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PRACTICE-SWING TECHNIQUE

The movements in baseball are very similar to those in golf. Learn how to apply your knowledge of throwing to your golf swing.

LEARNING TRANSITION THROUGH BASEBALL

Now that you know how to putt, use that same stroke with your lofted wedges.

CHIP USING YOUR PUTTING STROKE

How your body moves is an important part of the swing. It is also a big speed and control producer if it works correctly. But if it is trained incorrectly it can make it almost impossible to reach your speed and control potential. It can also potentially create patterns that can lead to injury.

Body Motion

A Malaska Golf Member wants to know about the release pattern in the swing. Mike says this member is typical of those players who swing from the inside and have to roll their hands over at impact. He has a weak grip, holds the clubface open, and twists his forearms. The member wants some advice and drills to keep from doing this.

Mike uses a frisbee to show hand action. He first uses his right hand to throw the frisbee. Notice that Mike doesn’t twist his hand as he throws it. If he did, it wouldn’t go. He now throws the frisbee with his left hand, and you can see that hand action.

Throwing a frisbee with both your right and left hands gives you a feel for the hand action of the golf swing. Mike demonstrates this hand action with a golf club.

Mike has also put an ‘X’ mark with a sharpie on his left golf glove. The reason to have the X on the glove is to make sure that Mike’s hand was facing outwards on the follow-through. This was to teach Mike not to turn his hands over because if he did, the palm of his glove would be facing upward. 

These are two of the best ways to practice hand action.

LEARNING HAND ACTION

A Malaska Golf Member says he has improved how his right hand works through the ball. However, he wants to know why his dynamic loft has increased. The member’s dynamic loft has gone up 4 degrees, although he is not hooking the ball.

Static loft is when your club sits at a 90-degree angle to the ball. However, when most people hit the ball, there is a bit of forward shaft lean. Mike’s static loft at address is 50 degrees, but at impact, the clubface’s dynamic loft is 48 or even 46 degrees. Dynamic loft is the angle of approach of the clubface at impact.

The key is to monitor your right hand and keep your knuckles behind your wrists at impact. This will take the loft off the clubface. Therefore, you will add loft if your knuckles catch up with your wrist.

Once you start to feel this, you can lean the shaft backward to increase your dynamic loft more than your static loft, and the clubface won’t turn down. This means you can focus on the trajectory of the ball. With different lofts, the ball will carry different distances if you hit the ball straight.

Once you can get your right hand working correctly and you aren’t hitting pull hooks, it’s just monitoring where your knuckles are in relation to your wrists when you run the club into the ball.

CONTROLLING DYNAMIC LOFT

Head movement is the subject of this Skill Pathway. Your head doesn't remain still, so how and why does it move, and what keeps it still?
One of the biggest problems for players, especially amateurs, is how their heads move. The movement happens because they are trying to shift their weight.
Forces, not weight shift, are what causes your head to move. When you swing into your right heel, then into your left heel, and your left leg pushes back, your head moves as your body tilts. It is not because you are just moving it back and forth.
Mike stands on one foot and swings to demonstrate how his head doesn't move much as he pivots on one hip. He doesn't push off on his right foot when he changes direction and starts down.
It is vital to understand that you are not trying to shift your weight; you are trying to move force. Practice hitting on one foot to experience what it feels like to hit down into the ground instead of off the ground.
Correctly moving your body will make your head more stationary and not move around as much.

Weight Shift

Your mind is a muscle just like your body. It needs to and can be trained. The proper mindset is critical to maximizing performance. Your mind controls your body so how do we train it to make the correct decisions. React in a manner that gives us the best chance for success. And how do we train it to process what happens properly so it becomes a constant learning process and roadway to success.

Mental Game

Matt Baker, a Malaska Certified Coach, is subbing for Mike this week. A Malaska Golf Member is having problems getting his right elbow under his left. Too far underneath.

Matt says this comes from two different areas. You are shallowing the clubhead too much, and it’s getting too far behind you, or your left hip isn’t working properly on the follow-through. You may be stalling, and your hip goes upwards. This will cause you to tilt your body back, and you will get caught behind the ball.

There are two things you can do to work on this. First is the ‘Turning the Corner’ of ‘Tipping the Club.’ This is in the Malaska Golf Drill Center.
This is where you feel the handle is being pulled down, and the club feels like it’s going over the handle. This gets the club back out in front of you.

Second, start working on moving your left hip backward on impact. Reference M1 of the M-System, where you chip and learn to pivot the left hip backward by pushing the left leg and hip back as you swing through. This will help you turn the shoulders and keep them level.

You can do either one, and that should help you.

Keep From Getting Stuck

A Malaska Golf Member asks about crossover sports and getting a feel for the golf club.

Mike has heard people in the golf industry talk about “throwing a ball.” They want you to feel the golf swing and feel like you are throwing the golf ball way out in front. Doing this causes your right elbow to go in front of your hip, an exaggeration you don’t want to happen. Your right elbow should work on your right hip. Ben Hogan kept his right elbow even with his hip when he swung a golf club. It never outran his hip.

Mike says you don’t want to feel like you are throwing the ball out in front of you. Instead, try throwing a ball at another ball placed where you would set it up on a tee.

Mike demonstrates this and says that if he practices enough, he can hit the ball anywhere on the surface of the target ball. This drill helps you to direct momentum down towards the ball and, in this case, a golf club. When you swing, you are directing the momentum of the clubhead down to the ball.

Mike also shows us if you follow what others are saying and want the clubhead to run into the ball, you will miss the ball on the swing.

Again, Mike says you are throwing momentum into the back of the ball with the golf club. Get a feel for throwing a ball and feel how loose your wrist is when you do this. This is the same feeling you have in a golf swing.

THROWING A BALL

Todd was a latecomer to golf. He began playing after high school and instantly fell in love with it. His friends, who played well, taught him great fundamentals (grip, posture, ball position) and what he considers a fundamental: the release.
Within a year and a half, Todd was a scratch golfer. He described his game as very arms, hands, and wrists-driven, allowing the body to respond athletically to the swing. He never considered himself a core-driven player and has always had a lot of speed. He never thought of playing professionally or teaching for a career. He just loved playing and competing with his friends and co-workers. A local instructor told him he had the talent to play at a high level and was so confident he would teach Todd for free.
Right away, they went to work on the &ldquo;tour&rdquo; swing, which was core-driven and involved a flip by turning the lead wrist down at impact. He worked hard following the development program but could never maintain consistency, and no one outworked him. A friend kept asking for a lesson, and Todd reluctantly agreed.
Interestingly enough, it was during that lesson that Todd got his game back. After years of struggling with one piece of advice, one feeling was Todd&rsquo;s lightbulb moment.&amp;nbsp; That moment changed his life, and he knew what he was meant to do. He fell back in love with the game, with practice and understanding the game. He became a student of the game and vowed to stop what happened to him from ever happening to anyone else.
He&rsquo;s been a Class-A PGA Professional since 2021 but has been teaching for 15 years. He plays to a +2 handicap with a pair of 59s under his belt. He is the Head PGA Professional and Director of Instruction at both Remuda and Cranefield GC&rsquo;s. He is the owner and director of instruction for Todd Heugly Golf, which offers private and online lessons. The Wasatch Golf Academy is his online player development academy and has produced some great players.
Over the past couple of years, Todd has been on a health roller coaster, and he believes it has made him a better player and coach.

Malaska Certified-Todd Heugly

Creating width is not a matter of how far you can move the clubhead from your body, it is how far you can distance the club handle from your chest. Creating width is the first step to increasing distance with your driver.