Double Barrel Golf

If you have ever heard the expression "swing in a barrel", this little grouping of pictures shows that there is actually two barrels, one at your hips to feel the pivoting of the hips, as shown below by the red lines and a barrel tilted away from the target encasing your upper torso, as shown by the yellow lines in this group of pictures.

The hips will turn roughly 45* on the takeaway (pivoting is the key - not sliding), as we turn back into the ball they will release and turn fully into the shot at impact, ideally with your belt buckle facing the target or as close to it as you can. Notice that my hips have not slid forward at impact, but have actually turned out of the way. The hips have turned as if they were in a bucket, not rocking back in forth. 


Meanwhile, the upper torso started with a tilt away from the target, why you might ask. My right hand is lower on the club then my left and therefore should naturally accommodate an upper body tilt away from the target. The majority of great players out there on tour will have that tilt, check it out the next time you watch them on tv.


The upper body tilt is maintained throughout the golf swing as you can see. To me the difference that I see in the good players and the poor ones is how the upper body moves back in forth for the average golfer and is rock steady for the good players. The next time you go to the range and hit balls, stop at the top of your swing and ask yourself a question; am I leaning into my shot at the top or am i staying behind the ball?  If you are leaning in to your shot you are swinging very steeply and hitting a wide variety of shots, left, right, high, low, slice and hook all caused by the same problem.

To get the correct feeling of the upper body motion, stand with your back to the wall and reach back with your left hand and try to palm the wall. If you notice you are tilting away from the target as you go back. Now try the same drill but slide your hips to the right as you do it, you can't reach the wall if you slide that hip, that is the second part of the equation,
"NO SLIDE THE HIPS" because when you do you tilt towards the target.

For a hands on explanation of this principle, call me anytime at 218-9405 and set up a lesson time.

GOOD GOLF, GOOD DOCTORS AND SWING AIDES

I thought it might be fun to write an article that spoke to the great things that have happened in my life recently and at the same time poke a little fun at the individual most responsible for that change and at the same time talk about a swing aid that I created to help this individual improve his golf game. Wow, that was a long sentence, but spoken just the way I wanted it to be.

About six weeks ago I stared on a program with a local chiropractor I met in the spring of 2009 while doing Demo Days for Taylor Made Golf. When I first met Ryan he was just beginning his business and searching for a way to introduce people to what he had to offer. The first day we met we struck up an interest in each others business as we shared an interest in how good body alignment and proper usage of the body can make a better golfer and a healthier golfer. It helped that Ryan was also an avid golfer and I had experience in just how helpful correct alignment was to making golf a more fun game to play.

Long story made short, we kept in touch and this spring decided to try each others services out, Ryan taking golf lessons and me getting chiropractic treatments and advice on controlling my diet. I have to tell you that last winter was a very difficult time for me and I was in a funk like I had never been in before, my weight had gone to 250 and I was just one depressed guy. Sometime in April my neck and shoulder were bothering me so bad that I called Ryan up and we scheduled an appointment. We had been talking about doing a cleansing or de-tox and decided to do it and a manipulation at the same time.

I can sit here today writing this piece and tell you that my life has been changed dramatically. I know it sounds crazy, but within two days of starting the body cleanse, I was feeling great, still had all the negative thoughts going through my mind, but they weren’t defeating me any longer. Within one appointment with Doc and getting my mis-alignments worked on, my golf game made a big change. I am on a program with Ryan of corrective care and working my way through maintenance to keep the alignment I have. As I mentioned earlier, I had experience with Chiropractic treatment at an earlier age and knew it could have a huge influence on the ability to swing the club properly, so I really wasn’t a convert, but the manipulation and cleanse just gave me so much more energy and a good feeling. I have lost around 20 pounds, but the positive feeling has helped more then I ever could have imagined.

Ryan became a student of mine at the same time we started the cleanse together and as time went on I had a guilt complex going, as I could not seem to give him the same experience of learning golf as I had in the feeling better and playing better. He had one really bad move that he made and I could not get him to correct it. Well, they say “necessity is the Mother of Invention” and because I am always trying to find ways to make golf easier for my students, I set about trying to find a full proof method for Ryan to learn this move. This past weekend we tried the Swing Aid out and so far it is a big hit. I told Ryan I would name it The Zullo Special if it ever got famous.

My goal for life is to try and help others in any way I can, my specialty is golf. When I can make someone happy by playing and understanding this great game a little better I get a rush that is hard to explain. I absolutely love to play this game and have been fortunate enough to have played it well most of my life, and Ryan and his Partner: Dr. John Moore have been an integral part of giving me back a missing piece of my being.

I hope that you will take time to make an appointment for a golf lesson and when there ask me why I think it is important to get a check up to see if you are in good alignment. It is so great to feel good again.

By the way, my swing aid is available for viewing anytime, get it before it gets patented, I mean once The Zullo Special is on the market it will be more expensive (ha ha) and besides you can say you had the prototype before it even had a patent.

Dr. Ryan Zullo and Dr. John Moore at Amerihealth Chiropractic come very highly recommended by this Golf Professional. Tell them Chuck sent you.


Good Golfing
Chuck

Better Golf through Better Thinking II

Thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read my writings and perhaps has taken some of the information to the practice tee to try and improve their golf game. I will continue to try and help anyone who wants to improve their game and I look forward to hearing from any of the readers.

Posture is an extremely important piece of the puzzle when you are talking about good golf. It is very important to give yourself a support system in which to swing your golf club around and your spine is that support mechanism. If your spine is too slouched over then your golf swing will tend to be unsupported and move up and down and all around. In a sport that demands consistency, try to be consistent when your moving all over the place, it just isn’t going to happen. Set up should consist of several things, but certainly one main ingredient is a supported spine angle, not stiff – supported.

Jack Nicklaus told us to: set your feet, flex your knees, grip the club at hip high and bend at the waist until the club hits the ground, that will help you to figure out your distance from the ball and help to give you good posture. It is still excellent advice and can be summed up to some degree by saying the club should be at right angles to our spine. If you could extend the club through your belly it would be fairly close to right angles to your spine. That information has to be aided by a good grip as discussed in my last blog lesson, if your hands are holding the club wrong (too much through the palms) your posture will still be off somewhat. See photo below to view a proper set up.

Ball position and Alignment are as easy as geometry – well I hope easier than that. Think of alignment as railroad tracks, my feet are on one rail and the ball is on the other rail. Easily put; my body and feet are aligned parallel to the target, not right on the target.

Ball position is the easiest of the ball position – alignment paradox. Simply put ball position is where I position the ball in my stance, the paradox is that what it looks like and what is real sometimes don’t click. I like to say that, “without good ball position you can not have good alignment and vice versa.” Alignment and ball position play off of each other, one of the best things you can do when you practice is; hit to a target that is achievable, throw a club down to see that you are targeted correctly, throw an intersecting club down to show you where your ball position is and be sure to look at your target from the playing position often to become aware of what that should look like when you are on the course.

It’s hard to explain in written form, but take my word from experience and years of teaching, if you tend to set up closed to your target, you are playing the ball too far forward in your stance and compensating by coming over the top to get the ball to start on target. If you are playing from a too open stance you are unknowingly playing the ball back in your stance and pushing the ball out to your target.

Ball position and alignment influence an awful lot of things including; solidness of contact, angle of attack, the ability to square the face properly and most of all the ability to not have to make compensation moves to accommodate for poor technique.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts. I would love to get a chance to help you play better golf with better thinking and therefore better technique. Call me sometime and let me try to make you a better player.

Good Golfing
Chuck

Better Golf through Better Thinking

I like to think that golf is easier than most of us think it is. One thing that I find through years of teaching is most of my students over analyze things that are not that important and forget about the easy little things that make a huge difference. While most of us are busy thinking about more turn or keeping our left arm straight, we forget the simple things like; grip, ball placement, alignment and posture.

Correct ball placement, a good grip, alignment and posture will serve you so much better as a starting point for good golf. Great instructors will always tell you how important it is to get posture and set-up techniques down so that you can begin to see what may be wrong with your swing. Better golf through sound fundamentals is a great way to improve. If you begin your practice session with some set-up aids such as: laying some clubs down to be sure to get the alignment procedures and ball placement correct and then check your posture in a mirror, you have a far greater chance of getting the results you are looking for.

Let’s first examine the grip. To me the most important thing to focus on is placing the club in your hand properly. I use a baseball bat to get my students to realize that the club is held much more in the fingers then most people think. Rest your club over your shoulder like it was a baseball bat and feel how the club sinks down into the fingers of the hand. The grip feels fine up on your shoulder, but most of us will place it back into our palm when we put it down in the hitting zone and that is where we make the first mistake. Keep the club in the fingers more and under the meaty pad of the hand while it is in the playing zone, it will make your hands feel much lower than what you are use to, but that is where it belongs.

When the club is gripped properly, it enables you to use the hands effectively. The most common error I see is the club runs through the hands more vertically than it should and doesn’t allow a proper takeaway or release through the shot. Be sure to get the club under the meaty pad and in the fingers more and the club will naturally sink a little lower at address position and give you full use of the hand action. Most of us know that the V’s the thumb and forefinger make is suppose to point at our trailing shoulder, but this is not the main focus, for me it is having the club in the right plane with our grip.

As the illustration shows, the club runs through the hand more in the fingers and when you close on the grip the meaty pad rests on top of the club. Once you have the club running through the hand properly, it will be much easier to get your V’s to point to the trailing shoulder.

A proper grip is essential for you to have a chance at swinging the club effectively. A PGA Instructor like myself can get you tuned in easily within seconds, getting use to the grip takes time and patience, but the positive results you’ll experience are well worth the time and effort. I like to say that, “the result is well worth the adventure.”

Next month we will talk about set up, posture and ball position. Until next month good golfing and have a wonderful April. The Masters lays in wait.

Good Golfing

Chuck

Get the Correct Sand Wedge

Monthly Instruction Tip

If you are struggling out of the sand, the first thing you want to check is the bounce angle on your sand wedge. The bounce angle of your wedge can make a huge difference in your short game. If you are for instance playing a club with too much bounce angle, it can cause you to hit “thin” shots, too little and you hit “heavy” shots.

The bounce angle is often times marked on the wedge or is a part of the name of the wedge; as in for instance, the Titleist Vokey 5614, a fifty-six degree wedge with fourteen degrees of bounce. The bounce angle is a measurement of the angle from the leading edge of the wedge back to the trailing edge, or you might say, the amount the leading edge sticks up off the ground when in the playing condition.

As a general rule of thumb if you play on a course with a harder turf and firmer sand in the traps you should be using wedges with less bounce. The lower amount of bounce will help the clubs leading edge dig down easier into the turf and through the rest of the shot. The type of player that would be best served by a sand wedge with less bounce is one who takes very little divot and has a shallow angle of attack.

On the contrary if you play on a course with softer turf conditions and fluffy sand then you should be using wedges with a little more bounce as this will help prevent the club digging to deeply into the ground thus causing those heavy shots as discussed above. The player best served with a higher bounce angle is one that has a steep angle of attack and usually takes a bigger divot.

Bounce angle is very important in playing those greenside shots also. If you play a course with deep or heavy rough around the greens, it might be best to have a sand wedge that fits the firm, tight conditions and a lob wedge that fits the deep, heavy rough conditions.

The modern day wedges come with many different lofts and bounce angles. Not only can you pick wedges to match the conditions you play in, but you have maximum availability to pick the wedges that get the distances you are looking for as well.

Many of the sand wedges on the market today offer grindings that permit you to get multiple bounce angles from the same club. An example of a wedge that allows you to get multiple bounce angles from the same club would be the Cleveland Golf “DSG” wedges, DSG standing for Dynamic Sole Grind. The trailing edge of the club is beveled off which permits you to roll the club face open and not get a tremendous amount of bounce involved, a wedge without that trailing edge ground off, would have the leading edge quite far off the ground and make it readily available for the dreaded “thin” shot.

The best advice I can give for selecting a wedge; is to see your local PGA Professional for assistance. Watching how a person approaches a shot and seeing the swing motion will give the Professional all the ammo he needs to help you select the correct bounce angle and club for you.

Best in Golf

Chuck Mayhew