Meredith:
Welcome to episode 40 of the Gimme Golf Podcast powered by MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com. I am your host Meredith Kirk. And today, we're going to talk about the three most common swing flaws that I see with recreational golfers. This is going to be a lot of fun to cover these three topics. I think it's going to be really helpful for your game. And joining me also is Nate DeWitt, our producer here at MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com. Nate, it's always fun bantering with you.
Nate:
I hope you're good. You're not going to analyze my golf swing, right?
Meredith:
No, your golf swing is really good right now. You're-
Nate:
Because I probably have all three of these swing flaws that you're about to talk about.
Meredith:
Well, you know what? We all have them. They just kind of creep into our game and I'm often asked, how do you fix these little things that just come into our game? I want to talk about the first one. Swinging too fast. We all do it, swing too fast, especially if we're a little nervous, first tee jitters, trying to help the ball, thinking that if I swing faster, I'm going to hit the ball further. It's actually opposite of that. Swinging a little bit slower helps you hit the segments on the downswing, which then creates more velocity and velocity is distance. It sounds like an oxymoron, but sometimes swinging slower can produce better results.
Nate:
I'm a culprit of that. My back swing, I've talked to you, is too quick. How does somebody work on that?
Meredith:
That's a great question. The easiest way to work on it is I would suggest watching the tour players, the ladies and the men on TV and start to count their back swing and downswing. If you do that, you're going to see a pattern and that is the three to one ratio. One, two, three and the back swing, and then one on the downswing at impact. It's going to go one, two, three, one. One, two, three, one.
Meredith:
Some of the best golfers in the world, they all have that one trait in common, a three to one ratio. I would just count when you're swinging, just force yourselves to one, two, three, one. And that way, if you're swinging too quick, what happens is it's usually one, two, one. One, two, one. One, two, three, stretch it out, get that three in your swing.
Nate:
That makes sense. And so, when you get to the... so that's going to help you get the club back too, like you'll actually get the club, you'll make a full back swing at it too.
Meredith:
It can help with rotation, especially for people who are really quick, they don't fully rotate. I mean, ideally to get 90 degrees, rotation is great. Not everybody can do that. And sometimes the older you get, if you lose flexibility and you're not doing a lot of stretching, sometimes that can be a hindrance to rotation and that will help to get you a little bit more rotated, just slowing down, gives your body time to turn.
Nate:
You've diagnosed one of swing flaws, so I have that.
Meredith:
Well, I think, and again, we all have it, but also going into the second most common swing flaw I see is too strong of a grip pressure. And believe it or not, number one and two, swinging too fast is connected to a strong grip pressure. What happens is when you grip the club too tightly, all that tension just runs up through your arms, shoulders, it causes lifting, it causes you to hit those thin shots. And so, softening your grip pressure actually is connected to what I call the speedometer of the swing.
Meredith:
If you're used to driving 80 miles per hour, and I'm not using miles per hour, based on swing speeds, I'm using the analogy of driving a car. Let's say, you swing really fast, you drive a car really fast, the grip pressure, if you soften the hands, it's like reducing your speed because there is a connection there. People who swing too fast, 9 times out of 10 have too strong of a grip pressure. So counting one, two, three, one is a great way to help set that tempo, to help set that speed, but additionally, sometimes it's as simple as softening the hands and that could be the fix for you. Both of them or either or can fix both issues because they're interconnected.
Nate:
I'm kind of laughing because you swing fast and have a strong grip, you're probably a stressed out person, right?
Meredith:
Well, could be. And then, there's 16 different personality types in this world. And some would argue and say there's even more and there possibly can be, but if you're just looking at, let's say Myers Briggs personality testing and whatnot, there really is a connection to our personalities and how we play golf and how we swing the club. And usually pretty intense people, very driven people, tend to have faster swings. It's not necessarily bad traits because we need people in the world who work more efficiently, who work faster, nothing wrong with that, but when it translates into your golf swing and it produces poor shots, it's like, okay, when I am going to play golf, I have to really be conscientious of not playing golf like I perform in my work environment or how I naturally perform in personality. I have to make a conscientious effort to make myself slow down and relax.
Meredith:
And then there's the opposite extreme of where you have the personality type that's so mellow. It's like the turtle, just moving slow, little bit more methodical and slower paced. And sometimes, you actually have to get them to increase their speed a little bit, but more often than none, you're going to see more people swinging fast, then slow especially in our modern day.
Nate:
If you're like me, you just want to get it over with. Just take the club back and close your eyes and get it over with.
Meredith:
Oh, you got to enjoy the process, the journey, each shot. Number three, not squaring up to the ball and this is just basic golf fundamentals. That ball going to fly where you're aimed and aligned to. Also, we have the swing plane, too, how the path, how the club head is moving on the path that can determine direction as well, but I primarily like to focus first and foremost on what I call pre-motion components. Those are the things we do prior to swinging.
Meredith:
And so, I would suggest to square up, make sure that you always square the club face to your intended target. Make sure that that club face is not open, it's not closed, it's not leaning toward the toe or leaning toward the heel. You want the leaning edge nice and square to the ball and that's what we call aim. Aim has everything to do with the club face.
Meredith:
Now, what is alignment, because we use that term all the time with golf instruction and whatnot? Alignment has everything to do with the body. The body is associated with alignment. The most important areas to line up, well, let's start with the feet. Lining, making sure that the feet are square to the aim, to the ball, your intended target, everything is nice and square. I always like to mention this. When you're squaring your feet up, again, we don't want to close our stance, we don't want to have our lead foot higher than our trail foot. That would be closing the stance and then opening the stance would be having our lead foot back and the trail foot forward, being open, hips and feet open to the target. We don't want that. We want everything nice and square.
Meredith:
If you are one of the golfers that have a flare, I have a little bit of flare. Flare's something I've actually added to my swing the past few years, so my feet slightly flare out. I would suggest then, align your heels and not your toes because sometimes you can look down if you have a natural foot flare or flares, when you look down at your feet, you can get a misread on what is square. Just make sure you can get a club. You can get an alignment stick. I have one in my bag right here behind me and you can lay it down on your heels.
Meredith:
Feet are number one. Start with your feet, make sure your hips are nice and square with your feet. When your feet are aligned as you move up to the alignment to the hips, if your weight is distributed 50-50 on each side and you're biomechanically nice and connected to the ground, more than likely your hips are going to be aligned once your feet are as long as the weight distribution's the same.
Meredith:
Now, moving up to the shoulders. We have to make sure our shoulders are nice and square. Again, it's aim method as the feet. You don't want to open the shoulders up and you don't want to close the shoulders up. You just want everything square. Feet, hips, shoulders square, and then the aim on the club head nice and square. If you just take 15 seconds just to check your aim and alignment, you're going to have straighter shots guaranteed. It is the easiest way to straighten that ball out. Obviously, there could be swing issues you have and you may not hit a perfect shot. There could be other areas, but this will get a lot of the kinks out of some mishits.
Nate:
Of those three that you gave me and that I've got them all that I know in a little ways, that one would be helpful if you had someone to help you with that one, because a lot of times, I have a hard time where I think I'm aim even with alignment sticks, I'm not.
Meredith:
Correct. That is true. This is where golf instruction comes in handy or if you have just a buddy that you're playing golf with that you're out hitting on the range with, you can say, "Hey, just check out my aim." Have someone walk up and look how you're aiming the ball. Is the aim nice and square on the face? Is the face not shut or is it not open and whatnot? Have them check your feet, hips and shoulders alignment. Have a buddy do it or go get a golf lesson. Golf lesson won't hurt. Seek out a PGA or LPGA professional that you're comfortable with, someone in your local area and just have them do a basic golf fundamental lesson.
Meredith:
Sometimes that's all you need. Doesn't mean you have to start getting into a whole series of lessons. I'm not a big advocate for that even though I'm an instructor myself. I often find, let's start out with one lesson. Let's work through the fundamentals. Let's work through those kinks, make a little tweaks on those fundamentals. And sometimes, students are good to go. Doesn't mean that you have to dive right into golf instruction, but it's worth even just one lesson having a golf instructor check those fundamentals for you.
Nate:
Like I said, I would need someone to look at it because I've had an aim and alignment, someone looking, saying, "I'm not aiming. I'm aiming right at my target." It's like, "Oh no, take a look. Step back and take a look. See what I see." I fully subscribe to all three of those. I do have all three of those issues.
Meredith:
I'm telling you what. If these three issues, if everybody worked on these three issues all the time, there's going to be so many better rounds of golf. I mean just these three issues alone, again, swinging too fast, the number one, the biggest one. Slow it down. You want to have good segmentation on the golf swing. We call it the kinetic link, kinematic sequencing. I know those are big terms, but basically, all it means is this. When you get to the top of the swing, you're swinging slow enough for the lower body to fire first and then the upper body, the shoulders, the arms, the hands, and then the club head, the club head generating the most energy and speed at impact. When you swing slow enough, your body able to somewhat uncoil the golf swing, and the golf swing, all it is, it's so simple. It's just a rotation around the spine.
Meredith:
You are winding up and then you're releasing it. If you try to swing too fast, this is what happens. Your shoulders are moving faster than your low body. And once those shoulders speed up, then you're going to lose that segmentation. You may hit two segments, you may hit three segments, you may hit enough segments on the down swing to create a shot, but it's not going to be the perfect shot. It's not going to be ultimately what you want. And what we want is a nice square shot at impact. We want that explosion with maximum power. And to do that, the hips have to go first.
Nate:
And I'm just thinking about all three things... all three of these are tough to change if you've been playing golf for a while, so where do you start? What's the first? Obviously, probably the grip. You start with the grip first. It's like, okay, I'm going to soften my grip up?
Meredith:
Yeah. I mean really, I think again, one and two go hand in hand. No pun intended. Hands... hands, right? Grip pressure, just soften the grip pressure because if you soften your grip pressure, it's an impossibility to swing too fast. I don't know if you know that. You have to try it. Take a club. Grip it on a scale of 1 to 10, start at a 6 with your pressure and swing the club back and forth. Nice and soft. One, two, three, one. One, two, three, one. In fact, you can just make continuous swings. Swing like 10 times, nice and easy, counting one, two, three, one with a levels six on your grip pressure. You don't even have to hit a ball. The goal is just to feel that tempo. Once you do that, set up and hit a ball.
Meredith:
The first thought is always going to be, I'm not going to hit the ball far. I'm not going to get a lot of distance. And the shocking thing about this is when you use this method and you slow down, again, you actually create more velocity because you're hitting the segments and that's the beauty of it. It's an oxymoron. Swing slower for more distance. It works. Again, you don't want to swing slow motion, because then you will lose distance, but you have to find the three to one ratio and when you find that, you're going to find that happy speed. It's the perfect speed. You won't get pulled over by the golf instructor cops.
Nate:
That's the funny thing is that when you realize you can do that, it's like I've been working so hard to swing so fast and it's been so stressful that I could have just been swinging like this the whole time and the results are better.
Meredith:
Exactly. That's it. These three.
Nate:
Well, I just want to say that all these lessons and I do know something about your golf lessons, seeing them, there's something on all of these on MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com in the video section. You can actually look at, I know you've talked about each one in a separate lesson, so if people wanted to expand on that, if you go to MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com, in the videos, you can find the video that relates to these three.
Meredith:
Absolutely. I mean, you and I, we've covered so much when it comes to of golf tips. I believe at this point, we're probably close to 150 golf tips at mbn.com in our video library. And again, just like you said, we've covered all of this, so go check out those videos if you want me to walk you through, but this is it. This is key. I mean, these are the three of the biggest and most common swing flaws that I see in golf.
Nate:
Definitely. And I've got all three.
Meredith:
But you're playing better. You're working on it.
Nate:
Got to work on it.
Meredith:
You've got to work on it.
Nate:
Got to practice.
Meredith:
Yep. All right, everyone. Well, thanks for joining this Gimme Golf Podcast. Wanted to keep this short and sweet because right now, I hope you're listening to this podcast and you're driving to the golf course right now to go have a great round, keeping it slower, softer grip pressure, and make sure get squared up to the ball. Thanks for joining us and we will see you guys on the next episode here on the Gimme Golf Podcast.
