Golf instruction is always evolving, but the best tips stand the test of time. In GOLF.com’s Lifetime Tips series, we’re highlighting some of the greatest advice that teachers and players have shared in the pages of GOLF Magazine. Today, we look back to our December 1979 issue for a deep dive into how your body needs to move to start your fall.
Backswing gets everything organized, but fall it’s where the magic happens. From the top of the backlog to the impact, what the club is doing is incredibly important. If something goes wrong in this part of the rhythm, there is little hope of hitting the club.
The order in which you move each part of the body has a big impact on how this happens. This ranking it helps with efficiency and consistency, which ultimately makes the game much easier.
But while there are some rules to follow for maximum efficiency, that doesn’t mean every swing is exactly the same. Every golfer’s body moves in unique ways, which has an impact on how they can best swing the club.
One such area of ​​influence is the initial landing motion, which GOLF magazine explored in a 1979 issue by then-guide editor Ernie Vossler. See below to learn more about how you should start your fall.
How to start the fall
You have completed your recovery. You’ve stopped for a split second to change directions. Now you will make your first move down. How should that first move feel? What should it really be?
Ask these questions of top tour stars, teaching pros, or amateurs, and you’re likely to get as many different keys, tips, or descriptions as there are golfers surveyed. What works for some golfers doesn’t work for others.
The fact is that the right first swing down depends entirely on the type of swing you have.
Generally, there are two categories of golfers. One type is the “kicker,” which has a square or open face at the top of the swing. On the forward stroke, all he has to do is “hit” or release in order to bring the club from that open position to a square position at impact and then to a closed position on the following. To be more precise, the “hitter’s” club will be in the “push up” position halfway through the forward motion. From there he begins to roll his right forearm over his left so that waist-high on the back of his toe points straight up again. This is liberation.
The second type is the “attractor”. At the top of the swing, this golfer has the clubface somewhat closed. On the forward swing, this golfer must pull back to the left side in order to work the clubface from a closed position back onto the fairway before he can release the club.
Now let’s examine these two types of oscillations in more detail. We will then discuss the first moves down for each.
GOLF magazine
Hitters and catchers
Because the fine line between “hitters” and “pullers” depends on the position of the clubface at the top, let me clarify the terms “open” and “closed”.
If you extend the fingers of your left hand so that the back of your left hand is in line with your left forearm, then make a fist, as if you were holding a club, you will notice a small angle between the back of your hand and your forearm. Your hand is now in the “square” position. Now, with your hand still in a fist, move the back of your hand toward the top of your forearm as far as you can; you have moved from square to a fully “open” position. Then, continuing to hold the fist, move the back of the left hand from square to where the left wrist is in line with the forearm. Although this straight line position is usually accepted as a square, it is actually slightly “closed”. The fully closed position finds the left wrist in as convex a position relative to the forearm as you can get.
If you are square to open at the top of your swing, you are a “hitter;” if it closes to some extent, you are a “puller”. You can determine the type of swing you have by checking yourself in a mirror or asking a friend to check you at the top of your swing.
The “striker” has a large turn of the shoulders back. He has little to no forearm spin on the right, depending on whether he is somewhat open or completely square at the top. (In other words, forearm rotation, or lack thereof, is the direct cause of the clubface’s top position.) However, its most important backswing characteristic, in relation to the first downswing, is the large hip flexion. Study any of the “hitters” on Tour, including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Hale Irwin and Gil Morgan. You will see that the “hitter” turns his hips so far on the backswing that he has to move his lower body to the left side to start the downswing. This allows him to hit the inside, square up on the strike, and return to the inside. Without this initial, lateral movement, the “striker” would clear the hips too early in the forward movement. He would pull the club across the line from outside to inside and cut or pull.
The “puller” also has a large shoulder curve that goes back. It has a little left forearm rotation if the left wrist is in line with the left forearm at the top, and more of this type of rotation if the top wrist position is convex. (Again, the rotation of the forearm directly causes the final position at the top of the swing.) However, as with the “striker”, the important point is the action of the hips. The “puller” – Lee Trevino, Larry Nelson, Bruce Lietzke and David Graham are examples – has very little going back. He turns his shoulders but keeps his hips and closes the club face. In forward motion, the only reaction his hips can make is to rotate to the left or “clean” very quickly.
This cleaning motion is mandatory for the “puller”. Because he has closed the clubface on the backswing, he must reverse that position on the forward swing, and the only way to do this is to subdue the right side and “pull” with the left side in a hip sweep. For the first two-thirds of the downstroke, the “puller” turns the wing face square, then goes forward and releases normally. However, this late release requires much more force and more precise timing than the action of the “striker”, who can start releasing the moment he begins his forward motion.
;)
