Simple Changes – Huge Improvements
Today I had a client in for a lesson who had been struggling with his game for a couple of months. He had been putting off the lesson for a couple of reasons, one of which was the weather, I must admit it has not been to warm recently..
Within 5 minutes we had him hitting the ball so solid he said “I wish I had come to see you sooner. I have been struggling on for a few weeks now, trying to adjust things myself, but just could not put my finger on it”.
Let’s look at the improvements that we made.
THE PROBLEM
As we look at the photo above we can see that my client was over reaching for the golf ball (left photo). His hands were to far away from his legs and this was encouraging his weight to be to much on his toes at the address. The ball position was to far forward in his stance (right photo) causing him to hit the ground before the ball, heavy contact and very little distance. As he made his backswing the natural tendency was to lift his body up out of his posture. He did this to move his weight into the center’s of his feet to enable the body to turn in some kind of balance. With all this movement in the backswing the downswing resembled the same, with his body dropping down towards the ball in an aid to get back to his original set up position. The outcome of all of this was very weak strikes lacking distance.
THE IMPROVEMENTS
We worked on a posture drill to get him standing closer to the ball. This allowed for the arms to hang down freely from the shoulders and the weight was nicely balanced in the feet 50/50. We also moved the ball back a fraction in the stance so that the angle of attack would be a lot more consistent and this would improve the consistency in the strike. Now as he made his swing the body stayed in shape as he turned his body in the backswing and forward swing. There was no lifting and dropping of the body during the swing and the nett result – much better contact on the ball and full distance was regained in a matter of minutes.
From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy
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Mark Wood
PGA Advanced Professional
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