When I first started playing golf, I was a typical slicer. As I improved and eventually turned pro at 27, even though cuts and slices are perfectly usable shots, I was so traumatized by slicing that I made my stock shot a slight draw. However, it was a tight enough draw that it looked straight to me, even though it was technically drawing.

Lately, I've been having fun experimenting with getting my stock shot to average out as a perfectly straight shot with zero feet of curve, utilizing a sweet spot strike and 0-degree angle of attack, swing path, face angle, a face-to-path.

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Playing Sterling Irons single length irons makes that a bit easier because those are all designed to be played from a single ball position, which I place directly in the middle of my stance to help achieve a zero path. Since I sweep or pick the ball for more consistent overall contact and try to avoid taking divots, that center ball position also helps me maintain a zero angle of attack. From there, it was just a matter of getting the face angle and face-to-path to be zero, which I achieved by weakening my grip.

It's been a tricky transition because I was so accustomed to seeing that tight draw as straight. When I used launch monitors to confirm I was hitting truly straight shots, the ball flight looked like a slight fade to my eye. Plus, my history with slicing made me hesitant about anything that felt like swinging across the ball and fanning the face open—even when the result was a straight shot.

I’m starting to get more comfortable with it now. So far, my longest zero-curve shot, verified with technology, is 160.9 yards, which isn't too surprising because I practice a lot with my 8-iron.

Yesterday, I holed one out on the TopTracer range with a sand wedge. It was only a 40-yard shot, but seeing that proximity at zero feet was really cool.

Then today, while playing with a friend who operates Belle Isle Golf Detroit, I got my 10th hole-in-one, all spread across Pebble Beach's Peter Hay Golf Course and Belle Isle Golf Detroit.

Here’s the list:

• 1st - Saturday, November 6th, 2004, 9th hole at Pebble Beach’s Peter Hay Golf Course with a 9-iron from 74 yards
• 2nd - Sunday, October 9th, 2005, 8th hole at Pebble Beach’s Peter Hay Golf Course
• 3rd - Tuesday, October 10th, 2006, 3rd hole at Pebble Beach’s Peter Hay Golf Course
• 4th - Friday, September 22nd, 2023, 6th hole at Belle Isle Golf with a SW from 45 yards
• 5th - Tuesday, September 26th, 2023, 4th hole at Belle Isle Golf from 35 yards (on video)
• 6th - Wednesday, September 27th, 2023, 3rd hole at Belle Isle Golf from 35 yards (on video)
• 7th - Wednesday, September 27th, 2023, 3rd hole again at Belle Isle Golf from 35 yards (on video)
• 8th - Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023, 5th hole at Belle Isle Golf from 35 yards (have reaction camera video footage but green side camera failed)
• 9th - Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023, 5th hole again at Belle Isle Golf from 35 yards (have reaction camera video footage but green side camera failed)
• 10th - Tuesday, October 8th, 2024, 4th hole at Belle Isle Golf with a sand wedge, temperature 67 degrees, 11mph WNW wind

Interestingly, Tuesday is by far my most popular day to get a hole-in-one. I guess I just need to play more on Monday and Thursday to see if I can get one every day of the week!.

Brendon of Be Better Golf has released a second clip of our afternoon together talking golf. In this one, we talk about the Mike Austin golf swing, which is where I got my start in golf in 2003. Austin, if you are familiar, is the man who hit a Guinness World Record 515-yard drive in the 1974 US National Senior Open with a 43.5" steel-shafted persimmon wood driver and balata ball. The swing is a big part of what led me to winning the Pinnacle Distance Challenge with a televised 381-yard drive.

Here's the clip with Brendon:


Speaking of Mike Austin, if you haven't ever seen my 2012 video about the Mike Austin swing, it's available on my YouTube channel here. I bootstrapped the video together with virtually a zero budget, but it's holding up quite well to the test of time and people in the comments really seem to love it.

Make sure to like and comment on both videos as well as subscribing to both our channels!

I finally had the opportunity on Monday to meet up in person with Brendon of Be Better Golf to talk golf for a few hours. Here's the first clip of our conversation.

Over the past three days, Flint Golf Club in Flint, Michigan hosted the 2023 Michigan PGA Professional Championship.



In the 1st round, I was the final player in the field to tee off at 2:20pm, which is great for me. I prefer playing in the afternoon and evening and it was a really nice summer day with a high of 79 degrees Fahrenheit. It was my first tournament round in about 5 weeks and overall I felt like I hit the ball pretty well, playing 15 of the 18 holes just fine. I ended up in 70th place out of 124, roughly in the middle of the pack. Considering I had been so busy and hadn't played or practiced much lately, I felt okay about the start and was hopeful to clean things up a bit in the 2nd round.

In the 2nd round, we teed off earlier at 9:50am, but the weather was nice again in the high 60s and low 70s. I ended up having one of those difficult to explain tough days where my striking was off. I tried to manage the course by playing to even safer areas, but it didn't help much. I fell down the leaderboard to T-108th and missed the cut.

Going forward, I might take a little break from tournaments to implement a few swing changes that I've wanted to do for quite a long time that I hope will bring my swing more in to alignment with me as a person. I've got a 3-month membership at the new Five Iron Golf location in downtown Detroit. So, I think I'll play around with the cameras and Trackman simulators a bit to see if I can it dialed in to what I envision.

Congrats to the eventual winner Kyle Martin of Lochmoor Club on a great final round of 65 and -14 total for the tournament.

Thanks to everyone who made the tournament happen, including Flint Golf Club, the host pro Ed Bialek, the Michigan PGA tournament director Justin Phillips, and all the sponsors - presented by Cadillac, Corebridge Financial and Club Car with supporting sponsors Nike, TaylorMade Golf, Titleist/Footjoy, Callaway Golf, the Golf Channel, Gallagher and the PGA TOUR.

Thanks to host Fred Greene of the Golf Smarter podcast for having me on as a guest for the 5th time!

Description:

"Episode 888: Jaacob Bowden of swingmangolf.com and jaacobbowden.com was convinced that someday he would be a competitive Tour level golfer. He’s now been around the game for 20 years and his quest has brought him to the Speed Golf World Championships, World Long Drive Championships, and becoming an excellent golf instructor. In this episode we discuss his journey and how golfers at any age or skill level can increase their swing speeds which results in greater distance."

Chapter Markers:

0:00 Intro
1:31 First time we met
2:41 Making the PGA TOUR
6:27 Being a starving artist
12:50 Mindset in long drive
17:18 Losing the ego
18:47 Swing speed training
20:16 Benefit of swing speed training
25:04 How to increase swing speed
28:56 Speedgolf
31:26 What clubs do you carry in Speedgolf
34:19 Running on a golf course
38:38 Tour experience
40:47 PGA TOUR experience
43:52 Plans for 20th anniversary
47:55 Swing Man Golf

Listen to Episode 888 here:

Listen to "Speed Swing Training - Without Bulking Up Like Bryson, featuring Jaacob Bowden | #888" on Spreaker.
Watch the episode on YouTube here:


Listen to the other 4 episodes with Jaacob as a guest on Golf Smarter below:

02/06/18


11/13/12


06/05/12


12/19/09

Today I felt an intuitive impulse to post a video to YouTube that was previously a paid product…my "The Mike Austin Swing with Jaacob Bowden" that was created in 2012.

For those that don't know, I began my golf career at age 27 as a 14-handicapper. I quit my computer engineering job in Kansas and moved out to California on December 20th, 2002 to go for a career in golf. A month after I arrived, I met Dan Shauger, who gave me free coaching nearly every day for a month and then gradually less afterwards. Dan also introduced me to his friend Mike Austin, the man who at age 64 hit a 515-yard Guinness World Record drive of 515-yards in the 1974 US National Senior Open.

With Dan and Mike's help, I quickly lowered my handicap. First, I beat my best of 78 with a 74, then a 73, then my first time under par with a 69 on March 26th, 2003.

Also before the end of March (less than 3 months!) I added tons of distance (increasing my longest drive from 330 yards to 358 yards to 377 yards to 393 yards).

Granted I'm am a natural athlete, but some of this improvement came from additional practice. After all, I had just quit my engineering job and my new "job" was working on my game all day. Anyone is bound to improve when they add that much practice time to their schedule.

I'm also naturally strong, but still some came from golf fitness and working out in the gym. This later became the basis for my swing speed training programs at Swing Man Golf.

Some came from my almost daily technique work through Dan and our occasional visits to Mike Austin's house, which was nearby.

• I learned how to leverage power from my legs out to the golf club, relying less on rotational power and more on lateral and vertical power. This also had the side benefit of relieving a lot of stress off my knees, hips, and spine.
• I learned how to strike the ball more consistently in the "sweet spot" (better contact means more distance and also more accuracy/precision) through the concept of the swing circle center using the C7 vertebrae.
• I got permission to trust my instinct to minimize face rotation through the hitting area and consequently started hitting much more powerfully and accurately/precisely due to better ball striking. Basically, my shot dispersion window got much smaller.

Obviously a lot of people wondered how I improved so quickly.

On October 15th, 2007, I launched Swing Man Golf as a way of answering that question for people, while creating a new source of income for myself.

On April 21, 2012, I finished creating my Mike Austin video that shared what I learned from Mike and Dan…integrated with other videos from Mike Austin and spiced up with my own interpretations.

At the time, I was still struggling to get myself out of the debt I took on from switching over to a career in golf. So, I wrote, filmed, and edited everything myself with some very basic filming equipment that I had (wireless microphone, tripod, iPad as a teleprompter (hanging on the tripod using a coat hanger - haha), and iMovie on my MacBook Pro laptop.

I'm not a professional film maker, but I think it turned out okay…all things considered.

I should add that I no longer purely use the Mike Austin swing. Rather, I've refined what I do to make things work better for me personally. However, I do honor that this was a valuable part of my learning and growth as a golfer, and that others are interested in learning what I learned. That's why I keep the video out in the public realm.

Anyway, give it a watch below:


On a side note, the shirt I was wearing in the above cover photo with Mike was the very first logo for Swing Man Golf, which was drawn by my friend/roommate in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California in 2004. We lived on Carpenter in the 2nd house up from 1st.

I had a bit of a tough break today at British Open qualifying at Wildernesse Golf Club. I woke up this morning with some allergic reaction and my left eye was half swollen shut. I tried to play anyway. Missed the cut but I did make an eagle (345-yard drive and 6-iron to inches) and made The Open website anyway!


Thanks to Sterling Irons, Swing Man Golf, Snell Golf, Steve Thom, my lovely wife, and everyone else for the support!

Will give it a go again next time!

It felt a bit slow, rigid, and awkward because I hadn't done it for a while, but for this video I decided to try to see if I could make the original Austin swing I had previously made years prior.

Here are a couple of my full golf swings filmed at Pebble Beach's driving range at age 29.