Day 4: Jan 22, 2011

Well it has been a while since I posted anything to this blog so I think an update is necessary.

I have found 3 facets that have improved my game.

o practice weight shifting back and forth before swing.
o Extend arms at address.
o 'hover' over the ball.
o at top of swing have tension along left ribs.
o pause at the top of your swing.

The weight shifting is just to make sure your body is aligned with the target and that your weight is on the right foot at the top of the swing and shifts to the left foot on the down swing.

With the club behind the ball at address move back so that your arms are extended toward the ball and you feel you left arm against your left ribs.  This enhances the likelihood that on the down swing you will not extend beyond the ball (hit the ball with the heel of the club, not good).

The 'hover' over the ball means to hold you head and body stationary with respect to the ball on your back swing.  You are just pivoting around your spine.  The idea of hovering is very powerful and keeps the distance to the ball constant so as to increase ball striking performance.

By creating tension along your left ribs you have the body in control for the down swing.  The rotation of you body on the down swing is far stronger than your arms. That beginning motion with your body pivoting around you spine starts the club moving and then your arms can take over and accelerate it through impact.
The tension has two lovely effects: greater accuracy and longer drives!

By pausing at the top of your swing you have the time to adjust to the forward motion downswing.

Try these tips and let me know if they work for you.

Day three - May 30, 2009

Coordinates
In order to move on it is necessary to introduce a concise language for discussion based on an x, y, z coordinate system. This is just so we can talk about your swing.

Align yourself toward your target. Your shoulders and feet now point along what we will call the 'x' axis. Now address the ball with a club such that the club is pointing symmetrically away from your body. The shadow of the club, at mid day, will fall perpendicular to the x axis. The shadow is defined as the 'y' axis. Where x and y cross (at 90 degrees) is defined as the 'origin'. A vertical line drawn up from the origin is defined as the 'z' axis. So there we have it: x, y, and z.

No z!
On your backstroke when you dip your left knee toward your right you should be rotating only about the y axis. Your left shoulder moves down and your right shoulder moves up at the start of the back swing and should remain in line with the x axis (y rotation only).

In contrast, if you are trying to hit a baseball you swing horizontally about the z axis. But this is not baseball! You do not want to rotate about the z vertical axis.

If you are rotating both about the y axis and the z axis then on the down swing you must undo what you did in order to hit the ball square, but this means that the muscles controlling the y rotation must be in sync with the muscles controlling the z rotation and that is difficult to do!

By rotating only about the y axis, you only have one degree of freedom to control which is far simpler than controlling two degrees of freedom.

Another way of thinking about this is to hold you right hand out in front of you with your thumb pointing up. Rotate the thumb to the left. That is a rotation about the y axis. Put the thumb back up. Now move you wrist such that the fingers move left and right. That is rotation is about the z axis. That is 'fish tailing'. You don't want to fish tail in golf!

The consequences of fish tailing are poor ball striking, hooks, slices, draws, or fades.

When you rotate only about the y axis, with a little knee dip so you are looking slightly back at the ball at the top of your swing, the swing plane passes through the ball. Left and right errors are minimized. The knee dip enhances the likelihood that you will hit down on the ball and avoid 'thin' strikes.

Remember, no z!

Day two - May 26, 2009

The pause that refreshes
Now that you have practiced small swings you can move to larger ones. How do you do this? Start with the knee dip, no muscles of the arms are used. At 45 degrees start breaking the wrist to lift to 90 degrees (horizontal).
At 90 degrees start lifting the arms (always keeping the head still). Don't try and go way back, like John Daly, but only 3/4ths of the way, enough so the club in your hand does not start to separate from the palm. Keep your hands firmly gripping the club.

All of this motion is going backward. At the top of your swing, PAUSE (think of Camillo Villegas who has a lovely pause at the top of his swing. Even with this pause he can hit the ball beyond 300 yards)! That pause allows you to shift gears from going backward to going forward. It also has the psychological effect of allowing you to focus precisely on the ball and to stop thinking about your swing. Don't start the down swing until your mind is clearly on the ball.

Pendulum
I have found that letting the club, by itself, start to swing forward, say, 10 degrees before you apply strength to the arms causes a much more aligned swing (goes where you want it to go). If you apply pressure at the very top of the swing your balance and swing plane is not as well defined as when the club is already starting to come back. At that time you can then give it power.

That swing, up and back, is like a pendulum. Just let it do its thing. On the way down, give it hell!

The beginnings - 21-May-09

Background
After having played golf for 6 years I wised up and got an hours' instruction from a PGA professional. That helped but it wasn't so much what he said but of what he reminded me. He said I needed work on my balance and showed how I should shift back and forth from my back foot to my front foot. This was good but as I said what it did was to remind me of a shot I performed at Airport Greens in Richmond Heights Ohio. The 10th green is high above a small stream about 130 yards from the pin (par 3 hole). Well on one day I swung the club in such a way that I was looking back at the ball on the backsing. My forward swing sent the ball lovily to drop 3 inches from the hole: a tap in birdie!

Well, somewhere along the line I have forgotten about that swing. I have now abstracted the PGA guys comments and that experience to offer the following "principles of golf"

Valley of the nose for aiming
How do you aim? Align the shoulders it has been said but that is pretty darn general. I have discovered via putting that a point along my nose gives very precise alignment.

Use putting to find your point: Address the ball for putting (on a rug in your living room, say). Drop your chin to your chest. Rotate your head toward your target. Close your left eye and squint. When I do this, the skin at my nose puckers up into ridges and the first valley of the puckers is exactly the place that I want to align with the target. This is very precise. You will have to experiment to find the point along the ridge of your nose (as seen by your right eye (for right handed golfers)) that maps to the target.
Once you have your alignment point it works for all clubs. Address the ball, drop chin, rotate head, squint and adjust body stance to have nose point align with target.

Knee bends for ball striking
I recommend starting very, very slowly to learn exactly where a practice ball will go when you attempt to strike it.

Address the ball with the club just behind it. Do not use your arms to lift the club but rather dip your left knee toward your right and rotate about your spine. Do this just a little so the club moves back, say, 3 or 4 inches. Now undo the knee dip, still without using your arms, to come back and strike the ball. Did the ball go exactly in the direction you wanted it to go? No? Then do it again but this time rotate the club slightly in your hand to a new position more suited to the direction you want. Again dip left knee toward right such that club moves back about 4 inches and then straighten to strike the ball (the arm are locked ridged during this back and forth process).

Master being able to do this short swing and then add a very slight wrist break when you go back with the knee dip (keeping your head still). Come forward and straighten the wrist.

In general the tipping of the left knee toward the right moves your head very sightly toward the target which has the advantage that on your forward swing you are now actually coming down (slightly) on the ball. If you don't dip your left knee but simply shift your weight to your right (back) leg then this tends to move your head to the right (away from the tarket) so that on your down swing the club reaches its lowest point behind the ball and is coming up at contact to produce a "thin" hit. The slight initial knee dip couter acts this and makes for a much more satisfying ball contact and strike.

More later...