New Year's Eve Reality Check

After so much practice with the left arm alone swing and after feeling so good at the range the other day, I had to try out the swing today, despite the weather.

Starting at about eight in the morning, snow came down in a hurry. It was cold out, probably in the upper twenties, and the snow was sticking. By afternoon, after I had shoveled the driveway, I was wondering if it were possible to hit practice balls without losing most of them in the snow, which was about three inches deep. The prospect of hitting balls over the snow quickly won out over the propect of losing most of them until the snow melted, and I threw down my practice mat on the front walkway. The obvious choice was to use my Callaway practice balls, since they are orange and might be easier to find, once I hit them.

So I set up and started hitting balls with the left arm alone drill. Out of the first dozen or so, I yanked several over the stone wall that marks the left boundary of my property (I found all of them later), but it didn't take long to get warmed up and get in a groove where I could hit almost every ball straight ahead and with a good, clean hit. With this encouragement, I collected the balls, finding all of them in the snow, and decided to try hitting with a full swing.

Hitting thirty balls was all the encouragement I needed. I found that I was hitting the balls out towards my target and almost every swing was a clean hit. When I finished, I thought, maybe I should film my swing at this point, as a kind of reality check, and see what it looks like. Amazingly, I found all the balls in the snow again and set up some on the mat to hit in front of the camcorder.

In the video below, you'll see that I'm wearing my Sorrels, the boots I typically wear when I know I'm going to be walking around the backyard in bad conditions looking for the practice balls that I've hit. You'll also notice that I'm dressed pretty lightly. That's because I know I'm going to be outside hitting balls only for a few minutes, just long enough to get a little video footage.

In the video, I've added some lines to highlight my swing plane and the club position at various points in the swing. You'll also hear my stamping my feet to get some snow off my Sorrels before I start hitting with the camcorder behind me. In all these shots, I'm using my typical practice club, my seven-iron.

As you can see, I've got a reasonably rhythmical swing on a fairly good plane and with a good follow-through, very different from what it was a few months ago. If I can do it with my video software, I'll try to do a side-by-side video soon that shows my swing as it was not too long ago compared to what it looks like now. The improvement that you'll see is the result of daily practice and almost daily videotaping and review. Then, of course, there's the left arm alone drill. It is just fantastic!

In the slo-mo section (from behind) of the video, you can see some good aspects of the swing and several that need some work and readjustment. For example, on the backswing, the plane is a little too flat. In an earlier video, the plane was more vertical and on plane throughout the swing. Now it's dropped a bit, and I want to fix that. I added some graphics to highlight the target line and other lines in the swing that I like to pay attention to. Another problem that I see is at the top of the swing, where I go past parallel to the target line and past parallel to the ground. On the plus side, the downswing looks pretty good -- on plane again and maintaining the spine angle and a right angle between the swing plane and the spine angle. And the end of the follow-through is almost parallel to the original swing plane, and my balance is good, most of my weight on my left heel.

Now on New Year's Day, I'll go out with the Callaways again and work on the plane of the backswing. I also want to get over my excitement at how good the swing feels and pay closer attention to staying in the shot longer and really delaying the release, getting over my eagerness to hit another great shot and work on a smooth, unhurried approach to the ball.

Left Arm Alone Drill: Frigid Fun

The next day, the weather was so delightful, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to go to the range and hit a bucket. Driving my daughter to her varsity basketball practice at nine in the morning in my Matrix, which gives the outside temperature among the dashboard instruments, I saw that it was eighteen degrees out and with wind chill (advisories out for the whole day), it probably felt around ten degrees, at most. But the range I was going to had good heaters above the mats, and I thought I might be able to hit a hundred balls before losing all sensation in my hands.

First of all, the heaters didn't come on right away. For some reason, they really didn't start making noise and producing real heat for about fifteen minutes, maybe more. Even so, I was doing OK. I was dressed warmly in layers and was gripping the clubs with my winter gloves, not ideal, but that's how I've been swinging in the backyard the last couple of weeks when outside temperatures have been consistently in the thirties. My ears were getting pretty cold, though, and I took off my baseball hat and snuggled on a knit hat that, fortunately, I had brought along.

Once the heat kicked in, I decided to take off the gloves and swing normally, with a golf glove and one bare hand. Hitting that way, I had to stop every five to ten minutes and warm up my fingers. At first, I just put them under my layers and grabbed some material and tried to surround my fingers with warmth. Walking back and forth across the mat while I waited for my fingers to thaw, I realized that my head was staying pretty warm from the heat reflecting down from the overhead heaters. Tentatively, I put one cold hand up on my head and felt the warmth of my hat, which felt warmer than under my layers.

So, one at a time, I put one hand and then the other on top of my head, burying my fingers as deeply as I could into the heated polyester, walking back and forth, and waiting for the cold stinging in my fingers to ease up. Pacing back and forth across my mat, with one hand on top of my head and the other grabbing a handful of clothing right on top of my stomach, I must have looked like I was doing that stunt we all did when we were children of trying to pat your head and rub circles around your stomach at the same time.

I didn't have to worry about being seen acting like a third-grader, however, since there was only one other person outside with me, and he was down near the other end of the range, and with all the mats separated by plastic partitions, there's no way he could have seen me. The circumstances, in a case like this, are crucial to any attempt at interpretation. Observed, I would have looked ridiculous, but isolated and by myself, I was simply practical. In any case, it was the best I could do. Once my fingers started to get cold, there wasn't much I could do about it. And, in the end, it didn't really matter. I hit the ball well.

At the beginning, when I tried out the seven-iron that I use every day in the back yard, I tried to duplicate the loose, relaxed swing I had been practicing, and it worked, from the very first swing. Holding the handle loosely in my fingers, letting in hinge at the top and lag and then coming down and whipping the clubhead through the ball, I could feel that the swing was good. The ball was going straight out there, about 150 or a little more, which looked good to me, considering that I couldn't really warm up in this weather and that the wind was blowing steadily across the range.

Then I tried my hybrids, which have become my favorite clubs. The results were even better. In the course of hitting the whole bucket (100 balls, early-bird special), I found I could hit the hybrid 4 about 190-200 yards and the three about 200-210. On really good swings, I was conscious of seeing the ball really well (I like to pick out a dimple and focus on that) and feeling the club handle loose in my fingers and rotating my shoulders and releasing my left wrist late into the swing and feeling the clubhead really compress the ball with a great, cracking sound. And when all this happened, I knew where the ball would be flying when I looked up during the follow-through.

With frozen fingers, I went through the eight-iron and the five and the six. With all the clubs, now, I'm hitting straighter and farther than before and getting closer to hitting distances that I know are decent for an amateur ( I did laugh to myself at one point, however, when I hit a 4 hybrid about 180 and remembered writing down at my desk at home that some pro in a recent tournament hit his 8-iron 183! How do they do that?).

I also hit a few with the driver, just enough to satisfy myself that I could swing that with my practice swing, too. I ended the session with some fives, just to prove to myself that I'm making progress with that club and getting nearer to my goal of hitting the five somewhere over 180. Today, I probably was hitting it around 160-170, and it felt really good. The last few balls I hit with the 4 hybrid, and by this time, I knew they were going out there about 190 and right around my target. After the last ball, I was completely satisfied. The results confirmed that the left arm alone drill is, indeed, a valuable way to improve the swing. I'll keep on practicing that way all winter.

On my way out of the range, as I was walking past the front desk inside the heated main part of the building with the pro shop and the cafeteria, a couple of men were standing in a group talking (none of them dressed for golf outdoors and none had clubs with them) and one of them looked directly at me as I approached, in my layers, my winter gloves, my knit hat, and my golf bag slung over one shoulder and said, "And here's a die-hard...," but before he could finish his sentence, I interjected, "Frigid Fun!" Obviously, he liked the alliteration because he stopped what he was saying and smiled more broadly at me and repeated, "Yeah, Frigid Fun!"

As I drove up the hill toward the highway, I noticed that the wind had been so strong there that it had lifted up a whole section of the turf carpet and thrown it right through the netting alongside the road. How to deal with this must have been what those men inside the range were discussing as I passed them. "Frigid Fun!"

Left Arm Alone Drill: Payoffs

Because I can feel such fine variations leading to obviously good results, I've been devoted to the left arm alone drill for several weeks now. Of course, I can't resist the temptation to swing with both arms when I want to assess where the drill is leading me, but aside from that, the drill feels so good that I continue with it every day, even now, in late December in the Northeast with temperatures in the thirties and snow on the ground. As you'll see on this video, the temperature is in the low thirties with a windchill in the high twenties. On this day, I went out for a series of separate hitting sessions in the backyard. Chilled, I would go back inside, do some computer work, warm up, and then come out again later.

Typically, when I start the left arm alone drill, I can hardly hit the ball. For quite a few strokes, the ball squirts out to the right, just a glancing blow with the club face wide open, or it's a weak slice right, and sometimes, I even miss the ball entirely. But once I get the backswing lined up and loosen my left wrist for a snappy, unconscious release,I gradually get to a point where I can whip the ball out there right in front of me, with good arc and good distance.

I think of what Nicklaus said about Tom Watson during last summer's British Open, "He always gets to the top of the backswing." And that's become a key checkpoint as I practice the left arm alone drill. If I can get to the top of the backswing on plane and let the club hinge and lag before beginning the downswing, almost invariably I know I'm going to pop the ball out there just where I want to. It's such a great feeling. When everything is in place, the results are perfect. And I'm at the point now where I can go through a few balls in a row with perfect, or nearly perfect, results. That string of successes will usually end with a thump of a fat swing deep into the hitting mat, producing a short ball or one sliced off to the right. You'll see all the bad results on the video below. But you'll also see how sometimes, when everything is in place, the swing and the ball flight are just what you'd want.

Now that I have the sense of the swing, the goal over the remaining winter months is to work this into a dependable, repeatable, accurate swing, and this is something that I'm quite sure I can do. Hitting at the range is the "reality check," and that will be the subject of the next post.

Left Arm Alone Drill: Lag and Lead

The left arm alone drill has given me the feeling that I'm in the final stage of building a competent swing. Like all golfers, I'll be working on the swing itself forever, that much goes without saying. However, for the first time since I started trying to build a swing -- it's been three years now -- I feel as though I can see the finish line. Even with a flawed swing, I persuaded myself that I could shoot in the eighties this fall (I didn't actually do that, but I came very close the couple of times I played a course, and I felt so competent that I was certain that with some more on-course experience, shooting in the eighties was not a problem).

Now, with the learning that's coming from this drill, I can see that I should be able to break 80 next season. There's no reason not to. I'm a good putter, and I read greens well. My short game is very good, and I think I've learned how to get out of a bunker. With a solid, repeatable swing, that gives me reasonable distance and control, I'm expecting to shoot in the seventies next season, once I start playing regularly. That will be a significant change for me, since practice, not playing, has been my priority until now. And I have really enjoyed practicing. Submitting myself to a practice regimen that will lead to progress toward long-term goals makes sense to me. And looking back over the last three years, I see a gratifying record of progress and improvement. There have been horrendous patches, of course. Learning golf is a great test of one's character. And in learning a golf swing, one has to be able to learn from failure. In that respect, I suppose a golf swing is like a baseball swing, only baseball is much worse. Now, three years into this building project, the left arm alone drill is illuminating some key concepts.

First, the swing has to be on plane. This sounds so obvious. Yet how do you know whether your swing is on plane or not? One way is to videotape yourself constantly, as I have done. Another is to do this drill. It's absolutely unforgiving. If you're not on plane, you have no idea where the ball is going to go, or even if you're actually going to hit it! I've had numerous swings where I didn't even hit the ball! How could that happen? Easy! When the backswing is out of order -- off plane, for one thing -- you may not hit the ball, even though it's only a couple of feet away from your hand. Hitting around 500 plastic practice balls a day has given me a good feeling for what the swing should be, or could be. You always have to remember that whatever your most recent discovery about the swing is, it's not the last. You never get to that point. The golf swing is "the vanishing point" in art. You have no idea where the end point is or, even, if there ever is an end point. It is an eschatological question. I guess the pro golfers have figured it out, but for the rest of us, it will always remain mostly a mystery.

The title of this post comes from an understanding that the last two days of practicing in my back yard have taught me. Today, especially. The temperature was below thirty, and I was wearing my Sorrel boots. But in the course of hitting about 500 balls, I got a feeling for a swing that worked. It involved swing back pretty steeply, with my wrist bowed, then letting the club lag, then coming though leading with my left wrist and snapping my hand through at the instant of contact with the ball. To simplify it for myself as a practiced, I started saying to myself, "Lag and lead," by which I meant, let the club lag at the top of the backswing and then, on the downswing, lead with the left wrist.

As I approached the ball, I could feel my left wrist in front, and then I could feel the clubhead trapping the ball against the hitting mat and then the wrist releasing and turning the clubhead over. This is, I'm sure, what Hogan means, in his book,

, when he says that he felt as though he was capturing the ball and then slinging it down the fairway. I've written about this in earlier posts, but back then, I don't think I really understood how this works. Now I think I do.

When I get the various parts of the swing in place, I can pop the plastic ball out there, right where I want to. I have to get the backswing path just right (it feels unright, but really, I think, it's not going past my body), and then I have to let the club lag. On the way down, I have to lead with my left wrist, and, last, I release my left wrist, feeling the toe of the club come around and fling the ball toward my target. Being able to do this time after time was quite an amazing feeling. I actually knew that I could hit the ball straight in front of me. I could feel that solid "Click!" and the full follow-through and then see the ball high in the air floating right where I wanted it to go.

Not every time, however. This succession of movements is so subtle and so fragile that the slightest error results in a variety of results. Sometimes, it would be hooks or slices. In the worst cases, the clubface would never close, and I would just shank the ball off to the right somewhere. But the practice was generally encouraging. When I was in a groove, I could hit balls cleanly and accurately. Getting in that groove is my next goal.

P.S. I went out again the day after this post to practice in twenty-five degree weather (at least there wasn't much wind). Yesterday, I had started to feel a groove, and today I felt under control, too. The drill feels quite amazing. When I hit the right slot on the backswing, let the club lag, then swing through, feeling my left wrist lead before releasing the left hand, I can hit balls right out there, straight in front of me, at my imaginary target. It feels so good, this incipient feeling of having a dependable swing that produces th similar fine, accurate shot time after time.

Good Swing, Bad Swing

Today, two days after my last practice at the range (took the day off yesterday because of an ice storm), I had one of those days I've become used to. It started out well, with good swings, good contact, and good distance. But it deteriorated. Out of the two hundred balls I hit (Early Bird Special -- half price), the last 150 or so were, for the most part, really bad.

The problem, or the cause of the problem, was, I think, trying to get too much distance. When I first started the practice, I thought I was in great shape. I was hitting my utility 3 and 4 out there around 180 to 190 and feeling really good. Then I went through the other irons. No problem. I hit the 5 and 6 out there a respectable distance, and contact with the ball felt good. The 7 and 8 also felt good. Somehow, though (and I can't remember the sequence that led me to this point), my swing suddenly deserted me. For days now, I've felt that the swing was right where I wanted it to be and that, by spring, I'd be poised to break 80. With today's swing, I'd be lucky to break 120!

I'm pretty sure that I lost the swing after hitting a few 7-irons and thinking that they were way too short. Once I started trying for more distance, that's when I lost track of the swing. I started shanking the ball again, something I haven't done much since I started the left arm alone drill, blading it, hitting thin, and topping the ball. It was an awful experience! It started somewhere in my first bucket of 100 balls and continued until I hit the last ball. Then I stopped and thought, "Do I want to hit another bucket?" I answered myself, "Of course, you do! You'll understand the problem and find the solution and be better off than ever!" So I went and bought another Early Bird.

A whole new bucket of balls didn't solve my problems. I started talking to myself. On many swings, hitting the ball felt as though I were hitting a rock. There was absolutely no sensation of compressing the ball and getting that great "Click!" when you hit the ball just right. The ball felt dead. It felt like lead. This utter incompetence being impossible for me to accept, I tried a new swing thought each time I teed up a new ball. Most of the time, the result was dismal. I couldn't hit the ball any better than a beginner. I really had a hard time with this. If you look at the video, you'll see that these swings aren't bad. They could be better, but they're not too bad. And the results were gratifying, too. These were my early swings. once I got into trouble, I couldn't stand the idea of videotaping myself.

Hitting so many balls gave me multiple opportunities to try out different swing thoughts. I thought about swinging along an arc. I thought about releasing with my hands way in front of the ball. I thought about relaxing. I thought about turning my shoulders and rotating around my spine. I thought about swinging like Ernie Els. I thought about swinging slow and relaxed. All were excellent ideas. None of them worked.

Feeling pretty despondent and defeated, I packed up, and as I started to leave my heated hitting station, I made plans for my next practice. The only thing to do was to go home and go into the backyard and start hitting balls -- left arm only -- into the snow. By now, I trust that drill completely. It's going to be my ticket to shooting in the 70s, I'm sure. Of course, that's assuming that today is just a temporary nightmare!

Once I got home, I checked my email -- no new job offers -- and headed out to the backyard, the humble origin of my future golf greatness, and started doing the left arm only drill. It felt so good! Not all the time, but enough so that I reassured myself that I really could hit a golf ball well, if I relaxed. The first fifty plastic balls were a gallimaufry (a hodgepodge), but I quickly identified one ingredient of a good swing. By now, I'm used to bowing the left wrist slightly during the backswing. But suddenly, I discovered -- or rediscovered -- the feeling of dragging the club, with fingers 3,4 and 5 of the left hand down through the hitting zone. That was huge.

The next fifty balls, I hit 75% OK (I counted). The final fifty (it was now four o'clock and the light dying), I hit all but four in an acceptable way, with this feeling of letting the club hinge at the top of the backswing and then feeling as though I were dragging the club to the ball and finally releasing -- with a Snap!-- when my hands were in front of the ball. It felt so great! And I was able to do it over and over again!

After the last fifty balls, while I was picking them up in the gathering darkness with my shag bag, I was thinking to myself that more of this one-arm practice is what I need.

Working on the Release 1

The video below shows my practice at the range two days later. As you can see, I'm the only person there. I wonder why. The temperature is about thirty-three degrees, and it's shopping time for the holiday season. Where is everybody? You can also hear the ticking of the gas-heat igniters up above me. The heat here is not very efficient. At times, I actually stretched my hands out above me toward the heaters, hanging from the ceiling, to get warm. I also put the grip of the club I wanted to use up there, hoping it would get a little warmer.

You're not going to see anything dramatically different from the previous video. However, I thought it would be instructive to show you that the swing takes some time to develop, even at this point, where I feel I'm very close to a very good golf swing. You can see that I'm still swinging much too fast from the top of the swing, instead of sequencing and building up momentum. The question we must all ask ourselves, at this point, is "Why isn't my practice swing the same swing I use when I actually hit the ball? Great question!

This whole practice session is my attempt at an answer. In my first bucket of balls (100), I didn't get it, but somewhere in the middle on the second bucket, I started to feel as though I was getting closer to my practice swing. This would be my ideal swing where I delayed and delayed until my hands were in front of the ball (that's what I would like to think). But, as you can see, I'm still speeding up way too early, and the short follow-through shows that I still am not close to developing maximum clubhead speed at impact. There's a very helpful video on YouTube of Ernie Els talking about his swing and demonstrating how he likes "to stay in the shot longer," which I now understand means holding the release until the hands are, or feel as thought they are, out in front of the ball and even out in front of the left side.

But what I noticed continually during this session is that I really wasn't waiting until my hands were in the hitting zone. I was thinking about hitting the ball a long time before that.

Still, I know I'm getting there. I know that I'm starting the downswing way too early. On the other hand, I'm more aware than ever that I need to rotate my shoulders around my spine and let the release take care of itself.

When all is said and done after this session, I'm hitting three- and four- hybrids around 180 or beyond, which is what I want to be doing. I hit a few drivers, too, and that swing also feels more powerful. When everything worked well, it looked as though I was carrying a drive somewhere around 230 or 240. So I can tell from the greater distances that I'm getting with all the clubs that the swing is, indeed, building in the right way. And the keys to my practice, at this stage, are doing the left arm alone drill and videotaping every practice session, either in the backyard or at the range.

I also keep in mind that practice should be fun and that improvement is constant and gradual. To keep the fun in my practice at the range, I always hit a variety of clubs and try hitting for accuracy and distance. Sometimes I play a virtual hole, hitting a driver and then an iron or two, finishing with a wedge to the imaginary green. Playing the game this way, I always shoot close to par. There's nothing like shooting par to keep your interest in the game sharp!

Making Progress - Swing Tips 6

Two days after my last visit to the range, I hit at another range near me, and I made palpable progress toward retarding the release. Again, in this video, you'll see the same symptoms as in the previous video: I'm starting too fast from the top of the swing. I don't know if the improvement I feel is actually visible, but each day over the past couple of weeks, since I started that left arm alone drill, I can see exciting and satisfying evidence that my swing is approaching the limits of my ability.

Conscious of that habit, I focussed on relaxed fingers and releasing later. With my left arm alone drill in mind, I started to see that I was still losing power potential by rushing through the swing, instead of building up momentum. Slowly, very slowly and tentatively, I started to feel that my hands should feel that they are out ahead of the ball when I release the swing. The improvement was immediate and dramatic.

Practicing with 3- and 4-hybrids, I started to hit farther and straighter. I could tell that the reason I have been hooking the ball is because I've been releasing too early. Now, when I got the feel of releasing later, of waiting, I suddenly had more power and more control. With this later release, I was hitting both clubs somewhere between 180 and 200 yards, probably a gain of at least ten or twenty yards in distance. And the hook disappeared. I began to feel the sense of power that friends of mine had when they talked about "crushing" the ball. Impact felt so good!

I hit a dozen or so balls with the driver, too, just to see what would happen. With the delayed release, I felt I was hitting with more power than before, with drives carrying somewhere around 230 or 240 slightly uphill. And they were straight!

In the last two weeks or so, my progress has been steady. It seems that every day a new swing subtlety reveals itself to me. Now the swing depends on the shoulders turning, the club handle in relaxed fingers, a gradual increase in momentum through the downswing, culminating, when the left shoulder is rising, in an incredibly fast release. From this vantage point, I can see myself maximizing the distances I can get out of various clubs. To test this thought, I hit one of the last balls with a 5-iron. Typically, I hit this about 160 to 170. I actually think that I hit the 7-iron better and farther. But with this new sense of the delayed release, I hit a perfect shot about 175 or 180 on the fly. That's got to be close to my maximum with that club. If I can hit it 180 or a little bit more, I'll feel I'm getting just about everything out of my swing. It was a gratifying end to the session, and I can't wait to go back and push that release point to the limit.

Making Progress - Swing Tips 5

After going through some swing thoughts using plastic practice balls in the backyard, it was time for a "reality check" by seeing how the swing works at the range. The video shows rear views of a utility club and a side view of a couple of driver swings (I think that that background noise you hear is the overhead heaters; it's about 42 degrees).

You'll see almost immediately what I meant when I said earlier that I feel completely relaxed hitting plastic balls, but I can't stop from getting tight and rushing when I hit a real golf ball. You'll notice the quick start from the top of the swing, and you'll notice that the swing is basically over shortly after impact. Instead of swinging around in a nice arc, the clubhead jerks over to the side and slows down dramatically. You'll also see that with the utility club, I let it get behind me on the backswing, whereas I keep the seven-iron in a much more vertical plane in the videos showing my practice swing.

I videotaped myself and watched myself on the camcorder during this session, and you might notice some differences between the first swings and the last ones. They certainly felt different to me. The most important learning point was how loose and relaxed the fingers have to be, and the club has to rest in the fingers. Complete looseness and relaxation are prerequisites for clubhead speed at impact and for greater distance. And surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be any sacrifice of accuracy. Near the end of the session, where I was concentrating on completely loose fingers, during the backswing and maintaining that looseness during the downswing, I was hitting a utility three around 180-190 yards and straight at my target. It was amazing! When I talked about holding the club in the fingers (in an earlier post), I didn't realize that the fingers should stay loose throughout the swing, especially on the downswing and through impact. That looseness is what allows the club to whip at tremendous speed. It is a mistake, I now realize, to think about consciously manipulating the club at impact. There is no way to do that. Instead, the correct approach is to let the club fly. Just let it go and snap at the bottom of the swing arc. And there is no rush getting there, either. I have to work on slowing myself down so that I build up speed gradually from the lag at the top of the backswing and save the club's potential for speed until the last possible instant before impact. The video today clearly shows the work I have to do in my backyard practice.

Making Progress - Swing Tips 4

In this fourth part in the series, you'll see the full swing from a rear view, with a slow-motion sequence for analysis. If I could repeat this swing at the proper tempo ( 21/7 or 24/8 from the book Tour Tempo), I'd be all set. As you'll see, though, from the other swings, this ideal swing happens only now and then. Grooving it will take some time, and who knows how long that will be? And then I end the segment with two ideas for increasing distance: sequencing and tempo.

The key to all this progress in creating a good swing is constantly videotaping myself. I take my camcorder with me outside, when I practice in the backyard, and to the range. Regularly, while I'm practicing, I tape myself and then take a look. What I see then determines the aspect of the swing that I work on next. The plane, for example, is attainable only through videotaping.

What I've learned about learning a golf swing is that while you're practicing, you think you're doing one thing, but, in reality, you're doing another. The only way to reveal that is to look at yourself. You don't need to go to a pro to see yourself on camera. Do it yourself. Then, on your computer, you can play your swing in one browser window and compare it to Ernie Els (or any other pro you can find on YouTube) in another browser window, side-by-side, and the work you have to do will be completely obvious. As you can see, after all this videotaping, I'm very close to a solid swing. I have to relax more and get rid of the tension in my swing, but already you can see the swing plane, the balance, and the follow-through. Once I groove those, I'll start to work on sequencing and tempo. That's the plan for next year.

The next post in this series will be at the range, where we can all see how the practice swing, with plastic golf balls, translates into hitting real balls for real distances. That prospect changes everything. From experience, I know that the practice swing does not travel well to the range, let along the course. At this point, it is important to juxtapose practice, the range, and the course. The results will give me a real-time sense of where I am in the long arc of developing a good golf swing.

Making Progress - Swing Tips 3

This is the third in the series, showing a full swing from rear and side views.

Making Progress - Swing Tips 2

This is a continuation of the previous post about the left arm alone drill, this time from a side view.

Making Progress - Swing Tips 1

It's been quite a while since my last post, but I've been making good progress in developing a sound swing. I was talking with a brother the other day and wanted to show him my swing in its current state, and the video here is the first of several installments where I describe my practice goals. The first part is about the basics of a drill swinging with the left arm only. The next few videos will show the same drill from the side and then the full swing, using Wilson white plastic practice balls off a mat in my backyard.

The Potential for Power

My dismal distance at the range, related in the previous post, turned out to be a catalyst of progress and change. When I resumed my practice in my backyard, I was re-reading Tom Bertrand’s The Secret of Hogan’s Swing more carefully and paying more attention to where or how in my swing I could develop the clubhead speed that I wanted.

The day after the blustery, frigid practice when I just made slow motion swings, I went out again, not intending to hit practice balls, but content just to make full swings and see if I could speed up the clubhead. The answer I found came pretty quickly and was one that I had discovered months earlier and then set aside to practice other swing thoughts.

My problem turned out to be a familiar one—relying on muscles and conscious control of the swing. Lately, in my shortened swing drills, I had been concentrating so much on the role of each hand and the timing of the release that I had completely obscured the necessity of “letting the club do the work.” I was consciously doing the work, consciously moving the club along its path, consciously turning my left elbow, consciously throwing the clubhead with my right hand at impact. No wonder I can’t hit the ball 200 yards. Instead of distance, I had deliberate control. As I practiced swings, I could feel the weight of the club and every position of my arms and hands during the swing.

That weight and muscular awareness reminded me to keep the grip in my fingers and to keep my fingers and hands and arms relaxed in that active way that Tom Bertrand talks about. That did it. Once I let go of everything I had been so careful to control before, I was able to really start swinging the club with some speed and some acceleration. I could hear the club ripping through the air, a sound I had become unaccustomed to listen for. I began to pay attention to the transition once again, to have a sense of lag, and to feel the gathering momentum of the clubhead on its downward arc toward the ball.

With a loose, relaxed swing, my left elbow and right hand automatically did what I had been teaching them to do for weeks. Near the ball, nearly at the bottom of the swing arc, the club snapped through, my forearms were crossed, right over left, and the club was finishing its semicircular path up over my left shoulder while my hips completed their turn and my right shoulder finished over my left toe, just as Tom describes the finish of the follow-through.

From the feel of it, I knew that this is what a good golf swing is supposed to feel like. Naturally, as excited as I was by my re-discovery, I couldn’t wait to hit some plastic balls to see what would happen. Even before I teed them up, I knew. The worst hits you could imagine. Off the toe of the club, wicked slices, shanks, and topped grounders. I knew this would happen because it always does, without fail, whenever I make the slightest change With a change as wide-open as this—giving complete freedom to the swing—I couldn’t reasonably expect to hit the ball. Not at first, anyway.

I went back to some more slow swings and some swings at a faster tempo. When I started hitting again, at least the balls started going out in the general direction of my target line. And before too long, they were actually looking pretty good. And a couple felt like bombs, straight and way out there, I’d guess another ten or twenty yards longer than I was hitting at the range a couple of days before. You can see the results in the video below. The swing now felt as though it had the potential for power.

Reality Bites!

My previous post described the virtues of slow, patient practice and the rewards of working at a gradual, methodical pace toward building parts of the swing over time. It certainly makes sense on paper. Hitting my Callaway soft-flight practice balls across my backyard, I felt I was rounding into good shape for April 1, the beginning of the new season. Then I went to a range and hit real golf balls. That’s when I came back down to earth. Reality bites!

You’ll remember that for a couple of weeks, I had been practicing drills, shortened swing drills to learn the feeling of “slinging the ball,” like Hogan. Drills like that are the only practical ones I can hit in my yard, which is about 65-70 yards long corner to corner. A full swing with a driver would probably, if it was a good swing, send my Callaway balls out onto the main road.

At the range, my only goal was to hit the driver with a full swing and see how my short-swing practice was contributing to a better swing. I could see definite improvement. I was able to hit the ball more consistently and felt that my mechanics were more reliable and comfortable. On the other hand, I still had a problem with distance. Even when everything clicked and the ball went arcing across the range toward the yard markers, I could never hit 200 yards. Then I tried a seven-iron to see if I could hit it any farther than I did the last time at the range a few weeks before. Myabe it was because I hadn’t been swinging an iron at all lately, but I couldn’t hit it more than about 135 or 140 yards. The results with both clubs told me I needed to go back home and start thinking more about clubhead speed during my practice sessions.

Reality may be hard to face at times—most of the time—but my next practice session at home, the day after the frustrating visit to the range, put me back into a positive mood. Before I went out to practice, on a blustery, 24-degree day (wind chill made it feel like the teens), I re-read some of the last sections of Tom Bertrand’s The Secret of Hogan’s Swing. I’m constantly surprised, when I revisit my golf books, at how frequently certain details jump out at me, phrases that I have either forgotten or missed on earlier readings. This time, the detail that caught my attention came from the “Impact Zone Checklist” (p. 156) where the first item, in bold and bulleted, instructs “Left knee remains flexed.” How did I miss that before? As Tom explains, this tendency can lead to, among other problems, topping the ball, which, you may remember from earlier posts, I do with gruesome regularity, those hot infield grounders I hit in the backyard.

Despite the bitter weather, I went out to my practice area and set up the hitting mat and tee, but with no plans to hit balls. Even if I’d wanted to, the wind was too stiff to allow teeing up. Instead, I wanted just to go through the motions, the slow motions that Tom advocates, and full-swing motions rather than abbreviated swings. Somewhere in the full swing, good players generate clubhead speed, and I wanted to start finding out how to do that myself. Twenty minutes out in that gale was about all I could take, but at least I did get some swinging in. And those slow motion swings must have helped because the next day, I started to understand why I had such slow clubhead speed.

Slow Slinging: Slow, Patient Practice

In my last post, I said that the swing felt good enough to take out on the course, that is, when spring arrives. Practice the next day, however, brought me back to the reality of a long swing development process. Hitting for distance, a major concern in the last few posts, had dropped in my priority list, replaced by my effort to work on a clean, repeatable swing. By clean, I mean that I wanted to get over scuffing the practice mat. This is a nagging problem, and I am reminded of some sage advice I’ve come across, “You want to hit the ball, not the tee.”

Even with the latest improvements, my first few swings flew right into the side of the house or bounced across the yard with topspin, like hot infield grounders. This is how golf tests your resolve. The thought occurred to me that I was bringing the club up too severely and imparting this tennis-like topspin. I could see that clearly when I videotaped myself. The obvious answer was to practice level-left. This is what Tom Bertrand advocates. And, theoretically, I could understand the efficacy of this approach.

With a slowed-down swing, I tried just to hit the ball solidly with a relatively flat swing plane, using a very shortened swing—not even the nine o’clock drill. All I wanted to do was to control the clubhead and the path of the swing so that I wasn’t hitting below the tee. I wanted to see low shots driven out there straight ahead of me. After hitting a few practice shots, I thought it would probably be a good idea to go inside and take another look at Tom Bertrand’s chapter on “The Legendary Golf System,” just to make sure that I knew what I was doing.

Reviewing that chapter gave me the mental images I needed to continue practicing and also impressed on me two other points. The first is that the wrist of the left hand has to be bowed out toward the target. I didn’t think I was emphasizing that enough in my practice. The second is that you need to delay that left elbow turn as long as possible and then turn it very quickly in order to “sling the ball.”

Outside again on the practice mat, balls were glancing off the house and hopping across the ground as they always do when I make swing modifications. Gradually, however, with a slowed-down swing, I started to get control and hit balls solidly out toward my target, the big Norway maple that you can see in the videos. My method is to do some slow-motion practice swings, as Tom Bertrand suggests, and then to do some slow hitting so that I can see what the ball actually does. This kind of practice reminds me of the way I used to practice the piano when I played classical music, following Daniel Barenboim’s advice to practice super-slowly as the best way to teach the muscles what to do. Tom argues for this approach, too.

To learn precise swing motions by going through them slowly until they become natural and comfortable. Most important, you condition your mind and muscles to execute these moves without consciously thinking. Learning your swing at a slower pace enables you to watch it take shape and feel the flow of energy as you move through each position. This will prove far easier and more effective than trying to adjust movements during your normal golf swing when you’re moving fast and a dozen thoughts are jumping through your mind.

Or take Harvey Penick’s word for it. In his classic Little Red Book, he said, “A slow motion swing develops the golf muscles, implants the correct club positions in your golfing brain—and doesn’t smash the chandelier.”

For optimum results, these motions should be practiced every day. Studies have shown that any habit—in this case, the correct movements that create a solid, repeatable golf swing—can be learned in less than thirty days if practiced regularly. In sixty days, with regular practice and play, they are close to becoming second nature.

I don’t know what studies Tom is referring to, but my first pro, Mark, told me something similar. He said that whenever you make a change in your swing, it takes nine hours to learn it. So if you practice something for twenty minutes a day, that works out to less than a month, just as Tom says. The video below shows my latest practice: a shortened, slower swing while I work out a level-left follow-through.

Slinging Swing Modifications

My new “slinging” swing was hardly twenty-four hours old when I went out to start slinging again to make it repeatable. From the first plastic ball I teed up, the only consistency was that every swing was terrible, an ugly mixture of slices and topped balls. After a dozen or so of these swings, I stopped to take stock. The most obvious cause of the problems was my hands. Even yesterday, I suspected that, although I was seeing an improvement, I had adopted a swing that is too “handsy,” to use Tom Bertrand’s term. Taking a good look at my grip, I carefully pressed the pad “at the inside heel of the palm” against the handle and wrapped my fingers, just as Hogan teaches in Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf. I also made sure to overlap the right-hand pinkie on top, rather that beside, the left index finger and keep both hands tightly together.

With these corrections, I started some slow-motion swings, watching what my wrists did, and what I saw also needed some correction. Instead of maintaining wristcock, I was dropping my wrists and virtually dragging the club to the ball. That probably accounted for all my mishits, the skulled balls and sharp slices. Keeping the angle between my wrists and the club, I started to feel what Tom Bertrand means when he describes Hogan’s Secret, the turning of the left elbow “level left” toward the left hip. There is no hand action at all, just a very controlled clubhead arc out to the ball and then around the left leg, exactly what you want.

This new movement made sense to me. I could still get the slinging swing and, in addition, a much more accurate clubhead path to the ball; Already, I had the sense that the mass of the clubhead was hitting the ball squarely. The greater swing path accuracy would take care of the skulling balls and scuffing the mat that were plaguing me. With these new swing ideas in mind, I started hitting practice balls again, very deliberately and with moderate clubhead speed.

I could see the improvement right away. After a couple dozen swings and the growing sense of hitting the ball really solidly, it was time to try out my modified slinging swing on the Callaway practice balls. By the way, these have worked out extremely well. The true flight path they give is very helpful in diagnosing a swing, and they are safe to use in your yard. I’ve hit both cars several times, as well as screens, windows, and siding on the house (numerous times—it’s a big target), with absolutely no damage. They’re that soft.

This Callaway session was very gratifying. The swing modifications seemed solid. I hit the ball consistently well, skulling only a couple and no disastrous slices. My wrists firmly cocked, the club handle in the firm Hogan grip, I was able to hit toward my target again and again (see video below). Many times, I hit straight out, but I learned what to do in order to draw the ball. The practice went so well that, near the end, I decided to try a controlled fade. Addressing the ball as I remembered how to make this shot—stance slightly open, but still aiming at the target—I hit a shot, a beauty, high and fading just right. I couldn’t have asked for more. Just to make sure, I tried three more. All were acceptable. Then, to seal the deal, I tried three draws. All fine—right at the target, pulling right to left. I couldn’t have been more gratified. I felt as though I could go out on the course right then and there.

Slinging the Ball

Dreaming that I finally had the answer that would give me a good swing and all the distance I wanted, I woke up the next morning to misgivings. This swing really wasn’t what I saw the pros doing in the Swing Vision videos on YouTube, and it wasn’t what my books described. Confirming my suspicions, the YouTube video comparing the swings of Ernie Els and Michelle Wie provided me with the hint I needed. Watching them in slow motion, I noticed how quickly their right hands came through the hitting zone. At impact, the right palm is square to the ball, but immediately after that, you can see how quickly the hands are pronating. So my idea of a long arc where the hands supinate and pronate was erroneous. No surprise there.

Then I wanted to see what the pros do with their arms. The day before, I thought I had discovered that reaching out toward the ball, like Moe Norman, worked best. It felt good and reliable, but I remembered my first pro, Mark, telling me how close to the thighs players like Furyk swing the arms, and I also had a mental picture of pros, in a down-the-line shot, swinging the hands through a spot vertically underneath the chin. And that’s what Adam Scott does in the video I watched next. His swing reminded of a passage I had read months earlier in Swing Like a Pro, which I found and read again.

As important as the act of producing power is the ability to direct it properly. By driving the lower body toward the target, you move the hips out of the way so that the arms can swing on an inside path toward ball contact. Our research has shown that the clearance between the arms and the body is so small that, if the lower body is not moved out of the way, the path the arms and club are supposed to follow becomes blocked. (p. 153)

When I went out to practice, I had two swing thoughts (usually, that’s one too many and leads to ugly results)—quick supination and pronation of the hands and keeping the hands under my chin. I thought of Tom Bertrand’s “secret” again, and how it related to the quick hands I saw in Ernie Els and Michelle Wie and realized that far from being a slow, methodical, and long turn toward the left hip, the movement was actually the quickest part of the swing, almost instantaneous. Suddenly, I realized that this was where clubhead speed must be generated. Whatever the speed before, it is no more than highway speed compared to the mach-1 acceleration that happens at impact. This is the speed that Hogan talks about in Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf.

IN THE CHAIN ACTION OF THE SWING, THE SHOULDERS AND UPPER PART OF THE BODY CONDUCT THIS MULTIPLYING POWER INTO THE ARMS…THE ARMS MULTIPLY IT AGAIN AND PASS IT ON TO THE HANDS…THE HANDS MULTIPLY IT IN TURN…AND, AS A RESULT, THE CLUBHEAD IS SIMPLY TEARING THOUGH THE AIR AT AN INCREDIBLE SPEED AS IT DRIVES THROUGH THE BALL. ALL THIS HAPPENS SO QUICKLY, OF COURSE, THAT YOU CAN’T SEE IT TO APPRECIATE IT. BUTTHIS IS WHAT HAPPENS. (p. 92)

Until now, I never understood how this multiplying effect happens. I certainly never had the remotest feeling that my clubhead was “tearing through the air.” As I continued to practice this new discovery, using a shortened swing drill (see video), I saw that it also cured the problem I had of grounding the clubhead in front of the ball.



The reason for that, I now guessed, was that I was trying to make a long arc as I turned my elbow “level left,” instead of this quick, lightning-flash turn I was developing now. Two other aspects of the swing became clear, too. One was the aim of delaying the release until the last possible instant. All this time, I thought the release began way back in front of the right hip and followed a long arc around the body. Now, I had the sense that I could let the release happen much later, at a point where my hands felt very close to the ball, much later that I had ever thought possible. Months before, I had tried a release like this but couldn’t make it work then, probably because of other problems earlier in my swing, such as casting or coming over the top or swinging outside to in. At this “Eureka!” moment, I realized what “slinging the ball” meant. Tom Bertrand refers to this in The Secret of Hogan's Swing when he describes “Capturing the Ball.”

When Hogan began to understand the workings of a repeatable golf swing, he realized that all his energy should not be directed toward a violent encounter with the ball. Instead, he envisioned his clubface capturing the ball and slinging it to the target. Thus the downswing energy is released toward the target and not at the ball. I believe this is what created a unique sound to Hogan’s golf shots as he connected with the ball.

“Slinging the ball” is exactly what I felt I was doing now. Finally seeing what had been so hard to imagine for all these months, I laughed to myself. I knew I was on solid ground now. Starting to make my new “slinging” swing repeatable and consistent is the subject of the next post.

Practicing Long Distance

I’ve made progress in developing my swing, and I’m continuing to make progress. Every day when I go out to practice, I gain new insights. My muscles and reflexes find new paths. Each day, I have a definite practice plan, something specific I want to implement or review. Since I’m a beginner just learning the swing, I never go out to my practice mat just to swing the club. Even if the question of the hour relates to distance.

As I have admitted in my previous posts, I haven’t been able to hit the ball far enough. When my friends ask how my swing is coming along, I say, “Great! I’m crushing my driver out there about 180!” Because this is so anemic, when I go out each day, I may have a specific thought to work on—such as extending my arms in the follow-through or staying behind the ball during the downswing—but at some point during the practice session, I’m going to focus on clubhead speed, which I know is the key to power and distance. Having watched, with envy, the LPGA players blast the ball distances far beyond what I can even dream of (at this point), I know that the answer has nothing to do with physical strength and everything to do with technique and timing.

The other day, in trying to solve the problem of an erratic swing that often grounded the club on the mat behind the ball or that skulled the ball, producing a hyperactive, topspin crazy shot that hopped across my frozen backyard, I thought I found an answer. It grew out of my attempt to lengthen my swing and keep my left arm straight. In trying to find a swing path that would take the clubhead directly to the back of the ball without hitting the mat, I started swinging as if I were doing a modified hammer-throw, you know, that Olympic event where the athlete swings a ball fastened at the end of a short length of chain around and around him as he spins before he reaches a maximum speed and lets the chain go. If his timing is good, the ball will go flying out across the field with the greatest distance possible. To me, it seemed perfect physics: centrifugal force, mass times speed, and acceleration all combining to move a dead weight an incredible number of yards.

As I was finishing this practice session, with good results, I might add, I remembered videos I had seen of Moe Norman, the great Canadian pro, who famously swung on a single plane and reputedly always hit the ball straight. Not bad company, I thought. I went to sleep that night thinking that I had made another step higher up the ladder toward the ideal swing. After a good night’s sleep, morning clarified that thought. Waking up to reality in the next post.

Distance Still Far Off

In January, 2009, I was in pretty good shape, with clear progress to show for all my practice during the winter. The path of my swing was good, and I felt I was incorporating that right arm motion that Hogan talks about.

In its general character, the correct motion of the right arm and hand in the impact area resembles the motion an infielder makes when he throws half sidearm, half underhand to first after fielding a ground ball. As the right arm swings forward, the right elbow is very close to the right hip and “leads” the arm—it is the part of the arm nearest the target.

My right elbow was next to my right hip, my right wrist was cocked back with plenty of power to release, and I could feel that there was more power ready to unload from my right biceps. With everything in place like this, why couldn’t I hit the ball farther when I went to the range, I wondered. I must be missing something.

Getting the club handle in my fingers was one thing I knew I had been neglecting. The worn spot on my golf glove proved that. So I needed more whip from swinging with my fingers. Then there was the more frustrating problem of being unable to hit the ball cleanly. Many times, the clubhead would hit the mat behind the ball, or if I made an adjustment for that, I’d skull the ball, sending it across my yard bouncing with crazy topspin.

These inaccuracies made me go back to one of the first drills I learned, the nine o’clock drill. Actually, I modified that drill so that it was more of a seven o’clock drill, with my hands going back only to the spot where I wanted to start turning the left elbow during the downswing. After days of practice like this, I started to get the feeling of the clubhead swinging more freely as I took it back to that spot and then came forward again. Almost effortless, that feeling must mean that I’m on the right track.

Still, I was hitting the top of the ball far too often. The cause of that, I thought, must be that I was moving my hips laterally on the downswing and getting out in front of the ball. The cure for that, I knew, was to stay back. That reminded me of something I had read or seen on YouTube about getting added “leverage” by staying behind the ball. To help me to this, I started trying to focus on a dimple somewhere at the back of the ball during the swing. That helped. And always, I tried to relax and swing as easily as I could. Not exactly like Julius Boros, but not Frankenstein, either.

All this practice and all the mishits took a toll on my plastic practice balls. I prefer the solid white practice balls from Wilson because I can see how a shot takes the spin that a swing imparts, but the balls tend to crack along the seam at their circumference. Looking online, I came across the Callaway Golf HX Practice Soft-Flite Ball - 30 Pack. Made out of soft rubber, with dimples so that their flight is realistic, they travel about a third the distance of a regular golf ball. In my yard, I can hit them (if I don’t hit the house first) about sixty-five or seventy yards on the fly with a driver doing that seven o’clock drill. Any farther than that, and they’ll end up out on the highway. Ideally, I’d like a ball with a shorter flight, but aside from that, they’re perfect for my situation.

With these balls flying about sixty-five yards, the equivalent of 195 yards with a regular golf ball, I still haven’t solved my problem with distance. Continuing my search for an answer will be the subject of the next post.

Swing Shortcomings

As you’ve probably noticed, at this point in the evolution of my swing, my primary influence lately has been Tom Bertrand and his synthesis of

Hogan’s book Five Lessons. For the past four to six weeks, I’ve been working with Tom—his YouTube videos and his book—figuratively speaking, my latest swing coach, and we’ve been working on the left elbow turn.

In his video, Tom tells you that you have to practice this movement rigorously and in slow motion, at least at first. I followed his advice and saw immediate results. My practice balls seemed to explode off the clubhead, their trajectories starting out dead straight and then curving, incredibly, right to left. All of a sudden, I was able to hit a draw. With all my research on the development of a golf swing behind me, I knew that I was on the verge of graduating from a Stage One golfer (one who slices) to a Stage Two golfer (who can draw the ball). I was so excited! I’m still excited about this progress! Finally, I thought, I’m learning a golf swing!

However, I quickly realized that I couldn’t do this regularly. And as all “Wannabes” do, I probably liked to remember my good shots and forget about the bad ones. When I hit a wicked slice or topped the ball (which happened way too often), I would make an adjustment—anything to get that sweet right to left trajectory back again. These adjustments included

• turning my shoulders farther on the backswing
• leaving the clubhead farther behind me as I started the downswing
• keeping my left arm across my chest as I started to the downswing
• staying behind the ball at impact
• extending both arms into that desired “V” after impact
• feeling my weight on the downswing transfer to the outside left heel
• finishing the swing with a follow-through in the classic position, around my neck somewhere

As you can tell, this was too much to accomplish. Day-to-day, I would focus on one or two of these objectives, depending on how the practice balls flew. Then I spent two hours at the driving range. That was a turning point.

I started out hitting a seven-iron to a green about 150 yards out. I thought I was hitting the ball pretty well. Generally, I could hit ball first and watch the flight track right and come back left to hit somewhere on the green. Naturally, I hit many balls badly, too. I still felt that, for me, I was hitting the ball well, and accurately, too.

When it came to the driver, I saw the same kind of results. I could hit the ball out there where I wanted it to go. Sometimes straight ahead, sometimes slicing right, sometimes straight ahead and drawing left. I never knew what was going to happen. The track of the ball didn’t really matter to me, however. What mattered most was the distance. After all my practice, I still couldn’t hit the ball more than about 195 yards on the fly (and I was concerned only with the fly). To me, this meant that I might as well not play golf. I knew of holes on public courses that I’ve played near me where you had to carry the ball at least 210 yards. If I couldn’t do at least that, then I might as well take up chess. Recently, I saw Camilo Villegas hit an eight iron about 180 yards. That means that he can hit a

• seven iron 190
• six iron 200
• five iron 210
• four iron 220

Basically, he’s hitting clubs two and a-half times what I hit. This told me that I had a distance problem. And it determined what I would practice. Going for greater distance is the subject of the next post.

The "Missing Link"

As I mentioned in my last post, I came across Tom Bertrand’s YouTube video “The ‘Missing Link’ to Ben Hogan’s Secret” while browsing golf videos. He has another one, “The SECRET to Ben Hogan’s ‘laying off the club’.” Experimenting with this tip made me feel uncomfortable, and I haven’t adopted it yet (you’ll see my comments to Tom on his video), but the “Missing Link” is very powerful. See it for yourself. Then go to his book—it’s interesting to read this side-by-side with Hogan’s book. When I started re-reading The Secret of Hogan's Swing, I happened to notice what Tom says about both arms.

In his chapter, “The Technology of Hogan’s Secret,” Tom describes the role of the arms this way.

The arms have the critical task of bringing the hands into the impact zone precisely every time. They must work together, and the only way they can work together is to actively set them up with the elbows turned inward toward each other.

Hogan dictates this more emphatically

The upper part of the arms should be pressed very tightly against the sides of the chest. In my own case, I consciously work to build up so strong an adhesion between the upper arms and the chest that a person would have to exert a really terrific amount of force to wedge them apart.

When I tried to swing with my arms tightly connected, I did feel that it could lead to more power, but so far I haven’t isolated this arm connection enough. I’ve been more concerned with the elbow turn. That seemed like such a crucial factor that I directed most of my attention to it.

For this, we have to depend on The Secret of Hogan's Swing, since, as Tom explains, “Hogan never mentioned it in his books.” Hogan did reveal this “secret” to John Schlee, who, in turn, taught it to Tom. I could have saved myself a lot of time if I had come across Tom’s explanation earlier. Without it, I took Hogan’s talk about supination and pronation and thought that the hands do this. The result was that I had a “handsy” (to use Tom’s term) swing in the impact zone. Sometimes I hit the ball the way I wanted to, and sometimes I didn’t. I never knew what was going to happen, but I attributed this to lack of practice. I assumed the action of the hands was extremely difficult to learn and that years of practice would be required. That prospect was discouraging, yet I still drew hope from the occasional good swings I could make.

That’s why I instinctively knew that Tom had to be correct when I saw him demonstrate the left elbow turn in his YouTube video about the “Missing Link.” In the video, Tom concentrates on the hitting area “where the left elbow comes into play” and goes into greater detail here than he does in his book. You can read two sections in the book “The Left Elbow” (p. 121) and “The Missing Link to Hogan’s Secret” (pp. 148-151). However, to understand this fully, I recommend studying the video. As an aside, Tom believes in plenty of slow motion swing practice and plenty of practice in general, conclusions I come to share in my own swing development.

I also took encouragement from Tom’s introduction to the last section of his book, “The Legendary Golf System,” where he presents

a complete and final summation of all the key elements of Hogan’s golf swing, arranged in a simple format that the average golfer can understand, use, and enjoy.

This training program takes a bit of practice to work effectively, but it’s not so daunting when you realize that in a matter of weeks, you can learn and apply to your game the secrets that took Hogan at least forty years of steady digging to discover. As I [Bertrand] began to comprehend and apply the depth of Hogan’s hard-won wisdom to my own game, I felt as it someone had handed me a big bag of gold nuggets and said, “Here’s all you need to buy your ticket to golfer’s heaven.

I’m not so sure you can learn the secrets in “a matter of weeks,” but I am quite sure that Tom is correct in the rest of what he says. Without Hogan’s book and without Tom’s system, learning a good golf swing could easily take any of us at least forty years. Finally, I’ve found a complete teaching system that I understand and that can probably be achieved in a reasonable amount of time. How I practiced from this point on will be the subject of my next post.

Narrowing It Down

Taking regular lessons with my swing coach, JJ, starting in July, 2008, I spent the rest of the summer just practicing. I decided that there was no point in going out on the course to play with my flawed swing. The boundary of my golf world became my backyard. Like Voltaire’s picaresque traveler, Candide, I had learned to tend my own garden and felt no compulsion to go any further.

On a small patio, I set up my practice tee, with a hitting mat, a couple of deck chairs, and two galvanized garbage cans. I set one deck chair inside another so that I could feel the top edge against my hip as I practiced my turn. I stacked the garbage cans one on top of the other about two strides out in front of the hitting mat. Then I practiced hitting practice balls just past the garbage cans on the right side. I wanted something wide and high enough so that I’d know when I hit to the right, the correct path I was after. If I missed and went left of my target, the ball would hit the cooler.

In this way, I spent the next few months, right up to the end of the golf season, hitting plastic balls in the backyard. Most of the time, I hit the white plastic balls with large holes in them. They don’t fly too far, and when one hit the garbage cans with a hollow, metallic tenor echo (reminiscent of the show "Stomp!"), it just bounced to the ground. If I felt I had made some progress, it was time to switch to the solid white dimpled plastic balls that I could hit about thirty yards or so and watch the flight of the ball.

Gradually, as I improved the path of my swing, I started hitting fewer and less severe slices. And when I was swinging well, I began to hit balls straight or with a gratifying right to left draw. This was such a novelty and such an encouraging development that even when I hit wicked duck hooks, I was delighted.

This was a period of patient, slow, and methodical practice. For quite some time, I’ve known that I can work on only about one thing at a time. More than that overloads my synapses. Even so, as I practiced, the slightest change in my swing usually produced terrible results. One minute, I would be hitting the ball fine. Then, if I make a slight modification, the ball would fly off right in a wicked slice or trip bouncing off the tee like a hot grounder during infield practice.

The hip turn, the weight shift, the swing path, staying behind the ball, rotating around the spine without too much head movement, keeping the left arm straight, relaxing the arms and wrists and hands, keeping the club in the fingers—all these basics I practiced basically one at a time. With the camcorder almost every day, I checked my progress and decided what needed more attention. This constant, daily practice taught me to use my time more wisely, too. Where I had been in the habit of videotaping myself for use after a practice session, and then working on a perceived weakness the next day, now I saw the wisdom of looking at the video during a practice session, while it was still fresh in my mind.

Speaking of wise practice, keeping a journal is a habit I’ve tried to maintain since the beginning, back in the spring of 2007. Looking back at my first entries, I can see that I took notes on research I was doing at the time, either by reading golf books or by watching YouTube videos. I see references to Shawn Clement (the great YouTube pro I mentioned in an early post), Hogan, Rory Sabbatini, Luke Donald, Kevin Na, K.J. Choi, Hale Irwin, Ernie Els, Sean O’Hair, Lee Scarbrow, David Toms, Aaron Baddeley, David Leadbetter, the golfcoastgolfschool.com posts on YouTube, Jim Flick’s book On Golf: Lessons from America's Master Teacher (listing his top ten drills), notes on the strength and flexibility drills on Roger Fredericks DVDs, and more among pages and pages of notes. I was very methodical back then and logged anything I though valuable in my journal. Maybe that was because I had read somewhere that Hogan a journal with him whenever he went out practicing. Though I still believe in the efficacy of this kind of note-taking, I do it only sporadically, the last three entries coming in September and November ’08 and then not again until a week ago.

I think that the reason for this is that, by now, I’ve narrowed down my biggest problems to a couple that aren’t hard to remember or keep track of, and these are mainly what Tom Bertrand illustrates in his YouTube video about the “Missing Link”, as well as in his book, The Secret of Hogan's Swing—turning the left elbow in towards the left hip during the downswing and at impact, keeping the arms close together as long as possible, and moving the left arm “directly across the chest and the right shoulder during the takeaway.”

At this point, I want to introduce you to Tom Bertrand’s wonderful video on YouTube, “The ‘Missing Link’ to Ben Hogan’s Secret.” I came across it, with impeccable timing, while browsing through other YouTube golf videos. After all my practice, I was receptive, and I didn’t miss Tom’s message. I had been trying to square up the clubface consciously, using my hands, and the second I heard Tom describe the role of the left elbow, I knew he was correct. This epiphany drove me back to his book, The Secret of Hogan's Swing. I was certain that there were other details I had missed or forgotten on my previous reading and study. For instance, I had forgotten the importance Hogan places on keeping the elbows close together on the backswing. Tom’s summary drove me back to the source. Hogan’s book, which I’ve had open ever since, next to Tom’s book and Swing Like a Pro) These three constitute my indispensable study guides.

In the next post, I’ll review what I’m trying to learn from them.

A Scent of the Secret

Serious golfers all know what "Inside Out" means. We all want the clubhead to swing from inside the target line out to the ball, or square to that line, and then back inside on the follow-through. That much is clear. I've known that every since I started trying to learn a good swing, and that was over a year ago. In my last post, I recalled how my swing coach pointed out that my swing path was outside-to-in, which explained why most of my shots started out left of my intended target line before fading or slicing to the right. JJ gave me a drill to use (trying to hit just right of a target placed in front of me), and I went home to practice for as long as it would take to get this path problem fixed.

As I've said before in my posts, this is yet another example of my tendency to think I'm doing one thing when, really, I'm not. Part of the reason for this tendency, I think, is some kind of wishful thinking. I so eager to do the correct thing that I convince myself I've already learned it. Another explanation is simply that, as complex as the golf swing is, there is a limit to what I can absorb at any one time. A swing idea might go into my brain when I read some instruction in a book, but the thought tends to stay there for quite a while before it starts to show up in my swing. Perhaps each swing improvement needs some gestation period.

Eventually, good things will happen. “All in good time,” as Cervantes reminds us. Valuable lessons rarely come easily. Even if they did, it would be highly unlikely that a golf insight would be one of them. No, golf reveals its secrets grudgingly. Golf’s stubbornness requires patience and practice. Fortunately, I enjoy practicing and am content to keep on practicing as long as it takes for the next feature of the swing to kick in. Each time I sense an improvement, it feels like a revelation, a golf gift that we sometimes call an “epiphany.” I haven’t been counting, but by now, after more than a year of learning, I wonder how many epiphanies I’ve had. It’s certainly dozens at least.

At about this time, I came across another book that eventually made a huge difference in my understanding of the golf swing.

The Secret of Hogan’s Swing is a great book for anyone who is trying to learn golf. Not only is the author, Tom Bertrand, a great teacher in his own right, but he also operates with the unequaled advantage of having studied with one of the few people who actually learned from Ben Hogan himself. And that person was John Schlee. Bertrand and Schlee hooked up for a number of years, and Bertrand took note of everything that Hogan had taught Schlee.

The book falls into two main parts. First, Bertrand talks about his relationship with Schlee. For me, that was interesting because I remembered Schlee as a Tour player I used to watch on TV. After Bertrand goes through the etiology of what Hogan taught Schlee, he gets to the heart of the matter in two chapters that distill the essence of Hogan’s book. Condensed and targeted as Bertrand’s summary is, full of photographs and explanations, I was able to absorb only so much on this, my first exposure. I had to return to this book several other times, as I will relate in another post. This time through, I was able to concentrate on a couple of details.

One was that Bertrand took me back to Hogan’s emphasis on keeping the arms together as a unit. The second is the role of the left elbow in the downswing. I’ll go into more detail in a subsequent post, but for the moment, as the left elbow turns toward the left hip, that movement squares up the clubface at impact, obviating the need for a conscious, “handsy” attempt to get square. Be sure to view Bertrand’s video on YouTube where he discusses this move in detail. I found the video extremely helpful and important. According to Bertrand, the role of the left elbow is “the ‘missing link’ in the ongoing analysis of Hogan’s secret.” Without Bertrand—both his book and his video—I doubt that I ever would have understood this crucial feature of the downswing.

One of the great advantages of Bertrand’s book is that it drives you back to Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf. Bertrand got me to start studying Hogan all over again, revisiting Hogan with a fresh eye for what he was trying to impart.

Now that I was improving the path of my swing and had a scent—a whiff— of Hogan’s Secret, I felt I was finally making real progress. Suddenly, it started to appear that I might actually have a swing good enough to take out on the course in the coming spring. Of course, there was plenty to do in the meantime. That will be the subject for the next post.

Pilgrim's Progress

In my first lesson with JJ, part of a five-lesson package, I explained that I needed these lessons because learning a swing was so difficult. When we started lesson one, he might as well have said to me, “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” I couldn’t restrain myself. I started telling JJ about the books I had read and what I had tried to accomplish in practice. He listened to it all. Then I asked my key question (key, because I didn’t think there was an answer). “How can you tell what’s going on with my swing when it all happens too fast for the eye to see it?”

He was ready. As I learned later, JJ attended the San Diego Golf Academy and learned how to become a teaching pro. Obviously, I had turned over the discussion to him. He took over and calmly gave me his response. “The path of the ball never lies.” Then he explained what he meant. He planted a golf shaft out in front of my mat as a target and told me to hit the ball right at it. With each shot that I made, he let me see where it went. Either at the shaft, or just left of it, or to the right of it. That direction indicated the path of the swing. Then if the ball tailed off left (which it usually did), that indicated that the clubface was open at impact.

This was a huge leap forward for me. All of a sudden, JJ gave me a way to assess the results of my own swings. From then on, whenever I practiced, I could analyze my swing based on where the ball went. This was a tremendous insight, one that I couldn’t have found in my reading, my videotaping myself, or watching “Swing Vision” on YouTube.

That first lesson started me on correcting the path of my swing. Obviously, it was “over-the-top” and “outside in.” Breathless, practically, I went back to my backyard and started hitting plastic balls, trying to get the inside-out swing. This is a perfect example of something I’ve said before. After a certain period of practice, you think you’re doing one thing, but, really, you’re not. Here, I could see that I was coming at the ball from the outside, not from the inside, as I thought I was. All I wanted to do in my backyard was to see the ball fly from the tee out to the right. I didn’t care what happened next. As long as the ball went right, I knew that my swing path was inside-to-out. And that’s what I wanted. In my next post, I'll describe how I attempted to draw the ball.

Gratification, at Last

Practice, drudgery, false starts, endless research online and reading library books—finally my first golf season was over. As I recounted in my first post, I practiced right through the winter, going out almost every day in my Sorrel boots, hitting plastic practice balls in my backyard.

When spring, 2008, arrived, I started going back to the range and occasionally going out for nine holes with my friend, Clint. To me, the results were extremely disappointing. I still couldn’t hit a driver very far, and I felt short with all the other clubs, too. I had no distance, and I didn’t have any accuracy, either. For nine holes, I would usually shoot around 50 at best. The thought of taking up a board game, like Parcheesi, occurred to me often. Masochistically, a dark part of my brain kept whispering, “No, golf defeats you. Let’s keep trying.” My golf adventure had become the myth of Sisyphus, the figure in Greek mythology condemned to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, only to see it roll down again, over and over again, for all eternity. Pointless. Meaningless. The crux of the Existentialist dilemma.

But we golfers, we who want to join the initiated, we are heroes of a sort. We do not give in easily. We accept failure. We persevere. And that is just what I did.

After a few desultory rounds with Clint, I decided that I wasn’t going to go out and play on a golf course again until I had a reliable swing. This was in July, 2008. I have spent the rest of that summer and fall and, now, the winter practicing. I have not set foot on a fairway. And I will not until I have a swing that pleases me. This decision has turned out to be pivotal, and I should have made it much earlier, except that there is no timeline or guidebook for learning golf. Each player has to figure it out for himself. “Dig it out of the dirt,” in Hogan’s famous aphorism. Finally, things started to improve. I could see it and feel it.

Although I had devoted myself to practice, I knew I needed help. The books, the videos, YouTube—that wasn’t enough. I also needed a swing coach. Fortunately, and conveniently, I found my swing coach less than a mile from my house. Over the hill, a nice little driving range is tucked into the otherwise commercial occupants of the main road where heavy traffic thrums by my house. And—just my luck—a new pro (soon-to-be manager) had just taken up residence. Jeremiah (JJ to those who know him well) became my swing coach. In actual practice, he was more my golf psychiatrist, for reasons that I will describe in my next post.

More YouTube and a Couple of Books

YouTube videos, especially the “Swing Vision” ones, are extremely helpful, and I continue to go back to them. Very early in my attempt to develop a good golf swing, I made video a central part of my plan. Pictures don’t lie. But golfers do. To themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I set out to learn a facet of the swing—from something I had read or a video I had watched— and practiced and practiced faithfully until I was sure that I had learned it, only to discover, much later in most cases, that I was completely mistaken. I thought I had been doing what I set out to learn, but in fact, I had been doing something else. As I said to a pro, who came along later in my development, “You think you’re doing it, but you’re not.”

After all this time spent practicing and learning, I’m still in awe of the elusive nature of the golf swing. You think you’re learning it, but you’re not. Or you’re learning only a tiny part of its intricacies. I remember my first pro, Mark, who told me about the swing, “You have to feel it.” At the time, I didn’t say anything to him, but I thought to myself, then and for a long time afterward, “What a ridiculous thing to say!” Surely, I thought, it has to be more concrete than that. “Why is it so hard to describe what happens during the swing?” I wondered. More than a year later, I understood what Mark meant. But long before that, I realized that I was going to have to teach myself a swing.

After my package of lessons with Mark, I went into a period where I just practiced and played. Then I went to see another pro, one who actually had played on the Tour when Hogan was playing. The trouble with this pro was that he was beyond retirement. He had lost all patience and wasn’t a good teacher to begin with. However, that really didn’t matter to me. I was such a beginner that I could pick up something useful from just about anyone.

During this time, I bought two books. The more influential one was Swing like a Pro by Dr. Ralph Mann and Fred Griffin. I liked it especially because of the mechanical and scientific nature of the model. I was hooked when I read,

Golf is a very difficult game.

And yet, when [you watch] a great pro swing[,] the motion seems so smooth, so fluid, so natural. It looks simple. But as the millions of amateur golfers who strive to develop a proficient swing can attest, it is more difficult that it looks.

The golf swing is not simple. It is enormously complex, perhaps the most challenging sport we humans do for recreation. Errors of a small fraction of an inch or a minute change of angle lead to large differences in the direction and trajectory of the shot, and where the ball comes to rest.

In what they call “The Biomechanics Approach,” Mann and Griffin filmed “over one hundred PGA, LPGA, and Senior PGA Tour players” and identified “the best characteristics of the entire group.” Then, “to demonstrate the model swing, [they used] the 3-D performer, which [they] have termed ‘the Pro.’ He has the best characteristics of all of the tour players.” Pictures of the Pro fill the book and illustrate every teaching point. Photographs add a “human element.” Griffin demonstrates each drill, while another instructor mimics common swing errors. Some of the diagrams of clubhead and hand paths were difficult to grasp, but in general, for visual learners, like me, this book is indispensable. Below, "The Pro."

When I ordered Swing like a Pro from Amazon, I got a second book as a bonus. Right up to the present, Tour Tempo has been of limited use because I'm just not ready for this yet. Once I get a good swing, then I can start thinking about tempo. Nonetheless, when I first looked into it, I couldn't resist conducting a little experiment. I wanted to see how my swing tempo compared with the tempos on the included CD, which includes a calibrated soundtrack. It didn’t take me long to videotape myself, capture the video in some computer software, see what the tempo of my swing was, and compare it to Hogan’s tempo. Virtually the same! Can you imagine how gratifying that was? Of course, you can! I remember telling my wife I had the same tempo as Hogan. Knowing he's dead, she was unimpressed.

What Tour Tempo has to teach me is way beyond what I can handle. It's like the "transition" at the top of the backswing. I just can't absorb that idea now. I'm still trying to figure out the fundamentals of just hitting the ball. In the next post, I begin to see the light.