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Mark was referred to me by his friend Derek Gillespie, the Latin Tour Professional from Canada. Mark is a good player but seeing the improvement in Derek’s swing he was inspired to first send in his swing for an online lesson, then come down to see me at the club in Boca. Mark feels that it is his ball striking that is holding him back from reaching his next level, and he is looking for advice on how to improve it. When I saw his first swings I immediately focused on his posture. I think it is a huge deal to have a stance that promotes the things you would like to do with your swing, which is why I’m so against heel-oriented set ups. I don’t ever want to feel like I’m moving forward in the direction of the ball, and if I set up with my weight in my heels and I’m a normal person I’m going to gravitate toward my toes during the swing. The online lesson helped Mark improve his posture greatly, but when I showed him his swing and got him in the mirror we helped it some more. Once the posture looked good I focused on Mark’s right arm over bend and put a Swing-Extender on it to limit the bend to 90 degrees. It magically shortened his swing (well, not magically. It just blocked his arm from folding up and it became obvious that the arm folding had gained him a lot of swing length that he doesn’t necessarily want), and the stop and goes we did look radically different and better. The swing aid just gives a feel, and the stop and goes give you time to think, but you can’t use either in a regular full swing, which means that the important thing is for the student to apply what they are working on and always play with at least two swing thoughts, always things that you have been working on. You have probably been working on more than two things, but it is paramount that in your actual play you limit your keys or thoughts to two, usually one back and one through. The demanding part is finding the two that will help you the most.
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