Hitting the Big Time -2

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

You could ask all of the top coaches in the world and I don’t think they would guess what it is.

The position that we see at the top of the swing is simply classic. Henrik is now fully loaded, his shoulders having turned through a full 90 degrees, the club nowparallel with the ball-to-target line. And yet, as he arrives here, he is already in the process of starting the reverse-coil back down.

Look at the action of the left leg between frames 3 and 4; it is stronger as he reaches the top in readiness to support the transition and shifting of weight back into the left side.

Again, the reverse coil starts from the ground up. This is something you can improve in your own swing with basic body pivot exercises. As you unwind, you should get a sense that your belt buckle is re-rotating back towards the target.

As Henrik reverses momentum, we can see that his left arm and right leg fall nicely are in line - and these, incidentally, are great lines for power delivery. The quality of this body action is what helps him to retain the lag betwen his left arm and the shaft, and that spells one thing: power.

This power line is again evident at the moment of impact, as the left arm and left leg 'match up’. He is retaining what I term the 'pressure line’; his body is in the process of turning and opening to stabilise the impact (and when you hit it as hard as he does, you need stable impact!).

Through the ball, he displays a strong left side and good extension - a continuation of the previous frame and simply the result of one good move leading to another, a reaction to a particular action.

The finish is simply the conclusion to a series of great moves, and though we’re looking at a static frame, it hints at the wonderful balance that typifies Henrik’s entire action. One thing you have to understand to properly learn and develop a golf swing is that power is not purely about speed.

I believe there are four power sources to draw on - speed, pressure, rotation and leverage - and the longest hitters out there use all four. Henrik achieves a high percentage in each category, which is why he is long and straight. One of my favourite quotes is 'the road to success is always under construction’.

Those of you who are serious about taking your game to a higher level need to work on improving your body action - the body is the engine room, the arms and club are the steering wheel.

If you’ve got a good engine, it’s easy to steer. And Henrik’s firing on all cylinders.

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Hitting the Big Time

Look at any world-class player, a powerful player, and one of the things that strikes you is the way in which they are able to turn on the heat and draw on extra power as and when they need to - it’s as if it’s on tap.

The initial four frames in both of these views of Henrik’s swing with a driver give you a very strong impression of just how much power he has at his disposal, as he demonstrates a wonderful body action that provides the 'engine’ to the swing. Following on from that, the immediate start to the downswing is a terrific example to all golfers of the way in which players of this calibre then retain that power for impact.

As ever, it all starts at the set-up, and Henrik uses his full height to create a consistent position with his own 'dynamic balance’. At 6’ 1", he is a lot taller than most people, and yet he doesn’t need quite the knee flex that some might suggest.

Looking down the line, pay attention to the fact that the arms are allowed to hang 'free’ from the shoulders - there is no stress or tension in the arms or shoulders.

All the lines are square and on line. Henrik’s initial coil starts from the ground upwards - as it must. With a terrific body action, he is rotating and gradually coiling up his swing. I particularly like the way in which he achieves great hand, arm and club balance - and everything is in perfect plane.

From that first move, Henrik simply continues the coiling motion and at the same time retains the angle between his left arm and the clubshaft. As you can see, he cocks his wrists a little later than most, and this reflects the fact that he is so strong and engineers his swing with such a terrific body action (not dissimilar to Tiger).

Oh, and here’s a challenge for all you wannabe swing sleuths out there: for my money, golf’s socalled 'secret move’ is right here, in frame 3 looking the line.

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If You Slice-2

Simultaneously, you must encourage your wrists to hinge freely and 'set' the club up on plane, the shaft in a much better and more playable angle (not rolled flat behind your body). It's a good idea to rehearse this in slow motion. Feel that the butt-end points down to the ground as you hinge the right wrist back on itself. It will feel as though your hands are directly under the clubhead, while the club itself should feel much lighter in your hands at this stage.

This is a move that habitual slicers of the ball will feel very uncomfortable with. I get asked 'Isn't this picking the club up?' No. It's swinging the club up, setting the shaft at the right angle and putting it in a good position on its way to the top.

Once you have negotiated this initial movement away from the ball, completing the shoulder turn rewards you with a perfectly on-line backswing, the right side turned out of the way, hands and arms swinging up and over the right shoulder. The key is that from here, unwinding your body towards the target naturally clears the way for the arms to fall into a position from where you are poised to attack the ball from the inside.

Look at the way the right elbow now works down towards the right hip - a new and totally different feeling altogether.

The key is that over-exaggerating this series of movements will, in time, gradually reverse the habit of throwing the right shoulder forward and 'over the top', replacing it with a wonderful feeling of settling your body in the transition, shallowing the club as you start down (right) and thus enabling you to maximise the leverage of the swing for maximum speed at impact.

Feel the natural path with right hand only

Let me round this lesson off with another good exercise that will further help to replace bad habits and feelings with good ones. Swinging with your right hand only on the grip leads to a series of good natural positions for the simple reason that you are not able to over-control the weight of the clubhead. With one hand on the grip, a real sense of swing takes over.

When I'm teaching, I will occasionally hit shots like this to illustrate just how effective a smooth rhythmic swing can be with one hand, but I'm not suggesting that you need to be quite that ambitious. You don't need to hit balls (although if you do feel up to it, make sure the ball is teed-up invitingly).

Swinging a mid-iron with the right hand only will develop your sense of a naturally correct swing, the weight of the clubhead hingeing your right wrist on the way to the top. As you unwind, the key then is that the club shallows as it begins its downward journey- i.e. it falls on the inside track. Once in this slot, the tennis players among you will understand when I say the release through impact is like a powerful forehand, rotating the club to the finish.

Right foot back gets loaded' behind the ball

In conjunction with thoughts of reversing the loop, and using the exaggerated feelings I described previously, try swinging with your right foot pulled back until the toe of your right shoe is level with the left heel, as I am doing here.

With your right side effectively out of the way (or at least partly out of the way), this helps you to develop a better rotation or turning motion of the upper body, which is vital in the process of eliminating the slice.

This is key: for solid ball-striking, you have to give yourself a chance to swing the club towards the ball from inside the target line. The purpose of the pivot motion is to coil your body and generate some power, certainly, but also to get your upper body properly stacked behind the ball (right).

Only by doing that do you give yourself the room that you need to swing the arms back down from the inside. So use this exercise when you practise. Pull your right foot back, as I have, and give yourself all this space to swing down on the inside. When you achieve this, I guarantee that you'll experience a totally new feeling of freedom as you unwind and drop your arms and the club into this slot.

Compare this to the 'over-the-top' move on the opening spread: a world of difference as the right shoulder remains passive through the change of direction, perfectly poised now to unwind the arms and the clubhead at speed through impact.

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If You Slice

A mistaken notion of swinging from the inside usually results in the exact opposite - an 'over-the-top' move that sees the right shoulder throw the club outside the play line, the classic cause of the slice. If that sounds and looks familiar, let me explain how to reverse the loop.

A lot of golfers have heard about the importance of swinging on an inside path, but they mistakenly believe that to achieve this they have to whip the club way inside the line at the very start of the backswing. just look at this first move away from the ball.

The hands and arms roll the club way inside the line, getting it too flat and too much behind the body. And when you make this mistake, you're left with no option but to lift the arms and club upwards to reach the top of the backswing.

There's no cocking or hingeing of the wrists to set the club up on plane. There's no 'loading' of the clubshaft, no real attempt to turn the upper body away from the target to get the left shoulder fully behind the ball.

No weight shift, no coil. No power.

Looking at this face-on, the upper body hasn't turned at all and the right hip has not moved out of the way. In short, no sign of any rotation. That lifting motion of the arms sees the club way across the line, and the momentum of that move forces the right shoulder to move forward starting down.

It's the classic OTT move - the clubhead on track to cut weakly across the ball. With the help of a couple of easy drills, let me show you how to reverse this sequence of events - and use the rotation of your body effectively.

How to Reverse the Loop

How to find the inside path

In the sequence you see here, I have exaggerated key moves to illustrate the sensations that you need to identify with in order to reverse the loop in your swing and get the club falling naturally into this inside slot as it re-routes in the downswing (right).

From the set-up, your overriding thought must be to take the club back outside the play line (i.e. the ball-to-target line). To achieve this, you will want to feel that the club is much more out in front of your body as you move it away from the ball.

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In the Line of Fire

Confidence in your alignment is essential when you set-up to fire an iron shot to a par-three.

As a guide, look for an old divot mark on the teeing ground that points in the direction you want to hit the ball. That doesn't necessarily mean at the flag.

A more prudent shot may be one fired towards the fat of the green, away from trouble.

Tee up your ball behind that divot and immediately you give yourself a positive mental image that will help you to release the clubhead on line towards your target.

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Matter of Timing-2

Drills for a better motion

For high-handicappers, a lack of timing is usually the result of a lack of differential in the speeds between the club, hands and body. Typically, the movement is too jerky and has no 'core' balance. This is normally due to an excess of tension and a desire to over-use the hands and hit 'at' the ball. To replace this with a free-wheeling motion, try the following drills:

Narrow stance drill

With a 7- or 8-iron, stand with your feet something like four to five inches apart and hit some shots. The secret to this exercise is that you concentrate on allowing the clubhead to swing freely, your feet 'quiet' throughout for balance.

Two-club flow drill

Take two clubs of similar length (i.e. 5- and 6-iron) and, with a good set-up, grip them as normally as possible. To start, extend the clubhead's a few feet into the follow-through, then let them fall and use their momentum to help you on your way to a full backswing and finish.

Closed-stance drill

Once you have created a good athletic posture at the set-up you want your legs to remain fairly stable in the course of making your swing. The flex in the right knee and thigh is retained to provide resistance on the way back and then contains the dynamic of your swing through the transition before adding to the thrust and momentum of the release through the ball. Hitting balls from a closed stance -illustrated here by one of the game's great ball-strikers, Nick Price - can seriously help to give you the sensation of a 'quiet' lower body and thus highlight the winding and unwinding of the torso. Give all these drills a go next time you play and see if better timing doesn't help you to hit more solid shots.

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Matter of Timing

Identifying some of the elements common in the swings of some of the world's best golfers - and copying them - is a sure way to synchronise your own motion for more power and less effort.

The concept of 'timing' in relation to the golf swing is something that is difficult to communicate (particularly to someone new to the game), and yet it's very obvious when a player witnesses at first hand the effortless power that good players seem able to generate with a smooth, flowing swing.

To grasp exactly what good timing involves, you have to understand how three key moving parts in the swing work in relation to one another - the three specific points of reference being the clubhead, the hands and the torso.

Once these elements are assembled in order at the set-up, the key is that they travel in the same general direction but at varying speeds in order to create an efficient swing and deliver the clubhead squarely to the ball at impact.

The Grip - A Good Swing Hinges on it

No matter how good your body action may be, unless you have a grip that allows the wrists to hinge freely you will never fully enjoy the sensation of swinging the clubhead and generating the speeds of which you are capable.

One of the biggest faults among amateur players is running the grip too high in the palm of the hand which effectively destroys its mobility, so check the position of your left hand. When you practise, hold the club at this 45-degree angle in readiness to fit the left hand.

This makes it easier to run the grip diagonally through the first joint on the forefinger all the way through to a point just below the base of the little finger.

With the hand correctly in position, you should then find that you are able to support the club with your fingers curled. When it comes to making your swing, the left will hinge naturally, allowing you to create a flowing motion

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