Joe,
I have a bad habit of swinging from the top. You can imagine all the ugly things that can happen. Speed is somewhat important at the bottom of the swing so I go at it from the top. What can I do to get rid of this swing habit??
Thanks
Jarry, J. A. Roessler
Hi Jarry,
Yes, speed is important, but only at the point of impact. At that point clubhead speed is the sum of arm speed and wrist speed. If you allow your wrists to break too soon, the only speed left at impact is arm speed and you have robbed your overall swing of the wrist contribution. You must delay your wrist action until the last possible instant before impact. To illustrate this, take a ping pong paddle and ball, and hit the ball with arm speed and no wrist action. Then do the same thing with no arm action and all wrist action. Then do it with both and you should get the idea. Watch the slow motion replays of the pros on TV and you will see this is exactly how they do it.
Joe
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
I have a question for Joe:
A couple of days ago, while playing the front nine, I pulled seven or eight shots and hit three or four of them fat. An unusually bad evening for a guy who has shot as low as a 37 on this nine. A couple of these mis-hits were a combination of a pull and a fat shot. Something has crept into my game, and I have a strong feeling that the pulls and the "fats" are rooted in the same cause. If pulls and fat shots have been addressed simultaneously before, I certainly have not seen or heard of it. I'm guessing a problem at address, but it's just that -- a guess. Your thoughts on this? Until a couple of years ago, we used to play golf here on an all-sand course, hitting all our shots (except putts) off a piece of Astroturf that we carried around with us.Thanks a lot.
Garth Jahraus
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Hello Garth,
A pull is caused by the path of the club going from outside the target line to inside at impact. Since this is an incorrect swing path, it could also cause inconsistency in ball striking, so in that sense they could be related to fat shots, but not necessarily. Fat shots can also occur when your club is correctly on the target line, but your head is not steady enough. It is OK if your head moves sideways a little bit, but not up and down. Jack Nicklaus had an instructor who held the back of his hair to keep his head steady while he swung, and since Jack had a pretty good career, I would go along with that advice. That should take care of fat shots. For your pulled shots, you are going to have to try to swing more inside out. You can get a better feel for this by doing the double clubber drill, which allows you to view your swing path more clearly, since the extra weight slows you swing down enough for you to view it. I hope this helps.
Joe
A couple of days ago, while playing the front nine, I pulled seven or eight shots and hit three or four of them fat. An unusually bad evening for a guy who has shot as low as a 37 on this nine. A couple of these mis-hits were a combination of a pull and a fat shot. Something has crept into my game, and I have a strong feeling that the pulls and the "fats" are rooted in the same cause. If pulls and fat shots have been addressed simultaneously before, I certainly have not seen or heard of it. I'm guessing a problem at address, but it's just that -- a guess. Your thoughts on this? Until a couple of years ago, we used to play golf here on an all-sand course, hitting all our shots (except putts) off a piece of Astroturf that we carried around with us.Thanks a lot.
Garth Jahraus
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Hello Garth,
A pull is caused by the path of the club going from outside the target line to inside at impact. Since this is an incorrect swing path, it could also cause inconsistency in ball striking, so in that sense they could be related to fat shots, but not necessarily. Fat shots can also occur when your club is correctly on the target line, but your head is not steady enough. It is OK if your head moves sideways a little bit, but not up and down. Jack Nicklaus had an instructor who held the back of his hair to keep his head steady while he swung, and since Jack had a pretty good career, I would go along with that advice. That should take care of fat shots. For your pulled shots, you are going to have to try to swing more inside out. You can get a better feel for this by doing the double clubber drill, which allows you to view your swing path more clearly, since the extra weight slows you swing down enough for you to view it. I hope this helps.
Joe
