Ten Deadly Sins of the Swing
These are common errors that many recreational golfers make and will significantly impair your ability to hit quality shots with any consistency. These faults are high priority and need to be addressed and corrected immediately!!! Failure to do so will guarantee that you never improve!!!
1. Freezing over the Ball-
Having no motion at all with your body or club just before starting your swing is a sure-fire way to cause tension and ruin your chance for a fluid and powerful swing. Staying in motion by waggling the club or keeping your feet in motion helps you settle into the set-up position and get your backswing off to a smooth start. Think of other sports where the player is waiting for the action to start such as a batter in baseball, a tennis player getting ready to return a serve, or a basketball player getting ready to shoot a free throw. They are all staying in motion so that they can react. Freezing over the ball can also open the door for bad thoughts to enter your mind further causing stress and tension.
2. A Weak Grip-
A weak grip is when the left hand is rotated too far to the left on the club at address. The main cause of this is holding the club too far up in the palm and not enough in the fingers. A weak grip makes it nearly impossible to square the clubface at impact or create any leverage for power and distance. A weak grip causes the golfer to rotate the clubface into a very open position on the backswing that sets the stage for big slices and serious distance loss. This may be the worst sin of all that a golfer could commit!!!
3. The Death Roll-
This occurs when the hands and forearms over-rotate early in the backswing. The clubhead moves off plane getting too far behind the body and the clubface opens excessively. The golfer must now make huge compensations to get back in position on the downswing. The result is usually a steep “over-the-top” transition starting back down to the ball. If you make this mistake you will struggle with timing issues and loss of power and accuracy.
4. The Slide and Tilt-
As the backswing starts, the hips slide laterally to the right and the spine tilts to the left to counter-balance. This causes the shoulders and hips to under-turn and the arms to lift and over-swing leading to a steep downswing that produces weak slices and generally poor contact. When the hips move laterally on the backswing it makes getting weight shifted to the front leg at impact very difficult to do. The hips should rotate but remain relatively centered on the backswing to provide a stable base for the torso to make a full pivot. A few causes of the slide and tilt are a false sense of power, the eyes tilted to the left at address and weak hip muscles.
5. The Lawnmower Right Arm-
This occurs when the right elbow pulls up and behind the golfer in a way that is very similar to the motion you would use if starting a lawnmower. This pulling motion reduces swing radius causing a power leak and causes a pushing motion of the club away from the body to start the downswing. The result is a steep over-the-top downswing that leads to week slices. The right elbow should fold down and point downward staying more in front of the body there it can return the club to a great impact position.
6. An Excessively Open or Closed Clubface-
A clubface that strays too far from “square” at any point during the swing will require major compensations to correct. For a slicer the response is usually an early rotation or opening of the chest and hips leading to an over-the-top start to the downswing accompanied by the weight staying on the back foot and an early release of the clubhead (casting, throwaway). This all leads to an out-to-in swing path thru impact with an open clubface. The net result is high, short, and weak slices.
For golfers who get the clubface too closed, the corrective response is usually excessive lateral weight shift towards the front foot to start the downswing coupled with a lack of body rotation and a “held off” and restricted release of the hands and arms. To restore some loft on the club and get the ball up in the air the upper body tilts to the right (away from the target) on the downswing. Without the necessary compensations the net effect leads to shots with a very low trajectory, low sharp hooks, and lack of carry with the longer clubs. An extremely closed clubface is disastrous with chipping and pitching.
7. Poor Set-up with chipping and Pitching- The common mistakes include;
· A wide stance
· Ball positioned too far back in the stance
· Club Shaft leaning too far towards the target
· Upper body tilted away from target
· Excessive head/ eye tilt
Any of these mistakes will lead to consistency problems with clean contact, trajectory control, and distance control. Because the backswing is shorter than in the full swing there is simply not enough time to make the necessary compensations needed to produce a quality strike on the ball.
8. A Short Backstroke- Long Follow Thru with the putter-
Putting with consistent distance control requires consistent stroke timing coupled with an even-paced, gentle acceleration of the putter on the downstroke. When the backstroke becomes too short the golfer senses that he doesn’t have enough time or space required to produce the necessary speed required for the putt at hand and in an effort to make up for this the putter over-accelerates thru impact into a long follow-thru. The issue here is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to judge the amount of acceleration needed to produce the right amount of speed at impact from one putt to the next. This leads to a struggle rolling the ball the correct distance on a consistent basis. The key to distance control is swinging the putter with the same rate of acceleration on every putt. In order to do this the length of backstroke must have enough length to allow enough time and space for the putterhead to gradually build the correct amount of pace required at impact.
9. Aligning Excessively Left or Right of the Target-
You’re aim doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should fall within an acceptable range. Aiming too far offline requires major compensations to be made on the downswing in order to get the ball to the target. This leads to consistency issues with solid contact, proper ground contact, and managing the starting line and curve of the ball.
10. Excessive Change of Body Angles Established at Address during the Backswing-
When setup angles change radically during the backswing such as raising up or down or moving the head laterally right or left it becomes very difficult to make solid clubface contact as well as control the bottom of the swing. Slight shifts or changes are permissible as they help to create smooth tension free swings.
