The Mechanic

 

There's a very good reason for Miguel's nickname out on tour and it has nothing to do with his beloved Ferrari's. Miguel Angel Jimenez is one of the hardesr working players in world golf and a player who totally understands his swing and the tendencies he has to be wary of.

 

Miguel Angel Jimenez

WIDTH & TURN
 

The keys to Miguel’s pre-shot warm-up. At 46, Miguel Angel Jimenez is perfectly aware that he has to stay ‘loose’ to make the quality of swing he needs in order to compete with the young guns on tour today. And it speaks volumes for the talent of one of the game’s great characters that he has this year enjoyed one of his finest seasons on tour, with two victories in Europe and a starring role in that epic Ryder Cup match.

Miguel’s distinct pre-shot routine is much talked about and it’s something we have worked on now for the better part of six years. Rather like the way in which Corey Pavin makes an exaggerated rehearsal to neutralise the natural tendencies in his swing, Miguel focuses on.

Left to its own devices, his backswing tends to see the arms and the club wander too far to the inside with the result that he is prone to getting stuck, and forced into a sliding move with the lower body and then having to rely on hand action to recover, which is never consistent.

Miguel starts the sequence with the club a few feet ahead of the ball and then gathers his momentum as he swings the club, hands, arms and body together into the backswing sequence, at the same time cranking his wrists back to open up the clubface. Doing that helps him to guard against getting the face too shut – another tendency he is aware of and works to neutralise with this routine.

 

STRIKING A BALANCE

 

Stretching is key to Miguel’s motion. The pre-shot sequence on the previous spread is the warm-up routine Miguel uses both on the range and also out on the golf course. He looks to create width early in his backswing and plays his best golf when he enjoys a full shoulder turn, both on the way back and then as he unwinds through the ball. A consistent body action is the engine that drives his swing; our work together is essentially designed to eliminate independent arm action. In other words, the exercise that has become Miguel’s trademark is a ‘sequence maker’ – it gels the movement of the club, hands, arms and body. Which is why Miguel is one of the game’s most accurate and consistent ball strikers.

 

 

 

As the clubhead gathers pace Miguel works on rotating his left forearm and really cranking the wrists to get the clubface open, as you see here. He wants to see his arms ‘in front’ of him – i.e. opposite the middle of the chest. This is designed to neutralise a tendency to (1) get his arms too ‘deep’ and (2) to close down the clubface. The result is that he gets it somewhere in between the two extremes when he makes his swing for real on the course (although you can see that he does err on getting that left arm deep across the chest).