What swing mechanics do you follow....
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How to Swing
by Mathew Thomas Boyd
INTRODUCTION
How is it that a motion that lasts the whole of one and a half seconds, which is seemingly so natural when you see good players play, so difficult to the millions that play the game? If you were to play tennis and try to learn how to serve, after a year or two you would expect to be able to hit with good power and consistency. Peoples heads are awash with millions of tips, from magazines, videos, various instructors.... etc all telling parts of the swing from so many different perspectives that it makes deciphering through the information to get a full overview of the golf motion very difficult.
Another reason that people never improve is because they don't set themselves a good basis on which to start the swing from the address position, and yet they expect that all faults come from the swing itself... to quote Albert Einstein "smart people solve problems, geniuses stop them from happening". You can solve the MASS MAJORITY of problems in the swing just by concentrating on the fundamentals, so why is that people expect to build good swings from a totally non-athletic set up eludes me.
SET-UP
Set-up is of the greatest importance. If you have an error here you will be compensating through the whole swing inhibiting your swing or the direction of your swing. How often do you see people stand so far right of the target and complain that they seem to push every shot and when you tell them they are standing there they refuse to believe it until you put a club across their feet (and this is after they take special care over their aim, still aiming dead right) and when they re-adjust their set-up they start striking poorly so they go back to their old habits. Or how often do you see someone who has a death grip on the club, or holding in the palm and try to batter a ball with the driver yet they wonder why they can only hit the 180yard marker on their best shots... There are so many examples how address affects the swing, please don’t read this thinking to yourself that your set-up is fine and yet scratch your head and wonder why you struggle to make decent contact with all or many of your shots, or never seem to send the ball in the direction that you want.
GRIP
The grip is responsible for 'freely' hinging/unhinging the wrists, which is one of the swings major power sources, and the orientation of the clubface. Bobby Jones once said that he has never seen a truly good player with a bad grip and never seen a truly bad player with a good grip, which is pretty much true. There are some professionals with grips which are not the norm, but that’s because they have a compensation in their swing that will bring the clubface back to square and have hours to practice to do carry off their compensation well and it would 'perhaps' be detrimental to fiddle with their muscle memory which makes them the players they are. It is much easier to grip the club in what is called a neutral position where there will be no manipulation of the face throughout. I’m not an advocate of taking a strong grip or weak grips in order to reduce swing errors. It seems to be a trend whenever someone has a slice that someone always says 'take a stronger grip', that is not getting down to the real problem, infact they have just added yet another level of complexity by adding yet another compensation to the mix in your swing.
Grip Pressure - Since the major purpose in the swing is to return the clubface back to its starting position (with the mass going in direction of target which I will get to later), it’s very important to be able to feel the clubheads weight throughout your swing. No top golfer (Arnold Palmer and Moe Norman excluded) will have a death-like hold on the golf club. They can 'feel' the heads weight which makes returning the club exponentially easier to return square to the target. A grip pressure also enables a free wrist action, which is responsible for so much of the golf swings power. A golf study once revealed that 90% of the power came from the correct use of the hands and arms and this is the greatest aid to bringing power to the swing through the correct use of the hands. The correct grip pressure on a scale from one to ten (with ten being the tightest), you should be around three or four. If you look at your forearms they shouldn’t have the slightest tension in them (feeling is that of soft dangling rubber).
Ok now to holding the club - Form the grip above the ground as it makes it a lot easier to do. Laying your hand flat as though you were reading something on your palm the club should run should run between the base of the pinkie finger and the middle segment of the first finger and then just close your hand. Check that you see maybe 2 or 2 and a half knuckles on your left hand (never 1 or 4 knuckles) and that the thumb runs slightly down on the right.
Before telling you the grip of the right hand I will tell you how the hands can be joined. There are three ways you can join the hands, the interlock, the overlap, and the baseball grip. The interlock grip occurs by the pinkie finger of the right hand going in between the first and second finger of the left hand. The overlap is formed by placing the pinkie over the first and second finger of the left hand and lastly the baseball grip is made by just putting the hands together. The baseball grip is a grip I believe many people would benefit from especially kids, older people, ladies or anyone without great strength in the forearms. The interlock and overlap are equally good grips and as advise I would just suggest picking the one that feels best and enables easily to have a light grip pressure.
The right hand grips in an almost mirror way from the left. Laying the right hand flat like reading something from your palm again, the club runs from the first segment of your pinkie finger to the middle segment of the first finger and then close the grip. Now the first finger can be now set in two ways. It can either be triggered (split slightly from the other fingers in the right hand) or it can be put beside the other fingers (i.e. Jack Nicklaus) giving more of a hammer feel, but again it’s a personal thing. Your left thumb should be in the palm of the right hand and following down the natural v in the lifeline of your hand. Its almost a zip locking feeling, which is very important as this prevents the club from coming apart in your hands especially at the top of the backswing.
There is a myth that in the grip the palms are parallel but actually they are not. If the hands where going to be parallel then you would have to set the club super weak (to achieve this they would have to set in the palm!) and the right hand super strong. But the correct grip sets the hands opposing to exactly an equal amount and therefore neutral.
AIM
Isn’t it amazing that playing golf, a target sport, that hardly anyone can actually aim to the target? Infact, so often you see someone aim so far offline and yet they swear that they have got good aim (that’s even if they have a target in the first place)! This is perhaps the most abused element of set-up and yet one of the easiest to work on. In a perfect set-up the shoulders, hips and feet should all be pointing PARALLEL LEFT of the target line as with the clubface aimed dead straight along the target line. Every good golfer will use clubs on the ground as a guide to aim when practising but when you go to the course you'll pick up a lot of penalty strokes if you start doing that. So here is how you can get dead aim and a routine for getting into good aim before you start.
Pick out a target; you should be seeing hula-hoops out there not just anywhere on the fairway or green. Find what’s called an intermediate target no more than just a yard away and then take your grip above the ground. Walk around and aim the clubface at the target first BEFORE the body only then aim your feet parallel left like the train track visual image.
POSTURE
Posture is the element that controls your body movement. Again very often abused to the point where good golf is next to impossible. Your posture at address allows your body to rotate around your spine. If your body is restricted then so will your swing! This is perhaps the most important aid to the actual hitting of the ball. Yet most bad players are so hunched over at address, which is the equivelent of putting a spanner in a moving cog, and/or their legs are too straight or bent that they have to lift or bend their bodies about during the swing - which is clearly a recipe for disaster.
Here is a step-by-step way to get into a good posture
1 Stand straight up with the club in front of you and then let it rest on your chest (arms and hands free of tension)
2 Stick out your butt (bending from the hips) until the club touches the ground
3 Unlock the knees. Notice I use the word 'unlock' which is very important here, looking down now you should not see your heels but only your heels.
Now make sure that the hands are positioned beside your left leg’s inner thigh, your weight is on the balls of your feet, not your heels or toes (infact, you should be able to raise either if asked) and your arms dangle like spaghetti.
STANCE AND BALL POSITION
Its very much a trend to see people with stances that are too wide for them, totally restricting their turn then they throw the club back collapsing the arms trying to get the club somewhere near parallel. Infact a too narrow stance is better than one that is too wide (even though not particularly advisable either) because a wide stance affects your ability to coil and restricts your ability to turn. Your stance is very much a balance between the ability to turn vs. balance. As a guideline you could say that for all driver shots the width of stance is about the inside of the feet should be about the same as outside edge of your shoulders. The long irons to mid irons the outside of the feet should be about the same as the outside of the shoulders and short irons the insides of the feet about the same as the outside of your hips. But these are guidelines; Tiger Woods will need a wider stance than Tommy Horton (senior tour player). This is because tiger woods needs more stability to support him and has the flexibility to turn into the right side without any problems.
Ball position is often badly explained by golf instructors, usually giving a reference from the feet. The feet are not an indication of ball position because stance width varies from player to player and varies the front foot in accordance to the swing centre. The upper body is the only way of referring to the ball position accurately in accordance with the swing centre, the lowest point being under your left armpit. How you place your ball in accordance to your upper body dictates the impact you will achieve, the further back you place the ball the more you hit down onto the ball. So with a driver your wanting a level to very slightly ascending blow, so its best place is at the bottom of the swing arc which is left armpit. The long irons you will want still to scrape it off the turf so it’s placed between your left Breast and armpit. The mid irons you will be wanting a to take a very slight sliver of a divot and hit down just a little bit more so its placed on your left breast and your short irons you want a descending blow so you place the ball on the middle of your upper body.
ELEMENTS OF A SOUND SWING
What is so good about the good swings? Good players understand that simplicity of movement is the key to continuing repetition of good shots. Out of the simplicity of what is required in the swing, mostly comes confusion. The downswing starts according to butch Harmon by a bump of the left hip, Hogan by turning the left hip, Leadbetter the left knee.... etc. However for people learning the swing this inability to show them in order for them to understand what is actually going on in the swing makes learning golf a much harder task.
To a swing there is two components and one goal. There is a body swing and arm swing to achieve a clubface going on a path to the target line with a square clubface. There is a vision of a so called 'big muscle swing'. A macho image of arms pinned against the chest and the big muscles is proven to be anatomically impossible, usually containing buzz sentences like "muscle producing torque" or "body release multiplying speed to the hands" in order to sell its books. You cannot swing the arms back with your body alone. The old time players of Bobby Jones era actually understood what is important in the swing better than how the swing is described today and where the club was in the swing. It is all that matters! If your club is placed correctly then your body cannot be wrongly placed, the body positions are only just a result of where the clubhead is placed.
Golf instruction a lot of the time is pretty much 'quick fix' and often a 'try this' approach to golf, band-aiding problem after problem after reading a quick tip from some golfing magazine in the hope that this is the key to better golf. The golfer has so much to choose from that he 'tries' out moves instead of getting a planned attack of action.
SWING THE CLUBHEAD NOT YOUR BODY
If I can get you to take notice to anything I’ve said this is what I would like you take notice of. Read that title again. Most golfers use FAR too much body movement in the swing, mainly because they are trying to swing the club with the body.
The most important function without doubt in the golf swing is to swing the clubhead and to feel the weight of the clubhead. If you can feel the clubhead throughout the swing you will NEVER come over the top or cast because you will naturally want to keep the clubhead balanced. This is why a light grip pressure is pretty much mandatory to the fluid motion of the clubhead, your arms must feel relaxed from start to finish.
Now with the club above the ground I want you to close your eyes after you’ve taken your good address position and take some swings just feeling the clubheads weight from start to finish, holding your finish for a second or two. Sometimes to emphase the feeling even more it’s a good idea to swing two clubs together. Try to keep the body quiet (but most certainly not stiff) and try to only let it react to the swinging of the clubhead. I want you to do this until you have the concept of a fluid silky free flowing arm and hand swing and then take your swing and recreate the exact fluidity of the arms and club, letting your body respond.
REFINING THE ARMSWING
After learning that the clubhead must be swung and flowing through the swing, the next objective is to refine the arm swing to take the club back correctly. When you SMOOTHLY take the club away it should FEEL like your taking the club straight back but only as a safeguard of taking it too inside, however in reality you will still be swinging inside but now to the proper degree. The inside movement occurs naturally when the shoulders turn. I however certainly not advocate that you go to extremities and ACTUALLY pull the club straight back.
When you reach the top of the backswing, you should try to keep your hands away from your right shoulder as much as possible COMFORTABLY without deliberately overstretching, this sets the correct amount of width in the swing. The feeling is as though you were standing in a doorway and your pushing your hands into the right hand corner. If you ever want to understand the importance of width in the swing just ask Tiger Woods.
The start of the downswing is an area of confusion for bad players, mainly because of the body swing era we're in talks about starting with the body usually some thought of lower body action, I am of the mind that if you start the by lower body or body pulling quick, the hands will NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS have time to catch up and consequently throw the clubhead too far behind you or throw outside the swing plane. A big mistake is when the shoulders lead the swing resulting in the classic over the top move you see so often. Now actually just by feeling the clubheads weight throughout the swing will go a long way to eradicating these faults (assuming you did my first point on taking the club away) but you must be totally understanding to the fact that your arms and hands must progressively move away from the right shoulder in the downswing. The golfer who’s balls always seem to go right the hands and arms are almost invariably travelling too slow at the beginning phase of the downswing. You also must intend to swing from the inside and if you’re throwing the clubhead over the top or casting you cannot be feeling the weight of the clubhead swing.
There must be no hit impulse at impact, just concentrate on the swinging of the clubhead and maintaining your grip pressure with a feeling of swinging, not hitting. This takes a little bit of self-discipline.
When you finish your swing you must have your tummy pointing at the target or slightly left only as the result of the clubhead swinging. You must be able to hold this finish until the ball drops otherwise your body is too active or you have swung too hard. There should be no hint of what is termed as a 'reverse C' where the upper body is hanging back and the club pointing straight down your back (i.e. Colin Montgomery) but the club should be released so that its somewhat close to your shoulder line.
Now I would like you to check the position of the left wrist at the top of the backswing. In a non-compensating swing the left wrist should be flat, not bowed or cupped. The position of the left hand on the top of the backswing directly influences the clubface either open or closed at the top of the backswing. A flat wrist at the top of the backswing will ensure that the clubface is square to your arm plane.
There seems to be a lot of talk about wrist action in the swing. Wrist action is not something you need to really think about in the swing but there factors that you need to aspire to getting good wrist action. These factors are - proper grip, light grip pressure, good plane, and a flat left wrist at the top of the backswing. If you have these factors and swing the clubhead, you will find by the time your left arm reaches parallel to the ground your left wrist will be ****ed properly by the weight of the clubhead.
On the downswing to ensure that the wrists are still ****ed until the 'natural' forces of the clubheads weight releases. A great visual image is that imagining your hip height in water and you want the hands to enter before the club does whilst still freely swinging the clubhead. This acknowledges the fact that on the downswing the club is travelling on a narrower arc than that of the backswing. The arc of the swing is not a perfect circle; the backswing’s width is set so you can swing narrower through the ball creating a whip-like effect. A true caster cannot be of this understanding and if he thinks the clubhead must travel on the same arc then he can and will cast. This also consequently acknowledges that the mass of the swing must be AHEAD of the clubhead at impact and by that I mean that the hands are in front of the clubhead and you can ONLY do that when travelling on a narrower arc on the downswing. Physics states that clubhead speed (velocity) is useless without the clubhead (mass) to one object striking another; you certainly don’t want the hands behind the ball destroying the mass and forward momentum. If you use the visual image I said, this will all happen and not needed to be thought about when taking your swing.
BACKSWING BODY MOTION
Only once you have the feelings I describe above then its time to work on the correct body motion. BUT KEEP THE CLUBHEAD SWINGING YOU NOT THE OTHERWAY ROUND. If you don’t understand that sentence then you’re not ready for this section!
There is so much written about the body movement that if I could probably write a book on every tip (often contradicting each other). In actual fact the body motion of the backswing is pretty much simple if you let it be.
There are only a few things you have to be aware of to make a good backswing pivot. Then we will work on these in turn
1. Footwork
2. Turning into the right leg
3. Stable lower body
4. Steady head (not necessarily stationary)
1. Footwork
Although mainly a beginner’s mistake, often you will see many people with flaws in their footwork on the backswing. There is a few reasons why, people trying to shift their weight vigorously onto there right foot or they see a player on TV or in an instruction manual lifting their heel and copy it....
Let me approach this in the sense of simplicity. More is less! You want your footwork to be as quiet as possible, if any on the backswing. Your left heel should only (if you need to at all) rise on the backswing as a result of the turning of the body into your right side, not as an extra movement, which is unnecessary. Ideally you will actually keep your left foot on the ground throughout the backswing i.e. Tiger Woods, David Duval... but yet a lot of people I understand are not flexible enough to do that.
2. Turning into the right side
Turning into the right side seems to totally elude most golfers. The woods are blessed with golf balls hitting them from people that can't turn properly when actually it’s a pretty easy thing to do. Firstly though, never loose sight that the clubhead freely swing causing your turn (mandatory).
MY PET HATE CLICH'E IS WEIGHT SHIFT! I’ve discussed this before on this forum but basically your weight does not shift, the weight pressure does move into your right side by the turning of your body, which is a big difference. Anyone can see this in two seconds that if you look at any player on the tour and get them to take the backswing and 'accidentally' kick their left foot away from the ground and ask yourself how many of them would stay standing? If they shifted their weight they should be able to keep standing, right? But as soon as you look at them its obvious that every one of them would fall. The weight pressure goes into the right side the weight does not.
So basically all you want to try to achieve is to turn your left shoulder away, behind from the ball into your right side so that you feel a resistance in the INNER part of the right foot. You might want to even put a golf ball under the outer side of your right foot to assist you with this feeling
3. Stable lower body
IF you swing the clubhead, the clubhead 'leads' the upper body and consequently the upper body will lead the lower body. This is not something you need to think consciously think about its just a result of swinging the clubhead with a free arm swing.
If you turn correctly into the right side and not 'weight shift' but correctly move your weight pressure into your inner part of the right foot by the correct turning motion, the flex in the right knee should not be a problem to maintain. What I’m going give you is checkpoints of the response of the upper body turning into the right side.
A. The lower body doesn’t move side to side in anyway.
B. The flex in the right knee is maintained
C. Spine angle is maintained
D. You feel a little pressure on the inside of the right foot
A. There should be no lateral motion left or right of the lower body. To give you the idea of what I’m talking about imagine your lower body is turning in a barrel lined with acid, you don’t want to burn your skin by touching the sides. If you have particular trouble with this its a good idea to put an old shaft or something into the something in the ground touching the right side of the right hip and practice turning keeping the right hip touching it as it turns.
B. As long as you turn correctly into your right side and not try to weight shift (as I discussed earlier) it is pretty easy to maintain your right knee flex. The drill I gave was to put a ball under your foot and it’s a good one for this problem infact I cant think of anything better for this problem.
C. How often do you see a dip or rise in someone’s spine angle? It’s a fault that haunts so many people and perhaps they don’t even realise they do it. I believe the key to the spine angle is a) turning into the right side with the upper body by swinging the clubhead and then the lower body naturally following b) keeping your rear end stuck out. Keeping the rear end 'stuck out' like as though you were going to put your butt on a wall and always keeping the right cheek touching throughout your turn, infact as a drill - you can take a chair which is level with your butt and turn into your right side and swing keeping the right cheek on the chair as the left hip gets pulled naturally by your upper body turning.
D. Already talked about this plenty (check above).
4. Steady head (not necessarily stationary)
Any decent golfer knows that the phrase 'keeping the head down' is completely wrong, burying their heads into their bodies inhibits a good turn. Keeping the head still is partially correct. However keeping the head steady and balanced is correct. Like the footwork any head motion should be ONLY as a result of your turn. Infact its very important key point to preventing a flat shoulder turn if any premature head movement occurs. Also if the head moves prematurely the body sways from the target moving the body centre too far left causing fat shots. Jack Nicklaus calls this one of his anchors from which he can 'stabilise his swing'. The head must only have a slight lateral movement.
Many golf teachers say focusing on head movement is futile because the head is attached to all the other parts of the body and is a problem with them not the head movement. Although if you look at it the other way round your other body parts are linked to your head, so if you concentrate on your head movement wont the other body parts act accordingly which is where their argument falls down and not really thought out.
Understanding the downswing and the two elements
The downswing and an understanding of the mechanics seem to elude many people mainly because of this idea of the body controlling the club. The body does play an important role but it is a supporting role. Earlier I told you how there are two elements of the swing the arm swing/clubhead swing and the body turn. If you logically think about the two elements, the arms mainly control the up and down movement of the club and the body is accountable for the lateral control of the clubhead (side to side). Therefore the correct downswing contains the correct blend of these two elements.
If you start with the lower body, which most people tend to think, is how the downswing starts. This starts the downswing with the rotational forces (side to side) spinning fast or bumping laterally, you WILL outrun the downward forces of your arm and clubhead causing shots going to the right when you stab at the ball. The arms that freely swing the clubhead must be in sync with the rotational (side to side) forces of the body. Common sense prevails and tells us now the hands therefore must steadily get further from the right shoulder during the downswing. The rotation of the body (assuming they did a good turn in the backswing) pretty much 'unwraps' itself, in accordance to the movement of the clubhead/arm swing, unless you actually try to 'hold' your body stiff (and if you actually do this and swing the clubhead you still bottom the club on the ground). Your body has ALOT less turning to do than the movement of the arms up and down.
It is often said that the lower body has been proven to start back before the turn is complete on the backswing. Yes I will agree! BUT...if you have coiled in the backswing the uncoiling of the lower body will happen as a direct result and certainly not a key point to think about other than turning correctly into your right side properly. Its like if I try to put my palms on the ground keeping my legs straight, unless I strain and leave them on the ground you get a recoil like effect from pushing and stretching your muscles past the point of their normal flexibility. You should however not think of it, this is just a occurrence of a proper backswing.
Downswing Body Maintenance
The importance of the backswing and maintaining your body angles from address becomes super apparent as you swing the clubhead down with your arm swing, 'letting' the body respond. The better the backswing the better your impact will be.
The downswing lasts all of partial second, so therefore difficult to consciously control. This is why I call this part maintenance not mechanics. The downswing (like the backswing), must be controlled by what the clubhead is doing. Swinging the clubhead should be your primary goal in every swing you make. You must understand how to keep all that good work with the correct body maintenance of the backswing so that it has a positive effect on the downswing.
A note for information purposes only (please don’t think about this when swinging)
Why does the lower body move first in the downswing and the right shoulder drops? I could ask a lot of people this before they gave a satisfactory answer. Think about this because it makes a lot of sense. What happens to the shoulders when you swing the clubhead on the inside and not over the top or too inside? The answer is, if you swing the clubhead inside these body parts MUST act accordingly, your lower body stabilises in order for this event to take place creating that 'squat' that seems to be popular in golf instruction. The lower body also could be debated that the stabilisation of the weight pressure starts before the backswing due to coil as discussed before. Now lets look at why the lower body needs to stabilise, on the upper body, in order to get the club on the correctly inside the right shoulder MUST drop down and better yet its all a result of correctly swinging the clubhead, now what happens when your drop your right shoulder? Just stand up straight and drop your right shoulder and see the consequential effect, your hips will consequently move naturally in accordance.
HOW TO RIP A SHOT (IF NEEDED)
How often do you take the club out the bag and try to rip real hard, your swing feels completely different and some god-awful shot occurs. This naturally happens when your BODY becomes too active. If the occasion ever occurs this is how to maintain your swing whilst swinging faster then actually feel like your gripping even lighter than light grip pressure, take it to the top at the same pace if not slower to guarantee a proper turn and feel your body staying quiet as you swing that clubhead fast and free as you can whilst still remaining in control. On these shots your prone to more body movement but if in your mind you only concentrate on swinging the clubhead free and fast telling yourself that, will automatically reduce the tendency to jump the body around making the chance success less likely.
What constitutes body maintenance on the downswing?
The elements are
1. Footwork
2. Spine angle
3. Quietening the body
4. Controlling the lateral forces
5. Understanding 'how' the body moves through the ball
6. Head Movement
1. Footwork
Like the backswing, simplicity of footwork is of great importance. It is more common to see faults on the footwork on the downswing than the backswing mainly down to a) the over eagerness to use the body in the downswing and outrunning b) they are coming out of the spine angle (which is again usually due to using too much body instead of swinging the clubhead which happens often with a violent swing (trying to hit the ball hard with the body, as explained above))
The left foot IF it is raised on the backswing will replant 'naturally' in order for the lower body to stabilise, the left heel really should be a natural reaction to this stabilisation when you are correctly pulling the club back on the inside. The left foot after it is replanted (if was raised at all) stays flat on the ground for the rest of the swing
The right foot should only start rising as the body pulls it. There is no need to lift the foot for any other reason than the correct body movement pulling it and certainly not by trying to spin the hips pushing dead hard off the right leg. The right foot should be lead from the heel to the toe. The right heel should actually only start to rise around about impact because that will be that is the point where the lower body is starting to be open (left) to the target.
2. Spine angle
The spine angle is very much maintained in the same way as the backswing, by keeping the butt 'stuck out', in the wall example on the backswing, the right cheek of your butt was against the wall during the backswing, now as your lower body stabilises both cheeks will now be touching that wall again. After this point it is pretty much impossible to come out of your spine angle. Only After the ball is hit, will (if your body wont allow it although if your really flexible you can) that you come out of your spine angle to the more erect in order to place less strain on your spine but again not needed to be thought about. Putting a chair (butt height) against your butt is a great way to feel this.
3. Quietening the body
As I’ve explained by now overuse of the body is bad! For some people the urge to hit with the body (because of habit) is a difficult one to stop. What is a good drill to feel this, is to stand with your feet close together as this restricts your body’s movement and it gets an immediate feeling of what your trying to achieve in your actual swing and a free swinging of the clubhead.
This is a great drill that aspires other good things too...balance, spine angle maintenance... all because it forces you to swing the clubhead and not your body.
Another good thing to try is to trick your mind in achieving something by imagining something that’s not going to occur (and if u do manage to do it, stop quick). For example, if your having trouble keeping your shoulders from yanking with the lower body try imagining at impact that your shoulders point to the right of the target at impact. Or if your lower body that’s active imagine they are square at impact. Sometimes its amazing what a little head trickery can achieve because what we feel is sometimes exaggerated is actually about neutral.
4. Controlling the lateral forces
This and the last section on quietening the body have a lot of interlinking themes. That feet together drill also works wonders for controlling too much lateral motion before impact. The main point to note is making sure the lower body does not get ahead of the upper, as I said getting the club stuck too inside mainly leading to blocked shots and push slices to the right or if you over rotate your forearms a snap hook. The lower body activity before and into impact must not go past the point of the inner part of your right foot. Therefore you must swing 'into' your left side
Even though I’m not a following fan of David Leadbetter, he did have a great drill to demonstrate this. What he got his pupils to do (inc Nick Faldo) to understand what this 'feels' like is to 'toe' in the left foot. By toe in I mean turn the left foot inwards in your stance, just make sure you swing relaxed when using this drill though, otherwise I can foresee an injury. You wont really be able to finish the swing properly but it will give you the feeling of what the lower body does pre and into impact.
5. Understanding 'how' the body moves through the ball
With the swinging of the clubhead and no extraneous movement is the key to good golf. With the swinging of the clubhead unlike the backswing the weight does shift onto the left leg AFTER the pressure goes into the left leg in order to clear the body and finish your swing in balance on your left leg. If you did the chapter before this, that is the pressure change hitting into the left side - however with the free flowing of the clubhead, instead of the backswing where you are resisting with the right leg as to say, moving through the ball you want no impediments so the left leg accepts the weight of the rotation of your body. I would just advise you to visualise a swing like Mark O’ Meara, Nick Faldo... and literally see them try to finish your swing like them.
A good drill for a good finishing position is called the baseball drill. Standing slightly tall and the clubhead above the ground, swing the clubhead back and through letting your weight go in conjunction with the flowing of the clubhead on the follow through (weight pressure onto the right side in backswing), letting the left leg become completely straight.
6 Head movement
On the beginning of the downswing you want the head to be stable again and only when the body pulls it because of the weight moving into the left side (roughly just after impact) the head should be allowed to follow the movement forward and not hanging back (reverse C). Concentrating on head movement on the downswing helps preventing a sway. Throughout the swing and on the downswing (where it most commonly happens) there should be no up or downward movement. Which happens because of using the body correctly. In some cases it can help to think of keeping the chin level as it has a consequential effect on the rest of the body. Feel like there’s a shelf under your head.
Myths and common misconceptions
Here I will comprise a short list of things that are either easily misunderstood, or wrong.
Low and slow - this has a truth to it but there are often problems with this phrase. As people try to take the club low to the ground they sway along with it in a mistaken attempt on getting width. However if you don’t move the head at the start of the swing and take the club low without overstretching the arms it can be a good thought. Additionally I would like to see the word smooth here not slow. Slow for many people makes them start in a way that is so slow that they have to start speeding up and the tempo changes throughout the backswing. Low and smooth is a better way of putting it.
Slow tempo - I would like to make sure that you understand that it takes a relaxed aggression to send the ball a long way. I often see this in middle of the range golfers. They try to slow down the swing in order to solve every swing problem under the sun. If you have swing trouble slowing down the swing is not going to solve the problem, except for the fact that a softer swing is less likely to use as much body movement (as discussed before). Swinging easy free of tension, not slow is perhaps a better way of putting it. As long as you keep control of the clubhead and keep your arms and hands free of tension then really you can swing as fast as you can as long as you maintain that.
One-piece takeaway - This is an element that confuses many people. This gives the idea of everything all going together body and hands. Actually what one-piece takeaway means is the club/clubhead/hands/arms move in a synced fashion and not lagging the clubhead behind the arms/hands on the move away from the ball.
'Down the line' through impact - I have no idea who invented this phrase but it is wrong entirely. Since you are trying to swing on an arc doesn’t it make sense that the clubs plane is inside to inside and not inside to keep going square?
'Drive the legs for power' - This is again completely wrong. Too much lower body activity will trap the clubhead behind your body and then cause major problems. This is because the rotational forces outweigh the downward forces as discussed before.
'Reach for the sky and watch it fly' - There is really no need to have a high finish and a reverse C with the club down the back. Your chiropractor will love this move though.
'Keep the head down/still' - already covered check earlier
Learning the Swing
What I’m wanting to give you an overview to the way the mechanics of the swing should be formed: -
1 How to set-up correctly
2 Learn that the clubhead must be swung
3 Learn that the body must react to the arms swinging the clubhead
4 Learn to refine the arm swing
5 Learn to use the body correctly when it does react
Nothing must get in the way of the clubhead swinging. If you are trying to implement a body move and you cannot keep the clubhead swinging in a pure fluid manner then no matter how ideally correct it appears you should always side with the motion of the clubhead. Jack Nicklaus calls this 'motion over mechanics'. When you see a professional swing you see a swing that’s free and fluid and yet most amateurs swing it jerkily back and through, this is a direct result of not swinging the clubhead and a misguided interpretation of the swing.
I do however suggest there is a point in a golfers life that he/she should start to see a coach in order to make continuous improvement. I would however suggest that you get one that can actually logically state reasons for what he/her is trying to get you to implement and someone that doesn’t look at their watch every 5 minutes to see when the lesson ends. I would also suggest sticking to that coach too as you are building something together and if you swap teachers all the time you will find - differences in opinion, differences in the way they tackle your swing problems.... etc
Conclusion
I wrote this article because I wanted people to get a clear insight into the way a good swing is produced. Nothing is more important than the silky flowing of the clubhead. Although I’ve not covered everything that’s gone in the swing, I have covered most of the basics, which will make your swing free and free of thought. These are the keys IMO to how to swing. Most of all I hope that I’ve expanded your understanding of the swing and how it is put together
by Mathew Thomas Boyd
INTRODUCTION
How is it that a motion that lasts the whole of one and a half seconds, which is seemingly so natural when you see good players play, so difficult to the millions that play the game? If you were to play tennis and try to learn how to serve, after a year or two you would expect to be able to hit with good power and consistency. Peoples heads are awash with millions of tips, from magazines, videos, various instructors.... etc all telling parts of the swing from so many different perspectives that it makes deciphering through the information to get a full overview of the golf motion very difficult.
Another reason that people never improve is because they don't set themselves a good basis on which to start the swing from the address position, and yet they expect that all faults come from the swing itself... to quote Albert Einstein "smart people solve problems, geniuses stop them from happening". You can solve the MASS MAJORITY of problems in the swing just by concentrating on the fundamentals, so why is that people expect to build good swings from a totally non-athletic set up eludes me.
SET-UP
Set-up is of the greatest importance. If you have an error here you will be compensating through the whole swing inhibiting your swing or the direction of your swing. How often do you see people stand so far right of the target and complain that they seem to push every shot and when you tell them they are standing there they refuse to believe it until you put a club across their feet (and this is after they take special care over their aim, still aiming dead right) and when they re-adjust their set-up they start striking poorly so they go back to their old habits. Or how often do you see someone who has a death grip on the club, or holding in the palm and try to batter a ball with the driver yet they wonder why they can only hit the 180yard marker on their best shots... There are so many examples how address affects the swing, please don’t read this thinking to yourself that your set-up is fine and yet scratch your head and wonder why you struggle to make decent contact with all or many of your shots, or never seem to send the ball in the direction that you want.
GRIP
The grip is responsible for 'freely' hinging/unhinging the wrists, which is one of the swings major power sources, and the orientation of the clubface. Bobby Jones once said that he has never seen a truly good player with a bad grip and never seen a truly bad player with a good grip, which is pretty much true. There are some professionals with grips which are not the norm, but that’s because they have a compensation in their swing that will bring the clubface back to square and have hours to practice to do carry off their compensation well and it would 'perhaps' be detrimental to fiddle with their muscle memory which makes them the players they are. It is much easier to grip the club in what is called a neutral position where there will be no manipulation of the face throughout. I’m not an advocate of taking a strong grip or weak grips in order to reduce swing errors. It seems to be a trend whenever someone has a slice that someone always says 'take a stronger grip', that is not getting down to the real problem, infact they have just added yet another level of complexity by adding yet another compensation to the mix in your swing.
Grip Pressure - Since the major purpose in the swing is to return the clubface back to its starting position (with the mass going in direction of target which I will get to later), it’s very important to be able to feel the clubheads weight throughout your swing. No top golfer (Arnold Palmer and Moe Norman excluded) will have a death-like hold on the golf club. They can 'feel' the heads weight which makes returning the club exponentially easier to return square to the target. A grip pressure also enables a free wrist action, which is responsible for so much of the golf swings power. A golf study once revealed that 90% of the power came from the correct use of the hands and arms and this is the greatest aid to bringing power to the swing through the correct use of the hands. The correct grip pressure on a scale from one to ten (with ten being the tightest), you should be around three or four. If you look at your forearms they shouldn’t have the slightest tension in them (feeling is that of soft dangling rubber).
Ok now to holding the club - Form the grip above the ground as it makes it a lot easier to do. Laying your hand flat as though you were reading something on your palm the club should run should run between the base of the pinkie finger and the middle segment of the first finger and then just close your hand. Check that you see maybe 2 or 2 and a half knuckles on your left hand (never 1 or 4 knuckles) and that the thumb runs slightly down on the right.
Before telling you the grip of the right hand I will tell you how the hands can be joined. There are three ways you can join the hands, the interlock, the overlap, and the baseball grip. The interlock grip occurs by the pinkie finger of the right hand going in between the first and second finger of the left hand. The overlap is formed by placing the pinkie over the first and second finger of the left hand and lastly the baseball grip is made by just putting the hands together. The baseball grip is a grip I believe many people would benefit from especially kids, older people, ladies or anyone without great strength in the forearms. The interlock and overlap are equally good grips and as advise I would just suggest picking the one that feels best and enables easily to have a light grip pressure.
The right hand grips in an almost mirror way from the left. Laying the right hand flat like reading something from your palm again, the club runs from the first segment of your pinkie finger to the middle segment of the first finger and then close the grip. Now the first finger can be now set in two ways. It can either be triggered (split slightly from the other fingers in the right hand) or it can be put beside the other fingers (i.e. Jack Nicklaus) giving more of a hammer feel, but again it’s a personal thing. Your left thumb should be in the palm of the right hand and following down the natural v in the lifeline of your hand. Its almost a zip locking feeling, which is very important as this prevents the club from coming apart in your hands especially at the top of the backswing.
There is a myth that in the grip the palms are parallel but actually they are not. If the hands where going to be parallel then you would have to set the club super weak (to achieve this they would have to set in the palm!) and the right hand super strong. But the correct grip sets the hands opposing to exactly an equal amount and therefore neutral.
AIM
Isn’t it amazing that playing golf, a target sport, that hardly anyone can actually aim to the target? Infact, so often you see someone aim so far offline and yet they swear that they have got good aim (that’s even if they have a target in the first place)! This is perhaps the most abused element of set-up and yet one of the easiest to work on. In a perfect set-up the shoulders, hips and feet should all be pointing PARALLEL LEFT of the target line as with the clubface aimed dead straight along the target line. Every good golfer will use clubs on the ground as a guide to aim when practising but when you go to the course you'll pick up a lot of penalty strokes if you start doing that. So here is how you can get dead aim and a routine for getting into good aim before you start.
Pick out a target; you should be seeing hula-hoops out there not just anywhere on the fairway or green. Find what’s called an intermediate target no more than just a yard away and then take your grip above the ground. Walk around and aim the clubface at the target first BEFORE the body only then aim your feet parallel left like the train track visual image.
POSTURE
Posture is the element that controls your body movement. Again very often abused to the point where good golf is next to impossible. Your posture at address allows your body to rotate around your spine. If your body is restricted then so will your swing! This is perhaps the most important aid to the actual hitting of the ball. Yet most bad players are so hunched over at address, which is the equivelent of putting a spanner in a moving cog, and/or their legs are too straight or bent that they have to lift or bend their bodies about during the swing - which is clearly a recipe for disaster.
Here is a step-by-step way to get into a good posture
1 Stand straight up with the club in front of you and then let it rest on your chest (arms and hands free of tension)
2 Stick out your butt (bending from the hips) until the club touches the ground
3 Unlock the knees. Notice I use the word 'unlock' which is very important here, looking down now you should not see your heels but only your heels.
Now make sure that the hands are positioned beside your left leg’s inner thigh, your weight is on the balls of your feet, not your heels or toes (infact, you should be able to raise either if asked) and your arms dangle like spaghetti.
STANCE AND BALL POSITION
Its very much a trend to see people with stances that are too wide for them, totally restricting their turn then they throw the club back collapsing the arms trying to get the club somewhere near parallel. Infact a too narrow stance is better than one that is too wide (even though not particularly advisable either) because a wide stance affects your ability to coil and restricts your ability to turn. Your stance is very much a balance between the ability to turn vs. balance. As a guideline you could say that for all driver shots the width of stance is about the inside of the feet should be about the same as outside edge of your shoulders. The long irons to mid irons the outside of the feet should be about the same as the outside of the shoulders and short irons the insides of the feet about the same as the outside of your hips. But these are guidelines; Tiger Woods will need a wider stance than Tommy Horton (senior tour player). This is because tiger woods needs more stability to support him and has the flexibility to turn into the right side without any problems.
Ball position is often badly explained by golf instructors, usually giving a reference from the feet. The feet are not an indication of ball position because stance width varies from player to player and varies the front foot in accordance to the swing centre. The upper body is the only way of referring to the ball position accurately in accordance with the swing centre, the lowest point being under your left armpit. How you place your ball in accordance to your upper body dictates the impact you will achieve, the further back you place the ball the more you hit down onto the ball. So with a driver your wanting a level to very slightly ascending blow, so its best place is at the bottom of the swing arc which is left armpit. The long irons you will want still to scrape it off the turf so it’s placed between your left Breast and armpit. The mid irons you will be wanting a to take a very slight sliver of a divot and hit down just a little bit more so its placed on your left breast and your short irons you want a descending blow so you place the ball on the middle of your upper body.
ELEMENTS OF A SOUND SWING
What is so good about the good swings? Good players understand that simplicity of movement is the key to continuing repetition of good shots. Out of the simplicity of what is required in the swing, mostly comes confusion. The downswing starts according to butch Harmon by a bump of the left hip, Hogan by turning the left hip, Leadbetter the left knee.... etc. However for people learning the swing this inability to show them in order for them to understand what is actually going on in the swing makes learning golf a much harder task.
To a swing there is two components and one goal. There is a body swing and arm swing to achieve a clubface going on a path to the target line with a square clubface. There is a vision of a so called 'big muscle swing'. A macho image of arms pinned against the chest and the big muscles is proven to be anatomically impossible, usually containing buzz sentences like "muscle producing torque" or "body release multiplying speed to the hands" in order to sell its books. You cannot swing the arms back with your body alone. The old time players of Bobby Jones era actually understood what is important in the swing better than how the swing is described today and where the club was in the swing. It is all that matters! If your club is placed correctly then your body cannot be wrongly placed, the body positions are only just a result of where the clubhead is placed.
Golf instruction a lot of the time is pretty much 'quick fix' and often a 'try this' approach to golf, band-aiding problem after problem after reading a quick tip from some golfing magazine in the hope that this is the key to better golf. The golfer has so much to choose from that he 'tries' out moves instead of getting a planned attack of action.
SWING THE CLUBHEAD NOT YOUR BODY
If I can get you to take notice to anything I’ve said this is what I would like you take notice of. Read that title again. Most golfers use FAR too much body movement in the swing, mainly because they are trying to swing the club with the body.
The most important function without doubt in the golf swing is to swing the clubhead and to feel the weight of the clubhead. If you can feel the clubhead throughout the swing you will NEVER come over the top or cast because you will naturally want to keep the clubhead balanced. This is why a light grip pressure is pretty much mandatory to the fluid motion of the clubhead, your arms must feel relaxed from start to finish.
Now with the club above the ground I want you to close your eyes after you’ve taken your good address position and take some swings just feeling the clubheads weight from start to finish, holding your finish for a second or two. Sometimes to emphase the feeling even more it’s a good idea to swing two clubs together. Try to keep the body quiet (but most certainly not stiff) and try to only let it react to the swinging of the clubhead. I want you to do this until you have the concept of a fluid silky free flowing arm and hand swing and then take your swing and recreate the exact fluidity of the arms and club, letting your body respond.
REFINING THE ARMSWING
After learning that the clubhead must be swung and flowing through the swing, the next objective is to refine the arm swing to take the club back correctly. When you SMOOTHLY take the club away it should FEEL like your taking the club straight back but only as a safeguard of taking it too inside, however in reality you will still be swinging inside but now to the proper degree. The inside movement occurs naturally when the shoulders turn. I however certainly not advocate that you go to extremities and ACTUALLY pull the club straight back.
When you reach the top of the backswing, you should try to keep your hands away from your right shoulder as much as possible COMFORTABLY without deliberately overstretching, this sets the correct amount of width in the swing. The feeling is as though you were standing in a doorway and your pushing your hands into the right hand corner. If you ever want to understand the importance of width in the swing just ask Tiger Woods.
The start of the downswing is an area of confusion for bad players, mainly because of the body swing era we're in talks about starting with the body usually some thought of lower body action, I am of the mind that if you start the by lower body or body pulling quick, the hands will NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS have time to catch up and consequently throw the clubhead too far behind you or throw outside the swing plane. A big mistake is when the shoulders lead the swing resulting in the classic over the top move you see so often. Now actually just by feeling the clubheads weight throughout the swing will go a long way to eradicating these faults (assuming you did my first point on taking the club away) but you must be totally understanding to the fact that your arms and hands must progressively move away from the right shoulder in the downswing. The golfer who’s balls always seem to go right the hands and arms are almost invariably travelling too slow at the beginning phase of the downswing. You also must intend to swing from the inside and if you’re throwing the clubhead over the top or casting you cannot be feeling the weight of the clubhead swing.
There must be no hit impulse at impact, just concentrate on the swinging of the clubhead and maintaining your grip pressure with a feeling of swinging, not hitting. This takes a little bit of self-discipline.
When you finish your swing you must have your tummy pointing at the target or slightly left only as the result of the clubhead swinging. You must be able to hold this finish until the ball drops otherwise your body is too active or you have swung too hard. There should be no hint of what is termed as a 'reverse C' where the upper body is hanging back and the club pointing straight down your back (i.e. Colin Montgomery) but the club should be released so that its somewhat close to your shoulder line.
Now I would like you to check the position of the left wrist at the top of the backswing. In a non-compensating swing the left wrist should be flat, not bowed or cupped. The position of the left hand on the top of the backswing directly influences the clubface either open or closed at the top of the backswing. A flat wrist at the top of the backswing will ensure that the clubface is square to your arm plane.
There seems to be a lot of talk about wrist action in the swing. Wrist action is not something you need to really think about in the swing but there factors that you need to aspire to getting good wrist action. These factors are - proper grip, light grip pressure, good plane, and a flat left wrist at the top of the backswing. If you have these factors and swing the clubhead, you will find by the time your left arm reaches parallel to the ground your left wrist will be ****ed properly by the weight of the clubhead.
On the downswing to ensure that the wrists are still ****ed until the 'natural' forces of the clubheads weight releases. A great visual image is that imagining your hip height in water and you want the hands to enter before the club does whilst still freely swinging the clubhead. This acknowledges the fact that on the downswing the club is travelling on a narrower arc than that of the backswing. The arc of the swing is not a perfect circle; the backswing’s width is set so you can swing narrower through the ball creating a whip-like effect. A true caster cannot be of this understanding and if he thinks the clubhead must travel on the same arc then he can and will cast. This also consequently acknowledges that the mass of the swing must be AHEAD of the clubhead at impact and by that I mean that the hands are in front of the clubhead and you can ONLY do that when travelling on a narrower arc on the downswing. Physics states that clubhead speed (velocity) is useless without the clubhead (mass) to one object striking another; you certainly don’t want the hands behind the ball destroying the mass and forward momentum. If you use the visual image I said, this will all happen and not needed to be thought about when taking your swing.
BACKSWING BODY MOTION
Only once you have the feelings I describe above then its time to work on the correct body motion. BUT KEEP THE CLUBHEAD SWINGING YOU NOT THE OTHERWAY ROUND. If you don’t understand that sentence then you’re not ready for this section!
There is so much written about the body movement that if I could probably write a book on every tip (often contradicting each other). In actual fact the body motion of the backswing is pretty much simple if you let it be.
There are only a few things you have to be aware of to make a good backswing pivot. Then we will work on these in turn
1. Footwork
2. Turning into the right leg
3. Stable lower body
4. Steady head (not necessarily stationary)
1. Footwork
Although mainly a beginner’s mistake, often you will see many people with flaws in their footwork on the backswing. There is a few reasons why, people trying to shift their weight vigorously onto there right foot or they see a player on TV or in an instruction manual lifting their heel and copy it....
Let me approach this in the sense of simplicity. More is less! You want your footwork to be as quiet as possible, if any on the backswing. Your left heel should only (if you need to at all) rise on the backswing as a result of the turning of the body into your right side, not as an extra movement, which is unnecessary. Ideally you will actually keep your left foot on the ground throughout the backswing i.e. Tiger Woods, David Duval... but yet a lot of people I understand are not flexible enough to do that.
2. Turning into the right side
Turning into the right side seems to totally elude most golfers. The woods are blessed with golf balls hitting them from people that can't turn properly when actually it’s a pretty easy thing to do. Firstly though, never loose sight that the clubhead freely swing causing your turn (mandatory).
MY PET HATE CLICH'E IS WEIGHT SHIFT! I’ve discussed this before on this forum but basically your weight does not shift, the weight pressure does move into your right side by the turning of your body, which is a big difference. Anyone can see this in two seconds that if you look at any player on the tour and get them to take the backswing and 'accidentally' kick their left foot away from the ground and ask yourself how many of them would stay standing? If they shifted their weight they should be able to keep standing, right? But as soon as you look at them its obvious that every one of them would fall. The weight pressure goes into the right side the weight does not.
So basically all you want to try to achieve is to turn your left shoulder away, behind from the ball into your right side so that you feel a resistance in the INNER part of the right foot. You might want to even put a golf ball under the outer side of your right foot to assist you with this feeling
3. Stable lower body
IF you swing the clubhead, the clubhead 'leads' the upper body and consequently the upper body will lead the lower body. This is not something you need to think consciously think about its just a result of swinging the clubhead with a free arm swing.
If you turn correctly into the right side and not 'weight shift' but correctly move your weight pressure into your inner part of the right foot by the correct turning motion, the flex in the right knee should not be a problem to maintain. What I’m going give you is checkpoints of the response of the upper body turning into the right side.
A. The lower body doesn’t move side to side in anyway.
B. The flex in the right knee is maintained
C. Spine angle is maintained
D. You feel a little pressure on the inside of the right foot
A. There should be no lateral motion left or right of the lower body. To give you the idea of what I’m talking about imagine your lower body is turning in a barrel lined with acid, you don’t want to burn your skin by touching the sides. If you have particular trouble with this its a good idea to put an old shaft or something into the something in the ground touching the right side of the right hip and practice turning keeping the right hip touching it as it turns.
B. As long as you turn correctly into your right side and not try to weight shift (as I discussed earlier) it is pretty easy to maintain your right knee flex. The drill I gave was to put a ball under your foot and it’s a good one for this problem infact I cant think of anything better for this problem.
C. How often do you see a dip or rise in someone’s spine angle? It’s a fault that haunts so many people and perhaps they don’t even realise they do it. I believe the key to the spine angle is a) turning into the right side with the upper body by swinging the clubhead and then the lower body naturally following b) keeping your rear end stuck out. Keeping the rear end 'stuck out' like as though you were going to put your butt on a wall and always keeping the right cheek touching throughout your turn, infact as a drill - you can take a chair which is level with your butt and turn into your right side and swing keeping the right cheek on the chair as the left hip gets pulled naturally by your upper body turning.
D. Already talked about this plenty (check above).
4. Steady head (not necessarily stationary)
Any decent golfer knows that the phrase 'keeping the head down' is completely wrong, burying their heads into their bodies inhibits a good turn. Keeping the head still is partially correct. However keeping the head steady and balanced is correct. Like the footwork any head motion should be ONLY as a result of your turn. Infact its very important key point to preventing a flat shoulder turn if any premature head movement occurs. Also if the head moves prematurely the body sways from the target moving the body centre too far left causing fat shots. Jack Nicklaus calls this one of his anchors from which he can 'stabilise his swing'. The head must only have a slight lateral movement.
Many golf teachers say focusing on head movement is futile because the head is attached to all the other parts of the body and is a problem with them not the head movement. Although if you look at it the other way round your other body parts are linked to your head, so if you concentrate on your head movement wont the other body parts act accordingly which is where their argument falls down and not really thought out.
Understanding the downswing and the two elements
The downswing and an understanding of the mechanics seem to elude many people mainly because of this idea of the body controlling the club. The body does play an important role but it is a supporting role. Earlier I told you how there are two elements of the swing the arm swing/clubhead swing and the body turn. If you logically think about the two elements, the arms mainly control the up and down movement of the club and the body is accountable for the lateral control of the clubhead (side to side). Therefore the correct downswing contains the correct blend of these two elements.
If you start with the lower body, which most people tend to think, is how the downswing starts. This starts the downswing with the rotational forces (side to side) spinning fast or bumping laterally, you WILL outrun the downward forces of your arm and clubhead causing shots going to the right when you stab at the ball. The arms that freely swing the clubhead must be in sync with the rotational (side to side) forces of the body. Common sense prevails and tells us now the hands therefore must steadily get further from the right shoulder during the downswing. The rotation of the body (assuming they did a good turn in the backswing) pretty much 'unwraps' itself, in accordance to the movement of the clubhead/arm swing, unless you actually try to 'hold' your body stiff (and if you actually do this and swing the clubhead you still bottom the club on the ground). Your body has ALOT less turning to do than the movement of the arms up and down.
It is often said that the lower body has been proven to start back before the turn is complete on the backswing. Yes I will agree! BUT...if you have coiled in the backswing the uncoiling of the lower body will happen as a direct result and certainly not a key point to think about other than turning correctly into your right side properly. Its like if I try to put my palms on the ground keeping my legs straight, unless I strain and leave them on the ground you get a recoil like effect from pushing and stretching your muscles past the point of their normal flexibility. You should however not think of it, this is just a occurrence of a proper backswing.
Downswing Body Maintenance
The importance of the backswing and maintaining your body angles from address becomes super apparent as you swing the clubhead down with your arm swing, 'letting' the body respond. The better the backswing the better your impact will be.
The downswing lasts all of partial second, so therefore difficult to consciously control. This is why I call this part maintenance not mechanics. The downswing (like the backswing), must be controlled by what the clubhead is doing. Swinging the clubhead should be your primary goal in every swing you make. You must understand how to keep all that good work with the correct body maintenance of the backswing so that it has a positive effect on the downswing.
A note for information purposes only (please don’t think about this when swinging)
Why does the lower body move first in the downswing and the right shoulder drops? I could ask a lot of people this before they gave a satisfactory answer. Think about this because it makes a lot of sense. What happens to the shoulders when you swing the clubhead on the inside and not over the top or too inside? The answer is, if you swing the clubhead inside these body parts MUST act accordingly, your lower body stabilises in order for this event to take place creating that 'squat' that seems to be popular in golf instruction. The lower body also could be debated that the stabilisation of the weight pressure starts before the backswing due to coil as discussed before. Now lets look at why the lower body needs to stabilise, on the upper body, in order to get the club on the correctly inside the right shoulder MUST drop down and better yet its all a result of correctly swinging the clubhead, now what happens when your drop your right shoulder? Just stand up straight and drop your right shoulder and see the consequential effect, your hips will consequently move naturally in accordance.
HOW TO RIP A SHOT (IF NEEDED)
How often do you take the club out the bag and try to rip real hard, your swing feels completely different and some god-awful shot occurs. This naturally happens when your BODY becomes too active. If the occasion ever occurs this is how to maintain your swing whilst swinging faster then actually feel like your gripping even lighter than light grip pressure, take it to the top at the same pace if not slower to guarantee a proper turn and feel your body staying quiet as you swing that clubhead fast and free as you can whilst still remaining in control. On these shots your prone to more body movement but if in your mind you only concentrate on swinging the clubhead free and fast telling yourself that, will automatically reduce the tendency to jump the body around making the chance success less likely.
What constitutes body maintenance on the downswing?
The elements are
1. Footwork
2. Spine angle
3. Quietening the body
4. Controlling the lateral forces
5. Understanding 'how' the body moves through the ball
6. Head Movement
1. Footwork
Like the backswing, simplicity of footwork is of great importance. It is more common to see faults on the footwork on the downswing than the backswing mainly down to a) the over eagerness to use the body in the downswing and outrunning b) they are coming out of the spine angle (which is again usually due to using too much body instead of swinging the clubhead which happens often with a violent swing (trying to hit the ball hard with the body, as explained above))
The left foot IF it is raised on the backswing will replant 'naturally' in order for the lower body to stabilise, the left heel really should be a natural reaction to this stabilisation when you are correctly pulling the club back on the inside. The left foot after it is replanted (if was raised at all) stays flat on the ground for the rest of the swing
The right foot should only start rising as the body pulls it. There is no need to lift the foot for any other reason than the correct body movement pulling it and certainly not by trying to spin the hips pushing dead hard off the right leg. The right foot should be lead from the heel to the toe. The right heel should actually only start to rise around about impact because that will be that is the point where the lower body is starting to be open (left) to the target.
2. Spine angle
The spine angle is very much maintained in the same way as the backswing, by keeping the butt 'stuck out', in the wall example on the backswing, the right cheek of your butt was against the wall during the backswing, now as your lower body stabilises both cheeks will now be touching that wall again. After this point it is pretty much impossible to come out of your spine angle. Only After the ball is hit, will (if your body wont allow it although if your really flexible you can) that you come out of your spine angle to the more erect in order to place less strain on your spine but again not needed to be thought about. Putting a chair (butt height) against your butt is a great way to feel this.
3. Quietening the body
As I’ve explained by now overuse of the body is bad! For some people the urge to hit with the body (because of habit) is a difficult one to stop. What is a good drill to feel this, is to stand with your feet close together as this restricts your body’s movement and it gets an immediate feeling of what your trying to achieve in your actual swing and a free swinging of the clubhead.
This is a great drill that aspires other good things too...balance, spine angle maintenance... all because it forces you to swing the clubhead and not your body.
Another good thing to try is to trick your mind in achieving something by imagining something that’s not going to occur (and if u do manage to do it, stop quick). For example, if your having trouble keeping your shoulders from yanking with the lower body try imagining at impact that your shoulders point to the right of the target at impact. Or if your lower body that’s active imagine they are square at impact. Sometimes its amazing what a little head trickery can achieve because what we feel is sometimes exaggerated is actually about neutral.
4. Controlling the lateral forces
This and the last section on quietening the body have a lot of interlinking themes. That feet together drill also works wonders for controlling too much lateral motion before impact. The main point to note is making sure the lower body does not get ahead of the upper, as I said getting the club stuck too inside mainly leading to blocked shots and push slices to the right or if you over rotate your forearms a snap hook. The lower body activity before and into impact must not go past the point of the inner part of your right foot. Therefore you must swing 'into' your left side
Even though I’m not a following fan of David Leadbetter, he did have a great drill to demonstrate this. What he got his pupils to do (inc Nick Faldo) to understand what this 'feels' like is to 'toe' in the left foot. By toe in I mean turn the left foot inwards in your stance, just make sure you swing relaxed when using this drill though, otherwise I can foresee an injury. You wont really be able to finish the swing properly but it will give you the feeling of what the lower body does pre and into impact.
5. Understanding 'how' the body moves through the ball
With the swinging of the clubhead and no extraneous movement is the key to good golf. With the swinging of the clubhead unlike the backswing the weight does shift onto the left leg AFTER the pressure goes into the left leg in order to clear the body and finish your swing in balance on your left leg. If you did the chapter before this, that is the pressure change hitting into the left side - however with the free flowing of the clubhead, instead of the backswing where you are resisting with the right leg as to say, moving through the ball you want no impediments so the left leg accepts the weight of the rotation of your body. I would just advise you to visualise a swing like Mark O’ Meara, Nick Faldo... and literally see them try to finish your swing like them.
A good drill for a good finishing position is called the baseball drill. Standing slightly tall and the clubhead above the ground, swing the clubhead back and through letting your weight go in conjunction with the flowing of the clubhead on the follow through (weight pressure onto the right side in backswing), letting the left leg become completely straight.
6 Head movement
On the beginning of the downswing you want the head to be stable again and only when the body pulls it because of the weight moving into the left side (roughly just after impact) the head should be allowed to follow the movement forward and not hanging back (reverse C). Concentrating on head movement on the downswing helps preventing a sway. Throughout the swing and on the downswing (where it most commonly happens) there should be no up or downward movement. Which happens because of using the body correctly. In some cases it can help to think of keeping the chin level as it has a consequential effect on the rest of the body. Feel like there’s a shelf under your head.
Myths and common misconceptions
Here I will comprise a short list of things that are either easily misunderstood, or wrong.
Low and slow - this has a truth to it but there are often problems with this phrase. As people try to take the club low to the ground they sway along with it in a mistaken attempt on getting width. However if you don’t move the head at the start of the swing and take the club low without overstretching the arms it can be a good thought. Additionally I would like to see the word smooth here not slow. Slow for many people makes them start in a way that is so slow that they have to start speeding up and the tempo changes throughout the backswing. Low and smooth is a better way of putting it.
Slow tempo - I would like to make sure that you understand that it takes a relaxed aggression to send the ball a long way. I often see this in middle of the range golfers. They try to slow down the swing in order to solve every swing problem under the sun. If you have swing trouble slowing down the swing is not going to solve the problem, except for the fact that a softer swing is less likely to use as much body movement (as discussed before). Swinging easy free of tension, not slow is perhaps a better way of putting it. As long as you keep control of the clubhead and keep your arms and hands free of tension then really you can swing as fast as you can as long as you maintain that.
One-piece takeaway - This is an element that confuses many people. This gives the idea of everything all going together body and hands. Actually what one-piece takeaway means is the club/clubhead/hands/arms move in a synced fashion and not lagging the clubhead behind the arms/hands on the move away from the ball.
'Down the line' through impact - I have no idea who invented this phrase but it is wrong entirely. Since you are trying to swing on an arc doesn’t it make sense that the clubs plane is inside to inside and not inside to keep going square?
'Drive the legs for power' - This is again completely wrong. Too much lower body activity will trap the clubhead behind your body and then cause major problems. This is because the rotational forces outweigh the downward forces as discussed before.
'Reach for the sky and watch it fly' - There is really no need to have a high finish and a reverse C with the club down the back. Your chiropractor will love this move though.
'Keep the head down/still' - already covered check earlier
Learning the Swing
What I’m wanting to give you an overview to the way the mechanics of the swing should be formed: -
1 How to set-up correctly
2 Learn that the clubhead must be swung
3 Learn that the body must react to the arms swinging the clubhead
4 Learn to refine the arm swing
5 Learn to use the body correctly when it does react
Nothing must get in the way of the clubhead swinging. If you are trying to implement a body move and you cannot keep the clubhead swinging in a pure fluid manner then no matter how ideally correct it appears you should always side with the motion of the clubhead. Jack Nicklaus calls this 'motion over mechanics'. When you see a professional swing you see a swing that’s free and fluid and yet most amateurs swing it jerkily back and through, this is a direct result of not swinging the clubhead and a misguided interpretation of the swing.
I do however suggest there is a point in a golfers life that he/she should start to see a coach in order to make continuous improvement. I would however suggest that you get one that can actually logically state reasons for what he/her is trying to get you to implement and someone that doesn’t look at their watch every 5 minutes to see when the lesson ends. I would also suggest sticking to that coach too as you are building something together and if you swap teachers all the time you will find - differences in opinion, differences in the way they tackle your swing problems.... etc
Conclusion
I wrote this article because I wanted people to get a clear insight into the way a good swing is produced. Nothing is more important than the silky flowing of the clubhead. Although I’ve not covered everything that’s gone in the swing, I have covered most of the basics, which will make your swing free and free of thought. These are the keys IMO to how to swing. Most of all I hope that I’ve expanded your understanding of the swing and how it is put together
mgjordan
New
Mathew,
I think that is good. I didn't read all of it, but I skimmed most of it and will re-read it later. I agree about learning to swing the clubhead and feel it. Most people try to swing with only their hands and cast or try to hit the ball with their body. If people would just take the time to learn how to swing the clubhead, they would improve quickly and they could go back and refine body motion later. When I am hitting it poorly, I stop whatever I am doing and put all of my attention on swinging the clubhead for the rest of the round and usually end up posting a respectable number.
Razer, you are an idiot.
I think that is good. I didn't read all of it, but I skimmed most of it and will re-read it later. I agree about learning to swing the clubhead and feel it. Most people try to swing with only their hands and cast or try to hit the ball with their body. If people would just take the time to learn how to swing the clubhead, they would improve quickly and they could go back and refine body motion later. When I am hitting it poorly, I stop whatever I am doing and put all of my attention on swinging the clubhead for the rest of the round and usually end up posting a respectable number.
Razer, you are an idiot.
Actually I disagree with alot of what I wrote, I was going to go through it bit by bit but I just never found the time.....
I am sick to the back teeth with posters with 10 posts or less.... It drives me absolutely *****ing nuts.... What makes me more mad is the fact that no one ever does anything about it and its plainly obvious who it is....
I am sick to the back teeth with posters with 10 posts or less.... It drives me absolutely *****ing nuts.... What makes me more mad is the fact that no one ever does anything about it and its plainly obvious who it is....
As for the "fluff piece", I agree with a some of the setup and aim stuff, but the in-swing stuff is targeted towards a high handicap player who slices the ball. And as well-intentioned and well-written as the piece is, I think it illustrates the main danger of reading instructional essays/books/manuals/tapes/DVDs: You can easily get caught up in a philosophy or "method" that may or may not apply to your specific issues.
Talk to me all you want about using the clubhead, but that doesn't apply to ME specifically. For years, I listened to Jim Flick, who seems to feel that the body is some sort of dangerous entity that gets in the way with "the swinging of the arms and hands". Okay, fine- it worked for a while. But here I am now, a single-digit player with a hook/push/draw problem. So how do I change that? Not by "swinging the clubhead", because I'd hook it to the moon, Alice. No, I work on the opposite of what the above article says- I forget about my hands and learn to use my body pivot to transport the club. In fact, the better the player you are, the more educated your hands are, the more the body tends to be the "boss", and the hands tend to "follow". But again, that's me.
I tend to be of the school of thought that says that everyone has their own specific swing issues that can't be so easily solved by way of an essay or a "method". The value of the information is in the eye of the beholder.
Talk to me all you want about using the clubhead, but that doesn't apply to ME specifically. For years, I listened to Jim Flick, who seems to feel that the body is some sort of dangerous entity that gets in the way with "the swinging of the arms and hands". Okay, fine- it worked for a while. But here I am now, a single-digit player with a hook/push/draw problem. So how do I change that? Not by "swinging the clubhead", because I'd hook it to the moon, Alice. No, I work on the opposite of what the above article says- I forget about my hands and learn to use my body pivot to transport the club. In fact, the better the player you are, the more educated your hands are, the more the body tends to be the "boss", and the hands tend to "follow". But again, that's me.
I tend to be of the school of thought that says that everyone has their own specific swing issues that can't be so easily solved by way of an essay or a "method". The value of the information is in the eye of the beholder.
Definitely not Ragman. Just someone who thinks you couldn't find your ass with a map, Brian. You plagiarized every tip and bit of advice on your so-called article. Not an original thought or observation. These tips have been around for years and yet the average score hasn't dropped. It's still at 97, same as your IQ.
Mathew, thanks for sharing, its oblivous that Rag or Raz (what's one letter, huh) has a thing for you. Forget about them, move on. Some of the best advice is NON-ORIGNAL in form, but original in its application or presentation. You succeeded, they are jealous.
Can't wait to see the update, Mat.
Can't wait to see the update, Mat.
FanofHogan
New
I agree.
I don't think those ideas exclude each other at all.... in fact, the true 'swinging' of the clubhead and shaft, is best accomplished by the 'movement' of the body felt in the feet, but in either view, the most important part is the 'swinging force' - as long as that swinging force is true, a rock on a string, it (almost) doesn't matter 'how' you get that to happen.
The difference is only in how efficient that swinging force is....flicks view is less efficient, but the goal is the same.
Swing as if you had no arms.... and you will have a 'true' swinging force.
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