Am so glad you are finally going to Yogi lock! As you know, I have been Yogi since meeting him and getting lessons in 1981. Using pure channel lock has been really accurate for me and I seldom go left, but flight of ball has been way too low for me, especially with the irons. I think it is due to my left hip replacement a few years ago. BUT, incorporating Yogi with your channel lock has made the difference for me. AND...the quick get away is REALLY important. See, feel, trust, as he used to say to me. The less time I take over the ball or putt, the better I do. He also PULLED the club back with his right hand. It made his right shoulder turn for sure and never a false turn that so often happens with the left push away for most amateurs. It is amazing. I also practice on the range the same way..also chipping and putting. You will be amazed. Using the parametric acceleration is the real key to his amazing speed. He would tell me, just relax and see. He said I did not need strength, but needed speed. He did that by full flexibility and very loose grip with parametric acceleration. He always said "you should be loose, boneless, muscleless, effortless, because when you are you can mentally control the golf club." He was so right! He played 100% with his brain. AND, I don't think he was any taller than about 5 ft 8 at most and maybe 130 lbs.
Hi William, Yogi certainly didn't look very tall in some of the old films .. in others he did look taller .. I thought Timothy Nicholls said he was 5/91/2.. and weighed around 145 ish... man if he was as light as you say and only that tall it was amazing how he hit the ball so far... I weigh around 165 and am 5/10.. I am not a big person.. his height/ weight specs make me look big by comparison. I just envy you so much has actually spent time with the great man and seen that magical ball flight ... Norman Von Nida who was a great Australian player of Yogi's era said he was stunned when he first saw Yogi hit shots .. he had heard all the hype and just didn't believe it so he went to see for himself and he told me he just sat transfixed for 2 hours watching Yogi hit shots .. Von Nida's opinion of Yogi is that he would have been the greatest winner of tournaments in history had he been allowed to play on the world stage because he would have still had his swing at 50 years old .. he had it in fact until he died . So I have no doubt that Yogi was the most unique swinger of a golf club ever.. and I also believe he could have set records that would never have been broken .. I know just myself how different my ball flight is when I get Yogi's swing mechanics happening .. well 'my 'version' of 'his' mechanics ... You saw him in the flesh .. you 'know' how incredible he was .. and I bet you have not seen anyone since that remotely could hit the ball like Yogi could .. and you played with some of the greatest ball strikers the game has produced .. you are such a lucky dude to have seen and spoken to the great man. cheers JH
Hi, William. You are so luck to learn from Yogi face by face. The idea pull the club back by right hand just give me more power and better sequence. Hope you can share more Yogi secrets here for his believers as me. Thanks.
Thank you. Not sure what more I can add to what Yogi videos and comments show. If you look closely...it is very simple. If you do not have his platform to success..I suggest you get it on ebay. Yes...expensive...but in the end priceless because it is the key to success. Putter, irons and driver all go back in same way at about 6.30 or 7 oclock inside, then up the target line. It also positions you to the proper distance from the ball...VERY IMPORTANT! I wasted 30 or so years not realizing how important the platform is to allowing your mind to totally understand the move subconsciously. Yogi told me that...but it did not sink in. Golf is mental...we allow it to overthink our swing. Once you learn the take away, all else falls into line. SEE...FEEL...TRUST...never take a practice swing. Let your mind control what you do.
No question for me at 6ft 1. Yogi was short so could take wider stance I believe! The proper width is make your stance wide enough so that when you follow through, your right knee at tall finish and hold is touching your back part of left knee. Check Yogi...his does!
Hi I have seen Mr Count Yogi golf swing recently on a video uploaded ,he is so natural and effortless and delight to observe him.see you in next video sir. Manzoor Golf pro india
Hi Manzoor, The one great regret I have in my golfing life is that of not ever actually seeing Count Yogi in the flesh swinging a golf club .. it would have been really something to experience. I do know someone that actually had lessons from Yogi in 1978.. the person told me Yogi was in his 70's and still hit the ball 300 yards... he was with Yogi for 3 days and he said Yogi hit hundreds of shots with different clubs and he never missed a shot .. my friend said Yogi was as close to a mystical reality person as you could get .. he he just seemed to have supernatural capability about him . I think if he had been born later in life and was playing when Tiger was at his best .. it would have been the greatest show in golf history seeing those two compete against each other . Yogi could hit the ball 350 yards in the 40's with those old clubs and balls.. with modern equipment heaven knows how far he could have hit the ball .. cheers JH
I was curious about ball position in the Yogi swing. It appears that the ball is in the middle of your stance, is this correct and do you change it depending on which club you use. ?? Your videos are very informative and are dead on with how I feel with the Yogi swing approach. Thank you for posting, and Go Yogi!!
Hi Steve, If you are referring to this video relative to ball position .. this video is still Channel Lock in swing mechanics so the ball position is always as a requirement off the trail foot at address .. the camera angle is not 90 degs front on most shots in this video so the ball position 'looks' like it in the middle of the stance but its not really .. In the actual 'Yogi' golf swing he played the ball in a normal forward of body centre position .. this particular video is really only about applying Yogi's momentum loading of the clubhead .. not anything to do with his 'actual' swing type relative to Channel Lock .. Cheers JH
Interesting stuff JH, thanks for posting. I have my own version of this called Bogie lock. I would love to change it to Yogi lock and start hitting some pars. Will give it a try.
Rome wasn't built in a day.. give yourself some time to get CL on board in your thinking and I think you will be impressed with what it will do for your game and how it will stay as a repeating process. cheers JH
JH for some reason CL as opened the door for me with the Yogi swing and actually played 18 holes with my mates and being the old guy of the group was killing it, just knocking past them and I cannot explain it. I have yogi's books, platform to perfection , cd from tim and the manual to play like yogi but I did not do so well with that...enter channel lock with the yogi swing and BAM im pounding the ball. For me its 5 oclock nose and your paint brush analogy and hit up on the ball as hard as you want. Please more video on yogilock I love the extra distance you gave me...................aloha!!
Hi Ronbo, The Yogi swing component added to the CL protocol is I think an absolute killer of a combination .. I hit the ball with amazing accuracy and power now .. and being an old dude it brings me back into some contention with the younger longer hitting guys .. I will be doing more videos on Yogi Lock for sure ... by your sign off of Aloha you are probably in Hawaii.. I hope that Volcano is not where you are .. man its an amazing thing to watch as it progresses.. seeing it in the flesh must be amazing.. cheers JH
Hi John, I hope I don't get people going off on the 'Yogi' road at the expense of their general progress with Channel Lock to date .. I just personally know that when you get Yogi right it's an amazing difference. cheers Jh
That handle drag or caddy drag might be the best timing mechanism of all time. I'm curious why it's so seldom used today, except Dufner. I have a question you might be able to answer. A former tour player told me once that Hogan was so double jointed that he could bend his left thumb back and touch his forearm with it. I thought that sounded like an exaggeration -- I'm curious if you've ever heard that? If true it would make for an incredible lever that would be ridiculous to try to imitate. And his is the most "imitated" swing of all time. I wish when I was young I'd tried to imitate Yogi instead of Hogan. But in the world of standard golf instruction I would have been considered insane.
Hi Thomas, I was fortunate to get a lot of information about Hogan from a great Australian player of his era named Norman Von Nida... Norman played quite a bit with Hogan and was a good friend of his because Hogan's wife Valerie really liked Norman because he was a similar nature to Hogan. Von Nida told me Hogan was called the 'Indian Rubber Man' by Jimmy Demeret because he could turn his head to look at you behind him without turning his shoulders ... he clearly had incredible general flexibility in his shoulders and midriff and he did have that crazy turned up lead thumb that Snead and Von Nida all had ... if you did a flexibility test on Hogan he would have shown inordinately high range of rotator cuff mobility as well .. you have to have that to get the pitch elbow deflection range he pulled in his swing . As well Hogan had very long arms for his height which contributed to the arms staying loaded longer at the transition of the downswing ..if you did an analysis of his hand construction configuration you probably would have found that his palm length to width ratio and finger lengths all contributed to how he could wrist load the clubhead during the downswing transition as well... anatomical makeup contributes so much to specific swing process capabilities.. There is no such thing as being 'Double Jointed' in reality.. a person can have a greater level of 'Hypermobility' or 'Joint Laxity' than someone else but that just means they are overall just more flexible.. the thumb back against the top of the forearm ..which is pure radial deviation .. I have never seen anyone actually do that .. I have seen people put their thumb on the inside of their forearm which is double bending coupling motion .. but pure 90 deg radial deviation .. never seen that done by anyone .. I have had lots of people say they can do that but when they show me its the 'inside' of the forearm double bending that they actually do . Hogan was built perfectly for his type of swing .. he had very narrow shoulders and chest ..long arms .. proportionally; bigger buttocks and upper legs for his upper body proportions.. and he had a great range of flexibility ... and I think his neck was longer than normal for his height. I think Yogi would have had an enormous range of hypermobility as well .. he looked to have a high hip line which meant he had long legs for his height and he to had long arms for his height ... I think Yogi's swing was the most 'unique' in golf swing history .. but what it actually was in 'Yogi's mind we will never know.. because he never verbally of literally explained his golf swing as far as I am concerned. Cheers JH
You would be in the minority of golfers ..the great percentage of golfers have the lead hand thumb on top of the grip.. either in what is termed a '' short thumb'...or 'long thumb' configuration. I haven't met an instructor that has ever advocated placing the lead thumb to the side of the grip .. So if you have always configured your grip as you say.. you have 'always' had a 'Count Yogi' type grip... nothing to be confused about.. its a great grip.. and it must have worked quite well for you over those 30 years .. or you would have changed it . cheers JH
Negative loading fills the premises of "Golf is a game of opposites" and "Swing the handle", far better than forward press and raise the head off the ground to start the swing. It's also allowing the personal kinetic linking take over and imparts TONS of lag at the flip, for effortless power, naturally. So, for the life of me, I can't understand why more pros don't use it. It added mad yardage to my swing. I have witnesses to the fact that my 60* lob wedge was 60 and 80 yards if I was perfect and now it's 100 without trying and tons of spin, because of the compression that just happens as a byproduct of that motion, but that's just how I see it. Don't actually have any trackman data on it, just what it feels like. Cheers!
Inertial loading was so evident in all the great swings of the 40's/50's ... I love watching those old swings.. I think about that club-head freedom all the time in my own swing when I am practicing .. tennis ball on a piece of string is what its all about .. cheers JH
If you drag the club-head along the ground on the way back from the ball , then every time you're in a bunker you'll be called a 2-stroke penalty for grounding the club .
Clearly you don't drag the clubhead 'actually' along the ground in any of the normal golf swings ....its an intention to do so to eliminate 'lifting' the club straight up on the backswing instead of getting good inside extension in the swing .. with a bunker swing again you clearly don't drag the clubhead along the ground .. cheers JH
Am so glad you are finally going to Yogi lock! As you know, I have been Yogi since meeting him and getting lessons in 1981. Using pure channel lock has been really accurate for me and I seldom go left, but flight of ball has been way too low for me, especially with the irons. I think it is due to my left hip replacement a few years ago. BUT, incorporating Yogi with your channel lock has made the difference for me. AND...the quick get away is REALLY important. See, feel, trust, as he used to say to me. The less time I take over the ball or putt, the better I do. He also PULLED the club back with his right hand. It made his right shoulder turn for sure and never a false turn that so often happens with the left push away for most amateurs. It is amazing. I also practice on the range the same way..also chipping and putting. You will be amazed. Using the parametric acceleration is the real key to his amazing speed. He would tell me, just relax and see. He said I did not need strength, but needed speed. He did that by full flexibility and very loose grip with parametric acceleration. He always said "you should be loose, boneless, muscleless, effortless, because when you are you can mentally control the golf club." He was so right! He played 100% with his brain. AND, I don't think he was any taller than about 5 ft 8 at most and maybe 130 lbs.
Hi William,
Yogi certainly didn't look very tall in some of the old films .. in others he did look taller .. I thought Timothy Nicholls said he was 5/91/2.. and weighed around 145 ish... man if he was as light as you say and only that tall it was amazing how he hit the ball so far... I weigh around 165 and am 5/10.. I am not a big person.. his height/ weight specs make me look big by comparison.
I just envy you so much has actually spent time with the great man and seen that magical ball flight ... Norman Von Nida who was a great Australian player of Yogi's era said he was stunned when he first saw Yogi hit shots .. he had heard all the hype and just didn't believe it so he went to see for himself and he told me he just sat transfixed for 2 hours watching Yogi hit shots .. Von Nida's opinion of Yogi is that he would have been the greatest winner of tournaments in history had he been allowed to play on the world stage because he would have still had his swing at 50 years old .. he had it in fact until he died .
So I have no doubt that Yogi was the most unique swinger of a golf club ever.. and I also believe he could have set records that would never have been broken .. I know just myself how different my ball flight is when I get Yogi's swing mechanics happening .. well 'my 'version' of 'his' mechanics ...
You saw him in the flesh .. you 'know' how incredible he was .. and I bet you have not seen anyone since that remotely could hit the ball like Yogi could .. and you played with some of the greatest ball strikers the game has produced .. you are such a lucky dude to have seen and spoken to the great man.
cheers JH
Hi, William. You are so luck to learn from Yogi face by face. The idea pull the club back by right hand just give me more power and better sequence. Hope you can share more Yogi secrets here for his believers as me. Thanks.
Thank you. Not sure what more I can add to what Yogi videos and comments show. If you look closely...it is very simple. If you do not have his platform to success..I suggest you get it on ebay. Yes...expensive...but in the end priceless because it is the key to success. Putter, irons and driver all go back in same way at about 6.30 or 7 oclock inside, then up the target line. It also positions you to the proper distance from the ball...VERY IMPORTANT! I wasted 30 or so years not realizing how important the platform is to allowing your mind to totally understand the move subconsciously. Yogi told me that...but it did not sink in. Golf is mental...we allow it to overthink our swing. Once you learn the take away, all else falls into line. SEE...FEEL...TRUST...never take a practice swing. Let your mind control what you do.
@@williammilne5843 Many thanks. I found the yogi stance is narrow and taller than conventional set up. Too much bend on knees makes turning harder.
No question for me at 6ft 1. Yogi was short so could take wider stance I believe! The proper width is make your stance wide enough so that when you follow through, your right knee at tall finish and hold is touching your back part of left knee. Check Yogi...his does!
Hi
I have seen Mr Count Yogi golf swing recently on a video uploaded ,he is so natural and effortless and delight to observe him.see you in next video sir.
Manzoor Golf pro india
Hi Manzoor,
The one great regret I have in my golfing life is that of not ever actually seeing Count Yogi in the flesh swinging a golf club .. it would have been really something to experience.
I do know someone that actually had lessons from Yogi in 1978.. the person told me Yogi was in his 70's and still hit the ball 300 yards... he was with Yogi for 3 days and he said Yogi hit hundreds of shots with different clubs and he never missed a shot .. my friend said Yogi was as close to a mystical reality person as you could get .. he he just seemed to have supernatural capability about him .
I think if he had been born later in life and was playing when Tiger was at his best .. it would have been the greatest show in golf history seeing those two compete against each other .
Yogi could hit the ball 350 yards in the 40's with those old clubs and balls.. with modern equipment heaven knows how far he could have hit the ball ..
cheers JH
I was curious about ball position in the Yogi swing. It appears that the ball is in the middle of your stance, is this correct and do you change it depending on which club you use. ?? Your videos are very informative and are dead on with how I feel with the Yogi swing approach. Thank you for posting, and Go Yogi!!
Hi Steve,
If you are referring to this video relative to ball position .. this video is still Channel Lock in swing mechanics so the ball position is always as a requirement off the trail foot at address .. the camera angle is not 90 degs front on most shots in this video so the ball position 'looks' like it in the middle of the stance but its not really ..
In the actual 'Yogi' golf swing he played the ball in a normal forward of body centre position .. this particular video is really only about applying Yogi's momentum loading of the clubhead .. not anything to do with his 'actual' swing type relative to Channel Lock ..
Cheers JH
Interesting stuff JH, thanks for posting. I have my own version of this called Bogie lock. I would love to change it to Yogi lock and start hitting some pars. Will give it a try.
Rome wasn't built in a day.. give yourself some time to get CL on board in your thinking and I think you will be impressed with what it will do for your game and how it will stay as a repeating process.
cheers JH
JH for some reason CL as opened the door for me with the Yogi swing and actually played 18 holes with my mates and being the old guy of the group was killing it, just knocking past them and I cannot explain it. I have yogi's books, platform to perfection , cd from tim and the manual to play like yogi but I did not do so well with that...enter channel lock with the yogi swing and BAM im pounding the ball. For me its 5 oclock nose and your paint brush analogy and hit up on the ball as hard as you want. Please more video on yogilock I love the extra distance you gave me...................aloha!!
Hi Ronbo,
The Yogi swing component added to the CL protocol is I think an absolute killer of a combination .. I hit the ball with amazing accuracy and power now .. and being an old dude it brings me back into some contention with the younger longer hitting guys .. I will be doing more videos on Yogi Lock for sure ... by your sign off of Aloha you are probably in Hawaii.. I hope that Volcano is not where you are .. man its an amazing thing to watch as it progresses.. seeing it in the flesh must be amazing..
cheers JH
I see the hand doesn't turn over to a strong grip it's just the thumb that goes over. Thank you, JH.
I knew when you saw the 'actual' grip configuration you would see how it actually becomes a very 'anti' hook' shot grip.
cheers JH
On to my practice tee JH. I seen the results of Yogi Lock with my woods now the irons.
Hi John,
I hope I don't get people going off on the 'Yogi' road at the expense of their general progress with Channel Lock to date .. I just personally know that when you get Yogi right it's an amazing difference.
cheers Jh
That handle drag or caddy drag might be the best timing mechanism of all time. I'm curious why it's so seldom used today, except Dufner. I have a question you might be able to answer. A former tour player told me once that Hogan was so double jointed that he could bend his left thumb back and touch his forearm with it. I thought that sounded like an exaggeration -- I'm curious if you've ever heard that? If true it would make for an incredible lever that would be ridiculous to try to imitate. And his is the most "imitated" swing of all time. I wish when I was young I'd tried to imitate Yogi instead of Hogan. But in the world of standard golf instruction I would have been considered insane.
Hi Thomas,
I was fortunate to get a lot of information about Hogan from a great Australian player of his era named Norman Von Nida... Norman played quite a bit with Hogan and was a good friend of his because Hogan's wife Valerie really liked Norman because he was a similar nature to Hogan.
Von Nida told me Hogan was called the 'Indian Rubber Man' by Jimmy Demeret because he could turn his head to look at you behind him without turning his shoulders ... he clearly had incredible general flexibility in his shoulders and midriff and he did have that crazy turned up lead thumb that Snead and Von Nida all had ... if you did a flexibility test on Hogan he would have shown inordinately high range of rotator cuff mobility as well .. you have to have that to get the pitch elbow deflection range he pulled in his swing .
As well Hogan had very long arms for his height which contributed to the arms staying loaded longer at the transition of the downswing ..if you did an analysis of his hand construction configuration you probably would have found that his palm length to width ratio and finger lengths all contributed to how he could wrist load the clubhead during the downswing transition as well... anatomical makeup contributes so much to specific swing process capabilities..
There is no such thing as being 'Double Jointed' in reality.. a person can have a greater level of 'Hypermobility' or 'Joint Laxity' than someone else but that just means they are overall just more flexible.. the thumb back against the top of the forearm ..which is pure radial deviation .. I have never seen anyone actually do that .. I have seen people put their thumb on the inside of their forearm which is double bending coupling motion .. but pure 90 deg radial deviation .. never seen that done by anyone .. I have had lots of people say they can do that but when they show me its the 'inside' of the forearm double bending that they actually do .
Hogan was built perfectly for his type of swing .. he had very narrow shoulders and chest ..long arms .. proportionally; bigger buttocks and upper legs for his upper body proportions.. and he had a great range of flexibility ... and I think his neck was longer than normal for his height.
I think Yogi would have had an enormous range of hypermobility as well .. he looked to have a high hip line which meant he had long legs for his height and he to had long arms for his height ... I think Yogi's swing was the most 'unique' in golf swing history .. but what it actually was in 'Yogi's mind we will never know.. because he never verbally of literally explained his golf swing as far as I am concerned.
Cheers JH
I’m a bit confused. I’ve been playing for abt 30 years and just always had my left thumb to the side, not on top of the grip.
You would be in the minority of golfers ..the great percentage of golfers have the lead hand thumb on top of the grip.. either in what is termed a '' short thumb'...or 'long thumb' configuration.
I haven't met an instructor that has ever advocated placing the lead thumb to the side of the grip ..
So if you have always configured your grip as you say.. you have 'always' had a 'Count Yogi' type grip... nothing to be confused about.. its a great grip.. and it must have worked quite well for you over those 30 years .. or you would have changed it .
cheers JH
Bobby Jones did something similar to that
Negative loading fills the premises of "Golf is a game of opposites" and "Swing the handle", far better than forward press and raise the head off the ground to start the swing. It's also allowing the personal kinetic linking take over and imparts TONS of lag at the flip, for effortless power, naturally.
So, for the life of me, I can't understand why more pros don't use it. It added mad yardage to my swing. I have witnesses to the fact that my 60* lob wedge was 60 and 80 yards if I was perfect and now it's 100 without trying and tons of spin, because of the compression that just happens as a byproduct of that motion, but that's just how I see it. Don't actually have any trackman data on it, just what it feels like.
Cheers!
Inertial loading was so evident in all the great swings of the 40's/50's ... I love watching those old swings.. I think about that club-head freedom all the time in my own swing when I am practicing .. tennis ball on a piece of string is what its all about ..
cheers JH
If you drag the club-head along the ground on the way back from the ball , then every time you're in a bunker you'll be called a 2-stroke penalty for grounding the club .
Clearly you don't drag the clubhead 'actually' along the ground in any of the normal golf swings ....its an intention to do so to eliminate 'lifting' the club straight up on the backswing instead of getting good inside extension in the swing .. with a bunker swing again you clearly don't drag the clubhead along the ground ..
cheers JH