Do Golfers Need A Backswing?

Not only do you lose distance, but I've always found it difficult to get the right spot with the club if I don't start from a standard address position. There are enough chunks and thins in life without trying to add to them. ;-)

A foul ball is not a big deal in baseball but a foul ball in golf is an ugly sight.

About like taking a whack at a nail with a hammer just starting out from the top.

Steve, hows that action going keeping the forearm and club on the same angle in the FUS, any more progress. This week I had my first trial on initially keeping the butt going down to the ball, but there's still going to be some variation on where I release and or where the butt continues. I ended up with a 41 off the stick while playing in drenching rain, so it was a good test. Most pleasing aspect was the short clubs going 10M-20M further that previous and straighter.

Interesting subject for me. I few years back I played with a gentleman who held his set at the top of his BUS for 4-5 seconds and hit his shot quite well. It worked for him, but as Surge says I think he may have been giving up distance. I'm sure my slower/more deliberate tempo in my BUS may well be costing me distance, but seems on most days to give me better ball contact and accuracy.

I'm sure a faster tempo will give me much needed distance, but the question becomes is the tradeoff worth it. There is a happy medium and as Surge and others have said it depend on one's personality. I've tried increasing my tempo and when I get the timing right the results are great. I haven't been able to get it right often enough. My Irish side won't let me stop trying, but it's a struggle. Just one of those things that makes golf the game we all love to hate. ;0)

Carrying the baseball analogy even further, starting from the top of the swing would be akin to hitting in t-ball. The batter swings at a stationary ball. I'm not a professional baseball player but I have to think that I would get more distance from a ball pitched towards me than one that is stationary (or tossed upwards and hit, like one would do in practice settings). I would think the same principle applies for golf. We can't get the ball to move towards us but we can add more speed/strength to the swing by the act of reversing momentum at the top of the swing.

I am sure that I saw a picture of an ancient golfer addressing a ball. He had (I guess) 70% of his weight on his back leg which was deeply bent at the knee with his foot pointing in the normal direction. However his forward foot (30% of his weight?) was pointing at 90 degrees to his back foot, ie Toes pointing to the target with a lesser knee bend. I had to try it at the range and it gives a very restricted backswing but a very full follow through and hip turn to the T position. It strangely worked best for my driver but I am too happy with PPGS to play with alternatives for too long. Happy golfing!

Had a once in a lifetime and possibly a one in billion event yesterday. In fact if most of you choose to not believe it I'll be alright as I am still trying to comprehend it.

My brother and I played the challenging Royal Links Golf Course yesterday. It is a UK Open replica with each hole a copy of a famous hole from several different classic locations in England, Scotland and Ireland.
The particular hole was the 504 yard par 5 #9. It is listed as 567 yards but we were playing from the middle tees. It is patterned after #5 at Muirfield.
My tee shot was good but seemingly unevntful. After striking it I saw it was flying fairly straight but down the cart path valley. I remember thinking to myself, 'I hope it gets a favorable bounce'. As we know if it did hit the cart path it could be good or a nightmare. At that point I wasn't sure where it was but we looked down the right side in the 240 area. We looked left,right,short, long. It seemed the golf gods had swallowed it up. After searching for 10 minutes I finally drooped a provisional and hit a nice 5 wood that left me about 90 yards for a third. Hit the third just on the edge of the green and as we walked up on the green we noticed another ball on the green about 40 feet short and left (nearly pin high)of the flag. Walked up to look at it and unbelievably it was my original drive. It actually was a Titlest #7 with two little stars aside the ball # marked by it's original owner. I had found it just two holes earlier in the thick tall rough/gorse. My drive had some how bounced down the cart path, likely several times before ricocheting up onto the green. On the green in one on a 500 yard par 5. What?! I just missed the double eagle putt by 1 foot and tapped in for the eagle three.
Crazy?!! The sad thing is we had no clue and never saw any of the ball after it bounded over some hills in between a valley where the distant cart path was hidden. Of course neither of us wanted to believe it and I am still dumbfounded. How cool. Took 55 years to happen and I will likely get swallowed by a Tiger shark sooner than ever experience anything close again.

Believe it or not:) Golf

I will post the hole that includes a tour of that hole. The picture before the video starts actually shows the cart path while the video does not.

http://www.royallinksgolfclub.com/course/hole-by-hole-video-tour/#9
notice, after the clip of the #9 it moves to #10, the road hole at St. Andrews.
Click back one to see the cart path of #9

About a month before Surge posted this video, I was having a lot of problems with making bad contact with the ball, around 12 to 15 times a round. I have a vision problems--double vision which results in very poor depth perception. On the practice range, I decided to use a tip I saw on starting the swing with the club already at the top, and my contact improved almost immediately. The best reason I can come up with is that my head was a lot more still, and I could locate the ball better in 3D space. even worked on unusual lies. I almost could convince myself that the ball looked bigger and brighter. So, I decided to see a full swing with a long pause at the top would have the same effect. It did. Net result--for the next several rounds, I reduced the number of bad contacts to the 4-6 count. Maybe absolute distance is sacrificed, but my average distances on each club have improved due to fewer thin and fat shots.

It's good to hear from you again. Glad to here you are still in the struggles of this love/hate golf relationship. I know exactly how you feel about posting. I have only broken 90 once so far this season, and like Lynn I struggle with distance off the tee. My usual drive is well below 200 and closer most times to 175, Soo, as you can see, I've not much to post in regards to positive game results.

I too have a much slower BUS than FUS and find that it seems to work best for me. My sometimes problem area, as to speed, is getting too quick in either the BUS take away or the transition at the top. Getting too quick or jerky in either place is usually a top or chunk. I like the idea of a pause at the top of the BUS and think it might get rid of that sometimes jerky too quick transition to the FUS. I recall Bob Murphy always having a pronounced pause at the top of his BUS which seemed to work well for him. The biggest problem with my excessive scores for now is far too many 3-putts. If I can improve my putting and chipping and eliminate the majority of 3-putts, I would have no problem breaking 90 on most rounds and might even be pushing the low 80's now and then. That's not too shabby for 175yd drives and 160yd 2nd shots and needing a 3rd to get to almost all par 4's.

I seem to be running on here, but just wanted to say, Glad to see you posting again, as Slick Willy would say, I feel your pain.

While here though, I have to say WOW to Robert on his cart path assisted drive. How nice to have your brother present to share the event with. I am always excited, when I get some cart path assist and end up close to the other Guys in my groups. It's my only chance to exceed 200yds off the tee. I can't imagine reaching a par 4 in one, let alone a par 5. Congrats!!!

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