This is the reality of golf.
You have to have a good swing to play.
You have to have a good short game (including putting) to score.
Being good at one does not make up for not being so good at the other.
Category Archives: golf swing
How to Take a Practice Swing
The practice swing is a rehearsal swing. It should be the swing you want to copy when you hit the ball. I’ll show you how to make sure your practice swing is exactly that.
When you swing the golf club it is often true that your mind is not fully engaged. Your body starts moving and leaves your mind behind. And the swing doesn’t feel right.
Instead of swinging the club just once, swing the club twice without a break between the two swings. You make one swing all the way to the finish and with a continuous motion swing club back from there make a second swing to the finish. One motion, two swings. 1,2.
The purpose of the second swing is to let your mind catch up. You will find the mental feeling you have during that second swing to be very different from the one you had in the first swing. You will as a result feel a swing that is not only much different than the first one, but will be the one you want to hit the ball with.
When you have done this step up to the ball, take a quick look down the fairway or at the green. Return your eyes to the ball and without hesitation swing the club away while the feeling of that good swing is still fresh.
Doesn’t this take extra time, though? Everyone says in order to speed up play you should only take one practice swing. Well, you are. It’s just that your one practice swing has two parts. This two-part swing hardly takes any longer than a normal one-part swing. So you’re not really taking any extra time by doing this.
A pro once told me that this extra time, if there is any, will be more than made up by you hitting better shots which means hitting fewer shots, and that, friends, saves time.
The key point here is that a two-part practice swing lets you find your best swing. It is certainly possible for that to happen with a juzst one practice swing, but few people are capable of doing that. Give yourself a chance to get it right by taking one two-part practice swing.
Swing Easy, Hit Hard
In the 1960’s, Julius Boros wrote a book titled, Swing Easy, Hit Hard. Boros, the winner of the U.S. Open in 1952 and 1963, and the PGA in 1968, had the most effortless swing then, and probably through today.
It’s like this. The more you relax when you swing, the more clubhead speed you generate.
And that is the key to getting the distance you crave. That we all crave.
I’m not saying to swing slowly. You can swing too slowly. Swing as fast as you can feel that you are completerly relaxed.
And you will hit very hard.
Read Boros’s own comments on his swing and how he plays the game.
The Tilt of Your Spine
As your swing approaches impact, there is a detail you must attend to that I don’t see mention of in books or online videos. And that is the tilt of your torso.
When you address the ball, you are bent forward from the hips to a certain degree. You retain that tilt when you swing the club back.
But when you swing forward, retaining that tilt feels like the right side is collapsing, so you straighten up.
But now, realizing subconsciously that you are out of position, you try to rescue the shot with your hands, but are seldom successful.
All you have to do is retain the forward tilt as you turn and swing through impact. I know it feels funny if you haven’t been doing it. But trust me, it’s the right thing to do.
This video shows you what I mean.
It’s how you make your swing bring the club into the ball shallow and in line to your target. You know, those good things you want leading into impact.
Be careful, though, not to create this feeling deliberately by dropping the right shoulder (left shoulder, for lefties) or increasing the spine angle. This will force the clubhead to approach the ball from too much inside, with an open clubface. That’s how you hit a monster push-slice into the adjoining fairway.
Find a way to get used to retaining the tilt at address all the way through impact. You might be surprised how easy the game just became.
Hit the Ball With Your Swing
Unless we have practiced so much we could hit the ball with our eyes closed, we have a tendency to use our hands to make sure the club hits the ball in somewhat the right way.
Big mistake.
That introduces too much variation in the clubhead’s impact positions because you will never be able to train your hands to bring the clubhead into the ball the same way every time, which is what we want to do.
Not only that, but you slow the clubhead way down. Your hands can swing only so fast. I will mention your arms in that regard, too.
By hitting the ball with your swing, that is, letting the overall swing bring the clubhead through the ball, you introduce consistency because is not that hard to train big muscles how to do something over and over again the same way.
In addition, you get maximum clubhead speed because nothing is holding back the two-lever system from letting the clubhead fly through impact.
Before I go, I want to be clear that I did not say to hit the ball with your big muscles. Use them only as a means of bringing the clubhead into the ball consistently so you have the confidence to let the clubhead free-wheel through the ball, as Bobby Jones once described it.
Keeping the Clubface Square
Keeping the clubface square depends a lot on your particular swing, so I can’t provide a complete and universal solution to the problem.
I can identify four places where you can get the clubface out of square that do apply, regardless of how you swing the club.
Grip. Use the grip that conforms to how your forearms are structured. See A Basic Golf Swing. If your grip isn’t right, nothing else matters.
Takeaway. The first foot you move your hands away from address is a danger zone, where it is so easy to get your clubface out of square that you will never notice you have done it. You think it must be happening somewhere late in the backswing, but it happened at the very start. If you get your clubface out of square consistently, check that it might be happening here.
Transition. When you start the club back down to the ball, if you try to hit with your hands from from up there, an easy mistake to make, there goes the clubface.
Just before impact. The urge to hit the ball, instead of swinging through it, makes you barrel into the ball with your right hand (left hand, for lefties). There goes the clubface.
My Golf Swing Reference Video
This is a video of my golf swing, taken in 2010 when I was playing 9-handicap golf. I watch it regularly to remind myself of what my personal swing is, because like so many golfers I drift occasionally, and I need to know where to get back to. Best to watch it with the sound turned off.
These are the things that define this swing for me.
First comes swing speed. This swing takes about 1:18 seconds from takeaway to impact. That’s not very fast, but this is the speed that makes sense to me while holding the swing together.
At the end of the backswing my shoulders have turned less than 90°. I could turn them more, but my swing sense says this is far enough. At the start of the forward swing, my hips do not turn ahead of my arms. Everything turns together.
Both of these are back-saving moves. I had back surgery in 1971, so I needed to have a swing that put the least stress on my lower back. I had two more in 2012 so the need now is even greater.
My head turns but does not move from side to side. This is a point of disagreement. Some teachers and pros say it is alright to let it move back in the backswing, while others say keep it in place. While both methods work, what I do is what feels right to me. I also get one less moving part to maintain.
Notice the rhythm of the swing. This is important. There is no pause in the middle. The first half of the swing flows neatly into the second half as if it were all just one movement, which I feel that the golf swing is.
There are other things that a swing analyst could comment on, but the only things that matter to me in re-creating this swing are what I explained above.
Do something like this for your swing. Make a video of it when you’re playing well. It will be the biggest favor you ever did for your golfing self because believe me, one day you will be glad you have it to look at.
Basic Swing Skills
You need four skills to have a working golf swing:
1. A swing that keeps the clubface square up to the top of the backswing.
2. A swing that starts forward without over-accelerating the club.
3. A pivot that coordinates the turning of the body with the swinging of the arms.
4. A swing swings the club through the ball with a ball-first-ground second impact.
1. The right grip is vital for this, and it must be personalized. See A Basic Golf Swing (video) to learn how to get yours. After you have that, learn what it feels like to swing back with the clubface staying square to the swing path all the way back.
2. Pause at the top for the barest moment. Start down as slowly as you swung up. Think you are going to swing through the ball in slow motion. This thought will not slow you down. It prevents you from speeding up.
3. In the forward swing, everything is turning and flowing through the ball toward the target, from the very start in coordinated way. The forward swing must feel like it is one movement, not a collection of separate movements working together. And the club, especially the club, is included in this unified feeling.
4. Do not think of hitting at the ball, but swinging through it. Your forward swing up to this point has been a flow. Continue that feeling through the ball to the finish.
Notes on Nelly Korda
Everybody knows that Nelly Korda’s swing makes her one of the best ball-stikers in the world. PGA Tour pros who played with her last year couldn’t figure out why she doesn’t win every week.
Although she is the midst of doing just that lately.
Unfortunately, I can’t make the image bigger. Magnify your browser window to get a good look.
I’m showing you this video for only one reason–to show you how simple the golf swing really is. Swing the club back, turn your hips, and swing through the ball.
From there, watch it as often as you want and draw your own conclusions.
Timing the Golf Swing
In the golf swing, the hips turn and the arms swing. In the backswing, the arms swing back first and the hips follow. In the forward swing, the hips turn first and the arms follow.
When the rhythm and tempo of the swing are correct, each of those movements happen at the right moment and have the chance they need to develop fully.
When that is the case, we say the swing is correctly timed.
Rhythm is the relative duration of the backswing to the forward swing. Tempo is the overall speed of the swing, measured by how long it takes in total.
Rhythm, as explained in part 1 here, is the same for all golfers. Tempo is an individual characteristic, which depends on athleticism, flexibility, and strength.
Good timing is a consequence of proper rhythm and tempo.
What does is mean for the arm and hip movements to develop fully?
For the arms, it means for them to reach a consistent finished backswing position. For the hips, it means turn to the extent that they are slightly open at impact.
The evidence of good timing is clean contact on the center of the clubface. Granted, there is more to that than good timing, but you will get more out of good timing and so-so technique than good technique and a mis-timed swing.
To get good timing, you must give up the idea of hitting the ball as far as you can with the club in your hand, and instead hitting it as accurately as you can with that club.
The key to all this is in large part not rushing the arms at the start of the forward swing. Let the hip turn carry them until the momentum of the turning action releases their swinging action.
And swing through the ball. Don’t try to clobber it at the last moment.