At Totally Driven we are not big proponents of quick fixes or golf swing tips that will instantly dramatically improve someone’s game. While it would be great if this were possible, it rarely works that way. Skills need to be ingrained over time and need to be transferred from practice to the course. Invariably, this is more difficult to do than what players are looking for. If golf swing tips worked, the average handicap would be falling like a rock with the plethora of tips available in golf magazines.
We have recently had some great success after working with a player for one hour (or less). It actually has happened twice with the same player. Here’s the story:
Jeremy, an 11 handicap comes in January of 2010 for an iron fitting. During the fitting it was obvious to me that he was over-swinging and his tempo was way off. Dynamic testing was showing very erratic impact for an 11 handicap.
I decided to get Jeremy on video to show him what I was seeing. I wasn’t looking for positions or anything like that, I just wanted him to see how out of sync his swing was. After playing back the video in regular speed, he kind of got it. The next step was to have him use the Tour Tempo Micro Player. http://www.tourtempo.com/ As he had a pretty fast tempo I started him right at 21/7 for tempo and showed him how to use the device. It took us twenty minutes or so before he got the hang of it. After I videoed his swing while using Tour Tempo, I showed him the comparison. Now he really got it. The results were dramatic. His swing was in sequence better and looked like more of a single digit player. We were also able to finish the club-fitting without a hitch as he was making much better contact. Jeremy bought a Tour Tempo Micro player and book and we ended out tweaking his current iron set to suit his needs.
In April Jeremy set up an hour lesson just to make sure he was still on track. This lesson involved ingraining the Tour Tempo drills and making sure the 21/7 was the correct tempo (it was). Jeremy was using the device and working hard, the only issue was hitting the Tour Tempo beats properly. We never talked about grip, set-up or positions at all. He was very pleased and ready to start the season.
In July Jeremy signed up for one of our Power Clinics. This was a group clinic which Lynn Anderson conducted. The clinic is designed to show people where power is generated in the swing and teach them how to tap into it. We’ve had great success in these clinics with people gaining 10-20 yards of distance by the end of the 90 minute class. We utilize Tour Tempo as part of the Power Clinic also.
We didn’t hear from Jeremy again until October 14th when he came in for a driver fitting. He said that he had a fantastic year, that his handicap had dropped to 5.4, he had been driving the ball long and straight and that it was all due to Tour Tempo. He said he had been struggling with his driver recently and wanted to get fit for a new one. I did as before and started doing the driver fitting until I saw he was getting poor results with any combination I put together. He was hitting a big slice and getting no distance. While his swing looked better than last January it still looked like he was over-swinging and his tempo was off. Jeremy stated that he had the Tour Tempo tones “in his head” and swore that he had that down.
I asked Jeremy if he would be willing to spend a half hour with Lynn Anderson to look at his swing. He agreed and Lynn video-taped his current driver swing and also a swing with an iron. Lynn immediately hooked up the Tour Tempo player on speaker so she could hear the tones and she set it for 21/7 and had Jeremy swing to the tones. He wasn’t coming close to hitting the second beat and was rushing down to try to hit the third beat. After working with him for about 2o minutes he was able to get the tempo down correctly. Lynn showed us both his video at the start to the video after using Tour Tempo and it was mind boggling how improved it was. Not only was his tempo better, his positions were much improved. He went from an open club-face at the top to square, and from a flipping position at impact to a near perfect position. We all knew the driver itself wasn’t the issue so we sent him on his way. Here is the email response I received four days later:
“Andy, Thanks for the lesson the other day I worked on tempo for three range sessions and went out and shot 74 yesterday! I haven’t broke 80 in two months so it felt great! I hit 1 bad iron shot the whole round. That is called getting results from a golf lesson. I wont be going anywhere else. Driver power starting to come back too. Thanks again, Jeremy”
Now, we know this isn’t going to happen all the time. Jeremy is a hard worker and worked for three practice sessions to get the tempo ingrained, plus this was something he had been successful with during the summer so he was in reality re-learning the skill.
It’s been our experience that the only quick fix lessons we have had success with are: Tour Tempo for full swing (and even then some refreshers are sometimes in order) and putting and chipping lessons (which often deal with tempo issues). It’s amazing that tempo is rarely taught, even though you can walk down any driving range in the world and pick out good players from poor players by just watching their tempo. Try it some time. I’ll bet you can guess someone’s handicap within 5 strokes just by watching their tempo.
We’re planning on showing the before and after swings from this last Tour Tempo lesson on YouTube in the next week or so. I’ll add the link to this blog later.
Andy Thompson
Totally, Driven
