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It is always amazing to me that players can go their whole career without understanding the True fundamentals of the golf swing. Make no mistake there are quite a few GREAT players with BAD swings on all of the Tours RIGHT NOW!! The problem is they never last!! It is because of the simple Laws of Physics, the bad information will eventually get them.
Here is a great kid, Chris Riley that has never been taught the correct information about the golf swing, and it sure is a shame he has a ton of talent. He was playing so well for a time he made the Ryder Cup team. But he has ALWAYS gotten the club dead shut with a huge block in his swing as you see here. Look at his left arm sliding across his chest and the elbow facing behind him. He could be fixed over a weekend if he ever ran into someone that understands the swing. His Teachers over the years obviously think if he is shooting low scores and putting everything he looks at in the hole, everything is OK. This could not be further from the truth. You MUST help students out by fixing there flaws so the swing will stand the test of time and pressure. I want all of my students copying the players that LAST for 10, 20, even 30 years on Tour and are still winning. Not the guys and gals you see for a couple years and never hear from again.
You see this time and time again it makes me think many teachers don't really help these players, they hang on to them!!
Craig Perks is another that comes to mind. Another GREAT TALENT with a bad swing. It just did not hold up over time. I read an article (not sure if he said it or not) that he just could not take the pressure of winning the Players Championship in 2002 which was no doubt HUGE. But pressure is having a couple kids a mortgage and trying to pay for gas and food. I wouldn't call picking up a check that he made in a week that most could not come close to making in 10 years pressure, I would call it INCENTIVE!! In the picture above he is WAY under it.
Chris Dimarco is another going down the wrong road and does not know it!! He has already had one surgery on his left shoulder and will have another and another if he keeps finishing his swing like he does. What I think is funny and somewhat sad most that analyze his swing call it an anti-hook swing. Well let me tell you something he can hook it, slice it, or hit it dead straight it all depends on where his hands are!!
Zach Johnson will be the next great talent that will hurt his shoulder, back or have ball striking problems because of his swing. This guy won one of the biggest events in golf with a horrible swing!! Just think how great he would be with a good motion. This is what most people do not understand, they see someone winning huge like Zach and think he must have a great swing. NO he is a great player!! With unfortunately a bad swing. It WILL catch up to him, unless he changes it.
Here is Tiger in December of 2005 working on horrible information he got which thankfully he has since completely abandoned and is now back to his perfect motion he learned when he was a kid. Notice how DEAD shut the club is at the top and he is working on rotating his right forearm down and into his right side in the downswing. WOW!! He goes onto say he is working on not getting his right arm and side TRAPPED like he has a tendency to do. Well guess what everyone, what he is working on here IS getting his right side trapped or stuck, same thing. All this stuff got him was a couple missed cuts and a ton of pressure on his back, joints and left knee!!
The morale of the story is working on the wrong information or allowing students to keep doing something wrong will catch up to them. Just like the old story goes, you can pay me now or pay me later.
This would be a good time to talk a little about centripetal force and how it relates to the golf swing. Now I will talk about quite a few things here that may seem complicated to do, but always remember I can make you do all of this with one or two simple swing thoughts. First of all you must swing the club on plane. It will become clear that you cannot have centripetal force and swing off the correct plane and by swinging on plane you automatically create this force in other words you can not do one without the other. Let me first talk about a quick definition. If I took a string with a rock attached to its end, held it between my thumb and forefinger and twirled my fingers around that rock would spin around on the end of the string as well. The faster I twirled the faster the rock would fly through the air. My hand would represent an inner moving force (centripetal force) the rock would represent the resulting outer moving force (centrifugal force) and the two forces would be equal. In short, the inner force controls and determines the outer force that is centripetal force. Translated to golf, centripetal force allows you to swing the club powerfully and repetitively.
Because human beings have two shoulders, arms, hands, hips and legs things get a little more complicated in the golf swing than the example of the rock on a string. We have to find the post point, or the thumb and forefinger which moves the string representing the inner force propelling the outer rock. Because golfers have all of these body parts we have to learn to identify the center of our swing and recognize this as the source of centripetal force and that center is our spine. The spine must move throughout the swing, and this inner central constantly moving force transmits energy through arms, hands and club to the club head itself swinging through the ball to the target. The club head just like the rock represents the outer force in the centripetal force formula. The faster you move your inner force, or spine, with the club swung on plane, the faster and more powerfully the club head will move. In order to do this you must first connect your left arm to your left shoulder girdle great players feel a pinch under the left armpit through the golf swing this keeps it in the exact same position relative to the spine and shoulders from the start to the end of the golf swing and represents an essential fundamental of connection and centripetal force. There are a couple ways of visualizing this. First the distance between the butt end of the club at address and your spine stays exactly the same from address to finish in your swing which means your radius remains constant. Second the triangle formed by your arms and the club at address also stays intact through the swing.
Of course at about halfway in your back swing your right arms begins to fold naturally as the left does after you hit the ball but the triangular shape you established at address will remain intact throughout the entire swing. Let us return to the address position and see what happens when you assume your grip. Because your right hand extends a bit farther down the club handle than your left, the right hand and arm is longer on the club than the left. And with the left hand in place we accurately describe the left hand and arm as being shorter on the club. The right hand and arm is on the outer force while the left hand and arm is on the inner force of the swing. Make sure your right stays on top of the left from start to finish and you create and maintain centripetal force. If you let your left grow longer than the right the relationship reverses itself. The right arm becomes the shorter of the two and you lose the centripetal swinging action you want. In other words the inner left arm incorrectly becomes the outer force and the right arm incorrectly becomes the inner force. In essence you have swapped circles and lost centripetal force. With the left arm longer than the right you can do nothing more than pull the club in a inefficient and inaccurate manner back to the ball swinging only with your hands and arms. What keeps these essential relationships intact from start to finish in the golf swing? As mentioned earlier, the first part of the answer is the spine. Your spine represents true center, and it must keep moving through the entire swing. Since your spine falls between your shoulders and symmetrically divides your body into right and left halves, move it and your torso, legs shoulders, arms and club will move as well. You will have a rhythmic athletic and coordinated motion throughout. When you do not move your spine, your arms will separate or disconnect from your body and you are lost. Remember as with the rock twirling around the string, you want both the inner force and outer force to remain equal in the golf swing, no pulling excessively or exclusively with the left and no pushing only with the right. Great players hit it is as hard with their left as well as the right which means they have harnessed centripetal force.
There is a natural lateral movement in all great golf swings. The spine moves 1 to 4 inches to the right into the braced leg (more if you have very wide hips) and then as much as 6 to 12 inches from their on the forward swing to its place over the left leg to a straight and balanced finish. Allow the head to flow naturally in both directions with the spine do not try to keep it still this only restricts motion and makes swinging with centripetal force impossible, also do not try to REACH away from your body with your hands or arms for the same reason. Getting back to swing plane, since the ball is on the ground you need to swing the club up on the correct plane so that you can deliver it back to the ball squarely with a descending blow. From your address position your triangle swings back to hip height all in one piece and motion. Form this point your right arm simply folds up which places the club on the correct plane. At the top you can determine if you have swung on plane by checking to see that your left elbow is pointing down and that the butt end of the club points to or just inside the ball to target line. Roll your left arm over the right in the manner described above and you can see that the club has become too flat with the plane actually positioned well outside the ball. Let your right arm fold up correctly and the club will fall into a strong and cocked position at the top of your swing. As you swing down you immediately want the feeling of folding your left arm at the elbow to get in the same position you just did on the slower back swing. This is the way you have to swing the club to maintain centripetal force. Maintain these correct relationships and you harness power for a great swing. Let them break down and you create out of plane angles that force you to haphazardly slap at the ball.
Now if you set up correctly keep both elbows down and together back and through, you simply do all of the above!!
First of all what he was showing you is where every great player is Past, Present and into the future of this game. It is simple, fundamental and how you square a stick to a ball in any sport. The great players just look different doing these things and even they get out of position from time to time, usually from working on some wrong information.
Now this first picture of Hogan's old set up out of his first book Power Golf is typical even today from players that are taught awful information like he was, notice the stiff left arm and his right arm tucked in sounds familiar to anyone that has been around the game for more than a day. He learned in late 1945 that he was Dead before he started from this position. Sure you can play great from here, from time to time, but you will NEVER be consistent and last from this starting position.
Now here is where EVERY great player is, notice the width of his stance and his arms "laying" in front of his chest he learned only from here is where he could make his athletic powerful golf swing and only from here he could use his body correctly in the golf swing. Remember Hogan had his first double digit win season and his first major in 1946 the year after he learned the truth about the golf swing.
Hogan had his left arm drawn this way for a couple darn good reasons. First he felt like he had a half of a left arm in his golf swing after learning the correct information in his old swing he had a whole left arm. In other words his left arm was always a problem and it started out that way in his old set up. The second reason is he did not want everyone to "get it" or understand how simple this really is to do because he was still competing in the 50's when this came out. And those guys were fighting for every dime they could get back then, they did not have multi million dollar endorsement deals and giant purses back then.
This is how the left side works and once a player understands this he or she can only then feel the right side working correctly in the golf swing. And believe me you will really feel the right side working!! Remember Hogan felt like he had half a left arm and as far as power goes he wished he had three right hands. This was a feel, he should have said three right sides.
This is EXACTLY how the right side works in the golf swing. He didn't tell you to hold your head still tuck in the right arm stay behind the ball. He said throw it!! Hard!!! Now in the second picture he is just showing you the fall in, people are fooled even by this saying he is telling you to tuck your right arm in. THROW a ball, HARD and film it if you want. You will see the fall in but you would never try to tuck your arm in or create lag or angles doing this simple task if you are any kind of athlete at all your left side would simply unwind and you would throw the ball with your right side firing to the target like nobody's business. Also look at his left arm in this picture sequence just laying there and getting the heck out of the way!!
Here is another way to feel it, throw a ball down your line of flight with the left arm behind your back. When Tiger had this PERFECT in the year 2000 he felt his right arm getting straight as soon as possible in his change of direction. There is no way on earth he could do this without his left arm folding correctly as Hogan showed you in his half a left arm sequence. You can not do one without the other!!
Now get out there and play, and don't be sucked into trying the new flavor of the month or try this and try that. I see people all the time that chase their tales forever trying to find a golf swing. It is simple and the players that do the fundamentals the best are always the ones that last and stand the test of time.
If a Teacher can not explain the golf swing in one hour that Teacher has much more to learn. We spend a short time learning the fundamentals of the swing and a lifetime chasing the perfection of them. Yes we need guidance from time to time but the true Mastery of the swing comes from enjoying the journey in practice and play.
The old adage of you get what you pay for goes completely out the window when it comes to golf lessons. Simply by analyzing what some of these "coaches" are saying is stunning and flat out wrong.
Here is a great kid Sean O'Hair getting completely wrong and horrible information from his new instructor. Excuse me but you learn when your 10 years old about swing plane, and anyone that comprehends this knows that what his coach says is his old "bad" back swing is perfectly on plane. Where he wants Sean to get in his new "good" swing is flat, traps his right side and is on plane to hit a baseball NOT a golf ball. If this kid ever gets this in his swing he will disappear and never be heard from again. You CAN NOT play consistent golf with the club behind you. What's scary is this seems to be the new flavor of the month, instructors trying to get players flat.
Here is Sean winning at Quail Hollow not long ago and GEE it sure looks like he is on perfect plane to me. His coach was quoted as saying "I feel like Michelangelo with the perfect piece of marble." So he is trying to take credit and Sean is not even close to doing what this guy wants in the back swing, YET. The only thing this kid does wrong is he just get's a little long armed from time to time.
Now here is Candace Schepperle working on PURE fundamentals over and over again from the age of 2 she is 20 now. This great information is from none other than her father and coach David. She has made it to first in the college rankings from working on the correct swing plane. Notice the picture on the left, this position is the DEATH of many players and sends you down the wrong path creating angles and causing numerous problems you must compensate for at 100 miles per hour. Good luck. The picture on the right is perfect, keeps the club in front of her and is where every great player gets throughout the history of the game past, present and into the future. Her father is a former PGA member and is a part time caddy. It sure sucks that he is a former PGA member because believe me we need every teacher that has a grasp of the correct information we can get, they are far and few between.
Now here is Tiger doing the EXACT same thing Candace is. Notice the inset picture on the right, this is where players get when there in an awful position, and Sean's coach is actually trying to get him to do this! And this guy probably has a busy lesson book, wow!! It sure is frustrating seeing guys work on the wrong things and they have no idea there coach really should not be teaching the game at all if they don't even understand simple swing plane. Good luck Sean.
Jack Grout was one of the best Golf Instructors the world has ever seen. One of his star pupils for many years was Jack Nicklaus. Sam Byrd who was Ben Hogan's teacher for 20 years starting in 1945 and Jack Grout were very good friends, they taught the same way talked golf all the time and played quite a bit together as well. One thing that Jack Nicklaus said Grout did to him quite often was to hold his hair while making swings to teach him to keep his head perfectly still in the golf swing. Well this didn't make sense to quite a few people that truly understood the golf swing because NOBODY let there head flow with the body better than Nicklaus in his prime! So one day in the early 80's a friend of Sam Byrd's called up Jack Grout, he lived close by, Jack retired and worked from time to time at Cheeca Lodge in Islamorada 15 minutes from where we lived in Key Largo Florida. He explained that he was Sam Byrd's apprentice and wondered if it was ok to come over and talk for awhile. Jack Grout said you bet come on over and we will have lunch! Well they talked golf and what Grout and Byrd did together over the years for hours and hours. After lunch this guy said he loved hearing about the great times they had together but there was one last question I want to ask you. Why did Nicklaus say you used to hold his hair to get him to keep his head still? Because we have just been talking golf for a couple hours now and you have not mentioned any thing of the sorts, in fact you and Sam teach the same way, that it's impossible to have a great golf swing and keep the head still. Jack Grout said excuse me for a minute I will be right back, as he headed towards his office. He brought this picture back and gave it to him!
Jack Grout then put a ruler on the ball and said "if I had ever held his hair he would have looked like Yul Brynner (been bald) by the time he was 12, I never held his hair a day in his life and it pisses me off that he say's that."
So why did Jack Nicklaus start saying Jack Grout held his hair? Most likely after getting away from Grout he started listening to other players and teachers that can talk a good game but when it gets down to it really don't understand the True Fundamentals of the golf swing and what MUST happen. And sadly only about 10% of the instructors out there really do!! Jack Grout taught Nicklaus to tie in the upper part of the left arm and reach for a cloud in the sky with his right.
Look at Nicklaus in this picture!! He is 19 years old doing what his teacher wants, keeping the left arm connected to the pec and lat muscles and hitting the hell out of the ball with the right. Now it's obvious that great athletes hit it as hard with the left as much as the right side, that is what centripetal force is!! But most players feel the right side more simply because they are right handed.
These two pictures look quite a bit alike don't they? I remember when Annika Sorenstam first came out on Tour she was criticized by the so called "experts" that she moved her head too much and she will never last. Annika is just doing what Hogan and Nicklaus were taught before she was born!!
Now here is Jack when he finally achieved keeping the head still look at the reverse pivot and if you picked up his left foot he would fall over towards the target. Horrible position!! By the way this is when he started feeling the inevitable back pain from playing from here. The sad thing is a great many instructors use this image as the model of a perfect back swing??!! Sad, Sad, SAD.... Look at the record of players when they are in these positions for crying out loud. If Jack can't play from here I wouldn't advice any one else to try. He was the best that's ever been while working on the correct stuff.
One last thing. While traveling to the golf course during practice rounds for the 1980 US Open. Jack Nicklaus took a car with his fellow competitor Jim Colbert. Jim said that Nicklaus was playing poorly at the time and did not really want to be there that week fearing he would miss the cut by a bunch!! Jim Colbert told him that when he was playing his best golf he simply "married" the upper part of his left arm to his body and kept it there throughout the swing. Well with that swing thought Nicklaus went on to win his last US Open!! Learn the simplicity of the golf swing and get out there and do it!!
Here is Ricky Barnes next to Ben Hogan in the exact same horrible position. This is Ben Hogan right out of Power Golf before he learned the correct information about the golf swing. And this is Ricky Barnes in this years United States Open which he damn near won with this swing, which is a testament to his amazing talent and short game. He has also missed the cut in darn near half of the tournaments he has played in this year. Notice the left arm has wiped across the chest which makes them have to flip the hands to have any chance of squaring the club to the back of the ball. And Hogan was a great player with a bad swing even from here. The problem was this position is NOT fundamentally sound and he never won a major swinging like this.
Here are a couple more pictures from a different angle, as you can see his left arm is in a position where I see most 25 handicappers that come in wondering why they hit it all over the place. So Ricky could be fixed in a weekend if he ran into a golf professional that understands simple fundamentals. It really is stunning to me in this day and age of video and people that claim they understand how the body works that his coach does not even say gee, this looks like something we may want to address. I guess it's just further proof that quite a few coaches don't teach these guys anything they hang onto them, and try to be there best buddy. Ricky could easily be one of the top players in the world if he just gets his left arm working correctly, and yes it's that simple he does everything else......
Pictured above is Emily Klein and I filmed her at my driving range in Key Largo one week before she won an LPGA Tour event. She came in months earlier like most players that have trouble with there game working on completely wrong information and boy did she get it into her swing. Emily was trying to turn and get her arms as long as possible. She was being taught the arms should move away from the body for extension, which is a horrible thing to try and do in any sporting activity. And about trying to turn well a few years ago the Swedish national coach came over here for lessons and was sure in the fact that all golfers must turn in the golf swing. He was told to talk to an engineer or any one that understands physics when he gets back to Sweden and ask them can you turn from two sockets and two joints (legs and hips) or do you have to shift to the right leg and hip with the upper body. About a month later he sent the picture above with the wine bottles back with a caption that read “CAN YOU TURN?!!” As far as the arms go, you must get them soft and laying in front of you. The shoulders and body moves the arms in ALL athletic motions. She worked hard on the correct information and started getting it together. You will notice in the pictures above that her arms are soft and her body moves the arms into the set of the right leg in the third picture above right. Now in the impact picture her arms are straight “ONLY BECAUSE OF THE CENTRIFUGAL FORCES IN THE GOLF SWING” and the very next picture halfway past impact is the money shot. This position is EVERYTHING good or bad in the swing. Notice how you cannot see her left arm below the elbow and how long her right side is. This is TRUE extension because her left arm has hinged at the elbow and her right side is driving to the target hard. This is exactly where Ben Hogan got when he learned the correct information from Sam Byrd and Jack Nicklaus was because of the information he got from Jack Grout. And by the way Sam Byrd and Jack Grout were great friends they taught the same way. Tiger Woods is here every time now, in other words every great ball striker is exactly here when playing well it is the HISTORY of the game and I prove it EVERY DAY!! Learn how to put this in your game and you too can become a fine golfer.
There are two key elements in the golf swing that all great players do when they are playing well. They all keep the elbows pointing down to the ground and the upper left arm stays connected to the shoulder, which includes the pectoral and lat muscle (instead of the socket or joint) until late in the follow through.
Here is a list of the top ten things you will automatically do if these two simple tasks are accomplished in the swing.
If you have been following golf for the first few tournaments of the year than you have certainly noticed a new face on the PGA Tour by the name of Scott Piercy. I have worked for many hours over the years with Scott and I will tell you what, they don't come any better or with more talent than this young man. Here he is winning a nationwide tour event in Ohio of last year. I talked to him in Oregon at one of his last events of the year on the nationwide, and congratulated him on getting his card for the 2009 PGA Tour season. One thing he said was he did NOT want to be back on the nationwide, I said just take care of business (work on the right stuff) and you will never be back. And he won't!!! He has too much talent and even better has the correct information about the golf swing. The hardest part for Scott now is to stay away from, and not listen to the crap that people around him will say about the golf swing if he has a bad tournament or two. Just listening to the analysis of his swing from the guys on television is proof enough!!! My Gosh, they have absolutely no idea what he does, it's simply stunning listening to them. You know what we worked on every time he came in? Set up and left arm positions, set up and left arm positions, set up and left arm positions!! When he came in not hitting it great what do you think was out of position? Very Good!!! Do you work on more than these things with players? absolutely, until they know where you want them you must. But once they understand where all of the greats are and why, then the golf swing becomes simple and you just need to work on a couple things to fix many. Keep it up Scott and see you in the winners circle!!