Technique over Aesthetics: The Dynamics That Make a Hogan Swing

We unpack how John Erickson decoded Ben Hogan’s real mechanics and turned them into a trainable system that manages shaft pressure, not poses. The talk gets practical with drills, gear choices, and practice habits that produce penetrating flight and stable clubface control.

• early wrist set to remove transition pressure
• tripping the shaft to the 4:30 line
• frozen right elbow and low‑left exit
• delayed torso rotation to hold shaft flex
• corkscrew backswing and free ride down drills
• explosion into finish for faster left shoulder
• under‑plane early, up to plane late concept
• flatter lie angles and heavier heads for stability
• practice minimalism: drills over buckets
• biasing misses short‑right for scoring
• ABS framework vs Hogan‑specific modules
• student progress: mid‑ and long‑iron gains

Rate, review and subscribe. Visit advanceballstriking.com. All links in the show notes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting the Stage: Hogan Unveiled
• 3:35 Guests, Backgrounds, and Stakes
• 8:15 Why Hogan’s Books Weren’t Enough
• 15:30 Early Set, Tripping the Shaft, 4:30 Line
• 22:40 Student Lens: Flattening, Wrist Set, Elbow
• 28:50 Dynamics Over Poses: What Really Matters
• 35:10 From Concept to Trainable Method
• 41:30 Breakthrough Shots and Repeatability
• 47:00 Practice Philosophy: Drills, Not Buckets
• 54:20 Penetration vs Height: Holding Shaft Flex
• 1:01:00 Integrating Feel: Corkscrew, Free Ride Down
• 1:08:20 Under-Plane Early, Up to Plane Late
• 1:15:10 Flat Lies, Heavy Gear, And Why It Matters
• 1:22:10 Biasing the Miss: Short-Right Advantage
• 1:28:30 Strength, Flexibility, Technique: The Trio

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:00

Hello, this is Jesse Perryman of the Flag Hunter's Golf Podcast. Welcoming you to another edition, this one's special. We are going into Mr. Ben Hogan via my coach, instructor, friend, and somebody I trust implicitly. His name is John Erickson. He is the father of advanced ball striking. For those who are longtime listeners, you're familiar with John. You may even be a part of the advanced ball striking community. And what his latest discoveries have been with Hogan, uh coming out with the Hogan modules and understanding deciphering Hogan's principles, the way that he delivered and pressured the golf club is now unveiled fully. And this is a very special, special uh conversation because John explains uh how he did it, what he's discovered, and the way to train it. Uh he does it uh in such a heartfelt, smart, instructive, intuitive way that I think you, the listener, would are going to be able to grasp it. There's been many people who've taken stabs at Hogan. Uh, I believe that John got this one right. So without further ado, uh any questions, comments, please go to advanceballstriking.com. You know how to get a hold of me. I will make sure all the links are in the show notes. And please remember to rate review and subscribe. John Erickson, everyone. Uh, last week it was with John Erickson, founder of Advanced Ball Striking, myself, and and Justin Tang. And this week it's John myself and Paul Davenport. Paul has been on the pod before. He is also a fellow advanced ball striking student uh coming back to the game after some years off, and he was a multiple uh tournament winner on the Canadian tour. John is also a winner on the Canadian tour. So, you know, uh this uh this information and methodology isn't just uh ha has the interest of former tour winners and and uh and people that want to swing the club about as close to Hogan as they can get. But boys, hey, I thank you for coming on. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 3:05

It's always good to be back on the podcast. Black hunter.

SPEAKER_04: 3:09

That's right. That's right. Well, this is uh this is week two. Uh those who tuned in last week to John, Justin, and myself got a pretty good uh intro uh into what John discovered. And uh, you know, John, you and I are are bros and we talk pretty pretty regularly. And I just I know I said it last week, but this time I really want to say, you know, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Because uh those of us who have been Hogan fans our entire lives, and I speak for uh you know many generations that play this game that that hold him in the highest regard, uh, just a big thank you for uh for doing what you've done.

SPEAKER_01: 3:59

Well, it's been said that all paths lead to Hogan eventually, right? I mean, if you're into advanced uh techniques and ball control and that sort of thing, you know, you're gonna probably end up at studying Hogan at some point. Even uh, you know, Paul and I both knew Mo from playing the Canadian tour, and Mo would talk about Hogan, right? So, you know, you're you're you're gonna if you're on Mo's path at some point, you're gonna go down that route. George Newton, who the great Canadian striker was a huge Hogan disciple and fan of his striking and teachings and that sort of thing, and knew knew Hogan and learned a lot from him, and he was you know one of the great ball strikers of all time. So um, you know, I just thought, yeah, let's let's go in and really take a look at this and try and figure out if was Hogan was actually doing something different than what you know other you know great players have done. And the answer to that is undeniably yes.

SPEAKER_04: 5:02

So uh segueing in from that into actually being a student of this and actually working the drills uh that you have found a way to be teachable, understandable, palpable, and actually getting the body prepared to handle different uh uh you know, maybe some mobility stuff, uh different pressures, and feeling some unique pressures that I've never felt before in my life, aka now I know why Hogan had the extra screw in his right foot because I actually feel it pressure-wise.

SPEAKER_02: 5:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 5:43

So we're gonna get into that as fellow students, uh uh Paul and myself uh and talk about sort of the changes. I mean, Paul's been putting up his golf swing on the on the website on the advanced ball striker forum. And his his action now looks I mean it looks really close to Nick Valdo's. It's kind of a trip. Yeah, it looks like it looks a lot like Nick Valdo's swing. But when Nick was, you know, in the late 80s, early 90s, when he was number one, and he had a pretty pizza.

SPEAKER_00: 6:16

It's funny you say that because um when I uh looked at one of my latest videos that I put out there, um I saw Steve Elkington. Um I was like, oh my god, like uh just I I look like I remember Steve Elkington looking when I used to watch him on the range in Australia. And uh and I was like, I never thought I'd say that about myself. Um but uh but that's what it looked like, and and um you know working on these modules and then going to the range and hitting, like I've got certain things when I actually want to go and have golf balls that I'm I'm only thinking about that one thing because I can't think about everything at once. And um and so possibly I was just looking at that when I look back at the video, and it what it was is the uh the wrist action at the top of the swing, the the flatter position, my right elbow being in a better position, and more wrist action because I've never had a lot of wrist action before. And uh so I was kind of zeroing in on that, and I was like, wow, that looks like Steve Elkington, and and possibly the follow-through too is more kind of Steve Elkington, which uh you know I take that as a compliment for myself.

SPEAKER_04: 7:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 7:32

Yeah, but it's uh it's not uh not where I want it yet.

SPEAKER_04: 7:39

Well that's a lot of work to come. That's the that's the beautiful thing about it, is that uh John figured out a way to streamline what Hogan took, you know, many, many years to to come up with uh with what he came up with. And then John figured it out, and here we are, Paul, you and me, and the uh hopefully a lot of other people.

SPEAKER_01: 8:02

Yeah, and me as well. I mean, I'm a student of this stuff too. I mean, it's just breaking it all down and figuring out, okay, what's actually really going on. You know, people have read Hogan's books, and a lot of you know, millions of people have read those books, and millions of people have have fallen way short of swinging anything like what Hogan did from reading his books. You know, I I don't think he really took a deep dive in the books. It's they're they're good books. I'm not saying they're bad. I you know, they're pretty basic, novice, you know, grip stance posture books, you know, get you pointed in the right direction, but he's not you know telling you exactly what he did or how he tripped the shaft or holding shaft flex into the strike or the way that he moved laterally, pressuring off the right foot and saving the torso rotation into deep into the downswing, and and the way that he you know released, or you could say didn't release the club, really going through it, and the hands working low left and around, and you know, he didn't talk about you know flat line goals and the kind of shafts and super stiff shafts and heavier heads and all the stuff that he did. Um, you know, it's not in the books. I mean, there's other places you can get that information, but I think what was really needed is um something more comprehensive for people that want to go down that path and try and uh learn from and incorporate you know the greatest ball striker of all time. I mean, I I think if you were a you know a hockey player, you'd probably look at techniques of you know Gretzky or whatever. If you're you know other sports, if you're a baseball hitter, you might be looking at the last guy that hit 400 was Ted Williams, I think in 1942. You might want to take a look at his technique. And I've actually been studying that a bit recently and notice that he's tripping the bat just like Hogan was tripping the shaft. And you know, it's quite stunning actually when you go down and and take a look at what's going on. So just kind of pulling it all together. It took about 10 years, just um getting inside that kind of swing, figuring out what's going on, where the pressures are happening, what the objective is, and what Hogan was actually doing rather than what he said he was doing in the books or what he said he's doing on, you know, the TV show, or you know, different little lessons he gave after the sleed match or something, you know, little pointers or things, you know, uh just to really take the deep dive, like what's really going on, what's happening in the feet, what's happening in the hips, what's happening with the rotation, forarms and wrists and all that, and then just putting it together and then saying, you know, is this teachable? You know, can this is this a methodology that can actually be taught? And I wasn't really sure, you know, years ago if you know that's just kind of his swing. Hogan was a you know, super athlete or whatever, had this kind of personalized swing, and and uh, you know, you can pick up a few things from it. But you know, if you look at other sports like in the Olympics or something, say the figure skaters and they jump in the air and they spin five times around and land on a on the correct edge of their skate or whatever, uh, you know, they have to do certain things, you know, it's required, like you have to do this certain move or whatever. Um, I thought, well, you know, what if you approached golf like that and you said, okay, well, here's the you know, the great striker. And if you want to, you know, strike a golf ball like this, then you're gonna need to do these certain things. It's not just whatever works for you. It's like, no, here's a technique. There's there's a way that this can be done and applied to the human body. And and so I just kind of took it that approach, like, you know, I think that this can be it can be learned, it can be understood, uh, take away the veil and expose what's actually happening, and then uh put together a teaching program, and that's where we're at right now. So, you know, it was great to have Paul jump on board. I had to kind of twist his arm and say, hey man, come on and you know, be one of my test subjects here because you know, I need some good players to jump in. And we've had some like yourself, Jesse's been working on it too, and a few of the guys. And uh, you know, so the success of this is gonna depend upon the student success, right? So, you know, and it it's it's not something that just happens overnight. You know, you're gonna have to work at it just like anything else. I'm a musician, I play drums, I play guitar, I gotta sit there and put in the hours. You know, you gotta learn this chord and that chord and figure out the scales in between and you know, all that stuff. And, you know, it's just uh playing piano or trumpet or whatever. You can just pick it up and play like Miles Davis right away or anything. You know, you you gotta learn these things, it's just like anything else. And so here's a pathway for somebody that really wants to embrace this methodology. Of course, there's other great, you know, players like Nicholas had a completely different technique than uh Ben Hogan or Bobby Jones, Trevino's technique is there's a lot of similarities to Hogan, but it's different, right? Mo had a very different technique, a lot of again, a lot of similarities, I would say, to Hogan as well. But um, you know, but a lot of great players, a lot of different ways to do it. But Hogan is very specific, right? So it's a very specific thing, and there's certain things that you have to do if you want to get in that conversation of a Ben Hogan kind of golf swing. So that that's kind of where kind of where it's all at right now.

unknown: 13:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 13:23

Paul, do you uh feel after doing uh the Hogan modules well what what's been manifesting in your golf swing? Well, what what do you think? What what internally do you feel if different, how does your body feel? And then translated to when you go out and hit balls and play, what does that look like on the golf course or on the range?

SPEAKER_00: 13:49

Yeah, well, first and foremost, I mean, I'm swinging a lot flatter than um I ever did before. Um, when I started ABS, I tried to flatten out my swing a little bit, um, but this is on a whole different level. And if you look at my swing, you wouldn't go, oh wow, that's really flat, like at the moment. But from where I was and the feelings I have, like I literally feel like I'm swinging the club around my waist when I'm having balls and breath. And and I feel like my right elbow is still stuck to my rib cage, and I put on video, and there's my right elbow away from my side, and my arms actually probably where you kind of want it, you know, across my shoulders. I like it a little flatter. Um, but it's amazing what what it feels like and then where it actually is. It just shows you how hard you've got to work at this stuff to to make a change. Um my forearms roting rotating the club open um while maintaining a cut, slightly cut left wrist was difficult for me. I kind of to swing it flat, I kind of felt like I had to swing it inside, and when I tried to do that, I um my left wrist bowed, and it took a took a really conscious effort to keep that left wrist cut for me. Um but then keeping it cut, my right elbow wanted to fly. So it was a combination of getting the flexibility in my arms from where my I naturally was for my whole golfing life. I kind of had a flying right elbow and a little bit more upright, kind of necklace, um, to to where I'm trying to get it, and that's still a working process, it probably will be for a long time. Um, but it feels more natural now, like I can swing back and my left wrist is slightly cut without thinking about it now. Um, but then corkscrewing the forearms once I've got back there, having more wrist action and the corkscrewing, that's my my forearms weren't ready for that. Like that's that's a lot of pressure when you haven't done that before. That's a lot, that's a whole new level of stretching in that area for me. And and again it comes down to my right elbow wants to naturally fly. So to keep my right elbow down and keep my left wrist cut, now I'm feeling these pressures that I haven't felt before, and it's it's awkward feeling. And then to do that and then put a golf ball in front of you and trying to hit it, it's like what so you've gotta you gotta do the drills inside with the uh impact bag and so forth. And I use my bed uh to feel, you know, it's um maybe mod one of the Hogan's uh, you know, getting it flat, and um I just uh flatten it out onto the bed that way. And um that's easier club sitting right there in the bedroom. I can go ahead and do that before I go to bed. Um but yeah, going and hitting golf balls, I mean, oh my god, you feel like you're you're doing something so exaggerated, you put it on video and like whoa, wow, it's barely changed. So it's you know, it's um it's a it's a work in process. And and everyone's got their things, right? Like for me, I just mentioned my I naturally used to swing a little more upright. Um my right elbow wanted to fly a little. I was kind of firm wristd and then downcocked. Um and to try and get my wrist setting early and cocking early and having it to where in the Hogan modules you want it, it's really difficult for me. It's a conscious thought. It it almost feels like I'm letting go of the club. Um wrist cock. It feels like I'm I'm letting go of the club. Maybe I was just too far the other way, and then you know, so it's it's a process, you know, and that's kind of where I'm at. I'm I'm working on tripping the shaft now. Um, but to hit a golf ball and trip the shaft is like not that easy. So uh it's gotta be a lot of module work at home to uh to get that working. I can I can do it and hit the ball, but not at speed.

unknown: 17:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 17:57

So uh yeah. It's uh there's a lot of different sensations going on. I imagine it's different for everyone. Everyone's got their natural tendencies, and uh you've got to change when you need to change it. It's different for everyone, I think.

SPEAKER_01: 18:10

Yeah, for me, it's you know the hardest thing, you know. I I was always a late handsetter, so very hard to get my hands to set earlier on the backswing. But once I nail down the final intention of where I want the club at the top of the swing, then that naturally would force myself to set the hands earlier. So if I hold that intention in my in my mind, like I need to get it here, then the hands just they have to set earlier to get it there. So I don't actually have to think about setting the hands uh early going back. I just think about the end result of where I want to be. Because we have to get, as you know from the module work, to be able to trip the shaft, you have to set the hands you know fairly early so you can get that right angle to then where you can, in fact, trip the shaft. Because uh the way that I, you know, would load the club late, it's impossible to trip the shaft with that kind of a backswing. So that's exactly what is it?

SPEAKER_04: 19:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's interesting. That you know, I've never been a late loader, so for me it's easier. And you know, taking and another thing I wanted to bring up too, gents, is the taking it inside because I can suspect that if you're if you if you set the club late, you're not really taking the club inside. Yeah, so I mean that's gotta feel wildly different. Wildly, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:32

Yeah, I mean, I was taught like the the necklace weight, like the big one-piece takeaway, the big Y, like like Nicholas and and Greg Norman who copied Nicholas too. Um, you know, you have these big Y takeaways with almost no wrist till you're right at the top, and then you kind of down copy. Yeah, and um and that's you know, Nicholas was my hero growing up. He's the guy I thought, well, you know, his greatest ever, so you copy that. And uh so that that's how I learned. And that's uh you know, so fighting that natural tendency for me is uh, you know, it's coming, it's it's getting there, it's a lot better than it used to be, but it's uh it takes thought, right?

SPEAKER_01: 20:13

Yeah, so just to clarify for the listeners here, you know, that we're we're not really trying to emulate positions so much like, oh, we want our swing to look like Ben Hogan's. What we're really trying to do is embrace the the actual dynamics of what's happening in the swing. So the reason that we would set our hands earlier, we're trying to get in a position where we can trip the shaft, and that's all explained. It's a fairly complicated thing, uh, hard to explain it, you know, over a podcast here. But but essentially what we're doing is taking pressure off the shaft at the transition. So by taking pressure off the shaft, as you start move moving laterally and moving uh towards the golf ball, as your arms and your hands come down the slot in the four three line, you're coming from a place where you've taken pressure off the shaft, and now you're building and putting pressure on the shaft and accelerating the club so that you can hold shaft flex into the strike. So that's the objective of what Hogan was doing. For myself, it was a late loader and and uh like you said, Greg Norman, Nicholas. Um these are when you have a late load, you're gonna be um inherently putting more pressure on the shaft at transition because you got this load and it snaps, and then you got all this pressure on the shaft, and then to maintain that pressure down to impact becomes more and more difficult the more pressure you have at transition. So, what Hogan was able to do was figure out a way to um accelerate the club on the downswing, but also have a long backswing. And when and when I say a long backswing, that that we're talking about the shoulder rotation, not so much the position of the arms or the hands. The backswing is really defined by the the actual rotation of the shoulders. And and this was confirmed with my you know my discussions with Mo Norman, and Mo would talk about that all the time, the shoulder rotation being the being the backswing. And I agree with that 100%. So by having a full shoulder rotation, most people have a big shoulder rotation, and if they're setting the hands late at the top, then they're gonna put a lot of pressure as soon as they just start moving towards the ball, and that shaft just really noodles and really gets a lot of stress in them to try and chase that thing and keep pressure on the shaft all the way down the ball. It's very, very difficult. So Hogan's method was to have the big shoulder rotation, keep the arm travel to a minimum. Okay, so big turn, but the you know, his arms kind of just going like 10 o'clock rather than 12 o'clock, and then moving laterally, saving the uh torso rotation for much later. And then you see everything moving through the strike. So as he's striking through the ball, he's tearing at it with the form rotation, with the with his hips and shoulders and torso. It's all happening through the strike and putting pressure on the shaft and then maintaining that pressure well beyond the strike and up into the into the finish as as long as possible to keep acceleration on the shaft and pressure on the shaft. So there's a there's a reason, you know, for the early set, okay? Because that sets up the transition so that you can then trip the shaft and delay the acceleration into the strike. So it's not just like, oh, this is Hogan's position. I want to look like him. I'm gonna put on a white cap and you know, have my pants up over my hips and wear a collar, nice collared shirt, everything ironed and some fancy looking shoes. And well done, I look like Ben Hogan. You know, it's easy to look like Hogan if you if you nail Hogan's address look, you get to the position at the top, you say, oh, that's where Hogan was at the top, and then you see where somebody is at the finish with the classic Hogan finish, the shaft up and shoulders rotated out. And those are the three things that people see. Like, oh, this guy swings like Ben Hogan because he sets up, he looks like that at the top, and you see it at the finish. But you know, you slow down a lot of these swings, and it's like nothing like what Hogan was doing at all, right? There are a lot of people that have come along, and you know, whether it's in the past, you know, Gardner Dickinson or uh who was the guy that everyone was saying was swinging like Hogan, they thought was swinging like Hogan uh maybe five or ten years ago, guy in the PGA tour. I I forget his name, maybe what did he win the PGA or something? Or uh um the names dropping, but there was talk about that. But when you slow it down, then you know it it's it's none of the not the critical things elements are not really happening that that we're working on. So so anyway, I just wanted to interject that little thing in there just so to make it you know clear to the listeners, we're you know, we're not like trying to mimic Hogan's positions. I what I'd really like to see are the dynamics. I'm what I'm looking at is what is the shaft doing and what is a club face doing. Okay. And who who really cares, you know, about the body that much? If you can get the the shaft to be going back on the inside, you know, it's never was steep going back. Hogan's shaft was flat, it went to the top, pulled it inside, went to the top at transition, then the shaft flattened even more. Okay. So we would call tripping the shaft. You've got the shaft down on the 430 line. His hands are very close to his to his right thigh. They're very close. His hands move through the strike, they go low left and around. He's holding the wrist cock between his left form, and that shaft is is maintained uh all the way around. And then you see that, you know, that extended finish, which is created dynamically, not by not forced in there by a look like, oh, I'm gonna have the club you know up in the air straight or whatever, and I'm just gonna force it there. This all happens through pressures, dynamics, speed, rotation, all these things. And uh so it's not about trying to look like Hogan, it's it's it's applying these techniques. And then what happens is your swing ends up looking a lot like Ben Hogan's in the end because you're you're applying the these internal pressures and dynamics and that sort of thing. But when I think of you know, the more modern players that I think swung a lot like Hogan would be someone like Nick Faldo to me, or Nick Price for that matter, you know, be people that would come to mind. Uh Peter Sr. from Australia was a very as much like Hogan as anything I've ever seen. People would say, Oh, it looks terrible. You took Peter Sr. Terrible swing. Peter Sr. had one of the greatest swings I've ever seen. Looked more like Hogan from the parallel before impact or the parallel after impact. He looked more like Hogan than anyone I've ever seen, other than Hogan. You know, no wonder he was such a great ball striker. So these are the kind of things that we're after. And it's not about wearing the white hat. And I specifically don't wear a Hogan cap for the Hogan modules just for that reason. I'm not trying to pretend or be pretentious or anything. We're just trying to get to the core of what's going on, what's a shaft doing, what's Clubface doing, what's the body need to do to facilitate these things, and uh and then work it from there, and then we're all gonna end up with the golf swing that's you know, it's certainly gonna have some resemblance of that, but all in the right, the crib, the critical areas that we really want. The frozen right elbow going through the strike, all that stuff. You know, there's no right arm slinging, you know, straightening the right arm through the strike to get that extended looking finish. Try and do that with a with a locked up right elbow from P3 to P4, and then have that extended finish. You better have some fast left shoulder going through that strike, right? From from P4 up to your finish. And that's all the speed and and strength and flexibility and all these things that we have drills that we work on. And uh it's fun to see the you know the students working on this stuff and seeing the improvements that are happening.

SPEAKER_02: 27:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 27:33

Yeah, the um the one drill that I really like, I haven't done a lot of it yet, um, but I need to, is um because it comes after tripping the shaft is the one um I don't know what module it is, but where you hands you set your hands back in a kind of a cut position behind it, and then you and then you swing through, you know, and that's gonna teach that left shoulder to move fast. And um something you know I've done, I'm always slightly my right elbow wants to throw still uh too much, better than it used to be, but still wants to throw. And um my left shoulder just isn't moving fast enough. I'm just not um pivoting as strongly as I want to.

SPEAKER_01: 28:21

Yeah, and that's that's exactly right. You're you're totally correct with that, because the right elbow is going to throw because it is a power source, and it's going to try and compensate for the uh torso rotation that that's lacking in in the speed and velocity and acceleration. So there's nothing wrong with that, but you just like you said, it's doing it less and less because you actually are from doing the explosion to finish drill, or which is the ABS essential uh modified module three drill, from doing that drill, that is what allows you to lock up the right elbow uh through the strike and keep the club face looking at the target. So as that improves, then you're able to then decrease the amount of right arm throw because you've you're you're picking it up on the other side.

SPEAKER_00: 29:06

Yeah, and I can see it in um the videos I've taken. Um, when I'm not thinking about tripping the shaft, I'm actually uh the club face is a lot more stable um through impact and just beyond impact, it's looking at the target a lot longer than it used to. Um, despite the right elbow not looking particularly bent, it is slightly. I just think I'm maybe that's me as it's just gonna have a very slight bend and it's not gonna be crazy bent or anything. Um but as soon as I try tripping the shaft at this point of the stage of me working on this, my right arm wants to throw like a madman down there because I don't know how to use speed yet after I've tripped the shaft. I haven't trained myself yet. So um, you know, so you you really got to do this, uh, go through the modules diligently and slowly and really perfect the correct order of them before you can perfect the the next. Part of it. You know, my backswing's kind of getting where I want it. I don't have to think too much about it. But tripping the shaft shows up all the faults that I've got in my uh post-impact event.

SPEAKER_01: 30:11

So the great thing is you are able to trip the shaft now. And I know you weren't when you first started, and the last videos you that you put up there were just uh beautiful. And you're taking a ball.

SPEAKER_00: 30:32

Right. And then the next next one I almost missed the ball. I completely topped it, like went about 20 feet. And then I then I started slowing it all down a bit so I could make contact with the ball. And I, you know what, I shouldn't be doing this on the range. I need to go back to the impact bag and do the do the drills correctly.

SPEAKER_01: 30:52

Yeah, the first time that I really tripped the shaft and uh and worked it low left and round into the finish. And I mean, I went out and hit a golf ball that was unlike anything I'd ever hit in my life. And I'm in a you know, a six 61, 60, 61-year-old body, and I'm hitting a golf ball that's flying 20 or 30 yards farther than I've ever hit it. And I and I say that confidently because when I hit balls off the deck, there's a row of raspberry bushes down in the bottom of the canyon. And I've never been able to fly a ball to those, to those bushes. Um, you know, I don't know how far it is down there, but um, you know, they got my my ball hits short and runs in. And when I go down and pick them up, I just at the very edge of the raspberry bushes, there's you know a bunch of balls lined up down there. I hit this shot and I could hear it crunching into the raspberry bushes down there because it's a it's a different sound than when it's just hitting on the on the ground out there. And I just couldn't, I couldn't believe the velocity and the um the sound of the impact, the whole thing. It was just shocking. And then it I did it a couple times, and then the next week or so I I couldn't reproduce it and then and it just it wasn't happening. And then it and then it happened again, like a few weeks later, all of a sudden, boom, there it is again. And there's this like, oh wow. And uh now it's got to the point where if I go ahead and do the Hogan modules, I I just you know released for the students the 30-minute kind of drill workout. I don't know if you've seen that one, but I put up a I actually watched it um maybe yesterday or something for the first thing. So, you know, after if I go ahead and do that, it takes me about 30 minutes to do kind of a condensed version of the of the Hogan module uh drills. If I go do that, tee up a golf ball, the first couple shots that I hit are absolutely guaranteed to just rip off the club face like nothing I've ever seen. It's really it's incredible. I mean, I'm hitting the ball more dynamically than I ever have in my life. You know, I I really wish I would have known this stuff when we were, you know, whacking around on the Canadian tour back then.

SPEAKER_00: 32:54

And that uh that workout video is uh that is quite the workout. Like you were huffing and puffing there on some of those, weren't like Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 33:02

No, it's uh it's a you know, I quit my gym membership years ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:07

Yeah, yeah, no, to do all those uh all those workouts in a row. Like, you know, I might go and do part of that at night, you know, 15 minutes, 10, 15 minutes, and that's it. And then next night 10, 15 minutes to do that for 30 minutes and all those drills and all those workouts like holy cow.

SPEAKER_01: 33:25

Yeah, yeah, I think I can do in about you know about a half an hour. I you know, can run through that stuff. I usually do about 30 reps, you know, the 30, you know, on the backswing drill, about 30 with the left hand, 30 with the right hand, 30 with both hands, so like about 90, 90 backswing. I think it was pretty quick, you know, setting the setting the bag behind me and doing the protocols there. Um, and then moving into uh, you know, uh trip tripping the shaft and the lateral move and that combination. I do those and then and then I'll do the free ride down drill, and then I'll do the the delay the uh torso rotation drill with basically kind of like a either more like a like a passive uh abs module one drill, and then go start doing the what would be the abs module one drill, but from the Hogan protocol setup position, and then doing the the strike into the finish, which is the uh kind of um adjusted module three drill from the abs course, and then that that pretty much takes me through, and then I'll tee up a golf ball, and I just love the feeling of hitting a golf ball fresh off those drills. Look out, man. It's this thing, I mean, it's like bam, you know. Oh man, that the feeling of tripping the shaft and working that thing down and delaying the pressure off the right foot and just and the the way that the ball just rockets off the face. I mean, you know, it it's really, really exciting. It's a because this stuff really works. And uh it's it's an incredible thing. I I mean, I almost feel like I've, you know, it looks like uh discovering the uh splitting of the the atom or something, you know. It's like, am I really supposed to know this? You know, like wow, this is a whole different, yeah, this is a whole different thing here. But I just don't think anyone's been able to figure it out because no one's really taken the time to get inside it, understand the dynamics of what needs to go on, and then be able to apply it in their own body, and then come back out from the cave and say, okay, this is what I found, this is what I discovered, and I can demonstrate. I mean, Jesse's you know seen me play. I mean, I'm hitting some shots that are yeah, pretty, pretty, pretty good for a 60-year-old, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 35:29

Yeah, especially with persimmon. Yeah, with persimmon, yeah. Yeah, with persimmon, which uh which is interesting. Well, I'll tell you, you know, uh going down this journey, gents for me has really unlocked a lot of my uh uh understanding of not only what Hogan was doing and the application of into my own body, but like what Nick Price was doing, what Nick Faldo was doing, what George Newson was doing, you know, and all these other people that just like what is that? What is that tripping the shaft, you know, and then they're coming in just deep from the 430 line, just right right down there, right on that right forearm plane, every time with every club, every time with every golf club, the same, every time. Like, what was that? What is that? And sort of what are the commonalities with that? And one in my own discovery of doing uh Hogan Mod one, or at least the back string the the back screen drill, is that the commonality was is that all of them had pretty deep shoulder turns, like they really were were winding behind the ball. Yes. Um, and I think that's that's been a massive discovery for me by taking it a little bit more inside, it facilitates a level deeper shoulder turn, which is gonna help me push off the right side more and then trip the shaft all at the same time. Yeah. And then John, you and I have talked about I I think this is really noteworthy, uh, especially as you do the uh as you do the transition drills, and we talk about the free ride down and pushing off the right side, um, having a distinct sensation of feeling in transition that I am pushing off of a pitcher's mound. And that pushing off the pitcher's mound is violent while I'm staying closed for as long as humanly possible. Right? And then and then doing enough with the explosion into the finish for the body to unconsciously trust that the all of that depth that is being used in the backswing transition and coming into the strike with the engine down there to be able to support it, combined with gripping the ground, which you know we'll we'll we do need to not we do need to underscore the powerboard and training those abductors and everything to to have that. To be able to possess that, you have to use the ground, you got to be able to squeeze the ground, all of that. So yeah, like I'm feeling all of these sensations in the drill work, and then they're starting to show up on the golf course, like every now and again. Um, and my tournament play this year where it's shown up the most is in my mid my longer to mid-irons, which I've never been a very good iron player. Not really, you know, not but my iron play has gone up another level this year. Last year it went up a level, and this year it's gone up another level. So something's happening. And uh I've also had periods where I've driven the ball the best I've ever driven in my life. Like I went like five or six straight rounds without even missing a fairway, like playing on you know somewhat tight golf courses. I've had some wonky ones too, uh, but I'm seeing the the the kind of tightening the bolts, if you will.

SPEAKER_01: 39:15

Yeah, yeah, on both sides. But that's a learning process. You know, you get it's good, it's a roller coaster ride to improvement. I mean, it it's like that with anything. Yeah, you get better. I mean, times when it's just it's not there, and then you go back, do the drills, and and so you know what we're what we're really doing is is is looking at this more as like uh almost like a martial arts kind of form. Like these are the forms, these here's the basic core fundamentals of what we're trying to do with our body here. So we you know work on the drills and do the different things. And then what I like to do is you know, do do the go through a set of drills, hit a hit a ball or two. If I if the first ball I hit is absolutely flush pure, I don't need to hit any more balls. That's it. One ball, and I'll just let that marinate in the body until the next time I do it. You know, so the you know, the brain just like, yep, there it's confirmation right there. I don't need to hit a hundred golf balls to um hit a you know, I might hit another one, I might hit three or four, and I'm I might hit like five balls max. I'll hit them all good, boom, I'm done. Um go out and play. And when you get on the golf course, that's a different thing, you know. Like Sam Sneed said, dance with the gal you brought. You know, if you if you're hitting a little weak fade out there or whatever, then just play that for the day. You know, all you need, you know, Paul Paul would know this. I mean, all you really know you need to to play good golf is a repeating shot pattern.

SPEAKER_04: 40:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 40:35

You know, if you got a repeating shot pattern, whether it's a little fade out there or a little draw, or you're hitting it low or high, you know, whatever that shot that you have that day, if it repeats, you can shoot 66.

unknown: 40:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 40:49

Bruce Letsky did it.

SPEAKER_00: 40:50

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 40:51

You know, ideally you want to shape it both ways, sure.

SPEAKER_00: 40:55

I remember one of the first um big checks that I ever made on um playing the Australian tour my first year down there, the Singapore Open was one of the bigger money events, and uh I was hidden just like top spin forehands in tennis. That's what it felt like I was hitting off the T. Like I was holding on for Dear Life to hit a big draw. And uh there was some bad stuff going on, but I would just hold on for dear life for four rounds, and I hit this drawer, start a right side of the fairway and draw it to the left side of the fairway for 72 holes, and I think I finished seventh or something. Obviously, putted well, but uh that's the only shot I could hit. You know, I couldn't hit a fade. Um, I had to hang on lot for dear life not to hit a rope hook, but it repeated for 72 holes. It was ugly. Like obviously, I wanted to get rid of what I was doing, but for that week, you know, that's that's what was there. I didn't try and fight it. I was like, this is what I'm hitting, so let's let's play with it and work on it next week.

SPEAKER_01: 42:00

I think you know, there's really those those three kind of stages. You know, you have the drill work, you can get confirmation, hit a couple golf balls. It's like, yep, okay, good. Then go out and play, right? So playing is is like I said, dance with the gal you brought, um, get out there on the course, whatever you have that day, you know, it doesn't matter what it looks like. You know, there's no no pictures on the scorecard, right? Yeah. So when you're when you hit balls, or if you're hitting it good, then good. You know, why do you need to hit a bunch of balls? You know, I mean, uh hit a few balls, hitting it good, great. You know, uh, if you're hitting it bad, then go back and do drills. You know, go back and do your drills and then come at it fresh again. And you hit hit some nice shots after doing some drills, and you're like, okay, the body's doing doing what it needs it to do. I don't think you know, just pounding you know, millions of golf balls is the answer to anything, really. You know, okay, it can be a negative thing. If you're hitting it bad, you're just hitting you know thousands of golf balls and you're hitting it bad, you're just reinforcing hitting it bad. You know, I don't I don't like to hit hit the ball bad. So if I hit a couple bad shots, back to do some drills, get back to the fundamentals, you know, start holding shaft lecks into the strike, get it on the 430 line, boom, you know clean up the uh club face rotation going through the strike and start hitting the ball good, hit a few balls, boom, I'm ready. You know, so I think I think it's a it's a way to just stay a lot more positive about the whole thing than being frustrated on the range, pounding golf ball after golf ball and trying to figure out what's going on. Um I I just don't think it's that that productive to do that. And I'll just one other thing. I mean, I'll just mention this. Uh when I won the the TRGA event down in Las Vegas, I actually tested this out and I only hit one golf ball before I teed off. So, you know, when you show up on the first tee and everybody, you know, you hit you hit a ball over here to the right or the left, you take a mulligan, right? Like, hey, you know, hey, Joey, I'm gonna hit a mulligan here or whatever. So, what I would do is look at the first tolls of par five down in Vegas, the old Sahara Country Club. And uh it's like, okay, I'm gonna hit driver off this T and I need to hit a little, you know, low fade off this T. There's OB down the left side, so start down the left side of the ferry little cut down out there. I would just hit one shot on the range with the driver and hit it. And it's like I kind of hit a little too far to the right on the range. So then I just went to the first team. It's like, okay, that was my mulligan. Now I know what I need to do on this swing is just try to, in ABS terms, just to uh you know, hold the X a little bit more, a little more orbit pull feeling. And I just took that aggressively and then just boom, flushed it right down the middle. And now I'm on the golf course. And the other thing about hitting a lot of balls before you play in a tournament, that can work against you sometimes. You know, I remember playing up in Canada. There were times when I was just hitting it bad on the range. You know, I go to the first T and I'm just kind of negative in my my thoughts. I'm like, I'm just hitting it horrible today. What am I gonna do? I'm showing up on the first T, you know, not feeling very confident. Or it can work the other way. You're hitting it great on the range, and you go to the first T and then you hit a bad shot off the first T. And then you're like, oh, what's going on? I was hitting it great on the range. What am I nervous? Or what did I, you know, well, what's happening here? And you're walking down the first fairway shaking your head. Um I'm not saying I I wouldn't stretch before I would just hit the one ball. I I stretched a lot. I took a lot of swings, uh, just where I would just take divots or swing of the driver, just getting my body loosened up, hit one ball. I mean, this is an extreme thing, right? To just hit one ball. But anyway, I went out and won the tournament. Okay, I won by seven shots. And and of all the rounds, I just hit one ball before I played. So, you know, the whole mythology that, you know, you have to hit a half a bucket of balls or a bucket of balls before you play, and all this is nonsense. I mean, I proved that that that's not the case. And Bob Rossberg, from what I understand in the when he won the PGA championship, and I think it was in 1960 or early, early 62, somewhere in there, he he didn't hit any golf balls before he teed off. Hit no range balls, and he went out and won the tournament, won the PJ championship without hitting any range balls before he played. So I think it's a it's a bit of a an extreme approach, but I think it's it has validity to it. Certainly does for me, certainly did for Bob Rossberg. And I think my point here is that you don't need to pound a lot of golf balls, hit a few shots, get loosened up, just take a look at what your shot pattern is. Once you got that, just go to the team and go out and play.

SPEAKER_00: 46:34

Yeah. Um my first year in college in the States, um, Colin Montgomery was a senior on our team. And um, you know, he he hits a power fade pretty much. That's all he's ever done since you know he was probably born. And uh and he never hit balls. So he would come to the golf course with us, you know, for our our um practice rounds after um after studies, and uh and he'd go and hit maybe at tops 10 balls and just be sitting there waiting for us to finish our our little bucket of balls so he could go and play his 18 holes, and then we would go back to the range or the putting green and chipping green and then he'd he'd head home. He'd just you know, and he'd he'd go and shoot his 66 or 67 and take a couple of dollars off us all and head home. We'll we're just like, why? Like we're the ones doing the work here. Why why does he beat us all the time? I mean obviously talent, but you know, he uh he hit the same shot every time, so he didn't need to uh hit more than a few balls than go, yeah, still still fading. All right, let's go. Yeah, it's still there, uh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 47:43

Well, there's nothing to it. There's a there's a guy that you don't we don't really hear a ton about. Colin Montgomery. How many times did he win the European Order of Merit? Like seven or eight years in a row?

SPEAKER_00: 47:58

Seven in a row and eight times total.

SPEAKER_04: 48:01

Yeah, wow. What a hell of a player.

SPEAKER_00: 48:04

Yeah, goodness. Yeah. His whole game was good. Like he he didn't have a weakness in his game at all. Like he drove it fantastic. They talked about what a great driver he is. Um, but his short game was great, like his chipping and cutting, everything was just solid. Like you never really see him flub a shot, you know, very rarely. He just everything was struck well, you know, and and he um he had his own style, but it repeated, he couldn't, you know, he hit his own. He certainly wasn't doing Hogan modules. That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 48:43

Yeah, that's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00: 48:45

But it's also another thing I just want to point out is um like I don't play much golf anymore. I think I've played six rounds this year, and um I just don't have a chance to get to the golf course a whole lot, um, just with other stuff going on. But when my daughter's doing her soccer practices, I can sneak out for 45 minutes to the range. I'll get a uh medium bucket, I think has like 45 balls in it, and um, I can hit balls for 40-50 minutes while she's at soccer practice, and uh I get a lot of enjoyment out of that now, even even more than playing. I really enjoy being at the range, working on my golf swing, working on the stuff, uh the Hoban modules and ABS before that. Um that to me is really enjoyable. So um, you know, I I get it that you you don't want to uh overthink it before a round of golf, especially a tournament round, but there's a lot to be said for just going to the range and and uh working on stuff and getting some pleasure out of that. To me, I've been doing that. And uh and then of course you get in a rhythm on the range too. So uh, you know, 10-15 balls in, suddenly, you know, I'm hitting three irons like I've never hit them before, just absolutely perfect. Get the video camera out, get my phone out, put on video, and go, oh well, it's not even close to what I was trying to do, but boy am I hitting it good.

SPEAKER_01: 50:11

Are you able to hit the golf ball as dynamically or maybe even better than you did when you were younger and on tour?

SPEAKER_00: 50:18

The good shots uh as good as I ever remember um remember them. Um way more consistent, like uh I can hit 10-15 shots in a row just on the on the button. Um and when I was on tour, uh you know, there was times probably um, you know, I had my good years where I really got in uh a groove, and but um I think the ball doesn't deviate when I when I get in that rhythm on the range, the ball just I try to hit 15 shots in a row that just don't move. And it's uh yeah, that's a lot of fun, that's exciting. Um and and then to put it on video and look and go, well, I'm I'm not where I want to be yet. It's gonna get better than that. It's hard to believe that it's gonna get better than that sometimes, but yeah, it will.

SPEAKER_02: 51:07

It will. Yeah, it will be. It gets better.

SPEAKER_00: 51:12

Well, the only thing I think um can get better with the shot is uh talking to you uh in the past, John, is uh, you know, my my shots are probably a little higher and softer. They they've got some uh zing on them, yeah, but they're kind of a little bit higher. And you talk about when you get this right, it just it's penetrating like it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 51:31

Well, you start holding shaf flex, right? You start holding shaf flex under the strike, and it's a different thing than than how we were taught as we were growing up, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 51:39

You know, kind of different sound, like you said, you know, when you've got it right, there's a different sound to it, right?

SPEAKER_01: 51:43

Yeah, because you know, most of us were taught, you know, more of a swingers kind of release or you know, relax the body, take a long backswing, you have good tempo, don't swing too fast, you know, relax through the strike and let the club do the work and all that sort of thing. And that's one way to hit a golf ball, and uh it can be done quite masterfully, also. But I think it it's a lot more uh efficient and dynamic to use a hitter's release and really hit the thing holding shaft flex. And because when you're holding shaf flex, what's basically happening is you're you're stabilizing the club shaft through the strike. It's not going to distort as much. When it hits the ball, it's gonna resist the forces of impact. You're stabilizing the club head, you're holding shaft flex, you hit a little bit out on the toe, all of a sudden that ball's still taken off off the face. It's not like twit, you know, that when the ball hits the toe of the club, it's not twisting radically. Because you're holding shaft flex, the whole thing is firmer and it's resisting the the twisting because the ball's gonna leave the uh uh club face at right angles to the separate separation of the angle of the club face, right? So if the club face, if it comes in and hits the ball and the and the face twists open during that impact interval, then the ball's gonna leave at right angles to the to the club face at separation, right? That's an old golf machine thing, but I I found that to be true, and I and I've actually done the there's some stuff on the on the ABS website where I shot that with a 20,000 frame camera, and actually would you actually see that that is the case. I mean, Homer Kelly had that stuff right, you know, back back then, even back in the 70s, we knew that.

SPEAKER_00: 53:23

I feel like I'm um I'm a lot more aggressive um hitting the ball harder than I remember doing. I'm not hitting it as long as when I was a younger guy and more, you know, probably turning better and more flexible and all the rest of it, but uh I feel like I'm really hitting the ball harder um than I than I ever uh used to like trying to hit the ball harder. I feel like it's uh it's um aggressive through impact. And um and then you know, I watch your swings in the in the um modules and and throughout the ABS and now the Hogan modules, and I watch your swing and I see especially the way you finish, and I catch myself having that feeling of I go, oh that's that feels like John does it, like you know, coming into the follow-through. I always wondered how you got there without just trying to put yourself there, but it's a couple of times it's just happened. Yeah, like you know, suddenly suddenly my shoulders turned a little bit flatter, and I kind of you know, I felt like I was putting up an umbrella or something, you know. I just got through here and I was putting up an umbrella and it just happened. I didn't really try to do it. And I thought I in my mind for some reason I thought oh that's just something that you you swung through and tried to get to that position, but it just happens when you do everything correctly. So uh yeah, and I've had that feeling a few times. I go, Oh now, yeah, I'm I'm I'm getting it. The more I work on it, the more I get it, and the more it kind of clicks into place and and I start understanding things. You think you've got it, you think you understand it, and then you move on to the next one and go, oh wow, okay. Another door opens, you know, and it's uh I love the process.

SPEAKER_04: 55:08

Yeah, me too. It's super fun. Yeah, it it's super fun to do the drills, feel the feelings, and the awarenesses, the kinesthetic awareness of the awarenesses of doing the modules, the drills, becomes deeper, you know, over time. Like the understanding levels become deeper. And I think with that conscious understanding of what's happening and and the understanding becomes deeper, uh, the body integrates it more. It's almost like you're getting down into the layers of man, I'm really, you know, what what they would call myelinating this thing. I'm creating new neural pathways, and these neural pathways are based on Hogan's dynamics. Like I I tell these things, I can I I tell myself these things, uh, because I know it to be true. And then when I go out onto the golf course and hit some golf shots that I've hit have been golf shots I've never really hit before. It's wild. Like just I've been telling John all year, like a lot of my mid-irons, four, five, and six irons, irons that I historically really didn't hit that well, at least consistently. And uh those are being consistently struck. Uh, you know, regularly. So that's cool. Um you know, for me the the uh the g you know it's funny because those of us in advanced ball strike with Bradley, we all talk about we resonate with certain drills, like, ah man, I need to do that more or whatever, you know, you start to get this kinesthetic awareness. But for me, it's the backswing um to help facilitate tripping the shaft, you know, and really uh getting getting the body prepped to trip the shaft combined with that that that lateral push, that free ride down combined with that lateral push, because I have felt it a couple of times. And uh, you know, once you feel it hitting a golf ball, you can't unfeel it. You can't there's no going back. There's no going back. It's like I don't know. I mean, for those that are a little bit older, maybe your first hit of acid or something. I don't know. The first time you got drunk and you're like, I know I'm gonna do that again. Uh I mean that for me, it's that was like, man, I cannot not unfeel some of those shots that I've hit because I've never, ever, ever felt them before, especially under the gun. Like that's been I haven't I've had really a mixed bag as far as external finishes, but I've hit some shots in tournament play this year that I have never hit before in my life at 55 years of age. Never, never have I hit shots like that, ever. Yeah, uh, and and that's combined with a lot of a lot of different things that light up during the golf swing, and and it's like your body knows when it's getting trained properly. It's like your body knows. Like if you're a musician and you pick up an incredible instrument, your hands know, like, whoa, there's something different here, there's something livelier. You know, I'm gonna echo what Paul said. Um, I'm hitting the ball like a lot, shot a lot of shots, I'm hitting it harder. Like the ball is coming off the face harder. It's wild. It's very cool. With with really uh not a not a ton of effort. Because I mean you're efforting a lot, make no mistake. When uh to the listener, uh when you do when you do the Hogan module drills, you're efforting a lot. Your body is really working, it's working hard.

SPEAKER_01: 59:06

Yeah, you know, Ben Doyle, my my teacher is a as a kid, uh golf machine. You know, he had a great saying that a good golf swing is like a duck on the water. You know, you see the duck just cruising across the lake, it looks really relaxed and like it's just cruising along, but underneath the water, it's really grinding, you know, paddling away, right? Like it's it's really moving a lot of water to get that graceful look across the top. So a lot of that footwork and leg action, or you really, you know, the legs are some of the strongest muscles in our body, right? So you know you got those working for you, and you get that stuff really working dynamically, and then you know, the ball just starts rocketing off the club face in a way that's you know unfamiliar in the past. And like I said, there's just you know, there's just no going back. You don't want to go back to the the old way, you know. I have no interest in the old way anymore.

SPEAKER_04: 59:56

Right. You you you know, I'll tell you, I want to uh make another. Comment. Um, quite frankly, the more I do the drill work, the simpler the overall concept feels. You know, simple but not easy. Um you know, I I I think it's for me uh on a personal note, uh it's been easier for me to adopt a bigger shoulder turn or a deeper shoulder turn by simply focusing on taking the club inside, which we do in the backswing modules. And but to really have that kinesthetic awareness and and giving the body a green light to maximize its pivot, for me has been a real game changer. Uh especially uh you know in in lieu of tripping the club and slotting the club. It's hard to mess up a golf shot if you're slotting the club correctly, unless you uh you know have a lot of self-doubt and you interfere with yourself mentally. Um but for me, taking the the the backswing modules and and you know, and I want to make another comment too, because when a lot of people have dissected Hogan, they didn't really talk a lot about what he did in his backswing. You know, I mean they talked about his turn and whatnot, but not in a way that you talked about, John. Not not no not in a way that at least I understood, and I got both of his books. I was trying to read those things when I was in school, and I it didn't help me at all.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:30

I never really heard growing up a lot of people talking about Hogan's turn. They took they talked a lot about how flat his swing was and the the amount of wrist cock that he had on his backswing, but at least the people I were around, you know, when when they talked of turn, they they talked about Nicholas or Watson, um, you know, because their shoulders visually seemed to turn more. Um no one really talked, at least you know, where I grew up, about how much Hogan was turning. Um they just talked about the flat and the and the amount of risk off there was. Um so uh for me um trying to turn more just like yourself, uh Jesse, is uh I found doing the corkscrew corkscrew drill um helped me turn more. And I noticed when I'm when I'm swinging now is my uh left ankle's coming off the ground. Um you know, just I'm I'm 59 heading to 60 and not as flexible as I used to be. So to get that turn, I've got to kind of left lift my left heel and let that come up. I don't think about it, it just happens. But that's um yeah, I feel totally in control, and it's the corkscrew drill that kind of got me turning all that that enabled me to turn more. The more I worked on that, I just naturally turn more. And um, and so that helped me a lot with the turn, and then suddenly boom, the power went up another level after that. And uh, you know, I haven't uh haven't adopted the tripping the shaft in there yet at speed, but uh can't wait for that to happen.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:04

So uh well you've been able to do it. We've seen you do it on the ABS site. So you know the great thing is I mean, it's kind of a process. The first thing is to try and understand the concept, right? So you could say, okay, I understand the concept there, tripping the shaft. The next thing is like, can you actually do it? Okay, and then you see yourself, you can do it. Now, can you get the club back to the golf ball doing it, right? So then we come back down to the ABS module one drill, right? Or the Hogan version of that, um, where you know you're going from the third parallel and back into the strike. So the stronger that that that gets, the more confident you are tripping the shaft, right? Because now you get down there and it's like, oh, I know what to do from here, bam, right? So that's why because we we do things essentially backwards. We start at impact and then we work our way back to the you know the backsling later.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:56

Yeah, I'm my brain's still in panic mode when I trip the shaft. It's it's like oh my god. And so I kind of um I haven't got to like speed, I haven't haven't got an aggressive pivot after I've tripped the shaft and and um done the free ride down. Not yet, but I mean that's all part of the stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:16

And we'll check back with you in six months, and you'll have had that experience. I guarantee you you will have had that experience six months from now, and you'll you will have hit a golf ball unlike anything you've ever done. It's incredible.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:27

Yeah, I'm excited. I mean, the times I've I've been to the range and worked on tripping the shaft and hit the ball, um, the ones I've struck have that penetrating flight, but they haven't got the power yet because I'm too scared to just uh you know let it go through there. Um but that's just gonna come with more module work, you know. That's just I I've got to work at it to where I'm comfortable with it and you know, it all it all pieces together. But I'm a big believer you've got to do do it in sequence. You've gotta you've gotta get comfortable with the first bits first before you can go jumping ahead to the next bit. You know, I don't want to do it half-hearted.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:05

So uh no, you're right. That's the way to do it. You gotta, you know, it's just like anything. I don't I think the golf swing, you just gotta you kind of need to learn it in sections.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:14

Yeah. I don't want to be thinking about my backswing and tripping the shaft and post-impact pivot, you know, and stuff like that. I don't want all those thoughts going on in my head. I want to have the first two grooved so I can think about the one thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:28

And yeah, I think I think in with this methodology, you can you can pretty much you know do the backswing in one one sweep with the corkscrew move, right? So you can you can just work on that, work on that, and then a separate thing is there's definitely kind of a line of demarcation between that and and moving into the downswing. So we've got the tripping the shaft and the free ride down drill, right? So you you work on those, like you just work, work, work, work, you know, over and over, repetition, repetition, repetition. And then you've got the uh the form rotation into the strike from the third parallel. Yeah, and then you've got a learning strength in that, and then and then you've got uh you know the explosion into the finish and and uh tying the the um the spatial awareness thing with like the magic trick drill, right? So so we've which is when I I say the magic trick drill, I'll just say the if the club face is wide open at the parallel, when the shaft is parallel before impact, and the when the shaft is parallel after impact, we start with a wide open face that's skyward, we rotate and strike the ball, and we're over at the fourth parallel and the club face is still skyward, but yet the ball goes straight. So that's why we call it a magic trick because how can that be? If the face is wide open and it's wide open over here, it's wide open on both sides, but the ball went straight. I mean, it really is like a slide of hand thing. But be but what's happening is when you do the magic trick drill, it's because you're hitting the ball with rotation, right? So the the torso shoulders are rotating, and the forearms are not, the wrists are not flicking over to close the club face. You're doing with the body rotation. So it's like open, hits the ball, and then you rotate around and it's still open. And you have the locked up right elbow going through the strike in that drone, there's a protocols for that. So um, magic trick is just something, it's a slang term, really, that that's developed through advanced ball striking, but there's nothing magical about it. It's really just a technique that we teach, and it's not a mysterious thing because that's not really what we're trying to do. We're just not trying to be mysterious at all, trying to remove the mystery, right? That's what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:45

I got a little excited the other day because um when I was working on tripping the shaft and I put it on video, I think for the first time I saw the glove shaft um um perpendicular to my spine angle coming in, you know, into the 430 position, just before the 430 position. And it's always been six feet, you know, and I've always thought Yeah, and I was like, wow, how how is that even possible? But then, you know, I I working on tripping the shaft and there it was, and it's like, you know, I got quite excited, not quite sure what to do after that yet. Well, I know what I gotta do after that, but it's uh it's such a new experience. It's like like I said, my brain goes in the panic phone going now. But uh but um yeah, that was exciting to get that position. So you you know, I saw that and I was like, you know, it's coming, it's gonna get there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:37

Yeah, yeah, it's take it takes time. But one of the you know, the real common elements uh I would say if you were to look at Hogan, you were look at George Newson, you looked at uh Mo Norman, you looked at Lee Trevino, you know, a lot of people would consider those the the four greatest ball strikers, you know. You want to throw Peter Sr. in there, whatever, but you're gonna see that right, the shaft is right angles to the spine very early in the downswing, right from the top. Like you get that shaft, you know, flattened out, laid off, and you start turning that shaft is at right angles to the spine. It's not coming, it's not steep halfway down and then sliding into the 430 line, like a lot of us have done. That's actually a much more complicated move. It it feels very natural and powerful to take an upright backswing, to take it up, right? And you you know, like you're chopping a piece of wood, you just want to come down on the ball really hard, feels really powerful. But what happens is you, you know, you lose that that leverage point. When you've got that shaft at right angles to the spine, then you then the spine can just turn as hard and fast as it wants to through the strike, and you've got that thing right where it needs to be on the 430 line. So what Hogan was doing was kind of the really was the opposite of what most people do. Most people take an upright backswing, and then they they come down steep with the shaft, and then the good player will then slide it down onto the 430 line. So it flattens out as they're coming into the ball. But what Hogan did, he did the opposite of that. He actually had the shaft under the plane, right? So he's under the plane, he's coming down, and he's actually bringing the shaft up to the plane, where everybody else is coming down and sliding it down onto the plane. He's already under the plane and rotating it up to. So this is a very different technique. And if you look at anyone that's great at anything, they're usually doing something that's different than what the average people are doing. That's what makes them great. And this is one of the things that I think is very noticeable. If you just take a quick look at it, you're gonna see that Hogan's shaft is at right angles to the spine very, very quickly from the top of the swing, moving right at right angles to the spine very quickly. And then he's able to turn and rotate and has the shaft coming up to the plane rather than sliding it down onto the plane. And that's you know, one of the objectives to then getting us down to the 430 line, where we're able to apply an increased pressure onto the shaft, hold shaft lecks into the strike, which stabilizes everything, the the shaft, the the club face. And he's able to, he was able to swing heavier gear also, right? To to bring that in more mass into the strike as well.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:21

So all these things, there are a lot of lost concepts going on here, but I I kind of wanted to, you know, try and document this stuff, you know, because I think you know, the the whole um being under the um plane early and then bringing it back up to it. And I mean that's a really good point. And also points to like what was Hogan's six degrees flat with his irons. Um you're not gonna do that with a standard set of pods, you know. I mean, you know, you can you can't do that kind of stuff with standard lie angle, you've got to have the flatter lie angle. I think I'm four degrees flat, um thinking about knocking another degree off that. The more I work on this stuff, you know, the more I'm gonna flatten it out because it all will work more hand in hand with what I'm trying to do. So uh, you know, that that's a big factor. The equip equipment setup is a big factor.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:13

It's a huge factor, yeah. It's a huge, huge factor. And you know, the we were all taught when we were young that, you know, uh custom club fitting, right? If you're tall, you get upright clubs. If you're you know only five, six or five, five, you're gonna have flat clubs or whatever. Um, custom club fitting, you know, offset or no offset or shaft flexes, you know, weak weak shafts for uh people that don't hit it very far, stiffer shafts for the you know, that's just kind of what we grew up with. But you know, if you if you look at Hogan and you and you realize that the equipment is really a really a big, it's a huge, huge part of it, right? And it the physics aren't gonna lie, right? So if you're bringing in, say, a 16-ounce bat, we'll call that a 16-ounce persimmon driver, is what Hogan would have used, something very close to that. That was confirmed uh by Mo Norman to me. You know, I I talked to Mo a lot about this. Mo swung a 16-ounce driver as well. It was interesting. I was you know been studying the Ted Williams baseball thing a little bit. And in his um instructional videos that he did, I think he wrote, did he write a book, I think, uh the science of hitting or something? But one of the things that he recommended was swinging a bat that was uh six to eight ounces heavier than than your normal bat that you would use. And they used much heavier bats back then in the 40s, 50s, and 60s than than what they're doing now. With the they've moved into lighter gear also. But Ted Williams was had a fair fairly uh heavy bat, uh he would train with something that was six to eight ounces heavier than what he was actually gonna use when he when he played. And I thought that was interesting. If you look at the modern drivers that are around 10 or 11 ounces now, if you add six ounces to that, it puts you right at Hogan. Right. So if you trained with a club that Hogan would have used, let's say you train with a 16-ounce persimmon driver, or it could be it could be anything, it could be metal, whatever, good, but a 16-ounce bat, let's just call it the golf club bat, now you're using the same kind of gear, and your muscles would now have the chance to develop in the same ways that Hogan did, because you would be swinging something very similar to what he was doing, right? Mo swung something very, very heavy. Mo's driver was 16 ounces, and I know that for a fact because I was swinging a 14 ounce when I was playing the Canadian Tour, and I held Mo's driver and it was significantly heavier than mine. And Mo would say, Oh, one pound golf club, one pound golf club, you know, 16 ounces. And he said that Hogan used a 16 ounce, and he said that Georgia Newton used 16 ounces. So I thought that was, you know, that's quite a bit heavier than what we were playing, right? When we were up there, we're all in 13, 5, 14, you know. And now it's lighter again, yeah. Or then what's much lighter now, it's a whole different, whole different thing. But you know, this this isn't really about what we're doing with the Hogan modules is not like Hogan versus modern string. It's not Hogan versus Rory or whatever. It this is just Hogan. Like, let's just let you know, you got the greatest striker, this is what he did. Let's look at his gear. There's certainly a geometry to flat line goals. I mean, I've talked about that a million times on my YouTube channel, uh, the the geometry, but you know, just basically if if if you had a uh a club that was perfectly upright, then if as you would rotate it, rotate the shaft, because people have trouble controlling the rotation of the shaft, that's why they hit it offline, because the the shaft is rotating open or closed, right? So you would have a direct correlation. If the if the shaft was perfectly upright and you and you rotate the shaft 10 degrees open, then the ball would go 10 degrees to the right. Okay. But if you put that shaft on the ground to where that shaft were perfectly flat and you rotated the shaft 10 degrees open, you're gonna you're gonna hit the ball 10 degrees high. It's gonna have to be, in other words, the flatter your line angles, the more rotation of the shaft has to do with trajectory and not direction. So as you've moved into flatter line angles, I'm sure one of the first things you noticed is that, oh, that over-the-top shot just doesn't go as far left as it used to. You know, and that's that's something you notice right away on your first couple of swings. So, what that does is it allows you to then get on the 430 line from the inside. Now you got a flat club and you can really feel like you're just hooking the thing off the planet, and and the ball doesn't go nearly as far left as it used to. So Hogan would have known this, and and there's been plenty of documentation in in the readings of Hogan where he talked a lot about him trying to control trajectory more than direction. But he had the direction thing down. He'd go out and practice if he hit over the row of trees and really work on his trajectories a lot to fine-tune his rotation of the shaft because it wasn't having to do uh as much with uh with left and right as it is up and down. So, again, these are one of the principles that we teach in the in the Hogan module course, and we make people aware of this stuff, right? And then you can, you know, if if you're gonna be really after this stuff and really want to, you know, take it all on, then then there's no reason why you shouldn't be swinging gear that's you know pretty much in line with what he was doing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:31

Yeah, exactly.

unknown: 1:17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:34

Yeah, I've gotten a little bit flatter. This year's set has gotten flatter than last year's set. Uh, which has been uh a good thing to have a little bit more symmetry between what I'm doing uh as far as drill work and not missing a lot of irons left, that's for sure. Which is great.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:58

Yeah, and then you know, and we've talked about this in ABS too, you know, that it it's it's pretty much uh understood if you think about it, that's easier for a right-handed golfer. It's easier to make uphill, right to left putts typically than it would be downhill, left to right putts. Most people would rather be below the hole with a little right to left putt than they would up above the hole putting downhill, left to right. So if your miss tends to fall a little bit short and right, then you're gonna be you know having more good birdie runs, even missing a green. It's usually a little easier to miss a green, assuming there's not water or you know, big hazard there, but um to chip from short right of a green is easier up and down than long and left over a green, typically, right? So and the same thing. So again, it's just it's just putting the odds in our favor, stacking the deck in our favor, just that little bit. These little things over the course of a round or a couple of rounds or a whole tournament, if your miss is a you know, tend to be short right, you're just stacking the deck in your favor for getting those up and down or making a few more birdie putts than than you would if you were long and left. So I think you know, I think that's an you know an important concept to to embrace. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:17

Paul, anything anything further to add thus far in the journey?

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:24

Not really. I feel like I'm uh approaching the halfway mark. Um you know, like I say, it's everyone's different on what they're gonna find um easy for them and difficult for them, um, depending on you know how long you've played the game and how many bad habits, or you you know your your own swing habits that you have and you need to change. Um for me, the the back swing wasn't too difficult. Um, but there was parts of it, like uh the the forearm rotation, the the holding a slightly cut left wrist. You know, I had to train myself, had to think about it. Uh corkscrew in the club was um it was quite a workout at first, not too bad now, but when I first started doing it, I was like, how am I ever gonna do this? And uh, but you know, that came pretty quick. Um, I'm into tripping the shaft right now and working on that part of it, the free ride down. I kind of feel like the free ride down is something I've done my entire life to a degree. So that part of it's not too hard for me, but tripping the shaft while doing it is is not that easy for me yet. So um, so at least one part of it kind of comes natural to me, and then tripping the shaft is gonna take some work. And like I say, I'm I'm really conscious about getting each bit as comfortable and natural as possible before moving on to the next bit. So I find now I'm trying to trip the shaft, is my um, you know, post uh impact pivot is not as strong as it is when I'm not thinking about tripping the shaft. So, you know, I've got to get comfortable tripping the shaft before I can go back to that and work hard on that again and and drill that in. But I think that will be even better because I'm tripping the shaft, you know. So it's uh it's a process, and I think you've got to do each bit um in the right sequence for it to work properly. You can't um just go jumping ahead and go, Oh, I've worked on this a little, I'm gonna go over here and work on this. And no, I think you've got to keep it in sequence for it to there's there's three things.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:26

You you've got you've got strength, right? Uh you have flexibility, uh and then you have technique. So we teach you the technique, right? And doing the technique through the drills, it increases your strength from doing the drills, and it also increases your flexibility. Yeah. So that's the thing. Those three things are really what create, you know, the masterful ball striking. You need to be strong in the right places. Uh-huh. You know, you need to have uh good flexibility for range of motion, right? So a lot of your distance is going to come from an increase in the range of motion of, say, the uh the torso shoulder rotation, right? Increase that forearm rotation. There's like like Paul just said, there's a flexibility issue that you've you've been getting more flexibility in that form rotation, right? And then moving into the finish, you have you've got the whole thing on the other side. You've got that's really where the big motor is, is from impact up to your finish, really strengthening there so we can maintain stress on the shaft, uh holding shaft flex through the strike and beyond. You know, Hogan, he did talk about he was trying to reach maximum velocity 18 inches past the ball with it with the club head, right? And that's even without a ball there, right? You would just be trying to swing through the strike. This is just martial arts stuff. Go go take a martial arts lesson from a master, and he's gonna talk about this stuff, right? And talk about ground pressures, working the ground, pressuring off the feet, gripping the ground, acceleration, you know, whether you're chopping blocks, bricks, or whatever, you know, focus on a point way beyond you know this this the strike, right? So these are just you know time-tested concepts and um you know the strength, flexibility, and the and the technique that we applied to it. And it's it's it can be learned, you know. And I've I was never any kind of super athlete or anything. I mean, I I never won any awards for in high school for most push-ups or running the fastest or sit-ups or chin-ups or you know, none of that stuff. I was just a average kid, you know, no great specific uh athletic abilities or anything. So that's why I I I kind of feel like if I can do it, anyone can do it. And another thing, too, you know, we do take a look at the older Hogan, you know, in the uh Hogan modules, because I think, you know, we do have some video or some film of Hogan when he was in his 70s, right? He's up in his 70s, you know, hitting golf balls, and the technique is all there, right? It's still all there intact. Um, he's not obviously he's not as strong as he was when he was in in the 1940s or 50s, but the technique is there and you can see it. And uh I think that's a a realistic thing. If you if you could swing the club like this old man did in his 70s, I think somebody in their 30s or 40s or 50s wouldn't have any trouble doing that as far as a standpoint of athleticism, right? You gotta be able to, you know, run circles around this guy at that point when he's up in his 70s, but the technique is there, right? And you can tell that he's still striking the ball really well. You can hear the compression and and the sound of the strike and all that, too. So yeah, it's it's just it's a great journey, you know. And I invite people to join us and and come on this journey with us. It's a lot of fun, and it's it's I I think ultimately it's gonna improve your golf game no matter how how far you get into this thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:52

Yeah, for sure. I'm I'm really like I said before, you know, I'm I'm enjoying I enjoyed the process of uh the ABS and I'm really enjoying the Hobin module process. And uh and it is a journey, it's it doesn't happen overnight. And uh you know, you you gotta embrace it, and and the more you dive into it, the more you really understand it, and the more it all kind of the picture starts making sense and uh and it's fun. Like I love getting to the range. I can't get there that often, but when I get there, it's I I love it. It's it's a fun place to be for me, and it and uh it hasn't been like that for a long time, so it's uh you know, it's exciting now.

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:32

Yeah, that's great. I agree. So uh John, they the Hogan modules are available available for purchase on the website, which is uh www.advanceballstriking.com. All one word, and just follow the the prompts to the Hogan modules for those who are interested. And then there's still some people that are uh that are seeing what the manifestation is. So, you know, there's those guys out there that are probably listening to this or that are curious too. Not quite, maybe not quite sure. I've gotten a couple of emails, you know, um, only because primarily because uh I mean how many people have taken a crack at Hogan over the last 60 years? And they're just like, oh, I don't know, but they're hearing it, and I just it's just uh it's it's really interesting, but I but I I wanted to say this, at least on the pod, that um that this is very real. This is a very real thing, and anybody who's on the fence can uh can certainly reach out to me directly uh to ask offline what my what my thoughts are. I mean, I pretty much laid them out here. And uh guys are anybody's welcome to reach out to you, John, too.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:56

Yeah, yeah, sure. It's a lot of fun. I mean, my whole uh thing that I enjoy the most is just seeing people um improving their golf games, you know, in remote places around the planet. I mean, I've had students from Finland to Singapore to Australia to South America to South Africa, you know, I mean, all over people I've never met. I feel like I know them because we you know we talk online and that sort of thing, or emails or have video conferencing, and you know, we do our Saturday morning uh meetings and we have uh you know, people, students will come on from time to time and and talk with our staff. And uh and it's it's it's just a great community. And um, you know, just one final thought is uh, you know, we also have the advanced ball striking modules that that program, and and that is really a much um bigger umbrella that it would encompass you know uh a much wider array of different kinds of back swings and different looking swings and that sort of thing. The Hogan modules are just Hogan specific. Like it's just like, okay, this is Hogan we're talking here. Advanced ball striking would cover all kinds of great golf swings that we've seen over the years. Um great hitters. I mean, you know, people like you know, Lanny Watkins or Johnny Miller or Raymond Floyd or you know, Nick Price and Faldo and Sevy Balsteros, and you know, or I mean all kinds of different looking golf swings and different back swings and this sort of thing. So it's a much more general the advanced ball striking class really focuses on what's happening from from the parallel before impact to the parallel after impact, right? That that that's what we're working on there. A lot of ways to get there, a lot of different backswings, different transitions, cross it over at the top, lay it off, whatever. All that can be done properly and and with great results. But the Hogan modules are just for the Hogan fanatics, basically. You know, the people just want to say, look, this guy was the best. Was he doing something different specifically than everyone else? And the answer is yes, he was. And this is what he was doing. So if you want to tackle that, then jump on the Hogan modules and get on board and we'll chase that one. And if you don't want to be that specific about it, you just you know want to be able to hit the ball, you know, with whatever kind of backswing you have right now or the grip you're using or whatever, and just increase your, you know, improve your impact dynamics and that sort of thing, then the ABS modules I think are great. I think the best results we're seeing are the guys that have graduated from the ABS modules and have moved over to the Hogan modules because most of it is is pretty um pr pr pretty much the pretty much compatible. There's just a few adjustments in the Hogan modules that are Hogan specific that we have to, you know, get those things, like the backswing. There is a specific backswing that we have to do in the Hogan modules where not so much you can be an early loader, you can be a late loader, blah, blah, blah. with ABS. So just just wanted to kind of clarify that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:04

W. advanceballstriking.com. Gentlemen, thank you. And we're going to revisit this in a few months too.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:12

Yeah, we're going to we're going to come back in six months and Paul's going to be tripping the shaft and hitting these firing these one irons uh like he's never hit them before. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:23

Absolutely. Me also. Cheers, gents.