Has there ever been an athletic movement more over taught, with “to-do’s” and “not-to-do’s” … than the golf swing? These Golden Rules cause more confusion in the Golf swing than they help to correct.

Below are two frequently heard Golden Rules:

1. You need to keep your head still – not allowing it to move up or down or back or forward. So on the backswing you need to shift your weight to your back foot, turn your shoulders 90 degrees, turn your hips 45 degrees – while the whole time keeping your head still

However: if you try turn your shoulders, turn your hips, shift your weight and keep your head still … you most likely will be hitting the golf ball with too much weight on your back foot.

2. As you swing towards the golf ball, you need to “hold your wrists through impact” – not “flip your wrists”. You also need to keep your head behind the golf ball while you “shift your weight to your front foot.”

However: when you shift your weight with your legs and keep your head behind the golf ball, you are putting yourself in such a bad position that it leaves you no choice but to flip your wrists. If you don’t flip them at that point … you’d be whacking the ground before you hit the golf ball.
Many of the Golden Rules of “what you need to do” … actually cause you to do the things on the “what you’re not supposed to do” Golden Rule list … like hitting with too much weight on your back foot and/or flipping your wrists at impact.

Golfers have a tendency of getting too overwhelmed with all the Golden Rules. We bog ourselves down with ‘paralysis by analysis’. It’s as if you have so many thoughts of what you need to do, along with what you can’t allow yourself to do before each golf shot – that you have very little chance of consistently hitting a good shot.

And although there are many that will say – “Well yes Marc, that is true. But everybody talks about these Golden Rules … so they must have some bearing on how I hit the golf ball.” To which I believe my response would be – how many of the same exact Golden Rules do Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Lorena Ochoa, Jack Nicklaus, Jim Furyk, and Annika Sorenstam share?

Do those golf swings look exactly the same? Or lets put it another way – if you were to put a bag over the head of each Golfer (so you couldn’t tell who it was – made Mickelson play right handed) even the most casual Golf Fan would be able to tell which is Tiger’s swing and which is Jack’s swing, which is Furyk’s swing, and which is Annika’s swing. Meaning Tiger doesn’t have the same exact Golden Rules as Nicklaus. And Mickelson doesn’t have the same exact Golden Rules as Sorenstam. And Furyk has broken many of the Golden Rules you believed were sacred … yet he has a US Open trophy.

What Golden Rules are you applying to your golf swing right now? And who told you about those Golden Rules? Did you read about one of Sergio Garcia’s Golden Rules in a golf magazine and decided it needs to be one of your Golden Rules? How do you know that Sergio’s Golden Rule of lagging the club through impact applies to your golf swing?

Do you have as much hip and shoulder turn at impact as Sergio? Do you have Sergio’s flexibility? Are your forearms as strong as Sergio’s?

Sergio’s Golden Rule of lagging the club is based on Sergio’s golf swing and what he can already do as well as anyone in the world. If your shoulders and hips aren’t moving like his because you don’t have his flexibility and if your forearms aren’t as strong as his … you can’t follow Sergio’s Golden Rule of lag. If you try … you will fail and you will become frustrated.

Here’s a Drill using a Results Based Approach to find your personal Golden Rules:

Take out a wedge and hit a golf ball 10 yards. After the shot – determine if you hit it solid and if it went in the direction you intended.

If you hit it solid, hit a golf ball 30 yards. After the 30 yard shot – determine if you hit it solid and if it went in the direction you intended. If it wasn’t as solid or as straight as the 10 yard shot – go back to the 10 yard shot and try to find out what you did differently and hit another shot from 10 yards.

After you hit another solid 10 yard shot – go back to the 30 yard shot and apply what you felt in the 10 yard swing. If it’s not good again, go back to the 10 yard shot to feel it again.

When you do hit a good 30 yard shot …

Move onto a 60 yard shot. After that shot – determine if you hit it solid and if it went in the direction you intended. If not, go back to the 30 yard shot and try to find out what you did differently. If you did hit the 60 yard shot well – go to 90 yards. Then follow this process until you’re taking full swings.

Why will this drill help you?

First – most Golfers try to determine what’s wrong with their golf swing primarily after taking full swings. Yet, that swing happens so fast – it’s very difficult for even the best Players to correctly feel what they’re doing wrong during a full golf swing. Your arms and body are moving at a speed that doesn’t allow you to determine where your golf swing is breaking down. And what you often feel is actually happening well after the true cause happened. Thus, you’re feeling the “effect” not the “cause”.

By starting with these small golf swings – you’re better able to pinpoint what’s happening and when.

Second – many of the problems that 8 out of every 10 Golfers have in their golf swing happens on their backswing before the club gets even waist high. Yet these Golfers are usually working on fixing something between the top of their backswing and the follow-through. Though remember, the problems you perceive at those points of your golf swing are directly caused by something happening well before that. To understand why that is … go two paragraphs up to reread the bolded sentence.

So basically, you’re trying to fix an “effect” that will never be fixed because you haven’t found the “cause”.

Starting with small golf swings and working your way up – you’ll be determining (using a Results Based Approach) where your problem is occurring in your golf swing. Unfortunately, it’s been pounded into the heads of many Golfers that improving your golf swing is all about the Golden Rules of the full swing. And yes, you need to practice full golf swings … yet, the best way to fix your full swing isn’t just by practicing full swings.

The teaching method I’m introducing to you above is a Results Based Approach of finding where in your golf swing your golf swing is breaking down. It shows that if you hit your wedge well with the 10 yard shot and you hit well with the 30 and 60 yard shot, but then mess up the 90 yard shot (which to many would be between a ¾ and full swing) – it shows that you’re doing something bad in your golf swing somewhere in the area where your club passes through 60 yards as you go to a 90 yard backswing.

And it’s probably at that exact same point of your golf swing that you’re having problems with your Driver (or substitute any club you’re inconsistent with) – yet, you probably won’t detect this happening while hitting full Drivers because it happens too fast for most Golfers to feel. That’s why over 80% of Golfers get stuck trying to fix the start of their downswing or follow-through … because those are the only points of their golf swing they can feel during full swings.

How do I know this Results Based Approach works? Because by using similar Results Based Approaches we’ve been able to display at least 2 testimonials every week in Golf Improvement Weekly for the last 343 Issues as well as displaying 100’s more on the www.default website.

When’s the last time you had the pleasure of telling anyone about how well you’re playing and how good you feel about your golf swing? Or are you like most Golfers and spend more time telling people about how bad you’re playing?

The Monkey will continue to be frustrated with the Golden Rules as they jump from Golden Rule to Golden Rule to Golden Rule

The Player finds where their golf swing is breaking down using a Results Based Approach

Go ahead, come to GMS and learn to become a Player

Regards,

Marc Solomon