Where power comes from....

[Bigvivec]

Where power comes from…

I pulled this from a local golf magazine…I will scan the photo and description of the exercise later, but this is pretty much it…addressed spine angle in the golf swing in a way that was really easy to understand, and more importantly FEEL…twist your body into this finish position on the range, then move back to address keeping your head in place, then make a practice swing to the finish and try to mimic the muscle memory of where you started…basically, take your stance, feet running east-west, then turn to the finish (north)…you should be up on your right toe and your left leg twisted underneath you…then do a side bend to the right (right handed golfers) until you have the same angle that you did at address…going back and forth a few times will tell you what that was…

Do yourself a favor first…stretch your hips…unless you swing this way (I thought I did…what did I know!?!?) and really hold your spine angle, the stress on the hips isn’t what it might be…and neither is the distance gained…I was not swinging much more than a ¾ swing, and wasn’t swinging “hard”, which made good contact much easier…that combined with the extra mustard of really feeling what it means to “get your hips through” the swing was really sending it out there…doing this also illustrated through “feel” what it means to really clear your left side…leaves this big avenue to drive your right side through the ball and to the target…the right side can’t help but drive the lane when you get into this position…emphasizing the clearing of the hip and driving of the knee sent the ball proportionately farther without swinging harder with my arms…tapped into the secret of where power comes from…

I wouldn’t be able to hit the ball as I do if I didn’t do this to a degree already, but I was very impressed by the “feels” that this exercise instilled, as well as how if one movement is done correctly, many other pieces will fall into place…I love ya Larry, but do this exercise…you can’t help but get your weight forward by properly mimicking the finish position, and then your spine angle is correct to boot!

Excuse me now…I have to go find my “Golf Stretch” book and put some icepacks on my hips and outside of my left ankle!!!

[larryrsf]

YouTube - Top 25 Golf Pro Lesson Downswing Weightshift

Hi Big,

I am sure you're saying the same thing as Shawn Clement, but his instruction in this video combines it all-- says what Hogan and Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus did-- and he shows it more graphically than I have ever seen. Easy to understand--and impossible to misinterpret. Turn, PLANT, swing. The "Plant" move requires us to push our butt toward the target to balance the arms extended the opposite direction. Then snap that front leg straight and swing around you "post."

He said, "the only way to hit it straight is by having the weight on the front leg post."

Good enough for me. Now I know what to concentrate on.

I agree with Penick that short iron is the best way to practice--hit 100 with the same iron when drilling to ingrain a different move sequence. Ignore where the ball goes, concentrate on your body moves. Most will need to hit several dozen balls doing that several days in a row to permanently change your golf swing. Its worth it!

But most important is that you don't play or swing driver, etc. until you have it down pat!!! Each time you revert to old habits, skip through the PLANT in the sequence, you erase dozens or hundreds of good swings. Back to "square one."

Larry

[Bigvivec]

Originally Posted by larryrsf

YouTube - Top 25 Golf Pro Lesson Downswing Weightshift

Hi Big,

I am sure you're saying the same thing as Shawn Clement, but his instruction in this video combines it all-- says what Hogan and Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus did-- and he shows it more graphically than I have ever seen. Easy to understand--and impossible to misinterpret. Turn, PLANT, swing. The "Plant" move requires us to push our butt toward the target to balance the arms extended the opposite direction. Then snap that front leg straight and swing around you "post."

He said, "the only way to hit it straight is by having the weight on the front leg post."

Good enough for me. Now I know what to concentrate on.

I agree with Penick that short iron is the best way to practice--hit 100 with the same iron when drilling to ingrain a different move sequence. Ignore where the ball goes, concentrate on your body moves. Most will need to hit several dozen balls doing that several days in a row to permanently change your golf swing. Its worth it!

But most important is that you don't play or swing driver, etc. until you have it down pat!!! Each time you revert to old habits, skip through the PLANT in the sequence, you erase dozens or hundreds of good swings. Back to "square one."

Larry

You are right and you are right...

The farther I got away from the wedges today the quicker the feeling disappeared...had to continually go back to the wedge while working my way through the set to keep the "feeling"...

[larryrsf]

"Losing the feeling" simply verifies that we don't have it ingrained deeply enough. But you were wise to immediately go back to wedge and get it back-- at all costs avoid accidently ingraining a mistake with a long iron or driver, etc.

I think it is likely that the older we are--the more difficult it is to ingrain something new--especially if we have been playing for years, been making the same old mistake for years. THAT would require the sort of dedication and persistence that would be necessary to teach ourselves a foreign language or to play a musical instrument (after teaching ourselves to read music!). Not many old farts have that much energy or concentration. There is a really good reason Chess Champions are not far over 40 years old.

And it is just ridiculous to watch kids learn something in an hour-- go from snowplow on skis to jumping stuff in the afternoon of the same day! I know guys who learned to golf on the High School team--ingrained a good swing--and never shot over 80 in their lives. Now these thirty somethings can take a year off and go out and hit all the fairways without warmup. Angry when they shoot 3 over! Makes me sick, ha.

Larry