Monthly Archives: July 2012

Timing of the Hands in the Down Swing

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One of the differences that I notice when comparing a consistent golf swing and an inconsistent golf swing is the difference in the down swing motion.  A consistent down swing looks smooth and balanced.  An inconsistent down swing looks jerky and unbalanced.

A key reason for a jerky motion is the improper timing of the release of the energy that is built in the back swing.  For this discussion I will assume that the energy is released in the proper sequence: starting from the ground up through the feet, hips, upper body, arms and hands.  I would like to cover the correct timing of the release of the hands.

I am writing this when the London Olympics has just started.  In the spirit of the London Olympics, I will use a sprinter as an analogy to discuss when the hands must release the energy in the down swing. The sprinter accelerates out of the starting blocks when the starting gun is fired and reaches maximum velocity that is maintained all the way past the finish line.

In the down swing, the starting gun is the right upper arm.  The snap down of the right upper arm is the firing of the starting gun.  As soon as the right upper arm snaps down, the right forearm will automatically snap down and the hands will automatically accelerate down past the right hip.  This acceleration of the hands feels like a snap.  After the snap of the hands, the hands reach their maximum velocity that is maintained twelve inches past the ball.  The hands must not stop at the ball.  You must think that the ball just gets in the way of the swing.

An inefficient and jerky down swing occurs because the hands snap too late: at the ball.  The hands snap too late because the golfer is focused on the ball instead focusing on snapping the hands at the right side of the body.  Focusing on the ball causes the golfer to use the hands in order to hit or lift the ball.  When the hands snap too late, the snap really becomes an inefficient jerk of the hands.

Using the sprinter analogy, snapping the hands too late is like being left in the starting blocks when the starting gun fires.  A smooth and efficient down swing is created when the hands snap down as a result of the snap down of the right upper arm.

Don’t be left in the starting blocks.

Efficient Swing

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In order to improve your golf swing, you need to need to be efficient on how you build and release energy during the swing.  The secret for creating good golf shots is efficient build up and release of energy.  Inefficient motion creates poor golf shots.

Before discussing efficient energy build and release, you should have a precise setup.  This means you need to have a proper grip, a proper aim, a proper stance, and a proper posture before you start your swing.   This should not be minimalized or ignored.  In fact, most golf “problems” are attributable to poor setup.  It is very easy to develop flaws in your setup.  In fact, when PGA Tour professionals need to fix their swing, it is usually something in the setup that needs attention.

Once you have established a proper setup, an efficient golf motion will improve your golf swing.  The most important part of an efficient golf swing is to ensure that the right upper arm is precisely synchronized with the movement of the right side.  The efficient swing should begin from the ground up.  This means the feet start the back swing and the down swing.  The term “from the ground up” refers to motion starting from the bottom of your feet continuing up through your ankles, hips, upper body, and upper arms.

The lower body supports the movement of the upper body which in turn supports the swing of the arms and hands.   The lower body supports the upper body and responds to the efficient movement of the upper body.

An efficient swing creates tension in the muscles of the legs, upper body, arms, and hands.  You may have heard or read that tension is bad for a golf swing.  In fact, it is tightness that is bad for your swing.  If your muscles get tight, the tightness restricts movement.  Consider the bow and arrow.  If there is no tension built up in the bow and bow string, the arrow does not travel very far or straight.  Another analogy is when you snap your fingers.  If the fingers do not press against each other to create tension, there is no snap.  You feel tension build up quickly in your fingers and the most tension is felt just before the snap or release.

The upper body and arms coil in the back swing while the lower body supports the coil. The tension is felt in the hips, upper body, arms, and hands.  The tension is the feeling of the muscles being engaged and stretched.  Creating this tension is the result of a resisting or counter motion.  Just as opposing resistance during a tug-of-war creates tension in the rope, opposing motions creates dynamic tension that you feel in your muscles.  When the upper body is coiling in the back swing, the firm right ankle and supporting lower body provides resistance to create the stretch that is felt in the hips and upper body.

What about the hands?  Most golfers use the hands to “flip” the club at impact.  This tends to add loft to the club head.  This is a very inefficient way to use the hands.  A more efficient method is to try to “do less” with the hands.  What you should feel in the fingers of the hands is tension created by the engagement of the fingers as described in my blog, “How to Use the Fingers.”  As your hands are moving down past the right side during the down swing, the fingers should feel the centrifugal force and the force of gravity.  This little stretch in the fingers will prevent the hands from lifting at impact.

Focus on executing an efficient swing instead of trying to hit the ball.

 

 

Balance

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If you focus on using your pre-shot routine, your rhythm, swinging in balance, and being efficient, you will improve your swing. You should not do anything with your swing that will negatively affect your balance. When you are off balance during the swing, the chance of making solid contact is very low, if not impossible. George Knudson, one of the best ball strikers on the PGA tour in the 1960’s and 1970’s, said “Never do anything at the expense of balance”. Most golfers rarely focus on a balanced swing. Their focus is on hitting the ball. The better golfers swing in balance. This is one of the biggest differences between a consistent ball striker and an inconsistent ball striker.
Balance should come from bottom up. You must feel that the bottom of your feet and your ankles support your body. When you coil in the back swing, the bottom of the right foot and a firm right ankle must support the coiling of the upper body. When you start the down swing, you must feel the bottom of the left foot and a firm left ankle support the transition from the finish of the back swing to the start of the down swing.
Work to make your rhythm and balance to be your primary focus. This means you will always use your rhythm to swing in balance. Once the rhythm and balance are consistent, the task of achieving efficient build up and release of energy is straight forward. Being efficient is not easy because the moves are counter intuitive. But if you are using your rhythm and are balanced, the feel of the efficient swing will be easier to learn.

Rhythm

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Rhythm is the most important component to improve your golf swing.  When PGA Tour professionals have a good day, they say had good tempo.  When the PGA Tour professionals have a bad day, they say they struggled to find their rhythm.  If you have good rhythm, the swing becomes automatic.

What is a good rhythm?  The best rhythm is measured as the time it takes for the club to start moving away from the ball in the back swing and return back to the ball on the down swing.  This time period should be approximately one second in duration.   When they measured the rhythm of professional golfers, they found that the time period varied from 0.9 seconds to 1.3 seconds depending on the person being measured.  Each professional had their own rhythm and was very consistent in using their rhythm.  Each professional golfer had a rhythm that took about one second.  The book, Tour Tempo, discusses this in detail Tour Tempo on Amazon.

How to you find your personal rhythm?  It is easy.  Start by snapping your fingers at a rhythm of one second between snaps.  Try going a little bit slower and then a little bit faster until you settle on a rhythm that you feel is just right, not too fast and not too slow.  You should feel that you can maintain this rhythm for an extended period without thinking.  That is your personal rhythm.

How does your finger snapping relate to the golf swing?   Start snapping your fingers at your rhythm and the first snap is the start of the back swing and the second snap of your fingers is when the club hits the ball.  About 80% of the time of your rhythm is taken up by the back swing and the remaining 20% of the time is used for the transition and the down swing.

It takes patience to develop a good rhythm.  Patience is needed at the end of the back swing before the start of the down swing.  There should be a one-tenth second pause at the end of the back swing before the start of the down swing.  This pause will feel like a one-half second pause, but in reality it will only be a one-tenth second pause. This pause is where the most energy is created for an efficient down swing.  This increase of energy is felt in a slight increase of the stretch felt throughout the body.  It requires patience to feel this increase in energy.  My blog post, Patience in the Golf Swing, describes how to create an automatic pause.  If the pause is not felt, the down swing will not be rhythmic.

When you are having a good day, you are using your rhythm.  When you are having a bad day, your rhythm is just a little bit off.  In the 2012 US Women’s Open, the winner Na Yeon Choi had a couple of bad swings that cost her some shots.  She said she got back to playing well by deciding to focus on her rhythm.  Knowing your rhythm and focusing  on your rhythm can help you improve your swing.

Channel Adult Training in Golf

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We know that our adult tendencies interfere with our quest to become consistent golfers.  How can we use these characteristics, try harder and do above and beyond, to help us improve our swings and be more consistent?

Try Harder

Instead of trying harder to hit the ball, you need to channel the try harder characteristic to try harder to focus.  Focus on your rhythm, balance, and being efficient.

Since this is easier to say than do, it is appropriate that you really try harder to focus.

Do Above and Beyond

The characteristic to do a little extra can affect your consistency because it can cause you to lose your rhythm.  In most cases, it will cause you to slow your rhythm.  Instead, use extra effort to be more precise.  Be more precise in your setup, rhythm, balance and being efficient.  This takes increased awareness of your swing, going above and beyond to be precise.

Law of Diminishing Returns

The Law of Diminishing Returns is definitely in the realm of adults. The definition is “A law affirming that to continue after a certain level of performance has been reached will result in a decline in effectiveness.” This law can be applied to the golf swing.  The next time you are at the driving range, try to swing with what you feel is approximately 50% of your maximum force.  You should be able to have the ball go straight while you finish in balance.  Next increase the amount of force to what you feel is approximately 60% of your maximum force.  If you have a decrease in performance (worse distance, direction, or balance) then you should settle on using only 50% of your maximum force, because 50% of your maximum force gives you the best results. You need to find what your point of diminishing returns is.  It will definitely not be 100%.  It is commonly believed that professional golfers only use 80% of their maximum.  For amateurs, 50% – 70% would be more realistic.

 

It is a Challenge for Adults to Learn the Golf Swing

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If you are like me, you have taken many golf lessons.  You have also spent countless hours on the driving range trying to improve your swing.   Why is it so difficult to develop a consistent swing?  It is my contention that learning how to be a successful adult actually sabotages our quest to develop a consistent golf swing.  How does this work?

Extra Credit

In order to be successful as an adult, we had to do well in school.  This means we did well in tests. If we wanted to do well in tests, we did the extra credit problems.  As an adult, doing “a little extra effort” is natural to who we are.  But in golf, doing the extra credit problem will result in an “F”: a failing grade!

Instead of just doing only what is required to produce a good golf swing, it is natural, as successful adults, to embellish or add a little extra motion with our arm, hands, or body to ensure a good result.  In fact, doing a little extra always results in poor results.  It is difficult to go against what is natural and only do the minimum to produce a good golf swing.

The Ball 

So here we are with a golf club and a golf ball.  Naturally, we know what to do. We have done our homework.  We know we want to hit the ball with the golf club.  We also know we want to hit the ball in the air.   Well, the golf swing is making a motion with the club towards the target and the ball just gets in the way.  That is easy to say, hard to do for adults.  The big distraction is the ball.  The reality is that golf is not about hitting the ball! This is a lot easier for an eight-year-old to grasp, but is beyond adults.  You have seen how golfers execute the practice swing with a rhythmic and efficient motion, but then use a different swing when the ball is present.  This is because the ball is now the focus instead of a free and rhythmic motion.  Now the focus is to try to hit the ball and try to help the ball in the air and we wonder why we don’t have a good swing.  All golfers have a good golf swing but they only use it in the practice swing!

Try Harder

Another thing that adults do is to try harder.   When we did not do well in school, we were told to try harder next time.  Trying harder is what successful adults do naturally.  But trying harder never works in golf.  This is another example where our natural instincts, as adults, prevent us from making consistent golf swings.

The Trap

The biggest trap in golf is the thinking of “I need to keep up with the competition.”  When a golfer is successful, the next thought is not “I’ll continue to do what got me here,” the thought is usually “I need to drive the ball farther.”  It is the trap of I need to keep getting better so I need to change my swing.  This has happened so many times to professional golfers that they get lost and never regain their swing that initially made them successful; that got them there.  Examples are Ian Baker-Finch who won the Open Championship and tried to get more length.   Lydia Ko, who won professional tournaments at the age of fifteen and became number 1 at the age of eighteen and tried to get more length.  Tiger Woods won major championships by 10 shots and made at least four swing changes.

The really great golfers, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Byron Nelson, Gary Player all kept using the swing that brought them success.

Even weekend golfers who finally break 80 decide to tinker with the setup or ball position the next time they play and barely break 100.  It is difficult for adults to leave well enough alone.  If you are playing well, then try to keep doing the same thing for one year.  If you want to improve something, spend the time to improve your chipping and putting.

What should we do?  We need to be mentally strong to go against what are natural tendencies:  hit the ball, do a little extra, try harder.  We need to consciously change who we are.  We need trust that if we focus on making a motion towards the target, the ball will get in the way and go towards the target.  That is easy to say, hard to do.  But that is the challenge for golfers who are learning the game as adults.

 

Feel the Golf Swing

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What should you feel in the golf swing?   What I mean by feel is the senses that you feel in your body.  If you are walking, you feel the pressure of the bottom of your shoes on the ground.  You feel the pressure of your feet in the shoes.   You feel the movements in all parts of your body: ankles, calves, knees, hips, body, and arms.  You also feel your body moving forward.  The golf swing is no different.

The feel of the golf swing starts with the setup.  You need to feel the proper grip as your hands are placed on the grip and the grip pressure is enough to control the club but still allow your wrists to move.  Feel how far you stand from the ball so you can aim the club head behind the ball and perpendicular to the target line.  You feel the stance that you make in relation to the end of the club.  Your posture has your hips pushed back to allow your spine to tilt forward and allow your arms to hang from your shoulders.  You feel the weight distributed along the bottom of your feet with your ankles supporting the structure of your body.  Creating the feelings in the setup is the function of your pre-shot routine.  The pre-shot routine must be the same for every full swing shot.  Practicing your pre-shot routine should be a major part of the time you spend on the driving range.  Yet, very few golfers practice their pre-shot routine.  No wonder they have problems being consistent.  You must practice your pre-shot routine until you can feel your setup without thinking.

The golf swing back swing and down swing starts from the ground up.  This means you feel the back swing begin by engaging the bottom of your feet up through your ankles to the rest of your body.  Also, you must feel the bottom of your feet initiate the down swing by providing a solid base through a firm left ankle to unwind the right hip, right upper body, arms and hands to whip the club towards the target.

In order for you to create the whip of the club, you must first build up energy by feeling the upper body rotate around your spine while you feel your lower body resist the coil.  As your right hand raises the club, feel your left hand resist.  This resistance by the left hand creates a feeling of your left arm and left side being stretched.  As soon as you feel the maximum stretch, initiate the down swing.

The amount of time, starting when you feel the start of the back swing until you feel the club contact the ball, is a period of approximately one second. This is a rhythm that you should feel.

As you can see, the golf swing has a lot of feeling associated with it, more than the feeling of walking.  Whether you are walking or swinging a golf club, you must feel the motion and not think.

High Percentage Golf Learning System

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I am Sidney Wong, a long time golf student.  I have been taking golf lessons for 30 years and this is my opportunity to share, online,  what I have learned about this great game.  I wrote a book, High Percentage Golf, which describes the basic golf skills, mental and physical,  that a golfer needs to develop in order to be a consistent golfer.  An e-book version is on this web site.

I am now on a journey to develop a High Percentage Golf Learning System to help golfers quickly improve their golf game and enhance their focus on the golf course.  The system will be a series of videos on the full swing and the short game.  The system is based on my book with additional items that I have developed since I published the book.

The following is a high level description of the High Percentage Golf Learning System:

Full Swing

  1. Setup
  2. Rhythm
  3. Balance
  4. Efficient build and release of energy

Short Game 

  1. pitching
  2. chipping
  3. putting

The High Percentage Golf Learning System teaches what you must feel and what you must focus on instead of positions and swing mechanics.

The intent of the High Percentage Golf Learning System is to teach golfers the process required to develop a basic  set of skills.  I consider  taking golf lessons on the driving range the same as learning how to ski on the bunny slope. Skiers want to learn the basics of skiing on the bunny slope so they can go up on the mountain and really learn how to ski.  Golfers should quickly learn the basics on the driving range so they can take playing lessons on the golf course and really learn the game of golf.

High Percentage Golf Learning System will quickly provide the basics so the golfer can enjoy the game and move on to the next level.