I've got a pretty serious question from Blindsey40 and he starts off by saying, “Surge, I am 70 years old and I learn to play golf the wrong way. I started out trying to be a Doug Sanders. Big mistake. Tried a lot of things since them, full turn etc., but have just begun the PPGS and there is no doubt that it is going to work. Question now as in the past in taking practice swings, just like the one you want to hit. The divots are all over the place never in same spot. What part of my swing is causing this?”
Well, we got an answer from Amos Terrell, and he said, “Most likely your head is moving in either your backswing or you forward swing — or maybe both.”
Then there was a second answer that came in to help from Jerry Moss. Jerry said this. I guess I've got to feel pretty good about it because he's actually going to talk about me. Jerry said, “When the Surge talks about keeping the head still from the back swing through impact, he is the perfect example. When I saw a video of him (sometime ago), he was hitting low shots and high shots with his driver. The demonstration was neat to watch but what was even neater was that his left knee did not move inward during the swing and his head was absolutely still during each shot. What impressed me the most is that I have never seen anyone keep their head so still during a golf swing. It was incredible.”
Thanks a lot, Jerry. I guess I've got to say, it's the truth. Why is it the truth? Because that's one of the things, back when I was a young boy, learning how to play golf at 11 years old, it was an absolute must that you kept your head still. If you can't keep your head still, you can't play golf.
Today, they've gone to the point with the big rotational swing, it obvious that anybody, as long as your head stays attached to your shoulders by your neck, if you turn your shoulders 90 degrees or more and make a big, huge turn, there's no way you can keep your head still. So when the rotational swing came into vogue back in the early 90's, the first thing that went out the door was keeping your head still. Everybody was saying, it's O.K. to move your head a little.
The first time I heard that I said, excuse me, how about defining how much a 'little' is and tell me why it's O.K. now when all these other years it wasn't?
There's never been an answer. I can tell you why. You can't make those swings keeping your head still. So over the last 18 years one of the biggest reasons golfers are having a whole lot of problems hitting good golf shots relatively solid and straight is because their head moves too much.
So, yes, it could be as Amos and Jerry said. Your head might be moving too much.
Before I address that one, I will give another potential problem. Even though you mention that you're trying to make a setup and a swing almost exactly like the real swing, it could be that, while a lot of people are saying they're doing that, but yet in their practice swings they really don't have that athletically ready muscle tone that they are really going to swing and hit the ball. In other words, they're making a swing and it might be good setup, good swing, but it's not good muscle tone. It's just too soft and too slow. Once they step up to the ball and crank it up to full hit power, they are more likely to move. They knew they weren't making the proper energy level swing with the practice swings because they didn't have that athletically ready muscle tone.
Secondly, the other big issue could be that as important as it is to keep your head still, is to keep the quiet knees. As Jerry said, it looks like my knees hardly move. The kneecaps rotate inward a little bit and back outward on the other side, external rotation, but they stay extremely level. Consider your knees levelers and stabilizers. If one has got too much knee action, if the forward knee is kicking inward and downward and the back knee is straightening up, you're going up and down like a yoyo and that will have divots all over the place.
So check out the fact that your practice swings are truly the same setup and swing, especially the same power level which is created by the muscle tone. Then, secondly, that you are really keeping your level knees. You should start having your swings bottom out at the same place, hitting consistent divots and/or hitting the top of the tee if you're hitting with a driver off the tee.
The Surge!