Golf Made Simple - The Wisdom of Solomon

HOW TO FIX OLD GOLF HABITS THAT COME BACK

"Marc, I've regained some of my bad habits and need some drills to correct them. I'm back to staying on my back foot and my tempo is horrible. What can I do to correct this?"

Anonymous New York, New York

Well Anonymous, I think we have to go back to the basics. We can always count on the basics to get out us out of a bad funk. So that is where we will start with both of your bad habits.

Staying on your back foot can be caused by a few things. Remember, we always have to think in terms of cause and effect. Staying on your back foot is the effect of a cause. We need to figure out what the cause is.

First thing to check is in your set-up. How is your ball position. If it is too much in the middle or too far back, that could cause you too stay back on your right foot. This is because if the ball is too far back, your club could be delofted causing you to try to lift the ball up. When golfers try to lift the ball, they usually try to get under it and the weight gets stuck on their right foot.

If the ball position is good (under your left eye), check your left foot. Meaning is it angled out. A lot of golfers set-up with their left toes pointing straight in front of them. We want our left toes flared out at a 45 degree angle. This will help us clear our left hip out of the way, so that our right hip can come through. When the right hip comes through, that allows us to transfer our weight to our left foot.

If our foot is not angled out we will be blocking our right hip from coming through because we will not be able to have enough rotation of our left hip. Not enough rotation of the left hip will cause us to hang back on the right foot. If the left foot is angled out, check your grip. If we have our right hand too much under the grip we could end up hanging back. This is because if you have too strong a grip in your right hand, your right elbow will get pulled down against your stomach. When your elbow gets pulled down, your shoulders will be forced to tilt more to the right. This will cause your head to be leaning too much to the right, causing you to start your swing with too much weight on your right foot. If you start with too much weight on your right foot, you will have trouble transferring that weight to the left foot on the way through the ball.

If your grip is good, check to see which part of your feet you are putting the majority of your weight on. If you set-up to the ball with too much weight on your heels, you will stay back on your right foot. We want the weight on the balls of your feet or close to the toes. We want to be athletically balanced, able to move in any direction without being wobbly. When our weight gets too much on our right heel we don't have any support to push off of to start the forward swing to the golf ball. Without any support we get our weight stuck on our back foot.

If our weight is on the balls of our feet, we need to check our posture. We want to have our butt sticking out. We want to bend at the hips, not at the waist. Stand up straight, slightly bend your knees, stick your butt out. Feel as though you are trying to bump someone with your butt, when you stick it out. This will cause you to bend at the hips. You will feel your upper body lower and tilt forward. If you are slouching at the set-up position, you won't be able to make a proper turn through the ball because your spine will be crooked. With the correct posture, you can turn around your spine and get through the ball so you can transfer your weight to your left foot.

Isn't amazing that there is 5 causes in just the set-up that contribute to staying back on your right foot. This is extremely important to realize, since most golfers don't think this way. The first thing most golfers I speak with try to fix is their swing. As they are trying to fix 1 problem(such as staying back on their right foot too long) another problem usually arises. Now they have 2 problems.

We want to always look first at the set up to fix a fault. That is commonly where the fault is started. Cause and effect. The cause usually starts in the set-up and the effect is found in the swing. It is far easier to fix a set-up flaw, than it is to fix an in-swing flaw. So look to the set-up first.

The thing I find funny, sometimes hilarious, but always ridiculous is when your are told the reason for that bad shot was "You picked up your head"! You didn't pick up your head. The reason for the bad shot most likely started before you even moved the club 1 inch away from the ball on the backswing.

So, Anonymous, try the above suggestions first. If after trying them, the problem persists, you know where to find me. Write me again and I will talk about the in-swing corrections that we can try to help cure the problem.

Also, don't forget, I'm not a big believer in teaching tempo. Tempo is created through proper swing mechanics and confidence in yourself. The only drill I like for tempo is to hum while you swing. Try to keep the hum at a constant volume. Don't let the volume fluctuate during the swing. If the volume changes, this is a sign of tension, which causes poor swing mechanics, which in turn causes bad tempo.

Below Are Seven Additional Wisdom Of Solomon Articles

Practice Techniques

Eye On The Ball

Wedges

Driving Distance

Slow Rhythm

Bad Alignment

Training Aides