Instruction

Many years ago 12 times PGA Champions Tour Winner and I were featured on the golf channel to show the secret to power in the golf swing. Jim Dent knows a thing or two about power as he won the first three world long drive championships back in the early 1970’s, and hit a drive 426 yards at age 62 in a Champions Tour event in Atlanta, Georgia. I personally like to demonstrate the secrets to effortless power by driving the ball one handed, and have done so with pretty good success even now at age 64 hitting the golf ball close to 275 yards.

One of the favorite segments of the viewers was the sleeping rabbit drill demonstrated by Jim Dent. The concept is to take a long white towel and tie the end in a knot leaving two white ears. Not only does this knot make one end heavy but makes the towel look like a sleeping rabbit dangling down as a golfer addresses the ball. The drill is executed properly by keeping your elbows close to your side and start rotating to and fro to get the towel to sling up and slap you on each side waking the sleeping rabbit up. This drill gets you to feel how to use resistance of your legs to whip the towel up on back swing and through on the down swing the same as when swinging a golf club.

*Another drill used by a high majority of tour players as well as myself is to place a towel under both arm pits with the towel resting on your chest and the hit some 7 or 8 iron shots. This drill will give your arms and body working in harmony and together as you pivot.

*Possibly my favorite towel drill involves wetting the towel and then holding it in front of you as you twist it until the water rings out of it. It is this ringing of the wet towel that I would like golfers to image that their mid section or core achieves on the backswing as a result of their full and complete shoulder rotation against the resistance of their spikes grabbing the ground.

*Finally the towel snap drill which is well known in gym class will show you how the release of energy occurs in the golf swing. Golfers don’t throw in the towel; in fact use it to enhance your swing with these drills.

Rick Bradshaw
2004/2006 North Florida Section PGA Teacher of the Year
Director of Instruction, Dent/Bradshaw School of Golf
Heritage Isles Golf Club

Tour Experience

Be a Limber Jack swinging a golf club. Many prominent instructors compare the rotary movement of the golf swing to a Lumber jack swinging the ax horizontally into the tree they want to cut down. To implement this feel to the golf swing maintain the flex in the knees and bend from the waist over the golf ball to allow the golf club to swing on the correct plane.

Also be limber not lumber. The golfers that strike the golf ball best have great flexibility to enhance club head speed and center face club contact through the ball like Rory McIlroy.

Allow the momentum of the club head to strike through the golf ball. The secret to the lumber jack cutting wood is allowing the energy built up on the back swing to release into and hopefully through the wood the same as a professional golfer.

Swing through the golf ball with hands, arms and body weight turning through the shot.

Don’t Be an Anchor on a Tanker. When I appeared on Golf Channel’s Academy Live with P.G.A. Tour Pro Tim Petrovic, I coined my phrase Light Foot Right Foot through the ball. This is the allowing of the momentum of the club head to pull your body weight of your right leg on the follow through. This image and action will help synchronize your arms with the body motion so the arms don’t swing past your body leaving your body hanging back like an anchor on a tanker.

Watch Bubba Watson’s trail foot after he hits one of his towering drives. You will see his left foot come off the ground for an instant as the club heads swing momentum goes through to a finish. In this case it would be light foot left foot as Bubba swings from the left side of the ball.

Bubba Watson is certainly a Limber Jack as he leads the tour in driving distance pretty much every year.

Tip provided by Rick Bradshaw two times North Florida Section P.G.A. Teacher of the Year. G/M, Director of Instruction Dent/Bradshaw Golf School, Heritage Isles Golf and C.C., Tampa Fl.

P	Pivot
O	Opposition
W	Width
E	Energy
R	Release

A great acronym for the word POWER is P for Pivot, O for opposition, W for width, E for energy, and R for release. The definition of PIVOT is a rod or pin on which something else turns. In a golfers case or torso (pin) rotates on top of our two legs. Hopefully this pivoting or rotation is centered and balanced without too much wobble much the same as a spinning top. Percy Boomer, the teacher voted as the most influential golf teacher in history, compared the pivot to an architectural compass drawing of arcs with the only difference being that the golfer’s body is supported by two legs that have joints and flexions. The rotary movement of the torso and twisting of the golf shoes spikes into the ground generate a shear force that travels upward from the ground into the golfers center of gravity and then turns outward through the arms and hands to the club head.

Once the force reaches the club head through rotary movement the golfer’s body, arms, and hands need to oppose (opposition) of the outward centrifugal pull simply by not letting the club head fly out of their hands. If the rotary movement remains centered with little sway, the circular pull of the club head arc will remain relatively constant and align itself into the back of the golf ball automatically.

The WIDTH of swing arc will also be maintained if the golfers allow the momentum of the golf club to accelerate through the ball. That’s why the golf swing should always be thought of as a MOMENTOUS OCCASION! For example, a track star throwing a Hammer has their arms pulled straight throughout the rotary loading of ENERGY until utmost power is built when they finally RELEASE the Hammer at the perfect time resulting in the greatest distance. The key fundamentals of this rotary golf movement and loading and releasing of energy is not to interrupt the constant flow of power by trying to add power to the club head by hitting at the golf ball with just the arms and shoulders.

Ernest Jones the great teacher from the mid 1900’s wrote two illustrious books, one in 1937 called SWINGING INTO GOLF, and the other in 1952 called SWING THE CLUBHEAD with both books content reflecting a MOMENTOUS OCCASION and memorable experience by sensing the momentum of the club head swinging and the body reacting to its momentum automatically.

I always like to refer to Percy Boomers remarks regarding the importance of the pivot in relation to the excessive use of forced hitting with the arms. “Yes it is golf bogey number one, that overwhelmingly common impulse to hit the ball where we go it to go with the power from our arms and shoulders. So as a result we take vicious scoops and lashes at the ball, What a Pity, What a Pity! For if we had inhibited that desire to hit forcefully with the arms and concentrated on power from the pivot and arms reacting to that force we would have sent the much further and straighter and have known the secret to successful golf”.

Rick Bradshaw 2004/2006 North Florida Section PGA Teacher of the Year Director of Instruction, Dent/Bradshaw School of Golf Heritage Isles Golf Club

Several years ago a friend of mine wanted to learn how to play golf. We went to the golf range and he started hitting. He hit some erratic shots, chopped the ball into the ground a couple times, bladed a bunch and almost hit me once when he shanked one sideways. He looked at me and said; well what do you think? I remarked; your golf swing looks just like Norman. He beamed with a smile and said; Greg Norman? I shook my and head and said no, Norman Bates! You know from the shower stabbing scene in the movie Psycho. Your kidding he remarked. Yes I am however your swing is a little choppy.

We went on to discuss and learn how to smooth out a choppy swing and develop a smooth accelerating one. The following steps will help.

1	Get rid of the thought of hitting at the ball and develop a swinging motion as if the ball was not there. Swing at the daisies was Percy Boomer’s suggestion. The ball only weighs 6.2 ounces, 5.9 in the Pro V, so let the steel of the club impact the ball naturally without added force.
2	Maintaining a constant swing arc by bracing your arms together at address forming a triangle down to your grip will help diminish any independent chopping at the ball. Be sure to draw in your biceps toward your thorax and maintain a feeling of straightness in the elbows to establish a fulcrum or leverage effect that will insure a constant and controlled swing arc.
3	The next essential step is to power your swing through a rotary pivot of the torso, hips, and shoulders. If you were good at the Hula Hoop it may help. Percy Boomer coined a phrase turn in a barrel. I personally like the drill drill which is the image of twisting your body like a drill back and forth digging your spikes into the ground. This powering the swing from the ground up will generate the centripetal force that will travel up through the legs, body, shoulders, arms and hands whipping the club head through the ball as a centrifugal swing.
4	This fundamental power key of turning back and twisting through with the torso, hips, and shoulders allow the arms to swing up on plane automatically virtually free of strain in the shoulders. There should be no independent lifting or abrupt steering, guiding, or hitting at the ball that will interfere with the constant whipping action of the club through the ball. Bobby Jones coined the phrase Free Wheeling through Impact which is exactly the sensation you are looking for.
5	If you don’t want to swing the club like Norman Bates, power the club through a rotary pivot and let the club swing upon the back swing and down on the through swing sensing the momentum of the club head swinging throughout.

A quote that was made from teaching great, Percy Boomer, states it best in my mind:

“If at the moment of impact you stop the forward pull of the left side, which is what you will do if you hit at the ball, the power is not available and club head cannot, as it should, continue accelerating in contact with the ball until the ball rebounds from it.”

Rick Bradshaw 2004/2006 North Florida Section, PGA Teacher of the Year Director of instruction Dent/Bradshaw School of Golf Heritage Isles Golf Club

In the 33 years I have been a golf teaching professional I would venture to say that the majority of golfers that walked onto my lesson tee initially swung the club wildly with their arms trying to swat that ball down the fairway. I always tell them that you are swinging like a drunken sailor and that their arms are AWOL (absent without leave).

Swinging the golf club into the back of a golf ball is tough enough without trying to swat the club violently at the ball with the arms free of leverage and control of the upper torso. There has to be some point of control to keep your arms from going A W O L. This point is the connecting of the upper triceps upon your pectoral chest muscles. This connection limits the ability of the arms to run of and leave your body behind. This concept is why so many tour professionals place a towel under both arms to practice. The towel drill and connection of the arms on the chest not only limits the premature lifting of the arms on the takeaway but leaves your body no choice but to initiate the swing with a pivoting motion.

Once the pivot sets the club in motion and energy is passed to the club head as it swings back around a little and up into a set position at the top of your back swing. The pulling force may pull your arms off a little as the club swings up but don’t lift the arms actively on the back swing! If you do lift your arms it is more difficult to control the swing arc and stay on a constant path. Your goal is not to try to get the attention of a plane or ship like Tom Hanks waving his arms in the movie Castaway. I personally have my students hold a volley ball in front of them and tell them to use their body to toss the ball forward while all the time keeping their arms on the side of the body. They do have to yell WISLON loudly when they toss it.

Percy Boomer the most influential golf instructor of all time stated this about the arms in the golf swing. “Now I have told you not to use your arms to hit with, in fact you should not play golf with your hands and arms at all but with your feet and legs. Now this is an exaggeration but one that is necessary to correct the natural tendency to use our hands and arms to the detriment of foot and leg work. THE ARMS WANT TO WORK AND WILL WORK, so it is necessary to emphasize the importance of foot and leg action in order to get the proper balance”.

The control or counter balance is the connection of the arms to the chest to power the swing through rotation into the resistance of the feet both on the back swing and through swing. The arms will swing naturally reacting to this pivoting motion.

WAIT A MINUTE CALL THE M.P’S I SEE ANOTHER DRUNKEN SAILOR TEEING OFF HOLE #1.

Happy Golfing Rick Bradshaw