Learn how to improve your golf swing and handicap using the steps of the golf dance in this free instructional golfing video lesson. Expert: Arthur debolt Bio: Arthur debolt, author of denuts and debolts of Golf columns, is a certified golf swing coach with 40+ years of teaching experience. Filmmaker: Terry Larson

Learn how to improve your golf swing and handicap using the steps of the golf dance in this free instructional golfing video lesson. Expert: Arthur debolt Bio: Arthur debolt, author of denuts and debolts of Golf columns, is a certified golf swing coach with 40+ years of teaching experience. Filmmaker: Terry Larson

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That is because, as we have mentioned, the swing through the ball is only a continuation of the first movement of the downswing, the movement that brings us to the hitting area. By the same token a swing which reaches this area in the wrong position has no chance to get straightened out.

Yet, golf being the strange game that it is, there is still the possibility of the good swing going off the track at this late stage.

In both the good swing and the bad, though, when the flaws appear they appear for basically the same reason-trying to "help" the club head get to the ball.

They will appear in the good swing when the player loosens his left-hand grip slightly and collapses his left elbow. As the result of these actions there comes a peculiar body movement, a sort of heaving action, as though the player were trying, with the body, to help the swing or help hit the ball. It is a very strange contortion indeed.

In this movement the loosening left-hand grip and the collapsing left elbow have the effect of bringing the club up sharply instead of letting it go down and through the ball as it should. The left elbow crooks and bends out to the left, toward the target. This suddenly shortens the radius of the swing, and since the straight left arm has been performing the function of a constant radius all through the swing, there is nothing for the club to do but come up.

If the swing happens to be from the inside, the loosening left hand and automatic strengthening of the right hand will cause the ball to be hit out to the right a push.

It may be a topped push or, if the club isn't brought up far enough to make it top the ball, just a push. There is usually trouble to the right on any shot, as every slicer knows, and it doesn't make any difference whether we slice the ball into that trouble or hit a straight ball into it. It still costs strokes.

A third possibility these flaws may lead to, if they are slight rather than pronounced, is a straight ball that doesn't go anywhere a dead ball. This, of course, is caused by the loosening of the left-hand grip. The strong connection between the motive force of the arm and the club that is being motivated is weakened. The connecting link (the hand) gives slightly at impact and force is lost.

The best strokes for the good player, of course, are simply to keep his grip tight, hold the wrist position gained by the backward break, hit through with his hands, and let CQAM Jake its course. The first insures a strong, live connecting link between the arms and the club at impact. The second insures a square club face. The hard-swinging hands provide the speed. But COAM? What is COAM anyway?

COAM is the Conservation of Angular Momentum. In the golf swing it is the mysterious factor that makes the club head catch up to the hands, without any effort on the part of the player. Just a few more paragraphs and we will give you the full explanation.For the poor or average player the same magic moves apply, but he must first learn to get himself into the position the good player is in as he reachers the hitting area retains the hand and wrist position, slides his hips laterally to the left, permits no hand lag, and makes no effort to move the club.

If he does these things he will keep unchanged the eternal triangle and he will be letting the body move the club. If he doesn't do these things he will never be in the right hitting position. There are just no two ways about it.

The good player is moving most of his weight toward his left leg and his right heel has come up off the ground slightly. His body is beginning to bow out to the left, led by the hips. The upper part of his body, anchored by his head is still back, and his shoulders have not yet turned past the ball, though the left shoulder has risen and the
right shoulder has dropped.

His right arm is in close to his body. His hands are near his right leg but the club is still about horizontal and much of the wrist cock has been retained.

The good player here is coming down into a position behind the ball, so that he can hit it "out from under" and from the inside. He is not turning high and over the ball.
The most puzzling part of this picture is the position of the club, or of the hands and the club. The hands are so far down but the club still has so far to go, a full quarter-circle.

Pictures similar to this one have been printed by the thousands since the advent of high-speed photography. They are perfect for showing us how we should be at this late stage of the swing. But we believe also that they have caused more bad shots than any others ever printed.

Why? Because they have implanted-and if not implanted, strengthened-a terrible fear in the mind of the golfer. This is the fear that if he ever gets in this position he will never be able to make the club head catch up to his hands at the ball. Therefore, from this position he feels he would hit worse shots than he hits now, if indeed he were able to hit the ball at all. It looks, to him, impossible.

This is one of the fears that we dwelt on lightly in the preceding chapter-the fear that you will not be able to make the club head move fast enough. It is largely accountable for what we have termed the average golfer's eternal preoccupation with the club head.

He thinks of it as the tool that hits the ball, of course, and right from the top of the swing he starts to manipulate it to make it go faster. Or he retards his hands so the club head will catch up. Even though he knows he should not do these things, his subconscious takes command over his reason (as it always will), and he gets an action which has long been known as "hitting too soon," or "hitting from the top," or just plain "flipping." The deep urge to do this is motivated not alone by the idea that he must make the club head catch up to his hands.

Part of it stems from the mistaken idea that he must snap his wrists into the shot. We are not saying this snapping cannot be or isn't done by experts. We are saying that it isn't necessary for the average player. Even worse, it is suicidal. The average player, trying to do it, always gets the club head to the ball ahead of his hands.

The instant you make the club head move faster than it normally is moved by the turning and rocking shoulders, the instant you make it go faster than the hands, the eternal

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One of the major flaws in a player's game is the eternal preoccupation with the club head.

There are three main reasons. The first is that golfers, like other people, want to be comfortable and don't trust themselves to make a big move.

The second is the advice, deep rooted because it has been repeated for so long, to turn or spin the hips.

The third is an overpowering impulse to make the club head move, to do something with it, right from the top. This we call the eternal preoccupation with the club head.

It stems, actually, from a complete misunderstanding of the swing, and there are two reasons for the misunderstanding.

The first thing people find hard to believe, apparently, is that a golf ball is driven straight by hitting it from the inside.

The average player has the almost overpowering conviction that if he hits the ball from inside this line it will fly far out to the right. He cannot see how anything else can happen. He also knows that when he takes the club to the top of the backswing it is well inside this line.

His first instinct, when he starts the club down, is to manipulate the head out onto the line or near it, so he can bring it down along the line and so knock the ball straight.

When the player does this the first movement he makes takes his hands and the club away from his body. The instant they move away they get outside the plane they must be in to hit from the inside.

Before we go further, let's look at the plane of the swing. It is extremely important. If we understand it, learning the right action will be easier.

From the top of the backswing to a point near the end of the follow-through, the head of the club describes what we can call, for convenience, a circle. It isn't a true circle but that isn't important. Suppose we liken this circle to the rim of a wheel.

Then we cover the wheel with skin, let's say, so it's like the head of a drum with a hole in the center for our head to stick through. We now have a flat circular surface, the plane.

During the swing this plane inclines or leans toward the player from 25 to 40 degrees, the exact amount depending on the length of the club used and on whether the player is an upright or a flat swinger.

When we start from the top to move the club out onto the line of flight with either our hands or our shoulders, we don't change this plane a little bit, we change it a great deal. The result is that we can't help but bring the club in from the outside when we hit. In this respect it is well to know, too, that at the top a very slight move by the hands forward, or toward the line of flight as they start down, moves the head of the club a comparatively great distance.

A mere two inches by the hands moves the club head out a foot, throwing it outside. It is, as we say, already outside as it starts down. When you realize that this slight move of the hands is instinctive you don't know you make it-then you can understand how hard a pro has to work to cure hitting from the outside.

A second reason for preoccupation with the club head, and this with most people is the chief reason, is the instinctive urge to get the club moving fast. The average player, knowing he must get club head speed to hit the ball as far as he wants to hit it, thinks in terms of the head. It's normal that he should, but that is just another of golf's contradictions.

The instant the player tries to move the club head he makes three ruinous actions. He turns his shoulders a little bit, which throws the club outside; he starts to open up the angle between the shaft and the left arm, breaking the eternal triangle; and he stops moving his hips.

Still another thing the average player often does-and this is the most insidious of all is permit the club head to break the eternal triangle by failing to move his hands fast enough. It is easy to see that once the downswing is begun, the hands and the club must move at the same relative speeds or one will get ahead of the other. The simplest way to alter one of these speeds is to let the hands lag slightly as they come down.

When they do that the club head, which is steadily gaining momentum, keeps right on moving, the angle between the shaft and the left arm begins to open, and the imaginary line of the eternal triangle begins to lengthen. You have, in effect, hit from the top and have done it without ever trying to flip the club head or indeed make it do anything.

You have just, unconsciously, slowed your hand action a little bit. The triangle has been broken early and the power is gone from the swing.

The reason a great many players make this mistake and it pursues them all through their golfing lives is because they subconsciously fear that the club head will never catch up to their hands in time to hit the ball straight.

They fear knocking it far out to the right with an open face. So, without ever being conscious of what they are doing, they make sure it will catch up by slowing down their hands, and they succeed, invariably.

This, without a doubt, is the chief reason a practice swing often looks so good and the swing when the ball is there is so bad. In the practice swing there is no fear that the club head won't catch up, so the boys clip the cigar butts and dandelion tops like the pros. They should remember that if the face of the club is square, it makes little difference how far the hands lead the club head at impact.

The attempt to move the club head faster also brings on the hand lag. When a player's efforts are bent on making the club head move, the very effort tends to slow down the hands. Once the hands get behind, they will never catch up; the eternal triangle, once broken open, can never be closed again.

Another peculiar effect of the hand lag is that it tends to prevent the movement of the hips, and the weight, from the right leg to the left. If you will take a few practice swings, deliberately slowing your hands through the first half of the downward arc, you will notice immediately that your weight doesn't flow over to your left side. And as long as you retard your hands, you can't move your weight over.

For anyone afflicted with the deadly hand lag there is an exercise that is a great help. We call it the arrested practice swing.

Take a No. 2 or No. 3 wood, tee up a ball, and address it. Now go to the top of the swing and start down at half speed, being sure the hands move with the shoulders and club in the one-piece unit and that the hips move out past the ball. But stop before the club reaches the ball. This swing will retain the wrist cock until the hands are almost opposite the ball.

Done at half speed or even less, the wrist cock can be held until the hands are actually past the ball while the club head is still about six inches or more short of contact.

Make this practice swing four or five times, interrupting it each time before the ball is hit. Speed it up a little but still keep control of the club so that it doesn't hit the ball.

On the next swing, speed it up a little more but don't stop it. Let it go through and hit the ball.

If you are a confirmed hand lagger, the feeling you will get will be the strangest you have ever felt in golf. You will be amazed at where your hands and hips are, that they can be so far advanced, seemingly far in front of the club head at impact. But that is where they should be, where they have to be if you are to get the late hit and the timing that bring the distance the good players get.

Soon you will get the feeling of bringing the hands down in one piece with the shoulders and the club. You will get the feeling of the hands and the club moving together at their respective speeds through the first big area of the downswing. You will feel that the hands are alive and active, but that they are moving themselves and are not trying to move anything else. Those feelings are among the most important in the entire golf swing.

It may help you to visualize the downswing as segments of three circles or rings, one within the other, all connected with each other and all turning. None of these is a true circle, of course, but for purposes of the image let's think they are.
The inner circle is the hips, and the hips move laterally as they turn.
The middle circle is the path taken by the hands as they come down from the top. The outer circle is the path taken by the club head as it comes down.

All three rings are started turning by the first movement of the hips. The club head, assuming a driver is used, starts about three and one-half feet behind the hands, owing to the angle of the wrist cock. If the hands are to maintain their three-and-a-half-foot lead, they must travel relatively fast to keep the correct position.

It is here that the hands either try to throw the club head, or lag, waiting for it to catch up.

Hands should move at same speed as the club head. If they don't, the club head will begin to overtake them. In other words, the middle ring has to keep moving to keep pace with the outer ring. The instant it doesn't, the outer ring starts to gain on it, the angle of the wrist cock begins to open up, and the swing is ruined.

You may be prompted to ask at this point, how, if the hands must keep their lead, the head of the club eventually catches up (or almost catches up) with the hands at impact. This may be especially puzzling when you think that this happens when the swing is fast but that you can prevent it with the slower one you use in the arrested swing exercise.

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The hips must not only move to the left and turn, their movement must be so closely tied to the left arm that it pulls the arm and the club down and whips them through the ball.

There must be a definite, conscious feeling that this is happening. It is the single most important movement that a good golfer makes. This is not to be confused with the mistaken advice to start part of the body stay back.

Finally you must turn your hips toward the target as they reach the extension of their lateral movement. Are your hips ever in this position when you hit the ball?

What happens, actually, is that the left arm itself is being pulled by the hips. The arm is merely the connecting rod between the hips and the club.

When the hips exert this pulling action, they cause the shoulders and the left arm to revolve so fast around the axis of the upper spine that the hands have little or no time to manipulate or do anything whatever with the club except hang onto it.

If there is one single secret to the golf swings this is it.
Moving the hips in this fashion would seem a simple thing to do.

It is easy to say and easy to understand. Yet nearly all of the vast army of golfers fail to do it. Millions have read it and heard it and seen pictures of it, but just as many millions keep right on starting down with their hands, or pulling with their arms, or stopping the hips after they start them, forgetting to move them all the way through.
They fail for two reasons.

The first is that this is a big movement and they are afraid to make it. The second is that, preoccupied with what they think they must make the club head do, they completely forget the fundamental hip action and let it die.

The tight connection between the hips and the club, and the consequent pull the club gets from the hip action, is the single greatest source of power in the golf swing. The big muscles of the upper legs and of the torso are giving the club a flying start before the hands do anything.

To visualize what happens it may be helpful to use a mechanical image. Think of a golfer at the top of his backswing.

Now imagine a rope, running from the point of his left hip up his left side to his shoulder and then out through his left arm to his left hand. This rope is pulled tight at the top of the swing. As the hips start the downswing by moving to the left and turning, they will pull shoulder, arm, and club with them so long as the rope is tight.
The rope can be kept tight only if the hips move first and only if they keep moving and then turning, on past the ball.

Otherwise the rope will slacken, the pull will stop, and the club never will gain the speed it should reach at the ball. The rope will slacken if, from the top, the shoulders or the hands move first, or if the hips stop moving before they are all the way through.
How do we know when to start the hip movement?

We start it the instant we feel the backward momentum of the club start to pull against our hands at the top. This is a reflex action with most of us, but for those who want the moment pinpointed, there it is. And once you start to move the hips, keep them flying-all the way through until they turn toward the target. This action alone will cure a great number of golfing ills.

This is how it should feel:
For you who have been hitting from the top and from the outside for years (and you are about 95 per cent of all golfers), these actions will feel strange indeed, and our problem is how to describe the feeling you should have when you make them.

Words here become of even greater importance than they are customarily. So, since the same action feels different to different people, we will describe several feelings so that perhaps one of them may be recognized.

What all this comes down to is two things. First, we coil ourselves up on the backswing to gain tension that is going to be released as late as possible on the downswing. Holding that tension is the "staying uncomfortable" feeling, the "storing up" feeling.

That is what gives us distance.

Second, as we move our hips laterally and keep our head back, but do nothing else, there is a complete absence of effort in our arms and hands. Then, if we have kept ourselves from uncoiling, the hands and club come down on the inside. That, plus club-face position, gives us direction.

When we have made this first move from the top correctly, where does it bring us? It brings us to a position generally

Called the hitting area. It is not that, exactly. It is only one position in an infinite number that we pass through in the downswing.

It is, roughly, the point in the downswing that we reach before the arm-shaft angle opens up much.. The move brings us down so that our hands are nearly opposite our right leg, our weight is about equally distributed but moving toward our left leg, the body is beginning to bow out to the left, the right elbow is nestled against the hip bone, and the club is nearing a horizontal position.

Right here the check points appear. We can't see them in the actual swing, of course, but we can stop the swing now and then and take a look.

If the swing has been made correctly and if the hand-wrist position gained by the backward break has been held, then one knuckle of the left hand should be visible and two of the right, the club face should be at about a 45-degree angle with the ground, the right arm should be firm .against the, right side, and if the hips have gone through as they should, the player should be able to see the outside of his right leg from the hip to the foot.

Except for seeing the outside of the right leg, these check points are exactly the same as they were after the stationary wrist break on the backswing.

If you follow these tips your swing will improve no end

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Almost sacrilegious, this seems. Yet there is a logical reason for it. As the hips move as far as they can to the left, and turn when they can move laterally no farther, and as the shoulders tilt, elevating the left and depressing the right, the body bows out toward the target. If the head doesn't go forward with the body, it has to come down unless we suddenly grow a few inches during the downswing. An archer's bow may be used as an example of what we mean.

The bow may measure five feet from tip to tip before it is strung. When it is strung it curves outward and the distance from tip to tip is less than five feet. When the archer draws it to shoot an arrow, the tip-to-tip distance is still less.

When a golfer hits the ball as he should hit it, his body takes the place of the bow: It curves out toward the target, and the distance from head to feet is less than when he stands up to the ball.

Another reason the head drops slightly as the ball is hit is that most of the better players develop a rather definite knee bend as they come into the hitting area. They make it a practice to keep both knees bent all through the swing, as they should be, and when they bring the club down to the ball with great speed, the centrifugal force exerted by the flying club head seems almost to pull them down just slightly and hence bend their knees ever so little more.

Our third injunction in this first move from the top was, Make no effort to move the club.

The club, of course, will move. It will be moved by the shoulders. What we mean is that no effort should be made with the wrists, hands, or arms to make the club move. That is the important point. If we could turn the arms, hands, and wrists into wood for a fraction of a second as the downswing begins, it would be perfect.

Then they and the club would be frozen into one solid unit and they would all start down together in one piece, motivated by the rocking, turning shoulders. Then if, with some electronic impulse, we could switch them back to life again as the hands got down to about the hip position, we would have the perfect movement.

The whole downward action is initiated by the lateral movement of the hips to the left. Since at the top we are in a tightly coiled position, this hip action causes the shoulders to rock to the right and turn.

The rocking action, with the left shoulder coming up and the right going down, is what moves the arms and the club. If the right shoulder comes down (rocks slightly) as it begins to turn, it brings the upper right arm against the right side and the swing starts down on an inside line. It is when the shoulders turn, throwing the right shoulder high and out toward the ball, that the swing goes outside. Keeping the head back helps the slight rocking action which brings the right shoulder down.

One of the most important things in golf is making this .first movement from the top without letting the angle between the shaft and the left arm open. The peculiar thing about it is that if the hip, shoulder, and hand actions are correct, the angle will not open. If they are wrong, it will.

The instant the right shoulder starts to move out high toward the ball, the arm-shaft angle begins to open, even if no effort is made by the hands to swing the club.

Most of the time the angle is opened up because the hands are trying to do something with the club. But even without the hands doing anything the angle will still open if the wrong shoulder action is made.

The start down from the top can be visualized in several ways. You can think of it as the "wooden freeze" just mentioned, a momentary period during which nothing happens except what is motivated by the hips.

You can also imagine a triangle, formed on two sides by the shaft of the club and the left arm, with the third side an imaginary line from the dub head to the point of the left shoulder. From the top this triangle must be tilted and brought down a ways without changing the length of the imaginary side.

This we call the "eternal triangle," because it must be retained as long as possible. As the speed of the club head increases, the imaginary side of the triangle lengthens, of course, and the arm-shaft angle starts to open up. But the triangle should be kept constant as long as possible.

We have said several times that the arm-club angle should be held as long as possible. From our use of the words keep, hold, and retain, you may have gotten the idea that a conscious physical effort must be made to hold this angle. This is not true. What we mean is, if the swing is right, the angle will automatically be preserved, until late in the downswing. So, when we say the angle must be held, we mean that you must work on attaining the correct hip, shoulder, and hand motion which will permit the wrists to remain cocked and the angle preserved. Do nothing, in any event, to get rid of the wrist cock.

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The golf swing itself is probably the most difficult and certainly the most elusive action in all athletics.

Beyond question it is the most frustrating, and nowhere more so than at this very point, where the club and the body make their first moves down toward the ball.

The peak of frustration is reached here because, no matter what has gone before it, this one move can make a greater difference in the result of the swing and the shot than any other.

We can have a perfect grip, start back from the ball properly, reach the top in faultless position and then ruin it all by the next move we make.

Not only can the swing be ruined by this move, it is ruined about 95 per cent of the time.
Here are some fatal flaws to avoid:

The deadly moves, the most fatal flaws, are these:

(1) Spinning the hips without moving the weight laterally,

(2) With this spinning motion turning the right shoulder high toward the ball,

(3) Trying to move the club head or slowing down the hands.

These moves bring quick disaster by causing two things.

They make us hit too soon and they make us hit from the outside in. The first robs us of distance, the second of direction and what else do we want from a full shot?

Because we hit too soon, the drive that might have gone 220 yards goes only 190, and into that trap that juts out into the fairway.

Because we hit from the outside instead of from the inside, the ball is pulled, and, if the face of the club is not square, it will be hooked or sliced, or perhaps smothered or even shanked.

The best we can hope for is that we will slice it only a little and that, after starting to the left, it will curve back into the fairway. Even if we are that lucky, we will know we have hit a weak and sloppy shot.

These are the actions and these are the shots that we see on every private course in the country, every public course,

It can truthfully be said that this is the natural way to hit a golf ball with the Sunday duffer spin.

It is also the principal reason that the scores of our millions of players remain so high. These actions in this one area of the swing produce bad shots in such astronomical volume that the short game, no matter how good it is, can't take up more than a little of the slack.

We will say without fear of contradiction that a player who makes these moves and still gets around in 86 on a good day would cut ten strokes from his score if he made the right moves.

So what are the right moves, the best moves? They are, simply:

(1) Move the hips laterally to the left while (2) keeping the head back and (3) making no effort whatever To move the club.

We cannot emphasize too strongly that the movement of the hips must be lateral and not a turning motion. When the hips are moved laterally to the left from the top of the swing, they carry the weight (which has been mostly on the right leg) along. They move it toward the approximately equal distribution, at least, which we must have at impact.

That is the first reason we must move the hips laterally. The second reason is that, since we are twisted and wound up tightly at the top, any turning movement of our hips turns our shoulders too.

It turns our right shoulder around high and toward the ball. Hence, when we bring the club down, we have to bring it from the outside in.

The hips will turn if they are moved laterally, but they are very liable not to move laterally if they are merely turned. You can prove this to yourself by standing up and moving your hips to the left as far as they will go.

As they near the limit of extension, they will turn and you cannot stop them. At the top of the swing, of course, the hips are turned somewhat to the right, maybe 45 degrees, and as you move them laterally they will quickly begin to turn back to the left. The trick is get them going to the left, laterally, before they turn too much.

If you ask how much is too much, you become hopelessly involved. You might as well ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. You don't have to worry about that. Just be sure you get, the hips going laterally and that you don't try to turn them.

A third reason for the lateral slide of the hips is that this is the movement which starts the club down toward the ball, by causing the shoulders to rock slightly as they turn.

That movement of the hips-and nothing else-provides the first impetus for the downswing.
It might help you to visualize this action if you think of the spine as being the axis of the swing. Now think of the axis as being a T-square, with the shank as the spine and the crosspiece the shoulders. The end of the shank reaches down to the pelvis or hips.

As we address the ball this T-square is, for purposes of the comparison, vertical. On the backswing the hips move slightly to the right, causing the crosspiece to tilt slightly to the left, as it turns, of course, with the turning shoulders. On the downswing (and here is the critical point), the low end of the shank (the hips) is moved sharply to the left.

This causes an immediate and definite tilting of the crosspiece to the right and that is what starts the shoulders, arms, and club moving down toward the ball. This will be true so long as the whole swinging system is twisted tight, so that a movement against the twist in any one part moves all the other parts. Make no mistake about it, the hips are what move the shoulders and club and start the downswing.

Our second injunction was to keep the head back. The head, at this stage, plays a vital role. You have often heard and read that the head is the anchor of the swing. Right here it is. If we keep the head back as we move the hips laterally, it keeps the upper part of our body from going with the hips and thus loosening or relaxing the tension we have been at such pains to build up with the backswing.

This tension that we had at the top of the swing must be kept as long as possible as the swing comes down to the ball. This is one of the chief factors that give power to the swing and speed to the club. If the head comes forward at this point, we lose the tension and get ourselves, in a manner of speaking, "over the ball" as we hit it.
If we keep the head back we do in truth stay back of the ball where we should be. That is what is meant by the advice to "stay back of the ball."

The head, as a matter of fact, has a strange little action of its own during the first movement of the downswing. Contrary to the old principle that the head must be kept still at all costs, it moves.

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This is was wrong, of course, but new players have to be convinced. So it is best to hold the club in the left hand alone, in front of them, as tightly as they can. Then we bend the left hand backward and took the club away.

It is easy, because with the hand bent backward, the fingers automatically opened and the grip weakened. The same thing happens when the hand is bent forward; the fist cannot be clenched tight.

But when the back of the golfer`s hand and his wrist were in a straight line, you could not take the club away from him without the use of a considerable amount of force.

Actually, one reason the golfer wanted the left wrist under the shaft was so the club could rest in his left hand.

The strongest possible position is when the wrist and the back of the left hand are in a straight line.

How, you may wonder, can you yourself tell whether you are in the right position at the top?

Without a friend to help you, you cannot tell about such things as the amount of hip and shoulder turn. But there are ways to inform yourself of others.

For instance, you can turn your head and look at your hands. If the left wrist has not collapsed you will see two. knuckles of that hand, no more than two. If you see three it will mean the left wrist has collapsed. You should also see only one knuckle of the right hand.

You can check the tightness of your grip by the feel of it.

You can check how close your right arm is to your side by the old test of the balled handkerchief stuck into your right armpit. Only use a small handkerchief; anyone can hold a big one. If you can hold the small handkerchief, your arm is close enough. If it drops out, something is wrong.

One of the hardest things to determine, you might think, is the proper plane of the swing. Is it too flat, or is it too upright?

There is an easy way to tell. Take your swing but as you near the top, loosen the grip enough to let the club keep moving back until it hits you. If it strikes you on the point of your right shoulder, the plane is correct. If it hits you on the upper arm, the plane is too flat, and if it strikes you on the neck or anywhere between the point of the shoulder and the neck, it is too upright. We call this the shoulder-tap test.

The position at the top of the backswing is important. If it is reached correctly it means you are halfway through the swing correctly. It means that now, at least, you are in a position to make a good downswing and hit a good shot. With most of our pupils we can tell pretty well, as can any pro, whether a shot will be good or bad just from their position at the top.

The position is not an infallible guarantee that the shot will be either good or bad. But a good shot very often follows a good position and a bad shot a bad position. At least with a good position you are ready to hit a good shot. With a bad position you are not.
The flaws we have turned up so far, and the moves and positions we have taught you in getting to the top of the swing, have dealt mostly with the position of the club face.

The grip and the stance did. So did the first move away from the ball, with the early backward wrist break and the retention of the wrist position to the top of the swing.

The best moves so far have been mostly concerned, in a word, with direction and direction is not only half of the long game but perhaps the "bigger" half; there's not much trouble, as a rule, straight out in front of the tee.

The swing taught here, which might be called the Square Face System, produces direction.

But golf is decidedly a two-sided coin. If the position of the club face at impact is one side, the speed of the club head at impact is the other. As we have moved toward the position at the top of the swing we have also gradually become concerned with the speed of the club head.

At the top you have been brought into a position from which you can easily bring the face of the club square to the line at impact and bring it with great speed and from the right direction.

The tightness of the grip and of the whole swinging system, the plane of the swing, and the position of the weight considerably on the right leg have prepared you to deliver a hard, authoritative swing at the ball.

This is the value of the top-of-the-swing position. Having reached this position, you are well on your way to reducing drastically the number of bad shots you will hit. The next move, the downswing, is the payoff.

Tags: improve golf swing, golf training, consistent golf swing