The first lead to my recent improvement was a pivotal lesson with the great pro at Mohansic public course in Yorktown, Max Galloway. I've been studying with him since last year, and he has been instrumental in the improvement I've made since last summer. In my last lesson with him, last weekend, he detected two problems with my swing. One was with my weight shift, the other with my release.
He said he likes to move his weight to the forward foot to the middle of the ball of the foot. That's as close as I can get it. Basically, you want to stride forward to the inside of the wide part of your front foot.
Second, he said that he was concerned about my arm-chest connection, and he described the fulcrum-like action of the left arm against the chest to create great clubhead speed in the hitting zone. This is something he told me last summer, but it was something I forgot about. When I asked him how to practice this, he said, "The 8 to 4 drill."
I did that for a few days, both at the range and in my backyard with plastic balls, and the difference was fantastic. I began to feel how real players generated their clubhead swing, making the golf swing look effortless.
Since then, as I've been practicing what Max told me, I saw some Justin Rose instructional videos on YouTube and noticed how effortless his swing looked. Then I watched some more lessons on Revolution Golf, the Paul Wilson Website, where I noticed, again, how effortless Paul's swing looks. Even though I've been very happy with my swing lately, I still wondered why these swings look different from mine.
Today, I think I found at least part of the answer. Swinging with plastic balls in my backyard, I suddenly felt what these guys, like Max and Paul Wilson and Justin Rose, do in their swings. And it reminded me of what Hogan says about the "hitting zone." It turns out that when you make your coil and uncoil, the clubhead develops its own speed, and then when you get your hands down toward the bottom of their arc, the clubhead is traveling very fast, and then--all of a sudden-- you allow the clubhead to release by letting your forearms go and turn over, then, "Boom!" (as John Madden perfectly captures the instant), the clubhead explodes through the hitting zone, taking the ball with it. It's magical. And not difficult. Once I got the concept, I could do this pretty consistently. I was using a pitching wedge for this practice and then switched to the driver. More on that club in a subsequent post. But the driver looked pretty good with the plastic balls.
Take a look at the video and see what you think. I'm happy with the way it looks now. You'll see me practicing Max's 8-to-4 drill, and then some other backyard swings. Notice how I'm not jerking the club through anymore. It's starting to look like a swing! Just what we're all after!
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