We just put my books Winning Thinking  and The Secret to a Great Golf Swing on Amazon Kindle for only .99 cents each!  Get yours today.  The new DVD, Pure Force Golf will be available soon.  I'll keep you posted.


Mike

You want to improve your golf game

Since you really want to improve your game you'll want this On Target Power and The Secret to a Great Golf Swing.  

Way to go!!!

Way to go!!

 Quid Pro Quo said...

Thank you Mike for saving the rest of my golfing life! After reading The Secret to a Great Golf Swing watching On Target Power, I won the qualifier for our club championships with 74 strokes- from backtee... Can´t wait your new video!

August 25, 2011 4:36 AM

New video shoot

We shot some great footage today!  The challenge was teaching a student who has 32 years of experience using the conventional swing.  He learned today a simple motion that now has him knocking down targets at will.  The 4 time Emmy award winning director can't wait to get to putting the final DVD together.

New video

We begin shooting the new golf instructional DVD next week. I have learned a lot since we released On Target Power in 2007. I have been able to make what was so simple to do even simpler and more effective. Better accuracy and even more distance.

Rhythm

To get consistency you need to get a rhythm like Sam Snead. He used to hum the blue danube waltz

da da da da 

WHACK! 

dot dot dot dot

Mission Impossible?

Charles Barkley is trying On Target Power. I'll let you know how things progress. :)
On Target Power

Ben Hogan's move

Overhead player POV

A recent message to a student...

Below is an actual message I sent to one of my students who struggling with his old habit of trying to kill the ball.

More than likely you are TRYING to hit the ball rather than letting the club head just swing.  You have to stop TRYING to manipulate everything.  When you set your hands on the back swing you have already stored up enough energy to create speed simply by dropping your hands and turning toward the target.  Your BODY SQUARES THE CLUB FACE, not your hands.  It you are hitting it thin you are raising up too much.  This is because you are TRYING to create more centripetal force.  You are over-doing it in hopes of hitting 300 yards.  Brute force will NOT create distance!  It is NOT POSSIBLE!  You can't argue with physics.  You want to whip the club to FLICK the ball off the ground.  You are TRYING to smash the ball to smithereens!  Has that worked for you yet?  Using the technique you now have with RHYTHM will produce what you are after.  Sam Snead used to hum the Blue Danube Waltz when he "swang" (his term).  That 3/4 time will work.  Da Da Da Daaaa WHACK!  Dot Dot Dot Dot,   Da Da Da Daaaa WHACK!  Dot Dot Dot Dot.  Get that rhythm going to get to consistent results.  If you flex a muscle you make it slower because it has to resist motion to stay flexed!  If you flex a muscle you make it slower because it has to resist motion to stay flexed!  If you flex a muscle you make it slower because it has to resist motion to stay flexed!

 

Once you can hit the ball a consistent distance and straight you can than mark off the average distance you hit each club using that techique.  THAT then becomes your distance for each club.  Forget about what pros' distances.  They are the best at what they do, have custom lofts and lies and you couldn't do what they do as they are 25 years younger anyway.  For a 130 yard shot my smooth average straight shot is with a 7 iron.  If it is windy into me or across it is a 6 or even a 5 iron.  That doesn't make me a wimp.  It makes me get the ball to the target so I can score well.  If my putt is 10 feet or farther away from the cup, my target is a 5 foot circle (kiddie pool).  That will leave me a 2.5 foot tap-in so I 2-putt.  You have to THINK your way around the course.  Long hitters are in the trees and are always having to scramble to save par.  I have no problem being 100 yards or more behind anyone I play against because I know I can get to the hole in par or better.  If the hole is just too long for me I accept bogey as my par for that hole and know I can get a birdie somewhere else to make up for it.  PATIENCE is what is required and learning to accept who you are as you are.  The sooner you can just fall in love with yourself as you are no matter what, the better.

New season begins!

After a rather tough winter here in Southwestern Michigan the weather yielded today.  I dragged out the old bag of rusty blades and teed it up for the first time since November.  Two warm up swings and I took aim at 4 o'clock on that little white ball, thanked John Schlee and took a swing.  I striped it right down the middle.  Okay, lucky? Nope.  I had to go 3 wood for the second shot on this longish par 4 and left it just short of the green to the right. I popped a SW over the bunker to 4 feet and made the putt.  Finished the 9 for the day with 2 bogies and a birdie on #9 to finish +1.  Gonna be a good season, Tater!

Hit the ball and swing from 4 o'clock to 10 o'clock (old post)

Below is a graphic that I use when teaching my students.  Along with Ben Hogan's secret I have my students think of themselves addressing the ball from standing at the  6 o'clock position facing 12.  The target would be at 9 o'clock.  The goal is to swing the clubhead from 4 o'clock to 10.  The body rotation will square the clubface at impact.  I also tell them that they want to contact the ball at the 4 o'clock position which would be the inside quarter of the ball.  I am sure this visual will help you eliminate your slice and lead to purer contact.  You contact the ball at 4 o'clock not the back of the ball (3 o'clock).  Aiming for the back of the ball leads to trying to guide the club head down the target line and even worse leads to coming from the outside the target line and actually hitting the ball at 2 o'clock.

Hit 'em straight!

Mike

http://www.mikecortson.com/

http://www.benhogan.ws/

Excerpt from - "The Secret to a Great Golf Swing"

Introduction

      My name is Mike Cortson. I have been a PGA Tour Player Manager for Bruce Crampton for several years. My own skill as a golfer is less than perfect as I have had the misfortune of severe illness visit me. Nevertheless, I have been around the game and golf pros for more years than I care to admit. I have seen more successful golf swings than you can shake a stick at. Some are great to look at and some are just down right unbelievable. I was trained as a lawyer and my eye for detail is quite keen. It is far more difficult to catch a good liar than to catch a great golf swing. 

      When I took up the game any hope I might have had for turning professional was long past. As most wannabe golfers I decided one day to take up the game. I did the usual and went to the sporting goods store and bought myself all of the latest paraphernalia, loaded up my trunk, drove to the nearest driving range, plopped down a few dollars, took a bucket of balls up to the range, dumped them out onto the ground and began to immediately make a damned fool out of myself. At first I was quite embarrassed. Then I noticed that in the grand scheme of the company I was keeping, I fit right in. I spoke to a few guys and they offered me all sorts of advice. You’d think I was at a surgeon’s convention and had a cancerous mole the size of a golf ball on the end of my nose.

      Oh they had all of the right answers. You had to “grip” the club just so, “stand to the ball” just so, you had to “turn”, “bend your knees” just so, “take the club back” just so, have a good “swing thought” (whatever the heck that is, my thought was “knock the hell out of it!”), then you had to “pivot” and drop the club into a “slot” and then BANG!...it was over in an instant. Did it work? No!

      Well, I wasn’t discouraged. I went to the book store and bought instruction books. I went to the video stores and bought videos up the ying yang. I had a golf library within a month. Oh I had to also subscribe to every golf magazine too. My wife was ready to kill me, and rightly so. It was now an obsession to hit that little white ball.

        I flailed at it like a monkey with a hatchet trying to crack a coconut. I looked like one too. Well if I couldn’t be a great player I at least had to look good. I watched every tournament every chance I got. I taped tournaments and would stay up until the wee hours of the morning trying to find out that “secret”. Hell, there just had to be one. Those guys on TV weren’t any bigger than me and made it all look so easy.

        I finally relented. I did the unthinkable…I signed up to take golf lessons. Ah, now that just had to work. I was now paying big bucks and just like everything else, you could buy the secret. What could be easier? Oh, why didn’t I think of that before? How stupid of me.

       I went back to the driving range and met with the instructor.  He came highly recommended. He sounded just like the teacher I saw on the videos I had bought…and I had all of them. I knew each one of them by heart. Nothing escaped this attorney’s keen eye.

        The golf swing was under the microscope and it was going to be conquered like it or not “Mr. Golf Swing”. Your butt was mine!

        So what happened? I was still flailing away getting nowhere fast. The only thing that was getting better was my teacher’s bank account. If it wasn’t for putting, I would never have even broken 100. I beat my brains out. I would sneak out of the

office early and whack balls until dark night after night. Bang! Bang!  Bang!...dribble…boink….clank. I stank.

        One Sunday afternoon I went back up to the range and got 3 large buckets of balls. I looked like I should be on tour. I had the clothes, the best clubs, and a fancy staff bag with my name on it.  The best golf balls…you name it. Golf was mine.

        About half way through the first bucket of embarrassment I noticed that the person behind me was quietly hitting shots. I heard them before I actually looked at where they were going. I was convinced never to look at a crummy player as the bad habits might be contagious. I finally had to see just what was causing this sound of “bullets” coming from behind me.

       There was a man in his mid to late 50’s in tattered clothes and leather skin wearing a sweat stained visor. He had an old golf bag that had his name on it and the clubs were “blades” which I knew from all of my study were only used by “pros” since they were impossible to hit. He was zipping shot after shot boring into the air. I was sure that he must be cheating some way. No one that I knew, other than the pros I had seen on TV came even close to what this man was doing. The ball bolted off of the clubface and pierced the air leaving a loud stinging sound in its wake. I shook my head. The man looked up for a second and said simply, “Hi.” I returned to splaying balls all over the place.

        This continued for about another 10 minutes when finally I heard the man from behind me say, “Hey kid.” I said, “What?” He said, “You suck.” I slowly turned around and said, “Oh, Mr. Holmes I presume?” We both laughed. He said, “Kid, let me show you something.” I thought to myself, oh no here we go again. I politely declined but he insisted. He kept pressing me out of pity no doubt. I finally relented.

        He asked me, “Kid, you ever heard of a man called Ben Hogan?” I said, “Sure, I have his books and some tapes of him.” He said, “Well kid, I was Ben’s only student. My name’s John, John Schlee.” I said, “Nice to meet you. Wow, you know Ben Hogan?” He smiled and said, “Yes. He taught me something many years ago and if you have a minute I’d like to show it to you too. But…”

        And this was the big proviso “but”. “But kid, you can’t tell anyone about this until I’m dead and Mr. Hogan is dead.  Promise?” I thought for a nano-second and said, “Hell yes!” He said, “You ever heard of ‘The Secret’?” I said, “Sure, everyone has heard of Mr. Hogan’s secret.” John smiled and said, “Well kid, it ain’t in them books you been readin’. Mr. Hogan never put it in the books. He swore me to secrecy and I’m breakin’ it. Don’t ask me why. I know I’m sick and no one will believe you anyway so here goes.”

        And away we go… “You wanna know a ‘secret’?” Come on in for a minute. That’s all it will take. 

The Secret to a Great Golf Swing