Last week, the PGA TOUR was in Dallas for the HP Byron Nelson Classic. Jim Hardy came into town Monday through Wednesday to work with Scott McCarron and Tom Pernice Jr. I had Matt Kuchar and Matt Weibring playing in the event. Both Jim and Matt Kuchar stayed at my house and we had golf “bootcamp” for 3 days. Scott McCarron had a terrific week finishing T4th. What was more impressive is that he finished an amazing 1st in Driving Accuracy (76.8% with narrow fairways) and 1st in Greens In Regulation (81.9%)! That rarely ever happens because when a player is hitting his driver well, his irons aren’t as good and vice versa. Why? If a swing is more “shallow”, the player will hit the driver, hybrids, short irons, and clubs teed up or with a fluffy lie very well. If a swing is more “steep”, the player will hit the middle irons, long irons, and clubs off of tight lies very well. On TOUR, we usually see great iron players and great drivers, but we seldom see a player that excels at both. A golfer only hits both well when his swing is perfectly neutral. Scott is swinging as well as he ever has in his career and his golf swing is perfectly neutral. He can hit all of his golf clubs, as evidenced by the statistics. That is why Scott’s performance was so impressive.
On Monday the British Open Qualifier for the U.S. took place at Gleneagles in Plano, TX. I watched Matt Kuchar warm up prior to leaving for our Level 1 Plane Truth Instructor Certification Seminar and Plane Truth Amateur Golf School at Kemper Lakes in Chicago, IL. All week we had been working on Matt’s hip movement in both the backswing and downswing. Matt has a tendency to overturn his left side in the backswing which moves his hips out from underneath him and towards the ball. This will put his weight too much towards the toes in his right foot, forcing the shoulders to turn too flat. This causes him to be under his plane coming into the ball, creating enjoyable misses like pushes, hooks, fats, thins, and heeled shots. Other than that, it works just great! To fix this, we have been working on getting the top of his right leg to move away from the target line and towards the target as he rotates into his backswing. He FEELS his weight goes into the heel of his right foot and since the right hip moves behind him, the shoulders have to turn steeper to counterbalance this. If Matt moved his right hip correctly with a flat shoulder turn, he would in fact have too much weight in the right heel and fall backwards. From the correct position, he just needs to unwind it correctly. I want him to feel his left hip is the hinge of a gate in the backswing with the right hip swinging behind and towards the target. I then want him to feel like he reverses it in the downswing, where the hinge is now on the right hip with the left hip swinging on roughly a 45 degree angle moving behind the golfer and towards the target. Matt’s tendency is to reverse the hinges. The left hip goes out in the backswing and the right goes out in the downswing. This will put a one-planer like Matt on the outer circle.
Matt’s ball striking had improved all week at the Nelson and his warm up session prior to the British Open qualifier was flawless. He absolutely had his hands on the inner circle and could not curve the ball. His golf ball went where he aimed it with zero sidespin. I felt he would play well, but as an instructor, I never know what kind of result the player will get given that a golf score is much more than just ball striking. In this case, he did have some great success. Matt proceeded to make 16 birdies in 36 holes. He shot 63-66 to win the qualifier by 2 earning one of 8 spots to play in the 2009 British Open at Turnberry. This week’s PGA TOUR event is Colonial in Fort Worth, TX and is one of his favorite courses on the schedule. Hopefully his good form will continue. Keep an eye on him!
Many of our members have asked us to list some model one plane swings on the PGA TOUR. Some have even requested swings of players who may not be household names. I have a player for you to look for who isn’t yet a household name - Tim Wilkinson, a left-hander from Australia. He has both a pretty swing and, most importantly, an effective swing. Our motto at the Plane Truth is a quote from Jim’s mentor, John Jacobs: “The sole purpose of a golf swing is to produce a correct, repetitive impact and the method employed is of no significance as long as it is repetitive.” Tim pretty much sums that up – he is both correct and repetitive. Last week, he asked Jim to spend some time with him as he was confused about a few things with his swing. This was the first time Jim or I had seen Tim hit balls and after 3 correct and repetitive shots Jim asked me, “What am I going to do to help this guy?” to which I replied, “Be a cheerleader.” Tim finally hit a couple slight misses, although it took a while. At that point, Jim explained to him the cause of the few errant shots he was experiencing and how to fix them. I’m not sure if Jim realized how important his advice was and the amount of confidence Tim left the lesson with, but I did because Jim narrowed his focus to address the important things in his swing to get him to hit the ball to the best of his ability and let go of all of the other crap that isn’t a priority for his swing. Sometimes as an instructor, what you don’t say is as important as what you do. He played decent in the Nelson and also played in the British Open qualifier that Matt Kuchar did. Like Matt, Tim made the field at Turnberry. He fired 65-67 to finish 3 shots behind Matt and in 3rd. Keep your eye on Tim Wilkinson in the future.