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This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Title: Spin in Place for Better Ball Flights
We saw it last week in the US Open during those quality replays of Cabrera and Tiger. Swing after swing Cabrera was spinning in place to a balanced finish while Tiger’s misplayed shots into 11, 12 and 14 were out of balance because of a changing spine angle.
Johnny Miller’s analysis showing Tiger squatting and moving out of position was fabulous. He showed us precisely why Tiger is having to grind so hard over every shot. Tiger is not spinning in place consistently. I find this to be a very common problem with most golfers. All too often we tend to move our spine angle up/down or side-to-side when we spin, which robs us of ball flight predictability and accuracy.
So let’s take a look at Strike to learn the keys to spinning inside the barrel. First, we need a balanced set-up. You will notice via the vertical dotted lines that Strike’s butt is behind his heels as far as his eyes are in front of his toes, thus tilting his spine (cylinder) so that it is perpendicular to the shaft of his club. This balanced tilt makes room for his arms to hang relaxed and straight down from his shoulders – Strike is balanced in his set-up- the first key to spinning in place.
Now, notice his pivots, the green ball joints at the top of his thigh bones. The next key to spinning is place is understanding the relation of your two pivots to each other and to controlling your power. To get your pivots to work together as a team, you must activate the muscles up the insides of your legs by squeezing your knees slightly together and “digging-in” with the insides of your feet. You now have a stable base on which to spin powerfully.
During the backswing, and this is most important, the pivots work in straight lines, not in a circular motion. As you start your backswing, the right pivot turns away slowly as though on a curtain rod aligned perpendicular to your target line, while your left pivot moves diagonally away from the target, to precisely where the right pivot was at address(black arrows). This linear spin of the pivots while digging-in with the right instep facilitates a full weight transfer to the inside of the right heel with absolutely no sideways movement of your head or torso.
During the downswing we reverse the direction of this spin motion. Strike’s right pivot moves diagonally toward the target to replace the left pivot, while the left pivot spins powerfully away on its own curtain rod. Note: to spin in place, you must spin on the inside of your left foot, which is flared out ¼ turn at address and on an absolutely straight left leg.
When we spin our hips and torso powerfully in place, on the right rod/right leg axis away and on the left rod/left leg axis through, with no up/down change of spine angle and no side-to-side movement of the hips, the club returns to impact consistently on path toward our target. It is this linear movement of the pivots, working together as a team that transfers our weight fully from foot to foot so that we are spinning on only one axis at a time.
Learning to spin in place is a big step to straighter, longer and more predictable ball flights. I cannot over estimate the value of a balanced set-up as the first step toward getting the feel of spinning in place.
Golfstruck – Better Golf -Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 1: Title: Buying a Better Game
As we anticipate the upcoming “this is my year” golf season, barraged once again by the latest and greatest of innovative technology, our tendency is to rush out and buy that new tool that will provide that oh so important competitive edge.
With Golf Digest’s January evaluation/ranking of some 1500+ new clubs – in hand, we parade through our favorite golf shops looking to inspect, feel and yes, test, all the new equipment. With manufacturers hyping such terms as MOI, CoG, Torque, launch angle, tip stiffness, spin rate, milled face, raw finish and spin grooves, what should we be looking for? And how can we be assured of making a purchase that works for my game?
A word of caution here. There is a tendency among amateurs and pros alike to purchase new equipment when we are playing badly. The thought being that new clubs will fix our swing problems.
The better approach is to test new clubs when your swing is repeating with some consistency. That way you can better determine the benefit, if any, coming from the club itself.
So let’s start with your ball flights. What are you looking to do better? Discuss the pattern of your shots with a club fitting expert regarding direction(s), distance, trajectory and spin. What are your tendencies when you miss? What is the shape of your normal ball flight? Do you want it higher or lower, to quit slicing or hooking? Are you in search of more consistent distance or greater distance? Is there a specific distance you need a club for? Having trouble with your long irons? Do you need a gap wedge in your bag?
Now to the clubs themselves. We now have a square-headed driver. Who’d have guessed? Does it make sense? Yes, if you can get over the visual hurdle. But it often comes as a surprise to golfers that the single most important determinant of ball flight is the shaft.
The proper shaft should produce a high launch angle with a penetrating ball flight and a relatively tight dispersion pattern. Yet, we tend to try to buy greater distance! Here is where testing is really important. Of course field testing on the course or the range is best, but not always possible.
The alternative is in-store testing where your favorite retailer has set-up monitor and screen testing facilities to measure such parameters as spin rate, launch angle, swing speed, face deflection and distance. These measurements help us to zero in on the right torque, tip stiffness, flex point and shaft flex to best suit our swing. Faster swing speeds or whippy hand action require less torque, higher kick points and a stiffer flex, and conversely. But FEEL is still the most important criteria in club selection. If it doesn’t look and feel good, don’t take it home!
Next in importance to shaft is the length, lie angle and loft specs. Custom fitting, properly done, will benefit players at all levels. Though you may miss out on a sale or two, you will find that properly fitted clubs really do produce appreciably better ball flights, consistently.
What about hybrids? Arguably the best innovation since Gene Sarazen designed the first sand wedge back in the late 1920’s! They replace those ever so hard to hit long irons, get the ball up out of the rough and produce a higher trajectory that will hold greens.
There are many shapes, lofts and shaft specs to choose from here. Make sure you like the looks of the clubhead. Visual alignment is important, as is size of head and degree of offset. It is important that you gain confidence when you set this club down behind the ball.
The next best innovation in recent years is the gap wedge. So called because it fills a distance gap between your pitching wedge and sand wedge. For most players I recommend a 520 gap wedge when combined with a 580 sand wedge. However, if your sand wedge is 560, you may want to go to 510. The gap wedge is perhaps the most versatile of all clubs for chipping and pitching from a variety of lies, both in the fairway and from the rough. If you don’t have one, this is your next most important purchase.
One final note: yes, properly fitted equipment will produce better ball flights and improve your consistency. However, when it comes to improving your technique and your swing motion, there are no shortcuts. The balance of this summer’s series of articles will tackle our tendencies as players and help you to fix what’s wrong.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 2: Title: Accuracy and Distance – Co-conspirators!
Players tell me all the time that they would give up distance for accuracy. But we all know that’s hogwash. We want to hit it straight and far! So how do we do that?
Fortunately for us, the most accurate drivers of the ball are also the longest hitters – the tour players. Accuracy and distance are co-conspirators. You really can’t work to achieve accuracy without gaining distance. My students discover, to their delight, that when they learn to hit the ball straight, the added bonus is that it goes farther.
Clubface: As players, we have a tendency to try to keep the face aimed at the target as we swing through. When we do, the ball slides off the end of the clubhead, which creates the sidespin that makes the ball slice. Try this: swing slow enough from impact to arrival to watch the toe of your clubhead pass the heel, thereby capturing the ball on the face so you can sling it toward your target. As you do this be sure to swing your clubhead along the target line (swing path), keeping it along the ground for a few inches beyond the ball.
Speed Delivery: Our next tendency is to prematurely thrust the right arm and right wrist to straight – prior to or at impact. This misconstrued concept of power causes a severe loss of both distance and accuracy. The better approach is as follows: Your right elbow and your right wrist (righthanders) must get to the ball still folded/cocked. Do not allow your right arm to straighten prior to impact. Rather, your arm thrusts to straight from impact to arrival – that distance beyond the ball where you must deliver the maximum speed of your swing.
And just as important, your right wrist never straightens. It remains cocked as the right forearm thrusts/rotates, so that as your right hand rotates from fingers down to fingers up, your palm (clubface) continues to face the target. To accomplish this, your left elbow must also rotate fully so the back of your left hand also continues to face the target, slightly bowed as it rotates from fingers down to fingers up.
The Magic Connection: And finally, the handle of your club and both elbows must point to the left pivot (the ball joint at the top of the left thighbone) from impact to arrival. This connection is Magic! You must return to impact with the elbows down and the club shaft at the same angle it was at address. Do not allow the elbows to “fly” or the handle to come up, thus creating a straight line of the forearms and club shaft. Now you cannot hook it, either!
When you learn to rotate/ thrust the forearms from impact to arrival – elbows down and level –with the right wrist remaining slightly cocked and left wrist slightly bowed, the ball will head along the path of your swing = toward your target. In short, you have delivered path and face along with more speed from impact to arrival. Result = you are hitting it farther in the direction you are looking!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 6: Title: Understand and Deliver the Bottom of Your Swing Arc
The hot new swing on tour, as reported by Golf Digest in their June issue is termed the Stack and Tilt Swing. To learn more about The Revolution as its authors immodestly call their new method of teaching, click on golfdigest.com/stackandtilt.
The stack and tilt premise, that the bottom of the swing arc is the critical element in the golf swing, is correct. But I believe its teachers have a strangely misguided understanding of how that best happens. Since there is a curious buzz occurring throughout the golf world about the stack and tilt method, let’s understand how the body and club work best together to produce desired ball flights.
First, the bottom of the swing arc, the lowest point of our golf swing, naturally occurs directly below the base of our spine. That is where our arms naturally extend and therefore where the club head consistently strikes the ground when we swing.
Next, to get the right hand lower on the grip than the left hand (righthanders), we must tilt our spine and shoulders so that the right shoulder is slightly lower than the left. When we tilt properly, the tailbone of our spine moves slightly toward the target, thus shifting our weight a little more onto our left foot (60%). This tilt sets our tailbone into our left heel, so we strike the ground precisely at our left heel, the natural bottom of the arc
No tail wagging: If we turn naturally onto our right foot in the backswing (like a pitcher in his windup) and then step toward the target, by merely transferring our weight to our left foot, we can spin on our left leg axis and fire the right side to the target – with no sideways movement of either end of the spine – the head or the tailbone. If your tailbone stays home throughout your swing – back and through – the bottom of your swing arc, i.e. where you brush the grass, will occur opposite your left heel every time.
Alternatively, the stack and tilt swing has you leaning on your left leg throughout your swing to keep your head still, while the tailbone moves side to side. It is far more natural and easier to leave your spine (your center of gravity) in place as you learn the feel of turning away and through 1st, around your right axis and then transferring your weight onto your left axis BEFORE you spin through. Which is why I don’t think we’ll see the stack and tilt guys beating the best players any time soon.
Ball Position: Now that we know where the natural bottom of our arc occurs, we know precisely where the ball should be positioned for each of our clubs:
The Driver: Position the left heel opposite the back of the ball with a little wider than shoulder width right foot stance so the bottom of the arc occurs ever so slightly behind the ball, so you strike the ball just as the clubhead starts its upward ascent.
Fairway Woods and Hybrids: Place left heel opposite the back of the ball with a gradually narrower right foot stance as the club shaft gets shorter, so you brush the grass underneath and beyond and the ball.
All Irons: Place left heel one inch ahead of the ball, again gradually narrowing your right foot stance as the club shaft gets shorter, so that you strike the ball with a descending blow, thus brushing the grass or taking the divot just beyond the ball, at the intersection of your left heel and an extension of your spine.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 7: Mastering the Wind
Every good player will tell you that his least favorite weather condition is wind. Wind is not only the most difficult of factors affecting the predictability and accuracy of ball flights; it serves to undermine one’s rhythm and normal swing motion.
For tour players, preparing for this week’s British Open generally means relearning their wind game. Which means: hitting the ball through the wind; keeping the ball down under the wind; and, holding the ball against a cross wind. Often in the British Open the players who do these best during the week, put themselves in position to win. Let’s take these one at a time to understand the adjustments we need to make to master the wind.
Through the Wind: Standing on the tee of a long par four into the wind we all have a tendency to grip tighter and swing harder – both, as we all have witnessed time and again, are near fatal mistakes. Result? We deliver a glancing blow with way too much side spin and a wildly off-line ball flight. Not good!
So what should we do? Think about this: when playing into the wind, what should our objective be – to put minimal spin on the ball. When we minimize back spin, the ball stays lower and boars through the wind with a penetrating ball flight. When we minimize side spin, the ball stays straight. How do we accomplish these worthy goals? Over years of successful play into the wind my mantra has become: Stand Tall! Swing easy! And be sure to Finish! When I swing this way, I tend to relax, stay in my spine angles and deliver my motion, unhurriedly, through to my target. This approach tends to deliver a wide, extended smooth swing arc down the target line. Result? Square, solid contact with minimal spin nearly every time. Note: I generally am the longest ball off the tee into the wind!
Under the Wind: Keeping you ball down out of the wind is the best way to know where you will play your next shot from. But only if you have a good sense of the bounce and roll portion of the ball flight after it lands. As we have watched the British Open over the years, we marvel at how well the players hit those knockdown shots under the wind and somehow judge just how far their ball will roll up onto the green.
Recently a group of young high schoolers, including Erik Skott of Wyckoff and the Ramapo golf team, returned from a golf trip to Ireland where the wind blew all week, sometimes up to 50 mph. It took only a couple of wedges blown well off course before they began running 7 irons up onto the greens. Necessity is still the mother of invention!
Technique: To play the knock down shot, take two to three extra clubs, choke down on the grip, play the ball back in your stance -slightly behind middle, and strike a downward blow against a firm left post with a slightly bowed left wrist (turn the knuckles of your left hand down). Finish low with your right knee, hip and shoulder pointing down your target line. Allow for the ball to roll some thirty yards depending on the firmness and speed of the fairway and green. Note: since the ball will roll the final 20-30 yards or more, you don’t have to fly it nearly as far, so you can take a shorter more compact, repeatable swing.
Cross Wind: I find the easiest way to keep the wind from blowing the ball off course is to turn the ball into the wind. The stronger the crosswind, the more we need to turn it. The formula I use, depending on temperature, is ½ yard of turn per one mph of wind. So a 20 mph crosswind calls for 10 yards of turn. A colder wind has more affect than a warm wind.
Technique: For starters, when learning to turn the ball into the wind, try simply adjusting your clubface position before you grip the club. To turn your ball into a left to right crosswind (right-handers), turn the face closed a couple degrees (or more depending on the strength of the wind) and align and swing normally. Observe the ball flight. Since you have imparted some hook spin to the ball the wind will tend to straighten out your ball flight. You have held your line against the wind – hence the terminology – holding your ball against the wind. For the right to left crosswind, simply open the face a couple degrees (or more) and align and swing normally. You have now put cut spin on your ball so it can hold its line against the crosswind. Note: When playing into a crosswind wind, take extra club, choke down about an inch, play the ball back in your stance and swing at ¾ power with your knuckles turned down. This will produce a lower more controlled ball flight.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 9: Title: Feel a Wide Swing Arc for Consistency
There is a strong tendency among us golfers to swing the club with our arms and hands. This quite naturally occurs because we do most everything else during our day with these muscles. We trust them. They feed us, answer and dial the phone, brush our teeth, drive the car, operate the remote, etc. etc.
The problem with this approach to golf is that we collapse the width of our swing arc. And in so doing we lose both accuracy and power. Why? Think about this. In our arms and wrists we are dealing with three joints: shoulder, elbow and wrist. When we consider that each arm is operating differently during the swing that’s six joints in all.
Getting all these joints on the same page so they work as a unit to facilitate a quality golf swing becomes almost a Herculean task. So what’s the secret? Don’t try!
Instead of trying to control your swing with your arms and hands, let’s have them operating more as spokes in a wheel, where they play an important but supporting roll to the motion. They serve to keep the arc (wheel) from collapsing but do not make it turn.
Turn your merry-go-round: So how do we swing then? Try this: Stand erect with arms hanging and holding a club horizontal and sufficiently away from your body so that the handle points to your left pivot (the ball joint at the top of your left thigh (righthanders). To generate a swing arc, think of your legs/hips/torso as the center post of a merry-go-round and the clubhead as a kid who wants a ride on your merry-go-round. Now turn your center post, in place, away from and through to your target and give the kid a ride. When the arms serve merely as spokes, the kid gets a nice smooth ride. Conversely, when you start activating wrist, elbow and shoulder joints, you begin to change the arc drastically and you can make that kid sick in a hurry. So too, with your ball flights.
Passive vs. Active: Yet, if we did not have joints in our shoulders, elbows and wrists, not to mention all the joints in the hands themselves, we would not be able to swing a club well. So we do use these joints, but in a passive and relaxed roll only. They must be relaxed to respond properly to the motion of a swing arc generated by the rotation of the torso, which as we learned last week, must spin in place, tilted.
Feel Wide Away: The feel we get when our arms and hands respond to the rotation of our tilted torso is a wide arc. A wide arc away – along the ground – no lifting the club up in the takeaway and no premature cocking of the wrists. We also must feel that the clubhead swings straight away from our target – into the catcher’s mitt, as we unhurriedly spin the right shoulder and hip away at right angles to the target line.
Focus There to Go There: Now here’s the catch! When you start away, you must feel away from where you are going, which is wide along the ground toward your target. If you do not swing away from where you are going, it is highly probable that you will never go there. And if you don’t go there, your clubhead speed will never get delivered from the ball to the target. And if your clubhead doesn’t whoosh to there, for certain you ball will never get from here to there!
As we see here in the photo of Jack Nicklaus as late in his career as 2001, he still had that wide arc and focus on where he was going. That feeling of being in front of yourself @ the target is a sure sign that your arms were wide away and through in response to your torso spinning in place and tilted. He did so many things well in this swing, let’s forgive him for rolling over on the outside of his left foot!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 13: The Playoffs – Golf’s Marathon
As we grow up in the game of golf, we all have to learn how to prepare our game for competition. Whether it be a one-day junior tournament, the club championship, an extended golf vacation with our mates or one of the tour Majors.
Beginning this past week with the Barclays Classic at Westchester, the Fedex Cup has created a whole new level of competition akin to the playoffs in any other sport. To win the $10 million pot of gold at the end of the rainbow the players must, for the first time in golf history, prepare their games for a four week marathon of competition.
We all know how difficult it is to get our games to peak at just the right time for one important tournament. Now think about the challenge of maintaining that edge over a whole month of events!
Last week at the Barclays the PGA tour’s fitness trailer was abuzz with activity. As players hustled through their workouts, I asked Head Conditioning and Fitness Trainer, Mr. Scott Riehl, a former resident of Wyckoff, who on tour is in the best golf shape and how that might affect the outcome of the playoffs.
His response was interesting. A high percentage of players on tour now have regular regimens for their before and after round workouts, which change periodically in order to keep their bodies balanced. Those who are well into balanced body conditioning, he believes, will have the advantage primarily because the golf swing generates such an unbalanced, one directional strain on our bodies. This strain, over time, creates tightness, stiffness, soreness, even pain – the bane of every player. When we lose flexibility, we lose rhythm – the flow of motion – the glue that connects all our moving parts into that beautiful sequence of motion.
Naturally Scott was reluctant to make any predictions. Hey all these guys are his clients. But me, I watched swings carefully on the practice tee. Surprisingly, there aren’t many that are not fundamentally flawed in one way or another. I think we’ll see the winner come from that small group of players who have learned to swing well within their ability, who manage the course and themselves well, and who have been in training for this event all season.
The usual suspects who always seem to rise to the top in the Majors come to mind, but in addition I like some of the young players to make their mark here: Jonathon Byrd, Nathan Green, Mark Wilson, Heath Slocum and rookies Doug Labelle and Brandt Snedeker. They are all fundamentally sound, have a good head on their shoulders and are in sound golf shape.
We all know Tiger took the week off, willing to spot his fellow competitors the points earned at the Barclays, for the need to rest and prepare his body for the next three in a row. Here we have arguably the best conditioned player in the game not wanting to stumble coming down the stretch in the final event – because he simply ran out of gas.
So how do we prepare for up coming events? First of all, let’s not overlook the need for proper rest and nutrition. You must fuel your machine or it simply won’t go. Next is a workout program that 1st warms up the muscles aerobically prior to stretching them. Then let’s work on the stretches that promote full rotation and flexion around our joints, always starting from the ground-up: ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, neck, elbows and wrists. I learned during the off-season that we must always work in all three planes of motion to develop a balanced body with full range of motion: front-to-back, side-to-side, and transverse or rotational.
Now our body is ready for the day’s work: swinging the golf club. Counting practice swings, short game and putting, tour players make some 300 to 500 swings a day. Up until now perhaps their lives seemed glamorous. It is when you are winning! The rest of the time it is really hard work. The mental strain of competition is often overlooked as much as the need for proper care of the machine that swings the club.
One thing for sure: the winner of the Fedex Cup will be no fluke. He will have earned his place in the spotlight over not just a month of competition, but a full year of preparation that includes, importantly, time off to recoup both physically and mentally.
Vijay Singh, pictured here, is considered The Marathon man on tour. He plays more events and puts in more hour of practice than anyone else. So obviously he is a favorite to win it all. But does he take enough time off to be mentally and physically at his peak down the stretch? We’ll see!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2008 series
The Winners Circle
Article 9: Title: The Great White vs. The Best of Ireland
As I write this article following Saturday’s round of the British Open at Royal Birkdale, the whole golf world is caught up in 53 year old Greg Norman’s unprecedented lead after three rounds of a major championship.
Known in his heyday as the shark, Norman entered this tournament merely as a relaxed warm-up for the Senior British Open next week. After all, he is supposed to be on his honeymoon with his new bride and former tennis great Chris Everett. So this is truly a story of … behind every successful man is a great woman.
As Sunday morning approaches, those of us who have followed golf through the era of great shotmakers – those years when we played wound balata balls that had to be turned into or held against the wind , and before there were springboard faced drivers that fly for miles – feel we are in a time warp. We are hoping against hope that Norman can exorcise his major championship demons and finish this one off as the most improbable winner in Open history.
In the roaring winds of Birkdale we are seeing shot making at its best from a player who was Tiger before there was Tiger. We are seeing Norman playing 5 irons under the wind from 121 yards to five feet; holding six irons against a 35 mile an hour crosswind into par threes and reaching downwind par fives with driver/six iron. You can’t make this stuff up.
When we reach his age, rumor has it that we are supposed to lose our putting stroke. Yet for three rounds Greg Norman outputted the field. Norman demonstrated the experience to steady himself with a routine that delivers a pure roll when winds are whipping at ground level, blowing putts off line. Never have we seen so many players step away from putts to wait for the ball to quit oscillating in the wind before they could putt.
From around the greens we are seeing a well schooled 8 and 9 iron bump-and-run game from a prior era, outperforming the wedge game that simply doesn’t work in these ground level wind conditions.
From the rough, the leaders are taking what their lie gives them, thus getting to play their next shot from where they have a chance to save par. Others are going from trouble A into trouble B, thus posting doubles and triples. Under these conditions bogey is sometimes a good score. As Tom Watson said from the booth, par on Saturday was about 75. Wow, that’s five over par on a course that measured less that 7000 yards.
So what makes playing in these steady 30+ mph winds so difficult? All the players said that their greatest difficulty was with their putting. With the ball tending to move as they stepped up to putt they were afraid to ground their putter behind the ball. For, once they have soled their putter behind the ball, if the ball moves, under the rules of golf they are deemed to have caused it to move and therefore incur a one stroke penalty.
So many attempted to change their putting routine by hovering their putters above the ground and trying to putt from this unpracticed and unorthodox position. Others repeatedly stepped away. Both of these alterations from well practicing routines all too often caused the players to lose focus on producing the stroke required to roll the ball firmly enough to hold its line as it approached the hole. The result – many weekly rolled putts that either came up short or blew off line.
As a competitive athlete looking forward to Sunday at Birkdale, I can’t help but think that the final pairing of defending champ Padrig Harrington and Greg Norman – two wind players of unparalleled wit and wisdom – might just produce a shot-for-shot match-up every bit as exciting as this year’s Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer. A match that John McEnroe called the best he’s ever seen.
When the winds blow again on Sunday, though not quite so strongly, one thing for sure, the winner will be the player who makes the wind his friend.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2008 series
The Winners Circle
Article 10: Title: Acceleration – The Key to Accuracy AND Power
How often have you heard your playing partner say, “I’d gladly give up distance off the tee if I could just drive it in the fairway?” Which obviously begs the question, how much distance would you be willing to give up – enough to tee off with a 5 iron or a pitching wedge?
The real truth is that we all want to be able to tee off with our big headed, spring-faced drivers. We all want to be able to launch the ball, thus satisfying our egos. Well, the good news is that if we work to achieve accuracy properly, more distance, not less, will be the by-product of our effort. Here’s how it works.
Direction is controlled by only two swing factors – swing path and the attitude of club face through the region of impact (which I define as from the ball to a short distance beyond the ball). The ball generally starts out in the direction we swing, i.e. straight, to the left or to the right of target. It will then continue its journey by remaining straight, turning left or turning right dependent upon the attitude of the clubface (square, closed or open to the path of our swing).
When we come to understand that the region of impact, not the moment of impact, determines ball flight, magic begins to happen. Why? Because when we focus our attention on delivering our swing motion from ball to target, we are no longer merely attempting to hit the ball. Rather, we are directing it to go somewhere. We are in effect, to use Sam Snead’s terminology, getting snuggled up against the ball and slinging it out there.
The act of slinging the ball out there, redirects the focus of our attention from merely striking the ball to actually getting it to go somewhere. And after all, isn’t that the objective? As we learn the feel of delivering our swing motion from ball to target we immediately discover a difference in our ball flights. They are going straighter AND farther.
The explanation for this is simply physics. The natural result of changing the focus of our attention from hitting the ball, to delivering our swing motion from ball to target is that our clubhead is now accelerating at impact, rather than at maximum speed at or prior to impact. We are now squashing the ball against the face of the club as the ball and the clubhead move together toward our target – thus directing the flight of the ball, as well as increasing initial ball velocity (the rebound effect) – this increasing our distance. Through the use of super high speed photography, now used on tour, we are able to observe this occurrence in slow motion.
Learning to Deliver: To learn the feel of this sensation of slinging the ball to your target, try this: set-up properly to the ball, and while maintaining the perpendicular relationship between your spine angle/shaft angle, begin the motion of your forward swing without a backswing. Do this by simultaneously posting up, slowly spinning your left hip to the rear and firing your right thigh and hip toward your target (righthanders) – while your torso/arms/club and left neck wait patiently at the back of the ball until the spinning of your lower body stretches and pulls your t/a/c through along the ground toward your target.
What you will discover is the feel of acceleration – delivering the force of your swing from the ball, along the ground, to your target. This lower body first action is, in fact, the first move of the downswing. So the next drill is to stop at the top of your backswing and repeat your sling it motion – lower body first. Note: there is no hurry in this lower body first action. In fact, the slower you go, the greater the stretch across your torso and therefore the greater the rate of acceleration from ball to target.
The Connection: Next in importance is the connection between your arms and the spinning of your hips. Since we are now intentionally developing a lower body first swing motion, it is of utmost importance to connect the timing of the t/a/c with the post/spin/firing of the lower body. You will be happy to know that this connection is really quite simple. The connection of upper body to your new lower body first motion is simply the following: keeping your elbows together and pointing to the ground, feel a bungee cord connection between them and your left hip joint throughout your entire swing. This connection serves to square your clubface through the region of impact as you deliver an accelerating clubhead from ball to target. Result: Accuracy AND distance.
A word of caution however: As Greg Norman showed us once again in the British Open, just because you can hit it far and straight, driver may not always be the best choice from the tee box!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2009 series
ONE MOVE TO BETTER GOLF
Article 2: Title: Spin Faster for Greater Distance
I am often asked the question: how do I get more distance? The simple answer is: deliver more clubhead speed from the ball to the target. Which generally begs the next question: why does it matter what I do beyond the ball? Again the simple answer is: to consistently and effectively direct the ball to go somewhere, i.e. toward your target, your clubhead must be accelerating as it makes contact with the ball.
When the clubhead is accelerating at impact you have the benefit of gravity and centrifugal force helping to keep the club in the arc, which makes all the difference in the consistency and predictability of ball flights. Those who have learned the art of acceleration, DELIVER more speed and therefore, hit it farther AND straighter. Yet, they look like they aren’t swinging very hard!
So what is the key to learning the feel of acceleration at impact, or more precisely: delivering maximum clubhead speed beyond the ball? When we watch the best tour players, both male and female, we see them spinning on a braced (straight) left leg (right handed players).
When this leg braces prior to spinning the left hip, we can spin faster and we can spin in place. When we spin in place, we make solid contact time after time. When we spin the hips faster, we generate more clubhead speed.
Picture your left side, from armpit to left instep as the center post of a merry-go-round. When your left side posts or braces up (Tiger calls this snapping up), you create a stable (non-wobbly) axis to spin around. You have a leg to stand on, so to speak. When the center post of your merry-go-round doesn’t wobble or slide forward, you spin faster and you spin in place, so the clubhead (i.e. the kid getting a ride on your merry-go-round) gets delivered in the same way every time.
A word of caution: be certain to retain your spine angle, i.e. keep your chest facing down at the ball as you post-up. Don’t stand up as you post-up!
One of the most common errors I see, even among tour players, is the tendency to start their downswings with the arms/torso/hip turn, while their weight is still on their back foot. When this happens to you, several red lights should start flashing in your brain: since you have not yet created a stable axis to spin around -you will generate less speed; it will be delivered prior to impact; you will be out of position at impact; and your timing will have to be perfect or the ball could spray left, right, high or low; dependent upon the nature of your release (hand action). Result: inconsistency and loss of distance.
If you want to play better, more consistent golf AND hit it farther, you must learn to snap your left leg to straight as you transfer your weight from right heel to left instep to start your downswing. Allow your torso/arms/club to wait patiently in backswing position while you post-up.
Once you have transferred ALL your weight to your left post axis, you are free to SPIN (your left hip out of the way) so your right side can FIRE through to your target.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
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