Chapter 4. The Second Part of the Golf Shot

The Four Moves that Make the Stroke

If you follow the first moves related in Chapter Three, you will find yourself balanced on your left foot. This position should give you a sense of aim, a sense of hit and a sense of contact with the ball. The position created by these first four moves will place you in the proper position at the time and point of impact with the ball. It is a position where you are really leaning the club against the ball.

However, the position so assumed is contrary to the act of raising the club to the top of the swing. As long as the weight is on the left foot, the player will have difficulty in making the backswing correctly.

Therefore, before the player makes any attempt to take the club away from the ball, he must shift his weight. He must change his balance from his left foot to his right, and only then will he be able to raise the club freely. All good players assume this position of balance on the left foot as they address the ball; likewise, all good players shift their weight and thereby move their balance from the left foot over to the right foot before they make any attempt to lift or raise the club to the top of the swing.

Furthermore, all good golfers shift or change their balance from the left foot to the right foot in exactly the same way, because there is only one way in which to change one's balance from one foot to the other.

The one way to shift one's weight, the one way to change balance from one foot to the other, is by changing knee positions

For example, if a person were a member of an army squad, and the officer called "Attention," heels would snap together and the soldier would stand erect, both knees straight. In this position his balance or weight is divided evenly between both feet. When the officer calls "At rest," the soldier simply "pops" or bends one knee, and thereby balances himself on the opposite foot. If he popped or bent his left knee, the right knee would remain straight and his balance or weight would be on the right foot entirely, while the left leg would be relaxed and at rest. After standing on the right foot for a while that right leg would tire, so the soldier merely reverses knee positions-in this case he would bend the right knee and, as he did this, the left knee would straighten and by this reversal of knee positions the weight and balance would be on the left foot. It is this rhumba-like maneuver of changing knee positions that gives a person the balance he wants or desires-and this holds true in every day activities, as well as in all athletics and in all sports.

As previously indicated, a golf swing is a double-handed, ambidextrous movement. There is an upswing or backstroke that is best made with the right side of the body, and there is a downstroke and follow through that is best made with the left side of the body. So, if a golfer fails to balance himself on his right foot for the upswing, and he fails to rebalance himself on his left foot for the downswing and follow through, you can rest assured this golfer will have difficulty playing the game.

In other words, a person cannot use his body any better than his weight or balance permits him to use his body.

Learn to handle your weight and balance so you can execute the type of body motion and body action that is needed.

Because this matter of weight and balance, and the footwork with which it is accomplished, is so absolutely essential and yet so perfectly natural, I'd like to discuss it a bit further.

We humans are built like the letter X. Our right hand and left foot are but an extension of each other and they always work together. Again, our left hand and right foot are extensions of each other and they, likewise, work together. So when you stand on your right foot, you inhibit and restrict the action of the left hand and left arm. Likewise, when you stand on your left foot, you inhibit and restrict the action of the right hand and right arm.

In spite of this obvious muscular arrangement, there is a very common belief among golfers that they are balanced for a golf shot when their weight is evenly divided between both feet.

Nothing could be further from the truth and nothing can be more harmful in golf than this idea.

On the very basic matter of balance, it is common knowledge that a left-handed person's left foot is larger than his right foot and, conversely, a right-handed person's right foot is larger than his left foot. This all comes about because a left-handed person will usually stand on his left foot, because in this way he balances himself so that he can use his left hand and arm more easily-and for the same reason, a right-handed person usually stands on his right foot.

3. The second half of the Double 4 golf swing. The forward press, the reverse press and the positioning of the club.

4. Raise the club to the top of the swing, swing the club down onto and through the ball and complete the stroke.

One final thought on this matter of weight and balance and subsequent righthandedness or lefthandedness. If a person is terribly righthanded or terribly lefthanded, he is lopsided, one-handed, not ambidextrous and not ready and in position. He is not ready for the simple reason that he is not balanced for action, and he cannot balance himself for action because he does not have the necessary footwork to do so.

Do not walk up to a golf ball and plant both feet solidly on the ground with weight evenly divided, because you will be really locking up and thereby destroying all chance of an easy, natural swing.

All good golfers change their weight from their left foot to the right foot with a distinctive one-two move, also called a zig-zag movement. The first move of this one-two action is so common that it has a name. This is the forward press, which I have described in Chapter One.

From this forward bend of the right knee and the forward press of the hands, there is an easy natural opportunity, a natural impetus to make move 2, which is to reverse the knee positions, and through this reversing of the knees, transfer or shift the weight to the right foot. (All during Steps 1 and 2, the clubhead remains on the ground and so do the heels of both feet.)

This Step 2 is actually the key move to good golf, because it opens up the way and makes it possible to raise the club to the top of the swing in an easy natural way.

Before leaving Steps 1 and 2, let me issue a warning. Do not let the importance of these two steps (the forward press and the reverse press) lead you to any exaggeration because an overemphasis of these first two moves can produce a reverse effect; instead of the weight being shifted to the right foot on Step 2, an exaggeration will cause the weight to reverse itself back to the left foot. This, of course, would make things very difficult, in fact, impossible. With good players, Steps 1 and 2 are done with such nicety and finesse that, to an untrained eye, these moves can and do go by unnoticed.

In Step 3, the player raises the club to the top of the swing. As a result of making Step 2, he will find himself balanced on his right foot with the club thrown more or less into the right hand, because the reverse press moves the hands back to a point where they are more or less opposite the right knee. (See Illustration 4)

With the weight on the right foot and with the club under the influence of the right hand, it is perfectly easy and natural to raise the club to the top of the swing in exactly the same way that one would wind up to throw something. With an action that originates in the right hip, the entire right side from hip to shoulder is drawn back-and it is with this action of the right side that the player naturally contracts his right arm. This contraction of the right arm raises the club to the top of the swing. Don't try to keep the right elbow locked in tight and close to the body but let it go free and natural as one would do in throwing a ball.

A reverse action of the left side (which, incidentally, is Step 4), an action which originates in the left hip and involves the entire left side, contracts the left arm, and it is this contraction that pulls the club down into and through the ball.

It is contraction, first of the right side and right arm, that raises the club on the upswing. A reverse contraction of the left side and left arm pulls the club down into and through the ball and gives the player a controlled method of swinging the club, because muscle contraction can be regulated and controlled.

The contraction of the right side on the upswing, and the reverse contraction of the left side on the downswing, plus the follow through are what constitute the body control and body action we have been insisting on as the basis of natural golf.

But a contraction of the right side can never be executed unless the player is properly balanced on the right foot. And, of course, the contraction of the left side can never be done unless the player is properly balanced on the left foot.

This, then, as has been previously shown, is the first lesson of golf. Learn to handle your weight so that you can use your body to make the club swing.

Summary

Up to this point there has been a presentation of the 8 step procedure-the double 4 outline of the correct golf form-4 steps to establish the correct starting position, and another 4 steps to make the stroke.

There is no possible short cut from this procedure. It is impossible to do everything that has to be done in regard to footwork, hands and body, the three operations that are essential in every golf shot, without going through the complete sequence of these moves.

Emphasis has been placed on the need of proper footwork so as to estabish in the body the proper sense of control, and the proper sense of swing.

I have often said that people either play golf or they play at it, depending on just how they use their body in a golf shot.

There will be more written about the action of the body in a golf shot, because a new concept of body action will enable us to present a clear-cut, understandable picture of just what the body action in a golf shot really is.

As a matter of fact, it is this new concept that has motivated the writer to write this third book on golf. It was a similar motive that prompted me to do my first book on golf, Par Golf in Eight Steps.

Previous to that time there had been much emphasis on the pronation method of golf play-a method which suggested that the body should never be used in a golf shot, that there should be no body sway. As a consequence, golfers were being so restricted and inhibited that they couldn't have any fun playing the game. This situation made me determine to present the true picture of the golf swing-that it was something that was done with the body, that it was a perfectly natural procedure that made the game a real pleasure.

Years of study of our top golfing stars and an analysis of their game proved to me that their superiority as golfers came because they employed their body correctly.

Due to the enthusiastic reception of this first book, I wrote a second book on golf, How To Put Power And Direction In Your Golf.

The same 8 step procedure was used to point out how the two requirements of a golf shot were produced: (A) that a golfer should train himself to rely on the action of his body for the power in a golf shot, and (B) that a golfer should train his hands to give him the clubhead position and clubhead control with which to determine the direction of his golf shots.

It was immediately after these writings that the true picture of the body action became apparent to me and it is my desire to pass this information on to the golfing public. That will appear in a subsequent chapter.

My next discussion will be to present lesson 2, the part that the hands play in a golf shot, but before we get into that important subject, let us review again the double 4 step-by-step procedure of the golf shot-a system which will teach you to hit the ball with your eyes closed.

Here it is in condensed form:

To assume the correct starting position:

1. Place the club to the ball with the left hand
2. Assume the correct position with the feet
3. Complete the grip by bringing right hand to the club
4. Turn or flip the right heel out

To make the swing:

1. Make the forward press
2. Make the reverse press
3. Raise the club to the top of the swing
4. Bring the club down into and through the ball