First tourney of the year, swing update and all sorts of new stuff

First off, I didn’t want to say anything until now as I was afraid of Jinxing it, but AT&T randomly chose me (along with three others) to head down to Pebble Beach next week to do a week long Fans Eye View of the 30th annual AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Included in that are getting to play in a Pro-Am on Monday, a day of swing analysis, walking historic tours of Pebble, close views of the actual Pro-Am and then a chance to play Pebble the day after the tourney ends. I’m not sure what I can and can’t say at this point, but I am SUPER excited just to get a chance to see the courses down there, let alone tee it up on a couple of them. I will be blogging and talking about it all very soon as it unfolds.

When they reached out to me about a month ago I was speechless. They asked if I was able to make the trip and I, of course, said yes and since that day the details have been filling in. I fly out Sunday morning and will be down there for the next week. Much more on that to come as it unfolds.

In the interim, I played the first “tourney” of the year up here in Portland. It’s in the thick of winter and there aren’t that many events going on, but I played in a two-man shamble event with another golfer last Sunday. It was the Heron Lakes Super Bowl shamble and Ed and I had a good time, although we didn’t make putts all day and those things really just come down to whoever is hitting their irons and making putts. At least one of us was on the green on every hole, but we just couldn’t finish the deal and ended up with simply two birdies a piece on the day. Not that great when a two-man team came in at 60…

The good news is that event, in a way, kicks off the tourney season here in Portland. December and January are pretty much dead as the winter allows for only so much sunlight and golfing time, but now that the sun sets post 5pm things are looking brighter.

Not to say I haven’t been playing in competitive rounds as at Riverside we have games on Thursday and Saturday which are basically the same as the competition days in Australia and Europe. What I mean is there is money on the line and the club posts your rounds. So, in a way, I play in at least to “competition” rounds each week, although here in the states we just call them money games. I think there is just a subtle difference in perception. However it is, there are ways to get pressure rounds in no matter what day of the week or where you currently are in your game.

The real tourney season starts up in March with a few “Iceberg” opens around town and then amplify through the summer months. I’m very much looking forward to those and am excited to test the new swing in events I have participated in through the past.

Speaking of the swing, here is a quick video of my new swing. I have been working on changing a few things:

and here is a breakdown of how I compare with Luke Donald at the takeaway:

Kind of fascinating how I have changed from being under the line to over the line. I think it’s time to find a winter coach… I have been working on trying to get more on plane and after seeing this it’s easy to realize that I have gone over the top. The good news is that I am hitting a ton of fairways right now. If my iron play was up to snuff with my driver I would be shooting par or better as I am hitting 10-12 fairways a round.

It’s always something…

Pebble Beach soon!!! Will post from there as much as possible. Love this game!

10 Responses to "First tourney of the year, swing update and all sorts of new stuff"

Brett says:

February 5, 2015 at 9:01 pm

I would reccamend Harold bluestien out at Tri-mountain he really knows his stuff.
Mike Woodhouse says:

February 6, 2015 at 3:02 am

Watched the first video and thought there was something a little funky going on in the takeaway (although I couldn’t tell exactly what). Pleased to see in the second one that I wasn’t alone. From the top of the backswing it all looked OK, though: looks like your hands drop a little and come through from inside pretty much on plane. But what do I know? (Answer: not much).

Exciting news about Pebble, looking forward to reading about it.
Richard Chen says:

February 6, 2015 at 1:43 pm

Congratulations on being invited to participate in the Pebble Beach festivities. It’s a real feather in your cap.

The downswing part of the driver shot in the first video looks real good. When the leading arm has swung down to about horizontal, it is still inside with the chest closed. This shows good flexibility, that shows shades of McIlroy’s downswing shown in a Youtube analysis. Clubface looked squared at impact, although not able to freeze the Youtube video frame at impact, as it keeps skipping past the impact frame to the follow though frames. The initial follow through looks good in a down-the-line follow through.

The second video did not show the backswing after the club shaft rise above horizontal, where the standard upright backswing differs from the flat backswing, which is similar to the flat backswings of the Bobby Jones era, and before. In the standard upright backswing, the rear elbow rises away from the body to allow the leading arm to swing more upwards and less backwards to the top of the backswing. At the top, the upright backswing has the hands over between the head and the rear shoulder, rather than the hands behind the rear shoulder at the top of the backswing.

Before the Jones era, the rear elbow stay basically glued to the side of the body during the whole of the backswing, resulting in a flat backswing. It is called the Scottish backswing, which also had the stance very opened like Travino’s stance. Bobby Jones kept the rear elbow close to the side of the body during the first part of the backswing like in the Scottish backswing, but he allowed the rear elbow to rise up away from the side of the body a little at the top of the backswing for a more upright backswing than before his era. However, he still needed to “loop” the downswing to create a more upright downswing path (plane) as he used a fairly square stance rather than the open stance. Obviously, Jones showed that “looping” can be a very effective way of making the back and down swings. A well know instructor on Youtube claimed that the looping swing is by nature a more consistent swing than the regular swing where the downswing arc is underneath the backswing arc. He said that the looping swing is used by railroad workers to hammer railroad spikes in a very consistent and accurate manner.

Well, the ball is not hit by the backswing, so that the backswing is not really as important as the downswing. The backswing can be none “standard” by modern standards, but if the downswing is good, good results can be attained.

The supposed advantage of the flat backswing is that the arms and elbows stay close to the body during the backswing, so that they more easily stay close to the body during the downswing to provide more body controlling of the arms and hands. The disadvantages of the flat backswing are that the leading arm may “roll” during the backswing (an extra independent twisting and extra rotation of the leading arm during the backswing) which needs to be “unrolled” when it happens in a flat backswing, making the downswing more complicated (but that can be managed by extra work like Hogan.) The flat backswing may encourage a flat downswing with the arms swinging far out away from the body during the downswing, in which case can slow down the downswing body turn according to the physics law of the conservation of angular momentum, unless the downswing is made more upright via looping like Jones.

Standing closer to the ball at setup with the hands closer to the body during address will encourage a more upright backswing. An upright swing tends to demand good leading side control and strength, when the rear elbow as well as the leading arm are allowed to leave the body during the backswing to the top of the backswing.
Kate says:

February 6, 2015 at 7:41 pm

Your handicap stats aren’t updated. Last one updated in October of 2014. Nice project though!
Sandman says:

February 7, 2015 at 3:14 pm

I retooled my swing through videos of Mike Austin, clearly the best teacher of the classic golf swing, hands down. There are many playlists on YouTube. Watch them all and learn how to hit a golf ball the right way.

BTW – I’m a true lefty so I know what I’m talkin’ bout

Do you due diligence…
Charlie says:

February 8, 2015 at 6:57 pm

Can’t wait to hear what tees you’ll be hitting from at Pebble Beach (or one of the other courses). If it’s not the tips, how much longer a course will the pros be playing? If I were you, I’d play for par on all the par 3′s and par 5′s, and safe bogies on all of the longer par 4′s. That would put you in the 77-79 range, a good score on a tour set-up course regardless of the length.

Ray Floyd put it best: Play comfortable.

Good luck and have fun.
Geoff Dening says:

February 10, 2015 at 2:10 am

Congrats on the Pebble Beach invite Dan. Enjoy the golfing and the atmosphere, have fun and soak up the undercurrent of the competitive tournament. It is a major opportunity to experience first hand what it takes at the top end of the professional ranks.
Vincent Rosenbalm says:

February 13, 2015 at 8:28 am

Saw Pebble PGA event on TV yesterday with perfect weather conditions 75 sunny and little wind, scores were low but that ocean can throw some weather often, I doubt they will have 4 consecutive great weather days, but maybe get lucky with 3. Good opportunity to get some tournament play in Dan and hopefully you can get in the mix of playing more events in coming year. Arizona has a huge amount of small events going on all winter, and many PGA and Web.com pros and other good players are playing skins games all winter. Weather has been in 80/s for over a week straight now, but predicted to cool down to 70,s next week, Ideal conditions to play and practice all winter, and Coachella valley very similar. Good luck at Pebble. Vince
Leonard Zaichkowsky says:

February 13, 2015 at 8:31 am

Dan, thanks for the update. And what wonderful news–going to Pebble Beach. Enjoy the moments!
erik says:

February 13, 2015 at 9:23 am

Isn’t the comparison video to Luke Donald flawed due to differences in the camera? He’s being filmed with what looks like a telephoto, while yours is much more wide-angle. Something to keep in mind in case the placement of those red circles were bothering you.

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