Jim Kormondy's Lesson Archives |
Click on the lesson that you want to review. THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD BALANCE |
LESSON
ONE The most important ingrediant in a sound golf swing is good balance. There are many movements going on during the swinging of a golf club. Hence, there are many oportunities for you to lose your balance. Your weight goes back and forth laterally while your body, arms, and club move rotationally. The timing of the sequence of actions that your body performs is of paramount importance to a well-balanced swing. Improper shifting of your weight will upset your balance. Your center of gravity is located near the end of your backbone when you are asuming the proper set-up position. Any lateral action that is initiated above this point will cause a loss of balance. So you don't want to shift your weight during your backswing by leaning away from the target. Never let your shoulders drift outside of your feet. Rather, shift your weight back by using your legs and hips. Your left leg and hip move away from the target, while your right leg acts as a brace and an anchor. Your weight should stay on the inside of your back leg and foot. Do not allow your weight to rock over to the outside of your foot during the backswing. Start your forward swing by getting your weight moving towards the target. The proper motion again is initiated with your legs. Plant you left heel, then turn your right knee towards the target. This will start a chain reaction. Your right hip will begin turning towards the target, then your torso, and finally your shoulders. Your upper body does not catch up with your lower body until after you have hit the ball and are well into your follow-through. When executed properly, the momentum from the swing will allow you to end up in a well-balanced finish position. About 95 percent of your weight is centered over your left foot. You should easily be able to pick up your right foot and step towards your target. LESSON TWO Hitting a ball out of a fairway bunker is very much different than hitting out of a greenside bunker. During a fairway shot, you want to hit the ball first to get as much distance as possible. The club that you use out of a fairway bunker will depend on two things. First, you must figure how much loft will be required to clear the lip of the bunker. Secondly, you must choose which club will be needed to reach the green. Sometimes this second factor will not come into play because the club with the necessary loft to will not get you to the green. Also, if you have a poor lie in the bunker, you may be restricted to chipping the ball out onto the fairway. But, if you have a good lie and plenty of clearance from the lip, you can take a fairly normal swing at the ball with just a few adjustments. Be sure you have solid footing. If you need to work your feet into the sand, choke down on the club the same distance as you worked your feet into the sand. Aim slightly to the left of your target and open your clubface slightly to the right. This will help to keep the clubface from digging into the sand. Use one more club than you would from the fairway. Take your normal swing, making sure to sweep the ball out of the sand. Do not try to lift the ball out. It is important to hit the ball before the sand. When you hit it correctly, the ball will take off just like it was sitting on the fairway. LESSON THREE You should use your wrists as a shock absorber at the top of your backswing. During your backswing, your body is moving quite slowly and deliberately. However, the head of your golf club is moving much faster than your body. The reason for this is that your clubhead can be as much as five to six feet away from your shoulders. As you make your backswing, your shoulders move a distance of about seven inches. At the same time, your clubhead is moving a distance of nearly twelve feet. The momentum that your clubhead builds up can easily upset your balance. Using your wrists as a shock absorber at the top of your backswing will keep you balanced during the transfer to your throughswing. Maintain a light grip pressure and feel the club push down your left thumb. This action will absorb the energy created by the centrifigal force created by your clubhead. It will also assure you that your hands are in the correct position to use your wrists for extra leverage during the throughswing. LESSON FOUR One of the most difficult things to remove from a bunker is not the golf ball, but the fear of leaving the ball in the bunker. This fear comes from several sources. As your ball is heading for the bunker you are probably already saying to yourself, "Oh no! I'm going to be in the trap." Now that you are in the trap, the next thing you notice is the big lip that you have to clear. Then, you see that there is a lake waiting for your ball on the other side of the green. And if that's not bad enough, you find that your ball has rolled into a depression left by someone's lousy rake job. All sorts of negative thoughts have now entered your mind. You have envisioned yourself making every mistake imaginable. These fears in turn produce such tension that your grip pressure and your arms tighten up. This tightness destroys your natural swing, causing you to decelerate prior to impact. Your club loses its force at impact, and the ball doesn't make it over the lip. To help eleviate the fear and stay relaxed during a bunker shot, the first thing you need to do is be able to think positivily. The only way to do this is to develope confidence in your ability. Confidence is built up through practice. By practicing bunker shots, you will experience the shots that will come up on the course without the fears of the consequences a missed hit will have on your score. With every swing of the club, visualize the desired result. Now you are replacing those ugly negative thoughts with positive pictures.
LESSON FIVE The take-away is the very beginning of your swing. It sarts with the initial movement of your club and goes to the point where your shaft is first parralel to the ground. It is probably the most overlooked (no pun intended) and yet one of the most important keys to a good golf swing. The difference between golf and most other sports is that you must create all of your actions from a stationary position. In most other sports, the action is initiated by a reaction to some other stimulus. In tennis or baseball, you react to a ball coming towards you. In track, you react to the starting gun. In bowling, you have three or four steps to set up your timing and delivery. In golf, however, you must start from a stationary adress position. You decide when to initiate the action of the swing. You are the only factor influencing the outcome of the shot. The take-away is one of the most important keys to whether your shot will come off as planned. One of the worst things you can do is to wait too long after addressing the ball before you start your swing. This causes a lot of tension due to over-thinking your shot. Plan your shot before you address the ball. After address you should be thinking about the results you want from the shot. This is facilitated through a visual mental image of the ball's flight from the initial trajectory, to where te ball lands, rolls and stops. This is the same type of imagery that olympic atheletes use to be able to perform under great pressure. Begin your swing with your hands, shoulders, hips, and clubhead all moving at the same time. This will support a connection between your hands, arms, and body. This connection will help you to stay well ballanced during the rest of your backswing. Your weight is shifting onto your back foot at the same time and with the same amount of momentum as the rotation of your hips and shoulders. The easiest way to make sure that all of this action stays together, or in one piece, is to be slow and deliberate - don't rush. You don't hit the ball with your backswing. You build up the potential energy which will later be transformed into the kinetic energy that launches the ball. It is during the take-away that you establish the angle, width, and direction of your swing arc. Your arms must be extended as much as possible as you initiate your swing. Premature bending of your elbows or wrists will cause your swing to be shortened, and will ultimately cause a decrease in swing speed and a loss of distance. So you see, the execution of the take-away is very important ingrediant of your golf swing. This is the time when all the planning of the shot, all the anticipation, first gets put into action. If your take-away gets started on the wrong foot (another pun?) it is nearly impossible to make corrections during the rest of your swing. LESSON SIX The easiest way to picture the path of your clubhead is a circle. You want this circle to be as wide as comfortably possible. The extension of your arms is very important in creating a wide circle. As you take the club away from the ball let your clubhead sweep the ground for a few inches as you turn your back to the target. About half way back, your right arm will begin to fold, staying even with the right side of your body. As you near the end of your backswing your left elbow will bend slightly. As your swing starts back toward the ball, your arms must regain the extension that they started with. At the point of impact, both arms are fully extended. This extension should last well through the hit and up into your followthrough. When your club is about half way back up the circle, your left arm will begin to fold. At this point, your right arm should be pointing straight out to the target. From this point, you can just relax and let the club finish its path up and over your shoulder. The easiest way to keep proper extension with your arms is actually to keep them as relaxed as possible during your swing. This begins with a light grip pressure. Too much tension will cause your arms to freeze up and stay bent. Trying to swing too hard or trying to steer the clubhead will cause tension in your swing. If your arms do not extend during your throughswing, you cannot get your club to the ball without colapsing at your waist, shoulders, or knees. To make sure that your swing is big and round, keep that arm extension through the ball. |
