Once you can hit the ball fairly well you will find that every so often you hit a really bad shot, maybe hitting the turf behind the ball and only shifting it half the distance you intended. You get annoyed with yourself for hitting a bad shot. But why did you do it?
The chances are that you did not swing with rhythm. For example, if you get a bit nervous about that bunker or pond or out of bounds, you are likely to hurry the shot, and not complete the backswing, but drag the club down before your body is in position. The result will be a really bad shot. Or, you might try to hit it so hard that get right on top of it, hitting the ball into the fairway instead of off it. Or you might come across the ball, hitting a huge slice into the trees.
The real problem is that you blame your perfectly sound golf swing when the reality is that you did not use your golf swing! Instead, you used half of it, or maybe two-thirds, but missed out some vital ingredients. Like driving along in your car and forgetting to turn the steering wheel to go round the corner, and suddenly pulling the wheel to get around – and you might end up in the ditch.
Because the golf swing is so complicated, yet you need to do it without thinking, you need to devise a way of making yourself swing with rhythm and tempo. Tempo is getting the club to the ball while it is accelerating – most golfers are slowing the club down when they hit the ball. Rhythm is doing everything in a nice smooth way. You will note that all great golfers, like Ben Hogan, have or had a smooth rhythmic swing.
Some people hum a snatch of music. Others, like Vijay Singh, use words. He says ‘Seventeen’ on the backswing and ‘Eighteen’ on the downswing. You need to find your own words – which could be Up – down – through, or one, two, three. Whatever suits you. But if you have problems with rhythm on those tricky shots, this will help.
« Previous Post Next Post »Posted in Random Articles | |
