The Natural Golf Swing (13 page)

Consider this: centrifugal force and inertia are allowing you to make a pure, uninterrupted swing motion. As you are carried back, having a free ride, really, you sense that it is time to move to your target. To do otherwise would be to compromise balance. Your intent to move to the target and your acute sense of balance ensure that you won’t go too far while loading. You’ll know when it’s time to start the unloading motion just as you know when you’ve gotten out of balance while climbing a hill. Golfers are surprised at how sensitive they can become to their own errors; but it’s a sensitivity we all have.

The end of the loading motion comes, then, when the mass has developed all the potential energy it wants, under the condition of balance. You sense when this has occurred, and so you begin the unloading motion.

You begin the unloading motion, then, while still loading. Your target awareness induces you to do so. If you weren’t focusing on your target, you would have no reason to complete the loading motion. You might very well continue back, where you would dissipate all the energy you accumulated through weight
transfer and rotation. Target awareness is the stimulant that helps you click in to the latter part of the loading motion and the initiation of the unloading motion. The clubhead changes direction because you have transferred weight to the finish position.

Let’s examine the loading motion more closely. We’ll look at what you need to learn and what happens on its own: the voluntary and the involuntary, as I like to call these skills and actions.

First, we have assumed a starting position in which we are oriented toward our target. We’re in place; we’ve pre-determined the arc and plane. We now need to set ourselves in motion in such a way that we will maximize the arc and remain on-plane.

We initiate the swing motion by shifting weight to our right foot. This is the means of moving the clubhead. When we walk, we don’t shake or turn our upper body. The upper body follows the beat of the legs.

We are aware of our balance and posture, and to maintain these elements we allow ourselves to rotate around the trunk. Our hands are passive or quiet, but actually set in motion by weight transfer and rotation.

“Passive hands” is not meant to suggest inactive hands. It’s just that we don’t consciously do anything with them.

But how do we keep the hands out of the swing? Aren’t they lively devils that want to get into the act? Aren’t they our only connections to the club? Doesn’t that mean we should
do
something with them?

This is precisely the point. Our hands will be as active as we need them to be if we
let
them move along with the rest of the body.

The loading motion.
Top left
, left arm extends, right elbow folds.
Top right
, head moving as it will.
Centre
, natural wrist cock.
Bottom left
, left heel comes up during rotation.
Bottom right
, full rotation.

For the moment, pick up a golf club and address an imaginary ball. Let your weight go from your left foot to your right foot. Did you notice that your hands moved along with the weight shift? And they moved in a pure path. You didn’t have to
put
them anywhere. They went along for the ride. A golfer can do marvellous things with his feet. I believe in playing golf through your feet. Footwork is the voluntary action that initiates the motion. So send a message to your feet. Put yourself in motion through weight transfer; develop your sense of balance so that you know when you’ve gone beyond the inside of your right foot. If you feel yourself getting out of balance, you are no longer transferring weight. You’re swaying. A sway is an imbalance. Keep the weight to the inside of the right foot while rotating.

The loading motion is generally circular in shape. Instead of transferring our weight so far that we lose balance, we simply let ourselves rotate around our trunk. I’m describing this as if it were separate from the weight transfer, but in reality the weight transfer and rotation happen almost simultaneously. All parts of the body move more or less in unison during the loading motion.

I say “more or less” because I find that the most effective means of beginning the loading motion is through my footwork. As soon as I start the weight shift, though, my upper body cannot help but follow. I therefore transfer weight while rotating; I rotate while transferring weight.

Fully loaded, immaculate balance.

The effect of the motion is to allow the hands to work in tandem with the clubhead. They just travel along, and what a relief it is not to have to think about them. We need not worry about our hands.

The loading motion, then, is a matter of moving immediately to the right foot. Feel the ground under your feet. Feel your weight go to your right foot. As we do shift weight under the governance of balance, our hands remain passive, and the left arm extends naturally. The right elbow folds on the way back as long as the hands are passive. These are involuntary or automatic responses to the motion. The wrists cock as a result of the mass of the club being put in motion by the weight transfer while loading. This too is an automatic action, as is the wrist cock that happens at the completion of the loading motion.

The voluntary actions in the loading motion that you need to learn are weight transfer and rotation; that is, you
make
these happen. The involuntary or automatic actions or positions are: the right elbow folding and the left arm extending, thereby creating a maximum arc during
loading; the head moving as it will; the wrists cocking; the left heel coming up off the ground as you shift weight; the back turned more or less to where it is facing the target at the completion of loading, depending on your flexibility.

We’ve now reached the top of the loading motion. Centrifugal force and inertia have taken us to a powerful and balanced position. We’re in balance and intent on our target. It’s time to begin the unloading motion.

F
OR PURPOSES
of explanation, we distinguish the loading and unloading motions from each other. They are actually part of the same motion. We begin to unload the power we have developed while we are still completing the loading motion.

The intent to transfer weight to the finishing position generates a sequence of motion. The left foot is the first part of the body to stabilize, or find its finishing or resting place. Depending on a person’s flexibility, it will have come up off the ground to a certain degree during the loading motion. Now, as the golfer transfers weight to the finishing position, the left foot returns to the ground. It takes the weight of the body.

Following the stabilization of the left foot are the left knee, then the hips, the shoulders, arms, hands, and finally the clubhead. These reach their natural end points because we have transferred weight while unloading.

Simultaneous with the weight shift, some remarkable things take place without you trying to make them happen. The clubhead begins to lag behind your feet and body, a natural reaction to centrifugal force. This natural happening is known as clubhead delay or clubhead lag. It is an
involuntary response to the force that put the clubhead into a powerful position at the end of the loading motion, and to your intent to transfer weight to the finishing position.

Your right arm, as indicated, straightens during unloading from its folded position while loading. Your weight transfer to the finishing position while in balance and with full extension – due to your starting form of relaxed shoulders, arms, and hands – ensures that this occurs. You are allowing the arc to be maximized. You don’t need to do a thing for this to happen; just allow it to happen.

The unloading motion begins when we transfer the body weight to the finishing position. We transfer weight from the right foot to the left foot, the two pivot points in the swing motion. This causes a number of very good things to happen during the unloading motion. These are, of course, involuntary. They
happen
because we transfer weight.

First, the wrists are put in a maximum cocked position due to the weight transfer to the finishing position.

Top
, position of the left foot at the completion of the loading motion.
Bottom
, stabilization of the left foot during unloading.

At impact, the arms become fully extended while the hands and wrists return to their natural form, that is, square to the target for a straight shot. The right elbow, meanwhile, returns to an extended form at impact.

Beyond impact, the left elbow will fold midway to the finishing position while the right arm extends. The right elbow will fold
at the completion of the swing motion.

Involuntary hand action before impact, at impact, and after impact.

The unloading motion is truly a simple, responsive act. It’s a matter of trusting that what has come before is correct; if you set up the starting form correctly and then make the swing motion I’m presenting here, you can be sure it
is
correct.

Give up control to gain control
. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There’s no need to force things in the natural swing. Just let yourself be. You’ll have flowed through to a complete, graceful finishing form because you won’t have interfered with the motion.