http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfJWh8uDLUI&list=PL3A249B3AC1A63908
"I've just been kind of single minded, whatever I do I obsess about it. At the Canadian Open I saw Butch Harmon working with Greg Norman and I saw David Leadbetter working with Nick Faldo and that was about it. I looked up to them so much, I used to go learn off of them and I'd see how they interacted with people and how their day went and I was sold. That looked like a really great life, you know?"
Read More http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instruction/2011-04/sean-foley-make-me-better#ixzz2PzZtCi70
Read More http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instruction/2012-04/sean-foley-bump-your-hip#ixzz2Q0O47DhH
The Law Of The Draw
Many of you would probably give up red meat if you could consistently hit a sweet, little draw. If you've struggled for years trying to get the ball to start just right of the target and curve back to it, stop blaming a lack of ability. It might be a lack of understanding for how this shot is created. For instance, you might have been taught that to hit a draw, your clubface has to be facing left of your target at impact. That is incorrect. You also might have been told that the path of the club through impact is what determines the ball's initial direction. Also wrong. Thanks to a company called TrackMan, which developed a "golf radar" that can record and measure any part of a golf swing and the ensuing ball flight, we now have indisputable science on what produces a draw. I want to share these findings with you, and give you some advice on how to adjust your swing to take advantage of them. You'll be drawing the ball with ease in no time.
Here's the first revelation: The starting direction of your shots is overwhelmingly determined by the position of the clubface at impact--not by the swing path. Path plays a part, yes, as do other factors, such as the amount of spin on the ball and the quality of your lie. Just remember that the clubface is the biggest factor. Knowing this, you can assume that the face has to be open (pointing right of your target) for you to start the ball to the right--the first part of hitting a draw.
Read More http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instruction/2012-08/sean-foley-greenside-bunker#ixzz2PzYGyEBN
Sean Foley is based at the Core Golf Academy in Orlando and teaches PGA Tour players Sean O'Hair, Hunter Mahan, Justin Rose and Stephen Ames. A native of Toronto, Foley, 35, is one of Golf Digest's Top-20 Teachers Under 40. He collaborated with Craig Davies, a chiropractor and fitness trainer, in developing this article
Read More http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2011-09/sean-foley-one-shot#ixzz2PzbRcVmk
"I've just been kind of single minded, whatever I do I obsess about it. At the Canadian Open I saw Butch Harmon working with Greg Norman and I saw David Leadbetter working with Nick Faldo and that was about it. I looked up to them so much, I used to go learn off of them and I'd see how they interacted with people and how their day went and I was sold. That looked like a really great life, you know?"
Simple Swing Fixes
April 2011
Whether I'm working with Tiger Woods, an elite college player, or a once-a-month golfer, the following statement holds true: There are no shortcuts to getting better. You're going to have to put in some work. That's the bad news. The good news is: If you follow my advice, the things you have to do to improve--and make that improvement last--can be fairly simple. I'm a big believer in working on one thing at a time. So to help you get started, I've broken down the swing into five segments. Within each segment I'll give you a single element to focus on. If you work on any one of them, you should begin to see positive changes in your swing. And if you spend time practicing all five, I guarantee you'll be a better golfer in 2011.
Think of your knees as shock absorbers for the motion you're about to create.
1. ADDRESS
BUILD A POWERFUL PLATFORM
So many golfers would get better by simply improving their address posture. The guys I teach on tour set up in different ways, but the one common denominator is that they feel the ground under their feet. They get into a position where their legs are like shock absorbers (left), and they're poised to use the ground to create force. They're virtually gripping the ground with their feet. To get a feel for this, try making some swings in your bare feet. Your goal is to feel the ground under you at address, and then pay attention to your footing as you swing. Unless you're properly grounded, it's tough to control a swing with any power.
If the towel stays in place, your hands, arms and shoulders are moving together.
2. TAKEAWAY
TURN EVERYTHING BACK TOGETHER
When I ask amateurs to show me how they start back, most will move the club away with only their hands and arms. What I want to see is the hands and arms moving in sequence with the rotation of the upper torso. All three should move together as one unit until the left arm gets parallel to the ground--at that point the swing's momentum will keep the hands and arms on plane. This first part of the swing is crucial to staying in sync. Ingrain this feeling of everything moving together by stretching a towel across your chest with the ends under your armpits. Practice starting back while holding the towel in position (above).
Practice with your right foot dropped back to get the feel of a full hip turn.
3. AT THE TOP
INCREASE YOUR HIP TURN
You might have been told to make a backswing where your left shoulder is under your chin. That way you know you've reached the top and can start down. This isn't the worst advice I've ever heard, but it's possible to turn that left shoulder under the chin without rotating your upper torso much at all--and that can put too much emphasis on the arms. It's better to focus on your hip turn. Ideally, your hips turn away from the target as much as they can. Here's a great drill for feeling the proper rotation: Make practice backswings while posting up on your right toe. Your right foot should be set back about two feet from its normal position (above). This allows the hips to turn freely. If you don't turn them, it's difficult to keep your balance at the top.
For solid contact, the pencil should point off your left side through the hit.
4. IMPACT
THINK ABOUT THE SHAFT, NOT THE BALL
This can be a difficult concept for amateurs to grasp, but if you want to use the club properly and hit the ball flush, the bottom of your swing has to be in front of the ball. Your shaft should be leaning toward the target at impact, and the divot should start after you strike the ball. But if you're focusing too hard on hitting the ball, your wrists can break down as you try to scoop it into the air.
It's much easier to hit solid shots if you focus on the shaft: You want it pointing ahead of your body at impact (above). To help ingrain this move, stick a pencil into the butt end of the club (inset) and practice chipping and pitching with the pencil pointing ahead of your body through impact. Once that becomes easy, move up to full swings with the same goal.
Push your pelvis up as you swing through to get as tall as you can at the finish.
5. FINISH
GET TALLER FOR MORE POWER
It's no secret that tour pros use the ground to create force to hit the ball farther. So when students tell me they're trying to stay in their posture to the finish, I shake my head. This really restricts the body's ability to continue rotating and leads to back injuries. Instead, I want you to keep your arms extended and push your belt buckle up and toward the target, which will allow you to finish tall. It'll feel as if you're pushing off the ground. A useful drill is to get in your impact position, then push up with your pelvis and stand tall into your finish (above).
Bump Your Hip To Slot The Club
It's an easy fix if you have poor shoulder mobility
April 2012
You might have been told that when you reach the top of your backswing, the clubshaft should be pointing on a parallel line with your target. This signifies that you're on plane and you won't have to re-route the club on the way down to hit an accurate shot. It's good advice, but for many golfers, it's useless information because they have poor shoulder mobility. If you don't have enough external rotation, it's impossible to get the club in this position without suffering pain or injury.
You can tell if you have limited external rotation in either shoulder with this test: Get into your address posture, and hold one arm out to your side at shoulder height, bent at 90 degrees but still parallel with the ground. From this position, you should be able to rotate that hand up so it can go past your ear. If you can do that, you have enough mobility to set the club parallel with the target line at the top of your backswing. If you can't (above, left), when you swing to the top, someone standing behind you along the target line can see your golf shaft pointing right of your target (above, middle). This is known as being "across the line," and unless you make some last-second adjustments on the downswing, this can lead to all sorts of bad shots.
You'll need to work on improving your shoulder mobility. But if the limitations are here to stay, or you're simply comfortable playing from this across-the-line position, there is something you can do to improve your contact. As you start the downswing, let your lead hip move laterally toward the target, and keep driving your body in that direction for as long as you can (above, right). This will allow the club to drop into a slot inside the target line and get into a better position at impact more consistently.
THE FOLEY FILES
A tour player walks off the course after a brilliant 66. An interviewer asks him about his round, and the player says, "I felt great out there today." The player, whether he realizes it or not, is making reference to his state of mind. Being in a wonderful state of mind allows us to be resilient to adversity. It's not so much the mental aspects of behavior but the physiological ones that control our mental state. Understand that mood is the key. Being in a bad mood hinders our ability to access our physical skill set. It's difficult to play good golf when in a bad mood.
A tour player walks off the course after a brilliant 66. An interviewer asks him about his round, and the player says, "I felt great out there today." The player, whether he realizes it or not, is making reference to his state of mind. Being in a wonderful state of mind allows us to be resilient to adversity. It's not so much the mental aspects of behavior but the physiological ones that control our mental state. Understand that mood is the key. Being in a bad mood hinders our ability to access our physical skill set. It's difficult to play good golf when in a bad mood.
The Law Of The Draw
TRACKMAN RESEARCH
THE NEW SCIENCE OF HITTING A DRAW
Here's the second revelation: What makes the shot curve toward the target is the path the club takes through the ball. The path has to go more to the right than the face is pointing. How much more depends on the club you're using. For simplicity's sake, if you're swinging a 6-iron, think of it as a 2-to-1 relationship. That means if the face is pointing 2 degrees right of your target at impact, the path has to be on a 4-degree angle right of the target line (above). If the ratio were 1-to-1, the ball wouldn't curve. If it were 4-to-1, the ball would draw too much.
Increasing the club's loft makes it harder to hit a draw. So if you were using a wedge, the ratio would need to be about 3-to-1. But if you were using a driver--the lowest lofted club in the bag--it would be roughly 3-to-2. In every case, though, the clubface has to be closed to the path--not to the target.
THE ONE DRILL YOU NEED
REHEARSE THE FORWARD SHIFT
You might think the body's position at address and impact should be the same, but it's the differences that are essential to hitting a draw. Notice in these photos (above) how the club's shaft is leaning more toward the target at impact than it was at address and the clubface is slightly open. This comes as a result of shifting the hips laterally toward the target on the downswing. This forward shift promotes the in-to-out path and open clubface required to hit a draw. Practice getting in your setup and rehearsing this lateral shift of the hips to get a sense for where your body should be at impact. Then try to re-create this position when you hit shots. You'll groove the correct path and face angle.
KEYS TO THE DRAW
4 STEPS TO OWNING THIS SHOT
These easy adjustments to your swing will get you routinely hitting a draw:
1. Drop your right foot back an inch or two at address. This creates room on the downswing for the desired in-to-out swing path, which is essential to producing a draw.
2. Feel like your hands are moving more around your body--instead of above it--during the backswing. Do this correctly, and it'll feel like your hands have swung behind your right shoulder. This also makes it a lot easier to deliver the club on an in-to-out path and promotes the slightly open clubface you need at impact.
3. To start down, shift your hips toward the target, and hold back your shoulders as long as you can. This will prevent the common fault of spinning the upper body toward the target and shifting to the back foot, which causes the swing path to become out to in and shuts the clubface. The result is a shot that starts left and often slices.
4. Minimize forearm rotation through impact. This idea often gives golfers pause, but excessive forearm rotation toward the target causes the face to shut prematurely. Remember, the face has to be pointing right of your target at impact. That's what starts the ball to the right and sets up the draw.
Read More http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instruction/2012-12/sean-foley-law-of-the-draw#ixzz2PzW30vGo
Bunker Setup
LEFT-LEG SUPPORT: At address, your left leg should be bent and leaning toward the target.
By now I'm sure you know the key to hitting greenside bunker shots is making sand-first contact and skimming your wedge under the ball. In essence, you're purposely hitting it fat. The problem I see a lot of amateurs have is that there's no consistency to where they make contact with the sand--and therefore, there's no repeatability to their shots. How you set up can make a big difference.
With an open stance (aiming left), play the ball off your left heel, but make sure your belt buckle is closer to the target than your sternum. Your left leg should be bent, and you should feel a lot of pressure in that thigh muscle (left photo). When you swing, maintain that feeling of pressure. In other words, keep supporting your body weight with your left side. The mistake is to hang back in an effort to get the ball over the lip (above). This will make it difficult for you to replicate where the club bottoms out. You also run the risk of blading the ball due to a shallow angle of attack.
Leaning (and staying) left will make you more consistent in greenside sand.
4 Steps To Save Your Back
Take off the stress and play golf pain-free
March 2010
When I started teaching 16 years ago, it seemed that 80 percent of my students had lower-back issues. The incidence was so high, I knew my biggest contribution would be to help them learn to swing in a way that would alleviate stress on the spine. That's what I've tried to do. And I'm not talking only about average golfers: The PGA Tour on a Saturday morning is like an Aleve commercial. In fact, other injuries--to the shoulders, elbows and wrists--often come from compensations to save the back. In working with Craig Davies, a chiropractor and golf-specific fitness trainer in Orlando, I've identified four key areas where golfers can transfer some of the stress of the golf swing to areas of the body better suited to handle it. Here's how to do it.
1. BACKSWING
The keys to protect your spine on the backswing are maintaining a bent right knee and turning your left shoulder downward (above, right). Many golfers try to rotate the shoulders level (above, left), but turning the left shoulder down lets the thoracic spine (mid-back) and not the lumbar spine (lower back) handle the twisting. The thoracic spine is designed to rotate, but the lumbar is not. If the right knee straightens on the backswing, the right side of the pelvis moves considerably higher than the left, tilting the bottom vertebrae to the left, which puts stress on them.2. DOWNSWING
Use the ground to create a powerful but safe swing. As you start down, feel as if you're preparing to leap off the ground by making a squat move with your lower body (above, right). Your quadriceps (thigh muscles) and glutes (butt) are great power sources, and this squat move uses them and promotes a lateral motion to the left side. If you don't squat, you might turn your hips but you won't move your pelvis forward enough (above, left). Then the only way you can get power is to torque your spine. As the club swings down, the torque increases, ramping up the stress level--that means pain.3. IMPACT
A t this point, 90 percent of your body weight should be over your left leg, and your shoulders and hips should be level and turning open. If you still have a significant amount of your weight on your right side (above, left), you've relied on your lumbar spine to rotate your body toward the target--ouch! As I said before, the lumbar spine is meant to stabilize your upper torso, not turn it. Instead, you want your hips and pelvis to do most of the rotational work, and you can achieve that by getting your weight well into your left leg as you strike the ball (above, right).4. FINISH
Don't try to stay in your posture as you swing through because that puts a tremendous load on your lower back. Instead, thrust your pelvis toward the target. This requires the left glute and core muscles to absorb the stress. Push forward and stand up: You should be at your normal standing height at the finish. There'll always be stress on the back, but these tips will reduce the load.Sean Foley is based at the Core Golf Academy in Orlando and teaches PGA Tour players Sean O'Hair, Hunter Mahan, Justin Rose and Stephen Ames. A native of Toronto, Foley, 35, is one of Golf Digest's Top-20 Teachers Under 40. He collaborated with Craig Davies, a chiropractor and fitness trainer, in developing this article
Sean Foley
The teacher of the stars (and regular players) on temper tantrums, the science of golf, and how to put out a five-alarm fire before it happens
September 2011
I THINK I WAS BORN to teach golf. I was a "why" person even as a kid. I questioned everything, and with the golf swing there's an awful lot of "why." When my dad took me to the Canadian Open at Glen Abbey when I was 14, he went onto the course to watch the players, and I went to the range to watch teachers work with players. I sat on a hillside watching David Leadbetter work with Nick Faldo for as long as they were there. The instruction articles in the golf magazines fascinated me. I'd take a copy to the range, open it and lay rocks on the corners of the pages, and try to copy what Davis Love Jr., John Elliott or Jack Lumpkin were telling me. I've always had a need to figure out what made a good swing work. And once I began finding the answers, I couldn't wait to pass what I learned to other players.
...
THE IDEA that any teacher is so great, his method so perfect, that a player is suddenly going to never miss a shot, is crazy. I don't even think a terrific swing is the main goal. The great coaches--Vince Lombardi, John Wooden, Phil Jackson--are not remembered for how they drew up Xs and Os. Their players never talk about those things. What they remember are the good values they instilled, the strong work ethic and the productive approaches to life. My role to my guys, first and foremost, is to be part of their support system, to act out the things I believe in, and be there for them. That's every bit as important as what I do for their golf swings.
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IT'S TUESDAY the week of the Players Championship. I'm on the range with Tiger when I get a text from my wife, Kate, who is five months pregnant with our second child. The text says, "Call me when you have a chance." The fact she didn't say "please" alarmed me, because she's so polite. I phone her, and she tells me the OB-GYN has just told her that tests have shown our baby might have a serious health condition. I hang up and, being in a daze, carry on with Tiger. But he senses something's wrong; I tell him what's going on. He hits a few more balls and then says, "Why are you still here? It's only my swing plane. Go home." Kate later found out that the baby is going to be fine. But the moral of the story is, Tiger Woods gets it. At the end of the day, he knows what's important in life.
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I BEGAN working with Hunter Mahan early in 2008. A short time later, Hunter met a girl, Kandi Harris. Serious relationships will affect a person's performance one way or the other, and when I met Kandi, it was clear she cared about Hunter as a person. [The two were married earlier this year.] I immediately knew that Hunter would no longer wake up with his main concern being how he was going to shoot 65. His world was suddenly bigger and better. He was happy. He had more clarity and less conflict. When a person has that much peace of mind, it's going to show in everything they do. I wasn't surprised that 2010 was his best year ever, and I'm smart enough to know that the positive work we did with his golf swing was only a small part of that.
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MOST LEARNING AGENCIES will tell you that genius at golf can only be developed by playing the course, not beating balls on the range. Here's what I'd recommend for a junior program, based on 12 years of experience. On Mondays, have them play the front tees, and require that they hit driver on every hole, so they get used to making a lot of birdies. On Tuesdays, make them play the back tees--even if it's 7,300 yards--and demand that they hit only irons. That's good for their short games, and they learn to hit 265-yard 3-irons that carry 180 and roll the rest of the way. On Wednesdays, tell them they can play with only four clubs. They'll love showing you how they can hit a 5-iron 125 yards. The shotmaking they learn is unbelievable, and only on the course will they learn that.
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WHY DO GOLFERS hit it great on the range but then hit it lousy on the course? The answer usually is a change in what I call "range speed." On the range, where there's no stress, you establish a certain tempo, speed and effort. On the course, when you're performing, those elements tend to change, almost always to something faster with more effort. No one is immune to it; it's something Tiger and I have worked on. Early in the round especially, think mainly of swinging smoothly with good tempo.
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ALL GOLFERS, even poor ones, sometimes get that eerie can't-miss sensation, the feeling where you know a putt is going to drop even as you stand over the ball at address. There's also the flip side, which is standing over a three-footer and knowing you've got no chance of making the putt. The last frontier in golf is understanding where that sensation comes from, what drives it, and figuring out how to teach it. Tiger has had the ability to create the can't-miss sensation 80 percent of his career. I remember a TV announcer once asking Tiger about a crucial putt he'd holed and Tiger answering, "There was no way it wasn't going in." The way Tiger said it was scary. The putt dropping was a foregone conclusion to him. We're still a ways away from understanding the mind enough to be able to summon that sensation on command. But when we do, anything is possible.
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ONE DIFFERENCE between pros and amateurs is how they deal with hazards and out-of-bounds. When the amateur plays a hole with water on the right, his attention is drawn there, and he swings with the sole intention of avoiding trouble. What happens, of course, is that he either hits the ball in the water anyway or hits it so far away from it that he gets in trouble on the other side. I call it the five-alarm mentality. The pro has fear, but he's developed methods for controlling it. He gives the water on the right the respect it deserves, but mentally it doesn't set off a five-alarm fire. He focuses his attention on a spot on the left side of the fairway, then makes a positive swing with only the intention of hitting that spot.
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GOLF IS PLAYED from the ground up. Every great player, from Bobby Jones to Hogan to Nicklaus to Woods, has had tremendous footwork. The next time you step out to your back yard barefoot to make some practice swings, pay attention to the sensations coming from your feet. All kinds of things are going on during the swing--toes curling and digging, one or both arches showing as you turn and shift your weight back and through, heel lifting on the follow-through. Footwork is an indicator of good balance, a source of power and accuracy. Very often, I can tell where a shot went by watching the feet and nothing else.
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THERE ALWAYS was the impression that Sam Snead's swing was totally God-given, that he was born with that gorgeous natural motion. But Sam spent countless hours hitting balls in his bare feet as a youth. His incredible balance and stability were no accident; he had a conscious understanding of them and deliberately applied them. Like Michelangelo, who spent thousands of hours as a youth studying sculpting and painting under a couple of masters before going out on his own, Snead's overnight success was a long time in the making.
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THE BIGGEST MISTAKE a teacher can make with a tour pro is to change the grip. I learned the hard way with Parker McLachlin, who came to me not long after he'd won in 2008. I thought his left hand was too strong, so I suggested he make it more neutral. Parker went along, and it radically changed the way he released the club. He had a terrible time integrating his new release to the way he related to his target. Parker fell into a deep slump and lost his card. At that point I suggested he go back to his old grip. Only then did it occur to me that we could have obtained the result I'd wanted by changing other aspects of his swing.
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