Build the Swing of a Lifetime: The Four-Step Approach to a More Efficient Swing

INTRODUCTION

Putting the Pieces Together

According to a recent National Golf Foundation study, golfers with more than five years of playing experience have little chance of lowering their handicap more than 3 points in their lifetime. That means if you’re a 100-shooter with aspirations of breaking 90, you’d better find lightning in a bottle over eighteen holes. It’s a startling statistic, one that speaks volumes about the way the game is being learned today.

Now, if I chose to accept these numbers, I wouldn’t be teaching and I wouldn’t be writing this book. Every golfer is capable of shaving 3 or more points off his or her handicap, but what holds people back is a lack of direction and an understanding of how to get better. Most golfers work on things that may or may not be the root cause of their problems and thus put compensations on top of compensations. Their sources for fixing their swing come from a variety of places (books, magazines, online videos and forums, TV shows, and so on) and philosophies, which creates a patchwork quilt of a swing that has little chance of holding up under pressure.

Golf magazines and videos are famous for fueling a quick-fix methodology of learning, because that’s what sells. Yet in reality, tips work for only a very short period of time, if at all—and they don’t last! On the course, the body tends to revert back to the familiar and what it’s programmed to do, because we are creatures of habit. That’s why it’s so important to take on one direction toward improving. Whether it’s your goal to become a 10-handicapper or a scratch, you need to have a vision of what your swing is supposed to look like and move in a path that’s going to get you there.

Building a good golf swing is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together—once all of the pieces are emptied out of the box, the first thing you must do is look at a picture of the finished product, because that’s how you will know where the pieces go. As you keep looking at the picture, you begin to put the pieces into place, one by one, and the puzzle starts to take shape. Most golfers try to use pieces from other puzzles (methods) that don’t pertain to the same picture. Nothing seems to fit or work, and the swing, like the puzzle, becomes a jumbled mess. The golfer’s performance becomes stagnant, then he gives up and goes searching for another tip or piece of equipment that may jump-start his game.

When making a swing change or building a new, more efficient swing, you must have a clear picture not only of the finished product, but also of where you are relative to the puzzle. When I started working with Zach Johnson in 2000, he was just another mini-tour player with dreams of playing on the PGA Tour. I had no idea he had world-class talent and the ability to win majors. The first thing I explained to him was that to get where he wanted, he’d have to stick with me long enough to make the changes I was about to suggest. Then I explained to him exactly what we were going to do with his swing and why.

From left to right: 2007 Masters Champ Zach Johnson, Mike Bender, and Jonathan Byrd.

Zach had the same strong grip he has now, but his hand plane was much too steep, like a Ferris wheel. He needed to swing his hands more around his body in a circular fashion, similar to a merry-go-round. This would allow him to use the rotation of his body to keep the clubface square, so that he could hit the ball straighter. I then showed him examples of this type of swing (Ben Hogan, Moe Norman) and put him on the plane board. I also taught him how to build his own portable plane board (with two shafts), so that he could practice on his own. Within weeks, his hand plane on both the backswing and the downswing flattened out. We also worked on other pieces of the puzzle, such as hinging his wrists earlier on the backswing, which helped with his tempo and sequencing.

Once he changed the path of his hands, Zach became an excellent driver of the ball and an even stronger iron player. He was always a good putter, but as soon as he began to hit more fairways, he started to win. In 2001, my first full year with Zach, he won the final three regular-season events and captured Player of the Year honors on the Hooters Tour. Two years later, he won the Nationwide Tour money list and, in 2004, became only the second player in PGA Tour history to earn more than $2 million during his rookie season.

Zach’s transformation from mini-tour player to world-class player was fairly quick and a testament to his work ethic. It was also a confirmation that if you work in one direction over time, you will improve. That’s what makes this book stand out from all of the others: it not only helps you build a simpler, more efficient swing, but it gives you unlimited potential. It’s not some pie-in-the-sky, five minutes to better golf book, but a book for a lifetime. I’m not talking about dropping a shot or two, but breaking 90, 80 or whatever your ultimate goal is. By following the blueprint laid out in this book, you will continually improve over time.

This book is rooted in the laws of physics and science and the anatomy of the human body. It’s not a compilation of my opinions on the golf swing; it’s a series of scientific facts. An efficient golf swing is one that is on-plane and has the fewest moving parts; it’s the easiest swing to execute because it has the fewest compensating moves. The goal of every golfer is to have the simplest swing possible, because then you don’t have to worry as much about timing, tempo, and practicing for hours on end. The simpler it becomes, the easier it is to maintain, and the more time you get to spend on the golf course learning how to play the game, instead of endlessly working on mechanics. Zach’s swing is now in full maintenance mode—we almost never work on it, we just make sure it stays in sync. That gives him more time to work on his short game and other areas of need.

Today’s golf magazines and instruction books tell you what you should do, but they don’t explain the how and the why very well. They might show several drills, but they don’t offer any feedback about whether you’re doing them correctly. They also don’t leave you with any way to self-diagnose your swing faults and habits. If there is one thing I hope this book accomplishes, it’s the how to. How do I know my alignment is good? How do I know that my posture is right or that my shaft is on-plane at the top of my backswing? What are the checkpoints?

On the following pages, I will provide you with these checkpoints so that you can gauge your progress. I will also prescribe drills and specialized practice stations to give you real-time feedback about whether your club and body are in the right positions during the swing. Many of these drills will feature broken shafts, noodles, construction cones, and so on … all materials that are easy to get your hands on. These training aids allow you to practice the correct movement and then develop the proper feel without supervision from a teacher.

Make no mistake, the toughest requirement in golf is to have a repeating swing that produces consistent shots with maximum distance. It doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a process that requires patience and practice. Yet if you understand the scientific concepts and follow the four elements outlined in this book, you will start to see positive results quickly. I know this because this method of teaching has a proven track record. In 2009, after I worked with Jonathan Byrd for only eight months, he jumped from 99th on the PGA Tour in Ball-Striking (a combination of Total Driving and Greens in Regulation Percentage) to No. 1 on Tour. He then capped off his 2010 season with a hole-in-one to win a four-hole playoff at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospital for Children Open. Zach finished the 2010 season ranked 8th on Tour in Driving Accuracy, the fourth consecutive year he finished in the top ten in that