Golf Instruction, If You See Someone Teaching This Move, Run!
It was just yesterday that I was at the range with some friends with a video camera taking pics of their swings and generally messing around with trying to get them to quit with the over the top move.
Man, every where I go I see this over the top thing and there just doesn’t seem to be an easy fix, even when the fix is easy.
Any way as we were doing our thing, I noticed a family down the range a ways. There were two young boys in their early teens or less. The father, mom was sitting on one of the benches and it appeared that grandfather was there too.
Nice picture. I love it when young kids show an interest. They had decent swings for beginners.
I noticed that Dad was giving advice on their respective swings. And he seemed to know something about it. Not bad, I thought.
Until Dad and grandfather started talking about the takeaway move.
Dad was more than a bit adamant that you should take the club away low and very long. That you should get tremendous separation from your body. And that you have a very late wrist cock of your right hand.
While Grandfather was saying that he thought an early wrist cock and a good shoulder turn was not only easier, but made much more sense to him.
Dad was very very insistent. Grandfather was much more passive. Then the conversation started to include the boys who were hitting balls.
Dad gave them a drill to do.
You put a ball behind your club head on the ground, and on your takeaway you push the ball back with the back of your clubhead as far as you can before you begin to lift the club up into your back swing.
Neither of the boys could hit the ball while doing this.
And it is no wonder. Dad has it wrong big time.
Here is proof.
Mike Wier and Chris Dimarco are only two examples of PGA professionals that use an early wrist cock to start the swing and to get into a great pattern of early angles.
As opposed to very few PGA players who work on a big extension and separation on the move away.
This idea of a big separation and large extension is a formula for developing a poor weight shift and it is a timing nightmare. That’s the reason the young boys couldn’t hit the ball using this idea.
It often( the move) will pull the golfer out over the outside of his right foot making returning to the left side virtually impossible.
The result, here’s a surprise, poor to no weight shift and an over the top move in order to make contact. This of course results in a big left to right ball flight or a SLICE!
It may appear to be a good idea because some PGA players do it. Not as many as there used to be doing, but still some do. It takes an exceptional athlete to accomplish this on a regular basis and the advantage is out weighted by the poor result for most of us.
So all you Dad’s out there, here is some great advice.
Listen to Gandpa, he knows best. He knows a lot more than you think. He just doesn’t want to be loud about it.
An early establishment of the right wrist angle is a good move. It sets the angles and then you just turn your shoulders.
When you do it right, and every one can, you will hit the ball as if by magic.