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Think the golf swing should be easy? Think again. The best golfers in the world often make it look that way, but the golf swing is a ballistic movement that requires athleticism, rhythm, speed, mobility, stability, timing, and perhaps a little luck.

So, for the golfer looking to improve, what’s the most important of all of them? Answer: none! All of those things require balance, which is the foundation of building a better golf swing.

Creating good balance in your golf swing is an absolute must if you want to hit the ball solidly and consistently. If your body doesn’t have the ability to work around a stable platform while moving in the golf swing, however, you’re at a disadvantage. Without stability, you not only lose your ability to transfer energy efficiently through your body, but your body will be strained. That can lead to injury.

Golfers who lack stability, and ultimately balance, often struggle with swaying in their backswing. A “sway” is when a golfer’s hips move out over their trail foot in the backswing, often causing a reverse spine angle. To prevent the hips from swaying in the backswing, golfers needs to create stability in the trail leg as they turn the hips back and load into the trail glute.

Below is a video that demonstrates a simple exercise that uses a hill to help you create better stability in your golf swing, while at the same time helping you to maintain good dynamic balance so that you can make a more efficient golf swing.

Using hills is an amazing way for your mind to intuitively help your body swing the club more efficiently. Hills can offer great feedback so that you can rapidly make the necessary adjustments to create the stability needed to maintain balance while making a golf swing. With this drill, you will also learn to swing the club on a plane that’s not too steep (you’ll bury the club in the hill) or too shallow (you’ll duff or even whiff the ball).

For the drill, I recommend alternating between hitting shots from both uphill and downhill lies so that you create the stability needed to have a good balance in both sides of your body, because the golf swing works in a lot of dimensions. Do this enough, and you’ll become an expert at playing shots from different terrains, too.

Of course, a golfer may lack stability due to a physical issue, causing an inefficiency in how the body moves throughout the swing. In order to identify bodily flaws that lead to these inefficiencies, visit a fitness expert in your vicinity and get an assessment. This might show you that your body has limitations that are preventing efficient movement, thus affecting proper balance.

Specifically, I’d recommend a TPI fitness or medical expert simply because they understand how the body needs to function in a golf swing to produce better results. If they do find any limitations, they’ll be able to give you correctional exercises to get your body moving efficiently again, and build better balance. If you don’t have an expert in your local area, or just don’t have the time, I’d recommend you purchase a copy of my book, the Golfers Handbook. There is an easy to do assessment in the book that you can do at home.

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Adam is a PGA Professional and TPI Certified Fitness and Medical Coach. He enjoys working with golfers of all ages and levels of expertise, and his approach is to look at every golfer as an individual to try to help them achieve their goals as effectively and efficiently as possible. He is also the author of two books: The Golfers Handbook - Save your golf game and your life! (available on iTunes and Amazon) And his new book, My Mind Body Golf Coach Adam also offers online lessons and offers a monthly membership to help golfers stay committed to the process of improvement. All this and more can be ordered through his website www.golfadamstevenson.com "The golf swing may be built from the ground up, but the game of golf is built from the head down" - My Mind Body Golf Aside being an author, Adam is also a public speaker, doing workshops and lectures introducing concepts of athletic movement for golfers of all ages and levels of expertise.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. The Coach

    Nov 15, 2016 at 2:07 am

    Where does power come from, the body! If you have a sway or a slide in your golf swing then good luck generating any power. Good thing this drill is intended for helping golfers that lack the stability and balance needed in their body to prevent swaying and sliding so they can make an efficient golf swing and so have a chance of generating power. Did you even read the article or are you just being a “Troll”?

  2. SmizzleHasNoLife

    Nov 14, 2016 at 7:09 am

    ^

  3. ButchT

    Nov 11, 2016 at 8:41 am

    Difficult to focus on what was being said because of the quality of the audio.

    • Adam Stevenson

      Nov 11, 2016 at 8:53 am

      Ah yes, the wind is unfortunately a force to wreckon with here in Denmark. The feedback from the wind in the microphone is a challenge, I’ll try to improve the quality for next time.

  4. Pingback: Improving your swing doesn’t have to be an uphill battle, or should it be? – Swing Update

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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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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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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