I often get asked about the most important part of the golf swing. There are many different theories but, at its core, golf is a blend of mind, body and understanding of where you’re supposed to go and what you’re supposed to do to hit a good shot.
The best players picture a shot from behind the ball, using their routines to set up properly and get pointed in the right direction. They also use good posture to make the proper backswing, see the shot before stepping up to hit it, know how to load the club at the top of the backswing and follow through to see how it finishes.
If you’re only working on the impact position you’re neglecting the other elements and won’t be in the best position to hit a good shot. When you watch the best players hit the ball, it typically takes them 8 to 12 seconds to pull the trigger. In that time they see the shot, feel it, set up, take the club away, load it and let the clubhead naturally come back to the ball. There’s no manipulation of the clubhead at impact because everything was done correctly and confidently prior to that point.
We work with a couple players that my staff refers to as Ferraris. They’re in good physical shape, and when they stand over the ball they look orthodox in their posture. When they take the club back, it’s adhering to all the laws of where the plane of the swing should be, and when they come down and through the shot their bodies are even on both sides through the follow through. That’s probably a harder position to attain but one that’s necessary to play with and easy to repeat when practiced regularly.
Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen stand out as some of the best ball strikers of the past 15 years, and more players on the PGA and LPGA tours are adopting the orthodox approaches they use. The message here is don’t pick one part of the swing to work on, because all elements need to work together to become the player you want to be.
Another way to visualize a great swing is to imagine you’re going for a drive in your car. You walk to the driveway, decide where you’re going, plug it into your mind or navigation system and drive there as smoothly and safely as possible.
That’s what happens in the golf swing, albeit a lot more quickly. But don’t rush the learning process because, if you groove your swing so it’s repetitive, you’ll be cruising down more fairways rather than veering off into the rough.
