Daily Video Blog

Is Your Takeaway Ruining Your Swing Before It Starts?
Is Your Takeaway Ruining Your Swing Before It Starts?
Authored by: Brady
Posted on: 5 May 2026

You've probably been told your whole golfing life that you need to keep moving before you swing. Waggle, forward press, rock the knee — whatever it takes, just don't stand still. Surge heard that too. He just never agreed with it.

His thing was this: if you're pressing forward to start a swing that needs to go backward, how do you make that feel exactly the same every time? With every club, every lie, every round? After a while, you start to realize — you can't. That little forward move changes just enough, just often enough, to mess with your timing without you ever knowing why.

What Surge taught instead was to come to a full stop before starting the swing. Feet planted, waggle done, one last look at the target — then still. From there, a simple three-count: squeeze the grip equal in both hands, press the knees out slightly, and go. The toe of the club moves first, the arms follow, and the club finds its way back up the plane. Nothing fancy, just quiet and controlled... Read More

Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 30 August 2017
Comments: 2
"Do we clear our hips like a rotational swinger," asks a reader? No, not exactly. The key to starting the swing is the Bump. You have read it in our books, watched it in our videos, and maybe looked... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 3 August 2017
Comments: 1
One of our watches wrote in with a great observation on the stance, torque and body position. One of the many aspects of the PPGS that differs from the rest of the golf world is that we want to be... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 5 July 2017
Comments: 4
A question came in from a customer in Australia regarding the Driver Swing video and laying off the club in the backswing. What is perceived in the video and what you have to do in the backswing?... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 20 June 2017
Comments: 2
How many people do you know that quit playing the game due to frustration? They are beaten by the game rather than playing the game. Golf does not have to be hard. If you are following the PPGS, you... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 28 May 2017
Comments: 2
One of my Surgism's is "Setup determines the motion". But do you know what determines setup? It should not take too much to guess. It is a topic I preach daily - "The Big A" alignment. A lot of my... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 26 May 2017
Comments: 5
Your backswing should be one continuous fluid motion. Never should you feel like there is more than a single movement. In this video, I explain how to execute a proper takeaway into the vertical... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 19 May 2017
Alignment... Have you heard this story before? Yes! I talk about this a lot and for good reason. We have golf schools scheduled almost every month. Therefore I get to see a lot of students every... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 25 April 2017
Comments: 10
We have a letter today asking about other golf instructors that clearly teach a rotational swing using PPGS like terminology and even some of our concepts. This is a phenomenon we have been seeing a... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 5 April 2017
Comments: 5
Today I read you an excellent letter I got from someone that came to see me for private lessons. What is noteworthy about this student is his golf game was already very good. After he had left, I got... Read More
Authored by: Don Trahan
Posted on: 17 March 2017
Comments: 6
We all know that ball speed is directly proportional to club head speed and that distance is a function of ball speed - simple math. But from where does your club head speed originate? Of course, the... Read More