For any golfer who wants to play great golf
Ben Hogan helping with the OTT issue
Today I had a very good ball striking and ended up hitting a lot of greens. Here’s what I did that I believe made a huge difference.
In “5 Lessons” Ben Hogan writes about keeping the left arm tight to the chest on the downswing.
So I started playing around with this. How tight do I keep it there? What’s the best way to do that?
One of the reasons I thought to do this was that I noticed on my OTT actual swings that the arms begin racing towards the ball. And I thought, hmm, if I keep my left arm tight to the chest as long as possible, then the arms can’t race ahead.
So I videotaped some swings then I went to bed last night.
This morning I got up to play around. The course I went to had no driving range, so I couldn’t warm up the swing that way, but I knew the one swing thought that I would keep in mind througout the round. Keep the left arm tight to the chest. I used a little visualization on my swings, almost feeling as if the left arm got superglued to my body at the top of the backswing.
I felt super-connected throughout the swing, and even though I had my share of errant shots, I was striking the ball more solid than usual, especially with the driver where I hit a few enourmous drives on a cold day into the wind a lot of the time. My irons were really crisp and I felt the way I did on my practice swings. I meant to do the post swing analysis where I rated the shots on how close they were to my practice swing, but I forgot to do that.
Tomorrow I will go to the range with the camera and hit some balls like this, but I have a feeling that it will be good news.
- Simulator up and running
- The hardest thing to do in golf
- Video showing Taly – eliminating the flip
- Interesting discussion on Golf WRX
- Are practice swings unnecessary?
- The Practice Swing/Actual Swing Dillema
- A friend on Golf Channel’s “The Golf Fix”
- Throwing the club down the line and ingraining new motions
- 30 Day No Swing Video Challenge
- Achieving left wrist supination in the golf swing (Drill)
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Review: VHarness
August 27, 2010 - 9:24 am
Posted in Equipment, Review | No comments
The Vharness is a swing trainer with the goal of teaching anyone to swing like a pro. The Vharness is endorsed by Rocco Mediate, who I think is a brilliant spokesperson for this product because of how well heconnects with average golfers. He looks like a guy in your foursome. But of course he has [...]
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Posted in Game Sense, Mental Game, Practice | No comments
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Posted in Fundamentals, Practice | 1 comment
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April 29, 2010 - 12:12 pm
Posted in Driving Range, Swing Theory | No comments
Today was one of the great practice sessions. Even though I set out to do something I was practicing on the simulator, I ended up going in a completely different direction with my driving range session.
At home I had been practicing with the driving range portion of my golf simulator. I noticed that I had [...]
30 Day Challenge: Wedges – Day 5
March 31, 2010 - 11:56 am
Posted in 30 Day Challenge | No comments
The last few days of practice were pretty much rained out by one of the seemingly many tropical storms that’s hitting the north east. Luckily the skies will clear up for about a week.
I continued to practice short shots at the range, devoting 80% of the bucket of balls to them.
The positive thing is that [...]
Control distance with trajectory
March 30, 2010 - 12:58 pm
Posted in 30 Day Challenge, Getting better, ball striking | 1 comment
There are many excellent reasons to learn to control your distance with trajectory. Here are some of my favorites:
Not every shot is a full shot. The more you can learn to master partial shots, the more control you’ll have approaching greens.
Dealing with the wind. Lower trajectory shots fly better in the wind and are less [...]
How to warm up properly to play your best golf
March 20, 2010 - 9:38 am
Posted in Course Management, Driving Range, Mental Game, Practice | No comments
Do you ever show up to golf course only minutes before your tee time, dash to give yourself a quick stretch, take 2 swings, and then hit your first tee shot deep into the woods, OB or in the rough? Does this happen all the time?
How can we give ourselves the best opportunity to play [...]
Review: Divot Mat
The DivotMat is an excellent practice/training aid. It identifies your impact characteristics in a unique way for indoor or outdoor use.
The Divot Mat consists of a few key pieces. 1) The Divot Mat Sheets, 2) The Divot Pad (Lie Board), 3) The Divot Mat, a soft mat on which to put the Divot Pad including [...]
30 Day Challenge – Day 12 – Balance in the golf swing continued
February 23, 2010 - 7:00 pm
Posted in 30 Day Challenge | 4 comments
So yesterday I began talking about balance in the swing. My main concern was that thinking about my spine angle would put the focus where it shouldn’t be and take me away from visualizing, feeling and executing the shot.
I did quite a bit of work today on balance and naturally creating the setup without [...]


May 19, 2010 - 5:36 am
Tried this swing thought at the range yesterday…helped a ton! Been in an irons slump for about 2 weeks…am hopefully out of it now. Thanks, and keep up the great work!
May 20, 2010 - 5:56 am
@John Barba: I’m glad that it was helpful for you. That’s really great to hear.