Showing posts with label golf swing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label golf swing. Show all posts

Thursday, December 7, 2017

A Few Odds an Ends

I was looking through a notebook I keep that contains notes from golf lessons I have taken. The last playing lesson I took emphasized the tee shot. My note says, "Tee shot is paramount to making par. Work on these." So work on your driver, but work on hitting it straight, not far. If you can hit your irons straight, but not your driver, get a lesson. You'll never figure it out yourself.

There are several other notes that pertain only to me, but another general note is, "Make your targets very precise from the tee and the fairway." Think not only of which direction you want the shot to go, but on what spot do you want the ball to land. And it's a spot, not an area.

You know the bottom of your swing needs to be ahead of the ball. How do you do that? I practice this indoors with a fairway wood. I set up and take note of the place where the leading edge of the sole is. Then I make a slow-motion swing and try to lightly tap the rug with the sole of the club ahead of that place when I swing through. Hint: if you're not getting your weight to the left in the forward swing, and early in the forward swing, you won't be able to get the club out there.

I've been playing around with a short stroke for short putts this past week. It started out as the old pop stroke, but I quickly found out that the rapid stroke and percussive hit the word "pop" suggests is the wrong way to go about it. I'm finding success with a rhythmic stroke that nudges the ball to the hole. That might be a better starting point for you if you want try this out. I should also mention my upper arms rest against my sides for security. The advantage of a short stroke (about six inches for a 10-foot putt) is that the clubface stays square throughout. I'm only using this stroke for short putts I think I can sink. For longer putts, I go back to my sweeping pendulum stroke and the TAP method.

I read a tip in a current golf magazine that I thought might help. So I went out and tried it. The results were terrible. What I realized very quickly is that I was already doing what the tip suggested. In trying to follow the tip I did more of it and that was too much. Beware of tips you read in golf magazines.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Unwind Through the Ball

The less you try to HIT the golf ball and the more you SWING THROUGH it, the better shots you are going to get. I keep looking for a way to explain that to myself, and this week’s version is, “unwind through the ball.”

That means, in the backswing wind up, and in the forward swing unwind in the same way, all the way through the ball. Not TO the ball, but through it. Big difference.

It’s like you turn yourself into a giant spring. You wind up the spring on the back swing and you unwind on the forward swing. The unwinding is performed in the same manner as the winding. It is not ease back, then fire through.

I think the reason this is so hard to do is that we want to HIT the ball along way. So it’s really hard for us to swing easy back and easy through. But that’s exactly what I think you have to do.

That will also make it easier to hold onto the angle between your forearm and the club shaft and not let it go too early. That way, the club builds up acceleration without you even feeling it. You LET the club do the work instead of MAKING it do the work.

Before you swing, remind yourself to wind up gently and unwind gently through the ball. Regardless of what you really look like when you swing, picture in your mind how smooth and graceful you must look.

Practice swinging like this in your living room or in your backyard. Than the next time you play, take a practice swing in slow motion that winds up and unwinds through the mall. Then step up to the ball and do the same swing, just a little faster. I think you’ll like what happens.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Golf's Most Important Two Inches

Note: I got a bit behind on keeping this blog up to date. Expect a now post every few days. Sorry!


You're never going to hear the end of this from me. It's the most important swing fundamental there is. Your hands have to lead the clubhead.

A few weeks ago, I changed it to, the handle moves in harmony with the clubhead. Too wordy.

How about the handle leads the clubhead?

Whatever you call it, you see it demonstrated here by our new U.S. Open champion, Brooks Koepka. His hands got to the ball before the clubhead did. Not by much, only about two inches. But that's all it needs to be.


If you're not used to swinging through this position, it feels like your hands are two feet ahead of the clubhead, but they're not. They're ahead by just a little bit. But it's the most important little bit in golf.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Timing the Whoosh


Last fall I wrote about the whoosh--the sound the clubhead makes when you swing it fast. I want to review that, and add on another comment.

Swing a golf club, maybe a 5-iron or longer, without a ball in front of you. Listen for the whoosh. That’s the sound of your club travelling at its maximum speed.

The whoosh gives you an indication of what your clubhead speed is. While you won’t get a precise measurement, obviously, we can say that the higher the pitch, the faster the club is travelling.

And more speed is always better. The Internet is full of pages, and YouTube if full of videos, about how to increase your clubhead speed. But many of them fail to make the most important point. Your maximum clubhead speed has to appear at the right moment. Otherwise, it’s no good.

You should hear the whoosh at or just past where a ball would be. If you hear it before the clubhead gets to the ball, you are releasing the club too early and using up your clubhead speed before you really need it.

Most likely, if that is the case, you’re letting go of the angle between your right forearm and the clubshaft too soon on the downswing. Play with holding on to that angle a little bit longer until you hear the whoosh placed directly in front of you.

This shouldn’t be a big adjustment to make. Just be sure you’re only adjusting your release and not trying to force this to happen. Light grip pressure will help, too.

Be careful, though. It is entirely possible to give up your angle too early and still place the whoosh in the right spot. This is a two-part exercise: retaining the angle and placing the whoosh.

And don’t go expecting miracles once you’ve accomplished it. You only hear, “I tried this and now I hit my drives 40 yards longer,” when somebody is trying to sell you something. If you get 7-10 more yards out of this, you’ve done the job.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Owning Your Swing

It is said that only two golfers have ever owned their swing -- Ben Hogan and Moe Norman. Actually, Lee Trevino had a pretty good idea what he was doing, as did Sam Snead, Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Bruce Lieztke, and about a hundred other players I could name.

You can own your swing, too. A - it’s not that hard to do, and B - you need to do it to play consistent golf.

By owning your swing, I don’t mean you what you’re doing down to the gnat’s eyelash. I do mean that when you’re not striking the ball well, you have some checkpoints you can review to get back on track.

The Six Fundamentals are my checkpoints. They don’t have to be yours, but you should know something about your swing along the order of, “I forgot to do this,” and when you get back to doing “this”, the problem is solved.

The goal is to bring the club into the ball on a path toward the target, with the clubface square to that path, on the proper trajectory, and making contact on the center of the clubface.

Everything you do contributes to all that happening, or not. So you have to investigate how to do those four things, one at a time, and also what you do that gets in the way of doing those things.

This takes careful study. It means breaking down your swing into parts that move the club correctly and learning what the feeling of those correct movements are.

Then you develop your own keys -- the checkpoints you have to hit to make it all work.

Don’t expect to have this figured out in a few weeks. It might take a lot longer than that, and a few lessons along the way won’t hurt.

But it’s like this. If you hit a really good shot and you can’t explain to yourself how it happened, you have some work to do. And I know you can do it.



Monday, February 27, 2017

How the Fingers Keep the Clubface Square

Ben Hogan, in his book, Five Lessons, called the right thumb and forefinger “potential swing-wreckers.” He even recommended the average golfer practice swinging the club with these two fingers entirely off the handle.

For the advanced golfer, however, he said those fingers were “finesse fingers,” used “for touch in striking the ball.”

Unfortunately, Hogan did not tell us how these fingers could be used in the way advanced golfers use them. I guess he left that to me. So here goes.

The human brain devotes a lot of space to the use of the hands. A great deal of that space is devoted in turn to the thumb and forefinger of the dominant hand, which are used for fine manipulation of objects they hold. The brain can be taught to do amazing things with these fingers.

One of the things they can be taught to do is control the clubface during the golf swing. It works this way.

Press the thumb tip of your dominant hand lightly into the middle of the adjoining forefinger (photo). This is where the handle of the golf club fits into your grip.




Now pick up a golf club, and assume your grip, reproducing the light pressure of the thumb against the finger, but now with the handle in between. It feels to me like I am holding the club with only these two fingers, the rest of the grip being there just for support.

The trick now is to swing the club in such a way that when you return to impact, these two fingers are in the same orientation that they had at address.

You monitor this by feel. Rotate these two fingers slightly to the right. This is a different feeling in those fingers, of the clubface closing. If instead you turn these fingers lightly to the left, this is the feeling of an open clubface.

To make this concept a dynamic reality, make half swings over and over, concentrating on the feeling in the thumb and forefinger not changing at any time. Stop the club at impact periodically to make sure the clubface is staying square. Make longer swings only after you have a firm idea of what you are to do.

Very important point. All these fingers do is preserve the orientation of the clubface. If you try to do anything else with them, such as guide the club, or hit the ball, it’s curtains for that shot. You’ve fulfilled the Hogan prophecy.

There is more to hitting a straight shot than just this, such as swing plane and pivot, but this is one part that is easy to master. Practice this feeling until it becomes automatic and you don’t even notice that you’re doing it.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

A Couple of Things

I didn't post last Sunday, like I usually do, because I could't think of anything to say. While not having anything to say doesn't stop some people from saying it anyway, I'm not one of those.

I got out a golf book this morning and started reading through it to see if I could find some inspiration. Which I did. Here are a couple of things that crossed my mind.

1. When you start the club back away from the ball, do so slowly at first, and smoothly. Do not snatch it away. The reasons are, one, that if you take the club back too quickly, you can pull it off the desired plane. Then you have to get it back on plane sometime before you hit the ball, which complicates the swing unnecessarily. And if you aren't aware that you're off plane, well, good luck.

The other reason is that jerking the club away makes you reflexively tighten your grip. That puts tension in your swing from the very start which will only build as the swing progresses -- something you do not want to happen.

2. Everybody has their own swing. It is based on your strength, your flexibility, your athleticism, your physique, and your basic conception of how to swing a stick to hit a ball. Because of these factors, there are things about your swing that are less than ideal but which you cannot change. These are not swing flaws, these are just you.

There are, however, mistakes you can be making that you don't have to. They need to be corrected, and they can be. Your improvement will accelerate when you have figured out the difference between your natural tendencies and your plain old errors. Then you can fix what can be fixed and leave what cannot be fixed, alone.

Monday, January 9, 2017

The Mental Forward Press

One of the most difficult things to do is to begin a motion smoothly from a complete stop. In golf, we want to take the club away without a jerk or without putting tension in the body.

At one time, the way to do this was to have a forward press. This would be a slight movment toward the target that the backswing could play off of, hopefully in a rhythmic way.

The trouble with a forward press was that unless it was done carefully, it could get the golfer and the club out of position before the club was taken away, to the detriment of the shot that followed.

Now days we don’t hear much about forward presses. If you watch the professional golfers, you don’t see very many of them with one. I guess that move is out of favor.

But the problem remains. How do we solve it? By having a forward press that is more in the mind than in the body.

This is what I think we should do, ideally: start the swing with a reverse waggle. Instead of taking the club back, with just then hands and wrists, like a traditional waggle, raise the clubhead a bit and swing the club forward, toward the target, by the same amount. Then flow right back into the backswing and come down into the ball.

That makes the swing a three-step movment, not two. It sets you up with perfect rhythm, and keeps you relaxed throughout the swing. Unfortunately, since the club is not next to the ball at the start, it might be difficult to find the ball accurately at impact.

But you can take a practice swing like that, if you want to. It’s not unheard of. Then, address the ball, and do the reverse waggle in your mind, and, following the same rhythm as in the practice swing, take the club into a relaxed, flowing swing.

It’s still a three-part swing. You merely did the first part in your mind.

If you try this, you might find your body responding to the initial mental movment in some way. That’s O.K., just ignore it. Focus on the mental feeling as you get your swing started.

Another benefit of the mental forward press is that it will take your mind off any anxieties you have of the shot you’re about to hit. Anything that helps you in that department is all right.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

More on Grip Pressure

Two weeks ago I talked about the importance of having light grip pressure. I wanted to put up graphs comparing the grip pressure of a professional golfer with that of a mid-handicapper, but I couldn’t find them in time for publication.

Well, while prowling around the house a few days ago, looking for something else, I found the book that has the graphs.

So here they are.

The graphs are taken from a paper titled, Evaluation of Golf Club Control by Grip Pressure Measurement, by D.R. Budney and D.G. Bellow, reprinted in Science and Golf, A.J. Cochran, Ed., 1990.

Golfers swung a club with three transducers built into the grip to measure left hand pressure, right hand pressure, and pressure under the left thumb.

The first graph shows the grip pressure throughout the swing of a professional golfer. Notice that in the early stages of the swing, pressure at all places is quite light.

Pressure rose during the backswing in the left hand and thumb, and peaked in the right hand and left thumb during the downswing. Notice the drop in pressure in those two spots at impact.

Left hand pressure reached its peak just after impact.


The next graph is of an 11-handicap golfer. Pressure is grater from the very start. The patterns of peaks and drops occur at roughly the same places as for the professional golfer, but there is much more pressure at every point.

The amateur golfer is holding the club much tighter.


These graphs show that no matter what the grip pressure is at the start, it will tighten during the swing as the club moves faster and faster.

Keeping the pressure light at the start will minimize peak pressure, keeping as much tension as possible out of the hands and arms, leading to a more fluid and controlled golf swing.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

A Note on Grip Pressure

After you get a general idea of how to swing a golf club, it becomes a matter of paying attention to the little things, that fine tuning which makes all the difference in the world.

One of the little things is grip pressure, which means having a light grip pressure.

In Jim Flick’s book, On Golf, he says in his section on grip pressure, “I cannot emphasize enough the importance of secure but light grip pressure. If you gain nothing else from this book, I hope you come away with respect and appreciation for correct grip pressure.”

The night before Greg Norman was to win his first British Open title, Jack Nicklaus, who was not in contention, advised Norman to keep an eye on his grip pressure the next day, since it can tighten up under the stress of competition. That’s all Nicklaus mentioned, because he knew that was the only thing he needed to say.

How light should your grip pressure be? It can be too light. Then the club would move around inside your hands during the swing. A slightly off-center hit could twist the clubface, costing you distance and direction.

Sam Snead’s advice to hold the club like a little bird isn’t good advice. I’ve held a wild sparrow in my hands, and that’s way too light for swinging a golf club.

The key is how firmly you hold the club at the start.

Sole a club, say a 6-iron, and take your grip with just enough pressure to pick up the club without it drooping in your hands.

The grip should feel like it presses gently into the pads on the inside of your fingers and palms.

Your hands will tighten a bit as you swing, but swing and practice just keeping them from tightening too much. This is a feel thing. When you practice, err on the side of too light a grip.

It’s easier to know you have to tighten up a bit more than to know you have to loosen it up a bit.

Also to be attended to is the condition of your grips. If they are worn smooth, or are dirty, they will slide around in your hands, causing you to hold on too tightly just to prevent that. Make sure they have a tacky feel.

Here’s the difference grip pressure makes for me.

When I hold the club too tightly, my right wrist gets tense and unable to move. That gets my hand jammed up against it, and the clubface closes on the backswing. The result is a hook with my irons, and a duck hook with my driver.

When my grip pressure is light, my wrist can bend the way it is supposed to on the way back, keeping the clubface square. The result is very straight ball flight.

If you lighten up your grip pressure, that little thing can have the affect of opening up your swing, and better shot-making.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Swing Faster by Relaxing More

The pursuit of distance makes us do damaging things to our swing, mainly because of swinging harder. The surest way to get more distance is not to swing harder, but to hit the ball off the center of the clubface. That takes a lot of practice, which I encourage you to do.

There is another way to get more distance that is easy to do and doesn’t require any changes to your swing. That way is to be relaxed during your swing, thereby increasing your swing speed.

You might have found out that putting lots of strength into your swing also puts tension in your muscles which actually slows down your swing rather than speeding it up.

What I want you to do is take an iron, say a 6-iron or a 5-iron, and make your swing without a ball in front of you. Listen for the sound the whoosh makes as the club goes through the impact area.

That sound is an indicator of how fast the club is traveling. The higher the pitch of the whoosh, the faster the clubhead is moving.

You don’t have to buy any of devices you see on TV that measure your swing speed. The sound of the whoosh will tell you everything you need to know.

Just try a more muscular swing now, to show yourself that it won’t do any good. The pitch will be the same, or even lower.

Even if the pitch does go up, ask yourself what you are doing to clubface control. Odds are you’ve made clean contact more difficult to achieve.

Now set up and relax your grip to just enough that you can swing and keep the club under control. Try this a few times, relaxing your grip more each time, and keep it relaxed throughout the swing.

You might be surprised at how lightly you can hold the club and still control it.

Now relax your arms and swing a few times. Relax your torso. Relax your legs. Get your entire body relaxed, maintaining that relaxation as you swing.

I am sure you will find the pitch of the whoosh rising, proving that you are swinging faster.

More swing speed is generated by more relaxation, not by more effort. Practice this, learn to trust it.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

The Right Way to Create a Golf Swing

There is a basic approach to the swing that many golfers take because it seems so obvious to do. And yet it is the wrong approach and is what prevents them from doing with the ball what they set out to achieve.

Percy Boomer, in his essential book, On Learning Golf, calls it Golf Bogey No. 1. It is “the natural urge to act in an obvious way to achieve the desired result.”

He takes a phrase from F. Matthias Alexander, who calls it end-gaining. This is thinking about what the desired result to the exclusion of the best way to attain that result.

How does this relate to the golf swing? It comes out as making movements which we feel will put the ball in the fairway off the tee, or on the green from the fairway. And they never work.

In golf, Boomer points out, the obvious way (to us) is seldom the right way. Very little of the golf swing is natural. The golf swing is a learned art, which must be trusted to deliver the desired result.

This is why you see so many weird-looking swings out there. People are trying to hit the ball with the club in a way they think will work and it does just often enough that they mistake luck with skill.

Golf is not about hitting the ball. It's about making the right swing with a ball in the way.

You don’t play well by thinking about what you have to do to hit the ball in a certain direction or a certain distance. You play well by thinking about how to make the right swing. You must concentrate on the means, not on the end.

So when you are on the practice tee and not hitting the ball too well, do you say to yourself, “Maybe if I try this,” and two indifferent shots later you think, “How about trying this?”, getting yourself deeper and deeper into trouble because you’re trying to guide the club into the ball. That's end-gaining.

Instead of being in control of where the ball goes, we must be in control of what our swing does. Then, when we sweep the club through the ball in the proper way, it will go where it is supposed to go.

What then is the proper way to swing the club? It’s most likely what your pro taught you in your last lesson (you do take lessons, don’t you?). Learning my Six Fundamentals won’t hurt you, either.

Let me try to seal the argument this way. Do you remember the shots you made, and I know you’ve made them, that went long and high and straight and it was because your mind went blank for a moment and you just swung the club? You weren’t thinking about how to make the ball go to a certain place, it just went there?

That’s what I’m talking about. If you can take that momentary lapse in concentrating on the wrong thing, and make that your habit, and combine that with good technique, good golf will be yours.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

My Annual Swing Rebuilding Project

Every year, when golf season is over, I work on my swing, starting over from the start. I go through my bag, from 9-iron to driver.

If you have seen some of my recent videos on YouTube, you know I have a little practice station in my back yard. I went out to my practice mat with my 9-iron, and hit just that club. Over and over. When I get 3 out of 5 shots just right consistently, and the other two aren't bad, I’ll move up to the 8-iron. And then one club at a time when I’m ready for it.

I probably won’t be up to the driver before the rainy season hits. We’re having warm weather with clear skies, but in Oregon that won’t last too long this time of year.

I’m dedicating myself to building the Six Fundamentals into every swing. I review them all before I hit a ball. One thing I’ve added is to sweep the club through the ball, and not to hit at it. That is making a world of difference.

Aside: If you get the latest Golf Digest, with Beef Johnston on the cover, you’ll find an article inside by Bob Toski about swinging with your hands, and not with the big muscles that is so much in vogue nowdays. This is exactly what I said in SF. I advise you to get this article and read it carefully. A lot of what pros say about the risks of your hands being in charge of your golf is baloney.

But back to my program. If you want to be better ball striker, take the swing you have and work your way through your bag, one club at a time. When you get the strike you want 3 times out of 5 and the other two are serviceable you can move up to the next club.

The other part of getting my game back in order is hitting two to four-foot putts in my back room. I am getting REAL good at these. Sinking these putts is how you avoid three-putt greens or not getting up and down.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

A Back-Friendlier Golf Swing

I’m not going to beat around the bush. The human body, especially the lower spine, was not designed to withstand the stresses the golf swing places on it. As a recreational golfer, there is no sense in letting your pastime harm your health.

Stress on the back in golf is caused by leaning forward, twisting, and bending to the side. There is also compression, which is the weight of your upper body bearing down vertically on your spine.

You can’t eliminate these stresses, but, except for compression, you can minimize them. Here are a few ways to do that.

NOTE: If you have low back pain right now when you play, something is wrong. Please see a doctor to find out what that is. Continuing to play golf could be making a problem worse.

1. Slow down your swing, including the part where you swing through the ball. All the forces being applied to your back multiply when you swing through the ball, and they the faster you swing, the more force they load onto your lower back.

2. Stand a little closer to the ball. Not a lot, just a few inches. This will put you in a more upright posture and reduce the unsupported mechanical stress that leaning forward places on your lower back. The lie angles of your irons might need to be adjusted, depending on how much closer you set up.

3. Turn your left foot out. To get more hip turn, turn your left foot out 10 degrees or so. Not too much, because you will create problems for yourself on the throughswing. But do not leave that foot square, like Ben Hogan wanted you too.

4. Take a narrower stance. This frees up the hips to turn more, reducing the amount you twist your spine. This point also helps minimize lateral bending, since your right side is now closer to the ball.

5.Play the ball in the center of your stance when it is on the ground. If the ball is too far forward, you will need to put more lateral bend in your back to go get it.

6. Take a shorter backswing. Use the backswing you would use for an 80-yard pitch. This will prevent you from twisting your spine too much, too. Jim McLean wants you to have a big X-factor so you can hit the ball a long way. Your back does not like a big X-factor.

7. Let the right heel float. If it comes off the ground, fine. If it stays there, fine. Just don’t glue it to the ground. Let it do what it wants to do.

8. Let the left leg straighten on the backswing. I know, everybody these days wants you keep the angle in it you had at address. Allowing the left leg to straightening lets you turn your left hip back more, reducing your X-factor. This will not hurt your ball-striking once you get used to it.

9. Keep your weight balanced through impact. Let your weight go right after you have hit the ball, but not before. Putting the weight right early creates excess lateral bending, because while the lower body is going left , the upper body has to stay back where it was until you have hit the ball. There will always be some lateral bending at impact. Just don’t overdo it.

10. Swing the club with your hands, both hands equally. Swing like you one have one clump of hands on the club, not two separate ones. This not only a better way to swing, for technical reasons, but it will prevent you from trying to hit with your left hand, which can induce lateral bending.

11. Finish upright. Your torso should be straight up and down at the finish, not learning toward the right. A line running down the front of your torso and right leg should be straight -- no bending your torso backward, or bowing your right leg.

This article explains in detail the relation between golf and low back pain. (Accessed July 4, 2016.)

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Six Fundamentals Revisited

My multimedia essay on the golf swing, Six Fundamentals of the Recreational Golf Swing, I outlined six principles that lead to a better swing and better ball-striking.

Last week I posted a link to a video by Vivien Saunders where she presents a different way of looking at the swing.

Instead of saying, Do these things with your body and you will swing the club correctly, she turns that around. Swing the club correctly and the body will respond correctly.
The club tells the body how to move, not the body tells the club how to move.

Let’s look at Six Fundamentals from this point of view to see how they are still relevant.

1. The First Fundamental is about rhythm and tempo (my favorite subject). Only if these two points are under control will you be abel to feel how the club is supposed to move, and can you let the club guide your movement.

2. Swing with both hands. Definitely you want to do this. The club transmits its directions to the body through the hands. If you start emphasizing the right hand (left hand, if you play left-handed) you’re telling the club what to do.

3. Take the club straight back to control. You still have to aim your swing, and if you take the club back only as far as the control point, you don’t introduce extraneous movment to the cub that it has to recover from.

4. The right knee moves left (or left knee moving right, for lefties). This is the essence of the pivot, which you will do correctly if you are letting the club be in control. A sign that you are not doing that is if your knee does not move and you hang back.

5. The hands lead the clubhead through impact. This the chicken and the egg part of the swing. You have to do this for the club to move correctly, and if the club moves correctly, you’ll be doing this. This is the moment of truth, your pass-fail exam.

6. Swing straight through toward the target. Why? Because that’s where the club wants to go. Just follow it there.

To sum it up, Fundamentals One to Three are what allow you to let the club guide you, and Fundamentals Four to Six are what happens if you do.

This new way of thinking about these Fundamentals might help you apply them to your swing more effectively.

Finally, here’s a tip. When you watch a good golfer’s swing, do not watch what they do with their body. Watch the golf club.

In this video, I‘m not asking you look like I do when I swing the club, but to move the club like I do when I swing. Big difference.

Monday, May 30, 2016

How the Golf Swing Really Works

If you haven’t already heard of her, I would like to introduce you to Vivien Saunders, a great teacher who lives in the U.K.

In this video, she turns around everything you have heard about how to swing a golf club.

Swinging a golf club is not what happens when you do the right things with your body. It is what happens to your body when you swing the golf club correctly.

Watch this. (Unfortunately, there is no Embed option)

Swing the Clubhead

Now you don’t have to watch the Golf Channel anymore.

Friday, May 13, 2016

How to Make a Swing Change

Making a swing change? Do it like this.

Step 1: Start by making slow-motion swings with your driver, no ball in front of you. Do this over and over until you feel the change is being integrated with the rest of your swing.

Then hit some balls, with the same slow-motion swing. If you get good shots, move on to step 2.

Step 2: Spend a week swinging your 9-iron with the slow-motion swing. Hit some balls. Hit lots of 9-irons. When you’re satisfied that you can hit a 9-iron with your new swing, move up to the 8-iron.

Keep the pace of your swing slower than normal. Resist the urge to step it up and see how far the ball will go. All you want is clean contact and straight ball flight.

Work your way through the bag one club at a time. If switching to the next club causes your swing to break down, that’s a sign you weren’t really ready to switch. Go back to the one you were swinging before for a few days.

Take your time, there’s no rush. Spending three months on the transition will pay off a lot more than spending three weeks.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

My Swing

I write posts to help you play golf better. I try as hard as I can to make it clear what I think works and how you can do it, too.

This post is different. This is my personal instruction manual. These are my notes on how I swing the golf club. Parts of it might not mean anything to you, but all of it makes sense to me.

There are 230 words on the setup, 140 words on the swing. And I have't left anything out. Here goes!

[Modified for left-handed golfers]

Setup
You are in complete control of your setup, so there is no excuse for making a mistake here.

Get your mind moving before you start.

Use the cathedral grip.

Hold the club with the leading edge of the clubface vertical. Do not disturb that alignment when you apply your hands to the handle.

Turn your hands toward each other so the right thumb presses lightly against the pocket in the palm of the left hand, but not so much that you feel tension in your forearms.

Envelop the handle with a light grip pressure.

Hold the club at its balance point.

Check your aim before every shot.

Ball position: fwd-back, ball on the ground, center; driver, graze the inside of the left heel. Away, where a free swing delivers the clubhead.

Stand straight as you can with each club, with a feeling that your hips are high, and your upper torso is high and open, not sunken inward. Bend forward from your hip joint. Do not let your abdomen collapse, or your hips sag, when you bend. Your knees will bend a bit, but you should feel tall. Your shoulders and arms hang naturally from the suspension point at the back of the neck.

Your posture should be a comfortable position you look forward to getting into. You should feel in it the potential for powerful movement.


Swing
Rhythm is 3:1 from takeaway to impact. Tempo is the fastest you can swing and yet feel unhurried.

The backswing is a reaching movement, taking the right arm straight to a position where the hands are beside the head and far from it. The body turns as the arm reaches. This automatically takes the club back to the control point. There is no guessing. Nor does the right wrist change its shape at any time.

The downswing is a simultaneous combination of the hands dropping straight down and the body turning. Because nothing is forced, two key principles, the hands lead the clubhead into the ball, and the left knee must break forward, are observed.

Think from the start about following through to a finish, not about hitting the ball.


Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Swing Speed

A few days ago, I was on a course which in one spot has the tee boxes for consecutive holes right next to each other. One is a par three, which you play, then walk back to where the next tee is, a par five.

There was a group on the tee of the par five, so when we got the other tee, we waited until they finished teeing off, sitting down on the bench to watch the show.

One guy tees off with a long iron (there’s a pond across the fairway such that if you have even moderate length, you’ll hit into it), takes a vicious swing, and cold tops a 40-yard dribbler. You’ve never seen so much effort deliver so little result. Well, maybe you have.

Anyway, he says, "I’m going to hit another one.” I think to myself, “Yes. Please. Hit another one.”

So he tees up another one, puts this graceful swing on the ball and just kills it. Beautiful, powerful shot, straight down there.

He picks up his tee and says to his buddies, “You know, it’s amazing how well you hit the ball if you just slow down your swing a little bit.”

Thus endeth the lesson.