Is excessive golf swing tension hurting your distance?

Hi 

Does this sound like you?...

You feel a lot of tension in your golf swing and you try to tell yourself to relax but the harder you try to do this the more tense you become.

If this does sounds like you the first piece of advice is to not "try."

Why?

Because trying creates tension in your golf swing so cut that "trying" out first because it's costing you distance and accuracy.

Next you should go out to your driving range and simply hit balls while humming quietly to yourself. When you're doing this focus on your humming and notice if it stops or changes pitch at any time during your golf swing.

Just keep hitting balls focusing on your humming with the goal of swinging without the hum changing pitch or volume from the moment you start swinging to the end of your golf swing. But please don't "try" to achieve this. 

Simply keep swinging and focusing on your humming, and soon without you noticing the "whys" or "hows" your golf swing will become more rhythmical and less tense.

Once your golf swing is more in tune with your natural rhythm you want to keep it that way. Do this by having a few golf swings each day while quietly humming to yourself. 

Doing this will help you to have a golf swing with less tension and consequently you'll hit the ball further and more consistently.

For more great tips like this to help you hit the ball further along with a complete program designed specifically by a sports scientist to help you swing faster and hit the ball further go here:

Take this golf swing test

You need to take this free golf swing test…  Hi   You could have ONE swing fault that is stopping you from ball striking consistency and success.  

Luckily for you, now you can take a simple 2 minute test to see if you have this swing fault or not.  If you don’t have this swing fault, that’s great. 

But if you do have this swing fault you’ll want to know about it because it WILL be costing you….  * Distance (could be up to 50 yards) * Accuracy, and * Consistency  So to find out whether you have this swing fault or not go here and take this simple 2 minute golf swing test:   

 It will take you less than 2 minutes to take this test and it may just be the most valuable 2 minutes you’ll ever spend….as far as your golf swing is concerned.  So go and take this test right now. 

 My best, If you suffer from an over the top problem or your divots point left of the target then you need to go and take this golf swing test now! 

Introducing The Hybrid Swing Plane

Today I have another great article by Jeff Richmond that explains the Hybrid Golf Swing Plane he advocates and teaches. Let's get started...

The Hybrid Golf Swing Plane
By Jeff Richmond

A big tenant of the one plane golf swing is to return the golf club back to the same position it was (in terms of the shaft plane line) at address. That's what Moe Norman and Ben Hogan did.

But let's see how some of the top golfers in the last 10 years fare as far as that is concerned.

1. Tiger Woods

2. Adam Scott

3. Phil Mickelson

4. Rory McIlroy

5. Justin Rose

6. Henrik Stenson

7. Matt Kucher

8. Brandt Snedeker

9. Steve Stricker

10. Jason Duffner

So 9 of the top 10 golfers in the world over the last 10 years DO NOT return the clubface to the same plane line that they started at at address (Steve Stricker does).

Why did I show you that?

Because I believe the plane line should be more vertical than a one plane swing, and not as vertical as a two plane swing. 

Somewhere in the middle. A great model I'm going to show you in a minute for this, is Louis Oosthuizen.

But these impact pictures begs the question... are they trying to do that?

The answer is no!

Because it's been proven that the golf swing is moving way too fast at impact to consciously do anything. So what is happening at impact is this...

The forces are so great at impact that the hands are being pulled up. That's just a natural occurrence of the modern, powerful golf swing.

So that got me thinking how it would be good to swing on a plane that is similar to what happens at impact.

 Because you can talk all you want about one plane and two plane swings (in terms of the backswing and shoulder plane, left arm angle etc.). But at the end of the day, it's what happens at impact that matters.

So my Hybrid Golf Swing Plane theory, is to swing back so that at the half-way point in the golf swing the club shaft points down at the ball. 

Then at the half-way point in the downswing, the clubshaft again points at the ball. I'm now going to show you this theory in action in one of the best swings on the planet.

Louis Oosthuizen is the 2010 Open Champion and has a golf swing that many believe is one of the best among professional golfers. 

So let's put my swing plane theory to the test, and I'm going to draw a line through his setup at address right through the middle of his back.

Setup

Half-Way Back

Half-Way Down

Impact

Follow-Through

Pretty damn good swing, with a very consistent swing plane!

If you remember, in my last article I said a way to see if a person swings on a one plane swing, is to measure at the top of their swing the angle of the left arm and the shoulders. And if there's less than 12 degrees difference then they have a one plane swing. Let's see what the difference is for Louis:

Louis Oosthuizen - 22 Degrees Difference

Compare that to Moe Norman and Jim Furyk. Extremes of a one plane and two plane swing:

Moe Norman (One Plane Swinger) - 0 Degrees Difference

Jim Furyk (Two Plane Swinger) - 48 Degrees Difference

And if you split the difference between those extremes you get 24 degrees. Louis Oosthuizen at 22 Degrees Difference is almost bang in the middle.

And this swing plane that Louis uses is what I term "The Hybrid Swing Plane". 

I have a swing plane program in which I'm going to teach you how to groove a consistent golf swing plane like this... so watch out for an email about that program soon. 

Having a consistent golf swing plane will help you to hit straighter, longer and more consistent golf shots. So if you lack consistency in your ball striking, working on making your golf swing plane more consistent can only aid you in improving your ball striking consistency.

Anyway, I hope this series I've given you on the swing plane has clarified a lot of issues you had with understanding the swing plane. And I hope that now you have a very clear idea on what swing plane you should be swinging back, down and through on.

 ____________________________________________________

I hope you enjoyed that swing plane series by Jeff Richmond.  

Jeff has a great program that helps you to build a consistent swing plane. 
 I'm trying to get a deal on that program for you.  Hopefully I will be in touch later this week with some good news.