Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Lately, my striking of the ball has been better than ever. I’m hitting lots of golf shots in the center of the clubface, sending the ball long and high and most importantly, straight to the target. I’ve become very confident hitting my 4 hybrid, and use it off the tee or fairway. Here is what’s working for me:
1) Set up with good basics: Grip, Alignment and Posture.
2) Grip: I’ve changed my grip to an overlapping grip, and increased grip pressure to about 4-5 on 1-10 scale. My previous grip was intentionally light, in an attempt to stay relaxed and smooth over the ball. However, video of my swing showed that with that grip I was coming over the top in the downswing…I think the grip was moving around in my hands. With the new grip, the club and my hands feel more like a one-piece unit, and video shows more of a one-plane swing. Here’s a good video from Shawn Clement that explains the golf grip:
3) Swing Mechanics: I limit mechanical swing thoughts to my practice swing. My focus is on Coiling in the backswing, and initiating the downswing by Sliding my Hips towards the target. Issues: (A) If the ball flight shows a left to right fade, it usually means I swayed back rather than coiling properly. A secondary cause of the left to right fade is straightening my right leg in the backswing. When my coil is off, it helps to cross my hands across my chest and make a few turns into a firm right side; then I can feel the coil build up in my right hip at the end of the backswing. (B) If the ball flight shows a pull straight left of the target, it means I turned open to start the downswing, instead of sliding the hips to allow my shoulders to stay on the target line through impact. See this forum discussion on why to slide your hips .
4) Swing Thoughts: After my practice swing, I look at the target a couple times to burn an image of the target in my mind’s eye. Then looking at the ball while still seeing that image, I trigger the swing by thinking “Send It”, as in “send the ball to the target”. My body then excutes the best swig it knows how, hopefully similar to the practice swing. I find that thinking about the target instead of the swing makes for better results.
With these changes, I’ve been hitting the ball better than ever, even on the course. Sometimes we get into a groove on the practice range, but it doesn’t transfer to the course consistently, because the timing of all the moving parts of the swing gets off. My current swing feels relatively free of timing issues. In my last 18 holes, I used the same ball for all 18, the first time I’ve not lost a ball in 18 holes….
Regards,
NG
Tags: perfect golf shots