I have mentioned that the first time you swing a golf club is the way you will always swing a golf club, minus the window dressing and all the other swing knowledge, adjustments and accouterments you will acquire over the years. As someone who has trained at, practiced, and thought about golf, hitting shots and the golf swing constantly for the last 30 years or so, I have come to a realization that there really is only one way that you can swing a golf club effectively that suits your own individual swing needs. The goal is to hit consistent golf shots the way you want to hit them (shape, trajectory, and direction) without having to think about it when the time comes to play a shot.

Like I said before, I have tried swinging a club and hitting shots just about every way imaginable, even left handed, sometimes out of experimentation and sometimes out of necessity. I discovered early that a little left to right (fade) or even straight shot is my shot of preference. But over the yeas I got away from this very important part of my game and started listening to other pros, watching other pros, and playing with other pros, and I started to thrive on my power and began drawing the ball, a shot that turned into a over the top pull after I broke my wrist and as the years went by. The draw was a power shot. Only I was never comfortable playing a draw: because it is contrary to my natural swing tendencies.

This fall I took out some old Walter Hagen irons that I had re-shafted a few years ago, and played a few rounds. This was right about the same time that I started to realize that body posture at address has a profound effect on the way your arms swing away from and through the ball during a swing. This in turn is married to the fact that a very simple adjustment at address can dictate the shape of your shots, an axiom that I had long since forgotten.

We had an exceptionally warm and dry November, so I was able to put this knowledge to work on the golf course. I started to remember how it felt to naturally work the ball from left to right. I bent over more at address, more spine tilt toward the ball, and in the process found that this enabled me to free up my arms swing back and through into follow through. I also noticed that when I it my shot of preference, the angle of my shaft after the ball was gone mirrored the angle of my spine. If I maintained this spine angle all the way through the swing, I was able to release the club head through impact and hit a very powerful left to right shot, with control as far as trajectory and distance. I could hit it high or low and take a little off or give it a little extra. To top it off, it was an effortless motion. I was suddenly using a tension free swing that had found its own equilibrium, and when I executed correctly, my balance was also extraordinary, tow things that had eluded me for many years.

Tension in the golf swing destroys equilibrium, which in turn destroys balance. Balance I mean as it refers to a golf swing where all the parts work together as a unit. Every shot in my last round, except for a couple pulls and one hurried bad swing, produced the desired results. The good thing was that it felt permanent, I hit one shot slightly off, then got right back on track.  The first chance I get, I will put some pictures on the right here as they relate to the things that I have talked about. But for now this will have to do.