We are currently en route to Glasgow, Scotland where it is 5AM, six hours ahead of CST.  We left the Moline, IL airport a little late, departing at 9:30PM Sunday evening.  The duration of the flight is 6 hours 45 minutes which puts us into Glasgow at 10:15AM Monday morning.  The John Deere charters a plane for players, wives, and caddies to entice players to compete in the John Deere Classic prior to heading over for The British Open.  This year 23 players took advantage of the all first class seat, direct flight charter.  The John Deere picks up the tab for the flight and players make a donation to the John Deere charities for every seat they book.  We have a star-studded group on board!  Players on board include current U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover, current John Deere Classic & Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial champion Steve Stricker, current Travelers Championship champion Kenny Perry, Quail Hollow champ Sean O’Hair.  Also on board are 2004 British Open champion Todd Hamilton, 1998 British Open champion Mark O’Meara, and 1996 British Open champion Tom Lehman among others.

Today, I spent the day working with Matt Kuchar and Matt Weibring.  Kuchar is sawing logs in the seat next to me as I type this blog from the plane while Weibring is now in Milwaukee for next week’s PGA TOUR event at Brown Deer Park.  Kuchar played well shooting -3 making the cut and cashing a check, but due to the 36 hole final on Sunday failed to make the playing cut of -4.  Normally the TOUR would play on Monday, but due to the lengthy travel to a major championship for the top players, it became crucial to finish by Sunday evening.  Matt Weibring struggled to maintain his form on the course that he displayed on the practice ground Tuesday and Wednesday.  As a result, we spent much of today making sure he was not out of position in the backswing.  When a player is out of position in the backswing he or she obviously has to make adjustments in the downswing to get a correct, repetitive impact.  This becomes very difficult to do under tournament pressure.

Kuchar only missed 1 fairway and hit 75% of his greens over the first two rounds, but still didn’t feel like he was in complete control.  He was hitting too many shots that were one or a combination of the three ball flights – thin, heel, and push.  A player can get away with some of those in most tournaments.  But a major like The British Open – where the elements expose mis-hits – these shots can end up in the gorse instead of the greenside bunker.  While those three ball flights seem vastly different they are all actually closely related.  Kuchar was getting loaded into his right leg in the backswing perfectly which has been our focus lately, but in the downswing he was hip thrusting towards the target line.  When a player does that he sends the direction of the swing in to out with the bottom of the swing occurring behind the ball.  In a one plane swing I NEVER want any hip movement towards the ball in the downswing.

To combat this, I use a simple drill with Matt to give him the proper feel.  I put two shafts on the outsides of his hips which formed a hallway 45 degrees to the left and towards the target.  I tell him from the top he can turn his hips as hard as he likes provided he moves them down the hallway which is the width of his pelvic girdle.  In the transition he was slightly moving them towards the ball setting the plane in the wrong direction.  He felt like the new hip movement would produce a ball that started left and faded, but in reality it produced an in-to-in straight ball.  All three ball flight misses were greatly reduced and he striped it.  We head over with Kuchar in good form and improving every day.

Time for me to get some sleep myself so I can make it around Turnberry for a practice round Monday.  Our biggest challenge Monday will be staying awake until a reasonable bed time so we can get our bodies on schedule with the time change.  I’ll check in later…