My Approach to the Golf Swing

This is how I go about swinging a golf club. There might be a something in here that will help you.

I take the approach that I am going to swing the club as gracefully and smoothly as I can. I eliminate any desire to hit the ball. The ball is just an object in the way of the swing, and quite honestly, I forget about it while I’m swinging. There’s room for only one thing in your mind at a time, and if it’s the ball, you can’t be feeling your swing.

After I have picked my target and feel how I want to swing, I walk up beside the ball and begin setting up. From the time I start walking up to the ball until the finish of my swing, there is a feeling of movement in my mind, and actual movement in my body, both of which never stop. Never let anything, especially the movement in your mind, come to a stop. This is very important.

I also eliminate the concept of “distance” from my thinking. The merest hint of “distance” makes you force your swing instead of relying on it. All I want to do is to swing the club. It’s the club’s job, not mine, to take care of where the ball goes.

I put my club down behind the ball and line up my stance. I take the club back in a brief waggle and set it down so very slowly behind the ball, so there is still movement. If you watched, you would say I set the club down and stopped moving, but there is still an imperceptible movement going on. At that point, I gently take the club away to begin my swing.

I take the club back at a leisurely pace, not slow, but not rushing. The end of the backswing and the start of the downswing is one motion, not two.

The crux of the swing is what happens during impact. The setup, backswing, and the first part of the downswing are all designed to put me in a place to swing through the ball with a square clubface, on line to the target, and with as much speed as my swing can generate on its own.

Starting the swing down, it is vital that I continue to stay slow, turning in one piece to where momentum can take over. When my swing approaches impact, I feel my hands ahead of the clubhead, pulling the clubhead through the bottom of the swing arc on a straight line toward the target, and keeping the clubhead low to the ground as it continues past the ball, relying on the loft of the club to get the ball in the air.

The less physical effort I put into the swing the more accurately I strike the ball and the farther and straighter it goes.