Game changing tips!

There’s a bit of a theme in this issue of Finding the Tips. I happened upon a couple of tips from well-known YouTube golf instructors who say they made major improvements in their games. First up is Eric Cogorno who watched another coach giving student after student the same drill.

Russell Heritage helps us understand wrist hinge in the backswing.

Another popular YouTuber, Mark Crossfield, helps us make a full turn on the downswing. If you want more power, this is a great tip!

Then Zach Allen takes a look at the swing of the 2024 Sentry Tournament of Champions winner, Chris Kirk. Interestingly, Kirk plays recreationally as a lefty. Zach contrasts that Kirk swing with one he used to win the Tournament of Champions. I think there are a few nuggets of golf wisdom in that comparison.

Finally, I’m going to introduce you to another right-handed PGA Tour player who also played very well as a lefty. He won two tour events in the mid 1980s and he’s one of the most interesting people to ever play the tour.

In this issue

• Improve contact, power and balance

• Wrist hinge

• Open your hips

• PGA Tour winner Chris Kirk’s lefty swing

• He got lucky on his 17th try

Backswing, downswing, side tilt

One of the common phrases that YouTube golf instructors use is maintaining your posture throughout the swing. Some refer to it as keeping your spine angle constant throughout the backswing and downswing.

Eric Cogorno, with help from Jess Frank, introduces us to a drill that many of us have used as a way to warm up before a round of golf. Who knew that it could help us with body inclination?

To hinge or not to hinge

Russell Heritage is one of the best YouTube golf coaches because he makes concepts understandable. Then he demonstrates how drills work and explains why they work.

In this video he tells us how to incorporate a small wrist hinge in the backswing and he uses a swing guide training aid. This swing guide is about $13 plus tax for a package of two on Amazon Canada. If you want to try it, you can order it here.

Starting and completing the downswing

If you’re like me, you may have trouble opening your hips completely through the downswing and follow through.

Mark Crossfield explains why that happens and what we can do to fix it. You’ll not only have clarity about the transition from backswing to downswing — you might also benefit from improved contact and distance!

Chris Kirk as a lefty?

Chris Kirk won the 2024 Sentry Tournament of Champions last weekend. During the telecast, we learned that Kirk has a goal of breaking 80 while playing left-handed. The coverage also showed a replay of his left-handed swing.

Zach Allen compares and contrasts Kirk’s left- and right-handed swings and offers ways that the lefthander could improve. I think some of us (maybe all of us?) would improve if we followed these tips.

Dial-a-shot O’Grady

After watching Zach Allen’s video about the ambidextrous Chris Kirk, I was reminded of a right-handed PGA Tour player who wanted to compete in the US Amateur as a lefty.

Mac O’Grady joined the tour in 1983 after finally graduating from the qualifying school on his 17th attempt. That record for persistence is unlikely to ever be matched.

Born Phillip “Philly” John McGleno in 1961, he was the youngest of the troubled McGleno clan. His father was violent. His older brothers hit him hard enough to break his nose and damage his eardrums.

But by the time he was 16, Philly was the quarterback of his high school football team in Los Angeles. But when his mother died suddenly of a cerebral aneurysm that year, Philly ran away. Literally.

Reminiscent of Forest Gump, his runs became legendary. He often ran from the Rancho Park municipal golf course in Los Angeles to the beach — a 14-mile circuit. He jogged the 110 miles from LA to San Diego.

At the golf course, he always wore shorts, a tank top and a cowboy hat. He carried secondhand clubs. But he was the best junior golfer at Rancho Park, He would routinely hit a driver and a 6-iron onto the par fives. Just as routinely, he would make par. He was a great ball striker but a horrible putter.

And it turns out that Philly was homeless. After his mom died, his dad came home with a new wife. That was the final straw.

While he was sleeping in church doorways, Philly was reading and re-reading a book by Homer Kelley called The Golfing Machine. Before long, he could recite the entire tome.

Sponsors in LA, including singers Glen Campbell and Dean Martin, helped Philly financially so he could hone his game. At tour qualification tournaments, though, his putting let him down. Sixteen times.

Not all was bleak though. He got married and officially changed his name to Mac O’Grady. The surname was his Mom’s maiden name.

When he earned his Tour card in 1982 (along with Gary McCord), Mac quickly forged a reputation as a ball striker. Major champion winner Ben Crenshaw marveled at the quality of O’Grady’s shots. Johnny Miller called him “Dial-a-shot O’Grady.”

He won more than $200,000 in 1985, good enough for 20th on the tour’s money list. He won his first tournament in 1986 and his second came just a year later.

But not was all sunshine and lollipops. Mac never met an authority figure he didn’t want to buck. He feuded with fellow players, including Ray Floyd and Seve Ballesteros, and with Tour Commissioner Deane Beaman who eventually fined him $5,000 and banned him from the tour for six months for conduct unbecoming of a golf professional. Still, his knowledge of the golf swing was highly prized.

When tour players came to him for help. He never charged them. And they always improved.

He’d show up at dusty driving ranges and help struggling amateurs. They didn’t know who he was, but they left the range hitting the best shots of their lives. And again, no money changed hands.

Back problems eventually made it impossible for him to play but he was a perennial member of the Golf Digest list of the top 50 golf instructors in the US. The magazine gave him this distinction even though he refused to be interviewed or help the selection process in any way. In an article about O’Grady, Golf Digest said: “His allure as a guru is mythic, almost hypnotic.”

O’Grady is no longer on the list but only because he’s such a recluse that no one can confirm he’s still teaching.

It’s said that he’s spent $150,000 of his own money on the McCord O’Grady Research and Development (MORAD) project. He’s been working for decades compiling everything he knows about the golf swing, aiming to create an intricate and complex model for the perfect golf swing.

Will MORAD ever be published? Only Mac knows.

Mac never got his left-handed amateur status. But while his putting and injuries kept him out of the World Golf Hall of Fame, his ability has never been questioned.

In his prime, Mac was at least once able to hit a golf ball onto a bottle cap. From 100 yards! Golf Direst quotes him as saying the shot looked like “a bird outlined against an incandescent sky, beginning to fall, gently sashaying back to earth.”

In the same article, author Kevin Cook describes Mac O’Grady as “a lean, long-hitting oddball with the slightly cracked heart of a poet.”

I think it’s time to crown a new “Most Interesting Person in Golf.”

If you’d like to read the Golf Digest article about Mac O’Grady, click here.