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Gain insight as to what motivated Hale throughout his career and his life.

PROVE IT TO YOURSELF

Mike introduces the importance of finding and keeping a light grip pressure.

INTRODUCTION TO LIGHT GRIP PRESSURE

A Malaska Golf Member has a question about the mental side of the game and how not to be distracted, or as Mike says, how do you distract yourself not to be distracted?

Phil Blackmar, who won 4 times on the PGA Tour and was on the Senior Tour, was excellent at mental toughness. His mental toughness is up there with Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. He really helped Mike with that side of his game.

Mike talks about putting and chipping, where many players struggle. Mike grabs his putter and gets lined up over the ball. When you start to take your putter back, you find yourself thinking about many negative things. What really helps is to pick a word or even a name. In this instance, Mike picks his daughter’s name, Jennifer.

Mike then sets up to make his putting stroke. As he takes his putter back, he says “Jennifer” and then makes the putt. The object of this is that Mike programmed everything into his putt. He got up to the putt and said, Jennifer. Mike’s conscious mind focuses on saying the word, while his subconscious mind takes over making the putt. As Mike says, “You get out of your own way.” This is a way to trick your brain and not focus on what’s going to happen.

Mike makes another putt and says it is important to say the word out loud. He also demonstrates how this works when chipping. You can do this on tee shots or any shots on the course.

Remember, when you start to putt or swing the club, your conscious mind begins to make corrections instead of letting your subconscious mind go. Try this mental technique to help your game.

TRICKING YOUR CONSCIOUS MIND

DIVINE NATURE PARTNER VIDEO

How does force actually move through your feet and what helps it work.

HOW DO YOU MOVE FORCE THROUGH YOUR FEET

The first pattern hinges your right arm. This trains your body to use the momentum.

L-TO-L THE RIGHT ARM PATTERN

Practice putting and chipping with tempo.

PUTTING CHIPPING AND TEMPO

Join Malaska Certified Golf Instructor and Club Fitter Brian Gott as he walks you through all the clubs in your bag, the benefits, challenges, advantages, and diversity you may face when selecting your next set of clubs.

In The Bag With Brian Gott

The lever system is one of, if not the biggest speed producer in the golf swing. If you do not have a solid understanding of the main components: Grip, Face control, Lever System, Arm Path and Club Head Path, you will fight the swing forever. These are simple but most of the time they are over looked. This could be the main reason you are struggling with the game. It really is simple if done in the correct sequence of learning.

M2-The Lever System

The golf swing is a natural motion if you understand how your body works. Here are a couple of ways you can train proper body motion in your golf swing.

UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR BODY MOVES

A car on a racetrack turns like a golf club

DOWNSWING - RACE TRACK ANALOGY

Lag Shot Load, Rebound And Pivot The Club

LAG SHOT LOAD, REBOUND AND PIVOT THE CLUB

Directing momentum of the club correctly.

DIRECTING THE MOMENTUM OF THE CLUB

Learn how bounce has changed in the golf industry and what will help your swing.

THE MISCONCEPTION ABOUT BOUNCE

A good picture for your swing is the areas the handle of the club swings trough. If you take a line directly under the but end of the club. Extend it parallel to the target line. Just to the right of your back foot about 6 inches put a tee. Then place another tee the same distance in front of your front foot on that line. On the backswing the club shaft goes directly over the back tee and the club shaft aims at the tee. On the down swing the club hits the same point. On the follow through the butt end of the club is directly over the front tee and the club shaft is aimed at the tee. 

CORNER DRILL

M-System Lite M4: Combining Skills. This video is about putting the golf swing together.&nbsp;Mike has a practice station set up on a tee box. Now that you are combining skills, focusing on one thing at a time before combining drills is important.First, you want the Lever System to work. This starts with the ‘L to L.’ Make swings and get a feel for how the hands, wrists, and Lever System work.Next is the Step-Back Drill. The biggest problem in golf is that people tend to have early extension in their golf swing. Mike explains that golf is the only sport where you don’t move your feet. To teach you to move correctly, Mike uses this drill to get your hips moving.Mike has two balls on tees set up in front of each other. He sets his club in front of the first ball. As he swings back, Mike steps back his left foot, then his right foot, and hits the ball on the second tee. This drill teaches you to get your hips out of the way as you step back. It is impossible to get up into the ball when you do this. The key takeaway is that it teaches you to move away from the ball.The most important thing that ties everything together is Impact Position. Mike sets up with his driver and then demonstrates the impact position. He toggles back and forth from Setup to Impact Position. Set up to the ball, move to your impact position, and just make small hits. This drill helps you feel where you need to get to.Mike is putting this together in full swing and copying his impact position. The impact position ties everything together and is the most important position to understand.Once you understand what the task of the impact position looks and feels like, your golf swing will start to eliminate anything irrelevant to impact. This is a better way to think about your golf swing than focusing on different positions in the backswing.Mike reiterates that impact drives everything you do. This topic is discussed in M1, Line of Compression. M1 to M4 ties everything together and is task-oriented. Do your tasks correctly, and you will see incredible results in your golf game.

M-System Lite M4-Combining Skills

M-System Max

In this Malaska Golf Player Lesson, Mike Malaska teaches Kenneth Garcia how to train one of the most important skills in ball striking: controlling the angle of approach.
Mike begins by explaining a simple practice drill that uses a tee as a reference point for where the ball would be. By placing a tee in the ground and making practice swings where the club brushes the ground slightly in front of that tee, golfers can train the swing arc to move forward through impact.
The goal of the drill is to create awareness of where the club bottoms out in the swing. If the club strikes the ground behind the reference point, the swing arc is bottoming out too early. When the club brushes the ground in front of the tee, the golfer is creating the correct angle of approach for solid ball striking.
Mike explains that great players constantly monitor this during practice swings. Every time they set the club on the ground and make a rehearsal swing, they observe where the club contacts the turf. This gives immediate feedback about whether the swing arc is moving correctly through the ball.
Many amateur golfers unknowingly make practice swings where the club hits the ground well behind the ball position. When they step into the shot, their body instinctively tries to fix the mistake at the last moment, often leading to flinching, poor contact, or inconsistent strikes.
Instead, Mike teaches golfers to rehearse the correct motion first. If the practice swing bottoms out behind the ball, the player should adjust and repeat the swing until the club brushes the ground in front of the reference point.
Once the angle of approach is correct, golfers can then begin refining the other two skills of impact: clubface control and swing path.
Through this simple awareness drill, Kenneth quickly learns how controlling the swing arc improves contact and creates more reliable ball striking. The lesson reinforces a core principle of the M-System: great impact comes from understanding how the club moves through the bottom of the swing arc.
Key Takeaways &bull; Tee Reference Drill: A tee helps train where the swing should bottom out. &bull; Monitor Practice Swings: Great players watch where the club contacts the ground. &bull; Forward Swing Arc: Solid shots occur when the club brushes the ground in front of the ball. &bull; Fix the Motion First: If the club bottoms out behind the ball, rehearse the swing again. &bull; Build Impact Skills: Once angle of approach is correct, refine face and path control.

Kenneth Garcia-Angle of Approach

In this on-course Player Lesson, Mike Malaska works with golfer Kenneth Garcia to improve the quality of his strike and overall ball contact. Like many players, Kenneth is making solid swings but struggling with inconsistent contact, sometimes hitting behind the ball and sometimes catching it thin.
Mike begins with the foundation of all good ball striking: the grip. By adjusting Kenneth&rsquo;s lead hand position and placing the club more securely in the fingers, Mike helps him create better face control and a more stable connection to the club.
From there, Mike explains the three essential impact skills every golfer must learn: face control, path control, and angle of approach. While most golfers focus on face and path, Mike explains that controlling where the club bottoms out, the low point of the swing, is often the real key to consistent contact.
Through simple practice swings and visual feedback drills, Kenneth learns how to train the club to brush the ground in front of the ball. Mike demonstrates how great players monitor where the club contacts the ground and use that information to improve their strike.
This lesson introduces the critical relationship between grip, strike, and swing arc. By improving his setup and learning to control where the club meets the ground, Kenneth begins building the foundation for consistent ball-then-turf contact, the hallmark of solid golf shots.