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BALANCE, THE SECRET OF SOLID GOLF
05/03/2007 21:01:45 / like playing 36 holes
BALANCE is so important to
your golf game that I have overstated its font size and capitalized it to lure
your attention. You will be richly rewarded if you master this article! I
mention the subject because I see multitudes who lack stability in their swing,
who fall as though wounded, even with their putting stroke, and who then blame
everything but their lack of equilibrium for some awful result. Further,
balance means more than not falling down. It means having your eyeballs
suspended in space in a tiny enclosure that moves not at all backward or
forward, up or down. Your eyes can only turn within a large coffee can sized
area but the "can" cannot move. It is analogous to your body turning
within a barrel. If you were a raw beginner and we were just giving you your
first lesson, it would be on the putting green. There we would impress on you
the importance of the "still" head. We would have you putt four-foot
putts until there was no tendency of your head and shoulders to slide forward,
the cause of even most veteran golfers missing short putts! We would impress on
you how vital it is to keep the ball crisp and clear in your vision, without
any sense of movement until the clubhead has struck. We would teach you to
focus on a blade of grass just behind the ball, never raising your head or
moving your eyes off that spot until you hear the "clunk" of the ball
in the hole. Once we were satisfied that you understood that concept, we would
begin hitting short pitch shots using similar principles. Over a period of
several lessons, badly testing your patience, we would finally arrive at
hitting full shots on the range. However, by then you would be quantum leaps
beyond those who learn by whacking balls. What you would discover with all this
dull practice is that you would be unable to master this simplest of drills
unless your whole body was in perfect balance: Forward and backward, front to
back, up and down. I have never read nor have I seen any professional golf
teaching that focuses enough on this subject. That is amazing when you consider
that the tiniest movement up, down, left, right, forward or back moves the impact
position of the ball on the clubface off the sweet spot. Worse, the club may
even strike the ground before the ball with a dipping motion of only ½ inch!
The dreaded "shank" (wherein the ball strikes the hosel of the club
and squirts rightward causing you to vomit) can result from sliding the body
forward only an inch! Not even perceptible to the victim. So, whether you are a
veteran player or the rawest beginner, give BALANCE its proper place in your
hierarchy of learning. This, combined with correct use of your eyes will pay
huge dividends in every aspect of your game. One absolutely essential part of
every pre-swing routine should be to swing through to a finished, balanced
position and hold it for a few slow seconds. That is where you must end up at
the end of your shot. If you cannot even do that with your practice swing, you
must embark NOW on a program to learn poise. You can practice feeling springy
and owning self-awareness of where your weight distribution is no matter what
you are doing. A great aid to good balance is strong legs. Exercise, such as
bicycling, will go a long way to helping, especially late in a round on a hot
summer day when ones legs tend to become weak and leaden. That is when you see
so many players falling back on their right side, dipping and hitting the
ground and swaying on putts. I realize this advice doesn't rank in sexiness
with how to hit long bunker shots or 300 yard drives but even that will be
helped if you improve your strength and balance. Remember that balance in
motion gives grace to your swing . That's how Thoughtful Golf really works and
it is fun. (c) Copyright 2007, Sandy Bunker
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