I guess everybody knows that Brandel Chamblee has written some books on what you might call the "historical mechanics" of the game. Probably the best-known of them is The Anatomy of Greatness, which focuses on the full swing.
Today I've got a short quote from that book (well, three paragraphs) that focus on how you trigger your backswing. You need to understand that we aren't really talking about how you move into your backswing. Rather, we're looking at how you prepare to move into your backswing.
That may sound a chunk unusual. Let me placed that every other manner.
Your backswing is a response to movements you're making before starting your backswing. Think about the use of a slingshot -- you don't simply elevate up the slingshot and expect it to shoot with none effort from you! First you need to stretch the rubber band to position a few power into it. Then, whilst you let cross of the rubber band, that energy is launched and the ammo is fired.
This triggering movement that Brandel is talking about is the equal of stretching the rubber band. Here's what he says approximately it:
Unlike many other sports wherein the athlete reacts to a ball in motion, the golfer ought to initiate all motion, and earlier than the ball actions -- earlier than the membership moves -- the player ought to.
Almost with out exception, going back to the earliest days of this game, the first-rate expert golfers have written about the significance of the motion of the body that precedes the swing, to stave off tension. Some have waggled the club, like Ben Hogan, who famously wrote at the challenge, at the same time as others like Bobby Jones and Lee Trevino took some steps as they addressed the ball to kick-begin their swings. Still others like Gary Player and Mickey Writght talked of using a forward press to provoke, as a good deal by rebound, the start of the backswing. Jack Nicklaus and Sam Snead each used a mixture of the ahead press in their our bodies, although it turned into more mentioned in Sam, and a turning of their heads to the right to serve as a preamble to their circulate away from the ball.
Perhaps one of the most ruinous trends in professional and amateur golf alike is the death of what Hogan called "the bridge" between the setup and the backswing. As the game's teaching has become more and more complex and microscopic in nature, players of all abilities have become frozen in thought over the ball and, it seems, have lost sight of the fact that the goal is to move in as big a circle as possible, as fast as possible, as smoothly as possible -- and none of those three things can be accomplished as easily without being relaxed as the swing begins. [p71] Now you might wonder why I chose that section for this post. It's because it addresses a common misconception about triggering the backswing.
There's multiple manner to get your backswing in motion!
Look at the range of methods Brandel mentions. You can start your backswing with the aid of:
- Waggling the club. At the very least, you've seen Jason Dufner do it, so that should be self-explanatory.
- Stepping into the swing. Those steps can be walking up and stepping into your stance, or shuffling your feet around after you take your stance.
- Making a forward press. That's where you start with your weight pretty even on both feet, then you shift your weight onto your lead foot and use the motion of moving back to an even split to start your backswing. Think of it as a rocking motion toward and then away from the target.
- Combining a forward press with turning your head away from the target. That's a sequential move, of course; you rock forward, then turn your head as you rock back.
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