Beginner: Laying the foundations.

There are two essential points necessary in a player’s set up which are required in order for the swing to develop well.

1. A balanced posture is vital to allow the body to turn and generate the power in the golf swing.
2. A sound grip which will enable a free flowing hand and arm swing.
The body is the major component in the golf swing and creates power transferring this energy through the arms, hands, down the club shaft and finally into the club head to strike the ball.

Good posture = good body turn, Sound grip = free flowing hand and arm swing.

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Intermediate/Club golfer: Coordinating the swing
With the foundation of a good posture and body motion, the correct grip and club swing we then need to link this together to make a coordinated movement, well timed and in sync. The aim is to get the body turn and hand and arm swing completing the back swing at the same time which will then help coordination through the impact area and the body and hand and arm swing again will finish at the same time at the end of the follow through.

Grip pressure is important as a tight a grip will reduce wrist hinge and slow the club on the backswing causing the body to complete the back swing before the arms. The body will then stop and the arms will lift to the top of the back swing independently of the body. The outcome is poor coordination, incorrect positioning of the arms and/ or club and often over swinging of the back swing. Compensations will then be necessary for the rest of the swing to try and repair the damage the backswing has caused and this will lead to a variable swing and to inconsistency of play.

Turn the body to swing the club into position at the top of the back swing and applying the same on the downswing through swing. Don’t over control the club or be too methodical in it’s positioning. The golf swing is a swing! Not a series of positions.

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Low/Single figure handicap: The swing plane
The plane or angle on which the club swings becomes very important to the lower handicap players or better. Sometimes seemingly complicated, in reality golf clubs will try and balance themselves if the fundamentals are correct and they are allowed to swing freely with the correct momentum. This comes from the body. Initially the body will turn away from the ball and the club will move at an equivalent speed but soon the club will gather momentum and start to accelerate which in turn hinges the wrists. At this point the club will be working on a line parallel to the original angle the shaft started at address. The club should then remain parallel to this line for the rest of the back swing, at the top of the back swing and all the way down to impact gradually returning closer and closer to the original shaft line until matching (or somewhere close taking into account shaft flex). With this consistent plane with the club in balance, a quality golf swing is beginning to be achieved of which real success can come.

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Scratch/Professional: Strike/Ball compression
With the swing plane consistent from point 3 above and without the need for compensations the benefits can now be had from turning through the ball correctly using the player’s strong side through leverage to compress the ball. The player can stabilise the lower body and turn the upper body enabling a coordinated movement through impact which is led by the upper body but supplying speed to the club head through this movement. This will result in a flight which is more direct and less susceptible to wind. At the same time it creates a hitting area which is long and maximises the amount of time the clubface remains square to the target enabling consistently straight shots.

This body orientated and more passive hand type swing will result in a far more reliable and quality orientated strike which being of limited individual moving parts is highly repeatable and is not solely dependant on timing or compensations that are necessary from uncoordinated golf swings.

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Professional/Tour Player: Dynamics and efficiency
Firstly, it is not uncommon for players as good as Tour players to suffer from the items described in points 3 and 4. It is vital to achieve a golf swing which is technically sound and repeatable and once this is done then the golf swing can be made more dynamically efficient to achieve greater results through effectiveness and less individual moving parts giving consistency. Consistency of a swing and therefore the player’s confidence, performance and ability to win is key to becoming a champion.

With quality positions achieved, greater focus can be placed on stability of the lower body and a series of movements in the body. These work from the ground up throughout the downswing, creating a chain of events which lever the club into the ball. This enables greater stability in the lower body with the upper body and strong side of the player feeding off it. The energy created in then pushed through the ball with maximum force and compression and minimal disruption. When this happens there is no loss of efficiency through instability or weakness. Shots of all types can be achieved when desired with simple alterations being made at set up without the need to change the swing each time to achieve necessary shapes or flights to the ball. Even tour players can have techniques that some weeks can perform well and others can be inconsistent. This is rarely good enough for the standard of competition and the requirements of the player to achieve at this level. The road to improvement in order to arrive at a successful tour level standard is a progressive one with small changes being made. It is the simple plan that instructor and player understand fully with a structured process to get there. This usually involves improving the technique and from this foundation making those good positions more effective through dynamics and physical attributes.

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