Golf Instruction Blog

I’ve had a reasonable start to the winter season. I won the NPGA Pro Am at Kettering last month, shooting a one under par 68. I have played four of the winter Pro Ams at The Bedford GC, finishing 3rd twice. Despite the frost we managed to get the Thomson Tour event at Chesfield Downs played on Wednesday. The course was in really good condition for winter, and I shot a one under par 70 to finished tied 2nd, mainly relying on my short game and some good putting. Despite making 5 birdies I made 4 bad bogeys and wasn’t really happy with the way I hit the ball.

So, found some time to get in the studio yesterday evening. I’m much happier with the way my hips and legs are moving in the backswing now. I’m getting my weight nicely onto the right heel, and getting loaded properly into the right glute. On the downside, as I mentioned in a previous post I’ve always had a battle with my right arm coming away from my chest and getting too deep behind me in the backswing. From here I tend to throw the club over the top and can either hit a cut or a pull.

I watched the latest instruction video from RotarySwing.com which deals with getting the club from the takeaway position to the top of the backswing. There are a series of drills to do without the club and the ball which break the backswing down into its individual elements. After practicing each move for a few minutes, I noticed that the drills gave me a much flatter left wrist position than before, but the feeling that the clubface was massively shut at the top of the backswing. I was slightly incredulous at the time, as I couldn’t believe that this was 'correct', but after checking the position in the mirrors and then on the video, I could see that the ‘shut’ feeling, actually put the club in a much better position at the top of the swing.

             

This is one of the hardest things to overcome when learning, or indeed helping someone else to learn the swing, especially if an existing movement pattern is very well established. ‘Feel’ and ‘real’; that is what the golfer thinks is happening, and what is actually happening are often miles apart, leading to a lack of trust in the new movement, and a speedy reversion back to the old habit. This is why it is so important to use either mirrors or a video camera when making changes. Your eyes are perhaps the most reliable and trusted source of feedback, so it is vital to make the best use of them when you are learning. You need to see what is happening, and then be able to relate that to what you are feeling, as the feeling can often be deceptive.  The other key point is that it is much easier to make changes to a movement by breaking it down and practising without a club and definitely not by hitting golf balls.  The feedback you get from your eyes is much more reliable than the feedback you will get from a golf ball.