Improve Golf Swing Performance – Timing & Mechanics – The 2 Keys to a Successful Swing!

Question…What elements of the swing pattern are essential to master for a player to truly improve golf swing performance?

Most professional instructors would agree BOTH timing AND mechanics are the two critical components which make up a winning golf swing.

These two components together help guard golfers from faulty swing patterns, swing planes and power leaks. Should any of these faults exist; a golfer will never improve golf swing performance or play golf to their fullest potential.

Any student of the game looking to improve golf swing performance should concentrate their practice and efforts on these two facets of the swing pattern.

In the book, “On Learning Golf”, author Percy Boomer agrees too that, to improve golf swing performance, a player must master both their timing and mechanics.

Boomer goes on to write;

“Now for our grosso modo exposition of how the swing works.

The beginning of the movement is in the feet; the movement passes progressively up through the body, through the arms, and out at the club head. What we try to do is to make the club head come down in the same path time and time again—in such a way that the face of the club comes squarely into the back of the ball every time. We have one fixed point (the feet) and one moving point (the club head) which we desire to move along the same line time after time. So the golf swing might be compared to the drawing of arcs with a pair of compasses. The reasons why we cannot be so precise in our stroking as the compass can, are that we are supported on two legs instead of one and we are full of flections and joints!

Again, we have not only to bring the club head down through the same line time after time; we must bring it down so that the club face is square with the ball at the instant of impact—and because the path of the club head is a curve, this means that impact must be timed correctly to an infinitesimal fraction of a second in the sweep of the swing. Also the club head must be accelerating at the moment of impact.

So we have not only to set up the mechanism to make a good swing, which we can all soon do if we only swing at the daisies, but we have to time this swing to the fraction of a second. Now I think that most of us overrate the value of good mechanics in golf and underrate the value of accurate timing. I was once watching, with a pupil of mine who had a most perfect swing, a fellow whose action was not pretty—to put it kindly. But he kept hitting nice long shots down the middle. “Not much to look at,” I remarked to my pupil. “I would not care a damn what I looked like if I could repeat like that chap!” he replied.

The awkward one could repeat his best shots time after time. His mechanics were ungainly but his timing was near perfect.

Well, you may say, if that is so, why should you go to so much trouble to give us a good mechanical swing? The answer is that good timing plus a good swing is better than good timing plus an awkward swing. The best swing, mechanically, is the one that pulls the ball a little and then makes it turn a bit to the left at the end of its flight, but if you get your maximum golf happiness out of a swing which slices the ball all around the course, there is no reason to alter your mechanics!“

A solid command of both timing and mechanics are necessary to improve golf swing performance.

Try following Boomer’s advice and focus on improving your swing timing and mechanics.

Check back soon for more posts and tips to improve golf swing performance!