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Now to my mind the foregoing are the three basic feels of the golf swingthe pivot, the shoulders moving in response to the pivot, and the arms moving in response to the shoulders. These are the basic movements of a connected and therefore controlled swing, and they must all be built into the framework of your feel of the swing. Of course there are many additional nuances and supplementary feels which you will build up and recognize as your game develops, but though you will add to these three fundamentals you will never alter them. Therein lies much of their value. You will get used to taking a sly look at them occasionally as you go round the course, and so long as you keep these three primary feels right, nothing much will go wrong with your game. Also because we are working from a secure basis we can now begin to notice the nuances and subtleties. We find that we produce purer shots from one sensation than from another only slightly different. We are enticed to arrange our back swing according to the type of shot we wish to produce: an extra pivot if we wish to pull or a restricted pivot if we wish to slice. But please notice that this will not be a conscious, mechanical controlyou will not say to yourself, "I wish to slice slightly so I will restrict my swing to an arc of so many degrees," you will simply alter your swing unconsciously in response to your feeling of what will produce the shot you want. Now we might break off at this point. I realize that I have already given you plenty to think of and to work at. But there is a development in your game or in your way of playing it that I want to prepare you for; so, for that reason and for the sake of analyzing the matter out to its logical conclusion I add the following. After a while by dint of pivoting correctly, not dipping our shoulders (i.e. not lifting with the arms), we begin to play some good shots, nice and straight and reasonably long. We have arrived at this stage by building on the basic trinitypivot, shoulders up, and widthand by occasionally taking a sly peep at how they are going. So far we have never consciously produced a good shot; we have merely made certain mechanical movements which we have been taught will result in good shots. But now we begin to realize how we should feel in order to produce a good shot. We are on the other side of the fence. We know now what it feels like to produce a good shot, and now, instead of preparing for a shot by sly looks at our pivot etc., we instinctively get into the position which we feel will produce a good shot. And as we go on, the feeling of this preparatory state comes more and more into the foreground. If your game does go wrong, if the shots which you thought you had mastered desert you, all you need to do is to go back to the feel of these three basic points. You just take a peep back at them, and then with one or two shots your mechanism will feel familiar again and all the other supplementary feels which you have built up by practice will be enticed back.
difficulty arises because, apart from simple things like riding a bicycle, we have never learned to do things in this way. The beginning of the swing movement is in the feet; the movement passes progressively up through the body, through the arms, and out at the club head.
4. It is essential to delay the actual hitting of the ball until as late in the swing as possible. 5. It is essential not to tighten any muscle concerned in the reactive part of the swing (movement above the waist). 6. It is essential to feel and control the swing as a whole and not to concentrate upon any part of it. In a sense this last point is the most vital. The swing must be considered and felt as a single unity, not as a succession of positions or even a succession of movements. The swing is one and indivisible. Now I consider that our golf is liable to go wrong if we lose sight of any of these essentials. There are of course innumerable incidentals that could be added that are important enough to have a considerable influence on one's game, but I will go so far as to say that if you have these six essentials well embedded in your system and if you have developed some conscious control of your swing by getting the feel of the right movementsyour game will rarely or never desert you. Of course the comfortable, reliable, right feel is not a thing that comes all at once. For instance, it takes yearsthough not if your teacher teaches by feelto feel nicely set and comfortable before the ball; weight between the feet, perfectly free and active and yet firmly planted. Then the waggle. About the waggle a whole book could be written. Every movement we make when we waggle is a miniature of the swing we intend to make. The club head moves in response to the body and the body opposes the club head. It is a flow and counter flow of forces with no static period, no check. There is no check anywhere in a good swing. There is no such thing as the "dead top" of a swingthere are four points each one of which might be so considered if it were not for the other three! They are: (1) When the pivot (feet to shoulders) has reached its top, the arms are still going up. (2) When the arms have reached their top, the body is on its day down. (3) When the arms begin to come down, the wrists have still to break back, and (4) When the wrists break To put the lesson of the concept of control by feel as briefly as possible, we must give up thinking about our shots. In place of thinking there must be conscious control, obtained by building up (by constant repetition of the correct action) a comfortable and reliable feel, a feel that will tell you infallibly through appeal to your muscular memory, what is the right movement and which will remain with you and control your shots whatever your mental state may be. Not being a matter of thought, this control stands outside the mental state. Cut Your Golf Game Down By 7 Strokes Or Less With Help From This #1 Product Today!