Matt Baker on the “M-System” for Building a Better Golf-Swing

Matt Baker is a PGA (England) golf professional, golf instructor and the CEO of Matt Baker Golf Ltd. Based in Clitheroe in Northwest England, Matt specialises in online coaching and personal lessons to golfers of all skill levels from Beginner to Elite. His coaching philosophy is to keep it simple, and build on familiar movements, from life activities and other sports, that help you improve your golf faster.

Matt joins #OntheMark to illustrates the commonalities between swings from other sports and the golf-swing. He also dives into the M-System – a skill-based system of golf-swing instruction devised by Mike Malaska. In describing the M-System, Matt breaks down the 5 elements to building a better swing:

The “Line of Compression”
The “Lever System”
The “Body Motion”
Combining Skills (Levers and Body Motion) for success, and
How to Practice Productively for your Swing to Perform under Pressure.
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[Music] If you’re watching this on YouTube, you will be somewhat surprised that a guy from Northern England is sitting outside on a sunshiny day. Matt with barely a cloud in sight. It’s so good to see you. It’s nice to see you got some good weather. How are you? I’m very well, thank you. And yeah, it is. Yeah. Who Who knew? Who knew? We It’s a secret that we do have good weather over here to be fair. Funny. Well, for the global audience, Matt Baker is joining us on the show. Um, you think of the UK or you think of anywhere in that area, you think of bunkers. Um, you know, because of pot bunkers on on Lynx’s courses. And you were just joking with me before we recorded that you’re like, bunkers today in England were the hottest place in the world because the reflection done. It was it was brutal. I had a my first lesson was an hour’s lesson in a bunker. It was a great lesson, but it was I sitting there thinking, “God, I’m just melting.” I was just, you know, it was a I can’t complain, though. That’s the main thing. I can’t complain. Audio listeners, Matt’s sitting outside on his synthetic putting green. It looks like a really cool area there. We’re not going to talk about putting though because you’re very much a swing guy and like me, you like the holistic approach to instruction. So, I want to kick this whole thing off here because in golf there’s certain terms, right? The lexicon of golf terms and one of those is compression. And one of the elements you’re going to talk about in your M system is the line of compression. So, let’s start there. Let’s hook people to say this is how we compress that iron shot properly. Yeah. So in the M system, so being, you know, working uh with Mike Alaska and so on as as one of his coaches in in I’m only one of nine in the UK, in the world, would you believe? So, but we one of the things that Mike talks about with us and teaches us to to coach is what we call line of compression. It’s part one of the M system really. So, and I’ll go into the M system a bit more detail, but one of the things that, like you say, most golfers need to get is this good compression on the ball. And how do we do that? Well, a lot of that comes through from other sports as well. So, if you um if you did any other sport, whether it be tennis or baseball, uh table tennis, hockey, ice hockey, your what we tend to look for is we want the right arm or your trail arm if you’re right-handed golfer, and the back of the hand to be on the back of the the racket, the shaft, the the bat, whatever it is, as you hit the ball. So this is going to give you um more stability. So the the simplest way to put that is if I was to fall over for example, which has happened in the past, but if I was to fall over and I was to land with my hands in front of me, they would always be this way and my joints would tend to line up. Yes. They wouldn’t my elbow wouldn’t be out here because that’s a disaster to break your wrist or whatever it is. Everything would line up. So it’s the same with a golf ball. So and any other sport. So, if I’ve got a ball coming this way, let’s say with baseball or tennis or whatever, I need this hand to line up behind the back of the shaft and I need my arm to line up with it as well. So, we see a lot of amateur golfers, you know, coming over the top, this right elbow gets high or they’re trying to tuck this elbow in and get underneath. Well, suddenly I haven’t got this stability behind the ball and the ability to compress it. Yeah. Because there’s no support there behind it. So it’s it comes from something that you already know how to do. So we we use a lot of um balls like tennis rackets when we’re teaching so that you know you say right how would you hit this ball they immediately without any training whether they’ve done tennis or baseball or anything they immediately get this arm to line up behind the back of the shaft and as soon as you get that feeling and you work and we work from that from the from day one really even with the putter. So, we’ll we’ll train them from day one to have the um the arm or the right arm, the trail arm leading up behind the back of the shaft and hitting putts just with the one hand. Yeah. Just get just getting used to that feeling of the right arm pushing the club through. So, it’s that motion there and that’s how you get true compression. So, we call that line of compression. If you if you studied a lot of the top players on on TV, um you will see the fact that when they come into this impact position, they get their right arm lined up behind the back of the shaft and that’s how they get good compression on the ball. So, it’s not about it’s not about shaft lean as such. Yes, that happens, but we find again later on in the system, if you try to create that, it ends up becoming a disaster. Yeah, I want to mind that for a little while, too, because you talk about the back of the trail hand on the side of the shaft and and then the elbow and the arm supporting that. I love the image. Um, and a lot of folks, they may get the arm position, but then they also give up the wrist. They flick the wrist underneath there to propel the golf club. So obviously then they breaking because there it seems to me like there are various elements to this line of compression and you can have yourself in position but at the last second prematurely that trail risk goes and then you break down the line as well. Yes. Yeah of course. Yeah. I mean obviously we don’t want to flick at it too early. Yeah. A lot of a lot of that happens through the right sequencing though as well. So if you if you using your body correctly as well, that can time that that throw up. So it can be related to a throw to the fact of if you time that throw up or release correctly, then you’re going to get more distance. We do believe that the hands should be working. Yes. Uh through the swing. We don’t believe in holding the hands off because we see so many amateurs Yeah. trying to trying to drag the handle through and in an attempt to get compression, let’s say, or to get forward shaft lane, but then they given up so much power. So, it’s yes, it’s that’s an element of timing, which is fairly easy to to train to a certain degree. Um, but yes, that you’re right, we we like to see golfers have that slight cup or slight angle in the wrist at impact. We find it happens through other areas. We don’t try to hold. We don’t want golfers to drag the handle. That’s what we don’t want. All right. Cool. You you before we introduce you, I want to go a little further, too, because in our messaging back and forth, you talked about how you like to find the connections between various sports. Right here at the top, you talked about line of compression, and you picked up a tennis racket next door to you here, and you showed I’m like, “Yeah, that’s a it’s a really cool way to take whatever the aspirant golfer’s other discipline is, sometimes the better discipline, and use that to say, look, there is a similarity between a baseball swing and a golf swing and a tennis swing and a golf swing.” And in my career in teaching, which has been spanned many years since 1995, people sort of come to me and I’m sure you see the same thing. Maybe they’ve played cricket and they’re like, “Well, my cricket swing is going to mess up my golf swing.” But you It couldn’t be farther from the truth. Really? Huh? No. No. I mean, gosh, one of the first questions we always ask anybody that comes for a lesson is do you do any other sport? Yeah. Because that immediately tells us whether they’ve got good hand eye coordination or it immediately gives me something to pull on as a thread to say, look, you know, okay. All right. So, you’ve done baseball. Fantastic. You know, did you know this is the similarity to this? and and if you can start speaking now obviously I’m an Englishman okay and I’ve had to learn a little bit about baseball the closest we have to baseball is called rounders over here which is a with a dinty little bat um but it’s the same principles if that makes sense and it’s amazing how we get good success with clients and by just saying okay well hold this tennis racket for me and now make this this stroke this the you know make a forehand stroke for example and they immediat mediately do it and it’s exactly the same motion that we want them to do in the swing and yet without any thought because they’re holding a totally different object and yet as soon as they have a golf club in their hand their brain just goes you know and they suddenly think well I’ve got to do this haven’t I and and I’m like no you don’t have to it’s this movement here so yes one of the big things that we I’ve learned I can’t take credit for that I mean it’s basically um Mike’s things mask with regards to we talk a a lot about using other sports. So sports sports connection as we call it is is huge because it whether it’s talking about face control or whether it’s talking about the shaft you know getting the shaft to work we call this we do this move called up to under if you give somebody a baseball bat to do that or you give them a tennis racket they’ll do up to under whereas most amateur golfers you would they they tend to come under to over to go over the top. Well, if we say to you, give me a racket and go up to under, they can do it. Um, so yeah, you’re right. This the the connection there is and suddenly as soon as you do it, suddenly they’re like this light bulb goes off. You can see it in their faces and it’s a beautiful thing because you made that connection to something that they already know how to do. I I well I I personally blame a couple things for the overthought in golf. Some of it is um overexuberant golf instructors who are like vomiting information on some poor learner and then also the fact that the ball’s on the ground and so they like swing back and they’re like, “Oh gosh, I got to go down.” One more thing here and I want your commentary. I found that tennis players who can hit a top forehand can hit the draw shot in the blink of an eye and then and then I’ve Yeah. In the United States, we call it tenpin bowling. M uh in South Africa, the rest of the world is lawn bowling, you know, and if you can bowl a bowl or a bowling ball and you start it for the right hand out to the right and curve it back to left, that motion of delivering the ball is very similar to a draw shot as well. Uh to to your connections point 100%. So you’re dead right. So the the action of um well obviously face control is first thing of all which we we do in the in the M system. So most golf pros for example will not teach to use these things. Okay. So they they’ll say to you the first thing they’ll say is take the hands out of it. Don’t use them. Okay? They’ve got to be quiet and calm through the shot. Use your body more. Well, yes, the body’s important, and yes, we don’t want to have over action, but at the same time, if I had a tennis racket and I said to a player, put it over to the right hand side of the court for me, they they’d do it instantly. Their hands would do whatever they had to do to put it over that way. Go to the left hand side of the court. Yes, they’ll put it that way. And like you say, top spin, forehand it without any thought in the world, and they don’t even play tennis, if that makes sense. As soon as we give them a golf club, they don’t do that. They’ve lost all sense of face control. Uh the good players, and you’ll know this, you you you you mix with the good players, they have such good facial awareness of where that club face is in time and space during the swing that they understand that they use that natural ability. So you’re right. So you have a tennis player, they they can make the right movements in the stroke and they understand it because and again because you relate it to their sport, but that that motion of I’ll try and stand this way. But that motion of the racket going up to under is how you do a tension break. So I play a forehanded tension. I’m going to play one back there. My racket would go up and then it comes under. It’s the same with baseball. The bat starts up, it comes under. So they can immediately get the club moving on the right path. Whereas most amateur golfers it’s it’s going under over this way. So there and you would never play a top spin forehand as you said from going from under to over it just wouldn’t work would it. So that that connection as you rightfully say as soon as you say as soon as I give them a tennis racket they they they think I’m nuts because I go out there with my bag with tennis racket in baseball bats hockey sticks and so on and and I hand them this and I say right now play me a top spin put and we’re hitting range balls up the up the fairway and they can do it and you’re like well you know you can do it physically we’ve just got to now transfer that mentally into your game. There’s a beauty in the simplicity of it all. Uh, and I I can only imagine everyone watching you or with an earshot are like, “Oh, yes.” And they’re fiddling around with it. So, while they’re while all of our fans are now experimenting with their top spin/golf forehand, I want you to tell the viewers and the audience around the world a little bit about Matt Baker, tell us, give us the bio, please. Gosh. Um, well, how long you got? So yes, question. Well, I was born in know. Um, so yeah, I’ve been a golf professional. I’ve been in golf since I was 14 years old. Uh, so I was a bit of a late bloomer. Um, I got it as a birthday present uh from my mom and dad. Um, I didn’t really want to do it if I was honest at the time. So, but I did it. Uh, but I had that first shot and I absolutely loved it. Um, and and I I never looked back from there. So, I’ve been uh I’ve been in golf since I was I ended up working in my first pro shop at 16. So, I’m 50 now. So, I’ve been working ever since then in golf, if that makes sense. I did take a sabatical for a while. That’s a lie. While my son was growing up, I I wanted to be at home a bit with him. So, um so I did take a little bit of time off, but I never stopped learning golf because it’s always it’s in my blood, if that makes sense. Um I I love it. So, I’ve been a head professional. I’ve been a coach as a head coach at clubs. Um, and now I’m in a position where I’m in a very comfortable position where I work three days a week at my local at a local golf club near us near Manchester, the Manchester Golf Club. It’s a beautiful complex. Uh, and Brian there has been wonderful in saying, “Yeah, Matt, you can come and coach and do your do your thing over here.” So, that’s been great. And I’ve had a wonderful journey along the way and and and obviously meeting up with Mike as well was just a a dream come true for me because um I was in the doldrums with my game at that time. You know, as a pro, you’re always trying to look and and as a coach as well, you know this, you don’t often have time to care for yourself, do you? So, um, and I was trying to grab things and going down all these cliches as you were saying, you know, and making it so complicated and thinking, uh, thinking, gosh, I need to learn radial and older deviation and this, this, and this. And I didn’t really. I just needed to go back to connections because I was, I I did tennis at school. That was my sport. And I stumbled across Mike’s uh, YouTube channel and he was doing a Sports Connect with tennis. and it just something my head just that’s what I need to do. So I studied it for a while and this is 10 years or so ago. Um and then I I I joined his website and so on and and and then I started asking him questions and getting more probably annoying as I went along and uh and basically he reached out and said, “Matt, you you know your stuff, you know, can we can we have a chat?” So we did and and that’s how it came on. But it’s been a wonderful thing to be able to have a lot of good mixture in my life with some great coaches because I think as a coach we should always be learning, shouldn’t we? Um, but yeah, it’s been a wonderful I’ve loved it really. Golf is my my blood really. Yeah, you and me both. And folks, Matt does give online golf lessons as well, but more about that. Okay, let’s get back to your M system. So, we’ve addressed they’re five points. Basically, it’s a system to just basically making better, more efficient, more productive golf swings. Yeah. So, sorry. No, I was talking about So, we’ve touched on the line of compression, unless you want to build a little further there. The the next point of the five is the lever system. Now, I I’ll tear you off by making a personal observation. You’ve illustrated the fact that I get to see the best of the very best playing their best on weekends when I’m working for CBS and I’ve worked with some elite golfers and when I come back and I give lessons to clubs golfers they’re like how does Rory hit it so far or how does you know Justin Thomas hit it so far or or wonder why the slightly built person that creates this massive speed at the right time and then I launch into a diet tribe about levers. So, I want you to give us your thoughts on the leverage system and how people who want to create or or basically work less for more, how they can lever up a little bit and make their golf swing more efficient. Yeah. So, you’re dead right. So, in our world or in our world, yes, there’s other ways to play. There certainly is, but in our world, um, the the the lever system is is probably one of the most important factors that that every golfer, 95% of golfers should learn because they don’t use it. Yeah. So, the amount of times that the the way the hands work is that they they hinge in the back swing, they unhinge in the down swing, and then they rehinge in the forward swing. Now, most people cannot rehinge in the forward swing. they’ll they’ll hold it off or they’ll chicken wing it or or whatever it will be because they’ve got they’ve not got used to this leather system. Now, Mike does this really great job. He had a great story and he I’m sure he won’t mind me telling you this. I’ll stand up for this one. So, he he has this great story. So, I was I was all comfortable there in a chair. So, Mike has Mike has this great story. He when he was a young kid, he got a chance to go to a clinic with um Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas. Okay. So, he he ran there. He said, “Yeah, I know these guys. I’ll go and watch them.” And when he went to them in this clinic, they were talking away and he noticed that Jack was stood there. Can you see me? Okay. Yeah, we can see you. Great. And for the audio listeners, go check this on YouTube because Matt is about to demonstrate a little bit and I’ll do my best to to Yeah, I’ll try I’ll try and explain it. Put on your radio description. So he he watched the he watched them there and they were chatting away to the audience, let’s say, and he noticed that Jag had his had his legs crossed in front of him and he had a golf club in his left hand only. His right hand was in his pocket and he was just swinging the club back and forth just doing this. Okay. Okay. And this is what you know and it noticed that the club was hinging on the way back. It was striking the ground and rehinging on the way through. Now Arnold Palmer was stood the other way chatting away and he had his right hand and he was doing this motion. Okay. And there was no tension in it. The the hands were barely on the club. So I’m I’m literally holding the club with my thumb and my forefinger and I’m allowing the weight of the club or the momentum of the club to swing down and through for me. So and and you’ll often see the the the guys and the girls on the tea when they’re waiting for the green to clear or whatever it is. You’ll often see them there just stood there just doing this cuz they’re bored. But this actual motion is a motion that most golfers need to learn to do because if you can do this, you literally have a golf swing because because if I can do this, if I start with this one and hinging back and forth, my wrist is hinging in the back swing. It unhinges and rehinges in the forward swing. If I do that and then I add in both hands and then I start adding in body, suddenly I’ve got a golf swing. So, and and it’s not that complicated, is it? So, that that motion of just allowing the club to just hinge back and forth, back and forth. It keeps the club on plane. It’s in balance and I’m able to make a golf swing. Then I can suddenly add in both hands and then add in my body. Suddenly I’ve got a golf swing. And that motion, this hinging, unhinging, and rehinging is what creates it can be up. I think it’s been studied. It’s around 80% of your power comes from those wrist hinges. Now then you’ll watch YouTube or you’ll watch an Instagram video and they say, “Oh, take the hands out of it.” Yeah. Um, so suddenly suddenly we’re seeing golfers suddenly doing this sort of motion where they’re stiff in the shoulders and there’s no wrist hinge at all trying to create the same power. Okay. As they would do in um, you know, for the golf swing to try and create the same power with less with most effort. Yeah. Exactly. Yet yet, if I had a baseball bat, okay, and I was to swing a baseball bat, I would not stand there with a baseball bat and do this to hit it, okay, with no arms or no wrists. I’d stand there, it would go up, and then I would flick through and I would allow the bat to pass my hands. Okay, when that time’s up though, is a matter of timing, isn’t it? You know, you hit the ball and then it releases. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. So the le the levers learning that skill first is brutally important for most of my golfers. It’s amazing how if we stand there. So, one of another drill that we do is we have customers, we we when we do a clinic, we do this great thing of we we get a chair and we get a driver and we’ll peg one up and we’ll we’ll actually sit on the chair and we’ll hit the driver and we’ll hit it off down the fairway and it will go it will go over 200 yards and everybody’s like, “Whoa, how did you do that?” You know, I can’t even hit the ball that far. And and Mike will often say to them, “Well, you better learn what I can what I know fast.” Okay. So, this this motion is vital. And when when you say you watch the the tour players, you can see that action in their hands. Um, and they’re good with their hands and that’s the key thing. They they know how to use them. Well, getting back to Rory, if you look at him, let’s take contact, the line of compression, right? Yes. Yes. And then three away in the follow through. He’s gone from, if we’re talking the lead wrist, basically dead straight to completely hinged before he’s even gotten to his follow through. The speed of that rehinges are massive. And and ever since I was Moby Dick, when Moby Dick was a mow, it’s been ages now. I’ve always said to people, you know, imagine thumbs up for a good shot. Thumbs up is good. So thumbs up in your back swing, thumbs up in your through swing. And then they’re like, but that’s handsy. And then I add, and I think you’re going to get to that next, point three, the body motion that supports this lever. The body isn’t overpowering it. The body is just providing moving support for this lever. Is that your approach? Oh god. Yes. Are you sure you’re not been reading up on it? Let me Here’s the thing. I I’m a golf nerd. I’m scouring the internet all the time and I’m bringing all manner of information to people. I I I’ll talk to the folks that talk about, you know, wrist extension, then bow through contact like a Marawa or whatever, and then I’ll talk to the other folks that are more slingers of the golf club. And in all my years, I’m 54, I’m finding more and more injury happening because people are tilting and turning and stuff to compensate for a very closed club face. Where the slingers of the club, the Nicholas um like you talk about Nicholas and Palmer, I I you know, Jim Flick is a legend was a legendary golf instructor. He hit balls off his knees over the driver. Same as what you guys do and his influence, you can see it throughout. And I feel like more golfers will be better served if they learn what you’re teaching than the other way around. 100%. I I totally agree and thank you for that because it’s it you’re dead right. And obviously Mike has a massive connection to sir, you know, to Mr. Jimflick. So So um and if you study his thing, study his work, you’re right, you know, and and if more golfers was to learn this motion, then they would oh gosh, they’d find golf so easy. That’s the key. I want to say this to you and I’m going to throw out some names and this is kind of proving um Matt’s Matt’s point and I’m coming alongside him in in this. I want to mention some names and you will think of regal elegant golf swings hit the ball a long ways. Louis Wden. Oh yeah. Ernie else. Yeah. Steve Elington. Uh Luke Donald. Um of course Rory. He’s just faster but he’s a modern day version of all that stuff. They are all, as Jack said, more slingers of the club than pullers of the golf club. Yeah. Because of the hinge, unhinge, rehinge thing. But let’s to the body action that supports that. Because look, I could stand there with my feet together and clip balls away and have them go pretty well, but then as I get perhaps a little too overactive with my right hand, if I’m a right-handed golfer, I’ll hit some lefts. So, talk to us about how the two elements, body and the lever system work together. Yeah. So the the role of the body, the body is important, don’t get us wrong. So when we start with people, we when I start with beginners, for example, like you say, we’ll just have them literally go in, we call it L to L. So they’ll swing to an L shape here and an L shape on the forward swing. L is for long and luscious and lengthy golf shots. Yeah, I’m going to steal that. Yeah. So basically, we start with that, but then the body has a role. Now the way we see the body, how it works is it works as a stabilizer. Okay. Now the the beautiful way I’ve tried to describe this as best as I can but we’ve all seen the tennis ball on a piece of string or a weight on a piece of the string being swung around a hand. Yeah. Now, when you swing that object around your hand, okay, and you’re rotating your wrist in this action, okay, in a in an anticlockwise action, that ball or whatever it is that’s going around you maintains an orbit. Yes. Okay. Now, I’m having to though at some point, okay, now that’s maintaining its orbit mostly through its momentum. Okay. The the the pressure of it getting pushed out, it’s creating that. Now, in order to create that circle, my body, which is my arm and my wrist, is having to stay stable. Yes. Now, I’m having to also though direct that momentum around my body. If I have an object, I’m spinning it around and I just let go, that object would go straight out. It’s a straight It’s a straight line force. So, if I’m rotating this, I’m having to offset that momentum. So, as the ball comes around, say it’s coming around in front of me here, I’m having to pull my wrist back. let’s say towards me to offset that momentum. Now, the faster and the more I can time that up, the faster that object goes around me. Okay? So, if I was in the Olympic Games, okay, and I was hammer throw, so you’re throwing that hammer around your body, okay, and you watch a hammer thrower, again, relating back to sports. Yeah. If I’m throwing that hammer around me, my body would work in an opposing force. So, as I swing that weight around me or the hammer comes around me, my body would push backwards and that’s because it’s directing momentum and it’s also influencing speed. So, the body has a role of pushing away from that momentum. So, as I’m swinging the golf club around me, I’m always permanently pushing away from it. There is a point at the transition stage where we move in the same time, but as I’m coming down to it’s very short, very short. But as I’m coming down to hit the ball, my body is pushing away from that momentum. It’s not moving up hitting it. So the most common fault we see with golfers is early extension, let’s say, or moving up into the ball. And that’s mostly because they’re going with the momentum of the club. If I push my hips back and I push myself away from that that ball, I create more club head speed effortlessly. That’s the key. And I direct the momentum around me. Okay. Audio listeners there, if you’re watching on YouTube, I just raise my hands in a triumphant praise to heaven because of the stuff because you’ve talked about early extension. The internet is a wash with people saying keep your hips back. And they basically what they’re doing is they eliminating athletic movement in order to band-aid a problem where the body’s straightening up too early where you just understand to your point that you got to move in the opposite direction of where the force of the club’s wanting to go. Yeah. And then to all of that as well and now you got the cadre of folks. Look, I do when I teach it. I teach people how to use the ground well, but you hear ground reaction forces. Now I see people are bouncing around the place. But the reality is to really accelerate that club into the follow through, you push back and away from it, which is the ground reaction stuff as opposed to going in the same direction as the golf club. 100%. The amount of people that I see jump upwards because they know they’ve got to use vertical force. So, uh, but they forget about pushing away. So, my body works pushing away in the same direction the club’s going. So the centripedal forces I’m moving away this my body goes this way at the same angle as my club head is. So I don’t go up there is a there is a slight up but there’s a slight diagonal because I’m moving in the opposite direction to the way the club is moving around me. So and that’s that creates speed. Yes. And then all you folks you good golfers that have gone to your professional who said to you you need to swing left. Now you’re pulling on the handle for your dear life and the club head’s still going to the right, but you’re pulling with your hands. If you get this body action that Matt’s describing, that club has got no option but to release to the left instead of being pulled to the left hand side. 100% right. And also again, you know, you mentioned right the top of the the beginning of the the show was regards to um terminology. Yeah. So a lot of golfers get terminology wrong as well. We as coaches, there’s no there’s no set glossery in the back of any PJ manual that says, “Right, this is a glossery of terminology. This is what you should use it for.” Uh, and this is it. Everybody has their own interpretation. So, how the hips work. Okay. Now, Mike had a a great relationship with uh, you have to excuse my name. I think it’s Pete Agoscu. Okay. Now, Pete is a physio guy and he he’s created this thing called the Agoscu method. Okay. Um, and he he helped Jack Nicholas through his injury problems back in the 80s, I think it was. Um, anyway, that that where Mike got introduced lot to the physical side of it and so on and how the body actually functions. So, how the hips actually function, they don’t turn as such. Okay. Now, the hips work in what we call straight line forces. So, they work forward and backwards. If I was to walk, my hips don’t turn. I mean, somebody might have a swagger, I don’t know, but the hips, the hips, the hips and the function of the hips work in straight lines. So, most golfers would actually function better if they thought of the right hip going back, move up to left side, and then the left hip goes back rather than actually thinking of right turn. Because if I think turn, I need to turn around a pivot point. So, the example would be, so I’ll stand again. So, if I stand here and I’m side on looking down the you’re looking down the target at me. I need a pivot point to turn around if I need to turn. So, my right hip will stay still and my left hip will turn around that point. Yes. I would never ever We talk about Tiger talked about activate the glutes. Activ activating the glutes is pushing that hip back rather than keeping it still. We were taught, weren’t we, for years, keep that right knee still, right hip, turn around that base. Well, this causes a lot of golfers for their hip to then go forward, okay, on the back swing, they never recover. They move up to the left side and then the right hip goes forward to go round the left hip. So, they then get their pelvis or the center of the pelvis then gets closer to the ball. And hello, we’ve got early extension. Whereas, if I push my right hip back stays back and I push my left hip to go back to that to meet it. So if my left hip goes back to meet my right hip, suddenly I haven’t got early extension and I’m pushing away from the ball. So the terminology sometimes of the hips is is crucial because I I’ve done videos before and I get crucified for it, you know, or of of course you turn your hips, of course you Yes, it looks like it and so on, but technically the hips work in straight lines. Yes. And here’s my mere kulpa and I’ll I’ll use that as a segue to the next point to your very point about you know back in the day cuz what I’m 54 and as a golf instructor I’ve been teaching since 95 so I’ve been the Sony handicam era I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen big BBC. We used to call them big BBC cameras. You used to hold this thing on your shoulder and take video of people. Yeah. Through it all I was saved by a few books. Golf my way by Jack Nicholas. Yeah. the book by um Percy Boomer and then Swing the Clubhead by Ernest Jones. Those have been sort of my Bibles and then John Jacob’s Practical Golf. Okay. And and I remember when I was playing, I played at a high level that there was that movement where you had to keep your trail knee flexed and then you turn around that, right? Yes. I would do that and I was decent, but every video I’d seen, I’d see myself, I would look so jammed up into impact and I just suck the handle of the club into me to play. Okay. But I was good for at least one shanker tournament. Okay. Then I remember now then I got a bit more money and I bought all these golf books and I bought various books by Sam Sneed and there was a picture of him at the top of his swing in black and white like this deep right side turn, hands real high and you could fly a plane between his legs. His right leg was so straight. And I was thinking this guy was known as the preeminent ball striker of his day. So I carry a player. I’m like, “Tell me about Sneeed.” “Oh, nobody hit the ball like him.” So, I was like, “Why on earth then is that guy right hip way behind him, leg straight, and he has me trying to keep my right knee bent, and I’m trying to turn against that stuff.” No wonder I hit the thing short and crooked when I was off. Huh. Exactly. Right. 100%. I mean, since learning the the how to lose the how to use the levers and also how to use the body and function it properly, my distance has gone up. um from all those years. I’m I mean I’m a a ‘ 90s late 80s 90s golf, you know, and I learned through the the the FAO era and so on, which was great, but it was all about keep it tight, keep it coiled and so on, which at that time it worked and it was good and you could play that way, but boy, I wish I hadn’t have done that. I wish I’d have been more like Greg Norman, you know, with more let it open and yeah, you know, let it go and so on and John Dailyaly and so on. Um so yeah I think having I wish now it’s like Mike says you know learn the M system and get 10 years of your life back you know with the golf and 10 yards as well you know so it’s a key of learning to move the body as you say more functionally and athletically that’s the key okay M system five points we’ve done line of compression one that’s basically hand action then we’ve done the lever system which is the wrist and elbow system then we’ve talked about the body motion so you see we’re going from club head into body. So point four in the M system you say is combine the skills. So I’m assuming this is just timing up the yeah hands, arms, clubhead, body. So the whole the whole point of the system is it’s a it’s a skilled based system. So it’s not about positions and it’s not about learning, you know, top of the back swing. We hate that word in in Alaska golf, top of the back swing. The there’s it’s about creating you you’ve got to learn skills. Okay. And so learning face control is a skill, you know, learning to hit the ball left and right. My my beginners, I’ll actually have them hitting the ball left and right on purpose. The skill of a tournament player with a beginner and they can do it easy. Okay. Because we teach them the skill. So it’s a skill-based learning system. It’s a tiered system. So it starts off pretty simple and it builds and builds and builds like you say and it works from the club head back into the body. Whereas most golfers are taught to work from the early Yeah. uh and we haven’t even really touched upon posture, alignment, things like that. Um which is where we start to do it with combined skills. So we then start to talk about posture and body alignment. You know, there’s a I mean I could do a whole show for you about parallax and all this business. Um but we then start to go into that system. She then you start to have good posture. Posture is important as you know. Um ball position is massively important. huge. Yeah. So, we go into all that area. But then with that, then we got to like you say, we then got to put the two pieces together. The the lever system and then the body motion. Now, there is only one position that we tend to focus on in combined skills, which is the most important position in our mind, impact. Okay. So, we then start you we then start you at impact. Now, you could take a lot of golfers out there and say to them, “Right, put me in put yourself in a good impact position. What does that look like?” And most of them will be, “Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. I know. I know my back swing needs to be up here somewhere and and so on and and here on the follow through and I need to not chicken wing it.” And so, no, no, put yourself into impact. What does that look like? That’s the only bit that matters. So, training impact first of all, and then we work back from there. So then we start you to just hit a few little chip shots just with the, you know, from an impact position. We’re not worried about anything else. And then we start to gradually open the shoulders up. And then we start to gradually get longer and longer and longer. And we start to stretch the swing out, if that makes sense. It does. It does. And I quickly want to interject there, too. It grinds my gears when I see club golfers go to the range and they if I’m lucky they’ll hit a 79 or two before they go to the driver. I go to PGA Tour events. I watched a guy in warm-ups last week in New Orleans hit basically wedges that went 60 70 yards. Rasmus Hygard if you’re wondering who it is. And this guy busted for about 45 minutes. just little swings back and forth kind of almost allowing the swing to grow from zero to maximum velocity and not just to maximum from the word go. Yeah. So Mike tells me a wonderful story about he used to coach in Japan h and while he was there he had this gentleman that he was coaching right beginner never played really much before uh and he was a tai chichi expert this guy um and he they went through an experiment of doing everything slowly. So it was basically, you know, do it gradually, do it slowly. And he learned the golf swing. They they talked about doing this and they they gradually did it slowly. And even hitting balls at that sort of speed, you know, gosh, I’m talking about 10% of the speed here. And then then they started to grow up to let’s do 20%, let’s do 30%, let’s do and so on. And then they got eventually to four. Now if they stumbled at say 50%, then they went back down to 40%. and he he he actually became I think it was within a couple of months an efficient striker of the ball and could was playing off like an eight handicap or something like that just from learning the stroke slowly and you’re dead right. So learning if you can’t if you can’t do it with a pitching wedge, the motion that you’re supposed to be doing um at 50% speed, there is no chance in in heaven and earth that you’re going to be able to hit your driver at full speed and try to perform the same the same movement. M So I I had a lesson um on on Sunday it was and this this this guy was hooking the ball terrible pitching wedge and we’re talking 50 60 yards hooks but we got him onto a wedge and we did a few adjustments within two shots we changed him and he was hitting it straighter and but we had him do it slowly if that makes sense and and you’re right so yeah so we digressed there a bit but that basically is you know doing things slowly and if you it’s like we say this is why we will start with the putter with with some of our um like juniors and and and lady golfers and and beginners. Sometimes we start with a putter because it’s a smaller stroke and they’re going to have more success as opposed to saying, “Right, here’s a driver. Off you go. Now go and hit that.” They got no chance. No, no, no. Here’s how it goes. Here’s the driver. Hold it like this. Stand like that. Be parallel to the target. Now swing and finish in ballet. How many How many lessons have you seen people get like that? It’s It’s Yeah. So we we um so we do a thing which goes into the the next segment of how we practice and we actually like to call it how you calibrate the swing. So there’s certain things or certain exercises that you you’ll see in the M system for example where you you might have to do that and calibrate it and do that probably every practice session that you go out and do probably for the rest of your life. Yeah. So, one of my favorite ones is I’ll hit shots with just my right hand only, just with a wedge. Uh, and just chipping the ball with my right hand because it trains how my right hand should work. Okay? I I spent many years of being a golfer that we were taught to open the face in the back swing, hold the angle, then turn the hands over. So, I spent most of my career playing this way. Well, ideally, I’d rather play this way or what we call a throw release. So, I want my right hand. So, I practice with my right hand. If you if you I mean you would have done this when we were younger and we’d hitten balls and you know back then we had to go and pick our own balls up. You know we didn’t have ranges and so on. We’d have to go and we’d have a shag bag that we take out to the middle and you know we’ll be chipping the ball back with our right hand only and then left and so on. But those those little skills just that chipping motion here trains everything you need to know about how to swing a golf club because when you’re swinging it one hand you’re not being influenced by the other hand. So this hand will function naturally instinctively. You would never ever chip with one hand. Again, I’ll stand up, but you would never ever chip with one hand. With your right hand right underneath like this, as we see golfers um and try to chip the ball, you just wouldn’t do it. You couldn’t do it. Whereas if I had my hand on the back of the shaft, as we said earlier, and I just worked my hand in this sort of hinging, this throw motion as we call as if I was throwing a ball. Yeah. my club face stays stable, my ball goes straighter and I get a better contact on the ball. So I I stand here just just practicing just chipping balls and you go to the range or I’ll go to a private, you know, a golf range on incognito or whatever and people walk up the other and think, look at this guy, you know, look at him. Who does he think he is? But I’m just standing here calibrating my swing because that’s really, really important. So learning those skills is what we’re basically working on. That’s my skill. You know what? And that is so true. And I will I will put an exclamation point on your observation with a real life example. Okay? We could argue that the two greatest golfers of all time are Jack Nicholas and Tiger Woods. Depends on who you talk to. So let’s call Tiger the greatest of this generation. To this day when he walks in the putting green every day I see him he puts two T sticks two T’s out on the green there just outside of the toe and the heel of his putter and he stands there for a good 10 15 minutes right hand only back and through only with a right hand just to train how the right hand works and to hit the ball in the center of the club face. This is the preeminent golfer if not the of all time certainly of our generation do that yet most club golfers are averse to practicing that way. They throw a bucket of balls down they hit and hope a few seven irons or drivers or whatever and then they think they’ve practiced. Yeah. I think so again that sort of leads segways into the the the fifth tier which is how to practice. Yeah. So when they go and practice a they don’t have a plan um and b they sometimes they actually look for permission. So they’ll they’ll look at me and I’ll say, “I want you to go and practice just with one-handed chips.” Can I do that? Of course you can. I’ve just told I’ve told you you can. Yes, go and do it. And then they’ll say, you know, “Can I do that on the Yes. Only do it on the shots you want to hit?” Well, and and then do you know what I mean? And it and okay, I’ll do it. You know, and can I do it with a driver? Yes, you can. Sometimes they’re looking for permission. And and and because they think they have to do things in a certain way. um a they think they’re going to get judged maybe, I don’t know. Um but no, you have to sometimes work correctly and efficiently and you have to when you practice, you’ve got to go and practice and get what we call immediate feedback. Yeah. So there’s no point you standing there with, you know, a 100 balls and just whacking them everywhere and had no feedback on whether you was doing what you should be doing correctly or not. So you’re right. Most people go there with no plan or no idea really what they’re just going I mean they’re having a good warm-up session really aren’t they? Um they’re not really practicing with a purpose. Lovely. And I I found that a lot. So when we when we teach or when we go out we we encourage people we we build what we call a practice station using alignment sticks. I mean alignment sticks where were they all our lives? I mean we we need those now. I’ll put one out in front of between the ball and the target, you know, that’s their their mission is to miss that, you know, to go around it one way or the other or do you know what I mean? And we put alignment sticks down. It does everything for them. So they never you never see them do that. Yeah. You direct attention mentally and physically. Um this has been fantastic stuff. I I know you give golf lessons at your home club obviously, but you are available online too. So, as we put a a bow on this conversation, tell folks where they can find you, what the social media handles and such are because I’m s folks like we’re looking for this guy now. Yeah. So, I’ve been coaching for a while now on Skillist. Um I’m available on Skillist. I’m also available on Golf Live. Um which is great fun. That’s really good fun. Um so, you can find me on those. You just search in Matt Baker and I’ll my my ugly face will appear. Um I also as I’ve just recently started a wonderful golf club. I have to give them a big shout out because they’re such a good good golf club. It’s one of the best courses in the north of England. U it’s got great facilities which is the Manchester Golf Club. So if you just search the Manchester Golf Club you you’ll find us there. Um we’ve got I’m really enjoying that and the whole idea with that there for me is to do schools. I want to do schools and clinics there. Um, and also being they call me the uh the international department for Maska Golf because basically I cover from Florida. Well, I’m I’m the only one east to Florida basically. So, I can go anywhere. Res the world. So, I’m sure that would I’m sure that’ll improve soon. But, um yeah, so we will be hosting golf schools at some point. So, watch this space. But, um you can also find me on Malaska Golf. Um, just type in uh ww.malaskolf.com and my again I’ll be on there with the with the other guys and Mike obviously uh I I do videos for him on there and we answer. The great thing with that is what I love about that is and you you’ll know this as well with your listeners and your viewers is they have great minds and they’ll ask great questions. Um and we get we have a segment in there called Ask Mike. Um they might change that now to ask us, I don’t know. Um but basically we get a chance to answer their questions about things, you know, so you know, does my right hand do this and so on and so and we can do a video back tailored to them which goes onto the site because that you know what it’s like when you when you’re sitting in a room of somebody and they say is there any questions and no one nobody ever says a word do they? But then there’s always somebody says, “Oh yeah, they send you a message and then somebody said, “Oh yeah, I was going to ask that question.” So it’s um it’s a great platform for that. Um and obviously I’m on Instagram, just Matt Baker Golf. Uh I’m on I’m pretty much on everything I think Instagram, Tik Tok, Instagram. Instagram was where I found you, Matt. And I’m thankful I did. Um I I’m a big one on helping people not just to knowledge but to being wise and into understanding stuff and you’ve brought a healthy heaping of understanding today. So I really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us. Ah it’s been a pleasure. I absolutely love it. You know get to meet a legend like yourself as well. You know I’ve seen you on TV and so on and great stuff you know and you get to see these great players in action and you know and to learn and watch what they do is it’s phenomenal, isn’t it? I imagine. Keep shining. You’re doing great work. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. [Music] [Music]