Yesterday, I discussed how swinging up frees your arms up so they can swing up faster. It's all about clubhead speed, which is created by the arms swinging up faster. Today I want to discuss hoe the T-Finish has to be tight to be right. That is, you have to swing up with the lower hand, getting really close to the forward ear. That's what I mean by tight.
Why is that important? It's because, when you swing up and finish closer to the ear, your hands, arms and club, especially the clubhead, has stayed on-on-and-on, down the line after impact. The longer the club stays closer to the line, the more tight your ball flight will be, starting on the aiming line, provided you hit the ball with a square clubface. If you hit it with a square clubface the longer your arms and club stay closer to the aiming line, the tighter your ball's going to start on the line and the closer it's going to finish at your target, being a relatively straight shot.
That is critical. To give you an example of how important I think it is. I have been playing golf for over 48 years. Through most of that time I played with caps and visors and the sides of my face were quite exposed to sun. During the last ten years I've had twice yearly visits to my dermatologist and she's always burning spots off my face. I've had to resort to wearing wide brimmed hats.
The problem with that is I not only started to use them to teach, but to play. The problem arose was that when I would swing up really close to my ear, I'd hit the brim with my shaft. Then, when I would recoil and relax, most of the time it would pop the hat right off my head.
Over time, I started finishing a little wider and a little bit wider to stop having the hat knocked my head with my recoil and relax. As I got wider I noticed my shot pattern getting wider. I was hitting the ball a little bit more left and a little bit more right. While still hitting a lot of greens, my proximately to the pin was getting really farther than what I'd been used to. What I really want and should have is to shoot better scores.
So, one of the things I do now is just quickly take off the hat, throw it on the ground, take the shot, and put it right back on so I can finish closer to my ear.
What got me talking about this today is that I've been watching DJ for the last year or so and I've been working hard to tighten up his finish because it's gotten a little wider than it should be. It's still not where it needs to be. When I talk about close, I mean close.
When DJ and I used to wear visors, these visors had two metal clips to adjust the size of the visor. When he was swinging well and finishing really close to the ear, by that I mean I'd say to people I want you to feel like the hairs on the back of your lower hand will brush your forward ear when swing up to the finish, that's how close I want it to be.
When we swung that close, many times you could hear the shaft click one of the metal clips.
I'm back to that. Today, when I take my hat off, I know I've got it because I can feel the shaft brush my hair. I'd like to get DJ back to close enough to where it will brush his hair, or if he was hearing a visor he could hear the click.
I've seen some videos of him and still photos and his hands are still about 3 to 4 inches from his ear and that's too far.
I've got to compliment him. I just looked at the stats. AS of right now he's third on the PGA Tour for greens in regulation, with 72.94%. The leader is Kevin Stadler at 75.13%.
When we look at his proximity to pin that doesn't sound too bad either. He's 34 feet 11 inches, which is tied for 37th and the leader is Tim Clark at 32 feet. So he's only 2 feet 22 inches father than Time Clark but what's wrong with getting closer?
I'll be at the Verizon Heritage and I guess I'm going to use this as homecoming (this is where I taught for 9 years and DJ really started to play competitive golf) to really tighten up his finish where the hairs on the back of his right hand are going to his forward left ear. I'll be willing to bet that if I get him that tight again, you see his proximity to the pin really get a lot lower and possibly get him right there at #1.
I'll be talking to you for the rest of the week with updater about the tournament, DJ and what we're working on and what he's doing from Harbour Town Golf Links, home of the Verizon Heritage.
(Note for Golf School. Look for details soon on our California PPGS schools at Talega Golf Club in beautiful San Clemente, May 17 – 19 and 20 – 22. It's going to be one heck of an experience. Call: 1-888-84SWING(79464) or 1-864-525-7336.)
The Surge!