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...