Practice often to keep your swing sharp

Sat, Jul 4, 2009

Golf is certainly nothing like riding a bike.

As the saying goes, once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget.

Your golf swing, on the other hand, has the tendency to quickly deteriorate if you don't continue to fine-tune it on a regular basis.

This is the case with recreational and professional golfers alike, according to Scott Janus of the Janus Golf Academy at Grand Haven Golf Club.

After a three-week hiatus from visiting Janus at GHGC, I once again put myself at his mercy for a half an hour Friday, and even though I had been practicing my swing on whiffle golf balls in my yard, it was clear that I had developed a few glitches since our last meeting.

The benefit of spending time with a teaching golf professional is that it doesn't take long for these guys to spot those glitches and get them straightened out.

For starters, my feet were out of whack. Ideally, on a full iron shot, your back foot should be perfectly straight while your front foot should point slightly to the left for a right-handed golfer. Amazingly, something so minor as this is enough to throw off your swing.

Once my feet were properly aligned, Janus showed me a few video clips of various professional golfers, and in each video, these professionals used various tools to help them align themselves toward their target. It's one of the most basic drills that golfers of all levels use — lying a club on the ground, with the shaft pointing at your target. Align your toes on a line parallel with this club and you're set up to hit toward your selected target.

This seems simple enough, but as Janus explains it, when you stand over the ball, it's very difficult to align yourself at your target without using a club or another training implement to help you stay straight.

"It's an optical allusion, kind of like looking down a railroad track," Janus said. "As the tracks get farther away, it looks like the two rails are getting closer together, when actually they're always the same distance apart. When you stand over the ball and look down, it looks like you're aimed correctly but actually most golfers start off aiming too far to the right."

Another helpful drill is to lay a second club perpendicular to the first. Set your ball off the end of this second club, and then straddle the club as you prepare to take your shot. This helps you see exactly where the ball sits in your stance, which Janus explained can also be difficult to judge when looking down from above.

While these practice implements obviously can't be used on the course, Janus said that golfers of all levels greatly benefit from utilizing these tools on the practice range, just to keep sharp.

"Even professional golfers' swings begin to deteriorate after 2-3 weeks if they don't work on it," Janus said. "That's why doing these drills on the practice range is so important."