The ballad of Jimmy Ballard

It wasn't until I came across the blog that contained the August 1981 Golf Digest article on Jimmy Ballard's concept of the seven common denominators of connection - common to all great and enduring ball strikers - that the swing penny dropped for me.

For more than six years I'd been reading about what you need to do to be a good ball striker and I'd been experimenting, with mixed results, all that time. But no one theory or approach seemed to have all the answers. Some of the simpler ideas really resonated, eg. Paul Wilson's machine golf, but many methods were frankly far to complicated for practical purposes.

Jimmy Ballard's seven principles or common denominators are summarised below, but I think his key concept is  'maintain the triangle', which includes a one-piece takeaway (a widely accepted principle) and a follow through that does not involve any conscious manipulation of the hands or wrists.

The latter concept of passive hands and wrists is absolutely key, and although taught quite widely, is not well explained, nor is it really understood by the average golfer. Passive hands (and wrists) is something that seems incongruous in a ball hitting sport and as a result it is not embraced by the average golfer, who tends to think of golf as a handsy game.

This failure to understand the importance of passive hands is partly due also to the failure of instructors to find a way of explaining 'how' to achieve passive hands. This is where Ballard's 'maintain the triangle' makes it possible to feel that passivity. Simply by trying to maintain the triangle the golfer is encouraged to minimise the use of the wrists and hands.

There are naturally talented golfers who successfully flip the clubhead late in the swing in the quest of more power or speed. However, this exercise requires exceptional timing. Most golfers who attempt it end up throwing away clubhead speed, literally, by releasing or throwing their hands at the ball too early in the downswing. As a result, they lose the lag or the whip created when the hands unconsciously release (as they must) just as the clubhead catches up to the hands in the instant before contact.

There is much more one could say about lag, passive hands, release, etc., but really all we need to do is convince ourselves not to try to hit the ball hard with the hands. It takes quite a bit of discipline to break the habits of a lifetime in golf, but the results are relatively instantaneous and observable and well, well worth it.

Anyway, in summary, here is Jimmy Ballard's 'Seven common denominators of connection':

1. Create connection through a braced athletic set up.
2. Take the arm triangle and body centre away together on the backswing.
3. Coil the triangle and body centre behind the ball into a strong back leg brace (no sway).
4. Initiate the change of direction from the ground up via the feet and the leg muscles.
5. Swing through with the triangle (constant elbow distance) maintained and with passive hands and wrists.
6. Keep the triangle until the club points at the target with no conscious wrist rotation.
7. Finish in a level balanced position with all the weight on the front side.

He cites a number of great ball strikers through history, including Hogan, Snead, Byron Nelson and Nicklaus, who demonstrated all of the above for a sustained career period, unlike the fly-by-nights who survived for a time at the top level on raw talent.

The great thing about 'maintain the triangle' and 'passive hands' is that anyone can apply these principles with no extra physical effort (probably less) and a modicum of discipline.

And the result that is almost guaranteed is that (young or old) you will go from being an inconsistent ball striker, stuck in an annoying rut, to a seriously consistent, even impressive, ball striker.

The bonus is that the principles described above apply equally to the short game, with the   
proviso that you need some extra touch and imagination to pull off great chips and putts. But so what, MAINTAIN THE TRIANGLE!

Golf instruction and the triangle

My view is that most golf swing lessons, keys, tips, etc. are describing what happens in the swing, the actions that are observable, while failing to point out that nearly all of these actions are performed unconsciously and must be performed unconsciously because of the short time-frame for a golf swing.

I think what really matters is what we can do consciously to improve our swing plane, weight transfer and, most importantly for a full swing, lag, during the swing.

But this is very difficult to observe and almost impossible for good golfers to describe because they have developed an effective technique over many years of practice (so that the technique has become automatic, ie. unconscious).

The technique I am talking about is the main one that Jimmy Ballard described in his famous (or infamous) 1981 book about connection, ie. the need to.'retain the triangle'.

In simple terms, the triangle in question is the one established with the arms at set up. Most importantly, although the wrists cock, the hands remain passive throughout the swing.

At first, this technique feels awkward and powerless, but in a short time the results become obvious - straighter and longer shots.

The swing thought is effective because it is the most efficient way of ensuring that the golfer does nothing to interfere with the club's acceleration late in the downswing nor does anything that will move the club off plane.

I can't do justice to the theory here, but 'retain the triangle' is the one and only conscious swing thought that, after years of research, has taken my ball striking to a new level. I benefited from Paul Wilson's emphasis on passive arms and body rotation and some of the other theory about the impact zone, but 'connection' and 'retain the triangle' are, in my opinion' the 'holy grail' of golf swing instruction.