Want To hit the ball farther?

Saturday, November 30, 2013

By Chuck Evans
Special Contributor

Want to hit the ball longer? Of course you do! No one wants to hit it shorter!

In all of my years of teaching I have never had someone tell me they wanted to hit it shorter. But, virtually everyone has told me they wanted to add distance.

In an article earlier I mentioned that there are keys to power and accuracy and today I'll go into more about adding power.

You see, it doesn't do any good to hit it father if you can't control the direction. If you are hitting your tee shots into the right rough and then you add 30 yards to your tee shot then all you get is farther into the woods!

Power is attained through controlling the golf club through the "Three Stations."

1. Address
2. Top
3. Finish

As players we must control the golf club through these three stations.

A lot of players think that in order to hit it father they have to take it back farther. While this is true, to a certain extent, if the player loses their "alignments" and structure by taking it too far back then that player has defeated the purpose of "loading" the golf club for power.

Power is generated by how fast the arms swing and striking the golf ball on the "sweetspot" of the club. There is no Power generated by turning the hips! As an example, how you ever seen anyone sit in a chair and hit a golf ball? These players routinely hit it over 250 yards! How much "lower" body action is going on there.

The faster you swing your arms - in rhythm - the faster the clubhead speed. You can swing as fast as you'd like as long as you keep in balance.

The body provides balance and support, the hands give the shot direction, and the arms provide the speed.

So while the proponents of using the "big muscles" can be correct in the directional aspect of the golf stroke - they are all short hitters!

To increase your arm speed, swing a weighted club. After a few repetitions using this weighted club then pick up your driver and hit golf balls. You will notice an immediate increase in speed!

If you do this religiously you will build up those speed muscles and add distance to your shots.

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Tips for practicing your golf game will have you ready for your round

By Chuck Evans
Special Contributor

In order to practice your golf game we must first know how to practice! There are two basic types of practice.

1. Mechanical Practice
2. Playing Practice

A majority of players think that practice is beating golf balls. Wrong, that is just hitting balls! There must be a purpose for improvement. In reality if you're working on something in your swing then ... "you must work on this correctly even if you miss the ball, until you don't miss it anymore! There is no acceptable alternative," as Homer Kelly said.

Here are some ideas for you to think about the next time you go out to mechanical practice.

• Always lay down a reference line for alignment.

• Use an 8 or 7 iron to train with, even if you're having trouble with the Driver. These clubs are easier to engrain a "feeling" or mechanical imperative than the Driver.

• Verify your fundamentals, grip, aim, alignment, posture, ball position, plane angle, etc.

• Start by loosing up with a sand wedge - it's the heaviest club in the bag - and hitting little chip shots, then move into small pitch shots. This builds a strong foundation for learning the proper Impact Alignments.

• Focus on whatever it is that you are trying to improve on mechanically. Do drills to help enforce this change.

• Every half hour put down the clubs and take a break. Alternate between the long game and the short game. Remember, as your chipping gets better your pitching gets better and then your full swing gets better.

• Set realistic goals and time frames to achieve them. If you want to win the club championship but have a 15 handicap then give yourself time to work on the things that will get you there. For instance, if you putt well but pitch poorly, then spend more time pitching and less time putting.

• When it's time to play forget mechanics and focus on the target! You must learn to separate playing from practice.

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One plane golf swing or two - Do you know the difference?

By Chuck Quinton
Special Contributor

The golf instruction world can be a very confusing place for the average golfer. One instructor tells you to extend your arms down the target line, the next tells you to sweep the club to the inside. One tells you to rotate your shoulders from the top as hard as you can and the other tells you to hold your shoulders back and let your arms drop. Why all this conflicting information? Who's right and who's wrong?

The answer is that they are both correct. The true question is are they right for your golf swing? You see, in its simplest form, there are two basic types of golf swings with millions of variations in between.

On one side of the spectrum you have the golfers like Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Chad Campbell and Scott McCarron who swing the club more around their bodies and on a somewhat flatter plane. This plane puts their left arm and shoulders in line, or on plane at the top. These golfers are referred to as "One Planers."

On the other side of the spectrum, you have golfers such as Colin Montgomerie, Hale Irwin, Jack Nicklaus and Sean O'Hair who swing the club on a somewhat more upright plane such that their left arm is much steeper than their shoulders. These golfers are called "Two Planers."

These two sets of golfers must focus on very distinct sets of fundamentals that are, in many ways, exact opposites of each other and this is why you find two golf instructors telling you conflicting information.

If you are naturally a more rotary swinger where the club works more around your body, you must start the downswing with a completely different focus than someone whose arms are very steep at the top of their backswing.

If you don't know whether you are a one or two planer, you may be practicing fundamentals that are completely wrong for your golf swing and this helps explain why you've struggled to get better no matter how hard you work on your game.

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Tip: The correct aiming point will have your golf swing on target

By Chuck Evans
Special Contributor

The "Aiming Point" completely replaces the golf ball and it is a spot where you direct your hands.

An example of an "Aiming Point" would be in a greenside bunker. The player is trying to hit a spot behind the ball instead of the ball. This is an "Aiming Point."

You can also use "Impact Hand Location" but whichever you choose the spot is always along the base of the plane. Players with faster hands need to play the ball farther back then do players with slower hands - so this would indeed change their "Aiming Point."

But a general rule of thumb is with a wedge the "Aiming Point" is in front of the ball, with a 5 iron it's at the ball and with a driver it is slightly behind the ball.

Now behind the ball doesn't mean you "swing up" it simply means from your perspective when you look down. If your hands are over the left foot at Impact with all three of these clubs and the only thing that has changed is the ball position then you'll see what I mean.

Visually the right forefinger - which is what you monitor both aiming and the sweetspot with - has not changed but will appear to have moved because of the ball location changes.

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By doing less with your golf swing, you will get better

By Chuck Evans

Special Contributor

As I stand out on the tee line it always amazes me to watch people "practicing." One might take the club to the top, stop and look at it, and say, "Yeah this is what I want, this is great." Then they get settled into their address position heave the club back, not even getting close to their practice stroke, have almost uncontrollable amounts of motion, swaying, bobbing, etc., and still hit the ball.

 

I truly admire players like this. It takes a tremendous amount of athletic ability to strike a golf ball with some of the motions and positions I see everyday.

 

So athleticism, or lack of it, is not what hurts golfers and their games. What hurts is their perception of what they need to do and all of the gyrations that are going on. I've seen more Elvis impersonators on the tee than on stage in Las Vegas.

 

As I tell the players I work with, "It's always harder to do less." What I mean by that is if someone has a lot of body motion, twisting and turning in their stroke it is extremely difficult to not not have any un-golflike motions.

 

here are so many things going on in a golf stroke that we need to move as few a pieces as possible and in the smallest amount of space. Watch figure skaters at the end of their routines. They start with their arms out and away from their bodies but as they pull their arms inward and closer to them they start speeding up until finally their arms are crossed against their chest they are whirling so fast are sometimes just a blur.

 

Address positioning is the one time that anyone can look as good as any PGA Tour player … unfortunately it's usually all downhill after that.

 

As players we really need to do only three things to dramatically improve our ball striking.

 

1. Set our "Alignments" - the left arm and clubshaft angle and the right forearm and clubshaft angle.

 

2. Take these alignments up a Plane and down a Plane.

 

3. Add clubface control

 

While these three items are simplistic there is a lot that go into them and these also must be learned. At our Medicus Golf Institute "GeoMetrics" Golf Schools players learn and come away with a complete understanding of their games, how to apply the above three items to their games, and more importantly how to own these three items for the rest of their golf lives.

 

Try doing less in your stroke, you will get better!

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The truth about a straight left arm

By Chuck Evans
Special Contributor

One of the "absolutes" in golf - and what is taught - is a straight left arm (Or right arm if you are a lefty like Phil Mickelson). First let's define what a straight left arm is and isn't.

For the majority of people a left arm that hangs downward has an elbow joint. This joint has between three and five degrees of bend in it. This is what a straight left arm is.

Stretching - hyper extending - and locking the elbow is not a straight left arm! All the golfer has done successfully is to increase the radius from the left shoulder to the ground. This is a major cause of "fat shots!" This is what a straight left arm is not!

Harry Vardon won the British Open six times playing with a "bent" left arm.

Calvin Peete won the Players Championship and is the most accurate driver of the golf ball ever! In 26-plus years of playing professional golf he hit one ball out of bounds!

Calvin's left arm was severely bent as a result of an accident as a young child which shattered his left elbow.

Surgeons repaired the elbow, but it remained permanently fused so that Calvin could never fully straighten his arm.

Calvin won 11 times on Tour in a five-year span - 12 events total - plus his Players Championship victory. He led the Tour in driving accuracy for 10 straight years and led the Tour in "greens in regulation" three times.

Another player that had huge success on the PGA Tour is Curtis Strange. Curtis won 17 times on Tour including winning the U.S. Open back to back in 1988 and 1989. Others include Jay Haas and Kenny Perry.

Swing "Gurus" referred to Curtis' left arm as "soft."

Think of it this way, if you were to swing a piece of rope is it "locked" and taunt in the backstroke? Of course not! But what happens when you swing it to the ball - it becomes a straight line!

Now I'm not advocating that you intentionally bend your left arm but I am saying not to lock it thinking that is what straight is. The arms must feel like dangling ropes - loose. This will give you more power with less effort.

Remember, whatever angle your left arm hangs - loosely - just maintain it during the backstroke and let it come out by itself in the downstroke.

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Learning to stop that slice

By Chuck Evans
Special Contributor

How can I stop slicing the golf ball? We get this question asked virtually everyday!

First, let's discuss what causes a slice. It is not an outside-to-inside swing as many would have you believe. Curvature of the golf ball is produced by one factor - the angle of the clubface relative to the path for the clubhead when the ball leaves the clubface!

What this means is you can be perfectly on plane with your golf swing and still hit pushes, fades, slices, pulls, draws, and hooks because of the clubface alignment.

The clubface is controlled by the target side hand - left for right-handed golfers.

So the hands control the clubface and the clubface controls the golf ball. Plain and simple - the breakdown is:

1. Learn to control your hands
2. Control the hands you control the clubface
3. Control the clubface you control the golf ball
4. Control the golf ball and you control the game

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