Friday, August 26, 2011

Better Golf Through Better Thinking

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