Mike Adams

Tomasi and Dr. Jim Sui kind of collaborated on that book, and really, it was one of the first books I ever read that really started introducing the body and how it, um, gelled with the golf swing. How you had to under have an understanding of the body in order to understand the golf swing. So, as a young teacher, that was one of my kind of top five list books that you had to have.

So, you know, Mike is a tremendous teacher, been doing this a long time. He's on the Top 100 list for Golf Magazine, he's on the Top 50 list for Golf Digest. So, I'm not going to talk anymore. I'm going to let him get to it. Please, a round of applause for Mike Adams.

Uh, first of all, it's exciting to see this many people out here who want to get better at, uh, golf and fitness. Um, two years ago, I came to the TPI Summit, and, uh, it is the way that all golf Summits should be run. It's the way that Mike Heion, when he originally designed, uh, and had the first, uh, golf, golf and teaching and coaching Summit, he tried to get it to happen. And, you know, you guys are doing a phenomenal job, uh, Dave and, uh, Greg. It's unbelievable the knowledge and the team that they put together and what they do here is, uh, off the charts, and they've advanced golf quite a ways.

Um, it's pretty exciting also, uh, to see some people in this room. I mean, to the smartest guys that I know that are golf instructors, uh, Chuck Cook and Dr. Jim Suy are out here in this, in the stance, trying to learn more and more because they're not satisfied with their knowledge. If those two are out here trying to get better, it tells you we all need to continue doing that.

Um, it's also exciting to hear what Mike Heion was talking about. That is going to help us all become much, much better teachers. And what Claude said this morning was phenomenal. It, we, so far, our two, our first two speakers have given you some great insight today. What I'm going to do is, I'm going to cover some things, um, about what I call, uh, "Cracking the Golf Swing Code," telling you how to find the student's blueprint.

Um, I was, my wife said to me, she says, "What, what are the qualifications for you speaking here?" And I said, "I guess you have to be an expert." And, uh, I asked my good friend Mark Ha, I said, "What's an expert?" He says, "Somebody who's from out of town and knows something." So, I meet the first qualification. And, uh, according to, uh, Malcolm Gladwell, 10,000 hours, uh, allows you to become an expert. And I've been teaching over 34 years and I've taught over 100,000 hours. So, I definitely qualify as an expert. So, under those two things, I'm an expert, right? Are we in agreement now?

I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is, almost everything that is taught in golf is correct. The bad news is, that not all of it applies. And what I was trying to do in my quest to become a better teacher, because I spent, you know, the early part of my career screwing people up. Uh, Kevin Kirk, I have to apologize to you. You could have been a superstar. Now you're a superstar teacher, but I messed you up. But, um, what we need to understand is, is that, um, what applies and how we dictate, determine what, uh, we need to know about teaching. And there are a lot of ways of skinning a cat. There are so many good golf swings out there, and they're all different. What do you think makes them different? What would you say it is?

Yeah. Well, their body changes. What they do. We have some swing, what I call swing determinants, okay? Flexibility, range of motion, arm, leg, and trunk length, chest thickness and shoulder width, hip and shoulder mobility, athletic versus non-athletic, injuries, and also, uh, what your dominant side is. If you're a lefty plane, right-handed or righty plane, left-handed, uh, or you're playing your natural weight. Those all contribute to how you swing the golf club.

There are some environmental things that change how we swing the golf club. Those who grew up in the North, where, uh, the fairways are soft and the greens are soft, learn to hit the ball high and, uh, softly. Those who grew up in the South, playing in, when a lot of wind, hard fairways, hard greens, learn to hit the ball low and spin the ball differently.

Now, these are the skill sets required for a correct swing. We have to have balance, we have to have stability, mobility, power, strength, and hand-eye coordination. All of us have various, uh, amounts of these. Okay?

Now, what I want to find out is whether the golf swing was going to work. The lower body is going to work laterally or rotary. And every lateral swing has a rotary component, and every rotary swing has a lateral component. But I wanted to find out what was the dominant lower body action. So, I began experimenting, trying to determine how we do that. So, the first thing I try to do, and through years and years of experience, and, you know, you screw up enough people, you finally find things that work. And, uh, what I found was, is that arm length versus height had a bearing on, on how they're going to swing the golf club and how the lower body is going to work.

The reason is because of posture. And the way we find posture is, we want to find a balanced athletic position. Mark, I, Scott, want you come on up here. This is Scott Monroe. Scott is a Golf Magazine Top 100 teacher and a good friend of mine. Place your hands on top of your thighs and just lower yourself down. You touch the top of your knees. Okay? Now, this is how I use, what I use to find posture. What this does is, it, it stacks the load-bearing joints on top of each other. And you can check it once they've gripped the club. Scott, go ahead and grip the golf club. If you simply check by dropping a plumb line down from the tip of the top of the spine, the tip of the elbow, tip of the knee, and ball of the feet will be in alignment.

Now, what would happen if his arms were 4 inches longer? What would happen to his posture? It would become more erect, wouldn't it? How would that affect his golf swing? His shoulders would turn much more, and his arms would swing more. Okay? So, what kind of lower body action would he need to bring those arms down more? Lateral, right? Okay. That's what we called an arc swing, and Hardy calls it a, uh, two-lane swing, because the shoulders are turning flatter, the arms are swinging more upright. So, a lower body action of lateral motion is necessary to get the golf club down. Okay, thanks, Scott.

Now, what happens when we go down and we, we bend down? What angle, basically, formed between the spine and the shaft on most of the golfers? 90 degrees. And why is that? Why is that important? Well, a swinging object swings, swings fast is at 90 degrees to its axis, right? And we'll always seek it, right? So, if we get a posture that puts us close to 90 degrees with the shaft and spine, we have gravity and centrifugal force working, what, together, right? So, they're not opposing forces. If I were in this posture, uh, urinal position, which I see a lot of students come in, come to me in, centrifugal force wants to throw it here, gravity wants to pull it here, and we have two opposing forces. And as a result, um, the ball goes a lot of different directions.

Now, one more thing about posture. How many of you work on trying to keep your arms in front of your body? Raise your hand. You can raise your hand. That's a good thing. Okay. It's got to come on back up here. When your posture is correct, it works to your advantage. Go down to the top of your knees. Stand sideways. Now, when he's in this position, when I swing his left arm across his chest, it runs into his chest, and the left hand is directly below the right shoulder. So, proper posture keeps the arms between my shoulders or in front of my body. What happens if he's bent over more? Where do the arms get now? Past it. So, they'll get too far behind him. If he's too erect, they run in too early. So, he turns early, and then the arms get lifting. Okay? So, posture is also important in keeping the club in front of them. So, ideally, I try to get everybody in perfect posture by finding this, this position.

Now, if you are what we, what Hardy calls a two-plane golfer, you're going to use lateral motion. And if you are, what he calls it, a one-plane golfer, you're going to use more rotary action. Now, what I found, uh, they're basically three planes the club can swing on. And it's not exact lines, there, there are areas. Okay? They are the shoulder plane, which is from the ball through the tip of the right shoulder. The right arm plane, which goes from the ball through the tip of the elbow. And from the, the shaft plane, which goes from the ball through up the shaft. And, uh, early in my career, I tried to get every single golfer on the shaft plane. I mean, I had them doing some amazing contortions to get the club down there to hit golf shots. And when the, when the one-eyed monster, the video camera, loved the golf swing, the ball didn't like it that much because it went all over the place.

So, what I learned, so I tried to do something. I said, "You know what? This can't be right." So, I reverse-engineered it. Took all the players and got them at impact, then I drew the line up the shaft at impact, then backed him up to address. You know what I found? They swung it on one of three areas: shoulder, right arm, or shaft. That's where the lines came through. So, I changed the way I taught, and all of a sudden, the people I started teaching started getting a lot better.

Now, what determined how they took the club back? Well, what I found really was what the right arm did. And I found that I tried to find a way to determine it. I mean, the screens I use are stuff that I developed, or I've had, I've learned from other people. I use most of the TPI screens also, but I'm not going to present them because it's really not my information. So, I wanted to find something in, in motion that was going to show me how the body, what was going to happen.

So, what I, Adam, do, EJ, come on up here. This is EJ Fister, who's also a Golf Magazine Top 100 teacher. I had them create their posture, put their hands together, and move both arms to the right. When both arms went to the right, example like EJ and myself, where did our right arms go? They went back and up. Okay? That's what I call an "on top" golfer. Okay? Then you have the ones who get side on. Scott, come on up here. Go swing back. Where the elbow goes in line, gets in line with his right arm. That was a "side on" golfer. And then you have the "under" golfers, with the right arm folded. The right arm folded immediately. It always took it to a lower plane. Okay? When the right arm went back and up, it always took it to a higher plane. And when the right arm went, what I call "side on," it always took it to the right arm plane.

So, when I began testing people, I began to see that, uh, I could actually determine, predetermine what they, what they were going to do in their swing before I videotaped it, just by testing them. And it basically was almost 100% right. So, hands together, golf posture, arm swing back, and you're either going to be on top, side cover, side on, uh, side under, under, or under. And that's going to help you understand exactly what the plane the club is going to go back on. Example: Matt Kuchar, shaft plane takeaway, okay? Side on, see how it's in line with his, uh, when he gets back here, it's in line with the seam of his shirt. He's a right arm, uh, plane takeaway. See how the shaft and right arm are in alignment? See Keegan Bradley, how the club goes right up it?

Now, does anybody remember who this guy is? Martin Kaymer. He used to be the number one player in the world. When we, we did a study for Golf Magazine, we, uh, went out and we tested 18, 187 tour players. And we tested, we measured them from elbow to knuckle and from elbow to shoulder, determined their downswing plane. And we did this, this test. And we also did another test to determine how their lower body worked. And, uh, it's pretty amazing. I mean, Martin Kaymer's forearm was, was much longer than his upper arm, and he's a guy that should have taken it back on the shoulder plane and brought it down the shoulder plane. When he was number one in the world, he did exactly that. And then, in his quest to try to win Augusta, he tried to flatten his plane and get it more on the right arm plane. And, uh, he's no longer number one in the world, is he? He did make the putt and PCL, yes he did. Who watched the Ryder Cup? Great television, wasn't it? Didn't love the results, but great television. Pardon a lot of Europeans in this crowd, huh? That would be a European, too, unless you guys have moved the country.

So, once, once I determine what plane they should take the club back on, I want to find out where they should set the golf club. Each, once you come on up here and help us here. She, to do that, I have simply gripped the golf club, getting their golf posture, left hand only, and just swing the club back. Where they set the club naturally is where I want them to set the club. I'll actually draw the line on the, uh, on the, on the screen just to see where it sets, and that's where they need to set it. If they, some are late setters, some are early setters. What is it about this that makes it work? Because your brain, like Mike was telling you, is telling you that this club is too heavy to maintain control. Let's get it lighter so we can control the weight. So, your brain is telling you when you need to set the club. So, why would you change that? So, we're just listening to our body in all of these things to find out where it is. So, wherever they set it, that's where they need to set it. And a lot of times, I'll see guys who, when they do the drill, they set it, but with the left arm parallel to the ground, get it to a perfect 90. And then, uh, I'll draw it in there. And then when we see this, when the club reaches, uh, the same position, it's 30 degrees short. And guess what happens? When I take them down to impact, their body reaches impact 30 degrees before the club gets down. If they're behind, where do they catch up? They're never going to catch up. So, this is a great way of finding where to set the golf club.

Okay, now, three basic hinge types. Okay? You can set the club vertically. You can set the club horizontally, and you can set the club diagonally. Each one benefits a different takeaway. Now, an under takeaway does what to the golf club? If he continues back from there, what will the golf club get and be low? Laid off. So, they need to have a, a take, a hinge type that will offset that. So, if I have him take a vertical hinge with an under takeaway, go ahead and turn to the top. The club goes back on a perfect plane. Okay? What about an on-top takeaway? The right elbow gets up here. Where's the club going to get at the top? Across line, right? So, I have to have a set that's going to do the opposite. So, if I set him diagonally with an on-top takeaway, the club gets back on plane. And if it's right arm plane, if I have him set it horizontally, just take it to the top. Club gets set on plane.

Now, what happens if I do the opposite? Let's say that I have a, working on a vertical hinge with an on-top golfer. Is that a good position to hit the golf ball from? Huh? The answer is, it depends. Right? Uh, the chances of him hitting really good golf shots consistently is going to be tough. Let's say that I have an under takeaway and I have him use a diagonal set. Okay? How's that? Is that a good match? It's not. I had him the other day, he's a plumber. So, what I try to do is match the sets with the takeaways, try to, with, uh, horizontal set with a side-on takeaway, a diagonal set with an on-top takeaway, and a vertical set with an under takeaway. That way, we're always playing in the golf club.

Now, how do you find the natural backswing for everybody? E, you're going to kneel for me. What I have to do is kneel around and swing the club back to the top. From the kneeling position, we're able to get full hip turn, full arm swing, full shoulder turn. Now, what do you notice about this? It is less than, what is this a full swing for him? It is. You're right, because what happens is, uh, we're able to get rid of the collapse and stuff, but we're able to use ground forces and stability. So, so from here, it puts him in the position where he should be. Now, a lot of people look at that and say, "Well, that's laid off." In reality, what I look at is, I just check the shaft and spine, shaft and shoulders at the top. As long as the two are at right angles to each other, they're in good position. You can stand up now.

I like being taller than you. What I mean by the shaft and shoulders, if, if I have a lefty player, uh, I'm not able to get my shoulders back to full 90. That is not a late position because the shoulders and shaft are at 90 degrees to each other. If I'm able to get a full turn, it'll get online and a bigger than 90 degree turn. Where does the club get? Those are not incorrect, as long as the shaft and shoulders are at right angles to each other.

The other thing that I try to, I look at. Scott, come on up here. Is go ahead and hold the club. When the shaft is parallel to the ground, the shaft and shoulders are going to be parallel to each other. You have somebody who's turned this much, the club isn't too far inside, it's just turned too early. But what are the shaft and shoulders? Because the golf club is swung in a, what, circle? Because from here, he can still deliver the club to the ball. Now, if I get him here, where he's turned this much, and I get the club out here, when he, he turns from here, don't drop it. Instincts of a good player, it makes it difficult for him to get the club coming back on plane and making solid contact. So, don't get tied up and say, "Well, you, you see a guy turn this much and say, 'Well, it needs to be on the toe line.'" Because I used to believe that too, and you can't believe how many people I screwed up doing that. When I started allowing the shaft and shoulders to get either parallel or perpendicular to each other, I started helping people again. Because your arms are attached to the shoulders. Anybody in this room, arms not attached to their shoulders? Mine is barely attached. The rotator cuff and all the years of throwing batting practice, uh, basically, they're going to swing down the shoulder line. Stand up here, Scott. No club. Now, put your hands together and just move your arms back and forth. What line are they working on? Okay. Just, now, just keep swinging them. Don't think golf. They're going to work in whatever direction the shoulders, what, our line? Because they're not going to get, I mean, basically, the bending and extending is what elevates and opens the club in the backswing, and the extending on the downswing is what squares it back up and gets it lower. But, uh, it's not something we try to consciously have to try to do. So, arms are attached to the shoulders, so they're always going to swing down the shoulder line.

Now, one more thing about the backswing. What I use, do you have a tape measure? I will measure for, give me a fist. I'll measure from the elbow to the knuckles. Okay? In Scott's case, it's 15 and a half inches. And I'll measure from the shoulder socket to the elbow, which is 14 and a half inches. So, which is longer, forearm? You don't need to look at your paper for that one. So, that tells me where he should swing the golf club. So, I can find his plane. Go ahead and hold the club. He's going to swing the club on the shoulder plane. So, I can take the club and place it on the left shoulder and put this, my fingers to an inch above, and go ahead and swing it back to the top. If he swings correctly, where will the club go? On the plane, right? What happens if he's lifted up in here? There's been a, and the funny thing is, go and start the club out front. I can take him here and have him do it in motion, and every time, it will always go to the, uh, correct spot. See, when we consciously try to do something, we usually mess it up.

How many positions are there in the golf swing? How many? You've been the Shell Answer Man so far. There's two: there's address and finish. A position is void of what? Motion. Everything between address and finish is motion. So, basically, what we're trying to do is get you in a position to create motion.

Now, the shaft plane, uh, Mark Blackburn, is he in the room? Uh, this is one of his guys. He, uh, showed him, and he's a shaft plane guy. The guys who had, who were shorter forearms than and than the, uh, upper arm. It's funny because I was trying to figure out why that worked. And, well, because I had, once I had him all there, I turned him, a good friend of mine, Dr. Chuck Dillman, who was the biomechanist for the US Olympic team. He's probably tested more athletes than anybody on the planet. And then I, I talked to, uh, Dr. Dick Stemman, and, uh, who's an orthopedic surgeon. And Dr. Richard Hawkins is a good, good friend of mine. And I said, "You know, what do you think it is that's causing him to swing on one plane over the other?" He says, "Well, something has to be. If the forearm is longer than the upper arm, it's going to go to a higher plane. If the forearm is shorter than the upper arm, it's going to a lower plane. And if the forearm and the upper arm are the same, it's, it's going to be in line with the shoulders." And when I started measuring them, uh, guess what happened? They were right. So, so the guys who were shorter then swung the club down on the shaft plane, which is the one I was trying to get everybody else on, and only about 10% of the people that we've ever tested actually qualify to swing on the shaft plane.

Now, the right arm plane. Right arm, it, it's distance from that, it's the same. Okay? You see this gentleman won our, uh, FedEx Cup, didn't he? Pretty good player. And when we measured him, use a right arm planer. Where do we see the right arm and shaft? Now, the shoulder planers were the ones with longer forearms than the, than the upper arm. The guy on the far left, Camilo Villegas, uh, won four times and $4 million swinging on the shoulder plane, as you can see. The two pictures, middle and the far left, are, he won over, uh, then he switched to trying to swing on the right arm plane, and he's going to lose his card this year. So, if you try to swing contrary to the way your biomechanics and body dictated, what happens? Most of what will happen correctly happens if we simply allow it. We only start to mess it up when we try to force you to swing a certain way. The answer to most teaching questions is, "It depends," until you've tested them to find out exactly how the student moves in time and space. It's hard for us to get out there and start changing things.

See the guy swinging on the shoulder plane, David Toms. Now, a lot of people look at that and say, "Well, they're over the top." In reality, they're really not.

Now, lower body action. Student taught me an important thing about lower body action. Uh, Rosie Jones, who I worked with for about 20 years. And when I started working with her, she was in college at Ohio State. And she wanted more distance, and she stayed on her front foot and hit golf shots. And so I started working on her getting, uh, to transfer weight to the right side and hit shots. And the, the future Hall of Famer began hitting ground balls. I was doing a wonderful job, wasn't I? But the one-eyed monster, the camera loved it because it looked really good on camera. Just the ball didn't like it that much. So, we had to make a decision. We were either going to, uh, not make that change, or she needed to make sure that every shot she hit, she was hitting it to a flag where there was ground between her and the ball, between her and the target, because ground balls only work when there is ground. So, I made a decision that I was going to let her stay on the front foot. She was going to be the only one I was going to let stay on the front foot. And when I let her stay on the front foot, all of a sudden, it's unbelievable how good she hit it. And she told me what a genius I was after I screwed her up for a while.

Scott, come on up here. The way you do that, the, the test is, you get them in their golf posture, place a club across the top of their thighs, and all you do is, you put your hand against the right side of their face, and you have them pivot back. Where did Scott's go when he did that? Left. He's what I call a one-post golfer, because you're going, if you're a rotary golfer, you're going to pivot back in the right hip and through in the left hip, or back in the pelvis and through in the left hip, or you're going to stay left and pivot back and through around the left leg. It's funny because all the guys that had success with stack and tilt, when we did the test, they all tested this way. And the guys who did not have success with stack and tilt, they moved right, left. So, basically, it's hard to change what your body does. So, this is an excellent way of testing how the lower body works. This is Renee showing us one-post lower body, one-post action.

Then we have two-post. Now, two-post can be either center, left. Each, come on up here. Okay? Just pivot back. Now, his didn't move right, and it didn't move left. Where did it stay? So, guess what I'm, what I'm going to allow him to do, because I know that's the way his lower body works. When I do it for him to try to get right, what happens? EJ? Yeah, he hits fat shots. Flatten your shoulders, bottom. Why don't you just say fat shots? He's a golf instructor. So, his, what he needs to do is pivot back around his pelvis and through around his left leg. My body works differently. When I turn back, I turn back right hip and left hip. Okay? If I were to try to do this, it doesn't work for me, just like when I try to get Rosie over here, it didn't work for her. So, it's important for us to understand how their lower body works. Once we understand how their lower body works, we can begin to work with them in their proper biomechanics.

Now, hip speed. I call it hip speed, but it really doesn't test hip speed. What it tests is the differential between the upper body and the lower body. Uh, I use that, uh, glove there, but, uh, you can use a head cover. Scott, come on up here. I got too slow. Hit guys, huh? Just have take it back and hit it. Hit your hand as hard as you can. Go ahead. Now, what do you notice about his right foot? Can everybody see that? It is, his hips have rotated a little bit. His right foot is still pretty close to the ground. Okay? It's not, uh, super scientific testing way, but what it does is, it gives you an understanding how far the hips, the arm moves in relationship to how far the hips move. When I take it back and I come down, the arms moved to here, and the hips are barely moved. The hips are moving, what, unison? What is it? Slower, right? They're not moving as far or as fast, right? What happens if I do the same thing, but the hips are way out here, and I'm up with my toe at the same point? What are my hips moving? Faster, right? And if it's somewhere in between. So, that's the way we look, uh, we look at it. You can see the three different positions.

Now, what adjustments do I have to make for fast hips versus slow hips? I can hear you out there breathing. Grip strength. Exactly. What does it do? Well, I'll have, I'll put a block here and have him take the club back. By the way, is it better to have fast hips or slow hips? It depends. It doesn't matter. You are what you are. I mean, uh, Kenny Perry's a guy with slow hips, and guess what? One of the longer guys was one of the longer guys on tour. Definitely one of the longer guys on the, uh, scene tour. Oh, you caught that, huh? Adam Scott's medium speed. So, there's a lot of different elements that, uh, about distance. Okay? So, what I like to do, we'll come back to that. Foot flare, grip, distance from the ball, is and ball positions, all going to be dictated by by hip speed.

Scott, come on up here. We're going to imagine you have fast hips. Okay? Lay the clubs down so they're at right angles to each other. Okay? Go ahead and put the right foot in here. Left foot. Move them together until, uh, you're touching toe and heel on them. Now, what angle is formed here? This angle right here. It is, what, 90 degrees? Okay? And if this is the target line, this angle is, this angle here, and this angle here are 45 degrees, right? Which is roughly what we're trying to get the hips to turn, right? Because if the hips turn 45, then the shoulders can maximize, because the shoulders don't turn 90, with they, it's the 45 or whatever the hips turn, and the differential between the two. Okay? So, to find where he needs to be, let's say he's a two-post golfer. Place the club across the top of your thighs. Now, what I want is for him to keep the right flex in his right leg, so the shaft on his thighs needs to match the shaft on the ground. Okay? So, I'm going to flare your right foot out more till we can get through there. A little more. Now, he's able to maintain his flex, and the shaft in the ground matches the one, so he can get a full hip turn, which allows him to maximize his shoulder turn. Okay? So, I would leave him in that position. Why do I do the backswing first? Because it occurs first. Okay? Pretty simple.

Now, impact. Where do we want, what do we want to have happen at impact? When, what I do when I'm doing the hip speed test, I'm testing to where they are at impact. If they are not very open, like Scott was, I'm going to have him only about right there at impact. Okay? Then that'll be his left foot position. But let's say he's got really fast hips, and he was opened up like this. Go ahead and flare. Okay? I want the left foot to lock up at impact, so that's how much foot flare he would need to have for that to occur. Now, I did attempt, yes, they had me do a study for MIT, and I presented with it, and we had over 800 golfers, and over 250 of them were golf professionals, LPGA, I mean, tour golf touring professional, LPGA Senior Tour, PGA Tour, and the, uh, Nationwide Tour at that time. I can't remember what it was called then. You've played in every single one of them, haven't you? It was the Hogan Tour, yes. Okay. So, what we did was, we had them hit golf shots, and we would change the left foot position. When we got the left foot, if it was too square, the arms wrapped, and they hit low hooks. And if the left foot was flared too much, they hit it weak, right shots, because the left leg would lock too late. So, we kept working until I could find the position that worked out perfect. And this test was the one that showed me how I could do it every time, because instead of experimenting with a whole bunch of balls, I could test them immediately and find out the ideal foot position. When we found the ideal position, guess what happened? They hit the ball longer and straighter, regardless whether they were, um, the weekend warrior or the tour player. So, finding the left foot position was key to distance and accuracy.

So, fast hips, he'd want to get to right here at impact. Play the left foot a little more, not quite that much. So, this is roughly where the fast hip player would have been at impact. So, now I have his hip position, I have his feet position. So, that's going to allow me to allow him to hit it farther, okay? Because I'm maximizing turn both directions, and I'm getting transference of energy when I want it to happen. You want transference of energy to happen at impact or slightly before? It's like if we're all riding on a bus, the bus is going 60 miles an hour. How fast are you traveling? At 60 miles an hour, right? But your body is going zero. It's sitting in the, in the bus. Now, now I slam on the brakes. Now what happens? Now we've had transference of energy. Well, the locking in the leg is the slamming on the brakes, which causes the transference of energy.

Okay, now step in here, Scott. So, I'll get a flat surface and I'll place the club up against it just to test his grip. Boom. If the grip is too weak, when he rotates his hips through, what does the face do? Open. Because the fat, the more your hips turn through, the more the shoulders open, the farther the hands get forward. What is the face going to do naturally? So, if you have faster hips, what do you need to have, unless you want to hit fades? What do you need to have? Stronger grip. So, if I strengthen this grip, we do the same thing. What happens to the club face? Stay square at impact, right? Which is what we want it to be. So, hip speed has a lot to do with how, how I'm going to set their hands on the golf club. So, we've got stance, foot flare, okay? We've got posture, and now we're working on grip.

Now, if you have fast hips, what do you need to change in your posture for striking the golf ball? One of the things I noticed when working with a lot of players with fast hips, a lot of tour players, is they tend to to set up to the golf ball with the club on the heel of the ball. And then I would move them farther away from the ball, and they would hit it on the toe. I could never figure out why. Then it, it dawned upon me. The more you rotate through, where does the club travel? It goes to the what? That's the reason the club goes left, because the rotation of the body with the arm attached, the club is going to go left. So, the reason they were moving closer to the ball was because they wanted to do what with the contact? They wanted center contact, which is important in distance, isn't it? So, with the guys with faster hips, I move them a little closer to the golf ball. Now, how much is too close? Well, real simple. Turn sideways, Scott. No, no. If, let's say, when he turns through impact, the right leg runs in the handle. Guess what you are? You're too close. Okay? As long as he has clearance, he's in good position. So, that's a way you can test them. Have them set up to it and have them rotate to impact. If the right leg thigh runs into the handle, you're too close to the golf ball.

So, faster hips, I moved him closer to the ball. What that also did is it got the arms more connected, so the arms stayed more with the body, so they weren't always trying to catch up. So, it accomplished two things. So, with faster hips, I flared the feet more. Why? Why would I flare the feet more with faster hips? Think of the tortoise and the hare. If you want them to arrive at the finish line at the same time, what are you going to do with the hare in relationship to the tortoise? James, what are you going to do with them? Starting farther away from the finish line, right? That way, when they finish, they're going to finish together. Well, by flaring the feet more, because the fast hips is their advantage, I give the hips a greater distance to travel. What else does it do? It keeps the right heel down. So, I get more ground force. One of the problems with fast hips is they get up on the toe too quickly, which gets the whole right side elevated. So, they're toe deep, or they shut the face, so either hit weak right or or left shots. By flaring the feet, the right heel stayed down, and it solved a couple problems.

So, faster hips, I flared the feet more. Faster hips, I moved the hips, moved them closer to the ball. Faster hips, I, uh, strengthened their grip. Faster hips, I moved the ball back. Why would I want to move it back? Because I want to get the arms to the ball center. Also, it allowed the shoulders to, uh, the club to come more from the inside, because one of the tendencies when I turn, when I'm rotating through, it wants to throw the club out. With faster hips, that kept it online better. This is all through thousands and thousands of hours of experience and screwing people up. I had to find a way that allowed me to, uh, create a blueprint for the student. So, once I have that, the slower hips, the feet are going to be square. Why would I have the feet square for slower hips? Gives them a less distance to travel, right? In essence, what have I done to him? I've given him a head start. This is what we were talking about with the grip. Starting with it flush against the club, against board, rotating through until it either opens, stays square, or closes.

Now, some other things have come into play, uh, when we're working with, with, with the students. Students who work their golf swing is going to be what I call one plane, two plane, or slot. A slot golf swing will always go back on one plane and come down on another. It's just different, really, than two plane. Two plane, I refer to as shoulders turning on one plane, arm swinging on a different one. On a slot swing, you can go back on the right arm plane and come down in the shoulder plane. What shot pattern are you probably going to play more naturally? Fade. Okay? If you have fast hips, what shot pattern are you going to probably play more readily? Fade. So, guys who usually came from a lower plane to a higher plane and have fast hips, instead of trying to make them try to force them to try to get underneath and draw the golf ball, I let them play fades. Okay? The ones who go back on a higher plane and come down in a lower plane, a normal slot, I allow them to play draws, because that is a more natural position. Uh, Rory McIlroy is a good example of a guy who goes back on the right arm plane, and when he's hitting it bad, he tries to get it, uh, down on the, uh, shaft plane, and he has a tendency to hit the big right or the big hook. Okay? Uh, I think once he gets that under control, even more, he'll be even more awesome than he is, and he's pretty awesome as it is right now. So, all are correct when working your student. You just need to look at them and make the decision, the best way to go.

So, yeah, let's take some questions. You have a question right here. Thank you. Great article on the arm length. Those are things that we're born with. Body pivot and everything else is learned. At what point do you make a decision like, "I got a three-year-old I'm teaching." At what point do those body pivot positions, everything else, become something that you have to accept that that's what your student has, go with it, versus maybe try to teach them a different way?

First of all, you're teaching a three-year-old. He's parents, huh? He's got passion for it. You got to start right there. Now, basically, with the younger ones, uh, when they're that young, I'm just going to let them find their own swing. I'm going to let them hit golf balls and get them excited and have fun about it. I mean, I really don't get into, uh, trying to change something, uh, until it, their bodies really stop really growing a lot, because as the body changes, the golf swing changes. I mean, I remember, uh, working with a lot of kids that were 7, 8, 9 years old, and getting their golf swing perfect, and it appeared to me that they were going to be my height. Then all of a sudden, they're 6'4", and the golf swing doesn't work. Uh, I think let them hit a lot of balls, let them find what they're doing, keep them encouraged, keep them excited, get them in a good balanced athletic position, uh, and just let them rip at it, and start to make adjustments as they become, start to refine things as they become older and their body starts to be more the way it is natural. I guess we won't use it.

Hi. What's, what, in your view, what's the biggest cause of a chicken wing, um, with the left arm for a right-handed player? And, you know, I have a lot of ex-baseball players that I'm teaching, softball players that tend to get into that position. It's real hard.

Well, you know, in baseball, in baseball, they're taught to drag the handle to the ball, okay? Okay. And to stay inside the ball, okay? That results in that. But, you know, uh, I wish there was a standard answer why it happens. I mean, whether they're trying to shallow it out, so they don't hit it fat, whether they're trying to prevent the club from closing. I mean, it's basically your brain telling you that, uh, this ball won't go straight unless I do this. I mean, the whole thing is, is that, uh, there are no standard answers. We have to test everybody. That's why I encourage you to go through, uh, the screens that I use and the screens that TPI has developed, because what that's going to do is help you understand. See, I was very fortunate when I first arrived at PGA National, there was a guy there by the name of Pete. Pete is a brilliant guy. And I'll never forget, we've got, uh, uh, 32 students for the golf school, and Scott and I are sitting there, and Pete's doing his presentation. After measuring everybody, he says, "There's nobody in this room who's ready to hit golf balls today. It's going to take you 9 months before we get you functional enough so you can hit golf balls." Now, time out, Pete. Come here. They have spent $3,000 plus whatever their airfare is to be here for the next three days. We can't tell them that. So, I said, "What we're going to do is, Pete's going to give you a program that you're going to work on to get your body more functional, but until then, we're going to build a golf swing that matches what your body can't do." Now, I mean, if you're a lefty player, right-handed, let the right hand be stronger. Why is that? Because the left side wants to dominate, and you want something to close the club face. At, if you don't have flexibility, let them drop the right foot back so you can buy them some more turns so they can get deeper and hit the golf ball. So, often the student, by accident, will find the right thing to do, but they won't do it because they have not been given permission to do it. Give them permission to hit the ball squarely and squarely.

We have another right here. Have you found that as people's hip mobility changes, that post test will change? Yes, I have. And then I have to make adjustments.

One more. How we a list of your? Uh, the question was, how can you get a list of the screens? A lot of them, we did a, uh, a driver book. Dave Phillips and I, and, uh, a good friend of mine, EA Tisler, and Jim Suy, and Mike Bender, and Jim McLean, and, uh, Jim Hardy, and, uh, called the, uh, "The Best Driving Instruction Book Ever" by Golf Magazine. If you go on Amazon.com, you can get that book, and that has some amazing stuff in there. The stuff that Dave talks about on power is off the charts. Uh, the stuff that Hardy and McLean talk about, stuff that Tisler talks about, uh, the stuff McLean, that, that Suy and, uh, and Bender talk about. I mean, it's really, really good stuff. And James Lights did a phenomenal first chapter about the D plane. Understanding that. It turned out good, didn't it, James? But I highly recommend that. But, uh, I'm going to leave you with some, some, the best driving instruction book ever. My father once told me, he says, "You know, always keep your eyes, ears, and mind open, because if you're speaking, you're not learning." Okay? The second thing is, God gave us two eyes and two ears and one mouth, which meant he wanted us to watch and listen twice as much as he wanted us to speak. Um, you've got some great, great, great presenters coming up today. Uh, Sean, Sean Foley, he's a good friend of mine. He's going to give you some stuff that's unbelievable. And I highly recommend going and listening to, to Mark Blackburn and, uh, John Tattersall. They are rising superstars in the teaching industry, and what they have is revolutionary. I mean, enjoy it. Take as many notes as you can. And once again, let's thank TPI for a wonderful [Applause] time. Okay, um, real quick, I, what I just learned is that if you need two Top 100 instructors to order around in your presentation, just call Mike Adams.