golf swing

Hit the Ball With Your Swing

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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.

ball first ground second

Ball First, Ground Second

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With your irons, the target of the swing is not the ball, nor the green way out there. It’s the ground right in front of the ball. You want the bottom of the club to make its first contanct with the ground the tiniest bit beyond the front side of the ball (yellow line).

That promotes ball first-ground second contact, and helps prevent hitting fat.

Now how do you do this? There is a very simple way, one that does not involve changing your swing one little bit. You do it with your mind.

Before you take the club away, look at the ground where that yellow line in the photo is, and tell yourself to hit the ground on that very spot. Your unconscious mind will say, “Yes, sir!” or “Yes ma’am!” as the case may be, and direct your swing to do just that with no conscious effort on your part.

Easy.

rhythm and tempo

Another Look at Rhythm

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I have spent so much time in the history of this blog talking about rhythm. Go search the internet on that word and you will find a wealth of posts that try to describe this indescribable yet vital part of the golf swing.

So here is another attempt. Not that the others were wrong, but this one has a different point of view that might make sense to some of you. That’s all I can do.

Rhythm is grace. A rhythmic golf swing is full of grace. Think of it as a dance movement.

Every movement seems to fall in place, one after the other, without any effort. The swing is one movement that feels so good you want to do it again and again.

Swinging with rhythm doesn’t mean you should swing slowly. Wing as fast as you canwhile still swinging with a feeling of rhythm. You can swing too fast, but you can also swing too slowly.

I used to opposed to swing thoughts. But you need to be thinking about something during your swing, it just needs to be the right thing.

That thing is rhythm. Think about rhythm, feel the rhythm, and you will moderate your swing so that it comes out all right.

beginners

Advice to Beginning Golfers

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If you are starting to play golf, I would advise you in these ways.

1. Get lessons. This game is really hard. A pro can teach you in a half hour what it would take you months, maybe years, to figure out on your own.

2. Learn the game from the hole out, one phase at a time. Learn to putt, and get good at it. (By “learn” I mean get lessons and practice a lot what you were taught.) Then learn chipping, those little shots around the green, and get good at those. Then pitching, shots from 30-80 yards from the green. Finally, the swing. By all means play, but focus your learning. All this might take a year to a year and a half to absorb.

3. Golf is a game of feel. Almost all of it takes place outside your vison, so when you learn what the right movements are, you have to learn what they feel like. You also have to learn what the wrong movements feel like, so when you find yourself doing them, you’re aware of what the mistake is.

4. The ground makes the game difficult to play because it gets in the way of any but the most precise stroke. While you’re learning, tee up the ball for every shot over 30 yards from the green. Tee it up just enough so the ball is off the ground–maybe a quarter inch. Once you have begun to hit the ball cleanly on a regular basis, you can stop doing this.

putting

Putt Quickly

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The less time you take with a putt, the more likely you are to hit a good one. Try it this way.

Stand behind the ball and read the putt quickly (how to do that is another post). Stop when you see the line. Don’t worry about speed. That is subconsciously built into finding the line.

Now find a spot on the starting line about three inches or less in front of the ball.

Step up to the ball and square up your putter to that line.

Get in your stance.

Take one more look at the hole, then back at the ball, and go–no waiting for the Muse to strike. Hit the ball right over your spot.

All this should take less than fifteen seconds.

golf swing

Keeping the Clubface Square

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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.

putting

Take the Hit Out of Your Putting Stroke

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Take the “hit” out of your stroke by imagining the ball is transparent to the putter such that it will go right through the ball to strike it first on the side closest to the hole (yellow dot).

Taking out the hit smooths out your stroke, making it more reliable.

At the time you would brace for that little hit, it has already occurred. (And if you think you don’t brace for the hit, think again. You do.)

rhythm and tempo

The Right Tempo For Your Golf Swing

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Your golf swing’s tempo, or, the overall speed of the swing, is the glue that holds the swing together. Often what you think is a swing problem is a tempo problem.

Most golfers know that swinging to fast is a bad idea. But so is swinging too slow.

If you swing too fast, your swing doesn’t get a chance to develop. You rush through movments before they have a chance to work.

Swinging to slow creates a different problem. It gives your swing the chance to get out of position, to let your swing wander.

The only way to find your right tempo is to pay attention to impact and ball flight. At the right tempo, you’ll be hitting the ball in the center of the clubface, and not fat or thin. You will get nice-looking shots out of it.

Play around with this. Getting it right can be a revalation.

driver

How to Practice Your Driver

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The driver should be an easy club to hit. The ball sits up on a tee and the clubface is huge. You’re almost standing upright when you swing.

Yet it’s the club golfers have the least success with. Here’s how to change that.

Take a driver and a 9-iron to the range. Warm up with the 9. When you’re hitting them well, one after the other, put it down and pick up your driver. Swing your driver with a little bit of 9-iron in it.

After a few of those, go back to the 9-iron and put a bit of driver into it.

Keep going back and forth, bringing one club into the other, until you are using the same swing for both clubs.

That’s how you practice your driver. It’s the same swing as your 9-iron, just with you standing more upright.

BTW, all your other clubs are like that, too.

putting

The Key to Approach Putting

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When you hit an approach putt, you create a sort of stretched feeling on your lower back, because you are swinging your arms, but not turning your torso.

There are two things to notice about this stretched feeling. For any given length of approach putt, the stretched feeling will always be felt at the same place on your lower back.

Also, the stretched feeling for shorter approach putts gets felt on the right side of your lower back, and as the length of putt, and hence length of the putting stroke, increases, the stretched feeling migrates leftward across your lower back.

Please note that this is true only if the sole distance generator for an approach putt is the length of the putting stroke. That is, you do not add on any “hit” with your hands.

Consistently hitting putts on the same place on the putter’s face and using the same tempo in your stroke are important, too.

Spend some time on the practice green putting the ball with the stretched feeling in different places to see how far it goes each different time, and remember those location-distance relationships.

They allow you to relate the length of an approach putt to a known physical feeling instead of entrusting distance control to something vague called “feel.”

In a short time, you should start leaving approach putts close to the hole, and wave goodbye to three-putt greens.

See also: Leave Approach Putts Next to the Hole

Little Differences That Make a Big Difference in How Well You Play