down the adhesions’ with a few easy – but not careless – shots. Right from the outset try to grip correctly, aim the club as the first step in setting-up and set yourself correctly to that clubface alignment.
As you move into the session, try with every shot – and I mean every single shot – to do what your preliminary analysis has told you will give you a more solid strike or a straighter flight. Stick to your guns on this long enough to determine whether your mental assessment and cure was right. If it was, keep on practising it only as long as you have plenty of mental and physical energy and enthusiasm. Then plant the relevant ‘feel’ firmly in your mind for the next actual game you play.
My method of doing this sort of work – and it is work mentally and physically – would involve basically a 6-iron, a hundred balls and as many one-hour spells a week as I could manage. Even if I were a weekend player, I think I would be prepared to sacrifice actual playing time in order to make a lasting improvement. For instance, if I normally played 12 hours a week, I would play perhaps six and practise the other six.
If your assessment and cure are proved wrong after fair trial, do not give up, start experimenting at random, or lose your temper and pop off balls like a pom-pom gun. Take a rest. Go and sit down somewhere and think it all through sensibly again.
The flight of the ball tells you what you are doing, in your grip, in your swing line relative to the target line, and in the angle at which your club is attacking the ball. Use this information at all times. Therein lies the only ‘secret’ of golf.
A lot of resolution is necessary to carry through this kind of programme, as it is to stick with any change in method when actually playing the course. Until the new system works, rounds played can be less than satisfying (which is a good reason for not playing too many!). If it is essential to try to play well on occasion while in the middle of changing your swing, obviously a compromise will have to be made.
I know only too well that weather and golf club facilities in Britain are against consistent and studied practice, but I am equally sure that if a golfer is keen enough he will find a means. As a last resort, he can erect a golf net at home. For years I used to smash golf balls into a net in my garage, and this is very valuable swing-changing practice, first because you haven’t got a result to worry about, and secondly because there is no one to see how badly you are hitting the ball. If you are that keen but don’t have the facilities to put up a net, try knocking lightweight plastic balls off an old doormat. Anything you can do to build up your golf muscles, to ‘groove’ good actions, to keep swinging, must eventually pay dividends.
At the very worst, try every day to swing a club at home for a few minutes – concentrating on what you would be doing if you were hitting balls.
One more important point. There is yet another type of practice – the kind one does on the course in preparing for a tournament. Many people go about it wrongly.
Never play more than 27 holes a day in practice, especially the day before an event. It is essential to conserve both energy and enthusiasm for the actual competition. Very few world-class golfers ever play more than one round a day in practice.
Don’t play sloppily in practice rounds. Try to hit the ball solidly, and don’t be frightened of scoring well. A good practice round builds confidence.
Give yourself time to take note of the course and your own play. You need two or three extra balls handy to play extra shots, especially bunker shots, chips and putts, hitting them from where you think you will have to hit them on the big day. Take particular note of the clubs you play, especially if the weather is fair. In windy or wet conditions, of course, your practice round estimates may have to be revised.
Finally, although you may use your practice rounds to loosen up and make final swing adjustments, never fundamentally change your method during practice rounds. You are stuck with what you’ve brought with you. Try to make it work as best as possible.
This happens in every good golf swing
Stand facing any good golfer and watch the space between his hands and right shoulder during the downswing. You will see that it widens like lightning. Then watch any golfing friend who slices the ball repeatedly. The space between his hands and right shoulder will not widen as fast, because he swings his body rather than his arms. The speed at which all good golfers widen this angle is proof positive that, although the lower body initiates the downswing, leg and hip action must always be married to a fast, free arm swing.
Baseball analogy helps keep your swing on plane
One last thought, which may ring a bell with one or two readers. I think golf is very akin to baseball – in this way; in baseball a player swings in plane with the flight of the ball as it comes towards him. In golf, all we have to do is swing in plane with however far away we are from the ball, which partly depends on what club we are using. For any shot and any club, the plane most likely to be easiest really is that ranging straight up from the ball just over the shoulders, as you stand to address it for the shot.
In any good golfer’s swing, the space between the bands and right shoulder widens ‘like lightning’ in the downswing.
Try ‘two turns and a swish’
Golfers, I am afraid, sometimes like to make the game more complicated than it actually is. My simple definition of the golfing action is ‘Two turns combined with an arm and hand swing’. And I am often accused of oversimplification when I use this phrase.
Well, here’s a suggestion for you. If your game isn’t what you would like it to be at the moment, and especially if you feel confused and snarled up by theory, play your next three rounds strictly on the basis of ‘two turns combined with an arm and hand swing’.
Don’t think of the backswing as a set of complicated and separate movements, but simply as the first turn. Think only of moving your right side out of the way as your hands and arms swing the club back and up. Simplify your downswing likewise. Forget all the stuff about head, hips, late hitting, and what-have-you. Simply picture your downswing as the second turn, moving your left side out of the way as your arms and hands swing the club down and through the ball.
If you have a decent grip and set-up, and can keep your head reasonably still and your feet firmly on the ground in the backswing, approaching golf this way could do wonders for your score.
You will very quickly learn that the swing really isn’t a complicated movement, and that the ‘secret’ of golf lies in coordinating the turns with the actual swinging of the club – not in a series of geometrically exact, deliberate placement of the club in certain ‘positions’.
Find a way to turn … even if it’s not exactly like Ernie
Ernie Els achieves a massive upper-body turn without lifting his left heel. The hips don’t turn much, either, so together that creates a lot of resistance in the legs – the action of a supple man and a powerful hitter.
Most of you reading this will not be as supple as Ernie, but it’s important that you find a way to turn your body, in whatever way is appropriate for you personally. For many, this means making certain compromises, such as lifting the left heel to ‘release’ the left side and thus make it possible to turn. You won’t generate as much resistance in the legs, but it’s better to do that than keep your left heel planted which might not give you the flexibility to make a sufficient turn.
