If we can say that my quest for the "Perfect Golf Swing" is like the search for the proverbial Ponce de Leon's quest for "Fountain of Youth" or the search for evolution's "Missing Link." I, however, can honestly say it has been found. Unfortunately, all the time I spent on the search was actually, sort of, useless in a sense since it actually brought me to where I started.
My first golf instruction was taken from Ben Hogan's book, "The Modern Fundamentals of Golf." In the previous postings, I alluded to what I found. Here, I can tell you that what I found that really completed my golf swing is the fact that I had to learn to finish my back swing, make my shoulder hit my chin at the top of the swing. I remembered Ben Hogan mentioning this in his book so I re-read it again. Then I realized that if I had paid attention to what he said, I could have known about it a long, long time ago and could be a "pro" by now.
Here is what he said about it:
- When you finish your backswing, you chin should be hitting against the top of your left shoulder.
- The arms is like roped and pointing upwards.
- Well, in my own way, trying to make the chin hit the shoulders forced me to do an extreme cocking.
- Extreme cocking led me to experiment with a former taboo - cocking by breaking the wrists backwards.
- To get the wrists to cock backwards naturally, I experimented with the grip.
- The change in grip, led me to cock backwards with both my wrists (yes the right hand).
- Now that type of bacward movement really made be able to hit everything! Now I automatically get a delayed hit - without thinking on what hand to use.
- I can even do the chipping without thinking.
- Sand shots are now easy - done with the hands alone but the backward cock is utilized (also chipping).
Technical explanation of what is happening:
- When the V's of the fingers get crossed, it prevents the movement of the wrists to go left (important for right handers) and the right. It only allows the picking of of the club - an upward movement.
- On full shots, when the extreme, yes EXTREME, cocking is accomplished, the body feels that it must initiate the swing because it knows that the hands are locked up on top. The only way, naturally, is for the body to pull the arms down.
- On not full shots where the arms and hands are the one utlized - like pitches, sand shots, chips, putts - the wrists are locked in one motion - up/down - nothing can be done even if one uses the right hand, but execute the shot correctly.
