The Travis Project - Introduction

I have been given the keys to the castle... NW Golf Guys innovator and general all around good guy Travis Schoen came in today and asked for help.  In fact he said, "I am putty" in your hands.

If you are in the Pacific Northwest and are looking for a great bunch of guys to play local courses with & have a little competition I recommend the NW Golf Guys at: www.nwgolfguys.com

As instructor I truly enjoy this opportunity to build a golf swing and a repeatable scoring system for a person who is motivated with athletic ability.

What will follow is the documentation of Travis's development, improvement, and, at times, struggles in the "Travis Project."

First some rules and regulations.
1) No fair for any of Travis's friends to use this information to get into his head or his game!  In fact there will be at least a one month lag in lesson to posting. 
2) While we will be technical in this forum there will be a specific limit to the amount of information documented.

And away we go!

Lesson 1

The Interview:
Today was about getting to know Travis, his swing, his goals and expectations.  I have many questions for Travis.  While we know each other professionally we do not know each other's game.  It was important for me to get to know him and deliver upon his goals rather than interject what I might feel.

Here is what I learned:
1) Travis is a swinger not a hitter.
2) He is extremely athletic and can make swing changes fairly quickly. 
3) He has no physical injuries to worry about.
4) He is a visual learner.
5) He prefers to not have too many technical swing thoughts.
6) He is a 16 handicap and is tired of losing to players who aren't as gifted athletically.

In his game Travis:
1) Tends to lose strokes off the tee.
2) Has issues with both a straight-pull or a pull slice.
3) He is able to draw his irons at times but the longer the club the more right they can go.
4) His swing he has the opportunity to hit the ball fat at times.  Maybe as many as one per round. 


Here is Travis's swing before we started....

Down the line

 

Face on View

 

 

Swing Analysis -

Travis is very athletic and this can be seen in his swing.  He utilizes his athletic ability to "time" his swing.  Using this swing model Travis can shot a nice number such as a 74-75.  But, if/when he looses his timing he could also struggle to break 90. We need to work on a couple key points for Travis to use that athletic ability to not worry about ball contact.  We need to use that athletic ability to SCORE!  In short his platform is to unstable and it allows for him to be out of control and not OWN his swing and his resulting golf shots.

 

Drill 1

The first step for us is to work on Travis's stability.  Here is a great video capture of Travis's drill.

 

 

 

Drill 2

Here is a secondary drill position for Travis to work on.  Notice the Right foot in the circle before and after we worked on Drill 1.  Notice that Travis is now able to fully to transfer his weight into the left side.  GREAT WORK HERE!

 

 

 

Results

Finally, here is the end product of Travis's swing after about 35 minutes.

 

 

 

The results we are looking out of this new swing are:

1) Increased and improved ball contact - zero heavy shots!

2) Higher spin rate off the iron.

3) Increased distance - even at this slower swing speed!

4) With more pure back spin this will lead to straighter shots.

 

The great thing that I look forward to watching is the other "dynamic" changes that we will see as Travis continues to work on these. Such as:

1) Improved shoulder alignment.

2) Better retention of lag.

 

Thank you Travis for the support and the confidence.  I look forward to this journey towards better golf!

 

Your friend in golf.

John Grothe, PGA

john.grothe@gmail.com