Weight Shift

The Weight Shift:

The weight shift is something that has caused golfers to loose their balance for years.

The reason for that is that most golfers don’t understand what muscles make the weight shift.

I’ll give you an example. How many of you are athletes? Have you ever thrown a ball or hit a tennis ball?

That simple motion can and should be carried over to your golf swing.

When you throw or hit a ball what you don’t realize is that your allowing your big muscles to do all the work. Your creating a chain reaction.

The most important phrase I could ever tell you is that the inside moves the outside in most sports including golf. What I mean is when your chest moves, your arms have to follow, that’s a natural reaction. Not a forced action!

Most golfers however have taken to heart the phrase taught for years, “keep your head down and your left arm straight.”

Do you think you could throw a ball very far with your head in your chest and your right arm straight?

I don’t think so! In other words get your head out of your chest and relax your arms. This will allow your head to move, yes I said move with your body not fight it. Think about it, if your head stays still you will reverse weight shift which is left to right. Try doing another sport that way!

You won’t!

The next time you go out and practice look at yourself in front of a mirror or window so you can see yourself swing.

Make the first backswing with your head completely still. When you get to the top, stop and look at yourself and feel where your weight is. It’s on your left side isn’t it.

Next make a swing and look at yourself as you swing. As the arms go back and you make your initial turn allow your head to go with your body. You should be on your right side.

Remember that the chest is making the weight shift.

The first few swings, try to allow your head to move to the right a foot. When you get used to this motion your head probably won’t move this much, but it will be free to move back as much as your body tells it to.

Then your natural weight shift will happen automatically.

Trapped

Feel Trapped!

There are so many ways to feel trapped in the golf swing. My particular nemesis has always been keeping the clubface shut or closed on the way back. Part of the problem is being 6’4″ tall. People told me that being tall was a disadvantage, but just the opposite is the truth. Being tall is a tremendous advantage, but learning to harness the energy created by a big arc is difficult.

When I was younger I was taught to take the club away with the arms, drive the hips through the ball and release the club with the hands winding up in this beautiful reverse “C” position, which was one of the reasons I eventually had back surgery. Remember what Johnny Miller and Jack Nicklaus looked like in their lean years. What I wasn’t taught, was to swing at my own height. I was taught to swing like every other player, keeping his or her head still while trying to make an athletic motion. Impossible right? Well, what I didn’t realize was happening at the time was my arms staying stiff and not moving with my body, that is opening and closing. I was always taught it was my hands that were doing the opening and closing thus my arms would stay stiff as a board trying to create a natural move.

Well, your arms are connected to your hands, so if your arms turn with the body on the backswing so do the hands, thus making it able to create a no hands “feeling” swing while allowing the club to open and close. But if the arms do not open with the body, the hands will move more, making it a flippy feeling swing. If your arms are stiff, what muscles do you think will break down first? That’s right, your hands. What do you think makes your arms stiff? That’s right, tension! The #1 killer of a good or natural golf swing. This same tension is the one that is a big contributor to the reverse weight shift, along with keeping your head stationary.

Next time you practice, before you hit each shot, take two practice swings with the club up in the air a couple of feet off the ground. As your taking these practice swings feel the club go around the body on a flat plane. Also feel what wants to happen naturally to the clubface, hands and arms. They open and close all by themselves. Next put the club behind the ball and allow the same thing to happen, naturally. Don’t keep your head still, let it move back with the body, as your arms give you the feeling that they are rolling. As you allow this to happen you will feel a natural weight shift that matches your body type, no matter how tall you are. Check yourself periodically half way back to see whether the clubface if square. If it is open, you’re making the arms to roll too much.

Next time you’re watching golf on TV, look at how the Tour players allow this to happen, which takes the club around the body naturally without any restriction whatsoever and lets the club work on a more inside out path on the way through. The taller you get the more you will have to feel this on the backswing, thus making it an advantage to be tall, not a disadvantage. No matter how tall you are swinging with less restriction will give you more enjoyment and bring you lower your scores all by itself. 

Thin Lie

What do you do when the grass is thin and the ground is muddy?

If any of you have played lately you know that the grass is a little sparse, especially up here in Seattle. Even bumping the ball doesn’t help all the time. You can put your ball up on a nice little clump and still hit it just enough behind the ball to come up short. Once your club hits that soft, perhaps a little muddy ground it doesn’t go through as smooth as you’d like. Even if you do catch it clean, your ball might land on another clump and send it on a sideways journey!

So what’s the solution? Don’t miss the green! But seriously, there are several options you can take. The first one is taking out a putter if you’re close enough to the green. Even if you’re back a-ways you might consider putting. You might not get it as close as chipping but you probably won’t chunk it. There use to be a guy at Brookside golf course in Pasadena called the “chilly-dipper”. He could chunk it with the best of them. Back to the solution. You need to take pride out of the shot also. So many times golfers think they’re Phil Mickelson and they try to hit this beautiful flop shot even if they have grass under their ball. The result a lot of times is a “flop”.

The second option is to take out a seven or eight iron and play the bump and run. You might hit a clump, but you probably won’t chunk it. You’ve heard it before, weight on your forward leg, (left for right handed hitters) ball back in your stance, hands ahead, and then pop down on the ball sharply. You might even want to hood the club slightly to get the ball rolling when it lands. This is probably the safest shot to play. It seems that like every week on TV you hear Ken Venturi talk about hitting this shot. “Get the ball on the green and let it run to the hole”. Remember the LA Open last week. They said Tiger should have landed his third shot on the front of the green and let it run to the hole. Well, under that situation he probably would have had a better chance to get it close and keep it below the hole.

Then there’s always the first club you want to grab, the sand wedge. You need steady nerves and a lot of practice to be effective with this shot. To quote Ken Venturi again “don’t pull out the sand wedge unless you have to”. That’s great advice especially where it’s still cold and spring hasn’t turned the corner yet. Get the ball on the green and let it roll to the hole. I know there are situations when you have a mound in front of you ball, or you have to hit over a bunker. Try then to hit it past the hole, so if you do catch it a little heavy you’re still OK!

One thing’s for sure though, don’t try to hit a shot you haven’t practiced! And in your practice be creative. Try taking a three-wood and use it as a putter. It gets the ball airborne just enough to get it rolling. You might hole one out like Tiger! Be inventive. Take a wedge and blade it. It bounces the ball out of the bad lie. Whatever you decide, don’t be too hard on yourself. Just try to reduce your room for error. Remember, Spring and Summer are just around the corner!