One of the best instructional videos on Youtube I have seen, and I've seen a lot. Curious what others think.

interesting

Monte seems to have a cult following on Golfwrx. I'm not really a fan, he obviously knows his stuff but he seems rather condescending to any other method and I find him a little smug. It's possible I just don't get his sense of humor though. I use the Venetos method (which absolutely DOES work) and I remember a golfwrx thread a while back where Monte called Venetos a snake oil salesman. It's one thing to disagree but that seemed uncalled for to me. Monte is very well-respected though by many.

Yeah he just seems like a no-nonsense get-to-the-point guy. From watching other videos he is big on counter intuitive solutions. I like him.

That vid hit home with me tho since I tend to roll my wrists at impact and am working to keep my arms and body in sync.

I played in a 3 day shamble tournament this weekend and me and my partner tied for 2nd with 2 other teams, 4 places paid out. Instead of splitting 2nd,3rd,4th money between the 3 teams they did a scorecard playoff to determine who gets what. This is completely ridiculous right? Pretty sick beat to play 3 days to lose 1100 on a scorecard playoff.

Completely standard. In case of ties they compare scores on the #1 handicap hole, then if necessary the #2 handicap hole, etc.

Would you have posted this if you had won the scorecard playoff?

Every other flight was given the option to either split, playoff, or scorecard playoff. Every other flight obv chose to split. We were never given the option.No way this is standard, and yes i would feel the exact same way if we had won the scorecard playoff. ALso i obv get how a scorecard playoff works. Ties should be broken someway for first then rest of the money split imo unless its noted before hand, which it wasnt.

And now the story is changing.

You are stating how you think something should work if it isn't noted beforehand, but obviously you don't make the rules. Your opinion holds no weight here.

Perhaps the other two teams were asked what they wanted and they both said scorecard playoff, which would make your vote moot.

While in a perfect world all this should have been stated before the tournament started, it's kind of like protecting your hand in poker. You have a responsibility to protect yourself and ask these questions before it's too late.

While I can sympathize with your frustration, I also find it humorous that you ask what others thought of this only to firmly and instantly disagree with the first thoughts you received.

Just be happy you played good enough to win something, most do not.

It's standard in every tournament I've ever played. In fact, usually the scorecard tiebreaker holes are announced at the beginning of the tournament.
You can't give people the option of whether they want to do a scorecard tiebreaker, because if they birdie the tiebreaker hole they will obviously choose to have a tiebreaker and if they didn't then they will obviously vote against a tiebreaker.

I wasnt asking here to simply have people side with me, I was genuinely asking what people thought of it, may not have come off that way but that wasnt my intention . Being that one of the other teams were friends of mine and were not asked what they wanted to do i doubt they asked the other team, although yeah if you birdied the #1 hole or 2 whatever you clearly wouldnt split so that would be worse to ask I agree.

I didnt change the story at all, I added a part to it. Oh well glad you guys gave your opinion. I am ultimately to blame as I missed the shortest putt of my life and probably shortest putt possible to miss on day 1. Thanks fellas.

I have seen it done both ways, got second a week or 2 ago on one. Seems they always do them for scrambles. I have seen it done both ways in stroke play events with bigger events having an actual playoff for first. If the final place being paid there and there is a tie I prefer scoreboard instead of a 5 way chop of last place money. If there is a 3 way tie for second but 10 people are getting paid I prefer those 3 chopping up 2nd-4th money.

Great, now I'm down the golf swing rabbit hole

Venetos method makes a lot more sense to me than Monte...Monte is confusing in his explanation.

link to Venetos method?

There are a few Youtube vids... basically he proposes closing the shoulders, keeping weight stationed on the lead leg, and swinging with no added body movement, just raising and lowering the arms... because you raise the arms along the closed path of the shoulders it leads to a naturally in-to-out path which combined with a strong grip leads to a naturally circular swing and a standard draw ball flight. Virtually impossible to go over-the-top. Difficult to hit a fade with this swing though, at least for me. Everything is a draw.

It is not the prettiest swing but the contact is phenomenal and I actually gained distance, probably just from better angle of attack and more consistently flush contact. I suspect that a pro-level golfer could hit it further with a traditional swing but for an amateur struggling with consistent contact the swing works and the ball goes plenty far. Many feel that without the weight shift power is not possible, but I have not found this to be the case whatsoever. Toughest part is overcoming the ingrained urge to use the body and trust that the arm swing will generate enough power.

Couple of short videos... Jim has a web site but the swing is quite simple and easy to get the gist of.

Since I am in the middle playing golf 3 of 4 days and I have a tournament Saturday, NO WAY am I watching these videos.

lol probably the right move

Was absolutely striping the ball while drunk at TopGolf Vegas last week, so yeah, pretty much about to join the tour.

ABSOLUTELY the right move.

I need to hold out until at least Wednesday.

smart man

That venetos instruction is a joke I assume? I mean, if you shoot 120 and are trying to shoot 100, I could maybe see the merit of it, but there's a ton of issues with it and it's very limiting if you ever want to be competitive.

The other video is 100x more useful.

Okay, just got back from the range after trying the Venetos method and the Monte video.

First, about me and my swing:

I don't have a slicing or a hooking problem. Never have. If I'm off-target to the right, it's because I blocked it. If I'm off-target to the left, it's because I've come over the top.

But consistency is something I have a lot of trouble with.

I have always had an issue coming over the top and rotating around my spine rather than swinging from the inside and through...and sometime I hit the ball well and sometimes I don't. Even though I'm 7~ handicapper, I still rarely feel comfortable over the ball or am confident with where it's going to go. It's quite frustrating.

For example, sometimes I get over the ball with a wedge - and because I'm trying to be balanced and smooth and not hit it hard - I will forget to actually turn and I end up just lifting my arms and trying to swing that way - and that doesn't work very well, obviously.

Because of this, I almost always feel more confident swinging at a faster tempo - I tend to get better contact that way. But what sometimes happens is that I come over the top, outside to inside, and launch the ball a good deal left of target. Drives me batty when I stripe a driver 280, have a SW to the pin, and then pull it left of the green.

I also sometimes get quite tight and my swing becomes all one piece - instead of letting my arms swing freely, I will just rotate around my spine. But I am now conscious of when I do this and can correct it. Somewhat.

I have studied Bobby Clampett's Impact zone and will say that just the idea of aiming my eye in front of the golf ball has helped my ball contact a lot. Especially in fairway bunkers. So, I'm getting better...but still feel off-balance a lot and unsure where the ball is going to go.

****

So both methods intrigued me. Here's what I found:

1) Venetos

This is interesting, and it was fairly easy to implement with a 9 iron, but I had real difficulty trying to hit a long iron or wood with it. I think this method would be great for a higher-handicapper type player...someone over a 15 or so.

I could see utilizing some of this method in pitching, though, as I liked hitting wedges with it some.

****

2) Monte video

At first, I was confused about what he was getting at, as the video is not very well done and the explanations he gives aren't that clear. But I tried the drill he explains in the video and I just wasn't getting it...

But he then mentions something that had me sit up and take notice. He says that players who have a problem coming over the top - like me - are struggling to drop their hands close to their side and into the pocket...and that's the wrong way to go about it.

That was interesting to me, because I'm constantly trying to fire my lower body and hips first on the downswing, trying to pivot, and either end up sliding rather rotating, or swinging around my body - creating the over-the-top move.

So I was doing exactly what he said was a no-no.

It was then that a light bulb went off and I went back to the Venetos video:

There's a part where he talks about having the shoulders turned in such a way that when you begin the swing, your back is still turned towards your target. He mentioned Nicklaus talking about this. I always have begun my downswing with the lower body and hips, and this creates my shoulders turning before I even begin a downswing - again, causing an over-the-top motion.

So I put these two thoughts together - 1) don't drop the hands into the pocket or "try" to swing inside to out, and 2) keep my back turned a little longer and begin the downswing with my arms.

The bolded is key. The reason I have such a hard time swinging on an inside path is because my lower body is already firing forward and around, and my arms and hands are naturally trying to keep up - and that creates the over and around swing path.

*******************

So, at the range, I tried beginning my downswing with the arms as my back was still turned (some of the Venetos method), and by the time my body started to naturally turn (instead of consciously firing my hips), my hands were swinging from the inside and the club face was being squared by the rotation of my body (like in the Monte video)

(I even tried setting up with my left shoulder a little in front of the right one, but didn't bother keeping all of my weight on the left side all of the time, like Venetos preaches. And this seems to work.)

I hit a 100 balls like this, and the irons were great, as were the fairway woods off the deck...driver still needs some work, but it's getting there. But I hit the balls long and straight.

So success! I think.

I'm playing tomorrow, and what I'm going to concentrate on is simply beginning the downswing with the arms almost independently of my torso, keeping my back faced to the target just a millisecond or two longer.

I will report back.

ya holy hell not sure what I was expecting with the Venetos method but it wasn't that

I have a similar problem to you in that my lower body fires too soon and too quickly so my arms get behind me. However I don't slice or go over the top so something must be different there. My bad miss is a chunk, snap hook, or block right.

wrt the hands going in the "slot" I think what Monte is saying is that you need your hands to just be away from your body more.

really though from watching his other stuff he just preaches over and over again setting your arms and body up so that you can fire everything (arms, body, club, hips, shoulders, etc) at the same time just prior to impact. For me this felt, like you, that my downswing began with the arms falling down (in actuality my lower body is already starting to turn also), then moving my entire body through the ball, almost feeling like my arms and hands dont move but rather get pulled along with the body.

Maybe that is super basic and something all good players already do but for me it was noteworthy.

Well I give Dom credit for actually trying it on the range before commenting! Most people don't. I do think you are onto something in that many teachers are teaching similar principles in different ways, and sometimes combining swing thoughts from different instructors in a way that makes sense personally, can be helpful. It's why most of us read more than one instruction book, we're looking for all the lightbulb moments that we may find in different places.

I will say Venetos' method is a pretty different way of swinging than what most of us have been doing... and so, while it is easy to grasp, it's not always easy to do. I also had more luck with the short irons at first. Now I am comfortable with all my clubs.

I disagree that it is only for high handicappers though. Jim himself is an accomplished golfer and plays with this method. Many of his students are very low hc players as well. I am no great golfer (15hc) but my biggest struggles are with the short game. My ball striking is probably best part of my game, and it has gotten much better since I took up this method. I still have work to do but I feel like I am on the right path.

At any rate I was not trying to "sell" his method, only brought it up because I felt Monte was needlessly obnoxious to Jim in another forum.