This video is one of the best I have seen at fixing one of the most common problems in golf. The over-the-top move or also known as outside-to inside swing.
The video comes from Craig Jones who is part of my network of some of the best and brightest in the golf instruction/coaching business. Craig was with GolfTEC for over 11 years and decided there was a better way for the average golfer to get help. He specializes in golfers with a 12 handicap and up. This is one of the things that he and I share plus very similar teaching philosophies.
He also has an excellent Facebook page called Face First Nation Elite which is a closed group, but he would be happy to have you. It's so he can just deal with the golfers that fit his demographics and also to keep other so-called golf instructors from confusing things.
Here is what he has to say about the video:
"When we talk about conquering your over the top downswing path, we’re really talking about how you want to deliver the club head to the golf ball. Since swinging over the top is swinging left of target, a great visual for swinging more from the inside on the downswing is to picture how to hit the inside of the ball. I recommend practicing it with a 6 or 7 iron and the ball on a tee because you want to make is as easy as possible when first learning it. Practicing into a net is ideal because there is not really any benefit to seeing ball flight in the early stages of learning downswing path."
Here is a wonderful video on learning a quick
and simple way to keep your driver in play. It actually applies to
every club in your bag, but I find it easier to learn by starting with
the driver.
The most important key to this is taking
practice swings. You need to swing without the ball until you are
comfortable taking a full swing at various speeds.
Take
the practice swing and then hold the finish long enough to remember
what it felt like. Remember the feeling of being balanced and
controlling speed. Then just repeat that feeling.
Just remember that it is not a three-quarter swing - it is a full swing at three-quarter speed.
You will find out that when you start to relax and slow the club down you will start to make very solid contact.
The
importance of this was taught to me by the legendary Mickey Wright.
How far I can hit a club and how far I should hit it are two different
things.
The video only takes a couple of minutes and will be well worth your time. It and several more are posted on my YouTube Channel.
Here is a wonderful video on learning a quick and simple way to keep your driver in play. It actually applies to every club in your bag, but I find it easier to learn by starting with the driver.
The most important key to this is taking practice swings. You need to swing without the ball until you are comfortable taking a full swing at various speeds.
Take the practice swing and then hold the finish long enough to remember what it felt like. Remember the feeling of being balanced and controlling speed. Then just repeat that feeling.
Just remember that it is not a three-quarter swing - it is a full swing at three-quarter speed.
You will find out that when you start to relax and slow the club down you will start to make very solid contact.
The importance of this was taught to me by the legendary Mickey Wright. How far I can hit a club and how far I should hit it are two different things.
The video only takes a couple of minutes and will be well worth your time. It and several more are posted on my YouTube Channel.
In this golf lesson. A Golf Magazine Top 100 Instructor, covers the most important skill in golf. It is a critical step towards developing a consistent golf swing and producing consistent results. This drill can really change your golf swing for the better.
The two best words for any amateur golfer have to be: More distance.
Mike
Rothera, director of golf instruction at Pinehills Golf Club, has a few
simple instructions for how to add those two buzz words to your
arsenal.
“Everybody is interested in getting that ball an extra 10 or 20 yards off the tee,” Rothera said.
The
first tip is to attempt to launch the ball at a higher angle. Rothera
likes to see a golfer set up with the ball a little forward in their
stance, meaning off the inside of the front foot. Secondly, Rothera
teaches golfers to tilt their body angle back to get a feeling that you
are behind the ball.
“What this is doing is it is getting a spine
angle that has more of a look of a reverse-K,” Rothera said. “You really
want to have a nice, stable base at the bottom.”
This will allow
you to hit up on the ball a little bit more. It’s good to rehearse that
in a practice swing before hitting your tee shot.
“What we are
really trying to do is rehearse swings that we are swinging up on the
ball a little more, swinging up and to the right a little bit more,”
Rothera said. “That should get the feeling that you are launching the
ball up into the air to that most amount of carry that you can get.”
Rothera
said these tips might help you produce a draw and increase the spin on
the ball when it hits the ground to give you a little more roll out. So
for the slicers, these are great tips to help cure that problem as well.
“When
you make your back swing make a nice shoulder turn and from here you are
just making a nice swing up and out to the right,” Rothera said.
I was taught at a very early age to take a full swing, as far as length of swing is concerned, and only hit the ball 150 yards. Once I could do this and hit the ball solidly I was allowed to increase the swing speed until I started to lose control of solid contact and direction. This drill will teach you how to swing within yourself and gain control of your golf shots. Dead solid contact at a slower swing speed will produce more distance and accuracy than a miss hit at a higher swing speed. You may hit the ball longer, but you will certainly hit the ball closer to your target.
It will be a little awkward at first, but I promise it is worth the effort to stick with it and anyone can master it. Taking time to learn this drill will improve your ball striking dramatically and enhance your ability to score better.
Everyone has the ability to do it. It’s like taking a full swing at the speed you would hit a pitch shot. I have used for years with my students and have seen the results it can produce. If you are serious about golf you owe it to yourself to give it a try. It could be game changing.
I did have a student ask why once, and I simply replied, “If you can’t hit it solid at a slow speed, how are you going to hit it solid at a fast speed”. I attached a video that does a great job of showing you what I’m talking about. I had a student come to me once and his first statement was “I have a short, quick back swing and there’s nothing I can do about I”. I asked him if he gave himself a black eye every time he scratched his nose. He said no so I told him there was hope.
There is no denying the technology has had an impact on golf
instruction.When I first started
teaching the state of the art was a Polaroid Graph-Check Sequence Camera that
was advertised as, All the photographer has to do is aim and shoot.The camera clicks off eight pictures in
sequence of 1/1000 of a second.It makes
possible photographic analysis of high-speed motion within seconds after the
event”. It sold for $395.00 in 1963 which in today’s dollars is $3050.00.You can do much better today with your cell
phone.
If you do want state of the art
today you can shell out $25,000.00 for Trackman which measures more than anyone
needs to know.
Now you can attend places like the PGA Center for Golf
Learning and Performance.They describe
themselves this way, “We utilize such technology as Foresight Performance
Simulator, SAM Puttlab, V1 Pro 2010 Motion Analysis and others to assist
players in learning new swinging motion and lower golf scores. In addition,
golf technology employ digital memory systems which store golf game data for
future review”.
We now have Biomechanics which produce terms like “Linear
Kinematic Sequence” which describes the proximal-to-distal sequencing of the
rotation speeds of the body segments.
We
also have the inverse dynamics approach, generalized motor program theory,
equilibrium point hypothesis and the optimal control approach.
The following video is a fairly accurate description of a
modern golf lesson:
If that is not enough we have Trackman which can provide you
with this type of wonderful insight:
For an explanation of the information shown you can go here
With all of this wonderful technology available to
instructors today it brings up a question that has been bothering me for some
time – “Why aren’t we getting any better”?
Part of the problem is that too many golf instructors are
focusing on too few players.Everybody
wants to teach potential tour players and what they need and how they learn is
totally different than what the average golfer needs. Taking lessons from someone
that teaches tour caliber players is a complete waste of time and money for
most people.
Of the players that keep an official handicap the data show
that there has been no significant change in the last twenty-five years and we
have a record number of people dropping out of the game citing that it is just
too difficult to learn.
If we really want to grow the game of golf maybe we should
question how we are teaching people.I
wonder what a simple return to the “KISS” principal would do.Maybe actually watch someone hit a golf ball
and watch the flight of the ball and then simply say “Here is the one thing
that you need to work on”.
Here is a group of videos from a Top 100 Instructor that I
promise you can understand and benefit from.
I am constantly checking out instruction videos on the web for really good content that I feel will help people. About 95+ percent of them are not worth watching. They are just somebody else claiming that they have the "secret" or some other BS or just somebody else doing a new video about an old topic that's been done 100 times before. One very rare occasions I run across something that is so good I can get excited about it. The video I have attached is one of those. This is a perfect example of "Old School Golf". A simple, elegant, explanation of a common problem that will help almost everyone. This is one of those. The thing that stunned me was that it came off the Golf Channel which I am not a particularly big fan of, but they got it right this time. Enjoy the video and I hope it helps.
