There’s a chapter by Lou Riccio in Johnny Miller’s book, Breaking 90, that talks about the importance of good play up to the green. Riccio says:

“If Phil Mickelson did your putting for you, you’d probably break 90 only a handful more times per year. On the other hand, if you putted his ball, he’d still score in the 70s.”

Hale Irwin said, in an article in the January 2010 Golf Digest magazine, “The shortest route to improvement is to get on the green in fewer strokes.”

If you want to become a good golfer it is imperative to have a good swing.

A good swing is one you can rely on to hit the ball straight. With a driver in your hand, you expect to hit the fairway. With an iron in your hand from, say, 150 yards out, you expect to hit the green. Maybe from 160.

What happens if you don’t have a good swing is that you don’t get the ball on the green or close to it in the regulation number of strokes. It’s likely that your next shot is from too far away to get the ball close enough to the hole for one putt. It could be that just getting the ball on the green is an issue.

The solution is not to learn how to hit those demanding short shots better. The solution is to get a better swing so you don’t have to hit them so often.

Now the golf swing is a very complicated act, and there’s a lot of instruction out there in print and video meant to guide you around the curves.

Lessons? By all means take lessons. Most lessons, though, are meant to patch up your swing. To get a better swing you really have to start over and build it from the ground up. That’s a huge commitment most recreational golfers do not have the time to make.

What to do? It’s me to the rescue.

My latest publication, Six Fundamentals of the Recreational Golf Swing, identifies six key features of the golf swing that lead to straight shots, in the air, time after time. That good swing I defined earlier? Here’s how to get it.

I took long-standing swing principles, added a few twists of my own, and came up with an organized way to get the clubhead to the ball with a square clubface and traveling toward the target. And if that doesn’t happen (nobody’s perfect), you’ll know why and you can correct yourself before the next swing.

Six Fundamentals is FREE, available for download on the blog’s home page.

Everybody tells you the best way for an amateur to shoot lower scores is to have a good short game. That is one way to shoot lower scores, but not the best way. The best way is to have a good swing.

Let me get right to the point by quoting from On Learning Golf, by Percy Boomer. In his chapter on putting, Boomer says that sayings such as, “A good putter is a match for anyone,” are pure nonsense. Instead, Boomer says:

“Golf is one whole game. It is true that if you cannot putt you cannot win, for no hole is own until the ball is down–but good scores are only made possible by good play up to the green.”

The saying should be, according to Boomer, “A good golfer is a match for anyone,” but it all starts with getting the ball on the green as quickly as possible. That means you have to have a swing that can do the job.

I have a collection of golf shows from the 1950s and early 60s–All-Star Golf, Challenge Golf and so on. When you watch every shot you really see how the pros make their scores, and it’s by hitting fairways and hitting greens.

I’m not playing down the importance of the short game or putting. Once you’ve gotten the ball up to the green, you need to close out the hole as soon as you can. But if you’re getting the ball up to the the green or on it in regulation every hole, you can be mediocre around the green and still shoot a good score.

Otherwise, your greens game is all about preserving bogeys and maybe even doubles, not about shooting a low score.

Maybe 90 is a low score for you right now. What I mean by a low score, for a recreational golfer, is 78. A 90-shooter has twelve strokes to lose, and you won’t lose them by becoming a wizard around the green. You’ll lose them most of all by improving your swing and then by learning to hit the ball with that swing more often.

In two weeks I will release my latest publication, Six Fundamentals of the Recreational Golf Swing. These fundamentals are the distillation of my work over the last three years to identify explicitly what I do when I hit the ball well. If you install these fundamentals into your swing, you WILL hit the ball better and shoot lower scores.

This publication is FREE and available for download at the blog’s home page.

A golfing paradox: if you hit down on the ball it goes up, and if you hit up on the ball it goes down (or at least doesn’t get up very high). In general, that’s correct, but as playing advice, it’s not quite right.

Of course, we want to get the ball in the air. The higher the better, it seems.

I read where Gary Player, during his playing days, was commenting on Jack Nicklaus hitting a 3-wood. He said while some players hit that club farther than Nicklaus did, and some players hit it higher, no one hit it that high and that far at the same time.

And I saw it, too. At the 1973 Andy Williams Open in San Diego, Nicklaus on the 72nd tee hit the longest drive I’ve ever seen, and the highest, and it was the same shot. I’m still amazed.

My son wants to get the ball in the air. We go to the range together and I see him, time after time, lifting as he comes through impact.

Now, he does hit a high ball when he connects. Too many times, though, he doesn’t, because of the tiny room for error. The ball doesn’t get up when he misses.

I catch myself doing that on the course. I want the ball to go up and the logical way is to swing up. But that doesn’t work. Here’s what does.

You know that advice about swinging down at the ball? Please pretend you never heard that. Instead, swing level, THROUGH the ball.

Down, at: no. Level, through: yes.

Your downswing describes an arc which curves sharply downward at the start, but which is fairly flat at the bottom through the ball.

To be strictly correct, since you want your divot to be IN FRONT of the ball, the clubhead still has to be descending when it gets there. That descent is so slight, though, you don’t need to think about it.

Here’s what to think about instead. Whenever I remember to do this, the shots I hit are poetry.

Make sure your hands get to the ball before the clubhead does (it will be the opposite if you’re lifting) and feel like you’re dragging the clubhead through the ball. Dragging on a level path, parallel to the ground.

That’s my image, you can come up with one for yourself if you want to. Just deliver the clubhead to the ball in a brushing-through motion (there’s another image) with the hands leading the clubhead so you can use the loft built into the club to get the ball in the air.

This movement seems counter-intuitive. It it feels like you’re de-lofting the club excessively and driving the ball into the ground. You aren’t. You’re just using the club’s design to get the ball in the air for you.

You might have to slow your swing down a bit to get enough control to strike the ball this way. Don’t worry. The ball flies off the clubface, high and straight.

When you remember to do it.

Let me tell you the easiest way to hit the ball straight and hard. Swing the club with your hands. Not your body, not your arms. Your hands.

This was once the way people played golf. Now you’re supposed to swing with your large muscles in order to have a consistent swing. But think for a moment.

When you pound a nail into a board, what do you swing the hammer with? Your hand! When you swing a tennis racket, you swing it with…your hand!

Get this: a few days ago I asked to the manager of our local minor league team how he teaches his players to hit the ball. He said, you’re hitting with your hands, just like driving a nail with a hammer.

It’s the same with a golf club.

Humans have evolved hands that are wired to do complicated and precise activities. Use them! That’s what they’re for! Getting the clubhead back to the ball headed toward the target and with the clubface square to the path, all at many MPH, is a task requiring the utmost precision.

Tasks of utmost precision are what your hands are designed to accomplish.

This is how to do it. Take the club away from the ball with both hands. That means your mind is on the movement of your hands, and no other part of your body. When you swing down into the ball, your mind is on your hands delivering the club precisely to the ball. More to the point, the left hand guides and the right hand delivers, both at the same time.

Really, that’s all you have to do. Swing with your hands and your body will follow.

A few caveats. This does not mean rear back and slug the ball. Far from it. You still use the golf swing you have now, but with your mind on what is really doing the work. You still need to have good pre-swing fundamentals (grip, stance, posture, alignment, ball position, aim). You still need good rhythm and tempo.

Also, you don’t hit at the ball. You swing through the ball, with your hands leading the clubhead into the ball. And you swing with both hands, not just your right.

They say your hands should be passive. Nice thought, but they never are. That’s because they want something to do. And if you aren’t paying attention, they’ll do something wrong. Best to give them something to do that is the right thing.

Let them take over the swing. That’s what human hands are meant to do. Since I started doing this, I hit one straight shot after another. I’ve taken four strokes off a round (no kidding!), all because I’m swinging the club with the part of my body that was designed for this job.

Why not give it a try yourself?

In my previous post, I said that the golf swing is best described as a continuous straight line motion, and I described the straight line concept. This post explains what I mean by continuous.

If you could start out swinging the club toward the target, loop it around in a full circle, then hit the ball, the swing would be literally continuous. But it’s not. You swing the club back in one direction, stop, and swing the club through the ball in the opposite direction.

Since you’re changing directions, you have to stop moving in one direction before you start moving in another. In that literal sense, in the physical world, the swing is not continuous. It starts, stops, and starts again.

Your mind, however, is not limited by physical reality. If you consider the swing to be a continuous motion, it is. If you interpret your movement back and movement through as an unbroken movement, it is. I say, you should interpret your swing that way.

The importance of doing that comes when you make the transition between the backswing and the downswing. That transition has to be as smooth and connected as possible. The start of the downswing has to be at the same speed and with the same feeling of movement as at the end of the backswing.

For example, this is exactly how you pound a nail into a board. You take the hammer away, let it ease to a stop, and start back toward the nail the same easy way.  You strike the nail in what feels like one stroke, not two.

Similarly, the golf swing accelerates steadily beginning with the takeaway. Smooth acceleration is not interrupted by the transition.

Practice this feeling by making a half wedge swing. Take the club back to where your left arm is parallel to the ground. At that point, let the club float in the air as it comes to a stop. The next instant, when gravity pulls the club down, just follow with your hands, so gravity pulling the club downward and your turn pulling it through accelerate it in tandem.

In the end, it should feel like this was one movement, not two. When your transition connects the backswing to the downswing, you will hit the ball much better.

In my next post, I will show you how to fine tune the transition to give yourself perfect rhythm and smooth acceleration into the ball.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com.

Lately I have been hitting the ball very straight. This is because I have been paying attention to a few simple swing keys. They might be worth anything only to me, but just in case they’re not, here they are:

1. 3:1 rhythm. Three counts to the end of the backswing, one count back to impact. Often, just doing this is enough to produce a good shot.

2. Start the club back straight away from the ball. My pet swing flaw is to take it back inside.

3. Take the club back to control. This means to take the club back only so far as I still feel a connection between the clubhead and the ball. The clubhead knows where the ball is and how to get back to it. If I make my backswing to long, I lose this connection.

4. The left hand leads the club into impact. You might think this would leave the clubface open. It does only if your body is too far ahead of your arms. 

When I get these four things right, I hit the ball right where I’m looking. 

Here’s to low scores in 2014.

[April 2018 note: These four points evolved into Six Fundamentals of the Recreational Golf Swing.]

I was playing golf today, and I noticed that while my drives are going about 220 yards, and my 4-iron went 170 yards, I had a full shot into the green from 118 yards and I hit a full 8-iron.  That’s not very far for that club, given what I’m doing with the other two.

It struck me, though, that the reason is that I have to take care of my back when I swing. When I hit the longer clubs, I can stand more upright, which puts less stress on my spine.

But with a short iron, I have to bend way over (I’m 6’6″ tall). That puts a lot of stress on my spine, so I’m unconsciously reluctant to swing too hard.

If you have a bad back, and I know there are a lot of you out there who do, too, take this into consideration.

The more you bend over, the more of a load you place on your lumbar spine. Therefore, the more easily you need to swing a golf club in that posture.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com.

[August 2019. Better yet, go to The Hands Lead the Clubhead – IV.]

There is a race in the downswing between the left hand and the clubhead to get to the ball first. The left hand ALWAYS has to win that race.

For any shot hit off the ground, the golden rule is hit the ball first, the ground second. Getting the left hand to the ball before the clubhead gets there is the surest way for that to happen.

What most recreational golfers do is the opposite. The clubhead gets to the ball first because they hit with their right hand. More often than not the clubhead is coming upward, which frequently leads to hitting the ground first.

In addition, the right hand is flipping the club through the ball, taking the clubface out of line. The result is shots hit fat, off line, or both.

Those rockets you hit occasionally come when, by accident, the left hand does get there first.

Watch this video on how to learn this move, and practice what it tells you. I feel this move is the biggest difference between a consistently good ball-striker and everyone else.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com