FAULT: MY SWING IS ALL OVER THE PLACE!

THE PROBLEM: I’ve had two major surgeries in a year, and although I’m fully recovered, my swing is very ‘armsy’ and I’m slicing it all over the place

Barney’s assessment

Phil had swing shape issues – he was coming into the ball at different angles. When we filmed him, he could see that he was lifting up on the backswing and his arms were tending to just buckle. Coming back into the ball, he was then a bit cramped and delivering the club at all sorts of angles. Part of it stemmed from the dreaded ‘keep your head down’ advice. He couldn’t understand why he was sometimes topping shots even with his head down, but it was because his whole body was moving up and down.

Barney’s remedy

The danger in keeping your head down is that you get stuck, rather than clearing and coming through, so I gave Phil a half-swing, half-speed drill to help him build better lines through the ball. I then suggested throwing a medicine ball, so his arms extended further away on the through-swing and got him engaging his lower half more. When he did this, his head came through with the medicine ball and he released properly – a natural sequence of events, rather than the stilted fruits of keeping the head down. The final drill was to start with the club off the right foot without a ball and then make a follow through from there, giving Phil the feeling of the correct movement through the ball with a flat left wrist.

Phil’s feedback

Barney pointed out a few things that weren’t obvious to me but were clear on video. It’s difficult to get out of your normal habits, though, and my half swing was going much further than I felt it was. The ‘back-foot start’ exercise was good, as it helped me to get into a better finishing position by extending down the line more and not getting too cramped. It became more of a flowing movement, rather than one that stops not long after the ball.