Menu
It is always gratifying to see a student’s swing improve, and it doesn’t really matter if it happens quickly or over a more extended period of time. What I am finding with the online lessons is that there is some major improving going on and it is not really taking a huge amount of time. I would have to say that there are many reasons for this, the most important of which is that the golfers who subscribe to the website and invest in online lessons are hyper motivated and tuned into the type of technique work that I prescribe in my instruction.
Tom is a perfect example of the motivated student with athletic ability, who, once he gets usable information, can put it into practice with hard work and dedicated, focused practice. In four months Tom has made some significant improvements to his backswing and transition, and his shaft control on the downswing has gotten measurably better. There is no better proof that the instruction is helping than a side by side of the old and new, and here it is obvious that all sorts of things look more the way we want it to look. As far as function goes, I would expect Tom to be hitting it better, but not as good as he could because his impact alignments are still a bit suspect, although it is hard to tell exactly due to the lack of shutter speed with the camera that filmed both sets of swings. However, it is clear enough that from the face on view we need to do some serious work to get the hands more in front of the ball at impact.
In most cases the hands have been releasing early in order to help the player hit the ball from the approach positions he has grooved into his swing. Once these approach positions are improved it is not automatic that the hands will suddenly realize that there are better ways to hit the ball: they have to be trained to look for the forward leaning strike, and thus the practice turns to impact drills such as punch shots, pre-set punch shots, and split hand punch shots. Practicing at the bottom of the swing creates a clearer picture of where the player needs to visualize the hands being at impact, and thus helps to make more sense of why we do what we do at the top and in transition.
Part 3:
Join the forum discussion on this post