With the spectacular weather the last few days—temperatures in the mid-60s and above, and clear, sunny skies—the golf courses around here opened long before the daffodils will. The courses may be jumping the gun a little, but, suddenly, I felt a decision was necessary. Knowing several improvements I wanted to work on, I thought I could very well continue hitting my plastic practice balls in my backyard and videotape my progress. On the other hand, I also knew that my swing was good enough to take out on the course. Or, at least, I was pretty sure it was good enough. After some dialogue with self, I decided it was time to play.
Then the question became, Do I go directly to the course and see what's going on with tee times? Or should I go to the range first and see how my swing works with real golf balls? Since I already have, in my shoulder bag, several early-bird tokens saved from the fall, I decided that I might as well go to the range and see if I could get a mat.
Since I arrived at the range early in the afternoon, around one o'clock or so, it really wasn't bad: half a dozen cars in the parking lot. So I got my bucket of a hundred balls and started hitting.
Starting out with a 9-iron, which is what I've been practicing with in my backyard with the plactic balls, I could hardly believe how well I hit the ball. I went through the bag and felt good about each club. I did have some questions about distance, and I did pull a few balls left, but, overall, I couldn't have been more gratified.
The driver required a few adjustments, but there, too, I was happy, hitting straight drives out there, about a 230 carry. Very satisfying, considering I haven't been hitting that club at all during the winter practice.
The results were so good that I started modifications as I went along. Mainly, I wanted to delay the release and lengthen the follow-through, which (to me) means throwing the right hand, fully releasing the left, and finishing with both hands far out toward the target and resolving somewhere around my back.
The more I worked on these points, the better the shots became. I hit the pitching wedge for accuracy and found it was going around 120 and, within reason, around the flag. The nine (here I keep in mind the Johnny Miller video on YouTube, where he's hitting at that island green at Sawgrass, a 145-yard shot) was going straight out there, about 140 carry. How could I not be happy with that?
Recently, I read something that amateurs don't hit their irons with that much diffence. Where the pros can hit irons with around ten yards or so of difference between each one, the distances amateurs hit their irons are more clustered together. That's what I found with my own swings. The distances I was getting, however, told me that my swing was in good shape. My six-iron was going over the green where the flag is supposedly 155, and my five-iron was going out there about 175 or 180 carry. All my distances are measured as carry. I don't know what difference that makes, but that's my yardstick.
The more I hit, the better the results. With the club control I have now, I can make adjustments and actually make a swing. After dozens of swings, I started to feel the lag and the way the release brings the club down into the ball, with the left arm squaring up the clubface and the right hand supplying the propulsive forward momentum.
As I say, the distances I got today were very gratifying, but I know that I can hit still farther. One of the aspects of greater distance is a quicker tempo. In the video below, you'll see me swinging in the backyard at a 27/9 tempo. If I can speed that up to to 24/8 or 21/7, I'll get commensurately greater distance. See the Tour Tempo book for a detailed explanation of the 3-to-1 ratio of the golf swing. Let the movie load completely and then play it to see how the audio syncs up with the video.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
New Opening Day, New Swing
This afternoon, I stopped by my local course, Mohansic, to see what was going on, and, to my great surprise, the flags were on the greens, the markers lined the fairways, and the place seemed fully open for business. So I'll try to get out tomorrow and see how my swing performs.
Today, another beautiful day of sunny skies and temperatures in the mid sixties, I spent hitting my plastic practice balls. I thought of going to a nearby range, but thought better of it. The last time I was there, it was packed in the afternoon, full of local high school and college golf teams and eager duffers. With the great weather, I assumed that the facility would be insane and that staying home and using the time I would otherwise have spent waiting for a mat to get in some quality practice at home. That turned out to be a "capital idea," as my father was fond of saying.
My swing feels very good right now, ready to take out on the course. My focal points have been mainly my follow-through and my posture and knee-flex at address and during the backswing. In the video below, you'll see a closeup of my knees, and I think it shows that I'm OK here. My right knee stays flexed throughout. Weeks ago, my pro, Jeremiah, pointed out that my right leg was straightening during the backswing and cautioned me to correct that. I think that's done, or at least under control.
In general, I think my flexibility is limited, both during the backswing and during the follow-through, but it's the best I can do. And, for me, I think it's sufficient. I gauge my swing in the way that I hit the ball. If my distance isn't the greatest, well, that's the best I can do.
But today, I felt I was really getting the feeling of both hands working together, the left hand squaring up the clubface and the right hand providing that down-the-line power push. Suddenly, I understood why people, like Hogan, said that the swing actually is faster past the ball than before. The reason, I think, is that the release initiates a powerful physical force that begins before the ball and continues to gather incredible speed at the ball and past it. The result, if performed with both hands coordinated, is a nice, loose follow-through where the club is at least at your back, or, in an ideal swing, past your back and swinging toward the target.
As I worked on using both hands, I understood the function of each. The left hand performs the release, from any lag that you can preserve, and the right hand gives the club a push (like pushing a child in a swing). The problem is that all this happens so quickly near the ball that you have to try to feel your hands, and the positions they occupy, long after impact, way up in the follow-through, when your hands are up in front of your head. For me, I like to visualize the left hand snapping the clubhead down to the ball and through it (remembering the L-drill), and the right hand driving through the ball with the right wrist bending ever left, bending the left wrist back, and both hands continuing to somewhere behind your head (if you're flexible!).
So I did some practice swinging, right arm alone, to give me the feel of what the right arm and hand actually did. That's when I started to visualize the right wristbone bowing out after it threw the clubhead through the swing arc. In response, the left wrist supinates, as Hogan describes it, and finally is bent back as far as possible by the force of the swing. After a swing, if I felt this left wrist bent back, with the right wrist on top of it, I knew I had just hit a good shot.
As any golfer who has done any practicing knows, these little things are absolutely confounding for a neophyte. I can hit several perfect shots in succession. Then, with one little mental change, everything falls apart, and I shank the ball way off to the right. A good golf swing, it seems, demands perfect execution. Anything less and you have either a mediocre shot or disaster.
Last, in addition to all these fine points, the factor that continues to grow on me is the importance of relaxation during the swing. As my first pro, Mark, told me, "Tension kills a golf swing." More and more, day by day, practice bucket by practice bucket, I'm gaining more understanding of what he meant. With all the fine points in place, with complete relaxation, you'll have a good swing.
In the video, I've left in several consecutive real-time swings so that you can see how I practice and what can go wrong, and I've included shots from face-on and from behind, with that special close-up of my legs. You'll also see that sometimes my follow-through is complete, and abbreviated in others. I can feel this difference during the swing. That's the good news. Correcting it and establishing a swing with a complete, relaxed follow-through is another. But I'm hot on the trail!
Today, another beautiful day of sunny skies and temperatures in the mid sixties, I spent hitting my plastic practice balls. I thought of going to a nearby range, but thought better of it. The last time I was there, it was packed in the afternoon, full of local high school and college golf teams and eager duffers. With the great weather, I assumed that the facility would be insane and that staying home and using the time I would otherwise have spent waiting for a mat to get in some quality practice at home. That turned out to be a "capital idea," as my father was fond of saying.
My swing feels very good right now, ready to take out on the course. My focal points have been mainly my follow-through and my posture and knee-flex at address and during the backswing. In the video below, you'll see a closeup of my knees, and I think it shows that I'm OK here. My right knee stays flexed throughout. Weeks ago, my pro, Jeremiah, pointed out that my right leg was straightening during the backswing and cautioned me to correct that. I think that's done, or at least under control.
In general, I think my flexibility is limited, both during the backswing and during the follow-through, but it's the best I can do. And, for me, I think it's sufficient. I gauge my swing in the way that I hit the ball. If my distance isn't the greatest, well, that's the best I can do.
But today, I felt I was really getting the feeling of both hands working together, the left hand squaring up the clubface and the right hand providing that down-the-line power push. Suddenly, I understood why people, like Hogan, said that the swing actually is faster past the ball than before. The reason, I think, is that the release initiates a powerful physical force that begins before the ball and continues to gather incredible speed at the ball and past it. The result, if performed with both hands coordinated, is a nice, loose follow-through where the club is at least at your back, or, in an ideal swing, past your back and swinging toward the target.
As I worked on using both hands, I understood the function of each. The left hand performs the release, from any lag that you can preserve, and the right hand gives the club a push (like pushing a child in a swing). The problem is that all this happens so quickly near the ball that you have to try to feel your hands, and the positions they occupy, long after impact, way up in the follow-through, when your hands are up in front of your head. For me, I like to visualize the left hand snapping the clubhead down to the ball and through it (remembering the L-drill), and the right hand driving through the ball with the right wrist bending ever left, bending the left wrist back, and both hands continuing to somewhere behind your head (if you're flexible!).
So I did some practice swinging, right arm alone, to give me the feel of what the right arm and hand actually did. That's when I started to visualize the right wristbone bowing out after it threw the clubhead through the swing arc. In response, the left wrist supinates, as Hogan describes it, and finally is bent back as far as possible by the force of the swing. After a swing, if I felt this left wrist bent back, with the right wrist on top of it, I knew I had just hit a good shot.
As any golfer who has done any practicing knows, these little things are absolutely confounding for a neophyte. I can hit several perfect shots in succession. Then, with one little mental change, everything falls apart, and I shank the ball way off to the right. A good golf swing, it seems, demands perfect execution. Anything less and you have either a mediocre shot or disaster.
Last, in addition to all these fine points, the factor that continues to grow on me is the importance of relaxation during the swing. As my first pro, Mark, told me, "Tension kills a golf swing." More and more, day by day, practice bucket by practice bucket, I'm gaining more understanding of what he meant. With all the fine points in place, with complete relaxation, you'll have a good swing.
In the video, I've left in several consecutive real-time swings so that you can see how I practice and what can go wrong, and I've included shots from face-on and from behind, with that special close-up of my legs. You'll also see that sometimes my follow-through is complete, and abbreviated in others. I can feel this difference during the swing. That's the good news. Correcting it and establishing a swing with a complete, relaxed follow-through is another. But I'm hot on the trail!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Saint Patrick's Day
As you'll see in the video below, St. Patrick's Day in the Northeast was beautiful—about 60 degrees and sunny and all our snow melted. It won't be long now before the local course open and we can go out and see how all the practice over the winter pays off on the course. Personally, I'm very optimistic. My swing feels really good and looks really good to me on video, and when I go to the range, as I did the other day, the swing holds up with real balls. I can't wait to start hitting off real turf.
For the past couple of weeks or so, I've been working mainly on the follow-through, trying to complete the whole swing. This is the last piece of my swing-building. Everything else is in place.
I've decided that hitting plastic practice balls in my backyard and into my driveway makes the most sense for me. The balls give me good feedback, and hitting them is free. Each day, I hit hundreds. This way, I can make various changes from swing to swing and instantly see the results. It's also easy to set up my camcorder and watch my swing whenever I want to.
The video shows that I have limited flexibility going back and following through. Still, you can see some differences from my swing weeks earlier. To start, on some of the swings, I'm concentrating on keeping my head still, and you can definitely see that. On all the swings, I'm trying to keep the swing going, all the way to its conclusion. You can see this, too. This full follow-through involves releasing the left hand, but also firing through with the right side. When both moves happen simultaneously, the result if fantastic. And I can actually do this, from time to time.
At this point in the evolution of my swing, I can see that complete relaxation is required. I also see how the left hand is supposed to react at release and how the right hand fires through, giving the swing more clubhead speed. I'm able to keep pretty good balance and to keep the flex in my right leg on the backswing and keep my head over the ball.
Today, for example, in addition to these fine points, I started trying to incorporate the Tour Tempo idea, that is, speeding up my swing for maximum distance. It wasn't too hard to do, since, at this point in my development, I have pretty good club control. And instantly, I could see the ball going farther.
It seems to me that now, to get ready to break 90 and then to break 80, I need to work on a consistent swing, putting all these thoughts together so that I don't have to think about them one-by-one during a round. That would be impossible. But I'm very close to having the swing that Hogan promised me when I began reading his book. I couldn't feel more gratified. Pretty soon, I'll be able to write about my first forays out onto the early spring turf.
For the past couple of weeks or so, I've been working mainly on the follow-through, trying to complete the whole swing. This is the last piece of my swing-building. Everything else is in place.
I've decided that hitting plastic practice balls in my backyard and into my driveway makes the most sense for me. The balls give me good feedback, and hitting them is free. Each day, I hit hundreds. This way, I can make various changes from swing to swing and instantly see the results. It's also easy to set up my camcorder and watch my swing whenever I want to.
The video shows that I have limited flexibility going back and following through. Still, you can see some differences from my swing weeks earlier. To start, on some of the swings, I'm concentrating on keeping my head still, and you can definitely see that. On all the swings, I'm trying to keep the swing going, all the way to its conclusion. You can see this, too. This full follow-through involves releasing the left hand, but also firing through with the right side. When both moves happen simultaneously, the result if fantastic. And I can actually do this, from time to time.
At this point in the evolution of my swing, I can see that complete relaxation is required. I also see how the left hand is supposed to react at release and how the right hand fires through, giving the swing more clubhead speed. I'm able to keep pretty good balance and to keep the flex in my right leg on the backswing and keep my head over the ball.
Today, for example, in addition to these fine points, I started trying to incorporate the Tour Tempo idea, that is, speeding up my swing for maximum distance. It wasn't too hard to do, since, at this point in my development, I have pretty good club control. And instantly, I could see the ball going farther.
It seems to me that now, to get ready to break 90 and then to break 80, I need to work on a consistent swing, putting all these thoughts together so that I don't have to think about them one-by-one during a round. That would be impossible. But I'm very close to having the swing that Hogan promised me when I began reading his book. I couldn't feel more gratified. Pretty soon, I'll be able to write about my first forays out onto the early spring turf.
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