The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

We are having unbelievable weather in the Burgh. Unfortunately, I am having unbelievable health, as I have had the flu all week and did not get to play this weekend. I am feeling better, but not good enough to slosh around 18 holes, even though it is in the 60’s in January no less. So lets get into what I consider now, to be the controlling factor in the golf swing. The golf swing is controlled by the turning of the shoulders. To get the feel of this swing and all the benefits that go with it, you simply take your address position, fold yours arms across your chest and make your golf swing. That’s it, see you next week. Just kidding, the flu bug has to have a little fun. To see how much this type of swing controls the legs, here is the first drill. Do the same thing, except just think of your legs moving correctly. On the backswing have that left knee go to a place about 6 inches behind the ball and on the downswing kick that right knee in toward the ball. Now look at how you can make those legs move quite nicely, with little or no shoulder turn. In other words even though you are doing great leg work in the golf swing your shoulders were not forced to do anything. Now, go back to the original swing with the arms folded across your chest, and now just think about turning that left shoulder down and going underneath your chin on the backswing. I defy you to try and keep your left knee from turning to a point beyond the ball. You can do it all right,  but it takes one heck of an effort. When the left shoulder moves properly without any undue influence from the arms it forces that left leg to move in the proper way. The same goes for the downswing. If you initiate the downswing with the right shoulder turning down and back to the ball, it will force that right knee to kick in at the right time. When you make this swing with the arms folded across your chest, make sure you make a complete golf swing. At the end of the swing release the arms and this will be the follow through position. No more follow through’s with the club wrapped around your neck. Make a swing with your arms folded across your chest and then take a club and try to repeat the swing as close as possible. There are five benefits from the shoulder golf swing.

The shoulders will automatically turn 90 degrees to you spine angle.

Your tempo will slow down

The legs will move automatically

Hips turn proper amount

Your arms will remain under control barely

What about the arms?  Theorectically, with this swing you would think that on the backswing the arms would only move about hip high. Trust me they won’t put up that. We will talk about arms a lot more on the next blog. The key is to practice that golf swing with the arms folded and make sure arms finish in the position at the end of the swing they were, when you swing a golf club. This  is the Leadbetter Pivot drill if you need some illustrations but it is much more than that. It is the golf swing without any conscious influence of the arms and the legs. Remember I am not saying the arms and the legs are not important in the golf swing. Its when you TRY AND USE THEM that the golf swing goes out of control. Next week we’ll talk about the arms more, the beginning of the downswing, and some drills to help make the shoulder swing easy.