With the New Year upon us, golfers thoughts turn to fervid resolutions of more purposeful practice with the hopeful results showing through fewer strokes and a lower handicap.
Work and life get in the way and, for golfers who had glitches in their golf swing from the start, it is inevitable that those inconsistencies will creep back into the swing. Practicing the basics of the golf swing can save your season and can stop a small swing flaw from turning into into a swing hitch.
Golf for Beginners presents excerpts from an article by Brant Kasbohm, PGA Director of Instruction for FixYourGame.com called "The Snowball Effect".
What better way to start a New Year than with the fundamentals of a good golf swing?
The Snowball Effect, By Brant Kasbohm
We all know how (in our lives) one bad decision can breed others, or how one small white lie can lead to more & bigger ones. Such is true in the golf swing. One minor flaw in any of the core fundamentals will only compound and grow as you swing the club. This is the snowball effect—think of the cartoons of the snowball rolling down a hill getting bigger and bigger as it continues to roll. The problem (both snowball and golf swing) gets bigger and bigger the farther it goes.
So how do you stop the snowball from rolling when it comes to your swing?
You have to focus on the core fundamentals—grip, posture, alignment (aka G.A.S.P.). Most people grip the club poorly (commonly known as a weak grip) with the club in the palms of the hand. This limits the flexibility in your wrists and forearms, which inhibits your release of the club, which causes an open club-face, which causes a slice. People also have bad posture, with their spines crooked, and out of balance. This limits the flexibility and inhibits the torso rotation which reduces club-head speed, and can cause an outside-to-in swing path, which also causes a slice. To correct these flaws, people aim farther to the left to allow for the slice, and guess what happens? The farther left you aim, the more the ball slices. This is how the snowball effect works in golf. I’ve seen this happen hundreds of times.
Read the full article and view videos on FixYourGame.com
"Mr. Kasbohm's instruction philosophy focuses on the core fundamentals of grip, posture, alignment, weight transfer, and acceleration. These fundamentals are not sexy or exciting, but provide a solid foundation for a repeatable golf swing." FixYourGame.com
