Did You Know?

1. The one muscle that fires at 100% of its capacity during the downswing is also one of the body’s largest muscles: the right gluteus maximus or right buttock (for a right-handed player).

Also, in medical texts, it’s labeled a rotator. Its primary responsibility is to rotate the right leg out to the side (speed skaters), or to rotate the hips (golfers!)

2. The overriding responsibility of the ‘backswing’ is to stretch muscles. You want to feel lots of torso muscles becoming taut. If your ‘backswing’ doesn’t take too much effort, it needs to be changed.

3. Through the ball, the clubhead rotates 180 degrees in 1/10 of a second. Amazing we ever hit the ball straight.

4. From Jim McLean: “To gain control of your shots, you must give up control of your swing”.

5. Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Fred Couples’ lower hands are almost completely off the handle just after impact.

6. In the middle of the follow-through, your head should be leaning so far to the right (because of a proper firing of your hips) that it feels as if it’s resting on a pillow.

7. Your belt buckle moves back then forth during the golf swing. Throughout the entire motion of hitting a golf ball, your belt buckle also moves progressively in a direction toward behind you, never in toward the ball.

8. One key move has the primary responsibility both for distance and accuracy: fire the hips ahead of the shoulders.

Lots more neat stuff on the SWAIL dvd!