Is Your Swing a Mess? Get Back to Basics

December 23, 2007

Are you so completely messed up by golf swing theories and tips and planes and elbows and shifts…that your head is about to explode???

Don’t worry, all hope isn’t lost - you just need to get back to basics.

Try this: Go out to the practice range, and start hitting some shots. Small shots. Really small shots. In fact, start out by pretending you are putting, but with a nine iron, and a nine iron setup. Don’t swing any longer until you can hit every shot to the same target a few feet away. Once you can do this, hit another large bucket at this length. Then you can move on to the next distance: a few more feet away.

Not only is this great practice for your short game feel, but it helps groove the most important part of your swing - the short distance before and after impact. Don’t worry about the club going straight back or straight through. Just swing the club back and through like a normal putting stroke; the club head path should form an arc as it rises from and falls to the ground.

It is also much easier to see and understand what is going on when you are making such a small swing. The small swing takes out a lot of the complications of the full swing.

Written by John at 11:38 pm. Full Swing