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

Bender, Mike; Allen, David

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1118007611 ISBN 13: 9781118007617

Casa editrice: Trade Paper Pr, 2012

Riassunto

From one of Golf Digest's Top 5 teachers—a simple, scientific program to build a great swing

Most golf instruction is based on helping students emulate the best players, but for top golf teacher Mike Bender, physics provides a better model for developing a swing that is as efficient, consistent, and timeless as that of Iron Byron, the PGA robot that tests clubs and balls. Now Mike Bender shows you how to put the secrets of science into your own swing with a simple, proven program that will take your play to a different level and transform your approach to the game.

• Explains Mike Bender's unique biomechanical approach to building a simple, repeatable, and effective swing
• Shares the same approach Bender teaches his students, who include two-time U.S. Open winner Lee Janzen, PGA Tour winner Jonathan Byrd, and 2006 LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year Seon Hwa Lee
• Shows you how to build your scientific swing step by step
• Includes 150 photographs to help you put principles into practice on the golf course
• Includes a Foreword by Zach Johnson, 2007 Masters champion and one of Mike Bender's star students

As Mike Bender puts it: would you rather fly in an airplane that was built by engineers who understood the principles of lift and acceleration, or would you rather fly in one built by people who simply went out to the airport and watched them taking off and landing? Once you develop a scientific swing, it's your own game that will really soar.

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Informazioni sull?autore

Mike Bender is one of Golf Digest's 50 Best Teachers in America (ranked 4th) and one of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers. The 2009 PGA National Teacher of the Year, Bender has coached more than two-dozen Tour professionals, including 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson. Before teaching full-time, he competed for three years on the PGA Tour and was a three-time NCAA All-American and two-time NCAA Division III individual champion.

Dave Allen has spent more than a dozen years as an instruction writer/editor for Golf Magazine, Golf for Women magazine, and GolfChannel.com. He has cowritten several golf books, including Play Golf the Pebble Beach Way and Golf Annika's Way.

Dalla quarta di copertina

The best way to shave multiple strokes off your golf game is to develop an efficient, repeatable swing that enables you to hit the ball farther and straighter with greater consistency. To achieve this ideal swing, you need a clear picture of the finished product and a simple step-by-step process for building it, testing it, and maintaining it. Now you have it.

In Build the Swing of a Lifetime, Mike Bender, one of Golf Digest's 5 Best Teachers in America, shows you how to develop the same swing that boosted the careers of 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson, multiple PGA Tour winner Jonathan Byrd, and 2006 LPGA Rookie of the Year Seon Hwa Lee.

Mike Bender didn't become the 2009 PGA National Teacher of the Year by offering quick fixes and compensations for deficient swings. He did it by creating a science-based, biomechanical approach to understanding the elements of an efficient, powerful, repeatable swing and devising a simple, checkable method for practicing and perfecting that swing.

In four simple steps illustrated by 150 photographs, Mike shows you how to aim and turn properly, get your hands on the correct downswing plane, and match up your arm swing and body rotation to square the clubface more consistently. He provides clear and simple guidance on how to make sure you're practicing each step correctly. Using broken club shafts, construction cones, and other forms of feedback, you'll discover how to check your alignment and posture, and make sure that your shaft and hands are moving on-plane in good sequence with one another.

There are a million ways to hit a golf ball, but only one is the most efficient way to produce shots that are consistently long and on target, and only one will help you keep shaving that handicap down toward scratch for as long as you keep playing. That is the swing you will develop by practicing and applying what you learn in Build the Swing of a Lifetime.

Dal risvolto di copertina interno

The best way to shave multiple strokes off your golf game is to develop an efficient, repeatable swing that enables you to hit the ball farther and straighter with greater consistency. To achieve this ideal swing, you need a clear picture of the finished product and a simple step-by-step process for building it, testing it, and maintaining it. Now you have it.

In Build the Swing of a Lifetime, Mike Bender, one of Golf Digest's 5 Best Teachers in America, shows you how to develop the same swing that boosted the careers of 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson, multiple PGA Tour winner Jonathan Byrd, and 2006 LPGA Rookie of the Year Seon Hwa Lee.

Mike Bender didn't become the 2009 PGA National Teacher of the Year by offering quick fixes and compensations for deficient swings. He did it by creating a science-based, biomechanical approach to understanding the elements of an efficient, powerful, repeatable swing and devising a simple, checkable method for practicing and perfecting that swing.

In four simple steps illustrated by 150 photographs, Mike shows you how to aim and turn properly, get your hands on the correct downswing plane, and match up your arm swing and body rotation to square the clubface more consistently. He provides clear and simple guidance on how to make sure you're practicing each step correctly. Using broken club shafts, construction cones, and other forms of feedback, you'll discover how to check your alignment and posture, and make sure that your shaft and hands are moving on-plane in good sequence with one another.

There are a million ways to hit a golf ball, but only one is the most efficient way to produce shots that are consistently long and on target, and only one will help you keep shaving that handicap down toward scratch for as long as you keep playing. That is the swing you will develop by practicing and applying what you learn in Build the Swing of a Lifetime.

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Build the Swing of a Lifetime

The Four-Step Approach to a More Efficient SwingBy Mike Bender Zach Johnson

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-1180-0761-7

Chapter One

The Most Efficient Swing: Machine or Tiger?

When it comes to using a model as the blueprint for the perfect swing, teaching professionals and everyday golfers often look at who the best players are at the moment. While I was growing up, those players were Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller. They were the ones winning tournaments and appearing most often on television and in golf magazines and books. Nicklaus and Miller had tall, upright swings with aggressive leg drives. That was how I was taught to swing the golf club, because that's how they did it.

As technology started to improve in the early 1980s and golfers became more fit, swings became more compact and rotary (for example, Nick Faldo, Greg Norman). Then, in the early 1990s, teachers started to look at the swing from a more scientific, kinesthetic background. The quality of video cameras improved, as did the computer software, making it possible to compare the average golfer's swing side by side with that of a Tour player, such as Norman, Faldo, Fred Couples, or Nick Price.

The mid-1990s saw the birth of the titanium driver and massive 300-yard drives, which demanded a stronger, more athletic body and swing. Tiger Woods came on the scene at about the same time, and ever since his historic 12-shot victory at the 1997 Masters, Tiger has remained the primary swing model for teachers all around the world. Tiger has won thirteen additional majors and countless tournaments since that time, and you'll get little argument from me or anyone else that he's the greatest player of this era. Because he's the best player, people automatically assume he has the best golf swing. So when a teaching professional brings a student in front of the video monitor and shows him how his impact position stacks up against Tiger's, it enhances his credibility as a teacher—at least in the eyes of his student.

Tiger's swing, however, is far from perfect. If it was, he wouldn't have made as many swing changes as he has since 1997. Tiger has had his struggles, especially with the driver. In a six-year stretch from 2003 to 2008, he failed to rank any higher than 139th on the PGA Tour in Driving Accuracy, and his distance also came down. He's not a machine. I'm not nitpicking on Tiger, because during that same six-year period he won thirty-seven PGA Tour titles and six majors, but what makes him great are the intangibles he possesses: his desire to win and get better, his imagination around the greens, his killer instinct, and his tremendous shotmaking ability. Tiger has all of the shots. Does that make him a model for the ideal golf swing? No more so than Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, or Lee Westwood.

The fact is, there isn't a single Tour player out there who is worthy of being "the" example held up as having the model swing. If they all had perfect swings, they wouldn't be hiring swing coaches and constantly tinkering with their mechanics. These players should be copied for how they play the game and not for how they swing the club. Now, I could teach you to swing exactly like Jim Furyk, but you wouldn't hit the ball as Jim does because you wouldn't be able to time the swing as well. You're not going to get the same results just because your swing looks exactly like his does. It takes a unique set of compensations in a very short period of time to make his swing work.

The recreational golfer doesn't know this, however. What you have are teaching professionals taking advantage of the student's uneducated mind regarding what a good golf swing is or should be. When I use Tour pros to compare swings, I use pieces of their swings that are good; I don't simply throw Tiger up there and say, "Here's how you need to swing." I may slap Tiger's impact position up on the screen because his shoulders are perfectly square, or I may put Zach Johnson's pre-impact position up to show the path his hands travel on the downswing, but I never use one golfer as the whole model.

If amateurs were more educated, they would ask, "Where does science say the shoulders and the hands should be at impact?" But they're not going to ask that because they have no identification with the principles of science and physics; they identify with Tiger and the other players they see on television and read about in books and magazines.

The Most According to Science

So, if Tiger Woods isn't the model for the perfect golf swing, then who is?

To answer this question, I ask my students to consider the following scenario. Say you were going to fly in an airplane for the first time, would you rather (1) fly in a plane that was built by engineers who understand the principles of lift and acceleration, or (2) fly in one that was built by people who simply went to the airport to observe how planes take off and land? Of course, you'd choose number 1, because you'd feel a lot safer in the air knowing that the plane you're flying in was built on the principles of science and flight, not on someone's observations. Yet golfers are conditioned to think exactly the opposite when it comes to learning the swing. They take their instructor's word—or the words they read in a magazine article or a book—and naturally assume it's correct because their teacher said it and because it's what Tiger does in his golf swing.

Now, what if I were to tell you about a machine that is designed to hit the ball dead solid perfect every time? That this mechanical golfer is so accurate that the United States Golf Association once had to replace its test fairway because it wore out the turf, in a straight line, in the center of the fairway? Wouldn't you want to swing as consistently as this machine? I know I would.

The machine, appropriately named "Iron Byron" after one of the game's all-time great ball-strikers, Byron Nelson, was retired in 2002. For thirty-one years, though, it stood on the grounds of the USGA's Research and Test Center in Far Hills, New Jersey, hitting thousands and thousands of golf balls with the same efficient, repeating swing. The USGA used Iron Byron to test golf club materials and balls to make sure they conformed to the Rules of Golf. Today, the USGA has two unnamed mechanical golfers that it uses—both developed by Golf Laboratories in San Diego—one for testing golf clubs (balls are hit out onto the range as before) and the other for indoor golf ball conformance testing.

The original Iron Byron—copies of which today are being used by several equipment manufacturers, including Nike-was capable of generating clubhead speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour. It wasn't built by golf professionals, but by engineers for True Temper, who wanted a machine that could swing like a man but do it repeatedly with great efficiency (that is, with less compensating moves). After looking at hundreds of golf swings, these engineers decided to name the machine after Lord Byron, because he possessed one of the most efficient swings of his generation.

Iron Byron was built by engineers who understood the principles of physics and science. They were able to create a machine to hit the ball within one-half degree of repeatability every time. As human beings, we're not robots, but what is it we're all trying to do? That's right: hit the ball like a machine. We stand on the range trying to groove a repeating swing as Iron Byron does, so that we can hit the ball consistently long and straight on the golf course. We all hit great shots from time to time, and we know we're capable of producing them, but we have trouble figuring out how to repeat them.

The reason amateur golfers should look to a model that's more in line with physics is because it's easier to repeat and requires less timing. To be consistent, you have to reduce the need for timing because there just isn't enough time and space to allow for many compensations during the swing. The more moving parts you have in the swing, the less time you have to correct them, and the more talented you have to be to make them work. My mentor, teaching instructor Mac O'Grady, always said, "A bad swing gives you minimum time to make maximum compensations, and a good swing gives you maximum time to make minimum compensations." In other words, you're trying to move your swing in a direction that gives you the most amount of time to make the smallest number of compensations, so that you can repeat your swing over and over again.

Iron Byron's mechanical swing has very few moving parts and no human variables. It doesn't have a ball-and-socket joint that allows its arm to move all around, and it doesn't have any emotions or feel any pressure. With human golfers, there are so many variables that can move the club off-plane and create the need for timing. For example, humans have spines that rest in the air, held there by their hips and heads, and the moment a person's head moves, his or her spine angle changes. Iron Byron's axis remains fixed throughout the swing. The machine does a better job of simulating the correct plane and angles you must take into the ball than any human could ever do. It's built on the principles of science and the laws of motion that make the most efficient of swings possible to achieve.

What Makes Iron Byron Tick

If you were expecting the mechanical Iron Byron to wear a big-brimmed hat, much as the real Byron Nelson did during the latter part of his life, you'd be mistaken. About the only human resemblance this machine has to Nelson is the top-of-backswing position created by the large metal arm and club. The wheel and the arm take on the shape of a guitar, with an adjustable sleeve at the end of the arm to fasten a club to the unit. The wheel is the mechanical version of the human shoulders, while the post it rotates around is the spine, or axis. The wheel and the arm rotate at right angles to this post, which is attached to the body of Iron Byron (FIGURE. 1.1).

The base of Iron Byron has four legs and is very wide to support the weight of the unit and the speed created by the mechanical arm and wheel. These legs represent the lower body of a human. They're stationary and they do not rotate, but they provide resistance into the ground, as a sprinter does when he puts his foot in the block and pushes off at the shot of the gun. When Iron Byron swings down, it has to have resistance to accelerate against; it can't have the base moving all around.

So, what makes Iron Byron the model swing? For one, there are no excess moving parts. An efficient golf swing is one with few compensating moves; that's what allows it to become repeatable and easier to execute. Also, it's got a very wide base, which provides great linkage to the ground. The legs' main role is to provide stability and resistance to the ground. They move because the hips turn. The more stable your foundation is, the stronger this resistance is and the easier it is to rotate your hips, arms and upper body, and swing the club down in the correct sequence.

Another attribute that makes Iron Byron so predictable is that it has a fixed axis. In a human golf swing, the axis is your spine. If you can keep your spine angle constant, then your shoulders, hands, and club shaft can rotate around it in a circle, on the same plane. If your spine is moving around, however, then it's harder to keep these things on-plane, which makes the swing much harder to repeat. By having a fixed axis, you're able to move your arms and club at right angles to your spine, which is the fastest, most efficient way to swing an object, according to science.

If you look at the imaginary hands of Iron Byron, they move right on-plane throughout the swing at 90 degrees to the machine's axis (FIGURE 1.2). Granted, Iron Byron has a big advantage in that it doesn't have elbow joints, as you do, and it has only one perfectly straight arm, but if you want to hit a ball in the most efficient manner possible, then you have to imitate the hand and shaft planes as closely to Iron Byron's as you can.

Remember, you're taking the principles that make Iron Byron so efficient and applying them to your swing. As you learn how to move your body (based on your own body type and range of motion) in a way that closely mimics the movements of Iron Bryon, you will become a much more consistent ball-striker.

Developing a Stock Shot

No one, including Iron Byron, hits the ball perfectly straight, but most everyday golfers think that's what they're supposed to do. They try to hit a shot that most Tour players almost never attempt. An on-plane swing, such as that of Iron Byron's, produces a ball flight that starts slightly to the right of one's target line and draws back to that line. This slight draw is the preferred shot of many of my players, including Zach Johnson, and most PGA Tour golfers.

It was also the preferred shot shape of Ben Hogan. He once said that "to be an accomplished fader of the ball, one must first know how to draw the ball." If I had to speculate why he said that, it's because there's only one shot in golf you can't hit with a bad swing (provided you have proper aim), and that's a ball that starts to the right and draws back to your target. If you can hit a draw, you can produce every type of shot in golf simply by changing your setup; you never have to make a different type of swing.

It takes proper mechanics from a parallel left stance to hit a draw (more about this in chapters 2 and 3); that's why it's important to learn how to draw the ball first. You can hit a fade or a slice (a ball that starts left of the target line and curves sharply to the right) a number of different ways, but to hit a draw you need to be swinging your hands, arms, and club in a circle around your body, on the proper plane. It's the most natural way to swing a club, which is why it goes hand-in-hand with the model swing of Iron Bryon. The stock shot you're trying to produce with a swing based on the fundamentals and applications of Iron Byron is the draw.

A draw is created by the natural shape of your swing and an inside path into the ball. With an on-plane swing, you have to use only minimal hand action to hit a draw; the natural shape of your swing does most of the work. The less you have to rotate your hands at impact, the more accurate your shots will be.

The Four Elements to a Better Swing

If you apply the principles that make Iron Byron work, you'll continue to improve all of the time and have unlimited potential. Yet this process takes some time and doesn't happen overnight. That's not the way learning works.

To make a swing change, you have to first learn the concepts—what you're trying to do—then be able to perform the desired moves in a practice swing. Next, you have to be able to perform the move while hitting a ball on the range; only then can you do it on the course with a high degree of success. Finally, you have to perform the moves under tournament pressure. Most people want to learn the concepts and then take it to the course; they want to skip steps two and three. It's unrealistic to expect success on the next level without going up each step in order.

Beginning with the next chapter, I will talk in detail about these concepts, which I refer to as "elements," then will provide you with ways to practice and integrate them into your swing so that you're able to achieve a repeatable, accurate, powerful swing with little maintenance and effort.

There are four elements I want you to focus on:

1. Alignment (see chapter 2)

2. Proper rotation of the body around a fixed axis

3. The path that the hands and the club shaft must follow throughout the swing (what's on-plane)

4. Correct sequencing (timing) of your arms, club, and body

There's an order to the way you must build your new swing. It's like building a house—you've got to start with the foundation and then work up from there. Unfortunately, most golfers like to jump ahead to the third story without ever laying the foundation. Take all four elements through each step of learning that was outlined above, and you will start to perform more like a machine.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Build the Swing of a Lifetimeby Mike Bender Zach Johnson Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Excerpted by permission of John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Trade Paper Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1118007611
• ISBN 13: 9781118007617
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Lingua: Inglese
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 192
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile