James Leitz...Golf Digest Top 100 Instructor, Top 100 Club Fitter, and one of the game's earliest adopters of 3D motion capture and force plate technology, joins Mike Granato and Shaun Webb on the Athletic Motion Podcast to break down the framework he calls the "3 Grapes."

In this episode, James walks through how the upper torso, pelvis, and center of mass move in the golf swing, why staying still is actually hurting your speed, and what separates a 99 mph Rory McIlroy from a long drive competitor. He also shares the story of how a single phrase from an aeronautical engineer in 1982 — "never guess what you can measure" — shaped an entire career.

Topics covered:
→ What the 3 Grapes are and how to trace them in GEARS
→ Why deceleration in the downswing isn't always bad (and who got it wrong)
→ The boat analogy, the jack knife, and how ground force really works
→ How James used Kelly Gibson to map club delivery across 9 shot shapes
→ Why throwers and laggers need completely different grape positions
→ The mental/physical link — what happens to your swing when you get nervous
→ D-Plane origins, TrackMan history, and measuring since 1982

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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction — Meet James Lights of Chafunka Country Club
0:27 James's background — from college golf to pro shop in 1982
2:04 "Never guess what you can measure" — the phrase that changed everything
2:35 Buying a $2,800 camera on a $9,000 salary — measuring from day one
3:37 Seeing research-grade 3D and force plates for the first time (1994)
4:30 The TPI moment in 2006 — deceleration, wrist graphs & buying his first AMM system
11:47 Kelly Gibson experiment — mapping 9 shot shapes with 3D data
13:23 TrackMan origins — discovering the D-Plane with Frederick Tuen at the 2006 show
16:58 Introducing the 3 Grapes — upper torso, pelvis, and center of mass
19:02 Visualizing grapes in GEARS — stripping away everything else
21:17 Golf as a controlled jack knife — the speed generation system explained
22:07 World record hammer throw — what it tells us about upper grape movement
24:59 Pelvis grape stability — sways, thrusts, and the lead foot changing teams
28:09 Long drive vs. tour player — how the grapes move differently
28:54 Laggers vs. throwers — why the same fix works against you
33:56 Why your swing falls apart under pressure — the mental/physical connection
35:43 Why James prefers teaching beginners over tour players
36:44 The 1,000-piece puzzle — why collaboration beats silos in golf instruction
37:41 Where to find James Lights — Chafunka Country Club, Covington, Louisiana

#golf #pga #athleticmotiongolf #amg #golftips #improvegolfswing

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