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Golf

2012-08-29 13:08:27

Ask the pro - series

A- Thus far in this series, with help from several sources, we have talked about the things that one must do to first get in the position to begin the swing. All of the previous articles are featured at www.theqandatimes.com. They have been the grip, the alignment and the stance. The swing is broken down into two parts. The backswing…and the downswing. We have already discussed the backswing…and part of the downswing relative to keeping the head back and making no effort to move the golf club, and how it all should feel; the downswing…and the checkpoints. We have talked about the biggest problem of amateur golfer…the slice, and the other way the ball can bend badly…the hook. Last month we talked about hitting what are called “fat” or “thin” shots. This month, we will talk about what I consider to be the most seductive and destructive medium in the game...and begin to talk about the swing from inside to out. First, what could possible live up to the description I used as the most “seductive an destructive medium in the game?” It took me many years of my golfing life to discover it, and even then I could not formulate my ideas about it or counteract it effectively in my teaching until I had come to a proper understanding of the relation between the physical and mental in golf. Now I think I can better present it to you properly. It is the natural urge to act in the obvious way to achieve the desired result. The seductiveness of the idea is clear. Its destructiveness lies in the fact that in golf (as in many other affairs in life) the obvious way is not always the right way. Frequently the obvious way is the wrong way and unless the urge to follow it can be inhibited the right way cannot be taken. To use the words of a great teacher of the game, “The man who follows the obvious way is an end gainer.” He is so keen and intent upon gaining his end (getting his ball onto the green and into the hole) that he concentrates upon that rather than upon the employment of what he knows to be the correct technique or the means whereby the end can best be gained. He is so intent upon his end that he tries to take short cuts to it…or…to put it more accurately, he no longer remembers that it is necessary to go round by a certain road to get there. I won’t go into this in any more depth right now, but I will leave it and hopefully let it sprout some “roots” as we move along. Now, let’s talk about the swing from in-to-out, a thing of which many people realize the importance without being able to put it into practice. What is it? It is the feeling of swinging the club head not directly down the line of flight, but from inside this line as the ball is approached to outside the line in the follow through. The feeling that this is the path taken by the club head is essential to a good swing. Therefore the fact that scientific analysis can prove that at the impact the club head does actually follow the line of flight exactly can be ignored. You play golf by feeling, not by scientific analysis. This feeling of in-to-out is intimately connected with that other feeling referred to in a previous article that we will review again at a later time, “The things you do before the swing,” that of being set inwards and behind the ball. The long straight drive that covers the pin all the way is the result of a swing which you feel travels from in-to-out. This is what we all refer to as an in-to-out swing; a shot in which the club head does actually take this path (as distinct from being felt to take it) is only played by the first-class golfer when he wants to put pull on the ball. And if you will think it out, that suggests why the in-to-out feeling is something that we teachers try to instill into every student. The point being that, while an exaggerated swing in-to-out feel gives pull, the correct in-to-out feel gives straightness and no in-to-out feel (that is, the feeling that the club head goes along the line of flight) gives slice. The advantage of the modern in-to-out swing is seen in both the flight and the run of the ball. Hit with the correct in-to-out feel, the ball is given the very minimum of backspin-consequently it “floats” through the air and, when it pitches, takes its natural spin forward, instead of kicking sideways as an undercut ball tends to do, as every lawn-tennis player knows. Next month, we pick up from where we left off here.