I can pretty much tell when new golfers join our site. They've missed some of the fundamentals about the PPGS. So, to help them get up to speed and, if you've been with us all along, to you you some reminders, here are some fundamentals that are essential to a Peak Performance Golf Swing, and some traditional teaching that can hurt your swing — and you.
1. Misconception: Stay totally relaxed, mentally and physically, during the golf swing.
How many times have you heard this? Yes, staying relaxed is a must to play good golf. But most players overdo it. They'll lapse into a blank mind and limp, loose and lazy muscle tone that cannot produce a fine-tuned, precise swing.
Mentally, you need to stay relaxed to reduce anxiety and tension. If these get out of control, you start making bad decisions, and your heart rate increases. This faster heart rate ruins your swing tempo which, in turn, ruins shots. Remember, anxiety and stress breed tension, and tension breeds speed. The key is to keep your mind clear, but still sharp and in the moment. For the body you must relax your muscles to keep tension away, yet they must still perform in maintaining a good dynamic setup and swing.
2. Misconception: Keep your head down through impact until you see your divot, or your right shoulder hits your chin.
Keeping the head down too long after impact can cause quite a few problems. For starters, it can add extra and unnecessary stress to your neck and shoulders, and cause balance problems. Also, with the speed that the arms and club are traveling through impact and up to the finish, keeping the head down too long is slowing up the shoulders and upper torso from standing up fast enough. When this happens, the left arm can't straighten up in the follow through, which causes your arm to fold or collapse around the torso, causing everything from tops to chunks, and shots going right or left. Another big problem with keeping your head down too long is that it places a great deal of stress on your lower back, hips and shoulders.
What is the answer? Once you hit the ball, stand up A-F-A-P (as fast as possible) to your finish. I like to call it 'Pop-Tarting' . . . stand up like a Pop Tart popping out of a toaster!
3. Myth: Hit down on the ball.
The first time you ever had an iron put in your hands you were probably told that the #1 swing thought is to hit down on the ball. I have had students say they were told to pound down on the ball, or beat the ball into to the ground.
I believe that any thought about down, especially the extreme ones, are not needed to hit a good golf shot. Why? First, because from the top of the backswing, the hands, arms and club move down to get to the ball and impact. Gravity gives us a free ride makes down from an up position free. Second, I believe that the thought of hitting down triggers the upper torso and shoulders to move first, before the lower torso. This means the timing sequence is out of sync, and the head and shoulders are moving ahead of the ball and turning open.
What's the answer? I believe and teach that the thought and movement of starting the downswing by swinging your arms and club up to the finish, not down to impact. The downswing is free, but the follow through to the finish, which is upward, is not free. The free direction (downswing) does not need extra energy, but swing up does. So put that energy to use and swing up to the finish. You will see a great improvement in your shots.
4. Myth: Big backswing turn to 90 degrees . . . turn back to the target.
You've seen this before: The #1 axiom to make a powerful swing. Power and the big turn is the key to hitting the ball longer.
If this is true, then golf is the only sport that requires you to turn your back to the target! I always ask my first time students: 'Did God give golfers a dispensation to play by their own set of Rules? I don't think so!'
Let's get logical. First and foremost, your body, specifically your upper torso and back, are not designed to turn that much. Doing so will place you under great stress and strain (check out the back problems on the Tour). Second, the back cannot even store energy through making a big turn. Third, a big turn causes the arms and club to swing inside and behind the torso. That's what the term 'getting trapped' refers to. From there the only way back to ball on the aiming line is getting back in front of the body, causing the outside in, 'slicers' swing path.
The answer is the limited turn, where the torso turn ends when the left arm gets over the toe line, which is a maximum of 70 degrees turn. Just try skipping a rock on a lake, hitting a tennis ball, throwing a baseball. You never turn your back to the target. Hitting a golf ball is no different!
5. Myth: Club must be parallel at the top of the backswing.
Like the 90 degree turn, parallel is considered another 'must' for power generation in the backswing. Again, this is false, because of the extra directions the club must travel when swung to parallel. That is in the backswing, when the club is lifted up and reaches 12:00/vertical, continuing on to parallel now has the club moving downward, another direction relative to the ground. Thus, a parallel backswing is a 2 directional backswing up and then down, as compared to 1 direction in a ¾ vertical swing ending at or close to 12:00.
A downswing from parallel has to first be 'PULLED UP' before it can come down to hit the ball, again two directions, as compared to ¾ backswing only having to go down, one direction. So, in the total swing, from takeaway to impact, the club swung to parallel has 4 direction changes as compared to only two in the 12:00 vertical 3/4 swing. I promise you, less directions and changes means less problems, less margin of error and thus more consistency and accuracy.
6. Myth: Pause at the top of the backswing.
Pausing at the top is another myth believed and taught because the naked eye is fooled by the speed of the hands, arms and club at the transition at the top. In other words, the eyes see a pause that is not really happening. High speed cameras have shown that there is no pause, as some body part is always moving, and nothing ever really comes to a complete stop in a dynamic swing. A smooth transition from backswing to forward swing motion has to keep flowing. To pause or stop would mean having to get the motion re-started. At the top of the backswing, the only way that can happen is for the shoulders and arms to re-start the club, breaking the proper timing sequence of body movement where the lower body/legs are suppose to start the downswing.
The Surge