Golf's a sport. I coach athletes who play golf.
Athletes desiring to achieve excellence in sport have coaches. My approach flies in the face of what most players and golf coaches hold near and dear.
Golf skills require athleticism. Unfortunately, conventional learning keeps ignoring this fact.
Golf technique is one of the most over-taught, under-learned subjects on the planet. If we want to be great at golf, conventional wisdom says learn the "fundamentals". Fundamentals, I guess, include how to stand, how to grip and how to align.
Then add to that list: eye on the ball, weight shift, hip and shoulder rotation, wrist cock (but don't "cast") and the list goes on and on.
There's one fundamental and it never makes the list in conventional teaching, and it's the one thing that matters - IMPACT - that sliver of time in which the golf ball is "programmed" by the clubhead.
Most golfers do no training, but what they don't know is that by not training they are training. They're training their neuromuscular systems to under perform.
Moving up a notch, some golfers do train. They go to the gym, they lift, they jog, stretch and do aerobics. They go to the range and "practice". Regardless of how well-intentioned and how universally accepted, all of this isn't lowering their golf scores.
Effective performance of golf skills demands speed, however conventional instruction keeps ignoring this fact.
The one thing universally told and retold to golfers is to "slow down". Effective timing of golf skills has nothing to do with slowing down.
In a sport in which milliseconds matter, timing is vital. The result of effective timing is acceleration of the clubhead through the impact interval.
TECHNIQUE
In sport, equipment always dictates technique because smart athletes learn to take advantage of technology. This process accounts for the evolution of sports.
For instance, footballs used to be round, so players ran with the ball and kicked it. However, as the ball shape evolved to a more pointed one, wise guys started throwing it. Now football is very much a throwing sport.
When's the last time you saw a serious player trying to drop kick, the old technique for kicking field goals and extra points when balls were round? I'll bet that you never even saw a drop kick!
Apply that knowledge to golf. Why are players still trying to swing like Jack Nicklaus did in the 1960's and '70's? His technique was dictated by technology - drivers with persimmon heads and steel shafts.
Today's technologically advanced gear demands something different, something simpler, and something better - something more athletic.
It's not the equipment. It's the player taking advantage of the equipment.
The USGA can control Characteristic Time (or CT) - that's limiting the time the ball can remain on the face of a club traveling a given velocity. But, they can't control how fast you accelerate the clubhead through impact.
I coach technique that results in the clubhead accelerating to maximum velocity with the ball "stuck" to the face of the clubhead. That's the only way to control the golf ball. Ball control guarantees power, accuracy and consistency.
TRAINING
How can anyone help a player improve significantly while overlooking the player's inability to perform efficiently? Golf isn't dainty. To generate 100 mph clubhead speed, a player is using virtually every muscle at his or her (yes, her) disposal working full out.
My training program is simple - any exercise worth performing is worth performing fast. We train for explosive bursts - anaerobic, fast-twitch muscle recruitment and development.
We're taking advantage of the elastic properties of muscles - specifically, the stretch/shorten cycle - to create tremendous energy.
We train to get the neuromuscular system set on BANG. Simple exercises, mostly golf specific, featuring intensity, not duration, and very few repetitions. Workouts are short; recovery is fast with little or no hangover muscular soreness.
Results are immediate. You're going to grow muscles and improve not only your golf, but also your life. And, it's fun! Elite athletes create more force in less time in performance of sport-specific skills. Strength isn't force, endurance isn't force, and flexibility isn't force.
In order to improve golf skills, any program must feature speed work. It's not a matter of strength; it's a matter of how fast one can apply the strength he or she has in skill performance.
TIMING
Timing may not be everything, but it sure is close.
Everyone talks about timing, but so few learn efficient timing. We teach the two essential aspects of timing - tempo and rhythm.
In 2004, Tour Tempo presented proof that elite players are and always have been faster than others. (I didn't write the book, but I did live it, and it's dedicated to me.)
Tempo is elapsed time - in our case, from moveaway through impact. Rhythm is the ratio of backswing to forward swing within that tempo.
Our research leading up to that also showed that elite players performed in a constant rhythm (ratio of backswing to forward swing) of 3 to 1.
The beat has gone on. Since the introduction of the book, I have timed thousands of swings of hundreds of players and I assure you that, like elite athletes in other sports, elite golfers are getting faster. Without effective tempo, no amount of "textbook" technique will result in significant improvement.
The golf ball doesn't move itself, and the golf club simply can't "do the work" by itself, either. We've got to apply the force, and the more efficiently we apply it, the more positive the ball response.
M. Hayes, New Jersey
120+ mph
D. Dixon, Glastonbury, CT
103 mph to 118 mph in one lesson
B. Morin, Leominster, MA
120+ mph
Anita B., Long Island, N.Y
B. Simons, East Lyme, CT
Tom T., Chappequa, NY
120+ mph
.
