Dispelling Myths
Dispelling Myths
Today I would like to explore some of the myths or things I believe hurt peoples golf swings and their ability to hit the ball. These things have been taught for years and are still being widely used.
Keep your head down- This is probably the most hurtful piece of advice I see when I am teaching. We want to maintain our spine angle but this has nothing to do with the head. Keeping your head down sometimes gets people to bend their neck which really hinders ones ability to move. Also when people think they have to keep their head down they sometime actually move it down during the back swing which means they must move it up in the up during the down swing. This can cause all sorts of problems.
Keep your eye on the ball- This sort of goes hand and hand with the first point. The golf swing happens so fast and you can never see the club hit the ball unless it is a short shot so keeping your eye on the ball again creates too much stress and tension. Many blind people play this game. George Knudson, one of Canada’s great players once shot 67 at Glen Abbey with his eyes closed. Annika Sorenstam, one of the best ever woman golfers, is looking at the target when she hits the ball. These are just some of the examples that it is not necessary to keep your eye on the ball.
Don’t swing to fast- I have rarely met a person who swings to fast. The faster you swing the further you ball will go. There are more fast swings on the pro tour than slow swings. Many people believe they swing to fast when they hit poor shots but usually something is out of position so their body is trying to correct it so they feel this jerky swing which they feel must have been too fast.. As long as balance is maintained swing fast does not hurt you it only helps you.
Keep your lead arm straight- Trying to keep your lead arm straight only produces tension. We want the arm to extend but we accomplish this by letting it swing. If we try and keep it straight then we actually use the muscles need to bend it. The more tension we have in the swing the more jerky our swing will be. The lead are should be allowed to straighten by letting it go and also the lead wrist should be allowed to go flat and this can be helped by the Wrist Rite product found at www.kikogolf.com.
I will be talking about different myths over the course of the season and feel free to challenge me on some of them.
