| Many years ago at Pebble Beach, Jack Nicklaus gave
a tip to an amateur friend of mine I happened to be caddying for. He
told him that the key to creating your best swing with a long club was
to get the left shoulder behind the ball. Simple, effective advice for
every amateur golfer. In his book Physics of Golf, Theodore Jorgensens
explains that as the left shoulder then pulls away from the chin (in
response to the subtle change of direction inspired by the lower body),
it exerts a torque that catapults the arms down and into the hitting
position (below). I like to think of it this way. Imagine a water-skier
trailing a boat, turning the left shoulder behind the ball and then
reversing the momentum is like the boat making a wide sweep – creating
a sling-shot that accelerates the skier. In front of a mirror, follow
the lead I have set here, rehearsing a full backswing (far left, below)
before reversing your momentum to get a sense of slinging the arms,
hands and club down into this delivery position. Rhythm is the key.
It was Sam Snead who famously once said that to play good golf you have
to feel as though you are dancing with the club. Unwinding from the
ground up gives you that Snead-like rhythm, while pulling the left shoulder
away from the right then creates the ‘lag’ in the arms and the club.
The better your rhythm, the more ‘lag’ you create and the more you will
retain the wrist cock that ultimately maximises the speed you plant
on the ball. Unwinding from the ground up gets you on the inside track,
free to ‘fire’ your right side and hit hard with the right hand. Walking
with Jack in practice rounds over the years, he has always stressed
to me that if the average golfer can (1) understand that to get into
a position where you can unwind into the ball, you first have to turn
the left shoulder fully behind it, and (2) grasp the importance of this
subtle rolling of the ankles to start the downswing, then he or she
will enjoy playing better golf. I’d say that’s valuable information
from the greatest player the game has ever seen. |
