Common thoughts that are not true
By Mark Krause
Keep your head down & I will watch the ball for you. Doing this is the biggest mistake you can make. If your eyes are glued to the ground your body can not turn on your forward motion. Have you ever swung a baseball bat and kept your eyes glued to the contact point? The proper thought is to keep your eyes on the ball. This will allow your shoulders and hips to control the movement of your arms on the forward swing instead of trying to move the club by pulling with your arms. You will also see your distance increase provided you allow your back foot to pivot during the forward motion.
Hit down with your irons. Hitting down really forces you to move the club at the ball. If you are moving the club at the ball you are really just swinging for contact. How do you get direction? When you bent over that motion put the club on the ground. As long as you maintain this waist bend the club has to return to the ground. As long as your head stays the same distance from the ground as it was in your setup and the same position between your feet, the club must return to the same point as you started. To give the ball direction you must make a motion with your body and arms straight back from your target and then turning towards the target on your forward swing. When you swing a bat, tennis raquet or hockey stick that tool is moving towards the target with the object getting in the way. This same motion must happen in the golf swing also.
Take the club back along the ground keeping your right elbow close to your body. This is the main cause of hitting it fat and having a reverse weight shift. Keeping your club low to the ground causes your left arm to swing across your body instead of staying paralllel to your target line. This means that your club shaft is pointing to the right of your target at waist high. If you swung this way you could only take the club back to waist high. What normally happens is you then lift the club and tilt your body towards the target. As you make your move forward your body then falls backwards causing the club to drop to quick towards the ground causing you to hit it fat and/or to the right. The right shot is due to your body and arms not being able to swing towards the target but instead they move towards the ground.
Revised: 11/15/2007 - Article Viewed 29,942 Times
About: Mark Krause
Owner of Muskego Lakes Country Club and PGA Professional for 33 years. Mark is the founding father of the Wisconsin State Golf Course Owners Association.
AWARDS
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
To always explain "why" instead of just telling the student what to do. Use other sports that the student is more familiar with to help explain the motion of the golf swing. Strong emphasis on the body posture and ball position. Simplified explanation of the swing motion by not getting caught up in specific positions of the arms or body. Main basics that must be learned are the correct posture, keeping the right knee in the same flexed position that it had in the setup, firm left wrist position in relation to the left forearm and a turning of the shoulders to move the club in both directions.
Contact Mark Krause:
Muskego Lakes Country Club - Head Professional
414-425-6500