A few months ago, I was doing a lesson with a client, that has been searching for the right coach but also the right move to “unlock” their true potential, when I said that the golf swing they were searching for was actually a natural movement, something that dumbfounded them. The golfer questioned why I would believe that, especially as it went against everything the other professionals had told them. It is this direction that is creating the view and mental image that the golf swing is a difficult movement to perfect and repeat time and time again.
The client continued to disagree citing an exercise that a professional they had had a long time ago, noting that it was deemed almost impossible to hit a ball any distance unless the mechanics of the swing were correct.
It was more than I needed to hear, so I decided to try to dispel a long-ingrained belief that the client had about the golf swing. I picked up some balls and asked the client to name some natural actions with a ball that they would have performed hundreds if not thousands of times, they thought for a while and came up with the answer of throwing a ball.
PERFECT!!!
I asked the client to take a ball and toss it towards a range basket that I had placed a few yards ahead of us, without consideration for the mechanical necessities the client threw the ball underarm towards the basket. (It went in, but that is another story) moving further away I asked what they would need to do in order to reach the target, immediately without hesitation or much consideration they tossed the ball towards the basket, reaching without issue. The act of tossing a ball underarm and increasing the length of arm swing is exactly the same principal we must adopt when playing, albeit from a slightly different set up. To demonstrate this further I set myself up as though I was going to hit a golf ball, instead I threw a ball underarm towards the basket, it reached and I asked the client how would I reach the cluster of balls some 25 yards away, without changing my position, without delay make a longer swing came the answer, so I did and the ball indeed flew further than before. So how does this relate to the golf swing? Well the movement is very similar we are using an arc created by the arms to generate energy and we release oour hands much like we release the ball when we throw it.
But the moral of this story is that the more you think about the mechanics of the golf swing, the harder they become to recreate and reproduce. If you thought of a simple movement, such as throwing a ball, the golf swing suddenly becomes much easier to execute. We must simplify the act of swinging a golf club to really understand the requirements of hitting good golf shots.
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