One of the biggest debates in the instructional world is the “way” in which people should use technology within their lessons. Some of the older pros are dead against it and say we have gone too far (Brandel Chamblee). Other pros like to blend feels and science (Phil Blackmar). Finally, some of the pros around think it’s great and wished it was around when they were playing (Frank Noblio). Personally, I think they are all correct!

Mechanics are important. You can’t expect to have the best results possible on the diagnostic end without technology to help you “see” things. On the other end, feels are one of the main tools of concentration used to navigate the course and the multitude of situations which arise. Feels may not be real, as they say, but they are incredibly important.

No two PGA Tour players swing exactly alike. While there are many similarities, every player on tour has learned the value of owning their swing which requires recognizing personal idiosyncrasies. These idiosyncrasies are called Fingerprints.

Phil Blackmar, a long-time PGA Tour Player and multiple winner defines these fingerprints as, “the idiosyncratic motions of the player that binds the swing together under pressure while allowing the player to adjust to any situation.” These fingerprints can be either physical (which we’ll focus on here) or part of the mental game as well.

Fingerprints are the baseline of your personal motion and have several levels. The levels range from aspects of the swing that cannot be changed without risking swing purgatory to ones that may change from week to week or even day to day. Imagine recording these in a notebook to keep them straight and to remember them. Use the first pages to record the permanent fingerprints progressing to the latter pages which relate more to feel keys that change often. Remember, a feel key that ends up lasting a long time may be transferred to a more permanent notebook location.
So, let’s dive in further on Phil’s fingerprints and seed how valuable they can be to you and I as we grow and mature as players.

Notebook Page One

Things that never change and are the backbone of the player’s swing.

• You must turn back and forth during the swing
• There is movement of the pressure back and forth from foot to foot
• The clubshaft returns to impact as a solid unit on the lead side to compress the ball.
• The rear hip stays on or inside the rear foot.
• The swing happens in a sequence, turn, turn swoosh. Following the initiation of the second
• turn, the club swings into impact where it makes a swoosh.

These are the simple ones that all great players possess, but what about page number two? Page two is very important. It is like your personal swing DNA that encodes the things that make your swing unique to you. Care must be taken if changing a fingerprint because it can cost the player his or her swing personality. If this is lost, so too is the game as seen in several instances on the PGA tour.

Notebook Page Two

Things that rarely change and give the player their distinctive look

Here we have Jon Rahm at the top of the backswing and Bryson at address, which are both very unique. Imagine Rahm trying to stand to the ball like Bryson or Bryson with Rahm’s short laid-off backswing. That would be a disaster for them both just like Rahm will never swing it back like Daly or Adam Scott and Bryson will never lower his hands at address like Fuzzy.

You can try and alter things to see if they work better. But, this is where the instructor must respect the feels of the player because such changes may be going up against the player’s unique DNA or fingerprint. It should be a shared journey of discovery between the player and the instructor.

In fact, Justin Rose said this about his own swing while working with Sean Foley:

“My normal MO would be to get the club into a very toe-down position at the top of my backswing and I would have to work hard to square the face at impact. As a young player, this was a way of creating speed. Because of that, my head tends to stay back through impact as well. But those are my traits and the ones I’ve had a really hard time getting rid of, but in some ways they’re my talent. This is how I play golf. I’m not a guy who is closed and super-strong at the top of the backswing and that holds the face very passive through impact, and thankfully Sean understood that and didn’t try and change it.”

Notebook Page Three

Fundamentals that can become fractionally more malleable

These could include such swing aspects as grip, ball position, alignment, width of stance, distance from the ball, club face orientation etc. Remember, just because something looks different or odd it is not necessarily a flaw. While it could be, it also could be a fingerprint so take care in making changes.

So let’s look at this sample swing from this player and see how Page Three would operate.

Everything looks pretty good, but let’s say we (both the player in instructor) felt like he was leaving some power behind and we decided to audit his force production on Swing Catalyst. And as we see above the horizontal force isn’t quite as strong as it should be.

Next, we check GEARS to see what is going on with how he moves his pelvis.

We see that his pelvis has just traveled a few inches forward by this point in his swing and that’s the root of his horizontal force problem. Too little movement too late in the downswing. (3D Rocks!)

Question though?? Could we make his horizontal force grow and peak earlier for added power? We could try, but would that necessarily make this player better? The only way we could find out is to test it subtly and see what happens. As a teacher, however, I will tread lightly because this appears so natural to this player.

Page Four of the Notebook

Things that can change from week to week or even day to day.

These are the carrots of knowledge or epiphanies which you discover in the middle of the night, on the range during warm-up, on the course and so on. These can be very powerful and can turn a bad day into good, a good day into better or just salvage a round. Great players are experts and limiting damage until they can find a feel key to get them to the house so they live to fight another day.

Picture this player struggling with shots hanging right.

We audit TrackMan to see what is happening we find the path and face are fine but the player is catching the ball off of the heel. This ball should have been a wonderful push draw that we like to see but the heel strike countered it and made the ball hang out to the right.

So as we go back and reflect on our notebook, this isn’t a major issue so let’s think about a simple swing key that would help this player without reinventing the wheel.

Is it a page one fingerprint issue- No?

Is it a page two fingerprint issue- No?

It appears to be a page four issue where the player simply needs to focus more on balance and make contact with the intent of finding the middle of the face. So, we experiment with a couple feels and find if he keeps his balance over the middle of his feet rather than toes, the heel shot goes away.

So, this player hits balls and says, “YES, I have it…I’ll just wiggle my toes at address and it will remind me to stay back more towards my heels.” This is an example of opening your notebook and making sure you don’t go off on a tangent trying to fix major things when a simple thought could help. Consistency is born in simplicity, not complexity.

Today it will be wiggling the toes, two days from now it might be focus on hitting the center of the blade, and next week it might be something as radical as “X.” The bottom line is that if items on the first pages of the notebook haven’t changed, then the answer can usually be found in a simple manner.

Concentration, the topic of another blog, uses subconscious pictures and feels to remember the shot before the swing begins. It’s a process that is most efficient with narrow focus rather than multiple concerns. The player who, on the course, can narrow focus while remaining calm, remember the shot prior to swinging, and swing with certainty, is the player most likely to excel in all situations. Mechanics and feels must walk the fairways together.