Monday, July 31, 2006

The Secret To Better Golf

I think I can help you play better golf, but you'll have to apply the concepts!

I'm going to do something I thought I never would - offer golf advice. I know this is risky territory, after all who am I to be giving anyone golf advice. I'm not a pro and I've never taught. Heck, I'm not even a scratch player. On the other hand, I've been on a search for a competitive and repetitive golf swing for the last 10 years. I think I've tried most everything. I've hit them left, right, up and down. Which is only to say that I've suffered like everyone else.

I've analyzed myself, my friends and even my wife. I've watched hundreds, if not thousands, on the practice tee. I've read every instruction book available, yet I couldn't find a magic bullet anywhere. Heck, I couldn't find a good 'visual' for the complete swing. But I do think I've found something that can help most amateur golfers.

Now this assumes you've been playing golf for awhile and have the basic components of grip, stance and swing-plane under control. (If you don't, then nothing is going to help you.) If you're like most, you're not consistent. Some days you're on and some days you're not. You also tend to push or slice most of the time, but occasionally come across the ball and pull it.

I think the hands are the key. Why? Because they ultimately dictate where the club is going to be. I believe the number one fault is getting the hands further away from the body on the downswing than they were on the takeaway. You've got to actively pull your hands in towards your body. If you want to take it a step further, then also manage where your hands are in relation to the ball at impact. At the extremes they're about even with the ball for the driver and some inches ahead for the wedge. Every other club falls in between. (In reality, the hands stay in basically the same place, it's the ball that moves backward from your front foot as you move from the driver through the wedge.)

If you can get your hands in the right position, I believe you will have done more to produce solid consistent shots than anything else. Of course you have to 'release' your wrists at the right time and keep your body behind the ball, but I'm assuming that most golfers understand this.

One last thought for golfers who want to take this 'hands' thing the extra mile. Imagine yourself making the perfect swing. Your hands would describe the perfect circle around your body. This circle has to be as big as possible. (You can still keep your hands close to your body on the downswing and make the circle as big as possible at the same time). I believe this image might help you. I think most golfers end up pulling their hands off this circle and therein lies most of their problems. Some pull off on the way back, some on the way down, and some on the follow-through.

That's as good as I've got. If it makes sense to you, then give it a try. Please let me know how it works out, but don't expect me to cover your golf bets! WARNING: Side effects may include dizziness, euphoria, exuberance or total mental collapse.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

John,

I read your blog on keeping the hands close to the body, and I'm greatly impressed.

Yes, I too have been on a search for a repetitive golf swing for years. I've watched others on the practice tee, read every instruction book, can't find a magic bullet, etc. I could have written all that you wrote.

I appreciate your willingness to offer advice. Don't feel reluctant because you are not a pro. I believe that golfers who struggle actually end up learning more about the golf swing than those who have natural athletic ability.

As Exhibit A, one of the single egregious examples of a waste of money I have ever experienced was buying a golf video featuring Arnold Palmer.

(Actually, it was a great instructional video, if the lesson were on how to use a famous name to fleece idiots like myself who will buy anything in the hope of improving his golf game.)
I also remember reading a worthless book by Jack Nicklaus in which he emphasized keeping the head still. That advice has been universally debunked by golf instructors, is obviously not true when carefully analyzing the swing of every pro, and leads amateurs to reverse-pivot.

I don't have a video to analyze Nicklaus' swing in his prime, but I suspect that he didn't keep his head still. But even if he did, that may have been a nuance of the golf swing that helps those who have achieved a very high level of ability, but is otherwise useless and even counterproductive for the average golfer.

In short, I have had it with the rich and famous offering golf advice. I would much rather hear a tip from someone who is struggling than from a pro who probably doesn't have a clue as to a real understanding of what he is doing, but just has the natural athletic ability to do it well.

Now, as to keeping the hands close to the body, in theory it makes sense to keep the hands close. It would seem that the further your hands and arms fly away from the body, the more havoc they can wreak.

For example, although slicing is usually caused by a weak hip turn and throwing the shoulders out, a slice could also be caused by hands that fly too far out, then are pulled in, thereby cutting across the ball.

Also, perhaps most important of all, keeping the hands close could make it easier to keep them in sync with the body. So for that and all the reasons you stated in your blog, keeping the hands close makes sense.

That said, I've been reluctant to work on keeping my hands close because I felt that I would be artificially restricting my arm and hand motions, and thereby lose power, which of course must be avoided at costs.

(Power is critical and every inch counts. In fact, I'm working on an advanced mathematical theory to explain why the difference between a topped drive that ends up 30 yards from the tee and a topped drive that ends up 20 yards from the tee is far greater than all our current primitive mathematical systems would dictate.)

So, I've wanted to let my hands and arms be "free" during the swing. But I'm also inconsistent, and again, it makes intuitive sense to keep the hands close.
Thus, I've been experimenting with keeping the hands closer, and after some practice and reading your blog, I feel better about working on it. I've had some initial success, but I'll have to test more.

You also mentioned the "release". Bless you. The release is one of the biggest questions I have about the golf swing. It should be the center of much more instruction, but most instructors seem to ignore it.

Once I emailed an instructor on the "Golf Channel Academy" about the release, and his short reply was that the release was a gradual unfolding of the wrists.

But I don't understand gradual. A close analysis of any pro golfer's full swing shows a powerful release. Plus, my experience is that a more intentional release yields exponentially better results.

Also, in thinking about a hammer, there is a definite cocking of the wrists, and a deliberate and intentional uncocking to release the head of the hammer. Especially when using a smaller hammer on a bigger nail, one releases the hammer head as forcefully as possible. I would say that there nothing gradual about it.

Of course, a golf club is not a hammer and I can understand how you can get too "wristy" and that is not good either. But still, I think that most average golfers don't release properly, or release too soon and "cast".

So why is there so little discussion about the release, and why would a reputable instructor claim that it is gradual when it looks to be just the opposite?

I'm suspicious that the explanation lies in the fact that those who have incorporated a powerful release into their swing are not feeling it as a special movement. A carpenter who hammers a thousand nails a day probably doesn't think about releasing the hammer. It becomes so ingrained into the movement that it is done without conscious feeling.

Thus, I can see where a good golfer that has learned to make a powerful release may think of it as being gradual. But he only thinks of it as gradual because it has become so automatic in the swing.

But my sense is that most average golfers don't really understand what a powerful release is until they start doing it intentionally and deliberately, and specifically learn the difference between releasing and casting, which I'm still trying to learn.

Yet to tell these golfers the release is gradual is to discourage them from doing it more deliberately and learning to incorporate it into their swing to the point where it can feel as if it were gradual. That is, if you don't start releasing intentionally and forcefully, you never learn to make it gradual.

But that is all just a guess. My major point is that the release is a black hole of understanding for me, and I wish there would be more discussion and explanation about it. I'm glad you mentioned it.

Thanks again,

Justice Percell

Anonymous said...

I discovered the same thing today at the range. Actually it has taken me ages to pinpoint the fact that the hands have too be close to the body....especially on the downswing.....this avoids hitting over the top
Cheers
Paul

Unknown said...

I have played with this idea, myself.

Talk about struggling and spending time trying to figure out it!!!
That's me.

It is true, you do learn that way. I just takes forever.

Two things: Left-eye dominant golfers pull with their left side, putting the club closer to their body on the downswing and flipping over faster. More hooking problems (Hogan). Right-eyed folks come over the top/push with the right shoulder. Keeping hands close prevents your right shoulder from getting too much power and ruining lag. You'll hit it sweeter because of lag, and it will turn over sooner.

As overly-technical as Homer Kelly is, he is correct in his description and physics. It's just that I can't learn that way.