A typical amateur golfer tries to emulate the textbook swings of top professionals. Among other endless criteria, he generally tells himself that he's got to get the club parallel at the top of the back swing; shift his weight at impact without moving his head or altering his spine angle; and end up perfectly balanced on his target foot after a smooth follow through.
However, a top professional has a rather lengthy and complicated regime for his swing which, for him, is an imperative for successfully reproducing the miracle shots required for his trade. This regime involves: one to two hours of stretching and exercise before going to the range/course; working for 2-6 hours on various elements of his game with his coach/caddy/video feedback equipment; and then putting this all together playing nine or eighteen holes of golf. This is a normal non-tournament day for the average modern professional and only the cream of the crop manage to put it together well enough to make a living on one of the tours.
I could go on and on but my main point is that there's a swing for pros and therefore there must be a less structured and more individual swing for amateurs. We all walk, run, jump, swim, drive, ride a bicycle etc and although we do these similarly there are no strict directives on how to do them.
I coach this game and, in my opinion, the main mistake that golfers are making is trying to emulate the pros. And it's not their fault! All the magazines, books, videos, golf channels and most teaching pros insist there is only the pro's way. The logic is... they do it best, so they are doing it correctly.
Well so are professionals in other sports but I don't see amateur skiers taking corners at 70 mph cutting the snow with a half inch edge of their skis; or tennis players busting a gut trying to place a 100+ mph service in the correct part of the court; or driving a car with slick tyres into a sharp bend at over 150 mph and applying the brakes at the last second in order to glide round the inside of another driver with the same goal. I say different levels for differing skill standards.
I recently took up tennis and decided to follow a training video to improve my service and quickly realised that the hours of precise practice and timing just weren't possible for me. I'm miles away from hitting the ball at professional levels because my consistency and control suffer when I do. I play tennis and golf to my capabilities, the same way as I do every other physical action.
So why does an amateur golfer feel he has to try to swing like a pro? Mainly because that is the way they have been instructed and the pros look really good the way they are doing it. And we've all had those days, rather seldom may I add, where our golf swing just knitted together and the results were way above our norm, only to return another day back to square one. There must be a more consistent alternative.
When anyone comes to my school for a golf lesson, I always ask two very important questions before I start...
How much time do you intend to spend practicing each week?
Do you intend to adopt a stretching routine before each practice session and for how long?
These questions put me in a better position to advise my students on how they will be able to swing and I can also clear up the myth of why they shouldn't or can't adopt a pro-like swing. Most people want to play for hours on end but devote less than one hour per month on practice. On the same breath, a couple of minutes of stretching each day is well above average.
I have devised an easy drill that proves why this textbook swing is more athletic than golfers are led to believe. (Up to this point they have been so obsessed with looking ''correct'' at the end of the back swing that they were ignoring natural swing fundamentals. Typical errors include: lifting the club to this position; weight over the target foot; straightening of the off target leg; over rotation of the hips and many more.) Performing my drill, my students manage to experience back swing restriction for the first time. The fittest of my students have trouble stretching further than a three quarter length back swing. Putting it simply, how can a regular golfer who hasn't, and normally doesn't want to, put in the practice hours or essential stretching required, be expected to accomplish the very atheletically challenging conditions achieved by the top athletes of the sport.
My biggest problem when I coach this game is unfortunately all too common. This textbook swing is so deeply imprinted in every golfer's mind that a much more natural swing with important qualities like fluidity or back swing restricion is a rarity. I used to lose students when I told them they weren't fit enough for a complete backswing. Most of them had the same visual impression of how to swing properly and didn't realise there should be natural restriction. These days most of my new students are promptly introduced to this natural condition with my aforementioned drill.
Let's get down to this simple drill and for most of you it's time to feel this backswing restriction for the first time! I prefer to introduce this drill to my students without a golf club because with one they do the 'same old - same old' and don't feel the natural back swing restriction that I am trying to portray.
I use a carpet beater when I introduce this drill. (A tennis/squash/badmington racket does the same job.) At ground level, I place a cushion against the wall and procede to hit it one handed - my dominant hand - with a forehand action and don't think about golf but naturally striking the cushion. You should feel little or no backswing restriction at this point and you should notice that you don't take the racket back as far as the conventional parallel position at the top of the advised golf swing.
Within a few swings you should feel that this is a very natural task for you that belongs to other motor skills in your repetoire that have been mastered. You are now ready to feel natural backswing restriction! It's time to use the other hand but we don't want this hand to interfere with what I describe as your own natural swing. This hand has to be put in place as a non-interfering passenger. Lie the four fingers of this hand on the back of the hand holding the racket and fold the palm snugly above the adjacent thumb. Now repeat the forehand action. I expect most of you won't get your hands much higher than your hips on the back swing.
This drill makes you experience tighter restriction than the conventional grip but the important thing is to feel this natural condition. At this point everybody is surprised at how fit you have to be for a full back swing
A golf swing without restriction is always unnatural and almost always wrong.
I repeat...
A golf swing without restriction is always unnatural and almost always wrong.
