Alligator Arms?

Alligator arms - The affliction of shortening your arms during the golf swing at impact. Now I'm not sure that you will find this definition in Websters Dictionary but you will certainly find it across golf courses and driving ranges everywhere. What's the cause of this affliction? Most likely when a players make their target the golf ball, the player's body will react to that target changing the angle of their spine dropping down to the ball.. This leaves only one thing to do, shorten the arms. During the golf swing the the club moves in a circular fashion and anything moving in a circular fashion will create centrifugal force. By maintaining focus on our original target instead of making the ball our target we can allow our arms to relax and let centrifugal force take over. This action will allow more speed in the club head, a downward angle of approach that will compress the golf ball, generating more distance. Secondly, by maintaining focus on the original intended target are club will move on the desired plane resulting in more accurate shots. So if you have been a victim of "Alligator arms" explore the feeling of extension in your arms, and remember the secret to golf is being aware of your target while you swing.

Last week I was interviewed by a local radio show and was asked what we can do during these cold winter months to keep growing our game. This is the perfect time to raise your awareness of trust and concentration. This time of year the air is cold and damp, the ball is not going to go very far, so don't worry about distance. And no one is on the range so you can forget about anyone watching how good you are...it's perfect! How can we work on concentration?

Try starting with the shaft of the club, and make swings until you are able to remain focused on where the shaft is throughout the entire swing. Recognize when you lose your connection to the shaft, what is interfering with your concentration, and then start again. Take this exercise to parts of your body; hands, feet, spine angle, etc. Once you're able to concentrate and know where you are in relationship to the swing then and only then can we get to where we want to be. What about trust?

When we trust something our physiology changes and our muscles become more relaxed. When we don't trust something then our muscles will become tense. To raise your awareness of trust, make a swing and observe what muscles are tensing up. Then make swings with the intention of relaxing that muscle. Trust your self that your body will react to your intention.

Remember outcome is not important during these exercises. Recognising interference and tension is the goal so that our bodies have something to learn from making us more trusting, focused golfers.

Patience

Recentley, it has come to my attention that most golfers are not patient with their golf swing. It seems that once a player has reached the top of the back swing they become very rushed to move the club forward. I believe the reason for this is different for everyone, however the emotion that presents itself because of the underlying reason appears to be anxiety. I could go into a hundred things that the emotion of anxiety will create in the golf swing, but two of the biggest things are distraction and tension. Consider the possibility of allowing the club to transition at the top of the swing instead of making it transition and you will find a higher level of focus, trust, and I have found...enjoyment!

Get On A Roll

The other day I was fortunate enough to play with some gentlemen at one of our local golf courses. As we left the eighth green I began to observe something very interesting, they weren't rolling the ball. A key component to making putts is one, being aware of the target and two, rolling the ball effectively toward your target. I also recognized that the closer the putt the less effective they were at rolling the ball. You may be asking, if it's not rolling then what was the ball doing when it left the club face. I found that on their longer putts the ball jumped or skipped, and usually on the shorter putts the ball skidded. One of the great things about golf is that there is no right or wrong way to do things but how you get the ball to the target in the most effective manner and this seems to be especially true with putting. Next time you are on the practice putting green, raise your awareness of how the ball is coming off the club face. Play around with ball positions, shaft tilts, grip pressures, stances, spine angles until you find the most effective way for you to roll the ball, and then you will find that during your next round you might just get on a roll!

Any Reason for Golf

On May 24th , I co-hosted on a local radio show called Golf Talk and was lucky enough to interview the President of the Shivas Irons Society, a charitable foundation started by Michael Murphy who wrote "Golf in the Kingdom" and founder of the Esalen Institute. The members of the Shivas Irons Society are a very interesting group of golfers, they view golf as and artistic endeavor or a creative outlet rather than a result based activity. Make no mistake, they still keep score and recognize that scoring is the basis for the game of golf, however, score is a result of a creative process and not necessarily the reason for playing the game. The next time you hit the links, take a page from the Shivas Iron Society and change your prospective on playing the game and make the score an end to the means and not the means in itself.

Don't Make the Adjustment

I've had many players lately ask me about proper ball position. My answer to them is always there is no proper ball position, and I like to tell them a story about an interview I was apart of during a local radio show. We interviewing Don White a famous club maker who worked for MacGregor and has fitted and made clubs for some of the greatest players to have played the game. During the interview the questioned was raised, "who was the most difficult player to make clubs for?". He answered, "Jose Maria Olazabal", he went on to tell us that Jose wanted a particular shot, a high fade, and wanted his clubs to provide that shot with the way he swung the club. Jose did not want to have to hit a high fade, he wanted to swing the club the way that was natural to him and have the club produce the desired effect. By adjusting the club for his swing instead of adjusting his swing to hit the shot, he could rely on the shot and be more consistent. I tell the players I coach to place the ball where it will get in the way of your swing instead of adjusting your swing to a particular ball placement. By doing this, you can now rely on consistent contact and enable you to place your focus away from the ball and onto the target. Next time your out on the range raise your awareness of where your club bottoms out and adjust the ball placement accordingly, DON"T MAKE THE ADJUSTMENT to the ball!

Speed it up by slowing down

At last weeks Golfer Development Academy, relaxation became one of the topics for exploration. We talked about why Olympic sprinters when they were interviewed after races regularly judged their performance by their ability to be relaxed. When the muscle becomes tense two things happen; first, tension is using the muscle for something other than its intended use. In the case of the sprinter the muscle is being used by tension instead of sprinting. In the case of the golfer the muscle is being used for something other than swinging the golf club. Secondly, tension changes the way movements would naturally happen. We talk to many players about allowing the club to move forward instead of making the club transition at the top of the swing. By allowing the club to make the transition you will allow the club to pick up speed and thus pick up some valuable yards. Raise the awareness of the tensions in your body and you will be taking a page from the great Olympic athletes as well as the great golfers.