Basic Elements of A Golf Swing

Article by Herb Rubenstein, PGA

Introduction

There is a new way to learn golf. Away from the distractions of the wind, the clouds or sunshine, the rain, heat or cold, and away from other golfers either staring at your or ignoring you. Train in a golf studio with cameras, computers, a screen to see the simulated “flight” of the ball. Read the statistics that measure your shot far better than the eye can see. Learn Your:

• Distance for every shot (carry and roll)

• Distance to cup/target and short/long and left/right variance relative to target location

• Horizontal and Vertical Launch angle

• Ball speed

• Club head speed

• Angle of the club head at impact

• Angle of the path of the club relative to target

• Sidespin of the ball (telling you which way the ball with turn left or right)

• Backspin of the ball

• Shot height

• Hit factor

• See (with tape or a spray or the computer) the exact location where the ball hits the club head

Yes, whether you are a beginner or an average player wanting to improve, or a good player who wants to become a great player, it will take a good instructor, or as we prefer to say, a good trainer to guide you.

But learning how to hit a golf ball with some reasonable degree of success can be accomplished in fifteen minutes or less. This article describes a new approach to teaching golf that will help you get started to enjoy the great game of golf. While we recommend using a golf studio or simulator to learn the golf swing the quickest, if one is not available, and a driving range is available, that is perfectly fine.

The Five Key Elements of Learning The Golf Swing

1.0 Training and Equipment

The first elem.0ent of learning the golf swing is having a good golf trainer or instructor or fellow golfer who truly understands the golf swing to teach you. With so many lessons on line, and so many good golf instruction books, tapes, videos, and demonstrations, you will not need years of expensive lessons from a golf pro the way you would many years ago.

In addition, you will need a set of golf clubs of appropriate size and weight for you. You can start out buying used equipment, but have that equipment tested for its “lie, loft, and shaft flexibility either before you buy it or after you buy it with the proviso that you can send it back if the clubs are not right for you. Different manufacturers make different kinds of clubs and some will fit your swing now and as it improves, and others will not be a good fit for you.

So, get training and the right equipment right from the outset.

2.0 Learning the Correct Grip

The second key element after deciding to get some training, finding a place to hit balls, and getting suitable golf equipment, is to learn the grip.

For right handed golfers, the grip starts by putting the left hand on the club. This is easy. Put your left hand down by your side. Take a club in your right hand and set the club head on the ground in front of your feet and then put the club handle into your left hand. The lower part of the handle fits snugly next to the middle knuckle of your left hand and the upper part of the grip fits just between the base of your little finger and the pad of your left hand. Basically, the club runs along the base of your middle fingers and the way to think about the left hand grip is to think you are starting off with a handshake position of the left hand and turning it down to meet the angle of the club with the club head on the ground in front of your feet. Once you grip the take your right hand and club pull the club down grabbing the club with your new left hand grip and not letting it move.

Now you have the basic left hand grip. To fine tune it, put the club head down in front of your feet equal distance between each foot with the shaft of the club pointing straight up from the ground so your hand is right in front of your belt buckle. Then, look at the “V” shape between your left thumb and your index/pointer finger. The “V” shape should point somewhere between your chin and your right shoulder.

Now, the hard part, made easy. Your right hand grip, a source of great problems for the new, beginner, or golfer with a high handicap. Here is the trick. Take your left thumb and point it as straight up as you can. Then take your right hand and at the exact center of your palm, put your right hand on top of the thumb with your right hand open and flat across your left thumb. See the illustration below.

Now, wrap your right hand as quickly as you can to the right around the club keeping your left thumb sticking into the center of your palm. Now the thumb of your left hand goes right into the center of your right palm and the club handle fits in the middle between the base of the fingers and the finger tips. To check the grip, look to the “V” between the thumb and the index/pointer finger and it should be pointing between your chin and your right shoulder. Also, your left thumb sits on the “right side” of the handle (at about one o’clock if straight down the handle is high noon) and your right thumb sits on the “left side” of the shaft at eleven o’clock. Grip pressure. On a scale of 1 to 10 where one the club would fall out of your hands and 10 where you are squeezing the club as hard as you can, a six level pressure for the left hand and a four level pressure for your right hand.

That’s all you need to know for the basic grip. Yes, there are variations to learn for “specialty shots, but this is the basic golf grip. Take a picture of your grip and show it to a golf trainer and you will get additional feedback and refinements.

Learning this grip should take two minutes to get “pretty right” with what we call the “T AND GRIP IT”TM method we just described.

3.0 Learning The Basic Golf Swing

After the grip, the third key element is to learn the basics of the golf swing. The section teaches you some of the basics. Be sure to view golf videos of good or great golfers to help you “see” good golf swings.

Before you ever swing a golf club at full speed, you need to warm up for a few minutes regardless of your age, but the older you get the more your need to warm up your body.. (This is not counted in the “Fifteen Minutes” part of the title of the article, but is essential.

Warm up exercises include bending at the waist in both a circular and side to side motion, turning your shoulders in a somewhat vertical plane as well as horizontal plane, stretching your hamstrings, and calf muscles, flexing your knees, rotating your neck, engaging your core muscles, stranding with a straight back to assist your posture. End your warm up exercises by moving your entire body slowly with a club in your hand maybe 10 or 20 times to get some rhythm and to see where there is stiffness or some limitation on the motion you want for your swing. Do all of this warm up before you ever see the golf instructor or trainer.

A good instructor or golf trainer will let you swing a few times at full speed without a golf ball in the hitting area after you have warmed up, usually with a seven or eight iron (pretty easy clubs to hit) before saying anything to you so they can see how your body moves. Then, the instructor should find out if you have ever played the game before, and if so, ask about how you did. This is not a nicety or simple rapport building (which is also necessary by each golf instructor or golf trainer). Watching a golf student take a few swings and learning about their past golf experience are essential steps to guide the instructor/trainer into a series of clear instructions that will allow you to learn the basic golf swing in ten minutes or less.

The first part of the basic golf swing is the:

• Posture

• Alignment of feet and shoulders

• Foot position (width) and ball position

• Initial club, and hand position

• Weight distribution between feet

Take a look at most any good golfer, and certainly any pro, and you will quickly pick up the proper basic address position.

The swing is rotational and is primarily a body turn, not an arms only exercise. Backswing – take club away from the ball on a wide arc (arc around the neck) and the path of the club goes slightly inside the target line. Take the club back so that at the top of the backswing the club is parallel to the ground due to the natural bending of the wrists. This is called a “full backswing.” (If you not flexible, then the club shaft will not get parallel with the ground, but good, even great golf swings can be created with less than a “full” backswing. The leg motion on the backswing is front leg knee moves toward the back knee to promote the turning of the body and the right knee keeps its flexed position to keep the body from swaying away from the ball on the backswing. The shoulders turn as the arms move the club head away from the ball followed by the hips turning away from the target to promote the turning of the body. The head does not move much and serves with the neck and sternum as the ‘Axis” of the swing – the focal point you swing around. On the backswing the upper body takes the initiative and the weight shifts from the inside of the heel of the front foot to the inside of the heel of the back foot.

Nicklaus says the backswing should be slow. There is no need to rush as the entire purpose of the backswing is to get the body into a coiled position so that when the body is uncoiled on the downswing power is generated by the club head moving very fast (sometimes over 100mph) to hit the ball a long way.

At the top of the backswing, you will have “coiled” your body. Your back will be turned 90 degrees with your back facing the target and your chest facing directly away from the target. Your left shoulder will be pointed at the ball.

While the backswing starts with upper body movement, the downswing is just the opposite. The lower body, and certainly NOT THE HANDS, start the “downswing.” Either with your right knee/leg moving towards the target or your right hip beginning to move toward the target, the first action on the downswing is to begin the process of shifting your weight towards the front foot for power.

Your knee/leg or hip beginning the downswing brings your hands down without your trying to move them. Then, hips continue to turn fast toward the target, shoulders turn with the right shoulder going down and to the target and the left shoulder going up and getting out of the way so the arms and hands can follow.

Now, you begin to move the arms in a wide arc to bring the handle of the golf club toward the ball. The wrists are kept from “releasing” or “flipping” until at least the hands are knee height and your hand are right in front of your belly button moving quickly towards the target.

At this point, the speed of the club will cause your wrists to “release” and your hands are moving parallel to the ground. Impact occurs when your hands are right in front of your lead thigh, with both hands pointed towards the ball (which is away from the target a little since your hands are in front of the ball.

At impact, your hips have turned so far toward the target that your belly button is pointed between the ball and the target and right after impact with your hips continuing to turn, your belly button and chest actually point directly to the target.

At impact for every club except the driver, the club head is moving downward. This is not caused by the hands moving downward while they in the impact area but rather because the wrists are being “released.” The hands which were pointed directly away from the target when they came down to knee level, gradually start to point downward. They must not point straight downward even at impact, but rather only past impact as once the hands and fingers are pointed straight to the ground, you have reached the “bottom of the swing” from the club head’s perspective.

If we use a clock example and 6 o’clock is where the ball is, the hands are at 5 o’clock when the club head hits the ball sitting at the 6 o’clock position. Thus, the shaft is still pointed a little away from the target at impact for all iron shots to promote the hitting down on the ball with a square club face.

With a driver, the ball is positioned off the left heel (the 5 o’clock position) and the club head should be moving slightly up at impact. The hands will be even with the ball or a fraction behind the ball at impact.

The force of the swing, the turning of the hips toward the target, the rotation of the shoulders, and the shifting of the weight from the back foot to 99% of the weight on the right foot at or just past impact all make the hands and club head continue to move forward quickly. Ultimately, the body keeps turning and the hands come up past the right shoulder and the club head ends up behind the head.

That is the basic golf swing.

4.0 Hitting the Ball Where You Want To

After you get the basics of a good golf swing, no you get to the work, the art, and the fun of “good” golf. Soon, more often than not, you will start hitting the ball more or less the distance you want to hit it with each club and more or less in the direction you want to hit the ball. The first thing to do on this journey, is to take short swings with the ball properly positioned at a full address position, so you can hit the ball “solidly. By solidly we mean the club hits the ball in the center of the back of the ball. You do not hit the ground first. You do not hit the top of the ball. Yes, at first the ball will go wildly left or right, but don’t even think much about that issue (we kindly refer to as “wildness” and Tom Watson used to have it) until you can hit the ball with the club head more often than not more or less in the center and back of the ball and in the center of the club head..

We recommend starting with the ball on a tee as this gives you much greater “margin of error.” After you can hit the ball solidly some of the time, take a little longer swing and try to hit the ball further. Be sure you make a good body turn and don’t just use your arms. Be sure your legs are involved and weight shift to the back foot on the backswing and the front foot on the downswing.

Then, start thinking about the direction and curve of the ball. Is it going straight, but to the left, or straight, but way right? It is starting out towards the target but curving badly left or right? Or is it just going all over the place left and right?

When you begin to care about the direction of the ball, you first must make sure you are lined up correctly. Second, you must know why the ball turns left or right. It is simple. If you make the ball spin left, it turns left. If you make it spin right, it turns right.

At some point, you will get to the point where, on command, you can make the ball turn left or right. You will also be able to start the ball generally on the target line. But, for starters, just strike the ball in the back of the center of the ball and watch it fly.

5.0 Putting and Chipping

Golf is much more than hitting a golf ball a good distance. The essence of scoring is getting the ball in the hole, and the essence of getting the ball into the hole is getting it close to the pin when you hit onto a green from off the green.

The key to putting is a smooth stroke, whether it is a long stroke or a short stroke. First putt without a “hole.” Just focus on hitting the back of the center of the ball (notice the pattern) with a relatively “flat” or “horizontal” stroke and hit the ball in the center of the putter. Putt first for distance just try without aiming to a hole or on a line, to putt the ball the distance you want.

After you can make the ball go the distance you want with some accuracy, start putting toward a hole. You will notice the ball rarely goes straight, but this is because greens aren’t level and slope plus gravity causes the ball to bend left or right. Figure out which way the green is sloping on the way to the hole and you will begin to learn which way and how much the ball will bend toward to low side of the slope.

Chipping is a shortened swing, but a real swing none the less. The arms, especially the left arm for the right handed player and the right arm for the left handed player dominates. The grip pressure is somewhat lighter. The legs only move a little. The weight starts more toward the front foot and does not move during the swing. The shoulders turn and the body/chest turns away from the target on the backswing and towards the target on the downswing.

Solid contact is not hard, but start out with basic chip shots where you have lots of room for the ball to roll on the green. The goal is to be able to hit chips consistently in terms of distance in the air and height of the shot, because the lower the shot, the more the ball will roll and the higher the shot the more the ball will stop more quickly. On every chip shot, you must control how far the ball rolls after it lands.

Conclusion

In the short it took you to read this article, you have the basics to train yourself, with some professional or qualified assistance, to hit the golf ball well. By going on a regular basis to a golf course, driving range, putting green, short game area or indoor golf simulator, you will begin build the muscles, the hand eye coordination, and feeling of a good golf swing that represents the “first step” in becoming a golfer. You will learn swing the club and hit the ball in the air, a good distance, and in the direction you want the ball to go. Yes, some days there will be lots of water, sand traps, wind, bad playing partners, cold, rain, poorly maintained golf courses, leaves that will hide your ball, out of bounds markets too close to the fairway, greens that slope and slope and slope, and many other calamities you will encounter en route to your improving your game.

But you will also have cloudless skies, perfect swings in the simulator, shots from off the green that go into the hole, and some birdies, possibly an eagle, and maybe someday, a hole in one, or a round at par or even under par.

Getting there is like getting to Broadway, “practice, practice, and practice.” You have to make practice fun, a game, and include putting in your practice routine. You can actually practice putting in your home or office.

Be sure to practice putting every chance you get. While putting is frustrating (due to the high “miss” rate), it is amazingly rewarding as you begin to putt the ball the distance you want and in the general direction you want. When you see your first putt of three, then six, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty, then thirty, and then forty feet or more go in the hole, you will know you are on your way to playing good golf.