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The Golf Swing Through The Ball

These 2 pictures illustrate our discussion on the golf swing "through the ball":

Photo A: This is the correct hitting position that has puzzled golfers for so long:

The hands are almost opposite the right leg.

A few more inches will bring them directly opposite the ball, but the club head has a full quarter-circle still to go.

How does the club head catch up with the hands?

The answer is COAM, the Conservation of Angular Momentum.

Note the head back, shoulders rocking, right elbow tucked close in.

The player (and author of this book), Joe Dante, is coming down behind the ball with the upper body, but the lower body is moving out to the left ahead of the ball.

Hips, moving laterally, are starting to turn as left side gets out of the way, and right heel is rising.

Photo B. The wrong hitting position — How wrong can you get?

Compare the position point for point with position in Photo A.

The hips are turning somewhat but are not moving laterally.

Too much weight is on the right leg, leaving the right foot flat on the ground.

The right elbow has not come in against the side.

Worst of all, the player has lost all the wrist cock gained at the top of the swing.

He has either thrown the club from the top or held back his hands to let the club head catch up.

This it has done, although it is still nearly three feet from the ball.

The frightful result is shown vividly in Photo B.

This fellow has succeeded in overcoming all possibility that his club head won't catch up with his hands. It has actually caught them already.

It is from two to three feet farther along its orbit than it should be, in relation to his hands.

Compare it with Photo A and notice (as soon as you recover from the shock) the differences not only in the club position but in the body, the head, the shoulders, the hips, legs, knees, and feet.

The weight hasn't moved to the left as it should, the right foot is flat on the ground, the body shows no bowing-out tendency and the right shoulder is coming around high toward the ball.

From this position nothing like the player's potential power is going into the shot.

An inordinate part of it has been wasted in making sure the club head would catch up with his hands. This is a horrible example of what preoccupation with the club head leads to.

This is one of the greatest golf pictures the authors have ever seen for showing how not to swing the club.

The best part of it, too, is that this is not a posed picture.

The subject was hitting a drive during the course of a round and trying to carry a fairway trap about 170 yards from the tee.

The Funniest part of it is that he did carry it!

All that proves, however, is how much farther he would have hit the ball (the trap never would have worried him) if he had had even the semblance of a good swing.

The instant you make the club head move faster than it normally is moved by the turning and rocking shoulders, the instant you make it go faster than the hands, the eternal triangle changes shape.

The next section will deal with what COAM does for your golf swing.

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