Imagine, just for a second that you are a
golf swing instructor. And you have made arrangements to conduct an on course golf swing lesson with three of your good clients.
All three are in need of golf instruction and you are fully prepared to give them the works today.
It’s a great day! You feel thankful that you have this opportunity to spend time out on the course.
That driving range stuff can really get old.
And here they come. Three wannabees. The good news is that they are best friends. And they get along with each other very well. So it should be a really good day. Right?
Well, let’s see what they’ve got today. You think to yourself that you just wish they would get the grip right. And the setup. If they could do that it would sure make your life easier.
Your objective today is to compare the three with one another. To see if you can find some commonality in their respective swings. And then, perhaps, you can streamline a program for all three so that when they practice together they would have a clue what they are doing and even help each other to some degree or other.
So here’s how it goes.
You are all on the first tee. Jake tees it up and rips it to the far right. That’s interesting, he hit it so far right that it’s in the driving range with about a million other white golf balls.
Charlie is next and hits a weak slider about 150 yards into the fairway. Ok he gets to at least hit the same ball again.
And last is Kent. He takes about an hour to get set up. He fidgets and fidgets. Grips and re-grips. And then hits a power house snap hook so far left that it actually went over the water into the lawn of one of the residences. So I guess Kent can hit it again if he can find a way to get over there.
This goes on and on for hole after hole. These guys are having a great time. They don’t seem to really care much about where they are hitting the ball or what scores they are putting up. Except for maybe Kent who is mad as hell that he is hitting a snap hook on every shot.
I’m beginning to wonder what I’m doing here. It would be too bad to insert anything negative to their good time.
But they are paying so I might as well get into it. Wouldn’t you ?
Here is what I see. All three hit the ball differently. Kent hits a snap hook, Charlie hits a weak slider and Jake hits huge slice.
The interesting thing to me is that their problems are exactly the same although their ball flights are entirely different.
You see Kent’s snap hook comes from closed clubface and a swing path that is outside in or ” over the top” and it is compounded by little to no weight shift from the right side to the left side.
Charlie has a similar problem, yet his ball flight is totally different. His weak slider is a result of an open clubface, also an over the top or outside in swing path, but his weight shift is backwards. He has a reverse weight shift. He goes to the front foot on the takeaway and then to the back foot on the downswing.
It’s an ugly looking thing.
Jake is a powerful guy. He hits the ball very hard every time. It always goes left to right and it travels a great distance, to the right. Jake takes a mighty whack at it. His motion is hard to see because of the speed of the motion. But it is apparent that after he hits it the clubhead has stayed low and around his body in his finish. And the ball always goes left to right.
This indicates an over the top move and an outside in swing path. He has considerable weight on his back foot, although not as much as his playing partners. He still exhibits the symptoms of a poor weight shift and the classic over the top pattern.
All three of these guys have a knack of getting the ball close when chipping. I suppose it’s because they get tons of practice since they are rarely on the green in regulation.
My conclusion to their individual swings and the fixes is that they all have the exact same troubles. Even though their ball flights are very different. This means that, generally, they can use the same fix to remedy the problems.
The one common problem is poor weight shift. This puts the golfer in a poor position to hit from the inside and so he is forced to throw the club outside the target line to inside in order to even hit the ball.
There is a difference between a reverse weight shift and no weight shift but not so much that the fix isn’t the same. Sometimes a reverse weight shift is caused by the early spinning of the hips in the downswing.
But if we address the weight shift issue it will take care of that.
Ok. So our boys have a slice and a hook. They all have poor weight shifts. They all have an over the top swing paths. What’s the fix?
A good weight shift will cure most of what ails them. A good inside swing path will too.
I can go to any practice range in America and see these swings all day long. It is the single most common swing problem in golf.
First move down? Bump your hips laterally and drop your right elbow to your right side.
Get rid of that weak grip and make it more neutral or a tad strong. Turn your right elbow toward your right hip at set up. ( try that)
Make sure you are set up square or slightly closed.
Lesson over.
By: Paul Macleod About the Author:
Learning to hit a golf ball and doing it well is a lot of work. There are four moves you can make that will help that you won’t hear about except here. Get the first secret magic move free Click here:
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