Many years ago, I worked in Los Angeles, Calif., at Rivera C.C. under Peter Oosterhaus. I was looking for the best instruction in town that would move me closer to my goals as a tournament player. There were a few pros that I took lessons from in my development. Oosterhaus helped me with some mind coaching, and I received some great short-game lessons from Jerry Barber, the 1959 PGA champion.
Eddie Merrins at Bel-air C.C. gave me some great lessons on swinging the handle. One of the most interesting lessons was out in Studio City from a man named Mike Austin. Austin was an older man who could still hit it pretty good, even though he struggled with his health at the time. He once hit a drive during a tournament 515 yards, with no extraordinary wind conditions. He was 67 years old when he did it, and he was using a persimmon driver with a 43-inch shaft. Austin had a stroke in his seventies and could still hit a ball with one hand 260 yards. He showed me why it was so important to cast the club, or spring it, as he would refer to it from time to time.
Casting has gotten some bad press, but it is truly a wonderful way to increase clubhead speed for the average golfer, who perhaps doesn't make the same bigger muscle motions as the tour professionals. Many of you will find it hard to believe that the finest players cast the club. I believe it's because the fast-speed camera doesn't give us the whole picture. The sequence pictures in the golf magazines don't show the speed of the clubhead and the rate of rotation of the body compared to the swing arc.
At a recent tournament in San Diego, I watched Tiger Woods bomb a 350-yard drive in the third round. Shortly thereafter, television commentator Peter Kostis had a slow-motion analysis of the swing that Woods made. He said that the reason Tiger hit the ball so far was because he holds his angles so well on his downswing. He then showed that cool close-up impact of the club and ball. The ball looked like a marshmallow on a perfectly square club face.
In the middle of the back nine during the final round, Woods hit another 350-yarder. This time the ball was 50 yards off line to the right into the trees. Kostis was on top of it with yet another slow-motion analysis. However, this time he said the reason the ball went 50 yards to the right was because Tiger's angles were far too acute on his downswing. Kostis gave the same explanation for both shots, just worded differently. He then showed the real reason for the 50-yard flare off line.
When the camera brought up the close-up of the ball and club squished together, the club face was a few degrees open. Had Tiger's ball only traveled 270-280, it may have come to rest in the right side of the fairway or just into the rough. But 60-70 yards deeper down the fairway and he found the woods. The close-up can really show how perfect things need to be for a straight shot off of the club face of Tiger's driver. Kostis was wrong during the third round and right during the final round. The reason Tiger hit his ball off line to the right was caused by holding on to his angles too long. I've discovered that holding on to your angle can cause a snap hook. When the club gets stuck behind you, your ball can go anywhere.
I collect the sequence swings from golf magazines and I can't tell you how many times I have seen the frame where the pro is coming down with that angle in his wrist that forms a pretty 90 degrees. The comment in the picture is always the same, he holds on to his angles real good. Here is what you and the golf magazine are missing. It takes 2,000 frames per second to capture the downswing without any blur. When you watch it in either slow motion or view it in those split frame pictures, you miss out on the speed and the short distance the top of the left leg (femur bone) moves the hips.
I found a split-frame sequence swing of Tiger hitting his driver and the same comment was in that frame halfway down, "he holds on to the angle real well."
Shortly after the magazine released this particular swing layout, I'm watching The Golf Channel and Tiger was on with Peter Kessler. Kessler knows the golf swing pretty well, and he asked Tiger, "What are some of your downswing thoughts?"
Tiger picks up a club and says, "I try to get the clubhead as far from my body as I can, as soon as I can."
He starts to make a casting motion with his arms. He's just whipping the club out well above the ground and his waist. Kessler picks up on the motion and asks, "Why would you do that?"
Tiger replied, "Because I move my lower body so fast."
While watching Tiger in slow motion from the top of his backswing down to the ball, he starts to lose the angles created in his right arm and wrists closer to the top than all these magazines are saying. It's happening, it's just there is another motion occurring at the same time. He doesn't turn into the ball with his chest and shoulders as he lets go of these angles. However, he does turn the lower body, specifically the top of the left and right legs. They move a little bit laterally, somewhere around six inches, enough to get his weight to the left foot and then the left knee straightens. This sends his lower body mass to the outside of his left heel. This move is often referred to as firing the hips -- it's how to initiate the hip turn. The top of the legs, or femur bones, are what makes the hips move correctly for uncoiling. It's the motion that Tiger has increased his clubhead speed with. I have a name for this: I call it, "Smash Factor."
If you give these two motions some thought, you have to see that the rate of rotation of the lower body is in a much smaller space than the clubhead. The clubhead travels about 12 to 15 feet from the ball to the top of the backswing. It will have a similar distance to travel back to the ball. Now focus your attention on the belt buckle during the downswing. It travels a distance of about 1 to 1 1/2 feet. With both of those motions occurring at the same time, your best to let go of those angles from the very top, as Woods described. Get the clubhead as far from your body as possible. I will describe it in more detail in my next article.
You can also read more about it at 7mythsofgolf.com.
