These Three Golf Swing Fundamentals are the Key to Building a Repeatable Swing Most golfers have no chance to hit the ball well because they lack the proper golf swing fundamentals. These are the three things you need to do check BEFORE you swing to hit the ball well. Three Fundamentals 1. The Grip 2. The Stance 3. Relax! Golf Swing Fundamental #1: The Grip You don’t have a chance to hit the ball solidly if you have a bad grip, but most people never check their grip. High handicappers make two errors concerning the grip. They hold is wrong, and they hold it too tight! No matter what grip you use (overlap, interlock, and baseball), the key to a correct grip is to hold the club more in the fingers and not in the palm. This is especially true for the right hand, but goes for the left hand as well. The left hand applies most of the pressure. The left hand “holds” the club, and the right hand “steers” the club. Most of the pressure on the right hand should come from the third and fourth fingers. I like to barely have my thumb, index, and pinkie fingers of my right hand on the club. Most golfers hold the club way too tight, and this causes all kinds of problems. First, it makes you tense up, and tension is the #1 killer in a great golf swing. Second, it makes you want to swing harder. You want to swing the club faster, not harder. Trying to swing the club hard will actually cause you to swing slower. Third, a tight grip will not allow you to fully cock and release your wrists on the backswing and the downswing. Here’s what you can do to make sure your grip is not too tight. First, take a normal grip. First, always make sure the club handle is in the fingers of each hand more than the palm. Then, make sure your hands are comfortable together. When you
are ready to take a practice swing, squeeze your hands very tightly. This will help you to relax your grip. Always do this before hitting a ball. This will train you to feel what a relaxed grip is, and it is the first key golf swing fundamental you must master. No one who holds the club like they’re going to choke it can swing easy and fast. Tight grips usually mean tight swings. You can tell who these golfers are because of their lumberjack hacks at the ball. (Nothing against lumberjacks here, just don’t swing like them.) You should also try to stay relaxed throughout the backswing and downswing. Golf Swing Fundamental #2: The Stance The next golf swing fundamental is the stance. You must have good alignment to the target and good posture to hit the ball well. If you don't have a good setup, you have almost no chance of achieving a good swing plane and hitting the ball solidly. Do this to align your body correctly: Stand behind the ball facing the target and draw an imaginary line from the target to your ball. Pick a spot, a blade of grass, a leaf, a speck of dirt, etc. that is on the line just a few feet in front of the ball. Next, get into your stance with your toes parallel to that line. A great drill that’s easy to do at home or anywhere is to pick something that is straight, like a wall or edge of the carpet, then practice lining up your toes parallel to it. Look left (for right handed golfers) at the imaginary target, and try to memorize that sensation. This drill gets you to feel what perfect alignment is like so that when you don’t have these visual cues on the course, you can know if you’re o.k. by muscle memory. Remember, for golfers who are not near scratch, often what feels “right” and what feels “good” are two different things. Train yourself to feel “right” and soon enough it will feel “good”. There are all kinds of ways and advice on how to setup with the correct posture. It really comes down to this: you have to be comfortable and balanced. No matter how fundamentally correct you might be, if you’re not comfortable over the club, you won’t hit it well. Take about a shoulder width stance (no more) and stick your butt out until your knees are bent a few inches. If your weight is on the balls of your feet, you’ve bent your knees too far. Let your hands hang naturally from the sides and always keep your chin up!
Letting your hands hang naturally tells you if you are the correct distance away from the ball. When you grip the club from here, if you have to pull your hands in towards your body, then you are too close. If you have to extend your hands out, then you are too far. (Once you get more consistent, you can use the distance from the ball to help hit a fade or draw, but just keep it simple for now and stand at the same distance from the ball every time.) Golf Swing Fundamental #3: Relax Out of all the golf swing fundamentals that I could talk about, this is probably the key. If you don’t relax, you don’t have a prayer of hitting the ball consistently. The problem with most golfers is that they look at the pros and think that they are swinging out of their minds, when in fact, they really aren’t. You see John Daly take a huge backswing and you think he’s all tensed up trying to kill it. Tiger doesn’t look all that relaxed especially when he hits a bad shot. Don’t let this fool you! Pros are relaxed when the hit the ball, but they swing so fast we mistake that for tension. The difference between a relaxed shot and a tense one is like cracking a whip and swinging an ax. The whip cracks in the air with one flick of the wrist, with every little effort. No matter how hard you swing that ax, it’s not going to crack in the air! Be the whip, not the ax! What’s the best way to relax over the ball? Outside of meditating (which will really annoy your playing partners) every time you get ready to swing, there is one tip that has really helped me. Set up to the ball, and just like the relaxation drill for the grip, intentionally tense up every part of your body for three seconds. Try to tighten up your hands, arms, and shoulders as much as you can without hurting yourself. After three seconds of intense tension, let it go. You should feel immediately much more loose and relaxed. Focus, and hit the ball without delay while you’re still in that relaxed state. This golf swing fundamental is probably the hardest to master for new golfers since the tendency is to try and hit it too hard. Practicing without a ball helps here because you’re not trying to swing for the moon. Do this drill while taking practice swings focusing on being as relaxed as possible. Remember to always pick a spot on the grass that is your pretend ball and brush through it on the downswing. Never just swing on the grass without trying to brush a spot where your ball would be. You’ve got to make practice as real as possible, and you never take a real swing on the golf course without trying to hit a ball.
Golf Swing Fundamentals Revisited These three golf swing fundamentals will get you started on the right foot to building a solid swing. Just like a skyscraper needs a deep, solid foundation, so does a good golf swing need a great setup. Once you can “feel” a good setup, once you know how proper golf swing fundamentals feel, you’ll know when you’re off and be able to stop yourself and readjust before hitting a ball. That’s when golf becomes less mechanical and more intuitive, and that’s when the scores begin to drop like January temperatures in Minnesota! Click Here Freizeit Hamburg and Freizeitaktivitäten Hamburg
