You want to hit the golf ball a long way, so you let your trailing hand and arm dominate the forward swing so you can pour that side into the ball, just like you would if you were throwing a baseball or hitting a tennis ball.

But golf doesn’t work that way.

When I was in the Navy we had a saying, “You can’t push a rope,” which applied to something that was pointless to even try. Anything.

Yes, you can’t push a rope, but you can push other things. The question is, can you push them accurately?

Which is easier, pulling something into place, or pushing it into place? Just watch someone trying to back (push) their boat on a trailer into the water when they have no idea how to do it. It is endlessly amusing.

It would be easier to pull the boat into the water, but then your truck would end up submerged, so don’t try that.

We’re taking about golf clubs here, not boats, and you can’t push a golf club, either. At least not accurately, though we try anyway because the push hand is the hitting hand.

Ahh! There’s the rub! You’re trying to hit the golf ball when you should be trying to swing the golf club. To swing the golf club, you lead it through impact with the swinging hand. That’s the left hand for most of us, the right hand for you lefties.

So many of your impact errors would go away in a few seconds if you would only transfer the responsibility for everything you want out of a golf shot to the swinging hand.

Go ahead! Try a few slow-motion swings with both hands on the handle, but let the swinging hand do the work while the hitting hand goes along for the ride. Don’t these swings feel smooth? Better still, aren’t they repeatable in a way the hitting-handed stroke isn’t?

Power? Not to worry. The gain in accuracy means hitting the center of the clubface more often, and that is the PRIME source of distance.

You might think a back-handed swing doesn’t have the force that a fore-handed swing does, and you are right if you are thinking only of muscle power.

But the golf swing is not about powered-up muscles. It’s about relaxed muscles. Relaxed muscles move faster. Golf clubs swung by relaxed muscles hit golf balls farther. Especially golf balls that get hit on the center of the clubface.

To sum up: leading the club through impact with the swinging hand rather than with the hitting hand leads to a faster and more accurate strike.

Oh, yes. A swinging-handed stroke sends the ball straighter and more accurately, too. But you’ll find that out for yourself.

The most important part of the golf swing is the forward swing, of course, because that is when the ball is struck.

One thing we don’t read much about is that the forward swing must be coordinated. By that I mean that the body turn and the arm swing work in harmony to line up at impact.

If when you swing you feel that the arms get ahead of the body, or that they are late to the game, something is wrong.

The forward swing should feel like a unified motion. The feeling is that the body and arms propel each other through the ball in a complimentary way.

You also want to feel no jerks or bumps in your hands. If you do, that is a sign they are probably doing something they shouldn’t.

Try making slow motion practice swings, without a ball. When you get it right, you’ll know what I mean.

A new work, over a year and a half in the making, is now available on this blog in .pdf form and on an accompanying video on YouTube.

The .pdf and video must both be consumed. There is material on the .pdf that is not in the video, and vice versa. Together they explain the concept. Read the .pdf, then see the video.

Find the .pdf here: http://therecreationalgolfer.com/Swing4el.pdf

Find the homespun video here: https://youtu.be/YQdP6gECFNw

I hope you like it.

You might have heard that two-time major champion Colin Morikawa is more accurate with his 6-iron than most touring pros are with their pitching wedge.

Here’s the video:

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-open-2021-collin-morikawa-iron-accuracy

The move you might want to copy is how he powers into the ball while still keeping his rhythm and tempo in line.

NOTE: A Basic Golf Swing is now available that develops the comments below in full, and more, in both words and video.

For about a year and a half I have been working on an idea that has changed my swing for much the better. I have not mentioned it to you because I wanted to develop the idea so I understood its essence, then put it to the test to make sure it worked.

I now feel that I can let you know what this very simple idea is.

It has to do with the hands–how to keep them from turning and getting the clubface out of alignment.

Everything changed when I realized that it is anatomically impossible for the hands to turn. The hands turn because the forearms turn, and that is not a trivial difference.

I changed my grip to one that is based on the way my forearms are built. When my forearms hang down in a neutral position, not turned one way or the other, the result is a strong left-hand grip and a neutral right-hand grip.

Because my forearms are in their neutral position with that grip, there is no cause for them to turn, which means the hands won’t turn.

Then I developed a swing based on the feeling of the forearms staying neutral throughout the swing, i.e., not turning at all, and with those two things the clubhead stays square and the ball goes very straight.

That is the essence of the idea. It deserves a deeper explanation, and I will give that to you in a few weeks.

But read those four key paragraphs carefully for now.

One thing the vast majority of golfers have in common is the continual search for improvement. No matter how well you play you could always do better—make your good shots great ones and make your poor shots good ones.

Even the greatest players are not immune.

“Ian Baker-Finch, who won the 1991 British Open, decided he wanted to hit his ball farther. So he changed his swing—and stopped making cuts, much less winning tournaments.” (Jim Flick, On Golf)

“[Hogan] surely knew that all serious golfers are prone to come up with what they think to be ‘the secret’ but which usually turns out to be a snare and a delusion. I know that I had many of them, some of which I briefly thought were so valuable that I would keep them strictly to myself until I had won all the tournaments and money I wanted to.” (Cary Middlecoff, The Golf Swing)

I even think if I said I can show you how to play scratch golf for the rest of your life but you have to give up sex forever, a good number of golfers we find that an easy choice to make.

I have been playing golf for over 60 years. I have a good swing. It’s reliable. It hits the ball straight. Yet I keep wanting to make it better. (What that would be, I’m not really sure.)

I tried putting more width into my swing by extending my arms and getting my wrists hinged at the end of the backswing. All that did was put me into an unfamiliar position that left me wondering, “No what do I do?”

I tried starting the forward swing with a strong movement of my left hip but all that did was leave the club playing catch-up.

I watched film videos of the best golfers tried imitating the positions they got into. And I think I did but none of that made a positive difference and most of it made things worse.

And that is barely getting started on the list of things I tried to hit the ball even better.

All along, when I would get frustrated because my Fix-of-the-Week wasn’t working, I would say to myself, “Bob, just relax, stop thinking about how you hit the ball, and put the swing it you have been using for years. Decades. The one that is You.” And I would hit the shot I had been chasing for the last half-hour.

That swing is in there, I just have to learn to stop doing things that prevent it from coming out.

Looking back on all that effort there are only two things I have ever put into my swing that are of any benefit—the emphasis on tempo and rhythm, and the emphasis on the hands leading the clubhead through impact, two things of which this blog is filled to overflowing.

I know that if I keep my swing speed under my redline, and swing the club through impact with my hands working as one unit leading the clubhead, I can play a satisfying round of golf. I’m human, so I will make bad swings from time to time. But those don’t mean I need to install a patch.

So I’m finished with swing changes. The swing I have now I wouldn’t trade for anyone else’s. I’m going to stick with it and enjoy the ride.

Now if only I could putt better…

From time to time you read about shifting your weight during the forward swing.

Stand up with your feet the same distance apart as in your stance. Now turn to your right, keeping your feet in the same place, and “shake hands” with someone standing at your right side, using your left hand. Your can lift your left foot so only the toe stays on the ground.

Now turn to the left and do the same thing with your right hand.

Did you notice that the first time your weight moved to your right foot and the second time your weight moved to your left foot, and that you didn’t deliberately shift your weight, but it just happened?

That’s all you need to know about weight shift.