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Where the ball goes is determined by path and face

WHERE THE BALL GOES

For Step 3 of Billy Fitzgerald’s player lesson, Mike Malaska talks about how you drop your foot back as you swing on the downswing. Your foot turns in, and your right knee stays behind your left knee. Mike explains to Billy how he should feel his femur rotate down and in and that his foot is rotating.

Mike talks about his baseball experience as a kid and how coaches teach you to rotate your right foot out in the baseball swing. This was referred to as “swish the bug.” Baseball players don’t do this much anymore. Mike applied that foot action when he came to golf, and Mike never struggled with his hips going out and his right leg moving up and out. If your right leg goes up and out, it will be limited to what you can do on your swing.

Billy makes some swings focusing on rotating his right foot back and in, and his right knee stays behind his left knee.

Billy comments that he feels his hip socket go back and stays there as his leg and foot are working. Mike says that the femur rotates in his hip socket, and it rotates because of what his foot is doing. His foot is twisting in the ground and not just pushing.

Baseball players talk about a second spike in their right foot, how they turn that spike down and twist it into the ground. This prevents their right hip from moving out.

Billy makes some swings so that Mike can analyze them. Billy is on the right track. Mike reiterates that Billy has a great impact position, and now he has mastered the right foot back and making it rotate into the ground.

BILLY FITZGERALD - FEEL HOW YOUR FOOT ROTATES

Distance control in putting is the topic of this Mulligan Monday.

Mike places two tees about 2 feet apart, and he is 10 feet away.
He then sets up and makes a practice stroke to estimate the speed. He looks at the tees, returns to the ball, and then closes his eyes. He makes a putt.

The object of this drill is to get the ball as close to the tees as possible; however, before you can open your eyes, you must guess if your putt is long or short.

Mike then looks, and the ball is just a little too far. He adjusts and makes another putt. This time the ball was short, and Mike could tell his putt was weak.

Close your eyes after making a practice stroke and putt. Tell yourself if you were right or wrong, and then look.

You will get a better feel for distance if you practice this drill.

PUTTING WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED

The connected swing is a feeling not a fact.

IS THE SWING CONNECTED

If you take a ball on the end of a string. Then just swing it around you. Feel what your hand is doing as the ball is swinging in a circle. It is constantly putting force on the rope to keep the ball swinging in a circle. If your arm goes the same direction the ball goes it slows the ball down. The same thing happens in your swing. Watch a hammer thrower. As the hammer comes around into the throw area the body pushes back away from the hammer to accelerate it. The same is true in a golf swing. 

THE SWING IS A CIRCLE

A Malaska Golf Member shares his experience with the Front Loader Drill. He hits the ball better when he puts the club out in front and starts his swing. He said it also keeps him from being too static over the ball.

Mike talks about how, for many years, golfers would set up to the ball and take a slight movement forward before hitting the ball. This triggered the backswing and was called a forward press.

In the 1980s, the prevailing thought in the golf industry changed to a more static start. Unfortunately, this locked a lot of people up. You will notice in many sports, you have to move left to go right. You do the same for the opposite way; go right to go left.

Another problem was taking the club away first. Mike emphasizes that this is a mistake because you will be late with your change of direction.

The Front Loader Drill puts the club out in front. As you bring it back, you are already on your right side, your hips are out of your way, and force is in your right foot. You are set up and can begin to change direction. If you start from a static position, it won’t be until the top of your swing or transition point that your body changes direction. This is too late!

The Front Loader Drill, having the club already out in front, allows you to go left foot, right foot, back to left foot, and then hit. This is your golf swing timing.

When you implement this into your swing without having the club in front of you, you have a slight forward kick or press before swinging backward. This gets you started on your swing.

Again, it is left, right, left, swing. The forward press is the trigger to get you to swing.

HOW TO START YOUR SWING

Matt Baker, a Malaska Certified Coach, is subbing for Mike this week. A Malaska Golf Member is having problems getting his right elbow under his left. Too far underneath.

Matt says this comes from two different areas. You are shallowing the clubhead too much, and it’s getting too far behind you, or your left hip isn’t working properly on the follow-through. You may be stalling, and your hip goes upwards. This will cause you to tilt your body back, and you will get caught behind the ball.

There are two things you can do to work on this. First is the ‘Turning the Corner’ of ‘Tipping the Club.’ This is in the Malaska Golf Drill Center.
This is where you feel the handle is being pulled down, and the club feels like it’s going over the handle. This gets the club back out in front of you.

Second, start working on moving your left hip backward on impact. Reference M1 of the M-System, where you chip and learn to pivot the left hip backward by pushing the left leg and hip back as you swing through. This will help you turn the shoulders and keep them level.

You can do either one, and that should help you.

KEEP FROM GETTING STUCK

Guilia Sergas works with Mike on Clubface and the Ball

ON THE RANGE WITH GUILIA SERGAS

Getting a putter fitted requires important information about a players swing.

THE STATS BEHIND FITTING A PUTTER

How to practice looping the swing "out to under."

PRACTICING OUT TO UNDER

This exercise is about rotation, and there are a couple of ways to test this.

First, Mike sits on the ground with his left leg bent other the other. He places his right arm outstretched, resting on his knee. His left arm is behind him, and he turns and looks over his left shoulder.

Mike can get his shoulders in line with his straight leg. He repeats this 
exercise with the other leg, turning the opposite way.

A second exercise to test rotation is to stand and place the club across your chest and shoulders and then rotate. The key is to turn from side to side and not turn your hips. Mike can also rotate his hips and isolate his shoulders.

When Mike swings, there can be a separation between the shoulders and hips, but it won't be easy if you are tight. This is a great exercise to help with rotation in your swing.

ROTATION

PING PONG AND GOLF

This Ask Mike comes to us from John DeFrancisco. By the way, Matt Baker, hello! Matt does a lot of great work. He’s over in England, and he’d be here today, except the flight was a little too long. So, hey Matt, how are you doing?This question is one that gets asked a lot. It tends to annoy me a little, which is great because I like being annoyed—it gives me a chance to be annoying back! The question is about the Look Cool Drill and how the clubface actually works through the ball. I’m going to take this one because I hear it so often, and it’s about exaggerations and putting circles together.All right, let’s get into it. You guys are going to have to move so I can demonstrate. The Look Cool Drill looks like this.When I’m doing the Look Cool Drill, if you watch the clubface, the face goes from here, comes down to there, and then moves up to here and over there. Through this movement, the face is rotating more than it would in my normal swing because my body isn’t moving. But this little action here—the clubface—is doing exactly what it should. It’s here, here, there, and there.The difference is that the handle of the club isn’t moving very far, so it looks like there’s a lot more face rotation. But if I take this same action and start moving my body—like in my full golf swing—the face does exactly what you want to see. When I take my body out of it and just swing my arm, you’ll see the handle pivoting, which makes it look like the face is twisting faster. However, the face is staying close to a 90-degree angle to my swing arc.The biggest issue I see with the Look Cool Drill and the L-to-L Drill is that people don’t fully understand the wrist movements. For example, when you go from here, your left wrist is flat. Now, if I use only my left arm and move to the other side, what does my left wrist do? It cups.When you add the right hand, on the backswing, your right wrist is in extension, and as you go through the swing, it moves into flexion. During the backswing with the Look Cool Drill, the left wrist is flat, and the right wrist is bent. At impact, and then as you follow through, the roles switch—the right wrist flattens, and the left wrist bends.When you do this with one hand, sometimes there’s more rotation than you want. If I overdo it, yes, the face rotates too much. The goal of the Look Cool Drill is to let the weight of the club drop and pivot naturally. See what I’m doing here?This doesn’t require strength—I’m only holding the club with two fingers. The idea is to let the club’s momentum do the work. As the club pivots, the face naturally moves through the arc. If I let it flip too much, the face closes. But the goal is to feel how loose your wrists need to be and how the club’s weight creates the pivot.If I do this with my left hand and let it flip back, the face might close, but that’s an exaggeration to help feel how much the club’s weight contributes to the swing. The drill teaches you how to relax the wrists and let the lever system work effectively.As simple as this looks, most students struggle to do it correctly when starting. They can’t figure it out because they’re too tense. This motion—this pivoting action—is the same as throwing a ball, serving in tennis, or any similar movement.The Look Cool Drill is all about using the weight of the club to train your hands, relax your wrists, and get the lever system working naturally.

SWING BETTER WITH THE LOOK COOL DRILL

The importance of learning skills over fixes

IFYP: SWING SKILLS

Joe's practice swing was something he prescribed to most all of his students. This trained you to move the club in sync with your body and how to keep the weight of the ball in front of you as opposed to falling behind.

FEELING JOE'S PRACTICE SWING

Mike gives a Player Lesson to Malaska Golf Spotlight Member Chris Grundy from Southport, England. Mike lesson focusses on setup to the ball , balance, and how the right arm rotates in your shoulder socket.

PLAYER LESSON WITH CHRIS GRUNDY

Milo discusses fundamentals that start off every lesson, and every practice session. These include grip, posture and ball position.

LESSON WITH MILO LINES

THE KEYS TO PERFORMING

Set up with your trail foot draped way back. Make swings and create the L on the backswing, then make the L on the follow through. Once you can do that then add face control. On the first shot do the L to L But make the ball curve to the left or hook. Then the second ball make the ball curve to the right or slice. The last ball try to make it go straight. This skill needs to be developed to move on to a bigger swing with more motion.

THE LEVER SYSTEM - L TO L CHALLENGE

Focus on putting the clubface on the back of the ball and adjusting your setup position to help your golf game. Don’t worry about your swing. 

HIT THE BALL IN THE CENTER OF THE FACE 

To hit the golf ball high, use the loft in the clubface and open the face, or use a different wedge with more loft to hit the ball.

HITTING PITCH SHOTS

Learning how to control trajectory with one arm is a basic skill. As you pitch balls with just your trail arm. The relationship of your knuckles to your wrist is what changes the loft or angel of the face. The father your knuckles are behind or to the right in a right handed player the lower the ball goes. But with no twisting in the wrists the ball goes straight. This control transitions into all clubs and all shots.

PITCHING TRAJECTORY

In a bunker you want your shoulders to always be in the same relationship to the sand as you are on a flat lie. So when the ground changes or the sand angles change. Uphill down hill side hill the shoulders have to be set relative to the sand the same as they would be on a flat lie. That also changes the ball position.

UNEVEN LIES

Ben Hogan knew the power of insecurity. How is golf enjoyable when there is so much nervousness and fear? You enjoy the fear when you have learned to turn that into greater performance.

ENJOY THE FEAR

Now that you can roll your feet, hold your position after impact and then go into your finish.  Start to get a feel of how your feet cause your leg to rotate, which causes your hip to move out of the way of the swing.

STEP THREE

My students complain when their baseball swing shows up in their golf swing. I Wish people would swing like their baseball swing! Here's why.

BASEBALL SWING

If you come underneath the ball, you've got a weak barrel. This will lead to a right field pop up. Think of path of the golf swing like the path of the bat.

IMPACT IN BASEBALL AND GOLF

Distance control is the final and most important skill you can develop for putting. You can't control distance without having solid ball roll, face hits, and speed.

DISTANCE CONTROL

A Malaska Golf Member says he loves the M-System. He set up a net in his backyard and wants to know what to practice.

Mike is holding a coffee cup which he refers to as the “Malaska Cup.” This is something he came up with as a kid. Mike often held a drink cup while shagging golf balls on the range at the 9-hole golf course where he worked.

Mike would have the cup in one hand and hit balls with his other hand toward his shag bag. The purpose of the cup was to stop Mike from moving his body all over the place, which would cause him to spill his drink. His clubface worked correctly, making small chips by running the clubface into the ball.

Once Mike got tired of hitting with his right hand, he would switch the cup and hit with his left hand. As easy as Mike makes it look, he said 90% of golfers can’t do this drill. Most people won’t be able to hit the ball solid, control the clubface, and keep their shoulders quiet. And they will be moving their body all over the place.

Mike says this drill is a basic skill you need to master! Tour Players can easily do it because they are so good with their hands and the clubface.

When you begin with the M-System, start with the basic drills, work on that, then add two hands. Do the L-to-L Drill and learn how to move your body. Mike emphasizes not being in a hurry and rushing to create speed.

THE MALASKA CUP

The amount of loft in your putter can affect how the ball comes of the clubface. Changing your ball position can instead of having multiple putters with different lofts achieve the same outcome.

MICHAEL GARDEN - PUTTING - LOFT - 202104

INTRO TO SWING SKILLS

FULL SWING

The third bridge exercise is the forward bridge. Start on your hands and knees with your toes turned inward and elbows on the ground. 

Push your hips up and form a v-shaped bridge and hold. If you can do this, try lifting one leg at a time. Make sure your hips are stable. This exercise also stretches your calves. You can roll your hips from side to side as well.

FORWARD BRIDGES

PUTTING USING YOUR LAG SHOT WEDGE

Mike Malaska introduces the M-System Lite M1: Line of Compression. Line of compression goes right into the concept of impact. To hit the ball solid, you need to compress it, which most amateurs don’t. This happens because they don’t have a great line of compression.What is line of compression? If you take a baseball bat and hit something, a tree, for instance, your arms will line up with the bat. This is because the bat stabilizes the force coming back through it.Mike says that you wouldn’t roll your wrists when you hit with a baseball bat. If you did this in golf, it would be considered an ‘over the top’ swing.Mike demonstrates what line of compression is with a baseball bat.Line of compression happens in tennis too. If you take a tennis racket and make a forehand swing, the same thing happens. Your arm lines up with where you hit the ball on the racket, and this stabilizes the force.In golf, line of compression starts with your putter. It is important to get a feel for it with putting and distance. You need to establish line of compression first with putting before you can master it with your full swing.The concept of line of compression relates right to impact, and understanding it will help you.Mike holds his putter level out in front of him so that his arm lines up with the shaft. His arm is slightly angled, a little forward, because his arm pushes the putt.Some people keep the angle in the wrist, and others let it go, but the arm still lines up with the putter.Mike now sets up to a ball with a line on it. The ball needs to roll the line. You don’t want the ball to wobble. You want a center face hit with a good path.Mike demonstrates putting the ball as his right arm pushes the shaft through the ball. Again, the key is to make the line on the ball roll. Mike sinks the putt.It is important to command line of compression first with just one arm so you are stable with the putt before you add your second hand and arm.Mike moves to the edge of the green to talk about how line of compression relates to chipping. He explains that chipping is really ‘off-green putting.’Line of compression is the same with chipping. You can see this as Mike lines up his arm with his wedge. It is on the back of the shaft and pushes the shaft through the ball.&nbsp;You don’t want your arm to twist over or underneath. Again, you are pushing the shaft through the ball.There is one change from putting to chipping, though. Mike has drawn a dot on the clubface. The key here is to put that dot on the back of the ball when you hit it.The ball will get in the air, not because you lift it, but because the loft of the clubface gets it up. Mike reminds us that chipping is a ‘lofted putt with a chipping stroke.’When Mike sets up to the ball, he likes to practice with just one hand/arm first and then move on to both. This is all about feeling the line of compression and how your right arm pushes the shaft through the ball.Mike reminds us that the line of compression starts with putting and chipping. Then, you learn to compress the ball and get it in the air with the club.This is a big concept to master, and it applies to every iron and club in your bag, including a full swing with a driver.

M-SYSTEM LITE M1: LINE OF COMPRESSION

Milo answers the most common question: how to hit far

GOLF INSTRUCTOR MILO LINES

A Malaska Golf Member wants to know about the right shoulder in chipping. Mike explains when you swing, the shoulder doesn't go lower than where it started.

The biggest problem most golfers have is setting up to the ball and having their right shoulder tilted down. This causes you to hit behind the ball because your legs will drive into the ball, and your shoulders will tilt. When you set up in chipping, you want to feel like your shoulders are level through the swing.

The Malaska Golf Member wants to know if this is relevant to your full swing. Mike's answer to this is yes. The only difference is that your shoulders turn significantly more in a full swing, and the right shoulder goes a lot higher. When your right shoulder comes down, it will be level through the swing. This is called "covering the ball." It is not swinging "over the top."

When you go back during the full swing and turn in the downswing, the right shoulder is just below your left shoulder, your left leg pushes out of the way, and your right shoulder will level out and go right through the ball.

Mike concludes that it does have relevance to a full swing as it is the same move with a lot less shoulder turn. Again, the shoulder turn is minimal in chipping before it levels out on the downswing. The bigger the shoulder turn, the more your shoulder will go down before going around. This depends on the shot, but the relevance is the same.

RIGHT SHOULDER ACTION

Head movement is the subject of this Skill Pathway. Your head doesn't remain still, so how and why does it move, and what keeps it still? 

One of the biggest problems for players, especially amateurs, is how their heads move. The movement happens because they are trying to shift their weight.

Forces, not weight shift, are what causes your head to move. When you swing into your right heel, then into your left heel, and your left leg pushes back, your head moves as your body tilts. It is not because you are just moving it back and forth.

Mike stands on one foot and swings to demonstrate how his head doesn't move much as he pivots on one hip. He doesn't push off on his right foot when he changes direction and starts down.

It is vital to understand that you are not trying to shift your weight; you are trying to move force. Practice hitting on one foot to experience what it feels like to hit down into the ground instead of off the ground.

Correctly moving your body will make your head more stationary and not move around as much.

WEIGHT SHIFT

A waggle is a smaller version of your full swing. If it does not include elements of your swing that you wish to show up, you are waggling wrong. Here is a deeper look on what is a waggle.

WHAT DOES WAGGLE MEAN

As you practice for a tournament, you build up to each club. Pactice making swings with your pitching wedge.

WORKING YOUR PITCHING WEDGE

Billy Fitzgerald, a Malaska Certified Coach, is helping Mike this week. A Malaska Golf Member has a question about the right foot, right femur twist, and how it works down into the ground.Our members have probably seen the videos on the ROTEXMotion Floor discs. This is a great training aid because the discs allow your foot, thigh, and femur to twist in, which gives you a sensation of the femur working in. Even though you don't twist like that in your swing, the discs help you feel how the femur rotates in the hip socket.Both sides work in unison when you swing down into the impact position. As your left leg pushes the left hip up and back, your right femur is working down and in.Billy demonstrates how both sides are working as he swings down to impact. As Billy takes the club up to the transition point, he works the swing down; you can see how his right thigh works down and in. At the same time, his left leg pushes his right thigh up and back.Part of the member's question is, do you start to twist your foot when you are at the top of your backswing?Billy responds that it is about sequencing, and you need to talk about both the right and left legs simultaneously. Your left leg triggers the start of the downswing. As soon as your leg pushes back,you can feel your right foot and femur twist down and in.Your hip socket must be soft enough so your femur can rotate. Your foot doesn't twist, but you feel the pressure on the inside spike of your shoe.

RIGHT FOOT, RIGHT FEMUR TWIST

The feet are one of the two contact points in the swing. Here's how to gain a better understanding.

FEET AND FORCE

Making half swings on the driving range before you play is a great way to practice clubface control and control of where the ball is going.

HALF SWING WITH FACE CONTROL

The process of learning is to get the ball in the hole.

TOSKI - BEST IN THE WORLD

PLAY THE GAME WITH NIC SINGLETON

How is tee time in under 24-hours? Use this tip to quickly prepare for that match with your friends.

QUICK FIX FRIDAYS

Putting is the foundation of your swing. Any action you make here is magnified in your other clubs.  Here's where to start.

PUTT WITHOUT YOUR HIPS

This, is the 18th green for the members. It was the ninth hole in the last round of the Utah Open. This was probably one of the most influential shots I hit in the round, showing my confidence in how I was striking the golf ball. Now, if you look back there, you can see the members' tee.But if you go a little to the right, way back there, that's the very back tee. It's about 175, 180, 185 yards from here, and the pin was right here. So you've got the pin, the bunker, and you're in a canyon.If you miss right, you don't want to short-side yourself. The pin was way over on the right, with the bunker in front, and it's a tough bunker shot. If you miss right of the bunker, you're likely making double bogey. So here we are with this setup, which is perfect for hitting a fade. But because of the way I was playing, every shot I hit was solid, with a little draw.I was hitting about a 5- to 10-yard draw on everything. So where did I aim? The pin's here, and I’m back there. I aimed almost in the center of the bunker, and I hit it. It started in the center of the bunker and hooked in. I hit it about six feet from the hole and made birdie, which gave me a two-shot lead—an important moment for me.My point is, I was so comfortable with the shot I was hitting that the trouble didn’t even come into play. People would ask me, "You started it over that bunker. What if it didn’t hook?" Well, I hooked everything. Every time I hit it solid, it would draw 5 or 10 yards. This highlights that, to be a really good player, you need a shot where, if you make a good swing and hit it solid, you know what the ball will do.You can’t be trying to hit it both ways. Initially, everyone wants to learn to hit draws because your club comes from the inside, squares the face, and generates the most distance. That’s how I started. I played that draw almost exclusively for the first six years of my golf career.I was really good. I won this tournament, I won some college tournaments, and I was playing great. Then suddenly, someone said, "Oh, we’ve got to change who you are. You should never have tried that. You should hit the middle of the green and fade it to the hole." So, a lot of things changed. They changed my grip, they changed my swing, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t just stand up and make a swing knowing what the ball would do. I knew I’d hit it solid, but it might fade a little or hook a little.That uncertainty made me defensive, which is where most golfers are. The other approach is being offensive, like I was before, because I knew that if I hit it solid, it would always draw 5 to 10 yards. It wasn’t going to fade—no chance. Learning to have a consistent shot where you curve the ball the same way every time is crucial for playing your best.Now, this was the first tee and my first shot of the day. It was probably one of the most important tee shots I hit all day. I had warmed up on the range, found a rhythm, hit it solid with a little draw, and this hole set up perfectly for that. I just aimed at the left edge of the trees out there and hit my draw.At that point, you're no longer thinking about the swing itself. You're just feeling the motion you're going to make to hit the shot you want. It was a good shot, right in play.That first swing was one of the most important shots of the day because I got it in play, hit it past everyone, and gained a lot of confidence relative to the guys I was playing with.Okay, so now I’m here, as a senior, just short of the first hill. When I played the tournament, my tee shot would have been about 80 yards farther. I was right up here—there’s the 100-yard marker—where I could see the top of the flag. My tee shot was up here, and I had this shot left.I made birdie on number one, and then I came to number two. This hole, if you look at it, has out-of-bounds left, but you can see how it sets up for a nice, soft draw. I’ve always aimed at the hill, right over the white tees. There’s a hump, and I’d aim at it and draw the ball back into the fairway.Visually, this course set up really well for me. A lot of golf courses come down to how they set up visually for a player and what you need to do to feel comfortable.Even now, at my age, I still hit the draw. That was always my shot. They tried to take it away from me for a while, but I’ve returned to it, and I’m hitting it more consistently now than when I was trying to mix in fades and different swings. Back then, with the changes in my grip and swing, I was trying to hit fades and draws instead of just hitting one solid shot.Now, let’s talk about this tunnel. We had about 5,000 people out here, and most of them were following the last two groups. People follow the players they like. When we got to this hole on the back nine, the crowds walked with us, and the tunnel felt so claustrophobic. There were so many people around, and it was packed. I felt really edgy.But when I came out of the tunnel, it was like I experienced freedom. Everything calmed down. The same thing happened when I approached this par-3, which was the ninth hole for us. When I came out of the tunnel to hit my tee shot, I was much more relaxed. The tunnel had made me feel uneasy, but once I emerged, everything was calm again. I tapped into that feeling—high energy, but calm at the same time."

MANAGING PRESSURE

Starting the ball on a line will improve your face control. Practice making swings with different clubs to get a feel.