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Get spring golf season off to a swinging start

By Larry Roytas, Southpointe Golf Club

I’m sure most of you put golf thoughts on the back burner with all of the excitement of the holidays. But now that Santa is back at the North Pole, I’ll bet most of you are already getting the itch. It may not seem like it as you tramp through the snow, but the season is not far off.

Last winter, I outlined an off-season stretching program to help maintain your flexibility. By doing four simple stretches each day, which take less than five minutes, you can maintain and even increase your range of motion for the golf muscles. Let’s do a quick review.

Side Bends

1. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and arms at your side

2. Bend to the right keeping your hips facing forward and letting your right arm slide down the outside of your thigh until a stretch is felt along the left side of your torso

3. Hold each stretch for 10 seconds and repeat three times.

4. Reverse arm positions bending to the left and repeat the above steps

Trunk Rotation

1. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart

2. While grasping a golf club, bend your arms at the elbows sliding the club behind your head

3. Twist your upper body to the right keeping your hips facing forward

4. Hold for ten seconds and repeat three times

5. now twist your body to the left and repeat the above steps

Quadriceps Stretch

1. Stand with one arm holding onto a wall

2. With the other hand grasp your ankle and pull your foot behind you

toward your buttocks

3. Feel a stretch in the front of your thigh and hold for ten seconds

4. Repeat three times on each leg

Hamstring Stretch

1. Sit with your right leg out in front and your left leg bent so your left foot touches your right knee

2. Reach down your right leg until you feel a stretch in the back of your thigh

3. Hold for ten seconds and repeat three times

4. Repeat the above steps with your left leg out in front

These stretches are great to help maintain your flexibility, but they are still no substitute for hitting balls. If you are not lucky enough to head south for the winter, I recommend finding an indoor facility to hit balls. If you are able to spend one hour a week swinging you will be able to maintain your timing through the winter. It will also give you an opportunity to work on this issue’s lesson, which focuses on shoulder turn.

Before I talk about the swing, I want to briefly review the proper set-up. As I have stressed in every past lesson, the proper set-up is critical in making a good swing. Take your stance with your feet shoulder width apart, your weight evenly distributed and bend your knees slightly. Tilt from the waist until your shoulders are over your toes. Keep your weight centered and slightly on the balls of your feet. This puts your body in a ready-set-go athletic position which is strong and balanced.

I believe most people make the golf swing more difficult than it is by trying to control every body movement. With as many moving parts as the swing has, controlling everything is impossible. Believe it or not, focusing on just a few things will help everything else fall in place.

Our main goal in the swing is to maintain our posture, primarily knee flex and spine angle, as we turn our shoulders through to a balanced finish position. The club is being swung with the shoulders, not the arms and hands. The arms and hands need to be relaxed. Simply put, they are along for the ride. Most bad shots are caused by trying to guide the club through impact using your hands.

You will also notice when you make your swing with the shoulders that there is no effort to make your legs move. Provided your posture is correct, the weight is transferred on the backswing without giving any thought to it. It is what happens automatically because the shoulder turn isn’t possible without lower body movement. As long as the body is relaxed, moving the shoulders will cause everything else to flow with them.

On the downswing we just need to keep the shoulders turning through to the finish while still maintaining our posture. Once again, you’ll notice that your weight is transferring without giving it any thought. The arms and hands are returning the club to the ball because of the path the shoulder turn has created. The hands are relaxed and releasing through impact because your turn forces them to release without giving it conscious thought. As you stand in your finishes position, hold it for a few seconds and think about what you just did. Almost everything that happened in the swing happened because you allowed it to happen. You didn't think about weight transfer, wrist hinging or hand release. All you thought about was maintaining your posture and turning your shoulders back and through and everything else took care of itself. I guess you could say in this instance less thought is better.

Hopefully all of you can put this lesson to good use. I promise that if you keep swinging through the next three months you’ll keep the winter blues away. Stay warm and keep thinking about a green golf course!

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