Be Better Golfers asked for a more detail training guide for the GEM. Here it is in 3 parts.


Part 1 is AIR SWINGS. 
- WAIST TO WAIST
- 3 and 1. 2 backswings only and then back and through
- Armpit to armpit

Part 2 is Wiffle balls
- WAIST TO WAIST
- 3 and 1. 2 backswings only and then back and through hitting a waffle ball
- Armpit to armpit with club starting at parallel on the through swing
-With and without GEM on

Part 3 with GOLF BALLS at range
- swing gem 10 times then swing it 5 times without GEM on. Then hit a ball
start small and build up arc.

​This training aid changes the center of mass of any golf club to feel how you should actually swing the club. Squaring the face the wrong way destroys the athletisim of anyone's swing. This fixes that. 

GO TO 

https://www.gemgolf.com/ref/16/
and use the code BBGOLF10 to save 10% and get free shipping until the end of 2022!

Couldn't help but make a 30 minute review on this. it is really good.

A Be Better Golfer called Otis sent me a  video in May from the Steve Johnston YouTube page where Steve is using a new training aid. It was unlike anything I had seen before.

I have been thinking about the inherent problems with a golf club's center of mass (COM) for a while now and I thought GEM might really be onto something special. So I emailed them about it and I didn't hear back from them for about 5 months. Eventually there social media manager contacted me and sent me 2 units. 

It is a counterbalance bar that hangs 90 degrees off the edge of the shaft. It comes with 3 different length bars.

This last week I have been testing the GEM and putting some of the early results on my Instagram 

I'll be making a YouTube video about it on Monday or Tuesday.

My first thoughts. It is a very strange feeling. The COM of the club with the GEM on keeps the club hanging TOE UP, so It squares itself. At first it felt VERY GOOD, and I really god the sense that the body was squaring the club and not the wrists (the opposite of what you would think but that is how a lot of pro's have described it to me). My wife saw me swinging it and thought it looked like I was going to really wack myself with the bar.

I REALLY FELT open when I was making the practice swings with the longest bar and I thought, this MUST be looking awesome (it surely FELT awesome) SO I filmed a few swings. I was wrong. They looked horrible. Something was off.

Although The swings were VERY open at impact (which is great for me) I was never getting the club DOWN to the level of the ball and ALL my practice swings looking VERY STEEP (which is a lightly nicer way of saying masselity OVER THE TOP). I went to bed that night pretty confused about these results. I knew it was showing me something but I wasn't using it the right way. 

The next day I took it to the range to use with my friend and professional golfer David Heinen (one of the top junior golf coaches in the country). After hitting some really great shots while flip flopping between the GEM arm and regular full swing shots. I would hit some really well but then STILL had that steepening shaft on the way down (above the Functional swing plane). 

Then I got a very strange idea and went with it. I was having a hard time getting the clubbed DOWN enough. OPEN enough seemed to be a given while using the GEM but the club has to go DOWN, OUT and FORWARD. So something my wife had said a few nights back click. She had said be care not to hit myself with the bar. Hmmm. "What if on the downswing I do everything I can to Wack myself in the leg leg with this bar?"

​
THAT WAS IT. The MAIN drill in using the GEM is to swing it 10x then take it off and hit a shot without the arm on.

So If I made those 10 swing feeling that in transition and the downswing I was going to turn that rod (with the weighted ball on it) and HTROW it in-between my legs and hit myself in the groin. That would slot the club perfectly, Then my body with get out of the way and rod wouldn't actually hit me (thankfully!).

When I saw the video of these practice swings I knew it was totally different. It was not over the top or even steep but it WAS STILL very open. That is the PARADOX I always ask golf teachers about . HOW DOES A GOLFER GET OPEN WITHOUT GETTING OVER THE TOP.

Hitting balls was really amazing now. I hit the 3 best feeling iron shots of my life in a row (video above).

They felt super compressed and it is just a different feeling to impact the ball with your chest facing the target. It's like a different game. I still have some testing to do with the GEM and I want to take it to a trackman or GC Quad to see what is happening but I like it a lot.

If you want to try the GEM for a great discount (10% off AND free shipping thru the end of 2022)

Go to THIS LINK and use the code  BBGOLF10 

​More soon stay tuned. 

Exciting announcement that our next Be Better Golf School in San Diego on November 12-13 with an optional half day of instruction and GOLF on Nov 14  will have 2 Be Better Golf heavyweights.

Dr. Young-Hoo Kwon , Golf's Foremost bio-mechanist 
AND
Milo Lines, PGA 

MORE INFO AND SIGN UP HERE

A good friend of mine and long Drive Competitor, Drew Cooper holds Friday Q&A.s on his instagram @d_cooper and a questions he consistently gets every Friday is a version os this. "You are 6'3", can I still generate high clubhead speed if I am SHORT?" Drew gives them a good response, usually coming down to "yes"

My thoughts on height and length is this, Being relatively tall Does help. A lot of the taller golfers can have smoother, more fluid looking tempos and still crush the ball. The longer the levers, the easier it is to generate speed, for sure. Also when you are taller it just provides a larger structure to attach more muscle to, throughout your whole body. So yes, being tall is an advantage.

SO HOW CAN A SHORT GOLFER STILL BOMB IT?

This goes for all golfers put the forces at play at so much more evident in short players who bomb it.

This golfer Chapchai Nirat was the LONGEST driver at the most recent ASIAN TOUR event in Taipei. 

​Chapchai is 5'8" and averaged 340 yards off the tee this week. (he is also 39 years old).

He does a couple things that reinforce people that I have interviewed on my Be Better Golf.

​1. FAST TEMPO.  there are 30 frames per second in this video. Chapchai takes 19 fames to make his backswing and 6 to make his downswing. 3/1 backswing to downswing is the magic ratio that almost every great ball-striker uses. It is because of something Dr. Robert Grober calls FORCE RESONANCE. Basically they are using the golf swing as a spring. This way they can me very consistent and powerful. See my videos with John Novosel from Tour Tempo to learn more.

At 19/6 Chapchai's tempo is Very Fast. Two other long hitters, Bryson DeChambeau and Martin Borgmeier are swinging at an incredible 18/6 ratio. That means that the entire swing is taking less than 1 second.

The reason the fast backswing leads to a faster downswing is that when you swing the club fast and forcefully BACK, your body KNOWS that the club WILL HAVE to STOP. The body starts putting BRAKING FORCES into you system to STOP the club at the top. Those BRAKING FORCES are the exact same forces that are the best to use on the downswing. So simply FASTER BACKSWING = HARDER BRAKES.  and HARDER BRAKES =  MORE FORCEFUL AND FASTER DOWNSWING.

NOTE: The key with this is to have a DYNAMIC backswing but and a DYNAMIC and fast downswing BUT in the middle you have to be PATIENT and don't start the DOWNSWING until the backswing has FULLY matured. Many times this will feel like FAST , wait, FAST.

​2. LONG BACKSWING. This is the killer combo. a FAST BACKSWING that is really long. A backswing that when back really fast but only took a very short time to get there, represents a ton of force. Chapchai is a perfect case of this. 

Obviously this reminds me of John Daly. This is a HUGE TURN and he took only 19 frames (0.63 of a second) to get there LOTS of distance of a SHORT amount of time equals a ton of force.   The main thing to look at though is not how far the CLUB has gone back but how much the shoulders have turned. Here Chapchai has probably 120 degrees of shoulder turn. MOST regular golfers when trying to emulate a "long" backswing will take the club back far, but they won't turn their hips and shoulders much and to still get the club going back far they collapse their arm (right and left) and usually the wrists (over extending the lead wrist).   Chapchai has a Ton of hip turn and a ton of shoulder turn SO that he can take the club back a long way WITHOUT destroying his arm structure to do it. Also remember that a forceful initial  backswing will launch your body into a fuller turn. If you go back soft it will be extremely tough to reach your max range of motion,

Chapchai is using his legs really well here to generate FORCE but what I want to highlight is how he is using his leg to CONTAIN his motion.  He is creating a ton of force down and out towards the target, if he did not use his legs to BRAKE that momentum he would lurch forward towards the ball line and towards the target (it would also be much slower).   Instead on both the backswing and downswing. CN pushes the ground HARD then uses his legs to BRAKE that motion, once that motion is STOPPED by FIRM LEGS , it is transferred into rotation. This created speed and helps control the swing bottom. 

The legs are acting like strong borders on either side of his body STOPPING his system from drifting and turning that STOPPING ENERGY into more FORCE.

See here how the LEAD LEG has has STOPPED the body from lurching forward AND the leg has pushed the lead hip BACK, making it rotate and adding speed.

Make a FASTER, MORE DYNAMIC backswing with a FULLER TURN WHILE KEEPING your ARM STRUCTURE.

A great DRILL to develop this is to use these two training aids together.

Here is the amazon rip off version of the Tour Striker smart ball and the SSR radar WITH tempo timer. The RED radar unit there will measure your swing speed AND how long it takes from the instant the club moves away until it returns to impact. 

For Chapchai, Bryson and Martin this number would be about .75 or so.

FOR YOU. Place the smart ball in between your elbows and see if you can make a backswing that is really a  FULL TURN and, YOU DON'T DROP the ball and you get the TEMPO TIMER under 1 second. 

You can use the TOUR TEMPO app and swing to the beats on there as well. 21/7.

The key is to have that fast tempo BUT also have a really BIG TURN at the same time. 

FOR THE STRONG BORDERS.

Watch this interview where Kyle Berkshire tells my nephew Jack DeVore how to get longer. Pay particular attention to what he says about the Ryan Winthur move of "stabbing the ground" with the left femur. It is at 3:50 into this video.

Swinging in a barrel is a good but incomplete image. You Really need to time the 2 STOMPS you make in your swing that keep you contained and add power. MONSTER WALKS with a kettle bell are good. You sway push, sway push, walking forward. 

Go to 12:08 into this video.

I'll probably make a video about this. Stay turned.

Without Hackmotion I never would have though I had to feel the left wrist cupped halfway through the downswing. Really cool device that is worth it.