that many of our young players are making a conscious effort not to let the clubhead work in the hitting area. In other words, they are so keen on late hitting that they are never actually using the clubhead at all – despite the fact that hitting is surely the most natural thing to do with the clubhead, certainly more natural than trying to hold the clubhead back!
Grip, stance and pivot should allow for the hand and wrist action to be absolutely natural, and not forced in any way. If you feel you have to consciously hold the clubhead back, then there is something wrong and you are certainly not swinging.
In the past we have seen many unorthodox swingers playing great golf. The very fact that they have been swinging has helped them in the groove. I feel sure these players have never become too much bogged down by position. If you are in a wrong position, then certainly try to swing through a better one. But whatever you do, don’t try to put yourself into a better position.
A golfer’s waggle usually gives the show away, proclaiming whether he is a swinger or not. The non-swinger is so stilted that we know he is going to go from one position to the next, and never swing the club at all.
The top of the backswing and halfway down positions seem to be the most sought after. How often do we see a player admiring that late-hitting, halfway down position he has put himself into! He can feel where he should be. I venture to say that the finest players never feel this position; they feel a much more complete thing, that of swinging the clubhead through the ball to the target. We all freely discuss our golf swings but how many of us have swings, or have we just a set of many positions?
Timing – the elusive quality
Most modern books on golf have abundant and arresting action pictures, showing positions in the backswing, downswing, and followthrough. Perhaps it is this factor, as much as any other, which causes us to think of a swing in three distinct parts. To do that may be well enough, except that sometimes it can lead to the loss of that essential element in our swing known as timing.
What an elusive word that is in relation to the golf swing! One hears, so often, ‘my timing was a little bit off today’ when some unfortunate has had a bad day; and, as it happens to so many of us, it is perhaps not a bad thing if we try to be more specific and pinpoint this gremlin of bad timing, which can strike at the best of swings.
When it happens to me, I try to remember one thing, and often it helps; it is this: ‘Remember, I want my maximum speed at impact – not before’.
If I can let this really penetrate my mind, it is the easiest way to cut out that quick snatch back from the ball, or the snatch from the top. When I see it in pupils, I find myself saying: ‘don’t forget it is the ball you are hitting, not the backswing.’ Put another way round, what I could say is: ‘wait for it’, but I think it is easier to wait for it if you know what you are waiting for!
Distance is clubhead speed correctly applied
Let me remind you that ‘correctly applied’ means:
Clubface square to target at impact
Clubhead path momentarily coinciding with target line at impact
Angle of attack appropriate to club being used at impact.
Never forget that no matter how high your clubhead speed, the greater the error in any one of those angles, the less useful distance you will gain.
Straight enough
The left arm is the radius of the swing arc and it must maintain that radius. To do this it need not be ramrod straight, in the sense that Harry Vardon meant when he said he loved playing against opponents with straight left arms. It must be straight enough, without being stiff. In any case, even if the left arm is slightly bent, it will be straightened out in the hitting area by centrifugal force.
Hitting straight
The beginner, and he who aims to improve his game, must have faith here. He must believe something quite simple; that there is no need to do any conscious squaring of the blade in the downswing, or in the hitting area, with the hands. The hands should be left free for hitting the ball. The correct downswing action from the top, in the correct sequence, will take care of the blade of the club as it swings through the ball.
It really does all depend upon how the body is wound up and unwound. The hands and arms need to swing freely from the hub of the wind-up. Wind-up, then unwind, and swing the clubhead while you are doing this by a free use of the hands and arms. This type of action works for every club in the bag, allowing the loft on each to do the work as necessary.
The right elbow
Ninety-nine percent of floating right elbows – the ones that stick up or out like a chicken’s wing – are caused by an incorrect pivot. If you tilt your shoulders instead of partly turning them, and take your hands back ahead of the clubhead, then you will get a floating right elbow.
Controlling the elbow won’t necessarily put the thing right, since it is caused by a combination of pivot and of wrist action following the pivot, which leaves the clubhead behind in the backswing. You cannot correct it by getting the clubhead on its way back first, so that it leads the elbow into the right position, which then feels strong while you turn.
You could, of course, hit good golf shots with a floating right elbow, as long as the elbow gets into the right place to hit the ball. But only a right relationship between hands and body can put you into the right position in the easiest way.
When teaching people, there is quite a simple general rule I follow: in both cases, floating right elbow and too-tight elbow, I use what sounds like a local independent variation merely to wipe another one out, in its effect when the player tries to do it. You tend to get a floating right elbow if you leave the clubhead behind your hands. If you then try to start back clubhead first, you often cure it.
Other things being equal, of course, faults can come from both variations. If I drag the clubhead back, that’s when I float it; if I start the clubhead back too much ahead, I go flat.
If you don’t get the clubhead moving on the way back, then you can’t get back to the top of the swing without moving the right elbow out from the body; and the delayed clubhead thus nearly always leads you to a steep position. You can easily spend five minutes explaining this to a player; and he can easily follow this and see how it all works.
There are actually thousands of people with this sort of trouble, because those who have read about and studied the game have been told so much to ‘take the club back in one piece’. Trying to do just this, if it is misunderstood, can lead the player straight into a floating right elbow!
With this particular fault, as with so many others in golf, we come back to just one basic thing. May I repeat myself once more and say it again: The relationship between your clubhead, your hands and your body is vital. If you get the right relationship between your clubhead, your hands and your body, you will never get a floating right elbow.
Don’t forget your hands
Nick Faldo’s swing changes in the 1980s centred around a few key elements. He widened his stance so that his legs would stabilize and support a more rotary body action. He then focused on winding his body over a more passive leg and hip action, which created resistance – in effect, energy – that he would
