Building A Better Golf Swing

By Jack Moorehouse

Adam Scott is one of the best young golfers on the PGA tour. His record proves it. In 2006 he won the Tour Championship and finished third on the PGA Tour money list. In 2007 he finished third in the official world golf rankings with a second place finish at the Mercedes-Benz Championship. And in 2008 he played enough events on the European Tour to qualify for the Order of Merit team for the first time since 2005. But in 2009 his form dipped. He dropped out of the top 50 in the world rankings and the top 100 on the PGA Tour money list.

Scott is working with instructor Butch Harmon to regain his winning form. Harmon’s golf instruction sessions have been focusing mainly on eliminating inconsistency in Adam’s swing. That’s a great goal for weekend golfers. Inconsistency really hurts your game. It’s caused by any number of things, like swing plane or alignment. Eliminating it is critical to achieving a lower golf handicap. In fact, you’ll be hard pressed to cut any strokes from your golf handicap unless you develop a repeatable swing. The golf tips below can help.

Good Timing Is Essential
The first step in eliminating inconsistency is timing. Good timing guarantees accuracy off the tee. To improve timing, shorten your backswing by stopping your shoulder turn when your arms stop going back naturally. If you keep your arms moving back, you’ll get yourself in trouble at the top. Also, keep your hands as far away from your head as possible. This keeps you short of parallel and eliminates overturning. In addition, keep your feet on the ground. This braces lower body and prevents swaying.

Achieve Consistent Ballstriking
To achieve solid ballstriking, move your arms and body as a single unit. In other words, your arms and chest must move together during the downswing. You also must maintain the triangle formed by your arms and chest into impact. It’s the only point in the swing where both arms are perfectly straight and your swinging at maximum speed. Also, watch those hips. If they move too fast, you’ll hit a hook or block. To achieve solid ballstriking consistent, focus on moving your body and your arms together as a single unit.

Generate Power Consistently
To create a power-laden swing, you must increase clubhead speed. To do that you must tap the four power sources: weight shift, body rotation, arm swing, and hands release. Weight shift involves the right foot rising (left, if left-handed) slightly off the ground and the left leg straightening in the downswing. When this occurs, you’ve started to move your weight onto your left leg. Your arms, which are another major source of power, should start to straighten as you approach impact. Meanwhile, your belt buckle should move past your shoulders as you start rotating your body. Don’t engage your hands—until just before impact.

Straighten Your Front Leg
A good power checkpoint is your front leg. It should be straight in your follow through, allowing you to rotate fully. And you should finish with your eyes looking directly at your target. This indicates you’ve made a complete body rotation. But don’t keep your head down too long. It can restrict your ability to move into your follow-through.

Great Ballstriking From The Fairway
Great ballstriking in the fairway is keyed by a solid position at impact. Because your hips have started the downswing, they should be more open than your shoulders through impact. The back leg should be slightly off the ground, which means that you’ve correctly rolled your weight to your left side off the inside of your right foot, if your right-handed. The opposite is true if you’re left-handed.

Inconsistency hurts your game and your golf handicap. Don’t let it. Take a golf lesson from Adam Scott and work on eliminating inconsistency. The golf tips provided above can help.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book "How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros." He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Golf Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.