Beginner Golf Swing Instruction – The Long Irons – You Have To Use Them, So Use Them Right!

Beginner golf swing instruction programs know student golfers who possess a working command of the long irons will have a tremendous advantage over their peers.

Many professional golfers see their long irons as the most important clubs in their arsenal. It seems professional golfers most frequently swing their one, two and three irons in tournament play.

Beginner golf swing instruction programs recognize that, because of their repeated use, to play well golfers must develop unwavering confidence in their long iron abilities.

Beginner golf swing instruction programs seek to build this confidence through knowledge!

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 – explaining the valuable role the long irons play in a winning golf game..

They write;

“Al Balding, one of the greatest professionals ever to come out of Canada and a truly fine iron player, regards the long irons as his “bread and butter” clubs.

“There’s something wrong with your swing if you can’t hit the long irons,” Balding once observed. “The way they stretch the holes out in tournament competition, it seems like we’re always pumping at them with two- or three-irons.”

Balding, of course, is not alone in his thoughts concerning the importance of the long irons in tournament play. Every topflight professional has spent many hours perfecting this phase of their game, which involves the one-, two-, and three-irons. It is a curious, but certainly not surprising, fact that almost every great player of the modern era excels with their long irons. They excel because they practice with them and have confidence in them.

Square Up To The Ball

THE ADDRESS

The stance for the long irons is a bit wider than for the medium irons and is slightly closed to the line of flight. In taking your stance, I suggest that you first set yourself up over the ball in a “square” position, that is, have your feet, hips, and shoulders on a parallel line toward the hole. Then, simply slip your right foot back an inch or so just before you begin the waggle. If you approach the ball with a closed stance, you will have a tendency to line up to the right of the target. It is best to always begin your swing preparations from the square stance.

During the address, your weight should be evenly distributed between both feet. The hands are slightly ahead of the ball, and the arms are in close to the body. Owing to the longer shaft, you will find the ball a bit farther away from you than when you are addressing the ball for a medium-iron shot.

THE BACKSWING

Swing the clubhead back along the ground for the first 10 or 12 inches, utilizing the body and shoulder to move you into the backswing. As the hands pass outside the right leg the arms and hands begin a gradual lifting and cocking action which brings the clubhead into a position where it is pointing toward the sky. At the top of the swing, the weight is almost entirely on the right side. The wrists are fully cocked and the full shoulder turn is complete. The left heel is allowed to come off the ground about an inch to free the hips and shoulders from any strain during the turn away from the ball.

THE DOWNSWING

As soon as the left side has initiated the downswing, the left heel is planted firmly on the ground (some professionals advocate making this a conscious effort in starting the downswing). Planting the left heel firmly and early ensures that you will be on the inside plane on the downswing. If the weight is forward on your toes, chances are the swing will be from the inside out.

Halfway down, the wrists are still fully cocked and the right elbow is tucked in against the right side. This is added insurance for an inside-out swing. At this point, the weight is definitely moving to the left side and the right side is beginning its drive into the shot.

At impact, the left side is out of the way, the left arm is still straight, and the head is behind the ball. At the finish the weight is on the outside of the left foot and toward the heel. Note the relaxed right side and how my hands and arms have swung to a high finish”.

Beginner golf swing instruction programs know a golfer possessing a working command over their long irons also possesses a huge advantage over their peers!

Try implementing Littler and Collett’s professional advice into your practice routine.

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

Golf Swing Mechanics – Stand & Deliver!

The execution of proper golf swing mechanics is the key to both a successful golf swing and golf game.

One fundamental component of golf swing mechanics is the position and placement of the feet.

Correct positioning of the feet will allow the golfer to maintain balance while generating power during the different phases of the swing pattern. This concept of “balanced power” is essential to optimal swing performance – ensuring a consistent swing axis, swing plane and club face angle – the overall goal of golf swing mechanics!

In his book, “Golf Can Be an Easy Game”, author Joe Novak offers his professional advice regarding the proper positioning of the feet and their contribution to winning golf swing mechanics.

Novak writes:

“The proper place to stand is in a position where the ball will be opposite the left heel. A line running from the ball to the inside part of the left heel will be at right angles to the line of the shot. The feet should be so placed that the toes of both feet are parallel to the line of the shot.

This position is to be assumed on all shots and with all clubs. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule…however; the basic rule is that the ball is always played opposite the left heel with all clubs (the position is not changed for each club).

The reason that the ball is played opposite the left foot is very clear. In order to raise the club to the top of the swing when making the stroke, the player should use the right side of the body. In order to accomplish this, the weight must be on the right foot. When the player brings the club down into and through the ball, the player should use their left side, and in order to use the left side the weight must be on the left foot. Therefore, as the ball is being hit, the player will be balanced on their left foot. The swing, therefore, will be centered at that point, opposite the left foot, and that is where the ball should be played with all clubs.

The feet should never be wider apart than the width of the shoulders. In other words, always use a narrow, rather than a wide, stance because with the narrower stance it is easier to shift the weight to the right foot for the upswing and re-shift it to the left foot for the downswing“.

Both the position and placement of the feet play crucial roles in the proper execution of golf swing mechanics.

Use Novak’s expert advice to properly position the feet during your swing stance!

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

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

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!

Beginner Golf Swing Instruction – Getting More Swing Power From the Legs and Arms!

Beginner golf swing instruction programs understand the vital role both the legs and arms play in a winning swing pattern.

Students of the game must learn to correctly position both these segments to effectively swing the club to their greatest potential.

To better help their students quickly locate the ideal positions for the arms and legs, beginner golf swing instruction programs employ both cueing techniques and lessons in anatomy!

Student golfers learn cueing techniques to sense weight displacement in the legs and anatomical landmarks, like the elbows and hips, to help determine arm placement.

Knowing these simple yet effective methods used by beginner golf swing instruction programs can make all the difference in your golf swing!

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 an easy system designed to correctly position both the arms and legs at the address.

They write;

“The Legs

Flex the knees. At the address position, the knees should be flexed just enough to make your stance comfortable. Some golfers tend to bend their knees too much, while others stand stiff legged over the ball.

There is a happy medium for everyone.

Study the forms of the leading professionals or good amateur players in your area who are near your physical build. Observe how they address the ball and then do a little experimenting yourself. You will soon find a position that feels comfortable to you. Remember, however, don’t flex your knees too much or you will be unable to pivot, or turn, properly.

I have a little habit of pinching my knees in slightly when I address the ball. This tends to work the weight to the inside of my feet, and it firms up my leg muscles so that during the swing I have a “live” feeling in my legs. Pinching the knees in also makes it easier to swing. This inward flexing of the knees promotes good balance, and, as a result, more power and clubhead speed in the hitting area.

So, actually, the knees are flexed in two directions—slightly outward and inward—at the address to give you a comfortable stance and body position over the ball.

Positioning The Arms

Keep the arms close to the body. During the address, the upper part of my arms are in close to my chest, yet I have the feeling that my hands are away from my body. This feeling is achieved by turning the elbows slightly inward so that the right elbow is relaxed and points to my right hip while my left elbow points slightly outside my left hip. With the arms in this position, the swing becomes a one-piece movement, for it puts the emphasis on the body action instead of just the arms and the hands.

It is my firm belief that the hands do nothing consciously but grip the club, and if you entrust your swing primarily to the proper body movements you are bound to become a more consistent player.

In summary, if you will set up on the ball correctly and memorize the basic stances, your arms, legs, and body will be in a position to carry out their assignments much more easily. The entire swing will function more smoothly, more efficiently, and with more power than you have ever had before“.

Beginner golf swing instruction programs understand the important roles the legs and arms play in a successful swing pattern

Try implementing Littler and Collett’s professional advice into your next practice.

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

The Proper Golf Swing – The Simple Secret to Successful Swing Patterns!

A proper golf swing is born from successfully fusing all the different phases of the swing pattern into one beautifully choreographed movement.

For many golfers the two most challenging segments of the pattern to blend together are the downswing and follow through. Both these phases represent the extreme ends of the swing arc and, when combined incorrectly, they can potentially disturb the swing patterns natural flow. This natural smooth flow is essential in both creating and executing a proper golf swing.

When a golfer acquires a working command of these two phases, their chances of performing a proper golf swing are greatly increased.

In the book, “The Master Key to Success at Golf” author Leslie King discusses the integration of the downswing and follow through and their overall importance in executing a proper golf swing.

King writes;

“The whole outline of this swing-shape has been presented with the driver as the club used. For two reasons: It is the longest and most difficult club to control at the top of the swing; secondly, the straight face of the driver makes it simpler to check on the angle of the club-face at different stages.

…Now here is an exercise to help you get the feel of the follow-through and finish. Remember that the first stage of the backswing is confined to the simple movement straight back from the ball of the arms, hands and club head. Do this and extend it partly into the next stage which brings the left heel just off the ground.

Now return the club head through the impact position and into the follow-through and finish. Do this slowly and repeat it until you begin to get the feeling of the various actions I have described.

Assimilation of the combined factors in the swing will develop the shape. But that is not all. You have to apply the swing to the purpose behind the operation sending the ball accurately on its way. Between the two extreme ends of the arc which you have taken in the completed swing, you have to make a timed delivery of the club head to the ball, the crux of the whole business“.

To execute a proper golf swing, the player must learn to successfully integrate both the downswing and follow through into one fluid, natural movement.

Incorporate King’s expert advice to improve your swing pattern and play!

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

Golf Swing Mechanics – Understanding the Importance of the Forward Press

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!

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

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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