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Dan was visiting Florida from New York and being a website fanatic (his very nice girlfriend said that) he braved a very rainy and windy day (although warm) to try to figure out why he was “a 6 -handicap short game and a 24 – handicap long game”. It was evident after the first batch of swings that the priorities would be setup and takeaway oriented. Dan was somewhat slumped with his hands low and the ball back in his stance. We stood him up taller, got the ball in the right place, got his weight more toward the balls of his feet, and raised the grip up, then tried to learn to move the club back without moving his arms well away from his body and raising up a large amount. It would be too much to try to incorporate in a full speed swing, so I chose to have him do stop and goes so he could take his time going back and concentrate on the things we discussed, then think about where he was at the top and how he got there, then switch over to figuring out what to do to start the forward swing. You can see why a stop and go should not be rushed. You are constantly engaged in the detail of what you are doing, which is something you should never try to do when you play. When playing it’s not wise to have more than two swing thoughts, one back and one forward. The reason you practice so much is to organize, blend, simplify, whatever you want to call it, the stuff you’re working on from way too many things to two somewhat simple thoughts. If you’re swing thoughts don’t sound something like “back and through” they are probably too scattered or too complicated.
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