I have a good question from Cedric. He says, 'My question is about the movement of the feet during the whole swing especially with the driver. I see a few pros, right-handers, who lift their left heel during the takeaway and then press it down hard when they start their downswing. Others swear by keeping their left heel on the ground the whole time. I am 72 but I am fortunate that I have a good range of movement so I could cope with either method. I am a high handicapper and shoot between 90 and 100 most of the time. If I could hit the fairway with more regularity and some increased distance this would be very welcome. So I need to know which of these two disciplines I should follow.'
Let's start with just giving you the definition of what the Peak Performance Golf Swing is. It is a limited turn, three quarter backswing. The major premise of our address position is that we believe in a relatively narrow stance where the feet are basically under the shoulders. With that we want wide knees where then knees are directly over the feet and in line with the hips and shoulders. I believe in what we call outward pressure. That is when once you get into that position you just push the knees outward a little bit to keep them over the ankles and we resist movement in the backswing.
This is how we control the amount of turn we make so that we can have the limited turn. Because if you have the knees kind of wide over your feet'¦and again let's go back to if you were playing baseball. The baseball player goes out to the field and as the pitcher starts his windup he gets in the ready position, where his knees and his shoulders go down together, pushes the knees outward and his knees are directly over his ankles. That affords him the ability to turn right or left, or go forward or backward in perfect balance. So that is what we are after. We are after the limited turn. So the major premise of the takeaway is that when we maintain this outward pressure in the knees, keeping the knees over the ankles, we resist the knees moving especially the forward knee. So, if we are right handed that would be the left knee, and for a left hander it would be the right knee. We resist the forward knee moving inward and the foot picking up.
Why? Because the more the knee moves in and the more it picks up that just allows more range of movement in the back hip and the back shoulder. The more movement we allow the back hip and the back shoulder to turn, the more we are going to turn, the more we are going to get deeper and swing longer, which is totally contrary to what the concept of the Peak Performance Swing is, a limited turn, three quarter back swing. And just remember if you lift your left or forward foot up and move the knee inward it has to go back down. In the process of planting the foot, especially if one slams it down hard, that could pull the whole upper body forward. So, what doesn't go up doesn't have to come down. Less movement, less margin of error. It is all about everything to do with controlling the movement of the lower body which will control and limit the movement of the upper body. So in a good Peak Performance Swing we could have the limited turn, three quarter vertical swing. So Cedric, the answer is keep your foot on the ground and you will find that it will control your swing, and with controlling your swing you are going to be able to swing your arms faster when your body moves less. So work on keeping the foot down and I think you are going to find you will start hitting the ball much more solid, much straighter, much more consistently and you will start lowering your scores.
The Surge!