Great Golf

As a club pro, the 2 things I tried to teach my pupils were patience and my now well-documented mantra, “the harder I practice, the luckier I get.” Unfortunately, it’s easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than to get the average weekend golfer to practice. It is the hardest thing about being an instructor.

70% of all shots are played from 100 yards in and so you must practice your short game with that in mind.

All aspiring golfers have desired the same things: a reliable, repeatable swing; a fail-safe short game with a sure putting stroke; a bigger drive; and confidence. In short, we want consistency, touch, and power.

As we spent too much time trying to navigate through an endless maze of golf instruction, where there was far less good than bad and ugly material, we realize how convenient it would be if there was 1 book that included only the best lessons.

Hold the club more in the fingers than the palms.
Start by laying the club across the knuckle joint of the left forefinger.
Place the left thumb just to the right of center on the club.
Fold the right hand over the left thumb.
Let the little finger of the right hand ride on the first finger of the left.

The right hand is brought up so high that the palm of it covers over the left thumb, leaving very little of the latter to be seen. The first and second fingers of the right hand just reach round to the thumb of the left, and the third finger completes the overlapping processes, so that the club is held in the grip as if it were in a vice. The little finger of the right hand rides on the first finger of the left. The great advantage of this grip is that both hands feel and act like one.

My grip also differs from that of other golfers in that my right hand rides higher on the outside of my left hand. This enables the 2 hands to act as a single unit, thus imparting considerably more hand action and consequently more clubhead speed at the moment of impact.

Make sure that the right hand rides high on the left hand. The purpose of this, of course, is to mold the 2 hands together so that they can act as 1 unit and not 2. The greatest pressure in the right hand is ind the 2 middle fingers. That is because the club is well down in the fingers of the right hand with a lot of hand left over.

I grip the club firmly with all my fingers, but I feel pressure particularly in specific areas of each hand. In the left hand, these pressure points are the last 2 fingers and the pad or butt of the hand. In the right hand, the pressure points are my thumb and index finger.

Whatever style of grip you choose, keep it as natural as possible. I believe that for most golfers the most natural grip is one in which the back of the left hand and the palm of the right hand and the clubface are square to the target when the player takes his address position. I grip the club this way because I know that with it, if the rest of my swing is correct, the clubface will be square to the target at impact.

Don’t be mislead into thinking that big hands are essential for good golf. My hands are small and not particularly strong, but I still get reasonable power into my shots. I do so much more through leverage than hand action. I create the leverage through my arms and the club, as a result of proper body action and timing. My hands serve primarily as a connection, or hinge, between my arms and the club. As such, they transmit, rather than generate, power.

Especially if you have small hands, your left thumb can form a valuable anchor for your grip. Push the left thumb down the shaft as far as it will go — this is what the pros call a “long left thumb.” You’ll find this will firm up your grip and also increase your “feel” and comfort.

Hold the club firmly, but don’t squeeze it. I think of my grip pressure as “firm but passive.”

For a number of years during Ben Hogan’s prime and thereafter, many golf teachers taught the neutral grip — in which the Vs of the thumbs and forefingers point more or less toward the nose or right eye.

This was Hogan’s grip, and it was the right thing for him because he was always fighting a hook. In fact, most good players tend to be hookers. This neutral grip worked well for the good players and still does.

For players who are not good, the neutral grip encourages a slice.

The reason I wanted him to hit the carrots instead of golf balls is that he would have no expectation about hitting carrots, and so his mind would be free to concentrate on the grip and the swing. If we had put a golf ball in front of him, he would probably get tense.

The average player is better off using a stronger grip.
Make sure the Vs point to the right shoulder.
Practice hitting leaves, twigs — anything but a golf ball — until comfortable with a new grip.

I believe this is because of all the good modern players who have learned to combine the hands-and-arms swing of the strong grip with the big muscle swing of the neutral grip.

Breed advised golfers to make sure the left thumb is farther down the shaft than the first knuckle of the left index finger. If the knuckle is even with, or longer than, the tip of the left thumb, it means the golfer is holding the club too much in the palm.

The big hitting muscles are located in the back of the legs, shoulders, and in the middle back, and that’s one reason your weight shouldn’t be forward on the balls of your feet but back through the heels. When these muscles are in full play, your rear end sticks out. Another reason is that the force of the downswing may pull the body forward, throwing the clubhead into a shank or scuff position.

Footwork, balance, is everything to me because of my life-long theory that the more you minimize hand, wrist, and arm action, the better. I believe the body pivot launched by the feet is the big factor. Many golfers get too much wrist leverage into their shots, where I have as little as possible. If your pivot is good, a gradual speeding up of the clubhead as it nears the hitting area will follow without any forehand wham or rushing of the shot with the arms.

I almost always can predict when my 15-handicap friends are going to hit a good shot, because they will be set up well. Their posture will be good. Your posture virtually dictates how you will strike the ball.

Stand up straight, with your feet slightly wider than shoulders. Open — toe out — your right foot about 15 degrees and your left foot about 30 degree. This is so you can turn more away from the ball and back through it.
Bend from the waist. Now you have created a sound spine angle and can swing down at the ball. You will want to maintain this spine angle throughout the swing. It stabilize you and keeps your head from bobbing up and down.
Flex your knees and stick out your rear end. This final stage balances you and puts ballast in your swing. You should almost feel as though you’re sitting down. If you fall forward as you swing, you know that your butt isn’t sticking out enough. Stick it out until you feel a little tension in the small of your back.

Your weight will still be toward your toes, but not too much. You’re poised to move. Your lower body can work easier. You’ll be able to stay down on the ball, making contact. No good athlete gets his weight back on his heels. A fast runner is on the balls of his feet.

I’d rather see you put too much weight toward your toes than err toward your heels. If you’re back on your heels starting your swing, there’s no way you can turn your hips correctly. You’ll have to just lift the club with your arms and make a weak swing. You’ll straighten up and fall back. If you fall forward, at least you can swing your arms down the line with some speed. Your knees should be flexed enough that they are just about over your toes as you look down. Your legs will be flexible from that position.

There’s another positive result of flexing the knees and setting your weight on the balls of your feet. An active lower body keeps the head quiet. If your legs are stiff — if you have “cement” legs as I call them — and your weight is back toward your heels, your head is going to move way too much.

The most frequent setup mistake I see is standing too erect. I happens typically with people who are short or who have weak legs, or both.

At the other extreme, crouching and bending over too much results in a swing that’s too upright. About all you can do is stick your arms straight up in the air. The club wants to move too vertically instead of around the body. When you are bent over too much, you are apt to lift up coming into the ball and make poor contact.

It’s like spot-bowling. Instead of concentrating on a distant target (the pins), a bowler focuses on a close-in target (a spot on the lane).

I know there are some great golf minds that advocate one standard ball position, just inside or opposite the left heel — Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan for 2. But you have to be very athletic in your lower body to go down and get the ball. If it’s a bad lie, all the more reason to put the ball back in your stance. If you have trouble driving your legs and shifting your weight through the shot, you almost surely shouldn’t play everything off your left heel. Most older players fall into this category. I’ve heard that Hogan moved the ball back as he got older, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jack do it one day.

Concentrate on visualizing the shot — it frees the mind from mechanics.
Commit absolutely to the swing; waver and errors creep in.
View difficult shots as adventures to promote success and restore confidence.

If we have a tendency to slice the ball, we are apt to see the shot drifting from left to right; we may even see it running away from us across the green. If we take our golf seriously, we shall not feel satisfied, if we allow ourselves to yield to the inclination to play the shot in this way. We must resist and counteract the tendency by visualizing the shot as being held up firmly with even a suspicion of draw in order to strengthen our resolution. The club generally follows the inclination of the mind. We must positively see the ball flying as we wish it to, and the time will come when our technical ability will triumph over the weakness which previously would have mastered us.

The smaller your target, the straighter you are going to hit the ball. If a tree was on his target line, Ben Hogan would pick out a single leaf as an aiming point. Others pros, when talking about short putts, urge golfers to pick out a single blade of grass hanging over the cup.

Try to shut out everything around you. Develop your ability to think only of how and where you want to hit the shot you are playing. If something disturbs my concentration while I am lining up a shot I start all over again.

An ability to concentrate for long periods of time while exposed to all sort of distractions is invaluable in golf. Adopt the habit of concentrating to the exclusion of everything else while you are on the practice tee, and you will find that you are automatically following the same routine while playing a round in competition.

It is far easier to maintain a complete relaxation if one keeps continually in motion, never becoming still and set. It sounds far-fetched, but I have had a few players telling me that after taking great pains in addressing the ball, they have reached the point where they simply could not take the club back. It is a manner of freezing and is well known to tournament players as a form of the “yips.”

Having decided upon the club to use and the shot to play, I could see no reason for taking any more time in the address than was necessary to measure my distance from the ball and to line up the shot. The more I fiddle around arranging the position, the more I was beset by doubts which produced tension and strain.

One waggle was begun while the right foot moved back to its place. When the club returned to the ground behind the ball, there was a little forward twist of the hips and the backswing began. I felt most comfortable and played better golf when the entire movement was continuous. Whenever I hesitated or took a second waggle, I could look for trouble.

The shot he visualizes each time determines his exact setup, and that his mind refuses to let him swing until his setup is correct.

There are some good reasons for my being so methodical about my setup. I think it is the single most important maneuver in golf. It is the only aspect of the swing over which you have 100% conscious control. If you set up correctly, there’s a good chance you’ll hit a reasonable shot, even if you make a mediocre swing. If you set up incorrectly, you’ll hit a lousy shot even if you make the greatest swing in the world. Every time I try to deny the law by hurrying my setup, my subconscious rears up and beats me around the ears.

I feel that hitting specific shots — playing the ball to a certain place in a certain way — is 50% mental picture, 40% setup, and 10% swing. That’s why setting up takes me so long, why I have to be so deliberate. In competition I am not simply trying to hit a good shot, but rather the perfect shot for the particular situation. I frequently fail, of course, often because I’ve mentally pictured the wrong shot. But unless I can set up exactly right in relation to the shot I have pictured, I know I have no chance of executing it as planned. Therefore, I must get perfectly set before I can pull the trigger. My mind simply will not let me start the swing until I’m “right,” no matter how long it takes.

Use a methodical, deliberate, and unhurried setup for every shot.
Visualize a sharp, full-color picture of the perfect shot before hitting.
Remember: An incorrect setup always produces a lousy shot — even with a great swing.

I never hit a shot, even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie. First I “see” the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I “see” the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there’s a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality. Only at the end of this short, private, Hollywood spectacular do I select a club and step up to the ball.

The basic elements of a pre-shot routine are:

An assessment of the lie of your ball. Is it going to interfere with clean contact?
The selection of a target.
Accurate determination of the yardage between your ball and the target.
The selection of an intermediate target (from behind the ball) to aid in aiming the clubface.
The setting of your body into place (or alignment and posture).
A single key swing thought — for example, “Take the club away low and slow.” You should have only 1 swing thought as you prepare to play a shot.
A practice swing that matches the swing you would like to make when actually playing the shot.
A visualization of the shot as you expect it to fly. “Seeing” the shot before it is played is a hallmark of almost every great player.

If I don’t do my routine correctly, I’m aware of it because I’ve done it thousands and thousands of times. There’s an immediate feedback that says, “”Hey, this isn’t right!” At that point you should always step back and start over.

When my wife is watching me play, she says she knows exactly when I’m about to hit the ball because my last wiggle is always a little bigger than the others. I never come to a complete stop between that final wiggle and the start of my swing. I’ve always found that if I get to a point where I’m totally static — where I’m not moving at all — that the chances of my hitting a good shot are dramatically decreased.

If you watch any athlete who is good at something — someone shooting free throws or getting ready to steal a base — they’re always wiggling their hands or bouncing the ball or looking at the basket. They bend their knees, they breathe, they shrug their shoulders — they do something so that they don’t become totally frozen. I think it’s because it’s easier to get a big motion going if you already have a little motion going. I know I take the big waggle, make a little forward press with my hands, and away I go. It’s just my way of initiating my swing without coming to a dead stop.

He suggested learning about all 18 holes of a golf course before playing the first hole.

What precisely is the difference between a hit and a sweep or swing? The former is delivered with a jerk and with tightened muscles, and the latter is a motion whose speed is gained by gradual, not jerky, acceleration, with the muscles flexible. This does not in the least preclude the application of great strength and great effort to the swing; it only precludes their misapplication.

The upward swing should be slow and even, the downward swing even and swift. But though the upward swing should be slow, it should be a swing and not a lift.

The greatest force you can develop with a given amount of power is centrifugal in nature, that is, it is achieved by swinging. Even in the time of David and Goliath men realized the value of using a swinging action to develop maximum force.

Swing with the hands, and let the body respond to that motion.
Develop feel for the clubhead, imagining it’s a weight on the end of a string.
Keep the wrists flexible to insure rhythmic motion.
Think of the swing — felt through the fingers and hands — as a pendulum.

We do not feel our clubhead with our hands, we feel it with our bodies.

The thorax and biceps should become one in movement. But things do not work out this way because we do inherently — and in spite of ourselves — consider golf as being played with the arms. So we use our arms, ever so little it may be but enough to make us disconnected. Now this is a fine and most delicate point in which lies most of the difference between a good, a very good, and a superlative golfer. It is by the management of the arms that championships are won and lost.

For it is no use to have built up perfect connections to bring coordination to the whole body throughout the whole swing if we then break the connection at a vital point by allowing our arms to work independently of our chest and shoulders. They must be not independent but reactive. The body in the swing must be a unity.

I must remind you again, because it is fundamental to this book, that learning by a sense of feel is something quite different to learning by the intellect. Intellectual memory may be of use in learning golf, but it is never paramount. What is paramount is what I have called muscular memory, a memory for the right feeling of a movement which enables the muscles to repeat that movement time after time, without directions from brain or will.

Real power is generated from the ground up, through the legs and arms, and then transmitted to the clubhead by the hands. This is the way a fighter generates punch, and it is the way a golfer should generate distance. I suggest you erase the thought of the “wrist” from your mind and concentrate instead on using your hands.

I realized finally that the reason I was hooking was because the shaft didn’t have as much torque, but my hands were still opening and closing as much as ever — pronating and supinating are the technical terms for this. I was rolling the steel-shafted club closed too quickly, and this was causing me to hook the ball.

In the golf swing, release means the rotation of the hands, wrists, and forearms from their position on the backswing, back to a square position at impact, to their position on the follow-through. Some books spend a great deal of time talking about release… release will occur naturally when your hands and forearms are working in tandem.

You’ve also learned that the “softer” your hands, the faster they flip. Which begins to explain why tight grip pressure decreases, not increases, clubhead speed. Stiff hands and wrists are slow hands and wrists.

Your pivot motion provides 3 vital ingredients in your athletic swing:

A coiling and stretching effect where your torso is wound up and loaded like a spring ready to unwind.
A transfer of your body weight from one side to the other.
Consistent tempo or speed.

As proof of how important your body motion is, try hitting some balls when sitting on a stool, your feet off the ground. To hit the ball any distance is all but impossible because the only source of power is the swinging motion of your arms. Remember: the power base in every athletic golf swing is the turning motion of your body — your pivot.

Imagine a line drawn down the inside of your right shoulder, through your right hip joint and past the inner part of your right thigh into the ground. Now imagine the same line traveling down the left side of your body. These are the 2 axis points around which every athletic swinger rotates, back and through.

Rotating around your right axis point, then your left, will encourage what I call a “turning weight transfer” in both direction. Your body weight, from a fairly even start at address, moves to your right heel on your backswing and toward your left heel on your downswing.

Although your pivot motion should not include any pauses or breaks in motion, for the sake of clarity, I can describe it as 3 pieces:

Your backswing or pivot motion to the right.
The transition from backswing to downswing as the body changes direction.
Your downswing or pivot motion to the left.

The only way to cut down on errors made under stress is to concentrate. Isolate each step of your golf game so that every shot becomes a separate unit within itself. Then devote your entire mental process to the proper execution of that particular shot, with no thought of what the result may be. If you are utterly oblivious of what goes on about you, then you are concentrating correctly.

If you think “accelerate and follow-through” when you swing, then you are going to try to help momentum.

Believe me, momentum doesn’t need any help.

There’s a follow-through in the golf swing, but it’s caused by momentum, not a conscious effort. If you go into the golf swing thinking about accelerating at impact to create a big follow-through, you’ll undermine the principal of the pendulum-like swing, inevitably cause your muscles to tense up, and almost certainly disrupt the swing’s arc with the midpoint increase in effort, thereby reducing the likelihood of a square club face at impact.

What permits the 2 pendulums to work together is the combination of the weight in the clubhead, centrifugal force, the good old law of gravity — and the golfer. These pendulum supply about 80% of the distance in your golf shot — provided the swinging elements of your body drive the turning elements and not vice versa.

If your grip pressure is too tight, the weight at the end of the club is restricted from doing its job.

If you try consciously to turn your shoulders and shift your weight, you destroy the natural harmony of those 2 pendulums.

If you try to accelerate at impact and follow-through, well you know what happens there.

But if your posture is good, and your grip pressure — fingers secure, arms relaxed — is correct, you give those 2 pendulums a chance to work in harmony.

For many years the question of how long the ball remains on the head of the club after the impact has been written about and discussed. Science now answers that question. The ball is in contact with the clubface for a distance about equal to the width of the clubhead.

Dropping the arms too far below it, Hogan contended, would produce an overly flat swing and result in a vicious hook, while going too high — and “breaking” the glass — would result in a nasty slice.

Beginners sometimes think that the ball can be hit farther by swinging their arms faster, but this reduces the contribution that the back and shoulders can make, and the swing is denied power and direction. Similarly, if the downswing is rushed, the thigh muscles do not have time to work, and the tautness experienced at the top of the swing is dissipated.

If your shots tend to fade and slice, or you thin quite a few, then your leg action is too strong for your hand and arm action. You must concentrate on a stronger arm swing, practicing hitting balls with your feed together until the strike improves.

If your shots draw or hook, and you hit a lot of fat shots, then your leg action is not lively enough. You should put more emphasis on pulling with your left arm, and moving your left knee more emphatically from the top of the swing.

Timing is the sequence in which different parts of the body move. Tempo is the pace at which all this movement takes place, and has a direct bearing on the timing of the swing.

You may be surprised to find that, by swinging at what feels to be three-quarters of your normal pace, you have hit the balls farther than straighter. On the other hand, a slightly faster tempo may reveal that your control of the clubface is now good enough for you to put a little more speed into the swing.

What women lack in strength, they can compensate for with good timing and tempo. I have played many pro-ams with men who are usually quite surprised just how far I can hit the ball, with seemingly little effort.

Love takes his big club and tries to swing in “slow motion” — the way sprinters practice at half speed — aiming first at a target only 100 yards away on the range. Then he goes for 150, 200, and so forth. The drill instills the proper timing and tempo so that when the full tee shot is hit, it is unhurried and brings the clubhead squarely to the ball along the proper swing path.

Of course, you don’t swing every club on the same plane. As the club in your hand changes, so does the plane of your swing. The longer the shaft gets, the farther you have to stand from the ball, so the flatter your plane will be. For example, if you have a wedge in your hands, you want a little more of a descending blow so you will automatically stand closer to the ball and swing on a more upright plane than you would with a 5 iron. But your thoughts and your feelings don’t change. The length and lie of the club makes any changes for you.

Realizing that many golfers often hurry the start of the downswing, and thus botch their shots in a variety of ways, Armour was looking for an image that would force them to move more slowly into the transition from backswing to downswing. Whether there is actually a “pause” or not, the idea is to wait for the lower body to start the downswing, rather than using the hands first and thus coming over the top.

The upward swing is everything. If it is bad and faulty, the downward swing will be wrong, and the ball will not be properly driven. If it is perfect, there is a splendid prospect of a long and straight drive, carrying any hazard that may lie before the tee.

If we liken the backswing of a golf club to the extension of a coil spring, or the stretching of a rubber band, I think we shall not be very far off the mark. The greater the extension or stretching, the greater the force of the return. In the golf swing, every inch added to the backward windup, up to the limit at which the balance of the body can be easily maintained, represents additional stored energy available to increase the power of the downswing.

There is nothing in the straight left arm that, of itself, increases the power of the swing. It is a part of a sound method for those who are able to keep it straight, because it is the factor which definitely limits the arc of the backswing. Consequently, when the arm is straight, this arc is as wide as it can be made, and the swing can then be more easily repeated time after time in the same groove.

What will help most is complete relaxation. Timing and rhythm can make up a lot in power. By all means, swing the club freely, both backward and forward, and avoid the tightening a short backswing must produce.

The golf swing is, in principle, a continuous chain of actions. Like the component parts of the engine of an automobile, the component parts of the swing fuse together and work together in a purposeful sequence. As each component performs its part of the operation, it sets up the proper operation of the other components with which it is connected.

You want to turn the shoulders as far around as they’ll go. (Your head, of course, remains stationary.) When you have turned your shoulders all the way, your back should face squarely toward your target. Most golfers think that they make a full shoulder turn going back and they would challenge you if you claimed they didn’t, but the truth is that few golfers really complete their shoulder turn. They stop turning when the shoulders are about halfway around; then, in order to get the clubhead all the way back, they break the left arm. This is really a false backswing. It isn’t any backswing at all. A golfer can’t have control of the club or start down into the ball with any power or speed unless his left arm is straight to begin with. When he bends is left arm, he actually performs only a half swing, and he forfeits half his potential power. More than this, he then is led into making many exhausting extra movements that accomplish nothing for him.

An excellent way to check that you are making a full shoulder turn is this: when you finish your backswing, your chin should be hitting against the top of your left shoulder.

Jack Nicklaus, 22, is the best golfer in the world, and he means to improve. That, in brief, is what sets him apart from the other giants of the game, and perhaps from the giants of most other games also. He first picked up a golf club when he was 10 and for the past 22 years has been laboring over his game, in the flesh by day and in the mind by night. He is certainly the most cerebral since Ben Hogan. And he is the coolest, the least fooled, analyst of his own game since Robert Tyre Jones.

“The golf swing for me is a source of never-ending fascination. On the one hand, the swings of all the outstanding golfers are decidedly individual but, on the other, the champions all execute approximately the same moves at the critical stages of the swing. There is still a lot about the swing we don’t know and probably never will. In any event, scarcely a day goes by when I don’t find myself thinking about the golf swing.”

That means that until your hands are waist high, you maintain the triangle formed by your arms and shoulders at address. It helps to think about taking the club back low and slow.

Many amateurs straighten or even lock the right knee immediately as they start their backswing. That causes their hips and shoulders to turn at the same amount, so they aren’t building any coil for power. They end up throwing the club over the top to get back to the ball, which further reduces power and leads to slices or pulls.

Instead, maintain the flex of your right knee throughout the swing. This encourages the shoulders to turn more than the hips, storing power. On the downswing you’ll be more on plane and can release the club later for a more powerful hit.

The chief thing to bear in mind about the downswing is that there must be no attempt to hit the ball, which must be simply swept from the tee and carried forward in the even and rapid swing of the club.

The left arm should be straight, nearing, and at the point of contact with the clubhead and the ball. But if one tries to keep the left arm too straight at the top of the swing, one will find that it is very tense and rigid; therefore, this arm should be slightly bent, to feel relaxed, but also feel “all powerful.” The left wrist should be cocked or bent under the shaft. The right arm should be in a position somewhat resembling that of a waiter carrying a tray.

Imagine the clubhead flying toward the hole.

While the left wrist and forearm should feel the power and control of the club, the initial effort at the beginning of the downward swing is caused by the necessity of getting the body, or the “right side” out of the way, so that the arms and club may have a free and uninterrupted passage on the way to the ball. The body action is a lateral motion of the hips, often referred to as the forward shift, and has laid the foundation for the now well-known axiom of golf — “hitting against the left side.”

After the ball has been hit, the great thing to bear in mind is to keep the clubhead traveling toward the hole. That is why I have stressed that great care and effort should be made to keep the left arm in front as long as possible.

There’s a simple way of knowing whether you are coiling properly during your backswing. Try to hold your top-of-the-swing position for 10 seconds. If you’ve really coiled the spring, you’ll find this, if not impossible, certainly a considerable muscular strain.

You will also find that the need to “unwind” is a reflex action. As your shoulders reach the limit of their turn, the opposing force in your resisting legs and hips will already be winning the battle. Almost before your shoulders have reached the limit of their turn in one direction, the lower half of your body will have started to pull in the opposite direction. This is what is meant by “starting the downswing with the legs and hips,” a recommendation made by nearly every golf author and modern teacher of the game.

This natural reflex action, the result of opposing forces acting upon each other irresistibly, is the start of the downswing.

In a good swing, the downswing begins before the backswing finishes. This change of direction, this victory of one force over an opposing force is a crossroads equal in magnitude to starting the club away from the ball. The clash of opposing forces must take place if the golfer is to get his maximum power into the shot. But it can only take place if he has wound up properly in the backswing. In the backswing, the top half of the body has been turning, the lower half resisting, as the arms swing up. In the downswing the lower half turns while the top half resists and the arms swing down.

As I’ve stressed, all of this — subject to a proper wind-up — is largely a reflex action. You can hardly prevent it from happening if you’ve coiled properly. But the real trick is not in the lower-body action. It lies in the action of the top half, the torso and the head.

Throughout the downswing, the head must remain back; pretty much where it was at address and during the backswing, behind the ball. And the upper torso, notably the shoulders, must resist the pull of the lower half of the body until the arms have swung down. This is the key to power, the natural cause of the “late hit,” which so many golfers have sought so long in vain.

In all of the great swing I have studied, there is no evidence of a “stop” and “start” that together reverse the direction of the club from backswing to downswing. Instead, I see a smooth, flowing transition. In fine golf swings, the last thing to change direction at the top is the clubhead. This, of course, makes perfect sense, because all the centrifugal and centripetal force we apply in the swing is designed to do nothing else but load the clubhead with energy and deliver it down the proper path.

In the transition, your arms and hands are passive. The first move is backward and down. The clubhead sinks lower as your hips start to unwind. Your hands and wrists respond immediately to the reversal of direction. Your right elbow automatically drops to the proper slot by your right side. There is a sense that the hands free-fall down to the delivery position.

I can say without bragging that for 16 months, anyway, I could play golf as well as anybody, ever. For that period I was furious if I hit a mid- or short-iron more than 5 feet off line. I looked at that kind of miss — and we’re talking birdie-range if my yardage was right — as a failure.

I’m not saying you’re going to develop that level of confidence with your irons. But, if you become a student of impact, not only will you be able to understand why your shots do what they do, but you’ll be able to take control and make the ball do what you want it to do.

If you can master impact, you can control and shape your shots. However, if you make a tiny mistake and your clubhead is left open as it hits the ball, even just a hair, you could slice the ball 20y wide of your target. That’s how important impact is. In fact, a small but crucial difference in clubface position at impact is exactly what separates total hackers from the best players in the world. I’ve heard people say that golf is a game of inches, but when it comes to contact, it is a game of fractions of fractions of inches.

Every bad player does the opposite — usually because he or she isn’t convinced that the loft on the club is enough to get the ball airborne. Once you try to scoop the shot into the air with the club by rotating that right palm under and up toward the sky, at best you’re going to hit a high, weak shot. In fact, most of the worst swing problems beginners have, from reversing pivoting to coming over the top, create more loft. With that right palm upward, not only does the club have more loft, but the face is flared open, causing even more of a left-to-right curve.

The beauty of golf is that players who aren’t blessed with great power can best their more crowd-pleasing, long-hitting adversaries. You can do it with pinpoint pitches and chips, skilled bunker play, and accurate putting.

Until Gene Sarazen debuted the sand wedge in 1932, some regarded landing “on the beach” as a near calamity.

There must be absolutely no lateral movement of the hips away from the hole, or as it is termed, swaying. This unsettles the center, or base, of one’s swing in a class of strokes wherein one should confidently strive for as much accuracy as in putting.

The one point that I would like to impress upon golfers playing the chip shot is the fact that it is nothing more than a long putt. If the player will bring himself to realize this really important fact it will simplify the play greatly and create a mental condition that will reduce the tension that seems to be a handicap of the amateur golfer.

The most common fault that I have observed is that the player stands too far away from the ball, and the feet are usually too far apart. This fault makes the result of the stroke very uncertain as control of the wrist is lost. The proper method is for the player to stand as close to the ball as he can with comfort and freedom — without feeling cramped. Both arms should be tucked close to the side; the forearms and wrists only are used in swinging the club. The swing should simulate that of the putt. With the idea of a putt in mind, and by following the principles of the putt, the irritating and annoying habit of stubbing the ground is not likely to occur.

This last point — that the ball be hit a descending blow — is perhaps the most important element in any of the approach shots, for only this motion will give it the backspin that means control, which is an absolute necessity at short distances from the green.

Most star players tell their readers how they easily can apply spin to the ball, but forget that for handicap golfers this is a highly advanced technique.

In my opinion, learning how to pitch the ball is the most difficult lesson for a golfer. Because you must learn how to hit the ball with an abbreviated or less-than-full swing. You must feel how far to hit the ball, and feel is the most elusive part of golf.

Almost all golfers practice nothing but a full swing. Very few practice the short, 40y pitch shot. A full swing is easier to master, since the golfer is usually repeating the same swing for each club to make the ball go the maximum distance with that particular club. But to hit the ball less than maximum distance with a particular club, you must shorten the swing yet still hit the ball firmly.

2 common faulty setup positions are:

Standing too tall, which means the upper body doesn’t hang over enough. The upper body then must either dip on the backswing or turn too horizontally, forcing the arms and club to swing too flatly around the body. Both of these swings result in poor balance and poor timing, causing inconsistency.
The knees are too straight and the body slumps over the ball, forcing too much weight onto the toes. In this position you must rely on perfect hand-eye coordination for consistent shotmaking. With straight, unflexed knees you cannot transfer the weight properly during the swing.

Many high-handicap players swing with little or no weight transfer. Therefore they have to take the club back too far in the effort to produce the same clubhead speed they could produce with a proper weight transfer and shorter swing. If you have a problem over-swinging, first check your weight transfer. Then trying swinging the club back shorter and accelerating it more firmly through the ball.

Think of the pitch as an underarm toss of the ball.

When watching Tiger set up to play a 40-60y wedge under normal conditions of lie and weather I have noticed that he’s very careful not to position the ball well back in the stance. This is because he knows that such a position promotes a steep backswing action, sharp descending hit, and a shot that spin back. Tiger’s priority is to hit the ball all the way to the hole and have it come down so softly you would think it was attached to a miniature parachute. Therefore, he plays the ball closer to his left heel than to the midpoint of his stance. He sets his hands even with the ball or slightly behind it. Ultimately, Tiger wants to come into impact with the clubface going nicely under the ball, not digging into the turf, so he is careful not to set his hands well ahead of the ball, which takes bounce off the wedge.

The wonderful thing about Tiger’s backswing action is that it’s relaxed, with the wrists hinging freely. It’s very different from his full-power swing in which he has a late wrist set. There is no effort on his part to make one-piece takeaway — that is, with the club straight back along the target line, low to the ground, and directed by the triangle formed by the shoulders and arms. Many high handicappers make this mistake, thinking all shots require this type of one-piece action.

If you are lying badly, you have no option in the matter; the ball must be dug out, and the method employed is called the explosion shot. If the ball is lying well, you can either play an explosion or take the ball cleanly.

If the sand is very light and loose, you can afford to take plenty of it, and you also can hit your hardest. If it is heavy and wet, there is no need to hit so hard or to take so much sand. To play any of these shots you must remember above all things that the head and body must be kept absolutely motionless; in other words, the body may pivot but must not move laterally.

You stand fairly open with the ball about opposite the left heel, and you play the stroke as a slice. That is to say, you aim to the left of the hole, and in taking the club back you take it away from the body. Your forward swing is across your body, and you will finish your stroke with the club well to the left of the line.

The great thing to remember in bunker play, and in all golf for that matter, is always to play the easy shot; do not try to play the difficult and spectacular shot; you will only look ridiculous and your remorse will be 10 times greater if you fail to get the ball in play.

The sand trap shot is — and should be — the easiest shot in the bag.

There is more room for error in this shot than in any other. You can hit a half inch, an inch, or even 2 inches behind the ball and still be all right. With other shots, that margin of error would result in a bad shot.

I can’t advise gambling for the average player. The odds are too much against him. In at least 90% of the cases, the explosion is the surest, safest, and best way out of sand.

And — with the sand iron — the easiest.

Open the clubface first, then take the grip.
Wiggle the feet into the sand, establishing a firm stance.
Trust the loft of the club, freeing the mind to focus on the proper swing moves.
Aim for a spot in the sand 1-2 inches behind the ball — not at the ball.
Don’t be afraid to hit hard.

Your clubface hits first the sand and then the ball. The sand acts as a cushion. Actually the force of the blow drives the sand against the ball, and the pressure pops it out onto the green.

For this reason don’t be afraid to hit it too hard. The sand will deaden most of the force and leave just enough to toss the ball out onto the green.

He makes his error in failing to have confidence in his club. The sand iron is designed to get the ball out of the sand. It has the heavy flange to keep from being buried. It has a big clubface to give you plenty of hitting surface. It has a lot of loft to get the ball into the air. Everything is built into the club.

Danny the Duffer, however, doesn’t trust his club. He wants to help get the ball into the air. He scoops at the ball. As a result the club either digs into the sand or he tops the ball. And it is still in the sand trap.

Trust your club to do the job. For yourself, simply concentrate on swinging it properly.

Preparation for a bunker shot starts immediately after you walk into the trap, for you must quickly decide whether the sand is hard, wet, or soft, because a slightly different technique is required in each case.

For the normal bunker shot, i.e. soft sand, the feet are comfortably close together and the stance is opened fairly wide, the left foot drawn about 8 inches back of the right. With the clubface slightly open at address, the club is taken back outside the line of flight to the hole. This is one of the few occasions this happens in the swing and will result in you hitting from outside to in, across the ball.

This action would normally cause a slice, but in this case it helps the clubhead cut through the sand.

For bunkers close into the green, the club must enter the sand 2 inches behind the ball, so the club is held in that position at address. Do not watch the ball. Watch the spot of impact, which in case is the sand. In bunkers 20y from the green, hit one inch behind the ball. Farther out than that you can hit the ball cleanly.

The most important aspect of the swing is that it must be firm throughout. If you hold back, or quit on the shot as the American say, you have little chance of making a good stroke.

The most difficult lie in a bunker is when the ball rests in the bunker face. Here the tendency is to sky the ball by hitting too far behind it. In this position hit only 1 inch behind the ball and apply more force to counteract the height which is bound to result. It is difficult to follow through fully on an up-slope, but try and swing normally.

If sand in a bunker is wet or hard, the clubhead will skid in the first instance and bounce in the second. Play this shot more softly than the others, for the tendency here is to be too strong. Still hit 2 inches behind the ball.

Advanced players should try to hole every bunker shot.
High handicappers should just focus on getting it out.

One last word to handicap players. Make sure you get out of the sand at your first attempt, even if you do knock the ball over the back of the green to start with. When you are out, at least you might have a chance to chip close to the hole, or even putt. If you stay in the sand, the chances are you will be rattled and will still hit a bad shot at your 2nd attempt anyway.

The clubface should be open to your stance line, which is pointing to the left of your target, but the face should be pointing at your target. Then swing the club back along your stance line, a little to the outside of your target line and on an upright plane.

The finish is critically important. Do not let the club stop in the sand, because if you do the ball will stop there too. A good rule of thumb is to make your follow-through as long as your backswing.

If you have a sharp leading edge, which was the case with the pre-1930s sand wedge and every other iron club in your bag today, the clubhead tends to dig into the sand rather than slide through it. And from a decent lie that’s definitely not what you want.

Bunker play becomes 10 times easier if you stick to a few basic principles at address and 100 times more difficult if you ignore them. The bounce effect on your sand wedge works best when the clubface is open — there’s absolutely no way that clubface can dig too deep into the sand if it stays open. You have to open the clubface at address so that it actually faces right of the flag. It’s important that you open the clubface first and then form your grip, which should be a little weaker than normal. If you grip it first and then open the face, it’ll return to square at impact and cause you problems with heigh and accuracy.

Open your stance, too. That means your shoulder, hips, and toes need to be aiming, say, 30ft left of the target. Spread your weight pretty evenly on both feet and, as you look down at your grip, I want you to check that you hands are level and with the ball, maybe even a fraction behind it. Finally, ease the pressure on your grip approximately 20% to ensure a nice, sensitive hold on the club. Now you’re in good shape.

The actual tempo of your swing and the pace at which you accelerate the clubhead through the sand should feel pretty much the same every time. That’s a far more reliable method than trying to hit harder or softer from identical length swings.

When there isn’t much green to work with, I adapt my technique slightly to produce a higher, softer trajectory with virtually no run on the ball. I also use my 60-degree rather than my 56-degree sand wedge. Maximum loft for maximum height.

Putting, that his consistently good putting, is perhaps the most difficult part of the game and calls for the highest degree of skill and the nicest kind of judgment both as regards accuracy and strength.

In respect to accuracy, it is imperative that you should act upon some well-defined principles. Proceed first by taking a glance back of the ball toward the hole, and trace the line over which it must pass, noting for subsequent guidance a particular blade of grass on this imaginary line. Take your stance and square the face of the putter at perfect right angers to the blade of grass you have picked out by resting it immediately in front of the ball.

Pick an immediate target, and square the putter blade to it.
Take the putter straight back, and then straight through the ball.
Don’t look up until the ball is well on its way to the hole.

There are 4 important factors in putting, aside from grip and stance:

Countour of the green.
Texture or grain.
Lining up the putt.
Swinging the clubhead to get over-spin on the ball.

Some people may be born putters, but serious thoughtful practice will go a long way toward improving any golfer’s play on the greens.

Obviously, the more the “bank” or “tilt” of the green, the more the allowance for the alteration in the roll of the ball from a true, normal, straight path. As you play, experience will be your teacher. You will also find that for a long while you will tend to underestimate the amount of effect a banked slope will have on your ball.

Never leave a putt short — to the high, or “pro side,” of the hole.
Most golfers underestimate the break — add 25%.
Hone the skill of reading borrow and break on the practice green.

In golf, as in other areas of life, the phrase “the easy way out” comes into play. Many golfers chose to hope or spend money in an attempt to buy improvement rather than have to read, practice, or learn how to improve. But putting does not succumb to such desires or offers of cash. Rather, just to make things interesting, the game throws in a number of unknown and unknowable factors that make success a statistical uncertainty.

The world’s best putters (the golfers on the PGA Tour) make only about half of all their putts from 6ft away; however, if they were on perfect and known surfaces, their strokes are so good they would hole approximately 90% of these same putts.

Pelz emphasizes simplicity when it comes to putting. “The simpler and easier the stroke is to execute, the more precisely and repetitively you’ll be able to execute it, especially under pressure.”

For most golfers to improve their scores, it is often easier to reduce their number of 3-putts than it is to increase their number of 1-putts.

This means that you shouldn’t practice only short putts; the long ones are also important. And you must stop 3-putting those long ones if you want to be a good putter.

People who want to know about the mechanical nature of putting are putting the cart before the horse. Putting is primarily about feel and visualization.

Rather than look away in frustration or anger after missing the putt, he studied how the ball broke after passing the hole. That gave him the read, and the confidence, to make the next putt coming back.

Master the fundamentals — golf is not a “natural game.”
Keep a steady head and eye position to avoid topping the ball.
Avoid anxiously trying to get down to the ball — it causes fat shots and shanking.
Don’t try to help the ball up — doing so is one of golf’s cardinal sins.

There are many reasons for a slice but there’s only 1 way how it’s done, and that’s by bringing the clubhead across the ball — outside in — and giving it a right-way spin.

Of the ways to slice, the No.1 enemy is getting the right side into the shot too quickly. You generally do this because you sway on the backswing, rather than pivoting around on your hip.

Both the loss of hand control and the straying elbow are generally the result of (a) rushing the backswing and (b) not waiting for the downswing. Hand in glove with a rushed swing is a tendency to lunge at the ball — to drive it 15 miles. This causes you to leave your hips out of the shot entirely, so that it is the arms, and not the clubhead, that are swinging at the ball. My advice, then, is to practice coming back extra-slow — all in one piece… then unwind, keeping the right shoulder behind the shot, and let the clubhead come through the ball.

Take the club back extra slowly — all in one piece — and then let the hips unwind.
Weaken the grip slightly to prevent a hook.
Hit down into the ball to avoid topping it.

On the fairway, many golfers have a tendency to try and lift the ball into the air, and in doing so, they lift their body on the downswing as though their arms were going to pick the ball up and send it away. But the only way to get a ball in the air is to hit down into it. The loft of the club, plus the down-and-through motion of the downswing, gets the ball in the air and makes it impossible to top it.

The first essential for the consistent slicer is to square his shoulders to the target line at address. Often this will give him the feeling that he is closed — aiming right of target. But it is imperative that he gets his shoulders square, and he will usually only do this if at first he feels closed in his upper-body alignment.

Another vital factor for the inveterate slicer is head position at address. Most slicers set their heads too far to the left — over or even in front of the ball — which forces them into the open shouldered, open-bladed setup that guarantees a slice. They should observe how the very good golfer always sets his head behind the ball, and looks into the back of it — the bit he wants to hit.

We cannot get away from the fact that golf is basically a matter of grip and setup. If you set yourself so that you must swing across the ball with an open clubface, you are doomed to slice — no other shot is possible.

The slicer is the supreme example. The ball goes to the right, and the more it does, the more he sets himself to the left — shoulders open, head in front of the ball, and, worst of all, a slicer’s weak grip. Eventually he gets to the stage where the only thing he can possibly do is produce feeble banana shots from far left to far right.

Thus, the slicer’s first task must always be to get himself into a square address position — shoulders, hips, knees, and feet parallel to the target line, or even slightly “inside” it. This will enable him to grip the club in a way that will let him swing the clubface through the ball looking at the target.

Good players come to me and say they are hooking. I ask them to do so. They hit a few shots, and, true enough, they ball goes to the left. But in many cases it does not “bend” to the left. It flies straight to the left, or starts left and then goes more left. These shots are not hooks. They are pulls and pulled hooks. And the important thing is that they do not stem from the sort of action that produces a genuine hook. They stem, indeed, from the very opposite, from a slicer’s action, an out-to-in swing. All they lack is the slicer’s open clubface at impact.

If you top shots, your swing is too steep.

Ask golfers what causes a topped shot and most will immediately say “head up.” Usually they are wrong. Even if you anchored their heads in cement, a great many poor players would still manage to top the ball quite effectively because the fault is not in their superstructure, it is built into their games by faulty swing patterns.

At address on every golf shot, the radius of the swing — the measurement from player to ball — is established by the unit of the left arm and the club, held in a more-or-less straight line. In the early part of the backswing this radius is maintained by the “one-piece” (no independent movements) combination of arm swing and shoulder turn. But at some point in the action, where we cock our wrists, the radius obviously decreases. If, then, in hitting the ball, the wrists do not uncock sufficiently to reestablish the radius of the swing at impact — reestablishing the left arm and club as a straight-line unit — the ball is likely to be topped, at at least hit “thin.” Among fairly competent players this is the commonest cause of topping.

Fluffing is hitting the ground behind the ball, or hitting shots “fat.” There are 2 common causes of this depressing disease.

Among both good and indifferent golfers alike, it can often be caused by nothing more complicated than bad posture at address, leading to loss of balance during the swing.

The most common cause of fluffing among reasonably accomplished golfers is poor coordination of body and hand action in the downswing. It is the opposite of a topper’s problem — a tendency to hit too early with the hands and wrists, before the hips have cleared a way for them to swing past the body and out toward the target.

As most slicers are prone to topping, so most hookers are liable to fluff occasional shots. What happens is that the fluffer lengthens his swing radius by letting the clubhead catch up with and pass his hands before they have arrived back at the ball.

Many women fear hitting the ground for 2 reasons: it will hurt or it will make a mess. It should not hurt unless you are “death-gripping” the club, and it is okay to make a mess, also known as a divot.

Our tennis players must specifically watch this. In tennis you must swing up to get the ball into the air, because the tennis racket has no loft. In golf we must get the club down to the ground to get the ball into the air.

The angle at which the clubhead comes into the golf ball is the angle at which the ball will come off the clubhead.

We all tend to repeat our mistakes, so keep a small notebook of your problems with your golf and what you and your professional do to correct the particular problem. If that particular problem resurfaces, you can refer back to your notebook and correct your problem quicker. If we learn from our mistakes, they are worth making.

There are many lady players who are as good as the best so long as they keep down the middle and on the fairway, but when they are called upon to recover from the rough, or play from difficulties, their weaknesses are disclosed.

When the ball is lying in the rough, the player is inclined to overestimate the difficulty of the shot. Instead of trying to get as far as possible many players are quite content to find the fairway. This may be a wise precaution under certain circumstances, but playing for safety does not tend to improve one’s form.

Use anything from a 3 wood to a wedge in the rough, depending on the lie.
Don’t ground the club when the ball is sitting up in the rough.
Swing with the slope on a downhill lie.
Take an extra club for uphill lies.
Play for a slice when the ball is below the feet.
Choke down on the club when the ball is above.
Grip down and abbreviate the follow-through to keep the ball low in the wind.

When playing against the wind a low ball is essential and the well-hit ball will not be seriously affected.

Playing out of the rough, the only shot in golf where gripping the club tightly is a good idea. The deeper the grass, the tighter the grip. A tight grip keeps the club from twisting and closing in the cabbage.

The choice of clubs, particularly on long shots, changes a great deal in rainy weather. It should be dictated by the lie, the ground to be covered ahead, and the condition of the turf underfoot. Bear in mind that a golf ball will fly, or float higher in the air, when hit off wet turf. This happens because the ball sits up more, and a wet face gives the ball more up-spin. Because of this it is bound to carry much farther in the air from soft ground. In such going, a club with more loft than would be used from a dry lie should be used.

The important thing is to make sure to keep the ball airborne. With turf conditions aiding you, you can get as much distance with the more lofted 4 as with a 2 iron in dry weather. And a 6 iron will fly the ball as far as a 5 iron from unsoaked turf.

Use less club in the rain — a shot off wet turf will fly longer and higher.
Fire at the flag when the green is damp.
Putt firmly; the ball will roll better and truer, but also slower.

Harry Vardon used to carry 1 left-handed club in his bag just for such rescue shots, but modern golfers will want to carry an extra wedge, which they are more likely to need on today’s courses.

I like to draw the ball, or hit it slightly from the right to left, for the majority of the shots I play. I think the draw is a stronger, more aggressive shot, and it’s the swing and the ball flight I feel most comfortable with.

There are times, however, when I need to fade the ball, or hit it slightly from left to right. For one thing, a fade will not run as far as a draw because it doesn’t have as much over-spin. This makes it a better shot if you are trying to drive the ball into a narrow fairway landing area. It’s also a better shot to hit to a tight pin placement because it will stop more quickly on the green.

To draw the ball, or hit it from right to left, I want to make sure that I hit the ball with the clubhead moving from inside the target line, to square at impact, to back inside the target line.

The best way I know to ensure this inside swing path is to address the ball with a slightly closed stance. I address the ball with a square stance and then simply drop my right foot back off the target line. In other words, my feet point to the right of the target. By doing this, I make it possible to strike the ball from the inside, and give it a right-to-left spin.

How to slice: To cut the ball, I align my body left of target and aim the clubface at the target, then swing to the left along my stance line.

How to hook: I align my body to the right of the target, aim the clubface at the target, and swing out to the right.

How to hit low: It is a matter of ball position. I move the ball back in my stance. Moving the ball back reduces the effective loft of the club.

How to hit high: Move the ball forward in my stance.

Play the ball an inch or so closer to the body on high and low shots.
Don’t change the grip except for exaggerated slices and hooks.
Set the left thumb straight down the grip for a big slice, but more under for a hook.
Use a basic chipping stroke for the bump and run.
Aim to land the ball on a flat spot, avoiding side-slopes at all costs.
Don’t try the bump and run in lush, long grass. It’s ideal for dry, firm conditions.