Golf Science | Minimalist Golf Swing System

The US Open and Tiger Woods

Kiran Kanwar | June 21, 2013

The US Open and Tiger Woods

One MGSS fan texted, “hey I was looking forward to your comments on the US Open, as I enjoyed your remarks after the Seniors’ Championship so much”

So, my friend Tom, my response is, “Tiger did not win”, why would I care about the rest of the field.

I’d predicted in a facebook forum of the National Golf Academy of India (and, to an extent, hoped) a month ago, that when the going got tough, Tiger would not do well. Why would anyone be mean enough to ‘hope’ such a thing? For purely selfish reasons.

I have dedicated myself to being worthy of being Tiger’s next coach – or at least getting the opportunity to explain to him my study and research of over 18 years. What does ‘worthy’ mean? It means acquiring knowledge well beyond what even the leading golfer of the world might need to succeed – my Masters in Sports Science and Nutrition has given me information on anatomy, biomechanics, orthopedic assessment, exercise physiology, exercise testing and prescription, fitness, nutrition, sports psychology, research methods. A 21st Century golf coach has to have at least primary-physician qualifications, cannot simply say, “My student can go to so-and-so for fitness or someone else for a chiropractic adjustment”. BECAUSE those people do not understand golf enough to tell what might cause the ball-striking or injury problem!

(See the section ‘Walking the Talk’ in this blog for my orthopedic physical assessment class project – 10 pages include how golf and tennis elbow injury can be cause in golf. Coming soon how knee injury such as Tiger Woods’ and Fred Funk’s are exacerbated by a poor-mechanics golf swing).

Well, when I first ‘came out of the box’ and started telling people that is was the ambition of my life to be Tiger’s next coach they laughed. Not so much any more, they respect my understanding and knowledge of the golf swing (sadly no PGA of the world tells a teacher WHAT to teach – wannabe teachers are given ONLY Gary Wiren’s LAWS, PRINCIPLES and PREFERENCES and then have to GO FIGURE. Many peripherally useful topics, but NOTHING on WHAT to teach. How do I know? I’m a member of four teaching associations!).

In fact many say, forget Tiger, he’s finished, find someone else. NO Tiger is NOT FINISHED. He is the world’s most supreme athlete, has the mental and physical skills and the work ethic to be the best, at the highest level, again. When he plays badly it is not about him, it is about someone-up-there saying “I’m the one controlling you humans, don’t think it’s YOUR great skill or talent that’s making this happen”.

Tiger is, however, running out of time. He cannot afford any more injury and no-one in his coterie even realizes that it’s exacerbated by his golf swing. Coterie, from now on, be aware that if Tiger has more injury or cannot play at the highest level, it is because YOU, his TEAM, do not allow any information from people like me to be filtered down to him. Sure you get lots of such information from lots of people, can you not tell based on credentials or years in the business?

How DARE all his previous coaches mess him up so badly as to tell him to reduce his distance in order to gain consistency (which they have not been able to give him yet), or get him to a stage where he cannot use his driver, AND use effectively enough to be a weapon of mass destruction. One told him to move his left knee out of the way and straighten it quickly. I’d have sued that coach for future ACL injury, but the poor man does not have any background in human movement!

The next coach told him if he gets across the line to try to be laid off. BOTH ugly positions, NOT correct in science (most obviously because both make the club shaft parallel to the ground, a position which does not put the club in it’s position of maximum gravitational potential energy, but which of those pros understood basic physics?)

He needs a swing method which can help him deliver his club correctly (from the inside and at maximum speed) while positioning his body more appropriately based on what human joints are and are not capable of doing.

The Minimalist Golf Swing System works for all strokes not just the full swing, and Tiger neither gets 18 fairways and 18 greens nor is his putting always reliable. So, there’s a Minimalist solution to that too.

Many have asked, “If your method is so good, how come the pros do not use it?” Reply, “The method have taken 18 years to evolve, based on my increased knowledge and experience”. There are 2 pros using it, and winning with it already, even though they have not had more opportunity to work with me on it. Many amateurs are posting things about it on various forums.

Other nay-sayers say, “OK you think you have a method, there are tons of those around!” My answer: GOLF PROS have the ability to connect the dots from having taught so many people but have no background in human movement science. GOLF SWING RESEARCHERS have little background in golf – either playing it competitively or teaching it to see mistake-patterns. Very few in the world have both backgrounds. Only one has both 24 years experience teaching golf, an educational background in anatomy, biomechanics and physics, years of conducting research on various aspects of the golf swing, a personal need to try to hit the ball better, plus the ability to think outside the box enough to wish to reverse-engineer the golf swing. Reverse engineer meaning start with an understanding of how the club should be positioned for best impact then work backwards to figuring out how the body can be positioned to deliver the club correctly, based on what the body’s joints are capable of doing. The result – better ball-striking and less scope for injury.

Isn’t it funny how we mere mortals are told by the ‘pros’ to swing like so and so, when that Tour Player themselves has mechanical faults? It is presumed, in all sports, that a top-level player is making the best action, when that is not at all true. ONLY reverse-engineering can give the best picture for what movement is ideal for any sport.

Now, if Tiger doesn’t hear of the Minimalist Golf Swing System soon, he can waive his useful career goodbye.

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid – Lessons to be Learnt

Kiran Kanwar | May 28, 2013

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid – Lessons to be Learnt

The lesson to be learnt is that no golfer – champion to child – knows which swing positions are IDEAL for an IDEAL IMPACT (ie maximum distance, straight direction, correct trajectory).

What top-of-backswing positions WOULD be IDEAL? Those which allow the left side (for a right handed golfer) to be higher than the right at impact, with the shoulders square. Why? So the LEFT ARM can be the radius of the swing, (with the body-weight at the ball and moving forward). That is THE SIGN that the club arrived from the inside and can maximally compress the ball.

Of course, golfer-kind has found all sorts of manipulations or compensations to somehow arrive at the ball from the inside with maximum speed, but those manipulations/compensations take years and years to groove in, and even then, fail when a golfer is under pressure and mis-times the downswing.

The MAIN problem arises when we try to ROTATE the body (like a merry-go-round) and move the arms UP-AND-DOWN (like a ferris wheel) AT THE SAME TIME. We end up doing NEITHER CORRECTLY.

MANY BODY PARTS (shoulders, elbows, forearms, wrists, hips, knees, ankles) get into awkward positions from which they INTERFERE with the LEFT ARM’s JOB of being RADIUS OF SWING, AT IMPACT.

The slo-mo video below of Hale Irwin, Jay Haas, Peter Jacobsen, Bernhard Langer, Dick Mast and Curtis Strange describes which body-part positions at top-of-backswing can be termed ‘awkward’ and would prevent a SYNCHRONIZED DOWNSWING MOVE. See for yourself which golfer has which body parts not quite perfectly ‘aligned’.

[Note: the information on this blog is based on 18 years of research; an educational background in anatomy, biomechanics, physics; plus twenty five years of working with every skill level of golfer.]

Diary of 2013 PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid – The K.I.S.S Principle

Kiran Kanwar | May 27, 2013

Diary of 2013 PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid – The K.I.S.S Principle

The K.I.S.S Principle = Keep It Simple, Seniors

This post will be a simple explanation of one Seniors’ swing, every day – what works, what could be better (in SIMPLE, but completely scientifically valid terms).

Tommy Armour III has a very simple uncomplicated backswing. No wild flailing about, no excessive movement.

As can be seen in the picture below, he is trying to keep most of his weight on his left side and swing his nicely straight left arm, close to his chest, ‘inwards’.

His clubshaft is perfectly held at it’s position of maximum potential energy (going past about 10 o’clock with the clubshaft is ineffectual, with ANY club, as extra work against gravity must be done to bring the club back to its most effective position with respect to energy storage).

The downswing from this position, however, requires many compensations:

1. The lower body must SLIDE to the left to drop the right trunk, which in turn must drop the right arm (the RIGHT ARM can be the death or salvation of any swing, because how it straightens at the elbow is the ultimate key to failure/success).

This SLIDE of the lower body is a COMPENSATION because it’s only purpose is to drop down the right trunk down (THEREFORE avoid raising the right trunk in the first place!).

It is inefficient for two reasons – it requires perfect co-ordination of many, many muscles, joints and ligaments to execute, not easy under pressure when timing is easily messed up. It also cannot produce power for impact, because power is produced from a PURELY ROTARY move of the lower body (scroll down to the bottom of ‘MGSS – what it is’ section of this blog for a research paper that will explain).

2. When the right side of the body rises during the backswing, it instantly places the right shoulder into internal rotation. So, this golfer must be able to, during the downswing, rotate the body backwards, a little more, to allow the upper arm to fall back, so that, in turn, the right elbow can straighten in the manner it is designed to straighten in. Once again, an issue of requiring perfect timing (ie synchronization of all body parts) during the downswing. [TA III does not make the COMPENSATORY rotation of his body, so his right shoulder remains internally rotated all the way down, so the right elbow is awkwardly bent all the time too.]

BOTTOM LINE, this swing simply delivers all body parts so the club can drop down to the ground, somehow. It does not have sufficient speed of co-ordinating all moves to lift the left side up again, quickly, to make room for the straightening wrists, which in turn will allow the clubhead to bow out and compress the ball for greater zip and ooomph at impact. [And hey, what’s with that elegant ‘hold’ of the finish position? With maximum momentum, no golfer should be able to ‘hold’ the right arm extended so far away from the body].

Simultaneously, everytime the golfer feels nervous/stressed/discombobulated, when heartbeat is high, the blood pumping fiercely through the body, the entire body primed for action, any small miscalculation in synchronizing of the many compensations will result in an out-of-sync downswing, which will put a lot of stress on many helpless body-parts, which will then start to wear out over time.

See if YOU can pick up all of the above from the slow-mo video below:

Just as too many cooks spoil the broth, too many compensations spoil the swing!

Golfers need to understand that all humans have the same ability to move certain body parts as all other humans – we all have the SAME shoulders, elbows, forearms, wrists, hips, knees and ankles and they all move in certain fixed directions only.

The MINIMALIST GOLF SWING SYSTEM positions the HUMAN BODY IDEALLY FOR THE GOLF SWING.

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid – are they LOSING IT?

Kiran Kanwar | May 26, 2013

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

If the earlier posts were in a lighter vein, this one is deadly serious – ARE YOU PEOPLE LOSING IT?

You’ll let everyone tell you what to do except the one person in the world who has researched the golf swing from an anatomical perspective for 18 years?

Peter Jacobsen has has a hip replaced, several knee surgeries followed by a replacement, and seven back surgeries. Yet, approach his agent or any other Seniors’ agent to inform them that there’s information available about how the joints work in the golf swing – and they’ll respond with (if they deign to respond at all) something like, “he’s quite happy with his current swing coach”.

Swing coach? In the 21st century? You folks can probably make more money suing your swing coaches that playing on the Seniors’ Tour! A swing coach was someone (in the long-ago 20th Century) who gave you a random collection of swing ideas and expected you to perform. Which you’d do if your own concepts leaned in that same general direction – all subjective, un-researched, unproven-in-science concepts.

No-one thought to ask, “is the human body actually capable of this particular movement?” Everyone said, “this is how the best golfers do it, so everyone else should do it that way too.” In the meantime, how did the so called ‘best golfers’ do it? They had no concept either (scroll down to the next post below where they’re admitting they’re trying this and that and hoping for something or the other)

Last chance, senior golfers, to learn something useful:

(explained here in right-handed-golfer terms)

FACT No. 1: the ball must be connected on it’s INSIDE RIGHT QUADRANT, BELOW IT’S EQUATOR (and preferably at the maximum speed you’re capable of, which is actually wasted unless you connect the ball on the right spot, a Catch-22 situation)

FACT No. 2: you can ONLY do that if your right upper-body and arm – ALL OF IT – are BEHIND and BELOW the left arm at IMPACT

FACT No. 3: and THAT can only happen if your RIGHT SHOULDER, ELBOW, FOREARM AND WRIST are positioned in a very specific manner at the top of your backswing. That is, with the shoulder in external rotation (forearm in line with upper arm when seen down the line and elbow pointing almost towards the ball), elbow as minimally flexed (bent) as possible, forearm semi-supine (supine means palm facing forward when you stand in normal upright posture), wrists neutral (not bent at all in any direction) so they do not interfere with the LEFT ARM’s ROLE as RADIUS of the SWING

EXTRA FACT: If you want speed on top of PRECISION OF CONTACT, then your body MUST NOT DROP the LEFT SIDE (hip, knee, ankle) during your backswing, as that interferes with the PURE ROTATION your BODY MUST MAKE, for MAXIMUM SPEED.

In OTHER WORDS, your RIGHT SIDE MUST REMAIN LOWER THAN YOUR LEFT all through the backswing. AND if you KEEP THE RIGHT SIDE DOWN, it’s another catch-22, your right arm will fold in a more appropriate manner. THAT’s WHY RIGHT SIDE DOWN is a MAGIC MOVE.

FINAL FACT: Your body CANNOT behave like a merry-go-round during the backswing, while the arms try to ferris-wheel. Why? Simply because you’re not God. So, it’s easier if the body is rotated pre-swing, then all you do in-swing is move the left arm where you need it to go (WITH NO FURTHER ROTATION), while preventing the right arm from bending inappropriately (FACT No. 3 above).

IF YOUR BODY IS POSITIONED CORRECTLY, your joints can all act in a synchronized fashion to unwind correctly for very crisp contact, and because they work in the MANNER THAT BEST SUITS THEIR DESIGN, there is LESS CHANCE FOR INJURY.

Some examples of BODY and RIGHT ARM positions which are not ideal. [the LITMUS TEST for a GOOD vs POOR IMPACT is HOW the RIGHT ELBOW IS ABLE TO STRAIGHTEN – if it is forced to straighten while the shoulder is internally rotated and the forearm prone, the result is MEDIOCRE]

Tom Kite (in the foreground is the only professional caddie on the Champion’s Tour – Sandy Jones – Go Sandy!). Top of backswing: Left side – hip, knee, ankle – down, right shoulder internally rotated (elbow points backwards), right wrist extended (bent backwards). THEREFORE, a weak, SMOTHERED impact, NOT connecting the inside right quadrant of the ball. Note the internal rotation of the right shoulder compounded with a protracted shoulder weakens the quality of impact even more.

See Tommy Armour III, Bernhard Langer, Chip Beck. Can YOU help improve their swings based on the information above? Their swings explained over the next few days.

As regards ‘SMOTHERED’ impact. Go to the golf videos section of this blog and scroll down to one titled, “Is YOUR golf swing a lot of BS”? (B=BLUDGEON, S=SMOTHER)

PARTIAL SOLUTIONS DO NOT HELP, the UPPER and LOWER BODIES form TWO KINETIC CHAINS and ALL JOINTS of each kinetic chain NEED TO BE CORRECTLY ALIGNED FOR MEANINGFUL RESULTS – ONLY the MINIMALIST GOLF SWING SYSTEM positions ALL joints correctly. The RATIONALE for the MGSS may be seen in the ‘what it is’ section of this blog.

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid – a SUMPTUOUS BUFFET

Kiran Kanwar | May 25, 2013

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Senior Pros Partake of a SUMPTUOUS BUFFET……read on to understand

The game of golf has come such a long way since it was played by shepherds in the wilds of Scotland, few of those crook-toting, sheep-minding folks would recognize it as the game of ‘gawf’ they played a few hundred years ago.

The pebble has became a perfect round

The ‘crook’ now costs upwards of $500

The golf swing for women has changed dramatically

The golf swing for men has changed dramatically

So, you did not see any changes in the golf swing? Look carefully, one more time:

No? It still seems like only the apparel has changed?

YOU’RE RIGHT! That’s all that has! The swing only changed in so much as there are now teachers who charge you to have you do what the shepherds did instinctively!

(THEY’d never heard of science out in the wild country of the Kingdom of Fife either).

If you do not believe the currently used golf swing is science-free, listen to these comments, verbatim from transcripts of interviews this week at the PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid:

Tom Watson, pre-event interview: I hope I get into some sort of groove. Every now and then I hit a really good shot, but then I’m hitting some pretty lousy shots too. My consistency is way off…. It can turn around. It does. It takes one swing a lot of times. You say, “WELL THAT’s THE KEY RIGHT THERE”. That’s what I’m close to, I think, I think I had a couple ideas, one of those two I hope works.

Bernhard Langer after round 1: I just played pretty poorly. I had several double crossers. Mostly to the right. I think I was in the water four times today…. Just nothing really went my way.

Jay Don Blake: Yeah I like the way I started to hit the ball….

Roger Chapman: I haven’t played very well this week….. never got it going at all today

Loren Roberts: So I was all over the place, but got it up-and-down from everywhere

Tom Wargo: I drove it really good enough to be probably in contention to make the cut, but my irons were just terrible….I think I made three doubles and a quad off my irons. The irons, I struggled with them all the tournament

Tom Kite: Well it was a little inconsistent

Tom Watson after round one: I didn’t hit the ball very well. I hit the ball off line a bunch of times….. I would like to be hitting the ball from the fairway a few more times. I hope my ball striking gets a little bit more consistent and that I don’t leave myself with 30-footers for pars.

Bernhard Langer recovers with a 67 after a 79 on Day 1: I hit some balls last night and found something that obviously worked and hit a lot more fairway, a lot more greens today.

SENIOR PROS of the CHAMPIONS TOUR – this is NOT some BUFFET YOU’RE AT! Trying out a BIT OF THIS AND A BIT OF THAT!

You should be THE CHEF at YOUR OWN PARTY, and KNOW EVERY INGREDIENT that GOES INTO EVERY ENTREE, and ALL THOSE THAT CAN RUIN THE DISH TOO!

The Minimalist Golf Swing System (MGSS) places all your joints in positions so that from top-of-backswing to impact they all unwind in perfect sequential order while all YOU do is enjoy the outcome!

The MGSS IS UNIQUE BECAUSE it not only gives you good positions, BUT ALSO LOCKS OUT YOUR ABILITY TO MAKE ANY BAD MOVEMENTS.

NO SURPRISES, NO WONDERING WHAT WENT WRONG!

Tomorrow: see the swings of Tom Kite, Tommy Armour III and more for how their joints do not all match up for IDEAL IMPACT.

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid – WHO’s SAYING WHAT

Kiran Kanwar | May 24, 2013

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

WHO’s SAYING WHAT

The best players on the Champions’ Tour are just that – Champions from their days on the ‘regular’ Tour. That’s to a great extent because they already have a great entourage in place.

A swing coach, a fitness coach, a club-fitting expert. More ‘experts’ have been added along the way, for instance a chiropractor and an orthopedic surgeon, and the fitness coach has perhaps been replaced by a physical therapist.

Sadly they all lack a ‘joint coach’. Never heard of one? What would a joint coach DO for a golfer? Well, tell them which of their joints are not in positions they are DESIGNED to work from, and how to correct that situation.

Never mind all that for now. Get this first!

Did you know Tom Watson might not be as kind as he should be to his workers and not even know it? Tom Watson? One of golf’s last remaining gentlemen? Impossible you say. Well read on to see what his MOST INTIMATE workers say about him….. (if you don’t ‘get it’ immediately, scroll down to see the pictures at the end which explain what’s going on)

Worker L5 to C1 and C2: “Hey you two love-birds up there. Stop moving around so much. It hurts. Remember, even though I’m way down here I’m the biggest one of all of you. I’ll just stop behaving if you mess with me.”

C2 (the lower one of the two ‘lovebirds’): “Hey big bro L5. Don’t be mad at me. I’m as stuck as you are. What can I do if C1 moves left, then right, then down…..”

T1 to T12: “Quiet you complainers…”

L1, L2, L3 and L4: “All you Ts. Shut up. You have those big ribs to protect you, how can you feel our pain…. OUCH! UGH! CRASH. Tom just rammed down hard on us for stupid old impact. L5, man up down there and please push down hard on that lazy guy Mr Sacrum and on Ms. Femur- she has lots of room to move about any which way. Let her feel our pain too.”

Sly old Ms Right Femur: Hey guys, don’t think you can pull the wool (I mean cartilage) over my eyes (my acetabulum, that is). I’ll just push at grumpy old Mr Right Knee. He can handle it. Here I go….. down, down, down…

Mr Right Knee: “You folks up there are so mean. I’m old and have taken a beating from all of you all my life. Stop bothering me why can’t you bother those underused forearm dudes and that silly elbow, why me all the…….OOOH, UGH, CRUNCH, AAARGH. Hey my twin bro, Left. How’re you faring?

Mr. (gossipy) Left Knee: “I did tell you Tom fired my upstairs neighbor Left Hip and REPLACED him, didn’t I? Poor guy, he’d worked so hard and been so misused for so long and then WHAM, just like that, he’s replaced. I tell you, it’s the fault of my downstairs neighbor, that little flibbertigibbet, pass-the-buck Miss Left Ankle. She never pulls her weight. She won’t even stay grounded for Tom’s backswing – but here’s a secret – boy do we all push down on her together at the start of the downswing. But Bro, I’m more worried about you. Our union is better than yours. The secret plan is to push all responsibility onto you guys for the downswing – I think they’re calling it the COUP OF THE DOWNSWING-REVERSE-WEIGHT-SHIFT. So, be careful, I hurt for you.

Mrs Right Elbow: “Right Knee. You’re just a complainer. I’m much smaller and far more sensitive than you’ll ever be, so mind your own busi…….. EEEEOWWWW.”

SILENCE.

Golf Ball: “Hello Clubhead. Don’t you love me any more? We used to be so close many years ago, I stayed on your face for a long time. Now it’s such a glancing contact”? WHAT HAPPENED TO US?

Tom is mistreating his most intimate workers – HIS JOINTS (and the hapless golfball too!) – and does not even know it!

Look at his ‘lovebirds’ C1 and C2:

MORAL of STORY: ALL GOLFERS NEED a JOINT COACH before ANY OTHER COACH.

(NOT JUST any such JOINT coach, but one who has a background in anatomy and biomechanics plus 25 years experience in instructing golf, ie. in seeing how people mis-use their closest workers all the time!)

WHAT CAN A JOINT COACH DO? Position YOUR JOINTS so they WORK TOGETHER for BEST RESULTS and LEAST INJURY.

The MINIMALIST GOLF SWING SYSTEM is the only system in the world which works-backwards from the club-ball requirements of ideal impact to position ALL the body’s major joints so they can WORK TOGETHER during the downswing.

The RESULT? LENGTH for your shots, LONGEVITY for your golf career.

[Note 1: the HUMAN SPINE has 7 cervical – neck region, 12 thoracic – chest or rib-cage region, and 5 lumbar vertebrae, which are the most mobile joints of the spine]

[Note 2: C1 and C2 – the ‘lovebirds’ are the first and second vertebrae of the neck]

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Kiran Kanwar | May 23, 2013

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Off-course diary today – the sand-storm quantities of pollen will do anyone in.

A case-study of one of the ‘poor things’ (ie. most of the Seniors at the 2013 Seniors’ Championship)

In one’s college days, any movement that involved a big up and down element, was compared to ‘bouncing up and down like a loo seat at a mixed party’.

And that is the farcical level to which the golf swing has sunk. Current ‘thinkers’ in the game either disregard or actively require, the left side of the body – the left trunk (for the right handed golfer) to drop below the right during the backswing. How does that make sense? If the right side must be lower at address (just because the right hand is placed below the left) and once again at impact, what sense does it make to let it rise during the backswing?

So, given that people do make this move, what next? During the downswing, they must first drop the right side (which involves re-positioning 24 actively moving vertebrae!) so that the right arm can become fairly straight at the elbow, then further raise the left side, so that the bent right wrist can straighten!

Now our ‘poor’ Seniors (who have lost strength, rotary speed, neuro-muscular co-ordination and thus that elusive thing we call ‘timing’ in golf), are unable to bounce up and down so much and so fast. So, after they raise the right side during the backswing, their right side drops down just enough to straighten the right arm, but does not allow further left side lift to straighten the right wrist too. Hence all the ‘shrunken’ positions of impact which can be seen in the Diary entry of Day 2 below.

That is the reason the Seniors’ have lost zip and oomph to their ball contact. If the left side is unable to ultimately lift to straighten the right wrist, the club is unable to bow out and truly compress the ball by connecting it below its equator.

Their loss of ability to be ‘loo seats’ is ALSO the reason they suffer from so much injury.

Dropping the left side down/raising the right side during the backswing, makes the left knee and ankle bend, both of which must straighten up abruptly as the body tries to rotate during the downswing. Hence back and lower limb – hip, knee, maybe ankle – injury.

At the same time, raising the right side during the backswing allows the right shoulder, elbow, forearm and wrist to get into all sorts of awkward positions. Hence upper-limb injury, of both sides but especially left.

See Curtis Stange’s swing as a case-in-point:

Backswing left side drop allows awkward right upper-limb positions. Now he must try to straighten his right elbow on a plane it was not designed to straighten on! No wonder he wears a black armband – maybe it signifies the death of perfect golf!

If the right arm were to be positioned correctly (and many intuitively good teachers try to make that happen), his elbow would unbend correctly, and he’d have less chance for elbow injury.

However, attending to only one joint to attempt an injury-free swing IS NOT ENOUGH. ALL the major joints of the body must be positioned appropriately at the top of the backswing so that they can WORK TOGETHER to create the most efficient downswing the human body is capable of making, based on it’s design. ONLY the Minimalist Golf Swing System positions ALL the joints correctly for the full-swing, pitch/bunker, chip and putt strokes.

That means, with the MGSS, the ‘loo seat’ has one less up-and-down movement to make (just level and then one final ‘up’ of left side to induce ball-compression regardless of lost strength, speed, vitality, whatever)!

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Kiran Kanwar | May 23, 2013

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Final practice round and last opportunity to take photographs/video of the players

1.00 pm: attended interviews by Peter Jacobsen and Tom Watson

To hear them talk of all their injuries and surgeries OF JOINTS is painful.

HOW can they NOT have injury if neither they nor their instructors have any background in human movement science?

Would you go to an orthopedic surgeon to have a knee replaced who did not know every possible detail of the knee joint capsule, all of its ligaments and which direction of movement they restrict, where the cartilage is, where the meniscii are, how the femur and tibia lie with relation to one another, not to mention the nerves innervating the area, all the muscles, the arteries and veins that pass by, leave alone the many bursae?

Cases in point:

Curtis Strange wears an elbow band. Look at his top-of-backswing below. Look at how his right elbow and right wrist are positioned. He does not have the timing of his youth, and so his elbow cannot drop backwards as well as straighten in time for good impact. He keeps his awkward bend (‘V’ of the elbow facing the sky) of his elbow almost to impact, then demands of it that it straighten on the ‘frontal plane’ (similar to a ferris-wheel), BUT the elbow is designed to straighten on the sagittal plane. So, the poor elbow is being forced to do something it is not designed to do!

Read the ‘Walking the Talk’ section of this blog for a detailed discussion of everything anyone could possibly wish to know about ‘tennis’ and ‘golf’ elbows, PLUS 10 pages of how they can develop in the golf swing.

Dick Mast has sciatic pain. He “knows what he must do, his pro has told him, but he cannot do it because he is in pain”. Does his pro know his left hip is in its closed packed position at and past impact ( 20 degree extension, 50 degree abduction and 40 degree internal rotation), which could lead to his piriformis muscle impinging on his sciatic nerve? Or lead to compression of the nerve in the spinal level itself?

It’s ALL ABOUT knowing where the club needs to be for impact, then FORGETTING about the club, and simply positioning all your major joints so that they CANNOT HELP BUT deliver the club correctly, BECAUSE they have been placed in accordance with what they are DESIGNED TO DO!

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Kiran Kanwar | May 22, 2013

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Tuesday 21st May – first official Practice Round/ Pro-Am:

6 am: Email from Media with the sad news that Freddie Couples withdraws due to back injuries.

8 am: Walk up to a Pro and his caddie, and say, “I’m the person who called expecting to speak with your secretary Helen, but you answered the phone instead” Reply, “I’m Peter Jaconbsen, who were you trying to contact?” Oops!

8.30 am: Tom Watson arrives on driving range. Tosses a few balls towards Tom Kite who’s practicing 2 people past him on the driving range. All building up to a relaxed, fun day of Pro-Am.

9 am: Rene Knott, local celebrity TV broadcaster interviewing Tom Watson. Then I sneak in a question, “Mr Watson, which hip did you have replaced, does it still bother you?” And he replies “Left hip and it hurts now and then.”

12.10: have an appointment to explain my golf-swing research and the Minimalist Golf Swing to one of the most famous of the senior golfers, one who has done some swing-related research too. So, he says, “I’m on a tight schedule, need to have lunch while we talk – so we walk into the clubhouse but, oops, we’re heading towards the men’s locker room!”

3-4 pm: Meet one local Teaching pro and one local Touring pro, the former with right knee injury, the latter with spine injury, both willing to listen to how the Minimalist Golf swing not only gives better ball-striking but is less likely to cause injury.

5 pm: have single handedly inhaled all the oak and dandelion fluff flying around and am ready to leave, when another big name golfer, (who actually was the one who’d picked up the phone on behalf of secretary Helen) is ready to meet up to learn a bit about The Minimalist Golf Swing System and the research behind it. And they give me a very fair hearing, and even agree with a lot of what I’m saying, sight-unseen. No-one in India ever has! Why not?

Now for a look at IMPACT – the MOMENT OF TRUTH. Compare the higher left shoulder (right for Bubba) of impact of Rory/Bubba/Tiger with the shriveled-up positions of the seniors. The same swings which had enough timing to stand up after shrinking no longer can! So, that huge divot and BLUDGEON of the ball have become a mere SMOTHER (see the video in the golf-videos section of this blog, “Is YOUR swing a lot of BS?”).

That is NOT to say the DOWN movement at the start of the downswing is good, but that the UP is.

Why? It means the straightening wrists are forcing the left side of the body up, which in turn gives the golfer a very extended left arm and much more ball-compression. Judge for yourself:

Tommy Armour III, Chip Beck, Curtis Strange (Top pic.)

Hale Irwin, Mike Hulbert, Jay Haas, Mark Calcavecchia (second from top)

Peter Jacobsen, Bob Gaus (local PGA Pro), Tom Kite

Now Look at Minimalist Golf Swing Rock Star (similar age)

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Kiran Kanwar | May 21, 2013

Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis

Monday 20th May:

9 am at Bellerive Country Club

It’s pouring rain and then ten minutes later the sun is out. Typical St Louis.

The M (media) parking lot is so conveniently close to the Clubhouse – Media Credentials courtesy Editor Spencer Robinson who wants article(s) comparing the swings of senior golfers vs. regular Tour players and how swings change with age, for Asian Golf Monthly.

Each former winner has a reserved parking spot right next to the clubhouse, and, you guessed it, Tom Watson’s is closest.

Met lots of PGA of America teaching pros, shows how long I’ve been around the St Louis area. The driving range was like a train-station at rsh-hour (on the Monday before the event!). Everyone who’s been anyone in golf for decades was there or would be there soon.

Watched swings from right on the driving range and felt so sorry for the poor Seniors. Their ball-striking has lost all oomph, they hit them fat, low, any-which-ways.

The reason? Where formerly they could ‘BLUDGEON’ the ball into submission the same swing (which has lost strength, rotary speed, neuro-muscular co-ordination and timing, with age) now merely ‘SMOTHERs’ the ball. Before they’d simply gouge out a divot while their bodies were getting taller through impact (watch Tiger), and the ball would ride out on the divot, and not look too shabby, even though contact was never completely crisp. Now their bodies simply shrink through impact (see Bobby Clampett’s swing below), and merely smother the ball.

At the same time, the swings – whose inefficiency is now revealed – have been overused for years as well as suffer from poor-mechanics (people have always assumed ‘the pros’ do not have poor mechanics, so not true from an anatomical perspective). So, the ‘older guys’ suffer all sorts of injury and thus surgery too.

4 pm at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Chesterfield

Stryker is a company which makes artificial joints, and Fred Funk, who has a brilliantly successful knee replacement some tears ago is now sponsored by them and is their spokesperson. So, at a great seminar where Dr Kurt Merkel of Missouri Baptist (they now have a special joint replacement center) spoke of hip and knee replacements, along with time to golf readiness after surgery, Fred Funk told his story of knee replacement and how 5 other Champions (Senior) Tour players have also had right knee replacement.

See Mr Funk’s swing below to understand exactly how – his downswing requires him to torque his right knee inwards, putting a lot of (valgus) pressure on the outside (lateral side) of the knee, creating stress on that part, and that indeed was the part where he lost cartilage! The compressive pressure on the knee is increased as Funk lift his right shoulder during the backswing, then must drop it down during the downswing!

Finally, also see, in the ‘walking the talk’ section of this blog my assessment of Tiger’s (left) knee injury.

The MINIMALIST GOLF SWING (see rationale http://minimalistgolfswingblog.com/the-minimalist-golf-swing/) is the ONLY golf swing, and probably SPORTS MOVEMENT to take into account first what needs to be done (at club-ball contact) then REVERSE ENGINEERS the required impact positions to anatomically sound positions of all joints during the swing, based on their design capabilities!

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