- Hello there.
Adam Bazalgette, founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
Today's subject, golf driving for seniors.
I mean, they want the same thing as everybody else.
They want reasonably straight shots with distance,
but we particularly, and I can put myself there now,
lose some distance as we get older.
Show you three things I think will really help.
Two you've probably heard before,
but I'll give you a few fresh ideas on those, I would think.
And the third one'll probably surprise ya'.
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and again I think this video'll be helpful to you,
help you gain some distance.
So the three things we'll look at with players today,
that's Jason Day on the left,
young stud hits it a mile,
and that's the late great Payne Stewart
in a regular pair of golf slacks there on the right.
Really good for his longevity.
Interesting to see how much smaller the club head is
in his case there 20 plus years ago versus Jason Day.
But the three things we're gonna look at
all have to do with the backswing.
Now let's look at these two backswings.
Definitely a nice backswing,
probably there's the end of it.
Let's look at Payne Stewart.
Well, the obvious thing, it's a much longer backswing.
Now, you know, what are the advantages
of a longer backswing?
Well, the big advantage you've got to get to about here
with your hands.
The ball's up there somewhere to get to the ball.
You have much more time to build speed in your downswing.
Now listen, I can get my car to 80 miles an hour,
but not nearly as quickly
as a NASCAR can get to 80 miles an hour.
So if you're only swinging back to about here,
and you have that much time,
he's got, Jason's got just as much speed as Payne Stewart,
probably more, but he's got it with sheer,
you know, sheer dynamic energy.
Seniors don't have that.
So the long backswing gives you time to build speed,
and I think it helps build rhythm.
Because I think if you sense, subconsciously,
I've got a nice big backswing,
plenty of stored energy,
I can pace myself and build speed.
That backswing gets too short, the tendency is
I really have to jump at it to create the speed.
The thing is though,
there's good and bad ways to lengthen it.
That's what we're going to explore.
Okay, first on our list of making your backswing
potentially a little bit longer is your pivot,
your body motion there.
Now, if you don't have a big decent size pivot,
you're not going to make a very big backswing
or, if you do, you'll be overdoing it with your arms
and cause all sorts of problems.
The key is though,
you still have to have some sense of balance,
and you have to have some sense of torque and wind
between the upper body and the lower body.
So, bare this in mind, your natural subconscious brain,
the part that,
I'm not a brain expert, for sure,
but the part that controls these motor programs
likes efficiency, so test yourself like this.
If you had to reach for something on a high shelf,
would you move your legs first?
Absolutely not.
You'd reach, and as your subconscious mind sensed,
okay we're getting stretched, we're not making it,
it would add in a bit of lower body,
or stretch if you like that way,
it does it in that manner.
That's what you need in your golf swing.
So play around with it, right there at the house.
If you're at the house watching this,
hey, if you had to put your hand here,
let's say you're a right-handed golfer,
your right hand, you don't need really any legs there,
if you had to put your right hand,
reach up for something behind you more there,
you'd start to feel more movement here,
but this needs to be reactive to that.
Then get a golf club in there and say,
Hey listen, without thinking a lot, how far can I go
before I need, start to feel I need more movement
in here to allow for that stretch?
Then you're starting to get the feel so,
one of my swing tendencies my whole golf life
since I was a junior golfer,
it's just my nature,
or it's just the things I got used to doing,
is to have a short, stiff backswing.
So I'm gonna give it a try here,
and we'll see,
see if I can allow myself a good stretch
and have the patience, if you like,
to complete the backswing.
Let's have a look here.
Well, it wasn't the greatest shot for sure,
but I did feel like a made a decent stretch going back
and that would be more the feel I'd be looking for.
Okay, next one, you need to have a full wrist cock.
That will supply a lot of speed,
and it lengthens your backswing.
And that would be angle between the lead arm
and the golf club there.
A lot of people get tripped up at their address
and make mistakes, or make a mistake there,
that doesn't really allow them to do this.
Let's have a look at that.
So there's Rickie Fowler.
No distance troubles for him.
If you want to hit the ball further,
I have a free course for you.
Free three-part in-depth video course
down in the description box.
Gain 25 yards.
Just go ahead and pick that up.
So, as we look at Rickie there,
he's doing what you need to do
and that is he's creating a significant angle
between his arms and club.
Number one, that gives you a good deal of wrist cock,
before you've even begun your backswing.
Number two though,
it is much easier to get your grip correct.
Expect the club to point somewhere near your belt buckle
as you situate your setup.
Also, expect the toe of the club
to sit up in there air a bit.
So if you're going to have mobility wrist cock,
you have to be able to push down on the handle
to make it hinge.
So get the handle a little bit lower,
make sure this pad, this palm is on top of the club
and the club's more down in the crevice
of the fingers there.
Again, you need a pretty significant angle to do that.
If you get this wrist up high and get it stiff,
and get the club too much running up your palm,
you will have a very hard time cocking your wrist.
The great drill to test your wrist cock,
get your shadow in front of you, with or without a ball,
you're not always going to be at a sunlight angle
that allows you to do this when hitting a ball.
Go up there and get a full wrist cock.
See what the club looks like.
This is vary a little according
to the length of your shadow and time of day.
But I can see right now a lot of the club shaft
sticking out there.
If I go up and hit and that doesn't show up so much,
I know I've got it wrong.
I should see that full length of that club,
or whatever it looked like in my practice swing.
Okay, this third and final one might surprise you,
but if you allow your left arm to slightly bend,
your lead arm, the right arm for a left handed golfer,
just to give a little bit,
it can really relax you a little bit through here
and really add a bit of length to your backswing.
But there's definitely good and bad ways to do this.
Let's check out a couple of pros.
So, ten Majors in this twosome,
That's two for Ángel Cabrera, long hitter on the left,
and eight for Tom Watson,
very long hitter himself, on the right.
Both great longevity players.
Cabrera won his Majors late,
and Watson great senior tour player
as well as a great regular tour player.
So here we go.
Let's have a look.
Well, long backswings and certainly a decent amount of bend
in that lead arm.
Again, you don't have to do that,
if you're very flexible you can keep more X-Factor,
more extension in your left arm and still be fine
but if you get older,
and you find your backswing's really lost its length,
this can really make a difference.
The key is though, you must keep space
between that club shaft and your body.
If that thing gets too close to you,
your right arm is folded too much.
So really, it's where the right arm is,
how that's positioned that's the key.
Not the little bit of fold in the left arm.
All right, here's a good way to ensure
you're doing it right and doing it with structure.
Get something like a ball point pen.
I have a little mini alignment rod here.
Grip it about middle of the object
and more towards the finger tips.
Make your backswing and point that end away from you,
away from the target.
Get used to that feeling.
And get that sense that you'd have if you'd threw a ball.
You wouldn't do that.
The key is we don't want to pull the right arm
to get this to get soft.
We want to set the right arm, cock the wrist.
Once you've felt that, then just put your left arm up there,
and just get a feel for it,
and practice a little bit 'til you can get something
that's comfortable for your body and you can repeat.
Again, it takes,
it doesn't take a year to figure this out.
It takes few minutes in front of a mirror
to map some of these things out.
Map out the pivot.
Set the right hand.
Add as much as necessary.
Just a teeny little bend in that left arm,
and just find the sweet spot for your body
that helps you add length but keeps some structure.
Well, thanks.
I hope that's helpful to ya'.
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Hope this helps you with golf driving for seniors
or for anybody for that matter
that needs a little bit more distance.
Hope this is helpful to you.
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