Posted a new video

I have a new video here on the page and on the YouTube/paperhogan page. Jeff and I were working on 3/4 shots focused on swing path at the ball to fight the pull. Wow is that on plane! Very happy with how that's turned out.

Breakthrough day with Jeff Ritter

I've been fighting a very pronounced upright swing tendency that I developed over the years after never having seen an instructor. For a glimpse of how bad it was, check this out...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pwp3a0Z4hg. Jeff and I had gotten it fairly manageable, but I was always fighting it. I'd come back after a few weeks away and the first thing he'd say is "a little flatter, more laid off". God I'm sick of hearing that. But I work my ass off to keep it under control, it needs to happen to get us down the path.

Well today I come in for a lesson, after just butchering what progress I'd made over the past few weeks in a single practice session yesterday. The wind was blowing from the left, I was on the right side of the range, and I grooved an outside of the ball path like nobody's business. Figures, I can't groove anything Jeff teaches me but give me an hour unsupervised and I can chisel bad technique in stone. After warming up and hitting a few, Jeff immediately takes me inside, which was odd because we usually don't go capture video all the time, and certainly not right at the beginning of the session. I know better than to question him so I went along for the ride.

First thing out of his mouth was a change to my takeaway. Now if you saw in the first video, I used to take it WAY outside, a self taught method of what I thought would be a way to keep the club from coming across the line at the top. For those who didn't watch the video, let's just say it didn't help. Well it turns out I might have been on the right track. Jeff changed my takeaway from pushing back with the hands and arms (one piece takeaway ring a bell?) to "almost" kind of cocking my wrists in order to get the club more on plane as the club goes back. I was starting to get a bit inside, causing the next move to be up, which causes the across the line move. So by taking it outside (it's not really outside, it looks like it a hair, but camera angles can fool you a bit) just a shade the next move is a flattening motion. I go through a few takeaways to get down what he's saying and hit a ball. Jeff says "hmmm, that's interesting", which typically doesn't mean anything good.

Turns out, I was laid off at the top, a lot. Holy shit, I laid it off and got it on video? No way! So we take a few more, I must have hit I don't know, 20-30 balls, every single one of them was spot on at the top of the swing. Flat, behind me, not across the line, and not laid off, just, I mean absolutely where we've been wanting it. Here's the kicker, before I was always concentrating on laying it off, now I'm not even thinking about it. I went outside after we were done and hit a ball, threw my club in the air and walked back inside. I said "Jeff, I don't normally do this, but I just wanted to tell you that I fucking nutted it, I mean perfect."

I hit 15 -20 more outside before heading out, and they weren't all perfect from a ball flight perspective, but a change like this doesn't exactly take in 30 minutes. I can say that the swing plane has nearly "stuck" with me. I shot some video in my basement this evening just to see if I was still on track, and 6 out of 6 swings were again, perfect at the top of the swing. I'm beside myself right now. I've been working at this for well over a year, and now it's almost automatic, I'm not even thinking about it. A very small change made a dramatic difference today.

Here's the video from today's session. No audio, just a repeat of the swing about 10,000 times so I can just sit here and stare at it. Today is a good day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r87162WKO8M

My instructor Jeff Ritter in Golf Digest!

Just got an email tonight from Jeff that he has a spread in the November 2008 issue of Golf Digest. It's the Breaking 100/90/80 series and starts on page 153. It's a 4 page spread full of tips with football analogies to help you through all kinds of situations. He definitely has some explaining to do as to why he didn't ask me to be in the shots. Haha!

Great job Jeff, maybe next time you get published to millions of readers you'll button your shirt and wear a belt that people won't laugh at. Just sayin...

Let's PaperHogan this bitch!

Posted a new video on my YouTube site from my 6/14 session with Jeff Ritter. We got a good swing down on video and he wanted to burn a DVD of it, exclaiming "Let's PaperHogan this bitch!". So in all it's glory, here is the "bitch", fully PaperHogan'd.

Progress check

I've uploaded the video from another lesson with Jeff today. I must say, and I don't take this lightly, that I am truly hitting it better than I ever have in my life. Today we added the movement of the right elbow moving "deeper" behind my ribcage on the backswing, which adds more flattening elements and consequently more steepening influences, and it made all the difference in the world. Over the past week I've hit some pretty darn good shots, but it's like night and day to where I'm at now. The changes in ball trajectory are significant, extremely penetrating off the face and rising to the apex, dropping softly.

True story, today after the lesson I'm hitting some balls before I headed home, the collection of balls on the range was such that there was a not exactly large area of grass where balls had not collected, making a reasonably good target. I hit somewhere in the range of 6 out of 10 six irons inside that area, all on the same line, same trajectory, same divots, same sound. The 4 or so of the approximately 10 balls were still hit well, just pulled slightly left. Part 2 of the true story is the follow up practice session this afternoon (which I typically do on instruction days). This course near my house has very nice turf, so I enjoy practicing there on the weekends. The left corner of one of the target greens was devoid of any balls so I started hitting 8 iron to that part of it. After 12 or so shots I became aware of the fact that I had again striped every one of them, same trajectory, line, divot, sound, etc. and landed all of them on this left corner of the green. Of course ball 13 got yanked ("you're brain was getting in the way" - Romeo), but the consistency of these shots is bordering on ridiculous.

So that last statement was one that perplexed me as well. Ridiculous? So exactly what in the hell have we been going through for the last 6 months and why if we're going to call it ridiculous? Certainly the wrong word. I believe what I'm looking for is "exceeded expectations". Jeff commented to me that the next few sessions will be 100% focused on short game as the full swing is right where it needs to be. So out of all the times I've come to him with "I'm hitting it great" and he has me change something else, we're finally nearing the point where this is all coming together. Very exciting times.

In the past 2 weeks, I've had a golf instructor use me as a model for his student when giving a lesson, had a group of 3 husbands and wives (snowbirds) watch me hit balls for 10 minutes and ask themselves out loud "I wonder who he is and what tour he plays on?" (haha, if they only knew!), and the father of a college student getting lessons interrupt my practicing to tell me how good my swing looked. None of that means a damn thing at the end of the day, but 6 months ago, noboday cared 2 licks about who I was, I just blended in. Now I can feel people stare at me when I practice, that's pretty damn cool.

This upcoming week should be a lot better in terms of practice time. Now that it's light later in the day, I've been trying to get into a routine of 2 a days, where I practice at lunch and then again on the way home from work. This past week I was scheduled for meetings or lunch appointments every single day. My wife is also out of town, so a couple of days I was unable to practice after work as well. I'd like to get settled in to a full scale twice a day routine, but I'm also toying around with the idea of working out a flex schedule to take a 1/2 day on Wednesday or so to go play. We can't just beat balls, I'm not trying to be Vijay here.

Hey, I can hit a driver again!

I setup an "emergency lesson" with Jeff this morning so we could go through my ailments with the driver. I was hitting some 8 irons decent warming up when we went inside to capture some stuff on video. Jeff had me flatten the swing out as I'd gotten a bit upright since the last time we met. I'll be fighting that forever.

Anyway, we made some really exaggerated moves flattening it out and hit a few outside again, immediate and dramatic difference in compression and ball flight. "Let's hit a few drivers now, just at about 80%" he says. Ok, well here's the real test. Very first ball, bam, better than I've hit a tee shot in the 5 1/2 rounds since this began. I hit 15 or so with him, and nearly every one was nutted. A few offline, which is to be expected after making such a drastic change in plane. I then hit 10 or so more after we were done and hit them all quite well.

So now it's lunch time so it's off to the range to hit some balls during the break (my daily vacation away from my job). Well what do you know, it's the first 80 degree day in Phoenix and the place is PACKED. I have to settle for a spot on the far right, just next to a couple of guys who are "hootin an hollerin" after their shots that by the descriptions "musta went 5 miles there". So I find a spot between their bags, chairs and pitcher of beer (no, I'm not kidding) and settle in. I was prepared to drown out any noise but began to realize that these guys were literally betting quarters one each shot to see if they could hit it farther than me. Now, I'm hitting wedge here, so I'm not quite sure what that's going to accomplish, but suffice to say they were quite impressed that their drivers were blowing by my wedge shots. Me too I guess.

Back to it, so with the newfound ability to hit driver, I'm ready to duplicate the success from earlier now that I've gone through Wedge, 8 and 6, and the G10 did not dissapoint. The very first swing was met with a resounding click of success and the ball did fly quite high and far, with a little draw. Then the Duke Boys joined in again - "WhoooooWeeee, you hit that like Tiger Woods! I bet you 5 dollars you can't do that again". Ok, now seriously, that was funny. So with a gracious "thank you" from me and a desperate attempt not to laugh, I made good on my mans challenge, although he did not pay me the $5 I was rightfully owed. I finished up with 8 or 10 more drivers, then cycled through some pitch shots to the closest green as is customary.

As I was leaving, my new friends informed me that they were there to give me lessons any time I wanted (self depricating sarcasm, I think I like these guys after all). Alas, I had to go so I was unable to join them in their newly refilled pitcher of beer (again, not kidding) and thanked them for their kindness. Ah what the hell, I'm so happy I can hit a driver again, I don't even care. What a great day!

Oh to hit a driver again...

So I've now played 5 1/2 rounds without hitting a single good tee shot with my driver. I absolutely can't shake it, I've hit some great shots with my irons and 3 wood, but I just can't pound anything with a driver. The last round I played just killed my back, which definitely indicates something is amiss. My instructor Jeff Ritter has been down with pneumonia (get better dude, I need some HELP!) so I haven't been able to see him to work anything out.

I scheduled a lesson for Wednesday morning at 8AM to work on this and get to the bottom of my issue here. When I told my boss that I have an emergency appointment at 8AM on Wednesday and that I'd be late to work, he was really concerned. "Is everything alright?" he asked. "NO" I said, "things are terribly wrong, bad stuff is happening here". He really got a concerned look on his face and asked if there was anything he could do to help. After breaking it to him that the tragedy was my lack of any assemblence of a golf swing with my driver, he grew less concerned about my plight. Ah perspective...

Wish me luck!

What's that clicking?

Today was one of those days where things "clicked" for me during my lesson with Jeff. We've been working for a long time on flattening the swing, laying it off, etc. which is all well and good. Well now we've moved on to getting my left wrist flatter at the top vs. cupping it which I've done for years. I'll be honest, I'm really struggling with this seemingly small change as I have no "feel" for the correct position. So for the past week since we instituted the change, I've been back and forth between good shots and bad, really struggling to get it worked in.

Today Jeff added an impact element designed to provide an additional steepening influence into my swing, to combat the shallowing influences that I've had for years with the upright swing. According to Jeff, we have 2 things to add to the swing and then it's maintenance / refinement mode. We'll see if I can manage to screw that up.

So anyway, back to it. The addition today was the straightening of the left leg at impact, vs. the "soft" left knee that I had previously. My first practice swing targeting a solid blow to the turf whiffed the mat completely, but from that point on, I got it. I mean really, really got it. It connected the reason for the flatter wrist to results at impact, which over the past week had been missing. After we were done I went back outside to hit 20-30 balls while everything was fresh. I literally miss-hit one of them, the rest were as pure as the driven snow. I cannot stress enough how that move with my left leg connects the change we made last week at the top. I left the golf course today thinking that I could quite possibly be the best ball striker on the planet. Your planet may be different than mine, but on mine, it's quite possible.

I went later this afternoon to a golf course near the house to practice again (I try to hit balls again on lesson day when things are fresh). Here's where it gets weird. So I'm striping my 9 iron, just killing the center of the clubface. My landing area is no bigger than my dining room table, no lie. Ball after ball, sa-woosh off the clubface, landing in nearly the same spot, with the same line and trajectory as the last. I'm thinking "damn this game is easy". Well the flag for this particular practice green is 153 yards from my spot, not a 9 iron for me, so I pull 8 iron, it's only one more club, let's stripe some at the target. Out of the 40 or so remaining balls there, I hit exactly 3 of them as good as with my 9 iron, probably 20 of them the same distance as the 9 iron, and the remaining, well, not so good. Amazing that I could have such drastically different results from just one different club. I think we're definitely on to something here, and I'm not discouraged at all that after less than 100 balls it's not quite grooved yet. I'm extremely excited about where this latest change has me, and I can't wait until tomorrow morning to get up and go practice some more.

YouTube site created

I've put all of my videos from my lessons with Jeff Ritter on YouTube at www.youtube.com/paperhogan. You may have noticed that I also posted my latest swing video on the top right corner of the site so we can keep an eye on changes as we progress. It's just sick how far I've come. I mean seriously, look at that first video, can anyone literally have a swing that upright and play well? I have no idea how I ever played well before with that swing. Needless to say I'm very happy with how far I've come, and I'm very excited about the possibility of how good I can be when I have a solid swing to rely on. Check out the videos if you have a chance!

Did we just find "IT"?

Wow, great lesson on Saturday. I'm not sure what to think here. So as you all know, I've been working on flattening my swing and getting it to stop going across the line at the top. I've fully enabled the swing shape and plane, and have completely abolished the past parallel move (finally!). However I've been struggling with the across the line motion after so many years of it. I've gotten it down to literally an inch or two across the line, not much, but still something Jeff and I have been working on.

So after some thoughts and drills given to me, I had nearly gotten it done, but at the beginning of the lesson, I was still just a bit over. So after speaking to me a bit about some swing keys, BAM, it happened. And not just once, I laid down a bunch of swings that put me directly on the target line at the top, if not even an inch laid off. Now of course it is Jeff's responsibility to keep me positive, but he uttered the words "perfect" and "now THAT's a golf swing" too many times for me to ignore. I absolutely feel the specific movement that gets me to the correct position, and was able to key in on that to repeat it time and again. Ball flight and line were both just dead on. I literally have never felt my swing so good.

So after the lesson, I proceeded to plug away for a bit to ensure that I keep the feeling going, and while this may sound cheesy, I literally almost came to tears feeling the change and seeing the results time after time. I've fought that move for so long, to be on the cusp of true abolishment of the specific bad habit that has plagued me for years is definite cause for reflective thinking. Jeff commenting that I've have truly exceeded any expectations that he had for me in this short of a time obviously help bolster those good feelings.

So here's where we stand, over the years I've been good, played better than most, could make it happen when I needed it to most of the time. But there was always this nagging voice that said "your swing sucks", which obviously doesn't help from a confidence standpoint. I now feel like all the hard work has paid off to a point where I would be proud to show video of my swing to anyone, which is a journey of momentous proportions. Yes, position isn't the sole determining factor of outcome. Yes, there are many other facets of the game that count as well. Yes, I will make swings that are not perfect in the future. But from a personal confidence standpoint, I'm on top of the world and feel that with this, the only thing preventing us from achievement, is committment, willpower and the occasional good bounce. I can control 2 out of 3 of those things. I get goosebumps just thinking about how confident I am right now. It's almost time to start playing again, I feel like I could take on the world.

So close and yet so far...

So as you have read, I've made some swing changes to get it flattened out a bit and to get rid of the past parallel over the line move. I've been hitting balls every day at lunch (when I'm not traveling) and it's been slow going, as expected. The guy who runs the course where I practice stopped by me yesterday and told me to show up today at 1 PM so he could tweak a thing or two with my takeaway. He explained about getting it back straight to get the club behind me and online at the top. Makes sense, and sure feels a lot better. Had my wife check my position at the top last night and it looked perfect. Yeah, don't let 2 instructors work on you at once, but he knows what I'm doing and I trust his judgement.

We went to work on the takeaway, which as I said is still going outside thanks to years of me attempting to fix my across the line move by myself (unsuccessfully I might add). A few drills and I was in position. I hit a few 5 irons really well, but then the heat set in. Mike had me hit a few drivers and besides looking like I'd never played before, I hit that really bad. All in all, fun times with the driver. So we went back to the 5 iron, hit a few more fairly well, but I was spent. 109 degrees with a black shirt on will do that to a man. I hounded Mike to ensure that I was on line, he took the club out of my hands several times and had me look at the position, all was well.

After a Gatorade (Orange of course, because Ben Hogan always drank Orange Gatorade before the US Open) I cooled down and went home feeling pretty proud of my new move that put me in great position. What better to do than to go hit some more balls once it cooled down to 103 degrees? Took the video camera and hit a few shots to warm up again. Things didn't feel as crisp as earlier, but surely I was still on track. On went the camera and I took turns hitting a shot, then reviewing the footage on the camera. And wouldn't you know it, I'm back across the line again. I hit quite a few balls, each time really really bearing down on keeping the club behind me and it sure felt like earlier, but reviewing the footage, I can promise you it wasn't.

So now I'm a bit frustrated as I not only am still dealing with the club going across the line, but my 5 iron is traveling about 160 yards in the air, about 30 yards short of normal. I'm sure that's all due to the changes and the fact that I'm not really attacking the ball, but I feel really pent up, like my body is wrapped in Saran Wrap trying to keep my elbow in and my swing on plane. Headed to ASU Karsten again tomorrow to meet up with Jeff Ritter for lesson #2, so we'll talk about where I'm at now (which is 1,000 times better than I was a week ago by the way) and how this all feels. I tell you, I could live with the distance loss and the weird feelings if I had the club on line at the top and stopped it at parallel. I've been fighting that for so long, that it's pretty much my success indicator at this point.

Finally, I see an instructor

Enough is enough. I've had this homegrown swing for too many years. I looked high and low for someone that is modern in his instruction, yet not one of those "I'm going to re-invent the golf swing" self promoting guru's. Through friends and family recommendations, I ended up with Jeff Ritter (http://jeffrittergolf.com/). Jeff has written several articles for Golf Digest, Golf Tips and Golf Punk magazines. I even noticed that he has an endorsement on his website from Jim Hardy, who wrote the book "The Plan Truth for Golfers", a book I was reading on swing planes.

Well I finally had my first session with Jeff, it was about 45 minutes in duration. My biggest issue that I've seen firsthand on video is my way too upright, past parallel, across the line golf swing that I've settled into. I've been fortunate enough or stubborn enough to make it servicable, however we all know it won't hold up.

Jeff's first order of business was to try to tuck in that flying right elbow and get my posture back down where it needed to be. Below is a picture of the before and after of the top of my swing (before is on the right obviously). Not bad for 45 minutes worth of work. Now I just need to groove this enough times to be able to stop the old stuff from creeping back in. Easier said than done.

My next lesson is with Jeff this Saturday, hopefully he'll impart more wisdom on me.