Yup – I Had The Stance Issue Solved Nearly Perfectly in ’15-’16

I was nearly ill when I took a trip through my 2016 swing clips archive – around June of 2016, I had a nearly perfect foot and shoulder adjustment for my swing model to enable me to swing straight down the line.

See below:

As you can see, similar to my post about 2012, by using nothing more than the athletic intuition I brought to all other sports (and which was built by the very participation in those sports), I nearly nailed the perfect stance adjustment.

It was there in 2012:

… and I likely went away from it in 2013-2014 because that was when I made the break away from the Mike Austin school of swing models (2013), which made me blow up and rebuild the way I was swinging, and of course in 2014 when I was studying Ben Hogan’s “Perfect Pivot” action, I was more focused on the pivot action than my particular setup.

But it was back in 2015:

August 2015

So, how could I have been so close to it in those years, only to have it all change?

The problem was, I was traveling a good deal at that time (six trips Stateside between January and July), and by August I was burnt out and working on yet another couple of videos, a video on the short game and “MCS – Dropping The Hammer,” which I released in early 2017.

That meant I had no time to work personally on my own swing, both in working on it and evaluating how well it worked, even though I was nearly there.

My focus was on travel, consultations and video production.

I then made a fatal error going into the 2017 season – I believed I had found a way to address the ball standing standard and began to do so.

That was the end for 5 years – I made no tangible progress between then and 2019 (even though I improved my swing numbers by simply swinging with the standard setup and unknowingly using a good deal of hand-eye to keep things going), as I wasn’t set up the proper way to swing the way I needed to.

Another problem in ’15 and ’16, before I went off the rails by dropping athletic intuition from my modeling, was that the setup wasn’t optimal.

In all of those above setups, I was still left-dominant (something I’ve only fixed this year in my work at Tracer Golf) and too extended with the arms to make an optimal golf swing.

So, when it isn’t quite where it should be, the danger is in thinking that the model needs a complete overhaul because of the disaster shots cropping up here and there on the course.

However, there’s always the silver lining, as I stated in my previous post.

First, the years of 2014-19 allowed me to demonstrate using other swingers how well the MCS swing model worked, and I actually was able to produce these types of numbers:

July 2018

… I mean, look at those positive Attack and high Launch numbers, and the club path nearly perfectly neutral with a light inside-out bias – knowing that was not set up optimally yet able to produce these numbers with the MCS swing model boggles my mind, to be honest.

I’m literally pacing the floors at home (it’s going to rain all weekend and I don’t usually do swing work on weekends at any rate as I hate crowded ranges and courses), waiting to get that next session in.

I’m likely as close as I have ever been to getting to my final destination, and it’s about time.

More to come!

2 thoughts on “Yup – I Had The Stance Issue Solved Nearly Perfectly in ’15-’16”

  1. Joe Gallant

    Hi DJ,I had a revelation about my own swing this past week and it goes like this.When I set up my feet are aligned,what I think left of target but every time I check it, ithey are aimed either at the target or right of target and in my mind I am set up square.And as a consequence a hole array of shots can occur.What I tried to do in my last range session was set up,what I think is way left of target is in fact,when I check it,perfectly parallel.And when I swing without the compensations to get back to square from the closed setup the ball flight is straight and better distance.My conclusion is the eyes,for me anyway are deceiving me and I think it has to do mostly with a term known as convergence.I plan to experiment quite a bit with this to see just how far left I can aim without the ball flight turning into a banana ball.I hope this makes sense and I’m wondering if anyone else has been experiencing this phenomenon. THANKS,can’t wait till you nail your model down.

    1. DJ Watts Post author

      Excellent comment, Joe. Perception plays a big role in this game, where there is no reaction to a moving ball and you’re not looking at your target when you swing, all of which can completely discombobulate the swinger. Especially one with experience in other sports.

      Just as when I felt square to the target line, because of how I used my feet to establish my setup to the line, my shoulders were twisted wide open. I have in the past couple of days focused instead on my shoulders and arms, and when I feel square to the target line doing it this way, the shoulders and arms are square or slightly closed, and my foot line is what it is.

      You are on the right track – by using your own feel and figuring out what in your senses is making you set up incorrectly, you are on the path to figuring out your own setup that ensures you swing down and through with a proper club path through impact.

      Good work!

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