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Improve Golf Swing Performance – The Secret to Stop Slicing Your Way Around The Course!

October 7, 2010 by Leave a Comment

To improve golf swing performance, golfers must learn to swing the club “in to out”.

A swing pattern which travels “in to out” help’s the golfer better control ball trajectory – in turn improving golf swing performance and play.

Having a greater sense of how swinging the club “in to out” will improve golf swing performance may help the golfer better understand and grasp the concept itself.

In his book, “On Learning Golf”, author Percy Boomer offers some expert advice to help golfers improve golf swing performance. He explains how swinging the club “in to out” is the golfer’s best way of successfully managing both ball flight and run.

Boomer writes;

“This feeling of in-to-out is intimately connected with that other feeling…that of being set inwards and behind the ball. The long straight drive that covers the pin all the way is the result of a swing which you feel travels from in-to-out. This is what we all refer to as an in-to-out swing; a shot in which the club head does actually take this path (as distinct from being felt to take it) is only played by the first-class golfer when they want to put pull on the ball. And if you will think it out, that suggests why the in-to-out feeling is something that we teachers try to instill into every pupil.

The point being that, while an exaggerated in-to-out feel gives pull, the correct in-to-out feel gives straightness and no in-to-out feel (that is, the feeling that the club head goes along the line of flight) gives slice.

The advantage of the modern in-to-out swing is seen in both the flight and the run of the ball. Hit with the correct in-to-out feel, the ball is given the very minimum of backspin—consequently it “floats” through the air and, when it pitches, takes its natural spin forward, instead of kicking sideways as an undercut ball tends to do, as every lawn-tennis player knows.

To return to the subject of slice. The man who gave me my first job as a professional thirty-five years ago was the late H. L. Curtis—father of the present Pro at Queen’s Park, Bournemouth. He told me many years later that he was doubtful about giving me the job, but having done so he started me off with a very sound piece of advice. “Now laddie,” he said, “if you ever want to make good at this business, you had better find out how to teach people not to slice.”

Those were the days before in-to-out! Consequently few players could get any draw on the ball, and mainly we just sliced our way around the course. Well, it took me a good twenty years to learn to correct that natural tendency in my own game, and then I had to learn to pass it on to my pupils. For make no mistake, everyone has to be taught; it does not come naturally. In some respects teaching golf is like fighting the Devil“!

Improve golf swing performance by learning to correctly swing the club “in to out”!

Use Boomer’s professional instruction in your practice sessions.

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

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Improve Golf Swing Performance – Feeling the Ball Is the New Seeing the Ball!

October 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment

To improve golf swing performance many golfers blindly follow the cardinal rule: “always keep your eyes on the ball.”

“Seeing the ball to hit the ball” appears to be reasonable advice to improve golf swing performance. But is it?

Take a read of the article below. It makes a compelling case that golfers can improve golf swing performance without locking their eyes on the golf ball!

In his book, “On Learning Golf”, author Percy Boomer offers some expert advice to help golfers improve golf swing performance. He explains how “feeling” the ball is the new seeing the ball.

Boomer writes;

“I suppose the most often repeated piece of advice in the whole realm of golf is “keep your eye on the ball.” It is given and accepted as a profound golfing truth (which properly understood it is), but it is necessary to examine what we mean by it and how it fits into the rest of our golfing program.

Very early in my teaching of a new pupil I tell them to keep their eye on the ball, because I know that unless they do so they will never achieve any class as a golfer. But I do not harp on the idea or rub it in—I point out that its importance actually lies less in the sight of the ball than in the reactions which it produces —for instance that it keeps our heads still.

And I put this emphasis on the reactions rather than on the sight of the ball because, to my mind, it is only the bad golfer who actually sees the ball out of their eyes. The good golfer I am convinced feels where the ball is more than sees it.

Now to the ordinary golfer that may seem an absurd statement, or if they do accept it, it may be confusing. So I will try to clarify my meaning.

When Aubrey and I were playing a lot together, we were often congratulated, upon the deftness of our short game—and the congratulations were usually followed by the comment, “How long you keep your head down after the ball has gone!” Their idea was obviously that I kept my head down because it enabled me to “keep my eye on the ball.” But what I was really doing was to keep my head down in order to retain the feel of the swing and to keep my controls going even though the ball had been dispatched. Few of the spectators realized that I often played these shots with my eyes shut; yet I did so.

But when I play with my eyes shut, my senses are wide open. My main concern was to see that my general muscular feel and sense of balance went right through to the end. Not until the follow-through was finished did I look up to see where the ball had gone. I never miss a shot through looking up too quickly; I do sometimes miss one through fear of missing it! The primary fault is not in looking up but in losing the feel of the swing.

Incidentally I have taught many pupils to play beautiful pitch shots without looking at the ball. One very well-known golfer to whom I taught this brought out his “better-half” to watch him “do his circus stuff.” He played some beautiful shots high in the air over gaping bunkers, dropping close around the pin every time and all the while looking me straight in the face. His wife was utterly astonished; then she saw the funny side of it and laughed herself nearly into hysterics!

My view is that the good golfer can only see the ball when their swing is working smoothly, and then it looks as big as a tennis ball! The beginner sees the ball in another way, and because of this, more often than not they miss it. Their attention is so concentrated upon seeing the ball that they cannot feel their swing operate. The business of seeing the ball occupies them too exclusively.

Do I mean by that that the beginner needs to learn how to see the ball? That is exactly what I do mean. They must learn not to see the ball to the exclusion of all their other senses. So when I tell a pupil to keep their eye on the ball I at once go on to the work of building up a swing that makes looking at the ball a necessity. Of course every pupil “looks up” badly at first to have the pleasure of seeing where the ball has gone, but this is a primitive stage and soon over.

In the next stage, when I am impressing them more and more with swinging correctly, I find that they often becomes so engrossed in the swing as to be unable to remember to keep their eye on the ball. But in such a case I believe the cure must come by making the “head down” a natural outcome of the swing. If I simply insist upon “head down,” I run a risk of getting my pu¬pil all stiffened up, “frozen on the ball” as we call it, and consequently only able to make hacking, chopping movements.

Now in this matter of seeing the ball, I would ask you to consider a golfer at the other end of the scale. How does a very good golfer see the ball? In my opinion, through their very highly developed sense of feel, they see the ball (in some proportion) through their hands.

Sees through their hands? Perhaps the idea is not so fanciful as it might seem. I began to think about it first after I had read an article by Sir Herbert Barker some years ago. This is what he said: “We take our hands too much for granted. Their possibilities and powers are seldom discovered or developed. Most people pass through life with these two implements untrained, unexplored, unknown. . . .” Then he goes on: “When we take for granted the localization of our senses in certain organs we go too fast. Localized they are, but not completely so.” Then at a later date my interest was reawakened by the declaration of Dr. Fougools, the French savant, that in the skins of our hands are potential eyes. He says that they are nerve eyes atrophied for the simple reason that we have developed two ocular instruments so much superior to them.

Now to my mind the value of that idea to the golfer lies largely in an idea which it promotes, that perhaps the greatest value of “keeping your eye on the ball” is the assistance which it gives in building up sight through feel.

For whatever may be the eventual verdict of science upon the tentatively advanced hypothesis of the two famous men quoted above, I can assure you that some sort of sight through feel is certainly possible. I have developed it myself, as have many other first-class golfers. I can see the face of the club and the angle it is at the top of my swing (when it is “out of sight” be¬hind the back of my head), and long before I lift my head, I can see the ball fly away with the exact curve which I know my shot has given it.

But let us leave these metaphysical regions and come back to the ordinary golfer. Why is it that so often they can make perfect swings when the ball is not there, yet they become semi-petrified and makes the most ridiculous shots as soon as there is a ball, even a ball carefully perched on a perfectly prepared tee, for them to hit? And what would happen if you could put down an invisible ball for them? Is it knowing that the ball is there that upsets their swing or is it the sight of it“?

Improve golf swing performance by “feeling” the ball as opposed to seeing the ball!

Use Boomer’s professional instruction in your practice sessions.

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

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Golf Swing Mechanics – Understanding the Importance of the Forward Press

September 28, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Golf swing mechanics both define and shape a golfers swing.

Solid golf swing mechanics provide the golfer with perfect body balance, precise body control and powerful body action – the three elements of a successful swing!

Though the entire system of golf swing mechanics is an interrelated and interdependent set of actions, it can be argued that correctly executing one action in particular is the most important – the forward press.

In his book, “Golf Can Be an Easy Game”, author Joe Novak offers his expert opinion on the role of the forward press in winning golf swing mechanics. He discusses the importance of the forward press using, as an example, one of his students he refers to as D.M.

Novak writes;

“For those unfamiliar with this term let me tell you that it is as old as the hills, but aptly describes exactly how every good, reliable golfer starts their swing. The forward press is a slight forward motion, a slight forward bending of the right knee. This forward kick with the right knee enables the player to do a “reverse press,” a reversing of the knee positions, whereby the player can balance themselves on their right foot and right leg, so that the upswing of the club can be made with the right side of the body. And I want to say most emphatically that if there is any trick to making a good golf shot, it is exactly this trick of getting onto the right leg and right foot before the club is picked up on the back swing.

After I had demonstrated and proved to D.M. that he had this little forward press as the first move of his golf swing, I told him to never let anyone ever talk him out of that move, because with it he had developed the proper sense of footwork and balance to put himself in a fine position to swing the club. At this point I emphasized the fact that the proper way to swing a golf club was with a sense of body action, a sense of body control. This sense of using the body to swing a golf club is nothing strange or secret. The basis of all athletics is that whenever one wants to throw something, to kick something or to punch something, in fact, anytime one wants to get power into his arms or legs, he does it by getting into proper position to utilize his body to generate the force.

I pointed out to D.M. that this combination of proper footwork for balance and proper body action for power was the basis of every good golfer’s game, and that however he had acquired that little forward press, it had made it possible for him to use his body correctly and gave him the basis of a real good golf game“.

It can be argued that the forward press is one of the most important components of winning golf swing mechanics.

Use Novak’s expert advice to properly incorporate the forward press into your swing pattern!

Check back soon for more tips and posts to help improve your golf swing mechanics!

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Improve Golf Swing – Learning to “Feel” the Swing for Better Golf Performance!

September 27, 2010 by Leave a Comment

To improve golf swing performance a golfer must learn to swing their club using their sense of “feel”.

A golfer’s sense of “feel” is the program of body movements hardwired in their neuro-muscular system. “Feeling” is built from each swing attempt – the summation of these swings becomes the golfers command center from which all future swings are to be subconsciously guided.

To improve golf swing performance golfers must learn to trust their sense of “feel” and use it to properly motive and direct their swing efforts.

Using “feel” to improve golf swing performance is not as difficult or abstract as it may initially sound. With some simple instruction golfers may better understand and apply this concept to their swing and game.

In his book, “On Learning Golf”, author Percy Boomer offers some expert advice to help golfers improve golf swing performance. He explains the sense of “feel” and the important role it plays in a winning golf swing pattern.

Boomer writes;

“After a while by dint of pivoting correctly, not dipping our shoulders (i.e. not lifting with the arms), we begin to play some good shots, nice and straight and reasonably long. We have arrived at this stage by building on the basic trinity—pivot, shoulders up, and width—and by occasionally taking a sly peep at how they are going. So far we have never consciously produced a good shot; we have merely made certain mechanical movements which we have been taught will result in good shots.

But now we begin to realize how we should feel in order to produce a good shot. We are on the other side of the fence. We know now what it feels like to produce a good shot, and now, instead of preparing for a shot by sly looks at our pivot etc., we instinctively get into the position which we feel will produce a good shot. And as we go on, the feeling of this preparatory state comes more and more into the foreground.

Also because we are working from a secure basis we can now begin to notice the nuances and subtleties. We find that we produce purer shots from one sensation than from another only slightly different. We are enticed to arrange our back swing according to the type of shot we wish to produce: an extra pivot if we wish to pull or a restricted pivot if we wish to slice. But please notice that this will not be a conscious, mechanical control—you will not say to yourself, “I wish to slice slightly so I will restrict my swing to an arc of so many degrees,” you will simply alter your swing unconsciously in response to your feeling of what will produce the shot you want.

In other words, the control of your shots has now been placed outside your conscious mind and will. You have built up a feel that a certain swing will produce a slice—so you can produce a slice by getting that feel into your swing. This is only the beginning of control by feel to the very good golfer.

They begin to hit a variety of shots, with little difference in flight or character and yet each subtly different and with its individual feel. They file away in the “feel cabinet” in their unconscious memory all these subtleties. Consequently they never have to “think out” a shot on the course—they see the lie and the flight required, and these produce, by an automatic response, the right feel from their cabinet and so the right shot from their club.

In this connection consider the hanging lie. Now this golfer’s bugbear is a bugbear simply because it is thought that a shot from a hanging lie must be difficult; so the very sight of such a lie produces difficulties in the mind. If you learn to play by feel, no such difficulties will crop up; the sight of a hanging they will suggest the feel of the necessary swing, restricted and slightly from the outside with the face somewhat open in consequence. Because of the lie you feel that this will give you a shot of normal height, though you feel (correctly again) that such a swing played on the tee would produce nothing better than a vulgar slice!

In one sense, when I tell a pupil at their own request how to play from a hanging lie, I am telling them something I do not know. All I know is the feel of how to play off a hanging lie—and I know that well, for when I was at my apex as a golfer I missed fewer shots from indifferent lies than I did from the tee—probably because I concentrated more severely on the difficult shots than on the easy ones. Difficulties help concentration. I would rather have a bunker to pitch over than a plain run up of the same distance to play“.

Improve golf swing performance by “feeling” your way through the swing pattern!

Try implementing Boomer’s professional instruction into your practice sessions.

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

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Beginner Golf Swing Instruction – A Simple 5 Step Checklist to a Better Downswing!

September 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Beginner golf swing instruction programs try to teach their students the fundamentals of play using various techniques.

One such technique employed by many beginner golf swing instruction programs is an easy to follow checklist.

A checklist is great, helping to cue the golfer through the phases of the swing pattern.

Below is a simple five step checklist for the downswing. This checklist may help student golfers better apply their beginner golf swing instruction to their game!

In the book, “How to Master the Irons, an Illustrated Guide to Better Golf”, authors Gene Littler and Don Collett provide some beginner golf swing instruction – walking the student golfer through a simple checklist designed to improve their downswing phase of the swing pattern.

They write;

“…some checkpoints to remember about the downswing:

1. Starting the downswing correctly with the left hip and left side will put you in a position to hit from the inside out as you enter the hitting area.

2. The hips lead the downswing with a slight lateral, then a turning movement, followed by the shoulders (about a quarter of a turn behind the hips), arms, and hands, in that order. If the shoulders turn ahead of the hips, your swing will be from the outside in.

3. After the weight has shifted to the left side, a driving action is initiated by the right side, particularly the right knee and hip. This develops early clubhead speed and will give you more power and distance. This also releases all tension from the right leg and hip, resulting in about 90 per cent of the weight being upon the right side at the finish of the swing.

4. Complete the backswing before you start the downswing. Take a full shoulder turn and start into the downswing as smoothly as possible.

5. Keep driving through the ball to a complete high finish. Don’t hit at the ball and quit“.

Beginner golf swing instruction programs use checklists to help their student golfers effectively apply their curriculum to the course!

Incorporate Littler and Collett’s advice into your next practice session.

Check back soon for more beginner golf swing instruction articles and posts to help quickly improve your golf swing and game!

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The Proper Golf Swing – The Downswing – Don’t Rush It!

September 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment

A proper golf swing is created from a smooth, seamless and synchronized integration of all the different phases of the swing pattern.

To the frustration of many golfers however, the proper golf swing is often lost during the downswing phase.

The downswing phase is a tricky stage of the swing. It is the point where most golfers swing patterns fall apart. Reason being – most golfers rush it!

A proper golf swing requires that the golfer slowly begin the downswing phase.

In the book, “The Master Key to Success at Golf” author Leslie King discusses the golfer’s critical transition to the downswing and its overall importance in executing a proper golf swing.

King writes;

“The backswing has prepared us for the next phase the action of bringing the club head back to the ball with the full uninhibited release of controlled power.

I do not propose, at this stage, to deal further with the crucial transition which takes place at the top of the swing. You have learned…that the feeling of a slight pause helps in affecting the change of direction, but you must beware in making this pause not to turn the back-swing and the downswing into two entirely separate actions. I am no believer in prefabricated golf swings. The ideal is a smooth blend of the fundamentals, free from stops and re-starts.

In fact the experienced and accomplished player is sensing the start of the downswing as they reach the top of the back-swing, much as a bowman, smoothly and unhurriedly drawing back, senses the release.

…For the present let us consider solely the downswing, and let me stress at once that it starts slowly and smoothly. That is the way you let in the clutch of your car after slipping it into gear. An agitated jerky foot on the clutch pedal and the engine is stalled. It is even easier to stall the golf swing and turn it into a heave. For your own sake make it slow and smooth at the start.

Give yourself time and room in which to hit the ball. Only in this way will maximum acceleration be reached at the right time that is, at and through the ball.

You commence the downswing by DRIVING DOWNWARDS with the hands and left arm simultaneously with the return of the left heel still with left knee flexed to the ground. At the top of the swing the extreme operative points are the hands and the left foot. By synchronizing the movement of these two extreme points you are set to move into a lateral shift of the lower part of the body. Most important this, but I will come to it in due course.

I have used the term “driving downwards”. But in the same way as the engine of your car takes up the drive slowly as you move away, so the left arm and hands come unhurriedly into the first movement of returning the club head to the ball. Make it smooth all the time.

Don’t rush it.

With this combined initial movement the hands and left arm (still extended but not rigid) driving down and the whole of the left foot returning firmly to the ground you now have the whole of the left foot and the inside of the sole of the right foot on the ground with both knees flexed. This is keeping you DOWN to the ball and this is how we want it. Only the heel of the right foot has begun to rise.

Do not fall into the common error of stiffening the left knee as the heel returns to the ground and of rising up with the body. This only locks the movement“.

A proper golf swing necessitates that the golfer slowly and smoothly begin the downswing phase of the swing pattern.

Use King’s professional advice to improve your swing pattern and play!

Check back soon for more articles and posts to help you achieve a proper golf swing!

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Golf Swing Mechanics – The Head & The Swing

September 23, 2010 by Leave a Comment

There exists some debate among golf professionals as to what constitutes the true role of the head in proper golf swing mechanics.

Some golf professionals argue proper golf swing mechanics mandate that the golfer keep the head totally still during the execution of the swing pattern – allowing the golfer to maintain constant target acquisition.

Other golf professionals take an opposing view, believing that keeping the head still detracts from swing performance – restricting and inhibiting free movement of the body during the swing pattern.

When it comes head positioning and golf swing mechanics, each golf professional holds fast to their own opinion on the matter.

In his book, “Golf Can Be an Easy Game”, author Joe Novak offers his expert opinion on the proper role the head plays in winning golf swing mechanics.

Novak writes;

“At no time throughout my years of instruction do I remember consciously asking a pupil to keep their eye on the ball. I feel that the player will naturally look at the ball because that is their target, so why bother telling them to do it. Of course, the real reason so much stress is placed on keeping your eye on the ball is that your head will stay still. I disagree with this suggestion, because if one holds their head extremely still they restrict and inhibit a nice free action in their body.

In the natural course of movement in a golf swing, the act of shifting one’s weight to the right foot does straighten that knee. As the diagonal stretch action of the body is used to raise the club to the top of the swing there is an added straightening of the entire right side. In other words, the combination of shifting the weight to the right foot plus using the right side of the body to carry the club to the top of the swing, automatically produces a certain erectness or straightening of the entire right side. Under the influence of this action the head position is raised as the backswing is made. Then as the weight shifts to the left foot, there is a momentary drop of the entire body position, and consequently the head naturally lowers slightly. However, after the weight moves to the left foot and the left side is used to bring the club through, there is a decided straightening of the left side and again the head is raised slightly.

In other words, the head goes higher as the backswing is made, temporarily drops to a slightly lower position as the downswing starts, but again raises as the swing is completed. Any attempt to hold the head absolutely still restricts this natural body action. Hence I have never asked a pupil to hold their head still“.

The head plays an important role in executing the proper golf swing mechanics for a winning swing!

Use Novak’s expert advice to properly incorporate the head into your swing pattern!

Check back soon for more tips and posts to help improve your golf swing mechanics!

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