to the body motion, whereas in his swing of old the hands and arms dominated the action and the body just went along for the ride. Basically, Nick went from being a very handsy player to a more body-controlled, passive-hands player.
That was just the ticket for Nick, but overemphasis on body action is dangerous territory for the average golfer because it assumes you have a great hand action and, to be frank, most club golfers suffer from a lack of hand action rather than too much. That’s why I often prefer to use the arc of the swing to get the body moving. Once you get the correct in-to-in picture of the swing path, your body will clear out of the way virtually automatically, creating the proper release of the hands and thus the clubhead through the ball.
You ‘aim’ the clubhead at the top as well as at address
If your clubshaft parallels your target line at the top of the backswing, the club is ideally ‘aimed’ to swing back through the ball along the target line.
If your shaft is angled left of the target line at the top, there will be a tendency to swing the clubhead across the line from out-to-in and either slice or pull the shot. Conversely, if the shaft is angled right of the target line at the top, there will be a tendency to swing the clubhead from in to out across the target line and either hook or push the shot.
Understanding swing plane … in simple terms!
The plane on which you swing is established chiefly by your address position. As you stand to the ball comfortably and squarely, neither cramped nor reaching, your left arm and the club form a more-or-less continuous straight line. The angle of that line, relative to the vertical, is the ideal plane on which to swing the club up and down with your arms.
What you are aiming to do, in golfing terms, is to shift your right side out of the way in the backswing and your left side out of the way in the throughswing, so that at the moment of impact the club is being swung freely by your arms with the clubhead moving straight through the ball, along the target line.
More about swing plane!
Numerous enlightening books and articles appear describing varying aspects of the golf swing. But there are some aspects that rarely find their way into print. Plane, for example. I intend here to single it out for the special attention it merits, if rarely attains. Why is plane so important? Because if the plane of your swing is correct, the angle of attack on the ball is correct. That sounds difficult. Let’s look closer.
Generally speaking, a swing in the correct plane gives you a fairly flat bottom to the swing, which is what we want in order that the power we are unleashing will proceed directly through the ball. The same amount of power, or more power, applied more steeply or from an incorrect plane, cannot hope to hit the ball so far.
My idea of a correct plane is one in which if, at the top of the backswing, we extend the line from the left hand to the left shoulder downwards, that line should then approximately aim at the ball.
It is obvious, then, that the plane of the swing will vary with the distance one is standing from the ball. This in turn varies with whatever club we are playing. For example, one stands close with a 9-iron, because of its short shaft; and the resulting swing is much more upright than the swing with a driver.
There is no real problem with this change of plane, though; for from the player’s angle it is purely automatic and should merely vary directly with the length of club used.
Now, in the correct pivot in the backswing there is a certain degree of shoulder turn, linked with a certain degree of shoulder tilt. One can soon deduce how a swing with too little downward tilt of the left shoulder, and too much turn, will be too flat. Similarly, one with too much tilt, and not enough turn, becomes too upright.
Each swing, though, produces its own characteristics. A ‘too upright’ arc usually makes for better iron play than wooden club play, since these iron shots are hit on the downswing. Correspondingly, a ‘too flat’ swing often works very well with the woods, but is of little value for iron shots, since these are then hit nearer the bottom of the arc.
The present vogue is to aim at an upright swing – which I suppose I would prefer to a flat one. But why not swing in plane – which will then be the right degree of uprightness for all shots?
Don’t spin your shoulders
If you spin your shoulders too early in the downswing, it throws the club outside the ideal swing path which means you’re right on track for a pull or slice. This is perhaps the most common fault I see at club golfer level.
If that sounds familiar, think about how you swing your hands and arms down from the top. I’m reminded of the great Harry Vardon, six time Open champion, who said that as he changed direction from backswing to downswing, he felt his hands swung down to hip height before his body even began to unwind. In reality, he combined the perfect arm swing with the ideal body rotation, but his feeling was one of swinging the arms down first and this is a swing that that would definitely help you if you slice. It encourages the hands and arms to play a more dominant role, swinging the club down into impact on the ideal path and plane.
Don’t let tuition destroy your natural rhythm
As a teacher I’m forever conscious of the fact that tuition must never get in the way of the natural rhythm in a golfer’s swing. I remember teaching Seve at Wentworth in 1979 and thinking: ‘I’ve got to be careful here.’ He had such wonderful rhythm that I didn’t want to tell him anything about his swing that might upset it. So all of my advice to him was in consideration of that fact.
When Seve was playing well there wasn’t an ounce of tension in his body. I believe that some of the problems in the 1990s stemmed from the fact that he’d become perhaps overly concerned with techniques and swing thoughts, which has never quite been his style, and thus taken away some of that natural softness and impeded the free-flowing motion of his swing.
This is a danger for any golfer. Whenever you get taught something new, the first instinct is to tighten-up and that process usually starts with the grip. You must be aware of this and avoid tension creeping into your hands. Never lose the gift of being able to swing the club freely. Keeping your grip soft will almost certainly help. As Peter Thomson used to say: ‘Always grip lightly because you’ll instinctively firm up at impact anyway.’ That’s not a bad philosophy to bear in mind whenever you’re trying to make changes to your swing.
If you wind yourself like a spring …
I like to compare body action in the golf swing to the winding and unwinding of a spring. Think of it this way and you will realize how important it is that the bottom half of the spring should resist the turning of the top half, in order to increase coiling (and thereby power).
The feeling should be one of staying relatively still, but ‘lively’, from the waist down, while your torso turns around the axis of your spine and your arms and hands swing the club back and up so that it ultimately points parallel to the target line. The left leg will give a little, turning in towards the right, and the left heel will usually be pulled rather than lifted off the ground. But the effort should be to prevent, rather than encourage, such movements – while making sure your shoulders turn as your arms swing the club back and up.
… automatically you will let it all fly
Create sufficient torque with your upper-body backswing wind-up and you cannot help but release it into a powerful throughswing.
