Implementation

My tinkering recently was somewhat sabotaged by a series of bad luck incidents, such as when balls were lost when they should have been easily findable and other bad breaks that on a normal day would not have occurred. However, we must move on and maybe tinker a little more.

One thing I did find useful in my last round, and it is in line with the Swing Machine theory, was to make sure my grip pressure was extremely loose, thereby freeing up my wrists and also my full swing in general. Paul Wilson talks about a 2 out of 10 grip pressure (and we need to be careful not to use the terms weak and strong, which of course relates to the rotational position of the hands on the grip).

While the grip pressure undoubtedly tightens automatically at impact as required, the easing of the grip and freeing of the wrists at set up is important in reducing tension in the arms and promoting the free hinging and unhinging of the wrists during the swing that helps promote club head acceleration.

This wasn't something I planned; I just recalled the PW comment from a video I'd seen recently. One of the things I did tinker with was ball position, namely moving the ball back for all iron and hybrid shots. This seemed to work fine at least in terms of making solid contact; I recall hitting only maybe one fat shot in my last round - crooked shots yes, but in no particular pattern - so I'll keep this idea in play.

Another idea I tried out was trying to keep the club a little more vertical on the backswing. This I did, but on reflection I feel it made no difference except that it re-introduced an over-awareness of my backswing (much like the flat wrist concept did) to the detriment of the rest of my game.

My thinking now is that I should not concentrate on the backswing other than to feel the tightening or coiling that PW talks about. This can probably be achieved while keeping my right elbow fairly close to my side, that is, pointing down, with a view to staying 'connected'. This will hopefully contribute to a repeatable and more consistent backswing. We shall see.

Tinkering aside, my main focus in recent weeks has been on body turn; initiating the downswing by turning fairly aggressively into impact. I'm confident that this is the right approach; the only difficulty being how to achieve the right amount of aggression or speed of turn. Sometimes, there is an impulse to turn too fast, so that the arms and club are left behind, which leads to straight push shots. Sometimes, this turning is combined with lifting, which causes topped shots. What's needed is an 'assertive', but balanced and manageable turn.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, one of the final obstacles to adopting the Swing Machine approach is the need to develop a level of trust that loose wrists and passive arms will both generate sufficient force in the golf swing and that the turn required will allow one to hit the ball straight. I now trust the theory; I just need to trust myself.

Another obstacle I have had to overcome is my previous preoccupation with weight transfer (undoubtedly an important element of the golf swing). It was only once I convinced myself that turning without conscious intent to shift weight (in the way PW recommends) does achieve the essential weight shift to the front side, that I could forget about trying to shift my weight.

There is one other element of a good golf swing that I've been working on (again a PW concept) and that is to try to finish my swing in a balanced way (without going into PW's detailed description here).

While the follow through does not affect ball contact, it does indicate whether the swing has been effective, in control, powerful, etc. For full shots, this means rotating fully to face the target (or slightly left of the target) with the weight 90% plus on the front foot. It's a position you see with almost all good golfers.

Completing the swing in good balance is not tinkering, nor is good coiling and turning, nor is maintaining an appropriate grip pressure. These are important golf swing keys that I hope to implement over the coming weeks. Of course, theory is one thing, implementation is another.