Quote:
Originally Posted by mr3856a
So I just gave it a try, basically going for the feeling that my armpits were over the balls of my feet, and it instantly felt better - more balanced, more relaxed. Then a number of things started falling into place: I actually felt torque between my upper and lower body; I stopped swaying; my tendency to "lift up" at impact disappeared (which I realize now was what my body had to do to keep from falling over forward because of how far I was bent over); and I stopped yanking the club way inside on the backswing and lifting it to the top, which I've always done.
|
I've had your post floating around the back of my mind since I first read it a few weeks ago.
I too have been working on my setup and I've been working specifically on a bigger turn and a more pronounced weight shift. Over the past few weeks, I've "had it" intermittently but I never quite got it to the point where I felt it was repeatable.
When you wrote in a later post that:
" I think that's one of the most important things in golf, is knowing your bad tendencies and being able to recognize them." You nailed it. My version of that thought has always been that I don't mind doing something incorrectly as long as I know why it's happening and how to fix it. Well I had gotten into the "lifting and swaying" habit and I knew that's what I was doing, but the thing that drove me crazy was that I couldn't quite figure out why it was happening.
So today I'm out there playing and I'm all over the place with my tee shots. I've been chalking it up to "I'm learning", but that never felt quite true. A guy I was playing with had a real nice swing but the most remarkable thing was that he had tons of power but with what seemed to be very little effort and his swing was very compact. I watched what he did and I began to think of your "Eureka!" post.
After the round, I went to the range at the course. It was virtually empty and quiet, which was perfect. I set a 3-iron down to act as a guide and I checked my alignment which was fine along with my ball position, grip, etc. - everything was OK.
So I set myself up so that my armpits were more or less over the balls of my feet and I took the club back very slowly to get a feel for things and I immediately recognized what you wrote about. It almost feels as if I'm sitting on something and I'm just turning on a chair.
So I teed up a ball and I took another very slow swing and made contact just to see what's what and right then I knew that this was going to be good!
I began hitting balls with slow swings and I gradually began to take bigger turns and add some power and before long I was making solid contact. After a few more slow swings I began to bring everything up to speed and I was nothing short of amazed!
I was literally bombing shots over the fence, but the amazing thing is that it felt as if I was hardly doing anything. Not only that, but for the first time in memory, I actually watched the ball leave the tee, which meant that my head was in the right position (instead of following along with my weight-shift and causing God knows what) and I felt like I had complete control over everything.
After I finished a bucket (basically hitting all of the range's balls over their fence and into the woods), I just stood there and said to myself, "This is it! This is what I've been looking for!"
So I'm going to take this to the range as soon as I can and refine it a bit, but I just "know" that this is going to work beautifully. It feels so natural and it feels as if it were made just for me. But the weird thing is that I don't have to think about anything. The weight shift, head position, the turn and all of the other things I need to do seem to happen automatically and without any conscious effort on my part. It's one-plane, it's effortless, it's compact and it has TONS of power.
What more can I ask for?
Thanks for posting about this! It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered!
-JP