…..which I am happy to say that I did not give in to this easy way out. Just like in a golf round, many of us want to give up when we are playing poorly instead of gutting it out and getting the most of a bad round. Pam Reed is an elite ultramarathoner. In her book “The Extra Mile”, she states that you can always run twice as far as you think you can, you just have to believe it in your mind. Don’t let your mind keep you from achieving your golfing goals by getting in the way of a good round or better yet a good golf swing. Trust your training as you would a marathoner training for a race. I am the last person that you would ever thought would be become an avid runner much less a long distance athlete. Although I was a better than average athlete, I was never a fast runner and I am definitely not built like your typical runner (tall and thin). The true measure of a man or player is not just talent (because talent alone will make you lazy), but the size of your Heart, Passion, Faith, Drive and Persistence. These things show up when the going gets tough, in the middle of a big match when its easy to give up or running a long race when your brain is telling your body that you can’t run a step farther, but somehow you do.  There is one more similarity in Golf and Running (then I will stop I promise) and that is the way of instruction or training. Everyone thinks that ther training program is the best or the only way.Here is my advice to you. Are you ready, pay attention.  Every one is different……….So when you find the program or teacher that works for you, STICK TO IT AND TRUST IT.  The drill or tip that works for your buddy, may not work for you.  I hope this makes some sense and would love to hear about you overcoming odds or great triumphs in whatever realm that you choose. I look forward to hearing from you and please……..Never Give up, no matter what your brain says.

See you on the lesson tee,

God Bless……..GURU