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Golf StarNewsDaily.com • 366.9200 (Dunkirk/Fredonia) • 338.0030 (Jamestown)
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Golf
11
April 5, 2012 Edition – Sports Section – B
Insider By T.J. TOMASI
TEEING OFF
The golf swing is built on balance
No matter how good (or bad) your golf swing is, balance is the organizing principle. There is nothing you do well that doesn’t require good balance, including lying on the couch, and when you study the wide variety of swings used by tour players, you’ll see that all the different swing parts self-organize around the principle of balance. The good news is that balance can be cultivated, so with a little effort, you can put its powers to work. To better understand the concept of balance, I make a distinction between “street” balance and “golf” balance. Evolution has given you a balance system that keeps you safe from falling. Your brain receives a continuous flow of information about the position of your body and gives orders to your muscles to regain your balance whenever your body is in danger of taking a tumble. This unconscious self-preservation system is what I call street balance, and while it can save your life, it can also ruin your golf swing. Because of the importance of remaining upright, your brain attaches a great deal of significance to any message that says, “This container is falling over.” When your brain receives such a message, it automatically acts to recover, and there’s nothing you can do about it. This reflex is called the “righting instinct,” and its power to control your body is supreme. The contorted arrangements involved in hitting a golf ball (spine tilted, body bowed, left side straight, right side flexed, head back, lead hip high) create an unnatural position. These golf positions are on the edge of the line where the righting instinct kicks in, ready to save your body but ruin your shot. Thus, your golf swing is in balance only when your street balance and your golf balance work together. Here’s how you make the two match: First, check your weight distribution at address. Bad golf balance often begins with the weight forward on the toes. It should be distributed from the balls of the feet backward to the heels. Second, focus on your tempo and make a smooth, unhurried swing with no leaps or lurches — first with your practice swing, then with your actual swing. Think of your swing as being long and lazy vs. short and fast. Remember, balance is a learned skill, so hold your pose at the finish to make sure you’re in equilibrium.
Match elbow and hip for solid contact The quality of your impact position is determined by the relationship between two body parts: your trail elbow and hip. The trail elbow determines the path of the clubhead to the ball, so if your elbow matches up evenly with your hip, as in the first photo below, your hands can get back in front of your body in time for impact. However, if your elbow is trapped behind your hip, as the second golfer’s is below, you’ll have an awful time squaring the face correctly. Here are two cures for a hip/elbow package that is out of sync: 1. A long elbow swing: If your elbow must travel a long distance from the top of your backswing to impact, then your hips need to wait a bit as they make their turn so your elbow can catch up. You can keep the long backswing, but you need to slow down your hip turn. 2. A short elbow swing: It’s just the opposite if your trail elbow doesn’t
swing long ABOUT THE WRITER enough at Dr. T.J. the end of Tomasi is a teaching the backprofessional swing. Since in Port St. the elbow Lucie, Fla. Visit his has a short website at journey to tjtomasi.com. impact, it runs the risk of arriving too early, well ahead of the hip. In this case, you can lengthen your backswing or, if you like your short swing, simply speed up your hip turn. Either way, you’re back in match. Slow hips and fast elbows are mismatched unless you like to pull the ball way to the left. The fast hips/ slow elbow duo isn’t any better because your clubhead will be late for impact, sending the ball to the right of the target. To swing your best, you need to coordinate your elbows and hips so they match, slow with slow, or fast with fast.
Athletes of today
Jack Nicklaus describes his contemporaries: “In those days, most of those guys were club pros. Their usual thing was, after a round, to come in and have a drink and socialize. They did that when they played tournaments. “I always felt drinking did not do well with nerves. The guys today don’t do that. I never did that. … Guys take the game today as more athletes, and I took it that way.” Insider Take: Announcer Roger Maltbie, once a fine player, said the reason he stopped jogging was that the ice cubes kept falling out of his Scotch glass. And Maltbie was no exception; outside of Gary Player and Frank Stranahan, in Nicklaus’ day, hardly anyone took care of their bodies like they do now.
Still conscious His win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill last week ended Tiger Woods’ long drought, but he still has a “not quite” profile. This is not a criticism of his wonderful performance, just an observation. Woods is consciously trying very hard to make his new swing every time, and when he does, he hits it great, but when he doesn’t, it’s so far off that he hits a trick shot. It happened on Friday when he hit the out-of-bounds fence with a vicious hook, and twice on Saturday when he hit it 30 yards OB on one shot and a high flare way to the right with a 7-iron on another terrible swing. When a player is not quite sure, he exaggerates the move, and that’s when you see the trick shot. Does Tiger have it yet? Not quite, but he’s close! QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I would rather be broke
and not have a penny to my name before I violate the code of player-teacher confidentiality.” This golfer’s elbow lines up evenly and is not blocked by her hip.
GOLF SPOKEN HERE
Over-clubbing (1) Using a club that will hit the ball farther than necessary. (2) Going to one too many nightclubs the evening before the big match. Both are unnecessary excesses that can adversely affect your game.
THE GOLF DOCTOR
A handy workout
BIRDIES AND BOGEYS
IT’S GOOD FOR YOUR GAME
An important part of your body’s warning system is pain, and most of the time when something hurts, you stop using it because the pain warning says “stay away.” But according to doctors at the University of Washington School of Medicine, the pain of arthritis can be handled differently, especially in your hands, which are the only contact you have with your golf club. It’s a vicious cycle: Pain causes decreased use, and this inactivity causes the joints of your fingers to become rigid, with limited motion and greatly reduced squeezing power. While it might hurt initially to get your inelastic joints moving again, in the long run, regular exercise can help improve both their flexibility and strength. Here are two exercises that will help. Check with your doctor to make sure they are right for you. Open-and-Close Drill First, use the thumb and index finger of one hand to massage the other hand. Switch hands back and forth and cover all the joints at least twice. Next, slowly open and stretch your hand, then close it, working each joint as you make a fist. Do this as often as you can, especially when you wake up in the morning. Tennis Ball Squeeze Keep a soft rubber ball by your TV chair and desk and squeeze it every chance you get, alternating hands. Hold pressure for five seconds, then release, and do 10 reps. Even better, in my experience, is Play-Doh because you can run it through your fingers and squeeze it at odd angles to maximize your range of motion.
This golfer is trapped — her elbow is blocked by her hip, making it very difficult to square the face at impact.
— Rick Smith, a golf teacher, to ESPN.com, regarding Hank Haney’s tell-all book about Tiger Woods.
ASK THE PRO
Grip pressure varies depending on the shot Q: You’ve written about fading and drawing the ball, but I’ve tried to do it the way you described and it doesn’t work from me. Is there another way? — Rob S. A: Simply changing your setup is the best way, but there’s another. Think of it this way: Your hands control the clubface, and how tightly you hold the club determines which hand has control. When you need a slice, tighten your hold in both hands, but increase it the most in your lead hand so you can pull your club through impact butt-first. Any time you start your downswing by pulling toward the target with your lead hand, you’ll leave the clubface open, causing your ball to spin from left to right.
On a scale of 1 to 10, if your normal pressure is a 3, ratchet your fade pressure up to a 4 in your trail hand and a 6 in your lead. The increased firmness in your hands discourages wrist action, and the more stiff-wristed your swing, the more likely you are to produce a fade. To draw the ball, gear back to a 2 on your grip pressure and loosen your lead hand grip down to 1. This will loosen your wrists, giving them the flexibility to work the clubface into a slightly closed position through the hitting zone, resulting in a draw that moves away from the trouble. (To Ask the Pro a question about golf, email him at: TJInsider@aol.com.)
LESSONS ON TOUR
Don’t change horses, or your swing, in midstream Would you rather land 12 feet or 60 feet from the hole? Of course 12 is the better number, but even good golfers ruin their chances of getting close to the hole by changing the swing that made them successful in the first place. Case in point is Sang-moon Bae at this year’s Transitions Championship. He had a good chance to win in regulation with only a wedge to No. 18 on Sunday, but he got too cute and tried to hit a sawedoff punch shot. All day his swing was full and flowing, and then suddenly, he changes to a swing that requires
completely different timing and swing mechanics. The result was a weak, off-center hit and a 60-foot putt to tie. The four-man playoff started on the same hole Bae just played, and he drove it about 2 feet to the right of the divot from his prior wedge. With exactly the same distance to the hole, he chose the same club, but this time hit a normal-swing wedge to 12 feet. He missed the putt and lost the playoff, but he learned a lesson that can help all golfers: Under pressure, stick with the swing that got you there.
WHAT SCIENCE SAYS
Could bad golf actually be contagious? We know that colds are catching and so are measles, but is obesity contagious? And if so, what else could be passed around — bad putting, perhaps? Two researchers have concluded that certain behaviors can be literally contagious, passed from person to person. Dr. Nicholas Christakis, from Harvard, and James Fowler, at the University of California, San Diego, report that a network of friends who hung out together exhibited similar levels of obesity, whereas neighbors who were not friends of the group did not. How could this be? According to the doctors, three factors are at work: (1) Members of the same milieu are shaped
in the same way. (2) People tend to choose friends like themselves, hence the extension of “I like you” is “I like you because you are like me.” And (3), the most controversial factor is contagion, defined by the Free Dictionary as “The spread of a behavior pattern, attitude or emotion from person to person or group to group through suggestion, propaganda, rumor or imitation.” While there are some dissenters in the academic community who argue the research is not valid, I do know this about contagion: “Have dinner with a good putter.” Harvey Penick’s advice to someone who wants to be a good putter works!