swing tips

Times Have Changed!

Dan Hernandez, PGA, , , , , , Leave a comment

I recieved my 2014/2015 TOUR Credential a couple of weeks ago. (yes – it’s STILL very cool to have one of these.)  I received my first credential in 2001, then continued working on TOUR in 2002.  Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced those credentials but, as you can see, 2003 is here for your observation.

2003PGA-Credential 2015 Credential 2I’m bringing this up because:

Those of us who are fortunate enough to work with the best players in the world ARE NO LONGER REFERRED TO AS INSTRUCTORS.  

WE ARE NOW PLAYER SUPPORT…

Although not within the cadre of all players, many players have a veritable entourage of “specialists.”  It is not uncommon for a player to enlist professional assistance from sports-psychologists, strength and flexibility trainers, life-coaches, and even nutritionists.

Additionally, when it comes to the the actual action of golf, it isn’t unusual for players to employ a full swing coach, a short game coach, a putting coach, etc.  I personally and professionaly hope that an “8-iron coach” is not waiting in the wings!

Call me old school if you want – BUT – what’s happened in golf is a bit of a travesty. Players like Bubba, Henrik, Gainey, Cabrera, Jimenez and yes – even Fred Couples – are few and far between.

Bubba does whatever he wants to and there is no way he’ll have a “lesson” anytime soon.   Does that mean he hasn’t learned anything form other players?  Probably not.  I’m sure Bubba has heard a thing or two, which he translates into Bubba-Like understanding/implementation. He then just moves on.  He has his own way.

(btw, Bubba read the back-side of my business card a while back and he said “..that’s really cool.”)

A young, un-trusting TOUR player tends to have “rabbit ears”  that are almost impossible to shut down.  No matter the skill-level, what a player hears and where it comes from needs to “register” to them completely.  For example, “keep your head down” is full of ambiguity! What does that actually mean and what does that have to do with the shot you want to hit?

Competitive golf has no place for uncertainty. A player needs to know that what they do by instinct is very likely to work out OK.

In my view, if a player needs to have an entourage as I’ve been describing, that player is suffering from nothing more than a lack of confidence!  That player does not TRUST their intuition, their athletic instinct or even the most basic ways they think about golf!  And yes, I’ll even include TW as a player with “installed” confidence – rather than “natural” confidence.

If you shoot 92 – i.e. a 20 handicap more-or-less, all of this applies to you too! You just gotta’ use your head, prioritize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.  If your brain is working properly and you can make a realistic appraisal of your game, you could shoot 85! Seriously, you could shoot 85!

I don’t know what ever happened to that commercial, that was on a while back – the one where Arnie was encouraging everyone to “…do your own swing.”   For me, that was some of the very best advice I’ve ever heard!  I was hoping there would be more installments to that campaign but haven’t heard a peep since.  What a shame.

If you want to learn more about how YOU CAN PLAY YOUR BEST GOLF, click here and let’s hang out and have some fun!!!!

Times Have Changed!

Myths and Facts

Dan Hernandez, PGA, , , 1 Comment

Lots of teachers have addressed a few of the common swing myths, including me.  The things that players perceive as absolutes is astounding!  Dennis Clark has done as good a job in describing the Big Three as anyone.  Getting past these myths can be very difficult for players and even some teachers.  OK readers, go ahead and click the link below and let the controversy begin!  Thank you Dennis for your article.

3 golf swing “myths” that can hurt your game – GolfWRX.

Myths and Facts

Attaining Perfection

Dan Hernandez, PGA, , , 2 Comments

Searching for it; working on it; dialing it in; figuring it out.  I do it, you do it.  It’s never-ending isn’t it? Looking for a way to make the magic continue is our quest.  “I want to be more consistent”  is what I’ve heard most from students when I ask them what they want to accomplish – except for maybe,  “If I could hit my driver farther I know I’d have a lower score”  (my tongue is in my cheek on that one.)

There are players who believe that mastering a certain thing – or group of things – will lead them to perfection.  What a load of hooey!  In its most severe scenarios, perfectionism and golf will create a downward spiral so vicious that a player becomes totally lost in the black abyss and can’t find their way back – ever.  Some players even quit the game because they just can’t accept realistic success percentages.  Depending on your outlook, playing golf is a nightmare waiting to happen or an immersive experience that brings together an exciting series of emotional and physical delights.

Only golfers who truly understand how the game works can be called players of the game.  True players of the game enjoy everything about it – the ebb and flow of the game and the ups and downs of physical/mechanical performance.  True players of the game exist at every skill level.  I know some 15 handicaps who are players and I know some professional golfers who are not.  The real difference is being able to accept how the game works and enjoy EVERYTHING the game offers – including going back to basics in order to sort out problems.

No player in history has understood this better than Jack Nicklaus.  Here is an excerpt from the introduction of his book,  “Play Better Golf”   Jack Nicklaus with Ken Bowden, Pocket Books, New York, N.Y. 1983.  Highlighted text is mine and for your consideration.

“One of the most frustrating – and fascinating – things about golf is its impermanence.  One day you “have it” and the next you don’t. This is true of every element of the game from driving the ball to holing it out.  The number one reason why no golfer can stay at his or her peak indefinitely is that human beings aren’t machines. Our ability to exactly repeat a certain set of actions is limited, and thus our abilities as shot-makers are bound to fluctuate, This is compounded by the tendency, present in all of us, to eventually overdo or exaggerate whatever we have found to be successful. In terms of the golf swing this tendency often creeps up on us subconsciously, but it is none the less destructive for that. And, when it has done its dirty work, reality has to be faced: if we want once more to play up to our maximum potential, the rebuilding or returning process must begin all over again.“

Jack Nicklaus was clearly a true player. He knew what was possible and fully accepted the terms and conditions of the game.  He was humble in his approach and understanding.  He truly enjoyed EVERYTHING  the game had to offer.

Searching for it; working on it; dialing it in; figuring it out.  We all do it and it’s OK to work on stuff.  But, along the way we have to know that perfection is unattainable. We have to know when we’ve over-cooked something and lost our way.  And we have to know how to get back home.

Attaining Perfection

Tip of the Week

Dan Hernandez, PGA, , , Leave a comment

Before I direct you to the tip here is a little background:

“Jack Nicklause’s Playing Lessons” is my all time favorite book. I used it extensively and it helped me understand how to play tournament golf.  I even went back to the lessons when I was struggling to pass my PGA Playing Ability Test (PAT).

There is nothing mechanical in the book, just lessons on how to play, how to think, and how to stay in the game.  In researching this week’s tip I somehow stumbled across Jack’s book on Amazon. Turns out that the book is now a collector’s item with a top price of $160!  Darn……my copy disappeared long ago – loaned to someone or lost in a move.  Especially troubling because my copy had Jack’s autograph in it – which I got because I took the thing to the L. A. Open one year – probably 1982 – and asked him to sign it for me.

I bring all this up this week because I found a wonderful site that reminded me so much of Jack’s book – Greg Norman’s Golf Tips.   On Greg’s site he has combined an excellent set of mechanical and non-mechanical tips – much like in Jack’s book. There are 100 “Instant Lessons” with drawings and a very brief description of each lesson.  There is additional content there as well from Norman’s golf manual called “Shark Attack!”

I wasn’t able to review all of the lessons but I did look at quite a number of them and didn’t find anything objectionable.  I was even pleased to see one about aiming the club-face first and another having to do with high targets. Both of these are common points during my own lessons that I have been teaching for a very long time.  OK, finally – click on the link below and I hope you find the information useful! Let me know if you have questions or comments.

http://www.shark.com/sharkwatch/instruction/

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Golf Tip of the Week

Dan Hernandez, PGA, , Leave a comment

There are a few ways to hold a golf club.  When you click on the link below you’ll be taked to a really simple presentation on how to place your hands on the club.  I particularly like the 6th tab probably because I want almost all beginners to hold the club that way.  Naturally I see a few things in the article that I don’t completely agree with but  anyone following the general presentation will do fine.

There is no perfect grip for everyone and the way you end up holding it will eventually become a style preference. That said, the most critical component is:

1.  The hands work best when the palms are generally facing each other. In my first book I referred to this idea as a “NON-FIGHTING”  position.

2. Look for “gaps and spaces” in your grip during all phases of your swing – of course you can only do this in slow motion or in real time using a high speed camera.

If you have any questions about any part of your game, come and visit me at the Valencia Country Club driving range.

BBC SPORT | Golf | Skills | Need some help with your grip?

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Tip of the Week

Dan Hernandez, PGA, , , , , , 1 Comment

I was stunned recently when a junior golfer I was with didn’t know who Jack Nicklaus is. I did, in a loving and professional way, slightly admonish his Dad who was standing nearby. So, this weeks golf tip is for the youngsters who need to know and for everybody else who wants to hear some really great tips.

Jack Nicklaus – Golf Channel 12 Days of Instruction 2010 – YouTube.

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Golf Tip of the Week – Driving

Dan Hernandez, PGA, , , 3 Comments

I know lots of people don’t like to read stuff about how to golf. I also know that a picture is worth a thousand words – BUT – Harry Vardon (Google him) had some very interesting things to say about driving the ball and hitting fairway shots – two areas where so many golfers get stuck, obsessed, and even angry!  Vardon thought that driving the ball and was among the EASIEST shots in golf.  Stick with the read – it just  might free you up on the tee.  (Highlighted text is mine.) 

220px-HarryVardonThis section is from the book “How To Play Golf“, by Harry Vardon,  1912. Also available from Amazon:How To Play Golf.

Chapter V. How To Drive

THE easiest strokes in golf are, I think, shots from the tee with a brassie and from the fairway with an iron. Therefore I would suggest to the beginner, or to the person who is almost resigned to mediocrity, that he should settle down at once to the task of mastering those shots. They are not difficult; but they are impossible unless the player knows how to swing the club properly. The golf swing is different from anything else in sport. It deserves to be called an art. There is only one way of executing it correctly. At least, that is true of its fundamental features. From time to time one hears and reads of various kinds of swings. Years ago, for instance, the talk was all of the St Andrews swing. That swing consists of sweeping the club round the legs until the arms will allow it to go no farther without moving the body, and then bringing the implement back in order to be able to raise it comfortably. To all intents and purposes, it is a matter of going out of the way and having to return to the right track. When the upward swing is three-quarters completed, the adept at the St Andrews method is on the same track as any other proficient golfer at the corresponding stage of the ordinary swing. The latter has simply gone straight to the point, while the devotee of the St Andrews style has taken a round-about route. Sometimes one hears of a good player having a “flat swing.” I venture to say that if the swing is correct, it cannot be “flat.” Again, the expression means that the player starts on a track which he must abandon. A person who never soars above a half-swing may certainly make it a “flat” one, but he will not often be a good golfer.

I do not suggest that the afore-mentioned variations in the early part of the full swing are necessarily fatal. What I do say is that they are useless, and that, from three-quarters to the top, and thence to the moment of impact, there is only one proper course for the club-head to follow, and that all accomplished players follow it. It requires a genius to start on the wrong track and get on to the right one.

There are people who declare that the perfect way to learn golf is to learn it backwards. That is to say, they advocate a scheme whereby the beginner practises putting for a start, and works his way by a kind of inverted curriculum – the mashie, then the iron, then the cleek– until he studies the full swing with wooden clubs. At first blush, the idea may seem to have something to recommend it. For one thing, it is novel, and a novelty generally possesses a degree of charm. What, however, contributes most to the plausibility of this plan is the fact that the player is taught to hit the ball farther and farther and make his swing longer and longer. There is an appearance of logicality about the notion of beginning in a small way and gradually rising to the glory of long hitting.

A little reflection, however, will show that such reasoning is a delusion where the study of golf is concerned. If the short shots were easier than the long ones, it would be all right, but it so happens that approaching is about the most difficult part of the game. As for learning to putt first, I should imagine that anybody would become heartily sick of the business before he had half completed it. I do not know when a person can be said to have learnt putting. There are certain points well worth studying in connexion with it, but there is no infallible prescription for making the ball go into the hole every time – or even every other time. I wish I could discover one. In connexion with the full swing, there are golden rules which can be learnt, and the practice of which will produce success. And it is best, I think, to begin with shots for the practice of which there exist plenty of data.

Therefore, let the neophyte, or the player who fears that he is an incurably bad golfer, resolve to master first of all the way of executing a shot off the tee with his brassie. This is the easiest full shot in the realm of golf, and the accomplishment of it always affords a thrill of pleasure and encouragement.

Moreover, once he has made himself proficient at it, the knowledge thus acquired will be a considerable help to him in playing the more difficult strokes. I suggest a brassie rather than a driver, because the former, having a slight loft on it, generates the greater amount of confidence. Moreover, as it is the less whippy of these two wooden clubs, it is the simpler to control. The methods of making a shot from the tee and a shot from a good lie on the course are – or should be – identical. The skilled golfer often employs his driver with great effect when the ball lies on the fairway, although, in such circumstances, it is perhaps a little the more difficult club to wield satisfactorily. The beginner cannot do better than seize upon the easiest stroke of all, which is the brassie shot from the tee. Once he is master of it, he will find the driver joyous to use. The two clubs being of the same length (it is important to see that they do not vary in this respect), the driver will be much the same in his hands as the club with which he has been practising. The troublesomeness of its straight face, which at the outset might have been considerable, will be unrecognized now that he feels sure of hitting the ball, and, what is equally important, he will have made a friend of the brassie. The latter is often regarded as the hardest club to use on the fairway. That perhaps is only natural. On the tee, the ball sits up temptingly, entreating a strong blow. On the turf, it seems to be sitting down, and there arises the necessity of picking it up cleanly, and, at the same time, hitting it with all the neatness and power that were inspired by the sight of its shining face raised clear of the ground. Therefore, the player is in every respect well advised in getting on good terms at once with his brassie. Let him have a low tee (the lower, within reason, the better) and, in due course, the driver will present no trouble to him, and the brassie, when he takes it for a shot through the green, will be an old friend. For, as I have already said, the methods of using the two clubs should, under favourable conditions, be exactly the same. When the lie is unfavourable there are certain variations which can be explained later.

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Golf Tip of the Week – Keeping it Real

Dan Hernandez, PGA, , , 1 Comment

Jim Flick passed away in November of 2012. He was one of golf’s most respected and honored teachers.  Flick thought that the majority of amateurs should be simply trying to swing the club with their arms and hands and allow the body to support that simple motion.  Ernest Jones (Google him) thought much the same way.  He also thought that being more engaged with the target than the ball was a better way for most of us to play the game. Sadly, this thinking is not very popular today and the reasons why can’t be addressed in today’s post. I will however, present an expanded article in the next few weeks on this subject. In the meantime, please give careful consideration to Jim Flick’s article below.  I’m not certain, but I believe it was his last posting for Golf Digest.  I’ve highlighted the points that are the most interesting.

Practice To Play

Stop thinking mechanically and become more confident on the course 

Jim Flick
Illustration by Dan Page
November 2012

I hear this all the time from average golfers and even struggling tour players: “I hit the ball great on the range, but I’m a different golfer on the course. I don’t have the confidence to make the same swing when I know a bad shot will get me in trouble.”

Confidence comes from controlling the ball, but how do you go from hitting solid and accurate shots on the range to producing those same shots on the course? It’s helpful to understand the four stages of becoming a confident player:

  • First, you are unconsciously incompetent. You have no idea what to do in your swing or how to get there. This is the stage in which you learn the basics of the swing.
  • Second, you are consciously incompetent. You know what you want to do with your swing, but you can’t do it. You use drills prescribed by your teacher. It’s helpful to place rods or clubs on the ground to set up a “learning station” to check your alignment.
  • Third, you are consciously competent. On the range, you hit balls to perfect your swing, but you have to think mechanically to make the shot happen. Because you’re using verbal cues and thinking of positions, you often lose your tempo and rhythm.
  • Fourth, you are unconsciously competent. The best golfers compete in this stage. On the course they think about the conditions, select the right club, and play shots from point A to point B by focusing on the target. They no longer think about positions but feel how to use the club to create shots.

So how do you get from the first stage to the fourth? As Jack Nicklaus once told me, “I practice mechanics and play by feel.” Remember that practicing and warming up are two different things. When good players practice, they break the swing down into mechanical parts and then put those parts together to control the clubhead–and the ball. This is the only time these players think about swing mechanics. When they warm up before a round, they forget mechanics and rehearse hitting shots to various targets, creating playing situations. Seve Ballesteros would “play” entire holes before his round: Replicating a par 5, he’d hit a driver, then a 4-iron layup then a wedge approach. When he got to the first tee, he felt he’d already played a few holes and was in the rhythm of the round.

A strong picture can override a flaw in your swing to produce a playable shot. On the range, practice visualizing the entire shot, the ball curving in the direction you want, then landing where you intend and rolling to your target.Use the same visual technique when you hit real shots on the course. You’ll be on your way to playing your best golf ever.

FLICK, a Golf Digest Teaching Professional, is based at the TaylorMade Learning Center, in Carlsbad, Calif.

Dan’s additional comment: In the end, trying to make a golf ball go where you want is a physical activity not a mental exercise. There is a visual-neurological process happening that is more biological than it is in-swing processed mechanics. A common name for all of this?  Hand-eye coordination.  Swinging a club and striking a round piece of plastic can be as simple or as complicated as you like. I think simple as possible is best but I see most golfers making it as difficult as possible. What do you think?

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Golf Tip of the Week

Dan Hernandez, PGA, 1 Comment

So I’m sitting around thinking, which is particularly bad for me. I’m thinking about my golf tips, stories, advice, lesson content, etc. It occurs to me that not many people really care too much about the opinions and wonderings of Dan Hernandez, Golf Instructor.  After all, I’m not on TV, I don’t have any best selling videos, books and I don’t have a zillion video posts on You Tube.

Now before you go assuming that Dan is in the middle of a low self-esteem period understand this: I KNOW I’ve helped a lot of people understand more about the game and play better golf. That is a good thing. I know too that there are people who think my approach to teaching is way outside  the box.  Some even think I’m crazy.  So be it.

While I’m writing this post, it seems as if Johnny Miller is staring at me. It seems that he’s trying to tell me something. I’m not sure what his picture is saying to me. Johnny Miller is controversial and believes passionately in his views. He owns what he says and no one will make him change his mind.  Hmmm. I am controversial and I know it.  My views on teaching golf do not fit in the ancient doctrines of head down, left arm straight, make a shoulder turn, blah, blah, blah. I also don’t care about not doing “normal” golf instruction and I’m not going to change.  Normal golf lessons don’t normally work anyway. As a matter of fact, I’m gonna’ dig in deeper and just keep going for it and just keep learning.  To do otherwise would just be flat wrong.

There is a a lot of good stuff on the internet and on TV. I just think you have to be careful about what you’re looking at or what you’re reading.  So, from now on, I’m going to do the hunting for you and find the stuff that I like the best.  In Miller’s article below, I’ve highlighted my most favorite parts and put in some Dan notes where I think you should use caution. Enjoy!

10 Rules for Sticking Your Irons 

maar01_miller

With Guy Yocom
Photo By Joey Terrill
January 2009

01 Play more than you practice.
Shortly after I turned 14, in 1961, I became the first junior member (whose father was not a member) at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. Playing Olympic day in and day out made me the good iron player I turned out to be.You never seem to get a level lie at Olympic. You’re required to hit a lot of awkward shots, such as playing a fade with the ball above your feet. You can’t work on shots like that on the practice tee, which is why I always played more than I practiced. A lot of things I learned on Olympic defied conventional teaching. For example, from a sidehill lie with the ball below you, the tendency is to pull it dead left—not slice it, as most instructors say—because you straighten your right arm to reach the ball, and you swing over the top. Don’t be one of those driving-range superstars: players who can make their irons sing on the practice tee but are only so-so on the course. Get out and play.

02 Don’t fall in love on demo day.
In 1974, I got a set of old Tommy Armour irons with no chrome on them. These dull-gray clubs had a soft feel to them that was just exquisite. The irons were 25 years old, but after I sawed down the hosels and added some lead tape here and there, they were like magic. I got on the hottest streak of my career. I won eight times on the PGA Tour in 1974, knocking down flags every week. The following year I signed an equipment contract and had to put the Tommy Armours in the garage. Big mistake. No matter what I did, I couldn’t make the new clubs perform like the old ones. If you’ve got a set of irons you really like, think twice before switching to a new set. There are a lot of great new irons out there, and you might fall in love with how well you hit them on demo day.But when you get on the course and face funny lies and try to hit shots, like a high draw or a low fade, you might find they’re completely different.

03 Listen to your shots.
In the winters when I was a kid, my dad had me practice in the basement of our house. I’d hit balls for hours into a canvas tarp tacked to the ceiling.Because I couldn’t see the ball flight, I relied on two kinds of feedback: how the shots felt and how they sounded. Thin shots, balls struck on the toe, and shots hit a shade fat have distinctive sounds. You’re always looking for that crisp thwack at impact. Even from the TV booth, I can usually tell immediately if an iron shot is mis-hit and if it will come up short or not have enough spin to hold. Sound can definitely give you clues as to how well you hit the shot.

04 Distance trumps direction.
If you’ve ever wondered what magic threshold you must cross to become a first-rate player, it’s simple: You must control distance with your irons. I’ve always been obsessed with distance control. When I felt my iron game was at its peak, I’d sometimes ask my caddie for the distance to half a yard. You control distance by hitting the ball solidly and varying the length and speed of your swing. If you do that well, you become more precise, which rubs off on your direction, too. The week I won the 1974 Tucson Open, I hit hole or the flagstick 10 times.

05 Get down on it at impact.  
I’m a swing-sequence junkie. I love poring over sequence photos of the best players. The feature all great iron players have in common is that their heads are lower at impact than when they were standing tall at address. They really go down after the ball, not by bending at the hips or dropping their head but by increasing the flex in their knees. They sag their knees down and toward the target at the same time, moving on a downward diagonal line. Now, you’d think this would make you hit the ball fat. But if you lean the club forward, toward the target, so that the shaft is angled ahead of the left arm, you’ll absolutely pure it. Which leads to the next rule. (Dan Note: Most players are going to have trouble understanding this concept (#8) and even more trouble trying to physically do it. What Miller is describing in words is something that a player has a feeling – or sensation – for.  If you’re gonna’ go for this it must be something that you learn to feel – You CAN NOT mechanize yourself into this position.)

06 Keep the angle in your right wrist.
Through impact, the hands lead a trailing clubhead. That delofts the clubface and makes it possible to hit down on the ball and squash it against the face. If you’ve ever wondered how good iron players make their shots bore through the air, this is it. Every effective iron player maintains the semi-cocked position in the right wrist through impact, the right palm facing down. Every bad ball-striker has the palm up. As I said only half-jokingly on a telecast last summer, if you want to be a terrible iron player and avoid getting to single digits, just flip that right wrist so the clubhead scoops and passes your hands.

07 Don’t sweat every detail.
Because iron play is all about precision, there’s a tendency to focus on details that are irrelevant or uncontrollable. For instance, a slightly wet clubface won’t affect distance. And you can’t predict how a small glob of mud on your ball will influence ball flight, so don’t stress about it. A light breeze won’t affect distance much if you hit the ball solidly. Concentrate on things that matter: alignment, rhythm and solid contact. Perform those well, and the small things won’t really come into play.

08 “Photograph” impact.
During one of my nice streaks in the mid- 1970s, Jack Nicklaus stopped me on the range one day and asked what I was working on. I told him I was concentrating on impact, trying to “freeze frame” that fraction of a second.“You can actually see that?” asked Jack. When I told him I could after months of training my eyes to take a “photograph” of impact, Jack said, “You’re crazy; the club is moving too fast.” But, as I said to him, it’s not only possible, it’s one of my secrets for hitting great iron shots. When I took the picture, so to speak, I checked that the clubface was square and delofted slightly, and that I was making crisp contact. Satisfy those impact conditions, and you’ll start chasing flags.

09 Identify the sweet spot on your irons.
I’ll bet that if you asked the typical 15-handicapper to point to the sweet spot, he’d point to a spot too high on the face. Remember, all perimeter-weighted irons have the majority of their mass around the sole of the club, to help you get the ball in the air. That means the sweet spot is below the center of the face. This really comes into play on par 3s, where you’re allowed to tee up.Your objective should be to tee the ball so your “lie” is slightly better than a perfect fairway lie. And even with perimeter weighting, because of the design of the clubhead, the sweet spot is going to be slightly closer to the hosel than the toe.

10 Speed kills.
I can see wanting 10 more yards with the driver, but squeezing extra distance out of your irons is the kiss of death. In my prime, my standard distance for the 9-iron was 125 yards. I hit my 6-iron 160, and my 4-iron 185. I didn’t want to be long with my irons, only smooth. Reining in my swing speed was key to distance control and accuracy. If you can resist the tendency to swing more than 75 percent, you’ll have better balance and rhythm. Your mechanics will be better, and you’ll find the sweet spot more often. You don’t need a crazy swing speed to spin the ball, either: Pure backspin comes from good contact more than anything else.

 

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How to Learn a Golf Swing

Dan Hernandez, PGA, Leave a comment

Here are the things a player needs to do to learn how to swing a golf club:

FIRST MONTH
How to hold the club in your hands so your hands do not fight each other
How the design of the equipment dictates how it is to be used
How to stand at the ball so you can swing in a way that fits your body style, flexibility, strength
How to aim at a target based on how you see the target
How to learn what an entire swinging motion feels like physically – from beginning to end
How to practice the swinging motion as an entire thing, not as a bunch of parts

SECOND MONTH
How to KNOW where the ground is on the way down to the ball and on the way up from the ball
How to learn the relationship between your hands and the clubface
How to learn that YOU are physically in control of the clubface
How you can make adjustments and make the ball do different things

THIRD MONTH
Learn how to become aware of physical sensations when you hit golf balls
Learn to know where the golf club is at all times during the swing (google proprioception)
Learn how the hands and arms are used for speed
Learn how your lower body, from feet to hips, are used for stability

Let me know if you have any questions.

—-Dan Hernandez, PGA

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