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Building - or, in my case, tearing down - the golf swing is a lot like buying a really cool gift. Whether it's for you or your child, you're excited. Then you notice two dreaded words on the outside of the box: Assembly required. Erik Horve and I have tinkered with my grip, setup, backswing, downswing, follow-through and every body part and movement in between. Now it's time to put all the pieces together. It didn't take long to realize that I still have a couple of screws loose. "My goal now is to create rhythm and timing for you and to have your arms and your body moving at the same speed as they approach and go through the golf ball," said Horve, director of instruction at Tustin Ranch. "The objective is to get you to the top of your backswing in a position that will allow you to achieve a good impact position. Your timing will probably be off because of all the changes we've made, but this is the most crucial movement for you." To help me out, Horve suggested an impact drill: • Get in a good setup position. • Swing the club back until you're coiled at the top with a nice shoulder turn. • Keep the clubface square when it hits the ball. • Stop halfway through the follow-through so the club is parallel to the ground, in front of your body and pointed toward the target. In other words, pretend you're Tiger Woods and hit the "stinger" shot he occasionally unleashes on the course. "The reason [Woods] does it is because he has such good control of the golf club," Horve said. "His arms and body are moving together and he can control the ball flight. What's happening with you now, because we've made so many changes, you're getting a little uncomfortable at the top of your swing and one part starts to move a little faster than the other." It took a while to find a comfort zone with the drill, but in time I was able to hit straight shots and make crisp, square contact with the ball off the clubface with square shoulders, a flat left wrist and straight left leg. "Butch Harmon once told me to find one drill for my students that would fix 10 things in the golf swing," Horve said. "This is it for you. It may not fix 10 things, but it will correct four or five. You can't do this drill correctly if your weight isn't distributed properly, you're not in a coiled position at the top of the swing, your arms dominate the downswing and you're not braced on your left side at impact. This drill will let you know if one part of the swing gets out of sync. That way, I don't have to fill your head with too much information and everything will start to feel more natural for you out on the course." n Next month: Short game. Erik Horve can be reached at (714) 734-2104. |
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