Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Good job. Hi there, and welcome to today's proper golfing podcast with myself, Joe Cameron.
Speaker 1 00:00:05 I'm Julie Miller,
Speaker 0 00:00:06 Co-creators of proper golfing. So today is our week two in our series from our Transformation Vault. Remarkable Stories that actually Real people, real data, real results, aren't they? Absolutely true. So today's title is The Golfer who finally stopped Keeping his head down. So, so welcome to our podcast, but we've julian's coached thousands of golfers, and here's the key statistic from today is that around 98% of them believe they must keep the head down.
Speaker 1 00:00:36 Yeah. When they first come in, we always ask him the question and yeah, 98% think that that's true. Mm.
Speaker 0 00:00:41 And here we are. Revelation time. It's the biggest myth in golf. Absolutely. So we're gonna tell you why today. But so today's story comes from a golfer called Tony. Let's call him Tony. And he's one of our clearest examples, although there is loads, but he's one of the clearest examples. So Tony might be like you, he struggled with his golf, with his back pain for years with inconsistency, common problem, low confidence, and that horrible feeling of, I know what I'm doing wrong, but I dunno how to stop it. Yeah. So when he first came to see us, he said something that we've heard a million times before. Julian, I know I'm lifting my head and everybody tells me that's why I hit bad shots over to
Speaker 1 00:01:21 You all the time. All the time, Joe. It's, it's always very interesting when you video somebody for the first time and they say they're lifting your head, their head up. And when you video 'em, show them, they're actually keeping the head down way too long. And this is one of the biggest problems that we, we help golfers with. Yeah. Yeah. Do
Speaker 0 00:01:39 You wanna, it's a longer complicated story where the myth came from, isn't it?
Speaker 1 00:01:42 Yeah. There's, there is a background to it and, and it actually stemmed from when the camera was invented. Oh. So they took a picture of somebody striking a golf ball, they saw the head stain down and then it became, became an urban myth, ultimately. Right, right. So that's when it really started to be normalized per se. Unfortunately it said all over the world, we, we have golfers from literally every continent, don't we? Yeah. And everybody tells you to do the same thing. So today we'll try and explain why it's a bad thing and more importantly what you can do about it. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:02:16 So yeah, there's thousands of goal. We coach thousands of golfers in person online. So real people, real data means that actually every lesson that we do, we capture the data from it. So all we're talking about is things that actually work.
Speaker 1 00:02:32 Yeah. We can prove pretty much everything evidence we're going to say, but it's, if you just give a lesson and the person goes away, that moment's lost. You can't actually help people learn from all the lessons that we've grown. And that's why we, you know, we record things, we do it really well. We don't just rely on the person's feedback. We get the feedback from the sim as well. So we get numbers which are really helpful.
Speaker 0 00:02:59 So here's the thing then. Yeah. So when golfers come, you actually test their assumptions, don't you? By doing a clever little thing. So tell people what you do.
Speaker 1 00:03:06 So the very first thing that I do is I get them to imagine that I'm a complete beginner. There's never a wrong answer to this question, but I say, if I was a beginner, what hints and tips could you give me? Now that is my opportunity to delve into their bank of knowledge and go, okay, well let's hear what, what you think is the right thing that's gonna help me with my golf. So I'm never there trying to pull people apart or pick on them, I just learn from them. Okay. Every single person says, well you must keep your head down and keep your eye on the ball. Yeah. It's one of the things you must keep your left arm straight, for instance. Mm. I also question 'em about the finish of the golf swing. Is that important? Very few, very few people say it's not important, but when they're actually playing, they pay no importance to it. But
Speaker 0 00:03:59 You do a really, really fun thing actually with them, don't you, to check that what they believe. Is it factually correct or not?
Speaker 1 00:04:07 Yeah. So every time, once I've, once I've learned what they would advise me, I says, okay, well let's challenge what is commonly said in golf, which is keep your head down, keep your eye on the ball. So I get them the first day, I do it in two ways. The first thing I do is get them to set up as they would do naturally. And then when they're ready to play the shot, I get them to close their eyes and hit the shot with their eyes close. How many people miss the ball, Joe?
Speaker 0 00:04:34 Zero.
Speaker 1 00:04:35 Zero. Absolutely. Nobody ever
Speaker 0 00:04:36 Misses absolutely zero. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:04:37 Yeah. It's not about the quality of contact. We're just challenging. Do you have to keep your eye on the ball to hit it? Nobody ever misses a ball. In fact, yesterday we, we had a group industry. Yeah, we did. And a lady says, you know, yeah, you have to get your iron ball. I says, well let's hit one. And she hit a big shot ever. No,
Speaker 0 00:04:54 I mean that astonishing. That's a remarkable thing is that, you know, whether we're in here on a range or on our golf holidays, it's mind blown. The PE look on people's faces when they keep their eyes closed and hit the ball. Can't believe it. We prove all day long. And that's the biggest myth, isn't it?
Speaker 1 00:05:08 Yeah. And then the second thing that I do is still thinking about keeping your eye on the ball. But I get them to do this exercise with their eyes open. I demonstrate it first hit a shot and just before impact I start to look towards the target. And so I then ask them, what did my head, and what did my eyes do? I said, you looked away, but I didn't really look away. I looked towards the target. So then I get them to hit at least three shots doing the same thing. Everybody improves their body movement. Yeah, hundred percent. They don't necessarily eat fantastic shots. It's not about that. And then I asked them, did the movement of your body feel any different? And everybody says, yeah, it feels so much freer. And that's because if you, if you doesn't matter where you are right now, you try and keep your head still and turn to the left.
Speaker 1 00:06:04 If you are righthand golfer, straight away you'll feel a restriction. But if you look left, your whole body moves so much more efficiently. So I would never say to anybody, look away from the ball before you've hit it. We know there's some golfers out there who do do that. But what I'm saying is if you have the intention to follow the ball with your eyes, your eyes turn your head, your head allows your body to move freely, you coordinate much better, you'll hit the ball further. Which is really exciting. Yeah. And more importantly, you'll hit it more accurately.
Speaker 0 00:06:35 Yeah. And less pain. Less. I love less pain. One of my favorite lines is, your eyes don't hit the ball. Your coordination does.
Speaker 1 00:06:41 Absolutely. Yeah. It's that coordinated movement. But you can't coordinate the movement if your eyes are fixated on that golf ball because the club head overtakes your body. It's very common to see shots shooting off to the left, but also creating lower back issues. And that's
Speaker 0 00:06:56 The problem. I mean that's the thing, like you say, if people feel that they've, you know, principle one of the proper golfing methodology is about free flowing movement, free flow free, you know, so that's what frees up reduced tension, you know, especially for golf over 50, you don't want any tension in your body anywhere. That's right. Especially in your lower back with all the sheer of the golf swing that goes in there. So yeah, reduced tension, improved term and, and here's the actual numbers, which I like, as I said from our actual transformation role, actual numbers, actual people, that people's confidence goes from three out 10 to eight out of 10. So Tony and everybody else, their confidence always rise ups, don't they? Absolute shoots up. These are actual numbers. And then the distance with less effort. We quote this every time distance goes up between 15 and 20 yards. In this case, in some cases it's more, and pain levels is really important. And swing pass improves. And the face angle stabilizers.
Speaker 1 00:07:52 Yeah. So face angle is, is club face. Generally you'll hit it straighter. So when you're keeping your head down, the club head overtakes your body very often closes. Then as a compensation, you'll then hold the club face open and it shoot off to the right. But when you coordinate the movement, much better get your eyes moving better. It squares the club face up much more consistent. Also helps with swing path. Really helps with that. Do
Speaker 0 00:08:15 You know, I was just thinking about a guy that came in yesterday, his first session. You said that was like remarkable what you get him to do. 'cause he was the same, wasn't he about said that. Know one about Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yesterday. So what can people learn then? So, you know,
Speaker 1 00:08:28 From, from doing it timeless,
Speaker 0 00:08:29 Timeless golf swing, you know, we're well known for timeless golf swing methodology in the three principles. Free flow movement, coordinated, and then six second finish. So
Speaker 1 00:08:41 What, what are you going to learn? I'm not saying don't keep your head down. Right. What I'm saying is challenge yourself. Challenge your beliefs. Hit some shots with your eyes closed. Don't focus on how well you hit it. Focus on have you actually hit the golf ball when you can't see it? Don't put maximum effort in. Keep it nice and smooth. Then the second thing is eyes open. Look towards the target fractionally before you make contact with a golf ball. And be aware of if your body movement feels any different. You should also feel a, a difference in weight transfer. Very easy to weight transfer onto your front foot. If you are keeping your head down, it's very easy to keep your weight on your right foot, on your back foot. Hence we hit behind the ball, top the ball, pull it left, push it off to the right. So I'm not, I'm, I would never say, don't do this. Challenge yourself. Give it, give it a go. See what happens. The, the outcome is the outcome, but you will learn something. It's incredible. A
Speaker 0 00:09:40 Hundred percent. I'm just going to, I'm just flicking through here just to make sure that I covered all the, the data and the information. So basically when your head, your head should never be locked because it locks your spine, it does
Speaker 1 00:09:52 Put so much pressure on your
Speaker 0 00:09:54 Spine. So it kills your rotation. Yeah. Forget that it destroys your natural coordination, which we just said
Speaker 1 00:09:59 Completely,
Speaker 0 00:10:00 Completely. If you try kicking a ball, for example, when PO one part of you is still, that's really hard, isn't it? It's really hard.
Speaker 1 00:10:05 Just imagine if you were throwing something towards the target, you would never keep your head here to throw it. You would look, yeah, your head turns now you can move. It's just the same in the golf swing. You'll apply so much more pressure to the golf ball. You'll definitely hit it further. You'll compress the ball so much better with so much less effort. Yeah, it's astonishing. Hopefully.
Speaker 0 00:10:26 I'm so excited. No,
Speaker 1 00:10:28 Just gotta try. I just want you to try
Speaker 0 00:10:30 A hundred percent. I'm just like recalling all the people that I've seen, you know, over the years that we've watched hitting the balls or our eyes closed and some people think, oh that's a bit crazy. We don't care whether you think it's crazy or not. The the bottom line is we want you to play better golf for longer and freer. Okay. Absolutely. I love this little quote of ours as well about keeping the head down. So keeping the head down is a myth created by people who never measured anything. Yeah. I just love that we measure everything. As I said to you, you know, so people come in and we record Julian's voice and we record the feedback and you know, that's kept in our transformation role and it's re I mean over these next few weeks we're gonna bring your most remarkable findings that you never even knew would existed. I mean you didn't
Speaker 1 00:11:14 You, you don't because you teach every day. If you're not capturing information, you're capturing emotion. Yeah. That, that's a big thing. People generally leave so much happier when they know, yeah, they do what they're actually doing wrong rather than thinking they know what they're doing wrong or worse still their playing partners telling them what they're doing wrong. Unless they're obviously a qualified coach. It's that knowledge, that understanding that boosts that confidence. Generally what happens, you're more confident, you relax more, you relax more, you move better, you move better, you hit much better golf shots. And so the cycle continues. So play
Speaker 0 00:11:49 Longer, better golf. Yeah, definitely. But we measure everything, don't we? Cliff path, face angle, ball speed, rotation, strike quality, finished position. Yeah. All of that. Yeah. Wow. Flipping it. Honestly, we could go on, we on. So for people to take away, you've mentioned about the eyes closed shots, you've mentioned foll ball with your eyes. Yeah. There's another one about the shoulder term release. You wanna talk about that now?
Speaker 1 00:12:10 Yeah. So again, if you are trying to turn your shoulders to the left, if you keep your head still, they will be restricted. There's no question about it. Very easy then to get outta shape, put a load of pressure on your lower lumbar spine, which is worse. Very easy to block the shot. So leave the face open or hook it now as soon as you go that way your, your shoulders turn, your hips turn your pelvis technically. Oh yeah. Turns much better. Your weight transfer, you'll be facing your target, your weight will be on your front foot. You'll be in balance and you'll hit it straighter. Trust me, it works. It's like people say it's like a miracle, it's just understanding how the body moves and we've, you know, we understand that really well.
Speaker 0 00:12:51 Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean just when you were doing that with your should. Oh, I can feel that in my right side. You know, as an
Speaker 1 00:12:55 Ex, I hate demonstrating.
Speaker 0 00:12:56 I know hundred percent is horrible. I'm an ex field hockey player, so I can absolutely a hundred percent get the right side spine and yeah. And left knee a hundred percent. Get that. So yeah, that's what we're asking you to try today, isn't it? But yeah, it's, especially when golf is over 50 as well, because our body dehydrates a little bit more. So we do get stiffer and tidy. You know, a lot of our people don't, they do Pilates, yoga and that sort of thing to keep supple, but you know, your body chemistry is changed as we approach our fifties and beyond. So that's why it's really important that don't get your head down. Yeah, I think we've said that, haven't we? But, but anyway, so we, from proper golfing, you can follow us on YouTube, you can subscribe to our podcast, you can find it everywhere.
Speaker 0 00:13:37 The, there is a free download to the proper golfing handbook on our website, proper golfing.com. You can go to the proper golfing handbook tab and the, one of the most important things that you can, and the easily accessible things is on our homepage, the button that says Download your 30 day transformation plan. Why wouldn't you? You basically join for $13 or 9 99 a month and within 48 hours we ask you to fill in some staff. You send it back and we send you a plan. It is mind blowing. That's awesome. For the price that you pay is like two posh coffees. Yeah. A month. What's that month? So, and if you wanna leave at any point, you can leave at any point. But, so it's public golfing.com, download your 30 day transformation plan today and get started today. And then we'll see you next week for week three of our Transformation Vault podcast.
Speaker 1 00:14:23 Yeah, brilliant. We'll say bye-Bye for, and you know, we're enjoying it and any questions, let us know.
Speaker 0 00:14:27 Yeah, please let us know. Bye for now. Have a lovely day. Take care. Bye. Take care. Bye.
