​The road to 180mph continues in Birmingham Alabama this week!

Mark Blackburn goes deep into ground reaction forces, explains the concepts, and shares if I'm doing it well or need to work on how I'm using the ground.

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Part 2 of this episode will drop next week so make sure to subscribe on Youtube and follow along.

Big thanks to the folks at Rapsodo who helped make this happen!

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Putting Warm up Routine

1. 5-10 putts on a putting mirror
2. Circle drill - 6 foot sloping putts practicing reading greens. Confidence builder.
3. 9 - 20 foot putts
4. Random distance putts.

🔑 Takeaway: Spend time warming up your green reading and not just your stroke and distance control!

Putting coach Ralph Bauer shared his putting warm up routine! Full vid here to check out what he's talking about.

📝 Notes and Quotes from Road to 180 with Mark Blackburn.

As we go through the session, it becomes clear that my challenge isn’t creating force—I’ve got plenty of that. It’s about learning to harness it effectively.

Mark notices that while my ground reaction forces are strong, they’re not fully translating into clubhead speed.

The energy is there, but it’s not quite reaching the ball the way it should.

Mark introduces me to the concept of “unweighting” during the transition of my swing.

Unweighting is all about creating a counter-movement, almost like the start of a vertical jump, that allows me to maximize the force I can apply. “So, when you transition from the backswing to the downswing, you want to be moving up,” Mark says. “That’s going to give you the potential to unweight and then apply more force as you come down.”

He breaks it down further: “The best players, you’ll see their heads go up as they swing back. Conventional wisdom says to keep your head still and your feet on the ground, but if you want to hit it far, you’ve got to use those mechanisms. You’ve got to go up to come back down and really push into the ground.”

Mark also dives into the importance of moment arms—the distance between where my mass is and where my pressure is applied.

A longer moment arm can generate more potential energy. “What we want is to keep your mass back and your pressure forward,” he explains. “That difference between your mass and your pressure is your moment arm.

The bigger it is, the more energy you can create. But if it gets too big, it becomes hard to control.”

We also talk about the role of vertical force, which is the biggest contributor to speed.

Mark tells me that longer hitters apply vertical force at the right time—right when the club shaft is vertical and the lead arm is parallel during the downswing. “That’s when you want your peak vertical force,” he says. “You’re close, but a little late. But once you time it right, that’s where you’ll see real gains.”

Then comes the challenge of transferring that energy into the club. Mark notices that while I’m applying a lot of force, I’m not quite “cracking the whip” to let that energy flow into the clubhead. “You’ve got a lot of energy, but you don’t put it out to the club as effectively as you could,” he points out. “It’s like you’re holding back just a little, and that’s costing you speed.”

To fix this, Mark focuses on the importance of deceleration.

It sounds counterintuitive—slowing down to go faster—but it makes sense. “Think of a Formula 1 car,” he says. “They have massive braking systems that allow them to slow down quickly and efficiently.

In your swing, we need to get you to decelerate the handle so that the clubhead speeds up.”

“When you swing, think about pulling the club up and around, not just swinging it out. You want to create that snap that delivers power to the ball. With the right technique, you don’t need to go all-out every time. The goal is to have enough speed in reserve so that 180 mph feels effortless.”

Till next time,

-Cordie

✍️ Written By: Cordie Walker.
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