If you want to make golf really hard you should focus on achieving specific body positions with your swing (hip rotation, wrist cock, forearm rotation, shoulder plane etc)
If you want to simplify (and I believe for many, simplification is the easiest way to game enhancement) then focus on moving the club quickly.
“Swing The Club” cuts out so much rubbish. Plus, our learning system has an amazing way of figuring out where our body needs to go.
Another way of saying this is:
The body reacts to the movement of the club.
The process fails miserably if you try and reverse the above.
Take James who recently sent me this through:
Over the last few years, I’ve started to become my own coach. Mainly because 90% of the coaches out there are trying to teach me someone else’s swing… This doesn’t work.
I may look ‘better’ on video, but this doesn’t translate to better scores or shots. I have found, through observing my swing and its outcomes, that the biggest problem I have is over-rotating.
Mainly, this is because I’ve been told by many teaching pros that I need to ‘turn’ more. The harder I turn, the more left I pull my path, the more to the right my shots go…
This was generally more severe with the shorter irons and wedges, the scenario would be I’d hit a good drive and only have a short club in, I’d hit it and it’d finish short and right (due to my over-rotating.) As it had come up short, the next shot I would try to hit harder – by turning faster – resulting in another short and right shot.
Basically, the way I’ve ‘fixed’ this is to try and just ‘swing my arms’ rather than think of the body moving/rotating – after all, if I were trying to throw a ball harder, I wouldn’t think of turning faster/more, I’d just throw it harder!
There’s some great stuff here.
1. Over rotating is a blight on the game. Too much turn makes golf near impossible (but big muscle theory is so ingrained I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon).
2. I love the “throw the ball harder” analogy. It’s simple but utterly profound.
3. Learning to self-coach is one of the most important steps a golfer can make. Learn to rely/trust your own learning system and you’ll never look back.
4. “It looks better on video but this doesn’t translate to better shots”. I love this.
Want to adopt an arm (or club) focused swing?
The first step is to forget about all the positional rules you’ve probably been trying.
Then, get outside and swing that club.
Move the club
Swing the clubhead (I personally have gotten fantastic results by feeling the clubhead throughout my swing)
Move those arms!
Lock into one the feels good to you. Then repeat.
And if you have a golf net set up at home, hit balls into the net. This is one of the most underused learning tools available to us.
With a net, ball and club, you can focus fully on a club (arm) dominated swing without any distractions. Go for it.
And if you want to read about the biomechanical inspired arm swing then check this out.