GASP for a better swing
Ernie Els is a big man with a beautiful-looking golf swing, much of which stems from his attention to detail at the address position. He misses nothing. The grip is perfectly orthodox, the posture totally correct and the ball position spot-on. Any golfer who gets this many things right at address can expect, and deserve, some very worthwhile benefits when the swing gets underway.
This attention to detail is lost on most club golfers – they assume someone as good as Ernie works on fancy swing theories all the time. Not so. He works on his fundamentals just like any other golfer should. In my experience, it is the club golfers who are least likely to work on these basics when ironically it is they who need to most. Over the years I’ve been forever reminding pupils to check their grip, aim, stance, and posture – GASP. And I’m going to do it again now.
The grip must make it possible to control the clubface for the individual. The aim of the clubface fixes the ball position and therefore the stance. Correct posture makes possible the correct body turn that creates the necessary in-to-in arc so vital in order to release the club at speed through the hitting area.
Ernie’s waggle works wonders
One other thing, take a leaf out of Ernie’s book and develop a pre-swing waggle. It’s the simplest of movements. Just move the club away from the ball and back again by softly hingeing your wrists back and forth. A couple of those is enough and it just stops you gripping the club too tightly and thus prevents tension creeping into your hands and arms. So when your swing does get underway, the first move away is more likely to be a smooth one. That should do wonders for the rhythm of your swing.
‘Hey Jack, keep your chin up’
For me personally, Jack Nicklaus is the greatest player the game has ever known, and yet as a ball striker he is vulnerable to elementary technical flaws, just as you and I are. I remember back in the 1969 Open at Lytham, I walked to the second tee and there was Jack playing a practice round with Gary Player and Gardner Dickinson. The first drive I saw him hit went miles right over the adjacent railway line. So he reloaded and then hit the biggest pull hook you’ve ever seen, practically killing someone standing on the other fairway! He did the same at the third. I walked with the three of them to the sixth, a big par-5, where Jack got out his driver and hit another drive at least 50 yards off the fairway on the right. At that moment, Jack turned to me and said: ‘You’re supposed to know a bit about the golf swing, what do you think about that?’
I’d heard both Gary and Gardner telling Jack for the first six holes to get his backswing more rounded as opposed to very upright. But as I said to Jack: ‘You can’t possibly get your backswing more rounded with the posture you’ve got’, Jack said: ‘What do you mean, posture?’ I replied: ‘The back of your neck is actually parallel to the ground’. His chin was so buried in his chest that he could only tilt his shoulders. There was no room to turn.
My suggestion to Jack was simple but effective. It would be the same advice I would give to any golfer who came to see me with a similar fault in their game. I said to him: ‘Doesn’t anyone ever talk posture to you Jack?’ He looked at me and said: ‘Well, funnily enough, every time Jack Grout [Nicklaus’s long-term coach] sees me hit shots he pretends to give me an uppercut punch to keep my chin up.’ I suggested to Jack that he had better start doing that pretty quickly, so we stood on the that tee for about 15 minutes and hit at least a dozen drives. This time Jack kept his chin up and his back much taller. That was all it took. Jack started to make a more effective upper-body coil, because there was room to turn his shoulders correctly. As soon as he started to make a better rotation, the plane of his swing returned to normal, which meant his left side now cleared in the through swing, allowing the hands and arms to swing the club through as opposed to being blocked.
Teachers are sometimes accused of being obsessed by technique, believing this to be the be-all and end-all of golf, and ignoring the equally important mental side of the game. In entering a plea of ‘Not Guilty’ to this accusation I would make one amendment to the wording of the charge. The mental side, in my opinion, is not equally important as technique. It is the most important element in golf. My priorities are: (i) Temperament, (ii) Technique, and (iii) Physical strength.
The golfer who completely confirmed me in my opinion was Gary Player. As a young man when he first visited Britain he had a terrible swing. I remember the late and much-lamented Leonard Crawley, a fine amateur and a good judge of the golf swing, remarking that Gary would never do any good in the game. I demurred because Gary had about him an inner fire and a lust for success that simply could not be denied. He worked at his game like a man possessed. And he sought advice from anyone and everyone he thought might help, always in the politest and most respectful of terms.
‘Excuse me, Mr Jacobs, but would you mind if I asked you a question about the grip?’ His very appearance, with those piercing eyes of a bird of prey, marked him out as a man of destiny. So I pointed out to Leonard that Gary had the character to make his horrible swing work, and repeat consistently, and win. After all, anyone can improve his technique but he is lumbered for life with the temperament with which he was born. And in this context Gary was a born champion.
We practised a lot together and, like everyone else he approached, I helped him as much as I could. His swing improved and was good enough to dismiss me from a matchplay tournament in the first round. The next winter I went to play in South Africa and my game went to pot. Gary was most solicitous and helped me back into the groove, to such effect that I beat him in the final of the South African Matchplay Championship. Talk about role reversal! But that little story illustrates the camaraderie that for me is the very soul of professional golf.
Gary went from success to success and became one of the Big Three. In the company of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus the diminutive Player was seriously outgunned. He determined to build up his physique and strength to the point where he could hold his own against the longest hitters in the game. He went into serious, not to say punishing training and thereby got into the habit of daily physical exercising, a habit which kept him competitive on the Senior Tour at an age when most athletes are running only to fat.
Sandy Lyle
Down the years Britain has produced some wonderful players and Sandy Lyle is a worthy successor to the likes of Harry Vardon and James Braid. Starting with the Boys’ Championship, he has had great success and, thankfully, has remained totally unspoilt by them. Technically he is a bit suspect but there is merit in his taking the club back too much around the right side. This creates a tendency to come over the top, but this is a wonderful way of playing golf badly. He stands a little bit open and thumps the ball with an almighty hit down the left side of the fairway, cutting back to the middle.
During the 1988 World Matchplay Championship I was working on the new Edinburgh golf course at Wentworth when his caddie came with a request that I take a look at Sandy. To get out of the way we went over to the second tee of the East course and had a good, two-hour session. He was taking the club back very much around the right side and not only cutting the ball but, unusually for him, pulling his shots as well.
I teed the ball off the teeing ground, in a position several inches below his feet where the bank made it impossible for him to take the club back on his normal inside line. It had to go straight up as he turned his shoulders. I had to go straight off to Spain that evening and follow his triumphant progress to the title from afar. But when I returned I found waiting for me a typically generous letter of gratitude from this wonderful guy.
Ian Woosnam
For me Ian Woosnam swings the club exactly the way I think it should be swung. We are all astonished at the distances he hits the ball but, as he turns his shoulders and swings the club up at the same time, he is the perfect exemplar of the secret of long hitting: clubhead speed correctly applied.
Nobody applies it more correctly. It seems to me that his temperament is affected by the way he is putting, but he is the model for every young player to copy in terms of technique. He is a better Hogan, if you like – more fluid and more correct in that he does not have to drive it through and hit as late as Hogan did.
Ray Floyd
Golf at the highest level is a game for hard men – and they don’t come any harder than Ray Floyd. He had a look that could wither opponents at 50 paces and next to Jack Nicklaus had probably the best temperament of any player over the last half a century. He was once dubbed by his fellow tour pros as ‘the toughest man on Tuesdays’ for his reputation as a ferocious competitor, before the serious business of tournament play had even started. The thing was, Ray always found practice rounds pretty mundane, so he would spice them up by placing some hard cash on the line. ‘Playing for your own money is a great way to learn how to compete under the heat,’ he once said.
This hard school of learning was Ray’s education in the game. He’d grown up gambling on the golf course, the driving range, the putting green – anywhere you could hit a golf shot was a good enough place for a wager.
In the 1960s he soon developed a reputation as a serious hustler, frequently playing challenge matches for $1,000 a time. On one occasion he lost two consecutive games to a young pro by the name of Lee Trevino, which cost Ray and his backers several thousand dollars. The backers wanted to cut their losses and leave town, but Ray insisted on another showdown and doubled the stakes, putting in $2,000 from his own back pocket.
When he and Trevino butted heads again the next day, they came to the last hole dead level, but Ray holed a 20-foot eagle putt on the 18th green to shoot 63 and pip Trevino by a shot. On evidence like that, it’s little wonder Ray became one of golf’s real hard men, as tough a competitor as you could ever dread to come up against. He was a very sound ball striker throughout his career, but perhaps his greatest strength – other than a champion’s temperament – has been his short game.
In his prime he was a wonderful putter, with a distinctive style you could recognize from a mile away. He uses a longer-than-standard putter and stands very tall, more upright than any other golfer I can think of, with his hands high.
The best way I can sum up his stroke is to say that he swings his hands, as opposed to his hands swinging the putter. By that, I mean his hands swing on a consistent arc back and forth and the putter simply responds to that motion. That’s a good way to putt. There is no need for manipulation of the putter mid-stroke and thus there is no need for independent hand action. You get the definite impression that everything is working together in Ray’s stroke.
Is Ray’s method for you? Well, I always say to my pupils that if you don’t have a problem holing putts, don’t change a thing. But if you feel you don’t hole enough short and medium range putts, give it a go.
As I see it, there are distinct benefits to Ray’s style of putting. For one thing, standing tall gives you a very good view of the hole and indeed the line to the hole. And if you can see the line, you can hit the line.
Secondly, an upright posture encourages the arms to hang down relatively freely from tension. You don’t want the arms to feel ramrod straight, but instead slightly flexed with the elbows pointing in towards your body. This naturally comfortable position encourages the hands, arms, and the body to operate as a team. There’s less of a tendency for the hands and arms to ‘fight’ one another during the stroke.
Thirdly, as we’ve already touched upon, standing tall over the ball puts you in a super position to make a very free swing of the hands and arms. Everything flows. There is no abrupt or jerky movement to upset the path of the putter.
Ben Hogan
The story of Ben Hogan is so remarkable that it is hardly surprising Hollywood made a film about his life. As a boy he endured the agony of seeing his father shoot himself. As a young professional he struggled to make his way, before finally making the break through. Then, just as he was riding high, he was nearly killed in a car crash. He then rebuilt himself to become the greatest ball-striker who ever picked up a golf club. There’ll never be another Ben Hogan.
Let me tell you a tale that illustrates how good Ben Hogan was. When he won the 1953 Open at Carnoustie – the only time he played in our championship – the draw for the last day wasn’t like it is now, leaders out last. Instead, we played 36 holes on the final day and the order of play was determined by drawing names out of the hat. As luck would have it, during both the morning and afternoon rounds I was waiting to play on the 3rd tee when Hogan was hitting down the par-5 6th. The two tees are close together and I had a perfect view straight down his target line.
For those who don’t know Carnoustie, there is out of bounds all the way down the left side of the 6th hole and a bunker about a third of the way into the fairway on that side. Then there is two-thirds of fairway to the right of that bunker and some shortish rough right of that. Everybody took the safe option, either aiming at the middle of the fairway, looking to fade it away from the bunker and the out-of-bounds fence, or aiming into the right-hand rough and playing for a little draw. Everybody except Hogan, that is.
He was the only man in the field who aimed at the tiny gap between the bunker and the out-of-bounds fence. His lightning-quick swing fired the ball off on that line like a bullet, and towards the end of its flight there was just the merest hint of fade which brought the ball round the back of the bunker and into the middle of the fairway. That was the only way you could knock it on the green in two that day, and he made birdie-fours both times, shot 70–68 and won by four shots.
This was Hogan at his sublime best. That year, aged 41, he entered only six tournaments and won five of them. Three were major championships – the Masters, Open Championship and US Open. How about that?
You may have seen pictures of Hogan, but you could not possibly get an idea of the speed of his swing. It was like lightning and couldn’t have been in greater contrast to Sam Snead’s slow, almost lazy tempo. The thing is, both players swung the club at a pace that felt right for them and, more importantly, at a pace that allowed them to stay in complete control. They also had wonderful balance.
Your best rhythm is one that allows you to generate power, while maintaining complete control over the many moving parts in your golf swing. As I’ve explained, everyone is different and therefore I believe that even the experienced golfer will benefit from a little trial and error in this department.
Next time you practise, hit batches of balls with different-paced swings. Start with your normal rhythm and experiment on both the fast and slow side of that. By working on different rhythms you’ll soon get a feeling for the ideal blend of power, control and balance. That’s the rhythm for you.
A great deal depends on the type of person you are. If you’re hyperactive, a fast walker and talker, then the chances are your optimum swing speed will be on the Hogan side of rapid. If you’re more of a laid-back type, someone who walks slowly and seldom gets flustered, then I would say your golf swing’s ideal operating speed will be on the slow side, rather like a Fred Couples or a Vijay Singh. Lastly, fast swingers are invariably short in stature – slow swingers are usually much taller. I think this may be due in part to differences in the centre of gravity. These are mere indicators, though. The rules are by no means set in stone.
Hogan hits a shank!
One day I was in the match directly in front of Hogan. It was a treat to turn round and watch his second shots dropping time after time around the pin. There was one longish hole on the back nine where the second shot had to be laid up short of a hazard; this left a short pitch to the green. The next tee was quite close to the green. I had hit my drive and was walking off the tee just as Hogan was playing his 9-iron or wedge to the flag. He had about 60 or 70 yards to go. He hit the ball clean off the socket – right off the pipe of his pitching club. It flew sharply right and, as a matter of fact, very nearly hit me as I walked forward. I though to myself at the time: I bet there aren’t many who have seen Hogan hit a full-blooded shank.
Bernhard Langer
As a boy from a poor family in Germany, Bernhard Langer was given four old clubs to play with. Three of them, a 2-wood, 3-iron and 7-iron, he learnt to wield with devastating effect. The fourth, a putter with a bent shaft, proved a little harder to master. Thus the career pattern was set for this remarkably resilient and talented golfer.
I really take my hat off to Bernhard. I can’t think of a comparable situation where a sportsman has come back so many times from such fundamentally damaging technical difficulties. I’m talking about the yips, just about the worst thing that can happen to a professional golfer. To suffer them once in a career would be once too often. But poor Bernhard’s putting stroke has been afflicted at least three times, the effects sometimes lasting several years.
Bernhard describes it himself as ‘an uncontrollable movement of the muscles. It can go anywhere from a twitch, to a freeze where you can’t move at all, to a sudden explosion.’ It’s hard to imagine what that must feel like, yet easy to understand the phenomenal strength of character he has shown to overcome those physical and mental obstacles.
On that basis I suppose you might say it’s surprising that Bernhard went on to win twice at Augusta, a golf course with arguably the most treacherous greens in the world. But Bernhard’s much publicized traumas on the greens disguise the fact that he has at times in his career been a wonderful putter. More to the point, as far as Augusta is concerned, he has also been consistently one of the best mid-iron players I’ve ever seen – amazingly accurate with both line and length, which means he can hit his approach shots in the right place on those vast, sloping greens thus leaving himself the most holeable putts.
This devastating accuracy is the product of a golf swing that I would describe as very sound, rather than pretty. I first met him at the Bob Hope Classic at the RAC Club in Surrey during the early 1980s. He asked me what I thought of his swing and I can remember my exact reply: ‘Bernhard, don’t let anyone stop you turning like that.’ This was a time when due to a combination of the success of Jack Nicklaus and the way the swing was being taught, many players tended to rock the shoulders as opposed to turning them with just a degree of tilt established by the spine angle at address. So it made a pleasant change to see someone turning their shoulders correctly.
What I also said to Bernhard, however, was to ‘get your girlfriend to stand just to the right of you and behind you.’ I was only joking about the girlfriend, but the serious message I wanted to get across to Bernhard was that his arms were locked to his shoulder turn and he was thus swinging too flat and around himself. He needed an obstruction behind him to force him to swing his arms and the club more upwards and not so much around himself.
This isn’t an unusual scenario. Often, golfers suffer from the arms being locked on the same plane as the body turn, resulting in a very flat backswing. It’s a position that leaves you trapped at the top, with no room to swing the club down on the correct path, resulting in anything from a bad slice to a pull hook.
I don’t suggest for a minute you get anyone, let alone your wife or girlfriend, to stand behind you as you swing. But if you suffer from an excessively flat swing it is a good idea when you practise to have some kind of physical presence to force you to swing the club up and on the inside in your backswing.
Many a time when I was swinging too flat I would make practice swings with a hedge behind me. If I could swing the club up and avoid contact with the hedge, I knew I was getting a better balance between arm swing and body turn. Give it a try, but make sure you keep turning. As I said to Bernhard, you don’t ever want to lose that element of your golf swing.
Sam Snead
Slammin’ Sam Snead was a poor boy from a farmer’s family who developed a golf swing that was like a Rolls Royce engine; silky, smooth, quiet, powerful and purposeful. It didn’t matter how many miles Sam put on the clock, his swing never seemed to miss a beat.
No other golfer lasted quite as well as Snead. At the age of 62 he almost won the 1974 USPGA Championship, pipped only by Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus, two golfers who weren’t even born when Snead was winning his umpteenth tour event! Only weeks before, he’d finished runner-up in the Los Angeles Open, one of the biggest tournaments on the PGA Tour. He’s still the oldest golfer ever to win a main tour event – the Greater Greensboro Open aged 52 – and for 20 years it was virtually front page news when he didn’t break his age. For the record he shot a round of 60 at the age of 71, and aged 84 was still a good enough player to put together a score of 66. That is nothing short of miraculous.
I remember seeing him play for the first time and like everyone else being awe-struck by the rhythm and power of his golf swing. Sam hit it miles with that lazy-looking swing.
I can still picture one great moment during one of his practice rounds during the old Canada Cup (now known as the World Cup) played on Wentworth’s West course. He was on the par-5 17th and had hit a good drive down the middle of the fairway. He was sizing up the blind shot that you have on that hole and he turned to his caddie and said, ‘Whad’ya think?’ in that southern drawl of his. The caddie explained that the line was straight at a particular tree on the horizon. ‘One-iron?’ Snead suggested. The caddie agreed. He then hit one of the most magnificent, towering long-iron shots I’ve ever seen. The ball never left the tree. Snead looked at his caddie and in a nonchalant kind of way just said, ‘Is that about it?’ An understatement if ever I heard one.
There were two key fundamentals at the heart of Sam’s great rhythm. First, he had a wonderfully soft grip pressure. He always maintained that you should grip the club with the same pressure you’d use to hold a live bird in your hands – one of the most valuable and enduring lessons of all time. Secondly, Sam never tried to hit the ball too hard. Even with his driver he was never operating at more than about 80 per cent, which meant his swing would always feel under control and in perfect balance.
Try to follow Snead’s example. A soft grip will free-up the natural rhythm in your swing and introduce a sense of fluidity to your movement. And remember, the fact that the ball is positioned to the side means the arc of the swing will be through the ball from in-to-straight-to-in. Your address position should make you aware that you will be going back on the inside, so swing down at the ball from the inside and clear the left side so that the club returns to the inside in the followthrough, having delivered the clubface square and on line at impact.
As an amusing aside to all of this, it’s worth mentioning the fact that Snead could be a little wild at times with his driver. One year when he partnered Ben Hogan in the Canada Cup I once heard Hogan say to Snead ‘put that Goddamn driver away’. Given the stature of the man uttering the words, and the nature of the delivery, you’d be inclined to listen, wouldn’t you?
Nick Price
The elements in the making of a champion are to start with the right temperament, acquire the right technique, and then work on physical strength. I have not talked about golf with Nick but you get to learn a lot about a person from watching him play and I suspect that he did not have the temperament for tournament golf when he started. But he acquired a quite superb technique, so effective that he won in spite of his temperament. And through the experience of winning developed a champion’s temperament. Now he has got it all. I do not think he is particularly strong physically, but his impact is so good that he is pretty long. What a lovely person and, like Sandy Lyle, an absolute gentleman.
Born into poverty, the grandson of a Mexican gravedigger, Lee Trevino could scarcely have had a less privileged upbringing. But he hustled and fought his way to the top, becoming one of golf’s truly colourful characters, not to mention one of the most gifted.
He started out collecting range balls six days a week. When he left that job and joined the US Marines, a career perhaps not best suited to his outgoing personality, Lee got probably the first lucky break of his life when a clerical error landed him in the Special Services division and he got to play golf every day with the officers. He became good, very good in fact, and after being discharged from the Marines was soon the professional at a club in El Paso. I got to know of him before he became famous, and by playing with his own money on the line he soon became a lethal competitor. It was this kind of education that bought Lee a hard edge and a tough temperament.
Mind you, it was 1968 before he made it on to the tour full time and by then he was nearly 30. Nicklaus and Palmer already had private jets and Lee was staying in cheap hotels and driving from one tournament to the next in a $1,500 station wagon, apparently frequently losing his way.
So impressed was veteran Gene Sarazen when he got paired with Lee at Westchester in 1968 that he came into the press tent afterwards and told the assembled media: ‘I just played with a man you’re going to hear a lot about. He’s going to win a lot of tournaments.’
When he eventually did win, he did so in the biggest possible way at the 1968 US Open at Oak Hill. On the final day, with Palmer playing behind him and Nicklaus ahead of him, Lee put on his lucky colours – red shirt and black trousers – and fired a 69 to win by a shot and become the first man in history to compile four sub-70 rounds in a US Open. When asked by the press what he was going to do with his $30,000 prize, he said: ‘I might buy the Alamo and give it back to Mexico.’
He’s a genuinely funny guy. He was also one of the most gifted ball-strikers ever. I would go as far to say that in the late 60s and 70s he was one of the best golfers in the world. Jack Nicklaus once said to him: ‘You’re much better than you think you are!’ His self-taught swing might not be the prettiest to grace the fairways of the world, and it certainly has taken a punishing toll on his back over the years, but my word it is effective. He could shape a shot any way he liked.
Talking of shaping shots, where the ball goes depends on what the clubface is doing at impact. From the point of view of the club golfer, any lofted club is easy to draw whereas to fade – which requires the necessary sidespin – a relatively straight-faced club is required.
These factors have a major influence if you want to shape shots. For instance, if you want to go round a tree that’s blocking your path to the green and you’ve only a short shot to play, you would not be able to shape the ball from left to right because there would be too much loft on the club and thus too much backspin and too little sidespin. Thus from short range, a draw is a better option because this shot relies on the clubface being closed to the swing path and, of course, a closed clubface means less loft and more sidespin.
If on the other hand you have a long way to go, it’s difficult hitting a draw because as I’ve explained in order to shape the ball from right to left the clubface has to be closed to the swing path. And since there is very little loft to start with on a long club, you only have to close the clubface a little and you’ve effectively got ‘negative loft’. The ball therefore won’t fly. Thus from long range a fade should be your preferred option.
Bear these impact factors in mind whenever you contemplate shaping an iron shot.
Henry Cotton
Henry Cotton, my boyhood hero, was considered so great that Dunlop named a golf ball in commemoration of one his rounds – a stunning 65 in the 1934 Open Championship at Sandwich. That was by three shots the lowest round of the tournament and it just about summed up Henry in his heyday – a class apart.
My first sight of him was hitting shots with just his left arm at the 1938 Open, which my mother had taken me to. Even though I was only a boy I can remember to this day how impressed I was. There was such wonderful rhythm in his swing and such crispness in the strike. Seeing Henry play was one of the best things that could have happened to me as a young golfer. It inspired me and also instilled in me the importance of rhythm.
In a strange twist of fate, I found myself up against my hero in the final of the 1954 Penfold Matchplay tournament. I must be honest, he was still my hero even then – not the ideal frame of mind for a match! I’d been putting well and playing well all that week. The final was played in pouring rain and it was blowing a gale. Dai Rees asked me if I would be interested in splitting the combined winner and runner-up purse. I told Dai: ‘If Henry agreed, I certainly would’, since Henry was still someone I felt I was not in the same class as, even though he was then coming to the end of his career. I couldn’t have been more surprised when Henry agreed. The trouble was as soon as I knew that I relaxed, which I believe may well have contributed to me being soundly beaten 5&4. That was a shame.
Sitting here, some 60 or so years later after I first saw him play, there’s no doubt in my mind that in terms of ball striking Henry was in the top half-dozen of all time. He always used to talk about the importance of the hands. However, this overlooked one factor – namely, Henry’s immensely strong legs. They were like tree trunks, providing a stable base for his swing and supporting a wonderful body action that was always perfectly in tune with his hands and arms.
And therein lies the real key. Henry ‘collected’ himself as he started his downswing in such a way that culminated in all the moving parts surging towards the ball as one, and arriving at impact together. No moving part worked independently of another in Henry’s downswing and the result was a strike of awesome authority.
The coordination in Henry’s downswing – call it harmony of movement, if you like – is a wonderful lesson for us all. You don’t want to be all legs and no hands and arms in the downswing, which is what much of golf instruction in the 1960s, 70, and 80s advocated. Equally you don’t want all hands and arms, and no leg action. There needs to be a balance – the body unwinding at the same time as the hands and arms swing the club down. You should feel that as you start your downswing you collect together all the moving parts of your swing and that they arrive simultaneously at impact. That’s what great timing is all about and it’s amazing what a difference that makes to the quality of your ball striking.
Bobby Locke
In his dominant years Bobby Locke was a distinctly unathletic figure with a unique swing and an exaggerated draw on his shots that probably gave the purists little pleasure. But four Open victories in under a decade speaks volumes for this mild-mannered South African’s unique talent and he was undoubtedly one of the most underrated golfers of the 20th century.
I knew Bobby for many years. We first me before the war when a grand tour of challenge matches around the country brought him to my home club, Lindrick. He was a lanky, 20-year-old kid who was about as keen on the game as anyone I’ve ever met. He literally couldn’t get enough golf. The morning after the match he dragged my cousin Jack out of bed to squeeze in another 18 holes before heading off to Liverpool to catch the boat back to South Africa. While chatting after their game together, Jack remarked: ‘Young fella you’ve got tremendous talent, but you’ll never do any good hooking the ball like that.’
In fact, Bobby carried on hooking it exactly like that for the rest of his life and it worked rather well! But while Jack’s advice on the swing didn’t make a lasting impression, his gift to Bobby of a pair of white golf shoes did. Bobby never forgot that gesture and after the war would insist that Jack join him for one of his practice rounds at the Open. I loved this, because I used to get in on the act too.
His iron play was unbelievable. Again he drew every shot, but whereas most hook shots tend to roll, Bobby’s stopped quickly since he hit down on the ball with his huge shoulder roll, as opposed to wrist roll employed by most golfers who hook the ball. He was a wonderful judge of distance. I remember we were tied for second playing the last hole together in a tournament at Sunningdale in the early 1960s. After good drives I hit my approach shot bang on line and he slightly over-hooked his to the left of the pin. I thought ‘I might have him here’, but when we got to the green I was short and he was pin high and inside me. It was uncanny how often Bobby was exactly pin high. I holed my putt and he followed me in from 20 feet. That was typical of Bobby, too.
His swing was so repetitive, as I am sure were his swing thoughts, which explains how he could play so well with so little practice. I’m not kidding you, he would amble on to the range to hit a few 6-irons, a couple of drivers and a few wedges. Then on the way to the first tee he’d casually stroke a couple of putts. That was him ready for action. He never seemed to play badly. Oh, now and then he’d hit a shot that started right and didn’t draw back as far as he intended, but I’m talking small margins. In just over two seasons on the US Tour, he played in 59 tournaments, won 13, was runner-up in 10 and third in another seven!
I played a lot of golf with him over the years and he really was the complete golfer. He was a very accurate driver, a great iron player, and spectacular putter. His putting stroke was like a miniature version of his full swing. It had all the same characteristics – backswing inside the line, with the downswing outside the line of the backswing, but still from the inside as the body turned through. Today on the professional tours, many putters rock the shoulders to keep the putter swinging straight back and through. Bobby was different. He turned his shoulders to hit from the inside to straight through. I’d have to say it’s not a method I’d recommend in its entirety to anyone else. Nevertheless there are certain snippets that I believe we can all draw inspiration from.
In my experience, most players have a putting stroke which replicates their full swing tendencies and let me say once again that if you have found a method that works, don’t change it.
What is important for every golfer to understand, though, is that the correct combination of clubface alignment and swing path is the key to success. Bobby Locke repeatedly used a stroke that applied the putter-face slightly closed at impact on a very slight in-to-out path. Conversely, a few fine putters cut their putts using an out-to-in path through the ball with an open face at impact. The strokes could not be more different, yet they each set the ball off on the correct line, consistently.
That is the crux of the matter. Even if you choose not to make a stroke that produces a perfectly on-line, square clubface at impact, so long as the face and path complement one another – as they did in Bobby’s stroke – then the ball will travel on the line you intend it. Therefore you should concentrate on other key factors such as committing yourself to the line of the putt and the length of the backswing, which allows a rhythmical acceleration through the ball to achieve the correct distance.
Remember, speed determines the amount of break you play on a putt. If you like to hit your putts firmly, or you putt mostly on slow greens, the ball will not be severely affected by the slope on its way to the hole. However, if you like to die your putts into the hole at a slow speed as Bobby did throughout his career, or you putt on slick greens, then you’ll have to play a lot more break.
Peter Thomson
How good was Peter Thomson? How about that he was the only golfer in the 20th century to win three consecutive Open Championships and five in total. Impressive enough, but just look at his run of finishes from 1951 onwards. As you read this, please bear in mind that it started when Peter was only 20 years of age: T6, 2, T2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, T23, T9, T7, T6, T5, T24, 1, T8, T8 … we’ll stop there in 1967, but even into the 1970s he was still notching up top-10 finishes. It is a simply staggering sequence.
In his prime Peter was a good enough player to win any tournament he showed up at, but he loved fast-running courses and therefore links golf was his forte. As he once said: ‘I just happen to hit the ball low and straight, which is helpful at the Open’. Not just at the Open, either. On one occasion I can recall he flew from the States to play in a tournament at Sandmoor in Yorkshire. The course was bone hard and parched. Peter arrived too late to fit in a practice round, yet when the 72 holes were over nobody was within 15 shots of his winning total! He was that good.
I played a lot of golf with him over the years and I can tell you the best club in his bag was his temperament, no doubt about it. He was like Jack Nicklaus in that on the last few holes of a major championship, with a chance to win, he’d be the calmest person on the course. ‘The super player,’ he once said, ‘has one vital quality: calmness.’
He had that all right. I don’t think there has ever been a golfer who managed his game better than Peter. He had an enviably simple, no-frills approach, right from the way he preached the virtues of a sound set-up, through to the way he plotted his way around the golf course always keeping the ball in play. One of Peter’s gifts was that he knew his strengths and limitations.
A classic example was how he so often refused to use a driver. You see, the manner in which he swung meant that he presented the clubface to the ball in a strong position – in other words, delofted – so the ball flew low and ran a long way. That made it difficult for him to flight a driver correctly, so he seldom carried that club. Some might have considered that a distinct disadvantage and remodelled their swing in order to be able to hit a driver, but not Peter. He refused to change a swing that was perfect for 13 clubs, just to be able to use a driver. In Peter’s mind, power always played second fiddle to position.
It’s not the glamour side of the game, but developing a shrewd sense of strategy is the club golfer’s most direct route to consistently lower scores and more trouble-free rounds of golf.
The purpose of the tee shot is to get yourself in play and in a position that makes your approach shot as straightforward as possible. The realistic aim of your approach shot is not to hole it, but to avoid potential hazards guarding the green and at the same time give yourself a holeable putt. And so it goes on. One smart shot benefits the next. I think if you were to go out in your next round of golf and play every hole with position, not power, in mind, you’d avoid the disaster holes and shoot lower scores.
Above all, know your limitations and play within them. Remember, a good round of golf isn’t just about the great shots you hit, it’s as much about the bad shots you don’t hit. Peter knew how to stay out of serious trouble. Even when he did make a mistake it rarely became a disaster, he always seemed to be able to recover or at the very least consolidate. His equilibrium was totally unshakeable.
Nick Faldo
As a young boy Nick Faldo dismantled a perfectly decent bike in order to find out exactly how it worked. Many years later he did the very same thing to his golf swing and put it back together to become the most successful British golfer of the 20th century.
He started playing golf when he was 14 years of age and within four years had won the English Amateur Championship and the British Youths, along with eight other amateur titles in a ten-month winning spree. Two years later he won the prestigious PGA Championship and later that year in his first Ryder Cup singles match beat the reigning US Masters and Open champion Tom Watson. By 1983 his stroke average had plummeted to just about bang-on 69, the lowest of any golfer in the world that year.
Despite the success, Nick knew he could do better and I suspect his painful back nine collapse in the 1983 Open, when he had a sniff of victory, merely hammered that point home more forcibly. ‘I’ve been close in a couple of Opens and not been able to finish the job,’ he said at the time. ‘The problem is my technique, or lack of it.’ When he joined forces with David Leadbetter, in my opinion they started working on exactly the right things straight away. I have to give great credit to David for the manner in which he taught Nick. He really did a wonderful job. Of course, it was a courageous decision of Nick’s but absolutely the correct one. I strongly believe he’d have struggled to win one major, let alone six, with the swing he had in the early 1980s.
By the late 80s and early 90s you’d have had a tough time convincing me that he wasn’t the best player in the world. Six major championships in less than a decade is a fantastic strike rate. He’s also won more Ryder Cup points than any other player in history. I’ve always been impressed with his single-minded and dedicated approach to his golf. This work ethic and unflinching desire for perfection enabled him to make the absolute most of the enormous talent he showed as a youngster. Nothing, as far as Nick was concerned, would get in the way of his goals.
Nick’s swing changes centred around a few key elements of his swing. He widened his stance a little so that his legs would stabilise and support a more rotary body action. He then focused on winding his body over a more passive leg and hip action, which created resistance – in effect, energy – that he would then use to drive a more powerful downswing. The arms swung in response to the body motion, whereas in his swing of old, the hands and arms dominated the action and the body just went along for the ride. Basically, Nick went from being a very handsy player to a more body-controlled, passive-hands player.
That was just the ticket for Nick, but overemphasis on body action is dangerous territory for the average golfer because it assumes you have a great hand action and, to be frank, most club golfers suffer from a lack of hand action rather than too much.
That’s why I often prefer to use the arc of the swing to get the body moving. This medicine will be good for your swing if you tend to hit the ball very high, often hitting a push with a left-to-right shape, mixed with the occasional snap hook. Once you get the correct in-to-in picture of the swing path, your body will clear out of the way virtually automatically and thus you won’t need to drive the legs to avoid coming over the top. The correct in-back-to-in arc creates the proper release of the hands and thus the clubhead through the ball.
Hale Irwin
Of all the fine golfers of the modern era Hale Irwin must be close to unique in having never needed a teacher or coach to keep his good looking, sound golf swing in perfect working order.
Hale knew his swing better than anyone and thus would have been mindful of his tendencies. He turned his shoulders very correctly, but occasionally the club follows the body too closely for comfort, which means the hands and arms finish the backswing a fraction flat. From there his hands and arms are inclined to start down a little bit locked together which means Hale is slightly over the top as he starts his downswing and thus the club is slightly outside the line.
I remember one occasion in the mid-1980s, I’d flown out to one of my golf schools in the States and on my arrival I discovered that Hale had been practising at the club for two whole weeks, hitting balls for six hours a day, and not once did he hit a shot other than with his feet together. Bear in mind this is a multiple US Open champion and at that time one of the best players in the world, yet he didn’t once hit a regular full shot. That’s patience for you. Why did he do it? Well, I’ll explain and also tell you why it can be such a wonderful exercise.
One of the most common mistakes among club golfers is they finish the backswing with their shoulders, which makes them swing too flat, and start the downswing with their shoulders, which throws the club away from the body and outside the ideal swing plane. In simple terms, they apply the body too much, too early in the downswing. Hale occasionally suffered from a mild case of this problem.
For anyone who shares this tendency, hitting shots from a very narrow stance is perfect medicine because it encourages you to swing the club down as opposed to swinging yourself. It gets the hands and arms working and promotes a much freer swish of the club down and through. If you start to drift back into old habits and apply too much body action from the top, you very quickly lose your balance.
Next time you’re at the range, hit a mid-iron shot with your feet close together. If you lose your balance in the downswing, that’s a sign you’re applying too much body action. So, get your feet together and point the club at the target at the top of your backswing. As you change direction, feel that your hands and arms start down first and that the body stays ‘quiet’.
Finally, a word about the mental side of the game. Think back to the tiny putt that Hale missed in the 1983 Open Championship at Birkdale. Learn from the way he dealt with that. Some golfers would have disappeared without a trace. But Hale kept his composure, went on to shoot a level par 72 that day, and followed it up with a 67 in the final round to put himself right in the frame.
Tom Watson denied him with a brilliant and composed finish, but the point is, Hale was in there with a chance of winning. When things go wrong for you in a competition – say, you get a bad bounce or you make what seems like a stupid mistake – don’t let it ruin your entire round. Learn to put it behind you and get on with the game. The next shot is the only shot that matters. It’s easier said than done, of course. But I believe if you work at it you can develop a better temperament on the golf course and that can only be of benefit to your scores.
Bobby Jones
Winner of three Opens, four US Opens, one British Amateur and five US Amateurs – all before he reached the age of 30. And he wasn’t even playing for money. No wonder some say that Bobby Jones was the greatest golfer of all time.
Some of my earliest memories are of my father talking about the remarkable exploits of Bobby Jones. Even after I had started playing the game, when Henry Cotton had become very much the man of the moment, people would still speak in awe and admiration of the great Bobby Jones. Indeed, many a year would have to pass before people stopped saying to any talented youngster who started to show promise: ‘Now then young man, are you going to be another Bob Jones?’
I’ve watched his classic video tapes dozens of times and marvelled at his gorgeous, rounded, fluent, long golf swing. It was quite rapid by any standards, but the wonderful rhythm and exquisite timing made a metronome look out of kilter. Add this to a sublime and sensitive touch on the greens, using his famous Calamity Jane putter, and one can start to appreciate how great Bobby Jones was.
In 1930 Jones exceeded even his own remarkable standards, winning the British Amateur Championship, the Open Championship, the US Open, and the US Amateur Championship – the Impregnable Quadrilateral as it was dubbed by one New York journalist. He was just 28 years old and, in surely the greatest ever example of quitting while one is ahead, retired from competitive golf.
Returning again to his swing, he had such a confident, letting-go action. By that, I mean the clubhead really freewheeled through the ball. Indeed, I remember reading in one of Jones’s books that he felt the clubhead reached maximum speed prior to impact, then freewheeled into the back of the ball. I must say, I like the sound of that – it seemed to me to conjure up the sort of freedom of movement in the downswing that many club golfers could aspire to. More of a swing than a hit, if you like.
Much of this technique could be attributed to the young Bobby Jones watching and, probably to a degree modelling himself on, Stuart Maiden, a Scottish born professional who had emigrated to Atlanta and become the head pro at Jones’s home club at East Lake. He later became Jones’s teacher and used to travel the world with him. Maiden taught Jones as simply as possible, saying that: ‘I knew it was a mistake to confuse him with too many things.’ Actually, Jones knew a great deal about the golf swing and later wrote brilliantly about every facet of the game, but Maiden’s teaching style obviously worked for him.
If Jones had a fault, it was that the ball forever kept creeping back in his stance. Always conscious of this, Maiden used to say to him in his own charming way: ‘Now Mr Jones, ball forward in your stance a bit, please. Come on, just a bit more than that’. He had to gently coax him into the correct position, because Jones used to feel comfortable with the ball too far back in his stance. Most of us are the same. The ball feels best when it’s in the middle of our stance because we feel we can hit it from there … but we can’t hit it straight from there. We tend to push it or hook it. It is one example of why comfortable isn’t always correct.
The golfers who should really keep an eye out for this fault are those who tend to hook the ball, because this type of shot pattern is invariably caused by the ball being too far back in the stance. As I’ve said, it feels comfortable, but the problem is caused because the clubhead meets the ball before it has reached the on-line portion of its swing. It’s travelling in-to-out, so you invariably hit it right or with a big hook.
Slicers will have the opposite problem. Their tendency will be to let the ball creep too far forward in the stance, which means the clubhead has travelled beyond the on-line portion of its swing and is thus swinging to the left of target at impact. That’s where the pull or the big slice originates.
So how can you take something from the great Bobby Jones and use it to the benefit of your own game? Well, get someone to study your ball position with the driver; it should be opposite the left heel. If it is incorrectly positioned, you need to be coaxed into the correct position. Do please bear in mind, however, that changing ball position is one of those things that takes some doing. Don’t immediately expect it to feel right and comfortable; it won’t. As I often say to pupils, improving your golf swing involves putting up with a bit of discomfort, because if you change anything meaningful, that is how the first few shots will feel. As long as you remember that it is far more important to be correct than it is to be comfortable, you will always stand a chance of fulfilling your potential.