Golf Myths

In this article I am going to progress from stance to
hitting the ball and then to the follow through, and show
how weight distribution happens automatically when you
adopt the movement of the chest and upper limbs as one to
make your swing.

At address, be totally relaxed. So relaxed that you relax
right down into your groin. So relaxed in fact that if you
had a full bladder you would have an accident. Only then
should you start your swing. Try to maintain this relaxed
state during the whole swing.

Have your weight evenly divided between both feet. Make sure
your feet are only as wide as your shoulders at maximum. If
they are too far apart they will hamper your swing a bit. Experiment with wider and narrower stances to see what I
mean. Then pick the one that feels most comfortable to you.

Something that is perhaps not known by everyone is that the
weight must be on the inside of both feet at address. You
achieve this by pushing your feet towards each other. So it
would be more accurate to say that the pressure and not the
weight should be on the inside of both feet.

Stand up now and with feet apart, push your feet towards
each other. You will find the weight localizes on the
inside of the feet, and there is a great feeling of
firmness in your stance.

This helps greatly in preventing body sway and keeping your head behind the ball at impact.
Have your weight a little forward towards the balls of your
feet.

Further to what I said in my last article, the weight is
held on the inside of both feet as you turn your chest to
take your arms to the top of your swing.

Don’t lift your left heel as this detracts from the
firmness and allows some sort of sloppiness to creep into
the swing. Lifting your left heel destroys everything you are trying
to do. You lose the feeling of weight on the inside of your
left foot and your down swing will be sabotaged too as you
will see below.

At the top of your swing, just stop for a moment. You will
find that most of your weight had moved onto the inside of
your right foot without conscious thought from you. Note
you are still pushing your feet towards each other. You
still feel firm and in good control of the swing.

There is perhaps 10 to 20 per cent of your weight still on the
inside of your left foot at the top of your back swing. The
transfer of weight to the right allows the body to remain
centred and the hip turn which is necessary to allow your
chest carrying the arms to turn to maximum.

All this happens without conscious thought, automatically. There is
certainly no sway. Your head remains nice and still and
behind the ball.

Similarly, things happen automatically on the down swing.
Just turn your chest to bring the arms down, hitting
slightly out and away from yourself, (in to out swing). You
will find that your weight now transfers to the inside of
your left foot.

Just before impact your weight should have
shifted so much that you will feel the major part of it on the
inside of your left foot. Your weight moves onto the inside
of your left foot as you go through the ball with no
conscious thought from you.

Maintain your weight on the inside of your left foot until
your club head has travelled through the ball for about two
feet. You have not lifted your right heel yet. And this is
what I meant in my last article when I said you do not move
either heel to hit the ball.

The important point here is that if you do move your weight
to the outside of the left foot before this, all sorts of
horrible things happen.
Firstly, it causes you to sway to the left. This causes you
to move out beyond the ball before or as you hit it and you
will hook well to the left.

This is a major cause of
hooking off the tee with the driver. Adopting the above
technique will overcome your tendency to hit your drives to
the left. Also your long irons, and even your wedges if you
move your body to the left with every club.

So a simple thing like weight distribution can overcome a bevy of
errors like hitting fat, thin, topping and improve your
game out of sight. You will probably find you will keep
your head down more as moving in front of the ball causes
you to look up.

Now once you are a couple of feet through the ball, your
weight will move automatically onto the outside of your
left foot, and the club goes on to the top of the follow
through.

When you are a couple of feet through the ball, turn your
right hand over your left by turning your wrists in an
anticlockwise direction, and continue to the top of your
follow through by raising your right heel so that only the
toe of your shoe is on the ground and you are facing the
target.

I hope this helps you. By adopting what I have said in this
article, you can improve your game beyond belief. I hope
this happens to you.

By: Bill Maitland

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