In their efforts to improve golf swing performance, many golfers dissect the golf swing into separate phases and components.
Though most of the swing pattern can be divided into generally defined phases, there are some hidden, local movements which do not fit neatly into these groupings. One such phase is the reverse.
To improve golf swing performance golfers need to understand the reverse and its role in a successful swing pattern.
The reverse is the point of the swing which shapes both movement and flow. Done incorrectly the reverse will destroy any golfers chance to improve golf swing performance.
In his book, “On Learning Golf”, author Percy Boomer offers some expert advice to help golfers improve golf swing performance. He eloquently explains the reverse in greater detail.
Boomer writes;
“Now let me describe an important little local movement hidden in this part of the swing—the reverse. The reverse is the part of the swing in which the club head is thrown over and pulled down. It requires a special name because it has a special feel, a feel curiously detached from that of the rest of the swing. We have our main feel of control and power down in our nether regions, but at the moment of reverse we are conscious of something happening up above, which is not in accordance with what we are doing down below.
What happens at the reverse is that the club head-having so far to go—takes longer to get to the end of its journey back than does the body, the turn of which is soon exhausted. So before the club head has arrived, the body has begun to come back. As to check the return body movement, or to check the completion of the club head’s travel, would create an undesirable pause in the flow, we let them go on, and the club finds itself behind the body movement both in time and in position. This is as it should be.
When we are told to allow our wrists free play at the summit of the swing, it is so that we shall not break up—by introducing muscular hand force—the flow of movement which we have intentionally set up in the reverse region.
The feel in this region is that the club head is still going back when our force center begins to pull forward. The wrists do not break at a given point; their break is a retarded action set up to delay the club head and yet to keep the movement smooth. The swing is a continuous flow of movement, and we destroy its continuous character if we divide it arbitrarily into two parts—”up swing” and “down swing.” There is no up swing and no down swing; there is the swing complete. For the first three feet back from the ball we are “all together,” but after that the club head—owing to the longer path it must take—loses ground, which it only catches up at the moment of impact with the ball. It will catch up then, even if you try to prevent it, and the further it has lagged behind, the faster it must travel to catch up.
So far in this chapter we have been concerned in analyzing the local feels which occur in the course of the swing, but this is only because, like the musician, the golfer has to decompose a piece before they can play it. But the feel at golf is a transitory one, and soon these transitory local feels blend into the feel of the swing as a whole”.
Improve golf swing performance by mastering the reverse!
Try implementing Boomer’s advice into your golf swing practice routine.
Check back soon for more posts and tips to improve golf swing performance!
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