#swing change

[onebeardedgolfer]

Time for a Change

A change is going to come. This winter, I'm getting professional help to make a serious change to my golf swing. Come enjoy the madness with me.

Time for a Change

[stompthetee]

State of the Game

A lot of you guys have asked me lately "How's your golf game these days?", so I took the opportunity to shoot some video of a couple swings to illustrate where I'm at and (more importantly) what I'm working on. The video was shot at Players Course at Indian Wells, and for the record, it hasn't been doctored or altered in any way -- all real time first shots, no mulligans. 

 As  most of you know by now, I'm a lousy golfer, but I've gotten better. I'm decent with my irons and I chip and putt okay, but my biggest problem forever has been getting off the tee. I've been leaving my driver in the bag lately and have cut down on the waywardness of most tee shots by hitting 3 wood or less. For the last couple of years, the swing thought I repeat to myself before every full shot I hit is "Head down, tempo, head down". As a result, I'm able to play quickly but with a goal in mind. Here are the two things I'm working on these days:

1) Moving my right elbow away from my side. With my old swing, I kept everything so compact that my right elbow and tricep was practically pinned to my side -- taking the "towel under the arm" concept too far. Just leaving more space has helped me hit the ball more consistently and has lessened the area of my misses.

2) Trying to replicate the free flow of my practice swing. The great thing about video is that you can see what you're doing wrong regardless of how it "feels" when you're doing it. Every shot you see in the video above was a 5 iron that hit the fairway and travelled about 190 yards. And even though my "real" swing felt like my practice swing, clearly it wasn't as complete (incomplete turn, no follow through on the finish, etc.). If I can swing through the ball more completely, I think it will lengthen my game quite a bit, as well as give me more control over the ball. 

Now I'm still going to spray the ball more often than I hit it straight, and I will continue to avoid bunkers like they're the plague, but if I can get off the tee consistently, I should be able to knock ten strokes off my score in no time. I'll keep you posted on the progress!

[paulsee]

Swing Change

Whenever we make a change in our swing, no matter what shape or size of the change, we have changed our rhythm to accommodate. Thats just what it is, a natural adjustment of rhythm, one either made of intricate compensations or free flowing actions! 

So why change the swing with clearly defined actions when you can more easily find them through natural rhythm?

How do you change speed?

Think about your walking, jogging, sprinting then running.

How natural is this sequence of motion?

Pretty natural!

Now go try it while thinking of movement.

There's always a more natural way to make an adjustment in life, your golf should be no different. 

Enjoy the game./

[scotttierney]

Degrees of Difficulty

The most fascinating aspect of Tiger Woods' 18-year PGA Tour career isn't his 74 PGA Tour wins or his lifelong pursuit of Jack Nicklaus' major championship record or even the sordid details of his personal life. No, the most fascinating aspect of Tiger's career is his constant, insatiable, obsessive quest to perfect the golf swing. Scott Eden wrote masterfully on that subject in ESPN The Magazine's Perfect Issue.

Here's a little sampling:

But now, nearly two decades after that Amateur in Florida, Woods appears to be on the verge of completing the unthinkable: disassembling, reconstructing and mastering his golf swing for the third time in his career. Not only has no other player ever attempted such a thing, no other player has ever conceived of it -- though perhaps a better way of putting it is: No other player would ever want to conceive of it.

But just how much has Tiger's swing changed over the course of his career? I worked with the fine folks at ESPN's Sport Science to figure that out (pdf can be found here or below). Our conclusion: The only common denominator among Woods' four swings is the man holding the club.