(golf club strikes ball)
- Hi, I'm Adam Bazalgette here,
founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
Today's subject, three golf drills to reduce tension.
Most people have too much tension in their golf swing.
We'll look at three areas, I think they frequently build,
and I'll give you some thoughts and some ideas
as to how to combat them.
(light electronic music) (club strikes ball)
(ball clacking against club)
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Okay, we golfers, and that includes me,
frequently play with too much tension.
Let me try a shot here, see how we feel.
(club strikes ball)
Well that felt fairly good to me, didn't feel too tense.
Where do we get this tension usually?
I find most people get in the grip, the wrists.
You have to have a little bit of grip tension,
but they get it through the wrists and the arms
and in the shoulders, the strong upper trunk muscles
they're trying to hit that ball with.
And really, I think there's three reasons
and as I mentioned, we're gonna go through those.
Now don't kid yourself.
If you try to be a Gumby and you try to be
completely, completely soft and relaxed,
either you'll have no control over the club whatsoever,
or more likely, instinctively,
your mind will sense that you've run out of control
and tighten back up as you swing.
So you need some tension, and certainly down around impact,
hey, your arms and trunk have to firm up a little bit
to brace for that hit.
But let's have a look at these three areas,
the third one in particular I like,
and see if we can help you.
All right, the first area to me where people get stuck,
I've struggled with this plenty in my golf life,
and that's getting the backswing started.
That's the beginning of the backswing,
it's a common, common thing.
Now I mentioned just a minute ago,
you need a little bit of tension in your golf swing,
especially as you approach impact at high speed,
but listen, this golf club isn't very heavy.
You don't need a lot of tension to begin your backswing.
So what you need is you need a little bit of motion,
some sort of movement,
we'll get into that in just a second here,
some pitfalls there, and a little sense of timing
and a trigger as to when to go routine self with this
because you kind of know the cadence
as to when you're starting.
Now so many people in golf
get their club behind them in the backswing,
I don't recommend a very handsy kind of a wiggle like that.
I've always liked more the Jack Nicklaus one,
just a little bit of rolling and bouncing of the feet.
Just a little softness in the arms, a little flow like that.
He kind of rocked his head back to get started.
Pick your own cue, but if you can
get out of the gate smoothly, again,
you're not being attacked by an animal here,
you're just moving a golf club
a few feet away from the ball, it's a great start.
Okay, next reason, too much thinking,
too many swing thoughts, I promise you,
if you get over the ball, I've done it so many times
I wouldn't even want to count how many,
couldn't count how many times I've done it,
it didn't work well.
If you get over that ball
and you're trying to hit a solid shot
and your mind's busy on, oh I gotta do this
and I gotta do that, you get that mind going like that
you're gonna tighten right up.
There's conflict within the mind,
the fluid motion goes away.
So I'm not saying you don't ever have to have
a swing thought, I always play with
feels in my swing and certain keys that I have.
Matter of fact, in my Leadbetter days,
I was around Nick Faldo quite a bit,
and when he was playing tournament golf,
he always played with two swing keys,
one on the way back, and one on the way through.
And they vary according to things he might be working on,
always two, but you look at old film of him
and you see how fluid he is.
He would actually speak them to himself
under his breath a little bit.
You could kind of hear him, you know,
left, across, under, he'd almost use them as rhythm keys.
So you can have a key in your swing,
but once you've rehearsed it a little bit,
delegate it to the subconscious.
You're aware of your intention there,
quiet your mind down and flow.
You get that conscious mind active worrying about
am I gonna do the right move,
you will have a lot of tension.
(club strikes ball)
Well the last key to me,
and that's attempting to hit the ball too hard.
Do this, if you have a golf club in front of you,
just balance it wherever you need to on,
I'm not doing a very good job of it there, on one finger.
You see how heavy that club is, it's very, very light.
This is a light object you're using here.
The idea is to create speed with the club,
hold it upside down and try that, not brute force.
An old teaching friend of mine, teaching pro friend of mine,
Marius Filmalter, giving a school together one day,
he mentioned, hey this big strong guy
thrashing at these balls, he said, listen, if you had,
if you're living on a farm and you have to move tree stumps
and heavy loads and bales of hay,
you need a tractor, you need a heavy,
I don't know what kind of engines they have,
but one of those diesel engines
that has a lot of that kind of force in it.
That's not the way golf is played, he said.
Golf's played like a Ferrari.
You're not moving any heavy loads,
you're moving something very light.
You want something that has speed and torque in it,
but not all that muscle of a tractor engine.
So pick the club up for yourself some time,
again, just balance it a little bit there,
you see how light that is.
Turn it upside down, make a few swings,
and once you get the idea, hey,
I'm not trying to break a door down here.
I'm just trying to create a little bit of whip
and a little bit of energy.
To me, that really helps reduce some of that tension,
especially at the start of that downswing.
Well, I hope that helps you with three ways
to reduce tension in that golf swing.
You can do it if you camp out on those ideas.
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Hope you have good success with this,
and enjoy your game more.
(electronic music)