How To Swing a Golf Club

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Learning how to swing a golf club takes us in many different directions.  Thinking of your golfing implements as whips will be helpful. ‘Whip’ connotes flexibility and cracking-good speed, just what really happens when a golf ball gets flicked. ‘Club’ connotes solid, inflexible, mass, bludgeon, whomp, force, just what Swail is trying to get out of your mind. We’ve got a bit of a problem in that golfing implements have heads on the end, not tips. 

The hands, wrists and arms will be in position to move through the desired pathway and rotate the whiphead quickly if you fondle the whip and cock your wrists as described in this and the previous chapter and lift ‘n coil as described earlier. Reminder: supple throughout, while you learn how to swing a golf club, and when you become more seasoned.

Rotational torso stretch is maximized when the last stage of the lift ‘n coil overlaps with the initial stage of the flail. In the pictures of Tiger in our book, you'll notice if you look closely at the whiphead positions and hip positions. Tiger is in the last stage of his lift ‘n coil, his arms, cocking wrists and the head of his driver nearly completing their clockwise rotation. His arms, cocking wrists and whiphead have just completed their clockwise rotation, but Tiger’s hips have already begun to uncoil in a counter-clockwise rotation. Then, his arms and whiphead have just begun their counter-clockwise flail, but you'll notice how far his hips already have rotated. Rotational stretch in large mid-torso and shoulder muscles is maximized as the clockwise rotation of the arms and cocking wrists overlaps with the counter-clockwise rotation of the hips. Tense mid-torso muscles disable this action. Supple muscles, plus a sense of fluidity and whippiness, enable this action.

Tour pros do not coil as far as they can and subsequently uncoil forcefully. A concept of the motion of hitting a golf ball that separates the move into two distinct parts, e.g. back then forth, one then two, is misleading. Conceiving of the overall motion from address to finish as blended, continuous and fluid will enable you to rotate your hips in an opposite direction from your arms/cocking wrists/whiphead, maximizing stretch in some large torso muscles. Sam Snead said he felt “oily” when playing well. When you’re addressing the ball and then lift’ n coiling (with suppleness!), visualize a whip, where the handle (hips) starts forward while the outer strand of the whip (arms and whipshaft) still is flying backward. One of Webster’s definitions of supple: “flexible when twisted”.