Jordan Spieth Golf Swing Analysis

I've been learning the moves the best pros are doing and Kelvin Miyahira, Victor Rodriguez, Gordon Jarvis and Gabriel Writer have been instrumental in helping me understand those movement patterns. Definitely check out their stuff if you haven't already.

Jordan Spieth's left hand grip is in a neutral to slightly weak position while his right hand is in a standard strong position (V pointing at the right shoulder).  The slightly weak position in the grip will force him to really supinate his wrists to square the clubface on the downswing.  Spieth actually does this early at the top of the backswing (the bowed left wrist) just like Dustin Johnson (albeit not as extreme as him).

Spieth's head stays tall on the backswing, he Left Lateral Bends, and he has good trunk balance (his trunk moves slightly up and away from the ball which gives you more room to have the club, hands, arms, etc. in front of the body on the downswing).  He also shifts into his right leg well, while straightening it, which is a key among legendary ball strikers.

     



In the transition he has a great squat and marching move where he gets up on his right toe and begins to straighten his left (this move requires not sliding to the left).  Notice his left foot supinating (or rolling over onto the outside of his foot) which indicates that he is continually rotating which is important in maintaining the low rate of clubface closure.  His hands have some ulnar deviation and a little supination at impact which leads to his solid impact position and stable clubface for great consistency.

Notice how his clubface is already partially squared towards the target.  This decreases the amount of clubface closure through the ball.  

Note how well Spieth has his left wrist bowed back and that his left elbow is pointing down the line.

You can tell that his rate of closure is minimal with how square the clubface is at this point after impact.  This is how the pros are so consistent.  

  

Partial Wedge Shots

Partial wedge shots are some of the most difficult golf shots to execute because they take some time to get used to the feel of the distance, spin, trajectory, etc.  Here are a few things that have worked for me with those half and 3/4 sand wedges/ short irons.

One great thing I have been doing is to weaken my left hand grip a little bit (where the v points to my sternum) and it increases my feel and distance control.  It also stops the clubface rotation.



I haven't been thinking about this lately (as of (5/23/15)) but this is a good start for partial wedges

• bring in your hands closer to your body like you see Tiger Woods doing above.  This limits the ability for you to get a lot of separation between your upper and lower body and it keeps your body, hands, arms, and clubs more in-sync.  Knees, hips, chest all rotate with the hands staying nice and close to the pivot.  Watch this for more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE3oY5GUZF0


• Drill: grab the club in your left hand, bring it right next to your right thigh and rotate through with everything in-sync.  It is very crucial to have a bit of forward shaft lean at impact to make sure you are bringing the same loft to the shot every time.  Keep everything moving through the pivot  

Getting Over Your Fears - Tony Robbins

3 Ways to Get Over Fear

I was watching a video of Marlo Thomas with Tony Robbins, where Tony Robbins shares three ways you can overcome any fear that holds you back.   Keep in mind that for years Tony Robbins has helped people around the world conquer fears and phobias in record time, and do the things they never thought possible.

He doesn’t just find ways to get results.  He finds ways to get rapid results and he’s always sharing the fastest and most effective ways that actually work.

So, what are the fastest and most effective ways you can get over your fear?

Let’s take a look at three ways you can use to instantly stop fear from paralyzing you and start taking more action …

1.  Find Something You’re More Scared of

According to Tony, the first technique is to find something you’re more scared of than your fear.   Tony says,

“Some people are afraid of public speaking, or afraid of doing anything, but they’re more afraid of disappointing their children, they’re more afraid of missing out on the opportunity, they’re more afraid of not living the life they want.”

Throughout his life, Tony would also draw from stories of people who would inspire him to new levels.  Sometimes you just don’t know how much worse things could be than what you’re facing, and drawing from other people’s stories can help you put things in perspective.  It’s all relative.

2. The Rocking Chair Test

According to Tony, another way to push past fear is to find out what it’s going to cost you.    You need to find your "why":   Finding your "Why"  pushes you past your fear; making whatever you want/ need to do a MUST not just a SHOULD?   One way Tony says you can figure out if it’s worth it, is to use what he calls his “Rocking Chair Test.”  Imagine yourself as 80 years old, sitting on your rocking chair, and you didn’t do whatever it is where fear is holding you back.  If it doesn’t bother you, then don’t do it.   But, if you feel like you missed out, and you regret not doing it, then go for it.

3. Change Your State

Tony says, “Fear is physical.”   If you can change your state of mind, then the fear will disappear.   You need to change from a state of fear or uncertainty, to a state of certainty, determination, or aggressiveness.  Tony says the fastest way to do this is to make a radical change in your body.   For Tony Robbins, the way he would do this is he would lift weights or he would go on a run, while listening to his most powerful music, anything that would radically change his state.

To recap, you can push past your fear by finding your “Why” and making it a “MUST.”  You can find your deepest fear, and think, “If I don’t face this fear, what’s it going to cost me?.”  You can ask yourself, “What’s the thing I’m even more afraid of than the action?”   And, you can change your state of mind by radically changing your body.  Get moving and use motion to change your emotions.

If you find yourself operating from fear, or that maybe some fear is holding you back, use your skills to operate at a higher level, and tap into more of what you’re capable of.       

Tony Robbins on How to Conquer Fear: Face Your Fears As Many Times As It Takes To Make It Nervewracking & Exciting

The point where you say "that's it, no more" is where you actually face you fears and actually change.

One thing to get rid of fear is to find within yourself something you fear more.  Give yourself no choice but to take action.

You must take massive action and face your fear multiple times until you finally realize that that tension in your body, that sweat on your hands, that shaking feeling is just your body preparing for action.  You can give these feelings a fear connotation or you can give these feelings a "getting ready" connotation.It all comes back to the meaning that you give your emotions and feelings.  "I'm getting ready for action" vs. "I'm so scared!"   The former will put you in a more directed, focused state where you direct your nervous/ anxiety/ andrenaline towards overcoming the obstacle


What is the only thing that is holding people back from what they are really moving towards?  It's the only thing that ever really stops people from breaking through.  We all can give reasons for where we want to be, we can all give external descriptions about our past.  But the only reason that people don't just take their life and do something to change it is FEAR.  I think fear stands for "F*** everything and run!"  When you're scared you just want to get away; "it's fight or flight," you either want to battle it out because you have that adrenaline or you want to bust of there.  No matter what happens or has happened in our lives, if we want to be more than the moment, then some part of us has to deal with fear in a different way.



 Watch Tony Robbins Breakthrough Episode 4

In this story (see above Tony Robbins Breakthrough) we see this woman, Mandi, and her family's life is being controlled by this fear that she is living with.  Mandi seems to have a good reason for it, her daughter gets into a go-kart before and before she can get in, her daughter slams on the accelerator and slams into the back of a truck and even though she's wearing a helmet, the helmet cracks open and it knocks her out leaving her unconscious and not breathing.  Now Mandi is a medical assistant, but she couldn't revive her daughter and she dies on the spot...or so it seems... after a period of time paramedics revive her.  The only significant damage Mandi's daughter receives is her hearing, otherwise she recovers completely.  Mandi, rather than being relieved and happy, saying, "oh my god, my daughter's ok" becomes traumatized and has post traumatic syndrome and panic attacks.

But what's a panic attack?  It's anything that leads to something; that reminds me of what happened in the past, where it reminds me that I felt like I was going to die/ the worst possibly thing that can happen.  Now I overreact and I go into "fight or flight" even quicker. This is what Mandi did, and it destroys her relationships with her husband and daughter.

Because fear destroys everything by the way.  Fear will murder love, fear will murder adventure, fear will murder your life.  I'm here to tell you right now that everyone has fear, but if you want to live, fear has got to die.  And the way you do it is so damn simple, but let's first for a moment be sure what we are really afraid of.  See when I first saw this story, I felt deeply for this family and I almost didn't go to work for them because I said I want to go work for someone who's child actually did die and show people how to get through that because it's a horrific situation, so many people have been through the real loss, why deal with this woman when after all she has the good fortune of having her child?  And then I reconsidered, because I thought, "how many of us are controlled by something that happened a long time ago and its over?  We're here, we're ok, and yet we let some memory from the past or some perception of the past control our present or control our future."  Haven't you done that somewhere? Think about it, isn't there something that once happened, you got rejected, you went to so many jobs and got rejected, or you gave it your all and then somebody hurt you, so then you never open up again. What is something that has happened in your past that is controlling your present and your future?  It's not the event that's controlling you, its the fear of going through those feelings again, that feeling like a failure, or feeling rejected, or feeling alone.  Some people stay in a relationship even though you are both miserable, it wasn't right for you and it wasn't right for them, but you stayed because you were afraid of being alone?  Or scared of how to deal with the stress of confronting the situation?  Most people have settled for a life that is so far less than what they deserve, what they desire, and what they're capable of, primarily because of fear.  And we don't usually call it that, we usually call it stress, because achievers, us achievers don't become fearful, we become stressed.

 Why do you do it?  Because I have to do it.  Why?  Because I just have to!  But what if you don't do it?  I have to do it.  But what if you don't?  Well then it will fall apart.  What if it falls apart?  Well then it fails.  What if it fails?  Well then I'll be a failure.  See if you follow the trail of stress with any human being, it will lead you to their fear.

Whatever you are stressed about to some level, you believe that if this thing isn't handled, you will meet your ultimate fear.  Yes everybody has the fear of success and the fear of failure at times or the fear of rejection or the fear of the unknown or the fear of falling, or the fear of humiliation, or the fear of pain, but all the different fears human beings have that affect them.

In my experience now working with 4 million people from over a hundred countries around the world, from the most successful people to the most challenged, everybody has two primary fears:  We are all afraid at some level that we are not enough.  We are afraid we're not strong enough, not smart enough, not rich enough, not pretty enough, not athletic enough, not playful enough, not funny enough, not authentic enough, etc. everybody's got something...but haven't you had a time in your life when you thought, "oh my god, I'm not enough" for someone that matters or for something that matters.  If you are honest, you know that the answer is yes.  And even if you're doing great right now, this fear doesn't go away, it shows up at some stage of your life; There will be some stage where you don't feel like you are enough and that's one of the sickest feelings a human being can feel inside,  you feel like nothing, like worthless.  And to feel like you are not enough, that you're worthless as bad as that is leads to the second deeper fear, which is we all fear that if we are not enough then I won't be loved.  Why?  Well first of all Love is oxygen to the human soul isn't it?  I mean even if people say that they don't want it, we all want some form of connection, that depth, we crave it.  When babies are born, if they are not physically loved, held/ touched, if they are not given that kinesthetic connection, they can die.  In fact they derive something called "failure to thrive" syndrome any doctor can tell you what it is.  They can't explain how it works, but they know that if those babies don't get that physical touch, that love, they literally die.


That's how important it is to human beings, yet most of us are so scared of love, not only are we scared of love, we're afraid that we can have it taken away, we are afraid to have our hopes brought up, we're afraid that being in a place where we have that sense of excitement and liveliness and we can have it dashed.  So lots of people out of that fear or loss of that love try to mitigate, try to lower their expectations for their life, for their business, for their relationship.  But lowering your expectations doesn't make you feel alive, it just makes you feel a little less pain, a little more numb.  It's not an answer for love, passion, and all those things I know you'd want otherwise you wouldn't be here listening to me or keep reading on.  Speaking to you through this medium is a nice way for you and I to have a stimulating trigger of each other because all that I share with you is all that I've learned from me and all the millions of people I've had the privilege to touch.

And I've learned not because I'm so smart, but because I learned these mistakes over and over again and I got tired of it.  I'm sure you've done the same.  I'm sure you've done something so many times until one day you went and stated "no more!"  And that's the breakthrough moment, it's where you confront the fear and do it in spite of the fear.  It's where you stop telling yourself a story of where you can't do it, you don't have the time, you don't have the energy, you don't have the money, it's easy for other people.  We've all got a story of why we are not where we want to be because you have two choices: either face your fear that says, "oh my god, maybe I'm not strong enough, smart enough, committed enough, determined enough to do this, and I'm not enough or I won't be loved" or I got a story about how its not my fault.  I've got a story about how its not my fault, how something in the environment happened, how something in my past, or that I'm gonna do it in the future.  You have either results, or a story.  Because most of us, we don't want to face that fear.

And you know what's amazing?  We have this fear that we are not enough, but human beings when they put everything on the line, they can pull off just about anything they're committed to.  Not everything, you don't always get what you want, you don't always achieve your goals or your dreams, but sometimes when you don't get your goals or dreams, you get something better.  For example you may not get what you want, but in pursuing that goal or dream you become something more than you ever dreamed of.  You develop that courage, that determination, that compassion, or that playfulness, or the faith that somehow in other parts of your life when it's needed its there.  It's like an emotional muscle.  When other people pull back and everyone says, "oh I don't know what to do,"  you're just like, "Move, I'll handle it!"  Because you've faced so many things, you've got in the face of fear so many times that it's something you know, and it's something you know you can handle.  That doesn't mean that it doesn't scare you or that it doesn't make you fight or flight, that doesn't mean it doesn't show up, it means that you don't let it run your life.

Fear for most people is like going to court and having only the prosecution give their case, they tell you all the reasons why it can't happen, and if you buy it, if you don't listen to someone who stands up and defends and says, "here's why we should do this" pretty soon our mind takes over.  And the deep part of our mind is so fearful because its trying to protect us and make sure that we can survive (10:20).  It takes more than just the animal part of you to achieve what you want to achieve in your life.    


Tony Robbins talks about fear
So why aren't they starting?  The answer is fear.  But the difference between someone who is following through and someone stuck in a rut is, when we are more afraid of what life would be like if we don't follow through, then the person who is willing to settle for what they got and kinda hoping that it will change and maybe purchase something for the moment and not follow through on it.  It's almost like overachievers are a little more afraid of missing out.  They are afraid of not being there or they have a strong enough reason to follow through.


"The difference between following through and sitting on the sidelines is facing and overcoming fear"

People often say, "well where do I start?"  Some say "I'm sick of this!!!"  That's a damn good place.
What gets people excited is progress.  You don't have to be at the goal yet to feel alive again, you have to make progress.  A lot of people can buy an audio program or book but they don't get to step two which is opening the damn thing!

A lot of people have to hit rockbottom before they start to commit and follow through.   Like a good  marketing tactic is "if I put a gun to your head, and you had to make money in the next 48 hours what would you do?"   So a lot of these people don't have their backs to the wall yet.  They are in a desire situation where they are doing ok in their lives.  They have big dreams and ambitions, but it's not pushing them yet to the point where they will do what it takes to master something/ have a must.

So how do people go from not having their backs against the wall to conditioning their minds to get themselves to something greater?

Think about this: what pisses you off and what excites you is all relative.  Making $2500 in a day excites him more than when he made a million dollars in a day.   It wasn't even about the money.  It was just breaking through another barrier of progress.  It was a recognition of who I am and who I'm capable of.  So for someones  life that is already great it's about what if I could take on another skill that could create more freedom for my life.  I'm not going to go out and try to do everything perfectly right now.  For the next 8 weeks I'm going to create a ritual -- one thing a day to condition my mind; so that I get strong and follow through.  I'm going to read something or listen to something, I'm gonna immerse myself, I'm going to go for an intense jog or I'm gonna go lift weights and I'm gonna do it consciously to get into a state where I follow through.  People follow through when they are in state.  Second Im gonna get clear on why this is a must for me.  Not because my back is against the wall.  I want to master an area of my life that will give me freedom.  I'm not going to master it overnight, but I've got the system and the plan; I'll work on one thing a day and work on one subject a week.  Each week I'm gonna make a little progress and I'm gonna get to a goal, whatever that is.  

Its creating a little ritual of doing a little bit each day.  And we get momentum.  Then you have to know your "why."  Why is this going to be a must for you?   You don't have be up against the wall, but you have to be hungry.  And if you're not hungry, get around people who are hungry and something will hit you.   You watch a conversation and you get around people who are doing better and then you will likely find yourself thinking, "wow I want to get to that level."