While every golfer has a picture in mind of the perfect golf swing, for most golfers, this picture is of a Tour player, and the image focuses on what the Tour player’s body is doing.
What you really need to do is blow this snapshot up, and focus in on how the player’s clubface looks at impact.
Most golf instruction is based upon what professional players do, but it also makes assumptions. By teaching a recreational golfer the advanced techniques of how a Tour player moves his body, it is assumed the recreational golfer already knows how to use the clubface. That is a big, and, in most cases, mistaken assumption.
At the OB Sports Golf Academy, we do not make such assumptions. We make sure every one of our students goes through Golf 101 by teaching them how to square the clubface properly through wrist hinge and forearm rotation. This is the only place to start, since the majority of golfers slice their balls, and the only thing directly responsible for a slice is an open clubface.
Once a student is able to competently use the clubface to make consistent and square contact with the golf ball, we then incorporate the bigger muscles of the body to add width to the swing and distance to the shot. But without Golf 101, your swing will be building upon a faulty foundation.
Tour players are exceptionally talented golfers, and their swings are the products of an extreme amount of hard work and dedication. For the most part, however, they are finished products. For a recreational golfer to try to imitate the things a Tour player does is actually more likely to make the recreational golfer worse. If improvement is really what you are after, back up and get first things first, Golf 101!
For more information on the OB Sports Golf Academy at Longbow Golf Club in Mesa, go to www.obsportsgolfacademy.com, or call Director of Instruction Jeff Fisher at (480) 414-9330, or Director of Player Development Stacie Bryan at (480) 772-2767.