Major Golf Lesson

During your power shot or for a full swing your stance should be wide enough to create stability but narrow enough to generate a weight transfer. I don’t recommend a stance that’s wider than shoulder width, however the longer the club the wider the stance. As the clubs get shorter, your stance should get progressively narrower. Don’t narrow your stance anymore than inside shoulder width for your short irons. If your stance gets too narrow, it can lead to off balance shots or excessive body motion because your foundation of support is no longer stable.  

I would recommend fanning your lead foot towards the target slightly, while keeping your trailing foot perpendicular to the target line. With your trailing foot square to your target, you are reducing hip turn. A limited hip turn joined with a full shoulder turn, can create coil and torque that leads to more power. By turning out your front foot, you will be helping to create a fuller finish, as it makes it easier for your hips to clear through impact.

For weight distribution, your weight should be distributed 50/50 between your feet for almost every type of shot. For a short iron you might put 5% more weight on your lead foot while swinging a longer club about 5% more on your trailing foot. If you’re a beginner it will be very difficult to distinguish that small amount of weight so just keep it 50/50 until you get more efficient at your ball striking. You may want to experiment with your stance during practice to see what kind of results you get from the different weight distributions.

Finally, your body weight should be distributed evenly between the toes and heels on the fat part of your foot. Meaning from the ball of your foot to the arch. If you start with too much weight on the heels chances are your going to shift to the toes during your swing to stay balanced.  This means you can very well have some off centered hits towards the heel of the club because you compensated the weight to stay balanced. The same goes if you start with to much weight on the toes, you’ll compensate during the swing to get the weight on the heels leading to strikes off the toe of your club.

Continue Reading

Tension in my opinion is possibly one of the worst flaws a golfer can include in their swing. Consciously try to stay as supple as you can from your wrists to the forearms, up through the shoulders into the upper-back and chest. You should feel as though all of those upper body parts are soft and tension free.

Tension will destroy any fluidity and smoothness in your swing and make your rhythm, tempo and timing very inconsistent. Remember to “Swing em’ and fling em’. And what I mean by that is to let your arms “swing” and let your shoulder “fling” your arms. They work together. Notice a beginning golfer and how they are all tense in the arms when trying to “hit” a ball. Where as the accomplished player not only “flings” the arms back and up by rotating those larger shoulder, chest and upper back muscles they also swing their supple arms in conjunction with the upper body rotation.

Being tension free has a numerous positive effects for your swing. One benefit is extension. Notice the word “extension”, take away the “ex” and all you have remaining is “tension”. If you “ex” the “tension” you get “extension”.

Imagine hanging soft ship rope from your shoulders. If you rotated your upper body back and through, the ropes would extend as far as possible from the center of the swing. In your back swing don’t try to keep your left arm (right-handed player) straight, however keep it extended instead by being supple in those “ropes”. That extension gives you arc width, which generates swing speed. An effect all long hitters benefit from. Rotating creates centrifugal force. Being tense will reduce any built up centrifugal force your rotation has produced. Too much tension will also inhibit a proper release of the forearms, hands and club head. Let’s go back to that rope analogy. Imagine ropes are hanging from your shoulders and the hanging ends of the rope are tied into a knot. The knot represents your grip. In the forward swing the knot would turn counter clockwise following the rotation of your upper body and your arms swinging down and forward. That counter clockwise turn of the knot would represent your grip. Another words, your right hand would turn over your left hand producing a clubface that went from open (pre-impact) to square (at impact) to closed (post-impact) in the forward swing.

Countless students that I have worked with on this have told me that they feel as though they have no control. That is good because they are now swinging the club instead of hitting at a ball. They are transforming a feeling into their swing that they are now getting out of their own way. Pay attention to your tension and you too will gain control by letting go of your so called control.

Continue Reading

Here are some common drills that you can practice at home without your mind focusing on hitting a ball.

Split Handed Drill

Split Handed Drill: Split your hands apart then swing the arms, hands and club to get the feeling of the proper release of the right wrist (for right-handed players) rolling over the left wrist through impact. Do this enough times and you’ll incorporate this feel when you need it, during your swing on the course.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall Drill: I can’t over emphasize this enough. Look in a mirror at your set-up, down the line, face on and during your swing. You will see the difference of what you think your doing and what your actually doing.

Rehearsing Impact Drill: Take a mid-iron and find something solid like the corner of a wall and take your set up and press your club head against the wall making sure your club face is square to the direction of the pressure. Be aware of your flat left wrist, left arm against your chest, hips open in respect to your target line and shoulders slightly rotated in the same direction.

Weighted Club Drill

Continue Reading