Instruction

The three personalities you need on the golf course

Published

11 years ago

Sep 11, 2013

If you’re here reading this article, you’re not happy with your golf game. There is one or many flaws in your ability to control the golf ball.

Well, I’m here, not with a technique tip or a clue to help you hit a shot that you need to add to your repertoire of go to strikes. Rather, I’m here to help you maximize your entire game by exploring this simple truth: To be the best golfer that you can be, you need to have three personalities.

I know that may be daunting to many of you — especially those of us who already have too many voices in our head. But stay with me. These three personalities, when trained correctly and able to execute their roles will give you the ability to take and stay in control of your golf game like never before.

So who are these three personalities? They are The Scientist, The Set-Up Guy and The Athlete. Let’s take a closer look at each personality and begin to understand what their role is in helping you maximize your game.

The Scientist

The Scientist: Tiger Woods has changed his swing three times since he joined the PGA Tour, under instructors Butch Harmon, Hank Haney and current swing guru Sean Foley.

The Scientist is the gatherer and analyzer of data. He is the personality who wants to understand the mechanics of the golf swing, how a golf ball curves, how different lies on the course affect the golf ball, how wind, rain and other elements will affect the golf ball, etc. He is NOT the guy you want trying to hit your biggest drive of the day. His life has been spent studying, analyzing and providing solutions to problems. He wants to help The Athlete improve the frequency of his ability to excel by improving his technique.

The Athlete

Dustin Johnson is known as one of the most athletic golfers on the PGA Tour. His 6-foot 4-inch athletic frame allows him to generate an average clubhead speed of 122 mph (with a driver), fifth on the PGA Tour in 2013.

The Athlete is the personality who knows instinctively how to perform and excel in the physical arena. He is the personality, no matter what form of exercise or game he is thrown into, who reacts and performs without thought and excels. He is the guy you want hitting your largest drive of the day. He is not the guy you want involved in breaking down the deficiencies of your swing mechanics. The Athlete understands that the deficiencies in his technique make him fallible. He needs the advice and expertise of The Scientist to ensure he succeeds more frequently.

The Set-Up Guy

PGA Tour Hall of Famer Vijay Singh is known for his long practice sessions after rounds, which often include drills to help him ingrain his desired swing mechanics. Photo Courtesy of Stephanie Wei (weiunderpar.com)

The Set-Up Guy is the translator between the Scientist and the Athlete. Take a quick trip down memory lane to your grade school or high school years. The geeks and the athletes rarely interacted with each other. They had different social skills and interests. Due to these differences, their “language” was different. They did not communicate well as two different groups on a whole, but there were always a few students in the school who could interact with both groups with ease. This student is the model for The Set-Up Personality — the guy who helps The Scientist prepare The Athlete’s technique to be as efficient as possible, while still ensuring The Athlete performs instinctively and excels in his arena.

So how do these personalities interact with each other to ensure the best possible performance? I am going to give you one example that needs to be practiced and perfected on the driving range first, and then transferred to the golf course after you are comfortable with the new skill set.

It comes down to needing three swings, or one swing per personality. The first swing is the Scientist’s swing. It is a practice swing, where the Scientist is trying to remind and imprint the perfect skill set to make The Athlete’s technique more efficient. This swing should have very specific characteristics defined to help The Set-Up Guy “translate” that information into his personality’s swing.

The second swing is the Set-Up Guy’s swing. It is another practice swing, but rather being performed under strict, specific guidelines, it is being executed with the feeling of the more proper and efficient technique. The Set-Up Guy can take as many swings as he wants to “dumb it down,” or translate it to an understandable feeling for The Athlete to perform without thought. A very efficient way to make it more understandable is by attaching The Athlete’s preferred rhythm to the correct mechanical feeling.

The final swing is The Athlete’s Swing. His job remains the same: To execute his swing, instinctively and without thought and excel. But, he’s had the benefit of being prepared by The Scientist, who is doing his best to make the athlete’s technique more technically sound. He has also benefited from The Set-Up Guy’s translation services, who has managed to make all the technical aspects of his improved technique understandable by giving The Athlete the proper “feeling” of a good technique with rhythm.

So there you have it. I encourage you to spend some time analyzing which personality needs the most development in your golf game. If you’re only The Athlete, you need The Scientist to help you understand why the same, inefficient, feeling swing can produce such different results. If you’re only The Scientist, you need The Athlete to help you execute the athletic event without thought. Make sure to take advantage of The Set-Up Guy. He’s the only one who can make The Scientist and The Athlete understand each other and perform their tasks to the best of their abilities.

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Instruction

Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?

Published

23 hours ago

Apr 24, 2024

Shawn Clement

Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!

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Instruction

The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

Published

4 weeks ago

Mar 29, 2024

Terry Koehler

My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.

As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.

The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.

Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:

Mis-aligned hands

By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

The position of the grip in the upper/left hand

I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.

To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.

Too much lower (right) hand on the club

It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.

Gripping too tightly

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.

So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

Published

2 months ago

Mar 4, 2024

Shawn Clement

Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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