Mechanical Pre Swing Routine

As a golf instructor, I would say that the purpose of the pre swing routine is to ensure a good course management and proper setup. If you check your lie, wind direction and distance, and you know how far you hit each club, you will likely choose the correct club for the shot. I consider setup the most important mechanical link in the golf swing.

• If you don’t have a good athletic position with good balance so that your arms swing freely, or if you don’t have proper ball position set up your swing plane, and the trajectory of your shot will be affected.

• If you don’t place your hands on the club correctly so that your club head returns to a square position at impact, your shot will likely not go to your target regardless of how many mental strategies you employ.

• If you aren’t aligned square to your target line, your swing path will correct for your alignment, and that will affect the ball flight of your shot. And again, you will miss your target.

These three areas, posture, grip, and amoral alignment make up the final and most important links and the pre swing routine.

If one of these links is weak altered or incorrect, your performance will suffer.

There is no reason to work on any other part of your swing until your setup is correct. As I’ve said, if one of your pre swing links is weak mentally or mechanically, you’ll likely hit a poor shot.

Strengthen your setup, and you will be pleasantly surprised with the rest of your sweating.

The source of swing problems can often be traced to set up problems when you practice or play.

Take yourself through a pre swing mental checklist of posture, grip, and aim before each shot.

And easy way to remember set up is PGA posture, grip, and aim with repeated focused practice. Your setup will become automatic during lessons, and when you’re hitting the ball, well, focus your attention on the feeling of the proper setup.

Jack Nicholas describes his thought focus when he sets up to a shot during play, as being directed by, and I quote plain willpower, you just have to force other thoughts aside, make yourself think exclusively about your aim and alignment and your ball position and your posture, make yourself do what you know is right in those areas and make yourself keep on doing it time and time again, even though it doesn’t seem to be working, if you have enough resolution, they will ultimately begin to work in quote, there’s a saying.

Don’t miss the shot before you swing the club.

This simply means if you aren’t set up correctly, you have a weak link in your pre swing chain that will likely cause you to miss the shot.

I have often heard tour players describe how they have been setting up right or left of targets as they explain a swing problem they have been experiencing.

I can’t tell you how often I have watched top teachers make changes in a tour players, grip, posture, alignment, or ball position, and seen major changes occur in ball flight. The best way to check your setup is to consult your local PGA or LPGA teaching professional.

Ayelguy Berger set the record for the lowest PGA tournament round with a 59 on Friday, June the 10th, 1977. He attributed his low round to tempo and Putin, and he had 23 putts during this round and a set up change that he made a few weeks before, which he says resulted in a swing change.

Lee Trevino described his late spring, 1992 swing changes as related to set up the last couple of weeks. I had my feet too far apart at address. My stance is open anyway, and I have a very bad habit of getting my left foot too far away from my body and not under my left shoulder. When that happens, I can’t get over to my left side and I hit the ball a little left or a little, right? So I fixed it. It’s funny, but golfers tend to revert back to the same bad habits when you’re not playing well, you try to fix in your mind all the things you’re doing, right, but it’s impossible to record every single aspect of it. It’s like a big revolving door and you just go through the cycle over and over again.

Once a good setup is established and you’re hitting the ball. Well, make a video and take still pictures of your setup. Post the pictures on a mirror where you can refer to them frequently.

I have the tour players. I work with use this as a check for their setup. Many of them talk about how playing in different conditions, especially strong wind can affect their setup, the video, and still pictures. Provide them with a setup reference.

Once you have established a setup routine, practice it daily off the course. And with each shot, you hit on the range.

Please continue with: Posture