Position 4 in the series

Swing Position 4: The Top

This is the fourth of a series of key swing positions that allow you to match your swing to the swing model to see how it stacks up. The model assumes a right handed golfer who is hitting a straight shot.

Swing to the top of your swing and pose in the mirror – this is what you should see: Your head in the center of the shoulders with the left shoulder under the chin and the right shoulder behind the neck. Check to make sure your left arm is across the shoulder line with hands extended away from the head.  The face of the club is square to the back of the left hand which is square to the left forearm.  The shoulders have coiled twice as much as the hips with the right knee flexed and the left knee turned in pointing toward the ball – both knees are level.  The guiding thought here is coil with the goal of a 2 to 1 ratio, 90 degrees with the shoulders/ 45 degrees with the hips creating a ratio called the X FACTOR.

The club shaft with the longer club such as the driver is parallel with the heel line whereas with the shorter irons do not reach parallel. At the top your lead hip is lower than your trail hip and your spine is tilted a bit toward the target with the weight favoring the rear foot.

 

The role of the back swing is to put the angles of power in place while also keeping the clubface square to the swing arc. Coil results from spine rotation primarily in the middle of your back in an area called the thoracic spine. If you are to improve your coil it will come by maximizing your flexibility in this region. Here is a drill to help you maximize your # 4 position.

Drill: Take your address position using a driver then put the club behind you so it lies across your shoulders [see photo.]  Then coil around your spine until your front shoulder is under your chin and your back shoulder is behind your head. This is a full “two-shoulder turn” initiated and controlled by the thoracic spine.

Be careful not to put pressure on the shaft or it might snap. You can use a broom in place of the club to protect the shaft if you need to. As always check with your Doctor before you do this.

Position 3 - Key Swing Positions

 

This is the third of a series of key swing positions that allow you to match your own swing to the swing model to see how it stacks up. The model assumes a right handed golfer who is hitting a straight shot.

Position 3:

When your lead arm is parallel with the ground and across the middle of your chest you have reached the number three position just after the takeaway has been completed.

 In position 3 your head has swiveled slightly, but still remains in the center of the shoulders.  The Shoulders have rotated and tilted a bit as a result of the tug of your lead arm.  The lead arm itself is straight and parallel with your heel line while the trail elbow has folded into a 90 degree angle.  Your left wrist is flat [in line with your forearm] and cocked at a 90 degree angle. 

In number three you must accomplish three important mechanics: [1] for the right-handed golfer the wrists are fully cocked with the left wrist cocking and the right wrist hinging [left side leverage]. [2] With the fold of the trail elbow, the right side leverage is in place. [3] The club is on the correct swing plane as evidenced when the shaft points at the target line 

The controlling thought in position 3 is to correctly set the wrists so that the club remains on plane. [see photo] The wrists set the club up while the body rotates the club into the depth dimension. 

Concept expansion:  “Swing plane” is a general term used to describe the overall tilt of the arc of your swing. The plane changes with the club -- nine irons are swung on a more vertical arc and drivers on the flattest arc.

 

With all that’s happening you can see the importance of position three so take some time to work on this position in the mirror until you match the model without thinking about it – then you’re ready for Position 4.

POSITION 2- Takeaway

This is the second of a series of key swing positions that allow you to match your own swing to the model to see how it stacks up. The model assumes a right handed golfer who is hitting a straight shot.

The takeaway begins the swing and it ends its short journey with three outstanding characteristics.  1) The hands and the clubhead are the same height. 2) The shaft is parallel to the target line, 3) The face of the club is square to the arc of the swing.

Note that the face is still square to the arc of the swing even though it’s open [pointing to the right] of the target line

The Head: It remains in the middle of the shoulders which are closed and tilted slightly towards the ground.

The lead arm is straight and the trail arm has folded just a bit.  The right forearm is higher and on top of the left. The weight distribution has changed with more weight now flowing into the right hip. The spine retains its position as the hips begin their rotation.  At this point the left wrist is flat and in line with the front forearm while the trail wrist has increased its cup. The left knee has turned in a fraction and it should feel as if your weight is on the inside rims of your feet.

 

Tour pro Robert Allenby demonstrates the end of a perfect takeaway as his front arm swings to a 45-degree angle with the ground. Stop your swing at this point and check in a mirror to make sure you have accomplished the three keys mentioned above both from the target line view and the face- on view as shown in the photos. And don’t forget to center to head ala Allenby.

A Key Concept: Slack Breeds Slap 

At no time should there be any slack in your takeaway because slack breeds slap, i.e., looseness in the backswing causes a weak slapping action through impact due to a lack of coil. By swinging the lead arm to create maximum stretch, you keep tension on the muscles constant, which leads to a powerful release of this tension at impact. Also, the more stretch you create, the wider your swing arc will be which means more clubhead speed and power.

Now you don't consciously prevent your chest from moving, but you condition it to wait for the lead arm tug, a signal that comes as soon as you "run out of lead arm".  The proper sequence of motion keeps stretch on the muscles of the lead side of your body, especially your triceps. This is the beginning of coil and to maximize it keep your shirt buttons even with the ball until the pull of your lead arm becomes irresistible.

How does your swing match up?

11 Positions of a Model Swing: Position 1

This is the first of a series of key swing positions that allow you to match your own swing to the model to see how it stacks up. The model assumes a right handed golfer who is hitting a straight shot. Deviations are either [1] destructive and require immediate attention [2] minor and can be deferred or [3] idiosyncrasies that can be well tolerated.

POSITION 1: ADDRESS

In the model your head is in the middle of your shoulders with the chin up off the chest so your eyes peek at the ball. The eye-line is parallel to the target line.

Arrange your shoulders square to the target line: for the irons, the front shoulder and back are almost level and the foot pressure is 50/50; with the driver, the back shoulder is lower with a 70/30 distribution. It appears as if the golfer is attempting to touch shoulder blades. The spine has a neutral attitude.

 With the irons the arms and hands hang directly under the shoulders with the driver the hands are under the chin. The distance from the ball is a ‘fist and a thumb’ with irons and a little more with the driver.

The hips with the irons are square [slight open] and level [or slight right tilt].  With the driver the lead hip is a bit higher. The spine also has a slight bias to the right with the driver.  That bias disappears with the irons.

The knees are parallel to the target line and slightly flexed, about the same amount as when taking a step. The feet are flared the same amount between 10 to 20 degrees.  The weight is distributed from the ball of the foot back thru the heel with the major pressure along the arch.  The feet are parallel to the target line as determined by the heels, not the toes.

Aim and Alignment:  Face is aimed directly down the target line; the body is aligned parallel to the target line and perpendicular to the clubface line.  Ball position: It migrates depending on the club; in general with the irons it’s located off the front cheek of the face; with the fairway woods it is off the logo; with the driver off the front heel.

          The spine at address is tilted from vertical approximately 15 to 30  
        degrees toward the ball while the pelvis is tilted forward at address
       about 20 degrees. When standing normally the pelvis in usually tilted
       forward about 12 to 14 degrees; so an additional 8 to 10 degrees is
       added in golf posture.

How to Trouble Shoot Your Swing

To maximize your potential as a golfer you need to do three things: [1] figure out what you do best and preserve it, [2] know what you do poorly and get rid of it and [3] you must know what to ignore. This is important because there are so many things going on in a golf swing it’s easy to get side tracked.

In order to trouble shoot your swing you must set aside some time then with the help of your instructor and a video camera, progressively scan the 11 swing positions: 1] address, 2] take away – lead arm 45°, [3] lead arm parallel,[4] top of the swing, 5] the transition, 6] lead arm parallel returning, 7] lead arm 45°, 8] impact, 9] both arms straight, 10] the pre-finish and 11] the finish.

Please remember that this is a general model and that because of variations between body types, there are variations among swing types, for e.g. to facilitate a better swing plane a player with a big chest bends over more at address than someone with a thin chest.  Also there is much deviation from this model depending on the desired ball flight, i.e. a player who is drawing the ball will set up and swing differently than a player who is fading the ball. But for the serious student interested in systematically analyzing his or her golf swing, the 11 positions is a viable way of checking how well you are doing at each position.

The Bane of Consistency

 

 As you will see as our weakly series unfolds, it is possible to have error in any particular swing even though there may not be error in the ball flight. This occurs when the compensating errors that infect your swing, match up and all is well for a while.  Unfortunately swings that feature balancing errors are untrustworthy. This is why golfers periodically lose their swing – compensating errors are the bane of consistency. Here is an example: at the start of the downswing [position 5] you spin your shoulders too early and the club is pushed out toward the ball in an error called over-the-top, the result of which is a cut-across swing that creates a pulled shot. To stop the pull you hold the face open by jutting out your front elbow in position 9 [the chicken wing].  One error compensates for the other – and it works but since it’s so hard to time, it only works sometimes.

 

Thus there is a difference between a matchup that makes the swing stronger and a compensation that weakens it. The failure rate of compensations is why I say that ‘the best golf swings require the least timing’ and that the swings with the most compensations, require the most timing.  Thus to max your performance it’s best to purge your golf swing of its error in order to assure that it will hold up under pressure -- and as we will see, this requires a competent analysis.

 

Do you hit it fat?

Fat is NOT Where It’s At

Why doesn’t Tiger hit it fat when he drops down toward the ball at impact as is his habit – or perhaps of more importance – why do you hit it fat? The answer is most golfers hit it fat when their lead shoulder fails to do its job.

At address you establish the radius of your golf swing, the distance from the tip of your lead shoulder to the bottom of the clubface – let’s say its 60 inches. The rule is that at impact, no matter what else is different, you must return the radius to 60 inches. If you operate your shoulders correctly so they rotate at an angle to the ground, the back shoulder will be down at impact but the lead shoulder will be up. Since the lead shoulder controls the radius it must be high in order for your club to arrive with its radius restored to 60. Because you lower your back shoulder during the downswing you must raise your front shoulder by impact to prevent the club from becoming “too long’ and digging into the ground behind the ball, AKA a fat shot.

    

Cap: During the backswing Tigers left shoulder turns down under his chin while his right shoulder travels up to finish behind his ear. During the downswing the shoulders will reverse themselves i.e. the right goes down while the left raises up.

 

Cap: With Annika looking on Tiger demonstrates ‘lead shoulder high.” His spine may have dropped down but his radius stays the same because his left shoulder rotates not only up but behind him.

No Respect!!

How about a Hot Dog with Your Fry’s

During the last round at the Fry’s a man rushed from the crowd, shouted something in what sounded like Latin, fired a hot dog at Tiger Woods then fell to the ground and surrendered.  The hot dog was concealed in a bun which flew off during the attack.  The police would not say if the perpetrator acted alone but Frank, a source close to the investigation who uses only one name as do many people in California, said that security had confiscated dangerous fruits a day earlier from several men before they entered the tournament grounds – among them were two large radishes and a Coco de Mer (Lodoicea maldivica).

Tiger remained calm and missed his 18 footer for a birdie.

The question is ‘was a crime committed?” A California state legislature said there was a law already on the books against hitting someone with a dangerous fruit but there was no law covering an attack with processed meat. The legislature plans a referendum that would cover all food no matter what its country of origin.

Are Gloves Necessary and The Surly Pro

Should You Wear a Golf Glove?

What does science say about water and the human hand? You may have noticed that when your hands are soaked your fingers wrinkles. Wikipedia describes it as:  “The wrinkles that occur in skin after prolonged exposure to water are sometimes referred to as ‘pruney fingers’ or water aging. This is a temporary skin condition where the skin on the palms of the hand or feet becomes wrinkly. Some researchers have proposed that this wrinkling response may have imparted an evolutionary benefit by providing improved traction in wet conditions.”

Human skin on the gripping surfaces of our hands and feet, furrows up creating tire tread-like traction certainly an “evolutionary benefit” but also in my experience a golf benefit: here is the rule of thumb for your golf game: When the water comes from the inside in the form of perspiration, the golf glove works well but when it comes from outside [rain] then a glove, unless its specially treated, probably doesn’t work as well as your own skin.

The Surly Pro has a Go at the Architects

Now its official – the guy who helped caused the problem is now part of the solution! No I’m not talking about Barney Frank and the housing industry collapse – I’m talking about Jack Nicklaus and the slow play crisis. When Jack was playing you could time him with a sundial; like Lots wife Nicklaus stood frozen over every shot – and millions copied him. But that wasn’t his biggest contribution to slow play; that is reserved for the almost impossible course layouts he built. The Nicklaus course design philosophy was recorded in an interview with Golf Week writer Bradley Klein a few years ago “I don’t take a lot of special consideration for women. Its like, “how do you design a course for a man who shoots 110?”

The Surly Pro answers that instead of shooting 110, and losing seven balls over five hours you could design the course so he shoots 80 and it only takes him two hours and one ball to do it. Granted that as Nicklaus aged and his ability to play his own courses diminished he softened his layouts but not so with other architects like Pete Dye who still builds courses that are so hard it takes five hours+ to play even if you’re an expert.

So what is the suggestion to ease slow play”? To speed up play, some including Nicklaus, are suggesting playing only 12 holes as was done last week in a golf tournament at a Nicklaus course in Ohio. Say what? That’s like wanting to shoot 72 and then ending your round when you get to 72 strokes – a solution that accomplishes the goal but destroys the process.

A tip from the Surly Pro: Never mind playing 12 holes --- instead, stop building such difficult golf courses.

 

The Surly Pro on Tiger and The Presidents Cup

    In his first competition in 2003 announcer Dan Hicks described the Presidents Cup sudden death playoff as “Two heavy weights of golf fighting it out to win the competition,” and he was right about one thing – the two players chosen to clash heads to decide the outcome of the event were heavyweights: Tiger Woods, The #1 player in the world for the USA vs. Ernie Els the homeland hero battling before 23,000 partisan fans watching live and millions on TV — just the kind of ending the fledgling Presidents Cup needed to establish its own identity.

   But it was not to be because the golf world was robbed – it was the Showdown at the OK Corral only it wasn’t ok because there wasn’t really a showdown. Captains Conciliatory, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player decided to change the rules after the combatants matched pars for three play-off holes. They said it was getting dark and there was too much pressure for any two people to shoulder, so they declared a tie. “Both Gary and I feel that both teams have won”, said Nicklaus. “What do you think this competition is all about? It’s about goodwill in international golf. It’s not about who wins and losses.”

    Comments from the Surly Pro

     Goodwill??? Golf is boring enough without throwing in goodwill. Who wants to watch Gandhi giving Mother Theresa  a 20 footer to half the match while we all hum Kumbaya. In the game Paper/Rock/Goodwill, Everything tops Goodwill.

     How do I know these things? Simple deduction: Who did Captain Fred Couples choose with a captain’s pick? Remember he could have chosen wholesome Keagan Bradley who [as we are told after every swing by TV announcers] is related to Pat Bradley a former ladies champion [much female goodwill here]; or an amateur like Patrick Cantlay who shot 60 at the Travelers Championship [much amateur goodwill here.] But Couples didn’t-- he chose Tiger Woods proving that Tiger tops Goodwill -- unless of course you count the goodwill of TV executives, advertisers and golf fans everywhere. 

DO YOU NEED TO REMEMBER OR FORGET!

Selective Amnesia: Tiger Needs to Remember to Forget.

Great players such as Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Hale Irwin have learned the secret to golf: Golf is not played the way it’s learned. Once you’ve learned golf swing you’ve got to forget it and go play a target game called ‘golf’.  One of the major reasons golf is so hard is that golfers are thinking about their right elbow, their weight shift or what their hands are doing, trying to remember everything in the half a second it takes to make a downswing. To insure this doesn’t happen great players have what I call selective amnesia – they are great at forgetting.

But now Tiger is making the same mistake as any weekend hacker -- he blames his collapse in the PGA Championship on thinking too little about swing mechanics – yes too little. “I went ahead and played by feel," Tiger said. "It cost me the whole round."

Here is how eye-witness golf writer Bill Pennington describes Tiger: “On the range warming up, he [Tiger] was hitting balls with his swing coach, Sean Foley, standing behind him. Every one or two swings, Foley would step forward and the two would discuss some portion of Woods’s technique, with Foley sometimes mimicking a position and Woods trying to recreate it as he nodded his head. It might all be part of the process of changing his swing, which is what Woods likes to say, but an animated discussion about hand and body positions 20 minutes before he was about to tee off in a major championship hardly seemed reassuring, or commonplace.”

Tiger doesn’t need to remember all of the swing stuff -- he needs to forget it.

Self Confidence is Needed!

The Excalibur Effect

Tiger has fired his long time caddy Steve Williams who many see as a major contributor to Tiger’s success – and that is exactly the reason why Tiger fired him. Tiger is smart enough to realize that power and self-confidence must come from within. External power can be cut off and this means you are under someone else’s control. This is dangerous in a sport like golf where even small flutters on your internal power grid can mean the difference between dominating and being just a good player.

I call this the Excalibur Effect named for the magical powers of King Arthur’s famous sword. If your ability comes from a magical putter and you lose that putter, then you lose your ability. In my opinion too many tour players use external props to shore up their weaknesses - remove the prop, [a valued caddy, a favorite driver, a swing guru] and their golfing world spins out of control. If their shrink's phone is busy after a bad round, panic sets in. It's a fragile world when your power comes from without.

This is not to say that Tiger doesn't learn from experts but he uses them as a resource not a crutch. Their knowledge is nourishment that, once digested, becomes part of the inner power grid.   Of course it is true that Tiger wears red the last day, but this is more to influence his opponents than to shore up his self-confidence.    

A case-in-point is Tiger-2000. The power in Tigers world came from only one source - himself and while no one is perfect, Tiger Woods was about as close as anyone can come. His strength was that there were no Excalibur’s in his arsenal—everything was expendable and if he lost them it would not render him vulnerable. His father trained him for toughness using techniques from military interrogation which is just the ticket for a game like golf that has a way of kicking all the props out from under you at just the wrong time. His mother guided him in a philosophy that counseled not to become attached to the things you acquire or to the process of acquiring. Tiger sacking Williams was SOP when it comes to protecting his self-generated power grid.

And there was another more simplistic reason – Tiger was mad that Stevie caddied for Adam Scott.

The Takeaway

What can you learn from the Excalibur effect?  Buy that new driver and hold on to your favorite putter ‘Lucky Loretta” but remember that standing over your ball on the 18th tee come Sunday, sans your instructor, your caddy and your mental coach – it’s you and you alone that has to pull the trigger so you better have a fully stocked larder of internal power to carry you though.

More on losing your game!

Stress, Geometry, Chaos Theory

I proposed last week that there is a scientific explanation for the mysterious disappearance that you experience when – for no apparent reason – you lose your game.

Golf Geometry

The disintegration process involves tiny micro-changes that at some point sum up to ruin your swing. This process centers around the original conditions that exist before each swing such as the aim of the clubface and alignment of your body. Based on the laws of motion when the clubface is perpendicular to the path of the club at impact [given center contact] the ball will leave the face with only backspin i.e. a straight shot. And of course if you are going to hit it straight you must aim it straight. But if there is a small difference between face and path the ball will curve off line, too often finding an unhappy resting place. It doesn’t feel any different but at 200 meters a ball with a titled axis of a mere 10 degrees ends up 14m [15.3 yards] off line.

Golf Chaos

Thus mistakes at impact arise from small mistakes at the top of the swing which in turn come from even smaller mistakes at address. As in chaos theory where a butterfly flapping its wings causes a hurricane, tiny flutters at address lead to a game that slowly slips away. Golf whatever else it is, is a game of precise geometry where the initial conditions although small in increment, are very large when you total up your score for the hole - the round – the year – and in the long run, over your golf career

Golf Stress

But there are other tiny flutters that can ruin your swing and strangely enough, they come from your stomach. Research by Professor Mark Lyte and associates at Texas Tech University support the notion that controlling your body’s response to stress is influenced by the correct mix of bacteria in your stomach and intestines – bugs in your stomach cause bugs in your swing. Of course it is no big news that many of the mistakes you make in golf are stress-related and it is these mistakes that throw your ‘first brain’ out of sync. But did you know that you have a ‘second brain’ composed of 100 million neurons embedded in the walls of the long digestion tube known as the gut? These two brains are connected by a direct pathway --a crowded highway crammed with messages. Thus what is happening in your digestive track affects your perception of your world and vice versa.

Byron Nelson threw up before every round and it drove him from the game at the early age of 34. NBA great Bill Russell threw up before games as did NHL goalie Glenn Hall. Stress rules us all and its not always throwing up -- Tiger Woods even when he was in top form often hit terrible shots of the first tee due to ‘nerves’ – and he was the best player in the world.

Conclusion

In golf, small can be very big. When you are playing poorly you may be only one tip away from getting it back again and when you’re playing well it can slip away due to micro changes that you are not even aware of. Stress, geometry, chaos theory – no wonder golf is a mysterious game of a lifetime.

WHERE DID YOUR GAME GO?????

A Mysterious Disappearance

I contend there is a scientific explanation for the mysterious disappearance of performance that golfers experience when – for no apparent reason – they lose their game. The disintegration process involves tiny micro-changes that at some point sum up to ruin your swing.

Small increments that destroy us are well known. Before it was outlawed in England there was a penalty called "pressing" that was carried out by piling small stones, one at a time, on the victim’s chest until s/he was crushed to death. Brutal yes but had you stumbled on a ‘pressing’ you could have figured out quickly the ultimate result. But  stumble on the beginnings of a hurricane and you would not know it because the causes of a hurricane in no way resemble the final effect i.e. small, micro flutters in the atmosphere in South America producing 100 mph winds in Miami. And here-in lays the reason why it is so difficult to predict a hurricane more than two weeks out -- because the cause [the initial system condition] doesn’t look much like the end result.  

And as difficult as it is to predict hurricanes it is even more difficult to predict when your golf game is going south. Suppose your game was like a hurricane where the destructive force began with small flutters. You pay no real attention to these harbingers even though some are things you have been told many times. Still you ignore them because they are not directly related to ‘the Big Dog’ -- your golf swing. Proper breathing, slowing everything you do under pressure, focusing on the target, and things like a correct pre-game practice session are mere pre-swing flutters that most golfers give only lip service. And what of aim? Another lip service item -- 95% of golfers screw up aim -- the same with ball position, weight distribution, and shoulder alignment.  If you are like most golfers The Swing is the Thing – just get up there any old way and hit it – but you’d better hurry just a bit more than usual because there is a hurricane coming.

More next week on the flutters that precede the storm including one you probably don’t know about because it comes directly from your gut rather than your brain.

IS IT TOO MUCH

Hogan Rolls Over in His Grave

“All I did is get on each tee and wait until (Edmondson – his caddy) told me what to do,” said PGA TOUR player Ryan Palmer. “He told me what side of the tee box to get on, and what side he wanted me to be on, what target he wanted me to hit, and it was my job to hit the shot.”

Palmer played well at the Byron Nelson Championship using this approach losing in a playoff but in my opinion being so other-directed is not good in golf.

Takeaway: Self-reliance is a mindset and under pressure you gather information rather than ask for advice.

Jack Burke Jr. –

“A lot of the kids on the tour nowadays hire instructors, so they aren't really thinking for themselves about their technique and how to improve.  They don't trust themselves and when things start going badly, they have nowhere to turn.  In the middle of a round, they can't call their coach to come over and give them a tip.

But they can ask their caddy

Fitness and It's Effects

On the Other Side of Fitness

It seems puzzling that Johnny Miller who won the US Open in 1973 beat everyone including Jack Nicklaus for three years and then disappeared. David Duvall rose to number one then poof, he was gone. Sergio Garcia was a wonder kin but now shows only flashes of his former brilliance. Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson fought for second best for years but now are random performers given their prodigious talent. And of course Tiger dominated for nine years and now he’s abdicated his place at the top.

What is the connecting thread here? Each of these players changed their body drastically – some through injury, and some through intent in the mistaken view that they were providing themselves with an upgrade.

 Changed Body = Changed Game

Els injured his knee, put on weight and lost his touch; Mickelson contracted psoriatic arthritis which can affect your sense of how your body is arranged in space while Garcia, Duval and Miller worked out hard and changed their body distribution of balance – Duval went from schmoo to svelte and lost his feel. And Woods of course changed his body with an intense body building routine that made him look buff at the beach but buff is only good at an ‘after-majors-win’ party. In a counter-intuitive slam life often tosses out, Tigers new upper body strength tore up his knee. And in this ‘muscle is good’ world the Kenny Perry story is not unique. He dropped forty pounds and put on some muscle looking for an upgrade to first class -- instead he lost his game – and he admits it!

"I hired a personal trainer. I actually did last year go from 235 to 199 in weight.  I was working out diligently six days week.  Went to a nutritionist and really watched my diet.  I actually played worse…I was lifting heavy bulk weight and getter heavy.  I should have been working on lengthening my muscles, getting longer, looser, more flexible."

This first-class-to-coach downgrade Perry suffered seems to defy a common sense that says working out is good and all things being equal ‘strongest machine wins” until you revisit the old, but very true adage, ‘if it aint’ broke don’t fix it.” You design your work out/diet to keep what you have once you have it.

Gary Player, the father of the fitness in golf revolution, stayed in shape to keep what he already had. His goal was longevity. Most have to work to keep it while some like Sam Snead were naturally fit for golf. Snead’s famous comment on working out was “I never lifted anything heavier than a petticoat” but he could still kick the top of a door frame with his foot at 70 years old. Tom Weiskopf at 6’3” 190 pounds admitted he couldn’t bench 100 lbs. yet he was one of golf’s longest hitters in the day of mega-long Jack Nicklaus. And the longevity of ‘paunchy’ Ray Floyd as the press called him [even in his 20ties] is the gold standard – from 1961 to 1992 [31 years.] Paunchy Ray won 22 tournaments with his final win in 1992 at the age of 49. He also won on the Senior Tour later that season to become the first player to win on both tours in the same year.

The Takeaway: There are three things your work out should provide 1] you feel better 2] you look better 3] you play better and if you’re a golfer don’t leave out #3.

Next: what actually happens when you change your body.

How is your putting?

A few years ago Dr. Ralph Mann at Grand Cypress resort in Fla. studied a number of the world's best putters and found some interesting things.

Here is a summary:

Regardless of the length of the putt [they measured four foot, eight foot, 16 foot and 32 foot putts] the completion time of the strokes are exactly the same.

The down swing time is roughly half of the back swing time, showing that the player is accelerating the blade through impact.

As an example, on a four foot putt by Greg Norman the back swing took .62 seconds, the down swing .3 seconds, the total completion time .92 seconds.  For the 32 foot putt, the back swing took .63 seconds, the down swing .29 seconds, for a .92 completion time.

All of the professionals measured consistently produced a follow-through distance almost twice as large as the back swing distance again due to acceleration.

The  Model set-up:

The feet were about 12 inches apart at the toes with the front foot drawn back an inch from the target line; the ball is two inches inside the front big toe and 10 inches out from the foot; the eyes are positioned about two inches inside the ball, contradicting instruction that tells you to have your eyes directly over the ball; the weight is toward the heels and evenly distributed, again contradicting that most of the weight should be on the front side.

Please remember that these are averages so individuals differ. 

 

The Model Putting Stroke:

Is predominantly straight back and straight through, a pendulum-type motion that stays on the line as long as possible.  The recommendation is to putt with the arms and the shoulders [not the wrists] thereby creating the motion of the club by using a tilting of the shoulders. Over-using the wrists open and closes the clubface and this leads to slapping at the ball.  The lower body does not move much at all.

 

The key is returning the putter face to its address position at impact with the putter face perpendicular to the arc of the stroke.  This makes the stroke as simple as possible with fewer chances for error.

A Drill 

Stroke the putt by taking the putter back to your right toe, and then through the ball, to actually twice the distance. Use tees to create gates to guide the putter. Do this for all distances until you develop a feel of how much back swing you need for each length putt.  Then practice putting to the hole, focusing only on the right distance.  You can actually learn to putt this way out on the golf course.  It's a great way to get your backswing under control and to get the relationships between the backswing and the follow through correct every time.