Golfer's Diary
5/29/2012
The golf swing is an elusive entity that comes and goes with a will of
its own. Sometimes it is just plain hard to figure. Once you find some fundamental moves that make your swing work,
you repeat them and repeat them until you no longer have to think about what you aare doing. It becomes a matter of
just making it work, hard work, and of keying on one thing, that fundamental move, when you are playing.
The funny thing about the golf swing is that that one key or series of moves when working yield great oglf
shots, even for a long period of time. You can go sailing along getting stronger and better as long as you body
enables you to keep repeating those moves that have now become familiar to you.
Then strange things happen. Something changes either in your perception, feel, or you muscle structure, and your
body no longer wants to do what you want it to do or what it has become accustomed to doing. Or maybe it can be all
three casues together. Whatever happens, your once familiar swing is no longer familiar. When this happens your
shot qyality starts to decline, ever so slightly at first, almost imperceptively. One of two things can happen: you
can get it back if your malady is minor, or if it is major, you have to find another way to inccorporate you
fundamental moves into a new framework. The foundation remains the same, while the structure or look off things
changes.
In my case, my knees are not in real good shape with torn cartilages and severe arthritis in both knees. My left
knee has always been borderline so I have still been able to hit into a hard strong left side while able to hit
repeating good to great golf shots. Well my left knee has become more painful, so unconscioussly I started to back
off into hitting into or onto it. the result has been a decreasing quality of my iron shots.
As a result, I had to narrow my stance and get a little closer to the ball and stand more upright. What thi
change in posture did was to allow my to now us my legs a little more, while at the same time going from wide arc
to narrow arcc to wide arc, in other words, getting my right elbow closer to my right side on the downswing. I can
still keep my right side stacked and move in three different directions at once, only with a slightly different, or
in reality, a very different approach. I am standing up straighter and swing more down the line.
It alll started on the putting green where stood up straigter and brought my hands and arms in closer to my
body, giving me a much more consistent and repeating stroke. I do the same thing on my full swing, and the results
were at times even better than before.
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