Archive for December, 2009

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Golf-Coaching vs. Lessons

December 31st, 2009

I think it is clear, that there is a shift in the way golf is going to be taught going forward.  The days of the 30 minute or 1 hour lesson are coming to an end.  The way it is moving is toward more on course instruction with a holistic approach to the game.  Supervised practice, fitness evaluation and on course work are just a few of the ways of how this new golf coaching will look.

Each coach will have the job to organize their programs around this new template.  There will be many variations and I’m sure some kind of multi-sport crossover will emerge.  Especially with golf becoming an olympic sport with government funded programs, many variations will emerge in countries all over the globe.

I know am working on my own variation based on the limitations of my facility on my situation.  Right now, I am looking to implement a pilot program with only a few select individuals to see how my first try at this scenario works.  With a small group, it will allow me to make quick changes if certain things aren’t working well.

Student understanding and improvement is the goal.  That can be agreed on by all of us.  How we get there and who comes up with the best model will be fun to watch.

Stay tuned for a detailed version…….

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Posted in Teaching Techniques

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Golf Blog Feeds

December 30th, 2009

I am currently in the process of creating a section on my forum where I can import rss feeds and I’m wondering if there are any golf pros that would like to have their blog feed display in another venue to increase exposure and ranking.

let me know if you are interested and I can fill you in on the the details.  If you are the kind of person that goes and looks at a bunch of different blogs, this would give all of us a single place we could go to read them all.

 

John

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Posted in Misc.

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Best Camera for Golf Lessons

December 27th, 2009

I’ve read on a couple of other forums where people have asked, “What is a good camera to use for video lessons?”  Personally, for the price and performance, I think the Casio EX-fh20 is the best.  Granted, it is the one I use and I haven’t tried any others, but it is powerful, portable and easy to use.  All of the slow motion video that I have posted on my YouTube channel was captured with my Casio EX-fh20.

You will see how good it is at capturing frames per second(fps) in three main speeds: 210, 420 or 1000(fps) and here’s an example of my swing from this summer shot using the 420.

[cincopa 10532588]

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Posted in Teaching Techniques

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Straight Iron Shots-D Plane Style Part II

December 19th, 2009

In the first blog, http://johngrahamgolf.com/blog/dplane/hit-an-iron-straight-d-plane/, I talked about general conditions that need to happen to actually hit a shot straight.

In this blog, I will provide the hard cold facts and numbers to help you do this.  Here is a link to a download that will help you.  http://johngrahamgolf.com/downloads.htm

Please, leave your name and email address to gain access to the download.  Here’s a little explanation of what the chart does and what it does not.  This chart is based on information that can only be collected by using a Trackman club delivery and ball flight device.  The chart determines the adjustment to the horizontal swing plane due to the angle of attack and the vertical swing plane.

For example, if a player hits down on the ball, the direction of the club head at impact is different than the direction of the club head at it’s lowpoint.  This chart determines how much that difference is depending on the angle of attack and vertical swing plane.

This chart does not tell you how to determine what your angle of attack is or what your vertical swing plane.  It will only tell you where you would need to aim left or right (left for down angles of attack and right for up angles of attack) if you made a perfectly on plane swing to hit it perfectly straight.

Please leave questions and comments and I will add this download to the D-Plane page.

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Posted in D Plane

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The Best Putting Drill from 6 to 12 Feet

December 17th, 2009
You’ll need 4 coins and one golf ball for this drill. Choose a location on the green that is fairly flat. Place a coin on the ground as a starting point. Use you putter to measure out 2 full putter lengths away from the first coin. This will be approx 6 feet. Place another coin and repeat the procedure of measuring out two more putter lengths and place the third coin there.

Go back to the first coin and place your ball next to it. So you should have in front of you two 6 foot zones indicated by the boundaries of the three coins. Your goal is to see how many putts you can fit in the second zone with each putt being longer than the last.

For example, you hit your first putt into the second zone a little bit. Let’s say 1 foot passed the second coin or 7 feet away from where you started. Mark the balls location. Now your next putt must be past the coin at 7 feet but inside the coin at 12 feet.

Your goal is to get 12 putts that fit in that zone before you run out of room. Anytime you leave one short or run out of room, start over and ties got to the putter. The 6 to 12 foot zone is one in which we think we should make some. Because speed has such a direct link to break, it is vital that when you are in that range, you hit the putt the exact distance you want so it will break the way you expect it to.

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Posted in Practicing, Putting

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