Though thousands of golf instruction books have been written, going back well into the 19th century, on how to swing a golf cub effectively, no one has come up with the magic formula.
I can tell you lots of things that I do in my golf swing but how they get the clubface back to the ball square and on line to the target, I have no idea. It might as well be magic for all I know.
Or for all anyone knows.
So I’m going to tell you what to do to get a conception of the golf swing into your head that doesn’t involve yet another opinion on what the right set of moves are.
From there, it’s up to you to figure out how to build that conception into your swing, but I guarantee approaching the task this way will be a lot easier than trying more well-intentioned instructions that bear little relation to each other.
Watch this video. It takes 45 minutes.
After you have done that, watch this video of de la Torre hitting balls.
It was shot in 1990, when de la Torre was 69 years old.
It is so smooth and fluid–a model for you to follow.
To be honest, it took me a few years of trying this, then going off on a wild goose chase, coming back to this, going off on another tangent, until I finally settled into this conception of the swing.
If you want to know how to swing a golf club, here it is. And that’s the last thing I’m going to say about how to swing a golf club.
Want more? Read de la Torre’s has a book, Understanding the Golf Swing.
Yeah — I can relate to that “sweet swing” — looks a lot like me — in the video in my mind, at least. On the course, not so much!
What a swing looks like isn’t that important. Having your swing feel like this one looks, is.
It looks like his left wrist is cupped from start to finish? Can we assume his left wrist is straight at impact? It’s impossible to tell in the video. Also, thank you for posting this.
I believe the straight left wrist at impact is an indicator (a result, not a cause) that the hands have led the clubhead into the ball. Chasing that detail on its own can lead to trouble.
Thanks for your reply. I’d like to see his swing face on but haven’t been able to find any.
Mitch
You can see face-on view of his swing in the Understanding the Golf Swing video.
Just be in a comfortable address position light hold on club and swing club head towards the target its so easy.
What I don’t understand is you CAN get to the ball by swinging with or starting with, your shoulders.
That’s what coming over the top is which is my continual nemesis.
Mark,
In his book, de la Torre says “The hands must be used exclusively to swing the clubhead from the ball to the backswing, where the arms take over and swing the entire club to the end of the swing.” Strictly speaking, you can use the hands to lead the club to the end of the swing, because everything else will follow. You could say the same thing for the forearms or the arms (as he differentiates them), too.
If you begin the forward swing by swinging the arms (the proximal portion of the upper limb), and let the rest of the limb follow, the club gets left behind at the start, only to catch up when the momentum of the forward swing naturally releases the right forearm at the elbow, and lastly the hands at the wrists. The over-the-top move disappears and the shoulders never come into play.
Thank you for your comment.
Bob.