By: Shane Matzen, Graves Golf Single Plane Coach & Member Liason
ALWAYS Pay Attention to “Paying Attention”
By Shane Matzen
Graves Golf Single Plane Coach/Member Liaison
There’s a story that Tim Graves tells often that’s one of my favorites I’ve ever heard him go through. Tim was at a school talking to the group and a gentleman asked him a question. Tim hesitated but then said something to the effect of, “Bill, I know you’ve been to at least 4-5 schools of ours and I’ve been over this topic at each and every one. How could you ask this question after all those times?” And “Bill” said, “Well, I wasn’t ready to hear it until now.”
I love at that point how Tim always goes into how he realized how the learning process is different for everyone and how “Bill” wasn’t ignoring him but that what he heard that day resonated. My goal with this article isn’t to lay out the exact scenario but I believe Tim’s experience at that school with “Bill” fits into the same category…..
If you’ve been with Graves for any length of time through whatever relationship you’ve had with them (a full-fledged member), a Youtube follower, reading all the emails, etc. then you have come across some of the same parts of the swing many, many times. I wonder how many times though (and I’m guilty of this) that Todd or Tim or one of our other folks at Graves begins a topic that you’ve heard about and you basically “tune out”. And I don’t mean you do this maliciously but you say to yourself, “I’ve seen how to rotate before, I’ll wait until they start on something else.”
I bring this up because of two recent situations I found myself in. I’m admittedly (both positively and negatively) probably one of Graves’ most “book-smart” students during my time tackling Single Plane golf. I mean, I have REALLY watched a lot and tried to digest as much as possible. I was listening to one of Tim Graves’ recent podcasts (called “What Else Is New”) and Tim was speaking about ways to climb out of a ditch you’d dug for yourself during a round you’re playing in. Well, I’d heard Tim talk about all the information in that podcast episode many times over the past few years. And I could have easily tuned out but I hung in there. And then I heard him say the acronym “BAT”. And he said when you’re in a tough stretch out on the course, you can bet your bottom dollar that it has something to do with Ball position, Alignment or Tempo. I’d never heard Tim use that acronym before and it was easy to remember and stuck with me.
The second incident I bring up involves Todd Graves’ current Masterclass entitled Power Generation. Todd was talking about rotation and again, the same situation as what I described above with Tim. There was material I had seen in other places related to getting into the lead leg like Moe was so known for. This is a tough topic for Single Plane newbies as many of you know due to our many years of posting up in a traditional two-plane swing. Well, Todd talked about how to make the environment easier for us to transition, getting the trail hip moving down and forward and putting the pressure on our lead quadricep (which is capable of handling it better than any other part of our body-specifically our backs). What he said was that as we make this move forward and down, our lead hip has to continue rotating until it can’t any more (with the stabilization of our feet down of course) so that it is open by the time we get to impact. I had never heard this described this way but it reminded me of when Tim teaches us to cheat our hips open to allow our chips/pitches to occur. That lead hip opening makes that move towards our lead leg with our trail hip and obviously arms and hands following along really resonated with me.
How many times as kids were we told by parents, teachers, coaches, etc to “pay attention!”? Countless obviously. Well, I said something very early on in my experience as a Single Plane student that while the amount of information to learn the swing is finite, I’m always amazed that it’s seemingly an INFINITE amount of ways that we are taught those finite fundamentals by Tim, Todd and the staff. There’s ALWAYS a nugget waiting for you that you’ve never heard before which will MEAN SOMETHING TO YOU. But imagine the shame of not hearing that really, really great item which COULD have helped you.
It’s realizing scenarios like this and being in the moment that has made my transition to Single Plane such an enjoyable experience and I sincerely hope it’s been, is and will be the same for you.
