Perfect Golf Swing
If you have ever wondered how PGA champions can hit the green inches from the pin, these are a few secrets to a perfect swing.
Keep Your Head Engaged
The head is the control center of the swing. Many golfers are tempted to track their shots. Pulling the head out too early forces your shoulders and torso up leading to hitting the top half of the golfer ball. A good way to break this habit on the range is on your follow-through try to look over your back shoulder on follow through. Keep your head down through the swing without looking for the ball. By keeping your head down, you are less likely to hit flyers.
Connect Your Arms
Loose arms in a golf swing force the club away from your body and create a long swing plane. Connecting the lower half of your arms will keep the swing plane consistent. Additionally, by keeping the upper part of the arms connected to the body, golfers can avoid slicing and hooking. To practice this, use these two methods:
- Lower arms – Justin Thomas uses an inflatable training ball that fits between the lower arms. Squeeze the ball between the arms so it fits snug but not overly tight. If the ball comes loose and falls in the backswing, your arms are separating.
- Upper Arms – take a golf towel and tuck it between each of your armpits. Similar to the lower arm exercise, if the golf towel falls, your arms are coming away from your body creating an uncontrollable swing plane.
Pro tip – once comfortable with each exercise individually, try doing both simultaneously. This exercise synchronizes the arms and hands.
Develop Different Grips
The hands are the connecting point to the golf club. A small change in the hand positioning can make big changes down the shaft. There are three different grips: weak, neutral, and strong. The names are misleading and aren’t related to grip pressure but instead hand position.
- Weak – Tendency to help fade
- Neutral – no favor to fade or draw
- Strong – Tendency to help draw
For right-handed golfers, a strong grip means rotating the wrist slightly over the face of the club with the thumb of the left hand down the right side of the club. This forces the clubhead to remain closed longer and drives rotation at the bottom. A weak grip is the opposite of a strong grip.
Quiet the Legs
Too much action in the legs can throw off the upper bottom. For example, too much bend at the knees can change your hip plane as you swing through. If the back leg is bent too far, it will force you to lean back and either ground your club or hit sky-high shots. In practice, shift your weight from back to front while focusing on keeping bends at the knee to a minimum.
Best Kept Secrets
After hours of research and practice on the driving range and in rounds, these are the best-kept secrets to a perfect golf swing. Watching and reviewing professional golfers’ training and exercise regimens has yielded these exercises and keys to focus on for a perfect swing.
