GOLF SWING CONFUSION

For example, you get golf coaches saying you shouldn’t let your right elbow fly out at the top of the swing like Jack Nicklaus (18 Majors).

You get some golf teachers saying we should only swing to parallel because swinging past parallel is bad.  Yep, if you swing past parallel you might only win a major or two like John Daly.

And almost everyone agrees you need to watch the ball being struck when you’re swinging because if you don’t you have no chance of shooting 59 for 18 holes of golf like David Duval

And you most certainly have to keep your right hand on the golf club exactly like you had it at address or you’ll be a terrible ball striker like Vijay Singh.

For almost every “should” in the golf swing you’ll find someone who successfully contradicts it.  Here is an interesting video which shows some of the funkiest and most successful swings in golf (apart from the last one ).

I’ve given up on swing positions…apart from one! (mentioned at 5 minutes and 17 seconds in the video above)

You see, for the last couple of years I have  looked at the golf swing from an 80-20 point of view.  And this 80-20 point of view is to find the MOST important things in the golf swing.  To start my quest I turned to the goal of the long game which is…

“To hit each club as long, accurately and consistently as possible.”

Upon reflecting on that goal and looking at the golf swing in terms of results I’ve come to the conclusion that the most important aspect of the golf swing is what happens at impact.   And there are 5 main things that concern us golfers at impact which are…

1. Hitting the ball first.

2. Striking the ball on a path that will send the ball straight where we want.

3. Striking the ball out of the center of the clubface.

4. Contacting the ball consistently with a slightly open or slightly closed clubface.

5. Contacting the golf ball with the clubhead moving as fast as possible.

Now IMPACT may not seem like much of a perfect golf swing revelation to you, but to me it was HUGE and let me explain why because it’s very important…

When I was trying to play on tour as a teenager I was obsessed with swing positions but I never focused on those 5 things above.  I mistakenly thought that if I had perfect swing positions then the result at impact would be perfect.  Sadly the reality is that you can have a great looking swing that hit’s the ball consistently badly. But conversely like that video above showed, you can have a terrible looking swing and hit the ball consistently great.

The only way that can happen is because at impact the great golfers all consistently achieve those 5 impact conditions above.

So now I firmly believe that if we want to improve our ball striking in the shortest amount of time we should systematically work on improving the 5 critical impact elements above.  If we improve those 5 impact elements over what we are doing currently then improved ball striking has to be the result.

This may be a different take on the perfect golf swing than you were expecting so I’d be interested to hear your comments. Just post your thoughts below on the 80-20 perect golf swing.

Did you notice how simple that is?  But there are some very subtle things I’m doing when setting up that will mean I’m more consistent than most other golfers.   And those things all relate to the following three things:

• Grip
• Alignment
• Ball Position

Posture is not on that list because the posture you have at setup is more a result of the habits you’ve setup in the past.  But I’m doing very specific things with my grip, alignment and ball position to help me hit the ball consistently.  Can you guess what they are?  Put your comments below and I’ll see how on to it you are.

]]> http://consistentgolf.com/blog/my-80-20-pre-shot-routine/feed/ http://consistentgolf.com/blog/the-80-20-setup/ http://consistentgolf.com/blog/the-80-20-setup/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:53:13 +0000 nickbayley http://consistentgolf.com/blog/?p=1331 Every hole of golf requires a tee shot first.  I would have thought that would make tee shots rather important!  I think in terms of the 80-20 rule they are.

Now as far as the long game is concerned I’m going to loosely say it covers shots from your driver through to your 9 iron.  Although there is some carry over to the short game.

OK, so what are we trying to achieve with the long game?  Well, here is the goal of the long game I believe:

To hit each club as long, accurately and consistently as possible.

So what is important and needed to do this?

Well let’s look at the setup first because you can’t hit ANY golf shot without first setting up to the golf ball.  And to do this I’m going to quickly cover the major elements of the setup.

The Long Game Setup

Grip - I’ve heard a number of different golf teachers say that the golf grip is not important.  I can’t believe how anyone can say that because without gripping the golf club you can’t hit the golf ball.  So logic would dictate that your golf grip has some importance.  But I think the best thing as far as the grip is concerned is to find the best golf grip for you and repeat it consistently.  The best starting point for this is the vardon grip.  It’s the most commonly used golf grip on any golf tour.  So the 80-20 rule tells us that’s the best place for all golfers to start with.

Alignment - Again, I’ve heard golf teachers saying that alignment is not that important.  But like the golf grip, you can’t hit a golf ball without aligning yourself so you may as well make this as easy as possible.  The most logical and easiest way to align yourself is to have all parts of your body i.e. feet, knees, hips, shoulders etc., parallel with your target line.

Posture - Getting into an athletic posture position is a must if you want to hit the golf ball as far as possible.  Luckily it’s very easy to do as I show you in this video.

Ball Position - Positioning the ball in a good place in your stance is critical to making the golf swing easier and more consistent. As a general rule…having the ball positioned just inside your left heel will serve you pretty well for most golf shots.

OK, with all of these setup elements I’ve outlined you must understand that you are fully capable of still hitting great golf shots if you don’t have these things “perfect”.   But you’ll make golf easier and simpler the better you setup to the ball and a great way of getting close to perfect is to have a….

Physical Pre-Shot Routine

To improve your ball striking you must create a physical pre-shot routine that you use every long golf shot you play.  And that routine must include all the critical setup elements I’ve covered so far, i.e. the grip, alignment, posture and ball position.  OK, finally for today I think it’s important that I say if at any time in your golfing career you start hitting the ball badly…the very first place you should look to for fixing it is the setup.  Make sure your setup is sound by making sure you’ve got your vardon grip, parallel alignment, athletic posture and ball position correct.

That’s a summary of the 80-20 setup.  If you would like more information about how to make an 80-20 pre-shot routine let me know.

If you’ve got a bunker shot and you feel nervous, act as if you are Gary Player.  If you need to hit a real long shot over some water, then act as if you are John Daly.  You can have some fun with these.  Act as if you are playing like someone else for each shot of an entire round.  Play one shot like Lee Trevino, another like Greg Norman, etc.

Hey, golf is only a game, so make it fun.  Play these fun games and don’t worry about what you shoot.  Just let go for a game or two and play around with this acting thing.  You may not win an “Oscar” but you sure will have some fun, and isn’t that why you play?

So go out there and “act as if” you are someone else for each shot you play, the next time you play.  Act as though you’re confident.  Act as though you are a great golfer and you’ll play better, have less anxiety. more fun and enjoy playing golf instead of it being a nervous experience.  Make it a game again and have fun….just like Tiger Woods does!