October ‘06 Golf Digest Instruction Commentary



This month's articles:

LESSON TEE –TIGER WOODS. Shallow is not the answer. Swinging on plane is the answer. Tiger was swinging the club “above the swing plane” and therefore was too steep. This “steepness” causes him to have the club delofted. Now that he is on-plane (the club swings over his right rotator cuff joint v.s. over the base of his neck) the club is not delofted.
BACKSWING—ok
COMING DOWN—Tiger is getting close. Notice he considers that his body should start the forward swing but observes how his hips are often “too fast”. The fact is that as soon as he gets to the idea that the arms start the swing, his hips will no longer be a problem.
IMPACT—notice how Tiger identifies “catch up either your arms or your body”. This happens when the body starts the swing.
FOLLOW-THROUGH—ok

GRIP IT OUT IN FRONT. –ok, but have the v’s formed by your thumb and forefinger point to your shirt buttons.

THINK “Y” FOR GREAT CHIPPING. I like Annika’s first instruction to “hit a low, running shot whenever you can.” Statistics prove that its more effective than high pitches. Her second instruction, to employ the “y” setup delofts the club and will make your contact feel more crisp because the club face is more verticle. But don’t be fooled, this crisp feel does not translate into getting closer to the hole. The ball is just coming off the club face faster. Use low running when ever you can but achieve that trajectory by using a lower lofted club with a normal setup.

PITCH WITH YOUR BODY. Let’s begin by reviewing Butch’s analysis of “the big mistake in pitching”. Yep, its using hand action. That will kill any shot. But Butch’s solution is too problematic. To solve the hand action problem, the best solution is to use the arms to make the club swing. Now you have an action that will produce good shots regardless of the club and the shot you want to make. One other thing (although I’m not sure Butch has carefully considered the matter), its not the ball in the middle of your stance—it’s the club. You’ll also notice that Butch has to align himself to the left because his instruction will make the ball travel to the right. Bottom line…close, but more difficult than necessary.

KNEES ARE KEY. Simply….if you play the ball too far forward, you will have to slide laterally to get yourself to a position to be able to hit it straight. Note that Tom has the ball positioned just inside his left foot. Set the club behind the ball and center yourself on the club. No knee bolo-knee is kneeded.

Hank Haney.
FINISH YOUR FLIGHT. I think Hank may have been in a hurry when he wrote this. “Feel the ball flight with your finish”, what does that mean? The gist of this instruction is body, body, body. It’s not the body that controls ball flight, it’s the club. Forget this article.

IS IT THE YIPS OR JUST A BAD GRIP? Ok.
HITTING THE BIG DOG. The next to last sentence in this article is VERY important. “Distance is the most important factor when it comes to determining your potential.” Hank has fallen victim to distance-mania. In case you’ve caught this disease which distorts the importance of distance, here’s how to cure yourself. Think back to the last time you bogeyed or double bogeyed a hole. Now ask yourself this question: Did I score poorly because I did not have adequate distance or because I did not have adequate direction control. Rarely is a poor score because of our strength. Hank, its direction not distance.

DRIVING WITH POWER. Look at the fairway in the lead photo. See the trees on the right and left? Every yard further you hit the ball is a degree straighter that you must attain in order to keep the ball in the fairway. Working on distance before direction is putting the cart before the horse. Your score will suffer.

BREAKING 100. This adjusts the body but not the club path. The problem is with the path not the body. Forget this one.
BREAKING 90. Does this mean if I would take four times as long for my backswing that I could hit ball much further? Forget this one too.
BREAKING 80. This is a big collection of ideas some of which or none of which may be helpful to you.

FIND YOUR BALANCE. Yes.

STAY COMPACT FOR CONTROL. I could not find a photo on Holmes, but Wie’s swing is not short. She is all the way to parallel on the back swing. Maybe its because he is from South Africa, but David’s analysis of the baseball back swing is unexplainable. Take a look at Albert Pujols’ swing. It’s much bigger than David’s notion. I hope you know that I am all for improved direction but thinking that sacrificing distance is the answer to better direction is wrong. Improving the swing does not occur just because you shorten it.

MY SECRET: THE SIT-DOWN SWING. This proves the axiom, “some secrets are best left untold.” Imagine you were entered into a contest measuring the precision of ball contact relative to the center of the club face. Then imagine that of all the contestants, only you were required to bob down and up and to sway forward when you were swinging. Would you think that fair? I am not sure as to why George or the “panel of experts” saw this as a way to increase power but it is obvious that is a good way to jeopardize precision.

MY SECRET: SWING THE SHAFT. Better. Jim’s advice is pretty good. Keeping the hands ahead of the shaft on short shots will deloft the club thereby deprive you of having a high soft-landing shot in your repertoire.

SLICE NO MORE! An article like this one by Rick Smith, is a vivid example of the difference between teachers that are the more famous and teachers that are more knowledgeable. De la Torre is less the former and more the latter.

Rick’s article proposes that “all slicers have one thing in common: a steep downswing with an open clubface, pointing right of the swing path at impact.” Well that just isn’t so. Look in Manuel’s book and you will find that there are no less than nineteen causes for a slice.
DROP YOUR RIGHT FOOT. We already discussed this in the “breaking 100” article. Dropping the right foot is intended to change the swing path. But it doesn’t necessarily do that, we can still swing outside-in. Fix the path, not the body.
SPLIT GRIP. Rick begins by saying that these drills will straighten your shots, but here you see him explaining that this will produce a draw. Go for straight not draw.
SWING LOW TO HIGH. Again this is about draw not straight.
PRACTICE WITH ONE ARM. The key here is what Rick is doing with the club. See how he has delivered it correctly to the 3 o’clock position.
LOOP AROUND THE STAKE. How does taking the club outside make the player return it correctly? Does taking it outside tell us where the correct path is? How much over the stake do you swing it? And how much under the stake do you swing it? And how tall should the stake be? If you wanted to toss a ball would it be easier or more difficult if you had to “loop” your swing during the tossing motion. When you look at this carefully, it gets very messy.

STRENGTHEN YOUR GRIP. If Rick has a grip for slice, one for hook, where is the one for straight? How does the grip in the third picture produce straight or draw?
TEE IT HIGH. Not necessarily
CHECK YOUR SHOULDER ALIGNMENT. Ok.

GET AGGRESSIVE IN THE SAND. Ok.

BREAKING 100|90|80.
ONE SWING, ONE THOUGHT. Ok.
BREAKING 100.
Avoid the pop-up by staying wide. Pop-ups happen not from being too steep but from having the hands severely ahead of the clubhead during the swing.
200 YARDS = 2 WEDGE SHOTS. Backspin does not reduce sidespin. Otherwise, Ok.
BREAKING 90.
KNOCK IT DOWN TO HIT YOUR TARGETS. Who said a lower trajectory produces straight ball flight. Knockdowns assure only lower trajectory.
ONE INCH-TWO CLUBS. If you added one inch to your seven iron do you think you could hit it as far as your five? I don’t. This distance produce by a given club is a function of its length, loft, and weight. Choking down to a seven iron length will not make your five a seven. That notwithstanding, I do recommend achieving lower trajectory by using lower lofted clubs versus knockdown swings.
BREAKING 80.
ELIMINATE SIDESPIN ON GREENSIDE BUNKERS. The setup Josh recommends is puzzling, but the club position shown at impact is what you’ll achieve when you “swing” the club (no strange setup necessary).
YOUR RIGHT PALM = THE CLUBFACE. Ok.