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!